Piece Of My Heart

Lord Jesus Christ, and I brought her up to be a good Christian.” She gave a little shake of her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I could have tried harder to understand. She just seemed so far away from me and anything I’ve ever believed in.”

“What did you talk to her about?”

“Just local gossip, what her old school friends were up to, that sort of thing. She never stopped long.”

“Did you know any of her friends?”

“I knew all the kids she played with around the estate, and her friends from school, but I don’t know who she spent her time with after she left home.”

“She never mentioned any names?”

“Well, she might have done, but I don’t remember any.”

“Did she ever tell you if anything or anyone was bothering her?”

“No. She always seemed happy, as if she hadn’t really a care in the world.”

“You don’t know of any enemies she might have had?”

“No. I can’t imagine her having any.”

“When did you last see her?”

“In the summer. July, it would be, not long after Jim…”

“Was she at the funeral?”

“Oh, yes. She came home for that in May. She loved her father. She was a great support. I don’t want to give you the impression that we’d fallen out or anything, Mr. Chadwick. I still loved Linda and I know that she still loved me. It was just that we couldn’t really talk anymore, not about anything important. She’d got secretive. In the end I gave up trying. But this was a couple of months after Jim’s death, just a flying visit to see how I was getting along.”

“What did she talk about on that visit?”

“We watched that man walk on the moon. Neil Armstrong. Linda was all excited about it, said it marked the beginning of a new age, but I don’t know. We stayed up watching till after three in the morning.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m sorry. Nothing else really stood out, except the moon landing. Some pop star she liked had died and she’d been to see the Rolling Stones play a free concert for him in Hyde Park. London, that is. And I remember her talking about the war. Vietnam. About how immoral it was. She always talked about the war. I tried to tell her that sometimes wars just have to be fought, but she’d have none of it. To her all war was evil. You should have heard it when Linda and her dad went at it – he was in the navy in the last war, just toward the end, like.”

“But you say Linda loved her father?”

“Oh, yes. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t say they saw eye to eye about everything. I mean, he tried to discipline her, got on at her for staying out till all hours, but she was a handful. They fought like cat and dog sometimes, but they still loved one another.”

It all sounded so familiar to Chadwick that the thought depressed him. Surely all children weren’t like this, didn’t cause their parents such grief? Was he taking the wrong approach with Yvonne? Was there another way? He felt like such a failure as a parent, but short of locking her in her room, what could he do? When Yvonne went on about the evils of war, he always felt himself tense up inside; he could never even enter into a rational argument about it for fear he would lose his temper, lash out and say something he would regret. What did she know about war? Evil? Yes. Necessary? Well, how else were you going to stop someone like Hitler? He didn’t know much about Vietnam, but he assumed the Americans were there for a good reason, and the sight of all these unruly long-haired youngsters burning the flag and chanting antiwar slogans made his blood boil.

“What about the boyfriend, Donald Hughes?”

“What about him?”

“Is he the father?”

“I assume so. I mean, that’s what Linda said, and I think I know her well enough to know she wasn’t… you know… some sort of trollop.”

“What did you think of him?”

“He’s all right, I suppose. Not much gumption, mind you. The Hugheses aren’t exactly one of the best families on the estate, but they’re not one of the worst, either. And you can’t blame poor Eileen Hughes. She’s had six kids to bring up, mostly on her own. She tries hard.”

“Do you know if Donald kept in touch after Linda left?”

“I doubt it. He made himself scarce after he found out our Linda was pregnant, then just after the baby was born he became all concerned for a while, said they should get married and keep it, that it wouldn’t be right to give his child up for adoption. That’s how he put it. His child.”

“What did Linda say?”

“She gave him his marching orders, then not long after that, she was gone herself.”

“Do you know if he ever bothered her at all?”

“I don’t think so. She never said, never even mentioned him or the baby again.”

“Did he ever come here after that, asking about her?”

“Just once, about three weeks after she’d left. Wanted to know her address.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I didn’t know. Of course he didn’t believe me, and he made a bit of a fuss on the doorstep.”

“What did you do?”

“I sent him packing. Told him I’d set Jim on him if he came back again, and shut the door in his face. He left us alone after that. Surely you don’t think Donald could have…?”

“We don’t know what to think yet, Mrs. Lofthouse. We have to look at all possibilities.”

“He’s a bit of a hothead, anyone will tell you that, but I very much doubt that he’s a murderer.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I still can’t seem to take it in.”

“I understand,” said Chadwick. “Is there anyone you’d like me to get to stay with you? Relative? Neighbor?”

“Mrs. Bennett next door. She’s always been a good friend. She’s a widow, like me. She understands what it feels like.”

Chadwick stood up to leave. “I’ll let her know you want her to come over. Look, before I go, do you have a recent photograph of Linda I could borrow?”

“I might have,” she said. “Just a minute.” She went over to the sideboard and started rummaging through one of the drawers. “This was taken last year, when she came home for her birthday. Her father was a bit of an amateur photographer.”

She handed Chadwick the color photograph. It was the girl in the sleeping bag, only she was alive, a half-smile on her lips, a faraway look in her big blue eyes, wavy blond hair tumbling over her shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll let you have it back.”

“And you’ll keep in touch, won’t you? About the arrangements.”

“Of course. I’ll also send someone to drive you to the hospital and back to make the formal identification.”

“Thank you,” she said, and stood with him at the door, holding a damp tissue to her eyes. “How can something like this happen to me, Mr. Chadwick?” she said. “I’ve been a devout Christian woman all my life. I’ve never hurt a soul and I’ve always served the Lord to the best of my ability. How can He do this to me? A husband and a daughter, both in the same year?”

All Chadwick could do was shake his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I wish I knew the answer.”

“Just outside Sheffield” turned out to be a quaint village on the edge of the Peak District National Park, and the house was a detached limestone cottage with a fair-sized and well-tended garden, central door, symmetrical up and down mullioned windows, garage and outbuildings. In the Dales, Annie guessed, it would be valued at about half a million pounds these days, but she had no idea what prices were like in the Peak District. Probably not much different. There were many similarities between the two areas, with their limestone hills and valleys, and both drew hordes of tourists, ramblers and climbers almost year-round.

Winsome parked by the gate and they made their way down the garden path. A few birds twittered in the nearby trees, completing the rural idyll. The woman who opened the door to them had clearly been crying. Annie felt grateful she hadn’t been the one to break the news. She hated that. The last time she had told someone about