Piece Of My Heart

“All right. Stay calm. Did he touch you?”

“He grabbed my arm and he touched my face. He was just so frightening. I was terrified he was going to do something.”

Chadwick felt his teeth grinding. “What happened?”

“I waited until he had his back turned to me and I ran away.”

“Good girl. Did he come after you?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t look.”

“Okay. You’re doing fine, Yvonne. You’re safe now.”

“But, Dad, what if he…”

“What if he what? Was he at Brimleigh?”

“Yes.”

“With you?”

“No, he was wandering around the field.”

“Did you see him go in the woods?”

“No. But it was dark most of the time. I wouldn’t have seen.”

“Where did it happen this afternoon?”

“Just down the road, Springfield Mount. Look, Dad, they’re all right, really, the others, Steve. It’s just him. There’s something wrong with him, I’m sure of it.”

“Did he know Linda Lofthouse?”

“Linda? I don’t… yes, yes, he did.”

Chadwick’s ears pricked up at the familiarity with which Yvonne mentioned Linda’s name. “How do you know? It’s all right, Yvonne, you can tell me the truth. I’m not going to be angry with you.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Yvonne smiled. It was an old ritual. “It was at another house, on Bayswater Terrace,” she said. “There’s three places people, like, gather, to listen to music and stuff. Springfield Mount and Carberry Place are the other two. Anyway, sometime during the summer I was with Steve, and Linda was there. McGarrity too. I mean they didn’t know one another, they weren’t close or anything, but he had met her.”

Chadwick paused a moment to take it all in. Bayswater Terrace. Dennis, Julie and the rest. So Yvonne was part of that crowd. His own daughter. He held himself in check, remembering he’d promised not to be angry. Besides, the poor girl had been through a trauma, and it had taken a lot for her to open up; the last thing she needed now was a lecture from her father. But it was hard to keep his rage inside. He felt so wound up, so tight, that his chest ached.

“You met Linda, too?” he asked.

“Yes.” Tears filled Yvonne’s eyes. “Once. We didn’t talk much, really. She just said she liked my dress and my hair, and we talked about what a drag school can be. She was so nice, Dad, how could anyone do that to her?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Chadwick said, stroking his daughter’s silky blond hair. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think it was him? McGarrity?”

“I don’t know that, either, but I’m going to have to have a talk with him.”

“Don’t be too hard on Steve or the others, Dad. Please. They’re all right. Really they are. It’s only him, only McGarrity who’s weird.”

“I understand,” said Chadwick. “How do you feel now about getting up and having something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, at least come downstairs and see your mother. She’s worried sick about you.”

“Okay,” said Yvonne. “But give me a few minutes to get changed and wash my face.”

“Right you are, sweetheart.” Chadwick kissed the top of her head, left the room and headed for the telephone, jaw set hard. Later tonight, someone was going to be very sorry he had ever been born.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Annie Cabbot tried to control her temper as she waited to knock and enter Detective Superintendent Gervaise’s office after Banks had left for Whitby. It was difficult. She had sensed that Gervaise hadn’t liked her from the start and sussed her as another ambitious woman who got where she was the hard way, who was damned if she was going to give any other woman anything less than her worst. So much for female solidarity.

Annie took several deep, calming breaths, the way she did when she was meditating or practicing yoga. It didn’t work. She knocked anyway and entered even before the slightly puzzled voice called out, “Enter.”

“I’d like a word, ma’am,” said Annie.

“DI Cabbot. Please, sit down.”

Annie sat. She remembered how she had always felt slightly awed and nervous when Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe had called her into this same office, but this time she felt nothing of the kind.

“What can I help you with?”

“You were seriously out of order back there,” Annie said. “At the morning briefing.”

“I was?” Gervaise feigned surprise. At least Annie believed it was feigned.

“You have no right to make public comments about my private life.”

Superintendent Gervaise held her hand up. “Now, let’s wait a moment before we go any further. Just exactly what was it I said that has upset you so much?”

“You know damn well what it was. Ma’am.”

“We don’t seem to be getting off on the right foot here, do we?”

“You said you had no desire to argue sexual mores, especially with me.”

“These meetings aren’t a forum for argument, DI Cabbot, they’re called to bring everyone up-to-date and set the scene for more actions and lines of inquiry. You know that.”

“Yet you deliberately insulted me in front of my colleagues.”

Superintendent Gervaise regarded her as she might a particularly troublesome schoolgirl. “Well, seeing as we’re on the subject,” she said, “you do have something of a checkered history with us, don’t you?”

Annie said nothing.

“Let me remind you. You’d not been in North Yorkshire five minutes before you were jumping into bed with DCI Banks. And let me also remind you that fraternizing between fellow officers is seriously frowned upon, and liaisons between a DS, as you were then, and a DCI, are particularly fraught with dangers, as I’m sure you found out. He was your superior officer. What were you thinking of?”

Annie felt her heart beating hard in her chest. “My private life is my affair.”

“You’re not a stupid woman,” Superintendent Gervaise went on. “I know that. We all make mistakes, and they’re rarely fatal.” She paused. “But your last one was, wasn’t it? Your last mistake almost cost DCI Banks his life.”

“We weren’t involved in anything then,” Annie said, aware as she spoke of how weak her response sounded.

“I know that.” Gervaise shook her head. “DI Cabbot, I’m not entirely certain how you’ve managed to last here so long, let alone how you were promoted to DI so quickly in the first place. Things must have been very easygoing around here back then. Or perhaps DCI Banks had a certain amount of influence with the ACC?”

Annie felt her heart about to explode at the insult, but a dreadful calm flooded her, disconcerting at first, like a sort of cooling numbness in her blood, a falling-away of feeling. Then it warmed a little, transformed into a calm, altered state. It didn’t matter. Whatever Superintendent Gervaise thought, said or did, it didn’t matter. Annie cared about her career, but there were some things she just wouldn’t take, not for anything, not from anyone, and that knowledge made her feel free. She almost smiled. Gervaise must have sensed some change in the air, because there was a new edge to her voice when she noticed she wasn’t getting the desired response from Annie.

“Anyway, in case you haven’t noticed it, things have changed around here now. I won’t countenance romantic