Piece Of My Heart

“I thought we… I mean… I didn’t…”

“Oh, Yvonne, for God’s sake, grow up. You sound like such a child sometimes. We can both see whoever we want. I thought that was clear from the start.”

“But I don’t want to see anyone else. I want to see you.”

“What you’re really saying is that you don’t want me to see anyone else. You can’t own someone, Yvonne. You can’t control their affections.”

“But it’s true.”

Steve turned away his face. “Well, I don’t want to see you. That’s just not on anymore.”

“But-”

“I mean it. And you won’t be welcome at Bayswater Terrace or Carberry Place, either. They got raided as well, in case you didn’t know. People got busted, and they’re not happy with you. Word gets around, you know. It’s still a small scene.”

“So what should I have done? Tell me what I should have done.”

“You shouldn’t have done anything. You should have kept your stupid mouth shut. You should have known bringing the pigs in would only mean trouble for us.”

“But he’s my father. I had to tell someone. I was so upset, Steve, I was shaking like a leaf. McGarrity…”

“I’ve told you before he’s harmless.”

“That’s not the way he seemed to me.”

“You were stoned, the way I hear it. Maybe your imagination was running away with you. Maybe you even wanted him to touch you. Maybe you should run away with your imagination instead.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Steve sighed. “I can’t trust you anymore, Yvonne. We can’t trust you anymore.”

“But I love you, Steve.”

“No you don’t. Don’t be stupid. That’s not real love you’re talking about, that’s just romantic schoolgirl crap. It’s possessive love, all jealousy and control, all the negative emotions. You’re not mature enough to know what real love is.”

Yvonne flinched at his words. She felt herself turn cold all over, as if she had been hit by a bucket of water. “And you are?”

He stood up. “This is a fucking waste of time. Look, I’m not arguing with you anymore. Why don’t you just go? And don’t come back.”

“But, Steve-”

Steve pointed to the door and raised his voice. “Just go. And don’t send your father and his piggy friends around here again or you might find yourself in serious trouble.”

Yvonne got slowly to her feet. She had never known Steve to look or sound so cruel. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Never mind. Just fuck off.”

Yvonne looked at him. He was bristling with anger. There was clearly going to be no more talking to him. Not this afternoon, maybe not ever. Feeling the tears start to burn down her cheeks, she turned away from him abruptly and left.

“It’s not so much what he said or did, Guv,” said Winsome, “it was the pleasure he took in doing it.”

Annie nodded. She was treating Winsome to an after-work drink in the Black Lion, off an alley behind the market square, away from the prying eyes and ears of Western Area Headquarters. Winsome was visibly upset, and Annie wanted to get to the bottom of it. “Kev can be insensitive at times,” she said.

“Insensitive?” Winsome took a gulp of her vodka and tonic. “Insensitive? It was more like bloody sadistic. I’m sorry, Guv, but I’m still shaking. See?”

She stuck her hand out. Annie could see it was trembling slightly. “Calm down,” she said. “Another drink? You’re not driving, are you?”

“No. I can walk home from here. I’ll have the same again, thanks.”

Annie went to the bar and got the drinks. There was nobody else in the place except the barmaid and a couple of her friends at the far end. One of them was playing the machines, and the other was sitting down watching over two toddlers, cigarette in one hand, drink in the other. Every time one of the little boys started to cry or make any sort of noise, she told him to shut up. Time after time. Cry. Shut up. Cry. Shut up. There was a tape of old music playing loudly – “House of the Rising Sun,” “The Young Ones,” “Say a Little Prayer for Me,” “I Remember You” – the sort of stuff Banks would remember, competing with the TV blaring out Murder She Wrote on one of the Sky channels. But the noise certainly drowned out anything Annie and Winsome were talking about.

Annie was going to get a Britvic Orange for herself, as she had to get back to Harkside, but she was still furious after her session with Superintendent Gervaise, feeling far from calm, and she needed another bloody stiff drink herself, so she ordered a large vodka with her orange juice. If she had too much, she’d leave the car and get one of the PCs to drive her home, or get a taxi if the worst came to the worst. It couldn’t cost all that much. She had been thinking of moving to Eastvale recently, as it would be convenient for the job, but house prices there had gone through the roof, and she didn’t want to give up her little cottage, even though it was now worth nearly twice what she had paid for it.

Winsome thanked Annie for the drink. “That poor girl,” she said.

“Look, Winsome, I know how you feel. I feel just as bad. I’m sure Kelly thinks I’m the one who betrayed her trust. But DS Templeton was only doing his job. Superintendent Gervaise had asked him to check the girl’s story against her father’s and that was the way he did it. It might seem harsh to you, but it worked, didn’t it?”

“I can’t believe you’re defending them,” Winsome said. She took a gulp of vodka, then put the drink down on the table. “You weren’t there or you’d know what I’m talking about. No. I’m not working with him again. You can transfer me. Do what you want. But I won’t work with that bastard again.” She folded her arms.

Annie sipped her drink and sighed. She had been foreseeing problems ever since Kevin Templeton got his promotion. He had passed his sergeant’s boards ages ago, but he didn’t want to go back to uniform and he didn’t want to transfer, so it took a while for this opportunity to come up. Then he nipped a possible serial killer’s career in the bud and became the golden boy. Annie had always found him just a bit too full of himself, and she worried what a little power might do to his already skewed personality. And if he thought she didn’t notice the way he had practically drooled down the front of her blouse the other day, then he was seriously deluding himself. The thing was, he got the job done, as he had done now. Banks did, too, but he managed to do it without treading on everyone’s toes – only the brass’s, usually – but Templeton was one of the new breed; he didn’t care. And here was Annie defending him when she knew damn well that Winsome, who had also passed her boards with flying colors and didn’t want to leave East-vale, would have been a much better person for the job. Where is positive discrimination when you really need it? she wondered. Obviously not in Yorkshire.

“I shouldn’t have made a promise I couldn’t possibly keep,” Annie said. “The blame’s entirely mine. I should have done it myself.” She knew that she had deliberately not made any such promise to Kelly Soames, but she felt as if she had.

“Pardon me, Guv, but like I said, you weren’t there. Listen to me. He enjoyed it. Enjoyed every minute of it. The humiliation. Taunting her. He drew it out to get more pleasure from it. And in the end he didn’t even know what he’d done wrong. I don’t know if that’s the worst part of it all.”

“Okay, Winsome, I’ll admit DS Templeton has a few problems.”

“A few problems? The man’s a sadist. And you know what?”

“What?”

Winsome shifted in her chair. “Don’t laugh, but there was something… sexual about it.”

“Sexual?”

“Yes. I can’t explain it, but it was like he was getting off on his power over her.”

“Are you certain?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was just me, reading things wrongly. It wouldn’t be the first time. But there was something really creepy about the whole thing, even when the girl was being sick-”