Piece of My Heart (10 page)

When she’d pulled herself together, she laughed and said, “You must think I’m well daft, crying over some bloke I just met.”

“No, I don’t,” said Annie. “You felt close to him, and now he’s dead. That must be terrible. It must hurt.”

Kelly looked at her. “You understand, don’t you? You’re not like the rest. Not like that sourpuss you had with you last night.”

Annie smiled at the description of Banks, not one she would have used herself. “Oh, he’s all right,” she said. “He’s just been going through a rough time lately, too.”

“No, I mean it. You’re all right, you are. What’s it like being a copper?”

“It has its moments,” Annie said.

“Do you think they’d have me, if I applied, like?”

“I’m sure it would be worth a try,” Annie said. “We’re always looking for bright, motivated people.”

“That’s me,” Kelly said with a crooked smile. “Bright and motivated. I’m sure my dad would approve.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Annie said, thinking of what Banks had told her about the way his parents reacted to his chosen profession. “But don’t let it stop you.”

Kelly frowned, then said, “Look, I’ve got to get to work. I’m already late. CC’ll go spare.”

“Okay,” said Annie. “I think I’m just about done for now.”

“Can you give me a minute before we go?” said Kelly, pulling down the mirror and taking a small pink container from her handbag. “I’ve got to put my face on.”

“Of course.” Annie watched with amusement while Kelly applied eyeshadow and mascara and various powders and potions to hide the acne and blotchiness, then drove down the hill to drop the girl at the Cross Keys before heading back up to see what was happening at the youth hostel.

5

September 10–12, 1969

O
ver the next few days, Chadwick’s investigation proceeded with a frustrating lack of progress. The two essential questions–who was the victim, and who was with her at the time of her death–remained unanswered. Surely, Chadwick thought, someone, somewhere, must be missing her? Unless she was a runaway.

Things had been quiet on the home front since he and Yvonne had come to their compromise. He was convinced now that she
had
been at the Brimleigh Festival on Sunday night–she really wasn’t a very good liar–but there seemed little point in pursuing the issue now. It was over. The important thing was to try to head off anything along the same lines in the future, and Janet was right: he wouldn’t achieve that by ranting at her.

On Wednesday, though, Chadwick had paid a quick visit to the Grove, just to see the kind of place where his daughter was spending her time. It was a small, scruffy, old-fashioned pub by the canal, with one dingy room set aside for the young crowd. He checked with his friend Geoff Broome on the drugs
squad and found it didn’t have a particularly bad reputation, which was good news. God only knew what Yvonne saw in the dump.

Dr. O’Neill–whose full post-mortem report had yielded nothing to dispute the cause of death–had estimated the victim’s age at between seventeen and twenty-one, so it was conceivable that she had left home and was living by herself at the time of her murder. In which case, what about her friends, boyfriends, colleagues at work? Either they didn’t know what had happened, or they hadn’t missed her yet. Did she even have a job? Hippies didn’t like work, Chadwick knew that. Perhaps she was a student, or on holiday. One interesting point that Dr. O’Neill had included in his report was that there was a parturition scar on the pelvic bone, which meant that she had given birth to a baby.

DC Bradley had viewed all the television footage of the festival and spoken with newspaper reporters who had attended the event. He had learned precisely nothing. The victim was nowhere to be seen on the film, which more often than not panned over a sea of young, idealistic faces, and cut back and forth from the gymnastic displays of the bands on stage to close-shot interviews with individual musicians and revellers. Perhaps it might all be of some use in the future, when they had a suspect or needed to pick someone out of the crowd, but for the moment it was useless.

Bradley had also contacted the festival’s press officer, Mick Lawton, and made a start phoning the photographers. Most were cooperative, had no objection to the police looking at their photographs and would be happy to send prints. After all, they had been taken for public consumption in the first place. What a difference it was from asking reporters to name sources.

The experts were still combing the area where the victim had been killed and the spot she had been moved to, collecting all the trace evidence for later analysis. If nothing else, it might provide useful forensic evidence in a trial. The lab had already reported back on the painted cornflower on the victim’s cheek, informing Chadwick that it was simple grease-paint, available in any number of outlets. The flower was still one small detail the police had not yet made public.

When it came to questioning the stars themselves, Enderby’s original doubts proved to be remarkably prophetic. It got done, mostly, but in a perfunctory and unsatisfactory way, as far as Chadwick was concerned, usually by the local forces, who had only minimal briefing in the case. There was more than one provincial DI just dying to have a crack at his local rock star, to bring in the dogs and the drugs search team, despite the fiasco of the Rolling Stones bust a couple of years ago, but asking a few questions about a poxy festival up north hardly excited anyone’s interest. These long-haired idiots might be stoned and anarchic, the thinking mostly went, but they’re hardly likely to be bloody murderers, are they?

Chadwick preferred to keep an open mind on the subject. He thought of the murders in Los Angeles, a story he had been following in the newspapers and on television, just like everyone else. According to the reports, someone had broken into a house in Benedict Canyon, cut the telephone wires and murdered five people, including the actress Sharon Tate, who had been eight and a half months pregnant at the time she was stabbed to death. Later that night, another house had been broken into and a wealthy couple had been killed in a similar way. There was much speculation about drug orgies, as the male victims had been wearing hippie-type clothing and drugs
were found in one of their cars. There was also talk about a “ritualistic” aspect to the murders: the word
PIG
had been written in blood on the front door of Sharon Tate’s house, and
DEATH TO PIGS
had been written on the living-room wall of the other house, also in blood, and
HEALTHER SKELTER
inside the fridge door, which the authorities took to be a misspelling of “Helter Skelter,” a Beatles song from the
White Album
. What little inside knowledge Chadwick had been able to pick up on the grapevine indicated that the police were looking for members of some obscure hippie cult.

It had not occurred to Chadwick that the crimes had anything in common with the Brimleigh Festival murder. Los Angeles was a long way from Yorkshire. Still, if people who listened to Beatles songs and called the police pigs could do something like that in Los Angeles, then why not in England?

Chadwick would have interviewed the musicians himself, but they lived as far afield as London, Buckinghamshire, Sussex, Ireland and Glasgow, some of them in small flats and bedsits, but a surprising number of them owned country estates with swimming pools, or large detached houses in nice areas. He would have spent half his life on the motorway and the rest on country roads.

He had hoped that one of the interviewers might at least have sniffed out a half-truth or a full-blown lie; then he would have conducted a follow-up interview himself, however far he had to travel, but everything came back routine: no further action.

A lot of the bands whose names he had seen in connection with Brimleigh were playing at another festival, in Rugby, that weekend: Pink Floyd, The Nice, Roy Harper, the Edgar Broughton Band and the Third Ear Band. He sent Enderby
down to Rugby to see if he could come up with anything. Enderby seemed in his element at the prospect of meeting such heroes.

Two of the bands at Brimleigh had been local. Chadwick had already spoken briefly with Jan Dukes de Grey in Leeds during the week. Derek and Mick seemed pleasant enough young lads beneath the long hair and unusual clothes, and both of them had left the festival well before the time of the murder. The Mad Hatters were in London at the moment but were expected back up north early in the following week, to stay at Swainsview Lodge, Lord Jessop’s residence near Eastvale, where they were to rehearse for a forthcoming tour and album. He would talk to them then.

It was half past two in the afternoon by the time DC Gavin Rickerd managed to make it over to Western Area Headquarters in Eastvale. Banks was due to sit in on the Nicholas Barber post-mortem at three, but he wanted to get this out of the way first. He had rung Annie at Fordham, and they had given one another a quick update, agreeing to meet in the Queen’s Arms at six o’clock.

“Come in, Gavin,” said Banks. “How are things going in Neighbourhood Policing? Teething troubles?”

“Busy. You know how things are with a new job, sir. But it’s fine, really. I like it.” Rickerd adjusted his glasses. He was still wearing old-fashioned National Health specs held together at the bridge with sticking plaster. It had to be a fashion statement of some sort, Banks thought, as even a poor DC could certainly afford new ones. The words
fashion statement
and Gavin Rickerd hardly seemed a match made in heaven, so maybe it was an anti–fashion statement. He wore a bottle-green corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches and brown corduroy trousers
a bit worse for wear. His tie was awkwardly fastened and his shirt collar bent up on the left side. From the top pocket of his jacket poked an array of pens and pencils. His face had the pasty look of someone who didn’t get outside very much. Banks remembered the way Kev Templeton used to take the piss out of him mercilessly. He had a cruel streak, did Templeton.

“Miss the thrust and parry of policing on the edge?” Banks asked.

“Not really, sir. I’m quite happy where I am.”

“Ah, right.” Banks had never really known how to talk to Rickerd. Rumour had it that he was a bona fide trainspotter, that he actually stood out at the end of cold station platforms in Darlington, Leeds or York, come rain or shine, scanning the horizon for the Royal Scotsman, the Mallard, or whatever they called it these days. Nobody had actually seen him, but the rumour persisted. He also had a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and was reputed to be a whiz at puzzles and computer games. Banks thought he was probably wasted in Eastvale and should have been recruited by MI5 years ago, but at the moment their loss was his gain.

One thing Banks did know for certain was that Gavin Rickerd was a fanatical cricket fan, so he chatted briefly about England’s recent Ashes victory, then said, “Got a little job for you, Gavin.”

“But, sir, you know I’m Neighbourhood Policing now, not CID or Major Crimes.”

“I know,” said Banks. “But what’s in a name?”

“It’s not just the name, sir, it’s a serious job.”

“I’m sure it is. That’s not in dispute.”

“The superintendent won’t like it, sir.” Rickerd was starting to look decidedly nervous, glancing over his shoulder at the door.

“Been warned off, have you?”

Rickerd adjusted his glasses again.

“Okay,” Banks said. “I understand. I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble. You can go. It’s just that I’ve got this puzzle I thought you might be interested in. At least, I think it could be a puzzle. Whatever it is, though, we need to know.”

“Puzzle?” said Rickerd, licking his lips. “What sort of puzzle?”

“Well, I was thinking maybe you could have a look at it in your spare time, you know. That way the super can’t complain, can she?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Like a little peek?”

“Well, maybe I could just have a quick look.”

“Good lad.” Banks handed him a photocopy of the page from Nick Barber’s copy of
Atonement
he had got from the SOCOs.

Rickerd squinted at it, turned it this way and that and put it down on the desk. “Interesting,” he said.

“I was thinking you like mathematical puzzles and things, know a bit about them. Maybe you could take it away with you and play around with it?”

“I can take it away?”

“Of course. It’s only a photocopy.”

“All right, then,” said Rickerd, evidently charged with a new sense of importance. He folded the piece of paper carefully into a square and slipped it in the inside pocket of his corduroy jacket.

“You’ll get back to me?” said Banks.

“Soon as I’ve got something. I can’t promise, mind you. It might just be some random gibberish.”

“I understand,” said Banks. “Do your best.”

Rickerd left the office, pausing to glance both ways down
the corridor before he dashed off towards the Neighbourhood Policing offices. Banks glanced at his watch and pulled a face. Time to go to the post-mortem.

Saturday, September 13, 1969

Chadwick was hoping to get away early as he and Geoff Broome had tickets for Leeds United’s away game with Sheffeld Wednesday. At about ten o’clock, though, a woman who said she lived on the Raynville estate rang to say she thought she recognized the victim. She didn’t want to commit herself, saying the sketch in the paper wasn’t a very good likeness, but she thought she knew who it was. Out of respect for the victim, the newspapers hadn’t published a photograph of the dead girl, only an artist’s impression, but Chadwick had a photo in his briefcase.

This wasn’t the kind of interview he could delegate to an underling like the inexperienced Simon Bradley, let alone the scruffy Keith Enderby, so before he left he rang Geoff Broome with his apologies. There would be no problem getting rid of the ticket somewhere in Brotherton House, Geoff told him. After that, Chadwick went down to his aging Vauxhall Victor and drove out to Armley, rain streaking his windscreen.

The Raynville estate was not among the best of the newer Leeds council estates, and it looked even worse in the rain. Built only a few years ago, it had quickly gone to seed, and those who could afford to, avoided it. Chadwick and Janet had lived nearby, on the Astons, until they had managed to save up and buy their semi just off Church Road, in the shadow of St. Bartholomew’s, Armley, when Chadwick was promoted to detective inspector four years ago.

The caller, who had given her name as Carol Wilkinson, lived in a second-storey maisonette on Raynville Walk. The
stairs smelled of urine and the walls were covered with filthy graffiti, a phenomenon that was starting to spring up in places like this. It was just another sign of the degeneracy of modern youth, as far as Chadwick was concerned: no respect for property. When he knocked on the faded green door, a young woman holding a baby in one arm opened it for him, the chain still on.