“You okay to drive?”
“I’m fine. Really.” To demonstrate, Annie started the car, set off slowly down the long, bumpy drive and didn’t start speeding until she hit the main road.
Tuesday, September 23, 1969
“Yes, what is it?” Chadwick said when Karen stuck her head around his office door. “I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Urgent phone call. Your wife.”
Chadwick picked up the phone.
“Darling, I’m so glad you’re there,” Janet said. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to reach you. I don’t know what to do.”
Chadwick could sense the alarm in her voice. “What is it?”
“It’s Yvonne. The school have rung wanting to know where she is. They said they’d tried to reach me earlier, but I was out shopping. You know what a busybody that headmistress is.”
“She’s not at school?”
“No. And she’s not here, either. I checked her room, just in case.”
“Did you notice anything unusual?”
“No. Same mess as ever.”
Chadwick had left for the station before his daughter had even woken up that morning. “How did she seem at breakfast?” he asked.
“Quiet.”
“But she left for school as usual?”
“So I thought. I mean, she took her satchel and she was wearing her mac. It’s not like her, Stan. You know it’s not.”
“It’s probably nothing,” Chadwick said, trying to ignore the feeling of fear crawling in the pit of his stomach. McGarrity was in jail, but what if one of the others had decided to take revenge for the drugs squad raids? He had probably been foolish to identify himself to Yvonne’s boyfriend, but how else was he supposed to make his point? “Look, I’ll come straight home. You stay there in case she turns up.”
“Should I call the hospitals?”
“You might as well,” said Chadwick. “And have a good look around her room. See if there’s anything missing. Clothes and things.” At least that would give Janet something to occupy her time until he got there. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there as quick as I can.”
Eastvale General Infirmary was the biggest hospital for some distance, and as a consequence, the staff there were overworked and its facilities were strained to the limit. Just down King Street, behind the police station, it was a Victorian pile of stone with high, draughty corridors and large wards with big sash windows, no doubt to let in the winter’s chill for the TB patients it used to house.
A and E wasn’t terribly busy, as it was only Thursday lunchtime, and they found Kelly Soames easily enough with the help of one of the admissions nurses. The curtains were drawn around her bed, but more, the nurse said, to give her privacy than for any more serious reasons. When they went through and sat by her, Annie was relieved to see, and hear, that most of the damage was superficial. The blood came almost entirely from a head wound, by far the most serious of her cuts and abrasions, but even this had only caused concussion, and her head was swathed in bandages. Her face was bruised, her lip split, and there was a stitched cut over her eye, but other than that, the nurse assured them, there were no broken bones and no internal injuries.
Annie felt an immense relief that didn’t diminish her anger against Kevin Templeton and Calvin Soames one bit. It could have been so much worse. She held Kelly’s hand and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I honestly didn’t know anything like this was going to happen.”
Kelly said nothing, just continued to stare at the ceiling.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Banks asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Kelly said. Her speech was a little slurred from the painkillers she had been given, and from the split lip, but she made herself clear enough.
“I’d rather hear it from you,” Banks said.
Annie continued to hold Kelly’s hand. “Tell us,” she said. “Where is he, Kelly?”
“I don’t know,” Kelly said. “Honestly. The last thing I remember is feeling like my head was exploding.”
“It was a chair leg,” Banks said. “Someone hit you with a chair leg. Was it your father?”
“Who else would it be?”
“What happened?”
Kelly took some of the water Annie offered and flinched when the flexi-straw touched the cut on her lip. She put the glass aside and stared at the ceiling as she spoke in a listless voice. “He’d been drinking. Not like usual, just a couple of pints before dinner, but real drinking, like he used to. Whisky. He started at breakfast. I told him not to, but he just ignored me. I caught the bus into Eastvale and did some shopping, and when I got back, he was still drinking. I could tell he was really drunk by then. The bottle was almost empty, and he was red in the face, muttering to himself. I was worried about him. And scared. As soon as I opened my mouth, he went berserk. Asked me who I thought I was to tell him what to do. To be honest, I really thought he believed I was mother, the way he was talking to me. Then he got really abusive. I mean, just shouting at first, not violent or anything. That was when I phoned the local police station. But as soon as he saw me on the phone, that was it. He went mad. He started hitting me, just slapping and pushing at first, then he punched me. After that, he started
breaking things, smashing the furniture. It was all I could do to put my hands in front of my face to protect myself.”
“He didn’t interfere with you in any way?” Annie asked.
“No. No. It wasn’t like that at all. He wouldn’t do anything like that. But the names he was calling me…I won’t repeat them. They were the same ones he used to call mother when they fought.”
“What happened to your mother?” Annie asked.
“She died in hospital. There was something wrong with her insides–I don’t know what it was–and at first the doctors didn’t diagnose it in time, then they thought it was something else. When they finally did get around to operating, it was too late. She never woke up. Dad said something about the anaesthetic being wrong, but I don’t know. We never got to the bottom of it, and he’s never been able to let it go.”
“And your father’s been overpossessive ever since?”
“He’s only got me to take care of him. He can’t take care of himself.” Kelly sipped some more water and coughed, dribbling it down her chin. Annie took a tissue from the table and wiped it away. “Thanks,” said Kelly. “What’s going to happen now? Where’s Dad? What’s going to happen to him?”
“We don’t know yet,” said Annie, glancing at Banks. “We’ll find him, though. Then we’ll see.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to him,” Kelly said. “I mean, I know he’s done wrong and all, but I don’t want anything to happen to him.”
Annie held her hand. It was the old, old story, the abused defending her abuser. “We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll see. Just get some rest for now.”
Back at the station, Banks found Superintendent Gervaise in her office and told her about Kelly Soames. He also hinted
that he knew Templeton had been passing her information and warned her not to put too much trust in its accuracy. It was worth it just to see the expression on her face.
After that, he tried to put Kelly Soames and her problems out of his mind for a while and focus on the Nick Barber investigation again before setting off to visit Ken Blackstone in Leeds. A couple of DCs had read through the boxes of Barber’s papers sent up from his London flat and found they consisted entirely of old articles, photographs and business correspondence–none of it relating to his Yorkshire trip. He had clearly brought all his current work with him, and now it was gone. Banks found a Brahms cello sonata on the radio and settled down to have another look through the old
Mojo
magazines that John Butler had given to him in London.
It didn’t take him very long to figure out that Nick Barber knew his stuff. In addition to pieces on the Mad Hatters from time to time, there were also articles on Shelagh MacDonald, Jo Ann Kelly, Comus and Bridget St. John. Barber’s interest in the Hatters seemed to have started, as Banks had been told, about five years ago, well after his original interest in music, which he seemed to have had since he was a teenager.
Childhood.
Now Banks remembered the little frisson of possibility he had experienced when Simon Bradley had talked about Linda Lofthouse’s unwanted pregnancy.
It shouldn’t be too hard to find out whether he was right, he decided, picking up the phone and looking up the Barbers’ number in the case file.
When he got Louise Barber on the phone, Banks told her who he was and said, “I know this is probably an odd question, and it’s not meant to be in any way disturbing or upsetting, but was Nick adopted?”
There was a short pause followed by a sob. “Yes,” she said. “We adopted him when he was only days old. We raised him as if he were our own, and that’s how we always think of him.”
“I’m sure you did,” said Banks. “Believe me, there’s no hint of criticism here. I wouldn’t expect it to enter your head at such a time, and from all I’ve found out, Nick led a healthy and happy life with many advantages he probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. It’s just that…well, did he know? Did you tell him?”
“Yes,” said Louise Barber. “We told him a long time ago, as soon as we thought he would be able to absorb it.”
“And what did he do?”
“Then? Nothing. He said that as far as he was concerned, we were his parents and that was all there was to it.”
“Did he ever get curious about his birth mother?”
“It’s funny, but he did, yes.”
“When was this?”
“About five or six years ago.”
“Any particular reason?”
“He told us he didn’t want us to think there was a problem, or that it was anything to do with us, but a friend of his who was also adopted told him it was important to find out. He said something about it making him whole, complete.”
“Did he find her?”
“He didn’t really talk to us about it much after that. You have to understand, we found it all a bit upsetting, and Nicholas was careful not to hurt us. He told us he found out who she was, but we have no idea if he traced her or met her.”
“Do you remember her name? Did he tell you that?”
“Yes. Linda Lofthouse. But that’s all I know. We asked him not to talk to us about her again.”
“The name is enough,” said Banks. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Barber, and I do apologize for bringing up difficult memories.”
“I suppose it can’t be helped. Surely this can’t have anything to do with…with what happened to Nicholas?”
“We don’t know. Right now, it’s just another piece of information to add to the puzzle. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Banks hung up and thought. So Nick Barber
was
Linda Lofthouse’s son. He must have found out that his mother had been murdered only a couple of years after he was born, and that she was Vic Greaves’s cousin, which no doubt fuelled his interest in the Mad Hatters, already present to some extent because of his interest in the music of the period.
But the knowledge raised a number of new questions for Banks. Had Barber accepted the standard version of her murder? Did he believe that Patrick McGarrity had killed his mother? Or had he found out something else? If he had stumbled across something that indicated McGarrity was innocent, or had not acted alone, then he might easily have blundered into a situation without knowing how dangerous it was. But it all depended on whether or not Chadwick had been right about McGarrity. It was time to head for Leeds and have a chat with Ken Blackstone.
Banks made it to Leeds in a little over an hour, coming off New York Road at Eastgate and heading for Millgarth, the Leeds Police Headquarters, at about half past three on Thursday afternoon. Like many things, he supposed, this business could have been conducted over the telephone, but he preferred personal contact, if possible. Somehow, little nuances and vague impressions didn’t quite make it over the phone lines.
Ken Blackstone was waiting in his office, a tiny space partitioned off at the end of a room full of busy detectives, nattily dressed as ever in his best Next pinstripe, dazzling white shirt and maroon and grey striped tie, held in place by a silver pin in the shape of a fountain pen. With his wispy grey hair curling over his ears and his gold-framed reading glasses, he looked more like a university professor than a police officer. He and Banks had known one another for years, and Banks thought Ken was the closest he had to a friend, next to Dirty Dick Burgess, but Burgess was in London.
“First off,” said Blackstone, “I thought you might like to see this.” He slid a photograph across his desk and Banks turned it to face him. It showed the head and shoulders of a man in his early forties, perhaps, neat black hair plastered flat with Brylcreem, hard, angled face, straight nose and square jaw with a slight dimple. But it was the eyes that caught Banks’s attention the most. They gave nothing away except, perhaps, for a slight hint of dark shadows in their depths. If eyes were supposed to be the windows to the soul, these were the blackout curtains. This was a hard, haunted, uncompromising man, Banks thought. And a moral one. He didn’t know why, and realized he was being a bit fanciful, but he sensed a hint of hard religion in the man’s background. Hardly surprising, as there had been plenty of that around in both Scotland and Yorkshire over the years. “Interesting,” Banks said, passing it back. “Stanley Chadwick, I assume?”
Blackstone nodded. “Taken on his promotion to detective inspector in October 1965.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, it’s a bit noisy and stuffy in here. Fancy heading out for a coffee?”
“I’m all coffeed out,” said Banks, “But maybe we can have a late lunch? I haven’t eaten since this morning.”
“Fine with me. I’m not hungry, but I’ll join you.”
They left Millgarth and walked onto Eastgate. It had turned into a fine day, with that mix of cloud and sun you got so often in Yorkshire, when it wasn’t raining, and just chilly enough for a raincoat or light overcoat.
“Did you manage to find out anything?” Banks asked.
“I’ve done a bit of digging,” said Blackstone, “and it looks like pretty solid investigating on the surface of it.”
“Only on the surface?”
“I haven’t dug
that
deeply yet. And remember, it was essentially a
North
Yorkshire case, so most of the paperwork’s up there.”