Free Piece of My Heart by Peter Robinson

conspicuously empty apart from the name Nick. An incident van had been dispatched to Fordham earlier in the morning, fitted out with phones and computers. Information collected there would be collated and passed on to headquarters. Banks was officially the senior investigating officer, appointed by Assistant Chief Constable Ron McLaughlin, and Annie was his deputy. Other tasks would be assigned to various officers according to their skills.
    Since Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe had retired two months ago, they had been given a temporary replacement in Catherine Gervaise. There were those who muttered thatBanks should have got the job, but he knew it had never been on the cards. He had got on well enough with ACC McLaughlin, “Red Ron,” and with the chief constable himself on those rare occasions when they met, but he was too much of a loose cannon. If nothing else, running off to London to look for his brother, and getting involved in all that followed from that, had put several nails in the coffin of his career. Besides, he didn’t want the responsibility, or the paperwork. Gristhorpe had always left him alone to work cases the way he wanted, which meant he ended up doing a lot of the legwork and streetwork himself, because that was the way he liked it.
    Catherine Gervaise was cool and distant, not a mentor and friend the way Gristhorpe had been, and under her rule he found that he had to fight harder for his privileges. She was an administrator, through and through, an ambitious woman who had risen quickly through the ranks via accelerated-promotion schemes, management and computer courses and, some said, by affirmative action. This would be her first major investigation at Western Area Headquarters, so it would be interesting to see how she handled it. At least she wasn’t stupid, Banks thought, and she should know how best to use her resources.
    Some were put off by her posh accent and Cheltenham Ladies’ College background, but Banks was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, as long as she left him alone. The one thing they had in common, he discovered, was that she also had season tickets to Opera North, and he had seen her at a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor with her husband. He didn’t think she had noticed him. At least, she hadn’t let on. In appearance, she wore little makeup and was rather severe, with short blonde hair, rather unexpected Cupid’s-bow lips and a trim figure. In dress she was conservative, favouringnavy suits and white blouses, and in manner she was no-nonsense, remaining aloof and either not getting the squad-room humour, or not wishing to show that she did.
    The superintendent asked for a summary of what they had so far, which wasn’t much. The blood-spatter analysis was consistent with the theory that Nick had been bashed over the back of the head with a poker as he had been turning away from his killer, perhaps walking towards his cigarettes. After that, he had been hit once or twice more–they wouldn’t know until Dr. Glendenning performed the post-mortem–no doubt to make sure he was dead.
    “Have we got any further identifying the victim?” Superintendent Gervaise asked next.
    “A little, ma’am,” said Winsome. “At least the local memory tag on his licence plate number indicates the car was registered in London.”
    “It’s not hired?”
    “No. We finally got a look inside with the help of the garage. Unfortunately, there was nothing inside to indicate who he was, either.”
    “So someone really wanted to throw sand in our eyes.”
    “Well, ma’am, it’s a fairly new car, and he might not have been the kind of person who lives out of it, but it certainly looks that way. Whoever did it must have known he could only have slowed the investigation down, though.” Winsome looked at Banks, who nodded for her to go on. “Which probably means that he wanted to give himself a bit of time to get far enough away and arrange an alibi.”
    “Interesting