Free Piece of My Heart by Peter Robinson Page B

Gervaise, Banks thought. He’d had bosses like that before: state the obvious, the things your team would do anyway, without even being asked, and take the credit for the results. “Of course,” he said. “We’re working on it. One of the staff might know a bit more than she’s letting on.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “Her manner, body language.”
    “All right. Question her. Bring her in, if necessary.”
    Banks could tell by Superintendent Gervaise’s clipped tone and the way her hand strayed to her short, layered locks that she was getting bored with the meeting and anxious to get away, no doubt to send out a memo on drinking while on duty, or the ten most obvious courses to pursue during a murder inquiry.
    “If that’s all for now, ladies and gentlemen,” she went on, stuffing her papers into her briefcase, “then I suggest we all get down to work.”
    To a chorus of muttered “Yes, ma’ams,” she left the room, heels clicking against the hardwood floor. Only after she’d gone did Banks realize that he had forgotten to tell her about the figures in the book.
    Monday, September 8, 1969
    Janet was watching the News at Ten when Chadwick got home that evening, and Reginald Bosanquet was talking about ITA’sexciting new UHF colour transmissions from the Crystal Palace transmitter, which was all very well, Chadwick thought, if you happened to own a colour TV. He didn’t. Not on a DI’s pay of a little over two thousand pounds per year. Janet walked towards him.
    “Hard day?” she asked.
    Chadwick nodded, kissed her and sat down in his favourite armchair.
    “Drink?”
    “A small whisky would go down nicely. Yvonne not home yet?” He glanced at the clock. Twenty past ten.
    “Not yet.”
    “Know where she is?”
    Janet turned from pouring the whisky. “Out with friends was all she said.”
    “She shouldn’t go out so often on school nights. She knows that.”
    Janet handed him the drink. “She’s sixteen. We can’t expect her to do everything the way we’d like it. Things are different these days. Teenagers have a lot more freedom.”
    “Freedom? As long as she’s under this roof we’ve a right to expect some degree of honesty and respect from her, haven’t we?” Chadwick argued. “The next thing you know she’ll be dropping out and running off to live in a hippie commune. Freedom. ”
    “Oh, give it a rest, Stan. She’s going through a stage, that’s all.” Janet softened her tone. “She’ll get over it. Weren’t you just a little bit rebellious when you were sixteen?”
    Chadwick tried to remember. He didn’t think so. It was 1937 when he was sixteen, before “teenagers” had been invented, when youth was simply an unfortunate period one had to pass through on the route from childhood to maturity.Another world. George VI was crowned king that year, Neville Chamberlain became prime minister and looked likely to get along well with Hitler and the Spanish Civil War was at its bloodiest. But Chadwick had paid only scant attention to world affairs. He was at grammar school then, on a scholarship, playing rugby with the first fifteen, and all set for a university career that was interrupted by the war and somehow never got resurrected.
    He had volunteered for the Green Howards in 1940 because his father had served with them in the first war, and spent the next five years killing first Japanese, then Germans, while trying to stay alive himself. After it was all over and he was back on civvy street in his demob suit, it took him six years to get over it. Six years of dead-end jobs, bouts of depression, loneliness and hunger. He nearly died of cold in the bitter winter of 1947. Then it was as if the weight suddenly lifted, the lights came on. He joined the West Riding Constabulary in 1951. The following year he met Janet at a dance. They were married only three months later, and a year after that, in March 1953, Yvonne was born.
    Rebellious? He didn’t think so. It seemed to be