“I understand,” said Chadwick. “How do you feel now about getting up and having something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, at least come downstairs and see your mother. She’s worried sick about you.”

“Okay,” said Yvonne. “But give me a few minutes to get changed and wash my face.”

“Right you are, sweetheart.” Chadwick kissed the top of her head, left the room and headed for the telephone, jaw set hard. Later tonight, someone was going to be very sorry he had ever been born.

Annie Cabbot tried to control her temper as she waited to knock and enter Detective Superintendent Gervaise’s office after Banks had left for Whitby. It was difficult. She had sensed that Gervaise hadn’t liked her from the start and sussed her as another ambitious woman who got where she was the hard way, who was damned if she was going to give any other woman anything less than her worst. So much for female solidarity.

Annie took several deep, calming breaths, the way she did when she was meditating or practicing yoga. It didn’t work. She knocked anyway and entered even before the slightly puzzled voice called out, “Enter.”

“I’d like a word, ma’am,” said Annie.

“DI Cabbot. Please, sit down.”

Annie sat. She remembered how she had always felt slightly awed and nervous when Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe had called her into this same office, but this time she felt nothing of the kind.

“What can I help you with?”

“You were seriously out of order back there,” Annie said. “At the morning briefing.”

“I was?” Gervaise feigned surprise. At least Annie believed it was feigned.

“You have no right to make public comments about my private life.”

Superintendent Gervaise held her hand up. “Now, let’s wait a moment before we go any further. Just exactly what was it I said that has upset you so much?”

“You know damn well what it was. Ma’am.”

“We don’t seem to be getting off on the right foot here, do we?”

“You said you had no desire to argue sexual mores, especially with me.”

“These meetings aren’t a forum for argument, DI Cabbot, they’re called to bring everyone up-to-date and set the scene for more actions and lines of inquiry. You know that.”

“Yet you deliberately insulted me in front of my colleagues.”

Superintendent Gervaise regarded her as she might a particularly troublesome schoolgirl. “Well, seeing as we’re on the subject,” she said, “you do have something of a checkered history with us, don’t you?”

Annie said nothing.

“Let me remind you. You’d not been in North Yorkshire five minutes before you were jumping into bed with DCI Banks. And let me also remind you that fraternizing between fellow officers is seriously frowned upon, and liaisons between a DS, as you were then, and a DCI, are particularly fraught with dangers, as I’m sure you found out. He was your superior officer. What were you thinking of?”

Annie felt her heart beating hard in her chest. “My private life is my affair.”

“You’re not a stupid woman,” Superintendent Gervaise went on. “I know that. We all make mistakes, and they’re rarely fatal.” She paused. “But your last one was, wasn’t it? Your last mistake almost cost DCI Banks his life.”

“We weren’t involved in anything then,” Annie said, aware as she spoke of how weak her response sounded.

“I know that.” Gervaise shook her head. “DI Cabbot, I’m not entirely certain how you’ve managed to last here so long, let alone how you were promoted to DI so quickly in the first place. Things must have been very easygoing around here back then. Or perhaps DCI Banks had a certain amount of influence with the ACC?”

Annie felt her heart about to explode at the insult, but a dreadful calm flooded her, disconcerting at first, like a sort of cooling numbness in her blood, a falling-away of feeling. Then it warmed a little, transformed into a calm, altered state. It didn’t matter. Whatever Superintendent Gervaise thought, said or did, it didn’t matter. Annie cared about her career, but there were some things she just wouldn’t take, not for anything, not from anyone, and that knowledge made her feel free. She almost smiled. Gervaise must have sensed some change in the air, because there was a new edge to her voice when she noticed she wasn’t getting the desired response from Annie.

“Anyway, in case you haven’t noticed it, things have changed around here now. I won’t countenance romantic relationships among my officers. They’re distracting and sow the seeds for all kinds of mistakes and future difficulties, as you have discovered. And in the future, I would strongly suggest that you think again about continuing your relationship with DCI Banks.”

Did Gervaise really believe that Annie and Banks had got back together? Why? Had someone told her? A few moments ago Annie would have leaped out of her seat and throttled Gervaise at such words, but now she took it all in calmly. The superintendent had also known about Banks having a pint in the Cross Keys on the night of the murder. Who had told her about that? Was there a spy in their midst? Annie didn’t react.

“DI Cabbot?”

“Sorry,” said Annie. “I was miles away.”

“That’s very irresponsible of you. You come barging in here telling me I’m not doing my job properly, and the minute you realize you’re in the wrong, you start daydreaming.”

“It wasn’t that,” Annie said. “Are we finished here?”

“Not until I say we are.”

“Ma’am.”

“This other business. Kelly Soames.”

“It’s not other business,” said Annie. “It’s all connected.”

“What do you mean?”

“I defended Kelly Soames’s sexual mores so you attacked mine. It’s connected.”

“I thought we’d left that behind.”

“Look, you want me to subject the poor girl to the ordeal of her father finding out she’d had a sexual relationship with Nick Barber, and I said I’d given her some assurances that wouldn’t happen.”

“Those assurances weren’t yours to give.”

“I’m aware of that. Even so, you can hardly attack me for wanting to stand by my word.”

“Admirable as that may seem, it’s not workable here. This job isn’t about saving your conscience and keeping your promises. I want that girl confronted with what happened in the presence of her father, and if you won’t do it I’ll find someone who will.”

“What is it with you? Are you a sadist or something?”

Gervaise’s lips narrowed in a nasty smile. “I’m a professional detective just doing her job,” she said. “Which is something you should take a little more seriously. Sympathy for victims is all very well, in its place, but remember that Nicholas Barber is the victim here, not Kelly Soames.”

“Not yet,” said Annie.

“Insubordination will get you nowhere.”

“No, but it feels good.” Annie stood up to leave. “There’s obviously no further point talking to you, so if you’re thinking of taking action against me, do it. I don’t care. Either shit or get off the pot.”

Gervaise’s face fell. “What did you say?”

Annie walked toward the door. “You heard me,” she said.

“Right,” said Superintendent Gervaise. “I want you on statement reading as of now. And send in DS Templeton.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Annie, and shut the door softly behind her as she left. Templeton. Now that made sense.

Sunday, 21st September, 1969

Chadwick went in with the Springfield Mount team because that was the house where Yvonne had been accosted by McGarrity. Two other teams, also with search warrants, carried out simultaneous raids on Bayswater Terrace and Carberry Place. They waited until well after midnight, by which time Yvonne was fast asleep in bed. As any prior announcement of their presence was likely to result in drugs being flushed down the toilet, they were authorized to enter by force.