Annie looked again. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now she could see dark stains on the carpet and the broken chair leg. Kelly. Oh, Jesus Christ.

“Okay,” said Banks, stepping forward. “I want you and your partner to organize a search for Calvin Soames. He can’t have gone far. Get some help from uniformed branch in Eastvale if you need it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Banks turned to Annie. “Come on,” he said. “There’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s go pay a visit to Eastvale General.”

Annie didn’t need asking twice. When they got back into the car she thumped the steering wheel with both fists and strained to hold back her tears of anger. Her head was still throbbing from the previous night’s excess. She felt Banks’s hand rest on her shoulder, and her resolve not to cry strengthened. “I’m all right,” she said after a few moments, gently shaking him off. “Just needed to let off a bit of steam, that’s all. And there was me thinking I’d go home early and have a nice bath.”

“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, 23rd September, 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 drafty 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. Whiskey. 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 anesthetic 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.”