Peter Robinson - Piece Of My Heart

He called out Vic Greaves’s name, but the wind blew it back. There were shadows everywhere and Banks found himself jumping at each one, a heavy knot at the center of his chest. He was in the open, he realized, and wished he could be more certain of his assessment that Vic Greaves was harmless.

An empty Coke tin came skittering out of the grass onto the patio and Banks turned, tense, ready to defend himself.

When he reached the side of the pool closest to the house, he thought he could see something sticking out from behind one of the pillars under the upper terrace, close to where the French windows from the studio opened into the courtyard. The area was in the shadows, so it was hard to be sure, but he thought it was the lower half of a leg, with the trousers tucked into the boot. When he got closer, he saw it was actually a bicycle clip.

“Hello, Vic,” he said. “Aren’t you going to come out?”

After what seemed like a long time, the leg moved and Vic Greaves’s shiny bald head appeared from behind the pillar.

“You remember me, don’t you, Vic?” Banks said. “There’s no need to be afraid. I came to see you at the cottage.”

Still Vic didn’t respond or move. He just kept looking at Banks.

“Come on out, Vic,” Banks said. “I just want to ask you a few questions, that’s all.”

“Vic’s not here,” the small voice said finally.

“Yes, he is,” said Banks.

Vic held his ground. Banks circled a little, so he could at least get a better view. “All right,” he said. “If you want to stay there, stay. I’ll talk to you from here, okay?”

The wind was howling in the recess made by the overhanging terrace, but Banks could just about make out Greaves’s agreement. He was sitting with his back to the wall, hunched over, arms hugging his knees to his chest.

“I’ll do the talking,” said Banks, “and you can tell me whether I’m right or wrong. Okay?”

Greaves studied him with serious, narrowed eyes and said nothing.

“It goes back a long time,” Banks began. “To 1969, when the Mad Hatters played the Brimleigh Festival. There was a girl backstage called Linda Lofthouse. Your cousin. She got a backstage pass because of you. She was with her best friend, Tania Hutchison, who became a member of the band about a year later. But that’s getting ahead. Are you with me so far?”

Greaves still didn’t say anything, but Banks could swear he detected a flicker of interest in his expression.

“Cut forward to late on that last night of the festival. Led Zeppelin were playing and Linda needed a little space to clear her head, so she went for a walk in the woods. Someone followed her. Was that you, Vic?”

Greaves shook his head.

“Are you sure?” Banks persisted. “Maybe you were tripping, maybe you didn’t know what you were doing, but something happened, didn’t it? Something changed that night, something snapped in you, and you killed her. Perhaps you didn’t realize what you’d done, perhaps it was like looking down on someone else doing it, but you did it, didn’t you, Vic?”

Finally, Greaves found his voice. “No,” he said. “No, he’s wrong. Vic’s a good boy.” His words were almost blown into silence by the wind.

“Tell me how I’m wrong, Vic,” Banks went on. “Tell me what I’m wrong about. I want to know.”

“Can’t,” said Greaves. “Can’t tell.”

“Yes, you can. Am I wrong about how it happened? What about Cardiff? What about Brighton? And Plymouth? Were there any others?”

Greaves just shook his head from side to side, muttering something Banks couldn’t hear for the wind.

“I’m trying to help you,” said Banks, “but I can’t help if you don’t tell me the truth.”

“There is no truth,” said Greaves.

“There must be. Who killed those girls? Who killed Nick Barber? Did he find out? Is that why? Did he confront you with the evidence?”

“Why don’t you leave him alone?” said a deep voice behind Banks. “You can tell he doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Banks turned and saw Chris Adams standing by the pool, ponytail blowing in the wind, bulbous face red, potbelly sagging over his jeans. Banks walked over to him. “I think he does,” he said. “But seeing as you’re here, why don’t you tell me? I think you know as much about it as he does.”

“It was all over and done with years ago,” said Adams.

“You may wish it was, but it isn’t. That’s what Nick Barber found out about, isn’t it? So Vic here killed him.”

“No, that’s not what happened.”

“What about the girl in Cardiff? The one in Plymouth? What about them?”

Adams paled. “You know?”

“It wasn’t that hard once we started following in Nick Barber’s footsteps. He was thorough, and even his killer didn’t manage to obliterate everything he’d found out. Why have you been protecting Vic Greaves all these years?”

“Look at him, Mr. Banks,” said Adams. “What would you do? He’s my oldest friend. We grew up together, for crying out loud. He’s like a baby.”

“He’s a killer. That means he could kill again. You weren’t able to supervise him twenty-four hours a day. I imagine you only came down here because I phoned you and told you things were coming to a head, that I was close to finding out who killed Nick Barber. You guessed where Vic was. He’s been here before, hasn’t he? And told you about it, too, I’ll bet.”

“The place does seem to attract him,” said Adams calmly. “But you’re wrong about the rest. Vic’s no killer.”

At first Banks thought Adams was blowing smoke, but something snagged at his mind, a little thing, and it pulled until it brought a number of other little things tumbling into the open with it. As the wind howled around his head, Banks found himself rearranging the pieces inside and putting them together in a different pattern, one he could have kicked himself for not seeing sooner. He still wasn’t sure about everything yet, but it was all starting to add up. Was Greaves left-handed? He tried to remember from their meeting which hand Greaves had been stirring the stew with, but he couldn’t.

He was certain of one thing, though: when he was watching the Mad Hatters DVD the previous evening with Brian, he had noticed that Robin Merchant played his bass left-handed, like Paul McCartney. He had simply registered it unconsciously at the time, not really made anything of it, or tried to link it to the case. But now, as he thought about it, he realized that the last killing they knew of was on the nineteenth of May, about a month before Robin Merchant’s drowning. Unless there were other, later, incidents that Barber hadn’t uncovered, the timing worked. He glanced at his watch. He had been at Swainsview Lodge for only ten minutes.

“Robin Merchant,” he said.

“Bravo,” said Adams. “Robin Merchant was one sick puppy, as they say. Oh, he was glib and charming enough on the surface, but beyond that it was a case of Jekyll and Hyde. His mind was polluted by all that Aleister Crowley stuff he immersed himself in. Have you heard about Crowley?”

“I know the name,” said Banks.

“He was a drug addict and a womanizer, the self-proclaimed ‘wickedest man in the world.’ The Great Beast. His motto was, ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.’ Robin Merchant took him quite literally. Do you know Robin even tried to justify his ‘sacrifices,’ as he called them to me? He had no conscience, even before he got involved in drugs and black magic and all that shit. It just made him worse, made him think he was more godlike – or more devil-like, I should say. But he hid it so well. He got obsessed with those Los Angeles murders, too, the ritualistic elements. He thought he saw some sort of occult significance in them. I don’t know if you remember, but they finally caught Manson that October, and Robin started to identify with him and his power trip. He saw himself as some sort of messenger of darkness. He didn’t murder rich piggies, though. He murdered beauty and purity. The flower was his signature.”