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“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 Yvo
“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.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A
A
“I’d like a word, ma’am,” said A
“DI Cabbot. Please, sit down.”
A
“What can I help you with?”
“You were seriously out of order back there,” A
“I was?” Gervaise feigned surprise. At least A
“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?”
A
“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?”
A
“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,” A
“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?”
A
“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 A
“DI Cabbot?”
“Sorry,” said A
“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,” A
“Not until I say we are.”
“Ma’am.”
“This other business. Kelly Soames.”
“It’s not other business,” said A
“What do you mean?”
“I defended Kelly Soames’s sexual mores so you attacked mine. It’s co
“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 A
“Insubordination will get you nowhere.”
“No, but it feels good.” A
Gervaise’s face fell. “What did you say?”
A
“Right,” said Superintendent Gervaise. “I want you on statement reading as of now. And send in DS Templeton.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said A
Sunday, 21st September, 1969
Chadwick went in with the Springfield Mount team because that was the house where Yvo