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.
The streets were deserted, most of the houses in darkness apart from the lonely light of an insomniac here and there, or a student burning the midnight oil; a sheen of rain reflected the amber streetlights on the pavements and tarmac. Directly across from Springfield Mount was a small triangular park, locked up for the night, wedged between two merging main roads. At the end of the street, across the road, loomed the local grammar school, all in darkness now, with its bell tower and high windows.
The unmarked police car pulled up at the end of the street behind a patrol car. There were five officers altogether: Chadwick, Bradley and three uniforms, one of whom would guard the back. Geoff Broome was leading the Carberry team, and his colleague, Martin Young, the raid on Bayswater Terrace. They didn’t expect any resistance or problems, except perhaps from McGarrity, if he had his knife.
Chadwick could hear music coming from the front room, and candlelight flickered behind the curtains. Good, someone was at home. Surprise was of the essence now. When everyone was in position, Chadwick gave a nod to the uniform with the battering ram and one smash was enough to break the lock and send the door banging back on its hinges.
As arranged, the two uniformed constables dashed upstairs to secure the upper level and Chadwick and Bradley entered the front room. The officer on guard at the back would take care of the kitchen.
In the living room, Chadwick found three people lying on the floor in advanced stages of intoxication – marijuana, judging by the smell that even two smoldering joss sticks couldn’t mask. Candles flickered, and dreadful wailing electric guitar music came from the record player, a kangaroo with a pain in its testicles, by the sound of it, Chadwick thought.
It didn’t look as if their arrival had interrupted any deep conversations, or any conversations at all for that matter, as they all seemed beyond speech, and one of them could only manage a quick “What the fuck?” before Chadwick announced who he was and told them the police were there to search the premises for drugs and for a knife that may have been used in the committing of a homicide. Bradley switched on the electric light and turned the music off.
Things didn’t look so bad, Chadwick realized with surprise, not what he had expected, just three scruffy long-haired kids lounging around stoned, listening to what passed for music. There was no orgy; nobody was crawling around naked and drooling on the floor or committing outrageous sex acts. Then he saw the LP cover leaning against the wall. It showed a girl with long wavy red hair and full red lips. She was naked from the belly button up, and she couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. In her hands she cradled a chrome model airplane. What kind of perverts was he dealing with? Chadwick wondered. And one of them had been seeing his daughter. This was where Yvonne would have been tonight, had McGarrity not scared her off. This was what she would have been doing. She had been here before, done this, and that set his teeth on edge.
Bradley took their names: Steve Morrison, Todd Crowley and Jacqueline McNeil. They all seemed docile and sheepish enough. Chadwick took Steve aside to a corner of the room and gripped the front of his shirt in his fist. “Whatever comes of this,” he hissed, “I want you to stop seeing my daughter. Understand?”
Steve turned pale. “Who? Who am I supposed to be seeing?”
“Her name’s Yvonne. Yvonne Chadwick.”
“Shit, I didn’t know she…”
“Just stay away from her. Okay?”
Steve nodded, and Chadwick let him go. “Right,” he said, turning to the others. “Where’s McGarrity?”
“Dunno,” said Todd Crowley. “He was here earlier. Maybe he’s upstairs.”
“What were you doing?”
“Nothing. Just listening to music.”
Chadwick gestured toward the LP cover. “Where did you get that filth?”
“What?”
“The naked child. You realize we could probably prosecute you under the Obscene Publications Act, don’t you?”
“That’s art, man,” Crowley protested. “You can buy it at any record shop. Obscenity’s in the eye of the beholder.”
There were greasy fish-and-chip wrappers and newspapers on the floor beside empty bottles of beer. Bradley went over to the ashtray and extracted the remains of a number of hand-rolled cigarettes he identified by their smell as being a mix of tobacco and hash. That, in itself, was enough to charge them with possession.
What the hell did Yvonne see in this dump? Chadwick wondered. Why did she come here? Was her life at home so bad? Was she so desperate to get away from him and Janet? But there was no point trying to work it out. As Enderby had said, it was probably down to freedom.
Chadwick heard a brief scuffle and a bang upstairs, followed by a series of loud thumps, each one getting closer. When he went to the foot of the stairs, he saw the two uniformed constables, one without his hat, holding the arms of a man who was struggling to get up.
“He didn’t want to come with us, sir,” one of the officers said.
It looked as if they had held his arms and dragged him down the stairs backward, which shouldn’t have done much damage to anything except his dignity and maybe his tailbone. Chadwick watched as the unruly black-clad figure with the lank dark hair and pockmarked face got to his feet and dusted himself off, the superior smirk already back in place, if indeed it had ever been gone.
“Well, well, well,” he said, “Mr. McGarrity, I assume? I’ve been wanting a word with you.”
Enderby’s local, two streets down, was like his house: comfortable and unremarkable. It was a relatively new building, late sixties from its low squat shape and the large picture windows facing the sea. The advantages, from Banks’s point of view, were that it was practically empty at that time in the afternoon, and they sold cask-conditioned Tetley’s. One pint wouldn’t do him any harm, he decided, as he bought the drinks at the bar and carried them over.
Enderby looked at him. “Thought your resolve might weaken.”
“It often does,” Banks admitted. “Nice view.”
Enderby took a sip of beer. “Mmm.”
The window looked out over the glittering North Sea, dotted here and there with fishing boats and trawlers. Whitby was still a thriving fishing town, Banks reminded himself, even if the whaling industry it had grown from was long extinct. Captain Cook had got his seafaring start in Whitby, and his statue stood on top of West Cliff, close to the jawbone of a whale.
“When did this real murder happen?” Banks asked.
“September the year before. In 1969. By Christ, Banks, you’re taking me on a hell of a trip along Memory Lane today. I haven’t thought about that business in years.”
Banks knew all about trips down Memory Lane, having not so long ago looked into the disappearance of an old schoolfriend whose body was found buried in a field outside Peterborough. Sometimes, as he got older, it seemed as if the past was always overwhelming the present.
“Who was the victim?”
“A woman, young girl, really, called Linda Lofthouse. Lovely girl. Funny, I can still picture her there, half-covered by the sleeping bag. That white dress with the flowers embroidered on the front. She had a flower painted on her face, too. A cornflower. She looked so peaceful. She was dead, of course. Someone had grabbed her from behind and stabbed her so viciously he cut off a piece of her heart.” He gave a little shudder. “Someone’s just walked over my grave.”
“How was Swainsview Lodge involved in all this?”
“I’m getting to that. The murder took place at a rock festival in Brimleigh Glen. The body was found on the field by one of the volunteers cleaning up after it was all over. The evidence showed that she was killed in Brimleigh Woods nearby and then moved. It was only made to look as if she was killed on the field.”
“I know Brimleigh Glen,” said Banks. He had taken his wife, Sandra, and the children, Brian and Tracy, on picnics there shortly after they had moved to Eastvale. “But I know nothing about any festival.”
“Probably before your time here,” said Enderby. “First weekend of September, 1969. Not so long after Woodstock and the Isle of Wight. It wasn’t one of the really big ones. It was overshadowed by the others. And it was also the only one they ever held there.”
“Who played?”
“The biggest names at the time were Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac. The others? Maybe you remember Family, the Incredible String Band, Roy Harper, Blodwyn Pig, Colosseum, the Liverpool Scene, Edgar Broughton and the rest. The usual late-sixties festival lineup.”
Banks knew all those names, even had a number of their CDs, or used to have. He would have to work harder at building up his collection again instead of just buying new stuff or recent reissues. He needed to make a note whenever he missed something he used to have. “How were the Mad Hatters involved?” he asked.
“They were one of the two local bands to play there, along with Jan Dukes de Grey. The Hatters were just getting big at the time, in late 1969, and it was a pivotal gig for them.”
“You’ve followed their career since then?” said Banks.
Enderby raised his glass. “Of course. I was more into blues back then – still am, really – but I got all their records. I mean, I met them, got a signed album. It was a big thrill. Even if I didn’t get to keep it.” He smiled at a distant memory.
“Why didn’t you get to keep it?”
“DI Chadwick took it for his daughter. Good Lord, Chiller Chadwick. I haven’t thought of him in years. What a cold, hard bastard he was to work for. Tough Scot, ex-army, hard as nails. The old school, you know, stickler for detail. Always perfectly turned out. You could see your reflection in his brogues. That sort of thing. I’m afraid I was a bit of a rebel back then. Let my hair grow down to my collar. He didn’t like it one bit. Good detective, though. I learned a lot from Chiller Chadwick. And he did apologize about the LP, I’ll give him that.”
“What happened to him?”
“No idea. Retired, I suppose. Maybe dead now. He was quite a few years older than me. Fought in the war. And he was with West Yorkshire, see. Leeds. They didn’t reckon we’d got anyone bright enough up here to solve a murder, and they might have been right at that. Anyway, I heard there was some sort of trouble with his daughter, and it affected his health.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“I don’t know. She went away to stay with relatives. I never met her. I think perhaps she was a bit of a wild child, though, and he wouldn’t stand for that, wouldn’t Chiller. You know what some of the kids were like back then, smoking marijuana, dropping acid, sleeping around. Anyway, whatever it was, he kept it under his hat. You should talk to his driver, if he’s still around.”
“Who’s that?”
“Young lad called Bradley. Simon Bradley. He was a DC then, Chiller’s driver. But now, who knows? Probably a chief constable.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Bit of an arse-licker. They always get ahead, don’t they?”
“What was Chadwick’s first name?”
“Stanley.”
Banks thought that Templeton or Winsome ought to be able to track Simon Bradley down easily enough, and if Leeds was involved, he might be able to enlist the help of DI Ken Blackstone to find out about Chadwick. He offered Enderby another drink, which Enderby accepted. Banks’s pint glass, fortunately, was still half full.
“I take it this murder was solved?” Banks asked when he returned with the drink.
“Oh, yes. We got him, all right.”
“So back to how the Mad Hatters and Swainsview Lodge were involved?”
“Oh, yes, forgot about that, didn’t I? Well, Vic Greaves was the victim’s cousin, see, and he’d arranged for her and her friend to get backstage passes for the festival. While she was backstage during Led Zeppelin’s performance on the last night, this cousin, Linda Lofthouse, decided to take a walk in the woods by herself. That’s where she was killed.”
“Any sexual motive?”
“She wasn’t raped, if that’s what you mean. They did find some semen on the back of her dress, though, so what he did obviously gave him some sort of thrill. Secretor. Mind you, it was a common enough blood group. A, if I remember correctly, same as the victim’s. We didn’t have DNA and all that fancy forensic technology back then, so we had to rely on good old-fashioned police work.”
“Did you recover the murder weapon?”
“Eventually. Complete with traces of group A blood and the killer’s fingerprints.”
“Very handy. I suppose he could have argued that it was his own blood. It was his knife, after all.”
“He could have, but he didn’t. Our forensics blokes were good. They also found traces of white fiber and a strand of dyed cotton wedged between the blade and the handle. These were eventually linked to the victim’s dress. There was no doubt about it. The dye on its own was enough.”
“Seems pretty much cut and dried then.”
“It was. I told you. Anyway, a week or so later, the Mad Hatters were up at Swainsview rehearsing for a tour, so that was the first time I went there and met them.”
“Tell me a little bit more about the personalities involved.”
“Well, Vic Greaves was mad as a hatter, no doubt about it. When we tried to talk to him at Swainsview Lodge he was practically incoherent. You know, he’d keep going, like, ‘If you go down to the woods today…’ Remember, the ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’?”
Banks did remember. He had even heard another version of it recently when Vic Greaves said to him, “Vic’s gone down to the woods today.” Coincidence? He would have to find out. Greaves hadn’t been particularly coherent during the rest of their chat in Lyndgarth the other day, either. “Was he on drugs at the time?” Banks asked.
“He was on something, that’s for certain. Most of the people around him said he took LSD like it was Smarties. Maybe he did.”
“What about the rest of them?”
“The others weren’t too bad. Adrian Pritchard, the drummer, was a bit of a wild man, you know, wrecking hotel rooms on tour, getting into fights and that sort of thing, but he settled down. Reg Cooper, of course, well, he was the quiet one. He became one of the best, most respected guitarists in the business. Great songwriter, too, along with Terry Watson, the rhythm guitarist and lead singer, he pushed the band in a more pop direction. Robin Merchant always seemed the brightest of the bunch to me, though. He was educated, well read, articulate, but a bit weird in his tastes, you know; he was into all that occult stuff – magic, tarot, astrology, Aleister Crowley, Carlos Castaneda – but lots of them were, back then.”
“What about Chris Adams?”
“Seemed a nice enough bloke both occasions I met him. A bit straighter than the rest, maybe, but still one of the ‘beautiful people,’ if you catch my drift.”
“Did they all take drugs?”
“They all smoked a lot of dope and did acid. Robin Merchant obviously got into mandies in a big way, and later both Reg Cooper and Terry Watson had their problems with heroin and coke, but they’re clean now, as far as I know, have been for years. I’m not sure about Chris. I don’t think he was as much into it as the rest of them. Probably had to keep his wits about him for all the organizing managers have to do.”
“I suppose so,” said Banks. “Are you still in touch?”
“Good Lord, no. They wouldn’t know me from Adam. The bumbling, awestruck young detective who came around asking bothersome questions? They didn’t even remember me from the first time when I went there over Robin Merchant’s death. But I tried to keep up with their careers, you know. You do when you’ve actually met someone as famous as that, don’t you? I got to meet Pink Floyd, you know. And the Nice. Roy Harper, too. Now he was stoned. They live in Los Angeles these days, most of the Mad Hatters. Except Tania, I think.”
“Tania Hutchison? The singer they brought in after Merchant died and Vic Greaves drifted off?”
“Yes. Beautiful girl. Absolutely stunning.”
Banks remembered lusting after Tania Hutchison when he’d watched her on The Old Grey Whistle Test in the early seventies. Every young male did. “I seem to remember reading that she lives in Oxfordshire, or somewhere like that,” Banks said.
“Yes, the proverbial country manor. Well, she can afford it.”
“You actually met her? I thought she came on the scene much later, after all that mess with Merchant and Greaves?”
“Sort of. See, she was the manager’s girlfriend at the time. Chris Adams. She was with him when we went to investigate Robin Merchant’s drowning. They were in bed together at the time. I interviewed her the next morning. She wasn’t looking her best, of course, a bit the worse for wear, but she still put the rest to shame.”
“So Tania and Chris Adams provided one another with alibis?”
“Yes.”
“And you had no reason to disbelieve them?”
“Like I said before, I had no real reason to disbelieve any of them.”
“How long had she known Adams and the group?”
“I can’t say for certain, but she’d been around for a while before Merchant died,” Enderby said. “I know she was at the Brimleigh Festival with Linda Lofthouse. They were friends. I reckon that was where Adams met her. She and Linda lived in London. Notting Hill. Practically flatmates. And they played and sang together in local clubs. Folk sort of stuff.”
“Interesting,” said Banks. “I’ll have to have a look into this Linda Lofthouse business.”
“Well, it was a murder, but there’s no mystery about it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Banks. “And there’s still the little matter of who killed Nick Barber, and why.”
Sunday, 21st September, 1969
Chadwick could tell right from the start that McGarrity was not like the others, who had been quickly bound over to appear before the magistrate first thing Monday morning and released on police bail. No, McGarrity was another kettle of fish entirely.
For a start, like Rick Hayes, he was older than the rest. Probably in his early to mid-thirties, Chadwick estimated. He also had the unmistakable shiftiness of a habitual criminal and a pallor that, experience had taught Chadwick, came only from spending time in prison. There was something sly about him behind the smirk, and a deadness in his eyes that gave off danger signals. Just the kind of nutter who likely killed Linda Lofthouse, Chadwick reckoned. Now all he needed was a confession, and evidence.
They were sitting in a stark, windowless room redolent of other men’s sweat and fear, the ceiling filmed brownish-yellow from years of cigarette smoke. On the scarred wooden desk between them sat a battered and smudged green tin ashtray bearing the Tetley’s name and logo. DC Bradley sat in a corner to the left of, and behind, McGarrity, taking notes. Chadwick intended to conduct this preliminary interview himself, but if he met stubborn opposition, he would bring in someone else later to help him chip away at the suspect’s resistance. It had worked before and it would work again, he was certain, even with as slippery-looking a customer as McGarrity.
“Name?” he asked finally.
“Patrick McGarrity.”
“Date of birth?”
“The sixth of January, 1936. I’m Capricorn.”
“Good for you. Ever been in prison, Patrick?”
McGarrity just stared at him.
“Not to worry,” said Chadwick. “We’ll find out one way or another. Do you know why you’re here?”
“Because you bastards smashed the door down in the middle of the night and brought me here?”
“Good guess. I suppose you know we found drugs in the house?”
McGarrity shrugged. “Nothing to do with me.”
“As a matter of fact,” Chadwick went on, “they do have something to do with you. My officers found a significant amount of cannabis resin in the same room where they found you asleep. Over two ounces, in fact. Easily enough to sustain a dealing charge.”
“That wasn’t mine. It wasn’t even my room. I was just crashing there for the night.”
“What’s your address?”
“I’m a free spirit. I go where I choose.”
“No fixed abode, then. Place of employment?”
McGarrity emitted a harsh laugh.
“Unemployed. Do you claim benefits?”
Silence.
“I’ll take it that you do, then. Otherwise there might be charges under the vagrancy act.”
McGarrity leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. His clothes looked old and worn, like a tramp’s, Chadwick noticed, not like the bright peacock fashions the others favored. And everything he wore was black, or close to it. “Look,” he said, “why don’t you just cut the crap and get it over with? If you’re going to charge me and put me in a cell, do it.”
“All in good time, Patrick. All in good time. Back to the cannabis. Where did it come from?”
“Ask your pig friends. They must have planted it.”
“Nobody planted anything. Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Tell me about this afternoon.”
“What about it?”
“What did you do?”
“I don’t remember. Not much. Read a book. Went for a walk.”
“Do you remember receiving a visitor?”
“Can’t say as I do.”
“A young woman.”
“No.”
Chadwick’s muscles were aching from keeping the rage inside. He felt like flinging himself across the table and strangling McGarrity with his bare hands. “A woman you terrorized and assaulted?”
“I didn’t do any such thing.”
“You deny the young woman was in the house?”
“I don’t remember seeing anyone.”
Chadwick stood up so quickly he knocked over his chair. “I’ve had enough of this, Constable,” he said to Bradley. “Take him down and lock him up.” He glared at McGarrity for a second before he left and said, “We’ll talk again, and the next time it won’t be so polite.” Outside in the corridor, he leaned against the wall and took several deep breaths. His heart was beating like a steam piston inside his chest, and he could feel his skin burning. Slowly, as he mopped his brow, the rage subsided. He straightened his tie and jacket and walked back to his office.