She's Leaving Home (10 page)

Breen could see Miss Shankley following his gaze upwards to the top floor.

“No. He goes out for a walk every morning, apparently.”

“Who said that?”

“His neighbor. He goes out every morning, regular. Back at one for lunch.”

Breen looked at his watch.

“Get one on the front and one on the back, just in case he’s back early. Keep it discreet.”

“Why? Where are you going?”

“To talk to the nanny.”

“Haven’t we got enough?”

“Maybe,” said Breen.

Tozer nodded. “Cautious, isn’t he?” she said to Jones.

Jones snorted. “I’ll say he bloody is.”

“If he comes back,” said Breen, “ask him to come to the station to answer some questions. If he refuses, pull him in.”

“It was my idea,” said Jones to Tozer. “You know, to go and check on the bags.”

“Super,” said Tozer.

They were both excited; Breen should have been too. Heading the squad that caught the murderer would do something to clear his slate. And even though he’d initially neglected to search the bins, Jones could now claim his part in the result. But Breen still felt the same pressing anxiety he felt from yesterday, the same leadenness.

“Maybe we’ll go to the pub after, yeah?” Jones said to Tozer. “Celebrate. Us CID boys will show you how it’s done.”

“What’s going on?” called Miss Shankley from the bottom of the stairs. “You should be telling us.”

“Oh God,” said Tozer when they had walked round the corner. “See the way Jones was looking at me? Now they all think they can buy me a drink and then you know what. And he’s married, isn’t he?”

“And that’s my fault?”

“Yes. It is, matter of fact.”

M
rs. Broughton wore a collared blue dress with buttons at the front and a mid-length pleated skirt. Her black hair was held firmly in place by a layer of spray.

“She is a very silly girl indeed,” she said.

A Wedgwood teapot sat on the coffee table in front of her. There was a scent of geraniums in the air from a row of plants on the windowsill. She, Breen and Tozer all had cups full of tea in front of them. The silly girl, whose name turned out to be Joan, sat uncomfortably on the piano stool, fidgeting. She was dressed in her nanny’s uniform: a black woolen jacket and a gray skirt. Her cheeks were flushed.

“Why she didn’t think it important to tell me that my children had seen a dead woman I can’t think.”

The girl sat silently. Outside in the hallway a grandfather clock that had probably been in the family for generations ticked through each heavy second.

“I am sending her home to her parents. I have told the agency that I shall not be using them again. She is not suitable.”

“Have you been here long?” Breen asked the girl.

“She has been here almost two months,” answered Mrs. Broughton. She sat on the floral print couch, one arm lying across its back. “I suppose I’ll have to pay her till the end of the week. It’s very inconvenient.”

Breen observed the girl chewing slowly on the inside of her lip. He looked at her hands. Her nails were short and bitten. Unhappiness in the young is never well concealed.

“My husband has a senior position in the Foreign Office,” Mrs. Broughton said. “He would loathe it if there were a whiff of scandal about this. There is no reason for this to be in the newspapers, is there, officer?”

“I doubt they’d be particularly interested.”

“One small mercy, I suppose.”

“May we speak to Joan alone?” asked Breen.

“Alone? We are
in loco parentis
, for now at least. I think we should be there.”

“I’d prefer to talk to her on her own. There will be a woman constable present.”

A pause. A small smile. “Well, I suppose so.” But she showed no sign of finishing her tea and leaving the room.

“Perhaps we might talk to you in your room,” Breen said to the nanny.

The girl nodded silently, looking at her feet, then stood.

“She’ll show you the way,” said Mrs. Broughton, leaning forward to open a silver cigarette box that lay next to the teapot. “Please don’t leave without seeing me first, officer.”

Up the stairs in gilded frames hung dark portraits and joyless, damp-looking landscapes. The opposite of Ezeoke’s paintings.

The girl lived at the top of the house in a room whose ceiling was so low Breen could not stand up straight. Around the walls were Sellotaped pictures of pop stars and models cut from magazines. Breen recognized only Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton. There was a red Dansette on the shelves and an untidy pile of singles on the floor. A crochet hook and some wool sat on a chair. A spider plant that was badly in need of water. A small chest of drawers with clothes half pulled out. A small brown leather suitcase, half packed.

“Going home then?” said Breen.

“So I hear,” said the girl. She walked to the wall and started carefully peeling off the photos.

“Mind if I sit down?”

The girl nodded slightly. There was only one chair, so Breen sat on it.

“I’ll take the bed then, shall I?” said Tozer. The metal bed squeaked as she sat down.

The girl’s eyes were red; she rubbed the sleeve of her woolen jacket across them to dry them. Tozer pulled a hanky out of her sleeve and offered it to her.

“I’m sorry. I meant to call the police. Only I was worried what she’d say.”

“Why?”

She said nothing, lips scrunched up, and reached for another photo. A pop group clustered round a drum kit that had
The Small Faces
painted on it.

“It’s OK. We won’t tell her,” said Tozer.

The girl paused in her packing. “’Cause Alasdair had to have a wee-wee in an alleyway, ’cause I was talking to some boys in the playground and didn’t take them to the toilet when we were still in the park,” she blurted. “And we were almost home but he was desperate.”

“Alasdair?”

“Their son. I look after him.”

“And Mrs. Broughton wouldn’t have liked the idea of her son…?”

The girl shook her head. “And now she’s calling me deceitful ’cause I didn’t tell her. And a liar. And she’s the one who said she was going to pay me four pounds a week and she only pays me three pounds ten.”

Tozer stood and put her arm around the girl. “If I were you, I’d be glad to be out of here.”

The girl shucked the constable’s arm off her shoulders, continued in her work. “They’ll tell the agency, and all. And I won’t get another job now.”

“There are other jobs,” said Tozer.

The girl nodded. “I hate this place anyway. London’s a dump. Everybody says it’s cool but it isn’t. This room smells and Mr. Broughton is a letch. He tries to see me when I’m in the shower.”

“Never,” said Tozer.

“He does. I’ve seen him. You can see out of the kids’ bedroom right into the bathroom if you leave the window open. And you have to if you’re having a shower because it gets all steamy. I’ve seen him in there, peeking through the curtains.”

“What? Peeping Tom?”

She nodded and giggled. “And he has wandering hands, know what I mean? When she isn’t looking.”

“That’s disgusting,” said Tozer.

The girl grinned, half embarrassed.

“What does he do?”

“Puts his hand on my bum.”

“What a perver.”

“I know.”

“A groper.”

The girl laughed out loud this time.

“You’re best off out of it.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me,” said Breen, interrupting. “What do you remember of when you first saw the body?”

“I didn’t see much. Just her face. She had creepy eyes.”

“Did you recognize her?”

She shook her head.

“The rest of her was covered by the mattress?”

“Yes. You could have only noticed her if you were crouching down. Or if you were a little boy.”

“Did you see anyone there?”

“No. No one.”

“So. Why did you run away?”

“I don’t know. I was scared. And I didn’t want to get caught up. I was late. Mrs. Broughton would have killed me if I was late. She doesn’t like me very much.”

“Unlike Mr. Broughton,” said Tozer.

The girl laughed again, losing a little shyness each time.

“Do you ever talk to the girls who wait over the road?” Breen said.

“Sometimes. They don’t like me much, though.”

“Why not?”

“They’re real cliquey. I’m not one of them, am I?”

“What do you mean?”

She bit the inside of her lip. “They’re a bunch of loonies, if you ask me. Some of them sleep outside at night. And the clothes. They look awful, if you ask me. They’re all super-rich but they wear these dirty clothes. They give me the creeps.”

“You ever seen the Beatles there yourself?” asked Tozer.

The girl shook her head. “Mrs. Broughton don’t like me going over there. She saw me there once and gave me a real talking-to. She complains to the council about them. Says they’re spoiling it all round here.”

Breen pulled out the photograph of the dead girl. “Could you look at it for me?”

She looked and shrugged. “No. Not seen her before. Not until Monday, anyway. Is she dead in the photo?” She stared at it, fascinated. Then she handed it back and continued putting away her belongings.

She now had a pile of all the photographs she had put on the walls. She laid them carefully inside the lid of her suitcase. Then she unplugged her Dansette and fastened the lid with a click. “How old was she?” she asked.

“Around sixteen, seventeen, we think.”

“You haven’t found out who she is, then?”

“No. Not yet. But we’re close.”

“Same age as me,” said the girl. “Scary, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Tozer. “It is.”

“Was she hurt bad? You know. Before she died.”

“I don’t think so,” said Tozer.

“I dreamed about her,” said the girl. “Couple of times.”

“Oh yes?” said Tozer.

“Yeah. Both times I’m looking at her and she wakes up. Only she’s still dead, like. In one she started singing.”

“Singing?” said Tozer.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to say about that.”

“It’s OK. It must have been a nasty shock.”

“It was a weird song. In a language I didn’t understand. And I think if only I can understand the words she’s singing I’ll be able to help her. But they’re all gobbledygook.”

“And what happened then?”

“I don’t know. I think I woke up.”

She turned and sat on her suitcase, trying to close it.

“Are you going to catch him? The one who did it to her?”

“You know what?” said Tozer. “I think we’ve got him already.”

“Wow. Who is it?”

“Tomorrow’s papers. Keep them peeled. I think we’ve got the bugger.”

“Cor,” said the girl.

“Enough,” said Breen.

They left her alone in her room, sitting on her bed.

“We have, though, haven’t we? Got him?”

On the way out they paused to say goodbye to Mrs. Broughton. She was still on the sofa, a pack of patience cards dealt out in front of her now on the coffee table. A novel by Alistair MacLean, spine cracked, beside the ashtray.

“What did she have to say for herself?”

“Not a lot,” said Breen.

“She never does,” said Mrs. Broughton.

“Right.”

“She’s a waste of time, that girl. Girls today are lazy. They just want to be models or film stars. They don’t understand the meaning of service. Will that be all?” She moved a card from one pile to the next. Breen turned to go.

“She did mention that your husband is a Peeping Tom, though,” announced Tozer.

“I beg your pardon?” The woman sat there on the sofa, her mouth an O of red lipstick.

“It’s not legal to spy on teenage girls when they’re in the shower, you know. You might want to tell him that. I wouldn’t say anything to the agency about the girl if I were you. She could make a complaint against you. That’s the kind of thing the papers would be much more interested in.”

Mrs. Broughton found her voice. “How dare you!”

Breen took Tozer’s arm and pulled her towards the door. “We’ll see ourselves out, Mrs. Broughton.”

Mrs. Broughton was standing now, patience cards knocked onto the floor, mouth opening and closing in fury.

“I mean. I mean, for God’s sake.”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Breen fumbled with the handset in the car. “Can you check with Marilyn to see if a search warrant has been issued yet?” he asked the controller.

“I mean,” Tozer said. “Why bloody not? Sometimes I think all of you must be perverts.”

He remembered last night, lying in bed, thinking about her.

“Scratch the surface and it’s bloody everywhere,” she said.

“There’s a difference between a harmless fumble and actually killing someone.”

“Says who?” said Tozer.

Breen opened his mouth to answer, but decided against it. His shoulder ached. He looked in the glove compartment for an aspirin.

“Still, I mean, we got Rider for it.”

“If the link to the dress is right, then yes,” said Breen.

She picked a piece of gum from a packet and started to roll it between finger and thumb. “What’s he like?”

“Shy. Buttoned-up. One of the old guard.”

“See? It’s them. The ones who never learned to let their hair down.” When the chewing gum was rolled tight she popped it into her mouth.

“There’s nothing wrong with not letting your hair down,” he said.

She chewed for a little bit, then said, “God. Do you believe that? I think if you don’t let yourself go once in a while, all that rage and fury just builds up inside you until you go off. Like an H-bomb.” She looked at her watch. It was only a quarter past twelve. “Can we head back there now?” she said.

Just then their call sign came on the radio. Delta One Five. Breen picked up the handset. “That you, Paddy Breen?” said the voice. “Better get down to the nick. Jones has just pulled in your suspect.”

“Damn.”

As always, the traffic was thick.

If he did it by the book, Jones would wait for them to start the questioning, but he didn’t trust Jones to do it by the book. “Stick the siren on,” he said.

“Yippie-ay-yay,” she said.

She drove south, diving between traffic. He banged sideways against the door as she looped round a roundabout. When he tried to reach out to steady himself with his bad arm, pain flooded through it. “Slow down.”

“Always wanted to do the siren,” she shouted back.