She's Leaving Home (20 page)

T
hree in the morning, Tuesday night, the only customer in Joe’s All Night Bagel Shop was listening to the music Joe was playing on his gramophone. Tonight he was playing jazz.

“You should find another job,” said Joe. “Something with a night shift.”

“You’re just trying to get someone to replace your daughter now she’s had a baby.” Breen read a copy of yesterday’s
Times
that someone had left on the counter. It was full of the American election.

Joe took a pull from his tiny rolled-up cigarette and coughed. “You couldn’t even wash up. I wouldn’t let you in a million miles of my kitchen anyway. You’d turn the milk sour.”

“My dad was always telling me to get another job.”

“It’s best left to the stupid ones. The ones who have no imagination.”

“Is that a compliment?”

Joe snarled. “Go home to bed. You’ve got to be up in four hours to go to work.”

The bell over the door rang and a policeman came in. Breen recognized him from several nights before, and he said exactly the same thing: “Turn that racket down.”

“Talk of the devil,” said Joe, taking the needle off the record.

He took an aluminum teapot off the shelf and spooned tea leaves into it.

“Can I have the key to your bathroom, mate?” asked the constable. Joe took it off a nail by the till and handed it to the policeman.

Breen turned over a page with the headline “Vietnam may lose Hubert Humphrey the Presidency”; the next announced, “Nigeria’s General Gowon says ‘Final Offensive’ Will Be Decisive.” He read the article; it was about the Biafran war. It said the general had been trained at Sandhurst. His Federal troops had encircled Biafra, cutting the secessionist state off from the sea. The Biafran advance on the Nigerian capital had been turned back. Instead, the rebel troops had been pushed back inside their own borders. The journalist seemed to think it would all be over in a matter of weeks. “You know anything about this Biafran war, Joe?” he said.

“Since when have you been interested in foreign affairs?”

“I met a Biafran man. A doctor.”

“Very educated, the Biafrans. They call themselves the Jews of Africa. Though I’m not sure having a persecution complex is enough to make you the Chosen People.”

“The man I met thinks they will win the war. This article here says they don’t have a chance and that it will all be over in weeks.”

“Which do you believe?”

“The newspaper, I suppose.”

“There will always be people who say a war will be over by Christmas. We could have stopped it all if we’d wanted to. What happened to your sidekick?” Joe asked Breen.

“Sidekick?”

“That girl.”

“Helen? She’s been assigned to another murder squad.”

Breen had not seen her since they had come back to London. All the previous week she had been at Harrow Road Station, working with Sergeant Prosser; an incident room had been set up there to deal with a domestic murder in Kensal Town. She had not called him.

The copper came out of the bathroom and sat at the far end of the counter. “Got any biscuits to go with that?”

“What happened to that case you were on with her?”

“You’re very conversational tonight, Joe.” Breen closed the paper and folded it.

“My daughter said I should try and be more friendly to our customers.”

“Ha.”

“I can be friendly, you know.”

“It’s possible that the murderer is already dead.”

“You should be happy then instead of sitting there with a face ache.”

“Should I?”

“You liked her, didn’t you?”

“Who?”

“The copper girl.”

Breen shrugged.

Joe looked at him. “She seemed nice to me.”

“You have her, then. You could do with a woman in here.”

Breen put on his coat.

Joe tutted. “Expect she’d had enough of you, anyway.”

“Is all this part of your charm offensive?”

“Bugger off home to bed, Paddy. You’re like a stone in a shoe.”

The night was cold, the pavement slippery from dead leaves. He walked back slowly, let himself in and switched on the light. His two-bedroom flat seemed unlived in, despite the mess. The living-room floor was particularly bad now, the floor covered with pieces of paper. He missed the cozy domestic muddle of the Tozers’ house. The women’s things he had never lived with. Lace doilies on shelves. Pictures chosen simply because they were nice. Dried flowers.

He looked at all the mess of paper. The single sheets had turned into piles around the room. Laid out. Organized. Arranged. Rearranged. Some words underlined. Others crossed out. Maps. Lists. Questions. Photographs of Morwenna Sullivan, alive and dead. A drawing he’d made of Alexandra Tozer in her John Lennon hat. Sometimes he moved them deliberately, like a chess player moving his pieces. Other times he shifted a pile randomly to see if it would make any sense in a different place in the room.

Breen tiptoed carefully through the paper and took his place in the chair, surveying his work. He wondered if he should call Constable Tozer tomorrow. A couple of times in the last week he had put his hand on the receiver to call Harrow Road and ask to speak to her, but he hadn’t dialed the number. He wasn’t sure what he’d say.

From where he sat now, the sheets of paper radiated outwards in circles. On the pile straight in front of the chair was one titled “Major Sullivan.” There was an empty space between that and another single sheet that said: “Morwenna Sullivan. Killed 13 October.” He stared at the empty floor space as if waiting for it to speak to him.

“Major Sullivan comes to London, kills his daughter. You have evidence to prove he was here around the time she died.”

“Before.”

“Around. His wife killed him because he killed her daughter. She killed herself because she killed her husband. Three cases solved. You just won the treble.”

They were sitting around Carmichael’s desk. Marilyn had said she was on strike, so Jones had lost the toss and had to go out to buy the digestives.

“But what’s his motive?”

Carmichael went on, “Like I said, you don’t need one. He’s dead. We only need to prove motive if we’re prosecuting them for murder. Which we’re not on account of you can’t prosecute a dead murderer.
Finito
.
Va bene
.”

“Aren’t you even slightly curious about why he killed her? I mean, what had she done that was so bad that it made him want to strangle her?”

“I’m curious about things that matter.”

“Who’s stolen my stapler?” said Prosser.

“You should be glad. A man who almost certainly killed his daughter is dead.”

“So what did I say that made her turn round and kill him?”

“Who gives a stick? She’s dead too. Listen. Of course I’m curious. I’m also curious about what Marilyn looks like without her jumper on, but it doesn’t keep me awake at night. Some things don’t bear thinking about.”

“It keeps Jones awake at night,” said Prosser.

Marilyn pretended not to hear.

“You’re not going to get on if you get bogged down in cases like that. We’ve got work to get on with and it doesn’t get done by thinking about stuff that doesn’t matter.”

“You? Work?” said Prosser. “Pull the other one.”

Prosser whistled the first four notes to
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
.

Jones, arriving with the digestives, chimed in with an imitation guitar. “Wah wah wah.” Prosser pointed a finger at Jones and pretended to shoot him, then replaced his finger in the imaginary holster.

“I’ve promised myself I’ll just have one,” said Marilyn. “I’m on a diet.”

“You’re not having none,” said Carmichael. “You didn’t go and get them.”

“You never go and get them and that don’t stop you scoffing half the packet.”

“I never.”

“You do.”

“I do not.”

“Shut up,” said Breen. “Please.”

Everybody looked at him. He looked around, all of them staring at him. As calmly as he could, Breen stood up and took his coat off the hook.

“Where are you going?”

“Out,” he said.

“Paddy? You OK?”

“Where is he going?” said Bailey, emerging from his office.

Nobody answered him.

“Biscuit, sir?” said Marilyn, holding out the packet.

There was a newspaper shop on the corner of Portman Square. Breen went in to buy a new notebook. He had never gone through so many. His office drawers were stuffed full of them.

A Number 13 bus to Golders Green rounded the corner just as he was coming out, so he ran after it and caught it at the Great Portland Street stop, flashing his warrant card to the conductor as he boarded. Struggling to get it back into his pocket as he lowered himself onto his seat, he almost lost his balance and ended up in the lap of a plump woman with a feather hat.

He rode the bus up until St. John’s Wood station and then got out and walked west to Abbey Road and then down to Cora Mansions.

He had been away a week, but the flats looked much the same. Miss Shankley was pegging out her washing on her rear balcony. She looked down at him.

“You got him then? And he’s dead now, isn’t he? So what are you still doing around here, then?”

He looked around him at the London skyline of chimney tops and cranes. “Just tying up a few loose ends.”

“Loose ends?”

“Yes.” He pulled out the photograph of the major, standing next to his wife. “Did you ever see him around here?”

“He the man who did it? Quite a handsome man, wasn’t he, really?”

“Would you recognize him if you’d seen him?”

“I don’t think I’ve seen him before. What sort of man kills his own child? You can’t rely on anything anymore. The world is full of all sorts.” She nodded her head towards a figure on the stairs.

At the end of the walkway he turned and saw Mr. Rider approaching, a small briefcase in hand. Seeing Miss Shankley and Breen talking about him, he hurried on away.

“Mr. Rider?” called Breen after him.

He caught up with him on the fourth-floor walkway.

“What do you want now?” he said.

“I just want to see if you recognize this man.”

“They all talk about me, you know.”

Breen took out the photograph of the major.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” said Mr. Rider. “I read it in the papers.”

“Yes.”

“Lucky bugger.”

“But you don’t recognize him?”

“People are laughing at me. Sniggering like schoolchildren behind their backs.”

“Do you recognize him?”

“No. Now please leave me alone.”

The rest of the afternoon Breen spent buttonholing anyone on the streets. People shook heads. Tutted. Nobody recognized the major.

The next day at University College Hospital, Prosser and Breen watched as Wellington prodded charred flesh.

“Any other clues?” asked Breen.

“He’s still dead, I can tell you that.”

Skin on the torso had been roasted till it was black, tightening around his body to become almost shiny. Extremities had been burned clean away. Lipless, his teeth seemed unnaturally white. His left arm and other bones sat in a pile at the other end of the slab. The dead girl, Morwenna Sullivan, would be taken away to be cremated soon, thought Breen. No friends or relatives had come forward to reclaim her body. The man in the fire was the same; nobody had noticed he was missing either.

“I’m not sure what else you want me to find, Paddy.”

“I was just thinking maybe he was worth a second look.”

“This is pointless, Paddy,” said Prosser. “Wellington’s got better things to do.”

“Not much else to go on. The fire must have been hot. These bones”—Wellington pointed to his exposed upper arm—“where they were exposed by burning, have fractured in the heat. Are you sure you don’t need a bowl, Paddy?”

“No. I’m OK.”

“Apparently you had a little vacation with a lady officer.”

Prosser snorted.

“I wouldn’t call it a vacation, exactly.”

“Quite the talk of the station. Have you seen much of her since you’ve been back?”

“Can we just hurry it up?”

“Whatever you say.” The pathologist picked up a fragment of bone. “I can’t find any evidence of trauma that would indicate that he was killed first and put in the fire second. Not that he’s exactly a perfect specimen.”

“Too damaged by the fire to be sure?”

“Yes. But then we found this melted into the skin of his lower abdomen.” He held up a twisted bottle, melted in the heat; a swirl of opaque glass, shattered at the neck, fused with pieces of ash and stone.

“He’s a no-fixter, right, most like?” said Prosser.

“My guess is he was probably roaring. Covered himself in newspaper in there to keep warm. And it did keep him warm, after a fashion. There was a can of lighter fuel on the floor too. He’d probably squirted it at the fire to get it going.”

“What about the clothes?”

“Ah yes. Oxides of calcium and silicon. Lots below the knee.”

“What’s that?”

“Concrete dust to you. His trousers were thick with it.”

“Builder maybe?”

“I’d say so.”

“Height?”

“Hard to be exact. Five foot six to five foot eight, I’d say,” said Wellington. “He’s in bits. It’ll take a while.”

“Age?”

“Thirties. Maybe twenties. What are you going to ask next? Eye color?”

The man had no eyes left.

“Not much to go on, Dr. Wellington?” said Prosser.

“No.”

“Breen’s probably wasting his time on this one. What you reckon?”

“That’s your call, Sergeant.”

“Poor bastard,” said Prosser. “It shouldn’t happen to anyone, should it?”

“Amen,” said Wellington.

They left Wellington putting the pieces of the man back into plastic bags. As they walked along the dark corridor to the stairs, Prosser said, “Don’t get me wrong, I respect you not giving up on this one.”

“And?” said Breen.

Prosser put his hands in his pockets. “Don’t be like that, Paddy. I’m just offering a word of advice. I’ve been around. You know. I’ve been on D longer than you. I’m a survivor. I know the way things work. Don’t waste your effort on jobs that nobody’s going to thank you for.”