The Kings of London (7 page)

‘And do you have a photograph?’

‘Tarpey has one for you. Is that all? I need to get on with my work now.’ He looked as if he were on the verge of tears. ‘And you will keep us informed?’

‘Naturally, sir,’ said Bailey, standing.

‘Thank you.’

Tarpey stood too. He pulled two business cards from his suit pocket, handing one to each of them. Oliver Tarpey. A phone number and an address in Hampstead.

‘Mr Pugh asked me to offer my full assistance,’ he said to Breen, as they walked through the empty tables to the front of the restaurant.

‘In what capacity?’

‘I’m a friend. And Party member. I have done my best to assist Rhodri since he first stood for election back home.’

Breen nodded. ‘What would be useful at this stage is a list of contacts,’ he said. ‘His doctor. Any associates at all. Mr Pugh’s belongings were destroyed in the fire. We don’t have a lot to go on.’

‘Friends are not so easy,’ said Tarpey. ‘He had his own set.’

‘You must have some idea.’

Tarpey smiled. ‘We’re very eager to help, of course. I will do what I can.’

‘Of course,’ said Breen. ‘In a case like this, where we don’t know all the facts, we usually work with the newspapers and put out requests for friends and acquaintances to come forward.’

Bailey hovered by the door, a short distance away.

‘I understand your methods. But I think it’s best to keep the fuss to a minimum right now, as the minister suggested. Don’t you think?’ said Tarpey.

‘The first days after a murder are crucial. It’s important to talk to as many people as we can as soon as we are able.’

‘I’m sure that’s what you will be doing. However, talking to the papers would not be in the minister’s interest. Or the government’s.’

‘And what about Mr Francis Pugh’s interest?’

‘Frankie is dead,’ said Tarpey. ‘He doesn’t really have interests, per se.’

Breen paused. ‘He is a minister’s son. There will be speculation about his death even if we don’t talk to the newspapers.’

‘You’re right, of course. But please leave us to deal with that, Sergeant. Mr Pugh has some influence there.’ Tarpey sucked on his lower lip. He lowered his voice. ‘There’s one acquaintance of Mr Pugh junior that his father is unlikely to be aware of. If I was to put you in touch with her, I would expect you to respect her privacy.’

Breen looked down at his shoes. Then he looked up again and said, ‘Yes, of course.’

‘What if there were some minor illegality involved? I’d want an assurance that you would not act on it.’

‘It depends how minor,’ said Breen.

‘Without that assurance I can’t do this,’ said Tarpey quietly.

‘You know, of course, that it’s an offence to withhold evidence.’

Bailey was still waiting, checking his watch impatiently. ‘Oh come, come,’ said Tarpey. ‘The Home Office withholds evidence all the time. Imagine the trouble if they didn’t. But I’m just asking you as a favour. You’ll understand why when you meet her.’

‘OK,’ said Breen.

Tarpey opened his briefcase and pulled out two folded sheets of paper and an envelope. The envelope contained a photograph of
Francis Pugh. A studio portrait of a handsome fresh-faced young man, hair uncombed, scowling slightly, as if he had not wanted his photograph taken at all.

‘That’s a private photograph. From the family. Not for public consumption.’

Breen unfolded the first piece of paper. The name and addresses of Francis Pugh’s bank, which Breen already knew from the papers he’d picked up at the house, his doctor and his solicitor.

The second piece had a woman’s name and address typed on it.

‘Just one name?’

‘Mr Pugh had lots of girlfriends. I’m sure you know that already. I have no idea who they were. The only time I was ever introduced to one was when he got one of them into trouble. He asked me to help her. I did. That’s her name.’

‘Did you tell his father about this?’

Tarpey shook his head. ‘No. Rhodri Pugh is a very busy man. He had a great deal to worry about without adding Frankie’s misdemeanours to the pile. I do my best to keep that kind of fuss away from him.’

‘An abortion?’

Again, Tarpey nodded.

‘You were a party to an illegal medical procedure?’

‘I’m a religious man, Mr Breen. It was not work that I enjoyed. However, I take my job extremely seriously. I’m sure you do too. But Mr Pugh’s reputation is important to the work that must be done.’

Bailey called from the door, ‘Will you make your own way back, Breen, or do you want to come in the car?’

‘One minute, sir,’ said Breen.

‘Francis contacted me just the once. In January this year before the new abortion law came into being. On a personal level, I don’t particularly like our government making abortion legal. But we are a progressive government. I understand the reasons. And at least Frankie no longer had any reason to ask me to arrange anything like this with
any of his other women. I wouldn’t be surprised if there had been more. He slept around.’

Breen had been fixed on Tarpey’s Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he spoke. He said, ‘You disapprove of abortion, but you were happy to arrange it for Mr Pugh?’

‘I never said I was happy,’ said Tarpey. ‘I have told her to expect a call from you. I have also assured her she will be treated with tact.’

‘Thanks for your cooperation.’

‘And you for yours,’ replied Tarpey, holding out his hand, to shake.

The driver was fast asleep when they got back to the car. Bailey had to shake him by the shoulder to wake him.

‘Where to now, guv?’ he asked, blinking.

‘Back to the station.’ Bailey was not the sort of policeman to ever use the word ‘nick’.

The traffic had thickened. They sat without moving on Old Portland Street for ten minutes. Breen turned to Bailey. ‘Can I ask, sir, why is this investigation not being carried out by Scotland Yard?’

‘Rhodri Pugh requested that this be treated like any other murder,’ said Bailey. ‘I expect it is because he is a socialist,’ he added, as if this were explanation enough.

‘And because he wants to keep everything quiet?’

‘He’s a minister. That’s understandable.’

‘He wasn’t offering his cooperation at all. He just wanted to make sure we keep it out of the papers.’

‘Enough, Sergeant,’ said Bailey wearily. ‘I am sure Mr Pugh is just as keen as finding out who killed his son as you are. Please bear in mind, he is a man of considerable importance. We are fortunate that the Home Secretary is a strong supporter of the police force. I am not a socialist myself, but the one thing I admire about them is that for all their talk of revolution, when push comes to shove, they understand the need for the rule of law. We should do our utmost to ensure his department is not inconvenienced by any of this.’

Breen looked out of the window. A motorbike and sidecar had broken down in the middle of the oncoming traffic and cars were trying to squeeze past it. ‘I felt a little like a schoolboy called to the headmaster’s study,’ he said.

‘You have never understood the way things are done, Paddy. If you don’t understand that, all the good intentions in the world are worth nothing.’

The car pulled up finally at the back of the police station. Bailey got out. ‘Do as he says, please. Give Rhodri Pugh’s assistant regular updates on the case.’

‘Even though he’s probably getting them already from his boss’s department?’

But Bailey didn’t appear to hear. He was already halfway into the building.

The police surgeon, Wellington, was in a foul mood.

‘How in buggering blasted hell can I be expected to work like this?’

They were redecorating his office. A man in blue overalls was painting the wall behind him, cigarette perched on his lip.

‘Not my fault,’ said the painter.

Wellington wore a dark worsted waistcoat and a bright-yellow cravat and smoked Dunhill Mixture in a briar pipe. A fan of light opera, he had once invited Breen to come and see him perform in
The Mikado
with his amateur operatic society in Guildford. Breen had used his sick father as an excuse to miss the second act.

‘I was perfectly happy with this office the way it was. This obsession with painting everywhere…’ But the painter ignored him, dipping his brush into the off-white and returning again to the wall. ‘Why have you brought that woman with you?’ he said, even though Tozer was only a few feet away. ‘There’s no reason for a woman to be on this murder investigation. Mind you, I seem to remember it’s you who now habitually throws up when you see dead bodies, Breen.’

‘Tell us about the body that was recovered from Marlborough Place. Is it here?’

‘The body’s been sent to the Home Office pathologist. Burnt to buggery, unfortunately. I had a good root around though.’

‘And? Could you still see the mutilations?’

‘Fascinating.’ Wellington grinned. ‘All
post mortem
, far as I could see. Hacked about like nobody’s business. I don’t suppose they found a bucket of blood anywhere?’

‘Blood?’

‘Whoever killed him strung him up by his ankles and bled him.’

‘Like a pig,’ said Tozer again.

‘Exactly.’

‘Why, do you think?’

‘I’ll get to that.’

‘But after he was killed, not before?’ Tozer persisted.

‘Precisely. Not terribly effective after the heart’s stopped, but there must have been quite a lot of blood all the same.’

‘So how was he killed?’

Wellington smiled. ‘Hard to say. Skull was all smashed in but that might have been the house collapsing. There were signs of pulmonary oedema in the lungs, apparently,’ he said. ‘And an eyeball survived. It was moderately bloodshot. I’d guess suffocation. But that’s just a guess. See what the pathologist says.’

Tozer said, ‘You think he was tortured?’

Wellington leaned across the desk and said, ‘Paddy, old chum. Are you the investigating officer on this case, or is this bloody woman in charge?’

‘Sorry,’ said Tozer.

‘Like I said, the skin wounds on the legs and arms are
post mortem
, as were the incisions on the wrists and neck, so it’s hard to know if it was torture or not.’

Breen asked, ‘Had he been tied up?’

Wellington said, ‘You’ll have to wait for the pathology investigation. Bit of a corker, this one. Never really see this sort of thing. Looks like somebody got a kick from carving him up after he was dead, though we can’t be totally sure yet that all the wounds were
post mortem
.’

Tozer said, ‘So you think this was some loony?’

‘I would have thought so. Not even the dear old Kray gang do this kind of thing. Whoever it was had a whale of a time with the poor bugger.’

‘What about the knife?’ asked Breen. ‘The one they used to remove his skin.’

‘All in good time. Wait for the analysis. It was sharp, that’s for sure.’

Tozer delved in her handbag and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Want one?’ she asked, offering them round.

‘Horrible things,’ said Wellington. Breen shook his head. The painter, though, placed his brush across the top of his paint kettle, took one from her and stuck it behind behind his ear for later. ‘Ta.’

Wellington said, ‘Did I hear that you’re leaving the police, young lady? What a terrible loss to the service.’

Breen was thinking about the skin. After digging out the body, policemen had been told to search through the bricks for any trace of any missing body parts. Nothing had been found. ‘Why would someone steal skin?’ he asked.

‘And the blood,’ said Tozer.

‘There’s an interesting case come in recently from America,’ said Wellington. ‘A man who stole the skin from people he killed to make himself a bodysuit from the parts of dead women. He dug some up from the graveyard and when he didn’t have enough he killed a few more. I can show you photographs, if you like. They’re quite something.’

‘No thank you,’ said Breen.

‘Do you think that’s what’s going on here?’ asked Tozer.

‘We’re obsessed with copying every other silly American fashion,’ said Wellington. ‘Like pizza restaurants. God save us. Nothing would surprise me.’

Crossing Marylebone Road, Tozer said, ‘He gets his kicks from all that, doesn’t he?’

‘He’s just doing his job.’

She walked ahead, dodging a taxi which blared its horn.

‘Wish Bailey would let us put a radio on. It’s so bloody quiet in here,’ complained Marilyn. ‘It’s like a morgue.’

‘Minus prat in the cravat,’ muttered Tozer.

‘For God’s sake,’ said Breen.

It was true. Breen had never known the office like this. There were two empty desks now. It wasn’t just Prosser. Sergeant Carmichael had gone to the Drug Squad in Scotland Yard too. Breen missed him. They had been school friends together; Breen had followed him into the police, then into CID. The Drug Squad was still recruiting. Carmichael wanted Breen to follow him into it. But they were a loud team, brash and confident. Always getting in the papers. Not only were they fighting a whole new type of criminal, but the ones they were arresting were usually far more glamorous than the usual CID fare. Breen felt more at home where he was.

He unfolded a piece of paper and called the number on it. A young woman answered. ‘The Hemmings residence.’ A housemaid’s voice.

When Mrs Hemmings came to the phone, Breen said, ‘Oliver Tarpey gave me your number.’

‘I’ve been expecting your call.’

‘Could I come and speak to you?’

The woman lowered her voice, ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be… convenient.’ A deep voice. Public school. Posh. Not the sort for the son of a working-class Labour man to be hanging around with. They arranged to meet on Wednesday in Battersea Park.

Jones crossed the office and put a list of all the known and convicted burglars in the NW8 area on Breen’s desk. The two of them sat, going through them.

Jones said, ‘Thing is, we don’t really know if anything was stolen, even. If we knew that, we might be able to narrow it down a bit. What about other murders? Anything like this?’

Two burnt men. Breen thought about the body in the fire: the man who had died the night his father went into hospital. But that was different. He had been drunk. The fire had killed him. This man was dead before someone had tried to obliterate the evidence.

Breen looked up from the list and said, ‘Are you coming to Bailey’s drinks tomorrow?’

‘Do I have to?’ said Jones.

‘Give him a break. He’ll be retiring soon.’

‘Not soon enough,’ said Jones.

‘You’ll have a baby any sec,’ said Tozer. ‘Take the chance to live it up while you can.’

Breen said, ‘When is it due, Jones?’

Jones blushed. ‘May. So the wife tells me.’

‘So come on. You won’t be able to go out so much, after.’

‘Who said having a baby’s going to stop me?’ said Jones with a grin. ‘Never stopped my dad.’

‘Boozer, was he?’

‘Is,’ said Jones. ‘Bloody alky, more or less.’

‘Language,’ said Marilyn.

‘Gin. Cider. Anything. He’d spend his life in the boozer if they didn’t shut.’ And Breen noticed how he started methodically flicking his biro in the air when he started to talk about his father.

Breen said, ‘You know we saw Prosser’s girl on Saturday. You’re friends with her, aren’t you?’

‘Shirley? Don’t see much of her since she ran out on Prosser.’

‘Do you have her address?’

The biro went up a few more times before he asked, ‘What do you want that for?’

Breen looked back down at the list. ‘I just thought I should see if she’s doing all right.’

Jones said, ‘You didn’t even like Prosser.’

‘Just wanted to know she was OK, that’s all.’

Jones paused, then said, ‘A flat above a record shop on Edgware Road. That’s where she went when she left him. Maybe I should come too?’

‘It’s all right,’ said Breen. ‘Any idea what it was called?’

‘Something daft. I don’t know.’

‘Jumbo Records,’ said Tozer.

‘That’s it,’ said Jones. ‘Sells a load of jigaboo music. Not real jazz or anything.’

Tozer was looking at Breen with a puzzled expression, but she didn’t say anything.

The next morning he took the picture off his wall, wrapped it, tucked it under his arm, and carried it on the bus back to the police station.

It was Tuesday. The Bond Street art galleries would be open. With Tozer, he caught the bus to Piccadilly Circus and walked down Piccadilly, reassuringly plain in the drizzle. A street of shops selling Norfolk jackets, bowler hats and umbrellas. Grey stone facades and tea at Fortnum’s.

‘Are you going to Bailey’s drinks tonight?’ he asked her.

‘Suppose,’ she said. ‘You want me to?’

‘It’s not up to me,’ said Breen. ‘Is it?’

The first couple of galleries they went into sold oil paintings of horses and pastoral landscapes. ‘Modern nonsense,’ a lady in pearls said after a single glance in the first one they visited. A man in a yellow waistcoat in the second gallery said, ‘Try that place in Mason’s Yard. Can’t remember its name. It’s more their kind of thing. If it’s still going.’

‘How can anyone afford this stuff?’ said Tozer. ‘Those prices are loopy.’

Mason’s Yard was a couple of streets away. The gallery was called Indica, according to the big sign over the window, but it seemed empty. A young woman with dirty blonde hair came to the door and said, ‘Who are you?’

‘Is this an art gallery?’

‘Who are you?’

‘We’re police,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘Is this a raid? Only there’s nothing left here any more. The gallery’s closed.’ She wore a suede miniskirt and large patent leather boots.

‘I’ve only come to ask about a picture.’ Breen took the print out of the brown paper he’d been carrying it in and held it up towards her.

The young woman frowned. She looked from Tozer to Breen. ‘What about it?’

‘Do you recognise it?’

‘Bridget Riley, of course. Is it stolen?’

He examined the small etched signature. He hadn’t been able to make the name out before, but she was right. He should have recognised it. She was famous for those black-and-white geometric paintings that made you dizzy to look at.

‘Who in their right mind would nick a Bridget Riley, anyway? Op Art is finished,’ she said. ‘It’s inarticulate.’

‘We just want to know who might have sold it,’ said Breen.

‘Ask Bob Fraser,’ she said. ‘He used to sell stuff like that. Not any more.’

‘Who?’

‘Robert Fraser Gallery. Only he doesn’t really like the police much.’

‘Why not?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you actually read the papers? Because a bunch of your lot busted him for drugs last year. There was a fuss.’

‘What sort of fuss?’

‘He went to jail. Clink. Loved it, apparently.’

‘Oh,’ said Tozer. ‘
That
Robert Fraser.’

The Robert Fraser Gallery was just off Grosvenor Square, close by. They walked there, but it was empty as well; no art visible through the windows. Breen rang the bell for a few minutes, but nobody answered.

Striding back up towards Piccadilly, Tozer said, ‘You fancied her, didn’t you?’

‘Who?’

‘That girl who told you about the painting.’

Breen said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Posh girl. Nice hair. I saw you peeking at her legs. Not surprised really. She was very pretty.’

‘I was not looking at her legs,’ said Breen. ‘I was observing.’

‘Observing,’ said Tozer.

‘It’s my job. Why? You jealous?’

‘God sake,’ she said. ‘Why would I be jealous?’

Breen put the collar up on his raincoat and walked faster.

Back in the office, Breen was drawing on a large sheet he had made by sticking two pieces of typing paper together.

‘What is it?’ asked Jones.

‘It’s a graph.’

‘A graph?’ He sniggered.

‘I hated maths,’ said Tozer, holding up a powder compact in one hand and a stick of lipstick in the other. ‘I was always rubbish at it at school.’

‘Me too,’ said Jones. He stared at Tozer trying to put lipstick on. ‘You don’t need maths anymore, anyway. They’re going to make calculators you can do it all on, so why bother?’ He turned back to Breen. ‘Why do girls always make faces when they’re putting on make-up?’

‘You try doing it without,’ said Tozer, holding the lipstick towards him.

‘Bog off,’ he said, recoiling. ‘You’re not supposed to wear lipstick on duty. ‘’Sides, I don’t think you should be allowed to do that in the CID room, anyway.’

‘You don’t have to look,’ said Tozer.

Breen had bought a packet of ten coloured crayons from W.H. Smith’s and now he took the sheets of paper and placed them on the floor. With a ruler he started drawing lines, half an inch apart.

‘Did you know your tongue sticks out when you concentrate?’ asked Tozer.

When he’d finished drawing the grid, Breen started plotting points on the big sheet of paper using the crayons.

Jones said, ‘What’s it supposed to show?’

Francis Pugh had banked at Lloyds in Holborn Circus. Breen had
requested all Pugh’s bank statements, filling in the gaps. He had spent the afternoon looking at them, breaking the payments down into different categories. Now he was plotting his notes onto the graph.

Tozer said, ‘Are you going to be long? Jonesy and I can see you in the pub if you like?’

‘Has Bailey gone already?’ said Jones. ‘Don’t want to miss the free round.’

Breen didn’t answer. He was concentrating on joining the small green crosses he had drawn on the paper. The floor was old and uneven. The worn grain of the wood showed through in the unevenness of his lines.

‘Free round?’ said Tozer.