by William Shaw
Like his brother-in-law, he probably imagined policemen as people you only called on when someone had stolen your antiques.
Breen resisted the urge to tell him that he was calling because his sister’s husband had been sleeping with a prostitute who had been murdered; instead, he just said, ‘Nothing major. Just routine. One of those boring things we policemen have to do.’
‘Ronnie’s not in any bother, is he?’
‘Oh no. I just need to confirm that he was at your mother’s last weekend.’
‘Yes he was. What is this about?’ People always wanted to know. It was natural curiosity.
‘Don’t worry; it’s just paperwork. It’s all we ever do, these days. We’re having to check the details of several people simply to rule them out. You were with him from Thursday night?’
‘As a matter of fact, I was.’
‘And you travelled together to…’
‘The Cotswolds. My mother’s house.’
Breen swivelled his chair around to face the wall behind him. ‘And he was at home all Thursday night, and at your mother’s house for the entire weekend?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Is that it?’
‘I’ll need you to sign a statement to that effect. I’ll send a man round. That’s all right, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
Breen replaced the phone and phoned the forensics team at Scotland Yard.
‘Harewood Avenue?’ said the man. ‘We finished there yesterday.’
Breen blinked. ‘Why didn’t you let me know?’
‘Sorry, mate.’
Breen put down the receiver. The brightness of the morning seemed to have vanished. Before he left the room, he peered through the glass door into Creamer’s office. The inspector was still talking on the phone to someone, a worried frown on his shiny round face. He wondered if it was McPhail on the other end of the line.
Breen reached Harewood Avenue a little before eleven. Now that the forensic team had left, there was no longer a policeman stationed on the front door.
Breen had no key yet. The forensics team were supposed to have passed it on, so he rang the doorbell until Haas the caretaker appeared. ‘Welcome, welcome,’ the man said, and beckoned him in with an exaggerated swing of the arm. ‘In and out. In and out. I thought I had got my house back, but I suppose you also want to look upstairs again.’
‘The lift fixed yet?’ asked Breen.
Haas shook his head. ‘Your policemen took away the Elektromotor. How can it work?’
Breen trudged up the stairs back up to Bobienski’s flat.
At the second-floor landing, Breen paused and asked, ‘What time did the other policemen leave?’
‘Which other policemen?’
‘The science team from Scotland Yard.’
‘About four yesterday. The other ones have just gone.’
Breen put his foot on the first step of the next run and then stopped. ‘The other ones?’
Haas paused. ‘Maybe half an hour since. Other ones. I don’t ask. They had a card. Like your one.’
Breen climbed faster now. Haas took his time, ascending slowly.
‘Were they in uniform? Or like me?’
‘Like you,’ said Haas, following up the stairs, panting slightly. ‘Only not so much talking talking talking all the time.’
‘They came after the others had gone?’
‘Yes yes. This morning. Early.’
‘Did you recognise them? Had they been here before?’
‘I don’t know. So many people coming in and out, in and out.’
The caretaker stood outside Bobienski’s flat, with his large bundle of keys, searching for the right one, hands trembling gently. When he eventually found it and pushed open the door, the first thing he said was, ‘Scheisse.’
Feathers swirled into the air, disturbed by the draught. Fine dust caught the sunlight. The floor was littered with horsehair, tugged out of sofas and chairs. Pillows had been emptied. The pink curtains had been shredded, their linings slit open. Scattered across the carpet were the contents of the desk’s drawers – pens, ink, old magazines.
Everything had been searched. The Bakelite covers had been unscrewed from electrical sockets; the screws lay strewn next to them.
Somebody had methodically, thoroughly, gone through the rooms, looking for something.
‘Your people, they make a fucking mess,’ said Haas, looking around.
Breen said nothing. Creamer’s pride would be stung because whoever had done this had not even bothered telling anyone at D Division CID. His, too, he realised, looking at the armchair, tossed onto its side, hessian torn off the base.
The large teddy bear sat on the floor, flock guts spilling out of it onto the carpet.
SEVENTEEN
In the bathroom, Haas wrung his hands. ‘Are you paying for this?’
The hardboard panel at the side of the bath had been torn off, exposing the dusty space underneath.
‘There was no need. If they told me what they wanted, I would have found my tools. Unnötig, all this destruction. They are Schläger. Like thugs.’
Breen looked at him. The man’s arms were trembling gently. He would have seen things like this before, thought Breen, in Austria.
In Lena Bobienski’s small bedroom, the rug had been moved and a floorboard taken up. Under it was a small metal tin, also open.
‘Anything there?’
‘Empty,’ said Breen.
Breen had hoped to be here first. The flat had already been cleaned once by Mrs Caulk, but now everything had been disturbed a second time. Whoever it was had beaten them to it.
Breen examined the floorboard. The nails had been removed to make the wood easy to lift. Mint was right. It had been a hiding place; but what had Bobienski kept here?
‘Did you know this was here?’
‘No no.’
‘The people who did this. Did they leave a card?’ asked Breen. ‘Anything to tell you which department they were in?’
‘No,’ said Haas.
‘You just left them the key and let them get on with it?’
‘That’s what they said for me to do. I don’t interfere.’
‘So what were they looking for?’ Breen looked at the man. People only tore the place apart this way if they were searching for something specific.
‘Why would I know that?’
They would be hunting for exactly what Breen had hoped to find, he supposed. A list of names, perhaps. He sat down onto the edge of Lena Bobienski’s small, spartan single bed. The mattress had been sliced diagonally from top to bottom.
‘What happens when you find what you’re looking for?’ said Breen.
‘Why are you asking me?’ Haas looked wary.
‘Look around. If you’ve found it, why would you carry on looking?’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You mean… they didn’t find it? Whatever it is they were looking for?’
‘Maybe,’ said Breen. ‘Or maybe they weren’t actually looking for it as much as making sure it wasn’t here.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘No. Neither do I,’ said Breen, standing.
They went back to the living room. Haas left the flat and returned with a long-handled dustpan and broom. Breen kicked through a pile of loose feathers, scattering them upwards into the air. ‘When did these people arrive?’ he asked
‘Maybe nine o’clock,’ Haas said. ‘Maybe half past.’
That was before Mint had told the meeting that one of their suspects might be a policeman. So the flat hadn’t been cleaned on McPhail’s orders, because of Mint’s discovery, at least. Yet whoever had done it had been professional and methodical.
Haas swept feathers; each time he tried to catch them, more seemed to escape the bristles of the broom, flying upwards into the air, hanging in the sunlight. Breen watched him work, frustrated at his inability to make the room any tidier than it was when he started.
&
nbsp; On the way out, Breen paused, then knocked on Mr Payne’s door.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ Payne said. ‘Come to look at my dirty picture again?’
‘Some men came here earlier today. They searched Miss Bobienski’s flat. Did you hear them come in?’
‘Do you think I’m the kind of man who spends his days listening to who comes and goes?’
‘Yes.’
Mr Payne giggled.
‘Did you hear any names? Anything that might give a clue who they were?’
Payne shook his head. ‘They said very little, as a matter of fact. Benjamin the caretaker let them in. I didn’t hear what they said. Normally you lot never shut up. Everything’s quiet here now. I can barely sleep, it’s so silent.’
Breen hesitated by the door.
‘What do you mean? You could hear what went on in Miss Bobienski’s flat?’
Payne laughed. ‘People have such fanciful notions of the blind. I don’t hear any better than you do. No, I just meant the comings and goings. I was used to them. Cars turning up here all times of night.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d recognise any of them, the cars?’
‘What, from the delicate purr of their engines? Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘No. Sorry.’ Breen turned to go.
‘There was one, though, used to keep his motor running while he waited. He came several times a week.’
‘Someone had his driver bring him here and wait in the car?’
‘I know. Kept the fellow up hours. Made of money, those men.’
‘A taxi?’
‘No. Not one of those sort of rough motors. A car. Always the same car. He played the radio too, all bloody night. Awful pop music.’
Since they’d set up Radio 1, the pirate stations had mostly disappeared from the dial, but Radio Luxembourg still broadcast until three in the morning. Sometimes when he couldn’t sleep he could hear its chirpy sounds coming from the transistor in Helen’s room.
‘The same man?’
‘I don’t know. The same driver, at least.’
‘Bringing the same person?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
Haas was waiting by the door to show him out. ‘Mr Payne mentioned a driver who waited outside with the engine running.’
Haas shrugged. ‘I’m upstairs. Top floor. I don’t hear anything.’
‘Do you have a car, Mr Haas?’
Haas laughed, like the idea would be ridiculous. ‘I can’t even drive. Why should I be wanting a car?’
Breen walked out onto the pavement feeling exhausted. What had seemed simple was becoming more complicated, more obscure. He took his time, walking back to the station. He had thinking to do before he talked to Mrs Caulk again.
She would be waiting at the station now; but it would be good to make her feel a little nervous.
He walked past the station and took a right down Charlotte Street, to the 91, where he ordered a double espresso and smoked a cigarette.
‘Where did you get those scars, George?’
George frowned. ‘I don’t like to say.’
The cigarette tasted dry and stale on his tongue.
‘You look unhappy, sir.’
‘Do I, George?’
‘Like you ate something bad.’
Breen nodded. ‘That’s about it.’
In less than two weeks, a man would walk on the moon. The Met were living in a different century.
He was ready to meet Florence Caulk, but Florence Caulk was not at the police station.
Mint stood when he entered the CID room, looking like a dog waiting for its master to return, eyes wide. ‘She’s gone, Sarge.’
‘Gone? Mrs Caulk?’
‘Cleared out. I went to her flat, like you said. She didn’t answer so I was worried. Remember she was concerned about her safety? I was thinking something might have happened.’
‘How do you know she’s gone?’
‘Found a concierge who let me in to her place. She’d cleared out in a hurry, I reckon. The drawers were open. Bed not slept in.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes. Not taken in the milk nor anything.’
Breen sat at his desk, put his head in his hands. Their crime scene had been erased; now their main witness had disappeared.
Mint looked shocked.
Breen didn’t look up. ‘Did you speak to any neighbours? Did anyone see her going?’
‘Yes, Sarge. I mean, no. Nobody saw her going or nothing.’
‘You think she went last night? After you’d interviewed her?’
‘You reckon she knew something she wasn’t telling?’
Breen didn’t move, head still down. She had been a suspect; he should have been more careful. She had been nervous about something, after all. This was his fault. She mustn’t be allowed to get away. ‘Circulate her description. Ports and the airports. If you don’t know the procedure, get Jones or someone to help you. We need to knock on all the doors at her block.’
Mint picked up the phone. ‘What about you, Sarge? Anything?’
Breen lifted his head and said, ‘Somebody has cleaned out Bobienski’s place. I don’t know who.’
‘What do you mean, “cleaned out”?’
Whoever had searched the prostitute’s flat had done a thorough job. They had come equipped with knives, jemmies and screwdrivers, to make sure that either they found what they were looking for or at least no one else did.
‘C1, Sarge? Scotland Yard?’
‘That’s the thing. I don’t know. Whichever department it was didn’t bother to tell us about it, anyway.’
‘I mean,’ said Mint, ‘that’s out of order. They should have followed procedure. We’re the ones supposed to be investigating this, aren’t we?’
It was a possibility. He called up Carmichael. The Drug Squad were part of C1. If someone from Serious Crime was investigating it, Carmichael would have heard.
‘What’s up, Paddy? You a father yet?’
‘John, this is important. Is anyone from C1 investigating the murder of Lena Bobienski?’
‘That’s yours, isn’t it? Why would C1 be looking into it?’
‘I’m not sure. Possibly because one of the suspects might be a policeman.’
Breen heard Carmichael put his hand over the receiver and shout, ‘Shut up, will you. I’m trying to talk on the phone… Why would you think that, Paddy?’
‘There’s a witness who says that there was a copper who slept with her.’
‘No, Paddy. Haven’t heard a peep.’
Mint was watching his face as he talked, and when Breen put down the phone and shook his head, he said, ‘But if it wasn’t Scotland Yard, who was it?’
It took a minute, but Breen could see the thought arrive on Mint’s face. His mouth fell open. He came closer to Breen’s desk, as if worried about saying it out loud. ‘Sarge? What if it’s the policeman we’re looking for? What if it’s him cleaned out the flat, so there’s no evidence?’
‘Yes. What if.’
‘That couldn’t happen though, could it?’
‘Couldn’t it?’ said Breen looking at him.
Mint looked horrified. ‘Yes. But. Even if it could, they couldn’t get away with something like that. Could they?’
‘Of course they can’t,’ said Breen wearily. It had been a bad day. ‘If they could, that would mean that someone in the Met was corrupt, wouldn’t it?’
Mint stamped his foot. ‘Don’t patronise me.’
After the bang of boot on floor, there was a sudden hush in the CID room as everyone stopped and looked at Mint, now red-faced, standing by Breen’s desk. Like Breen, they were shocked by the junior policeman’s sudden burst of anger.
When he got home there was still a light under Helen’s door and he could hear music, so he opened it and went to sit on Helen’s bed in his father’s old bedroom. ‘I was almost asleep,’ she complained.
‘Sorry. The radio was on.’
‘It helps me sleep… Doesn’
t matter,’ she said, sitting up on her elbows. She looked dark-eyed. ‘Have you got a cigarette? Elfie says she’s given up.’
‘I think you may have been right,’ he said, pulling a packet from his jacket.
‘Don’t sound so surprised. What am I right about this time?’
‘When you said you thought a policeman was sleeping with the prostitute.’
She was awake now. ‘Knew there was something funny about it,’ she said.
‘Don’t sound so pleased.’
She sucked on the cigarette. ‘What’s the betting Scotland Yard try and muscle in now?’ she said, though she couldn’t stop smiling to herself because she’d been right.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘If they haven’t already.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing.’
He sat by her, running his hand over the mound of her belly, feeling the tightness of skin and the shape beneath it until she pushed his hand away. ‘Don’t,’ she said.
When she was halfway through the cigarette she handed it to him. ‘Everything tastes funny. Even fags.’
He stubbed it out for her and switched off the light, then turned the radio down and sat there with her as some singers chanted ‘Baby Come Back’, and a DJ played chirpy jingles about ‘going with 208’ until her breathing slowed and he was sure she was asleep. He sat in the darkness.
Florence Caulk had vanished. He had been careless.
EIGHTEEN
On the Thursday morning after the murder, he knew it would be a long day, so he made sandwiches from salt beef, mustard and pickled gherkins that he bought from one of the Jewish shops on Kingsland Road, wrapped them in brown paper and set off for work.
On the way to the station he stopped off at the Euston telephone exchange to meet the technical officer, who assured him that yes, all the paperwork had been completed and there would be someone there tracing calls to Lena Bobienski’s phone for the next three days.
So when he arrived at work, everyone was already in; behind her desk, Miss Rasper beckoned him to come closer, then whispered, ‘McPhail is in with Creamer.’ Then, a little louder: ‘Inspector Creamer would like to see you.’
