Play With Fire

by William Shaw

  ‘What the hell…?’

  Breen leaned his head in close to his ear and whispered, ‘Quiet. Listen. You mustn’t tell anyone who I am.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if you do, I’ll truly whack you again. Got it?’

  The crowd around were starting to murmur.

  ‘You hit me,’ Klaus whined.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ a girl was sobbing. Somebody had switched on the main lights now. In the glare, the place suddenly looked ordinary.

  ‘Are you mad?’ said Klaus.

  ‘Not a word. Not now, not any time. Understand?’

  Klaus sat up on his elbows and nodded warily. There was blood seeping from his lip. It dripped onto his white waistcoat. ‘I should bloody well sue you,’ he muttered.

  As Breen stood, the crowd around him took a nervous step backwards. The girl sobbing turned out to be the woman he had been dancing with, not the willowy one Klaus walked in with. She was standing a few paces back, still affecting boredom, while the plumper girl looked horrified at the sudden violence.

  Lyagushin was in the crowd, peering at the bleeding man, a wine glass in his hand and a small smile on his face. ‘And I thought you were such a nice man. What was that about, Tom the builder?’

  ‘A woman,’ said Breen.

  ‘Obviously,’ said Lyagushin. ‘Though from the way you danced, I was beginning to think you weren’t the kind of man who was interested in them. Put your head back, Klaus. You’re bleeding all over your lovely trousers.’

  The white flares were now streaked with blood.

  ‘Go home, Klaus. Put some ice on it. You’ll have a nasty bruise in the morning. Tell me all about it next time.’

  From nowhere the bouncer, Olly, appeared and grabbed Breen by the lapel. ‘Out.’

  ‘I’m going.’ Breen shook him off. ‘The other one will need a taxi,’ he said. ‘Get him home or he’ll bleed all over the dance floor.’

  The music started up again, like nothing had happened; ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.

  Olly muttered, ‘What the fuck was that about?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Breen. ‘I’m sorry… I…’

  ‘Don’t fucking come here again. Ever. Right? If I had known you were going to be a wanker, I’d never have let you in.’ Then he took Klaus’s arm and said, ‘Come with me, sir. We’ll get you cleaned up a bit and get you home.’

  Lyagushin was already talking to someone else. Breen walked across the dance floor, all eyes on him, and down the stairs, into the still London air.

  Outside, the Hillman Hunter had gone, but another car had replaced it, parking at exactly the same place at the shadowed end of the street. It was too dark to see if there was anyone inside. Breen guessed that they changed tails when they could. Would they have recognised him too and reported back to Sand that he had been in the club with Lyagushin? Possibly. He didn’t care. He had been stupid, coming here, perhaps, but he now knew who the Russian was, and he had narrowly avoided Lyagushin finding out he was a policeman – or at least he hoped so.

  A taxi drew up outside. Breen hesitated, then tapped on the glass. ‘Are you here for Klaus?’

  ‘That you?’

  ‘Yes. It is. I’m just waiting for a friend who’ll be down in a minute.’ Breen got into the back of the taxi and slid down a little in the seat, so he couldn’t be seen.

  A little while later the door opened and Lyagushin emerged with Klaus on his arm. The advertising man was holding a handkerchief to his face. Breen ducked a little further down. Had Klaus talked?

  From his vantage point, low down in the back of the taxi, Breen could see Lyagushin and Klaus’s faces clearly. Lyagushin still looked amused.

  And then, without moving his head, Lyagushin’s eyes darted quickly to the left, looking in the direction of the car parked there. And his amused look remained there.

  He knows, realised Breen with a shock. He knows there is a car on his tail.

  He had no time to think about what this meant when the car door opened. Klaus was about to get in when he saw Breen. ‘Oh.’ He stepped back, looking round, frightened, but Lyagushin had already disappeared back inside the club.

  Breen leaned forward. ‘Get in,’ he hissed. ‘I’m not going to whack you. I promise.’

  The cabbie peered back in his rear-view mirror, suddenly anxious. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Get in. Now,’ said Breen.

  Klaus did as he was told. ‘Why did you hit me?’

  ‘Drive,’ he told the taxi driver.

  ‘I think you broke my tooth.’

  ‘Because you were about to say my name. They didn’t know I was a policeman. It’s important they don’t.’

  He dabbed his swollen lip. ‘Bloody hell. You could have just told me.’

  ‘Maybe I wanted to hit you anyway.’

  ‘Fucking pig. You didn’t need to do it so hard.’

  ‘Did you speak to anyone about who I was?’

  ‘I don’t remember. I was concussed. I’m bleeding, man.’

  ‘Not in my cab you’re not,’ said the driver.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Breen. ‘He’s hardly hurt at all.’

  ‘Where to?’ asked the cabbie.

  Breen turned to Klaus: he gave an address in Ladbroke Grove. ‘I’m crashing at a friend’s pad,’ he explained.

  ‘You know about your baby, then? It’s a boy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He was born today. And there you were dancing with some woman in a nightclub.’

  ‘Is that what this bullshit is about?’ He wiggled a tooth and winced. ‘Do you think I should go to hospital?’

  ‘Only to visit Elfie. You haven’t been, have you? You’re a coward.’

  Klaus looked down and checked the handkerchief for fresh blood. ‘I’ve been busy, obviously.’

  ‘Clearly. Don’t you even care?’

  ‘It’s not my baby. It’s Elfie’s baby. She’s the one who wanted it. I never wanted to be tied down.’

  Breen wished he had hit him harder now. ‘Grow up, Klaus.’

  ‘Don’t try and guilt-trip me. If she didn’t want to go on the Pill, that was her affair. She knew that.’

  ‘You slept with her, Klaus. It’s your son.’

  The man snorted. ‘It’s not like that any more. I’m not into that nuclear family patriarchy bullshit. I’m a free man. She’s a free woman. We’re all free, now.’

  ‘Lucky us.’

  The taxi pulled up at a red light, windows rattling as the engine idled.

  Klaus said, ‘You live your life your way. Let me live mine my way, OK?’ He pulled out a cigarette. ‘You got a light?’

  Breen took a box of matches from his jacket. ‘So you know that man at the club, the one called Harry?’

  Klaus pushed hair out of his eyes and said, ‘Harry the Russian? Oh, I get it. So that’s what all this is about? You not wanting Harry to know you were fuzz. Is Harry in trouble?’

  ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Three months. What’s wrong with Harry?’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘I don’t know. At Aspinall’s, maybe. You know, the casino?’

  ‘You never wonder how a Soviet trade attaché could afford to gamble at a casino?’

  ‘Soviet trade attaché? Bullshit. He’s just a chancer. Harry never gambles. He just watches.’

  ‘What’s he do?’

  ‘He’s just a laugh, that’s all. He says he has money he can’t get out of the country so he has to spend it here. So he has a lot of friends, know what I mean?’

  ‘And that doesn’t ever make you suspicious?’

  ‘Why should it? Is he involved in something I should know about?’

  ‘No. And like I told you before. You say nothing more to him about this, OK?’

  He held up both hands. In one he grasped the blood-spotted handkerchief. ‘Loud and clear, man. Loud and fucking clear.’

  ‘If he asks, my name is Tom and I own a const
ruction company, got it?’

  ‘Are you being serious?’

  ‘Yes. When you were with him, did you ever meet a woman called Julie Teenager?’

  ‘Course, man. She’s dead, isn’t she?’

  ‘Did you ever meet her with Harry?’

  ‘Sure. Think he introduced me to her. I’m not into that shit, though.’

  ‘Because women give it to you for free?’

  ‘You’re just jealous, copper.’

  Breen leaned over and opened the door when they got to Ladbroke Grove. ‘Give me three pounds,’ he said, ‘for the taxi.’

  ‘It’s only a quid to here,’ said Klaus, handing over a single note.

  ‘Go to the hospital. See your baby.’

  Klaus closed the door. Breen made the taxi driver wait until he’d gone inside, noting the house number in case he needed to find him again.

  When the taxi moved off, he noticed another car pulling out further down the road. Was it the same car that had been parked in Jermyn Street? He was not sure.

  At home, Helen took some ice from the freezer compartment of the fridge and wrapped it around his knuckles; they throbbed.

  ‘Surprised you hadn’t done it before,’ she said and she leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead, rubbing her hands through his hair. ‘Hope you broke his nose or something. Ruined his gorgeous looks.’

  That night, the pain in his hand stopped him from sleeping. He heard Helen padding around in the corridor outside.

  ‘Indigestion,’ she said. ‘From the goulash.’

  He lay in bed thinking about what he had to do in the morning, and the car that might have followed him earlier this evening, wondering, as an ache travelled up his arm, if it wasn’t just Klaus’s nose he might have broken. It was years since he had hit a man like that. His own anger had shocked him. He had never liked Klaus much, but it wasn’t really even him he was angry about.

  THIRTY

  It was late on Sunday morning and the midday shift streamed out of the section house off the Bayswater Road. Breen waited outside until the flow of uniformed men died down, then pushed his way through the open doors.

  The stairs to the first floor were at the end of the corridor, past the common room. He was about to make his way through the swing door when a man in a worn linen jacket and dustpan in his hand said, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘It’s OK. I’m a copper,’ said Breen.

  The man seemed to be a section house sergeant, in charge of the place. ‘I don’t care if you’re a bloody copper or not. You’re not a resident here so you’re not allowed in. Rules.’

  ‘I need to see John Carmichael.’

  The man looked at his watch. ‘You’ll be bloody lucky, mate. He’ll be asleep till gone midday. He was in last night. Bloody steamboats he was. Surprised he made it upstairs.’

  Breen pulled out his warrant card. ‘I need to see him on business. Will you wake him for me?’

  The man clearly didn’t like the idea of doing anything for Breen. He scrunched his mouth up, peering at the card. ‘Second floor,’ he said eventually. ‘Room E18. If anyone asks, it wasn’t me who said you could go up there.’

  Upstairs, the corridor was deserted. He knocked on the chipped brown gloss paint of the door. There was no reply. He knocked again, this time with his whole fist, wincing as the pain travelled up his arm.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘John. It’s me. Cathal.’

  There was silence. Breen tried the door, but it was locked.

  ‘I’m not going away, John. I need to talk to you.’

  Again, no answer.

  Breen thumped louder. Down the corridor, a copper emerged from one of the dormitory rooms, to see what was going on. The man was dressed in trousers and a string vest, blue braces over his bare shoulders.

  ‘Open up, John,’ called Breen.

  At the other end of the corridor the man stayed, half in, half out of his room, watching. Breen listened for a while. He could hear nothing in the room.

  ‘Come on, John. Otherwise I’m going to start telling you why I’m here. And then everyone’s going to know.’

  Another door opened and another head appeared. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked the other man.

  ‘Fellow here asking for Big John.’

  ‘Leave him alone, mate. He had a skinful last night. Sling it, OK?’

  ‘Lena Bobienski,’ said Breen, through the closed door.

  ‘Did you hear what I just said, pal?’ The man in the vest had left his doorway and was walking slowly towards Breen, opening and closing his fists. He was stocky and wide; Breen could see dark hairs on his shoulders.

  ‘Julie Teenager,’ said Breen loudly.

  Just before the man reached Breen, he heard a bolt shift on the other side of the door. Carmichael opened it, unshaven, red-eyed, and dressed only in a pair of underpants.

  ‘Want me to deal with this, John?’ said the man in the vest, squaring up.

  ‘He’s OK, Squid,’ Carmichael mumbled, and pulled Breen into the small room.

  Squid stood at the door, chin jutting out, until Carmichael closed the door on him.

  Inside, Breen looked around. The bedroom was a mess. Normally Carmichael was a man who took great care of his clothes, but trousers and jacket had been dropped onto the floor. Picking up the discarded jacket, Carmichael lowered himself onto the edge of his small bed and rummaged in the pockets.

  ‘Tell me about Julie Teenager,’ said Breen, again.

  ‘Don’t know…’ He found a packet of cigarillos and took one out.

  Breen sat down next to him, smelling his sweat, thick with last night’s alcohol. ‘Don’t lie to me, John. Please,’ Breen said quietly. ‘You’re my oldest friend in the bloody world.’

  Carmichael lit the small cigar with a lighter. Took a drag and then began coughing. When he stopped, Breen saw tears in his eyes. He wasn’t sure, at first, if they were from the smoke or not.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, finally. ‘So?’

  ‘So why?’

  ‘For a laugh. That’s all. She was a laugh.’

  Breen looked straight ahead at the door he had been knocking on. ‘A laugh?’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘You bought her flowers. Same place as you sent them to Amy.’

  Carmichael giggled. ‘Fucking Paddy bloody Breen. Top of the detective charts.’

  ‘You should have told me,’ he said.

  ‘I should have, course I should.’ Somewhere someone started playing slow brass band music. Breen wasn’t sure if it was the radio, or noise drifting across from Regent’s Park.

  Breen said, ‘What about Amy?’

  ‘Did you tell her?’

  ‘No.’

  Carmichael took another drag. ‘Thanks, mate.’

  ‘Thanks, mate? Don’t thank me for anything.’

  ‘Like I said. It was just a laugh. I didn’t want to hurt anybody.’

  ‘You knew I was investigating her murder. I have spent half this investigation thinking this was a police cover-up. One of my coppers, a good sweet lad who never crossed a wrong line in his life, almost got sacked because he went to the papers. All because you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I know. I was stupid. I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘You’re my friend.’

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ But Carmichael didn’t turn to look at him.

  ‘We went to school together. I always thought you protected me. Remember the fights?’

  ‘Christ, yes. Those were the days.’

  Breen scowled. ‘Don’t bloody Those-were-the-days me, John. Your mum looked after me. Cooked me dinner.’

  ‘She felt sorry for you because you didn’t have a mother yourself.’

  ‘Doesn’t that mean anything at all?’

  ‘I said sorry. What more can I say?’

  Breen stood. He pulled back the dirty curtains. Sunlight streamed into the room, making Carmichael wince. ‘So what was Amy for? All that time you spent chasing after her, but all
you want to do is fuck some whore.’

  ‘Shut up now, Paddy. Don’t go on about it.’

  Breen squatted down in front of him. ‘I want to understand.’

  ‘I’ve got a head like King’s Cross bogs, Paddy. Can’t we do this another day?’ He grinned.

  Before he knew what he’d done, Breen had slapped his friend hard across the side of the head. ‘Tell me now.’

  Carmichael looked stung. Breen saw how he had automatically balled his fists, ready to hit back. John had always had a stronger punch.

  ‘Go on then,’ said Breen. If it came to a fight, John would win easily. Besides, his fist was still tender from last night. It was John he’d been wanting to hit, all along.

  ‘Know why I didn’t tell you? Because I knew you’d be a sanctimonious little prick about it.’

  Meaning it this time, Breen slapped him again with his other hand.

  Carmichael was up on his feet, fist pulled back again. Breen smacked him again.

  Carmichael rolled his shoulders and Breen waited for the punch to come.

  ‘Come on, hit me, you coward,’ shouted Breen. ‘Do it.’

  But he didn’t. Carmichael just flopped backwards onto the bed.

  ‘Amy’s chucked me anyway,’ he said. ‘She told me last night.’

  ‘That’s why you got so drunk?’

  ‘I’m glad. She was too good for me.’

  Self-pity didn’t suit him. ‘Yes. Turns out she was.’

  ‘Fuck off, Paddy. Just fuck off. You going to tell her?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  He put his head in his hands. ‘Stupid. Like the better it got with me and Amy, the more I had to destroy it, before she found out that I wasn’t worth it.’

  ‘That’s just being pathetic, now.’

  ‘I’m not ready for this.’

  ‘You’re a grown man. Both of us. We’re not kids any more. We’re grown bloody men, John.’ Breen looked around. ‘It stinks in here. Let’s get out. I need to talk to you about the prostitute.’

  ‘I’ve got a headache.’

  ‘Good,’ said Breen. ‘I’ll be downstairs. See you in ten minutes.’

  ‘Don’t be a cunt, Paddy.’