by William Shaw
“Me, sir?” He’d picked the tallest, a lanky lad with thick eyebrows.
“You take a note of the locations where they have searched and write down exactly where anything is found.”
“Right, sir,” the lad said, pleased to have been picked.
“Can’t I do that?” said the one who’d been given the bins. “Only I got a bad back.”
“You stick to the bins. You’ll be fine. Anybody finds anything, report it back to…What’s your name?” The copper mumbled his name. “Towels. Sacks. Blankets. Sheets. Anything she might have been wrapped in before she was dumped. Or just anything that you think shouldn’t be there…” he tailed off.
Still they stood there, waiting for more instructions.
“Right then. Start by that wall,” he said. “In a line. Move towards the street. And then…spread out.”
Finally they shuffled off, happier now he’d told them what to do. He turned to the second group. “Door-to-door,” he said.
This time they huffed like kids who had been picked for the fat boy’s team. Like all beat policemen, they abhorred knocking on doors, talking politely to members of the public. He gave them four questions. Did anybody have any idea who the dead girl might be? How long had that rubbish been piled by the sheds? Had anyone heard anything suspicious last night? Had anybody seen or noticed anyone different around the flats in the last few weeks? There were almost certainly better questions, but he couldn’t think of any, right now. He told the constables to start with the ground floor flats and work up. After that they could begin to move on up the road.
When they had set off to do what he had asked, he went to sit in the police car and lit a cigarette. Breen smoked five cigarettes a day. No more. He liked using them to divide up the day, plus it made a packet of No. 6’s last four days. Today he was already on his second. He sat behind the driving wheel, leaning forward to lay his head on the cool plastic. The sight of a dead body had never affected him like this before. He was not well.
After a minute he sat back and pulled out the clean notebook and the pencil. He sat for a while, holding the pencil in one hand and the cigarette in the other.
A few minutes after Wellington had left, an ambulance arrived, bell ringing, to take the body away. It parked in the middle of the street. The flash of its blue lights shone off the last damp leaves on the lime trees. As always, a small crowd had gathered to watch the goings-on. A young man dressed in football kit, and a woman with a headscarf and shopping trolley. A pair of young girls joined them to watch the gurney pass, rattling on the uneven ground. Dressed in big woolen coats and loud scarves the girls clutched each other by the arms as the dead girl passed them, covered by a black sheet. Craning her neck to see past them, a nanny dressed in a dark uniform stood smoking a cigarette just a few yards back from the rest of them. They seemed to be there just to feast on the sadness of the scene. Jones had arrived. He was picking through the debris, where the body had lain.
After a while, Breen started to feel cold, so he switched on the Cortina’s engine. The hum of the engine was reassuring.
A knocking on the driver-side window. It was one of the constables. “Are you all right, sir?”
He wound it down.
“I said are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” said Breen. He wiped his eyes with the cuff of his jacket. “I just needed a couple of minutes to think.”
“Yes, sir. Only, there’s a woman on the second floor. I think you should speak to her.”
He squinted up at her, leaning down towards the car’s open window. “Did she hear something?”
“She was the woman who called it in, sir. And she says new people moved in round here.”
“And?”
“And I think you should speak to her, sir.”
He turned off the car’s motor. “Do you have a mint or something?”
“No, sir. Sorry.”
Breen shook himself, then adjusted the rearview mirror to look at himself. He got out of the car to follow the copper.
The second-floor flats had their own walkway that ran along the front of the building. Faces peered out from behind doors as they passed. Breen had never minded it before. To be a policeman is to be watched. You were like a car crash. People stopped to gape.
The constable stopped in front of a green-painted door with a knocker in the shape of a pixie and a doorbell to one side. He rang the bell. A woman opened the door a crack. “This is Detective Sergeant Breen,” said the copper.
Breen stepped forward. “Good afternoon, Mrs.…Miss…?”
“Shankley,” said the policeman reading from his notebook.
“Miss,” said Miss Shankley, unchaining the door and standing back to let them in. Breen recognized her now. She was the woman in the housecoat who had watched them from the fire escape. She led them down a short corridor into a living room cluttered with china ornaments. Cheap plaster heads of leering Moors, one-eyed pirates, swarthy fishermen and swashbuckling highwaymen stared down from the walls. Shiny porcelain animals stood on every available surface.
Breen walked over to the window. The net curtains were drawn back. A family of white china cats sat on the sill.
“We’ve never had anything like this happen round here. Would you like a cigarette?” Breen shook his head and the constable did the same. “I have filter tips if you’d prefer? No?” Picking up a packet of Woodbines from the mantelpiece above the gas fire, the woman sat herself in an armchair opposite the television. On top, a pair of toby jugs stared at each other.
“Any idea who she is?” asked Breen. He looked back out of the window. The small crowd was still there, peering round the sheds at the policemen as they picked through the rubbish on which the girl’s body had lain.
“I heard,” the woman leaned forward, flicking a lighter, “that she was a prostitute.” She wore thick foundation that ended abruptly at the side of her face and at the line of her chin.
“You heard?”
“It’s talk. In the building.” She smoothed down her housecoat over her knees.
“Who was doing the talking, Miss Shankley?” Breen looked down at her.
The woman pouted. “I just heard it on the stairs. It’s amazing what you pick up.”
Breen looked down at his shoes. He wished she would ask them both to sit down, but she just sat there puffing on her cigarette. He had barely slept last night. He said, “Anything we know that could identify her is extremely important. Who did you hear it from?”
She sniffed, then said, “If you must know, it was Mr. Rider.”
The constable looked at his notebook. “Flat number 31,” he said. “Floor above.”
“That’s right. Are you going to mention that to him? Only, I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell him it was me as said so, you understand. I don’t want to cast any aspersions. This is a nice block.” Miss Shankley tipped the ash of her cigarette into a large ashtray. “How was she killed?”
“We can’t say yet.”
“Was she interfered with?”
“I’m not sure.”
“There was a woman abducted in a van on Abbey Road a few years ago. It turned out to be a young man who was a bit soft in the head who worked in the bakery. I don’t think he lives around here now, though.”
The woman sighed. The sound of a telephone ringing in the flat next door traveled through the walls.
“This has been a terrible experience. It’s really shocking for everybody who lives here, you know.”
“What were you doing when you found the body?”
“Not me, no. I didn’t find the body. It was the girl.”
Breen frowned. He looked over at the constable. “The body was first spotted by a young woman who was walking with a child,” he said.
“She was screaming her head off. I came out to see what all the fuss was about,” said Miss Shankley. “She was standing down there bawling her eyes out with these two poor little children.”
“Who is this girl?”
“She ran off,” said Miss Shankley.
Breen remembered the girl he had seen before, watching the body being removed. He went to the window and looked down but the girl was nowhere to be seen. “Have you passed her description to the other constables?”
“Not yet, no, sir.”
“The constable here said you had something to tell me.”
“Well, yes, but I’m not sure it’s important,” said Miss Shankley with a prim smile.
“It might be,” said the copper.
“Yes, of course. It might be. Who am I to say? You are the professionals, after all.”
Breen rubbed his head. “Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. Rude of me,” she said. The sofa had plastic covers that squeaked as he lowered himself onto them.
“I feel so dreadful for the girl,” Miss Shankley said. “Even if she was, you know…I mean, being found naked too. So degrading. It was never like this when I moved in. It was lovely, this block. We used to have street parties down there.”
“My colleague said you…”
“You told me you had noticed some new people move into the building.”
“Not this building, thank heavens,” she said. “No, no. The house behind.” She stood and pointed out of the window.
Breen stood again, slowly, took a couple of paces to the window and looked out to where she was pointing. Behind the lock-ups, behind where the dead girl had been found and the wall against which the rubbish was stacked, was a white Victorian house, half hidden by a large lime tree that stood between the new flats and the older building. Paint was peeling from the wall closest to them and a leaky overflow pipe had left a green stain down the white wall.
Miss Shankley stubbed out her cigarette, smoothed her housecoat, then stood up. She picked up the ashtray and disappeared to the kitchen to empty it.
“When did they move in?” called Breen.
“Two weeks ago. Two and a half now. On the Wednesday.”
“You’re very precise about that.”
“You notice things,” she said, reentering the living room with the ashtray wiped clean.
“Like what?”
“Well, you notice things that are unusual, don’t you?”
“Not everyone does,” said the copper.
“I suppose not,” said Miss Shankley, smiling as she smoothed down her housecoat.
“Unusual?” asked Breen.
She lowered her voice. “They’re dark,” she said, as if they might hear if she spoke too loud.
“Dark?”
“Black. You know. Africans,” she said, as if he hadn’t understood.
“I see,” said Breen. He sat back down on the sofa. “Africans?”
“Well, they told me they were from Africa,” said Miss Shankley.
“Oh.” He sat back on the sofa. On the walls were three mallards, all different sizes, flying up in a diagonal line. He closed his eyes and rubbed each side of his nose with the finger and thumb of his left hand, then looked at his watch. It was past one o’clock. Lunchtimes in the pub were routine. He would not mind missing that today.
“Is that all you want to know?” asked the woman, disappointed at his silence.
“I’m just wondering why they told you they were African,” he said.
“Well, you see, at first I thought they were Jamaican. We had a Jamaican family move in last year. There was a lot of fuss about that. They didn’t stay. Perhaps they didn’t like it here. Well, it’s not their sort of place, is it? We were very relieved when they moved. I’m sure they were too.”
Breen put his hands in his mac pockets. “So…you told your new neighbors to go back to Jamaica and they told you they were Africans?”
“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Shankley, lifting her chin a little higher.
“Nothing. I think that’s all for now,” he said, standing.
“It was just a neighborly conversation, that’s all,” said Miss Shankley.
“But they’re new in the area and you think that they’ve got something to do with the dead girl?”
“I didn’t say anything of the kind, officer,” she said, mouth hard and small. “I just thought you should know that there were people who were not from round here who had recently moved in.”
“And we’re grateful for you being so observant,” the constable butted in.
The woman sat on her plastic-covered armchair, pouting.
“Did the constable here ask if you heard anything out of the ordinary last night?” said Breen, pausing in the hallway.
“I asked her all your questions, sir. She says the rubbish has been like that for weeks. And she sleeps with earplugs in.”
“I have nothing against Africans,” said Miss Shankley. “But they have the whole of Africa to live in.”
“Just one more question. What time do you get up in the morning?”
“Around six. I listen to the radio.”
“Do you remember if you looked out of the window?”
“Probably.”
“There’s a mattress down there. It’s orange.”
Breen pointed out of the window. Miss Shankley got up and stood beside him. The mattress was still leaning against the wall where the police had propped it when they uncovered the woman’s body. “Do you remember seeing where that was when you got up this morning?”
“Why would I notice a thing like that? You know,” said Miss Shankley, “I saw you being sick in the bushes down there, Sergeant. I noticed that, clearly enough. I’d have thought you’d have got used to it by now.” Then to the copper, “Is he all right? He’s still looking a bit peaky if you ask me.”
“I think we’re done, Constable,” said Breen.
“I’m a woman on my own. I find all this very disturbing.” She led them to the front door and as she held it open for them she said to the other policeman, “Rivers of blood, you know.”
“What?” said the copper.
“Immigrants,” said the woman. “What Mr. Powell said. They don’t have any place here. You wait. What if there were as many niggers in the country as bloody Irish? They let a thousand Pakis in the other day. Think about it. It’s going to be trouble. You’ll see.”
On the walkway outside, the copper said, “Mind you, I think she’s got a point. We all do.”
“What?” said Breen.
“You know. All the coons coming over. People don’t like it. Not just Enoch Powell. They’re taking our jobs. And they’re bringing crime with them. They’re taking over all the knocking shops too. And selling drugs.”
He strode on ahead down the walkway, then stopped and turned, waiting for Breen to catch up.
“My father was an immigrant,” said Breen.
“Yeah, but he definitely wasn’t a coon, sir.”
Breen started up the stairs to speak to Mr. Rider at number 31, the man who had told Miss Shankley that the dead girl was a prostitute, but there was no answer. The neighbor’s front door opened and an old woman peered out and said, “He’s not in.”
“We going to knock on the darkie’s door now?” said the constable.
When they went to try the door of the white house behind the sheds, no one was in there either.
“We could break in?” suggested the copper.
“We could,” said Breen. “If this was Z-Cars.”
“Just an idea.”
Breen squatted down and pushed back the black painted letter flap to peer into the house but there was a letter box on the other side, blocking the view.
Back inside the police car, Breen wound down the passenger window and watched the policemen, standing awkwardly in doorways as they talked to the residents, slowly working their way down the street.
Four
West London was full of color. Each year the colors got louder. Girls in green leather miniskirts, boys in paisley shirts and white loafe
rs. New boutiques selling orange plastic chairs from Denmark. Brash billboards with sexy girls in blue bikinis fighting the inch war. A glimpse of a front room in a Georgian house where patterned wallpaper had been overpainted in yellow and a huge red paper lampshade hung from the ceiling. Pale blue Triumphs and bright red Minis parked in the streets.
Around Clerkenwell the color faded. The old monochromes of postwar London returned. Still flat-capped and gray, East London continued about its business.
The bus back to Stoke Newington was crowded and fractious. He stood downstairs, hanging on to the strap until the bus emptied out at Angel. For the rest of the journey he sat next to a young woman who was crammed into a seat surrounded by shopping bags full of new clothes. She was pretty in a Bardot-ish way. He found himself looking at her reflection in the glass of the bus window. On the other side of the glass, the orange streetlights were bleary in the wetness.
He lived in a cul-de-sac behind the police station where he had worked before he took the job with D Division. Basement flat.
There had been no chance yet to put away his father’s things. A carton of bandages still sat on the dresser and his walking frame was still by the door. On the telephone table a pile of the notes he had left for the women he had paid to look after his father while he was at work. The nurse’s folded zed bed, tucked into the corner of the room. A tangle of wires from a single socket powered the radio-gram, two standard lamps, the electric clock and the television.
His father had stayed here for the last six years of his life but had never liked it. He had lived on his own in Fulham until the day he had forgotten about a pan of sausages and set fire to the kitchen of his flat. Breen had had to move out of the police section house on Mare Street to rent this place. It had a spare bedroom that his father could use until he was well enough to move back on his own. That had never happened.
It seemed too early to start moving his father’s belongings. They still cluttered the flat: his photographs and books, his records by Italian tenors, his poetry and his novels and his collection of walking sticks, even the leather armchair Breen was sitting in now.
Normally Breen enjoyed cooking for himself. From the age of ten or eleven he had taken over cooking the meals for himself and his father. Tonight, though, he just heated a can of beans. He went to cut a slice of bread to go with it, but the loaf in the bread bin was sprouting gray mold.
