by William Shaw
“Wenna is difficult. We don’t see eye to eye on everything. Didn’t. God. What happened?” he asked for the first time.
“She was strangled. We don’t know who by.”
“Christ.”
“Her body was found a week ago. I’m afraid it’s taken us this long to discover her identity.”
“Oh Lord. Julia will be destroyed by this.”
He sloshed milk into four mugs, spilling it on the tray, then poured the tea too early, hands trembling.
“Why were you not in touch?”
“We argued, you see? From the start, she was wild. She didn’t like rules much. Didn’t like me. No good at school. Played pop music all hours. From when she was a teenager, we’d have a row, then she’d run off. For a couple of days or so at first. First time we found her living in the tree house I’d built for her in the woods. Proper girl scout. Then for longer. You know. Oh, where’s the blasted sugar?” Opening doors, a packet of Rich Tea fell out onto the floor. He placed it back into a cupboard that must have had at least ten more packets of biscuits in it.
The major picked up the tray, cups rattling as he walked with it. “You mind opening the door?” he said. In control, but barely.
The television was showing Softly, Softly. Breen stared. Police officer rings doorbell. Fact and fiction merging, overconnecting, in his state of tiredness. Every few seconds the wind rattled the windowpanes, and as it did so, the TV picture faded to a fuzz briefly as the aerial swung on its pole, high above them.
The room smelled of old dog, cigarettes and spilled alcohol. A log fire was barely alight in the large fireplace. There was an empty red wine bottle on a Pembrokeshire table. A full ashtray was balanced on the side of the sofa. Empty glasses here and there. An evening of watching television and getting drunk enough to face their bed. Or beds.
“I’m afraid the tea’s a bit weak, dear,” said the major. “Not much good in the kitchen.” His eyes were red from the whisky, and there were still blotches of it on his clothes, but it was as if he was pretending it hadn’t happened.
“I don’t want bloody tea,” she said miserably.
“Right you are.”
Above the fireplace there was a portrait of Julia Sullivan. In it she was wrapped in a blanket, presumably naked underneath, painted in the lush style of Singer Sargent, making her look saucy and aristocratic. There were shelves of modern novels and poetry. On the other hand, there was a cabinet with three twelve-bore guns and a .303 rifle, and next to that, more orderly, a shelf full of military histories, another about fly fishing. A school photograph; a long line of boys in front of some gabled building. A regimental crest, mounted on wood.
“I am sorry it was so hard to track us down,” said Mrs. Sullivan, attempting to light a cigarette. Her shaking hands extinguished the flame each time. Tozer pulled her lighter out of her bag and held it.
“What did you mean just now when you said it was all Major Sullivan’s fault?” said Breen.
“Well, I obviously didn’t mean literally,” she said. “That would be ridiculous.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“She couldn’t stand him,” she said. “That’s why she always ran away.”
The major sighed heavily and sat down in an armchair next to the retriever, leaning down to rub the dog’s belly. The dog growled softly.
“We do have questions, I’m afraid,” said Breen.
“Perhaps you could leave them for tomorrow. It’s late,” said the major. “It has been a shock.”
“May we sit down? Just for a minute.”
Gruffly: “Yes.”
Breen moved a copy of a society magazine so he could sit in a large armchair and told them the few details he had. A date, a means of death, a murderer who wished to conceal the identity of his victim by leaving her naked, a lack of other clues. A single tear made a track down Mrs. Sullivan’s cheek. The major sat stolidly, back straight, embarrassed by everything.
“We will need to build up a picture of what she was like. What friends she had as a child.”
“Yes.”
“One main question for now. Do you remember when you last spoke to your daughter?”
“I’d have to check my diary,” said the major.
“July the fourth. American Independence Day,” said Mrs. Sullivan. “The day you drove her back to London.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“She had come from London on a visit. I’d hoped she would stay.” She blew smoke out of her nose, looking at her husband with unconcealed bitterness.
“That’ll be it,” said the major. He wrinkled his nose.
“A broken heart. Tears and tantrums,” said her mother. “You know how it is. Your world is ending.”
“She’d split up with a boyfriend?”
There was a pause. Major Sullivan and his wife exchanged a glance. “She never told us anything about her love life, of course. She was off her food.”
The major grimaced. “Love life,” he said.
“She stayed two nights and then twisted Mal’s arm to drive her back up to London. I don’t enjoy driving.”
“Last time I saw her,” said the major.
“Where did she want to be taken?”
“She wanted Mal to help move her belongings from the room she’d been staying in with her lover.”
“Hovel, more like,” said the major. “A house full of long hairs and draft dodgers.”
“Mal. Behave.”
“Where did you take her to?”
“Similar kind of spot. Edgware Road. Basement that reeked of mold. She moved out a couple of weeks later. Never told us where.”
“And this boyfriend?”
The two looked at each other again.
“Not really a boyfriend,” said Mrs. Sullivan.
“How do you mean?”
“She was determined to be everything I didn’t want her to be,” said Major Sullivan.
His wife said quietly, “Morwenna believed she was a Sapphist. I don’t know. I think it may have been a phase…”
“She was in love with…another girl?”
Mrs. Sullivan nodded. “Not that I cared. Unlike Mal.”
“Do you have any idea who her friend was?”
“She didn’t talk to us about it.”
“No idea,” said the major.
“And you haven’t spoken since?”
The woman shook her head.
“Any letters?”
Again, she shook her head.
“And you, sir?”
He looked at the floor. “Not a dickie bird.”
The woman rolled her eyes at her husband’s turn of phrase.
“So you had no idea where she was staying in the days before she died?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Mal, for goodness’ sake.”
“She was difficult.”
“Mal. She’s dead.”
He looked down at the floor.
“Where is she now?”
“Her body is at University College Hospital. We would like you to identify her as soon as you feel up to it.”
Asleep in front of the fire, the old golden retriever twitched his paws, chasing squirrels in a dog dream.
“She had fallen in with a bad lot,” said the major.
“You don’t know that,” said Mrs. Sullivan. “You just make that up.”
“Squatters and ne’er-do-wells, I used to say. Thrill seekers.”
“Please, Mal. For pity’s sake.”
“She did ring a couple of times after we saw her, to say hello. But she hadn’t done that for a long time.”
Breen said, “She was a fan of the Beatles. We believe she may have spent some time with other fans.”
The major snorted. “The bloody Beatles.”
“Yes, she was a fan. She loved all sorts of music.”
“If you can call it that.”
“Mal!” she shouted. “Stop it, stop it, stop it. She’s bloody dea
d, you idiot.”
There was a long silence before he said, “Sorry. Yes.”
“You are such a bloody fool.”
The major sat, wounded and inept.
“And we did try to find her, didn’t we, Mal?”
“Yes. We did.”
“Mal had some business in London. I suggested he look for her.”
“When was this?”
“Three weeks ago, maybe.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“Mal didn’t want me to.”
“It was work. I had an important meeting. She would have been deathly bored.”
Breen said, “Can I ask where were you on October the thirteenth?”
“Me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was that the day she…?”
“Yes.”
“Sunday the thirteenth of October,” said Breen again.
“For God’s sake. I was here. Wasn’t I? I’m hopeless on days of the week.”
“He was here,” said his wife. “It was the bloody parish council meeting, remember?”
“That’s right. Parish council meeting. State of the village-hall roof. Vandalism of the bus stop. That kind of thing.”
“Mallory has been playing the country squire since we moved into this ridiculous pile.”
“And, Major Sullivan, you went to London…?”
“That would have been the week before.”
“You went up Thursday and came back Friday.”
“When you went to London, where did you look?”
“I went back to that place on Westbourne Grove. And then the place on the Edgware Road.”
“Did you talk to people there?”
“Of course. But no one knew where she was. At least, they wouldn’t tell someone like me. I’m the establishment. They were all on pot or something awful.”
“Can we have that address?”
“Can we do this in the morning? It’s late. We’ve had a terrible shock.”
“She was an idealist,” said her mother, rubbing her mouth. “Concerned about Vietnam and all sorts of things like that.”
“All that left-wing mush.”
“You see, I was wondering whether she might have been arrested on a demonstration or something. I thought it might be a way of finding her. So Mal went to the police, too, while he was up there and reported her as a missing person.”
“Really?” Tozer looked at Breen.
“That’s right.”
A motorbike roared up the lane outside the house. Breen noticed that the gaps in the old sash windows had been stuffed with newspaper to keep them from rattling in the wind.
“You see,” said Breen, “we had no record of her as a missing person.”
“You didn’t?”
There was a pause. “I don’t suppose police records are always up to date,” said the major.
“If you’d reported her in early October…You definitely reported her missing?”
“Well, not exactly,” said the major.
They all looked at the major. “Mal?”
“You see, I was going to go and report her missing, but then it seemed a bit silly. Because she’d been out of touch before.”
“Oh, Mal.”
“And she always did get back in touch. Eventually. I didn’t want to bother the police. I thought she was bound to turn up, sooner or later.”
“You lied to me. You said you’d gone.”
“I didn’t want you to worry. I thought I’d be able to find her myself. Or she’d just turn up out of the blue.”
“You’re sodding unbelievable.”
“She was always running off, wasn’t she, Julia?”
“I hate you. You bloody liar.”
He looked at Breen sorrowfully, giving a small shrug as if to say, “See what I have to put up with?”
“And you had no other leads to go on,” said Breen, “apart from this address you dropped her off at?”
Julia, still glaring at her husband, shook her head.
“No names of her girlfriends?”
“Please,” said the major, “we’re exhausted.” He stood and poured himself a whisky.
“Don’t get sloshed, Mal.”
“The pot is calling the kettle black, dear.”
Julia Sullivan snorted. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”
“It wouldn’t have made any bloody difference anyway, would it?”
Tozer said, “May I use your telephone, Major?”
“It’s in the hallway.”
“Any brothers or sisters?”
Julia Sullivan gulped air.
“That’s enough. I’m going to have to ask you to leave now,” said the major.
Julia Sullivan stood, followed her husband to the whisky bottle and poured herself another two fingers.
Breen stood. “We’ll need to make arrangements for you to identify her.”
“Oh God.”
“Out. Now.”
She dropped back down onto the sofa and sat, legs tucked under her, glass in her lap, staring down at it, saying nothing. A half-completed crossword on the table. A copy of the Radio Times. A big damp house with a couple and their dog.
The major strode to the living-room door and opened it. “Please. Just go away. Leave us alone.”
“If there are any diaries, letters, anything you have that would help us understand who she was. We will return them to you.”
They left Julia slumped on the sofa in the living room and joined Tozer, who was standing in the hallway. The major closed the door carefully behind him and said quietly, “Morwenna had one brother, you see. He died in a motorcycle accident this May.”
“I am very sorry. This must be very hard for you both,” said Tozer.
“Yes.”
“Shall we say eleven o’clock?”
The major stood in the porch, backlit from the hallway, and shook hands awkwardly.
“We need to find a bed and breakfast.”
“We’re going to the farm. I just spoke to my mother on the phone.”
“I could still find a hotel.”
“It’ll be fine. Much nicer than a B and B.”
Breen would have preferred the anonymity of a motel room, but he was too exhausted to argue. They drove down the dark lanes, lights on full beam. There were no other cars on the road. Looking out of the side window, Breen could see nothing, only a heavy blackness. At the brow of a hill Tozer braked sharply as a big pale bird almost flew into the windscreen, blinded by the light.
“Barn owl,” she said, and picked up speed again only to brake once more. A sheep stood in the middle of the road, eyes glowing like moonstones in the headlights.
Eventually they joined a bigger road, with the occasional car coming the other way, full beam lights dimming as they rounded corners before the starless dark returned.
“She was drunk.”
“Yes.”
“Just saying.”
“Why did he lie? About going to the police about her?” he asked.
“Families are complicated. Fathers and daughters.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Take it from me.”
“He was hiding something.”
“Maybe.”
“And they didn’t ask why,” said Breen.
“What do you mean?”
“Wouldn’t you expect a man to ask the why questions? Why do you think they killed her? Why?”
“To be told a member of your family is dead is a terrible thing,” she said. “He was in a diz.”
“A lesbian daughter, at that.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Yes.” He was too tired to think any further. “Tomorrow.”
The darkness around them was total. He had never seen such a blackness. He lay his head against the side of the car and closed his eyes as Tozer drove down winding roads.
He was woken by her, gently knocking his shoulder. They were at a farmhouse where a woman stood in the light of a low door.
Tozer’s voice, fuzzing into his head: “Don’t tell her about our case. It’ll only upset her. I’ll invent something.”
It seemed to take an age for Breen to remember where he was. He stared blearily at Tozer. She was outside now, throwing her arms round the woman at the door, kissing her on the neck. By the time he had made it out of the door, Tozer was already pulling their two suitcases from the boot.
It was a cottage with small windows, roughly rendered. “Don’t stand in the cold. Come on in,” said the woman, a rounder, shorter, older version of her daughter, with a thicker Devon accent.
Breen tried to take a case off Tozer; it seemed unmanly to let a woman carry his suitcase in front of her mother, but she ignored his outstretched left hand. “He in Alex’s room, Ma?”
“That’s right.”
She disappeared into a door to the side of the wainscoted hallway that ran like a passageway through the middle of the house. Breen stood inside the front door, blinking in the light.
“You’ll be hungry, then?” said Mrs. Tozer. “Edward?” she called, come out here.
Helen Tozer’s skinniness came from her father. He emerged from the living room which was on the opposite side to the door into which Helen had disappeared. Old corduroy trousers and a woolen shirt. Inside, an old television chattered in semi-darkness; the only other light was the pink glow of a two-bar electric fire. “Pleased to meet you,” said the man, holding out a hand.
Breen placed his palm into the leathery skin of the older man’s hand and allowed it to be shaken slowly. He smelled of tobacco and livestock.
“It’s very kind of you to put me up,” said Breen.
The man nodded silently and then went back to his television.
Mrs. Tozer led Breen back into the kitchen, a low-beamed room with a range at one end. “What’s for supper, Ma?” said Tozer, emerging down the narrowest staircase Breen had ever seen.
“Beef stew and dumplings.”
“Home,” said Tozer.
“You should try it more often,” her mother said, wiping her hands on a tea towel.
“I’m busy,” said her daughter, leaning over and dipping a finger into a pot on the range. She pulled out her finger and licked it. “I’m starved,” she said.
Breen lay that night in a narrow bed, under low eaves. A small, uneven room with a latch on the door. A Persian rug, worn but clean. His bed was warm already from the hot-water bottle Tozer’s mother had put in it, wrapped in a knitted cover, though the room was far from cold, warmed from the kitchen range below. The scent of soap and fresh bread. Cotton sheets that had been waving in clean air as they dried. A sprig of dried lavender hanging from the wall close to the head of the bed, its scent deliciously thick. A full belly and a soft pillow.
