She's Leaving Home

by William Shaw

  “Only you’re really down here about a girl that was killed?”

  “Yes.”

  “A young girl?”

  “Seventeen.”

  Mrs. Tozer nodded. Her husband was sitting stonily, looking straight ahead, eyes focused on the kitchen wall.

  “How was she killed?” There was a flicker in Mrs. Tozer’s eye.

  “She was strangled.”

  Mrs. Tozer nodded.

  “Naked too,” said Sharman. “I looked it up. That’s right, Breen? Nasty business. Got any ketchup?”

  Helen’s father stood, rangy and tall, tweed jacket fraying at the cuffs. “I noticed one of the cows had pink-eye this morning. I better go and check,” he said.

  He left the mug in the sink and opened the door. Leaning on the frame, he tugged on his Wellington boots. Cold air filled the kitchen.

  “Poor old bloke,” said Sharman when he had gone. “He’s not doing too well, all things considered. It’s a bloody shame.” He scratched the back of his hand.

  Mrs. Tozer said, “I expect you two need to talk.”

  “Lovely grub, Mrs. T. As always,” Sharman called after her. When she was out of earshot, Sharman said, “You should have stayed in a hotel, instead of bothering them here. It’s only going to upset them, bringing this kind of business into their house.”

  “Is that why you came? To tell me that?”

  Sharman took a gulp from his tea. “I spoke to Block this morning. He’s not had a sign of Mrs. Sullivan yet. Nor has anyone else.”

  “Did he call up Marylebone CID this morning?”

  He nodded. “She hasn’t turned up there, either.”

  Breen sat down at the old kitchen table opposite Sharman, watching him take another bite from his sandwich. Sharman chewed his mouthful, swallowed, then said, “I expect she’ll turn up, sooner or later. So. You and Helen, you going out?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Interested, that’s all. I know she doesn’t think that much of me these days.”

  “No. I mean, we’re not going out.”

  “She’s a great girl. My trouble was I was too keen, I suppose.” Sharman smiled. “Frightened her off. I should have been more patient.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and belched quietly. “To business. Supposing it was Julia Sullivan that did it, what do you think it was you said to them that made her blow his head off?”

  “I thought this was Block’s case.”

  “We’re all in this together down here. It’s not like the Met.”

  “Block is sure it was Julia Sullivan?”

  “It’s a theory,” Sharman said. “Apparently he was in London the day before their daughter was killed. So you think he was involved in the death of his daughter?”

  “Somehow. But he was back in Devon by the day she was actually killed. So it doesn’t make sense.”

  “And why would he kill his own daughter?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Sharman nodded.

  “I think the major was covering something up too,” said Breen. He told Sharman how the major had lied to his wife about reporting their daughter missing to the police.

  “Probably thought you lot at the Met are useless anyway.”

  Helen Tozer clattered into the room. She glared at Sharman. “I thought I heard your voice. What are you doing here?” she said, looking at his empty plate in front of him. “Isn’t your wife feeding you enough?”

  Sharman stood again. “Nice to see you too, Hel. I was just saying to Sergeant Breen. I would have thought he would have stayed in a hotel rather than here.”

  “What’s wrong with the farm?” She cut herself a slice of bread and buttered it thickly.

  “I heard you were down. Val called me up last night. Said she’d seen you in town. I came to talk about your case.”

  “I knew she wouldn’t keep her mouth shut.” She took a jar of honey from the shelf. “Did you see Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you talked to him.”

  “Of course. We’re old friends, him and me.”

  She stuck the knife deep into the honey. “Tell him about our girl that was killed and everything?”

  Sharman leaned back on his elbows. “Your dad seemed to think you were investigating some nudie movie setup.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re such a prannock, Fred. Where is he now?” She spread the bread thickly with honey.

  “Just gone out. Something about a cow with pink-eye.”

  She walked to the window and looked out into the yard.

  “You heard I got a baby now?”

  “Good for you.”

  “A boy.”

  “Naturally.”

  She took a bite out of the slice of bread, laid it down on the counter, then picked up the kettle and filled it at the tap; it hissed when she placed it on the range. Then she picked up an apple from a bowl on the windowsill and set about cutting it into quarters with a small knife.

  “Another thing,” Breen said quietly. “Where did the major get his money from?”

  “What money?”

  “They were in debt. But he’s got a brand-new Jag.”

  Sharman nodded. “Good point.” He picked up a silver salt pot from the table and turned it upside down so that salt poured out onto the wood. “Very good point. So where do you think she’s gone?”

  “Assuming it was her who killed him…”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe to London,” said Tozer. “That’s where her daughter’s body is.”

  “What you still doing down here if she’s up in London, then?”

  “Our car got wrecked. You remember?” The kettle started to whistle.

  “Let’s say, for a moment, that she killed him because something you said made her realize he’d killed their daughter.”

  “Brilliant work, Sherlock,” said Tozer, lighting a cigarette.

  “Only like I said, Major Sullivan wasn’t in London the day she was killed,” said Breen.

  “I got a feeling, though,” said Sharman.

  Tozer said, “That’s what makes you so great at catching murderers, then.”

  “Don’t be hard on us poor country boys, Helen. You used to be part of the gang too.”

  Breen had been enjoying witnessing Tozer’s spikiness directed at someone else, but the longer it went on, the more he felt like an eavesdropper at a lovers’ quarrel. He shut his eyes and rubbed his temple.

  “Is he all right? He looks a bit peaky. Don’t you think?”

  “He’s fine,” said Tozer. “Are you done now?”

  After his car had gone up the track to the main road, tires crunching on gravel, Tozer said, “I think he still fancies me, don’t you, sir?”

  Breen just said, “He was right, wasn’t he? I shouldn’t have stayed here.”

  Tozer pulled on a pair of boots and went to find her father.

  The house was empty. Breen picked up the phone and called the station. The ordinary daily noise of the office in the background made him want to be there.

  “Bailey’s had Devon and Cornwall on the blower complaining about you for not letting them know what you were doing down there,” said Marilyn.

  “Is he there now?”

  “No.” Even the familiar sound of one-fingered typing in the background sounded sweet to Breen. He thought of the thick-smoked air of the office and the dark floorboards.

  “What’s going on, Paddy?”

  “We’ll be back Monday morning. Can you get us train tickets for the weekend?”

  “Us?”

  “Yes. Constable Tozer and me.”

  “Thought you had a car?”

  “It got smashed up.”

  “Prosser said you’ve been letting her drive. Did she do it?”

  “It was nothing to do with her. We were rammed.”

  “You’re getting a reputation as a man who breaks things, Paddy. Bailey is going to kick up a stink about payin
g for a hotel for those extra days.”

  “He doesn’t have to. We’re not staying in a hotel.”

  “Where are you staying then?”

  “I’m staying at the Tozers’ farm.”

  “At Helen Tozer’s house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Pause.

  “I’m just staying here. That’s all. It’s convenient.”

  “What you do is your own business, Paddy. Why would I care?”

  “What’s the news?”

  “Nothing much. Uniform are up in arms because leave is canceled this weekend.”

  “Why?”

  “On account of the Vietnam demonstration at the American Embassy coming up next weekend. You getting anywhere with the dead girl?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “So did Tozer invite you to stay at hers? I mean, there’s got to be plenty of B and Bs. It’s famous for them.”

  “We’re in separate rooms if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” she snapped.

  He dialed again, this time the number of the solicitor whose name he’d found amongst the Sullivans’ letters. Afterwards he searched in his pocket for a couple of shillings to put in the tin marked Phone.

  At the top of the farm, he found a path that led up over the hill, away from the estuary. Helen hadn’t returned from going to meet her father so he had gone for a walk alone.

  The earth was red and wet. It clung to his boots and doubled their weight. There were still blackberries in the hedgerows but when he reached out, plucked a fat one and put it in his mouth, it was bitter so he spat it out.

  It felt good to stretch his legs, though. The slope steepened and the path became slippery.

  At the top of the next ridge he hoisted himself up to sit on a gate to get his breath back and looked down towards the farm. He could see the path they must have walked along last night, on their way back from dinner, and the flat dark water of the estuary. The cows were lined up across the green of the field. He could now see Helen behind them, shooing the last ones into the yard for milking, her father lagging behind them.

  He looked back up the path, wondering if he should continue. That was when he noticed the rabbit, just a few yards away, squatting down in a clump of long grass at the side of the hedge.

  He sat still, not wanting to disturb the animal, wondering how long it would be before it saw him, or smelled him. It didn’t move. He remembered how his father talked of snaring rabbits as a child in Ireland. Breen could not remember the details, only that you had to set the trap exactly right. In the couple of years before he had stopped making much sense, he had talked a lot about his childhood in Ireland.

  Breen realized his behind was aching from sitting so still, and stepped down. Undisturbed by the sudden noise, the rabbit still sat there motionless. Breen tiptoed closer until he was standing right next to it, close enough to see the thick discharge from its closed, reddened eyes and its slow, labored breathing. The creature didn’t seem to see or hear him; it just sat, ears pinned back against its body, waiting to die.

  “You should have taken a rock and killed it,” said Helen, sitting in the kitchen, a cup of tea in her hand. “It would have been a kindness.”

  “Myxomatosis,” growled her father. “Keeps them down. Best thing that happened round here.”

  “Dad,” chided Helen.

  When he’d gone back out to the yard, she said, “When we were little girls the fields around here used to be full of rabbits like that…dying. It was horrible. Hundreds of them, there were. Alex sneaked one up to her bedroom once and tried to care for it under her bed, but it died, of course. Dad said she could have caught something from it.”

  The solicitor turned out to be an old friend of Julia Sullivan’s. His office was in Exeter in a Georgian house on the edge of a small green, with a brass plate on the door worn from polishing, and a dark entrance hall lined with oil paintings.

  They had borrowed the Tozers’ rusting Morris Oxford to drive up there. The leather seats were dry and cracked. It smelled of sheepdogs and there were stacks of yellow receipts stuffed into the glovebox. Smoke poured from its exhaust.

  “I won’t shed a tear,” said the solicitor. “I always thought he was a blackguard.”

  His name was Percy Manville and he must have been at least sixty years old. He sounded out every consonant. “The Metropolitan Police? How very grand,” he said.

  He was a neat, thin man with a trimmed moustache who wore a gray suit and waistcoat with a gold watch chain. “Mallory Sullivan was a spendthrift who squandered all of Julia’s inheritance on cars, gambling and idiotic investments.”

  An elderly woman in pearls and twinset had placed a teapot with three china cups and saucers on Manville’s desk. “Will you pour, or shall I?” he asked Tozer.

  “Oh no. You go ahead,” said Tozer.

  “Julia Sullivan, on the other hand, is the love of my life. Always was. Me and half of the county. I was her father’s solicitor. Lovely man. Very good bridge player. Dead now, of course. Aneurism on the golf course. Lucky fellow. Best way to go. Sugar?”

  “Loads, please,” said Tozer.

  “Good girl. I can’t play golf anymore, unfortunately. Buggered up my back. Agony.”

  He poured the tea into the delicate china cups and handed them around.

  “Spendthrift, you say?” said Breen. “They were heavily overdrawn at the bank.”

  Manville sat back down in a leather-studded chair and rocked it back and forwards.

  “Let me tell you something in absolute confidence,” he said, like a man who enjoyed sharing others’ secrets. “In the summer he marched in and asked me for the deeds for Fonthill. ‘What for?’ says I. Of course, I knew. He was planning to mortgage the place to raise some money. So I told him the deeds were in both of their names and I couldn’t just hand them over without Julia’s permission. I’d made sure of that when they bought that stupid house. With her money, I might add. Should have seen the look on his fat face. A delight.”

  “Did she give permission?”

  “I doubt he even told her, frankly. He always did things behind her back. He was terrified that he’d disappoint her.” He picked up the small teacup and lifted it, little finger crooked.

  “What did he want the money for?”

  “Oh, it’s been a long, steady slide. He owes money left, right and center. I saw him in town the other day. Brand-new car. Some idiot had lent him some more, I expect. Well, they won’t be getting it back now, will they? I shouldn’t laugh. Poor Julia. It makes me sad to think of it. So is it true she shot him, then?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Awful, really. Can’t say I blame her. Still, it’ll be hard on her, I suppose.”

  “Why have you got all those handcuffs?” said Tozer, pointing to the wall.

  There was a mahogany wall cabinet mounted on the wall. In it were about a dozen pairs of handcuffs, mounted in four rows of three, some brass, some iron, some chrome, all different shapes and sizes, each with a delicate label beneath them.

  “I’m a collector, my dear,” said Manville.

  “Of handcuffs?”

  “He told us he was in London on business a few days before his daughter was killed,” said Breen. “Do you have any idea what that would have been about?”

  “No, no idea at all, I’m afraid. Are you interested in handcuffs, my dear?”

  “Only professionally.”

  “I have several from the 1800s. All in working order. You can try them out if you like.”

  “No thank you, sir,” said Tozer.

  Manville smiled. “They’re wasted up there in the cabinet. They’d look lovely on you, I’m sure.”

  “No, really, I’m fine, thank you.”

  While they were talking, Breen had taken out the photographs of Morwenna standing in her tree house. He pushed them across the table towards Manville.

  “Yes. There she is. Poor Morwenna too. An unfortuna
te girl. Her father’s looks instead of her mother’s. And his temper too. And dead now.”

  “Do you recognize where that photo was taken?”

  “That would be The Last Resort.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what Julia called it,” said the solicitor. “The Last Resort. It was just a glorified summerhouse, really. Beautiful spot up on Dartmoor. It was a kind of artistic commune. Wild parties. Orgies, I expect. She holed up in there with all these bohemians and beat poets. I visited her there sometimes. She was very refreshing, a very poetic person, if you understand me. And then that bore Sullivan came along and elbowed in and the moment they were married he insisted they move into somewhere grander off in Cornwall. He was an arse. He never understood her.”

  “She sold it?”

  “No, no. She refused. Good for her. But she had to rent it out because they needed the money.”

  Afterwards in the car, Tozer said, “What a sicko. All those handcuffs. What do you think he does with them?”

  “He just collects them, I suppose.”

  “He’s kinky, if you ask me,” she said.

  Compared with Cornwall, Devon seemed almost comically green. The lumpy hills and neatly trimmed hedgerows. The prettiness left him ill at ease.

  “Was your dad OK after this morning?” asked Breen.

  Tozer nodded. “He said he was checking some cows for mastitis, but I think he was finding some reason that he didn’t have to talk to me. I swear he used to talk all the time when we were kids.” She chewed on her sandwich some more. “Sometimes I find myself wondering if he’d be hurt as bad if it was me that was dead. I’m not sure he would. Alex was his favorite, see?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do,” she said. “It’s always like that, really, isn’t it? There are always favorites.”

  “I don’t know. I was an only child.”

  “This the right one?” said Tozer.

  Breen looked at the yellow notepaper in front of him that the lawyer had given them. “According to the map.”

  “Funny-looking place.” Tozer peered at it through the trees.

  The Last Resort turned out to be tucked away from the road. A chocolate-box wooden house, green and white paint peeling. It sat on the bank above the lane, hidden by trees. They had parked the Morris on the edge of the narrow lane, close enough to the hedge to let other vehicles pass, but only just.