She's Leaving Home

by William Shaw

  “How old was he?”

  “It was his twentieth birthday. And they bought him a bottle of whisky to celebrate it.”

  “A bottle?”

  “Yes.”

  Breen said nothing, but took down the man’s father’s address.

  “They said he was a nice fellow too.”

  “And was he in the habit of going missing?”

  “They are all missing men, after a fashion. They should be at home looking after the farms and chasing girls, but instead they’re here building flats and getting drunk.”

  Halfway back across the building site he stopped. The mud was almost up to his socks.

  “You should have worn boots,” said a man in a flat cap.

  “Bugger off.”

  The slow regular thud of the piledriver seemed to shake the ground he stood on. But instead of heading forward towards drier ground, he turned back through the ooze, towards the foreman’s hut again. Mud sucked at his feet. He could feel the moisture seeping into his socks through the gap around the tongues of his shoes.

  A second time he opened the door to the shed. Nolan looked up. “Did you forget something?” he said.

  “You were going to say something about what happened to my mother and father.”

  The man’s face stayed blank. “I said it wasn’t important.”

  Breen picked up the newspaper and wiped the mud off his leather shoes. “If it’s not important, what is it then?”

  The man changed tack. “If he hadn’t told you, he didn’t want you to know.”

  Breen balled the dirty newspaper up and threw it into a bin, then started on his other foot with a fresh sheet. The man took a cigarette from his shirt pocket, offered one to Breen, who refused it. “I’m not sure it’s my place to say, if he did not tell you.”

  “My father is dead.”

  “Yes. But I would like to respect his wishes.”

  Breen sat in the chair in front of Nolan’s desk. “Respect my wishes. I have no relations. My parents are both dead. No one to tell me if you don’t.”

  “True enough,” said the foreman. He sucked on his cigarette a minute, blew smoke out through his nose, then said, “So you don’t know why your father and mother left Ireland?”

  “Because he hated it. He thought it was a backward place.”

  “Maybe so. But there was more to it than that. Your mother was a schoolteacher in the local village. She was ten years older than him, a married woman herself. She fell pregnant by him. Did you not know any of this?”

  “No.”

  “Can you imagine the ruckus?”

  “I didn’t know any of it. Only that they were in love.”

  “When you were born, it would have been a terrible scandal, of course. The Church wanted to take you into an orphanage and raise you so they could brush the whole episode under the carpet. The stink it would have caused in a little place like he came from.”

  “I never knew.”

  Nolan stubbed the cigarette out and immediately lit another. “Your mother’s husband was a dry old stick. He worked on the railway, I believe. There was no such thing as divorce, of course. And so they eloped with you to England.”

  Breen tried to imagine his quiet father leading such a daring, romantic life, but could not.

  “She died not long after they were here. You wouldn’t remember her, I don’t suppose?”

  “Sometimes I think I remember her. I’m not sure though.”

  “You would have been only one or two, I think. Maybe three. I’m sure she’s been there, looking after you. Of course the Church offered to take you in again. But your father would have none of it. He thought them a bunch of lousy hypocrites for the stink they caused in the first place. So he raised you on his own. And looking at you, he did a very fine job of it, I would say.”

  “He never told me any of this.”

  “I don’t think he was proud of taking another man’s wife. I don’t think he was proud of having a son out of wedlock. He was a very proud man, Tomas Breen. He was very proud of yourself too. He talked about you all the time at work, you know. ‘Cathal has done this,’ ‘Cathal has done that.’”

  “He did?”

  “Of course he did. A fine boy like you.”

  Breen looked into the older man’s eyes. There were little pale crescents below each pupil, veins in the yellowed whites. Breen would have liked to believe the foreman was not just saying this out of kindness.

  A workman in a donkey jacket knocked on the door and threw it open. “Someone’s only gone and put diesel in the big cement mixer. The engine’s jiggered.”

  “Jesus. I’ll be along in a minute,” Nolan called. “Leave us alone a second.”

  Breen stood up to go. The old foreman shook his hand warmly. “And now somebody else’s son is dead. I hope you find the truth of it. You’ll excuse me for saying that most of the police in England could not give a one-legged fuck for another dead Irishman.”

  “No,” said Bailey.

  “This lot, they’re girls, sir. Sixteen, seventeen years old. They’re not going to want to talk to me. If I had Constable Tozer with me…”

  “Firstly, there is no need,” said Bailey. “We know who killed Morwenna Sullivan.”

  “I’ve turned it over and over, sir,” said Breen. “I can’t see how Major Sullivan could have done it.”

  “Secondly, there are plenty of other lady police constables. CID is not a matchmaking agency, Sergeant.”

  Breen stood in front of Bailey’s desk, blinking. “What, sir?”

  “You heard what I said. Any woman constable will do perfectly well.”

  “Tozer really understands this world, sir.”

  Bailey quivered as he spoke. An old branch about to fall from an older tree. “It is not our job to understand their world. This is precisely why…” The older man looked him in the eye. Breen stared into the pale flecks around his iris. “Precisely why I’ve been opposed to women officers doing men’s work all along. Any more questions?”

  “Bugger that for a game of soldiers,” said Tozer, when Breen told her what had happened. “Miss the chance to be outside George Harrison’s house on official business?”

  “Why don’t we go at the weekend? You wouldn’t be on duty then.”

  “You really don’t like breaking the rules, do you?”

  “Saturday?”

  “I can’t do tomorrow. One of the women in A4 is getting married. A bunch of us promised to go shopping with her. I can’t imagine anything worse.”

  “Sunday then?”

  “Sunday and Monday I’m on shift. How about Tuesday?”

  “OK. See you then.”

  “What about the shindig?” she said.

  Breen looked at her. “Are you coming? I thought…”

  “After you said I could be useful, how could I refuse?”

  Breen wondered if he had time to go to the barber’s before the party on Saturday. On second thoughts, maybe he should let his hair grow a bit.

  He was looking around for a constable to drive him to the building site in Paddington when a car drove into the car park at the back of the station, high speed, siren blaring, breaking to a halt behind the back door. Carmichael leaned out of the window of the Escort. “There you bloody are. Jump in.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You seen Prosser anywhere?”

  Breen stood on the stone stairs that led up to the main police building. “He’s gone out somewhere. He didn’t say where.”

  “Never mind. Get in.” Carmichael reached back and opened the car door.

  “Why?”

  “Just get bloody in.”

  Breen got in the back. Jones was behind the wheel.

  “Go, Batman,” Carmichael ordered Jones. Jones floored the accelerator and the car roared onto the road, siren wailing, cars scattering to left and right. On Seymour Street, Jones braked to let a schoolteacher anxiously herd a crocodile of schoolchildren off a zebra crossing, then accelerated pas
t.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Surprise,” said Carmichael, leaning backwards from the front seat.

  The car zigzagged between a lorry and a motorbike. “Out of the way,” shouted Jones.

  “Tell me.”

  “Like I said, surprise.”

  Breen pressed himself into the backseat, feet wedged against the base of the seat in front. “Slow down. What’s the hurry?”

  “Don’t be a girl,” said Jones.

  “You’ve got blood on your collar,” Breen said to Carmichael.

  “Where?” Carmichael turned and pulled down the sunshade on the passenger side and examined his pink-striped shirt. There was a splodge of blood on the right point. “Shit. So I have. I’ll never get that out.”

  “Soak it in vinegar when you get home. That’s what my wife does,” said Jones, sawing in and out of the parting cars, heading south down Great Portland Street and across Oxford Street.

  “Relax,” said Carmichael. “It’s a bit of fun, that’s all.”

  Jones switched off the siren. “That’s better.”

  They swung right into Wardour Street and then cut back to the bottom of Berwick Street where the market was just packing up. Jones pulled up behind another police car.

  “Come on,” said Carmichael.

  Breen got out, clammy from the speed. The air was heavy with the scent of discarded meat and vegetables from the market. A man was hoicking unsold sacks of potatoes back into a Morris van. Another was stacking up cages full of budgerigars. A radio playing pop music full blast was blaring from another stall.

  It was a narrow shop, unoccupied, windows blacked out what had once been a cobbler’s. Some street trader used it now for storing his groceries. Cardboard boxes of tinned tomatoes were piled against the wall. There were stairs at the back. A uniformed policeman was sitting on the bare stairs, smoking a cigarette. “Is this one of the fellers?” he asked.

  “This is him.”

  “Enjoy yourself,” said the copper, shifting to one side to let the others pass him on the stairs. “Give the bugger what he asked for.”

  Breen pushed open the door at the top of the stairs. “Ta-da!” said Jones, like he was presenting an act on a stage.

  A small room, probably a bedroom once. The pink-rose wallpaper was old and stained. Pinned to the wall was a picture of Jayne Mansfield sitting on a bed in a white fur bikini.

  Tied to a chair was a Chinese man. Breen recognized him straightaway. He was the man who had threatened Prosser and him with a knife at the clothes shop; the man who Breen had run from. The Chinaman was bleeding from his lip and there was an ugly cut under his right eye. Snot and blood bubbled from his nose and had stained his light blue shirt and brown nylon trousers.

  “We saved his legs for you,” said Carmichael, holding up a cricket bat. “On account of you won’t have to run so fast next time if you break his.”

  Breen looked back at Carmichael, and Jones, hopping up and down behind him like a child.

  “Joke. Seriously, though. Don’t hit him too hard. Just a bit of fun.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “Fridays this Chink runs a clothes stall in Berwick Street outside. You know that shopkeeper from St. John’s Wood High Street? He was down here this morning and spotted this bloke selling Italian suits of his. They’ve still got the bloody labels in and all. Martin and Dawes. He called you up this morning, only you weren’t in. Don’t know where he got your number from. Anyway, Marilyn took the call and passed it on to Jonesy here. Bingo. Picked him up a couple of hours ago. What’s up between you and Marilyn, by the way? She called you a miserable piece of shit. I thought she always had a thing for you. This is the fellow, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s him,” said Breen.

  “Go on then, give him one,” Carmichael said, pushing the end of the bat into his belly. “They should learn you can’t go round threatening coppers with knives.”

  Breen kept his hands by his side. “Where’s Prosser?”

  “Tried to reach him but I think he’s off with his son somewhere. He takes time off on the sly. Everybody knows, but it’s OK. Don’t you worry, he’ll have his turn.”

  Carmichael prodded him again with the cricket bat. “Go on. Take it.”

  Breen grasped the bat, but didn’t move. “Give me ten minutes alone with him.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” said Jones. “You windy?”

  The Chinese man didn’t even look scared, he just looked tired. Above his temple, there was blood caked in his black hair. His brown nylon trousers were torn at one knee, and there was something unpleasant about the way the little finger on his left hand was twisted. He looked Breen in the eye sadly.

  Breen tried to remember him with the knife in his hand, threatening Prosser. He tried to replay the scene in his head. Him bursting into the back of the shop; Prosser standing there with the Chinese man; the Chinese man wielding the knife. “Give me ten minutes,” he said again, weighing the bat in his hand.

  “Can’t we watch?” said Jones, disappointed. “I found him, after all.”

  “Come on.” Carmichael tugged his arm. “Leave Paddy alone.”

  They left the room and closed the door behind him. Breen stood there holding the bat, looking at the Chinaman. The man looked at him resignedly, knowing what to expect.

  “Let’s talk,” said Breen, putting down the bat against the wall.

  The man looked warily at Breen for a second, then shook his head. “No talk.”

  “Yes talk,” said Breen.

  “Go hit me. I don’t mind. You can hit me. I am not afraid.”

  “No,” said Breen. “I don’t want to hit you.”

  Breen sat down on the floor, his back against the floral wallpaper. The Chinaman looked puzzled.

  “I want you to start telling me what really happened the night I found you filching coats in St. John’s Wood High Street.”

  “You were afraid.” The man giggled. “You very afraid. You run away.”

  “That’s true. What else?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I want to know what was going on.”

  The man shook his head, becoming agitated now. “Hit me. It’s OK.”

  Breen shook his head. “I’m not going to hit you.”

  “I was stealing clothes. I’m a bad man.” The man smiled. “You and Sergeant Prosser caught me.”

  There was a singing in Breen’s ears. “So you know Detective Sergeant Prosser, then?”

  “I don’t know anything. I was just a stupid Chinaman. I got out my knife. ‘Come near and I kill you.’ You run away like a little rabbit.” He giggled again. “That’s all. Cross my heart.”

  “You’re not a very good liar,” said Breen. “Why was the back door open? The door to the shop. There was no sign of a break-in. Who opened it for you?”

  “You must hit me, please.” The man was starting to sound increasingly desperate.

  Breen stood and walked over to him. He laid the cricket bat on the floor and started to untie the sash cord that bound the man’s wrists.

  Breen stepped out into the busy street still holding the cricket bat. A pair of kids were sitting on an old armchair that someone had chucked out, listening to a transistor radio. Louis Armstrong sang “What a Wonderful World.” The copper put out his cigarette on the pavement and smiled. “All done in there?”

  Leaning against the police car, Carmichael said, “Shall we fetch him and take him down the station, or are we going to wait for Prosser to have his turn?”

  “What’s left of him,” smirked Jones.

  A white-haired man dressed in black, with a sandwich board that read Repent ye evil doers for the Kingdom of the Lord is at hand, joined the crowd that stood watching the policemen.

  “I let him go,” said Breen.

  “You let him go?”

  “Out the back. He’s long gone now.”

  Carmichael opened his mouth wide. Neither of them seemed to kn
ow what to say. A blast of music came from an open window from one of the flats above them.

  Jones said, “You absolute blinking tosser.”

  “Can you drop me back at the station now, or shall I make my own way?”

  “I got him in for you and Prosser. I got him in.”

  “Paddy. That man, he’s the worst sort,” said Carmichael woundedly. “He stabbed a copper. And you let him go.”

  “Prosser’ll be bloody mad with you. He stabbed Prosser in the arm and you let him bloody go.”

  “I expect he will be mad with me, yes.”

  “I can’t believe you did that,” said Jones. “You’re ridiculous, you fucking Irish arse.”

  Carmichael looked puzzled and said, “What’s going on, Paddy? What are you doing?”

  The small crowd pressed round the group of policemen, curious to know what so many of them were doing here in their street. Carmichael stood, frowning.

  Jones said, “You’ve really lost it,” and pushed angrily through the crowd, back to the police car.

  Twenty-five

  Tozer had suggested they have a drink before the party. “Dutch courage. Where shall we meet?”

  Breen had opted for the York Minster in Dean Street, a known hangout for writers, artists and painters. It was a smug little bar that celebrated its own eccentricity; there were cartoons of French politicians on the wall, and the barmen refused to serve beer in anything other than half-pint glasses, all of which made it the sort of pub where the police would never drink. Which was why Breen chose it. He didn’t want to be in a police pub this weekend, around policemen talking police gossip.

  Tozer was not there when he arrived, so he took a stool by the bar, within earshot of a fat man who was talking to half a dozen listeners who laughed at all his jokes. A couple of elderly queens played chess in the corner, ignoring the noise, each with their elbows on the table in front of them.

  It was a Saturday night. The pub was full, the air so rich already you could hardly see from one side of the small room to the other. He caught snatches of conversation. A man in a tweed jacket with arm patches telling another man, “In the next ten years we’re going to see worldwide mass starvation. Believe you me.” “Judy Garland,” said a short fellow with a quiff. “So drunk she couldn’t get her coat on.” A man holding hands with a young woman who wore a blue felt hat said, “What about Kettner’s?” She pulled her hand away and said, “You know I hate Kettner’s.”