by William Shaw
‘Do you know Deason?’ Breen asked.
Carmichael shook his head. ‘Never heard of him. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, John. Fine.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. One day we’ll catch up properly, yes?’
‘Yes. We should do that.’
Carmichael turned up the collar of his coat. ‘What about you and me go out one evening? Find a couple of birds. Not that scrawny one, Tozer. Some really nice ones. I know a couple.’
‘I thought you liked Tozer?’
‘Deal then? You and me? Night on the town?’
Neither of them named a date though.
‘I have to go,’ Breen said, and walked quickly away from his friend.
Deason’s desk was in a large open-plan room. Breen sat on a plastic chair, opposite a police constable with a notebook. It turned out that Deason was away. He had been off sick for a week. ‘Hong Kong flu,’ said the constable. ‘Loads of us have had it. Going down like bloody skittles.’
The constable held a cigarette and a pencil in the same hand, alternately making notes and smoking. Breen kept thinking he was going to poke the pencil into his eye every time he took a pull. ‘So you’re saying you think Shirley Knight’s brother-in-law disappeared the same day as this body appeared on your turf?’
Breen nodded. ‘So who’s running the investigation while Sergeant Deason’s absent?’
The constable ignored him. ‘And you’re guessing that Sergeant Prosser had something to do with it?’
‘Yes,’ said Breen. ‘It’s a guess.’
The constable said, ‘What if the dead body’s not him? You checked?’
‘You need to find Johnny Knight’s dental records. You need to request our police surgeon to do that. I can’t. I’m suspended. The sooner you do that, the sooner we can rule that out.’
The constable nodded. Pursed his lips. ‘You are admitting you broke into a house without a warrant while you were supposed to be suspended?’
The constable was pudgy and expressionless. He took another puff from his cigarette.
‘I don’t like sitting on my hands,’ said Breen.
‘I wouldn’t mind sitting on my hands for a bit. Chance would be a bloody fine thing round here. We’re rushed off our feet. Shouldn’t have been doing that, though.’ The constable leaned across the desk and winked. ‘Tell you what, though, I won’t tell if you won’t,’ he said, and burst out laughing.
Breen said, ‘So what are you going to do?’
The constable smiled. ‘We’ll look into it.’
‘Today?’
‘Right away. Leave it to us.’ Breen watched him open a drawer and put the sheet of paper he’d been writing on into it. ‘Don’t you worry. Go back and put your feet up, lucky bugger.’
The lift squealed as it descended, but nobody seemed to notice how bad the noise was.
Breen woke up and wrote the details of his nightmare in his police notebook. This time the naked women had knives.
Breen hated knives. He had seen men sliced up after fights so badly their organs showed, vague and pale beneath the skin. He had seen the blood pumping out of men on pub floors. Once, not so long ago, a Chinese burglar he’d disturbed had pulled a huge kitchen knife on him and Breen had turned and fled, hiding outside, shaking like a baby. ‘Breen is windy,’ people had said.
The details of the dream evaporated as he wrote them down. He couldn’t remember if he’d escaped or not.
He caught the bus out west. Morton, Stiles & Prentice’s offices were just north of Oxford Street. A sleek, newly built modern block.
There was a Christmas tree in reception. Beneath, neatly wrapped, were piles of boxes, all the same size, all neatly wrapped in red foil paper.
‘Who are they for?’ asked Breen.
‘No one. They’re all empty.’
‘What’s the point of that?’ asked Breen.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ said the woman on the reception desk. In her late twenties, she sat beneath an enormous beehive hairdo.
‘No,’ said Breen. He handed over his warrant card. The reception room was surrounded by big glass walls. An enormous orange lampshade hung from a wire in the middle of the lobby.
‘Oooh,’ said the woman. ‘I hope Mr Cox hasn’t been naughty.’
‘I hope so too,’ said Breen. The woman’s eyes grew bigger.
She dialled a number and spoke for a minute. ‘He can spare ten minutes in about an hour,’ said the Beehive.
If he’d been doing a legitimate investigation, Breen would have insisted on seeing him now. But he was chancing it just coming here. So he looked at his watch and said, ‘OK.’ Nothing better to do.
He had done what he was supposed to do: told Scotland Yard what he knew. Or rather, what he thought he knew.
He killed time walking up and down Oxford Street, dawdling by shop windows. He had been a teenager in the 1950s. In those days there had been nothing in shops. Now they were full of the latest fads and fashions. Eight-track cassette player for Dad. Airfix model aeroplanes for boys. Miners, the make-up for girls. So much stuff. Down past Gamages. Outside, a couple of coppers were stopping the traffic while a team of men from the council climbed the lamp posts to fix the Christmas lights. A big model railway train in the department store window weaving in and out of tunnels in some imaginary Alpine scene.
The wind was bitter. After half an hour wandering the streets he returned to the lobby. The Beehive regarded him with a curious look. ‘You’re early, Sergeant,’ she said.
There was a coffee table with magazines and newspapers. Architects’ Journal. A copy of Nova with a woman showing bare breasts through a gauze top. He picked it up and looked at it until he realised that Beehive Woman was looking at him with a small smirk on her face.
Breen turned the magazine over.
A minute later her phone rang. ‘He’ll see you now,’ she said.
Harry Cox had an office on the third floor; the desk was a little too large for it. A bookshelf full of bound copies of Architectural Review. Today Harry Cox wore a blue suit with a bright orange tie.
‘Do I know you?’ said the man nervously. He seemed to be trying to place Breen. ‘You’re with the police?’
‘I met you at a party, once,’ said Breen. ‘At Kasmin’s gallery. You bought a picture.’
There was a Roy Lichtenstein print on the office wall and opposite, on a wall that was almost too small to hold it, one of the geometric paintings he had seen at Kasmin’s.
‘The art critic.’ Harry Cox smiled, leaning forward to shake Breen’s hand, confident now he knew they knew each other. Everything would be fine. ‘I remember. Which force are you from? Remind me?’
‘Marylebone CID.’ Breen sat down in a modern plastic chair. ‘Have you bought any more art?’
‘Just starting out.’ He laughed. ‘I remember now. You’re a pal of Robert Fraser’s, aren’t you? He thought highly of your opinions. Hope you don’t mind me saying, but his stuff’s a little too out there for me.’ He opened a drawer, pulled out a cigar box on his desk, and held it out. ‘I invited you to the rugby. Couldn’t you make it?’
‘Sorry,’ said Breen.
Harry Cox waved his hand. ‘I have bought a few pictures. You should see my collection. You’ll probably think it’s rubbish. Interested to know what you think. See if I was right buying them. Perhaps you should come round to my place. Do you like that fellow Hockney? I’m extremely keen. Are you? Lovely sense of colour. Really fresh. Ever met him? Just back from a spell in Los Angeles. I would like to meet him if you ever—’
Breen interrupted. ‘Do you know a quantity surveyor called Johnny Knight?’
Cox’s head twitched sideways, just a fraction of an inch. ‘What is this about?’
‘Mr Knight has gone missing. We are anxious to talk to him.’
Harry Cox blinked. ‘Knight? Yes. He has done work for us over the years. Why? Is anything wrong?’
Breen said, ‘I’m not sure. Is
there?’
‘I can’t say I’ve seen him for a while,’ said Cox. He snapped the cigar box shut.
‘How long ago is that?’ asked Breen.
Cox picked up his red telephone. ‘Look through my diary, dear,’ he told a secretary, ‘and find out when I last saw John Knight.’ He put down the phone and said, ‘Why are you here, Sergeant?’
‘What work does Mr Knight do for you?’
‘We employ him sometimes. He’s an independent quantity surveyor.’
‘What was the last job he did?’
‘He’s worked on the West Cross Route of Ringway One. The road project.’
‘The Westway?’
Cox nodded.
‘Big project,’ said Breen.
‘Immense.’ Cox grinned. ‘Tremendously exciting. It’s a large project and obviously we need good oversight on it. The materials bill alone runs into hundreds of thousands.’
‘And Knight would be in charge of that money?’
‘Lord, no.’ Another smile. Cox felt more confident on this ground. ‘He’s just an abacus-wallah. We need people to estimate how much material is needed for any project. And to supervise its delivery. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very good. An über-abacus-wallah, if you like. But he’s a cog in the machine.’ Then, ‘Please tell me why you’re here, Sergeant. You’re making me nervous.’
‘Do you know any reason why Johnny Knight would be in any trouble?’ said Breen.
The smile dropped. ‘Please. As a friend. What’s all this about? Has Johnny Knight been doing something he shouldn’t? This is a serious business. We have significant government contracts. We can’t afford any scandal. If anything was to damage our reputation…’
‘Do you have any reason to know why he would have gone abroad or left home?’
‘Christ. Has he?’
‘He appears to have been missing from his house since mid-September.’
The phone rang. A woman’s voice crackled on the line. Cox nodded. He replaced the receiver and said, ‘Well, as it happens, I was right. Mr Knight hasn’t worked with us since September. That was the last time I saw him, according to my secretary.’ He frowned. ‘Apparently he hasn’t cashed his last pay cheque, either.’
‘And you don’t know of anyone who would have wished him any harm?’
‘Harm?’ said Cox. ‘What sort of harm? Please don’t keep me in the dark like this. It’s not fair.’
Breen opened his notebook.
‘No. No idea at all,’ said Cox. ‘Marylebone, you said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ said Cox, ‘but your boss just had the misfortune of a heart attack, is that right?’
Breen stopped writing. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Like I say, I’m friends with loads of coppers. Rugby. Remember?’
‘I do.’
‘My company donated their services to building a new club room at Imber Court, the Police Rugby Club. I’ve stayed friends with the committee ever since.’
Breen nodded. The scratching of backs. The way this world worked. Cox was one of those Londoners who lived on his connections.
‘Good people,’ said Cox. ‘Salt of the earth. And I believe I know who your new boss is going to be. I was out with him last night. Jack Creamer? He’s an old pal from the club. A lovely fellow. Solid. Do you mind awfully if I call him? I need to get to the bottom of this. And I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear his men are out and about.’
‘Good,’ said Breen. Fixed smile. ‘Make sure and do that.’
He closed his notebook. There was an awkward pause.
‘Is that everything?’ And Cox got up, opened the door of his office into the wide corridor beyond, and stood there waiting for Breen to leave. ‘And please do come round some time for dinner. I’d love to talk art with you. Perhaps you could bring your friend, Mr Fraser. I’ve got my eyes on a John Plumb. I expect you lot think that’s rather old hat. I’ll get my secretary to call.’
At home, the music was thumping from behind the front door of the rooms above his.
He went downstairs to his flat, to his father’s old room, and pulled out the tin from the kitchen cupboard. He took out the folded money and put it in a brown envelope for the morning.
Then he went back upstairs and thumped on the door with the side of his fist.
A woman in a man’s dressing gown opened the door. She looked about nineteen. ‘Who is it?’ called a man’s voice from behind her.
Breen smelt the same smell that had filled the air at the Albert Hall wafting from behind her.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Turn the music down. I need to sleep.’
‘Sure, man,’ said the man.
Back downstairs, he lay on his bed, the music just as loud as it had been before.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Tozer had made cheese sandwiches from Wonderloaf. The cheese was almost as pale as the bread. Breen had bought two bagels from Joe’s All Night Cafe and filled them with smoked salmon, cream cheese, pickled cucumber and fresh black pepper. He had also got another bag with some dill pickles and blinis. Tozer had what looked like orange squash in an old Tizer bottle; Breen had a thermos of fresh black coffee.
Tozer looked at her paper bag, to the brown paper parcel Breen was unwrapping, and back again.
They had found an empty compartment in Second Class. It was a Saturday morning, so the train was pretty quiet. There was chewing gum on one of the seats, but apart from that it was clean.
She held out one of her sandwiches. ‘I’ll swap you one of yours for one of mine,’ she said.
‘I’m OK, thanks,’ said Breen. But he handed her one of his bagels and offered her a coffee.
‘Don’t you have milk?’ Tozer asked peering at the paper cup he’d handed her.
Breen shook his head. ‘I prefer it black.’
She took a sip and made a face. ‘That’s horrible,’ she said. ‘It’s too bitter. No one in their right mind is going to drink that.’
He took it back and poured it into his own cup as she dug into the bagel.
‘This’s delicious, mind,’ she said. ‘You make that yourself? My dad can’t even boil an egg.’
‘I’m twenty years younger than your dad.’
‘Fifteen,’ she said, taking another bite out of his bagel.
Then she kicked off her shoes and put her stockinged feet on the seat next to Breen. He looked at her feet, painted toenails dark beneath the nylon, then looked away out of the window.
Breen stared at the north Kent countryside. A flat and muddy land, brown winter fields and grey estuary light. The tide was out and the coast smelt rotten and muddy. A flock of small gulls rose above them, startled by the noise of the train. He thought about Harry Cox. Calling up his pal, Inspector Creamer. You know a detective called Breen?
He watched Tozer’s reflection in the carriage window. She had taken out a paperback and started reading. After only a page she dropped the book onto the seat and closed her eyes to sleep. Breen watched her head against the side of the carriage, mouth open, skinny chest rising and falling with each breath.
When she woke she said, ‘Hibou,’ then blinked as if surprised she had spoken aloud.
‘What made you think of her?’ said Breen.
‘I went there, last night.’
‘To the squat? I thought you promised to never go back there?’
She looked towards the the window. ‘I never promised.’
‘What happened?’
‘They wouldn’t let me in. They wouldn’t let me see her. They called me names.’ She chewed on her lip slowly.
‘Didn’t I say?’
‘I could kill him, you know?’ she said. ‘Jayakrishna. He’s such a smug arse. He called me a pig. You know what they call him? A guru. What is that?’
‘It’s like a priest or something.’
Still looking out the window she said, ‘Perv, more like. You think she was even on drugs before she got there?’
‘
I told you not to go.’ It was all he could think to say.
‘Fab, Paddy. Bloody fab.’
It was midday in the afternoon by the time the train reached Margate. A dirty postcard of a town. In winter, these gleeful seaside towns looked doubly bleak. A fierce north wind blew straight off the sea at them as they left the station. Kent Police had visited the GP and had phoned Tozer with the address at which Charlie Prosser was registered. Breen had bought a map of Margate at W.H. Smith’s in Charing Cross and was now holding its flapping sheet into the wind.
‘That way,’ he said, pointing.
It took only two minutes to walk to the Mooring Guest House. It looked out onto a deserted concrete crazy golf course and beyond that the North Sea. A four-storey Victorian terrace, paint peeling from the salt wind, curtains closed against the cold. An old wrought-iron balcony sent pink rust stains down the pale paint.
A hand-written sign in the window: ‘VACANCIES’.
Breen rang on the bell. The short woman who answered it looked from Breen to Tozer disapprovingly.
‘Is there a Shirley Prosser staying here?’
‘Are you looking for a room?’ She frowned.
‘We’re looking for a woman called Shirley Prosser,’ said Tozer. ‘She’s a woman of about thirty with a boy. He’s a spastic. Prosser was her married name.’
One hand holding her hair to stop the wind blowing it, the other holding the top of her dark cardigan closed, the landlady narrowed her eyes and said, ‘Who wants to know?’
‘We want to give her some news,’ said Tozer.
The landlady looked Tozer up and down. ‘She in’t here,’ she said and went to close the door.
Tozer stepped forward. ‘Can we wait for her?’
‘Go away,’ she said. ‘I don’t like the look of you.’
‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’
‘I don’t like people nosing around my guests,’ she said, and closed the door in their faces.
Breen looked up and down the street. The B & B was halfway down a row of a dozen houses all lined up to face the sea, but there was no cafe or other shelter they could stay in to watch for Shirley Prosser’s return. In her miniskirt and jacket, Tozer was already shivering.
