by William Shaw
‘The police who interviewed me said you were suspended. How come you’re doing this?’
‘Until I can show that it wasn’t me that killed your husband, I’m still a suspect.’
A small, tired laugh. ‘So this is all about you, then?’
‘I know you’re scared. But if we find who killed your husband, then you can be safe. You and Charlie won’t have to keep running away. Do you want to spend your life like this?’
She looked down, shook her head. ‘I couldn’t even trust my own husband.’ Then she reached out and put her hand on his. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be like this. I don’t think you did it. I’m scared, that’s all. I’m tired.’
He looked down. The contact of a woman’s hand. Breen said, ‘Whatever your husband was up to, I need you to believe that I am not involved.’ He was going to say he was ‘not that sort of copper’, but he stopped himself. ‘I only found out your husband was on the take by accident. I wasn’t involved in any of that. I had no idea until a few days ago, until I talked to you, that he was into anything bigger than that. You have to believe me. The only way we can stop this is by figuring out what was really going on.’ He took a breath and said, ‘I’m worried about your brother, too. Do you know where he is?’
She didn’t answer.
‘It’s important.’ He paused. He didn’t want to be the one who said this to her, but there was no one else. ‘I think something has happened to him.’
When he looked back up he saw that tears were streaming down her face. Awkward, Breen offered her his handkerchief.
Behind the sweets stand, a moon-faced teenage girl in a brown nylon uniform watched her impassively, as if this kind of thing happened all the time in Margate. Maybe it did, Breen wondered.
She looked away and said, ‘I think he’s dead.’
‘Johnny, you mean? Your brother?’
She nodded, and began to cry again. ‘I haven’t had anyone to talk to about this for so long,’ she said.
‘Tell me.’
She looked up at the ceiling. ‘Johnny disappeared. Vanished. Back in September. He just stopped answering calls and letters. I’ve been to his house, but there’s no one there. He just vanished.’
He felt that guilty thrill of being on the right track. Facts were finally starting to come into focus.
‘Your brother…’
She looked him straight in the eye. ‘You think he’s dead too… isn’t he?’
‘I think so.’ Breen nodded. ‘And I think your husband might have had something to do with his death.’
It was not even a human noise that came out of her. A feral howl, almost. Breen wished Tozer was here too. She would be able to handle this better. Women knew this territory.
The woman at the sweet counter glared at Breen. ‘If you two are arguing, I’ll call the manager,’ she said.
Breen ignored her.
‘What do you think the connection is between your husband’s death and your brother’s?’ he pressed her.
She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m tired. We don’t get much sleep in that boarding house.’
‘You have to think,’ he said.
‘I can’t.’ She was crying again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He offered her a cigarette, which she took without saying anything. She took two large quick puffs on it and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand before she started talking. ‘This all started with Johnny. Johnny got himself mixed up in something way out his depth.’
‘And your husband was in on it too?’
‘Not at the start. All this is my fault. All of this wouldn’t have happened…’
The lights came on outside the cinema. Through the doors, Breen could see the shine of neon on the pavement.
‘My younger brother. The successful one of the family,’ she said. ‘He went to college. None of our family had ever gone to college before. Had his own house at twenty-eight, and everything. We were all so proud of him. Poor little Johnny.’
‘What happened?’ said Breen.
‘About six months ago, Johnny came to me for help. Knocking on my door. He was drunk. And he was just talking all this stuff about the cost of materials. Steel and concrete. My little brother.’
‘He had got involved in something illegal?’
She nodded.
‘He’d been false-accounting?’
‘I’m not sure. Some kind of fraud. One of the companies he worked for.’
‘Morton, Stiles and Prentice?’
She looked shocked. ‘So you do know, then? You’re just stringing me along, pretending?’
‘I looked through your brother’s letters. It was a guess,’ said Breen. ‘I know he had been working for them.’
Her eyes were wider now.
‘What about a man called Harry Cox? Your brother was working for him.’
She frowned, looked at him, then shook her head. ‘I never heard him say any names,’ she said.
‘He’s a large man. Flashy.’
‘No.’
‘Was Michael interested in rugby, then?’
‘Rugby? Not really. He preferred football. Crystal Palace.’ She put the hand with the cigarette in it to her mouth, eyes big. ‘Christ sake. You’ve been investigating these people? Do they know you’re looking for Johnny?’
‘What?’ said Breen.
‘Nothing. Only…’ The hand was shaking, ash dropping onto the dirty floor. ‘If you found out where I am, they could too. Michael, Johnny: if they’re both dead…’
‘Nobody needs to know where you are,’ he said.
‘How did you find out? It’s Charlie, isn’t it?’
He nodded. Hard to hide when you have a son like Charlie.
She looked away, towards the doors of the cinema where her son was with Tozer. She chewed her bottom lip for a few seconds. Took a last tug from the cig.
‘Tell me about your brother Johnny. You said he came to you asking for help.’
‘It happened a few times after that. He’d get drunk and tearful and come around mine. I tried to get it out of him. What was wrong? One day he told me. Some people in that company – he never told me who – had put pressure on him to overestimate materials for jobs. Just a little bit here and there. No harm done. The councils never check properly. Happens on every building site. Only with some of the jobs they do now, that starts to add up to a lot of money. And they were putting pressure on him to get more and more money out of it. So he said.’
‘Never any names?’
She looked at him briefly, then shook her head. ‘No. He never said anyone’s name.’
‘Your brother came to you because your husband was a policeman?’
‘Good old Michael.’ She nodded. ‘Good old fucking Michael.’
‘He wanted to find a way to end it?’
‘Johnny thought if he went to the police they could tidy it all up and he’d be OK.’
‘Only your husband wanted in on it?’
‘I don’t know. Michael said he’d handle it. That’s all.’
Breen nodded. She reached out and laid his hand on his again.
‘Thing about Michael was, he loves Charlie – loved Charlie. I suppose he wanted to show he could look after him. If he could get money, he thought I’d love him. Or at least stay with him. He knew I didn’t love him. I never did. I just got pregnant by him.’
‘So instead of helping your brother take his story to the police he blackmailed him?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Yes, maybe.’
Breen had to sit and think about this. Johnny Knight had been part of some syndicate skimming money off the top of building projects in London. With so much construction going on in the city, there was always scope for fraud. He tried to imagine what had gone on. At first it would have been small amounts – fifty pounds here and there – but with that much money being paid out, there was always potential for someone to get greedy. As the sums increased and the total grew
larger, Johnny had started to panic. The figures were becoming too significant not to be noticed, perhaps. And he was the first person they would come to for an explanation. He could lose his lovely house, his lovely life. He was a star pupil. An achiever. He would have tried to find a way out. He imagined him thinking about his sister’s husband, a policeman. He would have approached him, asked him if he could investigate it, perhaps even get a reward for letting the police know. Golden boys like Johnny always imagined there was some way they could come up smelling nice. But Michael Prosser wasn’t that sort of policeman. He would have seen it as an opportunity. He would have wanted a cut, maybe, for adding his own police protection to the racket.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘Why didn’t you report him missing? Why didn’t you tell me about this last time I came to see you?’
A gulp of air. ‘I loved him,’ she said. ‘He was my brother. He’d been planning to run away to Spain. He’d talked to me about it. Said he’d be in touch when he found a place. I thought maybe he had. See, if I’d gone and told the police he was missing people would start looking for him.’
She took her hand away from Breen’s. ‘But I’m starting to think,’ she said, looking at Breen, ‘that he didn’t. You know. Get away.’
‘I don’t think so either,’ said Breen. A long pause. The quiet popping of corn in the machine. A wave of muffled laughter from the cinema. ‘Who do you think killed him?’
She didn’t answer. That’s when the crying started again. She leaned forward, put her face in her hands and cried, shoulders trembling. Still unsure, Breen reached out a hand and laid it carefully on her shoulder.
When the sobbing had stopped, she said, ‘I’m scared.’
Breen looked at her. She looked half exhausted, half starved. Her husband was dead. Her brother was probably dead too. They had both been involved in the same scam. She had reason to be frightened. If her brother had been killed for threatening to tell the police about it, she had just done exactly what he had been killed for.
He said, ‘If it was just you maybe you could run away from whoever has done all this. But it’s not just you, is it?’
She shook her head, smiled a little, and laughed. ‘No. It’s not just me. Sometimes, I wish to God it was. That sounds awful, doesn’t it?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘You know what? This is the first time I’ve not been with Charlie since we went out for dinner. That was the first time I’ve had a break from him in almost two months. I’ve been with him every minute of the day. Every hour. You’re not a father, are you?’
‘No,’ said Breen.
‘Since we left Michael he’s had no school. No nothing. Every minute of the day. Just me. And that’s what makes me cry.’
Breen said, ‘I understand.’
‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘You have no bloody idea. At night it gets to the point where I wish Charlie was dead too. Can you imagine what it’s like, thinking that?’
Breen took out a cigarette for himself and offered her another.
‘My father took a long time to die,’ Breen said. ‘I used to wish he would hurry up.’ He felt in his pocket for a box of matches. ‘It’s probably not the same,’ he said.
The door to the cinema stalls opened just as the audience inside burst into laughter again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She took a drag on her cigarette.
‘You’re doing a great job with Charlie. It can’t be easy.’
‘It’s bloody not. I’d do anything for him though,’ she said. ‘That’s just how it is.’ She blew out smoke. ‘I’d go through hell.’
The film was over. People started streaming out into the lobby.
They had talked for over an hour. Breen pulled out the envelope, wrote his address on it and gave it to her. ‘It’ll keep you going,’ he said. ‘Don’t open it here.’
She felt the thickness of the paper inside.
Breen said, ‘Use it to move somewhere else. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t see anyone. Just keep your head down. Stay safe. I’ve written down my address. In a week or so, send me a postcard. Don’t write anything. Don’t sign it. Just let me know the place. I’ll come and find you. Everything will be fine.’
She smiled and said, ‘Promise?’
Tozer was among the last to emerge from the cinema, with Charlie Prosser hanging on to her arm. Breen watched the audience members staring at him as he waddled across the worn red carpet. Some avoided him, pressing themselves against the walls as he squeezed past. A couple of lads pushed into him, giggling. Charlie didn’t seem to notice. Breen wasn’t sure whether they were laughing at Charlie or at something they were remembering from the film.
Shirley Prosser smiled at her son. ‘What was it like, Charlie?’
‘Budd’ ru’ish.’ He grinned.
‘What have I told you about swearing, Charlie?’ said Shirley. ‘You’re always together. Are you two an item?’ she asked, looking from Tozer to Breen.
‘No,’ said Tozer.
‘I just thought…’ said Shirley.
‘No,’ she said again.
When they were going, Shirley shook Tozer’s hand, then lunged out and kissed Breen on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, into his ear. ‘For the money.’
‘What was all that about?’ said Tozer.
‘She was just saying thank you,’ said Breen.
‘It looked like more than that,’ said Tozer.
‘Well it wasn’t,’ said Breen.
‘Sorry I spoke,’ said Tozer.
‘Charlie was right though,’ said Tozer as they ran to the station to try and make the five o’clock train. ‘The film was bloody rubbish.’
The lights were on in Dreamland. They could hear the clatter of winnings from the fruit machines and the screams from the rollercoaster faded behind them, as they reached the dullness of the station, quiet on a Saturday afternoon.
The train back to London was empty. Breen and Tozer sat in the buffet car. The carriage smelt of dust and cooking grease.
Breen said, ‘Her brother Johnny was on the take.’
‘She said that?’
‘Yes.’
‘How does that work?’
‘He was a quantity surveyor. Say they need twenty thousand tons of concrete for a tower block,’ said Breen. ‘He and his pals say twenty-five thousand and pocket the difference. The Greater London Council spends millions on buildings. Easy to miss the odd twenty grand here and there.’
Tozer whistled. ‘A little bit here and there.’
Breen nodded.
‘How did she find out? Was she in on it?’
Breen shook his head. ‘She says her brother got drunk a lot. More as he got deeper into it. One night he told her. He was ashamed, she said. He wanted to come clean and thought Michael Prosser could help him.’
‘That’s like asking an alky to help you go on the wagon.’ Tozer called out to the barman, ‘Can I have a drink?’
‘Not till Faversham,’ said the man. ‘Bar don’t open till then.’
He was sitting on a stool behind the bar checking his pools coupon.
‘How long’s that?’
‘Forty minutes.’
‘Bloody hell. You could serve us one now,’ she said. ‘You’re not doing anything else.’
‘Rules,’ said the man, and he went back to his pools coupon.
‘Win anything?’ said Tozer.
The man crumpled up the paper and threw it behind him. ‘Nope.’
‘Good,’ said Tozer. Then, more quietly to Breen, ‘Why didn’t she tell us about this earlier?’
‘She thought he might have escaped to Spain or somewhere. He’d been talking about it. If he had, she didn’t want us investigating his disappearance.’
‘So why is Johnny Knight dead? If he is.’
‘Perhaps they were worried he would spill the beans.’ He pulled out a notebook and showed her the name of the building contractors Prosser was working for. ‘Morton
, Stiles and Prentice.’ Breen said, ‘Big company. They do loads of stuff. My dad worked for them.’
‘Really?’
‘He worked for a few in his time.’
‘What if there were people on the council who were getting kickbacks too, to turn a blind eye?’
Breen nodded. ‘Yes.’
Tozer said, ‘So he did this cheating thing even though he said he didn’t want to? And he took the money anyway?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know his sort. So what about Michael Prosser? They kill him too?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Breen.
She was thinking it through. ‘Johnny Knight had gone to Michael Prosser because he wanted to come clean. They both knew about this scam and they’re both dead.’
‘Maybe they killed them just because they knew about it. Whoever they are.’
‘Maybe.’
‘No wonder she’s scared shitty,’ said Tozer. ‘’Cause they must know she knew too. And they killed her brother and her ex.’
‘Precisely.’
‘Poor cow,’ said Tozer. ‘What’s she going to do?’
‘I told her to stay put. I told her we wouldn’t tell anyone where she was.’
‘Did she believe you?’
Breen looked out of the window. It was black outside now. Only the occasional lights of a farmhouse or a ship in the estuary.
He asked, ‘What about the boy? Charlie?’
‘He’s all right. Just have to figure out what he’s trying to say, that’s all. He ate ice cream just like any other ten-year-old. You still going to the party?’
‘Oh,’ said Breen. ‘The Christmas party? I don’t know.’
‘I bought the ticket. Might as well go. There’ll be food, won’t there? I’m ruddy starving.’
He said, ‘Must be hard for her, all alone.’
‘You fancy her, don’t you?’
‘I feel sorry for her, that’s all.’
‘Vulnerable woman – brings out all your instincts, don’t it?’
‘Lay off,’ said Breen.
‘One thing. Why did she run off like that?’ asked Tozer.
The window of the carriage suddenly thumped. Lighted windows shot past. Another train passing. ‘Like you said,’ said Breen. ‘She’s scared. She heard someone was following her.’
