A Song for the Brokenhearted

by William Shaw

  Later, he would call Milkwood and ask if they could meet.

  He was about to fry himself an egg when he heard someone walking down the outside steps. Then a knock at the door and a voice.

  ‘Sergeant Breen?’

  The coffee hadn’t fully woken him yet. He realised he was still in his dressing gown and had not shaved.

  ‘Just a minute,’ he called, and went to the bedroom, where he began struggling to get his arm into yesterday’s shirt.

  ‘Sergeant Breen? You in there?’ A young copper, helmet skewed, hair almost covering his ears, was peering in at his front window.

  The police car swerved left and right round traffic. Breen sat in the back, sliding from one side of the car to the other, banging his bad shoulder against the door each time they cornered.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Breen, as the car crossed Blackfriars Bridge.

  ‘Surbiton,’ said the driver. ‘Didn’t they tell you?’

  The tide was out. Barges lay unevenly on bright mud.

  ‘Do you mind driving a bit slower?’

  ‘Orders. They said I’m to get you there by ten. Supposed to be back at the Yard at ten thirty.’

  Breen rubbed his unshaven chin. He hated leaving the flat like this. ‘What’s the hurry?’

  ‘Think they’d tell me that? They just told me to get you there.’

  ‘To Surbiton?’

  No answer.

  ‘They didn’t tell you who had ordered this?’

  ‘Just got a call to pick you up and take you there. Your day off, is it?’

  ‘I’m on sick leave.’

  ‘Lucky bleeder. Wish I was.’

  Today the London he was driving through didn’t look so miraculous. It just looked dirty, grey and cold. Rubbish blew around in the streets. South London still had almost as many bomb sites as the East End; buildings remained half demolished, their yellow bricks blackened by years of smog, precarious walls propped with timbers.

  The traffic moved too slowly for the driver’s liking. He pulled out in front of a startled motorbike, forcing it onto the pavement, then revved up against the oncoming cars.

  London became leafier. The houses became tidier. They finally pulled up outside a semi-detached house in the calm of a cul-de-sac.

  ‘That’s the one,’ said the driver, pointing. ‘Number seventeen.’

  A nice house, built before the war, with stained glass in the front door and a leafless cherry tree in the garden. Pebble-dash walls and recently painted metal windows. A milk-bottle carrier with two empties in it outside the front door. A small red disc set to ‘Two Pints Today Please’.

  A woman in her mid-thirties, woollen skirt, woollen cardigan, opened the door. ‘Sergeant Carmichael?’ she called, looking back over her shoulder. ‘I think it’s a man for you.’

  Carmichael emerged from the living room, tie half undone. He glared at Breen for a second.

  ‘John? What’s going on?’

  Carmichael ignored him. ‘Sergeant Breen. This is Mrs Milkwood. Sergeant Milkwood’s wife.’

  She gave Breen a little smile. Breen could see from her eyes that she had been crying. He looked to Carmichael for an explanation.

  Carmichael just said, ‘Can we have a minute alone, Gwen?’

  ‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ she said, standing twisting the ring on her left hand.

  ‘Right,’ said Carmichael, closing the living-room door behind him and shutting Mrs Milkwood out. It was a nice, ordinary living room, with a brown velour three-piece suite with lace on the arms and a wood-effect TV set. A set of carved wooden antelopes on the tiled fireplace. Photographs in a cabinet.

  Carmichael stood in front of the stone mantelpiece, arms crossed. ‘Spill.’

  ‘Spill what?’ said Breen.

  ‘Whatever reason it was you were asking about Sergeant Milkwood.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No. You tell me. I want to know what you were up to yesterday. It’s too much of a coincidence, you showing up and asking me about him on the day that he’s disappeared.’

  ‘Disappeared?’

  Carmichael looked at him for a second, as if trying to gauge whether his surprise was genuine, then said, ‘Milkwood didn’t come home yesterday after work. He seems to have gone missing. So tell me what you were doing, asking about him. There’s more to it than him being some old chum of Tozer’s, isn’t there?’

  Breen sat down on the sofa, nodded.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Paddy. I am supposed to be your mate. Sometimes I don’t think I know you at all.’

  ‘You didn’t tell Milkwood I was asking after him?’

  ‘God’s sake, Paddy. Answer my questions before you start asking yours.’ Carmichael was trying hard not to raise his voice, but not succeeding.

  Breen asked, ‘Did Tozer ever tell you about her sister?’

  Carmichael shook his head.

  ‘Helen’s younger sister, Alex, was assaulted, tortured and murdered four and a half years ago. They never found the killer. Milkwood was part of the team who investigated her sister’s murder.’

  ‘Jesus. I never knew.’

  ‘That’s how she knew Milkwood. And it’s why she got into the police in the first place in a kind of way.’

  ‘Oh, she’s just asking about an old pal. God’s sake.’

  Carmichael’s big frame thumped down onto the sofa next to Breen. The springs sang.

  ‘I’m sorry. She doesn’t like telling people about her sister.’

  ‘You must be pretty special, then.’

  ‘She didn’t want to. I made her.’

  A cuckoo clock somewhere in the house struck the quarter-hour.

  ‘And anyway, I thought I’d take a look at the investigation files while I was down there. As a favour. And there was a suspect folder missing. It had been removed from the files completely. So I asked around a bit. The missing suspect turned out to be a friend of Milkwood’s. And it turned out that Milkwood had removed the papers.’

  Carmichael whispered, ‘You don’t think Milkwood was… involved in the murder of Tozer’s sister?’

  Breen shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s not likely. But there may have been something in the folder that might have been useful. I wanted to get Sergeant Milkwood to tell me his version of why he’d removed that evidence.’

  There was a gentle knock on the door. ‘Tea, Mr Breen?’

  They both looked at the door.

  ‘Just a minute, Mrs M,’ said Carmichael. ‘Christ.’

  Breen said, ‘You sure he’s disappeared, then? He’s not just run off on some investigation?’

  ‘He’s a steady bloke. If he wasn’t coming home for a reason, he’d have called his wife.’

  They looked at each other for a second.

  Breen asked, ‘So did you tell him I was looking for him?’

  Carmichael shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think I even saw him yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘And did you tell him you were meeting me?’

  ‘I told a few of them in the squad. Don’t know about him exactly. He was there, I suppose. You’re my mate.’

  ‘Did you say I’d been away in Devon? Did you mention Helen at all?’

  ‘I’m thinking. I may have done. I can’t remember.’

  Breen wondered about Sharman. Or someone else in the Devon and Cornwall Police maybe? Would they have somehow told Milkwood that Breen was looking into Alexandra Tozer’s murder?

  ‘It’s got to be coincidence, though, hasn’t it?’ said Carmichael.

  ‘Your tea will get cold,’ said Mrs Milkwood, outside the door.

  Breen said, ‘Maybe it’s nothing. Milkwood was Drug Squad. He must have made a few enemies.’

  Carmichael whispered, ‘That’s what people are most afraid of, back at the shop. This is all new ground for us. The drug gangs are growing faster than we can keep the screws on them.’

  ‘I could make a fresh pot, if you like?’ A tremor in her voice.

  ‘
No. Come on in, Mrs M. We’re done.’

  As she carried the tray past the cabinet, teacups rattling, Breen glanced at the photos in it. There was a black-and-white one of a younger Mrs Milkwood in a floral swimming suit, standing next to someone who must be her husband. On either side of her, a couple of men and another woman stood holding drinks. They were all laughing about something. The photograph must have been taken in the 1950s, probably somewhere hot and bright from the way they all squinted at the camera. She alone wore dark glasses. She was younger then; her hair was down and her skin smoother.

  ‘How do you take it?’ Mrs Milkwood asked. But when she lifted the china pot, her hands were trembling so much that tea slopped over the saucers and onto the tray, soaking the lace beneath the plates.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, and sat down suddenly on the floor and hung her head so that her hair covered her face, shoulders heaving.

  Breen and Carmichael sat wordless, embarrassed, each waiting for the other to say something.

  ‘You must think me such an idiot,’ she said between sobs; she seemed unable to stand on her own. Spilt tea steamed gently.

  Afterwards, they sat in Carmichael’s car, smoking cigarettes.

  ‘I mean, he wouldn’t have just run off?’

  Carmichael blew out smoke. ‘Not likely. Not Milkwood.’

  ‘Anyone he’d crossed?’

  ‘That’s what frightens me. Unlike the rest of the Drug Squad, who are running around posing for the papers, Milkwood has plenty of contacts in the drug trade. He was good. He was getting somewhere. At a guess, there were definitely people who were concerned about him. Serious people. He was tracking some gang that’s been bringing drugs out of Spain.’

  ‘You worried?’

  Carmichael nodded. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Coppers don’t just go missing.’

  ‘It’s only been for a day. He’ll turn up, probably.’

  ‘It’s not like him, though. One of the old-style ones. Short hair, you know?’

  ‘Your mate?’

  Carmichael shrugged. ‘God, no. Too square. But he’s still one of us, you know?’

  Breen ground his cigarette into the ashtray and snapped it shut.

  Carmichael asked, ‘Tozer’s sister was killed four years ago?’

  Breen nodded. ‘Milkwood moved up here about six months after that? Maybe a year?’

  Carmichael wound down the window and threw out his butt. ‘That’s right.’ Then leaned down and started the engine. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  They drove in silence back towards the centre of the city, heater up full against an icy wind.

  Carmichael sat at Milkwood’s desk, the floor around him surrounded by wood splinters from where he’d forced the locks. He was looking through wads of paper he had piled on the desk.

  He looked up and said, ‘What about checking his bank account?’

  Sergeant Pilcher had been standing next to them. He snapped, ‘Sergeant Milkwood isn’t on trial here.’

  ‘Who said he was?’ Carmichael looked him in the eye. ‘Might be worth it. Just in case.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re implying, Carmichael. But if I were you I’d shut up now before you say something stupid.’

  ‘I’m just trying to help find him, Nobby.’ Sergeant Nobby Pilcher. Golden boy of the Drug Squad.

  When Pilcher had gone, Breen said, ‘Anything?’

  ‘There’s nothing much here. Take a look at this.’ He pushed a large black-and-white photograph across the desk.

  A dead body, of course. A man, probably in his thirties, laid flat on a floor. He had been fit and healthy. There was something beautiful about his sinewy frame. Unshaven, longish-haired and naked, arms splayed out on either side. Like Jesus. Only instead of having holes in his hands, he was missing three fingers. His face was so badly swollen from being beaten that it was hard to tell what it would have looked like, and there was a clean bullet hole in the front of his head.

  Breen turned it over. On the back was written: ‘Estudio Fotográfico Alberic’.

  ‘This isn’t the first. Milkwood had another a couple of weeks before. According to that man’s parents, he was on his way back from Marrakech,’ said Carmichael. ‘Milkwood got this from the Spanish police in Madrid. Morocco’s full of hippies thinking they can make their fortune by bringing a bit of hash back from their holidays. Afghanistan too. Only, if you’re bringing it back from Morocco you come through Spain, where half the criminals from east London now live. I was hoping for notes. Anything.’

  ‘His fingers? Tortured?’

  ‘It’s not just a manicure, is it? The Spanish police have had half a dozen bodies of British hippies turning up in the last three months. Milkwood told me the Spanish Cuerpo General think it’s some kind a honey trap. They meet the hippies on the way out. Buenos dias. Going to Morocco? Tell them they know this great guy up in the mountains who’ll look after them. Talks up how cheap drugs are to buy, maybe. How easy it is to smuggle them back and make a fortune. Look us up on your way back, kids. Show us your holiday snaps. This great guy in the Rif Mountains sells them drugs to take back with them. Heroin. Marijuana. All that. So basically the gang get their drugs bought for them, get them over the Spanish border, then they think they’ll go and look up their great new mates in Spain. Both the bodies had bullets in the head. So these hippies are not only smuggling the drugs for them, they’re paying for them too. They think this one must have hidden his gear somewhere. So they chopped his fingers off until he told them. Stupid arse. All you need is love, hey?’

  ‘No other notes about who he was investigating?’

  ‘No idea. I can’t find anything. Milky didn’t seem to keep notes. It was all in his head.’

  ‘Who would you reckon?’

  ‘I mean, take your pick. Half the gangs in London are winding up in Spain these days.’

  Breen scratched his unshaven chin. ‘So it could well be something to do with that? Nothing to do with Helen’s sister?’

  Breen gazed at the clutter on Milkwood’s desk. A leather pot for pens. A typewriter. He leaned forward and pulled a single sheet of carbon paper out of the typewriter and held it up to the light in the hope he’d be able to read the last thing Milkwood had typed. But the carbon had been used many times. It was just an indecipherable blur of letters. Breen crumpled it and threw it into the dustbin.

  Then he caught Carmichael’s eye. Carmichael nodded, lifted up the dustbin and emptied it onto the desk. He shook cigarette ash off balls of paper and started unfolding them on the desk. ‘You ever thought what you’d do if you quit the police?’ he asked.

  Breen said, ‘I don’t know. There’s not much I’m any good at. Apart from this.’

  ‘Who says you’re any good at it?’

  ‘What about you? You’re not thinking of jacking it in, are you, for God’s sake?’

  Carmichael stopped, lit a cigarette. ‘I just hate the way all the young people think we’re such arses, you know? And I hate that half the time they’re right.’

  ‘Young people? Since when did you start caring about what they thought?’

  Carmichael ignored him. He was making a pile of small torn-up pieces of paper.

  Breen wondered what Helen was doing now. He hadn’t called the farm since he’d gone. The snow that had started the night they had made love had not let up. It would be hard work down there.

  There was a phone on the desk. He could call now. Only if he did, they’d think there was something wrong. Only the rich made personal calls during the daytime, unless it was urgent. Maybe tonight he would call. At home. In private.

  He noticed Carmichael was holding up a piece of paper, noting the date on it.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Petty cash claim. Two hundred and fifty quid.’

  Breen had pulled up one of the plastic chairs and was sitting opposite him. ‘For what?’

  ‘What do you think? Miscellaneous expenses.’r />
  ‘Two hundred and fifty quid for miscellaneous? You’re joking. That’s not miscellaneous.’ That was a couple of months’ wages. ‘Many more of them like that in there?’

  Carmichael shrugged. ‘A couple.’

  Breen whistled.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked. It’s just how we do it in the Drug Squad,’ said Carmichael quietly, so that the man at the next desk wouldn’t overhear. ‘If we put down what it’s really for…’

  ‘Informers?’

  ‘Yes. Miscellaneous arseholes.’

  Breen shook his head. ‘Nice work.’

  It was a large noisy office, desks in lines. This side of the New Scotland Yard building had clear views over towards Petty France and Buckingham Palace, even in the dwindling daylight.

  Breen picked up the stapler and banged it so that a useless staple fell out of the bottom. ‘I don’t suppose he’d have kept a list of those informers anywhere?’

  ‘You know how it works,’ said Carmichael. ‘He wouldn’t have written it down.’

  ‘I know how it works in the rest of the Met. Everyone’s got informers, but they don’t pay them two hundred and fifty quid.’

  ‘This is drugs. It’s a whole new world.’

  Breen nodded. ‘But perhaps he was on to something.’

  ‘If he was, I can’t see what it was.’

  Carmichael was still picking through the debris. An empty biro. Mouldering apple cores. A broken light bulb. And two small, screwed-up pieces of yellow paper. Breen reached out and took them. They were both messages, written in the same rounded female hand, that must have been left on Milkwood’s desk. One said ‘Pilcher says meeting now at 10.30 a.m.’ and the other said ‘Your wife called. What time will you be home?’