She's Leaving Home (13 page)

“Miss Pattison said the police would want to talk to her but the girl said she wasn’t interested in that and disappeared.”

“What was the fan’s name?”

“You see, she put her name down in the competition entry as Miss P. Lane. Only there’s no P. Lanes in the fan club. And then I figured it out. Penny Lane. Get it?”

“Get what?”

“Oh for God’s sake, sir, haven’t you even heard of ‘Penny Lane’?”

“Course I have. Just pulling your leg.”

“Very amusing.”

“What about that drink then, Paddy?” said Marilyn. “Later?”

“Another time maybe. What about Morwenna?”

“I was just going to say. No Penny Lanes, but I searched through every single file and I found eighteen bloody Morwennas. Who’d have thought? I’d never even heard that name. I mean, who calls a girl Morwenna? But only one Gemini. Bingo. Verden an der Aller. You think her family’s in Germany?”

Marilyn stood, took her mug back to the counter and left the canteen without saying another word.

“Military, more likely,” said Breen. “Stationed out there when she was born. What about the girl who recognized her? Do you have an address for her?”

“Went there. Turned out the address was that squat in Hamilton Terrace, you know?” A group of students had taken over a huge empty Regency house in one of the posher roads in St. John’s Wood a few months earlier; there had been a flurry of complaints at the time but they had died down. Breen was surprised to learn that the students were still there. “I did knock but I spoke to this guy who said she didn’t live there anymore. He would, though, wouldn’t he?”

Breen nodded.

“I got a photograph of her, mind.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a small black-and-white photograph. Three girls standing in line, each holding a copy of a single in front of them, smiling shyly into the camera. “Miss Pattison took it. For the newsletter she sends out. Our Penny Lane’s the one on the left.” A girl with long mousy hair, standing in a sheepskin coat, holding the record to her bosom.

“She’s OK once you get to know her, Miss Pattison.”

“Right.” Breen looked at the photograph.

“See?”

“See what?”

She frowned. “You thought I was just a nutter, didn’t you?”

“I never said that,” said Breen. “That wasn’t what I was trying to say at all.”

She looked away. “I’m still bloody starving. Haven’t eaten since that bit of cake and I never finished that. Are there any more sandwiches left?”

“You just had one.”

“So?”

“Let me get you one,” said Breen, standing. And then said, “Tozer?”

“What?”

“That was good, what you did.”

“I know.” She grinned. Then: “Ask if they’ve got any pickle, can you?”

The woman at the serving counter glared at him when he made it to the front of the queue with his tray. “Don’t know what you’re looking so flipping happy about,” she said to Breen, wiping greasy hands on her nylon apron.

Back at his desk he called the Ministry of Defence; the woman in the records office said she’d do her best. He was making a note of the conversation in his notebook when Marilyn passed close to his desk and whispered, “Only saying. She’s on the pill. It’s common knowledge. You know what that means.”

“What?”

“Helen Tozer. She’s an S-L-A-G.”

Marilyn raised her eyebrows meaningfully and then turned her back.

B
reen opened the front door. “Sorry,” he said. “The place is a bit of a mess. I’ve been meaning to give it a clean.”

“You live here on your own?” Tozer had offered to give him a ride home. When she had pulled up outside, he had invited her in for a coffee.

“I moved out when my dad got ill. He needed looking after.”

She nodded. “Carmichael thinks that’s what sent you doolally, your dad dying.” He noticed she was wearing mascara. When had she put that on? When she was in the car, waiting for him to bring his briefcase downstairs from the office? If so, what did it mean when a girl got made-up? Did it mean she was interested in you?

“Doolally, he said?”

“Sort of.”

“I didn’t know you knew Carmichael?”

“We go out for a drink with the lads sometimes. How come you never go?”

He picked up a pile of newspapers from the armchair and stuffed them into a bin. “I haven’t had much time. I was looking after my dad.”

He stood there pursing his lips for a second before he said, “So. Do you want a cup of coffee? It’s real.” He bought his coffee beans from a Turkish shop at Dalston Junction and ground them himself.

“Friday night. I was hoping for something stronger. Got anything?”

“Stronger? Sorry, no.”

Standing in the middle of the carpet was a dining chair. Surrounding it were circles of paper, with big words picked out in colored pen, or pencil drawings. There were dozens of them. Some were names of people: Miss Shankley. Samuel Ezeoke. Some were words: “Locks.” “Lighter Fuel.” “Kynaston Tech.” He’d done another drawing of the dead girl’s body from memory in blue ink.

She picked up one of the pieces of paper. It was a map he’d been drawing of Cora Mansions. “What’s all this?”

“Don’t move it,” he said, too loudly. “I’m still working on it.” He yanked it away from her and replaced it on the carpet.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was curious, that’s all.”

She found the ink drawing of the naked girl. Her behind pointing upwards. The plump curves looked suddenly prurient.

“I am just trying to think things through.”

“With all this?”

“It’s about trying to see the connections.”

“It’s very good,” she said. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“I was going to go to art school, only my dad didn’t think much of that. So I joined the police instead, only he didn’t think much of that either.”

“So.” She pointed to the map. “You still think whoever did it is from round there? Even after Mr. Rider?”

“Yes,” he said, placing his foot over the writing on one of the sheets of paper and hoping she hadn’t spotted it.

Without asking, she sat in the chair and gazed around her. There must have been a hundred different pieces of paper around the room, some in pencil, some in blue ink, others in green or red. He realized how mad it must look. What had he been thinking, inviting her in?

“Why don’t we go out for a drink instead?” he said. “Just leave that stuff and we could go out?”

“Super idea. I could do with a drink after today.”

“Pubs round here are pretty rough.”

“I’ll feel right at home then,” she said, standing up.

When her back was to him, he reached down and picked up the sheet of paper on which he’d written her sister’s name, crunching it up into a ball and slipping it into his pocket.

Walking down Stoke Newington High Street, she said, “You asked me if I’d ever seen a dead body.”

“Yes.”

“You think I lied to you about that?”

“Did you?”

“I never lied. They never let me see my sister, after they found her. They said it would upset me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Breen.

“’S OK. I don’t mind.”

A car drove past at speed. There was a puddle by the gutter; Breen grabbed Tozer’s arm and pulled her back from the edge of the pavement just before the wheel hit the water, splashing it in an arc onto the slabs where she would have been walking.

“Thank you,” she said. “You can let go now.”

He released her arm.

They had stopped outside a small shop selling doll parts. A hundred different eyes peered out from a green baize board, some large, some small, some blue, some gray. There were plump porcelain arms and odd, pot-bellied body shapes to attach them to. A row of pouting, empty-eyed heads sat along the top of a small shelf. “She just didn’t come home from school one day and that was that.”

Breen nodded. They opened the door into the lounge bar of the Red Lion, on the bend of the street. A few codgers stared at Tozer and shifted on their bar stools. Conversation faltered. Women rarely came in this pub, even in the lounge bar. The room was dark, a fug of smoke drifting at eye level. The sound of the click of snooker balls came from the public bar behind the frosted glass.

He returned with a double rum and black for her and a pint for himself. Though the other customers had started talking again, they still craned their necks to peer at them.

“Do you like London, sir?” she asked, head cocked on one side.

“Don’t call me sir,” he said. “I mean,” he added. “We’re not at the station now.”

“OK. Do you like London…” She smiled and paused. “I don’t like ‘Cathal.’ Mind if I call you Paddy?”

“You wouldn’t be the first. Nobody ever called me Cathal except my dad.” His mother had given him the name, his father said; his father had worried that it would make him stand out.

“It’s a funny name.”

“My father didn’t think so.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

He took out a cigarette and offered her one. “Doesn’t matter.” He felt foolish now, bristling over a name he’d hated all through growing up. She took one of his cigarettes and he lit them both.

“Well, Cathal?” she asked. “Do you like London?”

“I’ve never lived anywhere else. What about you? Do you miss the countryside?”

She smiled. “You should try it.”

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t know what to do there,” he said.

“No. I don’t think you would.” She picked up her rum and black and the beer mat was stuck to the bottom of it:
A Double Diamond Works Wonders
. She peeled it off, put it back onto the table and took a large gulp from her glass. “Cheers,” she said.

“Cheers.”

She took another sip from hers, then said, “Right then. I’ll tell you all about it all. But I don’t want you telling anyone else, OK? You tell Bailey and he’ll take me right off, and you know it. Only thing his lot think us women police are good for is putting parking tickets on cars.”

Breen looked at her. She looked good with a bit of makeup on. “If I think anyone has a problem that might affect the investigation, I’m supposed to let him know.”

She looked down at her drink and said quietly, “You’re the one who went doolally, not me.”

Breen smiled. “Bailey knows about that.”

She looked up at him. “Does he know about you chucking up when you saw the body?”

He took a sip of his beer. “OK.”

“Promise you won’t say?”

“Promise.” He wondered if he was making a mistake.

She paused, took a third gulp. “Where should I start?”

“Anywhere.”

She fiddled with the winder of her watch for a couple of seconds then spoke again. “It was the same as how it always starts. Alex didn’t come home one night.” She paused and twisted the winder some more. “Dad was furious the first night. He was convinced she had run off with one of the boys from the Tech.”

“How old was she?”

“Sixteen. The boys were always sniffing around her. She was gorgeous, Alexandra was, in an aloof kind of way. Always boys around her. Had Mum’s looks. I take after Dad.” She smiled. “And she loved it all, of course, all the attention, though she never showed it. I was older, and I would have jumped for any of them, but she was always offhand. Which they all loved, of course. I could never be that casual around boys. One time two boys asked her out, to go to the local barn dance. She said yes to them both. She didn’t care that they were furious with her. And fair play, she danced with them both. And told both of them to buy me drinks and all. Just to show she had the power and I had not. Sorry. I’m going off, aren’t I?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all part of it.”

“I like to talk about her. I never can when I’m at home. Nobody mentions her no more.”

“You really have barn dances?”

“God, yes. All the time. Accordion players and set dances and the lot. Do you dance?”

“Not really.”

“What about Irish dancing?”

“Not on your life. How old were you when this happened?”

“Eighteen years and six days when she disappeared. I was studying agriculture at the local tech. It was just after my birthday. I was going to be a farm girl. Can you imagine that?”

He shook his head.

“Poor Dad had wanted a son to take over the place. He ended up with me and Alex. After that Mum couldn’t have any more. I was the elder so I was going to do what he wanted. She was the beautiful one who always had it easy. It’s like that with the second child, isn’t it? The first one has to figure everything out for themselves. The second one dances along afterwards. Not that I minded, really. Not much, anyway. She was the beautiful one.”

She pulled out a cigarette from her handbag and offered one to Breen. Breen shook his head.

“It was a Tuesday. Dad drove round Newton Abbot going into all the scrumpy bars, of which there are a few, let me tell you, pulling out the boys and accusing them of running off with his daughter. You should meet my dad. He’s sort of big. Ever drunk scrumpy?”

Breen shook his head again.

“I wouldn’t. It’s piss.” She finished the glass. “Mind if I give you the money to get another?” she said.

He shook his head. “I’ll get it.”

“Can you see if they got any crisps?” she called.

The middle-aged, bleach-haired barmaid was at the off-sales counter, handing over lemonade and a packet of cigarettes to a scabby-headed boy. “They for your dad?” she said, handing him the cigarettes.

“Who do you think they’re for?”

“They better chuffing be,” said the barmaid. “I’ll give you a slap if I see you smoking them.”

She returned to the main bar and served Breen. “Three and six. You’re from round here, in’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Copper, in’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Thought so. I know all the coppers round here.”

“What? All of them?” Tozer called out. “You must be a bit of a live wire then.”

A few of the customers laughed. “She bloody is, an’ all.”

“Oi, shut up or you’re banned, the lot of you,” said the barmaid with a grin. “You live by the station, don’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Thought so. My sister used to look after your dad.”

He tried to remember the name of the pale girl who used to clean for him back when he worked at the local station, but he couldn’t. “How is she?”

“She’s marrying an accountant.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

“Sorry to hear about your dad too. My sister liked him. She said your dad used to recite poetry to her.”

Where other memories had vanished, his father had been left with odd chunks of the poems he must have learned as a child. Unexpected, haunting lines that occasionally fell from his mouth like reproaches: “The Light of Lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.”

“He’s in a better place now,” said the barmaid, and turned to pull another pint with arms that looked used to heavy work.

When Breen came back with the drink and the crisps, Tozer opened the packet, dug around for the blue twist of salt and poured it over them. She munched a few in silence.

“Your father sounds like he could be a scary fellow, then,” said Breen.

“Oh, my dad ain’t really scary. He’s a lamb. It’s just he is tall and he does carry a shotgun round with him, but that’s only to knock the crows off the hurdles.” She closed her eyes as if seeing something more clearly in her mind. “He used to be a very careful man. We had the best-kept cows in South Devon. He was always winning prizes at the County Show. We got a whole wall full of rosettes. Best Guernsey Cow in Milk. Best Guernsey Group of Three. You know? Champion Local Dairy Animal. Now he just goes through the motions. It’s not the same.”

She fell silent. The smoke fug thickened around them. The hubbub of the pub had reasserted itself now. Tozer’s joke about the barmaid had broken the ice. Breen’s beer had left a ring of wetness on the dark wood table. He put his finger in the spilled liquid and drew lines out from the circle so that it looked like an infant’s drawing of the sun, rays spreading outwards.

“They found her on the second day, in the woods just a couple of hundred yards from our house.”

He thought of the girl under the mattress. The drizzle trickling down her cold body.

“I was at school when they found her. I remember Mrs. Wilton, our headmistress, coming to get me out of maths class. Her face was as pale as a nun’s arse and I remember she had an ink mark right next to her mouth from chewing a pen or something, and I couldn’t stop staring at it all the time she talked. I knew even before she opened her mouth, though, that they must have found her, just by looking at her. Alex had been raped and knifed. There were bruises all over her. That’s why they didn’t want me to see her. He had piled sticks and leaves on top of her and just left her. They say the foxes had been at her.”

She said all this in a matter-of-fact voice, but took another large gulp from her rum and black at the end of it. Breen thought: her sister must have struggled a long time with injuries like that.

They sat in silence together for a while.

“Was that why you joined the police, then?”

“What? To find who killed my sister? Not at the beginning.”

A bearded tramp stuck his head round the door. The barmaid shouted a single word: “Out.” The head disappeared again.

“I fell in love.”

Breen watched her twisting a stud round in her earlobe. A small gold dot on pink skin.

“Not really love at all, actually. Stupid. This copper fancied me. He was a detective sergeant, as it happens. He was on the case.”