She's Leaving Home (25 page)

“What was Eddie Okonkwo talking to you about?” Ezeoke leaned in towards him.

“You,” said Breen.

“His favorite topic of conversation.”

“He admires you.”

Ezeoke began to dance as Breen stood woodenly on the dance floor. “He was telling you that I was not a true Biafran, I expect.”

“He said you were raised in England.”

“The mother country,” he said, unsmiling.

A cheer went up from the Africans as a new record started. “Do you like high-life music?” shouted the dapper young man dancing with Tozer. Above the polyrhythmic tumble of guitars and drums Breen could hear a chorus singing in a language he did not understand.

“Be careful of Okonkwo. He is a wily old devil,” said Ezeoke. “Come on. Dance. I will teach you.” He took Breen’s hands and started to pull him one way and then the other.

“You don’t like him?”

Ezeoke was shouting so Breen could hear, but the words were indistinct. “Of course I like him…” Ezeoke talked on, but his words disappeared into the roar of voices and the pulse of the music around him. The dance floor was full now with people jostling for space, bumping into each other, not seeming to care. If it had been sweaty before, the air was now thick. Breen’s shirt stuck to him.

Breen had hardly ever danced. He tried to follow the movements of the Africans, making small, quick movements with his feet, but despite their encouraging shouts he was conscious of looking absurd. He tried copying Tozer’s wild gyrations, but that was worse. He caught sight of Okonkwo grinning from his seat at the side of the small room. Was that an encouraging smile, or was he laughing at him?

Frances Briggs was leaving the dance floor. Breen followed her.

“Are you enjoying yourself, Mister Policeman?”

“This is not like any other fund-raiser I’ve been to,” he shouted above the music.

“It’s not exactly a village fete, is it?” She laughed. “The Biafrans are marvelous people. Africans still have the connection. It’s like being set free. You should do it more often.”

“Do I look like I need to be set free?”

“Oh yes. I suspect you’re terribly like my husband. Very English and correct. And dull. He just sits in the corner looking awfully uncomfortable. And he doesn’t approve of politics. I don’t invite him to our parties anymore.”

“I’m not English,” he said. “I’m Irish.”

“You’ve no excuse at all, then.” She picked up a gin and took a gulp. “Come on and dance.” She took his arm.

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t be boring.” She was dragging him onto the dance floor again now.

He was saved when, with a loud bang, the amplifier blew a fuse. The music stopped abruptly, the lights snapped off, and the room was filled with a giant groan of disappointment. The dancing wound to a halt.

“There will be a short interval,” somebody quipped in the darkness.

“Someone go fix the gen.” A laugh.

A girl’s abrupt scream was followed quickly by a slap and a shout: “
E netulum aka!
Keep your filthy hands to yourself, old man.”

“Give me a kiss!”

“Go away. The darkness does not stop you being ugly.” An even bigger laugh.

A couple of people found their lighters and dark faces shone in the blackness.

“Blackout. Now I am homesick.” More hilarity. More matches lit.

They stood there in the thick, sweaty darkness, waiting for the lights to come back on, jostling for space, until someone started to sing a slow, solemn song.

“All hail Biafra, land of the rising sun,” came a rich baritone. Voices joined in. “We love and cherish.”

Soon the whole room was filled with singing. In the dim light Breen could make out a young man with diagonal scars cut into his forehead raising his arm in a stiff military salute. Breen watched eyes stream with tears, damp cheeks that shone in matchlight. “We have vanquished our enemies, all hail Biafra.” Voices quavered. Harmonies thickened the song. Men reached out and held hands with other men. Breen looked over towards Okonkwo. In the darkness he could just make him out too, standing, almost shouting the song. “We have emerged triumphant from all our foes.” And Ezeoke, holding Frances Briggs’s hand, chin jutting out, chest full, crying like a child as he sang.

Afterwards, the party moved outside onto Wardour Street, where Ezeoke handed Breen an opened bottle of beer. Still hot from the nightclub, women fanned themselves with leaflets about the war, men leaned against the shop windows and smoked cigarettes. The amplifier had blown. The music was over. After the singing, the atmosphere was subdued.

Breen found Tozer talking to Mrs. Briggs.

“Of course it’s a real photo,” she was saying, “the boy is starving.”

Tozer was holding a bottle of beer in one hand and a leaflet with a photo of an African child on it in the other. She had kicked off her heels and was standing on the pavement in her bare feet. “If he’s starving, how come his belly is so big?”

“Have you heard of kwashiorkor? It is one of the few West African words to have entered the medical dictionary,” Mrs. Briggs said. “It says something that while we make Africans learn Shakespeare, all we take from them is a word like this. It’s from Ghana. It’s a type of starvation. You should get Sam to explain why it leads to the distended belly. It’s something to do with the failing of the liver function, I believe.”

“That’s terrible. Is that taken in Biafra?”

“In one of the relief camps. Yes. There are hundreds of thousands of young children there. That boy died two days after the photograph was taken. Hundreds are dying every day. It’s inhuman.”

“That’s awful.”

“It is a monstrosity,” said Okonkwo, joining them. “Let me ask you. What does it make you feel?”

“I don’t know. It makes me angry, I suppose.”

“Does it make you angry that your government is helping this to happen?”

“I suppose it does,” Breen said.

“Yes. You should be angry. I can give you copies of the leaflet if you like. We are printing them. We want everyone to see the truth about what is happening in Biafra. You see? He did not die in vain.”

“That’s an awful thing to say,” said Tozer. “It’s like you’re almost glad he died.”

Ezeoke came and snatched the leaflet out of Tozer’s hand.

“I was looking at that,” she protested.

“Have you progressed any further with your investigation?” In the orange streetlight Ezeoke looked tired and drawn.

“Not since I saw you last.”

A boy on a scooter rode past, pausing to look at the unusual sight of a group of black people in the middle of Soho, then revving on down Broadwick Street.

Ezeoke said, “You don’t strike me as the kind of man who goes to parties. Perhaps you’re investigating now?”

“He’s not the kind of man who goes to parties,” said Tozer. “I brought him.”

“That explains why you are a much better dancer than him.”

Tozer laughed. The young man was next to her still. He attempted to put his arm around her waist and she pushed it back, wriggling away from him. “Get off.”

“Why?” he said. “I’m just being friendly.”

“I know your type of friendly,” she said, still laughing, but she didn’t move away from him.

“Are you OK?” Breen asked her.

“Of course I’m OK.”

“You are neglecting your beautiful Biafran wife, Samuel,” said Okonkwo.

“Yes, mazi-Okonkwo. You are right. You are always right. Let me tell you a little about Mr. Okonkwo,” said Ezeoke. “He is our minister of propaganda. He sees every starving Biafran baby as a present from God. He believes he can shame the British into changing sides. He does not understand the British have no shame. But with him the objective is everything. He cares nothing for whether people live or die.”

“Are you drunk, Sam? Go home before you say something you regret,” said Okonkwo.

“I’m not drunk.”

“Didn’t your wife tell me you had a plane to catch tomorrow morning? Ezinwa? Shouldn’t you take your husband home?”

His wife was talking to another woman, ignoring Okonkwo.

“I am fine.”

“Where are you flying to, Mr. Ezeoke?” asked Breen.

“Belgium. I am attending a conference on causal links between heart disease and cigarette smoking.”

“Which means you should go to bed.”

A light blue police car turned into the top of Wardour Street and drove slowly towards them. The men moved off the street onto the pavement to let it past. As it drove by, the policeman behind the wheel wound down his window and looked sideways at them. The Africans shuffled their bottles of beer into their coats and behind their backs.

The car passed on and turned round to Broadwick Street.

“Smoking does not give you heart disease. It makes you strong,” said Tozer’s young man.

“You got a cigarette I can smoke?” said Tozer. “I’m feeling weak.” The man laughed and pulled a crumpled packet from his trousers. Breen was surprised at how jealous he felt.

A minute later the police car was back, returning from the north and crawling past them again. This time when it reached Broadwick Street it stopped. “Go back into the club,” said Okonkwo. The younger Africans hesitated. “Go back downstairs. Now.”

A few of them had begun to move just as the car started to reverse back towards them, rapidly. It braked right outside the nightclub and both doors flew open.

The copper who had been driving was a lanky fellow. He unfolded himself from the car, saying, “Right. What’s going on here?”

Okonkwo stepped forward. “We were having a party, sir. We are going home now.”

The other policeman eyed them across the roof of the car. “Is that beer you’re drinking?” he called.

“Sorry, sir. We were having a party in the nightclub, but the electricity broke.”

One of the partygoers giggled.

The first officer shouted, “I’m going to give you one minute to get out of here.” Breen could see Ezeoke’s jaw clenching. “Move. Now,” said the copper.

Breen was about to intervene, to tell the officer that he could vouch for these men, when Tozer gave a small high-pitched yelp. “Get off!” She slapped the young man’s hand away for the tenth time.

“Stand back!” the policeman shouted, pulling his truncheon out. “Get your hands off the woman.” The other policeman was back inside the car now, on the radio, calling for support.

“For God’s sake,” said Tozer. “It’s OK. I can handle him myself. He’s just a kid.”

But the policeman’s face was already reddening as he held up his truncheon. “Get away from her.”

The young black man’s face hardened; he cocked his head back, eyes narrowing.

Breen saw Ezeoke step between them, fired up with patriotism, beer and song. “Leave him alone,” he blurted, feet planted firmly apart.

“Don’t, Sam,” shouted Ezinwa.

“Don’t be stupid, Sam,” said Okonkwo.

The policeman put his face right up to Ezeoke’s. “Get out of my way, nigger.”

“Leave us alone, white man,” Ezeoke shouted back, raising a fist and shaking it in his face.

“Just try it,” taunted the policeman.

Ezeoke was quivering with rage, eyes wide. For the first time the young policeman suddenly looked uncertain of himself, scared even. Before he could land a first blow, Breen pushed between Ezeoke and the copper, sending Ezeoke staggering backwards towards his wife. He held up his warrant card a foot in front of the policeman’s face.

“It’s OK,” he said. “Calm down. Everything’s OK. He’s just a bit drunk, that’s all.”

Okonkwo was ushering the young men off the street back into the nightclub as the sound of a police siren approached from the south.

“Do as the man says,” said Breen. “Go home, everyone.”

Some descended back into the club to collect their coats and bags. Others drifted away into the night. The policeman stood by his car, glaring at them as they dispersed.

The other police car pulled up behind, light flashing, policemen piling out of it.

“I was fine,” said Tozer. “Honestly. Big bunch of boys, you are. Do we have to go home now?”

“We could get a taxi. I’ll drop you off,” said Breen.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” said Tozer.

“Come on,” said Breen. “Everything’s closed now.”

“I can give her a lift,” said the young man. “On my motorbike.”

“Get lost,” said Tozer. “I’m walking. On my own.”

“In your bare feet?” said Breen.

As his wife pulled him away up the street Ezeoke turned and said: “I did not ask for your help, Mr. Breen. I can fight my own fight.”

Mrs. Ezeoke tugged at his arm. “Shut up,” she said. “Just shut up, you stupid man.”

I
t was a bad-tempered week. On Monday, Prosser called in sick. Breen wrote up a report about the fire investigation suggesting that the dead man was probably a laborer called Patrick Donahoe and handed it in to Bailey. On Tuesday morning, Bailey stuck his head round the office door.

“Where’s Prosser?” he asked.

“Sick still,” said Marilyn, giving him a glare.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Cold.”

“I’m disappointed rather than surprised,” said Bailey, retreating behind his door.

At lunchtime Breen went down to Woolworths and bought the new double disc
The Beatles
and an LP by the Modern Jazz Quartet that the man behind the counter said he should try.

“Who are they for?” said Marilyn when he was looking at the covers on his desk.

“Me,” said Breen. He put the discs down on the floor by the side of his desk.

“I just didn’t think you were into that stuff.”

Carmichael was in court, but he came in just after lunch and said, “Where’s Prosser?”

“Off sick still,” said Marilyn.

“You seen him, Jonesy?”

“No. He hasn’t been outside his front door since the weekend.”

Breen spent the early afternoon going through the report from the Devon and Cornwall police. Jones said, “What’s this I hear about you and Tozer going to a darkie club at the weekend?”

Almost immediately, Marilyn dropped a pile of suspension files on the floor, sending papers everywhere. When Breen went over and knelt down beside her, picking up pieces of paper, Marilyn snapped. “I can manage on my own.”

He went back to his desk and studied the photograph of Julia Sullivan’s body, trying to see clues in it about what it was that made her kill her husband. When he looked up, Marilyn was holding a piece of paper out in front of him to be signed.

“What’s this?”

“Form you got to fill in about the car. The one you and laughing girl wrote off in Cornwall.”

“Do I have to do it now?”

“You should have done it last week.” She dropped it on his desk. “What’s that about you and Tozer being at a nightclub together?”

He picked up the sheet of paper. “You couldn’t do it, could you, Marilyn?”

“You bloody do it yourself for a change.” And she turned round, shoes clattering on the bare floorboards, stamping off through the doors out to the ladies’ toilet.

Breen looked up, puzzled. “What’s got into her?”

Jones put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone he was talking into and said, “Probably, like the rest of us, she’s finally figured out that you’re a cunt.”

Around two, Breen caught the Circle Line down to Notting Hill Gate and walked back to the police flats.

He searched the doorbells. He found, written on a green label,
Mr. & Mrs. Prosser
. He hadn’t changed the names since his wife moved out.

He pressed the button but no one answered. Stepping back, he looked at the windows, trying to work out which flat was Prosser’s.

He went back and rang Prosser’s bell again. This time he held his finger on the buzzer until it started to ache. It must have been a minute before he spotted a face peeking from behind a net curtain on the second floor. It was there just for a second and then it was gone.

Police flats, two to a floor. He rang all the doorbells until someone buzzed him in, then he walked up the stairs and banged on the second-floor door. There was no answer. “Michael. I know you’re in there,” he called.

He knocked again.

“Michael Prosser, it’s Paddy Breen. Open the door.”

He banged louder.

“I haven’t told anybody about what you did,” Breen said. “But I will if you don’t talk to me.”

He sat down in the hallway, back to the door.

“I’m not going until you let me in. Anyone who sees me is going to ask me what I’m doing here. They’re already wondering why you haven’t made it in to work this week.”

A couple of seconds later he heard the bolt on the door being drawn. Prosser hadn’t shaved and he was wearing a cardigan over a string vest that hung down over his narrow shoulders. “You better come in then,” he said.

The flat was a mess. There were dirty plates and mugs on the living-room floor and piles of clothes pushed into the corners of the room. The ashtray hadn’t been emptied in a while and gray ash and stubs were overflowing onto a small glass coffee table. Empty bottles of Pale Ale were lined up on the windowsill.

Breen stood by the front door.

“Everything OK, Paddy?” Prosser looked at him curiously, rubbing his unshaven chin with his fingertips.

“Jones caught the guy you were in the shop with that night you were stabbed.”

Prosser nodded. “I heard,” he said. “I heard you let him go too.”

“I did.”

“I suppose I should be grateful for that.”

“You should,” said Breen. The walls of the room were bare except for a painting-by-numbers picture of a galleon and a photo of a boy, about four years old, on the mantelpiece.

“They thought I was a bastard for letting you get cut up and now they think I’m worse for letting the Chinese guy go.”

Prosser nodded. “And you haven’t grassed?”

“No.”

“Not to no one?”

Breen shook his head.

Prosser said, “Thanks. I appreciate that. We coppers should stick together.”

“Yes. You said that.”

“I owe you an apology then. I’m sorry, OK? Things just got out of hand.”

Breen’s arm started to ache. He rubbed his collarbone and said, “I spent weeks thinking it was my fault you got stabbed. Do you have any idea how that made me feel?”

Prosser said nothing.

“The door was open. But there was no sign of a forced entry. I didn’t even think of that until a few weeks ago. I thought it was all my fault.”

Prosser smiled. “He was supposed to make it look like a break-in. What a tosser.”

The sort of smile a man makes to another man when he knows he has ballsed something up. Almost like he was saying, “You really can’t get the staff these days, can you?”

“Did you get him to stab you or did you do it to yourself?”

Prosser sat down on his sofa, put his head in his hands and said, “I did it. I thought it would make the whole thing look proper. And suddenly I was a bloody hero. Even Bailey called me a hero. I’m up for a medal. Funny, isn’t it?” Breen followed him into the room. Prosser picked up a cigarette packet and shook it. It was empty. “Got a cigarette?”

“No,” Breen said, though he knew there were still four left in his packet.

Prosser sighed.

“It was a coathanger job, wasn’t it? You sold the keys to the Chinese guy. He went in to take the clothes and you took the money.”

Prosser nodded. “I’d caught him stealing cars last Easter. A car, leastways. He offered me money to let him off. I never done it with anyone else, promise. I’m not one of those coppers. I know it looks that way, but I’m not. And then I met these CID guys from Peckham who were running a coathanger team, selling the keys to gangs and taking their bit and they were making a fair whack of money. And the shopkeepers were all insured, so where’s the harm? Because we were the ones who had to tell the insurance whether it was a crime or not anyway. And they showed me how easy it was. I mean, we’ve got the keys to half the shops in Marylebone back at the station. I only did it the once, promise. Once or twice, leastways. And never places that couldn’t afford it. That guy Martin Dawes, he’s loaded. You know how much those insurance companies rake in. I really needed the money. Only the Chink turned out to be so stupid he was spotted. Just my luck.” He smiled. “What are you going to do, Paddy? It’s your call.”

All the time he’d been in CID Prosser had never treated him as one of them. He was the Paddy. Now he had one on him, they could be pals.

“Depends. How much would you pay me to keep quiet?”

Prosser’s face fell. “I can’t give you money, mate. I owe a bit here and there. That’s why I was doing all this in the first place. I’ve got this kid—”

“Put a figure on it. What if I said a hundred?”

“I never thought you were like that, Paddy, to be honest,” he said. “I’m disappointed.”

“Two hundred.”

“Christ, Paddy. I haven’t got that much. Hundred maybe. Possibly. I could do favors for you. Take bits of work if you like.”

Breen rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me? I ran away from a copper who was about to be killed. I don’t want money. I need to know what happened.”

Prosser looked relieved. “I knew you weren’t like that, Paddy. Look. I know we haven’t been particularly friendly, up till now…” He stood up and went to the window and peered through the nets. “You want some tea? It would have to be powdered milk. I haven’t been out of the flat since I got back on Friday. No? I’ll have to go out now, I suppose. I’m out of fags. Would you go for me?”

“Bugger off. Go yourself.”

Prosser winced, then went back and sat on the sofa again. “Fair enough.”

Breen said, “You got any aspirin?”

“In the cupboard in the bathroom.” Breen picked past the damp towels on the floor and found a small bottle on a shelf.

“I knew he was doing the job on Sunday night,” called Prosser. “I made sure I was on shift in case anything went wrong.”

There was a filthy-looking tooth mug on the sink. Breen took the pills and swigged water from the tap in his hand instead.

“I was in the car parked up on Old Portland Street eating a bag of chips when it came on the radio that somebody had seen somebody in Martin and Dawes.” He tugged at stuffing that was already coming out of the arm of the sofa. “Stupid Chink switched a light on. And I thought I better get there first. And I wasn’t far away so I thought I could do that. Which I did. Only you arrived about a minute later. And I thought, what happens now?” A large piece of stuffing came away. Prosser dropped it onto the floor. “But I knew this Chink always carried a knife so I told him to get it out and wave it at me. Which he did. And you came in. And then you scarpered. Luckily. That’s all. And so I just gave myself a couple of cuts with the knife for good effect. Didn’t even hurt that much. Not then. Let the guy out of the front door. It wasn’t your fault.”

Breen nodded.

Prosser picked up the empty cigarette packet and shook it again. “What’s Bailey been saying? About me not being in?”

“Not that much.”

“And what about the others? Have they been wondering why I’m not in?”

“You’re ill, that’s what they’re saying.”

“I really appreciate this, Paddy. I don’t deserve it. You’re a good mate. I behaved really badly. A disgrace. Know what I mean? But I can make it right. What if I told people that Jones had got the wrong guy? That’s why you let him go? What if I told them you fought the Chink too, as well as me, only it was just me that got injured? You could be a hero.”

Breen looked at him and said, “We don’t have to tell them anything. You just have to go into the office tomorrow and tell Bailey you’re throwing in the towel.”

Prosser frowned. “Sorry?”

“You tell him you’re leaving.”

“Me? Resigning?”

Breen nodded.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Quitting the job?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise I’ll ring the bell.”

Sitting on the sofa looking up at Breen, Prosser, the big hard London lad, seemed like he was about to cry. “Paddy. I’ve been almost twenty years on the force. What else am I going to do? I’d lose my flat and everything. And my kid. His mum relies on me. I got obligations. I really need the money.”

“You’ll lose your pension too if I tell them what really happened. And they’ll put you away. That would be worse.”

He crunched the cigarette packet in one hand. “It’s my life, Paddy. It’s my fucking life.”

“I won’t tell anyone. Think what would happen if the press found out. They’re just waiting for something like this. Corrupt coppers. They’d have a field day. It’s best if you go quietly.”

Breen stood up. He wanted to get back to the station.

“Paddy. We can talk. I’m really sorry for what I did to you.”

Breen didn’t look back at Prosser, just headed for the front door.

“You’re a bastard, Paddy Breen.”

“By tomorrow. Or I’ll go to Bailey.”

Prosser lurched up off the sofa and grabbed Breen’s arm, bunching his other fingers.

“Just try it,” said Breen.

“I might,” said Prosser. He stood there for a second with his fist held in the air. “All this doesn’t change the fact that you were windy, Paddy. You should have seen the look on your face. When he pulled the knife on you you were dirtying your ruddy pants. You’re a fucking coward, Paddy Breen. A lousy Mick coward.”

Breen let himself out and walked away, relieved to be out of the place, keen to put some distance between himself and Prosser. After the hum of dirty laundry and stale cigarette smoke, it was good to get some fresh air in his lungs.

It was a short walk to Pembridge House. Three Victorian houses had been joined together to create the women’s section house. Behind the big front door there was a row of pegs and underneath each one hung a wooden tag with the resident’s name on both sides, green on one, yellow on the other. He tried the door at the bottom of the stairs but it was locked.

“Can I help you?” called a middle-aged woman from the living room. “Men aren’t allowed upstairs.”

“I’m looking for Helen Tozer.”

The woman came to the door and scanned the tags. Tozer was in. “And who are you?”

Ten minutes later Tozer emerged down the stairs.

“You took your time,” said Breen.

“What’s got into you? I had to choose the right clothes. I mean, for God’s sake. What if George is actually there? The girls made me buy this on Saturday. What do you think?”

A striped frock with two pockets at the front.

“You look nice,” he said.

She wrinkled her nose. “I feel a bit daft in it, to be honest,” she said.