She's Leaving Home (28 page)

H
e went to bed exhausted and slept dreamlessly. A thick, honeyed sleep that was hard to emerge from when the time came.

Tozer’s knocking woke him eventually. He fumbled in the dark for the flex to his bedside light. The brightness of the light stung his eyes.

“You said you’d be ready,” she shouted through the letter box.

Half asleep, he struggled to remember why Tozer was there. He had overslept. The travel clock by his bed said it was already past seven in the morning. He remembered how, last night, he had phoned Bailey at home to tell him about Ezeoke; that he intended to bring him in for questioning. With Bailey’s blessing, he had called the police at London Airport to request their assistance.

He shaved while Tozer put toast under the grill, then struggled into his clothes, Tozer helping him yank a shirt past his shoulder. “Is that all the butter you got?” she complained.

At 8:20 the winter sun was starting to light up the buildings around them.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

“You sure?”

The roads were surprisingly empty but for bread wagons, newspaper lorries and the occasional red GPO van. Breen felt nervous but he no longer had Tozer’s driving to blame for it. He would have felt happier if he could have called up control to ask them to check that the London Airport police had received their instructions from last night’s shift, but it was not a radio car, so he could only hope.

“You OK, Paddy?”

“I think it’s him,” he said as they sped up the Great West Road, past dark rows of offices and factories.

“And I thought you weren’t one to jump to conclusions.”

There were roadworks on the A40 and the traffic moved slowly, single file, behind a bus that stopped every couple of hundred yards to pick up people who were on the early shift.

Once they were past Gillette Corner the traffic moved more quickly. They parked outside Terminal 1. The policeman on duty there, a sergeant, strode over straightaway. “You going to be long?”

“We called up last night. We’re picking up someone for questioning from the ten-forty flight from Brussels.”

“That space is for emergencies only.”

“Where can we stop, then?”

“Car park.” He pointed towards a concrete building.

The car park faced the main terminal building. The attendant came out of his hut wearing mittens, and took an age to issue a ticket. “Don’t matter if you’re police or not. You got to have a ticket.”

When they returned to the terminal on foot the same policeman was still there. He looked at his watch. “Ten forty? Cut that a bit fine, didn’t you?”

“So we should hurry.”

The sergeant spoke into his walkie-talkie and then said, “Come with me then. Gate Number Seven. Don’t worry. They’re expecting you. We do this all the time.”

The policeman led them into the terminal and through a small anonymous door to the left hand of the check-in desks, where weary businessmen queued with briefcases and children clambered over mountains of luggage. They passed down a narrow corridor, past a row of interview rooms and through a locked door into the back of a duty-free shop, squeezing between a queue of passengers clutching large packs of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes and bottles of Johnnie Walker.

“Can we hurry?” said Breen.

“Not supposed to run,” said the policeman. “This way.”

They were in a public corridor now, passengers coming the other way, lugging carrier bags, holdalls and kids.

Tozer broke into a trot.

“You’re not supposed to run,” said the policeman again, panting, but Tozer was too far ahead, flat shoes clacking on the lino.

Ahead was Gate No. 7. A man stood there in a blue BOAC uniform; he waved Breen and Tozer on, down the concrete staircase, to the door that opened out onto the runways.

After the brightness of the inside of the terminal, the world outside was abruptly cold and dark. A couple of lights shone onto the gangway. The passengers were already pouring out of the Britannia and up into the main building.

“Where are the other police?”

“They’re on their way,” said the sergeant, gasping for air.

“But they’re already getting off the plane,” said Breen.

“Any sign of him?” Policemen started to arrive. “Who are we looking for?”

“The plane got in early. They didn’t let us know,” complained the sergeant. “Don’t worry. Chances are, he’s still onboard. Is he important?”

Businessmen clutching leather briefcases, yawning, families tugging fractious children, an elderly lady carrying a cat in a basket, all moved slowly down the staircase, single file.

A jet roared into the black sky.

The stream of passengers soon slowed to a trickle. The cabin crew started to emerge.

“You sure he’s on this plane?” the sergeant asked.

Breen grabbed a startled air stewardess. “Was there a black man on this plane? A large man, about forty years old?”

She said, “In First. We let First Class off before the rest. He’s already gone, I think.—Hey? Did that big black man get off already?” she asked a colleague.

“He’ll be heading for immigration,” said Tozer.

As Breen started to run back towards the main building he heard the sergeant saying, “E-Z-E—oh, bugger it. Black bloke,” into his walkie-talkie. He looked over his shoulder and saw Tozer running behind him.

They ran back up the stairs they’d descended only a few minutes earlier and were suddenly in amongst the throng of passengers arriving at the airport from around the world. Tozer barged ahead. “This way,” she shouted. “Passports.”

They ran fast now, following the line of passengers. “Police!” shouted Tozer. “Make way.”

Breen dashed after Tozer, who seemed to know her way around airports, following the signs for
Passports
. Ahead, a long queue of people craned their necks towards a row of desks. Breen pulled out his warrant card, ready to flash it.

“Excuse me,” he said, moving through the crowd.

A large woman in a white hat said, “Wait your turn like anyone else.”

“Sorry, ma’am. Police.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wait your turn.”

Breen apologized again and firmly pushed past her.

“Absolute cheek.”

Breen spotted him. Dressed in a gray business suit, Ezeoke stood in front of one of the desks, holding out his passport, smiling to the young man sitting behind it.

Breen pushed on through the crowd of waiting people.

“Oi, who you shoving?” someone shouted.

In that moment Ezeoke looked up to see what the fuss was about and spotted Breen. The big man’s first expression was puzzlement, as if he was trying to remember where he knew him from. His second was a frown, as if he were processing the new information. He turned back to the young man at the desk who was holding out his passport, smiled back at him, took the passport and set off briskly.

“Police,” called Breen loudly, holding up his warrant card.

People looked round.

“Let us through.”

Reluctantly people pushed their bags aside as Breen and Tozer barged through.

The man on the immigration desk looked startled as they held up their cards. “Can you get them to close the customs doors?” Tozer shouted.

Breen didn’t understand airports. He wasn’t sure what she was asking. The young man on the immigration desk looked equally confused. “I could ask.”

She pushed past an Indian man and his family and ran into the clear space behind, Breen following.

Looking down the corridor lined with gaudy photographs of Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard, Breen could see no sign of Ezeoke. They both started to run again in the direction they had seen him disappear into—following signs that read
Baggage Reclaim
.

They were in a corridor that somehow seemed to be suspended above the tarmac. Windows to the left-hand side looked out over runways and planes, where passengers streamed downstairs into waiting buses.

They rounded a corner and before he knew what was happening, Breen went flying into a mop bucket that a cleaner had left by the side of the wall, falling awkwardly. He came down on his bad side. Pain exploded through his shoulder.

He looked up. The cleaner was standing there, mop in hand, an angry look on his face.

Tozer had stopped, looking back at him, then down the corridor where they had been heading before he fell. “Go on,” Breen shouted. “Catch him.”

Tozer hesitated, then something caught her eye out of the window. “Bloody hell. How did he get there?”

Breen struggled to his feet, shoulder throbbing.

She was gazing out of the window at the airport outside. He looked too. There, running steadily across the tarmac between the planes, Samuel Ezeoke, briefcase still in hand, weaving his dogged way between the queues of waiting passengers. They watched him pass a Lockheed Constellation that was taxiing slowly onto the runway. For a while he disappeared behind a BP petrol tanker, then appeared again, still running into the far distance.

They sat in the small office that served as the police’s Airport HQ while the inspector talked on the phone.

“If they’d been here on time, as agreed, we would have been at the gate to apprehend the gentleman,” he was saying.

“You had his name and the flight he was on,” snapped Tozer.

The inspector looked at the woman police constable disapprovingly.

On the wall above a set of filing cabinets was a framed picture of the Leeds United squad from last year’s season. It was signed by a few of them. Breen recognized Norman Hunter, Jack Charlton and Don Revie’s signatures; he couldn’t make out the rest.

“You don’t get many coons running around London Airport runways,” the inspector was saying. “Even you should spot him easy.”

He put the phone down, shook his head. “We have work enough to do without having to run around looking for someone you chased out onto the runway. For God’s sake.”

“If they’d been there on time we wouldn’t have been chasing him,” muttered Tozer. “It was him. It proves it. He ran. And we lost him.”

The inspector caught Breen looking at the poster. “You a United fan?”

Breen shook his head. His father had always been Manchester United. He rubbed his shoulder. It ached.

“Nor me, really. I’m Crystal Palace, but I got them when they came through from an away match in Amsterdam. Not bad, eh? I got Sonny and Cher the other day. Lovely couple.”

“He could be dangerous. It’s possible he’s killed a woman.”

“We’re professionals here.”

“Right,” said Tozer.

“Can we help look for him?” said Breen.

“You two stay put. We had to stop all flights from Terminal 1 because he got away. Do you have any idea how much money that costs? We’re here to ensure the smooth running of the airport, not to turn it into a circus. You two stay right here. We’ll get him. You’ll see.”

He pointed to a map of the three terminals. “This is the future of transport, right here. And it’s just beginning. Air travel is within the reach of ordinary men and women. Spain. Greece. Soon they’ll have passenger planes that can travel faster than the speed of sound. Getting to New York will be like getting on a bus to Reading.”

The phone rang. “That’ll probably be him caught now, you’ll see.” The inspector picked up the phone and said, “Yes?”

Tozer said to Breen as the inspector answered the phone, “I hate Leeds United. What’s your team?”

“I don’t really have a team.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Thanks.”

“Christ almighty,” said the inspector. “Oh, good God. Christ al-bloody-mighty.” Tozer and Breen stopped their conversation. “What with? Oh God. Did you get an ambulance? I see. I’ll be right there.”

T
he policeman lay in a wide culvert by the side of the road, legs sprawled upwards, head down in the ditch. A swallow tattoo showed on the exposed flesh of his arm. Drizzle covered the serge of his uniform in a light sheen. It looked like there had been a struggle, but not a very long one. There was a large dark stain on his tunic where the knife had punctured his heart.

A couple of other officers stood in the misty light, looking down at their fallen colleague. One eye gazed skywards, the other was covered by his helmet, knocked askew.

Nearby a blackbird flew down into the culvert and pecked among the weeds.

“It was his birthday yesterday,” said one of the coppers.

“That’s right.”

The inspector looked furiously at Breen. “He was a good man.”

His voice was drowned by the roar of an airliner passing what felt like only a few feet above their heads. Breen turned in time to see the wheels bouncing down onto the tarmac beyond them, sending up a blurt of black smoke. The runway shimmered with the heat haze of the plane’s jet engines’ deafening reverse thrust. He watched the plane sway and shudder as it slowed.

Low-ranking policemen wandered around the scene, uncertain of procedure. An ambulance arrived, but the body had not yet been photographed, so the crew waited inside the vehicle looking bored.

Unperturbed, the blackbird continued foraging at the weeds close to the dead man.

They crossed London, siren nee-nawing. Breen marveled at his own calm as he weaved through the traffic.

By the time they arrived at the Ezeokes’ house there were two police cars already outside. Breen got out and tapped at the window of one of them. “Anyone been in?”

“There’s a copper in there now with her. Our orders was just to wait here and keep an eye out for a big black bloke. There’s a couple of officers around the back and all.”

Breen left them and walked up the steps and rang the bell. He heard it echo through the house.

He banged on the door. It was opened by a policeman. Mrs. Ezeoke was there by his side, trembling slightly, but straight-backed. “My husband told me you would come back,” she said.

“He’s here?”

“He telephoned. Half an hour ago. Before your colleagues arrived.”

“Where from?”

She stiffened. “I do not know. He would not tell me.”

“Was he in a call box?”

She frowned. “Yes.”

Breen nodded. “What did he say?”

“He said you would come here and tell me he had done a terrible thing. That I was to stand by him. Of course I will stand by him. He is my husband.”

Breen nodded. A young boy stopped outside on a bicycle, peering at them, wanting to know what was going on.

She said, “You don’t have to tell me. I know it. You believe he killed the girl.”

“Well, it’s a mite more serious than that now, missus,” said the uniformed copper standing next to her.

“So it wasn’t serious before?” Tozer asked him.

A woman with a wicker shopping trolley stopped by the boy on the bicycle. It wouldn’t be long before a crowd formed. “May we come in?” asked Breen.

Mrs. Ezeoke hesitated, then held the door open for them.

“Can I get you a Coca-Cola?” Always polite. Always dignified.

“No, thank you.”

She led them back into the Ezeokes’ living room.

“Can I offer you a cigarette?”

There was a copy of a magazine called
Ebony
lying on the coffee table. “On the phone just now, did he tell you he had killed a policeman?”

“Why would he do such a thing?”

“You tell us,” said the copper.

“Please,” said Breen. “Do you mind keeping out of this?”

“Don’t mind me, I’m sure.”

There was a pinging noise. Then again. Wondering vaguely what it was, Breen asked, “Why did you move into this house?”

She sat down on the sofa, straight-backed. “We used to have a very fine house, you know.”

“I know.”

“So why did you move here?”

“Because we could no longer afford our old house.”

Breen sat on a chair opposite her. “Your husband must make a great deal of money as a senior consultant.”

“Yes.”

“So why do you live here?”

That ping again. Breen realized it was the sound of a stone, half-heartedly thrown against the glass window.

She put her hands faceup in her lap and said, “We have given everything we have to the cause.”

“The cause?”

“The motherland. Biafra.” He stood up and went to the window. There were about ten people outside now, staring in. He wondered which one of them had thrown the stone. Seeing a face at the window, a man started jeering, waving his fist at him.

“You don’t sound as enthusiastic about the cause as your husband, Mrs. Ezeoke.”

“When men fight, women suffer.” She looked down at the floor.

“What exactly happened to your money, Mrs. Ezeoke?”

She glared at Breen. “Please. Do not expect me to know the details. This was my husband’s business.”

“Who was he giving the money to?”

“I do not know.”

The news would be on the radio now, and in the latest editions of the
Evening News
and the
Evening Standard
there would be reports of a murdered policeman.

“You must have some idea, Mrs. Ezeoke.”

“Why are you asking me this?” she said.

“Mrs. Ezeoke. A girl is dead. A policeman is dead.”

“I do not think this has anything to do with our donations.”

“So who did he give your money to?”

“My husband is a good man.”

“And your own daughter has been sent away from you, which means that we can’t interview her.”

She put her hands over her ears. “I do not want to listen to any more of this.”

“Did he tell you where he was going, Mrs. Ezeoke?”

“Even if I did know, I would not tell you.” Her chin rose.

Tozer said, “We can arrest you for obstructing our inquiries.”

“I do not care. Whatever he has done, he is my husband.”

“I think he killed your daughter’s lover,” said Breen.

A tear rolled down her cheek. “I would not tell you, even if I did know. And I do not.”

Breen stood up again and walked to the window. A woman with a pram had joined the small crowd. “Armed police will now be searching for him, you realize that? They are the sort of people who shoot first and ask questions later. They really don’t like people who kill their colleagues. If we can get to him first and persuade him to give himself up, he’ll be OK. It’s his best chance. Where will he have gone?”

Breen looked at the poster:
Biafra victorious
.

“I am not going to talk to you anymore,” she said. “He is my husband.”

“There are men stationed outside the house at the front and back. If he comes anywhere near here he will be arrested.”

She turned her head aside, pretending to look out of the window.

“If he tries to get in touch with you, we will expect you to ask him to give himself up. I’m sure you don’t want anyone else hurt, Mrs. Ezeoke.”

“I never wanted anyone to get hurt,” she said.

In the distance, police sirens, gradually getting closer and louder. The cars arrived in the road outside. When they were switched off, the world seemed suddenly silent.

Bailey was out in front of the house, sitting in his Rover, talking to other officers. He was wearing his old gray mac with a cloth cap and had a pipe in his hand. A man out of time. “London Airport cocked it up, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They’re a new force, I believe.” This seemed explanation enough for Bailey.

Policemen were streaming into the Ezeokes’ house to begin searching the place. From the front door, Mrs. Ezeoke glared at them, arms folded, muttering.

Sitting in the backseat, Breen told him everything that had happened since he had come to this house yesterday afternoon. Bailey pulled out the cigarette lighter and held it above his pipe, sucking at it from the side of his mouth.

“Scotland Yard are taking the whole thing over.”

“I’m still investigating the death of Morwenna Sullivan, sir. That’s a different murder.”

Bailey frowned. “You met this man. What did you make of him?”

“He was one of those men who fill the room, if you know what I mean.”

“And you’re sure?”

“I wasn’t this morning when we went to pick him up, but I was when he made a run for it. Now I’m sure.”

“Why? Why did he kill the girl?”

Breen hesitated. “Ezeoke blamed Morwenna for…corrupting his daughter,” he said. “Though I’m not sure if that’s all there was to it.”

“Corrupting?”

“The girls were lovers, sir.”

“Ah,” said Bailey stiffly. “Right.” He looked away, then said, “Don’t go round thinking it’s your fault, you know. It was good work. You did the right thing.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“After what happened to Prosser, they’ll think you are responsible for that policeman’s death. It’ll be the talk of the canteen.”

“Yes, sir,” said Breen.

“They’re an unruly bunch. I don’t feel I have control of them anymore.”

Breen didn’t answer.

“There’s a different way of looking at things, I suppose. I’m probably too old for it all now. But I don’t think much of it. They’re like a bunch of football hooligans. Not like members of a police force at all. Talking of Prosser, I expect you heard he resigned?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish. Do you know why? He wouldn’t say.”

“No idea, sir.”

“Right.”

On the doorstep, a constable was shouting at Mrs. Ezeoke to get out of the way. He swore at her as she chewed the inside of her cheek, looking past him.

Inspector Bailey sighed. “Better get on with it then.”

More policemen kept arriving, cars blocking the street.

When he got out, Miss Shankley was standing in the growing crowd, as always in her housecoat and slippers. “See. I told you it was the darkies. You wouldn’t have it, though, would you?” she shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. “I told them what I thought weeks ago. And what did they do?”

Someone shouted, “Spazzers.”

He looked at Miss Shankley, arms crossed in front of her. Her smile was bitter and triumphant. “What you got to say to that, Sergeant Breen?”

It was true. She had been right all along in her single-minded bigotry. He, on the other hand, with his fascination for the anomalous, his feeling of kinship for the immigrant, had failed to see Ezeoke for what he was: a murderer; a madman? Breen looked away, saying nothing, and walked back into the house. A policeman was yanking paper out of Mr. Ezeoke’s desk in the living room. “Be tidy, please,” said Mrs. Ezeoke. “There is no need to make a mess.”

“Shut your mouth,” snapped the policeman.

“You don’t talk to me like that,” shouted Mrs. Ezeoke.

“I’ll talk to you like I bloody well like.”

Bailey stuck his head round the door. “There’s no need to act like that, Constable.”

Mrs. Ezeoke looked down her nose at him and said, “Grow up and act like a man.”

The other policemen in the room sniggered. “Yeah, Smithy. Grow up and act like a man.”

Bailey retreated again.

“There’s no need to act like that, Smithy,” mocked the other policemen.

Tozer appeared, eating a cheese sandwich. “Lunch,” she said. “You want some?”

Breen shook his head.

“How was Bailey?”

“Could have been worse.”

“Look at all these coppers. Sad, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“It takes a copper to get killed to get all this attention. When it was just our girl, nobody cared. Now it’s going to be all over the evening papers.”

From the far side of the room, Mrs. Ezeoke tightened her lips. She seemed to grow larger and more immovable the angrier she became.

Breen crossed the room towards her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For all this.”

“You’re sorry,” she said. There was almost a laugh in her voice.

“But we have to look for anything that might let us know where he has gone.”

“Oi,” said one of the coppers going through Ezeoke’s belongings. “Look at this. He’s only got a medal from the Queen.”

“That’ll make a great headline, that will.”

Mrs. Ezeoke closed her eyes and sighed.

“Your husband has killed at least one person. Probably two. A girl the same age as your daughter. Why?”

“I have nothing to tell you. Your people have no respect at all.”

Breen looked behind her at the
Free Biafra
poster.

“I think he killed the girl in your own house,” said Breen. “That’s why her body was left by the sheds next to it. You were cooking dinner for your uncle. He was trying to find somewhere to hide her so you wouldn’t find out what he’d done when you came home. He knew the sheds were unlocked because he had complained about the doors banging. Or he thought he knew.”

Her face turned gray, but her expression didn’t change beyond a tightening of the lips. “Why would he kill anyone?”

“I don’t know,” said Breen.

“He is my husband.”

“What will you do?” he asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“Your husband is a fugitive. Your daughter is a long way away in Africa. Do you have anyone who can look after you? Your uncle?”

“I do not need anybody,” she said. “I am perfectly fine.”

Breen nodded. “If he does get in touch again, will you tell him that the best thing he could do is just to give himself up?”

“My husband does not like to be told what is the best thing for him.”

There was a loud smashing of glass. A constable, leafing through the papers on Ezeoke’s desk, had nudged a crystal brandy decanter, sending it crashing to the floor, pieces spinning across the polished floorboards.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Get out of my house,” screamed Mrs. Ezeoke. “You are all animals. Get out of my house.”

Everybody ignored her, returning to their tasks, leaving the shattered decanter on the floor. A thick, rich smell of brandy filled the room as Mrs. Ezeoke sat down on her sofa and began to cry.

The Afro Art Boutique was a small shop on the Portobello Road between a dry cleaner’s and a newsagent’s. The windows were full of strange trinkets and carvings. A cardboard box piled with small metal sculptures, each different; some were tiny men holding sticks or spears, others were shaped like chairs or cars. The box was labeled
Ashanti gold weights 3 Guineas
. A huge, black mask with massive cowries for eyes hung from two pieces of string, raffia streaming from the edges of its face. Old black stools of odd shapes and sizes, ancient and worn, were piled haphazardly everywhere. A rusting model of a cruise liner made from tin cans lay at a perilous angle, perched on top of a box carved with intricate zigzag patterns.