She's Leaving Home (8 page)

“You’ll have to excuse the mess,” said Miss Pattison, peering out from behind more papers. “We’re extremely busy. Can I get you a cup of tea?” She spoke with a hint of a Liverpudlian accent.

“…To Daphne who works in a well-known carpet manufacturer’s in Manchester who says, ‘Dear Mister Skewball, can you play anything by the Hollies…’”

“Turn it down,” bellowed Miss Pattison over the noise of a roaring electric kettle.

“We were wondering if you could take a look at the photograph,” said Constable Tozer.

Miss Pattison placed a tea bag in each cup. “You said on the phone you think she’s one of ours?”

“We’re not sure. It’s possible,” said Breen, explaining where the body was found. “And she was around sixteen or seventeen years old.”

The electric kettle roared. “I do hope she isn’t one of ours. It would feel personal.”

A sparrow landed on the windowsill outside; someone must have left crumbs out for the birds, because when it flew off again, its beak was full.

“That sounds such a terrible thing to say, though, doesn’t it? Of course she must be somebody’s, if she’s not one of ours.”

“Can I ask you something?” Tozer interrupted. “Do you actually know the Beatles, then?”

Miss Pattison returned Constable Tozer’s smile and nodded. “They’re not round so much these days, of course. They have their own lives.”

“Do they come here?” Tozer asked looking around, awed.

“Goodness, no,” said Miss Pattison. “We tend to go to them.”

“To their homes?” Breen glared at her, but she wasn’t paying attention.

“If necessary, yes.”

“That must be so fab. I would love—”

Breen coughed.

“Sorry.”

“OK then.” He pulled out the photograph. It seemed a small, mean thing compared to the shiny black-and-whites of these four handsome men, who grinned, hands in pockets, for the camera. She was lifeless, in every way opposite.

Miss Pattison sighed. “It’s such a terrible, terrible thing,” she said. She picked up the photo and looked at it, then stood up with it in her hand and walked to the window so she could see it better.

Tozer spotted a signed photo of George Harrison on Miss Pattison’s desk. She picked it up and looked at the sunken-cheeked, mustached young man, and the rounded squiggle of a pen mark across the bottom of it. “George is my favorite,” she said, then looked up, caught Breen’s eye and hastily put the photo back. “Sorry.”

Miss Pattison was still, brow furrowed, looking at the other photograph; the dead one. The unglamorous one. “Do you recognize her?” asked Breen.

“No. But we have tens of thousands of girls. I can’t know everyone.”

Breen tried a different approach. “Have you ever come across any men who try and take advantage of the fans, perhaps?”

“Take advantage?” said Miss Pattison. “What? Rapists?”

“Possibly.”

“Was she raped?”

“She may have been.”

“How awful.”

“There might be someone out there who the fans know…somebody who they were already suspicious of.”

“We have fifty thousand members. Do you expect us to call them up? Or write to their parents?”

“Fifty thousand? You have a newsletter. Couldn’t you put a notice in that?”

“Oh no. That would not be at all suitable. Not at all.”

“Suitable? A girl is dead.”

“And I am sorry. But our newsletter is not the place to discuss it.”

“There must be other people we could show this photograph to?”

“You can leave the photo with us if you like. Perhaps someone will recognize it.” Miss Pattison folded her arms. This was her world. She was not going to be helpful.

“Are they doing a Christmas record for the fans again this year?” asked Tozer.

Miss Pattison broke into a sudden smile. “Of course.”

“I have all of them. I think they’re super.”

“You’re a fan?” Miss Pattison’s eyebrows danced.

“Of course,” said Tozer.

“A member?”

“Yes.”

Miss Pattison paused. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Tozer. Helen Tozer.”

Miss Pattison stood and walked through the door into the next room. “Wait there,” she called, leaving them alone in her office.

Breen blinked. The smell of the woman’s scent was eye-watering.

“Do you like the Beatles, sir?” asked Tozer. “Or are you more of a Rolling Stones man?”

“Neither.”

“Bob Dylan?”

Breen paused a second. “Are you really a member of this fan club?”

Tozer looked at him like he was impossibly old.

Miss Pattison returned beaming with two brown folders in her hands. She read from the top one. “Helen Tozer. Coombe Barton Farm, Kingsteignton, Devon.”

“That’s me!” said Tozer in a high squeak. “Farm girl.”

“You’re one of the older fans, then?” Miss Pattison said approvingly. “The newer ones don’t get envelopes. They just get index cards.”

Tozer smiled back at her.

“And up to date with your subs as well,” said Miss Pattison. “Good girl.” Breen looked at the policewoman, surprised. Returning to her desk, Miss Pattison read. “Join date: September 1963.” A broad smile filled her face. “My, my.” Then she looked at the second folder. “Now look at this. I have an Alexandra Tozer. Same address.”

“That’s my little sister,” said Tozer. “She was the reason I joined. She was a much bigger fan than I am.”

“She sent in a photograph of herself. A lot of you do that.” She pulled out a photograph of a girl, around fifteen or sixteen years old, standing in a snowy field. She was wearing a short tartan miniskirt and woolen tights, a blue denim hat with a little peak on it, and smiling at the camera. Her features had none of the solidity of her older sister; she was willowy and pale-skinned. “I see she’s stopped sending her subscriptions,” Miss Pattison said disapprovingly. “That is a shame. We lose a few more every year.”

“Yes,” said Tozer.

“You should persuade her to join again, you know.”

There was a pause. “Don’t think so,” said Tozer.

Miss Pattison did not notice the way Tozer avoided her gaze as she answered. Breen recognized a familiar rawness in Tozer’s voice, something which had always been there but which he had never noticed before. He stood and said, “We’ll be in touch, Miss Pattison.”

Tozer remained seated. She reached her hand across the table and took one of Miss Pattison’s. Miss Pattison looked slightly startled by the physical contact, but Tozer smiled at her confidently and said, “I know it’s hard and that you’re busy, but you will ask around, won’t you?”

Miss Pattison hesitated. “Well…”

“For a fan? Please?” Tozer took the girl’s photo, wrote her own name and a phone number underneath and passed it to the woman.

“For a fan?” Miss Pattison was murmuring. “Yes, of course I will.” She smiled back at Tozer. “For a fan.”

Breen clattered down the concrete stairs, glad to be out of that stuffy room.

“You all right, sir?”

“You keep asking me that.” It was late in the afternoon now. A man was wheeling a barrow with a single half-empty crate of apples on it north from Covent Garden.

“Well, frankly, sir, you look done in.”

“I’m fine.”

They wandered down towards the market where the last of the costermongers were packing up. The day was ending. Soon the next batch of lorries would be arriving from somewhere in Kent, stacked with onions and potatoes. Tozer took out the signed photo of George Harrison that Miss Pattison had given her as they left and looked at it. “I think he’s gorgeous, even with the beard. I bet you don’t even have a favorite Beatle, do you, sir?”

Breen shook his head. “I missed all that,” he said. “Too old.”

“I never met anyone who didn’t have a favorite Beatle. Even my gran has her favorite.”

“Who’s that?”

“Paul McCartney, course,” she said. “Go on. You have to have one.”

The rain shone on the cobblestones outside. “I’m not really much of a pop music fan,” he said apologetically.

“Go on, you have to pick one.”

He laughed. “Um…I don’t know. Ringo Starr?”

She stuck her tongue out. “No, no. You’re not taking this seriously. You’d never be a Ringo. You’re more of a John Lennon man.”

“Am I?” He paused.

“Clearly. You’re the troubled one.”

She didn’t seem to mind his awkwardness. He asked, “Who is your sister Alexandra’s favorite Beatle?”

She went quiet.

“Your sister, Alexandra?”

Tozer looked away and said, “Oh God. She was Lennon all the way. Even had the hat, didn’t you notice?”

“No,” said Breen. For the second time he noted the tense: “was.”

The smell of old cabbages hung in the air in the old market. They walked around for a while in silence. Eventually Breen said, “When we saw the dead girl, you told me you’d never seen a dead body before.”

“I hadn’t,” Tozer said. She looked at him curiously, then walked on.

They drifted slowly back towards the car. On King Street two men stood in the side doorway of a shop that had been converted into a hippie nightclub. It announced itself in painted letters on the door:
Middle Earth
. The men were clutching electric guitars; one had long shoulder-length hair and an Afghan, the other big corkscrews of hair, pale blue circular glasses and a gold-braided military jacket a horseman in the Light Brigade might have worn.

One of the guitar cases was painted as a Union Jack. If it was supposed to be ironic, the irony was lost on Breen. To be English and young is to be superior. Britannia waives the rules. At the best of times, Breen had felt alien in this country. Faced by this, doubly so. These people were only a few years younger than Breen, but they lived in a different world. Men of Breen’s generation had grown up wanting to wear better suits than their fathers. This lot didn’t want suits. They weren’t looking for careers, weren’t waiting to enter the world of middle age. Gazing at Breen they seemed to say, “Everything you stand for is ridiculous.” Even though Breen wasn’t sure he had ever stood for very much at all. Maybe that was what fired their contempt.

The shop’s glass was covered in gaudy posters for groups with names like the Pink Floyd, the Nice and the Pretty Things, hiding whatever lay behind. The two hippies didn’t take their eyes off Breen and Tozer as they walked past. Peace and love be fucked.

England dividing itself on new lines.

Later, they stopped at the station to check in to see if Wellington had been in touch.

Marilyn was turning the handle of the Roneo machine with a bored look on her face.

She looked from Tozer to Breen and back again. “You two a team now?” she said to Breen.

“She’s just a probationer.”

“Put the kettle on then, love,” said Marilyn to Tozer. “I’m parched.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” said Tozer. “Put it on yourself.”

“That’s nice, isn’t it?” she said, still cranking the Roneo. “I heard you had her going round asking questions with you.”

“Her is standing right here,” said Tozer.

Breen looked from Tozer and back to Marilyn again, aware that he was being drawn into something that could only end badly.

“I always end up making the tea for you lot,” Marilyn said. “Why shouldn’t she?”

“Because I don’t even want tea.”

Marilyn paused her cranking and glared at Tozer.

“So, I’ll make it, then?” said Breen eventually. Both the women stared at him.

In the kitchen down the corridor, he rummaged through the cupboards looking for the tea bags. “Has Wellington been in touch?” he called to Marilyn.

Marilyn left the Roneo and came and leaned against the doorway, watching him. “He called an hour ago. He said it was what you thought it was. He wouldn’t tell me what, though. Said it wasn’t my business.”

Breen opened a tin but it was full of Nescafé.

“In the box on the left,” she said. Breen found the wooden box and pulled open the top, then looked for cups to put the tea bags in. Marilyn let him rummage a little while longer, then said, “Top cupboard,” over her shoulder, returning to the office.

Breen brought two cups back into the office, spilling tea on his trousers as he walked. He placed them on Marilyn’s desk, wiping the liquid off the material.

“Where’s mine then?” said Tozer.

“The plonk has Breen making her tea now,” Jones jeered.

“You said you didn’t want one,” protested Breen.

“That was when she wanted me to make them.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Marilyn said.

“It was a joke. Just a joke.”

“Don’t be so pathetic.” She turned her back on Tozer. “So what was Wellington on about then?”

Breen had never known Marilyn be so rude. He couldn’t understand it. “Constable Tozer here, who you think so little of, discovered a stain on the dress,” he said, finding himself sticking up for her a second time in one day.

Tozer stopped smiling and shook her head. “Don’t, sir.”

“And correctly identified it as sperm.”

“Sir,” hissed Tozer, tugging at his sleeve.

“It was in those dustbins, the ones you suggested we shouldn’t bother going through, Jones.”

“But, sir…”

“What’s that?” said Jones. “What did she find on the dress?”

“I suppose the question you’d have to ask is how come she knew what it was,” said Marilyn, picking up her cup of tea. “I mean…”

“Ooooh,” said Jones, standing and rubbing his hands together. All eyes were now on Tozer.

“See?” Tozer reddened.

“A man’s you-know-what?”

“You’d probably need to see a lot of that stuff to know what it looked like.”

“You dirty bitch.”

The woman constable glared at Breen. “Thanks very much, sir.”

“Where did you see that, Tozer?” Whistles and catcalls. Tozer ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Tou-chy,” said Jones.

“I’d heard she was a bit of a slag.”

Breen stood there looking around the room, at all the grinning faces. “Give the girl a bloody chance,” he said.

“I don’t think Constable Tozer is going to make it in CID, somehow,” said Marilyn, smiling, back on the Roneo machine. Click-whirr. Click-whirr.

“She was trying to help solve a murder.”