Play With Fire

by William Shaw

  ‘Blow to the head,’ he announced, pointing at the front of his own skull and mouthing the word: ‘Bang. I’ll show you.’ And he walked back to the rear of the building where an unmarked police car was parked, opened the door and pulled out a slim, pale brown folder.

  In it there was a large black-and-white photograph of the victim’s face. Florence Caulk lay on a white slab. One eye was slightly open. She looked much older dead, wet hair flattened against her skull. Her nose was pushed to one side and blood clogged a nostril. Below the hair, across her forehead, was a thick dark bruise.

  ‘Hit her head on the dashboard?’

  ‘She drowned, they reckon. Water in her lungs.’

  ‘But the blow to the head knocked her out… and then…’

  ‘Could have,’ said Hope. ‘On the other hand, it wasn’t her driving.’

  Breen looked up from the photo. ‘But I thought her body had been found in the driver’s seat?’

  ‘It was.’

  Breen frowned. ‘And there was no indication that anyone else had been in the car when it went over?’

  The detective grinned. ‘Nope. And the vehicle was in gear. Looks like the engine had been running when she hit the water. But I doubt she was driving.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Look at the driver’s seat.’

  Breen put his head into the car. The cracked leather of the seat was still wet. ‘What?’

  Hope was enjoying himself. ‘Go on. Don’t you see it?’

  Breen looked harder. There was a layer of brown silt on the carpeted floor of the vehicle. There were no signs of any footprints there – but then there wouldn’t be, would there? The thin mud would have accumulated after she had died.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Call yourself a detective?’

  Taking a step back, Breen examined the car again. He tried to imagine Mrs Caulk sitting behind the wheel. He got out a notebook and did a loose sketch, while the other copper watched him, still smiling.

  And then, Breen nodded.

  ‘You got it now?’

  He turned to Hope and said, ‘When they got her body out of the car, did they have to move the seat back?’

  The detective clapped his hands. ‘You’re getting there.’ He grinned delightedly.

  ‘What does he mean?’ asked Mint.

  ‘The driver’s seat is pushed back as far as it can go.’

  ‘Give the man a medal,’ called Hope.

  ‘She couldn’t have been driving.’

  ‘That’s right. Whoever put her there stuck her in the driver’s seat but forgot to change the position. Bet you.’

  Breen nodded.

  Hope grinned back. ‘Look at this, too. This was in the car. In the back seat.’ He walked back to the table and lifted a small, muddy piece of 2 × 1 lumber, only about six inches long, up off the trestle table. ‘I reckon that was wedged against the accelerator, not so hard as so it’s stuck there. Release the clutch and away the car goes. And underwater, the wood floats up and away.’

  ‘Very good. Very clever.’

  ‘Would you have got there on your own?’ said the man, rubbing his hands.

  ‘I’m not so sure I would,’ said Breen. ‘Nice.’

  ‘It’s what we do, isn’t it?’

  Mint said what Breen was thinking. ‘A blow to the head, then an attempt to conceal the body,’ said Mint.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Same as Miss Bobienski.’

  ‘Exactly.’ For all his awkwardness, he was bright.

  ‘My God.’

  ‘Any idea what she was hit with?’

  ‘Pathologist’s report’s in tomorrow.’ Hope stood there, so pleased with himself.

  ‘She was our key witness in another murder case. She asked me to protect her,’ he said. He looked at the photo, into the dead woman’s face.

  Hope’s smile vanished. ‘Oh.’

  ‘I didn’t take her seriously.’ Breen looked away from the picture he was holding. ‘I didn’t think she’d be in any danger.’

  ‘And you were wrong,’ said Hope.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That will hurt.’

  The other man understood; he did the same job. There were no unwelcome platitudes, no talk of how he wasn’t to know. ‘I made a mistake.’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  In Breen’s experience, most murders were almost accidental. The killers rarely intended to kill. Things got out of control. But a person who kills twice knows exactly what they are doing. Breen offered the picture back to Hope, who shook his head.

  ‘I got more.’

  Breen tucked it into his briefcase then opened his notebook to the pages where he had copied down the list of names from the office wall. He added a small ‘X’ on Haas the caretaker’s sheet and a note: ‘Killer is a driver? Haas cannot drive.’ Unless they were dealing with more than one murderer, whoever had killed Florence Caulk had been able to handle a car. They could cross Mrs Caulk off the list too. Breen pulled out his packet of ten and offered one to Hope as a thank-you. Mint didn’t smoke, but he stood with them as they lit their cigarettes in silence, and all three of them looked at the car while bluebottles zigzagged around the room.

  At eleven he had a meeting at New Scotland Yard with Vice Squad to see if they could help Breen discover who the mystery driver was.

  A sergeant, who must have been five years younger than Breen and who had hair that was long at the back and short at the sides, took him to an office where chairs were ranged around a small table and turned one round to sit on, legs either side of its back.

  ‘Shoot,’ he said. His name was Phipps.

  ‘Shoot?’

  ‘Tell us what you want,’ said Phipps impatiently. ‘It’s the Bobienski case, isn’t it?’

  ‘You hadn’t come across her?’

  ‘Heard of her, yup, pretty sure, but we can’t be running round after every girl on the game.’

  ‘Actually, I thought that was your job.’

  The man laughed. ‘And yours is to wrap up every murder that ever happened. Good luck with that, mate.’

  Irritated, Breen hefted his briefcase onto the table and flipped the catches. He yanked two photos out and held one so close to Phipps’s face that the man had to jerk his head back.

  ‘Look at it,’ Breen demanded.

  ‘Easy, mate,’ Phipps said, uneasily. ‘No need to get shirty. What are you doing?’

  ‘This woman was murdered last week. Beaten and then left to drown.’

  ‘All right. All right. I get your point.’

  ‘This one.’ He swapped the photos. ‘She was killed the week before.’

  ‘Oh fuck,’ said the man, starting at the eyeless face.

  ‘The first woman was the maid for this prostitute who was called Lena Bobienski. Also known as Julie Teenager. They used a female driver to bring clients to their flat. I need to find out who that woman was.’

  ‘Righto. Calm down. That driver. Was that for outcalls?’

  Breen must have looked blank.

  ‘For when she had to go somewhere on the job? Or was it bringing customers?’

  ‘I’m not sure. All I know is that there was a driver who was regularly outside the premises. She was a woman with longish dark hair.’

  ‘Make of car?’

  ‘Black Cortina.’

  ‘No firm involved?’

  ‘Firm’ as in ‘gang’. ‘Not as far as I know.’

  Phipps sucked in his teeth. ‘Not easy, in that case,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you keep a file?’

  The man shook his head. ‘With us lot, it’s all in here,’ he said, and he tapped the side of his skull.

  ‘You don’t keep records of this sort of thing?’

  ‘No, mate. Paperwork, eh? Who needs it? Besides, the situation changes all the time. Guys move. Girls get put out of business. We’d have our job cut out keeping track. But I’ll ask around. Now she’s dead, there’ll be someone looking for a spot of work, I
dare say. Leave it with me. I’ll do my best. Swear to God.’

  Breen took the shiny metal lift down to the ground floor certain that he would hear nothing from Phipps again. A Chief Superintendent was talking about what was going on in Northern Ireland. ‘The RUC got the crap beaten out of them, I gather. Petrol bombs. Flaming tyres. On the plus side, it means we’re all going to get some shiny new equipment, bet you.’

  He was just leaving the grey office building when he heard a woman calling his name. ‘Sergeant Breen?’

  He looked around. It took him a second to realise that one of the secretaries from the front desk, a pretty young woman with long straw-coloured hair with dark roots, was beckoning him. ‘Sergeant Breen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have a call for you.’ Across the reception desk she offered him a modern-looking handset, an L-shape of pale cream plastic. Who would know he was here?

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I asked, but he wouldn’t give his name. He said it was important.’

  Breen put the phone to his ear.

  ‘You wanted to speak to me.’

  Breen didn’t recognise the voice. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. Who are you?’

  ‘And you’ll have to excuse me for not telling you. Your Superintendent said you were keen to know who had searched Lena Bobienski’s flat. I think you would like to meet us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. I have not been, this year. Have you? You’re an art lover, I believe.’

  It was, he realised, a statement intended say more about the caller than it was about Breen, to make him feel uncomfortable. ‘How do you know that?’ Breen asked.

  ‘If you’ve been before we could try something else, but the Academy is convenient. Tomorrow morning? Say eleven o’clock?’ The voice was self-confident, but oddly classless, neither BBC nor TUC.

  ‘How will I know you?’

  ‘Come to the Reynolds Room, I’m sure you know it. It’s on the first floor. I know what you look like. I’ll introduce myself there.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  But the man had ended the call.

  Breen stood at the reception desk looking at the handset as the disconnected tone sang out from it.

  ‘Finished?’ The pretty young woman smiled at him and he blinked and handed back the telephone.

  One thing he now knew: McPhail was under orders from someone else, someone more powerful. Tomorrow he would find out who. He should be pleased. But the dank musty smell of Florence Caulk’s old clothes, hastily stuffed into a suitcase by someone who wanted to make it look like she was running away, lingered in his nostrils.

  He walked outside the building, pacing the pavement as the triangular sign that said ‘New Scotland Yard’ juddered slowly round and round, breathing in and out, but the rotting stink of Thames mud wouldn’t leave him.

  Amy had come round earlier that day with her Super 8 camera to film Helen and Elfie.

  ‘We were both naked,’ said Elfie. ‘We had to stand there while she walked round filming us.’

  Helen grimaced. ‘I felt like Godzilla, King of the Monsters.’

  ‘Beautiful monster,’ said Elfie.

  ‘Ugly whale,’ said Helen.

  ‘No. You were gorgeous monsters,’ Amy said. ‘Making babies inside you. That’s so weird. Isn’t it? What if I filmed you when you were having the babies too?’

  ‘Not on your bloody life,’ said Helen.

  The three girls, Helen, Elfie and Amy, all brought chairs out into the cul-de-sac and sat there laughing in the evening heat.

  ‘Have you spoken to John at all?’ asked Amy when Breen pulled up a chair to join them.

  ‘Last time I saw him was Friday. With you, at the cinema,’ said Breen.

  ‘We arrange to meet up and then he never shows. And then he’s all apologetic about it. And then it happens again. I’ve just had enough.’

  ‘He probably has work to do.’

  ‘Like last Tuesday. He was supposed to go out with me. He was going to take me for a Chinese. Helen said he was in the pub getting drunk with you.’

  ‘I wasn’t drunk,’ said Breen.

  ‘You were. You came home reeking. Fell asleep at nine.’

  ‘I think he’s getting ready to chuck me,’ Amy said. ‘It makes me so angry. I don’t care if he chucks me anyway.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. He’s mad about you,’ said Breen.

  ‘All he ever bloody talks about,’ said Helen.

  ‘He never wants to see me. Always not turning up. Saying he’s working. It’s like he’s avoiding me.’

  Nobody mentioned Klaus.

  ‘Bloody coppers, eh?’ Helen smiled.

  ‘That’s daft. He spent so long trying to persuade you to go out with him.’

  ‘I never really wanted a boyfriend in the first place. Ties you down,’ said Amy. ‘He was the one who kept on at me. I don’t even want to talk about him any more. Anyone want to go and see The Soft Machine on Friday? After the cinema.’

  Helen wrinkled her nose; Breen took that to mean that she didn’t like them much.

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Elfie. ‘Come on, Hel, you need to get out.’

  ‘I’m too tired,’ she said. ‘I’m tired all the time now.’

  Nobody asked if Breen wanted to come; they all assumed he wouldn’t want to.

  Elfie had cooked a pot roast with chunks of bacon in it.

  ‘Nice, actually,’ said Breen. They were sitting in her kitchen.

  ‘Don’t sound surprised,’ said Helen. ‘It’s rude.’

  They were drinking cider. Elfie had put half a flagon in the casserole, but saved some for a glass with the meal. Amy had had most of it and was a little drunk.

  ‘I know he’s your best mate. I just think he’s a bastard,’ she was saying.

  ‘So I was talking to my friend and she said Brian Jones wasn’t murdered in the pool at all,’ said Elfie, changing the subject.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Breen.

  ‘I heard that too,’ said Amy.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘No. Listen. He was killed in the car crash with Tara Browne three years ago.’

  ‘Who’s Tara Browne?’

  Helen burst out laughing, spraying the table in front of him. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ said Elfie.

  ‘That Guinness heir who killed himself when he went through a red light in his Lotus in Kensington. You know, The Beatles wrote that song about him,’ said Helen. ‘Matter of fact, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, Elfie.’

  Elfie was at the head of the table, face reddening. ‘No. Seriously. Think about it. After that they replaced him, but they couldn’t keep up the fiction. They were being blackmailed by his double so they had to kill him.’

  ‘Is there any more cider?’ asked Amy.

  Helen was still giggling.

  Breen wasn’t. ‘What’s wrong, Cathal?’

  ‘A witness in my case turned up dead,’ he said. ‘Today I heard she was murdered. The same way as the prostitute. It was my fault, I think. She wanted protection but I never took her seriously.’

  Helen stopped laughing. Elfie looked down at the table. In the last few weeks it had been good, coming up here. They were friends. It was carefree and simple; after everything he and Helen had been through in recent months it was good to talk, drink and eat together. But there was a sadness lurking behind everything and that frivolity was so easy to puncture.

  Afterwards, Breen stood at the sink, doing the washing-up.

  Helen put down the drying-up cloth. ‘Oh, Cathal,’ she said, and held out her hand towards him. ‘I’m sorry.’

  But it wasn’t just the death of Mrs Caulk. It was listening to Elfie’s well-meaning nonsense about conspiracies, when he was beginning to feel like he himself was falling into something dark and bottomless. In the morning he would find out exactly what.

  TWENTY-TWO

  In the e
nd, there was no time to look at the paintings from the Summer Exhibition.

  Burlington House, once a Palladian mansion, now dark with London soot, was set back from the street, as if trying to keep its distance from the commerce of Piccadilly.

  Breen climbed the immense staircase; the moment he arrived at the Reynolds Room, an unassuming young man in a dun suit, too fat for his age, approached him.

  He was the only other person in the room. ‘They have a cafeteria here,’ he said. ‘The coffee’s not bad.’

  So they knew he liked coffee too. ‘MI6?’ said Breen, craning his neck past the man at a painting of a garden from a hotter climate than this. ‘Walked across the park from your offices, did you?’ The security service’s HQ was supposed to be somewhere opposite St James’s station.

  The man’s face was shiny, as if the skin on it were a little too tight. ‘People aren’t supposed to know where we are. Though I suppose everyone does.’

  The cafe was almost empty. There was no one to overhear them.

  ‘No, no, no. My treat,’ said the man, putting Breen’s coffee on the tray next to his pot of tea. ‘So. I appreciated you wanting to communicate, and that the situation must be extremely frustrating for you. I can brief you on what I know. OK?’

  ‘You know my name,’ said Breen. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Sand,’ said the young man, smiling.

  ‘Though, like Lena Bobienski’s customers, that’s probably not your name at all.’

  ‘For different reasons, I assure you.’

  They found a small table at the back of the room. The man called Sand chose one as far as he could from the only other occupant, an elderly woman with a thinning fox fur, though she didn’t look much like a spy to Breen.

  ‘So,’ said Sand. ‘Obviously my job is to let you know what you need to, while keeping you as much in the dark about everything else. It’s just the way things are, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So I can assume that Lena Bobienski was mixed up in espionage?’

  ‘One thing at a time; first, a bit of procedure. I will need you to sign this before we go any further.’ He lifted an American-style briefcase, flipped open twin catches, and pulled out a single piece of paper. From what Breen could see, it had been the only thing in the case. He handed it to Breen.

  It was a simple statement: