by William Shaw
It would be Lyagushin.
‘They told me to call every time he visited.’
‘So you had to watch all the visitors.’
‘Yes.’
Breen took a second. ‘We shouldn’t talk now,’ he said. Every crackle of static on the line was suspicious. ‘They may be eavesdropping. That restaurant you told me about. Do you remember? Don’t say the name.’
‘You mean—’
‘Don’t say the name.’
‘Oh.’
‘Meet me there tomorrow. One o’clock. For lunch.’
‘They are listening?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
That night, Breen slept badly, alone in the flat. At two in the morning, he realised he was awake and that a bird was singing in the cul-de-sac. The middle of the night, yet it was singing as if for dear life.
He got up and looked through the curtains, up the stairs and into the stairwell, wondering if someone had disturbed it. A quarter-moon hung above the police station, to the south. All the way up there, men were walking on it.
He was still awake two hours later when the blackness around him began to thin and so he rose, put on a dressing gown, and started looking again through the pages of his notebooks.
THIRTY-FOUR
It was a modest, two-storey house in Wood Green. Keylock’s wife opened the door.
‘Tom. It’s a policeman,’ she said, even before Breen had had a chance to say what he was doing there.
‘That obvious?’ he asked.
She nodded, unsmiling.
‘Is Mr Keylock in?’
The big man replaced her in the doorway, took off his thick glasses, wiped them, and then leaned down to peer at Breen. ‘I know you, don’t I?’
‘About Julie Teenager.’
‘What about her?’
‘Did you work for her?’
Keylock shook his big square head. ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘I called Mr Klein’s office. He said you were off today.’ With Helen and Elfie in hospital, he had called Amy. She had advised him to try the Rolling Stones’ manager, an American called Klein.
‘Typical,’ said Keylock. ‘Never a bit of bloody privacy.’
‘I thought you didn’t get days off.’
‘No. Mick and his bird are in Australia making some bloody film. And you know about Brian. I’m no longer needed there. Nothing for me to do, that’s all. Couple of days to put my feet up. Is that it?’
‘Did you work for Julie Teenager?’
‘I work for the Rolling Stones. That’s all.’
‘What about Kay Fitzpatrick?’
A pause. ‘What about her?’
A neighbour walking a Jack Russell down the street paused to let his dog urinate by the gatepost and called, ‘Morning, Tom. All right?’ looking Breen up and down.
‘Kay Fitzpatrick,’ said Breen again.
Keylock nodded. ‘You better come in, then.’ He called into the kitchen, ‘Put the kettle on, love.’
For a man who worked for the Rolling Stones, it was an ordinary house. A print of a Chinese-looking woman with a blue face hung in the hallway; a sampler that said ‘Welcome Home’. The kind of simple family house he would have wanted to grow up in. In the living room there was a three-piece suite, upholstered in a cosy, reassuring floral pattern. Small wooden tables sat around the room, each with a clean glass ashtray.
‘Any news of Kay?’ Keylock asked.
‘You heard, then?’
‘Course I did, poor cow.’ He sat down and pointed to the sofa. ‘She took a beating. The police say it was her boyfriend.’
‘You think it was?’
Keylock looked huge in the armchair, leaning forwards, hands clasped, nodding. ‘Could be. There are a lot of nasty cunts.’
Breen sat down opposite him. ‘Tell me about Kay.’
He took his big black-framed glasses off, wiped them with a sleeve, then replaced them. ‘I’m not paid to go round telling other people’s secrets. You know that. My job’s to keep my mouth shut. Know what? I once drove Bob Dylan around Britain for three weeks. Big fancy car. You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve seen. They’re kids in the world’s biggest sweetshop, these boys. The job is you don’t tell no one.’
‘What if you know something about a crime?’
‘I cooperate fully with the police whenever I’m required to.’ And he smiled the smile acquired from cocky young men, ten years younger than him.
‘What if it’s not her boyfriend? What if the person who beat her up is the same man who killed Julie Teenager?’
Keylock frowned. ‘Is that what happened?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘I don’t hold with beating women,’ said Keylock. ‘It’s a bad thing. Brian Jones did a bit of that. Didn’t like it.’
There was a photo of a young bespectacled soldier in hot weather kit, leaning against what looked like a mud wall. ‘Is that you?’
‘Palestine. 1947. I was in the Royal Army Service Corps.’
‘Did you see action in the war?’
‘And some. I was at bloody Arnhem, mate. Jesus. That was something. See this?’ He pointed to his nose and face. ‘Wounded. They took the skin from my arse and stuck it on my face. Jagger says maybe that’s why I always talk shit.’
Breen laughed, because it was expected. ‘Working with a pop group must seem like a picnic after that.’
‘Not exactly a picnic,’ he said. ‘But fewer people die. And the pay’s good.’
‘I bet you like it, don’t you? All the chaos. All the running away from people like us. Trying to cover up for their messes?’
‘No comment,’ he said, but he gave another little smile.
‘I bet you wouldn’t mind bending the law a bit, to keep them safe.’
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, officer.’
Breen thought of Zygmunt Wojcik tending his vegetables in his West London garden. The generation who had fought in World War II struggled with ordinary life.
‘You were there with Brian Jones the night he died.’
‘Nope. You heard wrong. Only afterwards.’
‘That’s right. You arrived afterwards.’
‘I was supposed to be looking after him, but you can’t be there round the bloody clock. A mate who was doing some building work for Brian called me up and told me to get down there double quick. The fuzz were already there. I was the one who had to call up Mick and Keith in the recording studio, tell them the news.’
Keylock’s wife, a handsome woman, a few years younger than Tom, brought tea, not in a cup and saucer, but in a mug. Breen took his, though he hadn’t asked for it. ‘Did you see anything strange about his death?’
‘Strange? It was just pathetic. Nothing strange about it. I’ve seen brave men shot to pieces by Nazi artillery. In bits. Brian just died. That’s all.’
‘I believe you.’
‘Look. I liked Brian a lot, especially at the beginning, before he got into the drugs. He was a lost boy. He had his stupid side, dark side, whatever you want to call it. Maybe we all do. I won’t deny I gave him a bit of a kicking because he set on his girlfriend, Anita, this one time. Like I said, I don’t stand for it. But the Rolling Stones, it had been his group. At the end he was just a sad, fucked-up boy who was afraid of his own shadow, who drank too much and took too many pills. It’s a shame. Honest? I don’t know what happened that night. I wasn’t there. Know what? It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t really fucking matter. Brian was going to die anyway. Even if I had been there, maybe it would have been just the same. It’s that simple. I heard a couple of the fans saying some shit, but that’s all it is. Shit.’
Keylock’s wife returned with a plate of ginger nuts. Breen waited until she’d gone, then asked, ‘You were there when Jagger and the other one got off their drugs charges.’
‘I wasn’t at the bust. I wouldn’t have let it happen if I had been there, believe me.’
‘It doesn’t
worry you that it’s one law for them and another for everybody else?’
‘Worry me? This fucking country’s always been like that,’ said Keylock. ‘Sometimes it pretends it’s not, but that’s the way it is. Don’t go kidding yourself. Why fight it?’
Breen remained seated, looking at him.
‘You think I’m full of shit, don’t you?’
Breen shook his head. ‘No.’ A vacuum cleaner started whirring in the room next door. ‘How well did you know Julie?’
‘That bloody noise,’ said Keylock, standing. ‘Keep it down, love.’ The hoover stopped. ‘Fancy a vodka?’
Breen looked at his watch; eleven in the morning. ‘Not for me.’
Keylock looked disappointed. ‘Course I knew her. She was at parties. She liked the music, know what I mean? Did you know she was Polish?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘Her dad was RAF, wasn’t he? She found out I was at Arnhem. I remember she saluted me. Loads of Poles fought there on our side. Say what you like, good fucking men, they were. The Polish Parachute Brigade. Only time I ever seen her get emotional, talking about all that crap. She was a funny girl, Julie was. She was tricky, know what I mean? She flirted with all the boys, but you could tell she didn’t mean it. I got the idea she was always looking for some way to take advantage, know what I mean? I wasn’t interested, myself. Happily married man. You married, copper?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Find a nice woman. Get married. Everything else is so much bollocks. You understand? Sure you don’t want a little drink?’
‘Did you ever work for Julie Teenager?’
‘Julie was nothing to do with me, swear to God. I’m paid by the band. Julie was just on the scene. Nice girl. Tougher than a lot of them, you could see that a mile off. Not really friendly with anyone, just there, know what I mean? And maybe the boys liked hanging around with her because they knew what she did. Made them feel a bit cooler, didn’t it? But I ran a car company. That’s how I got involved in all this stuff in the first place, driving Mick around and Dylan. So I was always on the lookout for drivers. And some people like a pretty girl at the wheel, know what I mean. And Kay’s a looker. Brunette. Lovely legs. Makes you look good if you got a pretty driver. Who wants an ugly mug like mine? So Kay, yeah… she was a pal. I got her work.’
‘So Kay worked with Julie Teenager?’
Keylock tugged on a long ear lobe. ‘Julie wanted a driver to pick up her customers. Thing was, she preferred working with women. She didn’t trust men. Maybe she worried about them muscling in. Fair play. I’ve got a few connections. I put the two of them in touch. That’s how Kay ended up with her. That’s all. Swear to God. It was just a bit of driving work.’
‘How would it work? She’d get a phone call and pick up a client and bring them to Julie’s flat?’
‘Pretty much. It’s simpler all round that way. And safer too. The client knows everything is hush-hush. If you’re working with high-end clients, they want discretion. They don’t want anything getting into the papers. She did nothing wrong. Is she going to be all right, Kay?’
‘I called the hospital at Chichester this morning. She’s out of the coma but still confused, apparently. She’s blind, you know? There might be brain damage but only time will tell. Sussex Police will be interviewing her in the next couple of days.’
Keylock nodded. ‘But you don’t reckon it was her boyfriend?’
Breen shrugged. ‘Sussex Police say so, but I think they’re wrong. There are three people associated with Julie in some way who have been killed or close. All women.’
Keylock leaned forward and took a ginger nut from the plate. ‘You don’t think much of me, working for this lot, do you?’
‘I never said that,’ said Breen.
‘Know what? I fought a fucking war,’ said Keylock. ‘All I ended up with was a demob suit. This lot ain’t having that. That’s fine by me.’
‘But it’s not going to last. It’s a fad.’
‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? But you’re wrong,’ said Keylock. ‘Everything is different now. You lot are stuck in the past. I’m the future.’
He hadn’t eaten breakfast; as he stood, Breen took a biscuit and chewed on it thoughtfully.
‘Take the whole ruddy plate if you like,’ said Keylock, standing too, to let him out.
THIRTY-FIVE
At the Woolworths on Stoke Newington High Street he bought a box of Milk Tray chocolates, then walked on to the bus stop on Rectory Road.
He imagined footsteps behind him, but when he turned, there was no one there. On Brooke Road, he dipped into a newsagent, and as he emerged with a copy of The Times, he was sure he saw a man in a light blue mac, collar turned up, standing with his back turned to him, peering hard at the window of the Radio Rentals shop. It was fifty yards away and too far to make out any features.
He stepped back into the newsagent and bought ten No. 6’s and a box of matches. When he emerged again, the man was still there, face still turned away.
At the bus stop, he joined a short queue. The buses were quiet, this time of day. Holding the newspaper up, he scanned around for the man in the light blue mac, but couldn’t see him.
The double-decker came and Breen boarded it, finding space downstairs. He sat next to a blind man who opened a purse and spilled pennies onto the floor. He was just leaning down to pick them up for him when the bus pulled off. Someone must have jumped onto the back platform while the bus was moving, because the conductor shouted, ‘Oi! Next time, wait. I don’t want to be picking you up off the bloody road,’ but by the time he had straightened up and turned to look, whoever it was had made it up the stairs to the top floor.
It was a short ride to Aldgate. He paused under the sign: London’s Most Famous Kosher Restaurant. Haas was not there yet, so he sat on a stool at the window and asked for fried gefilte fish and coffee.
There was an old joke about Bloom’s. A customer once complained about his water being brought in a dirty glass. When the waiter returned with fresh water, he called loudly to all the diners, ‘Who ordered the water with the clean glass?’
Breen checked his watch; he did not have long. Haas was supposed to be here at one. He would have time to have lunch, then it would be visiting time. He would go and take the ring back, apologise for giving it to her, and hope that they could go back to where they had been before he’d bought it.
The fried gefilte fish came. It lay flat on the plate, with pickled beetroot on the side. He tried a little, but it was dry and hard to eat. He thought of Helen; she would hate this unfamiliar, un-British food. She would be wrinkling her nose; laughing at it, mocking him for ordering it. The coffee was not good: watery and bitter without any flavour. Breen checked his watch.
Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw someone looking at him, but when he turned, all he saw was an elderly woman smoking a cigarette in a long holder. Once you know you have been followed, spied on, you cannot get the idea out of your head; you begin to distrust the world around you.
He cut a little more from the fish. It was greasy and cold. Even with the chrain – the pickle – it was hard to swallow. He put down his fork and looked at his watch again.
After visiting Keylock, he was more convinced than ever that the two assaults, on Helen and Kay Fitzpatrick, and the two murders, Julie Teenager and Florence Caulk, were all by the same man – as Helen had believed. He had no faith that C1 would be doing anything to find who he was, though. Their job would be to bury it. In his pocket, he had the sketches he had drawn from Helen’s description. They weren’t much good and he couldn’t work out who it was that Helen had seen, but if there was a connection, maybe Haas would recognise someone.
He saw Haas long before Haas saw him. A man in a dark blue workman’s jacket, thin, slightly bent. He was standing at the small traffic island at the junction where Commercial Road met Whitechapel High Street.
He looked to the left and right, for a gap in the flow of vehicle
s. And then, he looked up and he saw Breen waving at him from his table inside the brightly lit restaurant.
The man smiled. It was the plain, open smile of a man who had not let the hardness of his life crush him. A man who, thirty-five years before, had played in orchestras to cheering crowds in gilded rooms but was now just another man in a London crowd.
The traffic was bad here, motorbikes dodging between the vans and cars, taxis lurching between slower vehicles.
And then, behind Haas, Breen saw a man in a light blue mac, collar turned up, who had dodged through the traffic to arrive at the traffic island just behind the caretaker.
Haas smiled at Breen still, staring straight ahead.
Breen’s eyes were wide. He had no idea what was about to happen, but was sure it was not good. Behind the glass window, Breen raised both hands: Look out. The man behind you.
Waving his hands, he knocked his plate to the floor where it smashed. Other diners stared at him, the man shouting in the window.
‘LOOK OUT!’
Haas can’t hear him, of course.
In the second before the lorry obliterates the view, Breen sees Benjamin’s smile falter. He is wondering why the policeman is suddenly looking so concerned, why he is gesticulating at him, why he is trying to say something to him? What?
And then there is a screeching of brakes; followed, what seems like ages later, by a kind of stillness.
The busy junction’s traffic, so frenetic a few seconds ago, has stopped. Cars are stationary now. Nothing moves.
And then someone starts screaming. And more people join in.
It was strange how everyone had seen it differently.
A woman with a wailing toddler on her arm said she had seen the man trip and fall on the edge of the pavement. The lorry driver said exactly the same, though how he could have seen anything, Breen didn’t understand, as Haas had fallen under his rear wheel. A girl with a black bob and too much make-up, who Breen guessed should have been at school, said a man had barged into him, making him stumble, but when Breen asked her to describe the man, she had no idea at all. A Pakistani man said the same. Haas had been jostled.