She's Leaving Home

by William Shaw

  Breen looked around. Half the late-night regulars were in. The biker couple whom he’d seen here a few weeks ago were sitting in a corner talking to one of the Pakistanis. When the man caught Breen’s eyes he nudged his pretty girlfriend and they waved hello.

  “Who’s looking after the baby?”

  “She’s with friends. Everybody’s being so kind,” she said, crying again. Breen put his arm around her, but it only made her cry more.

  Carmichael ordered double eggs, sausages, chips, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried bread. Breen ordered a smoked-salmon bagel.

  There was a gust of smoke from the kitchen.

  “It’s something, though, isn’t it?” she said. “People coming to help.” She returned to the kitchen to help the temporary chef, who was struggling. He had a bandage on his finger when he brought the plates over, from when he had tried to slice tomatoes. Carmichael’s sausages were barely cooked; his egg was black around the edge; there was a dark greasy thumbprint on one side of the plate.

  “Bloody hell. I’m sending this back,” Carmichael said, staring at it.

  “Over my dead body,” said Breen. He picked up his bagel and took a bite from it.

  Carmichael set about cutting the burned part of the egg away. “Oh God. Did you see the state of his hands? By the way, I handed in my request for a transfer,” he muttered.

  “Scotland Yard?”

  Carmichael stuck his fork into the firm yolk of the egg. “Yes.”

  “Drug Squad?”

  “Yes,” he said again. “You’re not coming, are you?”

  Breen took a sip from his coffee. It was watery and unpleasant, but hot at least. “No. I’m staying put.”

  “You’ll be stuck in a dead-end force with Bailey.”

  “I’m OK there.”

  “Pilcher says I can make another six hundred quid in a year.”

  “Best of luck.”

  The bagel was too dry. Breen picked off the salmon and ate that on its own.

  They ate quickly. Breen left a big tip. “Give Joe my best,” he said.

  Carmichael got on the radio as soon as they were back in the car.

  “Any news on Constable Tozer?”

  “Any news on who?” the woman on the other end of the radio said. “Over.”

  “Fuck sake,” said Carmichael, then to Breen, “What if she’s dead?”

  “Shut up, John, for Christ’s sake.”

  “OK. I was just saying, that’s all.”

  They went back to Walthamstow and drove round aimlessly for a while longer. “I could drop you home,” said Carmichael. “It’s not far from here.”

  “What about you? Are you turning in?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m OK. I don’t feel like sleeping.”

  “Me neither. I wish we could bloody do something. This is driving me nuts.”

  “If I hadn’t told her to keep an eye on the back of the shop, this would never have happened.”

  “You can’t say that, Paddy.”

  On Billet Road they were flagged down by a middle-aged woman in a fur coat. When they pulled over she asked, “Have you seen my husband?”

  They both got out. Her breath reeked of brandy. She was tottering on patent leather heels. “Where do you live, love?” said Carmichael.

  “London,” she said.

  “Can you be a bit more precise?”

  The radio crackled. “Delta Mike Five?”

  Breen ducked back into the car.

  A brief crackle, then: “Delta Mike Three just called in. Have a message. Over.”

  Breen checked his watch in the green glow cast by the radio’s light. It was half past midnight.

  “Is Mrs. Briggs back at the house? Over.”

  “Negative. Delta Mike Three says her husband has just got into his car. Requests urgent instructions. Over.”

  “Follow him.”

  “Say again.”

  “Follow him,” shouted Breen. “Tell him not to let him out of their sight.”

  The operator went silent while she relayed the message. When she came back on the air, Breen said, “Tell them to let us know where they’re heading.”

  “Will do. Out…”

  “Wait. What about Constable Tozer?”

  “Nothing so far. Out.”

  He called through the window. “Get in.”

  Carmichael returned to the car. “What?”

  “Briggs is on the move,” he said, replacing the handset in its holder.

  Carmichael got in and started the engine. “That toff in the pink shirt? Bloody hell. He’s gone looking for her?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “Where?”

  “They’re following. They’re going to let us know.”

  “Hey,” said the woman in the coat. “What about my husband?”

  “Go home, love,” shouted Carmichael.

  “I’ll report you,” called the woman. “I’ll bloody report you buggers.”

  Everything else she said was lost to the roar of the engine.

  Thirty-two

  The next call they received told them that the professor was driving a blue Daimler Sovereign heading out on Whitechapel Road. “Registration Golf Romeo Tango One Nine One Foxtrot.” Breen scribbled it down as they roared off down the Chingford Road.

  “Bloody hell. He’s coming our way,” said Carmichael.

  “That’s something,” said Breen. “It means he’s heading in the same direction as whoever got Tozer.” He could lead them to her still. Breen was flicking through a road map and traced the A11 towards where they were headed. “Can we make it to Leyton High Road in five minutes?”

  “You bet.” Carmichael gunned the car southwards, slowing only for red lights, but not stopping.

  They were there in good time; Carmichael swung a U-turn, reversed the car into a side street and turned off the headlights.

  “If it’s coming our way.”

  “Delta Mike Five. Quarry stopped for petrol on Bow Road. Over.”

  “Reckon he’s going far, then?” said Carmichael. “If he needs a full tank?”

  “If he’s heading out of London it’s going to be harder once we have to relay the radio with Essex.”

  A moment of stillness as they waited in the car, watching the traffic pass. Carmichael lit another cigarette and belched. “My guts are killing me. Bet it was those bloody sausages. If he’s heading out of London we might lose him. We should pull him up.”

  “Could do,” said Breen. But if they stopped him they might lose the chance of finding out where he was heading.

  “I mean, odds on, if it’s out of London he’ll spot he’s being followed.”

  It was true, thought Breen. In the dark, on country roads, you noticed if you were being followed.

  “So should we pull him?”

  “Let’s wait and see what he does.”

  He switched on his torch and shone it on the road atlas. If Briggs wasn’t heading for East London itself, he could be heading anywhere farther north or east.

  “Delta Mike Three now heading up…”

  The radio faded away to nothingness.

  “Say again. Over,” said Breen.

  Nothing. Breen and Carmichael looked at each other. “Bloody hell,” said Carmichael.

  “Say again. Over,” said Breen. “We’re losing you.”

  “I don’t feel that well, to be honest,” said Carmichael.

  “Say again.”

  Nothing.

  “Bloody mess.”

  The receiver fizzed and buzzed; ghost voices from some ham-radio conversation drifted into the police frequency.

  “Get off the airwaves.” Carmichael thumped the radio in frustration.

  “Quiet,” said Breen.

  The operator’s voice faded back in. “Rom…Road. Over.”

  “Say again.”

  Again the interference obliterated the reply.

  “Jesus.”

  “Say again,” Breen repeat
ed.

  And then the voice cut through: “Romford Road.”

  Breen studied the map. “There.” He pointed. The car had turned east.

  “Shit,” said Carmichael, switching on the headlights and putting the car into gear.

  He turned on the blue light and roared out of the side road, right in front of a milk float, which had to swing out of the way, a milk crate toppling off onto the tarmac. Carmichael blared his horn and spun away on down the road.

  Water Lane was thankfully deserted. Carmichael turned off the police lights as they approached Romford Road. “Right,” shouted Breen.

  Carmichael swung the car round a red traffic light and slowed down to a less conspicuous speed. “We’ve got to be behind them both now,” he said.

  “What’s the latest from Delta Mike Three? Over.”

  No answer; just the crackling of static.

  “Bollocks,” said Carmichael. They tore through junctions and zebra crossings and past closed shops and pubs.

  In the center of Ilford he stopped in the middle of a junction. “Where now?” The road divided. “Quick, Paddy.”

  “Hold on.”

  Breen peered at the map, his finger tracing the yellow lines. Where? He had to make a guess which route they would have taken. North or east?

  “Right, then first left.”

  “Got you.”

  If they had come this far they would still be heading east, Breen was hoping. The A12 was beyond them, stretching out towards Essex and beyond. Postwar semis lined either side of the road ahead, each house like the last. London edging ever outwards.

  “Bingo,” cried Carmichael, braking suddenly.

  Ahead of them, stopped at a red light, was a police car. And about 150 yards beyond that a Daimler, moving away on the far side of the lights. They were following at a distance, letting it stay well ahead of them.

  Carmichael pulled up alongside the police car, and Breen wound down his window. A pair of young uniformed men sat in the car, grinning broadly, thrilled by the chase. “Hey-ya,” the driver said, and waved.

  “We’re pulling him over,” shouted Breen from the passenger seat.

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do we have to?” said the constable. “We’re having fun.”

  “We’ll get in front.”

  The moment the lights changed Carmichael shot up the road. They caught up with the Daimler easily; Briggs had had no idea he was being followed. Breen caught a quick glimpse of Briggs’s face as they passed, hands clutching the wheel, and then Carmichael had the siren on and the lights blazing, brakes on, forcing the car to a stop as the other policemen’s Austin boxed it in from behind.

  Breen was out of the car, torch in hand. He shone the torch in Briggs’s eyes.

  “Morning.”

  Professor Briggs blinked into the light. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

  “You know where she is, don’t you? Your wife?”

  They were stopped by a big roadside pub whose sign creaked in the wind. Briggs looked back at the steering wheel. “Sort of. I think.”

  Carmichael called over from the driving seat of the police car, “Get in the back. We’ll take you there.”

  Sitting in his Daimler, gloved hands on the wheel ahead of him, Briggs hesitated. “All this mess,” he said. “You don’t have to make it public, do you?”

  Breen said, “Out of the car, please.”

  “I don’t really care for myself,” said Briggs. “It’s just it would embarrass Mrs. Briggs if this got out. I’ll put in a word with your boss. I do have some influence, you know. I know the Commissioner very well.”

  “Out,” shouted Breen.

  It was a house by the sea in Suffolk. Their getaway place; the couple spent weekends there in the summer.

  “Did she take Sam Ezeoke there?”

  Briggs didn’t answer.

  Later, in the dark of the A12, Carmichael driving down the empty road, headlights on full beam, he said, “We have a caretaker. I called her up after you’d left my house and asked her to look in on the place. She said, ‘Oh. I thought you were there. The light was on.’”

  They traveled east into the darkness.

  “Why here?” asked Breen.

  “I don’t know. We have a boat. A twenty-six-foot Seamaster. Perhaps she wants to get him away in that.”

  As they got closer to the coast, the mist hung in patches. Carmichael looked pale. He said little beyond swearing at a cattle truck that was blocking the road and asking Breen to light his cigarettes.

  “What if they’ve taken the boat already?” said Breen.

  “They haven’t. I asked the caretaker to check for me.”

  “Can she handle the boat on her own?”

  The professor laughed drily. “I’m the landlubber. The boat is her toy.”

  They were doing around forty down a narrow, straight black road, short hedges on either side, when Carmichael braked suddenly, sending the professor hurtling off the backseat and into the space between the two front seats. “For God’s sake,” he shouted. “Be careful.”

  Muddy water splashed up as Carmichael pulled the car into a lay-by.

  “What’s wrong?” said Breen

  Without answering, Carmichael kicked open the door and dashed out into the blackness.

  “What the devil has got into him?” said Professor Briggs.

  “I don’t know,” answered Breen, getting out to follow Carmichael. It was a dark, starless night and it took Breen a minute for his eyes to adjust. He leaned back inside the car and pulled the torch from the glove compartment.

  Carmichael had clambered over a fence and disappeared into a newly planted field.

  “John?” called Breen.

  A faint groan returned from the black field.

  “Are you all right?” asked Breen.

  Another groan. Breen switched on his torch; dazzled by the light, John Carmichael was squatting on the brown earth, trousers about his ankles, the pale skin of his legs luminous in the bright beam.

  “Switch it off!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t laugh. I just shat my trousers,” said Carmichael.

  “I’m not laughing, I promise.”

  Carmichael groaned. “Go away,” he said.

  The night was cold; wind came unhindered over the flat land. An owl screeched somewhere. Breen returned to the car.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Professor Briggs.

  “Detective Sergeant Carmichael is ill,” Breen said, rummaging again in the glove compartment. There was a pad of license-producer forms but the paper looked flimsy.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Food poisoning, I think.”

  “Oh for pity’s sake.”

  Breen went round to the boot, opened it and shone the torch inside. A set of spanners lay wrapped in a copy of the Mirror. He took the newspaper and clambered over the fence with it. “Best I could find,” he said, offering it to Carmichael.

  “Thanks.”

  Breen and Professor Briggs waited in the car, heater on. The land around them was flat and empty. There were no lights on the horizon. No cars came past.

  “I suppose I should call someone at the hospital and let them know I’m going to be late,” said Professor Briggs, pushing his hair back from his eyes. “What time should I tell them I’ll be in?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  “That is not particularly helpful.”

  Breen turned round and glared at the man in the backseat. “There would have been no need for any of this if you had told us where you thought your wife was in the first place.”

  The professor turned his head away, as if looking at something of great interest beyond the blackness outside the car.

  Breen got out of the car. “How are you doing?” he called.

  “I feel like shit,” said Carmichael.

  Breen looked at his watch. It was almost three in the morning. They still had at
least three hours to drive.

  “Are you going to be long?”

  “I keep thinking I’ve finished and then I start again.”

  Breen peered into the blackness around them and wished they had contacted the Suffolk police before they’d left civilization.

  Eventually Carmichael rejoined them; his eyes looked sunken, his hair was matted against his forehead. He slumped into the driver’s seat, put the car in gear, then took it back into neutral again. “Not sure I can drive,” he said.

  “Good grief, man. Is that you? You smell to heaven,” said the professor. “What did you do to yourself?”

  Breen turned to the professor: “Right. You drive,” he said. After the fall that morning, he wasn’t up to a long session behind the wheel.

  “You must be ruddy joking,” said Briggs.

  “I wish I ruddy was,” replied Breen.

  In the darkness, the professor was a nervous driver. He paused at every corner or junction; if any vehicles approached from the opposite direction, headlights shining into his eyes, he slowed to a virtual standstill. As dawn approached, the roads became fuller; huge lorries packed with beets loomed within feet of the rear bumper. Their presence slowed Briggs down even more, sending the truck drivers into a rage of impatience. One blared his horn until Briggs found a lane he could pull over into.

  Carmichael lay on the backseat, groaning occasionally. By the time they stopped at a small all-night petrol station somewhere in Suffolk, a thin line of deep blue light was starting to form to the east.

  The attendant was asleep in a chair inside. Breen banged on the window to wake him. He emerged, rubbing his eyes, dressed in a long brown cotton coat with Esso written on the chest pocket. “Fill it up,” said Breen. “Oh. And you got a key for the toilets?”

  Breen passed the key to Carmichael, who tottered out to the back of the station clutching it.

  “Is he going to be all right?” asked Breen, as the attendant put the nozzle into the tank.

  “How would I know?” answered Briggs.

  “Well, you’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

  The professor didn’t answer.

  When Carmichael returned he was looking a little less white, though he still got into the backseat. He sat up straight this time in the corner and lit a cigarette. “Drive,” he said.