by William Shaw
‘But you knew each other in Devon too?’
Mrs Milkwood poured hot water into the teapot. ‘Jimmy left Africa first. His brother had died, you know, so he came back to run the estate in Devon. We moved back to Nairobi after the Emergency. Billy had a job with CID there. Then by ’59 it became pretty obvious that Kenya was about to go down the pan with Kenyatta all lined up to take over, so we started making plans to come home. Some of them stayed on, but God help them. We thought we’d better get out while we could. We still kept up with Jimmy, so we thought, why not go and find a place near him? So we jolly well packed our bags and left. I do miss the heat in Africa, but we were right to go. But it was never the same when we came back here. We were never as close, obviously. Eloisa in particular, now she was a lady. Did you want more tea?’
Breen looked at the photograph. In the floral swimsuit, Mrs Fletchet looked a different person. There was something come-hithery about her smile; she was enjoying the company of men.
‘That would have been 1955, I expect.’ She smiled. ‘Somewhere round there. They were back from one of their expeditions. That was at the end of the worst of it. They’d be gone into the bush for a fortnight and then when they’d come back we’d always have a party.’
‘What were they doing?’
‘Fighting the Mau Mau of course. With the Home Guard. Local black fellows. Useless mostly. The Mau Mau were worse than fighting the Germans, Bill always said. The Germans wore a uniform. You never knew who was Mau Mau and who wasn’t. They were a secret society. That was half the problem. Swore a blood oath. So you never even knew whether the Home Guard were loyal or not. Savages, really. Barbarous in the extreme. The thing about Africans. You have to understand that there is no real culture there. No depth of thought. Some of them were wonderful. Our servants were the sweetest people you could wish to meet. A little lazy sometimes but devoted to us. But people like that, their whole lives are governed by superstition. And fear. And that made them prey to any vicious agitator there was. You’d hear these awful stories of people whose servants turned on them and murdered them in the night. It was terrifying, really. I remember one particular story. This one family had lovely servants. One day their little boy fell off a horse and broke his ankle. One chap carried him miles to get him home. A few nights later the same servant hacked the whole family to death with a machete, mother, father and the same child whose life he’d just saved. Blood everywhere, so they said. The horror. There was no logic to it at all, you see?’
She stood and looked at herself in the mirror above the mantelpiece. Adjusted her hair.
‘And now their lot is in power. Place will go to the dogs. Everybody’s sucking up to that awful man Kenyatta these days, but everyone knew he was a leader in the Mau Mau.’
She paused. Looked at the photograph. ‘Funny. So much horridness going on, but when I look back, I always remember it with such fondness. If I’m honest, I was always quite scared on my own when Bill was away just in case something happened. And now he’s gone for good,’ she said.
Breen peered at the photograph. ‘Who’s the third person?’ he asked. A man, in big serge shorts, cigarette in hand, his smile less certain than the other two.
‘Nicky, Jimmy and Bill. The three musketeers. Nicholas Doyle. A police constable. Jimmy was a farmer. Bill was a CID man. Nicky was just an ordinary fellow, really. He’d never been outside England until then. But they all came together to fight the Mau Mau. Didn’t wait to be ordered to. Nobody back home ever knew what it was like. They just wanted rid of the problem. But out there it brought us all together. Nicky was always the quieter one. You have to understand, they saw terrible things. The Mau Mau would slaughter families of anyone they thought was a collaborator. Anyone who had broken the oath they forced people to swear. Once, Bill saw a baby that had been boiled alive in a pot. Some people aren’t as strong.’
‘Where is he now?’ Breen asked.
She took the photograph from his hands. ‘He was younger than Bill. They didn’t have that much in common.’
‘Doyle, you say?’ said Carmichael.
‘Yes, why?’
‘Do you have an address for him?’
Mrs Milkwood laughed. ‘Oh no. I don’t think Bill kept in touch with him at all. He didn’t think much of him. Sergeant Carmichael, do you think a weekend is better for a funeral?’
‘I should say,’ said Carmichael. ‘Definitely a weekend.’ There was an uncomfortable pause. ‘Can we borrow this photograph? We’ll make a copy and give it straight back?’
She frowned. ‘What is all this? What’s this got to do with the people who killed Bill?’
Carmichael said, ‘I worked with your husband for three months, and I admired him a great deal, but I didn’t really know him, I suppose. I’m just trying to find out a little about him. We’re going to need to talk to James Fletchet.’
‘We haven’t seen so much of Jimmy recently. I mean, it was different back here at home anyway. In Kenya we whites were all together. Just because his family were lords and sirs didn’t mean a thing out there. I used to invite Jimmy and Eloisa round for dinner. I rather miss that. Back here it’s more us and them, if you know what I mean. Jimmy and Bill still got along like a house on fire. But when I asked Jimmy round for dinner when we were back, he didn’t even reply. It was like I was no longer part of the same set. Bill was. Not me, though.’
Suddenly her lip wobbled and Mrs Milkwood burst into tears. She sat on the smaller of the two armchairs for a second, shoulders heaving, while Carmichael and Breen watched her cry.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, when she’d found her breath. ‘I’ll tell you what I miss most. It’s the smell of the place.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Africa,’ she said. ‘You know when rain hits hot soil? There’s nothing like it. England has always seemed so grey in comparison.’
‘Did he bring work back here at all?’ asked Breen.
‘Some.’
Breen looked at Carmichael. ‘Were there any files. Any folders?’
She hesitated. ‘Why?’
‘We’ve been through all his files at the office,’ Carmichael said. ‘Just to make sure we’ve got everything covered.’
‘I’m not sure. He never used to let me anywhere near his desk. If I so much as moved a bit of paper, he’d be upset.’
‘We’ll be as careful as we can.’
She looked anxious.
Carmichael reached over and took her hand. ‘We want to catch the bastards who did this,’ he said. ‘All of us do.’
It was a small spare bedroom. A small bookcase full of Westerns by Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour. A small oak desk. On the wall above the desk, a photograph of him as a Metropolitan Police Cadet at Hendon, some time just after the war, Breen guessed.
The desktop was empty, save for a blotter, a souvenir ashtray from Windsor and a box of pencils.
Breen tried the drawers. They were both locked.
‘I don’t have the key,’ she said.
‘Did he spend a lot of time in here?’
‘Half an hour or so when he got home after work. He didn’t like to be disturbed, he said. He used to lock the door behind him. I never liked that.’
‘Mind if we look around?’ said Carmichael. ‘Maybe he kept the key somewhere safe.’
‘I don’t know if I want you to do this,’ she said, toying with the hem of her cardigan.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Carmichael. ‘We won’t disturb anything. We promise.’
‘Bill wouldn’t like it.’
The doorbell rang. She hesitated, but it rang a second time. ‘Don’t touch anything,’ she said.
‘Absolutely not,’ said Carmicahel.
The moment she was gone, Carmichael took a Swiss Army penknife from his pocket, took out a spike, and began digging in the lock hole of the top drawer.
Breen started at the shelves, pulling out the books to see if there was a key concealed anywhere. It was wrong to be sneaking behind her back this way, but it fel
t good to be doing something, at least. It took his mind off Helen. He could hear Gwen Milkwood downstairs, talking to someone at the door. A neighbour?
Her voice rose up the stairs. ‘I’m not sure when the funeral is going to be. It’s terribly complicated. I have a lot of notices to send. It’s very wearing.’
There was a loud crack behind him. ‘Bugger,’ said Carmichael.
Breen looked round. Trying to force the lock, Carmichael had slipped and gashed it. He spat on his sleeve and started rubbing at the mark. Breen turned back to the shelf, pulled out another slim book and a small dark key flew out and fell on the floor, bouncing under the spare bed.
On his hands and knees, he retrieved it, then passed it to Carmichael.
The top drawer was full of odds and ends. Pens, rubber bands, a bottle of ink, a book of matches from the Playboy Club.
‘Are you all right up there?’ called Mrs Milkwood.
‘Coming down now,’ shouted Carmichael, putting the key in the second drawer and turning it.
Inside was a pile of magazines. The one on the top was called Busty. Carmichael pulled it out and flicked through it. There were pictures of naked women sitting in awkward poses on beds and sofas, single and in pairs, smiling at the camera. ‘So that’s why he locked the door.’
He reached in and pulled out the whole pile to see if there was anything else in there.
‘Put that back.’ Mrs Milkwood was standing at the door, face pale. Carmichael was holding a picture of a woman in white suspenders and a bra, legs wide apart. ‘Right this minute.’
Shocked, Carmichael spilled the pile, sending the magazines across the floor. Kolor Klimax. Lark. Natural Women.
Breen and Carmichael looked at each other. Breen wondered briefly if his own face looked as appalled as Carmichael’s did, before dropping to his knees, scooping up the magazines without trying to look too closely at them.
‘I think you should go now,’ she said, not looking either of them in the eye.
On the doorstep, Carmichael said, ‘Well. We better be off then.’
‘You must have a lot to do,’ she replied.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Saturday, isn’t it?’ she said, looking back towards the kitchen. ‘Usually I cook steak and kidney for Bill. I’m not sure I can be bothered any more.’
It was as if they’d never been upstairs. She held out her hand, to shake.
Carmichael drove in low gear, high revs, overtaking when he could, swerving around cars. He wasn’t familiar with south London, peering up at street signs, trying to figure out the best route.
‘Oh, Christ.’ Carmichael burst out laughing. ‘Your face.’
‘What about yours?’
Carmichael shivered. ‘It’s not my scene. Widows.’
Breen looked at his colleague. ‘Your scene? What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Carmichael.
Carmichael braked, then swung left onto Kew Road. ‘Drive more slowly, can’t you? I’m only just out of hospital.’
Carmichael slowed to well below the speed limit. ‘Better?’ he said.
Now he drove so slowly that the cars behind started to honk.
‘Much better.’
Carmichael sped up again.
‘Are you going to tell them about Helen?’
Carmichael nodded. ‘Yes.’
Breen thought about asking to stop to ring the farm to warn them what was about to happen. That there would be police, coming to question them about their daughter. Would that make it worse? Breen dug into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper and tried to peer at it.
‘What’s that?’
‘It was in the pile of magazines. I stuck it in my pocket when she wasn’t looking.’
‘What’s in it?’
Breen unfolded it and peered. The car was bouncing around too much. ‘I can’t see. It seems to be just a list of numbers.’
It was getting dark now; there were lights on in the shop windows. Breen put the paper back in his pocket to look at later.
‘Doyle,’ said Carmichael. ‘Thing is, I think I remember the name from somewhere.’
‘Where?’
Carmichael frowned. ‘Or something like it, at least. I’m trying to remember. Something I saw.’
‘It’s a pretty common name.’
Carmichael didn’t answer. If it was Breen, he’d at least be able to flick through his notebooks. Carmichael had never been much for note taking. Carmichael’s mind was like his car: empty cigarette and sweet packets everywhere.
‘Come and have a drink with me. It’s Saturday night. You’ll only stew on your own. It won’t do you any good.’ Carmichael pulled up outside the section house near Paddington Station where he had lived for years.
‘I’m not good company.’
‘That’ll be a change then,’ Carmichael said. ‘I’ll sneak you into an empty room. You can stay over.’
Breen hesitated.
‘You’ll drive yourself nuts thinking about it if you go home. Until she turns up, there’s nothing you can do.’
Most single policemen lived in section houses; married men in police flats. The rents in the section houses were cheap. Carmichael preferred to spend his money on clothes and bars. Besides, he enjoyed the company of men. His section house allowed you your own room, so it was better than most.
‘What if she doesn’t turn up?’
Carmichael didn’t answer.
Breen waited in the billiard room while Carmichael went to pilfer the keys to an empty room. Exhausted, he flopped down in one of the old armchairs, fabric almost shiny from grease and cigarette ash.
Helen Tozer had lived in the women’s section house not far from here in Pembridge Square. She had shared a room with another WPC, annoying her with her records and untidy habits. Where else did she know in London? Where else could she be staying? If she hadn’t been involved in Milkwood’s killing in some way, why was she not getting in touch?
A constable Breen didn’t know put his head round the door and asked, ‘You using the tables?’
Breen looked up, shook his head. A red-headed copper joined them, racking up the balls on the table. He watched the younger men playing pool, joking and laughing, just as he had done on the evenings he wasn’t working. These were the dead hours. Their shift had finished but the pubs wouldn’t be open until seven.
‘Missed! By a mile.’
‘It didn’t. You weren’t even looking. The white kissed the red.’
‘Kissed my arse.’
It seemed to take Carmichael a long time finding a bed for Breen to doss down in. They had played two frames by the time he joined them.
‘Johnny!’ the younger men shouted.
‘Fancy a game, Paddy?’ said Carmichael. ‘Us against them?’
‘With my arm?’
‘Excuses!’ shouted the redhead.
‘No. Serious. Paddy’s got a bad arm. He was shot a few weeks back, trying to arrest a man.’
The two men went silent and looked at Breen, suddenly respectful. ‘You the one who was shot back in January? Up in Holloway? Where that other copper was killed?’
The two younger men looked at him, open-mouthed, awed. The redhead called out of the door, ‘Lads. You’ll never guess who we’ve got in here.’
Men drifted in from the TV room next door. Breen sat, embarrassed at the attention, as the younger coppers told the others who he was.
‘I heard you shoved the other guy off the building. Killed him.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Breen. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Course it was, mate! Whatever you say.’
‘You must be bloody brave, taking on a man with a gun like that. I’d have shat myself.’
‘Did it hurt?’
‘OK, lads. Enough.’ Carmichael muttered, ‘Course it fucking hurt, you knob.’
As he led Breen out of the room he turned to the pool players and said, ‘We’d have beaten you anyway. One-handed or not.’
In the corridor which Carmichael’s room was on, a policeman stood in his underpants, ironing the serge of his uniform as he listened to the transistor.
Carmichael’s room was small, but it was private, at least. In some of the section houses all you had were partitions between you and the next copper. He knelt on the floor and dug out a bottle of Bell’s from a box hidden under his bed.
‘When you were in the billiard room, I called up the CID man,’ he said. ‘Told them what you said about Helen’s sister.’
‘Right,’ said Breen. It’s what he would have done himself. It was better that the police were looking for her, he supposed.
‘They want to talk to you tomorrow.’
‘Sunday?’
‘Murder investigation, Paddy.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ll give you a lift in. In the morning.’ He left the room with a glass, returning a minute later with it full of water. ‘I’ll tell the Drug Squad tomorrow, too, when I go in,’ he said. ‘I told CID to talk to Devon and Cornwall and to dig out the pathology report and forensics from 1964.’
Breen said, ‘Two-to-one they’ll be down at Helen’s farm tomorrow asking them what they know about it.’
‘Tonight, I’d guess,’ said Carmichael. ‘They won’t mess around.’
He imagined Helen’s parents watching the police arrive, trying to understand what was going on. Old man Tozer was just starting to emerge from the catastrophe of losing his youngest daughter. It would tear them to pieces.
Carmichael poured two glasses of whisky, diluting his with water, passing one to Breen. A drink would be good tonight.
‘Can’t be helped,’ said Carmichael. ‘It’s put the wind up everyone, Milkwood being killed like that. Nobody touches the Met. Not like that.’
Someone out in the corridor ‘Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive…’ in a thin, tuneless voice.
‘Do you believe she used me to track down Milkwood?’
Outside the door, somebody shouted, ‘Stop that bloody singing. I’m trying to sleep.’
Carmichael put a finger into his glass of whisky, stirred it around, then sucked it for a second. ‘You’re the one who always used to say we should see where the evidence leads us.’