by William Shaw
Breen balanced his glass on a pile of motor magazines. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Who says it has to make sense?’ he said. ‘She’s a dark horse. Always has been. There was something running deep in there.’
‘You hardly knew her,’ said Breen.
‘Keep your hair on,’ said Carmichael. ‘Of course I knew her. We were mates. True, though, isn’t it? She always had something hidden.’
‘You would too if your sister had been killed.’
Carmichael wiped a dribble of whisky from his chin with the back of his hand. ‘That’s my point.’
‘Shut up, John, now. I’ve had enough of this.’
‘Only saying.’ He downed his whisky. ‘Drink up,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said Breen, and pulled his wallet out from his trouser pocket. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. The girl from the cinema. When we were leaving, she slipped me this.’ He handed Carmichael the note. ‘You had to go. So I never had a chance to give it to you.’
Carmichael looked it it. ‘She gave you this? For me?’
‘I forgot about it. What with one thing and another. Are you going to call her?’
Carmichael was staring at the paper. ‘I don’t know. I mean… A bit late now, isn’t it?’
‘Only ten.’
He shook his head. ‘I mean, she’d probably be at work, wouldn’t she? Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow. No big deal.’ But he placed it on the table in front of him, trying hard not to look pleased.
It took an hour to finish the bottle. Afterwards, they crept downstairs to an empty room on the floor below, taking care to avoid the Warden. Carmichael unlocked the door and let Breen in.
That night Breen lay in a narrow bed in his underpants and vest as the walls spun around him.
He had lived in section houses like this for years. When he left he had missed the male camaraderie of it. But tonight the room was airless and the cast-iron radiator would not switch off. Drinking too much whisky had only amplified his misery.
He tried to picture Helen as a killer. She was so skinny and light. However hard he tried, he could not see her abducting Milkwood, torturing him to death. But then, he was not sure whether this was just a failure of the imagination.
In the morning, when he’d folded the blanket, he sat on the bed for a while gathering his thoughts while the familiar hubbub of the section house played out beyond the door. From his jacket pocket he removed the sheet of paper he’d stolen from Bill Milkwood’s desk.
It was a list of letters and numbers, just as he’d said in the car:
N 55 C7 486 520
2B 18 089 646
D 96 3A 853 979
1H 4F 970 441
J 22 B9 633 611
L8 56 213 640
He stared at them for a while, then copied them into a notebook, carefully checking the numbers back against Milkwood’s hand-written version.
At a quarter to eight, Carmichael was banging on the door, hissing, ‘Hands off cocks, on socks,’ as if there was nothing wrong with the world. Even on a Sunday morning, the corridor outside was full of the bustle of coppers preparing for their shift.
FIFTEEN
The CID sergeant was all smiles. ‘We’ve heard a lot about you, Sergeant Breen. All good. Tea? No? Water? Nothing? OK.’
His name was Dixon. Breen was offered an orange plastic chair to sit on. Dixon sat on the corner of a desk, legs crossed, closer than was comfortable. He wore neatly ironed slacks and a pale cardigan, a yellow tie and Hush Puppies. Breen thought he looked like he should be modelling for a knitting catalogue.
‘So, tell us all about this notorious girlfriend of yours,’ Dixon said.
‘Did you send someone to her home?’
‘Local plod went there last night. The family told him she’d left home four days ago and they haven’t heard from her since. Do you know about that?’
‘I tried calling her the day before yesterday. Her mother told me she wasn’t there.’
Dixon nodded, pursed his lips. ‘So I understand. They confirmed that.’
The desk was tidy. A typewriter under a loose grey vinyl cover and a single box of index cards. Another policeman sat behind it, with a pad and biro on his lap, as if he was ready to take notes, though he didn’t seem to be writing anything. Instead, he played idly with a red anglepoise lamp, pulling it slowly one way, then the other.
Breen said, ‘So you’re treating her as a suspect?’
Dixon grinned wider. ‘Well, you’ve got to admit. She disappears and our guy turns up dead. We’d be foolish not to assume there’s some kind of connection. It’s just process, obviously. We may be able to rule her out quickly. I mean, she used to be one of ours.’
Breen nodded.
‘Obviously it would have been helpful if you’d contacted us yesterday and let us know she’d gone missing.’ Smile.
‘I don’t think she’s involved.’
Dixon exchanged a glance with the other policeman. ‘Sergeant Carmichael said you showed Miss Tozer the pathologist’s report on her sister.’
‘I didn’t show it to her. She found it in my room and read it.’
The man held his palms up, smiling again. ‘OK. I’m not blaming you. Mistakes happen. We try to do a pal a favour and one thing leads to another. But you know for sure she read it. And she knew the details of her sister’s murder?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have we had a copy of that yet?’ Dixon asked the man behind the desk.
The man batting the anglepoise from side to side shook his head.
‘So we’ve got a girl who knows exactly how her sister was killed. And a few days later she disappears and a man connected to the case turns up with exactly the same… injuries. And you don’t think she’s connected?’
Breen didn’t answer.
‘Give me some idea of what she’s like, then, Miss Tozer.’
Breen said, ‘I thought she had the makings of a good copper.’
‘A good plonk,’ said Dixon. ‘What’s she like as a person?’
‘Well, she’s clever but doesn’t like to show it. Doesn’t like being told what to do. Likes a drink. Doesn’t like doing things by the book. She knows her mind. Likes pop music—’
Dixon interrupted. ‘Would you say she was affected by the death of her sister?’
Breen said, ‘Of course. Anyone would be. The whole family was affected.’
The sergeant slowly rotated one of his shoes in circles in the air. ‘She talked about the murder to you?’
Breen looked at him. ‘Not much, no, as a matter of fact. She found it quite hard to talk about it. I made her talk about it once, because I was concerned that what had happened to her was affecting her ability as a copper.’
‘Really? So you were concerned about her?’
Breen nodded. ‘I was concerned. But wrongly, I think. She was very dedicated. In some ways I think it made her better at what she did.’
‘Dedicated,’ repeated the man.
‘Yes. We worked on a nasty case together last year. She knowingly put herself in danger to try and help catch a dangerous killer.’
‘I don’t doubt that, Sergeant. It’s her state of mind I’m interested in. She didn’t discuss the killing with you again?’
‘Only in terms of her family and how it affected them. Her father especially. He had some kind of breakdown as a result of it, I think.’
‘So it affected them pretty badly, you’d say?’
‘Of course it did. As I said.’
He wished Dixon would stop smiling at him. ‘Right.’
‘You said you weren’t her boyfriend?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So what were you then? Did you have sex with her?’
‘Once. No, twice.’
The sergeant smiled. ‘Wasn’t she much good?’
The other copper laughed very quietly, the first noise he’d made since Breen had entered the room.
‘That’s just the way it worked out.’
; ‘My goodness, Sergeant. Sounds like you’d have liked a bit more of it?’
Breen didn’t answer.
‘OK, then. What about other men? Did she have other boyfriends?’
‘No one steady. There may have been others.’
Dixon nodded, pursed his lips. ‘I’ve got you. She played the field, so to speak.’
‘That’s not what I said.’
The man held his palms up again, laughing. ‘Keep your hair on. No offence meant. But you fancied her, would you say?’
Breen said, ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.’
‘It’s pretty simple, Sergeant. Would you say you’ve been influenced by your feelings for her?’
‘In what way?’
The man shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Just asking. It’s my job. You know. You’re in the same job as me. Maybe she persuaded you to do things for her. Like investigate her sister’s murder. Like get her the pathology report.’
‘I didn’t get it for her,’ said Breen. ‘I got it for myself.’
‘Right. Right. But she was the one who arranged for you to come down to Devon?’
‘I’d been shot. She suggested her family could look after me while I recovered. I don’t have any family myself.’
The sergeant tutted. ‘But she was the one who persuaded you to go and look into her sister’s death.’
‘She suggested it. She didn’t persuade me.’
Dixon got up, walked, stretched and sat down again. ‘What about any other friends?’ he said.
‘She had friends at the women’s section house where she lived. And John Carmichael in the Drug Squad.’
‘We’ve got those covered. Anyone else?’
Breen shook his head.
Dixon pulled out a pen and wrote something on a sheet of paper. ‘My number. You will get in touch the moment she tries to contact you, won’t you?’
On the floor below, Carmichael and a half a dozen other Drug Squad officers were sitting in a windowless meeting room around a table covered in pieces of paper and half-drunk cups of tea.
‘How was that?’ asked Carmichael.
Breen looked around the room. All the chairs were taken. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘We just want a word,’ said Sergeant Pilcher. He turned to his left and slapped the head of a young plain-clothes copper sitting in the chair next to him. ‘Stand up, you cunt. Paddy here’s a hero. He’s been shot while going about his duty as a copper.’
Silently the man stood and made way for Breen.
‘How are you, mate? Recovering? How’s the wound? Always a place for you here when you want it, Paddy, you know that.’
‘Thank you,’ said Breen quietly.
‘Now then,’ Pilcher said. ‘Carmichael says you had some information about the death of Sergeant Milkwood.’
‘I’ve just been talking about it to CID.’
Taking his time, Breen sat down opposite Carmichael. People in the Drug Squad dressed differently. They were smoother, flashier than other policemen. Young men in gaudy Tommy Nutter jackets with wide lapels. Another with checked trousers and two-tone shoes. Carmichael had gone for a pale paisley shirt. Among them, Pilcher was the least showy. A dark jacket and a white tie.
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t mind filling us in too, then,’ said Pilcher.
Breen said, ‘Won’t they brief you?’
Pilcher smiled, rubbed his palms together. ‘Obviously. Though I just want to make sure of all the facts myself.’
Breen looked around the room. ‘What’s wrong? Aren’t CID working with you on this?’
Pilcher sucked his front teeth with a loud click, then said, ‘Let’s put it this way. We don’t always see eye to eye with CID about our objectives. That has created certain obstacles.’
The copper to his left smirked.
‘What about some coffee?’ Breen said.
Pilcher nodded at the red-faced young man who had stood for Breen. ‘Fetch him one, will you, lad?’
There was an ashtray in the middle of the table piled with a pyramid of fag ends. Breen pushed it away. He said, ‘You’ve heard then? I think Milkwood’s murder may well be connected to an investigation he was involved with when he was working for Devon CID. He was killed in the same way as that victim.’
Pilcher nodded. ‘Carmichael said you’d been asking after Milkwood before he was killed.’ His lips twitched into a small smile. ‘Which would indicate to me that you thought something was up even before Bill was murdered.’
Breen looked Pilcher in the eye. ‘Milkwood had investigated the original case. There were some notes that had been lost from the original files. He knew what they were. So I wanted to know what he knew.’ He was conscious that everyone apart from Carmichael was watching him. Carmichael seemed to be looking uncomfortably down at the table in front of him, fingering a folder. ‘What is this about?’ asked Breen.
Pilcher’s laugh was loud, high-pitched and abrupt. ‘We want you on our team for this one, that’s all.’
The young man came in with a mug of instant coffee.
Pilcher said, ‘Show him, John.’
Carmichael looked up. He opened a folder and handed Breen a sheet of typed paper.
‘What is it?’
‘Remember when you suggested we should check the message log book?’
It was a list of people who’d called Milkwood. Two items had been circled. Both were the name ‘Nick Doyle’.
‘It didn’t mean anything to me at the time,’ said Carmichael, ‘but when Mrs Milkwood mentioned his name yesterday I knew I’d heard it before.’
‘So?’
He opened the folder again and passed a large black-and-white photograph across the table. It was a copy of the photograph that had been in Mrs Milkwood’s cabinet.
The original had been blown up to eight by ten inches. It had lost a little focus, but it was still clear enough. Bill Milkwood and his wife, Jimmy Fletchet, and the third man, Nicholas Doyle. But in red biro, someone had scrawled longer hair onto the third man’s head. The drawn hair came to the man’s ears and was parted in the centre.
‘We know him,’ said Carmichael. He pointed at Doyle. ‘He’s one of ours.’
‘He is an informer,’ said Pilcher. ‘We know him as a colourful chap named Afghan.’
‘After I recognised the name, I thought I should take another look at that photo Mrs Milkwood had given me. That photograph is almost fifteen years old. He had a police haircut then, so I didn’t recognise him in it at first.’
Pilcher smiled. ‘Never knew his real name, but he was on the payroll. One of ours. A drug dealer turned helper. And very useful too. Only he’s disappeared.’
Breen looked at the photograph. ‘And the hair?’
‘That’s what he looked like last time I saw him. I met him just the once,’ Carmichael said.
A couple of the coppers sniggered; Breen wasn’t sure why.
Pilcher said, ‘He’s an interesting fellow, by all accounts. They call him Afghan because that’s where his connections get their drugs. Afghanistan. The Magic Bus. You heard of that?’
Breen shook his head.
‘It’s a kind of Thomas Cook for hippies. Goes to India through Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Places where heroin poppies and hemp grow like daisies. And he went to Morocco regularly, apparently. Only Afghan’s a better name, I guess.’
‘Where’s Doyle now?’
Pilcher looked at Carmichael. ‘That’s sort of the point. We don’t know,’ he said.
‘With Milkwood dead, you don’t have any idea where this man Doyle is, or any way of getting in touch with him?’
Pilcher said, ‘In a nutshell, yes.’
The younger copper who’d brought the coffee said, ‘Most of us haven’t even met the guy.’
Breen took his coffee and sipped it. He said, ‘You met him, John. You’re the one who recognised him.’
Everyone apart from Pilcher burst out laughing. Even he smiled a little.
Breen looked round him. ‘What’s funny?’
‘Big John pulled him in one night.’
Carmichael said, ‘It was a nightclub. A place called Middle Earth. Heard of it?’
Breen shook his head.
‘Psychedelic music. Loads of drugs there, always. So I raided it, first week I was on Drug Squad. Afghan was a regular there and had some cannabis on him. I arrested him, not realising he was one of Milkwood’s contacts. How was I to know?’
‘Very keen, Big John was, when he first got stuck in.’
‘That could be a bit of a problem for you lot,’ said Breen. ‘Telling the drug dealers and the snitches apart.’
Pilcher shrugged. ‘Hazard of the trade.’
‘And Big John couldn’t tell his elbow from his arse.’
‘Enough,’ shouted Pilcher. The room was instantly quiet.
‘So there’s a man who may be involved in the death of one of your officers in some way, or at least know something about it, only you don’t know where he actually lives?’
‘Precisely,’ said Pilcher.
‘So tell CID. That’s their job.’
‘Use your nut, Paddy. Doyle was one of our informers. We may not exactly want CID to start crashing around looking for him. If word got around that we passed the names of our men over to CID…’
Breen had drunk half a mug of the police coffee. He couldn’t face the rest. He said, ‘So you know he’s involved, but you’re not telling CID about it?’
‘May be involved,’ said Pilcher. ‘We don’t know that, do we?’
‘Same difference,’ said Breen. ‘Have you considered the possibility that this Doyle man is dead too? Like Milkwood.’
Pilcher nodded. ‘Always possible,’ he said.
Breen shook his head. ‘And have any of your other informers heard anything?’
‘The hippies on the scene wouldn’t tell us where Doyle was even if they did know. They don’t know he’s one of ours. That’s the whole point. They think he’s one of them. Which he is, in a way.’
Breen said, ‘I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.’
‘So we have a problem,’ said Pilcher. ‘We’re not having any luck finding Doyle ourselves. And our informants are not telling us anything, because, well, we’re the pigs.’