by William Shaw
Breen cooked for her, then enjoyed watching her eat. Double egg, sausage, beans, fried bread and mushrooms. Three sugars in her tea.
‘I’m starving,’ she said.
‘Eating for two.’
‘Will you just shut up?’ But she smiled as she wiped egg yolk up with fried bread.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I said, I don’t want to talk about it. I spoke to Mum. She says I’m OK for a few days. Hibou’s coping fine.’
‘She’s only seventeen.’
‘She loves it. It’s the making of her. Can I have your toast?’ she asked, then sat back in her chair, closed her eyes and belched.
He put an electric fire in the spare room to make it feel less damp and put fresh sheets on the bed. Maybe he should get some flowers, he thought.
She was still sitting in the chair when he came back into the living room. ‘So you reckon it was the same person that killed Alex killed Milkwood?’ she said.
Breen nodded. ‘It looks like it.’ He went to his desk and pulled out his notebook. ‘And we know that Milkwood and Fletchet were connected. And then there’s more.’ He liked this. Talking to Helen about a case as he used to. ‘This fellow called Doyle. He’s a friend too. It’s possible he’s dead as well.’
‘Who?’
Breen flipped the pages. He turned to a sketch he had drawn of Doyle. It was from a copy of the photograph at Penny’s house. A muscular, intense-looking man. Breen explained about the third member of the group who had worked together in Kenya.
Helen was leaning over him now, asking questions. ‘He became a drug dealer?’
‘Yes.’
Helen stared at the drawing. ‘So what’s all this about?’
Breen said, ‘I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s just about your sister. I think it’s more than that.’
Helen chewed the inside of her cheek. ‘Are they interviewing Fletchet again?’
‘They’d be stupid not to.’
They sat in silence for a while. It was frustrating not to be able to do anything.
That night, they lay in Breen’s small bed together.
‘Just tonight.’
He had his pyjamas on, she had on the prim flannel nightgown she’d taken to hospital.
‘You don’t even have any decent books to read,’ she said. It was true; he had never been much good at reading.
‘I was thinking,’ he said. ‘There’s not much we can do until we hear anything from CID, or from Carmichael. I could borrow a police car. We could go for a drive.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. Kew maybe?’
She leaned over the side of her bed and picked up her handbag. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said, scrabbling around inside it. She pulled out a crumpled envelope.
Breen looked at it, puzzled. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘You left it behind in the bin in your room at the farm.’
‘You went through my dustbin?’ It was the envelope Hibou had thrown away. The one addressed to her parents in rain-smeared ink. The unwritten, blank letter was still inside it.
‘Yes.’ She reached for a cigarette. ‘Don’t look so offended. If you didn’t want me to find it you shouldn’t have put it there. Besides. You didn’t even tell me about her never writing that letter. I’m the one who should be angry. She never posted it, did she?’
‘I found it stuffed into the hedgerow. The letter was blank.’
‘Weird. It’s like whatever has happened was so bad, she can’t even let them know she’s all right. God. I’ve eaten too much,’ she said. She lit the cigarette, then looked for somewhere to put the spent match. Breen never smoked in bed. He got up, walked to the living room and returned with an ashtray for her. She was looking at the address on the envelope. ‘Why do you think she’s so afraid of writing to them?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, getting back in the bed.
‘Why do you think a teenage girl runs away from home?’ she said.
‘She meets a man from the motor trade,’ said Breen. A Beatles song Helen had played him once.
‘Think about it, though. She’s too bloody scared to even write home,’ said Helen. ‘What do you think all that is about?’
He switched off the light. Her cigarette glowed in the darkness. The springs creaked as he moved to lay his head on her stomach.
‘What’s she saying, the baby?’ said Helen.
‘She?’
‘It’s a girl. I know it.’
‘There you go. Jumping to conclusions again.’
‘I’m usually right, though.’
‘A girl. Trouble,’ said Breen.
‘Indeed.’
Breen heard nothing but the soft gurgling of her full stomach.
‘Have you told your parents yet?’
‘No way.’
‘You’re going to have to.’
‘Stop telling me what I have to do. How do you know I even want to keep her? She’d be better off being adopted, maybe, poor mite.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘It’s OK for you. A bloody baby, God’s sake. I can feel her insinuating herself. I can’t even keep a decent drink down any more.’
‘Why did you want to get rid of it?’
‘I don’t want a baby. They take over your life.’
‘I think I’d like something to take over my life,’ he said.
‘I know, Paddy.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Believe it or not, I know. But it’s not me.’
He lay on the bed, feeling her fidgeting. He’d been thinking about how he’d say this for a while. ‘I’ll marry you, if you like.’
She stopped moving. ‘Did I just hear you right?’
‘You heard.’
She snorted. ‘What kind of proposal is that?’
‘I’m serious.’
‘I’ll marry you, if you like,’ she mocked. ‘It’s kind of insulting.’
‘What do you want then?’
‘Because you’ve got a bun in the oven.’
‘I mean it.’
‘Leave me alone now. I’m tired.’
He pulled away from her. ‘Your trouble is, you’re afraid of commitment.’
‘Paddy. You don’t know what it’s like being me.’
‘So why did you decide to keep it?’
She didn’t answer.
‘I can buy you a ring and do all the kneeling business if you’d prefer.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
And within seconds she was asleep. Breen lay awake thinking, trying not to disturb her. Was he relieved she hadn’t said yes? Or angry? Nothing was ever certain with Helen Tozer. She was like the weather.
Breen bathed twice a week. He lay looking at his body in the warm water. Pale undefined skin. He should exercise more. But his wound was healing well. The long black crust of scab left where they’d opened up his skin to fix his broken bone would fall off soon, leaving just the scar. He was getting back on top of it. A fresh start. A fresh life.
He was going to be a father. He would win Helen round. She would see it was the only real choice she had.
In his dressing gown, Breen rang D Division to ask if he could borrow a car for the day.
‘For you, Paddy. Only don’t wreck it.’
‘Were you singing in the bath?’ asked Helen.
‘Was I?’ said Breen.
He made cheese sandwiches and wrapped them in waxed paper.
‘Got any pickle?’ asked Helen.
It was the first time he’d been back to the Marylebone station since he’d been shot.
‘I’m just going in to say hello,’ said Breen when they got there. ‘You going to come?’
‘I had enough of that lot to last a lifetime,’ she said. She waited outside in the late winter sunshine.
The CID room went quiet for a second when Breen walked in. It was Constable Jones who spoke first, glaring. ‘Bloody hell. Paddy bloody Breen.’
No love lost.
Breen lo
oked around the room. It was different. All the old dark wood desks had gone, replaced by newer, lighter ones. The buzzing neon tube that they’d all got used to had been replaced. The walls had been repainted for the first time since for ever.
As for the men, he didn’t recognise any of them, apart from Jones. The new boss, Inspector Creamer, had cleaned the place out, bringing in his own officers.
‘How are you, Jones?’ said Breen.
‘Been better,’ Jones said quietly.
A phone rang. One of the CID men answered it. ‘I had been hoping to get sergeant,’ Jones told Breen, ‘on account of I need the money with the babies coming, only somebody snitched about that dead bloke we found in the cells and now there’s an investigation, so that’s my chips pissed on. Don’t suppose you know anything about it?’
‘About what?’
‘About why I’m not going to get sergeant because of the investigation.’
‘You said babies?’ said Breen.
‘Doctor says it’s ruddy twins.’
Jones’s wife was expecting; she was due in May. Breen had to resist the urge to say he was going to be a father too.
‘Not sure we can bloody afford them now. Thanks a bunch to someone not a million miles…’
Jones had beaten up a prisoner; the man had died. Breen had just made sure the death was properly investigated. But before he could say anything, the door to the inspector’s office opened. ‘Paddy Breen,’ said Creamer, smiling. ‘As I live and breathe. Coming back to work, are you?’
‘Not quite. I just dropped by to see how the place was falling apart without me.’
‘Don’t expect you recognise it, do you? New faces. I’ve ordered new typewriters for everyone too. They’re coming next week. Modernising, Paddy. Modernising.’
They offered him tea and biscuits and told Creamer’s secretary, a prim young woman who wore a gold crucifix around her neck, to bring it. She switched off her new electric typewriter and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
‘Frigid,’ one of them said, when her back was turned.
‘Turned you down, did she? She polished my broom handle nicely the other day.’
‘Liar. She wouldn’t touch your prick if it lit up and sang “Jerusalem”.’
‘You should see a doctor about that, pal.’
The office looked busy. He wondered how well he would fit in when he came back to work.
The secretary returned with mugs of tea and a piece of paper. ‘Sergeant Breen?’
‘Yes?’
‘I forgot to say. This woman called in for you. A darkie. I told her you were on sick leave, but she left a message.’
Breen took the piece of paper and unfolded it.
It was a name and a phone number: ‘Izzie Ezeoke. 01 242 4344.’
‘Anything wrong?’ she said.
‘No. Nothing.’
‘Funny name, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘All them zeds.’ Then she turned away back to her electric typewriter. It whirred into life again.
‘Thought you’d been shot in the arm,’ the man in charge of the cars said. ‘You sure you’re OK to drive?’
Breen manoeuvred the car out of the garage, round to the front of the station, where Helen was waiting.
‘Shunt over, then,’ she said.
‘I better drive a little way, in case somebody sees.’
‘Don’t be such a scaredy-cat.’
He handed her the piece of paper. She read the name on it; it took her a second. ‘Bloody hell. Where d’you get this?’
Izzie Ezeoke was a ghost from a case they’d worked on together. She was the daughter of a murderer and the lover of the victim; trying to solve her lover’s murder was how he and Helen had met.
‘She wants me to get in touch,’ said Breen, putting the paper back into his jacket pocket.
‘What about?’
Breen shrugged.
They drove out of London on the A40, Helen at the wheel, the road clear and the light thin and bright. The odd fleck of green was already bursting into the hedgerows. Breen felt good.
For him, this was something new. The sense of moving forwards after years of being still made him feel he was finally joining the world. Black tarmac empty ahead of him as Helen drove west.
‘I called Mum again when you were in the bath,’ Helen was saying. ‘Don’t mind, do you? They’re OK. Hibou is taking the cows out of the byres this week. Weather’s good enough to save on the fodder bill by putting them in the fields. She and Dad are doing it all themselves.’
‘I meant it, what I said yesterday, in bed.’
She said, ‘Dad was worried there wasn’t going to be enough pasture but now he thinks it’s going to be OK.’
‘I said, I’d marry—’
‘I heard,’ she said.
They were almost at Gerrards Cross when she said, ‘I’m not marrying nobody just because I’m pregnant.’
‘Well, what are you going to do, then?’ he said. ‘You can’t have a baby on your own.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because…’ He trailed off. He should be used to this by now, he thought, smiling.
It was an old farmhouse that had been swallowed up by the suburbs. Now it had become grand: a weeping willow by the pond, cherry trees blooming along the pathway.
‘Posher than I thought,’ Helen said.
People from the city lived around here. Wealthy people who sent their children to public school and gave their girls ponies for Christmas.
‘What are you going to learn from being here?’
‘I just want to know why she ran away from a nice place like this. She’s still frightened of something.’
‘It’s her business.’
Helen didn’t answer. They had parked the police car about a hundred yards away so they wouldn’t attract attention. Helen was peering over the hedge. Breen was worried that someone would come out of the house and ask them what they were doing.
‘If she didn’t post the letter, she wouldn’t want us to be doing this,’ he said.
On her toes by the hedge, Helen said, ‘Why’s she so scared of what happened to her here?’
‘Sometimes people just run away.’
‘Not without reason,’ she said.
‘All the same. If she doesn’t want us to look into it, it’s not fair on her.’
‘It’s not like I’m barging up to the front door or anything,’ said Helen ‘I just want to see. That’s all.’
A woman in tweed came past, walking a Labrador. She called ‘Good morning’ at them brightly. Ten minutes later she was back, frowning at them this time. It wasn’t normal just to linger around here.
‘We’ve seen it. Now what?’ said Breen.
‘I want to see them. Mr and Mrs.’
‘Why?’
‘Why is she so frightened of them?’
Breen said, ‘I don’t know. Isn’t everybody a bit frightened of their parents?’
‘I was never frightened of mine,’ she said. ‘’Sides, you didn’t exactly have a normal childhood, did you? You and your dad.’
Breen said, ‘But children run away all the time.’
She turned on him and said, ‘Why do children do that? You never thought about that?’
‘Because they’re kids. Because they don’t know better. Because they read Five Run Away Together.’
‘You’re such an idiot, Paddy.’
‘You better hope it’s not hereditary, then.’
‘Not funny, actually.’
The day was bright but cold. Breen’s toes were starting to ache. He stamped up and down on the grass, trying to warm them. More people walking dogs. A postman on second delivery, brown bag mostly empty.
‘I don’t know what you’re hoping to see.’
‘You’re the one who taught me this, you know. You’re the one who says you have to look at things for so long that something emerges.’
At around two o’clock a dark-eyed woman in a headscarf emerged from the front door. Hele
n tossed a coin and won on heads, so she followed her while Breen waited.
The house seemed dead. There was nobody in. Breen tried to imagine the hippie girl from the farm growing up here. It looked so perfect. What was there to run away from?
Nothing happened.
After an hour and a half, the woman in the headscarf returned–Hibou’s mother. She was holding the hand of a smaller girl.
Hibou was walking twenty yards behind. ‘Oh, my God. Hibou’s got a sister,’ said Helen when she’d rejoined Breen.
‘She looks just like her, doesn’t she?’
The smaller sister must only be about twelve or thirteen, but she was already willowy, like Hibou. Helen watched the woman putting the key into the front door. ‘Imagine leaving a sister behind as well.’
After that the house was quiet. A light went on downstairs. Gradually more lights came on.
‘I don’t know what we’re expecting to see,’ said Breen. His shoulder was starting to ache in the cold.
‘What if the same thing that happened to Hibou was to happen to her sister?’
‘We don’t know if anything happened to Hibou. She’s never said anything about it.’
‘Come on. Of course something happened.’
‘You’ve got an overactive imagination,’ said Breen.
‘I was a policewoman, remember?’ she said. ‘We get to see stuff that happens that you men wouldn’t believe.’
‘I thought you complained that you never got to do anything when you were a policewoman.’
‘The crap that men don’t want to do. The family things. You hear all sorts. You men wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. That’s why nobody ever hears about it. Ask me, the worst stuff that happens to kids happens behind their own doors.’
‘Like what?’
She looked away, then said, ‘Like daddies who fuck their kiddies. Or hit them. Women police see that kind of thing all the time.’
Breen said, ‘I’m not saying it hasn’t happened. But saying it goes on all the time…’
‘You wouldn’t, would you?’
Breen knew better than to carry the conversation on.
‘Give it half an hour,’ said Helen. ‘I mean, we came all the way here. We might as well stay a little longer.’
It was dark by the time the man of the house came back. He saw Breen and Helen first, walking down the tarmac pavement with an old brown briefcase in his hand. ‘Can I help you?’ He smiled at them. ‘Are you lost?’