The Kings of London (29 page)

‘I have to pack. I’m going down to Devon after work tomorrow. For Christmas Eve,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ said Breen. ‘Of course.’ Breen put fivepence down on the counter for her ticket.

In the empty tube compartment, rattling round the District Line, she said, ‘I hate Christmas.’ He nodded. He thought of her dead sister. All families with murdered children hated Christmas.

They both stood as the train approached Notting Hill Gate. They would go their own ways. He would carry on to Paddington and change there to head home; she would take the Central Line back to the section house. She got out and stood on the platform facing him
in the doorway of the Underground train. She gave a small smile and waved at him as the doors closed and his train jerked away from her, eastwards. He sat back down, alone in the compartment, still irritated at how she’d laughed at him.

On Monday he woke up with the beginning of something. A cold or worse.

Too much to drink over the weekend.

Frustrated. Angry. Too many loose ends. He looked around the living room. Where had all the pieces of paper scattered around the floor come from? Lists of names. Diagrams. He had been writing them late into the night.

There was a pile of pages for Frankie Pugh, another for Sergeant Michael Prosser, and a third for Johnny Knight. Times of death. Dates. Associates. Theories.

Three dead men. Two murders and a death by misadventure.

Two of the deaths, at least, were inconvenient. The sons of ministers were not supposed to be drug addicts. Policemen were not supposed to be bent.

At 9.30 the phone rang. So loud that Breen jumped.

‘Yes?’

‘Morning, Paddy. How’s the Christmas wrapping going?’ Marilyn’s voice. Sing-song cheery, as if nothing at all had happened on Saturday night.

‘How’s your fiancé?’ Breen asked.

‘Don’t be like that,’ she said. ‘I’ve chucked him out. Honestly, Paddy. I didn’t know he was so haywire.’

Breen said, ‘He tried to kill me.’

‘He ruined everything between us,’ she said miserably. ‘I’m so ashamed. I almost didn’t make it to work today.’

‘What do you mean, “between us”? There was never anything between us.’

Was it the crackle on the telephone, or was she just pretending not to hear?

‘Paddy? You still there? Inspector Creamer says you should come in. You wanted to see him, he said. Know what?’ She lowered her voice. ‘He just told Jones he should go for Sergeant.’

‘Jones? You’re joking. You think he’s getting me back to work?’

‘Maybe.’

That would be something at least.

‘When?’

‘This afternoon. Four o’clock.’

‘Four?’ That was hours away. ‘Tell him I’ll be there. That all?’

‘Paddy? Don’t be like that. It wasn’t my fault. I don’t think Creamer likes me much. He’s talking about bringing in his own typist.’

She was still talking when Breen put down the phone on her.

‘Turn down that moronic racket,’ he shouted through the letterbox of the flat upstairs.

He went into town early and tried Christmas shopping instead. An unfamiliar experience.

At Macari’s on Charing Cross Road he bought a steel-string guitar for twenty-five guineas and carried it away in a big cardboard box, all tied up with string. He walked through to Hamleys to see if he could find anything for Charlie Prosser, but the shop was packed and his parcel kept hitting small kiddies, plus he couldn’t find anything he thought Charlie would like. Besides, he and Shirley were travelling light.

First thing Jones said to him was, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Then: ‘What’s in the cardboard box?’

‘Creamer expecting me?’ said Breen. The office. Monday afternoon. The dull, delicious familiarity of it. He wished he were back.

There was a man sitting at Breen’s desk, in front of a large bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. Young to be so bald, thin lines of hair combed across his scalp.

‘Who are you?’ asked Breen. ‘And why are you sitting at my desk?’

But the man had just taken a bite out of the sandwich and his mouth was full, so he couldn’t answer.

‘Ain’t your desk,’ said Jones.

‘Where’s Marilyn?’

‘Gone to the Ladies. She’s a bit upset. Creamer’s told her she’s getting the boot, he says.’

‘Marilyn?’

Jones nodded.

‘He can’t give Marilyn the sack.’

‘Her boyfriend just tried to remove your liver.’

‘Marilyn is the only thing that holds this stupid place together. And where am I supposed to sit when I come back?’ said Breen. Bad-tempered. Head starting to swim. This morning’s cold wasn’t going away. Now he was feeling bad for being so spiky to Marilyn on the phone this morning.

Creamer opened the door and smiled. ‘Ah, Paddy Breen,’ he said. ‘Do come in.’

The African violets were gone. Bailey’s shelves had been emptied. The desk was clear, apart from a single cream telephone. New pictures on the wall. New comfy chair behind the desk.

‘So. Am I back?’

‘Dear, no.’ Creamer smiled. ‘That’s not in my jurisdiction, I’m afraid. But I’m glad you came in. I wanted a word.’

Inspector Creamer’s room smelt fusty. Of armpits and cigarettes. A new photograph on the wall. The Met First XV Rugby Team, all thick armed and cauliflower-eared.

‘Close the door, there’s a good lad.’

Oh.

‘I had a call from a friend of mine. Harry Cox. He said you came to him asking questions about a man from his company who’s gone missing.’

‘Johnny Knight, sir. Sergeant Prosser’s brother-in-law. He worked for Harry Cox’s company—’

‘Harry Cox was under the impression you were working for Marylebone CID.’

‘I met with Scotland Yard CID. I told them all this, sir. I thought it was important they knew.’

Creamer smiled. ‘I’m not as stupid as you must think I am, Sergeant Breen. You’re suspended, yet you still went to Cox and questioned him. You had no right to go bothering the man. You are not a policeman right now. You are a civilian. Go home and stay there until you hear from me. Don’t even pick up the phone. I don’t want to see you here. You’re fortunate I don’t discipline you for what you’ve done.’

‘Sir.’

The lips twitched slightly. ‘You were in a bit of a fight on Saturday night, weren’t you?’

‘I was attacked, sir.’

Creamer hummed to himself, then said, ‘I’m looking to make some changes here. I think it’s fair to say that I’m not sure I’ll be needing you, when your suspension is over. Don’t think this is personal. Bailey thought very highly of you, I understand.’ His smile became a smirk. Anyone Bailey thought highly of… ‘But I want officers I can rely on. It’s no secret this CID division has been letting the side down. If I can’t trust officers, I don’t want to have them as part of my team. It would be a good time to look into a transfer. I’m only trying to be fair.’

‘But Constable Jones is staying?’

Creamer smiled again. ‘Don’t look so shocked. This whole department was due for a shake-up. We need young blood to come through. Jones is keen. Does what he’s bloody told.’

He picked up some papers and tapped them straight on his desktop. Three times. Tack, tack, tack.

‘Where you going?’ said Jones.

‘Have you seen Tozer?’

‘No. What’s wrong? You look rubbish, Paddy. What’s that in the box?’

He sat at Marilyn’s empty desk. ‘Have you got any Sellotape?’

‘Marilyn will.’ Breen pulled open the drawers and pulled out a big heavy metal dispenser and set about wrapping the box the guitar was in with gaudy red-and-green Christmas paper.

Nobody said anything.

‘There,’ he said, when he was finished, standing back to look. A bit messy. There were still patches of cardboard showing through the wrapping, but he had run out of paper. He picked it up and put it on Jones’s desk.

‘Make sure Helen gets it,’ he said. ‘It’s a goodbye present.’

‘Oooh,’ said Jones. ‘She’s Helen now, is she?’

Breen was already pushing his way out of the CID room door to make his way out of the building.

He woke on Christmas Eve. Even under his blankets he could tell that the weather had turned bitter.

And he was coming down with a cold. His head ached and his sinuses felt thick with mucus.

In the morning on BBC 2 they showed grainy pictures of the moon taken from Apollo 8. In a London studio they were talking about the great adventure of the human spirit. From across the Atlantic came the chatter of men in the vast NASA mission control office. 230,000 miles away, men had disappeared behind the moon. They were waiting for them to re-emerge.

While men in suits at Jodrell Bank speculated about how close the Soviets were to a moon landing, the minutes ticked by. Everyone waited, not completely convinced that the spacecraft would emerge again.

Breen watched, feverish, feeling for a while that he was witnessing an adventure as great as Captain Cook’s voyages. Not just witnessing it. By watching, he was part of it. Connected by the television. The newness of the world seemed amazing.

But when he switched the television off to go to the kitchen to make some soup from a piece of chicken and some vegetables, the feeling of the big connectedness vanished just as quickly as the dot on his TV screen. The ordinary mid-winter greyness of London reasserted itself. He went to the drawer in his bedroom and fetched himself a clean handkerchief.

He slept through the afternoon and woke to the sound of bells. A midnight Mass somewhere.

He looked at his watch. Just past midnight. Happy Christmas. His first alone, without his father. He crawled into bed and lay there thinking about the strangeness of this year. He could not bring it into focus. Increasingly it seemed like a series of bizarre events that had whirled around him like a storm, fragments passing in the air.

At eleven in the morning, the next day, he woke to the smell of cooking turkey, drifting down from the flats above. He was shivering and drenched in sweat.

He pulled his dressing gown around him and went to the front room. The smell of his neighbours’ cooking made him feel nauseous.

He switched on the TV and sat there, wondering what Shirley Prosser was doing. Were she and Charlie unwrapping presents?

He phoned Directory Enquiries to find the number for the Mooring Guest House in Margate, but the line was engaged. As he put the phone down, it rang, making him jump.

‘Listen,’ a voice said.

And there was a strum of music.

‘Hear that?’

‘I heard it,’ said Breen.

‘It’s fab. It must have cost millions.’

‘Millions,’ said Breen. ‘How are your mum and dad?’

‘You OK? You sound funny.’

‘A cold,’ he said.

‘My dad, he’s not so good.’ Another strum of the guitar. ‘My mum is great, though. It brings up stuff being back here. Crazy stuff.’

‘Your sister?’

Strum. He imagined her holding the receiver with her shoulder, guitar on her lap.

‘I was her older sister. I should have looked after her better.’ Strum. ‘Hibou too. I shouldn’t have left her.’

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘The odd sherry,’ said Tozer. ‘I keep thinking about Hibou. I can’t help it.’

‘She’ll be OK.’

‘I don’t think so. Women like that get fucked. Sorry. A bit drunk.’

‘It’s OK.’

Breen could hear Tozer’s mother in the background. ‘Helen. You OK in there?’

‘I’m on the phone, Mum.’ Then, ‘I’ve got to go and do the milking in a minute. Takes twice as long when you’ve had a skinful. Bloody freezing out there.’

He woke up in his father’s armchair later in the evening with the sense that he had dreamed the phone conversation with Tozer. The TV was showing
Christmas Night with Stars
. He switched it off and went back to bed.

By Friday, the day after Boxing Day, his cold was no worse.

He took the Bridget Riley off the wall and wrapped it in brown paper, caught a bus to the West End, and walked to Mount Street. It was a working day, one of the the last of the year.

The musician with the longish hair and the silver rings came to the door.

‘All right?’ he said. Breen thought, Tozer would probably know who this man is. Was he a pop star of some kind? She said Fraser hung out with them.

‘Who is it?’ The foreign-sounding woman called from behind him.

‘That plod pal of Fraser’s. Robert’s at the gallery, I think, man.’

‘Ah. The art police,’ said Fraser, when he opened the glass gallery door to Breen.

He was packing boxes from a desk.

‘Moving out?’ said Breen.

‘No. But I think I will soon. Had enough of this bloody city. Swinging London, m-my arse. London is never going to enter the twentieth century.’

Fraser looked tired. Breen guessed he’d lost whatever money the gallery had ever made. On drugs probably. He didn’t look well to Breen. He looked pale and his skin was dry and flaky.

‘That’s a shame,’ said Breen. ‘People will miss you.’

‘Truth?’ said Fraser. ‘I need to get away. Only way I can kick my habit. My flat is full of bloody junkies. Hate them. Had enough. Keep it under your hat though.’

‘Is it hard, kicking a habit?’

‘Staying off it. That’s the hard part.’

‘How was your controversial piece of work?’ The work with the two St Martin’s students Fraser had talked about.

‘Not controversial enough, clearly. Barely raised a ripple. I can’t even get arrested any more. Soon you’ll be able to have sex in Trafalgar Square and call it art and nobody will bat an eyelid.’

Breen held out the wrapped print. ‘I brought this back for you. I didn’t want it.’

Fraser took the paper off. ‘Why?’

‘I didn’t really like it enough. I thought you could find someone who did.’

Fraser smiled. ‘OK.’

‘I meant to ask. You said you knew Oliver Tarpey.’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me what you know.’

Fraser took a small picture off the wall. Uncharacteristically un-modern. The moon above a dark field. ‘He’s everything that’s despicable about England.’

‘How was he with Francis Pugh?’

Fraser smiled. ‘He was his babysitter. His father sent him to look after Frankie. Keep him under observation. Why are you still interested in all this?’

‘He was there to keep him out of trouble?’

‘Nobody from that family gave a monkey’s prick for Frankie,’ said Fraser. ‘It was about the reputation of the Party. If Frankie made headlines for doing something stupid, for getting a girl knocked up, it would reflect badly on the dear Labour Party. The lovely working-class men who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Don’t get me wrong. I like working-class men. I met a lot of them in prison. I had a delightful time with them. But Tarpey was there to make sure that none of this came out.’

‘You know about the abortions, then?’

Fraser nodded.

‘I wanted to ask: how far do you think Tarpey would go?’

Fraser said, ‘What do you mean?’

Breen said, ‘How far do you think he would go to cover up whatever Francis was getting himself into.’