The Kings of London (32 page)

And a cream-coloured telephone on a small regency table.

He picked it up and dialled. ‘CID duty officer,’ he said to the woman who answered the phone. She put him through to another extension. A phone somewhere in Scotland Yard, ringing.

Mrs Cox was in the living room now. ‘Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?’ she said.

Receiver still ringing in his ear, Breen said, ‘What’s the registration of the Bristol? The number plate?’

‘What?’

‘The number plate,’ he shouted. The boy in shorts started to cry.

‘XKX 754 F,’ the girl in the blue dress said.

‘Write it down. Give it to me on a bit of paper.’

Shocked, she did exactly what he asked.

‘Please. What are you doing?’ the mother said.

A voice answered the phone. ‘CID?’

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen, D Division. Take this down. I have a suspect for the murder of former Detective Sergeant Michael Prosser. His name is Harold Cox.’

When he put the phone down there was a sticky red handprint on the ivory-coloured handset.

Afterwards, having held his head under the cold tap, watching the red circle down the plug hole, he held a tea towel that he’d taken from the kitchen to his head, waiting for the police cars to arrive.

Mrs Cox was in shock. She didn’t know what to do. She had guests to entertain.

‘Perhaps he’s gone to fetch his mother?’ she said. ‘She comes to us for lunch.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Breen. He looked at the tea towel. His head was still bleeding, but slower now.

The boy was still crying. ‘Daddy promised to help me with my aeroplane.’

‘Go away,’ shouted Mrs Cox.

The boy cried louder. Sobbing. Gulping air. His sister, blue ribbons swinging in the air, punched him hard on the arm. ‘Shut up,’ she screamed. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up.’

The boy cried louder still.

Breen stood in the hallway, waiting. Dozens of Christmas cards, hung on loops of string.

Mrs Cox didn’t know what to do. The table was half laid for lunch. A Labrador scritched at the door waiting to be let out.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she said, unsure of what else to do.

Breen shook his head. ‘Have you ever heard your husband talking about a man called Michael Prosser?’

She frowned. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. The crying boy came and wiped his nose on her apron. She pushed him away. ‘That’s horrid,’ she said.

‘What about Shirley Prosser?’

‘Shirley?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think there was a woman called Shirley called a few times. He said it was work. Or was it Sally? I’m not sure. Something like that.’

Breen fingered a notebook in his pocket. ‘Shirley or Sally? Which?’

‘What’s this about a murder?’ she said. ‘Please tell me.’

‘Which name? You have to remember.’

‘I can’t bloody remember,’ she shouted, too loudly. ‘For Christ’s sake. I don’t understand.’ Then: ‘Sorry. I really don’t know. I have a lot to do today.’

The men would arrive soon and start searching the house, looking for anything that could connect Harry Cox to Michael Prosser, turning this nice family house upside down.

They would not be long. The streets would be empty of traffic today.

In the oven, something neglected was starting to burn.

After having his head bandaged at the hospital, there was an hour of questions and explanations at New Scotland Yard. Finally, a police car dropped him back home in Stoke Newington.

The man from upstairs was just letting himself in with a pint of milk. ‘Was that a police car I saw dropping you off?’

‘Yes,’ said Breen.

The man smiled. ‘You been up to no good?’

‘Kind of,’ said Breen.

‘Bloody hell. What happened to your head?’

Inside, he took off his suit. It was ruined. The knees were torn and the blood had dried into the jacket. He rolled it up and put it in a paper bag, ready to put into a bin.

He looked at the bottle of whisky that Oliver Tarpey had bought him and decided he should open it. He took the bottle and a glass to the bathroom, ran the bath and lay in it, exhausted.

His brain was fizzing. He needed to calm down. To stop. To relax.

The hot had run out too early. He wondered if he should go to the kitchen and boil a kettle, but he didn’t. He just lay in the cooling water.

He had thought he had it all figured out. He had felt so clever after confronting Tarpey.

Now he was much less sure of himself. He started to shiver in the cold bath.

On Thursday Breen put on a suit, covered his bandage with a cloth cap of his father’s and travelled to work as if it were a normal day.

He took the tube. No jesters or buskers. Everything was perfectly ordinary. The same fug of cigarette smoke in the compartment. The same puddles on the pavement. The same worn stone steps up to the front of the police station.

Inside, on the first floor, Marilyn was not at her desk. Another woman, much older, was sitting there. The office looked oddly different. Breen noticed Carmichael’s old pictures of film stars had finally been taken down.

‘Yes?’ she said. The woman at Marilyn’s desk had a cream cardigan on and wore her hair in a bun.

‘Where’s Marilyn?’

‘She no longer works in this particular office,’ said the woman.

‘And you do instead?’

‘I am Inspector Creamer’s assistant,’ she said, looking up at him.

‘Good. I want to see Inspector Creamer.’

She smiled. ‘And you are?’

‘Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen. I work here.’

‘Do you?’ she looked puzzled. ‘I’m sorry. I’m new.’ She banged a staple into the corner of a sheaf of papers. ‘I think he’s busy, but I’ll check,’ she said, and dialled the phone even though Creamer was only fifteen feet away in his office.

Jones was head down at his desk, as if pretending not to have noticed Breen was in. The balding man who had taken over Breen’s desk looked over the top of his typewriter at him.

It was different, but the same.

‘He’ll see you now,’ chirped the woman, smiling.

Creamer’s top button was undone. He looked hot, or flustered, or both. There was a sheet of paper crumpled up into a ball on the blotting paper in front of him. ‘Breen. How’s your head? Took a nasty knock then?’

Without being asked, Breen sat down opposite him.

‘Perhaps you can tell me what’s going on? Scotland Yard want to interview me about Harry Cox.’

Breen ignored the question. ‘Do you know where Cox is?’ he asked.

Creamer squinted. ‘That’s what Scotland Yard wanted to know.’ He looked nervous. ‘Christ’s sake, please, tell me. What has happened?’

For the next ten minutes, Breen talked and Creamer listened. He started from Sergeant Prosser being caught out for taking money to help local gangs rob shops. He moved on to how a body had been discovered in a burnt-out empty house, how Prosser had discouraged him from investigating the case. He talked about how he’d discovered Prosser was bent and how he’d forced him to resign. From there he talked about Prosser’s disappearance and then his murder. Then about discovering Johnny Knight’s house empty. And the links between Prosser, Cox and Knight. He explained how Harry Cox had come to be a suspect in the Prosser murder case and how he was also apparently connected to the death of Michael Prosser’s brother-in-law.

He left Shirley Prosser’s name out of it. Less out of any gallantry than knowing he had been wrong.

Throughout all this Creamer stayed silent, nodding, fiddling with the crumpled paper on his desk.

Finally he spoke. ‘I would never have believed it of Harry Cox. He seemed such a respectable man.’

‘He was a close friend of yours,’ said Breen.

‘Not close, really,’ said Creamer, looking away.

‘Really? That’s what he said to me.’ Breen stood. He peered at the photographs of the rugby teams on Creamer’s wall.

‘Did he?’

‘Mentioned you by name several times. In fact, isn’t that him?’ he said, pointing to a short man in a blazer standing next to one of the teams.

‘No,’ said Creamer. ‘I don’t think so.’ He stood. Tugged at his shirtsleeves. ‘It does look a little like him, I suppose. But it’s definitely not.’

‘You probably know him from the Freemasons as well, don’t you?’

Creamer coloured. ‘Is he a Mason? I had no idea.’

‘Of course not.’ Breen had spotted the Masonic ring on Cox’s pudgy finger the first time he’d seen him. He had asked around a little. His hunch that Creamer too, was a Freemason had been right. He sat down again and smiled. ‘So. Here we are then.’

‘Yes,’ said Creamer.

Creamer had looked anxious before, but he looked worse now: his face redder, his lips tighter.

‘Just now, did Scotland Yard have any idea where Cox had gone to?’

‘No. None at all. He’s disappeared. His wife has no idea. Poor girl. Nice woman,’ Creamer mumbled.

‘Anyway, as I’m sure you’re aware, Scotland Yard no longer regard me as a suspect. I presume that means I can return to work.’

‘Right away.’ Creamer attempted a smile. ‘I should apologise. I spoke to you harshly the other week.’

‘I didn’t mention to Scotland Yard that you and Cox had spoken. That he used his connection to you to try and close down the investigation into Johnny Knight.’

Creamer looked clammier. ‘I wouldn’t put it like that,’ said Creamer. ‘Just because he used my name…’

‘As I said. I didn’t mention it to Scotland Yard.’ But he could at any point.

You never knew where these things would lead. There might be an investigation. Some jumped-up inspector from the provinces coming in to poke their nose into Metropolitan Police business. How they would love that.

A part of Breen was shocked at how easy he found it to do this. The look of fright in Creamer’s eyes. The sense of power he wielded over him. He should be disgusted at himself. This is the kind of thing Oliver Tarpey did. Using people’s secrets against them.

He wasn’t too different. Dealing with bad people, his father had said, the stink of the sewer will rub off on you.

‘Same desk?’ Breen asked.

‘If you like.’

They sat in silence for a minute, until Creamer said, ‘Well then, Paddy. I’m sure you have a lot to do.’

Breen didn’t move. ‘A birdie told me you were telling Constable Jones he should go for Sergeant.’

An uncertain smile. ‘Yes. Good man.’

‘Do you think he’ll make Sergeant if he’s the subject of an internal investigation?’

Creamer looked puzzled. ‘What investigation?’

Breen leaned forward and wrote the name of the man who had died in the cells on Creamer’s blotting paper. ‘The investigation into a recent death in the cells that you might wish to initiate.’ He added the date the man died and underlined it.

Creamer peered at the paper. ‘Death in the cells? I’ve not heard anything about that.’

‘You should start asking a few questions then.’

Creamer looked puzzled but said, ‘Yes. I will. Of course.’

Breen nodded. ‘I was wondering. Will later this afternoon be OK for me to return to work, sir? Only I’ve got something I’ve got to finish first.’

He was fifteen minutes early for the 11.52 at Paddington. He stood on the platform end. He was back at work. He was a policeman again. He
had something to do. But he was also a little appalled at himself. First Tarpey, now Creamer. This was the way it started. A slow corruption.

And scared, too, about the way so much had spiralled out of control.

Tozer got off the diesel train wearing a duffel coat and black boots. He spotted her strolling down the long platform towards him, pushing past families with trunks and bags. He waved. She didn’t wave back even though she wasn’t carrying any bags; she was planning to catch the train back to Devon that evening.

‘You look different,’ he said when she arrived.

She said, ‘I’m not a copper anymore.’

‘Good trip?’ he asked.

‘I’m nervous,’ she said. ‘She may not want to leave.’

Breen nodded. ‘It’s very possible,’ he said.

‘Your head?’ she said.

White bandage showed from under the cap.

‘Long story,’ he said.

She didn’t ask.

They made their way through the filthy station. The steam trains had stopped a few years ago, but the place still stank of coal and smut. As they waited for a taxi in the queue at the side of the station, Breen tried small talk but Tozer was only giving one-word answers, so he stopped.

She didn’t ask anymore about how he was. She didn’t ask about the Prosser case, or give him a chance to tell her that his suspension was over. Or explain what had happened in Hampstead with Harry Cox trying to kill him.

She was only thinking about Hibou. She stood, craning her neck to the front of the taxi queue, biting her nails.

Abbey Gardens looked the same as when he had last seen it. A little more dilapidated, perhaps. When they knocked, one of the men from the commune opened the door.

‘Shoes off, please,’ he said. He wore some kind of African sandals.

Breen bent to unlace his brogues, but the man said, ‘Not you. Just her.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll be fine, Paddy. Thanks.’ Tozer stepped inside and started taking her big brown boots off.

Breen peered inside. The hallway had been painted a deep, dark green that sucked the light out of the place. It was lit by a single bare bulb hanging from a flaking ceiling. A girl Breen didn’t recognise peered out of a doorway at them. In this house lived the people who had taken knives and skinned Frankie Pugh, cut his dead throat and wrists and hung him till he was dry.

‘This way,’ the man said.

The people in the house pressed their backs against the walls as Tozer passed, as if she were the carrier of some disease.

As she turned the corner and disappeared out of sight, someone closed the door on Breen, leaving him standing on the doorstep.

He took his handkerchief out of his pocket, laid it on the step and sat down, facing away from the front door.

The street was busy. A vicar pushing a bicycle. A black man with a suitcase. Two women laughing about some man.

Like Tozer, Breen wasn’t sure if Hibou would want to leave the commune. These people had enfolded her. Without them she would just be a sixteen-year-old, alone in the world.

Tozer had her own reasons for wanting to save this girl. They were complex and dark, Breen was starting to realise. When someone close to you is killed, you start to calculate relationships differently. You lose a sense of proportion; or maybe gain one. Older sisters were supposed to look after their younger siblings, but Tozer had not been able to save hers. She had been killed, and in the worst possible way. And the killer had never been found. Breen wondered if getting Hibou away from these men was a way of trying to put something right. She would always be trying to save her sister. And she would never be able to. She must have seen something of her sister in Hibou: a lost girl, the same age.

But just because Tozer wanted to save Hibou didn’t mean she wanted to be saved.

They were talking inside. Negotiating. How did you negotiate with a man who would strip the skin and drain the blood from another in order to protect himself? Jayakrishna was determined. He would not want to lose face. Men like that did not like to be challenged.

But when the door opened, Tozer was standing there with Hibou.

Hibou was dressed in a grubby men’s army coat. It looked ridiculous on her. She carried a small cloth bag with a few possessions.

‘Is that all she’s got?’ Breen asked.

‘Here, nobody owns anything,’ said Jayakrishna from inside.

‘What did she come with?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ whispered Hibou. She looked her age now. A scared teenager not sure of what she was doing.

‘Come on,’ said Tozer, holding out her hand to the girl.

Jayakrishna looked angry. He glared at Hibou and said, ‘Go. We took you in and looked after you and this is the way you treat us.’

Tozer was shaking. She said, ‘Looked after her? You got her on drugs… and you—’

‘Not here,’ said Breen.

‘You’re only trouble now, you bitch,’ Jayakrishna was saying. ‘You’re poison. You’ll bring down the whole beautiful thing.’

Tozer said, ‘So much for love.’

‘Don’t ever threaten us again,’ said Jayakrishna, nose to nose with Breen. ‘You are filth. Excrescence. Putrefaction.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Tozer, tugging at Breen’s sleeve, taking Hibou’s hand. ‘He’s not worth it.’

And she pulled them both away from the door, towards the street.

In the taxi back to the station, Tozer said, ‘Are you going to be all right?’

Hibou moved her head in the tiniest of nods. Tozer looked grim, focused.

‘How long before you start to feel bad?’

‘Three, four hours, maybe,’ said Hibou.

‘You want to find a doctor?’

Hibou shook her head.

‘Doctor?’ asked Breen.

‘She’s going to start going cold turkey,’ said Tozer. ‘She’s an addict. Without heroin, she’ll be sick. Sooner we get her to the farm, sooner we can look after her.’

It was just gone two o’clock. There was a train in half an hour.

‘You’ll love my mum,’ Tozer said. ‘She’ll take care of you. Feed you up. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

Hibou nodded. She was snuffling tears now. She leaned towards Tozer who closed her eyes and hugged her close.

Tozer said, ‘So you threatened to expose everything if they didn’t let her go?’

‘I told Tarpey that if he didn’t persuade Jayakrishna to let her go, I’d go to the papers. If Rhodri Pugh was exposed for perverting the course of justice, the commune would lose its protection. They’d be evicted.’

Tozer nodded and said, ‘Fab.’

And the taxi driver turned into Eastbourne Terrace, pressing hard on the horn to scare some pedestrians who were dawdling in the road.

They put Hibou in an empty second-class compartment. There were a few minutes before the train had to leave. Breen got off and stood on the platform. Tozer leaned out of the carriage door window.

‘Is she going to be OK?’ asked Breen.

‘I don’t know. I think so. She’s out of that place anyway.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I’ll be fine.’ The guard was walking up and down the platform slamming the doors shut.

‘Something you should know,’ said Tozer. ‘Something Jayakrishna said.’

Breen looked at her, small in the doorway of the train.

‘Jayakrishna said it was Chinese junk that killed him. All the new Chinese heroin that’s coming in. It’s dirty. Apparently you don’t know how much to take any more. Some is strong, some is weak. When it was from the doctors you knew what you were getting. Now you don’t know any more. That’s what happened.’