The Kings of London (17 page)

She watched him, a softness in her face that hadn’t been there before.

When he finally ran out of steam, she nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We deserve better, don’t we?’

‘I suppose we do,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

‘What for?’

She looked away, chewed on her tongue for a second and said, ‘For what you’ve been through, of course. Can we get some more wine? I never get the chance, normally.’

They ordered baklavas for dessert, though neither of them had ever had them before. Breen didn’t like the honeyed sweetness, but Shirley scraped the plate with her spoon.

When she was finished, she smiled. There was a picture of a small village by the sea on the wall. A slightly faded photograph of whitewashed buildings in a rocky bay.

‘I’d like to go there,’ said Shirley. ‘Greece. Somewhere on the Mediterranean. Far away. Blue skies. White buildings. Rocks and sand. I’ve never been. I could imagine me and Charlie, living by a beach somewhere. He loves to swim. He doesn’t feel so clumsy when he’s in the water. It’s like he’s free then.’

She kissed him on the cheek when the taxi stopped outside her flat. She smelt of perfume and brandy.

‘Thank you, Paddy,’ she said, opening the taxi door. ‘That was better than I expected.’

‘You didn’t expect much, then?’

‘Not really. I’ve given up on policemen.’

‘Can we do it again?’ he asked.

‘Maybe,’ she said, and leaned in to kiss him again. Soft skin against his cheek.

Upstairs, she sent Tozer down so Breen could drop her at Pembridge House.

‘You’re late,’ Tozer complained. ‘It’s almost one.’

‘I’m sorry. We went for a walk after the restaurant.’

‘Where?’

‘Just here and there. Around Soho. Across to Covent Garden.’

They had had drinks in one of the pubs that stayed open late by the market. They talked. She told him about how she’d wanted to be a film star before she was married. He told her about the holiday he was planning. They had both drunk enough not to be self-conscious.

‘Sounds super,’ Tozer said. Breen wondered if she was angry because they’d kept her up late or because he had gone out for a date with Shirley.

‘Well?’ Tozer said, staring out of the taxi window. ‘And?’

‘And it was a nice evening,’ said Breen. ‘She’s had a hard life.’

‘Are you drunk?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Nice?’ she said, still looking away. ‘Jesus Christ, Paddy Breen. I hope it was better than that. I just gave up one of my free last evenings in London for you.’

On Wednesday morning Cathal Breen had a hangover. So he called in sick. Why shouldn’t he? Everyone else called in sick. Everyone apart from Bailey. All he would be doing today was putting pieces of paper
away. And he could not face doing that. Two failed cases to pack up. Two deaths, assumed to be by misadventure. He got drunk so rarely, once would not hurt.

And he
was
sick, afer all. Everything hurt. Even his teeth seemed to ache. It was an unfamiliar feeling and he hated it. His body was not used to drink.

‘Aw,’ said Marilyn, fuzzy and distant on the phone. ‘Is it a bug?’

He went to shave, but didn’t feel up to it. In the mirror, stubble seemed to be growing out of his skin as he stared at himself, face pale, eyes red. He cleaned his teeth twice, took two aspirin, went back to bed and lay looking at the cracks in the bedroom ceiling, wondering if Shirley had thought him a bore, talking about his father so much.

But despite the aching head he felt surprisingly good. Tozer had been right. It was good to ask a woman out, to walk and laugh and talk. And now it felt good to turn his back on work, for a day at least. He dozed in bed, feeling like a schoolboy, bunking off school. The fog was lifting a little.

And then the doorbell rang. And rang again. And again.

He ignored it at first. It would go away. But the doorbell sounded again. This time a long ring. A finger pressed hard against the bell.

At the door, when he opened it, a uniformed copper and a plain clothes man looked him slowly up and down.

‘Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen?’

Breen didn’t recognise either of them. It was freezing outside and the winter light seemed too bright right now.

‘What?’

‘Detective Sergeant Breen?’ they asked, breath moistening air. They were looking at a man, unshaven, still in his dressing gown and pyjamas. They would be thinking, Are we at the right house? Does this man look like one of us?

‘What’s the problem?’ Breen asked.

‘Sergeant Michael Prosser, formerly of Marylebone CID, was found dead last night. We would like to ask you a few questions.’

Cold air caught in Breen’s chest. He started coughing. ‘Christ,’ he said. His skin started to prickle. Last night’s poison sloshed back into his brain, tilting the world a little.

‘May we, ah, come in?’

Handing the two policemen tea, Breen looked down and noticed scrambled egg on his dressing gown. Had he eaten eggs today, or had that been another day?

‘I mean,’ said Breen. ‘What happened?’

‘Why aren’t you at work today, Sergeant?’

They were both from Scotland Yard. This is what it must feel like, he thought, for other people.

‘I called in sick,’ he said.

The two policemen exchanged a look.

‘What with?’ asked the CID man.

Breen handed them a bowl of sugar. ‘I’ll be honest, I got a little drunk last night. I’m not used to drinking. I’m feeling a bit under the weather. Have you… have you told his wife yet?’

The CID man had fair hair that was matted across his forehead and fingers stained from nicotine. He asked, ‘Any special celebration?’

‘No,’ said Breen. ‘I mean, I was angry about being taken off an investigation, so maybe that’s why I drank more than I usually do.’

‘Angry?’ said the constable. They were sitting on his couch, side by side. The constable was one of the older ones. He had taken his helmet off and it was sitting on the cushion beside him. The detective had unbuttoned his sheepskin coat.

‘About being taken off the case,’ said Breen.

‘You were acquainted with former Detective Sergeant Prosser?’ He pulled out a packet of No. 6’s.

‘Yes.’

The CID man offered Breen a cigarette, but not the constable sitting next to him. Breen shook his head. He couldn’t face a cigarette right now. ‘And Mr Prosser was responsible for an arson attack on this property?’

Breen nodded. ‘He’s a suspect.’ Was Shirley OK? The father of her child was dead. He wanted to call her, but he realised he didn’t even have a phone number for the record shop to get a message to her.

The CID man asked, ‘Is there any evidence in particular to link Mr Prosser directly to the fire you had here?’

Breen shook his head. ‘You’d have to ask Stoke Newington. It’s their case. I’m obviously not the investigating officer for that.’

‘And why would Mr Prosser want to burn down your house?’

Breen rubbed his unshaven face. ‘Sergeant Prosser was involved with a local gang, helping them burgle shops. I caught him out. I threatened to expose him. That’s why he left the police. He wasn’t very happy about it. What happened? Have you informed Shirley Prosser yet?’ he asked again, though he knew they would not answer. They wouldn’t
want to let him know what they knew. Standard stuff if you were a subject in the investigation.

Which he would be.

‘What did you stand to gain by blackmailing him in this way?’

‘I wasn’t blackmailing him,’ Breen protested. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

The CID man’s name was Deason. He looked at the pages of his notebook, then straight at Breen. ‘There is no record of him being involved in any illegal activity while he was an officer with the Metropolitan Police,’ he said. ‘Only that he resigned.’

Breen sighed. ‘It’s complicated,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it?’ said Deason. ‘We spoke to Constable Jones. He said you have been asking him where Michael Prosser lived.’

‘Yes,’ said Breen. ‘I wanted to talk to him. He didn’t know.’

‘You’re a detective. I’m sure you have ways of finding out.’

‘I didn’t though.’

‘No?’

The detective stood and peered at the print on Breen’s wall. ‘That’s very… modern,’ he said. ‘What is it supposed to mean?’

‘I don’t really know,’ said Breen. ‘I don’t think it’s about meaning.’

Deason frowned at the painting, then said, ‘Do you own a gun, Sergeant?’

‘No. Of course I don’t. Prosser was shot then?’

The detective wrinkled his nose, then moved across the room and into the kitchen. There were five notebooks sitting on his kitchen table. The moment he saw the detective’s eyes on them, Breen wished he had put them somewhere safe. But the detective picked them up, slipped the rubber band off the first, and started turning over the pages.

‘We’ll be taking these,’ said Deason.

Breen nodded and said, ‘You’ll want to know where I was last night?’

‘You know the drill,’ said Deason.

‘At what time in particular?’

The man turned. Beneath the man’s even smile teeth pointed
in all directions. ‘Let’s just say between 9 p.m. and midnight for now.’

‘I was having dinner with Michael Prosser’s wife, Shirley Prosser.’

The man whistled. ‘Oh.’

‘We were in Jimmy’s in Frith Street. Ask Dimitri. He’s the manager.’

‘Until midnight?’

Breen shook his head. ‘No. We went for a walk.’

‘At what time?’

‘I don’t know. I think we left the restaurant at around nine.’

‘A walk?’

‘Just around and about,’ said Breen.

‘Around and about?’

‘We’d had a meal. We went for a walk.’ He tried to remember the name of the pub they’d been to, but his mind was blank.

Deason nodded. He went and sat on sofa again and made a few notes in his own book. Then he looked up and said, ‘Are you and Mrs Prosser having relations?’

‘Relations?’

‘Sex,’ said Deason.

‘No.’ Breen shook his head. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

Deason raised eyebrows and wrote in his notebook again.

‘Perhaps you can tell me what it is like then?’

The sergeant on the front desk stared at him as he came in.

‘What are you looking at?’ said Breen.

‘Nothing,’ said the copper.

Marilyn’s desk was alive with colour. Someone had put a huge bunch of flowers on it. Sitting in a clear waterless glass jug, they were artificial, but they were flowers, at least. Red roses and yellow daffodils, clashing.

‘Bloody hell, Paddy’ said Marilyn. ‘You came in then?’

Breen looked at his desk. The drawers were all open. All his paperwork had been removed. ‘They’ve been here already then?’

Now they had all his notebooks. His crime scene photographs. The pictures of the burnt man. He was trying to remember what else was in the drawers.

‘They were in at 8.30. They found the notes. All them threats. I had no idea you’d had so many of them. Christ, Paddy. How long has that been going on?’

‘What happened?’

‘Well…’ Marilyn smoothed down her cardigan. ‘They asked where you were. They wanted to know what you’d been like these last few weeks.’

Breen said, ‘Not that. I meant, what happened to Prosser?’ Too loudly.

Marilyn flinched. ‘Nobody’s saying. Just that he’s dead. I had to say you called in sick, Paddy. Was that OK?’

Breen said, ‘Well I
was
sick, wasn’t I?’

‘Were you?’

‘Yes I was,’ said Breen. Too loud again.

‘Sorry,’ said Marilyn quietly. ‘I mean, I didn’t even like him much. But it’s horrible, isn’t it?’

‘Did they say where he died?’

‘Elephant and Castle. He was living in some bedsit. I don’t know anything else. I promise.’

Breen looked around the room. It was quiet. Neither Tozer nor Jones was there. He asked, ‘Who are all the flowers from, Marilyn?’

‘From Danny. They’re only plastic, but they’re quite nice, aren’t they? I like them anyway.’

‘Your boyfriend?’

‘He’s never bought me flowers before,’ she said. ‘Not once. I don’t suppose he could find fresh, this time of year.’

‘A guilty conscience,’ said Breen. He walked to the cupboard, looking for a new notebook. All his were gone. All his notes on the Pugh case. All his notes on the body in the fire.

‘Why would he have a guilty conscience?’

‘I thought you weren’t bothered with him anymore, anyway?’

‘Well maybe I am bothered with him, as no one else seems to be interested in me anyway.’ Then: ‘Get your own damned stationery, Paddy, and leave my cupboards alone.’ She snatched the pad out of his hands, put it back inside the cupboard and slammed the door. ‘I’m sick of it here,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong with him buying me something for a change? Who else is going to? Why does there have to be something bad behind it all the time?’

Breen watched her, open-mouthed. He still had a headache and she was making it worse.

‘Ah. Breen.’

Bailey must have heard the shouting. ‘Marilyn said you were off sick,’ he said. He had one hand on the door handle, head only slightly out of the door, as if he didn’t want to emerge any further than necessary.

‘I heard the news,’ said Breen.

‘Terrible,’ said Bailey.

‘What happened?’

‘You’d better come in,’ said Bailey.

Michael Prosser had been murdered in a bedsitter in Elliotts Row in Lambeth at around ten the previous night. A five-minute walk from Elephant and Castle.

A simple room with a Baby Belling cooker and a single metal bed and a paraffin heater. He had been shot twice. A first bullet had hit him in the abdomen, not far above his groin. It knocked him to the floor but failed to kill him. A blood trail showed that he had made it across the room towards the door of the small room where the second shot had been fired. He would have been looking up at his killer as it hit him in the top of the head.

‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. Officially at least, you are a suspect,’ said Bailey. A stickler for the rules in normal circumstances.

Other tenants in the block denied seeing anyone. It was that kind of building. Full of vagrants and West Indians.

Breen nodded. ‘It doesn’t sound like someone who knew what they were doing. Or maybe it was an argument. Two shots, like that.’

‘Please be clear. This is not your case. You are to do nothing at all. Phone no one. Talk to no one. Do nothing.’

Again, Breen nodded.

Bailey sighed. ‘They know you didn’t like Sergeant Prosser. He didn’t like you. You were the reason he was forced to resign from the police. They know you received death threats from him and that he was a suspect in a murder attempt on you.’

‘Yes,’ said Breen.

‘And Constable Jones told the officers from Scotland Yard you were asking him yesterday if he knew where Prosser lived.’

‘Yes,’ said Breen. ‘I did.’

‘And he told you Elephant and Castle.’

‘That’s right.’

Bailey pulled out a pipe and banged the bowl a couple of times into his ashtray. ‘You know what has to happen now, don’t you?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Breen.

‘You are suspended from duty until further notice. On pay, obviously. I’m sure this will only be for a couple of days. We’ll get to the bottom of this and then everything will be back to normal.’ He pulled out a pipe knife. ‘You have an alibi, I hope?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

‘Not a very good one,’ said Breen. ‘As it happens.’

Bailey sighed. ‘If there’s anything you want to tell me, you should tell me it now,’ he said.

Breen remained silent. Bailey frowned and started scraping at the bowl of his pipe.

Breen was sitting at his empty desk wondering if he should call Jumbo Records to try to speak to Shirley Prosser when Constable Helen Tozer strode in, all lanky limbs and lack of grace.

‘God there,’ Tozer said. ‘I can’t believe it. You must be mighty relieved though, Paddy. He was a nutter, wasn’t he?’

Marilyn said, ‘Have some bloody respect.’

Tozer said, ‘He tried to kill Paddy, Christ sake, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘I’m a suspect.’

‘But it’s only a formality, isn’t it?’ said Tozer. ‘I mean, it’s got to be.’

‘Christ, Paddy,’ said Marilyn. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He said, ‘Well, I wanted a holiday, didn’t I?’

Marilyn stood up and said to Breen, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘They’ll ask you about me. The Scotland Yard men. About last night. And when we got back.’

Tozer nodded. ‘Right,’ she said.

Marilyn said, ‘You’ll be fine, Paddy.’

‘Who do you think it was?’ said Tozer.

Breen said quietly, ‘I don’t know. He was bent. Maybe there was something going on we didn’t know about.’

‘I mean,’ said Tozer. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘They’ll want to ask about me and Shirley Prosser,’ he told Tozer.

‘What about him and Shirley Prosser?’ said Marilyn. Breen looked at his watch. It was one already. Jumbo Records would be shut by now. It was a Wednesday; half-day closing. The only way to get in touch with her would be to go there.

‘Who bought you those, Marilyn?’ said Tozer, suddenly louder, fingering the plastic flowers.

‘My boyfriend,’ said Marilyn.

‘I thought you were chucking him,’ said Tozer.

Marilyn wrinkled her nose. ‘I never quite got around to it. What about Shirley Prosser?’

‘I really like plastic flowers,’ said Tozer. Bright yellows, greens and reds.

‘You don’t think they’re a bit tacky?’

‘They’re pop art, really, aren’t they? Why’d he give them to you?’ asked Tozer.

‘Don’t you start,’ said Marilyn.