The Kings of London (25 page)

Breen nodded. The scratching of backs. The way this world worked. Cox was one of those Londoners who lived on his connections.

‘Good people,’ said Cox. ‘Salt of the earth. And I believe I know who your new boss is going to be. I was out with him last night. Jack Creamer? He’s an old pal from the club. A lovely fellow. Solid. Do you mind awfully if I call him? I need to get to the bottom of this. And I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear his men are out and about.’

‘Good,’ said Breen. Fixed smile. ‘Make sure and do that.’

He closed his notebook. There was an awkward pause.

‘Is that everything?’ And Cox got up, opened the door of his office into the wide corridor beyond, and stood there waiting for Breen to leave. ‘And please do come round some time for dinner. I’d love to talk art with you. Perhaps you could bring your friend, Mr Fraser. I’ve got my eyes on a John Plumb. I expect you lot think that’s rather old hat. I’ll get my secretary to call.’

At home, the music was thumping from behind the front door of the rooms above his.

He went downstairs to his flat, to his father’s old room, and pulled out the tin from the kitchen cupboard. He took out the folded money and put it in a brown envelope for the morning.

Then he went back upstairs and thumped on the door with the side of his fist.

A woman in a man’s dressing gown opened the door. She looked about nineteen. ‘Who is it?’ called a man’s voice from behind her.

Breen smelt the same smell that had filled the air at the Albert Hall wafting from behind her.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Turn the music down. I need to sleep.’

‘Sure, man,’ said the man.

Back downstairs, he lay on his bed, the music just as loud as it had been before.

Tozer had made cheese sandwiches from Wonderloaf. The cheese was almost as pale as the bread. Breen had bought two bagels from Joe’s All Night Cafe and filled them with smoked salmon, cream cheese, pickled cucumber and fresh black pepper. He had also got another bag with some dill pickles and blinis. Tozer had what looked like orange squash in an old Tizer bottle; Breen had a thermos of fresh black coffee.

Tozer looked at her paper bag, to the brown paper parcel Breen was unwrapping, and back again.

They had found an empty compartment in Second Class. It was a Saturday morning, so the train was pretty quiet. There was chewing gum on one of the seats, but apart from that it was clean.

She held out one of her sandwiches. ‘I’ll swap you one of yours for one of mine,’ she said.

‘I’m OK, thanks,’ said Breen. But he handed her one of his bagels and offered her a coffee.

‘Don’t you have milk?’ Tozer asked peering at the paper cup he’d handed her.

Breen shook his head. ‘I prefer it black.’

She took a sip and made a face. ‘That’s horrible,’ she said. ‘It’s too bitter. No one in their right mind is going to drink that.’

He took it back and poured it into his own cup as she dug into the bagel.

‘This’s delicious, mind,’ she said. ‘You make that yourself? My dad can’t even boil an egg.’

‘I’m twenty years younger than your dad.’

‘Fifteen,’ she said, taking another bite out of his bagel.

Then she kicked off her shoes and put her stockinged feet on the seat next to Breen. He looked at her feet, painted toenails dark beneath the nylon, then looked away out of the window.

Breen stared at the north Kent countryside. A flat and muddy land, brown winter fields and grey estuary light. The tide was out and the coast smelt rotten and muddy. A flock of small gulls rose above them, startled by the noise of the train. He thought about Harry Cox. Calling up his pal, Inspector Creamer. You know a detective called Breen?

He watched Tozer’s reflection in the carriage window. She had taken out a paperback and started reading. After only a page she dropped the book onto the seat and closed her eyes to sleep. Breen watched her head against the side of the carriage, mouth open, skinny chest rising and falling with each breath.

When she woke she said, ‘Hibou,’ then blinked as if surprised she had spoken aloud.

‘What made you think of her?’ said Breen.

‘I went there, last night.’

‘To the squat? I thought you promised to never go back there?’

She looked towards the the window. ‘I never promised.’

‘What happened?’

‘They wouldn’t let me in. They wouldn’t let me see her. They called me names.’ She chewed on her lip slowly.

‘Didn’t I say?’

‘I could kill him, you know?’ she said. ‘Jayakrishna. He’s such a smug arse. He called me a pig. You know what they call him? A guru. What is that?’

‘It’s like a priest or something.’

Still looking out the window she said, ‘Perv, more like. You think she was even on drugs before she got there?’

‘I told you not to go.’ It was all he could think to say.

‘Fab, Paddy. Bloody fab.’

It was midday in the afternoon by the time the train reached Margate. A dirty postcard of a town. In winter, these gleeful seaside towns looked doubly bleak. A fierce north wind blew straight off the sea at them as they left the station. Kent Police had visited the GP and had phoned Tozer with the address at which Charlie Prosser was registered. Breen had bought a map of Margate at W.H. Smith’s in Charing Cross and was now holding its flapping sheet into the wind.

‘That way,’ he said, pointing.

It took only two minutes to walk to the Mooring Guest House. It looked out onto a deserted concrete crazy golf course and beyond that the North Sea. A four-storey Victorian terrace, paint peeling from the salt wind, curtains closed against the cold. An old wrought-iron balcony sent pink rust stains down the pale paint.

A hand-written sign in the window: ‘VACANCIES’.

Breen rang on the bell. The short woman who answered it looked from Breen to Tozer disapprovingly.

‘Is there a Shirley Prosser staying here?’

‘Are you looking for a room?’ She frowned.

‘We’re looking for a woman called Shirley Prosser,’ said Tozer. ‘She’s a woman of about thirty with a boy. He’s a spastic. Prosser was her married name.’

One hand holding her hair to stop the wind blowing it, the other holding the top of her dark cardigan closed, the landlady narrowed her eyes and said, ‘Who wants to know?’

‘We want to give her some news,’ said Tozer.

The landlady looked Tozer up and down. ‘She in’t here,’ she said and went to close the door.

Tozer stepped forward. ‘Can we wait for her?’

‘Go away,’ she said. ‘I don’t like the look of you.’

‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’

‘I don’t like people nosing around my guests,’ she said, and closed the door in their faces.

Breen looked up and down the street. The B & B was halfway down a row of a dozen houses all lined up to face the sea, but there was no cafe or other shelter they could stay in to watch for Shirley Prosser’s return. In her miniskirt and jacket, Tozer was already shivering.

The front-room curtain twitched and the woman peered out, waiting for them to leave. ‘Get off!’ She banged on the glass. ‘Or I’ll call the police.’

Breen said, ‘Let’s take a look at the town and come back later.’

‘Can we find somewhere warm?’ said Tozer.

To the east, the seafront was a wide curve of yellow sand. They walked along the road alongside the beach, past the big amusement park with the sign that read ‘DREAMLAND’. The rollercoaster rising slowly, all giggles and shouts. Then the sudden descent of underdressed teenage girls screaming into the wind as it clattered round the wooden tracks. Beyond it was a parade of shops. They found a cafe in an arcade, filled with the clatter of pinball machines and the wail of pop music. A couple of lads were sitting drinking tea at a yellow Formica table. Both had identical short hair and long sideboards. Trousers that ended an inch above their boots. One of them wore braces over a check shirt, sleeves rolled up despite the cold.

‘What you looking at?’ he said.

Breen ordered two hot chocolates and sipped his, slowly looking out of the window at the wind whipping foam off the cold sand.

‘It’s a bit like Torquay,’ said Tozer. ‘Only worse.’ She dug around in her bag for a cigarette, pulling out the novel she’d been reading on the train. ‘Why would she have come to a dump like this? I mean… It would be OK in summer.’

‘She’s frightened of something.’ Breen picked up the book.
Valley of the Dolls
. ‘Any good?’ he asked.

‘Not really. Only bought it because all the girls in the section house are reading it. It’s about sex and drugs,’ she said.

‘Really?’

‘But mostly sex.’

She found the packet of cigarettes and lit one.

‘When you went to the doctor yesterday,’ said Breen, ‘and Jonesy… said he thought you were pregnant.’

Tozer’s face stiffened. ‘What?’

‘I was thinking: what if you were? I mean, we did it, didn’t we?’

‘It? What’s “it”?’

‘You know. And we were both a bit drunk.’

‘Made love?’ she said.

The two bootboys looked interested for the first time.

‘Yes.’

‘So you thought I was pregnant too?’

Breen glared back at the two lads until they looked away, embarrassed. ‘I didn’t know what I thought,’ said Breen. ‘That’s the point.’

‘I bloody hate that,’ said Tozer. ‘All you lot talking about me behind my back.’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ protested Breen.

‘Precisely. Maybe you bloody should have,’ said Tozer. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

‘I’ll come too,’ said Breen.

She stood. ‘I want to be on my own for ten minutes, OK?’ said Tozer. ‘Stretch my legs.’

‘Right,’ said Breen, sitting back down again.

The two bootboys had their heads together, whispering, glancing at Breen. A third lad came in and joined them briefly to cadge a cigarette. He was dressed similarly, though his trousers were turned up even higher, showing a pair of red socks above a pair of second-hand army boots. Comical and scary at the same time.

Since when did every young working-class man have to belong to a tribe? Breen finished his sickly hot chocolate and went to play at one of the pinball machines. It was called ‘Football Fun’ and Breen didn’t have much idea what he was doing with the flippers. Five balls disappeared
down the hole in no time. He put in another shilling and tried it again, learning to press the flippers just as the balls were about to land on them, sending the ball bearing careening back up the machine into the bumpers. On his third shilling he realised there was a girl standing behind him.

This time he kept the first ball bouncing up in the machine for at least a minute before it disappeared between the flippers.

‘You’re useless,’ said the girl. She looked about twelve. Dumpy, greasy hair, jeans and a baggy red jumper, smoking a cigarette and chewing gum at the same time.

‘No I’m not,’ said Breen.

‘Give me your next ball and I’ll get you a replay.’

‘Get your own machine,’ said Breen, and released another ball. The silver ball sailed up, hit one of the bumpers and spat straight back towards him before he could reach it with his flippers, disappearing back into the machine.

‘Completely crap,’ said the girl to herself. Then, louder: ‘Never done it before, have you?’

Breen said, ‘Go on then. Show me how it’s done if you think you’re better.’ And he let her have his next ball.

She took a puff of her cigarette and handed him the stub. ‘You can have the rest if you like,’ she said.

He looked at the fag-end in his hand and said, ‘Thanks.’

‘’s OK.’ As soon as he was sure she was concentrating on the machine, he dropped the cigarette end on the floor.

Her focus was totally on the ball, watching it zing around the machine. Click, bleep, ching, bleep. GOAL. GOAL. GOAL. A pink bubble of gum escaped her lips. He watched the bubble growing as her fingers twitched on either side of the machine, lights flashing, numbers clicking round on the dials.

‘Fanny’s got a new boyfriend.’

Breen looked around. The two bootboys were looking at them, laughing.

‘Flap off,’ said the girl.

‘Oi, mister! We’ll tell her brother you’re trying to cop off with Fanny.’

‘My name’s not Fanny,’ said the girl.

‘Yes it is, Fanny. Fanny Flap-Off.’

‘Watch it, mister. Her brother’s a wrestler. He’s fought Mick McManus. He’ll come and rip your ears off.’

‘How old are you?’ Breen asked the girl they were calling Fanny.

‘I’m fourteen,’ said the girl. She was still concentrating on the machine.

‘I bet you’re here every day, aren’t you?’

‘See? He’s trying to pick you up, Fanny.’

‘Most days.’

‘I’m looking for someone. Have you seen a spastic boy around town this last week or so?’

She turned her head. ‘Them two –’ she jerked it at the two boys – ‘they’re spazzers.’ A moment’s lack of concentration. The ball spun and was gone. Game over. ‘You bloody messed up my bloody game,’ she said.

‘You chucking him already, Fanny?’

‘Lover’s tiff.’

‘It was my game, if you remember,’ said Breen.

‘Got another shilling, mister?’ asked the girl. ‘I’ll play doubles with you.’

‘Oooh. Playing doubles with Fanny now. Know what that means?’

‘Flap off, you morons.’ She stuck her tongue behind her bottom gums.

Breen said, ‘The boy’s about ten years old. You’d know him if you saw him.’

‘Give me a shilling and I’ll tell you.’

Breen handed over a shilling. ‘Well?’ he said.

She pushed him aside, took the shilling, put it in the machine again and started to play. ‘No. Never seen him. You his dad?’

‘No.’

‘Why you looking for him then?’ And she pressed the button marked ‘Single Play’ and was lost in the machine again.

‘Yeah. Why you looking for a spaz, anyway?’

Breen turned. It was one of the boys.

‘This dump is dead in winter. Nobody comes here in their right mind. Only spazzers. Shouldn’t be hard to find him.’

The other one – check shirt and braces – said, ‘He walk like this?’ And started to hobble round, toe of right boot on the floor, dragging it behind him. He stuck his tongue behind his lower lip and opened his eyes wide.

‘Why?’ said Breen.

The other one was doubled up. ‘Is that your dad when he’s on the whisky?’ He laughed. He began flapping his limbs about too.

‘Only there’s a lad like that I seen walking on the beach with his mam just now.’

He pointed north, out to sea.

Outside, a gust of wind sent an old newspaper page flying up above his head. It circled, then hung in the air before another blasted it away over the roofs. Breen clutched at the collar of his coat and wished he’d brought a scarf.

He walked across the sand. It was damp from the rain. The beach was wide and empty. When had he last walked on a beach? His father had taken him to Brighton once. They had stood on the shingle in bare feet eating ice creams and looking at the crashing waves. He had wanted to swim, but his father had forgotten to bring any trunks. ‘Go in in your pants,’ said his father in his thick Kerry brogue. ‘Nobody will mind.’

Breen had sat throwing stones, ashamed his country-born father would even suggest such a thing.

The wind tasted of salt. Beyond the tideline the sand changed from from irregular mounds to smooth, dark ripples. There were few footprints. It was too cold for most walkers.

Large indentations made by heavy boots. Smaller ones nearby – a woman’s presumably. Then another woman’s, with a dog’s paw prints alongside. Had that been the woman he had just seen out walking her dog?

He made his way closer to the light line of spume.

He didn’t find them until he reached the water’s edge, but the prints were clear. A woman walking next to a boy. His right foot dragged, creating a pattern that looked like a line of shallow ‘m’s. The pair had been walking east, away from the boarding house. The waves of the incoming tide were already rippling over the marks on the flat sand.