The Kings of London (3 page)

‘You all right?’ Sergeant Breen asked Temporary Detective Constable Tozer, shouting above the noise of the siren.

‘Me? I’m fine,’ she shouted back. They were in Delta Mike Five, the old Wolesley radio car whose gearbox crunched every time Breen put it into second.

He hesitated before saying, ‘I meant to call you.’

‘Course you did,’ said Tozer.

‘No. Really.’

She looked out of the window. Awkwardly thin, early twenties, in clothes that never seemed to fit quite right. Lank hair cut to a bob. ‘I wasn’t by the phone, waiting for it to ring, if that’s what you were wondering.’

‘Of course not.’

She dipped into her handbag. ‘I suppose you told all the lads,’ she said.

‘What do you take me for?’

‘That’s something, anyway,’ she said. ‘Want a fag?’

He shook his head.

‘Were you avoiding me?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Busy, that’s all.’

‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘I been busy too. Getting ready to go home.’

Tozer had handed in her notice. She was leaving too. She had joined CID from the Women’s Section as a probationer, hoping to do more than just interview women and children, or direct traffic, which was
all you were supposed to do as a WPC. But it wasn’t much different in CID either.

‘I mean,’ said Tozer. ‘It was just a bit of fun, wasn’t it, you and me?’ Then, ‘Christ. Must have rattled a few windows.’

Breen had pulled up outside the house on Marlborough Place. Or what was left of it. A grand, three-storey Victorian mansion, half of it completely blown away.

The Gas Board were still not allowing people back into their houses. They crowded behind the line of policemen, craning necks. A couple of press men with twin-lens reflex cameras complained about the way they were being treated. Breen recognised one from the local
Chronicle
. ‘Oi, guv. What’s going on? Get us in there, can’t you?’

Things like this never happened around here. After the firemen had discovered the body news had spread fast.

‘I was expecting to see you last night,’ Breen said. ‘At Prosser’s leaving do.’

‘Didn’t fancy it much, be honest,’ Tozer said. ‘Don’t even know why Prosser’s leaving. Many there?’

‘Everyone,’ he said.

‘Rats from the sinking ship,’ she said.

Breen approached one of the three constables standing on the door. Two men, one woman. ‘They found a body, they said. Where is it?’

‘In the kitchen. What’s left of it.’

A fireman came out of the building. ‘Got a cigarette?’ he asked, brushing down his sleeves.

‘I said no bloody smoking,’ said the gas man.

‘Give it a rest. That guy’s smoking over there. ‘If he can, I can.’ He pointed to a press man hovering at the front gate.

Tozer pulled a packet out of her handbag and offered him one. ‘You a copper?’ asked the fireman.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘For the next four weeks.’ She wasn’t cut out for the
force, they said. Breen wanted to tell her that he’d miss her, but he hadn’t found the right opportunity. Not yet, anyway.

‘Why isn’t you in uniform then?’ asked the fireman.

‘Didn’t match my nail varnish,’ Tozer said. The fireman looked down at her hand. She wasn’t wearing any.

‘Safe to go in?’ asked Breen.

‘Fire’s all extinguished. But, ask me, whole lot could go any sec,’ said the fireman. He took a long pull on the cigarette Tozer had given him.

‘We need to see the body before they pull the place down,’ said Breen.

‘I could tell you all you need to know,’ said the fireman. ‘Some bastard sliced him up like a Sunday roast. Sorry, miss,’ he said to Tozer.

‘Who knows about that?’ said Breen.

‘Just us firemen.’

‘Keep it to yourselves, OK? How do you know it wasn’t just the blast?’

‘During the war I seen all sorts of things happen in explosions. Never one skin a man, though.’ The fireman turned to Tozer. ‘What about after this, you and me and some of the lads—’

‘Skinned?’ said Breen.

‘Like a ruddy banana. Not all of him, mind. What about a coffee bar or something, love?’

‘Don’t really think so,’ Tozer said.

‘Pardon me,’ said the fireman. Then to Breen. ‘Only asking out of politeness. She’s got a face like bag of spanners, anyway.’

‘You haven’t been able to get the body out?’

‘Not our job, mate. Too risky in the circumstances.’

Breen said, ‘I want to see him for myself before anything else falls on him.’

‘Only I’m not supposed to let anyone in,’ said the fireman.

‘I’m a policeman,’ said Breen.

The fireman hesitated. ‘Your funeral, mate. They’re bringing a ’dozer to pull the lot down. It’ll be here any minute.’

‘Come on then,’ said Tozer.

‘Oi!’ said the fireman. ‘Go careful. Don’t want to be hoicking out three bodies.’

‘You don’t have to come,’ said Breen to Tozer.

‘I know,’ she said.

What he should have said was, ‘You’re not supposed to come.’ If she got hurt there would be a stink. But it would be good to have her there with him.

Leaving the fireman, they went inside, walking through the empty door-frame into what was left of the hallway. An upright umbrella stand, unbothered by the debris; a large brass ceiling lamp lying on the hallway floor. They stepped past it, picking through lath and plaster. Air thick with the tang of brick powder and smoke. Breen caught his foot in something and looked down. His shoe had gone through the canvas of a painting. He tried to kick it off but stumbled, falling against the wall where the picture had hung. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling onto him. Tozer laughed.

‘It’s not funny,’ said Breen.

She reached out a hand to him and he took it, bent down, and tugged the frame off his foot. There was a ripping sound. At first he thought it was the canvas, but looking down he saw a triangle of material hanging loose from his trousers.

‘Blast,’ he said.

‘Come on. I’m sure Marilyn could mend it for you.’

‘What?’

‘Everyone knows she fancies you, Paddy.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘Soft spot for her, have you?’

‘Don’t be a cow.’

‘As if.’

Towards the back the damage was worse. The rear of the house had caught fire after the explosion and still stank of smoke. The firemen had supported the door to the kitchen with a loose plank. Breen had to squeeze himself past, careful not to dislodge it.

‘Well, she’s certainly got a soft spot for you,’ said Tozer.

‘Stop it,’ he said, looking down at his jacket. There was a long smear: that would need dry cleaning too.

The kitchen had taken the worst of the blast. An entire wall had been blown away on the right side. The ceiling from the room above had given way, so that a large twisted metal bed now lay in the centre of what had been the kitchen. The room still dripped with water from the fire hoses.

Scrambling over the rubble, Breen managed a glance at his brogues. If he wasn’t careful they would be ruined.

Tozer was already next to the fallen bed. She stood on the sopping mattress, grabbing a brass bedpost to steady herself. Breen struggled his way around to join her.

The man lay awkwardly, legs trapped under a fallen beam. Propped against the remains of a chair, his head was leaning back, eyes wide open. His corneas were covered in an even sheen of dust that had continued to fall on him, long after the fire had been extinguished. It made him look blinder than he already was. Like one of those blank-eyed Roman busts in the British Museum.

The dusty body was like nothing Breen had ever seen. It was skeletal, bones poking through the skin, as if the man had been starved to death.

‘You not going to be sick or anything?’ said Tozer.

Breen approached the man, took a deep breath, then knelt down and tried to brush the dust from the side of the dead man’s face. It was crusted on by the water poured over everything by the firemen.

Breen’s squeamishness at death was a new thing; useless in his line of work. The skin had been gently fried by the heat of the fire, but not roasted, as his other body had been. But from his upper arms to
his wrists the skin had been peeled away. Not carefully. Chunks of muscle had been torn off in the process, and the remains hung, loose and singed.

The dust brushed off the wounds easily. The blood underneath was dry. ‘He was dead long before the explosion,’ said Breen.

Even without the dust, his skin looked pale, his eyes sunken. Breen started picking the half-bricks and splinters off the man’s body.

‘God there. Poor bugger,’ said Tozer. She knelt down and joined in removing the debris. He was propped up in the rubble at a jaunty angle, body already stiff from rigor mortis. He seemed to be completely naked.

‘Arrogant twat,’ said Tozer. ‘It’s not like he was any oil painting, exactly.’

‘What?’ said Breen, brushing the greyness off the man’s face.

‘That fireman,’ said Tozer.

Breen hesitated. ‘Jesus,’ he said, flinching backwards.

‘What?’

‘Look at his throat.’

‘God there,’ said Tozer again.

Beneath the dead man’s chin, a long dark line. His throat had been cut.

The two stared at him for a second. The man’s legs were trapped under a charred wooden beam, but you could see the skin had been yanked off from his ankles to his knees. A young man. Handsome, possibly. It was hard to tell.

He tried to pull the beam away, but yanked his hand back instantly. The wood was still hot from the fire.

‘Where’s all the blood?’ said Tozer. ‘I mean, if somebody cut his throat you’d expect to see blood.’

Breen nodded. ‘It’s odd. Somebody cleaned him up. They must have,’ he said.

Crouching awkwardly to inspect the body was giving Breen cramp. He straightened, realising he was trembling slightly. ‘You’re very calm, looking at all this.’

‘Used to dead things, you know,’ said Tozer. ‘Seen as bad on the farm. It’s not all that I mind. It’s laughing boy outside. Glad I’m leaving the job,’ she said. ‘Be honest, I’ve had enough of it.’ Temporary Detective Constable Tozer was going back to Devon to work on the family farm. Soon she would be done with the job; done with him.

The sound of bells and sirens. More police arriving outside.

‘Know what? It’s like he’s been bled dry,’ said Tozer. ‘Like a ruddy pig.’

Breen gazed at the disorder surrounding him. ‘Look for a knife. Whatever could have been used to skin him.’

‘What? In all this?’

The roof creaked above them. A sudden trickle of broken brickwork poured down into the middle of the room. Dust filled the air.

‘We should get out,’ said Tozer. ‘They said it’s not stable.’

‘Not yet.’

Breen looked around. At a crime scene you were supposed to look for the small things that seemed out of place. Here, everything was out of place. This was a bomb site, like the ones he had played on during the war. They had scrambled over bricks, finding reminders of of life among the ruins. A doll. A chequebook. A corkscrew. The children collected them greedily. Talismans of the impermanence of their parents’ world. Evidence that when they were told that everything was going to be all right they were being lied to.

‘You OK?’ said Tozer again.

‘Yes.’

Only the gas cooker seemed to have come out unscathed, knobs still twisted fully on.

‘I’m not flipping dressed for this,’ Tozer said, hair thick with dust, tights snagged. She carried on picking away bricks from around the dead man.

‘You don’t have to be in here.’

She didn’t answer. In the remains of the study, a desk lay covered in debris. The drawers were half open, as if somebody had gone through them. He pulled out one that was full of correspondence. Taking out a pile of papers, he put it on top of the desk and looked around for something to put it on.

‘Oi, copper!’ called a voice from outside the building. ‘You OK?’

‘Fine,’ said Breen.

‘The boss says you should come out now. It’s going to go.’

‘In a minute.’

‘I’ll bloody catch it if you get squished.’

They would tear the building down. This crime scene would be gone. He had to see whatever he could, grab whatever he could.

He found another picture frame, face down, and picked it up. It would act as a tray. He placed the pile of papers on top of it and looked around some more, but it was hard to know where to start in the chaos.

‘What about upstairs?’ he said. They were running out of time.

‘What’s that you’ve got?’ asked Tozer.

‘Just some papers,’ Breen said. ‘If there’s anything you think might give us information about him, grab it.’

‘Right you are.’

Bedrooms could reveal things about a man. An unmade bed. Or a secret in a sock drawer.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Breen looked around for somewhere to put his pile of documents. The telephone table had been knocked on its side. He laid the picture frame across the fallen legs and went upstairs.

The late November light was thin. It was hard to make things out, but Breen could still see that the main bedroom was curiously undisturbed by the mayhem of the rest of the house and the street outside. The bed unslept in.

The bedroom itself was a surprise. An oriental fantasy. Moroccan lamps hung from the ceiling. Indian cotton drapes surrounded the
bed. The bed showed no obvious signs of a crime of passion. On the dressing table sat statues of Indian gods, next to a cluster of cut-glass atomisers. On the walls, more paintings that looked familiar. Very modern. He thought he recognised the pale fleshy pink of one of the fashionable painters who got drunk in Soho. Others were less recognisable, but they seemed not to have been collected out of the usual sense of duty, or the urge to fill the walls with things that looked right. They had been chosen by someone who clearly loved each one and had positioned them with care.

He wondered about taking the paintings off the wall to save them. They would all be destroyed with the house. It seemed a waste. But there was no time.

He returned to the wreck of the kitchen, where Tozer was picking through the rubble.

Voices from outside: ‘Oi! Coppers. Come out now.’