The Kings of London Read online

  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. Negotiat
ing. 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.’

  Breen said, ‘It was stronger than he realised?’

  ‘The squat sold good heroin. They got it from the clinics. That was what Hibou was doing. All of them in the Paradise Hotel. They’re registered addicts. They were getting prescriptions and selling some of it to fund the squat.’

  ‘He was getting them addicted so he could sell their heroin?’

  ‘Maybe. Only the clinics were giving them less and less, I suppose. So they started getting it from the gangs.’

  The porter was blowing a whistle, walking down the platform towards them.

  ‘Another thing. Frankie Pugh was still alive when Jayakrishna called Tarpey. He had overdosed, but he was still alive. They told Tarpey to send a doctor. But he never did. Jayakrishna says he was too scared of a scandal.’ The carriage jolted. ‘He let him die instead. Then they panicked, I reckon. Tried to cover it all up.’

  Breen’s desk had been cleared by the time he returned to the office. The balding man had moved to a desk facing the wall. He didn’t say a word about it.

  Wellington called at around three.

  ‘I’ll put you through to Detective Sergeant Breen directly, Dr Wellington,’ said the new woman, all hoity-toity.

  He missed Marilyn, in spite of everything.

  ‘I just called to say you were right, Breen,’ said Wellington. ‘The body from the fire was John Knight.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m bloody sure. I have Knight’s dental records.’ Maybe he was still angry at Breen for proving him wrong about Francis Pugh.

  Breen sat down and called up Deason at Scotland Yard.

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘Yes. You were right. It was Knight.’

  ‘Any news of Harry Cox?’

  ‘Not a rustle. We’re keeping an eye on the ports. He may have changed cars. The Bristol would be pretty conspicuous.’

  ‘What about Shirley Prosser?’

  ‘Long gone. Last seen before Christmas in a boarding house in Margate,’ said Deason. ‘We talked to the landlady. She left in a taxi heading for Dover.’

  ‘What date was that?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  Deason hesitated as if he was unsure he wanted to share this bit of information with Breen. A man from a different department, who had been a suspect in this investigation. ‘Four days before Christmas,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Spain,’ Breen said. ‘Johnny Knight had talked about escaping there. Perhaps she’s there too. Or Greece.’

  Franco’s Spain was a mess. It was easy enough for criminals and runaways to hide there. Greece was no better, both countries run by dictators.

  After he put the phone down, Breen did the calculation. Four days before Christmas. That was the day he and Tozer had visited them. She had taken his money and left just as soon as she could. He had given her the means.

  Breen went home after work, but when he got there he could hear the rock music coming from the flat above. It wasn’t just the volume. It was the deliberate moronic thump of it. The artificiality of the electric music.

  He went straight to the front door and knocked on it. A woman with short hair opened the door. She smiled at him. ‘It’s the man from downstairs,’ she called above the music.

  The man stuck his head out of the living-room door.

  ‘What is it?’

  Breen said, ‘Your music is too loud. Turn it down.’

  ‘Sure, man.’ And he turned away, probably intending to ignore Breen as he had always done before.

  ‘No,’ said Breen. ‘Really.’ And he pulled out his warrant card and showed them that he was a policeman.

  The man looked at the card for a second, then said, ‘Bloody hell.’

  The woman’s smile vanished. Breen was shocked to see how scared she looked.

  Afterwards he felt a little ashamed of what he had done, using his power as a policeman this way. Flashing a warrant card.

  But the music was much quieter after that. They were afraid of him now. He would sleep, at least.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  On Friday a cardboard box
addressed to Breen arrived at Marylebone. It was from Scotland Yard and contained all the notebooks and papers they had taken from him.

  It included the photographs of the burnt man. Breen laid them out on his desk for one last time, side by side.

  For over three months he had puzzled over the identity of the man who had died the night his father went into hospital.

  The puzzle of who he was had been solved, but nothing was fixed. Nothing had been made better. He had thought that the identity of the dead man would mean something bigger, but it didn’t. It meant something small and mean and greedy. A man who died over money. And whoever it was that had killed Knight had not been caught. And he had still let his father down. He had failed to love the man who had raised him alone.

  Creamer assigned him a new case that morning. Nothing complicated. Two men had got into a fist fight over a taxi outside Madame Tussaud’s. They were both drunk. One had punched the other on the side of the head and he had gone down hard. The winner of the fight had then disappeared in the taxi.

  The beaten man had not got up from the ground. He had been a costermonger from Covent Garden. He died from bleeding on the brain in hospital at around four in the morning.

  The dead man’s girlfriend had been more sober than either of the men. She had seen everything. Sitting in the front room of her parents’ house in Finsbury Park, she gave Breen a good description of the other man. It would be an easy case, Breen reckoned. Not the sort of case they would even be bothering CID with at other times of year. The girlfriend didn’t cry once. Sometimes she even giggled. It hadn’t sunk in yet.

  After interviewing her, Breen drove back up to Hampstead in the CID car, peering into driveways and garages, looking for any glimpse of Harry Cox’s car. The Standard and the Evening News had both carried photographs of Harry Cox and the missing vehicle. ‘London Man Sought Over Police Murder’. Few details though.

  Back at his desk that afternoon he tried to get used to the new room. It felt unfamiliar and cold. The new typist’s voice annoyed him. After lunch he called Scotland Yard again. Deason told them they had impounded all the files in Morton, Stiles & Prentice’s office to start figuring out where the money had been going missing.