Play With Fire Page 6

  It took him a second to realise the phone was ringing. All three men looked at each other, then Breen leaped up and launched himself out of the room, down the corridor.

  He picked up the handset and held it to his ear, saying nothing.

  ‘Hello?’ A man’s voice.

  Breen said nothing.

  ‘Julie? You there? Julie?’

  ‘Julie’s out,’ said Breen eventually. ‘May I take a message?’

  The other phone slammed straight down. Hearing a man’s voice instead of Julie’s or the maid’s would have unsettled him. Breen stood there holding the handset; it had only been a few words, not enough to get an impression of who he had been talking to, beyond the fact that the man was well-spoken, probably middle-aged.

  ‘Rang off?’ said one of the forensics team.

  ‘Has the phone rung before?’

  The man shook his head. Breen thought. As the week progressed, customers would be calling up to make appointments, but they would be expecting a woman’s voice.

  ‘Should get someone down at the local GPO,’ said the man. ‘Monitor the line at the exchange. If you can keep them talking for a minute someone can note down the switching settings and you’ll have their number.’

  Breen put the handset down and stood a while, thinking.

  The door of the first-floor flat above Payne was already half open. Breen pushed at it and called, ‘Hello?’

  ‘In here, Sarge.’ Mint’s voice came from down the hallway.

  The living-room ceiling was hung with what looked like a huge tie-dyed sheet in red and orange and purple. It draped downwards to head height in the centre of the room. Breen realised that it was a parachute. Light from a single bulb above it cast a coloured haze on the room.

  Mint was there, sitting on a beanbag, clutching a cup of tea which he put down as Breen entered the room. ‘Sarge,’ he said, struggling to stand.

  The four students were crammed onto a single sofa opposite Mint. ‘Hi,’ said a girl dressed in denim dungarees. The others nodded but stayed silent.

  ‘They say they knew her, Sarge,’ said Mint, lowering himself back on the beanbag again. ‘I checked their alibis. They were together all weekend.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t make them very good alibis, does it?’

  ‘But we were,’ protested one of the girls.

  Breen looked around for somewhere to sit. There were large cushions propped against the opposite wall but if he sat on them, he’d be even closer to the floor than Mint. He remained standing.

  ‘She was a cool lady,’ said the one in dungarees. She seemed to be the leader, the one others deferred to. The others nodded some more, looking sombre.

  ‘So, you knew her well, Miss…?’

  ‘I’m Lulu. Yeah. We were just telling your, um, colleague. Pretty well.’

  Breen looked around the flat. They had taken up the carpets and the boards were bare, with just an old Afghan rug lying under a tea chest that served as a coffee table. Sitting in the middle of it, in a large white enamel jug, was a bunch of yellow roses.

  ‘When was the last time you talked to her?’

  They looked at each other. ‘Don’t know really.’ The window at the front of the flat was crowded with spider plants, hanging in a maze of macramé holders.

  ‘Did you speak in the last week?’

  ‘Last week? Not really. No.’

  ‘But you knew her pretty well, you said?’

  The others started talking now too. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that well.’ One nudged the other.

  ‘What about visitors?’

  The two men both had thin beards; they glanced at each other and smiled. One giggled.

  ‘What?’ demanded Breen.

  ‘I mean. Her visitors,’ the man who had sniggered said. ‘They were, like, old men.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Lulu. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘I don’t know how she could put up with it,’ said the second girl, looking away.

  ‘She was a prostitute,’ said Breen. ‘That’s how she put up with it.’

  ‘When you think about it,’ said Lulu, ‘she was fucking the system. That’s what I always said.’

  Cautiously, the other three nodded.

  ‘What does that actually mean?’ asked Breen.

  ‘Taking money from the rich men. That’s what she was doing. I think she was brave,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Yeah. But old men,’ said the other girl.

  ‘Would you remember any of them?’ Breen asked.

  None of them spoke.

  ‘Did you see a middle-aged woman going up to the flat?’

  The four of them looked blank.

  ‘Her name was Florence. She worked with Miss Bobienski.’

  They shook their heads. ‘They were men. Men in suits. Dirty old men.’

  ‘How old?’ asked Breen.

  ‘Some as old as my dad,’ said one of the young men. ‘Like, forty, fifty.’

  Breen was in his early thirties. They would probably think him old too, he thought. ‘Would you know them if you saw them again?’

  The young man who had spoken hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t know.’

  ‘What about their voices?’ Breen asked.

  The young man looked blank. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They didn’t speak,’ said Lulu. ‘Of course they didn’t. They were ashamed.’

  ‘So you didn’t notice anything special about them?’

  ‘They were just men.’

  ‘What do you think they were ashamed of?’ asked Breen.

  ‘Cheating,’ said one of the boys. ‘They wouldn’t want their wives to find out.’

  Lulu shook her head. ‘They were ashamed because they were part of the hegemonic elite, yet a woman half their age had this power over them.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ said one of the boys, grinning nervously. ‘They were paying her.’

  And the four started arguing. They had such strong opinions of why these men came to visit the prostitute upstairs, Breen thought, yet none of them had observed anything about their appearance. The self-absorption of their generation made them poor witnesses. So far, an old man who couldn’t see, a caretaker who appeared to do his best not to notice, and four young people who didn’t look.

  ‘You’re here for the summer?’ he asked.

  They nodded. It was the academic holiday.

  ‘You’re not planning to go anywhere, are you?’

  ‘Why? Are we suspects?’ said the one called Lulu.

  ‘Of course you are,’ said Breen. ‘Until we rule you out.’

  ‘But the constable just said… We have alibis.’

  ‘Only for each other,’ said Breen.

  They looked at each other, shocked. ‘Do we need a lawyer?’

  Breen smiled, leaned down onto the tea chest and wrote a number on a page on his notebook, tore it out and handed it to the girl called Lulu. ‘If you think of anything at all that might identify one of the men, or if you see anyone you don’t recognise coming to the building, call me, OK?’

  She took it and nodded. It did no harm to scare them a little. They would be keen to demonstrate it wasn’t them, at least.

  ‘Anything unusual you notice, let me know. OK?’ As he put the pen back into his briefcase, he noticed a yellow petal on the plywood of the tea chest and frowned. There had been a single dying rose in a vase in Miss Bobienski’s flat, he remembered.

  ‘Where are the roses from?’

  The girl who wasn’t Lulu said, ‘Bob gave them to Lulu because he fancies her.’

  One of the two boys squirmed; he must have been Bob. ‘Stupid,’ said Lulu. ‘I don’t believe in relationships. That’s a fascist kick.’

  ‘I think it’s lovely,’ said the girl. ‘You should be grateful.’

  ‘Where did you get them?’

  The boy looked more uncomfortable still. ‘Found them,’ he said.

  ‘You said you bought them,’ said Lulu.

  He shook his head an
d said again, ‘Found them.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Breen.

  ‘Outside,’ Bob said. ‘Someone left them outside the front door.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. They were there this morning.’

  ‘So you picked up someone else’s flowers and gave them to Lulu? That’s pathetic,’ said the girl.

  ‘Was there a note?’

  ‘Shit. They were meant for the prostitute. That’s disgusting,’ said the girl.

  ‘No,’ said the boy. ‘I swear. There wasn’t anything. I’d have left them if there was.’

  ‘I don’t want them in my flat,’ said the girl.

  Lulu sounded more amused. ‘He brings me a dead whore’s flowers. It’s so Baudelaire. Or Verlaine.’

  ‘She’s dead anyway,’ the boy was protesting.

  Breen left them bickering, Mint following behind. ‘Sorry, Sarge, only they said they knew her. I did take notes of their alibis if you want to see.’

  On the way downstairs, Breen met the technician coming the other way. ‘I’ve got something you might like to see,’ he said.

  Mint followed Breen into the small dark room behind the lift. The technician had unbolted the electric motor from its housing and then removed the case.

  ‘The windings have shorted out,’ he said. ‘Look.’

  He pointed to a bundle of copper wires, blackened and tangled.

  ‘Are you saying it’s an accident?’ said Breen.

  ‘Nope. I think you may have been on to something. Look at this.’ And he picked up the motor’s metal case and handed it to Breen. It was surprisingly heavy. The engine’s housing was old, green-painted metal. As he held it, the technician pointed to a hole – a vent presumably. The surface on one side of it was blackened.

  ‘What?’ said Breen.

  The technician took the casing back off him and replaced it over the motor’s rotors. The burn was directly over the ruined copper.

  ‘So someone shorted it out deliberately?’

  ‘I’d say.’

  ‘What? Stuck a piece of metal in there?’

  ‘Something like that. Lucky he didn’t blow his bloody hand off.’

  ‘Or someone who knew what he was doing?’

  The technician nodded thoughtfully.

  Haas appeared as the man was unscrewing the whole engine from its mounting.

  ‘What is happening?’

  ‘This is evidence,’ said the technician.

  ‘Evidence of what?’ said Haas. ‘How will the lift work if there is no apparatus?’

  ‘Do you keep any tools down here, Haas?’ Breen said.

  ‘Behind you. A hammer. Sometimes I have to hit the engine. The rotors become stuck, you understand.’

  ‘What about a piece of metal, about this thick?’ asked the technician.

  ‘A screwdriver? What you want it for, mister? Don’t you have your own?’ Haas looked around the shelf where the hammer lay. ‘Should be a screwdriver here. Somebody has taken it, I expect.’

  They were back on the pavement outside when the girl from the flat – the one that wasn’t Lulu – came down the stairs barefoot, carrying the jug of roses. She stepped into the London street. There was a grey metal dustbin at the top of the steps down into the basement area. She lifted the lid and threw the flowers inside.

  NINE

  At the stroke of one o’clock, one of the sergeants said, ‘Who’s coming to the Crown? Paddy?’

  Breen was back at the Marylebone station, making calls. ‘Give me a minute,’ he said.

  ‘Where’s Minty?’

  ‘He said he had something to do,’ said Breen, cupping the mouthpiece of the phone. He was holding for a man from the Ministry of Defence who had gone to consult a card index in some distant Whitehall room.

  Miss Rasper answered her phone. ‘CID?’ Then called out, ‘There’s a young lady downstairs for you, Sergeant Breen.’

  ‘Young lady. Oi, oi!’

  Another voice was speaking in his ear. ‘Got him. Flying Officer Jan Bobienski. 303 Squadron. Spitfires, mostly. Hurricanes too.’

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  The man at the other end of the phone talked slowly, enunciating each syllable as if words were precious. ‘303 Squadron disbanded in 1946. According to this, he was demobbed. No other record.’

  ‘Pension?’

  ‘I haven’t got those precise details here. I can look if you like. Last address was in Gloucestershire, but that’s no longer current. There doesn’t appear to be anything else.’

  ‘Do you have any contacts from anyone else who would have flown with him?’

  A sigh. ‘I shall ask around.’

  Downstairs, Helen Tozer was sitting on the old wooden bench inside the front door.

  ‘First time I’ve been here since I left,’ she said.

  ‘Missing it?’

  ‘This hole?’ She looked around. ‘More than I ever thought I would, as it happens,’ she said. ‘Brought you lunch.’ There was a raffia shopping bag beside her.

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘Why not?’

  The other CID men came down the stairs, chatting and laughing. Creamer had joined them; he was the type who liked to have a drink with the men, whether the men wanted him there or not.

  Seeing Breen talking to Helen, he barged past the others. ‘Is this your good lady, Paddy?’ Creamer beamed, holding out his hand. ‘Will you be joining us?’

  ‘Helen’s just brought me some lunch,’ said Breen, butting in, taking her arm to help her stand. ‘Maybe I’ll join you later, sir.’

  They walked out into the grey London summer. ‘What if I wanted to go to the pub?’ said Helen. ‘Like the old days.’

  ‘Troublemaker,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t hold it down, anyway,’ she said. ‘But I miss it. I thought I was going to die on the bus. There was a woman going on and on about Judy Garland. She said she couldn’t stop crying. Saying how she was going to miss her.’

  ‘You never make lunch when I’m at home.’

  ‘Don’t get any ideas. It was just too hot to stay in the flat. And Elfie made a meat loaf. It was her idea for me to bring it, really. I just made the sandwiches.’ She stopped on the pavement and caught her breath. ‘My back hurts. I just want the little bastard out now.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be a bastard.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that kind of bastard.’

  They crossed the Outer Circle into Regent’s Park and found a space on the bank next to the boating lake. Helen had brought an old tweed blanket from her room; it had been his father’s. She laid it out on the thin grass and sat on it. Nearby a couple of young women from an office were trying to sunbathe in short summer skirts hitched up to their knickers, Dr Scholl sandals kicked off bare feet.

  ‘I feel ugly,’ said Helen, glaring at their thinness.

  ‘I think you’re beautiful.’

  ‘Shut up and eat so you can be as fat as I am.’ She handed him a slice of meatloaf and unwrapped a tinfoil parcel of sandwiches. ‘Oh,’ she said, pulling a battered magazine out of the bag. ‘And you might want to take a look at this. Elfie found it. I thought you’d want to see it.’

  Breen took it from her. It wasn’t a normal magazine, but one of the new alternative ones, amateurishly laid out, like Private Eye or International Times. This one was called OZ. The cover was a grotesque cartoon of a bare-skinned black woman with absurdly fat lips and huge red nipples. ‘Fingerlickin’ Good’, it read.

  Breen turned the cover back on itself so people wouldn’t be able to see what he was reading, but found he was looking at a page with a photo of a naked woman instead. ‘PUSSYCATS. A BRAND NEW SERIES OF FIVE SUPERB FEMALE PHOTOS. 10/-.’

  ‘Is this magazine even legal?’ he said.

  ‘Oh shut up.’

  He turned to the front pages. There was an article by Andy Warhol, then another by an American called Malcolm X and a review of a band named MC5. Everything seemed to be printed in orange and pink; it hu
rt to even look at it.

  ‘Why would she think I’d be interested in this?’

  She snatched it off him and flicked through he pages until she came to a page called ‘Spike File’. ‘Look.’

  Under a cartoon of a dead body, pierced by a thick spike, was a column full of tittle-tattle and paranoia. The first item was a self-righteous tirade, complaining about the magazine’s own printers who had refused to take material because of complaints about obscenity and references to drugs. The second reviewed Revolution for the Hell of It, telling readers it was ‘the most important book to leap from the Underground’.

  And finally there was a short paragraph:

  So it turns out there is a hooker called Janey Teenager working in London (not that we have need of her services!!). I’m told Janey is no teenager at all (longer in tooth), but all the same, very popular with a lot of what used to be known as The Establishment. Remember them? Youth is a commodity these days. An illusion to be bartered along with HIPNESS AND COOL. Don’t knock it. Capitalism is a tool, just like any other.

  ‘Janey?’

  ‘They got the name wrong. But it’s her, isn’t it? Klaus said he’d heard of her too.’ Klaus was the father of her baby. ‘She did some modelling too. It turns out she was quite the celebrity. Ham sandwich?’

  ‘Elfie found it? How did she know that I was working on this case?’

  ‘I told her about it, course.’

  ‘It’s work, Helen. You’re not supposed to be talking about it to anyone.’

  ‘I’m only trying to help.’

  Breen took the sandwich. It was about two inches thick on one side and barely half an inch on the other. He started on the thinner edge.

  ‘Maybe I can ask around?’ said Helen.

  ‘Maybe.’ He picked up the copy of OZ.

  ‘Don’t sound so enthusiastic. Do those pictures of naked girls interest you?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I was just looking. It’s my job.’

  ‘Liar,’ she said.

  ‘… Looking for the address of where it’s published.’

  ‘Notting Hill. I already looked.’

  ‘Where?’

  She pointed to the name of a street in W8, written in tiny letters on the inside cover. ‘Want to go there? I could come with you. Act as your interpreter. You’d need that.’