She's Leaving Home Read online

  “I know.”

  “We all fuck up sometimes. But you need a fresh start.” Carmichael cracked a breadstick, sending crumbs flying. “I’m sorry ’bout your dad an’ everything.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I know he never liked me much. But all the same.”

  Breen didn’t contradict him. His father had never liked Carmichael and had thought even less of him after Breen followed him into the police.

  The waitress appeared. Carmichael ordered lasagna with chips and a pint of Harp.

  “Nothing,” said Breen. “I’m OK.”

  “Not eating?”

  “No. I’m not hungry.”

  “You got to eat, Paddy. You’re bloody skin and bones.”

  Breen ordered a spaghetti al burro and a glass of Chianti.

  “Give him a Bolognese. He needs a bit of carne.” She disappeared with the order. “I just want to help,” said Carmichael. “That’s all.”

  “I know,” said Breen. They had trained at Hendon together in the fifties. Looking at the advertising men and go-getters around him, he realized that Carmichael was one of them. He fitted in here. He was a professional. A go-getter.

  “Seriously. You used to be one of us.”

  “My dad was sick.”

  “We all know that. But we’re a tight bunch, coppers. And you’re either one of us or you’re not.”

  “And I’m not.”

  “Not what I’m saying. But all of us at the nick, we’re all tight. Used to be, anyway. These days the lads all think you’re Lord Snooty and all of his pals.”

  “There was nobody else to look after him.”

  “And all I’m saying is if you were still one of us, they’d be, ‘Oh, Paddy had a wobble but it could have happened to any of us.’ People would be giving you a second chance.” The drinks came and Carmichael sucked three inches off his pint, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Your dad’s dead now. It’s time to clean the slate. Don’t forget, I can put in a word with Pilch for you.” Carmichael took out a packet of Pall Malls and removed a cigarette, tapping it on the table a few times before he put it in his mouth to light it. “So. Arm OK?”

  Breen nodded.

  “What’s that girl like?”

  “She hasn’t stopped talking once.”

  “I mean. A plonk on CID. How can you be expected to work like that?”

  “She’s not that bad.”

  Carmichael raised his eyebrows.

  “No, seriously. She’s OK. She’s keen.” To his surprise, Breen realized he was sticking up for Constable Tozer. He was on the verge of explaining to Carmichael about what she’d spotted on the black dress but Carmichael butted in.

  “You can’t have women on CID. It’s not going to work. What would happen if you ran into some serious trouble?”

  “She might run away, you mean?”

  It took a second, then Carmichael said, “Ha, very funny. Why are you always trying to be so bloody obtuse? I’m offering you a chance here and you’re throwing it back in my face.”

  They looked at each other. He had deliberately irritated Carmichael. “Sorry, John,” he said. “I’m a bit tired.”

  “World’s changing, Paddy. Just say you’ll think about it, OK? About Drug Squad.”

  Sitting at the next table was a slender young man with shoulder-length hair, a flowered shirt and a gaudy women’s scarf wrapped around his neck. He was talking to a large middle-aged man in a pale suit. The waitress simpered round the hippie-looking one, so Breen reckoned he was probably an actor or a musician. He didn’t look like he was even twenty years old.

  Carmichael caught him looking at them. “Swinging bloody London,” he said.

  It was as if some kind of coup had taken place. The young and the beautiful had seized power. They had their own TV programs, their own radio stations, their own shops, their own language. In his early thirties, Breen felt cheated. Jealous even.

  Nodding vigorously, the large man in the suit laughed loudly at something the young man said.

  The food arrived. Breen looked at his plate, a pile of pasta slathered in meat sauce, and regretted ordering it. He picked up the fork and tried to lift the spaghetti. The pasta slid straight off his fork.

  “Eat up,” said Carmichael. “You need feeding.”

  Afterwards, Breen walked north towards Tottenham Court Road. The sun came out as he reached Soho Square and the small square park was filled with the unexpectedly vivid browns and greens of all the fallen leaves. The suddenness of color left him feeling exhausted. He reached a damp park bench on the path that ran through the middle of the square and sat down.

  He put his head between his knees and closed his eyes. He felt bloated after the meal with Carmichael. After a few breaths he sat back and opened his eyes again. A pigeon fluttered down in front of him, cocking its head expectantly, flashing the wild iridescent pinkness of its neck feathers. The world seemed to contain a new level of indiscriminate significance he had never noticed before.

  When you were a policeman you were trained to spot things that were out of the ordinary: a man waiting outside a bank, a broken window, a car with an unusual registration number. Right now, everything seemed to be out of the ordinary.

  The small crowd of students was still giving away leaflets. One of them was strumming a guitar hung on string around his neck.

  He waited another minute, and the sudden brightness passed. Clouds obscured the sun again, though the unfathomable sense of unease stayed with him, filling his chest again.

  “You OK?”

  He looked up. Constable Tozer stood by the bench. “I had a cheese sandwich. It was horrible. What did you have?”

  He stood.

  “So anyway. I went to Bourne and Hollingsworth.”

  “Buy anything?”

  “No.” She grinned. “I asked about the dress.”

  “What? On your own?”

  “It’s only just over the road. I couldn’t face finishing my cheese sandwich so I thought I’d drop in.”

  “You’re supposed to have a CID officer with you. You know that. You’re just probationary. You’re not supposed to do anything without my say-so.”

  Tozer’s smile vanished. Now she looked hurt. “I just thought it would be good, that’s all. What’s the point of me just hanging around doing nothing?”

  “It’s procedure, that’s all,” he said, realizing as he said it that it was the sort of thing that Bailey would say. “Well? What did you find out?”

  “No luck. I found a floor manager in women’s wear. She said they hadn’t sold anything like that in a couple of years.”

  “OK. Next time, you should ask.”

  “Yes, sir. Only…”

  “Only what?”

  “You’re not going to like this either, then.”

  “What?”

  She drew a circle on the tarmac path with her right toe. “I’ve got somewhere else we could go, if you like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Beatles Fan Club. It’s a ten-minute walk from here. I called them up.” She nodded towards the police box just at the north side of Soho Square.

  “You did?”

  “Only took a minute.”

  “You shouldn’t…” He swallowed his words, remembering how he’d defended her to Carmichael in the restaurant a few minutes earlier.

  “You were having lunch. I was just wasting my time otherwise.”

  “OK, OK.”

  In the car as she hurtled down Tottenham Court Road, he thought: men like Carmichael had grown up in houses full of women. They understood the company of sisters and their friends. At the age when Breen had been puzzling over the underwear section of the Littlewoods catalogue in the privacy of his bedroom, Carmichael had already heard what girls talked about amongst themselves. He knew how to charm them, to cajole them. To Breen, women could be a different species.

  He looked at his watch. “I suppose we’ve got the time.” He peered at her in the autum
n sunlight and said, “Is that makeup you have on?”

  She smiled. “Maybe.”

  “Did you have that on earlier?”

  “No.” A small smile.

  “Is it in case the Beatles are there?”

  “Don’t be daft.” She laughed.

  The address turned out to be a nondescript new block in Covent Garden, a narrow street that had recently started to fill with shops selling flowery shirts and flared trousers. The office was on the first floor.

  “Welcome,” said the woman at the desk, in a voice that had little in the way of welcome in it. “I’ve been expecting you.” She was young and plump in a motherly way, soft-skinned and pink, with dark hair and two yellow plastic hoop earrings. Her name was Miss Judith Pattison and she sat behind a typewriter in a room that smelled of copying ink and Miss Dior. On the wall there was a framed photograph of the Beatles as they used to be three or four years ago, clean-shaven and smiling; they were on a beach somewhere, blue sky above them, blue water behind them. John Lennon was wearing a straw hat turned up at the front. Each had signed his name in black felt tip pen. One of them had written: “To Rudith Miss Pattison. Wish you were here!” They were looking right at the camera. Did he resent it, that four young men could look so aggressively at ease?

  The room was crammed with filing cabinets and heaps of paper. A huge tower of brown envelopes sat on the floor; next to it were piles of photographs and a newsletter titled Official Beatles Fan Club. The filing cabinets had more mounds teetering on top of them. From the room next door came the clattering of keys and the blaring of a transistor radio.

  “You’ll have to excuse the mess,” said Miss Pattison, peering out from behind more papers. “We’re extremely busy. Can I get you a cup of tea?” She spoke with a hint of a Liverpudlian accent.

  “…To Daphne who works in a well-known carpet manufacturer’s in Manchester who says, ‘Dear Mister Skewball, can you play anything by the Hollies…’”

  “Turn it down,” bellowed Miss Pattison over the noise of a roaring electric kettle.

  “We were wondering if you could take a look at the photograph,” said Constable Tozer.

  Miss Pattison placed a tea bag in each cup. “You said on the phone you think she’s one of ours?”

  “We’re not sure. It’s possible,” said Breen, explaining where the body was found. “And she was around sixteen or seventeen years old.”

  The electric kettle roared. “I do hope she isn’t one of ours. It would feel personal.”

  A sparrow landed on the windowsill outside; someone must have left crumbs out for the birds, because when it flew off again, its beak was full.

  “That sounds such a terrible thing to say, though, doesn’t it? Of course she must be somebody’s, if she’s not one of ours.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Tozer interrupted. “Do you actually know the Beatles, then?”

  Miss Pattison returned Constable Tozer’s smile and nodded. “They’re not round so much these days, of course. They have their own lives.”

  “Do they come here?” Tozer asked looking around, awed.

  “Goodness, no,” said Miss Pattison. “We tend to go to them.”

  “To their homes?” Breen glared at her, but she wasn’t paying attention.

  “If necessary, yes.”

  “That must be so fab. I would love—”

  Breen coughed.

  “Sorry.”

  “OK then.” He pulled out the photograph. It seemed a small, mean thing compared to the shiny black-and-whites of these four handsome men, who grinned, hands in pockets, for the camera. She was lifeless, in every way opposite.

  Miss Pattison sighed. “It’s such a terrible, terrible thing,” she said. She picked up the photo and looked at it, then stood up with it in her hand and walked to the window so she could see it better.

  Tozer spotted a signed photo of George Harrison on Miss Pattison’s desk. She picked it up and looked at the sunken-cheeked, mustached young man, and the rounded squiggle of a pen mark across the bottom of it. “George is my favorite,” she said, then looked up, caught Breen’s eye and hastily put the photo back. “Sorry.”

  Miss Pattison was still, brow furrowed, looking at the other photograph; the dead one. The unglamorous one. “Do you recognize her?” asked Breen.

  “No. But we have tens of thousands of girls. I can’t know everyone.”

  Breen tried a different approach. “Have you ever come across any men who try and take advantage of the fans, perhaps?”

  “Take advantage?” said Miss Pattison. “What? Rapists?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Was she raped?”

  “She may have been.”

  “How awful.”

  “There might be someone out there who the fans know…somebody who they were already suspicious of.”

  “We have fifty thousand members. Do you expect us to call them up? Or write to their parents?”

  “Fifty thousand? You have a newsletter. Couldn’t you put a notice in that?”

  “Oh no. That would not be at all suitable. Not at all.”

  “Suitable? A girl is dead.”

  “And I am sorry. But our newsletter is not the place to discuss it.”

  “There must be other people we could show this photograph to?”

  “You can leave the photo with us if you like. Perhaps someone will recognize it.” Miss Pattison folded her arms. This was her world. She was not going to be helpful.

  “Are they doing a Christmas record for the fans again this year?” asked Tozer.

  Miss Pattison broke into a sudden smile. “Of course.”

  “I have all of them. I think they’re super.”

  “You’re a fan?” Miss Pattison’s eyebrows danced.

  “Of course,” said Tozer.

  “A member?”

  “Yes.”

  Miss Pattison paused. “What did you say your name was again?”

  “Tozer. Helen Tozer.”

  Miss Pattison stood and walked through the door into the next room. “Wait there,” she called, leaving them alone in her office.

  Breen blinked. The smell of the woman’s scent was eye-watering.

  “Do you like the Beatles, sir?” asked Tozer. “Or are you more of a Rolling Stones man?”

  “Neither.”

  “Bob Dylan?”

  Breen paused a second. “Are you really a member of this fan club?”

  Tozer looked at him like he was impossibly old.

  Miss Pattison returned beaming with two brown folders in her hands. She read from the top one. “Helen Tozer. Coombe Barton Farm, Kingsteignton, Devon.”

  “That’s me!” said Tozer in a high squeak. “Farm girl.”

  “You’re one of the older fans, then?” Miss Pattison said approvingly. “The newer ones don’t get envelopes. They just get index cards.”

  Tozer smiled back at her.

  “And up to date with your subs as well,” said Miss Pattison. “Good girl.” Breen looked at the policewoman, surprised. Returning to her desk, Miss Pattison read. “Join date: September 1963.” A broad smile filled her face. “My, my.” Then she looked at the second folder. “Now look at this. I have an Alexandra Tozer. Same address.”

  “That’s my little sister,” said Tozer. “She was the reason I joined. She was a much bigger fan than I am.”

  “She sent in a photograph of herself. A lot of you do that.” She pulled out a photograph of a girl, around fifteen or sixteen years old, standing in a snowy field. She was wearing a short tartan miniskirt and woolen tights, a blue denim hat with a little peak on it, and smiling at the camera. Her features had none of the solidity of her older sister; she was willowy and pale-skinned. “I see she’s stopped sending her subscriptions,” Miss Pattison said disapprovingly. “That is a shame. We lose a few more every year.”

  “Yes,” said Tozer.

  “You should persuade her to join again, you know.”

  There was a pause. “Don’
t think so,” said Tozer.

  Miss Pattison did not notice the way Tozer avoided her gaze as she answered. Breen recognized a familiar rawness in Tozer’s voice, something which had always been there but which he had never noticed before. He stood and said, “We’ll be in touch, Miss Pattison.”

  Tozer remained seated. She reached her hand across the table and took one of Miss Pattison’s. Miss Pattison looked slightly startled by the physical contact, but Tozer smiled at her confidently and said, “I know it’s hard and that you’re busy, but you will ask around, won’t you?”

  Miss Pattison hesitated. “Well…”

  “For a fan? Please?” Tozer took the girl’s photo, wrote her own name and a phone number underneath and passed it to the woman.

  “For a fan?” Miss Pattison was murmuring. “Yes, of course I will.” She smiled back at Tozer. “For a fan.”

  Breen clattered down the concrete stairs, glad to be out of that stuffy room.

  “You all right, sir?”

  “You keep asking me that.” It was late in the afternoon now. A man was wheeling a barrow with a single half-empty crate of apples on it north from Covent Garden.

  “Well, frankly, sir, you look done in.”

  “I’m fine.”

  They wandered down towards the market where the last of the costermongers were packing up. The day was ending. Soon the next batch of lorries would be arriving from somewhere in Kent, stacked with onions and potatoes. Tozer took out the signed photo of George Harrison that Miss Pattison had given her as they left and looked at it. “I think he’s gorgeous, even with the beard. I bet you don’t even have a favorite Beatle, do you, sir?”

  Breen shook his head. “I missed all that,” he said. “Too old.”

  “I never met anyone who didn’t have a favorite Beatle. Even my gran has her favorite.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Paul McCartney, course,” she said. “Go on. You have to have one.”

  The rain shone on the cobblestones outside. “I’m not really much of a pop music fan,” he said apologetically.

  “Go on, you have to pick one.”

  He laughed. “Um…I don’t know. Ringo Starr?”

  She stuck her tongue out. “No, no. You’re not taking this seriously. You’d never be a Ringo. You’re more of a John Lennon man.”