She's Leaving Home (9 page)

Jones lit a cigarette and said, “So it looks like someone in the blocks then? In Cora Mansions?”

Breen walked to the door, opening it and holding it open, waiting to see if Tozer was coming back. “You’d ruled that out, if you remember,” he said. “You changed your mind, then?”

“Maybe I was wrong. We’re all wrong sometimes.”

Breen turned and nodded. “What beats me is why someone who lives in the block would dump a body there,” he said. “I mean, everybody who lives there would have known that the locks on the shed doors were fixed, surely?”

He looked back down the corridor. No sign of Tozer. She had disappeared.

“Maybe they were just trying to put the body in one of the sheds and were disturbed?” said Jones.

“Maybe.”

“Oh. Forgot to say. I found the girl who discovered the body.” Jones stood up and walked over to where Breen was standing and handed him a piece of paper with an address on it and a phone number.

“I’ll do it.” Breen read the address: a house on Abbey Road.

“Look out for the woman of the house; she’s a posh gob. She said I’d called at an inconvenient time and should have made an appointment.”

“Got any Sellotape, Marilyn?” called Breen. He let the door swing shut.

Without pausing from turning the handle of the copying machine, she said, “Bottom drawer, left-hand side.” Blue-printed sheets fell out of the Roneo into a growing pile.

Marilyn stopped for breath. The noise stopped. She reached out for a packet of No. 6’s on the top of the cabinet and lit one. “My boyfriend came by and bought me this.” Holding out her right hand, cigarette between the fingers, she showed off a small diamond ring.

Breen said, “That’s nice.”

“I think it’s hideous,” said Marilyn, frowning, holding the ring up to her face. “I’m never sure what to think when he buys me jewelry. He’s up to no good. You think I should chuck him, Paddy?”

“Don’t ask me.”

Marilyn wrinkled her nose and turned away. Breen began sticking pieces of paper to the wall to form a large rectangle. Fetching a pencil from his desk, he started drawing a rough picture of Cora Mansions on the paper.

“Look at the famous Irish artist,” said Jones. “Leonard O’Davinci. Get it? Leonard O’Davinci?”

When he’d finished, Breen got out his notebook and started flicking through it. “Who have we got alibis for?” he said.

Jones was interested now. He pulled out his own notebook and started reeling off names. There were thirty-eight flats in the block, seven of which were unoccupied. Breen found a green pen and used it to cross out all of the names they could eliminate.

“I mean, firstly, are we sure it’s the dead girl’s dress?” said Breen.

“It’s a dress. And she was starkers,” said Jones.

By the end of it there were eight names on the list. Five of them were on the side of the flats which would have been closest to the rubbish chute under which the dress had been found. Three had not been in when police called. Two were men who lived alone and who had not been able to provide alibis. Mr. Rider was one of them. Breen circled his name.

“What about the bag?” said Jones. “You said the dress was in a bag.”

Breen opened his briefcase and pulled out the bag. It was an ordinary brown paper bag with pale blue stripes printed on it; there was no name anywhere.

“What if I was to go round the shops with it and check which ones use bags like that? I mean, they’re all paper bags, but they’re all a bit different. You never know.”

“Nice idea,” said Breen.

Jones nodded.

Prosser was sitting opposite Jones, eyeing them. “Nice idea,” he said, imitating Breen’s voice.

Jones blushed like a schoolboy caught out talking to a girl by his mates. “Just a thought, that’s all.”

Bailey had heard the sound of voices and went to the open door of his office. “Have you seen Carmichael anywhere?”

“No, sir.”

“And you? Everything OK?” He stood in his doorway holding a small metal watering can.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” said Bailey, looking at them all, frowning, then turning his back on them.

Marilyn came up and said to Breen, “Your girlfriend is crying in the ladies’ toilets.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

On the ground floor, where the women’s toilets were, Breen stood outside the door. “Tozer?” he called. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I shouldn’t have told them.”

A sergeant in uniform came out of the gents next door to it, wiping his hands on his blue serge trousers.

“Helen?”

The sergeant looked at Breen with a knowing smile and winked at him. “Girl trouble.”

“Mind your own bloody business,” Breen snapped.

“Pardon me for speaking.”

Breen waited until he’d disappeared down the corridor, laughing, then said, “You in there?”

No answer. He sighed.

“I’m sorry. I was only trying to stick up for you.”

A voice from inside the toilets. “Mr. Popularity Contest sticking up for me is all I fucking need.”

D
oor-to-doors eliminated two more of the flats early the next morning; one was a single woman who had been out playing cards at a friend’s house. The other was a young girl who had been visiting in-laws while her husband worked shifts.

Miss Shankley was there at her front door, arms folded, as Breen walked past. “You stole my ladder.”

“I’m sorry. I had meant to bring it back. Only.” He raised his sore arm.

“I heard,” she said. “Well, it’s gone now. Someone filched it, didn’t they?”

He took out his wallet and counted out three pound notes. “Will that cover a new one?”

“But then I’ve got all the bother of getting it. What are you lot doing back here? I thought you’d finished.”

“Just routine,” said Breen.

Miss Shankley looked at him. “You think it’s one of us, don’t you? You think it’s one of the people here.”

Breen didn’t answer.

“I’m a woman living here on my own. If there’s some murderer living in our block you should tell us. I heard you’re looking for a sex pervert.”

“Who told you that?”

“I heard, that’s all.” You could never trust other coppers to keep their mouths shut.

At eleven, he and Tozer stood outside Mr. Ezeoke’s house, Breen with a raincoat held up over his head. He felt weary.

“I mean, why couldn’t you pretend that it was you that knew what it was? Nobody would have blinked if it was a feller said it.”

“I was just trying to give credit where it’s due.”

“Well. Thanks a bunch. Sir.”

It was one of the things that had buzzed around his mind: how exactly she had known. Distracting thoughts. They were not the only ones though. Several times he had switched on the light, picked up the notebook he had left by the side of the bed and stared at the pages he had written after visiting the Fan Club.

Samuel Ezeoke opened the front door and beckoned them into a large hallway. Cardboard boxes were stacked against one wall. “Ezinwa?” he called out up the dark wood stairs. “We have guests. Let me take your coats. Please excuse the mess. We have only been in this house a short time and we are still unpacking.” His accent seemed more English than Breen’s or Tozer’s.

Breen stamped to get the drips off him.

“So tell me why you need to speak to me,” said the man.

“We still haven’t identified the victim, so we’re talking to people again to try and see if there’s some detail that they may have overlooked.”

A stern-looking woman emerged down the stairs, dressed in a long skirt and white blouse with her hair tucked under a brightly colored headscarf. She was tall and slender.

“Ezi, they want to ask again about the killing of that poor girl.” He turned to the two policemen. “This is my wife, Ezinwa.”

His wife’s face softened. “Such a terrible thing to happen. I talked to a policeman the day before yesterday but I am afraid I was not able to be very useful. We have only lived in this neighborhood a short time.” Unlike her husband, who spoke perfect English, hers was strongly accented.

Breen had grown up in an England of cautious floral prints. The Ezeokes’ living room was a long way from that: loud and unfamiliar. It housed the biggest Pye TV Breen had ever seen and a walnut veneer music center with a stack of LPs leaning up against it. The one at the front had a bright yellow cover:
Dancing Time No. 5 Commander in Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and his Nigerian Sound Makers
. Large, dark wood sculptures sat on the mantelpiece. On the wall, a huge mask, wood stained white, eyes dark holes, raffia hanging from the bottom of it. Vibrant modern paintings hung unevenly on the wall. One, on the wall opposite the front window, showed a row of exaggeratedly curvaceous woman dancers, lines flying away from them in all directions. Two or three paintings were still leaning against the walls, ready to be hung; Breen remembered the Ezeokes had only moved into the house two or three weeks earlier. A gold-framed black-and-white photograph of a round-faced, bearded man in a pressed suit, sitting in front of a flag, hung slightly crookedly in an alcove. Above hung a huge ceremonial horsehair fly whisk. The place was crammed. It was like they owned more things than could possibly fit into a room this size.

“Please. Would you like a refreshment? Tea, coffee, Coca-Cola?” asked Mrs. Ezeoke. She towered over Constable Tozer. Despite the African-ness of her looks, her hair tied up in a headscarf that knotted at the back above the neck, her long-limbed grace, she seemed determined to sound as English as any of them.

“Now,” said Mr. Ezeoke. “You are having some difficulties uncovering the identity of the dead girl?”

Tozer bristled. “I wouldn’t describe them as difficulties.”

Ezeoke smiled. “I apologize. My wife tells me I often speak out of turn.”

“These are extraordinary paintings, Mr. Ezeoke,” said Breen, gazing around him.

“You like them?” beamed the man.

They were thick with color; strong black lines formed shapes that suggested large-bottomed women, pounding food in pots, or dancing. “They are by great Biafran artists. This one is by Uche Okeke and this,” he pointed to a smaller white canvas, “is by Chike Aniakor. Have you heard of them perhaps?”

Breen shook his head. “I’m sorry…”

“You will.” Ezeoke laughed loudly. “One day these canvases will be worth many thousands of pounds.”

Breen stared at the paintings’ clashing colors.

“You are from Biafra?” He tried to picture the country on a map of Africa but he had no idea where it was; he knew he had heard the name a lot in the news over the last year.

“Yes,” he answered. “I am proud to say I am.” His wife came in with a tray of drinks and a plate of biscuits, laid out on a paper doily.

“Eat, please.” She smiled. “My husband grew up here in England. But he is becoming more African than I am.”

“My wife, on the other hand, has gone native here. Please take one,” he said. “I cannot have one until you do.” Ezeoke laughed again.

Breen took a Chocolate Bourbon, Tozer a Chocolate Finger; Ezeoke leaned forward and took three pink wafer biscuits in his large hands.

“Biafra. It’s at war, I think?” said Breen.

“Of course,” said the surgeon. “My country is fighting a war of independence. Right now I can’t even travel home to see my relations. It’s a tragedy.”

“It must be hard for you.”

Their host could not answer immediately; he had put one of the pink wafers in his mouth and was chewing it. Crumbs fell from his lips. He picked up a glass of lemonade that his wife had poured for him and swilled down the biscuit. When he had managed to swallow it down, he said, “The British made lines on a map that have no relevance to a modern Africa, and for that we are paying with our lives. I am too old to fight, myself, but yes, many of my relatives are engaged in the struggle back home.”

“Old man, you are too old to fight but not too old to be polite. Don’t make a pig of yourself eating all the biscuits,” said Mrs. Ezeoke.

Breen tried to remember anything he had read about the war. It was confused, in his mind, with Vietnam. Facts came only in fragments. Hostilities had started last year. Part of Nigeria had seceded but he could not remember why, or which side had the upper hand.

“It would have been better if your government had recognized our country, of course,” said Mr. Ezeoke. “It would have been over in a few weeks if you had, and fewer people would have had to die. But you chose not to and supported the genocide instead. Because you’re still imperialists who want our oil. You’ll regret that. When we win, the countries who supported us will be the ones we let buy our oil.”

His wife clucked her tongue. “
Mechie onu.
These police officers have not come here to hear your political opinions. They are looking for a murderer.”

“I am sorry.” He smiled at Breen. “My wife is right. I wish I could help you more.”

Breen showed them the photo of the dead girl. Mrs. Ezeoke sat on the arm of her husband’s chair and looked at it with him. He furrowed his brow, then shook his head. “I’m sorry,” said Sam Ezeoke. “I wish I could say I recognized her.”

His wife tutted. “She is young. How terrible.”

They were sitting around a small, ornately carved African table, geometric patterns carved into the dark wood. An immense glass ashtray sat in the middle of it.

“I’ve got a question,” Breen said. “Had you noticed that the doors of the sheds next to where the body was found were open?”

“My God yes,” said Mrs. Ezeoke, leaning forward on the sofa. “The doors were banging all night. Every night. My husband almost got into a fight with one of the residents there when he complained because we could not sleep.”

The surgeon chuckled. “It was not that vulgar, Ezi. I was most polite.”

Breen pulled out his notebook and flicked through the pages. “Would that have been with a Mrs.…” He found the name. “Miss Shankley?”

“I didn’t ask her name,” said Ezeoke. “I don’t think she was interested in mine either. Though of course I could have spelled it out for her if she asked.” He giggled. “She told me to go home.” The giggles turned to laughter.

His wife scowled and muttered, “This is not a joke,
nna
.”

“Of course it is a joke. You cannot expect me to take people like her seriously.”

The doorbell rang. Mr. Ezeoke excused himself and went to answer it. Breen and Tozer could hear him speaking loudly to someone in the hallway.

“I am sorry about my husband,” said the woman. “He is all talk. He would not admit it but he was very offended by the woman he spoke to in those flats. Very upset. She was very rude to him.” She smoothed down her skirt and said more quietly, “I think she would not be rude to him if she was in hospital and her life depended on his work.”

Breen stood to go, and as he did so Ezeoke entered the room with another older gray-haired man.

“Are you going?”

“We’ll leave you. You have guests.”

“This is my good friend Eddie Okonkwo. A staunch supporter of the Biafran cause. Eddie, this policeman is a fan of the Uli school of art.”

“Are you? I have more in my shop,” said the wiry man, holding out his hand to shake. “You must come and visit me.”

“Well…”

“If you like African art, I sell it.” He pulled out a business card and handed it to Breen.
Afro Art Boutique. Fine African Antiques and Art. E. Okonkwo. Notting Hill 4732.
An address on Portobello Road. “I am very fashionable,” said Okonkwo with a smile. “All the in people come to my shop. Brian Jones. Terence Donovan. Susannah York. You know Susannah York? She is very, very beautiful.”

“Brian Jones?” said Tozer.

“Of course,” said Okonkwo. “My Ashanti stools are very popular. You should come before I have to put the prices up.” He laughed.

“Eddie. Must you turn everything into commerce?” said Ezeoke.

“Just one question. Where were you on Sunday evening?” Breen asked Ezeoke.

“I had dinner in town with a colleague and came back here around eleven.”

“And your wife can confirm that?”

“Naturally.”

“You were here alone until midnight,
nna
. I was with my uncle.”

“Of course. I forgot,” said Ezeoke.

“My uncle gets homesick. I have to go and cook Biafran chop for him.”

“It’s true. She does. She is the best cook in London,” said Okonkwo.

“You’re…?”

“Yes. I am her uncle,” beamed Okonkwo.

“And your colleague will be happy to confirm you were having dinner with him? Can you give me his name?”

“
Her
name. Mrs. Frances Briggs. Her husband is Senior Registrar at my hospital.”

Breen noticed Mrs. Ezeoke run her tongue around the inside of her upper lip.

They shook hands on the doorstep. The rain had eased off.

“That was strange,” said Tozer.

“Was it?” said Breen.

“Didn’t you think? All that African stuff.”

Breen shrugged.

“Don’t you think they must feel so out of place in England?”

“If they do, I sympathize.”

“And him going on about how rubbish the British are for supporting the other side, but he’s happy enough to come here and live off us.”

“He’s a surgeon. He probably pays more tax in a year than a copper would in a lifetime. He’s not exactly living off us.”

“You know what I mean,” Tozer said.

They walked down Garden Road to where their car was parked.

Straightaway, Jones appeared out of the alleyway from Cora Mansions. He was out of breath. “Paddy,” he said. “Been looking for you everywhere. I think we’ve got him.”

“What?” Breen and Tozer followed him past the sheds into the courtyard.

“The murderer.”

“Bloody hell,” said Tozer.

Miss Shankley was there at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in her housecoat as always, arms crossed, cigarette in her fist.

“Carters,” said Jones. He was excited, unable to stand still, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“What d’you mean?” said Tozer.

“Come out of the way.” Breen took his arm to pull him out of earshot of Miss Shankley. She craned her neck towards them, still trying to hear.

“You know I said I’d go and ask about the bag?” said Jones. “Struck lucky. Fifth shop I went into, the guy said it wasn’t his, but he knew where it was from. Carters hardware in St. John’s Wood High Street. I talked to the bloke who owns it. He says he buys them special thickness for tools, on account of them being so heavy.”

“Good work,” said Breen.

“Thanks.” A smile. “I got him to check his books, and you’ll never guess who’s got an account with him.”

“Go on.”

“Your Mr. Rider.”

“God,” said Tozer.

“Plus—and you’ll like this—plus, I asked Miss Shankley there, Rider doesn’t have one of the sheds.” Miss Shankley caught the sound of her name and smiled. “So he probably wouldn’t have known the doors had even been fixed. So maybe he was trying to stuff her into one of the sheds after all. Shall we bring him in?”

“This is it, then,” said Tozer.

“We arrest him, right?” said Jones.

Breen turned to Tozer. “Tell Marilyn we need a search warrant for his flat. Give her the address. Is he in?”