And that was that. The End.
Fin.
An incomplete trajectory. A moon rocket blasted upwards, failing to return to earth. It was just an imperfect job. There had been dozens like this before. So why was Breen so angry about it?
When Wellington called at around three o’clock to let them know that the pathologist had confirmed Pugh’s blood showed traces of the drug the end was official. The lid was being firmly screwed down. The investigation now centred on an individual or individuals causing an explosion likely to endanger life or cause damage to property.
Bailey was apologetic as he told Breen he would be transferring the case. Slightly embarrassed. The English establishment closing ranks.
‘It’s not like it’s a murder case now, anyway.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You did well, Paddy. You should be pleased.’
‘Only they probably won’t bother much because Rhodri Pugh doesn’t want them to dig up anything that will damage his reputation.’
‘Well,’ said Bailey with a nod. ‘That’s probably true. But the good reputation of our leaders is important.’
Breen said, ‘Of course it is.’
‘Don’t be arch, Paddy,’ said Bailey. ‘It doesn’t suit you.’
‘Don’t you want to know why someone went to such extraordinary lengths to cover up why he died? They stripped the skin from his arms and legs.’
Bailey picked up a pencil and stuck it into a pencil sharpener mounted on the edge of his desk. ‘Of course I do. I’m every bit as curious as you. But it’s not our job anymore.’
Bailey twisted the handle of his sharpener a few times, scritch, scritch, scritch, pulled the pencil out and touched the sharp point.
‘Please, Paddy. Don’t look so downhearted. You can have your holiday leave now, if you like.’
Breen closed the door behind him.
Jones was already packing up the thin pile of notes he had, preparing to hand them over to whichever copper took on the case now.
An hour of one-finger typing reports in triplicate that would be filed away and forgotten.
‘Where you going?’ said Marilyn as he put on his scarf and buttoned up his raincoat.
Breen didn’t answer.
‘Paddy?’
Breen yanked the door shut behind him and leaned against it.
‘Oooh,’ he heard Jones saying. ‘I think Paddy’s in a bate.’
Cases rarely ended simply. There were always loose ends. Or the wrong person getting off too lightly. He should not take it so personally.
As Breen stamped down the stairs, Tozer came clattering after him, folder under one arm, cigarette in the other hand. She called, ‘Hey, Paddy. Slow down. Where you going?’
‘Home.’
‘You can’t go home. You’re seeing Shirley tonight. Don’t say you’d forgotten.’
Breen paused. ‘No. Well, yes. I had.’
She took a quick puff and blew out a thin line of smoke. ‘You bloody gonk. I gave up my ticket to see that new Yardbirds group tonight so you could have a chance to meet a woman. Against my better judgement.’
‘I don’t know if I feel like it.’
Tozer snorted. ‘You invited her out. You can’t just not turn up. And maybe it’s not such a bad idea.’
‘Why?’
‘She needs friends. Almost as much as you do.’
‘Thanks a bunch,’ he said.
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘I’ll miss you,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘Six o’clock. Edgware Road.’ She turned and went back up.
‘Right,’ said Breen. ‘See you outside.’
He walked.
The slow route, passing time, winding through the back streets north of the Marylebone Road, past the chipped iron railings of Dorset Square and westwards, against the stream of head-down commuters pouring towards Marylebone station.
He still arrived outside Jumbo Records half an hour early. There was nowhere to wait; the cafes were closed and the pubs weren’t open for another hour and a half, so he walked up and down the road, keeping warm. By six, he was standing outside the record shop waiting for Tozer.
This was a mistake.
Tozer arrived in a police car, tires skidding to a halt outside. Three young bobbies inside, Tozer’s age, waving, laughing. ‘See you, Helen.’
‘Thanks, boys,’ shouted Tozer, waving back as they drove away.
Tozer had gone back to the section house and changed. She was out of the frumpy suit she wore to work and had a miniskirt and a denim jacket on.
She looked at him and said, ‘Didn’t you get any flowers?’
‘What?’
‘God’s sake, Paddy. I brought some Opal Fruits for Charlie at least.’
‘I mean it’s not like it’s a date,’ said Breen.
They rang the bell.
Shirley Prosser wore heels, had her hair in a headband and wore pink lipstick. ‘God. You look fab,’ said Tozer.
Shirley Prosser glared at Tozer for just a second. Younger girl. Shorter skirt. Smoother skin. Then broke into a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Come on up. I’ll talk you through what Charlie needs.’
Breen waited by the front door at the bottom of the stairs, hands in his pockets. If only he hadn’t told Tarpey anything about his suspicions that Pugh’s death wasn’t a murder… Men who keep secrets should not be trusted.
Shirley returned again. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Will she be OK with Charlie?’
‘She’ll be fine. She’s good with children. Shall we get a taxi?’
‘If you like,’ Shirley answered.
So they stood for a while by the kerb and Breen tried to hail a taxi, but the only ones passing had their yellow lights off.
‘Maybe we should walk a bit,’ he said. ‘Down to Marble Arch.’
And Breen marched off southwards, occasionally looking backwards over his shoulder for a taxi.
‘Can you go a bit slower?’ said Shirley after a while.
‘Sorry,’ he said. Still no taxi. Usually they’d be bumper to bumper.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘I can’t keep up.’
Breen held his arm up at a cab travelling the other way and whistled, fingers in his mouth, but it ignored them, roaring on northwards.
‘You want to rest?’
‘No. Just walk a bit slower, that’s all, can you?’
Breen hadn’t realised he was walking so quickly. He was about to apologise, explain that he was in a filthy mood, suggest they call the whole thing off and go home when a taxi finally arrived, pulling up next to them.
The restaurant in Frith Street was downstairs in a basement. The place was crammed, but Jimmy, the short, round Cypriot who owned it, beckoned Breen in and led them to a tiny table at the back. ‘Who’s this beautiful lady, Cathal?’ he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer, hurrying away to the door where another couple were already waiting.
‘What did he call you?’
‘Cathal. It’s my name.’
‘Everyone always calls you Paddy,’ said Shirley.
‘Everyone always calls him Jimmy,’ said Breen. ‘His real name’s Dimitri.’
There were a couple of damp menus on the table. Breen ordered a bottle of the Greek red, poured them both a glass and then drank his too fast. It was thick and vinegary.
She said, ‘I’ve not been to a Greek restaurant before.’
Breen was regretting coming here. He liked Jimmy’s and used to come here often on his own, but had never realised what a dive it must look to Shirley. A white-painted cellar, full of taxi drivers stocking up between rides, or the drunken artists who lived around here, after a cheap meal. Paper tablecloths and greasy cutlery. The two girls on the table next to them were almost certainly prostitutes, taking a break before the pubs kicked out and the customers started arriving. He should have taken her somewhere nicer. Somewhere classier.
She scanned the menu.
‘They do English food too,’ he said.
‘Don’t you think I’m adventurous enough to want to try Greek food?’
Jimmy’s wife appeared at table with a notepad. Shirley ordered stifado, giggling at the name. He ordered lamb kleftiko.
Shirley sat looking around the restaurant until the food arrived about twenty minutes later.
‘It’s nice,’ she said, after a first mouthful. ‘Is yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘Quite sure?’
She put down her knife and fork. ‘Paddy. Tell me something. Why the hell did you ask me out?’
Breen had a mouthful of lamb. He swallowed and said, ‘Sorry?’
‘You’ve hardly said a single bloody word to me since we got here. You have barely looked at me. You’re staring into the distance like I’m boring you to death. What did you ask me out for? Did someone put you up to this?’
Breen frowned. ‘I just thought you might like a break.’
She pushed her plate away. ‘You felt sorry for me.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It was nothing like that. Honestly.’
‘What? Single woman. Going through hard times. Easy to lay?’
One of the tarts snorted suddenly, holding a red-nailed hand across her mouth.
‘Is that what it’s about, Paddy? You got Michael the sack and now you want to get his wife in bed?’
Breen looked at her and said, ‘I liked you. I hadn’t expected to, I’ll be honest. I admire you, what you’re doing for Charlie. I just thought it would be nice to get to know you. I don’t think we’re that different. I promise you that’s all.’
Shirley put her napkin down on her plate. ‘Well, you have a bloody funny way of showing it.’
Breen said, ‘To be honest I didn’t have a very good day. Maybe we should go home.’
She glared at him a second longer, then seemed to change her mind. She lifted up the bottle, poured wine into both of their glasses and said, ‘OK. Why don’t you talk about it, then?’
Breen looked up at the ceiling with the rickety fan hanging from it. ‘Somebody just took away a case from me. I was getting somewhere, and then I was told to stop. That’s all.’
He took the glass of wine and gulped some down.
‘What case?’ she said.
‘I know I should be making conversation, but I don’t really want to talk about it,’ he said. ‘Can we talk about something else?’
‘Great,’ said Shirley. She looked at her watch. ‘What do you want to talk about then?’
‘What about you?’ Breen said.
‘Me?’ She looked down at her barely touched plate for a second, then looked up and said, ‘You sure about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK.’ She sucked on her lower lip for a second, then said, ‘I got up today. Put ointment onto Charlie’s sores. He wears a calliper and it chafes sometimes. I had to clean his sheets because he sometimes makes a mess of the bed. He doesn’t mean to. He has to wear a nappy, which he hates, and sometimes he has accidents. The local launderette won’t let me use their machines because they don’t like me washing my stinky stuff in their machines. He’s not exactly a baby any more. So I have to walk about a half mile with it to a Chinese launderette. Charlie has to come with me which is a bit of a struggle for him. And then we have to take the laundry back home. Charlie has to take pills for the pain he gets in his guts, and we’re running low. I wanted to get to the chemist to get some more, but by the time I did, what with the laundry taking all day, it was already shut.’
Shirley was staring right at Breen as this poured out of her. He didn’t dare look away.
‘Charlie gets bored because he’s just like any boy really. He loves Scrabble so I play it with him, but today he knocked the board over by mistake and upset the tiles all over the floor, then got really angry with me about it. Then got angry with himself. And it took me so long to calm him down that I got behind with his dinner.’
She paused, took a gulp of wine, but before he could think of anything to say, she continued. ‘And then I spent too long trying to get ready for this and he was angry with me again for not having time to help him with a puzzle he’s been doing. And we were just getting over that when you rang on the doorbell. And I don’t know why I bothered to dress up anyway. OK?’
A pause. The clatter of cutlery from the kitchen somewhere. Something shouted in Greek by a waiter.
‘It must be very hard,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘So I’m sorry. But I couldn’t give a damn that you had a bad day.’
‘You’re right,’ said Breen. ‘It’s not important.’
She finally broke his gaze and looked down at her plate. She relaxed. ‘I didn’t mean to do that. It’s not fair.’
‘No. I had no idea.’
She picked up a toothpick and broke it in two. ‘Michael never talked about Charlie, did he?’
Breen shook his head.
‘We should drink this wine. It’ll stop me from being such a bitch.’
She filled his glass again, even though he hadn’t drunk much. He reached out and took a mouthful to keep her company.
‘You’re not a bitch. It’s hard.’
‘Thing is, Michael’s not a bad father. But me and Charlie were never right for the police life. And that’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s a life. Michael was just like you. If something bad happened at work he would be angry. Just like you are. It can last days sometimes.’
She looked at him. He had never liked Michael Prosser. Now she was pointing out how like him he was.
‘Angry?’ said Breen.
‘Not so much with Charlie,’ she said. ‘But they were all like that in the section houses. The wives all learned to shut up about it. We just accepted it. That’s what it was like, being married to a policeman. That’s why I hated it so much.’
‘Aren’t you eating any more?’ said Breen.
She shook her head, pulled out a packet of Embassy Regals, tapped the cigarette on the outside of the packet a few times and then put it in her lips and lit it without offering him one.
‘I hated it in the police flats,’ she said. ‘I didn’t like all the other women. They were evil bitches. Having a cripple for a son was like I’d let the side down.’ She smiled. ‘All of them with their healthy, fit boys and girls. And then I just had enough of it. Of him.’
She sighed. Blew out smoke. ‘What about you?’
Breen picked up his glass and told her about how he’d moved out of a section house over six years ago to look after his father. Maybe it was the wine. He didn’t talk so easily about it, usually.
Now he found himself telling her about looking after his father as his dementia had taken hold. About how he’d had to juggle life in the police with coming home to feed and change a man who didn’t know him anymore.
She watched him, a softness in her face that hadn’t been there before.
When he finally ran out of steam, she nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We deserve better, don’t we?’
‘I suppose we do,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.
‘What for?’
She looked away, chewed on her tongue for a second and said, ‘For what you’ve been through, of course. Can we get some more wine? I never get the chance, normally.’
They ordered baklavas for dessert, though neither of them had ever had them before. Breen didn’t like the honeyed sweetness, but Shirley scraped the plate with her spoon.
When she was finished, she smiled. There was a picture of a small village by the sea on the wall. A slightly faded photograph of whitewashed buildings in a rocky bay.
‘I’d like to go there,’ said Shirley. ‘Greece. Somewhere on the Mediterranean. Far away. Blue skies. White buildings. Rocks and sand. I’ve never been. I could imagine me and Charlie, living by a beach somewhere. He loves to swim. He doesn’t feel so clumsy when he’s in the water. It’s like he’s free then.’
She kissed him on the cheek when the taxi stopped outside her flat. She smelt of perfume and brandy.
‘Thank you, Paddy,’ she said, opening the taxi door. ‘That was better than I expected.’
‘You didn’t expect much, then?’
‘Not really. I’ve given up on policemen.’
‘Can we do it again?’ he asked.
‘Maybe,’ she said, and leaned in to kiss him again. Soft skin against his cheek.
Upstairs, she sent Tozer down so Breen could drop her at Pembridge House.
‘You’re late,’ Tozer complained. ‘It’s almost one.’
‘I’m sorry. We went for a walk after the restaurant.’
‘Where?’
‘Just here and there. Around Soho. Across to Covent Garden.’
They had had drinks in one of the pubs that stayed open late by the market. They talked. She told him about how she’d wanted to be a film star before she was married. He told her about the holiday he was planning. They had both drunk enough not to be self-conscious.
‘Sounds super,’ Tozer said. Breen wondered if she was angry because they’d kept her up late or because he had gone out for a date with Shirley.
‘Well?’ Tozer said, staring out of the taxi window. ‘And?’
‘And it was a nice evening,’ said Breen. ‘She’s had a hard life.’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Nice?’ she said, still looking away. ‘Jesus Christ, Paddy Breen. I hope it was better than that. I just gave up one of my free last evenings in London for you.’
On Wednesday morning Cathal Breen had a hangover. So he called in sick. Why shouldn’t he? Everyone else called in sick. Everyone apart from Bailey. All he would be doing today was putting pieces of paper away. And he could not face doing that. Two failed cases to pack up. Two deaths, assumed to be by misadventure. He got drunk so rarely, once would not hurt.
And he was sick, afer all. Everything hurt. Even his teeth seemed to ache. It was an unfamiliar feeling and he hated it. His body was not used to drink.
‘Aw,’ said Marilyn, fuzzy and distant on the phone. ‘Is it a bug?’
He went to shave, but didn’t feel up to it. In the mirror, stubble seemed to be growing out of his skin as he stared at himself, face pale, eyes red. He cleaned his teeth twice, took two aspirin, went back to bed and lay looking at the cracks in the bedroom ceiling, wondering if Shirley had thought him a bore, talking about his father so much.
But despite the aching head he felt surprisingly good. Tozer had been right. It was good to ask a woman out, to walk and laugh and talk. And now it felt good to turn his back on work, for a day at least. He dozed in bed, feeling like a schoolboy, bunking off school. The fog was lifting a little.
And then the doorbell rang. And rang again. And again.
He ignored it at first. It would go away. But the doorbell sounded again. This time a long ring. A finger pressed hard against the bell.
At the door, when he opened it, a uniformed copper and a plain clothes man looked him slowly up and down.
‘Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen?’