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 Last address was in Gloucestershire, but that’s no longer current.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 hurt 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.’

He put down the magazine. She was lighting a cigarette. ‘You’ve hardly eaten anything,’ he said.

‘Well? What if I come with you?’

There was a man dressed in white shorts and a tennis shirt running along the path. People stopped, stared. Nobody ran anywhere in London unless they were after a bus. The man was muscular and fair-haired, but as he approached, Breen saw he looked older than he had done at a distance. ‘I bet he’s American,’ said Helen.

‘You know I’d like you to, Helen, but you can’t come with me. You’re not a policewoman any more.’

She looked away. ‘I knew you’d say that,’ she said. ‘You’re so… boring.’

And she re-wrapped her own half-eaten sandwich in the tinfoil and returned it to the raffia bag.

‘I know you were trying to help,’ he said.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said. ‘Do it your way.’

They sat in silence for a while. A small fat boy in school shorts was throwing large chunks of bread at a pigeon. Each time the bird hopped towards one of the pieces the boy would throw another, attempting to hit it.

The constable was sitting on the bench where Helen had been when he got back to the station.

‘Paddy Breen?’ He stood. ‘You wanted to see me.’

Breen must have looked puzzled. The man added, ‘My beat includes Harewood Avenue. I was just about to go on, only the gaffer said I had to see you first.’

He was one of the tough old ones, late forties, face veined with red, either from being outside too much, or at the bar too long; one who walked the slow gait of a copper keen not to wear their shoe leather too hard.

‘Come on up.’

When the constable reached the CID office he looked around at the newly decorated walls. ‘My, my. Changed a bit in here, hasn’t it? Fancy nancy. You’ll be getting lace curtains next.’

‘Miss Rasper? Do you have a second to make Constable…’

‘Jenks,’ said the constable.

‘Constable Jenks here a cup of tea?’

Miss Rasper looked up. ‘Can’t you manage that yourself, Sergeant Breen?’

Breen hesitated long enough. She pushed back her chair and stood. ‘Fine then,’ she said curtly. ‘How do you like it, Constable Jenks?’

‘Time of the month?’ Jenks said aloud when Rasper had left the room.

‘Don’t think she has periods,’ muttered one of the constables.

Breen pulled up one of the plastic chairs to his desk and motioned Jenks to sit in it. The constable ambled across the room.

‘Lovely flowers, an’ all,’ he said. ‘Does the cup of tea come with a paper doily?’

On his desk was a vase of chrysanthemums. Breen stared for a second. ‘Why has someone put flowers here?’ asked Breen looking round.

‘Don’t you like them?’; ‘Prefer pansies, Paddy?’ All the usual.

But before he could say anything, Miss Rasper returned from the kitchen with a single mug of tea. ‘They’re mine, actually. The very nice Constable Mint here bought them for me. Unfortunately, I suffer from hay fever, so I cannot have them near me.’

Young Constable Mint blushed. ‘I didn’t exactly buy them for you, Miss Rasper.’

‘I’m wounded,’ said Miss Rasper, feeding paper into her typewriter.

‘No,’ said Mint, blushing more. ‘I didn’t mean…’

Miss Rasper didn’t smile, just started clacking away at the keys.

‘And you, a happily married man,’ said Breen, and this time he thought he saw a twitch in Rasper’s lips.

‘I bought them as part of the investigation,’ said Mint.

‘For your sergeant. That’s nice,’ said Constable Jenks. ‘I see how it is round here.’

‘After you left I stopped at a few of the local florists,’ Mint told Breen. ‘I wanted to ask if anyone had bought yellow roses off them early this morning. Most don’t do yellow roses, but the one outside Warren Street did. I thought I’d ask if he saw anything this morning. Old bloke there said he’d only talk to me if I paid for something, so I did.’

‘He bloody did see something,’ said Jenks. ‘He bloody saw you coming for one.’ A big laugh.

‘I was hoping I could claim them on expenses,’ he said.

‘Expenses? Lah-di-dah.’

‘Well?’ said Breen. ‘Did he tell you anything of interest?’

‘Man said he didn’t know. His son would have been there this morning. I should come back another day.’

‘I feel used,’ muttered Miss Rasper.

Breen sat at his desk; there was a note on it in Rasper’s handwriting: Squadron Leader Zygmunt Wojcik, and an address in West London. When he looked up, he noticed Jenks was frowning at the vase of flowers, so he grabbed it and put it on Mint’s desk on the far side of the room, saying, ‘Give them to your wife.’

When he returned, he said to Jenks, ‘You’re aware of the murder of the prostitute Lena Bobienski?’

‘Course.’

‘Did you know her?’

Jenks shook his head. ‘Never seen her, personally. Not until they took her body out.’

‘But you knew she was operating a business from that address?’

The constable nodded. ‘A business. You could say that.’

‘How?’

The constable blinked. ‘Well it’s obvious. Anywhere you see men coming and going in taxis after closing time is either a gentlemen’s club or something else. And I don’t think it was a gentlemen’s club, exactly.’

The best beat coppers had built years of experience; they learned the fingerprint of each individual street they walked, developing a skill for understanding what normal was, looking for anything that didn’t fit. The overdue tax disc on a car, the milk bottle left on the doorstep.

‘Would you recognise any of the men who went in or out?’

Jenks looked down at his shiny black boots. ‘That’s where it’s more difficult.’

‘Because?’

Again, there was a fraction of hesitation. ‘I don’t know. Just maybe didn’t pay attention because they weren’t no trouble.’

‘Really? Well, it looks like one of them was trouble. She’s dead.’

‘It’s a busy beat, you know it is.’

Breen picked up a pencil and flipped it in his hand. ‘Really? You didn’t notice who was going in and out?’

The man looked around the room, avoiding Breen’s gaze. ‘We get all sorts, you know. Sorry, Sergeant.’

‘Maybe I should have a word with your boss. Tell him you might need glasses. Or maybe that you’re getting too old for it.’

‘You do that,’ said Jenks, evenly. ‘Tell him I need a nice cushy job like yours. With flowers and everything.’

Breen had been hoping for more, but CID just rubbed some coppers up the wrong way. Constable Jenks stood, picked up the cup and drained what was left in it. ‘You used to be down the Louise in the old days. I don’t see you in there.’

‘My girlfriend is pregnant,’ said Breen. ‘I don’t go out so much.’

A small frown from the copper at the word ‘girlfriend’. ‘You should do,’ said the constable, slowly. ‘Show your face.’

Breen sat there for a while after Jenks left, flicking his pencil into the air, wondering what the copper had meant. Vice Squad at Scotland Yard had said they didn’t have a file on either Julie Teenager or Lena Bobienski. He had spoken to the women police, as Helen had suggested, but they had not been any more useful. They had all heard about Julie Teenager but none of them had ever met her. Because she was never any trouble, they said. The optimism of the morning was running thin.

The office was so much quieter than it used to be. The lino muted the clatter of boots and the modern typewriters were delicate compared to the big iron monsters that Inspector Creamer had thrown out. Even the new phones seemed to ring less urgently. Nobody was allowed to play the radio any more. He had never liked the idiotic chatter and the pop songs, but now he missed the noise. The silence made it hard to think.