Breen ran out of the building, head still fogged with sleep.
Looking around, he caught sight of Helen, already a hundred yards away at the main road, doubled over, as if in pain.
He sprinted past parked cars, over municipal tarmac. By the time he reached her she had straightened.
‘Stitch,’ she gasped.
‘Thank Christ… I thought—’
‘Did you see him?’
‘Who?’
‘The man.’
She was panting, looking left and right.
‘Did he do something to you? Are you OK?’
She pushed past him looking out of the gate.
‘Shit.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was there. He saw us. Then he scarpered.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Your age. Ordinary. Like you.’
‘Ordinary?’ said Breen, looking around.
‘You know. Raincoat. Clean-shaven. Shortish hair. Ordinary.’ She paused at the edge of the busy road, scanning the far side. ‘He’s gone,’ she said.
‘Who was he?’
‘The man I told you about yesterday.’
‘The man who had been trying to get to that woman in the hospital?’
She nodded, still panting. They looked around. ‘He could have gone that way –’ she pointed east – ‘or there.’ South. ‘I’ll go that way.’ And she set off across the traffic, an open-top sports car honking at her as she strode out in front of it.
Not knowing who he was looking for, he headed south and found himself in an old shopping street, peering inside each shop as he passed. It was Saturday morning. The shops were busy.
He spotted only two men wearing macs; both were elderly. Another man carried one over his right arm, but he was bearded and round-faced, not like him at all. This was pointless.
He retraced his steps. It was a bare street; there were few places in which to conceal yourself and watch from but there was a short terrace of houses just beyond the main hospital and, assuming that Helen’s mystery man would be approaching from the north, he tucked in behind the corner on the far side of the road.
Cars passed, but few pedestrians. None of them was a man who looked a bit like him.
He waited, feeling that this was absurd. He was a professional policeman. He wasn’t even sure why he was doing this.
After twenty minutes he returned to the hospital. Helen was there, back in the reception area, sitting on the bench, looking pale.
‘Anything?’
She shook her head.
When the petrol-pump attendant was topping off the tank, Helen asked, ‘Do you have a map?’
The man in blue overalls wiped his hands and returned with a road atlas.
She opened it on the car’s bonnet and peered close. Tongue sticking out slightly, she traced the roads until she found what she was looking for. ‘How long would it take to drive there?’ she asked.
‘Couple hours,’ said the man.
‘Where?’ asked Breen. Helen dug out her purse and pulled out two shillings for the map.
It was a village called Hartfield. ‘Brian Jones’s house,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘To look at it, obviously. Where he died.’
Breen looked at the route. It was a longer journey, but it was on the way back to London, at least.
‘You want to look?’ He was interested now, in spite of himself. She had drawn him in, bringing him to see Kay Fitzpatrick; she knew what she was doing.
‘We don’t have to be at the hospital to see Elfie till three. It’s only midday.’
Breen got back in the car. It wouldn’t take long. Besides, he was reluctant to go back to London and its problems. He didn’t get a chance to drive much; he wouldn’t mind going a little further in this car. It would be fun, wouldn’t it, him and Helen, side by side? It was summer and the English countryside was green and lush.
But this time the road was slower.
As the car climbed upwards again up the North Downs, she said, ‘Sometimes I feel like I’m slowly disappearing. This thing is taking me over.’ She put her hand onto the roundness of her belly.
‘Aren’t you excited, though? Just a bit.’
‘Of course I am,’ she said, looking away, out of the window, towards brown fields of wheat. ‘Talk to me about your case, Cathal. I want to hear about it. Anything.’
So as he rounded corners, engine roaring, he raised his voice above the noise to tell her about Julie Teenager. About the suspects they’d eliminated, about the ‘Slavic’ man, about the woman who drove clients for the dead prostitute.
‘If I’d believed Florence Caulk was in danger…’ he said. ‘That was my fault.’
Like Sergeant Hope, she didn’t offer sympathy. She had been a policewoman too. All she said, looking ahead, was: ‘Another reason for you to find him.’
The only things he didn’t talk about, as they motored through the English countryside, was the florist and the yellow roses.
Cows had escaped from a field near Ditchling, blocking the road. On the twisting road from the South Downs, the queue tailed back for half a mile. On a small lane in the Weald, he had to reverse for what felt like a quarter of a mile to let a lorry through. Tucking into a space next to a stone wall, he scraped a long line of black paint off Helen’s side of the car. ‘Serve Klaus right,’ she said, fanning herself with the map.
Even with the windows down, it was hot in the car, sitting still with the summer sun beating down on it. Looking at the map, Helen tried to find a way round, but the heat was making her irritable and she got lost. They had to flag down a local copper to ask the way.
When they finally reached the village, the house was harder to find than they had imagined.
‘Shall we give up and just go home?’
‘We’re here now, aren’t we?’ said Helen.
They asked for directions in a pub but it still took them another twenty minutes to find the house. Eventually, they turned down a short lane that opened onto a large expanse of tarmac in front of a large, old red-tiled house.
‘I’m so bloody hot I’m going to die,’ said Helen.
‘You sure this is it?’ said Breen.
There were no cars parked by the house. The curtains were closed. Butterflies hovered over dead rose heads in the garden.
‘I think so.’
They got out of the car and walked into a courtyard filled with rose bushes. Somebody had left a bunch of wild flowers at the front door, stuffed into a jam jar; a wilting tribute for the dead.
The dead pop star’s home was silent, deserted.
Breen said, ‘Perhaps we should knock, all the same?’ But Helen was already rounding the corner to the left of the courtyard.
‘Come on,’ she called.
Breen followed her. The pool was behind the house, concealed from view by the house. It was ornately shaped, two rounded ends cut out of the rectangle.
‘Coming in?’ she said.
‘You can’t…’ He looked at the blue pool. It hadn’t been cleaned. Dead leaves lay on the bottom. A dying beetle swam slowly in the water.
‘Watch me.’ And in a single movement, she pulled the light cotton dress she was wearing over her head.
For a second she stood in her mismatched bra and pants, belly shining in the sunlight, grinning, half naked and magnificent.
‘Helen. What if somebody…?’
But she raised a leg, stepped forward and fell into the pool. Breen watched her sink to the bottom, sending the dark debris that had fallen into the water swirling upwards around her.
She seemed to be down there an age before her head broke the surface, short hair matted down around her head. ‘Fuck. It’s cold,’ she said, laughing.
‘Come out.’
‘I thought it would be warm. Aren’t you coming in?’
He watched her as she lay back on the surface of the water, bulge upwards, arms extended. The darkness of her pubic hair was visible through her wet knickers. She closed her eyes and floated, and he watched, envying her ease in the water, and her freedom.
Nobody came. The house was empty. Bees buzzed around a small, lichen-covered statue at the far end of the pool.
‘It would be so easy,’ she said, eyes still closed. ‘Wouldn’t it? To kill someone in water and make it look like an accident.’
They left the old farmhouse too late. Another traffic jam at Sidcup delayed them again. By the time they got there, the maternity ward was quiet, and the lights low. The matron at the front desk crossed her arms. ‘Visiting time is over.’
‘She’s on her own in there. We just want to say hello.’
‘She’ll have had quite enough to do. The mothers need their rest. You’ll be in here soon enough, by the look of things.’
‘How was it? The birth.’
The matron opened a book that lay in front of her on the desk. ‘Boy. Seven pounds, one ounce. Perfectly normal. Come back tomorrow. Three p.m.’ She slapped the ledger shut.
On the short drive home neither spoke. They both felt dirty and tired; they had been in the same clothes since yesterday. Helen’s dress was still damp in patches from her swim.
‘“Perfectly normal”. What does that mean?’ asked Helen.
Breen put his hand out and touched her belly.
Leaving her at home in the bath with a packet of cigarettes and an ashtray, he walked to Kingsland Road, where he found a Turkish shop that was still open and sold paprika. On the way back he looked round. A man in a suit, clutching a newspaper, looking out of place in this part of town, was walking about twenty paces behind him, but when he turned towards the cul-de-sac, the man seemed to walk on without hesitating. From behind the corner, Breen watched him, half expecting him to double back, but he didn’t.
In the flat, he began browning beef in a frying pan.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Cooking you something special,’ he said.
‘What did you say?’ The sound of gunfire came from the living room. She was watching a Saturday evening Western on the television.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
When he’d put the dish into the oven he went to join her in the living room; she was asleep, curled up in the armchair. He turned the volume knob down on the TV, and when he went to remove the dish from the oven she was still asleep, lying in the chair.
He woke her at eight. The table was set and he’d lit candles.
‘Why didn’t you wake me earlier?’ she complained, blinking, then saw the table. ‘What is this?’
‘Saturday night. I just wanted to do something to make you feel special.’
She looked at him suspiciously; at the candles. ‘Just a meal?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK,’ she said, standing stiffly, stretching lanky arms. She leaned over the table and sniffed the casserole. ‘What is it?’
‘Goulash.’
‘Sounds foreign,’ she said.
‘It is.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘I’ll try some.’
He ladled a dish for her and she dipped a spoon into the thick sauce and tasted it. ‘Nice,’ she said and smiled at him.
But just as he ladled a dishful for himself the telephone rang. Breen considered leaving it, but instead, picked up the receiver.
‘I think I’ve found your Russki, Paddy,’ said a voice.
‘Wilco?’
‘I put the word out, like I promised. If it’s the same guy, he’s at Tramp.’
‘What’s Tramp?’
‘Private club, new place. Jermyn Street. There’s a nig-nog called Olly on the door. He’s all right. He’ll let you in if you tell him I sent you.’
Jermyn Street. Breen did a quick calculation. It was in the right location; close enough to Bobienski’s flat. Breen looked at Helen, holding a spoon with a lump of beef in it. She caught his eye.
‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I understand.’
‘Sorry. I wanted this to be special.’
‘Don’t be stupid. I’ve got a dish full of stew. I’m OK. Did you say Tramp?’
‘You heard of it?’
She scowled. ‘Private club. Rich folk. Not my scene. Not yours either. You’ll look like a square there. Wear something… younger. You going to be long?’
He didn’t answer.
She nodded and pushed her bowl away from her.