“Yes. What they think about it all. About the murder. About who she might have been.”
“You’re the boss.”
The policemen drifted off back down the street away from them.
“Short odds she’s a judy like that guy upstairs says,” Jones said to Breen. “If this was Prosser’s case he’d have already checked the streetwalkers.”
“Then why don’t you ask Carmichael who the prostitutes are round here? He’s on Vice. He might have heard something.”
“You’re the one who’s all matey with Carmichael,” Jones said. “Why don’t you?”
Breen only half heard him. He was standing by the line of lock-ups, close to where the body was found and looking around him. He pulled an A-Z from the pocket of his coat and flicked through the pages until he found the one Cora Mansions was on. He looked from the page up at the streets around him. The alleyway at the back of the flats was narrow, too narrow for a car. If somebody had brought the victim in off the street they must have carried her. Strange place to choose to hide a body.
“I do hope you’re not feeling poorly again, Sergeant.” He looked up. Miss Shankley, housecoat flapping in the gentle breeze, was on the rear fire escape again.
“Fine, thank you, Miss Shankley.”
“Glad to hear it. No collywobbles today, then?”
“Miss Shankley,” he called up to her. “Is one of these sheds yours?”
“Third from the left.”
He went to the door and examined it. “It has a new padlock.”
“Should bloody hope so.”
“Why’s that?”
“Wait a mo.” She turned, then disappeared inside her flat. Two minutes later she had descended the front stairs and was standing next to him, tiptoeing around the muddy puddles in her fur-lined house slippers.
“They’ve all got new locks,” said Breen. All had been fitted with new brass hasps too. Ask about the doors.
“They were all broken into, weren’t they?” said Miss Shankley as she arrived at his side.
“Were they?”
“Three, four weeks ago. We had your lot round about it. Surprised you didn’t know that. It was a bloody nuisance. Took the caretaker that long to get round to fixing it. I’m really not sure why we pay a service charge at all. He drinks, you know. Thinks we don’t notice.”
Looking closer, under a new coat of paint, Breen could see the marks in the wood where each door had been prized open. He ran his fingers over splintered wood that had been covered with filler and sanded down. “So somebody came along and busted all these doors?”
“You can see why we don’t like strangers round here,” said Miss Shankley, nodding her head in the direction of the white house behind. “Things go missing.”
“Oh yes. Your new neighbors. The ones that arrived, I think you said, two and a half weeks ago. That’s a week after your doors were busted in.”
“I never actually said it was them, did I? You’re deliberately misconstruing me.”
The sheds were small. The doors all opened outwards.
“I mean, it’s not people like us who go around entering and breaking,” said Miss Shankley.
“Did you lose much stuff in the break-in?”
“No. Don’t keep nothing valuable in there. Paint pots. Household items that needed mending. That sort of thing.” Breen remembered all the fearsome china ornaments in her flat and imagined a space crowded with limbless tigers and headless pirates.
“Is that all?” said Miss Shankley.
He held up the A-Z and pointed at the space to the north of the flats.
“What’s this building here?” he asked, pointing to the map. Taking his eyes off it, he looked down past the lock-ups to the wall that separated the flats. You could see a roofline of what looked like a workshop of some kind rising above the brick wall.
“That’s that recording studio.”
Breen looked blank.
“EMI. The Beatles. You know.”
Breen frowned.
“Bloody nuisance,” said Miss Shankley, turning away.
“Tell me one thing,” Breen asked her. “What day were the locks fixed?”
“Last Friday, would you believe.” Breen did the calculation. The killing would have taken place two days later.
“How did you keep the shed safe before the caretaker fixed the locks?”
“Weren’t any point really, was there? Nothing left in there worth having.”
“So your door was easy to open-until three or four days ago?”
“Wide to the world. Some people complained about them banging in the wind. Can’t say I heard them, but it weren’t my fault, was it?” She turned and waddled away back into the courtyard.
“Which people?” called Breen.
“Them people.” She thumbed her nose at the white Georgian building behind the sheds.
He walked up Garden Road and turned left onto Abbey Road. Twenty yards from the junction, a young girl of eight or nine in khaki shorts stood crying under an elm tree.
Other trees had lost their leaves in the rain of the last few days, but this one stood greenly straight, alone on the pavement. Breen walked past, then stopped and turned. The girl was still sniveling, eyes red.
“What’s the matter?” Breen called back at her.
“My cat’s stuck up the tree,” said the girl.
Breen looked up. “I can’t see it.”
“She’s right at the top. Been there for hours.”
“She’s just enjoying the view.”
“No she ain’t.”
“She’ll come down in a bit,” said Breen.
“No she won’t.” The girl wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jumper.
“She will. You’ll see.”
“No she won’t.”
Breen walked on. By the next corner he stopped and looked back. She was still there, looking up at the tree, wetness shining on her face.
There was a low white wall behind which cars were parked. From a distance, it looked as if the paint was old and peeling. When he walked closer he saw that in fact the paint was relatively new, but hundreds of words were scratched into the surface. He peered to make them out. “Mo.” “Susan 4 George.” “I luv you John Mary B.”
He squatted down to read more. “Nina 4 Beatles.” “John xxx Lisa.” “Mary and Beth woz here 10/9/68.” “USA loves you.” “Wenna+Izzie always All we need is ¦.” “Pippi and Carolyn 1968.” “I shagged a Beatle”-“LIAR”-“NOT TRUE.” Painstakingly carved: “Those who make revolutions halfway dig their own graves.” “Hands off!!! I sor them 1st.” “Paul call me! V. important!! Greenwich 4328.” “Bob Dylan”-“cant sing.” “Kirby Hill girls love u.” “I was alone I took a ride.” “Kiwis are № 1 Beatles Fans.” “YOU SAVED MY LIFE.” “Jill = Scruffs.” “Apple rules.” “Leprosy I’m not half the man I used to be Since I became an amputee”-“THAT IS SICK”-“How DARE you?” “I am the walrus”-“no i am.” “WE LOVE CYNTHIA”…About thirty-five feet of wall, covered in these messages.
He walked round into the small car park. There were more words on the other side too.
“We paint over it every few months,” said a voice. Breen looked up.
The front of the recording studio was a large Georgian house, set back from the road. Standing on the steps leading up to the front door was a man in a brown caretaker’s coat, holding a clipboard. There was a pile of musical instruments at the bottom of the stairs: cellos and double basses.
“Don’t know why we bother. It’s like that again in a few weeks.” He leaned forward and checked the labels on the instrument cases, then made some marks on his clipboard.
“Mostly girls?” said Breen.
“Ninety-five percent.”
“How do they know when the Beatles are here?”
The man shrugged. “Sometimes they’re how we know when the Beatles are due. When they start arriving we know that means the Beatles will be in today.”
Breen wandered up to him and showed his warrant card.
“Oh yeah?”
“If I showed you a photo, would you be able to tell me if it was one of the girls?” he said.
“Don’t bother. Another copper showed us it already. The dead girl.”
“You didn’t recognize it?”