He put his head between his knees and closed his eyes. He felt bloated after the meal with Carmichael. After a few breaths he sat back and opened his eyes again. A pigeon fluttered down in front of him, cocking its head expectantly, flashing the wild iridescent pinkness of its neck feathers. The world seemed to contain a new level of indiscriminate significance he had never noticed before.
When you were a policeman you were trained to spot things that were out of the ordinary: a man waiting outside a bank, a broken window, a car with an unusual registration number. Right now, everything seemed to be out of the ordinary.
The small crowd of students was still giving away leaflets. One of them was strumming a guitar hung on string around his neck.
He waited another minute, and the sudden brightness passed. Clouds obscured the sun again, though the unfathomable sense of unease stayed with him, filling his chest again.
“You OK?”
He looked up. Constable Tozer stood by the bench. “I had a cheese sandwich. It was horrible. What did you have?”
He stood.
“So anyway. I went to Bourne and Hollingsworth.”
“Buy anything?”
“No.” She grinned. “I asked about the dress.”
“What? On your own?”
“It’s only just over the road. I couldn’t face finishing my cheese sandwich so I thought I’d drop in.”
“You’re supposed to have a CID officer with you. You know that. You’re just probationary. You’re not supposed to do anything without my say-so.”
Tozer’s smile vanished. Now she looked hurt. “I just thought it would be good, that’s all. What’s the point of me just hanging around doing nothing?”
“It’s procedure, that’s all,” he said, realizing as he said it that it was the sort of thing that Bailey would say. “Well? What did you find out?”
“No luck. I found a floor manager in women’s wear. She said they hadn’t sold anything like that in a couple of years.”
“OK. Next time, you should ask.”
“Yes, sir. Only…”
“Only what?”
“You’re not going to like this either, then.”
“What?”
She drew a circle on the tarmac path with her right toe. “I’ve got somewhere else we could go, if you like.”
“What do you mean?”
“Beatles Fan Club. It’s a ten-minute walk from here. I called them up.” She nodded towards the police box just at the north side of Soho Square.
“You did?”
“Only took a minute.”
“You shouldn’t…” He swallowed his words, remembering how he’d defended her to Carmichael in the restaurant a few minutes earlier.
“You were having lunch. I was just wasting my time otherwise.”
“OK, OK.”
In the car as she hurtled down Tottenham Court Road, he thought: men like Carmichael had grown up in houses full of women. They understood the company of sisters and their friends. At the age when Breen had been puzzling over the underwear section of the Littlewoods catalogue in the privacy of his bedroom, Carmichael had already heard what girls talked about amongst themselves. He knew how to charm them, to cajole them. To Breen, women could be a different species.
He looked at his watch. “I suppose we’ve got the time.” He peered at her in the autumn sunlight and said, “Is that makeup you have on?”
She smiled. “Maybe.”
“Did you have that on earlier?”
“No.” A small smile.
“Is it in case the Beatles are there?”
“Don’t be daft.” She laughed.
The address turned out to be a nondescript new block in Covent Garden, a narrow street that had recently started to fill with shops selling flowery shirts and flared trousers. The office was on the first floor.
“Welcome,” said the woman at the desk, in a voice that had little in the way of welcome in it. “I’ve been expecting you.” She was young and plump in a motherly way, soft-skinned and pink, with dark hair and two yellow plastic hoop earrings. Her name was Miss Judith Pattison and she sat behind a typewriter in a room that smelled of copying ink and Miss Dior. On the wall there was a framed photograph of the Beatles as they used to be three or four years ago, clean-shaven and smiling; they were on a beach somewhere, blue sky above them, blue water behind them. John Lennon was wearing a straw hat turned up at the front. Each had signed his name in black felt tip pen. One of them had written: “To Rudith Miss Pattison. Wish you were here!” They were looking right at the camera. Did he resent it, that four young men could look so aggressively at ease?
The room was crammed with filing cabinets and heaps of paper. A huge tower of brown envelopes sat on the floor; next to it were piles of photographs and a newsletter titled Official Beatles Fan Club. The filing cabinets had more mounds teetering on top of them. From the room next door came the clattering of keys and the blaring of a transistor radio.
“You’ll have to excuse the mess,” said Miss Pattison, peering out from behind more papers. “We’re extremely busy. Can I get you a cup of tea?” She spoke with a hint of a Liverpudlian accent.
“…To Daphne who works in a well-known carpet manufacturer’s in Manchester who says, ‘Dear Mister Skewball, can you play anything by the Hollies…’”
“Turn it down,” bellowed Miss Pattison over the noise of a roaring electric kettle.
“We were wondering if you could take a look at the photograph,” said Constable Tozer.
Miss Pattison placed a tea bag in each cup. “You said on the phone you think she’s one of ours?”
“We’re not sure. It’s possible,” said Breen, explaining where the body was found. “And she was around sixteen or seventeen years old.”
The electric kettle roared. “I do hope she isn’t one of ours. It would feel personal.”
A sparrow landed on the windowsill outside; someone must have left crumbs out for the birds, because when it flew off again, its beak was full.
“That sounds such a terrible thing to say, though, doesn’t it? Of course she must be somebody’s, if she’s not one of ours.”
“Can I ask you something?” Tozer interrupted. “Do you actually know the Beatles, then?”
Miss Pattison returned Constable Tozer’s smile and nodded. “They’re not round so much these days, of course. They have their own lives.”
“Do they come here?” Tozer asked looking around, awed.
“Goodness, no,” said Miss Pattison. “We tend to go to them.”
“To their homes?” Breen glared at her, but she wasn’t paying attention.
“If necessary, yes.”
“That must be so fab. I would love-”
Breen coughed.
“Sorry.”
“OK then.” He pulled out the photograph. It seemed a small, mean thing compared to the shiny black-and-whites of these four handsome men, who grinned, hands in pockets, for the camera. She was lifeless, in every way opposite.
Miss Pattison sighed. “It’s such a terrible, terrible thing,” she said. She picked up the photo and looked at it, then stood up with it in her hand and walked to the window so she could see it better.
Tozer spotted a signed photo of George Harrison on Miss Pattison’s desk. She picked it up and looked at the sunken-cheeked, mustached young man, and the rounded squiggle of a pen mark across the bottom of it. “George is my favorite,” she said, then looked up, caught Breen’s eye and hastily put the photo back. “Sorry.”
Miss Pattison was still, brow furrowed, looking at the other photograph; the dead one. The unglamorous one. “Do you recognize her?” asked Breen.
“No. But we have tens of thousands of girls. I can’t know everyone.”
Breen tried a different approach. “Have you ever come across any men who try and take advantage of the fans, perhaps?”
“Take advantage?” said Miss Pattison. “What? Rapists?”