“Maybe we’ll go to the pub after, yeah?” Jones said to Tozer. “Celebrate. Us CID boys will show you how it’s done.”
“What’s going on?” called Miss Shankley from the bottom of the stairs. “You should be telling us.”
“Oh God,” said Tozer when they had walked round the corner. “See the way Jones was looking at me? Now they all think they can buy me a drink and then you know what. And he’s married, isn’t he?”
“And that’s my fault?”
“Yes. It is, matter of fact.”
Ten
Mrs. Broughton wore a collared blue dress with buttons at the front and a mid-length pleated skirt. Her black hair was held firmly in place by a layer of spray.
“She is a very silly girl indeed,” she said.
A Wedgwood teapot sat on the coffee table in front of her. There was a scent of geraniums in the air from a row of plants on the windowsill. She, Breen and Tozer all had cups full of tea in front of them. The silly girl, whose name turned out to be Joan, sat uncomfortably on the piano stool, fidgeting. She was dressed in her nanny’s uniform: a black woolen jacket and a gray skirt. Her cheeks were flushed.
“Why she didn’t think it important to tell me that my children had seen a dead woman I can’t think.”
The girl sat silently. Outside in the hallway a grandfather clock that had probably been in the family for generations ticked through each heavy second.
“I am sending her home to her parents. I have told the agency that I shall not be using them again. She is not suitable.”
“Have you been here long?” Breen asked the girl.
“She has been here almost two months,” answered Mrs. Broughton. She sat on the floral print couch, one arm lying across its back. “I suppose I’ll have to pay her till the end of the week. It’s very inconvenient.”
Breen observed the girl chewing slowly on the inside of her lip. He looked at her hands. Her nails were short and bitten. Unhappiness in the young is never well concealed.
“My husband has a senior position in the Foreign Office,” Mrs. Broughton said. “He would loathe it if there were a whiff of scandal about this. There is no reason for this to be in the newspapers, is there, officer?”
“I doubt they’d be particularly interested.”
“One small mercy, I suppose.”
“May we speak to Joan alone?” asked Breen.
“Alone? We are in loco parentis, for now at least. I think we should be there.”
“I’d prefer to talk to her on her own. There will be a woman constable present.”
A pause. A small smile. “Well, I suppose so.” But she showed no sign of finishing her tea and leaving the room.
“Perhaps we might talk to you in your room,” Breen said to the nanny.
The girl nodded silently, looking at her feet, then stood.
“She’ll show you the way,” said Mrs. Broughton, leaning forward to open a silver cigarette box that lay next to the teapot. “Please don’t leave without seeing me first, officer.”
Up the stairs in gilded frames hung dark portraits and joyless, damp-looking landscapes. The opposite of Ezeoke’s paintings.
The girl lived at the top of the house in a room whose ceiling was so low Breen could not stand up straight. Around the walls were Sellotaped pictures of pop stars and models cut from magazines. Breen recognized only Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton. There was a red Dansette on the shelves and an untidy pile of singles on the floor. A crochet hook and some wool sat on a chair. A spider plant that was badly in need of water. A small chest of drawers with clothes half pulled out. A small brown leather suitcase, half packed.
“Going home then?” said Breen.
“So I hear,” said the girl. She walked to the wall and started carefully peeling off the photos.
“Mind if I sit down?”
The girl nodded slightly. There was only one chair, so Breen sat on it.
“I’ll take the bed then, shall I?” said Tozer. The metal bed squeaked as she sat down.
The girl’s eyes were red; she rubbed the sleeve of her woolen jacket across them to dry them. Tozer pulled a hanky out of her sleeve and offered it to her.
“I’m sorry. I meant to call the police. Only I was worried what she’d say.”
“Why?”
She said nothing, lips scrunched up, and reached for another photo. A pop group clustered round a drum kit that had The Small Faces painted on it.
“It’s OK. We won’t tell her,” said Tozer.
The girl paused in her packing. “’Cause Alasdair had to have a wee-wee in an alleyway, ’cause I was talking to some boys in the playground and didn’t take them to the toilet when we were still in the park,” she blurted. “And we were almost home but he was desperate.”
“Alasdair?”
“Their son. I look after him.”
“And Mrs. Broughton wouldn’t have liked the idea of her son…?”
The girl shook her head. “And now she’s calling me deceitful ’cause I didn’t tell her. And a liar. And she’s the one who said she was going to pay me four pounds a week and she only pays me three pounds ten.”
Tozer stood and put her arm around the girl. “If I were you, I’d be glad to be out of here.”
The girl shucked the constable’s arm off her shoulders, continued in her work. “They’ll tell the agency, and all. And I won’t get another job now.”
“There are other jobs,” said Tozer.
The girl nodded. “I hate this place anyway. London’s a dump. Everybody says it’s cool but it isn’t. This room smells and Mr. Broughton is a letch. He tries to see me when I’m in the shower.”
“Never,” said Tozer.
“He does. I’ve seen him. You can see out of the kids’ bedroom right into the bathroom if you leave the window open. And you have to if you’re having a shower because it gets all steamy. I’ve seen him in there, peeking through the curtains.”
“What? Peeping Tom?”
She nodded and giggled. “And he has wandering hands, know what I mean? When she isn’t looking.”
“That’s disgusting,” said Tozer.
The girl grinned, half embarrassed.
“What does he do?”
“Puts his hand on my bum.”
“What a perver.”
“I know.”
“A groper.”
The girl laughed out loud this time.
“You’re best off out of it.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me,” said Breen, interrupting. “What do you remember of when you first saw the body?”
“I didn’t see much. Just her face. She had creepy eyes.”
“Did you recognize her?”
She shook her head.
“The rest of her was covered by the mattress?”
“Yes. You could have only noticed her if you were crouching down. Or if you were a little boy.”
“Did you see anyone there?”
“No. No one.”
“So. Why did you run away?”
“I don’t know. I was scared. And I didn’t want to get caught up. I was late. Mrs. Broughton would have killed me if I was late. She doesn’t like me very much.”
“Unlike Mr. Broughton,” said Tozer.
The girl laughed again, losing a little shyness each time.
“Do you ever talk to the girls who wait over the road?” Breen said.
“Sometimes. They don’t like me much, though.”
“Why not?”
“They’re real cliquey. I’m not one of them, am I?”
“What do you mean?”
She bit the inside of her lip. “They’re a bunch of loonies, if you ask me. Some of them sleep outside at night. And the clothes. They look awful, if you ask me. They’re all super-rich but they wear these dirty clothes. They give me the creeps.”
“You ever seen the Beatles there yourself?” asked Tozer.
The girl shook her head. “Mrs. Broughton don’t like me going over there. She saw me there once and gave me a real talking-to. She complains to the council about them. Says they’re spoiling it all round here.”
Breen pulled out the photograph of the dead girl. “Could you look at it for me?”
She looked and shrugged. “No. Not seen her before. Not until Monday, anyway. Is she dead in the photo?” She stared at it, fascinated. Then she handed it back and continued putting away her belongings.