Miss Pattison had called.
She had shown the photo of the dead girl to a few select fans. Within a day a girl coming to pick up a competition prize had said she recognized her. She hadn’t known her well; she had only met her twice outside EMI. According to Miss Pattison, all she told her was that she thought her name was Morwenna but she was definitely a Gemini, which she remembered because she was a Gemini too.
“Miss Pattison said the police would want to talk to her but the girl said she wasn’t interested in that and disappeared.”
“What was the fan’s name?”
“You see, she put her name down in the competition entry as Miss P. Lane. Only there’s no P. Lanes in the fan club. And then I figured it out. Penny Lane. Get it?”
“Get what?”
“Oh for God’s sake, sir, haven’t you even heard of ‘Penny Lane’?”
“Course I have. Just pulling your leg.”
“Very amusing.”
“What about that drink then, Paddy?” said Marilyn. “Later?”
“Another time maybe. What about Morwenna?”
“I was just going to say. No Penny Lanes, but I searched through every single file and I found eighteen bloody Morwennas. Who’d have thought? I’d never even heard that name. I mean, who calls a girl Morwenna? But only one Gemini. Bingo. Verden an der Aller. You think her family’s in Germany?”
Marilyn stood, took her mug back to the counter and left the canteen without saying another word.
“Military, more likely,” said Breen. “Stationed out there when she was born. What about the girl who recognized her? Do you have an address for her?”
“Went there. Turned out the address was that squat in Hamilton Terrace, you know?” A group of students had taken over a huge empty Regency house in one of the posher roads in St. John’s Wood a few months earlier; there had been a flurry of complaints at the time but they had died down. Breen was surprised to learn that the students were still there. “I did knock but I spoke to this guy who said she didn’t live there anymore. He would, though, wouldn’t he?”
Breen nodded.
“I got a photograph of her, mind.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a small black-and-white photograph. Three girls standing in line, each holding a copy of a single in front of them, smiling shyly into the camera. “Miss Pattison took it. For the newsletter she sends out. Our Penny Lane’s the one on the left.” A girl with long mousy hair, standing in a sheepskin coat, holding the record to her bosom.
“She’s OK once you get to know her, Miss Pattison.”
“Right.” Breen looked at the photograph.
“See?”
“See what?”
She frowned. “You thought I was just a nutter, didn’t you?”
“I never said that,” said Breen. “That wasn’t what I was trying to say at all.”
She looked away. “I’m still bloody starving. Haven’t eaten since that bit of cake and I never finished that. Are there any more sandwiches left?”
“You just had one.”
“So?”
“Let me get you one,” said Breen, standing. And then said, “Tozer?”
“What?”
“That was good, what you did.”
“I know.” She grinned. Then: “Ask if they’ve got any pickle, can you?”
The woman at the serving counter glared at him when he made it to the front of the queue with his tray. “Don’t know what you’re looking so flipping happy about,” she said to Breen, wiping greasy hands on her nylon apron.
Back at his desk he called the Ministry of Defence; the woman in the records office said she’d do her best. He was making a note of the conversation in his notebook when Marilyn passed close to his desk and whispered, “Only saying. She’s on the pill. It’s common knowledge. You know what that means.”
“What?”
“Helen Tozer. She’s an S-L-A-G.”
Marilyn raised her eyebrows meaningfully and then turned her back.
Thirteen
Breen opened the front door. “Sorry,” he said. “The place is a bit of a mess. I’ve been meaning to give it a clean.”
“You live here on your own?” Tozer had offered to give him a ride home. When she had pulled up outside, he had invited her in for a coffee.
“I moved out when my dad got ill. He needed looking after.”
She nodded. “Carmichael thinks that’s what sent you doolally, your dad dying.” He noticed she was wearing mascara. When had she put that on? When she was in the car, waiting for him to bring his briefcase downstairs from the office? If so, what did it mean when a girl got made-up? Did it mean she was interested in you?
“Doolally, he said?”
“Sort of.”
“I didn’t know you knew Carmichael?”
“We go out for a drink with the lads sometimes. How come you never go?”
He picked up a pile of newspapers from the armchair and stuffed them into a bin. “I haven’t had much time. I was looking after my dad.”
He stood there pursing his lips for a second before he said, “So. Do you want a cup of coffee? It’s real.” He bought his coffee beans from a Turkish shop at Dalston Junction and ground them himself.
“Friday night. I was hoping for something stronger. Got anything?”
“Stronger? Sorry, no.”
Standing in the middle of the carpet was a dining chair. Surrounding it were circles of paper, with big words picked out in colored pen, or pencil drawings. There were dozens of them. Some were names of people: Miss Shankley. Samuel Ezeoke. Some were words: “Locks.” “Lighter Fuel.” “Kynaston Tech.” He’d done another drawing of the dead girl’s body from memory in blue ink.
She picked up one of the pieces of paper. It was a map he’d been drawing of Cora Mansions. “What’s all this?”
“Don’t move it,” he said, too loudly. “I’m still working on it.” He yanked it away from her and replaced it on the carpet.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was curious, that’s all.”
She found the ink drawing of the naked girl. Her behind pointing upwards. The plump curves looked suddenly prurient.
“I am just trying to think things through.”
“With all this?”
“It’s about trying to see the connections.”
“It’s very good,” she said. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”
“I was going to go to art school, only my dad didn’t think much of that. So I joined the police instead, only he didn’t think much of that either.”
“So.” She pointed to the map. “You still think whoever did it is from round there? Even after Mr. Rider?”
“Yes,” he said, placing his foot over the writing on one of the sheets of paper and hoping she hadn’t spotted it.
Without asking, she sat in the chair and gazed around her. There must have been a hundred different pieces of paper around the room, some in pencil, some in blue ink, others in green or red. He realized how mad it must look. What had he been thinking, inviting her in?
“Why don’t we go out for a drink instead?” he said. “Just leave that stuff and we could go out?”
“Super idea. I could do with a drink after today.”
“Pubs round here are pretty rough.”
“I’ll feel right at home then,” she said, standing up.
When her back was to him, he reached down and picked up the sheet of paper on which he’d written her sister’s name, crunching it up into a ball and slipping it into his pocket.
Walking down Stoke Newington High Street, she said, “You asked me if I’d ever seen a dead body.”
“Yes.”
“You think I lied to you about that?”
“Did you?”
“I never lied. They never let me see my sister, after they found her. They said it would upset me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Breen.
“’S OK. I don’t mind.”
A car drove past at speed. There was a puddle by the gutter; Breen grabbed Tozer’s arm and pulled her back from the edge of the pavement just before the wheel hit the water, splashing it in an arc onto the slabs where she would have been walking.