“I don’t really know. She’s like this when she’s upset, you see.”
The major opened a series of terracotta pots, searching for tea. He was apparently not familiar with the kitchen.
“When did you last hear from your daughter?”
“Months, really, I suppose.”
He had found the one with the tea. Breen watched his hands shaking as he spooned it into a large white teapot.
“Can I ask why you were not in touch with her?”
“Wenna is difficult. We don’t see eye to eye on everything. Didn’t. God. What happened?” he asked for the first time.
“She was strangled. We don’t know who by.”
“Christ.”
“Her body was found a week ago. I’m afraid it’s taken us this long to discover her identity.”
“Oh Lord. Julia will be destroyed by this.”
He sloshed milk into four mugs, spilling it on the tray, then poured the tea too early, hands trembling.
“Why were you not in touch?”
“We argued, you see? From the start, she was wild. She didn’t like rules much. Didn’t like me. No good at school. Played pop music all hours. From when she was a teenager, we’d have a row, then she’d run off. For a couple of days or so at first. First time we found her living in the tree house I’d built for her in the woods. Proper girl scout. Then for longer. You know. Oh, where’s the blasted sugar?” Opening doors, a packet of Rich Tea fell out onto the floor. He placed it back into a cupboard that must have had at least ten more packets of biscuits in it.
The major picked up the tray, cups rattling as he walked with it. “You mind opening the door?” he said. In control, but barely.
The television was showing Softly, Softly. Breen stared. Police officer rings doorbell. Fact and fiction merging, overconnecting, in his state of tiredness. Every few seconds the wind rattled the windowpanes, and as it did so, the TV picture faded to a fuzz briefly as the aerial swung on its pole, high above them.
The room smelled of old dog, cigarettes and spilled alcohol. A log fire was barely alight in the large fireplace. There was an empty red wine bottle on a Pembrokeshire table. A full ashtray was balanced on the side of the sofa. Empty glasses here and there. An evening of watching television and getting drunk enough to face their bed. Or beds.
“I’m afraid the tea’s a bit weak, dear,” said the major. “Not much good in the kitchen.” His eyes were red from the whisky, and there were still blotches of it on his clothes, but it was as if he was pretending it hadn’t happened.
“I don’t want bloody tea,” she said miserably.
“Right you are.”
Above the fireplace there was a portrait of Julia Sullivan. In it she was wrapped in a blanket, presumably naked underneath, painted in the lush style of Singer Sargent, making her look saucy and aristocratic. There were shelves of modern novels and poetry. On the other hand, there was a cabinet with three twelve-bore guns and a.303 rifle, and next to that, more orderly, a shelf full of military histories, another about fly fishing. A school photograph; a long line of boys in front of some gabled building. A regimental crest, mounted on wood.
“I am sorry it was so hard to track us down,” said Mrs. Sullivan, attempting to light a cigarette. Her shaking hands extinguished the flame each time. Tozer pulled her lighter out of her bag and held it.
“What did you mean just now when you said it was all Major Sullivan’s fault?” said Breen.
“Well, I obviously didn’t mean literally,” she said. “That would be ridiculous.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“She couldn’t stand him,” she said. “That’s why she always ran away.”
The major sighed heavily and sat down in an armchair next to the retriever, leaning down to rub the dog’s belly. The dog growled softly.
“We do have questions, I’m afraid,” said Breen.
“Perhaps you could leave them for tomorrow. It’s late,” said the major. “It has been a shock.”
“May we sit down? Just for a minute.”
Gruffly: “Yes.”
Breen moved a copy of a society magazine so he could sit in a large armchair and told them the few details he had. A date, a means of death, a murderer who wished to conceal the identity of his victim by leaving her naked, a lack of other clues. A single tear made a track down Mrs. Sullivan’s cheek. The major sat stolidly, back straight, embarrassed by everything.
“We will need to build up a picture of what she was like. What friends she had as a child.”
“Yes.”
“One main question for now. Do you remember when you last spoke to your daughter?”
“I’d have to check my diary,” said the major.
“July the fourth. American Independence Day,” said Mrs. Sullivan. “The day you drove her back to London.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“She had come from London on a visit. I’d hoped she would stay.” She blew smoke out of her nose, looking at her husband with unconcealed bitterness.
“That’ll be it,” said the major. He wrinkled his nose.
“A broken heart. Tears and tantrums,” said her mother. “You know how it is. Your world is ending.”
“She’d split up with a boyfriend?”
There was a pause. Major Sullivan and his wife exchanged a glance. “She never told us anything about her love life, of course. She was off her food.”
The major grimaced. “Love life,” he said.
“She stayed two nights and then twisted Mal’s arm to drive her back up to London. I don’t enjoy driving.”
“Last time I saw her,” said the major.
“Where did she want to be taken?”
“She wanted Mal to help move her belongings from the room she’d been staying in with her lover.”
“Hovel, more like,” said the major. “A house full of long hairs and draft dodgers.”
“Mal. Behave.”
“Where did you take her to?”
“Similar kind of spot. Edgware Road. Basement that reeked of mold. She moved out a couple of weeks later. Never told us where.”
“And this boyfriend?”
The two looked at each other again.
“Not really a boyfriend,” said Mrs. Sullivan.
“How do you mean?”
“She was determined to be everything I didn’t want her to be,” said Major Sullivan.
His wife said quietly, “Morwenna believed she was a Sapphist. I don’t know. I think it may have been a phase…”
“She was in love with…another girl?”
Mrs. Sullivan nodded. “Not that I cared. Unlike Mal.”
“Do you have any idea who her friend was?”
“She didn’t talk to us about it.”
“No idea,” said the major.
“And you haven’t spoken since?”
The woman shook her head.
“Any letters?”
Again, she shook her head.
“And you, sir?”
He looked at the floor. “Not a dickie bird.”
The woman rolled her eyes at her husband’s turn of phrase.
“So you had no idea where she was staying in the days before she died?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Mal, for goodness’ sake.”
“She was difficult.”
“Mal. She’s dead.”
He looked down at the floor.
“Where is she now?”
“Her body is at University College Hospital. We would like you to identify her as soon as you feel up to it.”
Asleep in front of the fire, the old golden retriever twitched his paws, chasing squirrels in a dog dream.
“She had fallen in with a bad lot,” said the major.
“You don’t know that,” said Mrs. Sullivan. “You just make that up.”
“Squatters and ne’er-do-wells, I used to say. Thrill seekers.”
“Please, Mal. For pity’s sake.”
“She did ring a couple of times after we saw her, to say hello. But she hadn’t done that for a long time.”
Breen said, “She was a fan of the Beatles. We believe she may have spent some time with other fans.”
The major snorted. “The bloody Beatles.”
“Yes, she was a fan. She loved all sorts of music.”
“If you can call it that.”
“Mal!” she shouted. “Stop it, stop it, stop it. She’s bloody dead, you idiot.”