Breen recognized the nurse who had been there when they had set his shoulder.
“Not me this time.” He thumbed backwards towards the side room where the injured girl was being treated.
“What’s she mean?” asked the girl with the short curly hair.
“Detective Sergeant Breen was recently injured in the line of duty,” said Tozer.
“Serves him bloody right.”
“You didn’t have to run. He only wanted to ask you a question.”
“He didn’t have to chase us. Are we in trouble?” The girls huddled together, leaning against each other.
“No.”
“Don’t say anything, Fi.”
The injured girl was being examined by a doctor while they waited outside, sitting on hard plastic seats.
“What was the question?”
“Shut up,” said the other girl.
“Who’s your favorite Beatle?” said Tozer. She took out a packet of Polos.
“You chased us to ask us that?”
“Go on. Who’s your favorite?” She unwrapped the mints and offered them to the girls. They both shook their heads.
“I wouldn’t tell her. She’s a copper.”
Tozer laughed. “Don’t tell me then.”
“George,” said Penny Lane.
“Mine too,” said Tozer.
“Really?”
“You like George?”
“Yes. Detective Sergeant Breen here is a Paul McCartney man. Mint, sir?”
“Never,” said the curly-haired one, who seemed to be called Fi.
“No. I really do like George.”
“Fibber.”
“Test me.”
The girl bit her nails for a second, then asked, “What was the first song George ever wrote for the Beatles?”
“‘Don’t Bother Me.’ It was on With the Beatles.”
A pause, then the girl with short hair whispered something in the other’s ear.
“Come on. I’m waiting.”
More whispering, unticlass="underline" “Who played banjo on the soundtrack disc he’s just released?”
“Peter Tork from the Monkees. Rubbish, in’t it?”
“Yeah.” The girls both laughed.
The short-haired one said, “I been to George Harrison’s place.”
“You never. Inside?”
“Have so. He invited us in one time when we were outside and it was weeing down. He’s nice. He made us tea.”
“What’s it like?”
“Fabulous. He had a chair that hung from the ceiling.”
“You lucky cow.”
The girl smiled. She nodded at Breen. “He really a Paul McCartney fan?” she asked.
Breen shrugged. Tozer wrinkled her nose. “Not really, no.”
“Thought not. He’s a square.”
“Hear that, sir? You’re a square.”
Breen said, “You quite done now?” But he was smiling at her when he said it.
“You won that ‘Hey Jude’ competition that the Beatles Fan Club ran,” Tozer said to the girl with the long hair. “Penny Lane.”
The girl’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know that?”
Tozer pulled out the photograph of the three winners again. “Miss Pattison gave me this. I tried to find you at the address you gave. That squat. But the people there said you don’t live there anymore.”
The girl wrinkled her nose. “That dump was horrible. The toilets don’t work.” Then, “Oh my Christ. This is about Morwenna, isn’t it?”
Breen reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out the photo of Morwenna Sullivan. “You recognized this picture when you visited the Beatles Fan Club, didn’t you?”
The girl took the picture and stared at it, then looked at him suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”
Breen turned to the other short-cropped girl, Fi.
“What about you? Did you know her?”
“I’m not saying anything.”
They were suddenly quiet again. Nurses walked briskly past in sensible shoes on the work-gray lino.
“You see,” said Breen, “Morwenna was murdered last month. Possibly by her own father. We don’t know why. We’re trying to find out. If you can tell us anything at all, it would be really helpful.”
“God.”
“God.”
And they held each other’s hands, squeezing them tight.
Eventually the one who’d called herself Penny Lane said, “Well, we knew her, yes. But not that well.”
“She was just around a couple of times.”
“Quite a few times.”
“When you said she was around,” said Breen, “around where?”
“The Apple shop mostly. And EMI sometimes.”
“The Apple shop?”
“The boutique. In Baker Street,” said Tozer. “You know. That shop with the big wizardy mural thing on the corner of Paddington Street. Went bust after six months.”
“We all got some clothes when it went bust. Did you?”
“No,” said Tozer. “I was on bloody duty that day.”
“It was a bit of a riot, wasn’t it?”
“What did you get?” Tozer asked.
“I got a shirt. It was a men’s shirt. Don’t really fit me. I give it me brother but he says it’s too like what a wog would wear for him.”
Breen said, “What about the girl?”
“She was just around. That’s all.”
One girl said, “She was a George girl, wasn’t she? I saw her outside George’s a couple of times, I think. You should ask Carol. She’s the number one George girl. She knows all the George fans.”
“Isn’t the girl who was knocked over just now Carol?”
“That’s Carol-John. She means Carol-George.”
“Everyone’s got their own Beatle.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s Sue-Paul and Sue-John, for instance. She’s Sue-John”-the short-haired one pointed to her friend-“because she’s a John girl.”
The girl nodded solemnly.
“Carol-George. Haven’t seen her for a bit.”
“Where’s the best place to find her?”
“Where do you think?” she asked.
“Kinfauns?” said Tozer.
The girls nodded.
“She’s always there. A bit weird if you ask me. She never goes anywhere else,” said Sue-John.
“She’s a bit weird? What about you? You sleep outside John and Yoko’s flat.”
“Not every night, though.” She pulled out a packet of Juicy Fruit and offered one to Tozer. She took one. “You want one?”
“Who’s Kinfaun?” asked Breen.
The girls burst out laughing.
“Kinfauns. It’s the name of a house.”
“George and Pattie’s house.”
“Pattie?”
“George’s girlfriend.”
Breen shook his head. “So, what? You just wait outside their houses?”
The girl nodded. “Or the recording studio, yes.”
“Why?”
The girls looked at him like he was from Mars.
“Because they’re the Beatles.”
A nurse emerged from the room where they were putting a plaster cast on the broken leg of the injured girl. “You lot still here?” she said.
“How is she?”
“She’s not going anywhere today. Do you have her parents’ telephone number?”
Breen asked, “How do I find out where George’s house is?”
“I thought you were a policeman. You knew everything. Bet she knows where George’s house is.” She nodded at Tozer.
Tozer looked at the ground like a bad schoolgirl. “I might do.”
The other girls laughed. “See?”
Tozer took out a packet of Bensons.
“Can I have one?” said the short-haired girl.
“Me too,” said the other, taking her chewing gum out of her mouth and attaching it to the underside of her chair.
“Do you want to go in now?” the nurse asked the two girls.
They left the girls with their injured friend. The lift was at the end of the corridor.
Breen and Tozer stood by it, waiting for the doors to open. Once the lift came close, only to disappear down to the basement.
“Let’s take the stairs.”
“I’m in no hurry to get back to the nick,” said Tozer.
When the lift finally arrived and the doors opened, Frances Briggs was standing there, clutching an expensive-looking handbag in one hand and examining her face in a makeup mirror that she held in the other. “Well, if it’s not the detective. Going down?”
They stepped into the lift. “Back with us so soon?”
“Just delivering a patient.”