“Can I help you?” called a middle-aged woman from the living room. “Men aren’t allowed upstairs.”
“I’m looking for Helen Tozer.”
The woman came to the door and scanned the tags. Tozer was in. “And who are you?”
Ten minutes later Tozer emerged down the stairs.
“You took your time,” said Breen.
“What’s got into you? I had to choose the right clothes. I mean, for God’s sake. What if George is actually there? The girls made me buy this on Saturday. What do you think?”
A striped frock with two pockets at the front.
“You look nice,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose. “I feel a bit daft in it, to be honest,” she said.
Twenty-seven
Tentatively, they walked past rhododendrons, up Claremont Drive, past the gates with the painted notice: Private. “You sure?” said Breen.
“Positive.”
An elderly-looking man in a tweed jacket was piling leaves onto a smoking fire in one of the gardens. He looked at them suspiciously.
“It doesn’t look like where a pop star would live.”
“And how would you know?”
The driveway curved round past small recently built bungalows until it reached a last one.
“There,” she said. “I told you so.”
But for the swimming pool and the hippie paintings on the wall, it would have been like any other new suburban bungalow. It was an ugly building, plain and oddly proportioned; it looked as if it had perhaps borrowed its window frames from another house, or maybe the pitched roof was just too big. It seemed an unlikely home for a member of the world’s most famous pop group.
The murals were florid and ugly. Bulbous swirls of pink and orange covered the bland walls, wiggles morphed into flames or faces, flowers and zigzags crawled over the plaster. In a few afternoons of stoned brushwork, people had attempted to prove that the person who lived here was not a stockbroker or a retired dentist like the neighbors.
“This is really George’s house?”
“Yes.”
“Where are all the fans, then?”
“I don’t know.”
There were no girls outside; it looked like the bungalow was empty inside too. Breen and Tozer sat on a low wall that had the words MICK AND MARIANNE WERE HERE written on it in bright yellow paint.
“I’ve never been around that many colored people in my life,” said Tozer. “You danced. I never thought I’d see that, either.”
“If you can call it dancing.”
“It was fun. I enjoyed myself.”
A petrol engine spluttered into life in a nearby garden.
“That man you danced with…” said Breen.
“He said he wanted to marry me and take me back to Biafra when they’d won the war.”
“You liked him,” said Breen.
“You jealous?” Tozer grinned.
“No.”
“He was a bit fast, you know what I mean?” she said. “Only I never been to an African party before. It’s an experience, isn’t it? Where I grew up there ain’t nobody dark. So I thought…”
“When in Rome?”
“I suppose.”
A hedge trimmer started gnawing the branches of a cypress hedge that bordered Harrison’s garden.
“Did you mind?”
“Why should I?”
“He said Ezeoke is having an affair with a white woman.”
“Mrs. Briggs?”
She nodded. “All that Africa stuff he goes on about all the time. Apparently everybody knows.”
“Yes,” said Breen.
“My guy at the party said he wanted to try an affair with a white woman too. I told him he’d have to find another bloody one, then. I’m hungry,” said Tozer. “I didn’t have any lunch.”
“You reckon anyone’s going to turn up?” asked Breen.
“I don’t know.” Tozer lit a cigarette and said, “My mum asked after you. She always does, regular as clockwork. ‘How’s that nice policeman?’ she says. I told her you were improving.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know. You’re loosening up. Letting your hair down. You danced on Saturday.”
“You call that dancing?”
“Not really.”
“What about your dad?”
“Not so good,” she said.
“Why?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she said, “How is your other investigation going? The guy in the fire.”
He told her about the meeting with the foreman; about how it was probably the body of a young Irishman who had got drunk on his birthday.
“That’s so sad,” she said.
“The foreman used to work with my dad,” said Breen. “I found his name from one of his address books.”
“Your dad was a builder?”
“Yes. And he knew my dad well, it turns out.” Breen told Tozer the story the man had told him, about his father and mother leaving Ireland.
Tozer sat on the wall, swinging her legs, smoking a cigarette. “And you never knew that. About your mum and dad eloping?”
“No. I suppose he must have been ashamed.”
“He shouldn’t have been.”
“It was different then, though.”
“That’s amazing. You only just found that out.”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I suppose…I resent the fact that he never told me about it.” He looked around at the bungalows with their neat lawns and hedges, wondering what the neighbors thought of having a Beatle living here.
“You should feel good. You came from love. That’s important,” she said.
A man in blue overalls appeared around the edge of the cypress hedge, holding the trimmer. He looked at the pair of them for a minute then bent down and tugged on the starting cord. It burst into life straightaway and he started cutting back the branches on George Harrison’s side.
“My family have been on the same farm for generations,” said Tozer. “At least he got away. He gave that to you. I think it’s why you’re quite good.”
“What?” The sound of the trimmer was deafening.
“You don’t fit in anywhere, do you? That’s why you’re good at what you do. You don’t carry any weight with you. ’Scuse me,” she shouted at the gardener, but the man didn’t hear.
Tozer stood and waved at him. This time he stopped and switched off the engine.
“That’s better,” said Tozer.
“You’re a bit old, aren’t you?” said the man.
“What do you mean, old?” Tozer said.
“It’s teenagers usually, hanging out around here.”
“Thank you very much,” said Tozer.
“We’re police,” said Breen.
The man looked her up and down. “You don’t look like police.”
“We were looking for a girl called Carol,” said Breen.
The man pulled a tin from his overalls and dug inside for a packet of tobacco. “Carol-George?”
“That’s the one.”
He looked at his watch. “She comes after school. She should be here any minute.” And he started up the trimmer again.
He was right. Not long after, she came walking down the driveway, dressed in a sheepskin coat and a pink crocheted hat. She was tall, almost scarily thin, with a long pale face framed by dark hair.
She frowned when she saw them there. “Who are you? Are you reporters? He doesn’t like reporters.”
“You waiting for George?”
“Free world.” The girl took off her hat. Her hair fell in front of her eyes; she took a strand, put it in her mouth and started sucking on it.
Tozer said, “Pattie and George not in?”
“No.”
“They away?”
She shook her head. “Not sure when they’re back.”
“So you just stay here?”
“Why shouldn’t I? I like it here.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing much. What’s it to you?”
“Nothing,” said Tozer.
“Don’t your parents worry?” said Breen.
The girl snorted. “What’s it to do with them?”
“You’re Carol, aren’t you?” he said.
She frowned. “Are you the policeman who was asking about Wenna?”