William Shaw - She's leaving home

There was a low white wall behind which cars were parked. From a distance, it looked as if the paint was old and peeling. When he walked closer he saw that in fact the paint was relatively new, but hundreds of words were scratched into the surface. He peered to make them out. “Mo.” “Susan 4 George.” “I luv you John Mary B.”

He squatted down to read more. “Nina 4 Beatles.” “John xxx Lisa.” “Mary and Beth woz here 10/9/68.” “USA loves you.” “Wenna+Izzie always All we need is ¦.” “Pippi and Carolyn 1968.” “I shagged a Beatle”-“LIAR”-“NOT TRUE.” Painstakingly carved: “Those who make revolutions halfway dig their own graves.” “Hands off!!! I sor them 1st.” “Paul call me! V. important!! Greenwich 4328.” “Bob Dylan”-“cant sing.” “Kirby Hill girls love u.” “I was alone I took a ride.” “Kiwis are № 1 Beatles Fans.” “YOU SAVED MY LIFE.” “Jill = Scruffs.” “Apple rules.” “Leprosy I’m not half the man I used to be Since I became an amputee”-“THAT IS SICK”-“How DARE you?” “I am the walrus”-“no i am.” “WE LOVE CYNTHIA”…About thirty-five feet of wall, covered in these messages.

He walked round into the small car park. There were more words on the other side too.

“We paint over it every few months,” said a voice. Breen looked up.

The front of the recording studio was a large Georgian house, set back from the road. Standing on the steps leading up to the front door was a man in a brown caretaker’s coat, holding a clipboard. There was a pile of musical instruments at the bottom of the stairs: cellos and double basses.

“Don’t know why we bother. It’s like that again in a few weeks.” He leaned forward and checked the labels on the instrument cases, then made some marks on his clipboard.

“Mostly girls?” said Breen.

“Ninety-five percent.”

“How do they know when the Beatles are here?”

The man shrugged. “Sometimes they’re how we know when the Beatles are due. When they start arriving we know that means the Beatles will be in today.”

Breen wandered up to him and showed his warrant card.

“Oh yeah?”

“If I showed you a photo, would you be able to tell me if it was one of the girls?” he said.

“Don’t bother. Another copper showed us it already. The dead girl.”

“You didn’t recognize it?”

“No. There’s so many of them. We don’t pay them any mind, really. They’re OK. Don’t do any harm.”

The man picked up a pair of cello cases and walked them up the stairs.

“Is there anyone else I should ask?”

“Almost certainly,” he said, returning to pick up a double bass. “But I don’t know who that would be. Best thing you could do is come back when the Beatles are here. Then you’ll see them all, all the girls.”

“When’s that going to be?”

“No idea. Sorry.”

“What is it they all want?” asked Breen.

“Who? The girls?”

“Yes.”

“They just want to be close to them.” He walked the instrument up the stairs through the front door and returned again.

“Do you want a hand?”

“You’re not allowed to touch the instruments. Union regulations.”

The man paused and took a tobacco tin out of his pocket. “It’s like they think if they can only get to them, everything will make sense. People think they must have the answer to everything. It would drive me mad. Wouldn’t it you?”

“Yes, it would.”

“They try and break in sometimes. We’ve had one or two who made it past the doors.”

“What happens then?”

“Nothing really. They just stand there. They don’t know what to do when they’re actually in front of them.” He licked his cigarette paper and spun the cigarette between his fingers, then went inside the building.

Breen left him and walked farther up Abbey Road. It was a genteel street of mansion houses and dull apartment blocks with few people on the pavements outside them. A butcher, blood on his apron, came out of a corner shop and started yanking down the shutters of his shop. Breen checked his watch. It was Wednesday, half-day closing. The place would be dead soon. He lit today’s second cigarette as he passed Hall Road and carried on until he reached Langford Place, then stopped for a minute, finishing the smoke before turning back.

The girl was still there, weeping beneath the elm tree. Breen walked past her a second time, then stopped. He turned round yet again and walked back.

“Does your mother know you’re here?” said Breen.

The girl shook her head.

“Wouldn’t she be worried?”

The girl shook her head again.

“It must be a very special cat.”

This time the girl nodded.

Breen returned to the alley behind the flats where the dead girl had been found. The ladder was still leaning against the large bin. “You in there?” he called, but the policeman who was supposed to be going through the contents inside the bin had vanished. The wooden extension ladder was heavier than he expected it to be, but he found a way to balance it on his shoulder.

“You. Where you taking that now?”

Miss Shankley was leaning over her rear balcony.

“I’m just borrowing it for a few minutes, that’s all,” he called back.

“Mind you do. That’s private property.”

By the time he reached the tree, the weight of the ladder was digging hard into the top of his shoulder. He dropped the ladder down onto the pavement and looked up at the elm. The lower branches started at around ten feet up; they were dense. It was hard to see a place on which he could balance the top.

“What are you doing?” asked the girl.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Keep your hair on. Just asking.”

Breen jammed the ladder up into the branches. Halfway up, one side of the ladder slipped off the small branch that had been holding it. Breen gripped tight as the ladder twisted. “Hold the ladder steady,” he ordered the girl.

She didn’t move.

“If you don’t hold the bottom of the ladder, I can’t go up it to try to find your cat.”

The girl put one hand on the ladder.

“Both hands. Don’t let it move. OK?”

The girl looked up at Breen and nodded.

A couple more rungs and Breen was in among the thick branches. They looked impossibly dense. He took a few seconds to choose a limb that seemed to offer a little more space than its neighbors, then cautiously wrapped his hand around it. The wood felt hard and cold next to his skin. Pulling himself up on it, he found a foothold for his right foot on the crook of a branch.

“Are you sure this cat of yours is up here?”

“Yes. He is.”

He looked up again. Leaving the safety of the ladder, he squeezed his left foot next to his right. Now he was in the tree, past the limbless trunk.

He paused again, considering his next step. He found himself smiling. He hadn’t smiled in weeks, it felt like.

The bark of the tree was creviced but his fingers were too big to fit between the cracks. He would have to rely on branches. He chose one above his head. Feeling bolder now, he looked for another to take the weight of his left foot. Raising his body upwards, his right shoe slipped suddenly from the branch, sending the weight of his body sideways, cracking into the trunk.

“Ow,” he said quietly to himself.

He had been careless. He would have to keep his feet directly on top of each branch. Leather soles had no grip.

He waited until he had caught his breath, then looked up again. “I can’t see him.”

“He’s right at the top.”

Again, he placed his left foot back on the same branch, more firmly this time. Hauling himself up with his arms, he was able to raise his body higher now into the leafless branches at the center of the tree. His body was twisted now, top half facing one way, legs the other, but there was something satisfying about having reached this place, above the traffic, away from the street. He must have climbed trees when he was a child. But when? He couldn’t remember.