William Shaw - She's leaving home

He turned off the car’s motor. “Do you have a mint or something?”

“No, sir. Sorry.”

Breen shook himself, then adjusted the rearview mirror to look at himself. He got out of the car to follow the copper.

The second-floor flats had their own walkway that ran along the front of the building. Faces peered out from behind doors as they passed. Breen had never minded it before. To be a policeman is to be watched. You were like a car crash. People stopped to gape.

The constable stopped in front of a green-painted door with a knocker in the shape of a pixie and a doorbell to one side. He rang the bell. A woman opened the door a crack. “This is Detective Sergeant Breen,” said the copper.

Breen stepped forward. “Good afternoon, Mrs.…Miss…?”

“Shankley,” said the policeman reading from his notebook.

“Miss,” said Miss Shankley, unchaining the door and standing back to let them in. Breen recognized her now. She was the woman in the housecoat who had watched them from the fire escape. She led them down a short corridor into a living room cluttered with china ornaments. Cheap plaster heads of leering Moors, one-eyed pirates, swarthy fishermen and swashbuckling highwaymen stared down from the walls. Shiny porcelain animals stood on every available surface.

Breen walked over to the window. The net curtains were drawn back. A family of white china cats sat on the sill.

“We’ve never had anything like this happen round here. Would you like a cigarette?” Breen shook his head and the constable did the same. “I have filter tips if you’d prefer? No?” Picking up a packet of Woodbines from the mantelpiece above the gas fire, the woman sat herself in an armchair opposite the television. On top, a pair of toby jugs stared at each other.

“Any idea who she is?” asked Breen. He looked back out of the window. The small crowd was still there, peering round the sheds at the policemen as they picked through the rubbish on which the girl’s body had lain.

“I heard,” the woman leaned forward, flicking a lighter, “that she was a prostitute.” She wore thick foundation that ended abruptly at the side of her face and at the line of her chin.

“You heard?”

“It’s talk. In the building.” She smoothed down her housecoat over her knees.

“Who was doing the talking, Miss Shankley?” Breen looked down at her.

The woman pouted. “I just heard it on the stairs. It’s amazing what you pick up.”

Breen looked down at his shoes. He wished she would ask them both to sit down, but she just sat there puffing on her cigarette. He had barely slept last night. He said, “Anything we know that could identify her is extremely important. Who did you hear it from?”

She sniffed, then said, “If you must know, it was Mr. Rider.”

The constable looked at his notebook. “Flat number 31,” he said. “Floor above.”

“That’s right. Are you going to mention that to him? Only, I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell him it was me as said so, you understand. I don’t want to cast any aspersions. This is a nice block.” Miss Shankley tipped the ash of her cigarette into a large ashtray. “How was she killed?”

“We can’t say yet.”

“Was she interfered with?”

“I’m not sure.”

“There was a woman abducted in a van on Abbey Road a few years ago. It turned out to be a young man who was a bit soft in the head who worked in the bakery. I don’t think he lives around here now, though.”

The woman sighed. The sound of a telephone ringing in the flat next door traveled through the walls.

“This has been a terrible experience. It’s really shocking for everybody who lives here, you know.”

“What were you doing when you found the body?”

“Not me, no. I didn’t find the body. It was the girl.”

Breen frowned. He looked over at the constable. “The body was first spotted by a young woman who was walking with a child,” he said.

“She was screaming her head off. I came out to see what all the fuss was about,” said Miss Shankley. “She was standing down there bawling her eyes out with these two poor little children.”

“Who is this girl?”

The constable shrugged. “Miss Shankley said she was wearing a dark uniform. Possibly a nurse or a nanny.”

“She ran off,” said Miss Shankley.

Breen remembered the girl he had seen before, watching the body being removed. He went to the window and looked down but the girl was nowhere to be seen. “Have you passed her description to the other constables?”

“Not yet, no, sir.”

“The constable here said you had something to tell me.”

“Well, yes, but I’m not sure it’s important,” said Miss Shankley with a prim smile.

“It might be,” said the copper.

“Yes, of course. It might be. Who am I to say? You are the professionals, after all.”

Breen rubbed his head. “Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked.

“I’m sorry. Rude of me,” she said. The sofa had plastic covers that squeaked as he lowered himself onto them.

“I feel so dreadful for the girl,” Miss Shankley said. “Even if she was, you know…I mean, being found naked too. So degrading. It was never like this when I moved in. It was lovely, this block. We used to have street parties down there.”

“My colleague said you…”

“You told me you had noticed some new people move into the building.”

“Not this building, thank heavens,” she said. “No, no. The house behind.” She stood and pointed out of the window.

Breen stood again, slowly, took a couple of paces to the window and looked out to where she was pointing. Behind the lock-ups, behind where the dead girl had been found and the wall against which the rubbish was stacked, was a white Victorian house, half hidden by a large lime tree that stood between the new flats and the older building. Paint was peeling from the wall closest to them and a leaky overflow pipe had left a green stain down the white wall.

Miss Shankley stubbed out her cigarette, smoothed her housecoat, then stood up. She picked up the ashtray and disappeared to the kitchen to empty it.

“When did they move in?” called Breen.

“Two weeks ago. Two and a half now. On the Wednesday.”

“You’re very precise about that.”

“You notice things,” she said, reentering the living room with the ashtray wiped clean.

“Like what?”

“Well, you notice things that are unusual, don’t you?”

“Not everyone does,” said the copper.

“I suppose not,” said Miss Shankley, smiling as she smoothed down her housecoat.

“Unusual?” asked Breen.

She lowered her voice. “They’re dark,” she said, as if they might hear if she spoke too loud.

“Dark?”

“Black. You know. Africans,” she said, as if he hadn’t understood.

“I see,” said Breen. He sat back down on the sofa. “Africans?”

“Well, they told me they were from Africa,” said Miss Shankley.

“Oh.” He sat back on the sofa. On the walls were three mallards, all different sizes, flying up in a diagonal line. He closed his eyes and rubbed each side of his nose with the finger and thumb of his left hand, then looked at his watch. It was past one o’clock. Lunchtimes in the pub were routine. He would not mind missing that today.

“Is that all you want to know?” asked the woman, disappointed at his silence.

“I’m just wondering why they told you they were African,” he said.

“Well, you see, at first I thought they were Jamaican. We had a Jamaican family move in last year. There was a lot of fuss about that. They didn’t stay. Perhaps they didn’t like it here. Well, it’s not their sort of place, is it? We were very relieved when they moved. I’m sure they were too.”