William Shaw - She's leaving home

“She ever come back to your place?”

Carmichael and Breen were standing on a traffic island, marooned by speeding cars. Carmichael picked his moments to talk about this stuff.

“Yes.” Breen was looking at the westbound traffic, waiting for a gap. The skin stung on his face from where Marilyn had slapped him.

“Bit weird, isn’t she, Tozer? Did you an’ her ever…?”

Breen shook his head. He would have asked Carmichael the same question but he wasn’t confident he’d get the answer he wanted to hear.

“I always thought you had,” said Carmichael. A motorbike roared past, just a foot away from them. “Thing is. She’s a pain in the arse. But…” Carmichael changed the subject. “This traffic is ridiculous. In ten years London will have ground to a halt. They’re thinking about building monorails above all the streets.”

When they made it across the road there was a uniformed copper in front of the steps outside the hospital. Scotland Yard would have stationed him there to keep a lookout for Ezeoke. “You been here all day?”

The copper nodded. “It’s not like the man’s going to try and walk in the front door. Not after what he’s done.”

Carmichael grunted again and they strode on. “Prosser came in this morning.”

“Marilyn said.”

“What’s that all about?”

Breen shrugged.

“Don’t do that, Paddy. There’s been something going on between you and Prosser. He’s jacking it in.”

“So I heard.”

“And?”

Breen shrugged.

“I’m supposed to be your mate, Paddy.”

“I can’t say.”

“Did Prosser tell you why he was going?”

“Sort of. I can’t say, though. I promised.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to see the back of him. Just tell me.”

Breen didn’t answer. However much he loathed Prosser, he’d made a deal with the man.

“Fine,” Carmichael said. “Suit yourself.”

The lobby was busy. A patient on crutches leaning against a wall in his striped pajamas. A white-coated doctor talking to a young woman. Staff trotting past with determined steps. Breen turned to the woman on reception. “Where’s the Senior Registrar’s office?”

“Third floor,” she said, cigarette dangling from her lip. “It’s thick with all your mates up there.”

Carmichael took the stairs two at a time. When they reached the front door, a nurse pointed the way down the corridor to a door on which was a polished brass plate: Professor Christopher Briggs. Senior Registrar .

A middle-aged secretary in cat’s eye glasses looked up from her electric typewriter. “Yes?”

“Is Professor Briggs in?” Breen held out his wallet.

“He’s busy. He will be free in half an hour.”

“It’s important.”

She called through to him on the intercom. “Two more policemen to see you, sir. They say it’s important.”

They had to wait five minutes before they were buzzed into a large office. An Afghan rug covered a polished wood floor. A portrait of the Queen hung from the wall behind his desk.

The professor’s hair was thick and gray; it flowed dramatically back from his forehead. He wore a pink shirt and a gray woolen suit and sat at a large oak desk, opposite another man who was taking notes on a clipboard.

He nodded at Breen, checked the time of his watch. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry, sir. But do you know where your wife is?” asked Breen before he’d even sat down.

The professor frowned. “Could you leave us for a minute?” he told the other man, who got up hastily, dropping the clipboard and then scrabbling for it on the floor.

“I beg your pardon?” continued Briggs. “Is this concerning the investigation into Mr. Ezeoke?”

“Yes, sir. It’s possible she knows the whereabouts of Samuel Ezeoke.”

Professor Briggs picked up a fountain pen from his desk and screwed the lid on slowly. “Why would she?”

“She is Secretary for the Committee for a Free Biafra.” Breen sat in the empty chair; Carmichael stood behind him.

Briggs fiddled with his pen. “She is very keen on politics,” he said carefully. “Enthusiastic, the word would be.”

There was a photograph on the registrar’s desk, turned halfway so that anyone coming into the room could see what a beautiful wife he had. A black-and-white portrait of a young, confident woman with a look of Audrey Hepburn about her: Mrs. Briggs.

“And she was close to Mr. Ezeoke.”

“I wouldn’t say close.”

“Really, sir? They seemed quite friendly last time I saw them.”

“Are you trying to insinuate something, officer?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“At home, I expect, cooking our dinner.”

Breen leaned across the desk, picked up the telephone and held the receiver out across the desk. “Can you call her for us?”

Briggs frowned. “Why?”

“Call her, if you don’t mind, sir,” said Carmichael.

“I do mind. I’m not particularly happy about policemen coming into my office giving me orders.”

Breen said, “We are looking for a senior consultant from your hospital in connection with two murders, one of a policeman, another of a young woman. She knows him well, I believe.”

Briggs colored. “As you said, she is on a committee with him,” he said.

“And are you involved in the committee?”

“Of course I’m not. She has her own business, I have mine.”

“Call her, please.”

“Are you seriously suggesting my wife might be harboring a criminal? I should warn you that I know the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police well.”

“Of course not, sir. We just want to know where she is,” said Breen.

“At this point,” added Carmichael.

“Please, sir,” said Breen.

Briggs eyed them both for a second, then took the receiver from Breen and dialed a number. Breen watched his face as the call connected. His eyes betrayed nervousness, flickering from the phone to the two policemen, and back again.

“Well?” said Breen.

“It’s ringing.” He held the receiver to his ear a while longer. They could hear the regular burr of the tone. On the other end nobody picked up the receiver. “She could be out,” he said, still holding the telephone.

“Out where?”

“The shops perhaps?”

“Which shops?”

“How would I know? She is an independent woman.”

“How independent?” said Breen. Briggs put down the phone. Breen noticed that his hands were shaking slightly. Seeing Breen looking at them, Briggs placed them on his lap out of sight.

“What my colleague means,” said Carmichael, “is do you know if she is having an affair with Samuel Ezeoke?”

The man pursed his lips. He picked up the glass jug and poured himself a glass of water. A little water spilled onto the oak desk; he swiped it off the surface with his hand. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.

The registrar opened a drawer and pulled out a jar of large white pills. He dropped two into the glass where they fizzed, loud as a dentist’s drill, rising and falling in the clouding water.

Frances Briggs was not at home. The house in Russell Square was a large Georgian building, four stories tall, and she wasn’t in any of the rooms. Her Hillman was not outside either. They sat with Professor Briggs in his living room while he slowly worked his way through his address book, calling friends, dialing the numbers, a glass of Glenfiddich by his side.

“Just wondering if you’d seen Frankie…No?”

They had no children; it was just the pair of them to fill this massive house. The place was very modern, very up to the minute. There was a huge abstract painting above the chimney, and next to it a screenprint of a girl in a white bikini under which were the words BABE RAINBOW. A pair of modern chairs in front of a white television. The walls were white. A huge domed orange lampshade hung from the ceiling. A couple of African carvings that had probably come from Okonkwo’s shop. She did the decorating, Breen guessed. This was not the professor’s taste.