‘She’ll be home soon,’ he said hopefully, ‘I ought to keep a watch on you two,’ he said, stroking the cat’s head. ‘Time we gave you a name. Angel no longer seems right. But I reckon you like being anonymous.’ He missed Stella and he didn’t mind who knew it. No telephone call last night as promised, and when he’d called her mobile, no answer came there. Oh, she’d ring, of course she would, Stella wasn’t the sort to disappear without a word. Nor did she approve of people who said they would telephone and then did not. Theatrical people suffered enough from that anyway. So did the police, thought Coffin as he walked away from the animals to make himself some tea.
Of course, sometimes it went the other way and you got calls you didn’t want instead. Like the man who had been ringing up lately and saying he’d heard about the paedophile photographs and it was the police sending them to themselves.
Coffin sat at the kitchen table to drink his tea. The kitchen was half way up the winding stair, and he had come straight up there with the animals following him for their meal. Without Stella, he did not feel like penetrating further into his house. He had even been sleeping in the flat which the Chief Commander could use at will on the top floor of the police building. This was a plain but efficient set of rooms, always clean and tidy and ready for his use.
The young cat was now sitting on the windowsill. She turned to look at Coffin, then leapt to the floor.
‘Oh don’t say it. You want to go out.’
The cat was already moving.
‘Can’t you go out through the kitchen window?’
It was a rhetorical question: in the first place, the young cat could not answer, and secondly, it was going down the staircase fast.
Coffin stumped down the stairs after him. Since his home was in an old church tower, it was a complex of staircases and oddly placed little corridors. He was fond of the cat, he liked all cats, but missing Stella made him irritable. No sign of Gus, but he had a way of disappearing until it suited him to show his furry face again.
But there was Gus at the foot of the stairs, looking up at him. He made a noise somewhere between a bark and a growl.
‘What’s up, Gus?’
Then he saw the figure lying, face down, on the corridor floor.
‘Stella … my God, Stella.’
A bent and twisted arm lay at her side.
He had seen horrible sights enough in his time, but nothing had pierced his heart and guts like this.
Gus moved towards the arm, to sniff,
‘No, no, Gus, don’t. Don’t touch.’
Then he steadied himself.
‘Good thing I telephoned,’ said Stella, her voice clear and strong.
She was talking to Coffin later that day, late at night, after her day’s filming. He was in their own sitting room in the tower of St Luke’s drinking some claret.
‘I’ve been trying to telephone you for hours.’ He had not had a good day, he had been frightened and made a fool of over the mock body.
And there was a new horror which, at the moment, only he knew of.
‘Only to tell me I was dead …’
Coffin could pick up the hint of amusement. ‘Only because it was you.’ he said hotly. It had not been funny. ‘Or was pretending to be you. Plastic or some imitation. Pretty old and work-used mannequin.’
‘Oh thanks.’
Coffin ignored this. ‘Forensics have taken it away to check.’
‘I hope it wasn’t wearing any of my clothes.’
‘I don’t think so.’ About this he could not be sure, but they had not looked the quality of clothes that Stella wore.
‘And how did the pseudo me get into the house?’
‘Through a small door at the side. It is locked, of course, but doesn’t have all the security of the other door.’
‘That’s because it’s left for whoever is looking after Gus to get in and out for him and with him as necessary.’
She didn’t sound in the least alarmed, but that was because he had not told her about the stalker business. Also because once, early in their relationship, she had said: I know you’ll always look after me. She probably still believed it.
They looked after each other, of course, and sometimes he guessed he needed it the more. He never got used to the really horrifying details of some murders, although he had learnt not to show it.
‘Any post?’ she asked.
‘Er … No,’ said Coffin. No need to tell her yet of the parcel dripping with blood. Later he would have to question her, just in case she could suggest a sender and a motive. ‘Might be a few bills. Why?’ He thought he detected a nuance in her voice that made him want an answer.
‘No deliveries?’
‘Were you expecting anything?’ he prevaricated.
‘I had a kind of a bill here.’
‘In Edinburgh?’ He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.
‘Yes,’ said Stella sharply. ‘It’s not on the moon, you know.’
‘All right, all right. Apologies to Scotland.’
‘Oh you’re such an old Londoner.’
She was talking away because she didn’t want to tell him about the bill received. They both knew it.
‘Come on, Stella. It’s this bill, I want to know. And you want to tell me, love, so don’t dilly dally.’
Slowly, she said: ‘It called itself an invoice …said it was for the delivery of a parcel and that I would receive the bill.’
‘What was named in the invoice?’ Coffin asked.
‘Didn’t say. Nor the price. Funny invoice, I thought.’
Funny altogether, thought Coffin.’
‘Have I had a parcel?’
He was going to have to tell her, but not now, not over the telephone. ‘I will find out and let you know. But you will be home tomorrow.’
There was a pause. ‘As bad as that? One of those things that I have to see with my own eyes.’
‘Not quite … it’s in the forensic lab at the moment.’
‘So I won’t even see it?’
‘Better not.’
Coffin realised he would have to tell Stella something of what was in the tin box, blood and all. He told her briefly.
Stella received it with some calm, but then she had not seen the offering, Coffin reflected.
‘A nice present,’ she said.
He would like to have said ‘Nothing personal’, but the figure dropped in their home suggested it was. ‘It’s part of a wider affair that is under investigation,’ he said. Publicity about the paedophile case had been discouraged.
‘The murders of the girls?’ asked Stella.
‘Oh, you’ve read about them?’
‘Of course, it’s not the moon up here as I just pointed out. The sins and violence of the Second City of London are dwelt upon with enthusiasm in Edinburgh and places north,’ said Stella.
There was worse, but he was not going to tell her about the other victim.
‘As things are it’s not easy to know what is connected with what, and what fits in where,’ he said honestly.
‘I bet you’ve got a feeling,’ said Stella, who knew her man.
‘Then you also know that feelings can be wrong.’
‘Yes, but I also now that those feelings that turn out to be wrong, can lead you to the answer. Underneath they can sometimes have a sort of truth.’
‘How did the show go?’ said Coffin to change the subject. When Stella became philosophical it was often the beginning of a quarrel.
‘Oh pretty good, ‘said Stella, willingly diverted to her own interests. ‘I don’t think it will go to a second series but my part was a beaut and there were hints of another home for it … a development of it built entirely around my part … I am to be a kind of modern witch.’
‘You will play it beautifully, my darling.’
Stella considered this, decided not to take offence, he might have said ‘naturally’ and in certain moods might have done upon which she would have felt bound to show irritation,
even anger, but he had not said it, so she said it herself.
‘Naturally.’
And then they both laughed. Their marriage was based on laughter rather than anger. Marriages could be built on anger, she knew that too. Look at the Macbeths … that was anger all right.
‘What are you laughing at?’ demanded Coffin.
‘I was feeling glad you weren’t King Macbeth.’
‘Quite glad myself.’
‘I’m flying down tomorrow.’
‘I’ll send a car to Heathrow.’
He would not go himself: he knew he had another duty. Superintendent Miller and Inspector Winnie Ardet had told him that they wanted him to see the body of the latest murdered victim; and that he then might want to see where the body had been found.
He considered the message from Jack Miller and Winnie Ardet which Paul Masters had recorded and passed on.
Coffin had an uneasy feeling that a ghost was walking.
‘Superintendent Miller rang,’ Paul Masters said. ‘He wanted to talk to you himself, but of course, you were at the committee meeting in Whitehall.’
‘And a waste of time that was.’
Paul had come into Coffin’s office to talk over a cup of coffee, carefully brewed by Paul himself from the best Mocha. The two men had an easy relationship. Paul was as neatly and even elegantly dressed as usual but in contrast when you saw him at his desk, he would peer at you out of a mountain of files and folders. He knew his way through it all but few others would.
‘Miller really wants to talk to you.’
‘And for me to see today’s victim.’ The fourth, not yet named.
Paul nodded.
‘Jack Miller can be a tricky bastard,’ said Coffin, pouring whisky into his coffee.
Paul looked thoughtful. He usually pretended not to hear when the Chief Commander let slip a criticism of a fellow officer.
Coffin added hastily: ‘He doesn’t usually want his hand held though.’
‘I’m sorry it means you can’t meet Miss Pinero off the flight.’ Coffin drained his coffee. ‘Well, wheel them in when they arrive. I take it that Winnie Ardet is coming too?’
‘Oh yes, she rang me up herself.’ Something in his voice made Coffin give him a sharp look. ‘I will see you have everything necessary so you are well briefed, sir.’
When you are dealing with the likes of Jack Miller it is good to be well prepared, Paul Masters was right enough there, so Coffin had the files on the earlier murders sent to him.
He sat studying them.
First: Amy Buckly.
Second: Mary Rice,
Third: Phillida Jessup, name just established. Still to be confirmed.
Now a fourth girl, so far name unknown.
One thing all the deaths had in common, apart from the method of murder and the rape, was that they took place in the district of Spinnergate.
It was not like Jack Miller to show much emotion. Coffin had thought that he had trained himself to regard victims as non-people, (although he was reputed to be a good family man and loving husband, fond of dogs too), but this case must be different.
Amy Buckly had been found by the Close Canal, an eighteenth century construction which still carried barge traffic today. Her body was stretched, face down, in the mud and weeds on a narrow path which bordered the canal. She had been dead about six hours. Aged twenty-four, she was a school teacher who had taught a class of some twenty infants in Close Street School. She had been a pretty girl. Her Jack Russell dog had been with her on that last walk by the canal, one they often took together, so Coffin was told, and it was his return home alone to where she lived with her family that started the search. She was found by a woman police constable who had been at school with Amy.
Ten days later, Mary Rice was found dead near the railway station she used to travel into central London every day to work in an office, where she had a job in IT. She was in her late twenties. She often stayed late in London after work to eat with friends, perhaps have a drink, and then come home. She had a small flat, sometimes shared with a boyfriend, sometimes alone. Currently, she had been on her own. Her body was tucked away in an alley behind the railway station where it had been found by a man going on early shift the next morning. She had been dead about five hours.
Phillida Jessup had died just a couple of days after Mary Rice, although her body had not been found so soon. It was finally discovered on Pilling Common, a notorious place of death. She was the youngest of the three victims, a student at the local university in her first year reading for a language degree. Her body had been found in the University Botanical Gardens. Her father was a CID officer in the London Met.
When Coffin read that he wondered if this was why Jack Miller was anxious to see him.
He was just considering that, and turning his eyes towards the folder on the latest victim who had also been found on Pilling Common, though not near where Phillida Jessup had turned up, when Jack Miller and Winnie Ardet arrived.
Ever the gentleman, Superintendant Miller let Winnie walk in first. Winnie managed her usual smile but both officers looked worried.
‘Thanks for seeing us so soon, sir,’ said Miller.
‘Serial killings have a horror of their own,’ said Coffin with sympathy. ‘And you are sure that this is what you are handling?’
‘Oh it’s one man all right,’ said Miller gloomily. ‘And a cunning one too … even if we cop him we might have a job pinning it on him. He leaves none of his blood or semen around. Pity he didn’t start operating in the Met. area. Why us in the Second City?’
‘Lives or works here?’ said Coffin, making it a question.
‘Not hard to get here to do the work,’ said Winnie. ‘Could start from anywhere. That’s what I think. So far, we have no evidence.’
‘Certainly knows the district,’ said Jack Miller. ‘I wish he had kept out of Spinnergate. Seems keen on Pilling Common, but he isn’t the first. Probably not the last.’
‘Could be one of a ring of friendly faces looking at us, and we don’t know. That’s what’s worrying us and what we wanted to say.’ This was Winnie Ardet at her most earnest. She went on: ‘We are terribly anxious.’
Coffin felt he had worries of his own that were being passed over. Did they not know?
They must have heard on the excellent police communication network of the paedophile investigation, impossible that they shouldn’t, but nothing was said.
They had heard, of course, but were not mentioning it. Or not yet. Perhaps it was called tact.
‘The reason we need to speak to you, sir, is that there are tales, rumours floating round that the murderer is a police officer. Either acting or retired. Everyone has picked it up. Have you, sir?’
‘No, nothing has come my way.’ Not officially but hints and murmurs.
‘And the twist to the tale is,’ said Jack Miller fiercely, ‘the extra bit of sauce is that the rumour has it that the man is someone I know. No one is willing to offer a name, of course,’ he ended savagely.
Coffin shook his head.
‘I bet Paul Masters has heard something,’ said Miller. ‘So I want to go at him.’
‘I guess Masters would have told me and quite soon too, if he thought it important.’ But he knows this paedophile thing oppresses me. ‘Anyway, let’s have him in and ask.’
Paul Masters answered the summons, nodded his head and admitted yes, stories had been coming to him. ‘I would have told you, of course sir, if it had been anything but rumour. No names, of course. Nothing you can lay hands on. My feeling is that it’s a bit of nastiness with no foundation, the sort that springs up sometimes. Anything concrete would have come to you at once.’
‘Good.’ He turned to Superintendent Miller and Inspector Ardet. ‘So I am not going to hand the case over to the Met. and ask you two to retire from the case which I guess was what you came to do.’
‘There was a silence.‘We’ll get him, sir,’ said Miller fiercely. ‘Thank you for your confidence.
’ Then he said: ‘Heard about the paedophile you’ve got … Glad to help if we could.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I wondered if you would come to see the latest victim. No name yet.’
‘Do you think I might know her?’
‘There’s a chance, sir, she had a newspaper in her pocket with an article about the killings, your name was mentioned, and she had ringed it round … . Doesn’t mean anything, of course, sir, but we are trying every angle.’
He looked at his diary, then at his watch. He had less than an hour free. ‘Let’s do it then, let’s do it now.’
Nothing could make Coffin take these visits to see a body in the police mortuary in his stride. It was death, and not usually a peaceful one. True, this was one of the duties from which rising importance had emancipated him, and he usually managed to avoid it. So why was he going now?
Because he was asked. What better reason?
Now as he looked down at the small figure, he thought that the dead always appear to shrink. At first, anyway.
Miller peeled back the sheet over the face.
He looked in silence. ‘Yes, I do know her. Or I did.’ He turned away more moved than he wanted to show. ‘She was my secretary, a temporary one, a few years ago. Poor child.’
She had been young, and now somehow looked even younger in death.
He hoped he would not have to reveal that she had developed a kind of love for Coffin and that was why he had had to dismiss her. Or move her on; the word dismissal had not been mentioned.
‘At least I can give you her name, Angela Dover, and Paul Masters will be able to give addresses and so on.’
I must get to Masters first, he thought, warn him. But Paul was always discreet.
Coffin was beginning to have an uneasy feeling that the two serious cases, the murders and the paedophile were bumping into each other more and more.
Is there a connection? he asked himself.
Only in time and space, in his memory of other cases.
Coffin Knows the Answer Page 3