Coffin Knows the Answer

by Gwendoline Butler

  Life was not as straightforward and easy for the Chief Commander as it might have been. Before he could speak to Paul Masters, he had to take several telephone calls, firstly three recorded messages. He plugged the earpiece in so he could hear and no one else could listen in.

  The first, which he welcomed, was from Stella. ‘Hello, love. On my way home, I’m at Edinburgh airport, hoping to catch the next flight. Haven’t booked a seat, but I think I’ll get on. Hopefully, as they say. Don’t even try to meet me … I bet you weren’t anyway, I think I told you not to, but I can see Jamesy Davy and he always has his Rolls to meet him, show off that he is, so I will get him to bring me home.’ Of course he was not jealous of Jamesy who had nothing except his looks and a certain acting skill, but what would they do with him when they got him? Take him out to dinner and wish him well? Stella did not wait for him to answer before it was Goodbye Love, and she was gone, so no decision was demanded of him.

  The next call was different. It came from a friend and former colleague in the Met., Commander Peter Barnes.

  ‘Pete here, sorry not to speak to you in person but I have to get off and you have your answerphone on permanently as far as I can see.’

  This was true enough. Except for calls routed through Paul Masters which Coffin took after consideration, all calls to his office were recorded. You could get him at home. If you were lucky. (Stella had her own phone and own number … essential, she claimed in her business. Anyway, most people used her mobile or sent her email messages.)

  ‘There is a rumour going round that your Stella has a stalker after her. If this is true, it may be the same one who had a trial run here in South London last year. Used to send presents of a nasty kind with the threat of more to follow. Never caught. We thought we had him, but no. Moved on? Could it be your fellow or an imitator? Let’s meet and talk. Advice: Don’t tell Stella … he’s looking for fear as a prize.’

  The third call was nothing but silence, with the hint of a distant laugh. A giggle … Somehow that was less agreeable.

  Working with Paul Masters on routine affairs, Coffin asked: ‘Any idea who would ring up and just giggle …?’

  ‘Always a few lunatics around,’ said Masters lightly, as he handed over a file of letters to be signed.

  Not very cheering, thought Coffin, even as he admitted the truth of it.

  ‘Check where the call came from,’ he ordered.

  The answer soon came back: number withheld.

  Phoebe who had appointed herself as Gus-Looker-After had given the dog a walk and returned him to his master, where he was now sitting on the Chief Commander’s feet. Dog and man, left alone, both considered Stella’s return.

  ‘She won’t be long now, old chap.’

  Phoebe Astley telephoned to confirm that, as from this moment, she had taken over the paedophile operation. ‘No progress as yet’. What a beast the man is. Is he one person or group? What could you call him, she asked herself – a deranged paedophile stalker? Something to find out. Also does he buy photographs or did he take them all himself? She well knew there were outfits that specialised in marketing paedophilia. No, she thought they were purchased, the pictures varied in style so much. A lot to find out here.

  Coffin went back to his desk work where presently Paul Masters came in to ask him if he would take a call from Commander Peter Barnes.

  Again? thought Coffin. Twice in one day?

  ‘Put him through.’

  He knew at once, from Pete Barnes’ voice that it was not good news.

  ‘Stella with you?’

  ‘No, she’s not back yet. ’ He did not want to ask, but he had to. ‘Why?’

  ‘One of my mates in Scotland had an anonymous call saying that the Stalker had got her.’

  There was a long, long dark night ahead for Coffin.

  To his furious and alarmed shout at Pete Barnes (and he was not a shouter) demanding evidence, he got the answer that a fax had come through, Stella’s terrified face, and on it typed: Look to the Lady. It had been sent to the hotel where Stella had been staying.

  ‘The hotel passed the fax on at once to the local police … they are well informed, knew what was going on in the Second City, and certainly knew who Stella is. I have a mate there, and he saw I had a copy fast,’ Barnes said. He had started to say ‘was’ but hurriedly altered it to the present tense, at no time would he be the one to push Stella into the past.

  When the fax arrived on Coffin’s desk he looked at it and felt sick. Then he looked again. Then he looked again.

  ‘This fax,’ he said, ‘is of a picture of Stella in a film, made some years ago too. This is Stella acting, not Stella here and now.’

  ‘It’s a calling card,’ said Pete with relief in his voice.

  ‘But also a warning.’

  As far as could be established Stella had caught her flight from Edinburgh, the flight had arrived safely but she had not telephoned her husband. She had left the hotel in Scotland where she had been staying, saying goodbye and that she was off home, and that was the last her friends had seen of her.

  ‘Trace where the fax came from,’ ordered Coffin, praying that his wife would arrive at any moment, surprised at how very anxious he was. Spouses of important officers did get such messages sometimes.

  Phoebe Astley’s office had also received the same fax. But it had only been given attention much later than the one sent to Fillmore on the edge of Edinburgh, from which Commander Peter Barnes’ friend had passed it on. For this Phoebe was apologetic. Coffin accepted her apology; he knew well that not all faxes get prompt attention. One of the facts of life.

  Phoebe herself was horrified at what had happened. Or, in this case, not happened. ‘Such a mass of faxes has come through, it was kind of imbedded in them.’

  ‘Find out where the fax came from,’ ordered Coffin once again.

  ‘Ought not to be difficult. Comes over the telephone wire, after all.’

  ‘And get hold of James Davy, that actor, Stella said he would give her a lift in his car from Heathrow.’

  ‘I’ll call on him myself, sir.’ There was a reserved note in Phoebe’s voice. ‘He’s so beautiful, isn’t he? And that lovely voice. I’ll take someone with me.’

  Coffin wanted to say: Oh don’t worry, he’s more likely to seduce his chauffeur than you, but he contented himself with ‘Thank you.’

  No one’s virtue was tried one way or another as it soon transpired that James had not gone to London but stayed in Scotland, travelling to Pitlochry to see a friend who was in a play there. He was obliging his chauffeur to drive north to collect him.

  ‘Just like Jamie, ’ thought Coffin, ‘putting himself first. If he’d been on that flight, he could have looked after Stella.’

  Coffin found that his misery worked in two strands: in one he could make bitter jokes about people like James Davy, while in the other, he was sure he would never know happiness again.

  The long dark night wore on.

  Coffin went between his home in the tower and his office, hoping for a message or the sight of Stella in either. He drank a great deal of coffee but thought it wiser not to go for the whisky because when Stella did appear he wanted to be sober.

  Stella must appear.

  Paul Masters came in during the night with the information that the London fax had been sent from: ‘Mind Machine in Ely Street, Spinnergate. One of those outfits with rows of computers, printers and faxes.’

  ‘It would be Spinnergate,’ said Coffin, who felt he hated Spinnergate. Oh God, where was Stella? A search was going on, but so far, nothing, ‘Not near Minden Street? They had had their own Jack the Ripper there.’

  ‘Near Madras Market.’

  ‘Near enough,’ said Coffin gloomily for whom it was becoming a bad night. A bad bloody night.

  It was a bad night for Phoebe too.

  She had also been given some news in the night … and it wasn’t good news. She did not know why it had come to her, she was not dealing with the m
urders. Except she did know: that bloody fax with ‘Look to the Lady’ on it.

  She knew she must wait for morning before telling Coffin. ‘We have a body. A woman, not long dead. Badly cut up.’

  She could not tell the Chief Commander straight away. She must see the body first to see if it was Stella.

  Chapter 4

  The man, so falsely called a stalker (murderer of women he might be, collector of odds and ends of bodies he might also be, but stalker he was not) considered his official description as he went to his wardrobe.

  He knew what a stalker was in the police sense, none better, but he rejected the description. Being a careful reader of the newspapers and also wanting to know what was said of his exploits, he had read that he was so named.

  He grinned. A stalker moved with careful, quiet tread after his innocent, nervous prey. Now that was not his approach. Imagination, style, was his mark. More of an actor. Or actress, a sex label was not important. He went to his wardrobe to choose what to wear today. Or tonight as it would be.

  No, library first, then the costume. Inspiration before execution.

  Catch them when they are not thinking.

  He opened a drawer in a chest of four drawers. He called it a library but it was more properly a collection: a collection of drawings and photographs. Not one of the pictures therein was his work, but his was the pleasure. After all, the hand that enjoys the glitter of the diamond had not dug, cut, or polished the gem, just paid a price and got the satisfaction.

  I am a complicated person, he told himself, studying a picture of a child. In fact, I am not one person but two, three even. No one really knows who I am.

  Idly, death being much on his mind, he wondered which of his selves would die first. He would not have a choice, of course. Just depended what cap he had on. He would wear a hat, it was decidedly a head covering day. Or night, more precisely. He chose the cap from a selection he had built up, then adjusted it with care.

  He happened to know that Stella Pinero was short sighted. She might not recognise his face, but she would certainly recognise what he was wearing.

  If she thought about it at all, she might wonder how he knew where to find her.

  You’re a very well known lady, Stella, here in the Second City, and your publicity people do a good job. Good job for me too, Stella. So when I read in the gossip column in the local newspaper that you were finishing up the filming in Scotland, this week, day named, and that you planned to grab the first plane back, I knew what to do.

  Watch for you on the last two flights of the day. Don’t see you being earlier. In fact, I would have taken a bet on it being the last flight. I rate you, emotionally, a last plane of the day woman.

  There was a picture of you too in the paper so I knew you had a new hair cut, a new colour too for all I knew. I would know you though, Miss Pinero, Lady Coffin.

  Stella arrived, tired but cheerful at Heathrow airport. She didn’t expect to be met so she was walking briskly to the taxi rank, when a voice halted her.

  ‘Ma’am, Lady Coffin, Miss Pinero … PC Waters, the Chief Commander asked me to meet you …’

  Stella looked at him. ‘So my husband sent you?’

  The man nodded. Not a talkative type Stella decided. ‘Are you a police officer?’

  ‘Retired, ma’am. I used to be PC Waters … now I have my own business’. He held the car door open. The cap pulled down over his forehead, dark spectacles, and handkerchief up to his nose. A huge sneeze.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am, nothing catching. Just hay fever.’

  ‘Don’t know you, do I?’

  ‘You’ve forgotten me, ma’am.’ He was handing her towards the car.

  Stella was tired, content for the moment to lie back and let the streets of London slip past her. It was a dark quiet night, the time when she most liked the city. She felt its history then with a sense of the small, ancient villages which had been absorbed into the docklands. Her husband had said that he was convinced that some of the local slang was Anglo-Saxon in origin, if not earlier still, Celtic. ‘Mind you,’ he had added with a laugh, ‘most of the words that have come through couldn’t be called dinner table talk.’

  For a minute or two she dozed, letting the familiar streets slip past. She had had almost nothing to eat all day, working hard to get finished, but she had shared a bottle of champagne with a few of the cast. It had not been very good champagne which distantly, dreamily, she began to blame for the weird dreams that tramped through her head. She saw strange pictures of strings of blood, ribbons of blood. Distantly, she heard a voice calling her name. Not a voice she knew. Then the picture in her head went dark and then darker still. Shapes, figures in this darkness. Silent. Voiceless.

  But the sleep was not deep and soon she came to the surface. She looked out of the window but did not recognise the road. On either side were tall, neglected buildings, which looked empty. Old disused factories which had not yet been converted into smart apartments. Possibly never would be, she thought. Not where she would choose to live.

  This wasn’t the way home.

  She leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘You’ve taken the wrong route.’

  Close to, she thought that she did not care for the look of the back of his neck. You could tell a lot from a man’s neck, she thought: this was a thick, unlovely neck which did not suggest a good person. He was wearing an old raincoat pulled up high.

  He did not answer her but began to slow down while drawing into the kerb. Hell is a city much like London, she thought suddenly. Marvellous Shelley. She had a strong unexpected feeling that the sooner she was out of the cab the better. Stella started to open the cab door, meaning to get out. Then she would find out the name of the road and ask the way of the first pedestrian she met. As far as she could see at the moment the road was empty. It was late, probably about midnight by now. Certainly felt late.

  But before she could do so, a tall, thin figure began to get in the car. Another man, she thought.

  ‘What is this? Who are you? Driver, what’s going on?’

  He turned his head towards her, looking over his shoulder, eyes still masked with dark spectacles.

  ‘Sometimes it is better to hunt in pairs.’ His teeth showed in a grin.

  At this point Stella realised with a shock that the second figure, masked and impossible to identify, was probably a woman.

  Chapter 5

  Coffin awoke with a feeling of heavy pressure on his stomach. Without opening his eyes he knew that this came from Gus seeking comfort and company.

  ‘He must have put on weight,’ thought Coffin sleepily. But no, lying on top of the dog, completely relaxed and at ease, was the ginger cat. The pair, after a first period of cautious hostility, had adopted a cautious friendship. Or it might be fairer to say that the cat made the advances and Gus put up with it. Perhaps it was not true to say that Gus had a kind heart, but he was a polite fellow.

  Coffin was still half asleep but he woke up with a start.

  Stella … where was Stella?

  He sat up with a jerk, dislodging both the animals. Of course he wasn’t in bed, you don’t go comfortably to bed when your beloved wife is missing. He was lying on top of the covers with a blanket thrown over him. He didn’t remember even getting that far himself, and it was possible that Phoebe or Paul Masters had led or pushed him that way as exhaustion grew too great to fight off. There was a mug of coffee or tea on the bed table, but he could tell by the skin on the top that it had been there a long time. All night, probably, he didn’t remember putting it there.

  It was morning. A grey, grim daylight was flooding the room. He could hear rain beating against the window.

  Oh Stella, Stella, where are you?

  Then the telephone by the bed began to ring. He reached out, dislodging the cat who was sitting there looking at him, then knocking over the mug of coffee as he went.

  As his hand touched the phone, it stopped ringing. The instrument was wet with cold coffee
.

  ‘Damn you,’ he said to the cat who gave him a green-eyed stare in return.

  His hand shaking, he dialled the code which allowed you to learn which number had just called. In reply all he got was a taped, tinny voice telling him that the caller rang from a public call box and the number was therefore unavailable.

  Coffin slammed the receiver down then got out of bed. Coldly, fiercely he began to telephone Phoebe Astley.

  The events of the day before began awakening in his mind, coming alive before his eyes and ears.

  First, a happy call from Stella saying that she was on her way home.

  Then followed, far too quickly, by the message about Stella saying that the Stalker had got her.

  ‘I didn’t believe it,’ said Coffin aloud. ‘No one did.’ But Stella had arrived on the flight from Scotland and had not been seen since.

  Yesterday he had got down to his routine of work, completing a report, answering letters, while inside a fury of anxiety and anger fought with each other. The anger touched Phoebe Astley and Paul Masters, both of whom understood and forgave without showing either of those emotions which would certainly have angered Coffin even more. He was frustrated with himself and sometimes felt a flash of anger at Stella.

  The telephone rang again. This time it was Phoebe.

  It’s not Stella,’ she said at once to him. ‘But I would like you to take a look at a body.’

  ‘So you think it is her,’ he said savagely.

  She was silent for a moment. ‘I just want to make sure, sir - I thought …’

  ‘Thank you, Phoebe,’ said Coffin, not altogether kindly. ‘You thought that once I had seen this latest poor, dead, ravaged creature and saw it wasn’t Stella that I would walk away in relief. Well, I don’t think I will, I think I will just know what my wife could look like when it has been her turn.’

  ‘All the same, I would be pleased if you’d come to look at the dead woman,’ said Phoebe steadily. ‘I’ll drive.’