Coffin in the Black Museum

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Oh, I think she did,’ he said. ‘I think she came again.’

  What she did not manage to do was to leave.

  He went back from that interview to see if Stella was at home. She appeared at her door, in jeans and a white silk shirt with gold jewellery. Big spectacles were perched on her nose. ‘I’m working,’ she said unpromisingly. She was not pleased with John Coffin, not pleased at all. Once again, he had brought disturbing death into her life. He was going to ruin her production of Hedda. She wished she had never met John Coffin, but it was too late to worry over that now. As a matter of fact, she liked him very much, always had done and was getting to like him better every day. He knew it, too. Guessed it, responded to it. Her position was weak but potentially pleasurable. So her voice was not as cross as it might have been.

  ‘I am going to make a telephone call, and then I want you to come with me to talk to Bridie.’

  The telephone call was to Superintendent Paul Lane to acquaint him and DI Young with the fact that they now had the identity of a second murder victim, and that there was a close connection with Amy March, or Hamilton, late of Talbot Buildings, and that he thought a talk with Mimsie Marker might be productive. ‘Sorry to throw you to the wolves, Mimsie,’ he murmured to himself, ‘but you undoubtedly know more than you are telling and probably always have done.’

  He had picked up, with some amusement and without surprise because he had been expecting it, a slight irritation in the young Inspector’s voice at the interference from The Old Man.

  Stella was waiting for him outside her door. She had put a black velvet jacket over the silk shirt and removed her spectacles. A cloud of the scent of the season, Rose d’Automne, hung over her. ‘I thought you’d forgotten what I told you.’

  ‘I never forgot for a moment, but other things had to come first.’

  ‘The story of my life,’ said Stella, but without bitterness. ‘I was making notes for the cast. My work, not yours. Not that I expect you to take it seriously.’

  ‘I do, Stella, always have done. I take you seriously, too.’ He looked at her fondly.

  ‘Funny way of showing it.’ But she was pleased.

  ‘It’s because I take you seriously that I want you to come with me to see Bridie. Will I find her at home?’ Walking by her side and opening the door, he smelt the breath of roses. Would that reassure Bridie or alarm her? How did she feel about Stella Pinero?

  Stella’s answer reassured him. ‘I think you will. I sent her home with instructions to rest. She looks a wreck, and gave a very poor rehearsal performance.’ Stella’s voice was kind and friendly: she was taking care of Bridie, their relationship was good, but she was in charge. ‘Did I tell you your sister had got Peter Pond in as an angel? One with golden wings as far as I am concerned. He’s laid on a hall for us to rehearse in. Draughty and not too clean, but private.’

  ‘And how’s it going?’

  ‘Horrible at the moment, but I have hopes.’ In fact, Stella knew she was building a good Hedda Gabler, full of vitality and offering a Hedda whose motives were valid. She owed that to Lily Goldstone. She had a gem in the making, she could afford to be kind to Bridie.

  When they arrived at Bridie’s door, Stella took over.

  ‘Hello, sweetie. You know this guy?’

  Bridie gave him a nervous glance and nodded. Certainly she knew Coffin, she had been at the party in his flat. She also knew a rhetorical question when she heard one, knew what part they played in a piece of dramatic dialogue; they opened up a situation, accordingly she feared what was coming. Will appeared behind her, putting a controlling hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Can we come in?’

  Bridie looked at Will, but seemed to make the decision on her own account. ‘Yes.’ She stood aside. ‘I’ve only got the one room,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit untidy.’

  Untidy was an understatement, Coffin felt, looking at the bed with the duvet falling off it and clothes on the floor, but Stella, used to the ways of her colleagues, accepted it easily. ‘Just a talk, Bridie. No, don’t go away, Will.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’ His voice was hostile. Bridie stretched out a hand and took his. They looked more alike than ever, with the same deep-set blue eyes, the only difference being that Bridie’s were red-rimmed as if she had been crying.

  ‘Will has a room on the next floor,’ said Bridie, as if she had to explain. Or wanted words to fill in the gap.

  ‘I know,’ Coffin said. Stella had told him. ‘It’s not Will I want to talk to but you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bridie lowered her eyes and looked at the floor. ‘Oh yes, I suppose that’s because of Stella.’ Her voice was hostile. ‘I thought she’d tell you. But I don’t really know anything about that pot.’

  ‘Stella says she saw you carrying the urn. Or pot if you prefer. Why were you carrying it?’

  ‘I don’t know what it’s all about,’ said Bridie evasively. ‘Sorry, Stella.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Stella. ‘It was you. You had it in your arms.’

  Coffin sat down. No one had asked him to, but it made a point. He wasn’t going away. He sat on the bed, there was nowhere else to sit, the only chair was piled high with books, scripts and clothes. ‘I believe Stella. I’m going to press you on this. What were you doing and why did you do it?’

  There was a long pause. Bridie did not look at Will, but Stella saw the girl toss back her hair and straighten her back. The gesture was familiar to Stella, who knew that Bridie was about to put on a performance.

  ‘All right. I did see the urn. It was in the hall outside where you lived.’

  ‘Oh.’ He was surprised at that. So, if she was telling the truth, the urn had been placed outside his door. Really for him, then. ‘You knew I lived there?’

  ‘Of course, we all did.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I’d seen it around the yard by the Workshop. I thought it was a prop and ought to go back. So I started to take it back. I suppose that’s when Stella saw me.’

  Coffin looked at Stella.

  ‘Yes, that would be it.’

  ‘And then?’ Coffin looked at Bridie.

  ‘No more. That was it.’

  ‘You didn’t see the label on the urn?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t notice anything about the urn?’ ‘No.’

  ‘It didn’t feel heavier than you would have expected?’ ‘I didn’t expect anything. I could see it was some sort of metal and not plastic, that’s all. It was just a pot.’

  ‘But you took the trouble to carry it back into the yard?’

  ‘Theatre property, you see. There’d been an inventory and the ASM would be in trouble if it got lost. Pip’s a friend of mine. We’ve been asked to be careful. Haven’t we, Stella.’

  Stella agreed that they had.

  ‘So why deny you touched the urn?’

  Bridie shrugged. ‘I was frightened, I suppose. Frightened to admit I had touched it.’ Her eyes were bright and wide, her voice calm. That’s it, she was saying silently, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.

  ‘And did you, later, see anyone move the urn out into the street? Because someone did do that.’

  ‘No,’ said Bridie in a loud, clear voice, ‘I did not see anyone do that.’ There was conviction in her voice.

  So telling and clear a conviction that Coffin immediately looked at Will. ‘Did you?’

  ‘No, I bloody well didn’t,’ said Will.

  ‘It must have been a shock when the head was found in the urn?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bridie. ‘That’s why I was upset. I’ve been telling you.’

  Coffin stood up. The duvet slid to the floor, revealing a nightdress and a pair of tights. ‘I’ll see you again, both of you, and we’ll continue this talk.’

  As they left, Stella said: ‘Well, you certainly stirred her anxieties up.’

  ‘Yes, and I meant to.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘I’ll get it out of her. Something there.’

  When t
hey were well away and the front door had closed behind them, Will said: ‘What was all that about? I didn’t know you’d touched the urn. Why did you do that?’

  ‘Because I looked inside and saw Peter Tiler’s head.’

  ‘But why did you move it?’

  ‘Because I thought you had killed Tiler.’ She added, ‘I was going to hide the pot. In the yard, somewhere. Then I dumped it in the street.’

  ‘That was you.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘What a lot you’ve kept from me, Bridie. I didn’t kill Peter Tiler. Why would I do anything as dreadful as that?’

  ‘Because of what he said, because of what we did, because of what we are,’ said Bridie.

  Just about the same time, Debbie Larger, who, with her husband Keith, was spending a few days in the country with their friends, the Frasers, made a worried comment to her husband.

  ‘I’ve been trying and trying to get through to the flat, but no one answers. Karen ought to answer.’

  But Karen was out looking for Billy, too scared to confess to her employers that she had betrayed their trust, not kept him safe, and that he had not been home. She was scouring the streets trying to find him.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Debbie said to her husband. ‘I’m worried.’

  ‘Get in touch with Ted Lupus and Kath,’ he advised. ‘Ask her to go round.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that.’ She picked up the telephone again.

  All this time, Little Billy was lying in his hiding-place, in a high fever, unconscious. He was having difficulty breathing. Deep inside him, he had the sensation that his legs were paralysed as the virus multiplied within him.

  Katherine Lupus was contacted and said Yes, of course, she would be happy to help, she would like to find Billy.

  CHAPTER 11

  ‘I don’t know where the kid is,’ said Stella. ‘I didn’t even know he was missing. I mean, it isn’t as if I employ him. He just hangs around. Stage-struck.’

  It was now late evening of that same day on which she had gone with John Coffin to speak to Bridie.

  Stella had returned to her warm, quiet, haunted flat and made a pot of coffee. Since she was now in the middle of her weight-reducing diet, this had hit her stomach with force, giving her a minor high.

  Back at work on her notes for the cast, she had been interrupted by a telephone call from Ted Lupus. It was her first intimation that the boy was missing and she was not, at first, inclined to take it seriously.

  ‘No, I don’t know where he is, Ted, he’s a regular little street Arab and probably has any number of hideaways. You know what boys are like. Ask his schoolfriends. If you’re really worried, you ought to tell the police.’

  She went back to her work, not knowing what to make of this further mystery. Boys were boys, but on the other hand, nasty things had been happening around here. She found she wanted to tell someone, someone from her own dear theatre world who spoke her language, a worry shared, she thought; she reached out a hand for her telephone. ‘JoJo?’

  Little Billy had now been missing almost twenty-four hours.

  Three interlinked circles had formed now and were in agitated motion.

  There was the police circle in which moved John Coffin, Superintendent Paul Lane and Inspector Archie Young. This was the largest and the most varied circle. Within its circumference swung lesser circles made up of all those working on the multiple murder, such as pathologists and the different scientists, like chemists, physicists, and crystal-lographers, engaged in the various disciplines of forensic work. They now had the identities of two of the murdered women found in St Luke’s, and were working towards the other two. Dr Wendy Nicholson, the epidemiologist, was part of this circle, whether she knew it or not, and even the sick Dr Schlauffer, now flown home to Germany to be nursed by his devoted wife. As yet, this group was not concerned with the missing boy, although they had learned of it, and anxiety was running through them.

  Another circle was composed of Stella Pinero and the cast of Hedda Gabler. A flow of telephone calls was the method of communication here. They knew they would all be meeting in their rehearsal hall tomorrow (it very nearly was tomorrow) anyway. JoJo had answered her telephone promptly, Lily Goldstone had taken her time, and Charlie had only been reached by a message on his answering machine, but then everyone knew that Charlie kept his own hours. It was one of the things you turned a blind eye to, Stella knew that, and when he answered he was practical as always. ‘The lad’ll turn up. Take a pill and go to bed. I’m going to.’

  The third and most frantic circle was made up of Kath and Ted Lupus, the Frasers and the anxious parents, Keith and Debbie Larger, who had come hurrying back from the Frasers’ country estate. Even in her misery Debbie registered that the visit had been a success and that the Fraser house was definitely, to use an old phrase, now coming back into fashion, a place.

  The circles touched and interlinked with each other, and were all, one way and another, in movement.

  By early morning, all of this third cirle was, with the exception of Katherine Lupus, in the sitting-room of the Largers’ riverside flat. The Frasers and the Largers had driven up from the country before dawn. The au pair was weeping in a corner of the room, having received a lashing from Keith Larger’s tongue of a ferocity that surprised everyone. But he blamed himself, this was his son, he loved him. Debbie also blamed herself. ‘I’m the one really responsible,’ she told them. ‘What a rotten mother I have been. I can’t even think of where he might have gone, of a place where he could be. That tells you something about me, doesn’t it?’

  Katherine Lupus was not present.

  ‘Kath’s out looking for Billy,’ Ted Lupus explained. ‘She seemed the best one, knowing youngsters the way she does. He’d trust her. I stayed here in your place ready to pass on any messages. And just in case Billy turned up.’

  ‘What’s been done so far?’ Keith Larger was pacing up and down the room.

  Agnes Fraser came quietly back into the room with a tray of coffee and toast. Even her youth and prettiness had drained away, but her kindness remained, showing as she went from person to person. They ought to try and eat, all of them. Ted Lupus took a cup of coffee and drank it thirstily, he had been up all night, in a state of considerable tension.

  ‘Informed the police, of course. We did that first. Then Kath got in touch with all the local hospitals in case he’d been admitted. Your au pair—’ here Ted glanced towards Karen—‘thought he might have been unwell. But no news there. So then Kath got a list of all his schoolfriends from his teacher to find out if any of them knew anything.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘That’s where she is now. Going round each address.’

  ‘What about the theatre crowd?’

  ‘I’ve called Stella Pinero. She didn’t know anything. But she’ll ask questions.’

  ‘I see. Thanks, Ted. You and Kath have been very good.’

  ‘Wanted to help.’

  ‘No word from Kath?’

  ‘She’s out there looking.’

  ‘That won’t do much good if he’s been murdered or kidnapped,’ said Debbie with force.

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ said Ted Lupus.

  ‘You haven’t got any children. You don’t know how it feels.’

  ‘Debbie,’ protested Keith Larger.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ said Ted. ‘I understand. No, I’m not a family man. Sadly. But I lost a young sister. I do know how it feels.’

  Debbie put down the cup of coffee that Agnes had pressed on her. ‘I’m going out too. I can’t just sit here.’

  ‘Eat something first.’ Agnes was cutting a slice of toast into nursery fingers, as if that way they would be easier to eat. ‘You had nothing yesterday, not to count. Try to eat some toast.’

  Debbie shook her head.

  ‘Better stay here,’ said Ted Lupus heavily. He had his eye on Keith Larger, who got up.

  ‘If anyone goes, it’s going to be me.’

  ‘Sta
y where you are, both of you.’

  They sat there waiting.

  Another piece of luck came the way of Superintendent Lane, Inspector Archie Young and their team. They were in contact with all national police forces in their search for the identity of the two remaining women. Thameswater had all the bodies, but it was possible the women had come from outside the area. Already they knew that Beatie Fish, the cousin of Amy March or Hamilton, had come from Newcastle. They even knew now why she had not been reported missing.

  Beatie was one of those people who have few kin and few contacts. She had had a job as a clerk in the Northern Maid Building Society in Newcastle, but when she left, saying she was going to visit her cousin in London and try her luck there, no one gave her another thought. Beatie hadn’t even got a leaving present. Two of the girls took her out for a drink the night she left and then forgot her.

  She was identified by the orthopædic surgeon who had operated on her left foot. ‘Poor girl, poor girl,’ he said. ‘Yes, I recall those bones. The trouble was in the hip, of course, but the feet got distorted from the way she walked as a child.’ He knew her foot even if he did not remember her face.

  So they had a name for Beatie Fish who had come down to visit her cousin and been murdered with her, either at the same time or shortly afterwards. That was one piece of luck.

  The other followed quite smartly and was, in a way, connected. Several pieces of Beatie’s clothing had been sent for inspection to the laboratory in South London where Dr Marcia Glidding had a special expertise in fabrics. Fibres of every sort could speak with identifiable voices to her. As it turned out, Beatie’s shirt and jeans, made of a mixture of cotton and synthetics, had come from a famous chain store and had nothing to offer of importance. But on the strength of what she had done, Dr Glidding was sent two plastic bags containing what was left of the clothes of the other victims.

  She mused over threads drawn from the skirt and jacket of Victim Three, the tall lady. She had been wearing a suit of dark, thick woollen material, very hardwearing. Dr Glidding thought she could do something with those threads. They said something to her.