She had had the clothes of a hit-and-run victim sent to her for study some time before and the strands of cloth before her now reminded her of something. She got out her file on this case, which contained her report and specimen fibres neatly laid out.
She compared a fibre drawn from the skirt of Victim Three. They matched. They were uniform. They were from a uniform.
She picked up her telephone and asked to speak to Inspector Young, whom she knew slightly as a friend as well as a colleague. She knew his wife even better.
‘Archie, this is just off the cuff, and I need to do some more work, but I wanted to give you a hint straight away. I think Victim Three may have been a traffic warden.’
Because she was a meticulous and sensitive worker, she had also picked out a thread of what had once been red cotton, the colour was still identifiable, that did not belong to the jacket or suit of Victim Three. It was alien thread, and as such, she carefully preserved it. Just in case.
This, although they did not know it, was very fortunate for the combined Lane–Young investigating team.
But the real piece of luck, and this, too, lay in the future, was that Marcia Glidding knew Archie Young’s wife and that she would shortly be meeting her at a dinner.
John Coffin was going to be at that dinner, too. In fact, he was to be one speaker and Dr Glidding the other.
With the added assistance of Dr Glidding’s interesting suggestion, the police were able to pick out Victim Three from their list of missing women who were of the right height and age. There were only three, and only one, Josephine Hudson of Tunnel Walk, Greenwich, was a Traffic Warden. She had been missing for three years.
Josephine, Mrs Hudson, had last been seen walking towards the entrance of the tunnel under the Thames which led from Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs.
Her husband had reported her missing, but since they were on bad terms following a violent quarrel about her behaviour, he had come under some suspicion of having done away with her, and after an initial period of being willing to talk freely, had refused to answer any more questions. Nothing could ever be proved against him. The file on Josephine was still open, but no progress had been made.
‘I remember it all well,’ said the local Inspector with whom Young was speaking. ‘It was a real bugger. She just seemed to disappear into thin air. I thought it was the husband, I must say.’
‘Any evidence?’
‘None. There was a lot of building going on across the river just then. I must say I always had the idea that Hudson popped his wife in a hole where the Dockland Railways was going on the Dogs, and that was why we couldn’t find her. I thought he did it.’
‘We may find he did.’
‘He won’t do you any good, he’s dead. Topped himself two years ago. So maybe it was him and he had a guilty conscience.’
Young duly reported his progress to his Superintendent, who said it was good as far as it went, which wasn’t far, but that anyway things had started to move, and reminded him to tell the Chief Commander.
It was well into that morning when people were still looking for Little Billy when John Coffin was told on the telephone.
‘Good, good.’ He found the details fascinating. ‘Was she going out to work? Or did she wear her uniform all the time?’
‘That seems to be it, sir. She loved her uniform, wore it as often as she could. Tried to join the Force, it seems, but she couldn’t make the grade. The uniform was one of the things that irritated her husband. That and her wandering ways. She was inclined to pick up men in pubs and go off to the park with them.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes. It does kind of slot her in with the other victims. Explains how the murderer got on terms with them.’
‘One killer for all the women, then?’
‘That’s how it looks. We’re not looking for more than one at the moment. The pattern for all the women is so strong and consistent. Don’t you agree, sir?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘It says something about the murderer, too. He looked out for the sort of women who took risks.’
‘I agree.’
‘There is something else too, sir. He may have been keen on women in uniform. Mrs Marr has admitted that Amy March’s speciality was uniforms.’
Coffin remembered what Stella had told him about the actress, Rosie Ascot: Rosie had played the part of a policewoman in the TV series. She too had a background with a uniform in it.
‘Ascot fits into that slot,’ he said. ‘A consistent chap, this killer.’
‘And with peculiar tastes. That ought to help.’
‘I doubt if he’s got it written all over him, but yes, it settles his sex.’
‘Sex ambivalent, I’d say, sir,’ said Archie alertly.
Coffin laughed. ‘Think he dresses up in high heels?’
‘Well, he could.’
‘It’s an idea. We’ll look for a man with small feet.’
‘Big hands, a strong man, all these women were overpowered and strangled. Not gassed, as with Christie.’
‘If I had to guess, I’d say he was an unassuming sort of man, one they trusted, an apparently nice chap.’
They were half joking, the sentences batted back and forth between them lightly, but both knew there was serious intent there as well.
They were beginning to put forward a profile of this murderer: a man who appeared unassuming, but who was physically stronger than he may have looked. A man attracted to women of power. A wily, cunning man, able to assume a mask.
‘What about Mrs Tiler? Does she fit into that pattern?’
‘She has to, somehow,’ said Coffin thoughtfully. ‘We need to find out more about her.’
‘And then there’s Tiler. Was he killed because his wife was killed?’
Peter Tiler was the joker in the pack, head and all.
‘There’s more than a hint he was a blackmailer. He may have been killed because of that.’
‘You’ll have all the reports in detail,’ said Archie Young briskly, feeling he had done his bit. Offered information freely to the Old Man, accepted comment in return, shared a joke. Now he’d done, and back to work.
One more thing.
‘You’ve heard about the boy, sir? The Larger boy is missing.’
‘No, I hadn’t heard.’ Coffin was on the alert at once. ‘Any reason to believe it’s connected with the case?’
‘No evidence that way at the moment. But …’
But when you had a case of such extreme nastiness, then you had to take on board anything odd that happened in the neighbourhood. There might be a connection.
‘There’s a search on, usual places. Parks, railway cuttings, building sites.’
‘Plenty of them.’
‘As you say, sir. But no sign yet.’
‘I’ve met the lad. I hope you find him soon.’
Coffin went off to the last meeting of his day, one with the Home Office representative about the services in his area.
He felt he handled the interview well, protecting the interests of his new Force without being tactless. I’ll make a politician yet, he thought.
But underneath ran the current of his concern with the murders. There was something they were not quite getting.
The urn. What about the urn with Peter Tiler’s head in it? From the killer’s point of view that action had to be justified.
Know that, he thought to himself, and we’ll know everything.
He was WALKER again that evening. Taking the Dockland Railway as far as it would go, studying this new River City, not yet a city but an imaginative leap, which his struggling Force might help bring to birth. A heavily populated area, old buildings jostled by new ones, a network of new streets followed ancient paths. The odd decayed, unreconstructed lot still holding its secrets. More than a few people could lie hidden in this city without discovery. He didn’t give Little Billy much of a chance if he didn’t turn up soon.
Through Shadwell, Limehouse, Leathergate (where you
could change to the Tube), Heron Quays, South Quay, Mudchute, and then getting out at the station called Island Gardens and walking through the tunnel where Josephine Hudson had last been sighted.
The subway under the Thames was a late Victorian piece of engineering, solid and determined, its character unchanged since the day it was opened in 1902, the clinical white tiling and thick ironwork denoting that it was meant for the use of a working-class population to use to go about its labours. The tunnel’s æsthetics had now found their period and in the 1980s it was a cult object. Tourists came to see it.
He walked through to the other side, looked around at an area where he had once worked and lived, then turned back. His writ did not run here.
WALKER is back across the river, and heading homewards, came the relieved report. They hated him to be out and on the loose, his circle vibrating to his own particular movements.
It was still possible to deliver coffee and sandwiches from Max’s delicatessen to the hall where the cast of Hedda Gabler were meeting, so Stella had ordered and Max had duly sent round a tray, carried by one of his daughters. This one was known to the cast as ‘The Fat Daughter’, although they were all plump, but it distinguished her from another daughter who was not thin but was extremely handsome. They called her ‘The Beauty’. There was also a third daughter who was known as ‘The Little One’, she was the youngest and smallest and fattest. All three girls had been down with the virus of unknown origin which so interested Dr Wendy Nicholson, but had recovered easily. JoJo Bell was still complaining of odd weaknesses, but Dr Nicholson had pronounced in a TV interview that adults suffered a worse infection and recovered more slowly than children so JoJo said she knew what she was in for. A relapse any day might be expected and how was Bridie, she looked peaky? In for it too, no doubt.
Stella kept silent on what she knew or did not know about Bridie and her troubles. JoJo was consulting the Equity rules, while Lily Goldstone read a contract sent to her by her agent.
She stretched out a hand. ‘Lend me the book of rules, Jo. I want to check this contract.’
‘I can do that for you.’
‘I’m better at it myself.’ Better at it than anyone. No one could beat Lily Goldstone at bending the rules. Not necessarily to her own advantage, but to what she considered a kind of natural justice. She was naturally litigious. Lily in the Middle Ages, Lily as an abbess, would have been a formidable lady, always ready to defend the rights, privileges and territory of the foundation. In many ways she had missed her period.
Charlie Driscoll, cup in hand, wandered across to JoJo and muttered a query.
Big spectacles on her nose, hair tied back in pony tail, still looking pale, but in excellent spirits, JoJo said: ‘From what I can gather, the police think now that Peter Tiler was killed by the murderer of all those poor women. Probably tried blackmail. So you are in the clear, Charlie. We all are.’
‘You think so?’ Charlie sounded far from sure.
‘Well, naturally the police are not telling me everything, but I have a certain position as Equity rep—’ JoJo looked important—‘so I have been able to ask questions and get answers.’
Lily raised her head from her researches. ‘Take no notice of JoJo. She has no judgement.’
‘As good as yours any day.’
‘If it was, you’d be a better actress.’
‘We don’t all take our standards from Shaftesbury Avenue,’ said JoJo loftily.
‘Oh, shut up, you two,’ said Charlie.
Bridie, who had given a good, even moving, performance which Stella prayed would be repeated (something you could never rely on with novice performers, especially those in love), was sitting hunched in a corner. She saw Stella approaching her, cup in hand, and she stood up.
‘Hello, Bridie, how are you feeling this morning?’
‘Much better, Stella.’ She was pale, but calm.
‘You were all right today. Pretty good, in fact.’ Stella was never lavish with her praise, but this seemed an occasion to say something nice. ‘Just one or two points. I’ll give you a note.’
‘Thank you.’ Bridie took a deep breath. ‘I was coming to speak to you, Stella.’ ‘Go ahead.’
‘I’m going to give all this up. Acting, I mean. I’m going into an order. Take a vow. I’m going to be a nun.’
Stella opened her mouth, then closed it again.
‘I’m sorry if it’s a shock,’ said Bridie gently. ‘It’s not so surprising as you might think. Or as sudden. I always had it in my mind. We’re Catholics, you know, in my family.’
‘Oh Bridie, what will they think about it?’
‘Oh, they won’t mind. It’s what my mother always wanted for me.’
‘Sit down, Bridie.’ Stella found a chair for herself and sat down too. ‘We must talk about this. Have you discussed it with anyone?’
‘It’s my decision.’ It was Bridie at her gentlest and most implacable.
‘You have the makings of a very good actress, Bridie. Perhaps more than that. I would risk saying you could be exceptional. I don’t like the waste of such a gift. Such a rare gift.’
‘No gift is ever wasted.
‘That depends. There’s something behind this, isn’t there? You know, you are very gifted. In a different class from, say, Will. He has the looks and the sexual appeal.’
‘Oh, he has that all right,’ said Bridie bitterly.
There was a pause.
‘Where is Will?’
‘I don’t know. Around. He said he didn’t want any coffee.’
‘Have you two had a row?’
‘No.’
Stella stood up. ‘Think about it, Bridie, and think again. I don’t believe nature intended you to be a nun.’
Stella met Will by the table, just reaching for a sandwich.
‘All right, Will?’
‘Been out to get a breath of air.’
‘Probably a good idea.’
‘How did it go today?’
‘You were fine, Will, just fine. You need to relax a little.’
‘I could do with a strong drink.’
‘Not at work.’
‘But we all do, sometimes. I’ve heard of some great actors who perform better when drunk.’
‘Not you, Will,’ said Stella with sincerity. ‘Not you. You’re far too young for that game, and not yet great. And you never will be if you carry on that way. All you’ll get will be the sack. I shall see you never work again.’ A threat she would not carry out, but which might make him think.
As she moved away, Will said: ‘Any news about the boy?’
Silently, Stella shook her head. No news. No news was not, in matters of this sort, good news.
From where she sat, JoJo called out: ‘I heard that Kath Lupus was out doing her bit.’
Stella sipped her coffee, a faint twang sounded inside her as she felt the vibration of the circle of which she was a part.
Kath Lupus had gone back to her own home for a wash and a change of clothes, after a night spent looking for Little Billy in company with the Largers’ au pair who had been less than no help, but anyway someone to walk with. This wasn’t an area where you wanted to be absolutely on your own at night, not even if you are Kath Lupus, who fears nothing. Or almost nothing.
She was going out again when she had finished her coffee and toast. This time taking with her a young policewoman.
Kath had earlier extracted a list of Billy’s friends from the headmistress of the drama school where he had been a pupil for two years. The headmistress, roused from her sleep, had consulted her files and class lists and given Kath the name of Little Billy’s class teacher. This lady supplied names and addresses. All this had taken Katherine some time when she felt the need for haste. She could really have done without a police escort but she had not been in a position to refuse.
Katherine Lupus and WPC Grey set out on their tour.
John Coffin, driving in his official car to one of his planning committees in the City (in
his mind it was already ‘the old City’), saw them at the corner of Pavlov Street at the beginning of this progression. He had been informed of Kath Lupus’s helping hand. If anyone knew the district she ought to, and she knew the boy as well.
Billy, it became clear, did not have many friends, not because he was an unfriendly boy but because his energies were directed towards the Theatre Workshop. He was in some ways advanced for his age, a sophisticated lad, in other ways a kind of throwback. He would have enjoyed an apprenticeship in old-fashioned rep, fitted in perfectly with the Crummles and might well have felt at home walking on for Will Shakespeare. That’s the sort of lad who created Juliet, Stella had once thought, summing him up perceptively.
Kath and her travelling companion came to the first address, with the policewoman driving. Folly Fitzgerald, a chubby child with a toss of auburn curls whose agent (and mother) always described her in her publicity handouts as a Moppet, opened her wide, worldly eyes to explain that Yes, she was a pal of Billy but she hadn’t seen much of him lately. He was so in with the Theatre Workshop crowd, while she had been so busy doing a TV commercial for Betty Bloomer Kiddy Clothes. She raised a weary eyebrow. Dreadful style but they did pay well.
Exit Folly Fitzgerald.
Kath Lupus and WPC Grey left the neat bungalow named Tara which seemed totally devoted to Folly and her work, and passed on to a large run-down house with no name and a barely legible number where lived John and Jolly Benson, identical twins whose value to Billy as friends must have been purely on their curiosity value, since they had nothing much to say to the outside world, communicating only with each other.
They listened to questions, though, with the keen interest of those to whom the scene outside themselves is an alien world. Nature had constructed them to be perpetual foreigners who needed to learn the routes.
Acting as guide, Kath Lupus introduced the subject of Billy Larger. The twins were polite boys and did their best to show her their world too. They were dancers, they said, and not into straight theatre, so they hadn’t known Billy very well, but they had gone around together for a while because he was such a good talker. That was a help to them, they implied.
Coffin in the Black Museum Page 14