He looked across at Dove. ‘The first report on the girls’ bodies,’ he communicated, and then went back to listening. ‘Yes, yes. I get that.’
Dove waited.
‘Well, well,’ said Coffin and put the receiver down. He looked at Dove. ‘We ought to shoot ourselves. We missed something. Something? We must have missed everything.’
Dove still waited, looking cynical and resigned. He brushed off Coffin’s words. He wasn’t going to shoot himself and he didn’t believe he’d missed too much. Maybe there was something slightly understressed but missed, no. He didn’t believe it. If they looked it would be there.
‘Let’s have it then,’ he said.
‘In the stomach of two of the children roughly the same things were found.’ Dove stirred at once. ‘No, they hadn’t been drugged. Not with poison at any rate. No. There was skim milk, cocoa, colouring, glyceryl monostearate and flavouring – vanilla.’
Dove looked at him. ‘Sounds edible.’
‘Ice-cream,’ said Coffin.
He dropped the words into the silence on the room.
Ice-cream, he had said. Ice-cream. Ice-cream. Ice-cream.
Chapter Seventeen
‘Of course we checked on the ice-cream van,’ said Dove. ‘The Parker child disappeared from Belview Street which is the other side of the Liddell and House factory. Here, you can see.’ He pointed to the map. ‘We asked in all the network of little roads, Pansy Place, Allison Road, Letts Street, if anyone had seen the ice-cream van. Admittedly it was a wet night and not many people were out, but no one had seen it. So we ruled it out. And, of course, we made other checks too. At the depot where the vans are housed. I’ll tell you about those later.’
‘And what about the night Katherine Gable went?’
‘Well, we asked around that set of streets too. This time Harper Street, Archery Road and Peel Terrace. She went from the other side of the district. No, was all the answer we got. Not seen. So we accepted his story.’
Now Cy Read was right out in front.
‘Read has always been one of the men we suspected, of course. But we couldn’t make any proof he was ever on the scene.’
‘Well, obviously we’re going to have to look harder. The ice-cream the children ate means something. It has to.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Dove. There was an unspoken war between him and the scientific branch of the detective team and he really hated the thought that they had come up with a contribution that mattered. And yet he used their services all the time.
‘Get hold of Read and start talking to him. Get him talking.’
‘And Tony Young?’
‘Keep him here too. I haven’t finished with him.’
Dove got up. ‘And the girl, Kim Simpson?’
Coffin thought. ‘She can go home. But tell her mother to keep her in the house.’ He added. ‘Let Eames deal with the girl side of it.’
‘She’s going to enjoy that.’
‘She’s good at it, though.’
There was an air of intense activity over the whole place now.
Joan Eames led Mrs Simpson and Kim home. She thought they were both silent. They said that they would walk home alone and wouldn’t take a ride and anyway would prefer to be on their own. All the same, Joan insisted on walking with them. No one spoke much on the short trip.
‘Stay home now,’ said Joan Eames.
‘Yes.’ Mrs Simpson nodded. She meant as much by this as anyone usually did. She’d stay home, yes, but if she had to got out to shop then she’d go out to shop. But she would regard that as staying at home.
Then Joan Eames returned to the small office she shared with two other people. Kim and Mrs Simpson had been sitting in it while they waited. She opened a window and tidied her desk. An ashtray had to be emptied where Mrs Simpson had been smoking. Joan herself did not smoke. Kim had fidgeted round the room, not really sitting anywhere. She had spent most of the time staring out of the window.
‘I suppose the poor kid does quite a bit of that one way and another,’ thought Joan Eames. Without having over-heard the conversation between Coffin and Kim’s mother, she had yet grasped that somehow Kim was a prisoner. Kim seemed to have amused herself tearing up paper. Neatly Joan tidied it away.
She had taken no part in the investigation of Cyrus Read and for quite some time no one told her the exact details of what had been discovered about the children, although, of course, rumours were soon flying round.
Coffin was studying a street map of the district. It was large scale and marked with red circles to indicate where the missing girls had last been seen. There seemed no sort of pattern in these places, except that they were all near each other and near Saxe-Coburg Street.
They certainly didn’t relate to the route of the ice-cream van. There was no indication it had been seen at those places at those times.
All the same Coffin was a local boy, had grown up round here, and an uneasy question was struggling to the surface of his mind. As a child he had played in streets like these children and he thought it ought to help him to an idea.
Wasn’t there a game they had played around those streets, hide-and-seek? Catch-as-catch-can? But children always played these games. He and Dove went over the problem again and again, each time getting nowhere. It seemed to be a moment for action, but all they could do was to walk ground where they had been before.
‘All along we had our eye on Read,’ said Dove. ‘But especially after the last child but one, Katherine Gable, went missing. You know we did.’
‘I remember that,’ said Coffin. ‘I remember we had him in. I didn’t question him myself. You did, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. We said to him: Are you sure you didn’t have your van out that night? And he said no. Not one of his nights for being on evening shift.’
‘Checked?’
‘Oh yes, it checked out. We asked at the depot. It’s a smallish local firm. And they said: no, Cyrus Read was not working on either of those nights. He’s a sort of foreman figure and hardly ever does a night shift, although some of those vans keep going until about midnight in the summer. He used to work like that, and it was on one of those night shifts he got interested in UFO sightings. But then he got promotion and doesn’t do them any more.’
‘And where do they keep the vans when not in use?’
‘Locked up in the depot.’
‘Checked there?’ said Coffin.
‘Yes. We asked. It seemed enough at the time.’
Coffin sat thinking for a moment. At the time, as Dove said, a question had seemed enough. Cy Read had only been a possibility, a figure on the outskirts of the crime. Now he was right in the middle.
Coffin got up. ‘Let’s go. One asking wasn’t enough. I want to know more about that van and its movements.’
By now it was warm afternoon.
‘Where is Read now?’ asked Coffin.
‘We took him in on his way to work this morning. He’s in cold storage now. Waiting in an interview room. I’d like to leave him for a bit.’
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Walking up and down and talking aloud.’
‘What about?’
‘Nonsense mostly. Something about a flying saucer.’
‘What does he say?’
‘He seems worried about them.’
‘What about them?’
Dove said cheerfully: ‘He’s worried about the coincidence of there being a sighting and a girl being missing all at the same time.’
‘I’m worried too,’ said Coffin grimly. ‘It’s too good to be true.’
The ice-cream van which Cyrus Read drove operated from a small depot not far away. The manager of the Kandy Kream Ices South London depot greeted them.
‘Saw you coming.’ He nodded to Dove whom he had met. ‘You came before?’
‘Yes.’
‘And now you’ve come again,’ he said in a slightly hostile tone.
‘Just checking.’
‘Yes.’ The m
anager’s eyes studied them. ‘Two of you.’ He was a short, plump man with shrewd grey eyes. ‘Important matter, eh?’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Coffin.
‘Getting near an arrest, eh? Don’t think any of my men can be involved.’
Dove didn’t answer directly, instead he said: ‘This is Superintendent Coffin. Can we come in and talk?’
‘To me?’ He sounded surprised.
‘To you first. Others later perhaps.’
‘Cy hasn’t come in today.’
‘No.’
Dove didn’t make it a comment. Coffin still hadn’t spoken.
‘I sent a message round to his wife but he isn’t there.’
‘He’ll turn up.’
‘Oh quite. That’s what I said to her.’
‘She wasn’t worried?’
‘Not till she heard he wasn’t here. Not till then. Well, sit down, gentlemen.’ He offered them two upright chairs made of chrome and plastic in his crowded office. He didn’t have very much in it except a desk and chairs, but it was so small that this still made a crowd. ‘I’m quite sure none of my men can be mixed up in you know what. I’m not a fool. I check on my men very carefully before I take them on. I know kids hang around ice-cream vans. I don’t employ crazies, Inspector.’ He settled himself back in his chair. ‘I’m not called Di Finzio for nothing. I’ve got Italian blood. I’m a good family man. My brother and I have twelve kids between us.’
‘Your brother the Di Finzio who runs the fairground?’
‘That’s right. Doing well. Got six boys away at boarding school. I like mine at home.’
‘About your vans,’ said Coffin, speaking for the first time.
‘What about them?’
‘Who looks after them here?’
‘There’s a chap who services them. He’s responsible for checking them in and out.’
‘And at night?’
‘Well, he lives above the garage, if that’s what you mean. He’s a sort of night watchman as well.’ He turned to Dove. ‘You saw him, you spoke to him.’
‘It’s his turn again,’ said Coffin.
‘He’s a very decent straightforward chap,’ said the manager.
‘Of course.’
‘I wouldn’t like him to be under suspicion.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Joe Coppel.’
‘And where is Joe Coppel?’
The manager led the way to the window and pointed. ‘That’s Joe Coppel.’
Outside in the yard was a van. Kandy Kream, it said on the side. And from under the van a pair of legs protruded, just about beneath the K in Kream. ‘He’s working on the left back wheel. Trouble there.’
‘Let’s go out and speak to Joe Coppel.’
‘I wish you’d come right out and say what you really mean,’ said the manager, watching them go.
Joe Coppel seemed quite glad to crawl out from under the K in Kream. ‘Hot there,’ he said, wiping his hands on a piece of rag. He nodded to Dove. ‘Back here again?’
‘A few more questions about these vans. We’ve seen the time-table and the work-sheets. How they come out and how they come in. Who works what hours, but there are other things. You drive, I suppose.’
‘I can drive, of course,’ said Joe Coppel. ‘I’ve never actually taken one of these for a joy-ride, if that’s what you mean. Bit conspicuous it would be for my girl friend.’
‘Are you sure these vans are always locked up each night?’
‘I’m the only one with a key.’
‘Perhaps we ought to check you too.’
‘You can if you like. I thought you were doing so.’
‘Isn’t there ever a night when all the vans don’t come home? What happens in an emergency?’
‘We’ve never had one.’
‘When do you go off duty?’
‘Bout six.’
‘And supposing one of the vans is late? What happens? Do you wait?’
‘They’re never late.’
‘But there might be a breakdown? Can’t they ’phone through and tell you?’
‘Never have.’
‘Are you telling me that all the vans are always here every night?’
‘Late-night drivers park them in summer outside their own homes. They get special permission for that. But that don’t apply to what you’re asking about.’
‘And what about Cyrus Read. Are you sure he never takes his van home late?’
‘He’s a foreman.’
‘So?’
‘Well, once or twice he has ‘phoned up to say he wouldn’t be bringing it in. Only nights he was in a hurry.’
Coffin leaned back in triumph. He looked at Dove and they knew they had some questions to ask Cyrus Read.
‘Yes,’ said Cy reluctantly. ‘Some nights if I was busy I didn’t take the van in.’
‘Where was it?’
‘I parked it near home.’
‘Where?’
‘Couple of places. Mostly back of John Plowman’s shop. He’s got an open yard there. It made an easier journey home for me. Practically nothing. It was safe enough. I locked it.’
‘And you kept the key?’
‘Yes.’ He moved uneasily. ‘What’s the harm? Why the questions?’
‘And on what dates did you leave the van in this way?’
‘I can’t name dates that way.’
‘Try.’
Cy moved restlessly. ‘It didn’t happen more than half a dozen times. Nights I had a special meeting or there was a UFO sighting.’
His eyes met Coffin’s and then fell. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, I see how it sounds. I suppose you’d have to call it coincidence.’
‘That would be an easy answer. I’m paid to do better than that. I’ll talk to you later.’
‘You really want it to be me, don’t you?’ said Cy. He was hustled off to the penitential waiting room again.
It fitted so neatly and they were all so happy it should be Cy. They all disliked him. He seemed to have the basic gift for arousing hostility which seemed necessary for a really popular murderer. Yes, no one would mind if Cyrus Read proved to be the man they wanted. Except perhaps his wife, who was Dave Edmondstone’s sister.
‘Have we really got him, though?’ queried Coffin. ‘We’ve never really pinpointed the ice-cream van in the streets around where a child went.’
‘We just have to look a little harder that’s all,’ said Dove confidently. ‘If it was there we shall find someone who saw it. Bound to.’
‘Get on with it then.’
‘And Read? What about him at the moment?’
‘Leave him until you get a witness to the van’s appearance.’
Four hours later Dove returned and admitted that, so far, it was defeat. ‘We can’t find anyone who says they saw an ice-cream van around one of those streets at the time any one of the kids went.’
‘Are you asking in the right places?’
‘We’re asking in the streets where they went from,’ said Dove tersely. ‘But it doesn’t mean anything. They’re deaf and blind round here, that’s all.’
‘Dumb too?’ asked Coffin. ‘No, it means something all right. I think it’s time we talked with Read again.’
But now they had him in the room again, Cy Read was quiet, hostile and would not talk. If you didn’t like him, and hardly anyone did seem to like Cy these days, you could call him sulky. It was amazing, the swift run downhill into dislike that Cy had known. He could remember the time when he had been a respected, looked-up-to man in good standing. A family man with credit. But he had felt his rating drop slowly and mysteriously over the months until now when the police had come for him.
It seemed inevitable he should be a suspect, he recognized it was what everything had been building up to, but he resented it. So he wouldn’t talk.
Coffin, looking at him, thought he had to be made to talk. ‘I hear you’re interested in science.’
There was a pause. ‘New science,’ said Cy. ‘No
t that old stuff. New science, that’s what it’s called.’
‘Flying saucers, and so on? I heard you were interested.’
‘Everyone knows. It’s why they hate me.’
‘Do they hate you?’ said Coffin with interest.
‘Don’t trust me, anyway. I’m a working man who doesn’t believe in the conventional things they believe in and believes in things they laugh at. You laugh yourself, don’t you? Yes, I can see it.’
‘I’m not laughing now.’
‘Only because you think you’re doing something better. You think you’ve got me. Well, you haven’t.’
‘No?’
‘You’ll never get me,’ said Cy, with utter conviction in his voice.
‘But you admit you had the van out on certain nights.’
‘Those were nights I was busy. Nights of meetings of the Club.’
‘Also nights when girls disappeared.’
Cy was silent. But his jaw set obstinately and Coffin knew that they would never get a confession from him.
So far they had nothing but the ice-cream the children had eaten to point the way to Cy. Give them time and they would come up with something. Something like a fingerprint or a shred of cloth or a wisp of hair that could be linked with Cy. But time was short. There was still a child missing.
‘Tell us where Belle Anderson is and I’ll make it easy for you,’ Coffin said.
Cy was silent.
‘God, I can remember when I was a happy man,’ said Cy. ‘Not since I came here, though.’
‘That’s right, Cy,’ said Coffin, suddenly remembering. ‘You don’t come from round here, do you?’
‘I wasn’t born in the sacred precincts, if that’s what you mean. Moved here so my wife could be near her mother. She died six years ago, left us the boy, and we’re still here.’
‘You don’t belong here but your wife does.’
‘Yes, that’s how they put it round here. Feels that way too.’ He gave Coffin a sour look. ‘You’re one of them. You think like them.’
‘I’m trying to,’ said Coffin. ‘I’m trying really hard to think like someone who lives round here because I think that’s the way to get the answer I want.’
Cy bared his teeth in a cross smile which wasn’t meant to show humour, and didn’t – just resentment. ‘Childhood games,’ he said.
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