Nell smiled gratefully but said nothing. They might be on dangerous territory. Ellice Eden was not known as a child-lover. Rather the reverse, as several child performers had found to their cost.
‘Don’t let him go on the stage, dear.’
‘He’s a bit young to think about anything like that.’
‘In the blood, though, I expect. Not that he looks like you.’
Nell was silent.
‘Sons often look like their mothers, but not in your case.’
‘I don’t think there’s any rule,’ said Nell uneasily.
‘I expect he’s more like his father?’
‘There’s no accounting for genes,’ responded Nell vaguely. She drank some coffee and pre-empted any speech from Ellice by asking for a second cup. In another minute he’s going to ask who Tom’s father is. Or was.
But the moment passed.
Ellice led the talk off to theatrical gossip.
‘Marvellous woman, Stella Pinero. The theatre would be lost without her. She’s really the guiding force behind St Luke’s. She persuaded Laetitia Bingham into it, you know. I was there when they met at a dinner-party. Stella did it in about three minutes flat. A joy to watch. I think I introduced them. Penny Hayden was the hostess and of course she never knows who she’s asked to dinner. If she knows the face she can’t remember the name and if she knows the name she’s forgotten the face.’
‘I don’t know Lady Hayden.’
‘Keep away from her, dear. At least for the moment. When the right time comes, I will see you meet.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ A little tipsy with wine and excitement, Nell leaned back in her chair. She had kept her head and not let anything out that she didn’t want let out. That in itself was a major achievement with Ellice, who was famous for being able to winkle out what he wanted. She could see what he was getting at: whose child was Tom? None of your business, she thought. Time to go, another glass of wine and she might say more than she should. She pushed her chair back. ‘Been a lovely, lovely lunch, Ellice. Thank you.’
He reached out his hand and took hers. ‘I want you to leave this lunch perfectly happy.’ She was touched by the sincerity in his voice. He really minded.
‘I am, I am.’
And so she was.
Nell had gone home, flying high, happy in the blissful expectation that her career was about to accelerate. She had been right to come home. London was home. It had been fun being Casey, she half regretted the dropping away of that bright, tough persona, but Nell, after all, was who she was. A person who had her pretences but less of them than Casey.
She had considered taking a taxi all the way back home to The Albion (Casey would have done so), but Nell frugally took over and chose the Underground from Green Park, changing at Piccadilly and then again at Charing Cross for Spinnergate.
At Spinnergate she emerged to have a brief conversation with the lady in the lavishly flowered hat who sold newspapers from a stall on the pavement.
She handed Nell the early edition of the evening paper. ‘Got a paragraph about you in it, Miss Casey. And a lovely picture of you and the boy. In the “About London” column.’
‘Oh good. Any publicity helps.’
‘So Miss Pinero always says,’ said Mimsie Marker. ‘Sells papers, anyway. You’d be amazed how people buy them if they’ve got their face in it. Mind you, we’re lucky round here. We have a lot of local murders and that’s always good for trade.’ She handed over Nell’s change. ‘The latest one in the old Hacker’s warehouse is going nicely. It’s the coach tour that’s the selling point. Look at the driver, I say. He’ll be in it somewhere.’
‘Think so?’ said Nell.
‘Take my word … Saw your little lad going off for his drive. Good job he isn’t twins, you’ve got a handful there.’
Nell walked on, looking at the newspaper, reading about ‘the coach tour to Terror Land’, as the newspaper headline called it, which had involved the death of Jim Lollard. Funny business, she thought.
There was nothing in the paper about the search for William Arthur Duerden, suspected child murderer, for this was a matter the police were keeping to themselves.
As Nell walked the few yards to The Albion, she remembered what Mimsie Marker had said about Tom going off for his drive. Not Tom, she thought, some other boy.
But she hurried her pace, the edge of her mood clouding somewhat. In at the front door of The Albion, up the stairs, never a soul to see, there never was, the other inhabitants seemed permanently immured behind their doors, with sounds of movement and smells of cooking but never a face to be seen, then unlocking her own door. She could hear her telephone while she fumbled with the key, but by the time she was inside it had ceased.
‘Sylvie? Tom? I’m back.’
No answer. Nell went from room to room, looking for them. Oh well, Sylvie was allowed to take Tom for a walk. They weren’t prisoners.
She changed her clothes, made some tea, and waited. And waited. The light began to fade from the spring sky.
Anxiety seized her. She telephoned Stella Pinero; not available. She spoke to the stage manager: no knowledge of Tom and Sylvie, they had not been seen.
It was at this point that she ran out to look for John Coffin.
‘I’ll take you back to The Albion,’ Coffin said. ‘And we’ll start doing some more telephoning.’
Silently Nell let herself be led back. This time, a woman’s face appeared at the door of the flat below.
‘Are you all right, Miss Casey?’
‘Yes,’ said Nell mechanically.
‘I heard your telephone ringing and ringing this afternoon and no answer. Then I heard you run down the stairs. And you left your front door open.’
‘Did I?’ Nell, followed by John Coffin, went upstairs, leaving the woman staring after her in concern. Yes, she had been rude, but she had no concern left to spare for good manners.
Inside, Coffin sat her down. ‘Come on now, we’re going into this. When did you last see the two of them?’
Nell stared out through the window. ‘Before I left. They were in the kitchen … But I think they may have gone somewhere in a car. Someone took them.’
‘You didn’t tell me this.’
‘No. I’m telling you now.’ She hesitated. ‘I heard about it. But I didn’t believe it was them.’
‘Who told you?’
‘The woman who sells papers down by the Underground.’
‘Mimsie Marker. She’s a good witness.’ The best. Hard to fault Mrs Marker’s eyesight, powers of observation and memory. ‘What did she say?’
‘She said she hoped the boy enjoyed his ride.’ Nell added: ‘She meant me to know, I think.’ As if she had spotted something wrong.
‘We’ll get hold of Mimsie.’
‘She won’t be there still.’
‘I know where Mimsie lives.’ He went to the telephone and dialled Mimsie’s number, one of them, she was reputed to own a handsome villa elsewhere and also a house in the country, but he gambled she would be in the old family home.
‘Hello? Mimsie, John Coffin here. Just a question about the Casey boy. You saw him in a car?’ Nell, listening, heard the telephone crackle. ‘Right. Sure it was him? All right, Mimsie, I believe you. You’re sure? Who was with him? … Really? Thanks, Mimsie.’
He turned back to Nell. ‘He was in a taxi and Sylvie was with him. No one else.’
‘I don’t understand. Why should they do that? It’s not like Sylvie. Where would they be going? She hardly knows anywhere in London.’
‘Hold steady. It’s good news. If they were in a taxi, then we’ll trace it. Someone ordered the cab and the driver knows where he took them.’
He picked up the telephone, ready to take action, but before he could do so they both heard the door to the flat open.
Sylvie and Tom bundled into the room. Tom looked cheerful if tired and dirty and Sylvie looked cross.
Nell sprang towards them. ‘Where have you been? I’ve bee
n so frightened. Why did you go off in a taxi? Who sent it?’
Sylvie pushed the hair from her forehead. ‘You did.’
‘Me?’ Nell recoiled in surprise.
‘Yes.’ There was an edge of anger in Sylvie’s voice. ‘You sent the cab and a message to meet you at the Natural History Museum in Kensington. And then you didn’t come.’
Her voice rose. ‘We waited and waited. I took Tom for a look around at the fossil animals. Then we looked for you again. And I telephoned several times but you weren’t here. So in the end, we came home on the Underground. But we got lost.’
‘Hungry,’ said Tom loudly.
The two women stared at each other in open hostility. Coffin looked from one to the other.
Now which, if either, is telling the truth, he asked himself.
CHAPTER 8
The late evening of March 8 on to 16
‘It’s hard to know which one was telling the truth,’ said John Coffin, over his much delayed meal with Stella Pinero in the new supper room at Max’s Delicatessen. It was possible Max had overreached himself in the decoration of this room, which he had based upon memories of a room in Vienna full of gilt and red plush, and he was nervous of its future, aware he served a fickle public, but meanwhile it was proving popular, always busy and crowded. Very crowded this night, but he always had room for Stella Pinero, and prudence itself dictated a welcome to the policeman. He liked the man, although sometimes Max said to himself that the crime had gone up round here, not down, since Coffin moved into the neighbourhood.
They were eating one of Max’s special dishes, an omelette filled with seafood and served with a hot tarragon sauce. You had to eat it immediately it was cooked, and with flat bread. A green salad later, not with. Max’s orders. Then a sorbet to refresh the palate.
Stella took a mouthful of her omelette and since Max was not looking, a bite of salad too. ‘You’ll get it out of them.’
‘I shall see the taxi is traced. Mimsie says it was the local service, Dockside Cabs, that helps.’ He knew the owner of the firm, a man with a record, but now allegedly going straight.
‘I feel I’ve dragged you into this, that if you hadn’t known me, Nell and her problems wouldn’t have come your way.’
‘I’d have heard of them,’ he said, thinking about William Duerden.
‘But not taken a personal interest.’
‘I don’t know about that. I might have done. It would have interested me.’ Especially with a suspected child murderer loose in my district. I certainly take a personal interest in flushing him out.
There had been no news and no sightings of anyone like William Duerden; he seemed to have disappeared. They must have lost him somehow, and that rankled. Men like Duerden should not be mislaid, yet they had a marvellous facility for melting into the undergrowth, had such men.
‘Still, you could have been writing all your memoranda and reports and sitting on all your committees … See, I know how you work, and you needn’t have taken Nell so seriously.’ Stella sipped her chilled wine and took a mouthful of lemon sorbet. She watched her weight keenly, but ate carefully, the sorbet and wine were her treat of the day.
Coffin smiled. Stella thought she knew about police work, but in fact she didn’t at all. Not the reality of it. It was nastier, harder, and tougher than she knew. I’ve protected her from that knowledge, he thought. But he knew better than to say so to her except in anger (as he had done once), because the ardent feminist in Stella would have said: Bloody cheek.
She’d have meant it too, while paradoxically enjoying the protection.
But she was right, he certainly had other problems, other puzzles, such as the death of Jim Lollard. It was a real case for the record books, that one, with the coachload of drugged tourists. But he could trust the team headed by DI Young, because he knew his man. Archie Young would ferret away till he got at the truth. So leave that with him.
But this problem, Nell Casey and Tom, was for him.
‘Some coffee?’ Max had appeared with silver pot in one hand and a cream jug in the other. He prided himself on the strength and heat of his coffee.
‘Shan’t sleep if I do, but yes, Max, I will. No cream.’ She let Max fill her cup and agreed, yes, brandy would be lovely. She was always a bit high after a performance, the adrenalin pumping around. But it was a good feeling and one she treasured as a perk of the job.
‘What do you know about Nell Casey?’
‘She’s a damned good actress.’
‘Apart from that.’
‘I’ve played with her once or twice. She always behaved well, kept the rules, punctual, knew her lines, wore a wig if she had one as if she was born to it. I don’t think I know more than that. Except the usual gossip, of course. I’ve known Gus longer.’
‘What was the usual gossip?’
Stella shifted uneasily. ‘Oh, you know, about Gus and their quarrel. But they always quarrelled. Something in their chemistry, I expect. And, of course, lately …’ she hesitated.
‘And?’
‘Well, the boy. Whose child is he, that sort of thing.’
‘And what do people think?’
‘Gus thinks he is the father, of course. But I think the question is open. Tom doesn’t look like Gus. She had a bit of a fling with various characters while in the soap, so I hear, but no details. Sylvie’s father was one of them.’ Stella shrugged. ‘She just appeared with the child ready for the next season’s filming.’
‘I suppose Tom is her child?’
Stella looked surprised. ‘How would I know? Do you mean you doubt it?’
‘I don’t know what to think about that young woman.’ From his own background, with a defaulting mother, he had strong feelings about the mother-child relationship. Things were not always what they seemed by a long way.
Over the coffee, he said: ‘Let’s make an hypothesis. Tom is not her child and Nell is lying all round. She is setting up all the incidents and Tom is in no danger. But why?’
‘That would be the question,’ said Stella sardonically.
‘So let’s try again. Nell is telling the truth and Sylvie is the one doing the lying, creating all these incidents because she hates Nell, hates the child whom she believes to be a product of a union between her father and Nell.’
‘Is that how you arrive at the truth?’
‘You have to form a picture in order to know where to look,’ he said. ‘All right, you form the wrong picture, but in disproving it, you move on to what might be right.’
‘Looking for proof?’
‘Of course.’
It was one way of working. The other way, the orthodox police way, from which he did not entirely divorce himself, was to collect a heap of facts.
‘Why wouldn’t Nell say about the boy?’ he asked. ‘Be open.’
‘Because she’s like that,’ said Stella stoutly. ‘It’s her business, after all.’
They finished their meal and walked back to St Luke’s Mansions in silence.
‘How’s The Circle going?’ asked Stella.
‘Fine, I think. I’m not very good,’ he said with modesty, hoping to be contradicted.
But all she said was: ‘All right for the butler?’
‘Good enough for that,’ he agreed, accepting Stella’s verdict on his acting skills. ‘We could do with some more men in that group.’
‘It’s always the same with these amateur outfits,’ said Stella. ‘Always more women than men.’
‘We did have one recruit, small quiet chap, but he’s disappeared.’
‘Well, don’t you do that. The more activities I’ve got clustering around the Theatre Workshop, the more help I get locally. Funds and so on. And your sister keeps us on a pretty tight budget. Not that I blame here. Where is she, by the way? I haven’t seen her for some time.’
‘I think she’s having a little domestic difficulty.’ And the name of the game, he suspected, was divorce.
‘Ah,’ said Stella knowledgeably. ‘Thought i
t might be that. She’ll come out on top, though.’
At her door Stella paused, she looked worried. She was nervous about going into the dark alone.
‘Want me to see you in?’
‘No, that dear dog of mine makes me feel quite safe.’ Already, behind the door they could hear the preliminary snuffings and sniffings of Bob, who, having satisfied himself that it was indeed Stella out there, would soon burst into excited yelps.
‘You looked thoughtful.’
‘Yes, there’s going to be trouble when this new business about Tom gets out. And you know from whom.’
‘Gus?’
‘Gus. He’s spoiling for a fight with Nell. Has been for days. He was foul to his class today. I stood in and watched. Fortunately they love him, enjoy being bullied, little masochists. The great man showing his mettle, they think.’
‘He may not find out. I shan’t say anything and neither will you.’
Stella said nothing. ‘Good night. Here I come, Bob. Yes, it’s me.’ And to a crescendo of barks, she passed inside. He heard her voice. ‘It’s me, it’s me. Good boy, down now, down. Oh, mind my tights, you beast.’
*
But of course Gus did learn of what had happened the day before. On the Friday morning, he went into Max’s Deli to have some breakfast before taking his class in a development of The Trojan Women (he had decided to make a virtue of having more girls than men in his class), and Max’s daughter, the Beauty one, told him as she served his coffee. As well as being a Beauty she was also a gossip.
Gus listened as he crumbled his brioche, and that famous dark look came over his face.
Beauty watched with interest; she thought he was madly attractive and she adored that glowering look. Not that she would want it directed at her, but turned towards Nell it was highly desirable.
‘Yes, Sylvie told me when she came in for their morning croissants. But we all knew something was up when we saw Miss Casey running down the road.’
Gus got up, flung some money on the table and left without drinking the coffee. It was a highly dramatic moment and one of great joy to Beauty. She cleared away the coffee and crumbs and took herself off. This was not the sort of thing she told her father, a small secret pleasure of her own.
Coffin on Murder Street Page 9