Coffin on Murder Street

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘So you think he wanted us to find it?’ This confirmed what Mary Barclay had said, clever girl. It was on display, meant to be. They were being told something.

  ‘He or she.’

  Coffin said: ‘You mean the shoe?’

  Lane said: ‘Yes, a funny thing that. I mean have we got a Cinderella complex here?’ He meant it as a joke. ‘I’m not sure if I know what to think about the shoe. I’m still thinking. Was it left behind by chance or design? And if the latter, why?’ He walked round to Coffin’s side of the desk. ‘Want to see it? We’ve still got it here before we let the scientists have a look.’

  In a plastic bag was a high-heeled woman’s shoe. An elegant shoe of cream leather with a gold trim. Not the sort of shoe to wear every day. Not a cheap shoe, either.

  Coffin studied it but without fingering it. The shoe had been worn. A narrow, long, elegant shoe. ‘American sizing,’ he said. ‘Probably an American shoe. Could be bought elsewhere, I suppose.’

  ‘We shall find out that,’ said Lane grimly. ‘The Caseys have been living in New York. I shall start by asking her.’

  Funny thing about shoes, Coffin thought, they told you so much about a person, they told you whether they liked good quality, sober fashion or cheap flashy shoes or expensive stylish stuff. They told you how a person walked, and whether they wore their shoes out or got them repaired.

  This shoe did have an air of Nell about it.

  Coffin looked at his watch, he was due at a meeting in half an hour and had a twenty-minute drive across the river to the other side of London. ‘Is Archie Young around?’

  ‘He was in here a minute ago asking me something. He said he’d be back. He seems to think he’s got the Lollard case tied up nicely. He’ll tell you about it.’

  Coffin walked out and met Archie Young at the door. Young looked warily at his chief. He was feeling successful and buoyant, but experience had taught him that this was the time to be careful, and in many ways John Coffin had been the conscience in his life.

  ‘You couldn’t cheat with him,’ was how he put it to himself. He knew that he had inside himself a little kernel of cheating, fudging, he preferred to call it, to which he was capable of giving way if he was convinced of the truth of a case, if he had his man but could not get him to court. He did not condemn himself for this, in a pragmatic way he recognized it had to be done occasionally, but he would rather John Coffin never got to know.

  He was in such a position now. He knew how Jim Lollard had died but was not quite sure what charge would stick where, while being absolutely sure who deserved punishment. ‘I think I know how the coach trick was done and why. Tremble talked in the end.’

  ‘In the end? He’s not dead, is he?’

  ‘No, certainly not. Although it was just luck or he might have gone the way of Jim Lollard. No, he’s gone home to his loving wife, so he’s into happy time. I just meant I had to keep digging.’ There was a black note in his voice.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I don’t know what we’ll get him for. He ought to be done for something.’

  ‘If no crime has been committed—’ began Coffin impatiently. He wanted Mary Barclay’s words about felo de se explained, and quickly. In about five minutes flat, if possible, because that was all the time he had to be illuminated. Archie Young was not wordy but he could be opaque.

  ‘Oh, crime’s been committed all right. Tremble is guilty of driving a vehicle with damaged brakes, of driving while under the influence of drugs, of endangering the lives of his passengers, and guilty of having taken a bribe. There ought to be a crime in that lot somewhere.’ He handed over a file of papers. ‘It’s all in there. The statement from the young journalist … what he told us about Lollard predicting a mass crime gave us a start. Then a chemist came in with the story that Lollard had been stocking up on the sort of drugs that were used … Tremble admits Lollard paid him money to go into the warehouse. Paid him to let Lollard make the coffee and drinks and hand them out. Lollard wanted to stage a crime.’

  ‘Sounds mad.’

  ‘Obsessed, sir. He wanted to be proved right. He’d had a row with the station sergeant at Fowler Street station a few days before. He fancied justification and the publicity. We’d have pinned it on him, of course, but I don’t think he cared about that chance.’

  ‘So Lollard paid Tremble to make the detour, drugged the coachload of tourists and then took some of the stuff himself?’

  ‘I don’t think he meant to kill himself. Or anyone else. He just wanted to make a show, something mysterious and melodramatic that the newspapers could get hold of. That’s why he spoke to the journalist. But he’d had a lot to drink and the drugs and the beer didn’t mix. I suppose he was just unlucky. Tremble either didn’t get so much of the sedative or wasn’t so sensitive to it. That’s the medical opinion.’

  ‘Lollard lived in Regina Street, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, all on his own. Part of the trouble, most of it, in fact. He had too much time to think about living on Murder Street. Ever been there, sir? Regina Street, I mean. Worth a look.’ He nearly added, but didn’t: on one of your late night walks.

  It’s a serious business, Coffin thought as he turned away, the death of one man, for whatever frivolous reason.

  Sometimes he took himself out of the ranks of driven men, which he had long thought he must be, and became a driving man. A man who pushed events around, usually forward to a conclusion, but sometimes back.

  He was pushing his relationship with Stella Pinero backwards now, but other happenings forward.

  It was a battle, but he knew himself to be capable of battling.

  *

  There followed a tumultuous short period for John Coffin. A day of personal crisis. He was into it before he realized what was happening.

  His MP critic had proved a more subtle and dangerous enemy than he had grasped.

  Devious fellow.

  The MP had persuaded two of the other Members whose constituencies came into the area of the Second City to join with him in demanding a commission to ‘monitor’ the new Force which Coffin commanded.

  ‘I monitor my officers,’ he had argued back.

  But that wasn’t enough apparently. An independent monitoring committee must be set up.

  But this was not all: there was a sense of betrayal in the air. One of his senior officers, a man who had come in from another Force but who had started life in the Met and had his own reasons for jealousy, was suspected of handing on information to the MP.

  It was bad news and yet no news: he had never liked the man Groden, wished on him as a matter of policy. One of the compromises forced on him that now looked like the disaster most compromises usually are. The news about Groden was passed on to him by an anonymous letter. A letter whose source he could very easily guess but did not mean to run to earth: the woman who ran the computer service. She knew everything and had a mother complex about him. Probably about every man, woman, and animal she came in contact with, but certainly about him.

  There was one other arrow aimed at him in this time of crisis: a savagely personal one. His sister Letty whom he had thought to be about to divorce had another message to deliver: a business enterprise in New York on which she had embarked had collapsed. It was likely she would go bankrupt. He knew what that meant: heaven help St Luke’s Theatre Workshop and the new theatre now in the building.

  And Stella? What would it mean for Stella?

  For twenty-four hours the earth shook beneath him. He walked his turret sitting-room overnight, not sleeping, ignoring Tiddles. Letty had enjoined absolute secrecy on him, she might pull through, but not if word got around. Say nothing.

  During this time he did not exactly forget either the death of Jim Lollard, or the missing boy. These problems were always there to be thought about but the action was being taken by other people.

  Still no trace of Tom. The owner of the burnt-out papershop was being questioned. No admission as yet. Nell Casey had been questioned ab
out the shoe but denied that it was hers. He knew these things, but had no solution to offer, and having no solution felt powerless. Chief Commanders ought to see the way forward, know what to do. He did not.

  There was a whisky bottle on the table and that was certainly one way out, but not for him. He had tried that sort of oblivion once and it didn’t work.

  Without knowing it, he fell asleep in his chair with Tiddles on his lap. He woke up with dawn and knew that he was going to fight it out. Even fight for Letty if he had to, although she was no mean fighter herself if it came to that.

  Coffin had many social occasions in his life but these days they were often formal, on-show ones, where he had to make a speech, sometimes wear a uniform and silver braid, but anyway be a person of importance.

  So the invitation to drinks issued last week by Sir Harry Beauchamp, the distinguished and famous photographer who was also a tenant of St Luke’s Mansions, to come round for ‘a gathering, my dear boy’, had been welcomed as a change. His friend Dick was having the party in the Old Lead Works Art Gallery which he owned and ran.

  Sir Harry had moved into St Luke’s Mansions at the time of the killings in Feather Street and the murder of a girl in Rope Alley, so he had had his baptism of fire as a resident in the district, but he had taken to it and now proudly called himself a local. He was to be met often in Max’s Deli, or drinking in the Theatre Workshop Bar. He had done a whole article for Vogue about the Theatre Workshop and its company, illustrated by a dozen or so of his sophisticated, stylish photographs. Stella had been delighted, especially as she got what she called ‘best billing’ with a plentiful display of her lovely face. Letty Bingham had been very pleased and had promised to come over for the Festival, although she had kept very quiet about this lately and Coffin now knew why.

  He could have gone in Stella’s company, she was bound to be invited and would certainly go if she was not rehearsing or playing, no one turned down an invitation from Sir Harry, he was too famous and too much-loved by all. But he and Stella were still at odds. Moreover, there was the complication now of Letty’s telephone call.

  Stella was there, as he had guessed she would be, standing in the middle of the big room, smiling and laughing and looking full of life. She was happy, or as near happy as she expected to be these days.

  He stood looking at her. How can you talk to someone when you know something ominous about their future that they do not? How could he talk to her when he knew all her present hopes and ambitions might crumble away, leaving nothing in her hands? So he turned away and talked to someone else, one of the Feather Street ladies who asked him how Tiddles was. The Feather Street ladies marked you by your animals, which they often knew better than they knew you. Oh, you are the owner of the little white dog, they would say, meeting you in a shop. Or: How is the cat today? when you would rather they asked after you.

  The room was crowded but he could see Nell Casey there talking to Ellice Eden who was crouching protectively over her. Nell looked pale and thin, but she had put on her clothes carefully and was listening to what Ellice had to say with apparent interest. Her eyes wandered, though, as if she was not so much in this room as she pretended to be.

  Coffin wondered what he ought to do about her. Should he speak to her, or tactfully ignore her. She was another one he knew too much about.

  He knew now that Nell Casey had a small but interesting record. As a teenager she had done a bit of shoplifting and been caught at it. Scent, make-up and small articles of clothing mostly; she had been what the trade calls ‘a grabber’: taking a chance and grabbing what she wanted. She had escaped lightly: just a talking-to. Soon after that she had gone to drama school, won prizes and ceased to shoplift. As far as one knew.

  He knew this, not from any police record, for none had been kept. She had been a juvenile and treated gently as such. Dismissed, with no prosecution but the order to behave in future. Coffin had been told by a retired copper who had been having a drink with him the day before and indulging in a little reminiscence. ‘Gawky, awkward kid, but she had something. When she got on to TV I remembered her. She could be trouble.’

  Probably of no importance and no relevance to what had happened now, but it was something to think about.

  Sylvie had apparently lived a blameless life, but she had had an unhappy love-affair, to escape which she had taken the job with Nell. Tom, of course, had hardly had time to live a life at all.

  Sir Harry approached him from one side and Stella from the other. She got caught up with a trio of young actors and Harry got there first.

  He was confidential, in that beautiful, precise, deep voice that he had taught himself, a high cockney whine having come more naturally all those years ago. ‘I expect you are wondering why I asked Nell Casey … I thought she ought to get out. She brought Ellice with her. He seems to be looking after her these days. Well, she needs someone.’ He took Coffin’s glass from him and handed him another. ‘Have this, it’s stronger, I mixed it myself. Dick’s so mean with his drinks. Comes of having been born rich. Go on, take a sip, you look as though you need it.’ Sir Harry had the photographer’s sharp eye and could pick up strain when he saw it.

  Coffin took a taste of the drink, which was indeed strong. Strange, too.

  Harry lowered his voice. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t ask if there is any news of the boy?’

  ‘No reason why you shouldn’t ask, but no, nothing.’ He wasn’t being quite truthful. The police always know just that little bit more than they publicize. In this case, they knew that the sighting of a boy like Tom being carried through a crowded South London street by the Elephant and Castle on the afternoon of the day he disappeared was possibly Tom. The person carrying him had been wearing a nurse’s green-striped dress (a greeny, as they called them) under a dirty raincoat. Sex hard to distinguish but walked like a woman. The couple had probably taken the Tube. But there was a large car park nearby, could have gone there. So the report had run. Coffin was inclined to accept it. ‘I think the child is still alive,’ he said in a moderate tone. ‘We’ll find him.’

  ‘Poor girl.’

  Coffin nodded, looking towards Nell still engaged in frantic pretence of animated conversation.

  Stella had pushed her way through to him. Harry saw someone across the room and departed. ‘Drink up, dear boy.’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ said Stella. ‘Harry’s mixes are lethal.’ She ought to know, Coffin thought, her own glass was almost empty. She saw him looking. ‘Yes, this is not my first.’

  Coffin kept a prudent silence; he knew Stella in this mood.

  ‘I’m not talking to you because I want to … No, I want to talk about Nell. I’m seriously worried.’

  ‘I know, Stella.’ He was caught by her warm sympathy.

  ‘About the shoe, the one found in the car. Nell said it wasn’t hers. I don’t think she should have been asked.’

  ‘We have to ask, Stella.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she said it wasn’t her shoe …’

  ‘I know that.’

  Stella looked around the room. ‘She really ought to tell you this herself but she’s scared. Can’t blame her for that. You can be a pretty scarey lot, you know, you boys in blue.’

  ‘I never said we were nice, Stella.’ It wasn’t a nice job. He waited.

  ‘Now she thinks it is her shoe. Could be.’

  Coffin took a deep drink of his strong drink. Vodka, he thought, with more than a touch of something else equally strong, possibly white port.

  Stella gave him a long hard look. ‘What do you know that we don’t know?’

  ‘What a question.’

  ‘The question, I should think.’

  ‘Nothing about the shoe.’ He looked towards Nell. ‘I’ll obviously have to talk to her. And she’s going to have to tell Lane.’ And explain what she’s been playing at.

  Stella picked up the evasion.

  There were tears in Stella’s eyes. ‘Oh, darling, what is happening to us?’

&nb
sp; But he was already looking past her to where Nell stood and thinking that he wished he had Mary Barclay here, she would be the person to do the questioning of Nell Casey.

  CHAPTER 13

  March 21

  It could have been a woman driving the car with the boy in it, that was the knowledge that had seeded some growth in Coffin’s brain. Now it was producing an unnatural fruit that he did not like.

  Nell’s guilt.

  He had flirted with the idea of Nell being guilty of something, anything; now there was this business with the shoe so that it looked as if she could be guilty of abducting her own son. Or at least, of hiding him for reasons of her own.

  If he was her son.

  He knew what he had to do, and it was a nasty, sly trick but he would do it. A doubly sly trick because to do what he wanted he would have to make up with Stella, with whom a slight, residual irritation remained. She might guess it, too, she could be as clever as a waggon load of monkeys when she wanted.

  To Stella, he said: I’m going to talk to Nell now, but I’m not going to say much, she’ll have to come in to the station tomorrow and do the thing properly then. You going to stay here? I’ll come back to you.’

  Stella just raised an eyebrow giving him a bare nod. Didn’t even hear what I just said, she thought. Pig. Well, that’s it. I shall start all over again with someone else. I want a man, a woman like me does. She awarded herself this judgement like a prize. And I should like a man who doesn’t smoke, drinks only what I drink, and when, and does his own cooking. Driving too, she added thoughtfully.

  She looked round the room to see if she could sight such a man, but all she could see was Nell talking to John Coffin.

  That bastard Ellice Eden was still being very protective of her, hadn’t moved away, he was staying on the scene, holding her drink for her. Pretending not to listen, of course.

  True to his word, Coffin did not stay long with Nell, a few brisk sentences it looked to be, and he came back to Stella, standing there with a withdrawn look, still not really with her.