Coffin's Ghost

by Gwendoline Butler

  Evelyn nodded. That had brought Chief Inspector Astley in sharpish.

  ‘She’ll check on the really interesting stuff . . . if any.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind asking her a few questions myself.’

  The interesting thing was that Phoebe Astley had been round here so speedily that morning, even before the first SOCO team had finished photographing the front steps. Off again now.

  She had not had much to say, even to Mary. Police business, her expression said.

  Evelyn said: ‘Do you think it could be Henriette?’

  ‘The dead woman? Etta? Oh no, she went home to France.’

  ‘We’ve never heard from her. No one has.’

  Henriette Duval had worked with Mary and Evelyn in the Serena Seddon for about eighteen months to earn her keep while doing an English language course at the University of the Second City. Then she had said her farewells and gone home to Versailles.

  ‘Oh, but that’s not so surprising.’

  ‘She said she would keep in touch. We liked her, everyone did, and she was marvellous at cleaning the kitchen, a real eye for dirt.’

  ‘People always say they will keep in touch; they hardly ever do. Doesn’t make her a candidate for being chopped up.’

  Evelyn was quiet for a minute, then she said: ‘Thought I saw her in Drossers Lane Market. Tried to catch up with her but she disappeared.’

  Mary shrugged. ‘A mistake, the girl just looked like Etta.’

  ‘Not many like Etta . . . red hair, tall and thin, skirts up to her thigh. No, I thought it was Etta.’ She added: ‘With a man, of course.’

  ‘Well . . . Etta . . .’ said Mary. ‘If it was Etta . . .’

  ‘She would be with a man.’

  ‘Still doesn’t make her a candidate for killing.’

  ‘You know the sort she went with: either villains or policemen. Both the type that might kill and cut up a girl.’

  Mary wondered what Phoebe Astley would make of this comment, then realized she would raise an eyebrow and laugh, half accepting the judgement. It was true, the police did deal in violence.

  Some truth in what Evelyn said then; violence was part of their life for the police. For some of them, not necessarily the worse, just the more vulnerable, perhaps because of something inside, it rubbed off on them.

  ‘Just because you saw Etta alive in Drossers Lane Market doesn’t mean she’s going to turn up dead on our doorstep.’

  Evelyn looked unconvinced.

  ‘You can’t even be sure it was her.’

  Evelyn looked even more unconvinced, and Mary remembered that you could never argue Evelyn out of anything: she just got more stubborn.

  ‘Have another cup of coffee,’ she said instead. ‘Swimming in it already.’ But Evelyn held out her cup. ‘Should I say anything about it when I am interviewed. I suppose we are being interviewed?’

  Mary nodded. ‘Bound to be. Especially you, you found the bundles.’

  ‘I’ve already told them about that.’

  The police noises about the house were becoming quieter; Mary sensed that they would be leaving. And others coming.

  ‘We’ve all answered a few questions. It’s just a beginning. We will have to go through it again, and perhaps again.’

  ‘Even if we don’t know anything?’

  ‘They have to be convinced of that.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

  Yes, thought Mary. I once went to bed with a policeman. In fact, quite often. It lasted about six months. I learnt a lot.

  I learnt that you could lie to him, and get away with it, or thought you had, but somehow in the end, and sometimes not too much later, you found the truth came out.

  Not that I ever had much to lie about, she added to herself. If I did it at all it was in self-protection because otherwise I would have gone up in smoke.

  A uniformed sergeant appeared at the door. ‘Just off, Miss Arden. Anyway for the moment, but there is a constable on the door and the forensic team would like to come in, if that’s all right?’

  Mary nodded assent.

  ‘Try saying no,’ growled Evelyn as he left.

  ‘You go home. If you are wanted, I’ll telephone you. Don’t go out to eat a quick curry with Peter though, just in case.’

  Evelyn swung her shoulder bag on. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Peter doesn’t eat curry. But I’d like to get back. Miss Pinero has two new contacts who might be putting together a show: Freedom and Gilchrist, sound like a stand-up comedy team, don’t they? And they have this driver and handyman who aids and assists. All means business, which as you know has not been brisk lately. But you can always trust Miss Pinero to bring it in, I say.’ Having said this, at the door, she turned. ‘Look after yourself, and do ring me if there is anything I can do.’

  ‘Miriam and Ally will be quiet now, they like each other, you only quarrel like that with friends. I’m on their side, or I wouldn’t be here. But they don’t like to feel I am kind of a social doctor treating a disease, so in a way they feel better when I lose my temper. It puts us on a level.’ She added: ‘You have to be a bit tough sometimes, of course.’

  ‘Yes, sure,’ said Evelyn. With a wave, she was gone.

  After the front door banged behind Evelyn, and she heard her speaking to the constable outside, Mary tidied up the coffee pot and cups, then went up the stairs to see Miriam and Ally.

  She passed one of the other occupants on the way up. ‘Everything all right, Fanny?’

  ‘Fine, Mary. I’m just off to get my prescription from Dr Meener. The police girl said it was all right.’

  ‘You do that then.’

  Fanny nodded towards the sitting room door. ‘They all right, then?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Do they know who it is outside? Whose bits, I mean?’

  Mary said, No, not as far as she knew.

  ‘I just wondered . . .’ Then Fanny stopped. Mary waited. ‘Just wondered if it was that foreign girl who helped here for a bit.’

  Mary said in a careful way: ‘I think she went home.’

  ‘Only I saw her around in Poland Street.’

  Poland Street was close, very close to Drossers Lane Market. In fact, Drossers Lane Market was virtually in Poland Street.

  ‘The other day . . . She did put it about a bit.’

  ‘You’d better tell the police when they ask questions. If you think it’s important.’

  ‘Might be, mightn’t it?’ and Fanny took herself down the stairs and out the front door.

  Mary made her way to the communal sitting room where Ally and Miriam were sitting companionably side by side, smoking and watching TV. The boy, watching too, no longer looked evil, but just like any unsettled child who had seen too much of life for his age.

  Someone, Miriam probably, had made the room tidy, picking up the knocked-over furniture and restoring the cushions to the sofa. Someone else, again probably Miriam, had made a pot of tea and yet another person, and this time probably the boy, had managed to get a bag of chips which they were now passing from hand to hand in a peaceful and friendly fashion.

  They had been joined by one of the new arrivals, Betty, who had come in last night and was still nervous. She seemed to have been welcomed into the group and was certainly getting tea and a sympathetic chip.

  ‘You shouldn’t be eating chips, Miriam,’ Mary reminded her. ‘You know what the doctor said.’

  No one bothered to answer this comment, although Betty looked even more nervous.

  And who could blame her, Mary thought. What a welcome to the Serena.

  The chip bag was waved in her direction, and absently she took one. The vinegar and salt were harsh and strong but somehow it was tasty. The programme they were watching didn’t look bad either.

  At this point, Billy slipped off the sofa and, ignoring his mother’s request to sit still and stop being a regular nuisance, went to the window.

  ‘There’s men out there in white suits like ghosts,’ he ann
ounced loudly.

  ‘Scientists, forensic ones,’ growled his mother. ‘Seen on the telly.’

  Mary went to the window to look. Three men in hooded white cotton outfits were on their knees.

  ‘What are they doing round the side of the house?’ demanded Billy acutely. ‘The bits were found on the steps.’

  Mary had been wondering this herself. ‘They have to study the ground all around.’

  A sudden burst of laughter from the sofa drew the boy back to the television screen, muttering that it was a waste of time out there.

  Mary, who had been thinking this herself, moved away from the window and towards the door.

  As she touched the handle, Miriam said, over her shoulder and not looking at Mary, not taking her eyes off the television screen: ‘They found a handbag there, round the side of the house.’

  Mary swung round, walked over and deliberately planted her body between them and the television screen. Impolite, pushy, irritating, but essential, as experience had taught her.

  ‘Where’d you get that from?’

  Miriam gave a little nod of her head sideways. ‘Betty told me.’

  Mary looked at Betty, who shifted her shoulders uneasily – alarm came promptly to her.

  I must be gentle, Mary reacted at once, I am not always gentle enough here.

  No, perhaps gentleness isn’t right. What is needed is to give to each what they need, and that is harder, because you have to be intelligent and responsive.

  Words, she said to herself sadly, you use too many words, girl. ‘Where did you learn that, Betty?’

  Betty looked down and fidgeted again. ‘The copper told me,’ she whispered.

  ‘The one on duty outside?’ said Mary doubtfully. It didn’t sound likely.

  ‘I was at school with him,’ Betty whispered. ‘We lived next door. My brother was his best mate.’

  ‘Right . . .’ Mary hesitated, wondering whether to say anything. ‘Perhaps he didn’t mean you to tell anyone else.’

  Betty was silent. ‘Only told Miriam. She asked.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Miriam, again without turning her head. ‘You can trust us: we won’t tell our stories to the newspapers or TV. Unless they pay us.’

  ‘Ha, ha.’ A mirthless comment from Mary as she left the room; she never found it easy to know when Miriam was joking. No doubt Miriam could have said the same of her. We don’t understand each other, that’s the truth of it, she thought, giving Miriam a last look: an enigma wrapped up in a thick cosy cover of flesh, and inside not cosy at all.

  That helped explain the boy. And probably why she was here in the refuge.

  From the policeman to Betty, from Betty to Miriam, and from Miriam to me, this was the channel of communication.

  Mary walked down the stairs wishing she could talk to Phoebe Astley. Phoebe always gave a straight answer to a question. If asked if the dead woman was Etta, Henriette Duval, who had worked in the refuge, she would answer Yes or No.

  If she could. Answers did not always come easy.

  And if asked further if it was possible her killer could be a member of the Second City Force, Phoebe would answer that too. But with circumspection.

  Mary paused on the stairs to look out of the window. She ran her finger down the glass. Outside it was beginning to rain, the rain would come through this window.

  The Serena Seddon House needed money spent on it, money it did not have. It was as comfortable and welcoming as it could be made inside, and that was what counted. Outside in Barrow Street it aimed for anonymity with no blue plaque displaying the name and just a discreet Number 5 on the door. And you had to come up to the door to see that.

  The partners of the battered women had been known to come looking for them so being unnoticed counted. Even so, the house was known in the area and not loved.

  Number 5 had been built at the end of the last century, it had celebrated its centenary, but it was showing its age. And who could blame it, Mary thought, since it had been a private home, home to a doctor who had been a police surgeon, and afterwards a dentist’s surgery, afterwards rented as home to the new Chief Commander of the Second City, one John Coffin, and then left empty for a clutch of years.

  Now it was a home for the fearful and the dispossessed. Interestingly, in the time of its first occupant, the doctor, it had got the reputation of being the home of Jack the Ripper: Dr Death.

  Mary Arden walked down the stairs. There was a WPC sitting on an upright chair in the hall.

  ‘You all right? Would you like a more comfortable chair?’ If there is one, Mary thought, even as she asked the question.

  ‘No, thank you, Miss Arden. This one does me.’

  ‘Is it true that a handbag was found outside the house?’

  ‘I haven’t heard, Miss Arden.’

  And wouldn’t say.

  Mary opened the front door to breathe in the cold, damp air. Phoebe Astley, who had been talking to the forensic team, swung round to look at her.

  ‘Hello, you advance guard, or doing the questioning yourself?’

  ‘Just checking.’ Phoebe came into the hall, sniffing the air. ‘I always wonder how you manage to keep this place smelling so fresh when . . .’

  ‘You mean when we don’t wash enough here.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that and you know it. I mean you have a very mixed and floating population here, and yet it never seems institutional.’

  She does mean it doesn’t smell. Mary grinned.

  ‘I work on it, it’s meant to be pleasant. We all like a hot bath or shower and there’s always hot water. And I provide lavender bath soap . . . they don’t have to use it, they may prefer their own, but it’s there.’

  Phoebe looked trim and brisk, her dress sense had tightened up; she carried a neat black notebook, the successful detective officer.

  I admire you, Phoebe, Mary said to herself. But what would you say, if I said: I could read what was written on the two terrible bundles and I saw the initials J.C.?

  What would you make of that, Phoebe?

  Not the signature of the sender, you would say at once, but a suggestion of the recipient?

  All she said was: ‘I suppose you want to talk to everyone here?’

  ‘Not me in person, but a couple of WDCs will be in.’

  ‘Don’t upset them, please. All the women have been through a lot. They need to be treated with care.’

  ‘That’s why I am sending women officers. They have been carefully chosen.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Just whether they heard or saw anything in the night or early morning. You too will be asked, Mary.’

  ‘I saw nothing,’ said Mary quickly. ‘Heard nothing. I don’t think anyone here will be able to help you. It can’t be anything to do with current residents.’

  Phoebe nodded but did not commit herself.

  ‘And the bag?’

  ‘May have nothing to do with the remains of the body.’ Phoebe was still being cautious.

  Suddenly, Mary said: ‘I know what was written across the bundle. I did go out to look when Evelyn came running in. I couldn’t make it out.’

  Phoebe allowed herself a shrug. Who can, it said.

  ‘I send it back from me to you, although it was yours before . . . Sounds like a quotation.’

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  ‘And J.C.? What does that mean?’

  Phoebe did not answer. Not even a shrug this time.

  ‘Some of the girls here think the body or what there is of it might be from Etta . . . she worked here for a bit. I thought she’d gone home, but it seems she’s been seen around the district . . . She had some risky friends, the sort that might use violence.’ Mary let the next words drop out slowly, as if she had just thought of them: ‘And she went about a bit with a few local coppers.’

  Phoebe could have said that she had heard this, but she did not. Never divulge information unnecessarily was a dictum she had been taught. Especially in a case like this. ‘We�
��ll work it out,’ said Phoebe patiently. ‘Trust us.’

  But trust, as she knew, was always in short supply in the Second City.

  And she wasn’t too sure how much she had of it herself. She nodded to PC Ryman-Lawson as she left, acknowledging that he was wet and cold.

  3

  Because Coffin had once lived in the house in Barrow Street (which was attracting intense if discreet media attention), he was being kept informed of the investigation as it went on. Reports of all important crimes in the Second City always went to him as a matter of course, but this was different. Archie Young had decided he must see and hear of everything.

  The message scrawled on the two bundles was being kept quiet although rumours went around the watchers.

  Coffin knew of them, had seen a photograph of the bundles, although not the bundles themselves. He knew what was written there, and understood why Archie Young and Phoebe Astley were keeping an eye on the investigation.

  Keeping an eye on him too, he thought with some irritation.

  The initials J.C., taken in conjunction with the fact he had once lived in the house was giving them pause for thought.

  And they were probably thinking also, quietly to themselves: And what about the woman?

  The House in Barrow Street – he thought of it as The House that belonged in a sensitive part of his memory when he had lived there alone. Alone, new to the Second City, wondering if he was going to regret leaving the Met, a time when Stella was in New York and the marriage was rocky. Or seemed to be so.

  I love you, Stella, he thought, but you can be difficult.

  This is the point where you laugh, he said to himself, because probably she says the same about you. Bound to. It was always mutual, that sort of complaint, wasn’t it?

  He went to the window to look out. He had returned to work, against his doctor’s advice, earlier than that luminary thought wise. He had a deputy and an assistant, but work was piling up and he wanted to get on with it himself. He did not find it easy to delegate.

  Outside it was raining; the Second City did not look at its best when the sky was grey and heavy with rain.

  He returned to his desk where a tray of coffee had been put ready for him by his secretary with a look of sympathy. The way he felt at the moment he did not want sympathy, it irritated him.