Coffin's Ghost

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Yes.’

  Coffin looked at Alice. ‘Can you do it? No one will blame you if you can’t.’

  Alice was silent, then she stood up, hands clasped in front of her. ‘My stepfather,’ she began, then she looked at Robbie, who seemed frozen. ‘Not you.’ She gave him a sweet, affectionate smile. ‘The other one . . .’

  In the pause, Coffin noticed that Robbie was crying.

  The words came in little bursts, bundles of words, gasped out.

  ‘My stepfather liked to make love to me. He always liked to make love to me.’

  Coffin heard Robbie make a hissing noise.

  The words came squeezing out like toothpaste. She had enjoyed working in the theatre . . . Her mother had got her the work before going off to America, she loved working there, no one told her she was stupid . . . she liked her little room. Peter was kind to her. Her stepfather did not visit her there. Then he did.

  There was a pause.

  Mary said she could stop, if she liked. No need to go on. But Alice went on: she did not bleed as often as some girls, she knew this was how she was. So it was some time before she understood that there was a baby inside her.

  She told her stepfather, and he hit her, she fell. At this point she began to cry; he always hit her, she expected it. ‘I must never say anything, I must never say anything.’

  Mary stopped her. ‘Alice does not remember much after that. I think she was unconscious. When she came round, she was being looked after by a woman she did not know but who was kind to her, in a place she did not recognize. Time seemed to have lost its meaning for Alice, then. Then one day, she was standing by the window looking out, this was what she did most of the time, when the birth began . . .’ Mary paused. The phone was ringing again. ‘Someone ought to kill that man,’ she said in a gentle voice. ‘Alice could not talk about it, which we must respect, but the woman took the child and said she would do the right thing . . . The rest you know . . .

  ‘She is not sure why she was wandering on the street, but she said she was told to go home . . .’

  The room was silent. Robbie went over to put his arm about Alice. ‘I’m here, kid, you’ve got help.’

  ‘If you want my opinion,’ said Evelyn, ‘I think she was drugged.’

  ‘What did she see from the window when she looked out?’ asked Coffin. ‘What did you see, Alice?’

  Alice rested her head on Robbie’s shoulder. She thought, her eyes looking towards the window in Mary’s room in Barrow Street. ‘A roof, a long roof, and a wall, a wall without windows.’

  After this no one spoke for some time. There seemed nothing worthwhile to say.

  ‘It was a Grand Guignol, a Gothic tale,’ said Coffin to Stella when he got back. ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘And did you believe her?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Coffin. ‘I believed her. Except the ending . . . I think she knew where she was.’

  13

  The University Hospital into which Albie Touchey had been taken had benefited from a large grant three years ago. The core of it was pretty much what it was when it was the Poor Law Hospital for East Hythe, but its face was greatly improved.

  It had also added a suite of private rooms, in one of which Albie Touchey was resting. If resting was the word, for he was in a chair, drawn up to a table.

  When Coffin arrived to see him next morning, he was working at his portable computer, listening to a caller on his mobile and interviewing the assistant governor of the prison.

  ‘Glad you’re up and about,’ said Coffin.

  ‘Those doctors . . . I’m a strong chap.’

  It didn’t seem the moment to say: You nearly died, Albie, and you were unconscious for a long time.

  ‘I heard you’d been asking, hoping to see me stretched out stiff as a board, eh?’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘Yes, sure, of course I do. You get to make silly jokes after a week or so in this place.’ Then he went on: ‘No, seriously, I did wonder if I was going to die, it was the morphine they plugged into me. Gave me terrible fantasies. I thought this is how it is going to end: Not with a whimper but a bang. You’re supposed not to hear the shot that kills you and that was the only thing that kept me cheerful, I swear I heard the shot.’ He leaned forward. Stiffly, revealing the bandages still taped to his chest. ‘So, what’s been going on? Jonesy here’ – he nodded towards his assistant – ‘won’t tell me a thing. Got to keep my blood pressure down.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ This from William Jones. ‘The doc just said not to worry you.’

  ‘There’s been a lot going on around here,’ said Coffin. ‘I think most of it you know.’ No need to tell him about Alice.

  ‘Thought you’d killed me, did you?’ Albie joked.

  ‘I thought you had been attacked instead of me.’

  Albie gave Coffin a sharp look. ‘No,’ he said. He turned to William Jones: ‘Give me those letters and I’ll sign them. Then you can push off.’

  He began the signing at once.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, Bill, but keep me in touch and tell the lads I’ll be back with them all soon. Too soon for some, I daresay.’ He handed the signed letters over.

  Bill Jones gathered up letters and reports, then took himself off. ‘Look after yourself, sir.’

  When he had gone, Albie said: ‘I wasn’t shot instead of you. I was the one that gun was aimed at. Take it from me. I was the one he wanted. We all have enemies and mine found me.’

  ‘You think so?’ Coffin kept his tone neutral.

  Albie patted his chest. ‘I know so.’

  ‘Any idea who did it then?’

  Slowly Albie shook his head. ‘That’s your job.’

  ‘When you came round first you said Freedom.’

  Albie frowned. ‘Ah yes, that name was on my mind, not surprising it came popping out. I was anxious about Freedom and his stepdaughter . . . I was frightened he would harm her.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Albie?’

  Albie motioned towards the cupboard. ‘Like a drink? ‘Fraid it’s only fruit juice, all you’re allowed here . . . About Freedom, just the way he was. The way he talked about the girl, about girls. Women.’

  ‘I know what you mean. He has harmed her.’

  ‘Oh?’ Albie looked sharply at Coffin. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He’s living in something called the Argosy, one of those new blocks made out of a disused factory or warehouse. I think this was a warehouse for a firm making naval uniforms . . . I suppose that’s why they called it The Argosy. It’s in Rickards Passage.’ He was talking too much and he knew it, loading his conversation with inessentials because he did not wish, here and now, to talk about Alice.

  ‘So what did he do?’

  ‘Tell you later. On which subject . . . you were coming to tell me something. Urgently. Or I got that impression.’

  ‘Yes.’ Albie took a deep breath. ‘I had been told that someone was out to do you damage. I get a lot of stories told me, some of them false. I believed this one, the man who told me was dying. Sam Sears.’

  Coffin nodded. ‘Know the name.’ Sears had been a sick man when arrested for attempting to kill his wife, Coffin had seen he got the right medical treatment, secretly sympathizing with him for the attempt on the wife. A bitch of the first order.

  ‘You helped him.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘He wanted to help you back.’

  ‘And did he say who was after me?’

  Albie sighed. ‘I think he did. Must have done. But it’s gone.’

  Coffin said: ‘Well, thanks.’

  ‘Shock, I suppose. Or the morphine and other drugs they pumped into me. Blank. Only patches. I daresay it will come back.’

  ‘Sure. Take it easy, Albie.’

  ‘Wait a minute . . . there was something about a wife, yes, I remember that much.’

  ‘He was in trouble over his wife,’ said Coffin.

  But Albie wa
s talking on, not listening: ‘Was it a threat to her? No.’ He shook his head. ‘More later if I remember.’

  The conversation had not gone uninterrupted, all the time nurses had been popping in and out, putting out pills on little saucers, bringing in carafes of water or just standing at the door and looking.

  Coffin walked away and got into his car to drive back to see George Freedom.

  Any threat to Stella I take seriously, very seriously. Is that what I was hearing?

  So what do I do now? Tough it out.

  He went back to St Luke’s Tower before visiting his office, on the pretext of collecting the dog. Stella was at home, shuffling scripts and making telephone calls. She said she was less disturbed working at home than if she went into her office in the theatre.

  ‘What are you doing today?’ he asked.

  ‘Working. What are you doing?’

  ‘Working.’

  ‘That’s established then.’

  He stood by her desk, looking down on the neat, well-cut hair, the pearl earrings and the necklace, also pearls, nestling in the curve of her neck.

  ‘Thank you for staying with me in this business.’

  She took off the spectacles, chosen to match her Ferragamo shirt and trousers. ‘Of course, what else would I do? We’ve had this conversation before.’

  ‘I think we may be drawing to the end.’

  ‘You mean you’ll get Freedom?’ She sat back. ‘I’ll be surprised. He’s a cunning bugger. Well, well. Just let me know in good time, will you? In advance of the rest of the world.’

  ‘Yes, anything special you would like me to know in advance?’

  ‘He was never my lover, if that’s what you mean.’ She laughed. ‘But you don’t mean that, do you?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem your style somehow.’

  ‘There’s a lot of sex there all right, but not too straightforward and I have always been that. As you know. No, and I never accepted any money for this or that in the theatre, tempting as it would have been because I always wondered what he would have wanted in addition. He and Robbie made a very good team, though. I don’t know how Robbie will go on without him. I suppose he has lost him?’

  ‘One way or another, yes.’

  Stella put her spectacles back on, to return to work. ‘Take Gus with you, he’s ruining my new Prada shoes.’

  Gus was dragged from the top of her feet. ‘Beast,’ said Stella lovingly as they departed, and Coffin asked himself which one of them she meant.

  There was a message from Phoebe awaiting him. It said:

  I have George Freedom here and also Bill Eager. Not together. Both impatient.

  She had clearly been waiting for his arrival, because soon Gillian appeared to ask if DCI Astley could come in.

  ‘Yes, just give me ten minutes to go through what is on my desk. Then bring the chief inspector and some coffee too, please.’

  He was longer than his ten minutes, but Phoebe filled in the time talking to Gillian. She knew from experience that Gillian was very well-informed on everything that went on in the Second City police, uniformed and plain clothes, and although discreet would pass on what she thought you should know.

  The room she worked in was large with a recess in which another secretary worked, and a large bay window where Inspector Paul Masters had his own desk and telephone. But Gillian had her own territory, near to the Chief Commander’s door and a desk with a pot plant on it.

  ‘He won’t be long. I’m just making some coffee.’ Gillian moved to a corner of the room where she had a coffee grinder and a coffee filter machine. This arrangement was for her own comfort since she knew that the Chief Commander downed whatever she offered him without comment. The coffee was hot and good and prestige demanded that the china was thin, delicate Worcester. She did not allow him either cream or sugar, since Miss Pinero had advised her not to. She had started by cutting down both by degrees until she realized that the Chief Commander never noticed and drank what was offered.

  Phoebe also got black coffee. Gillian herself took it with added cream and sugar.

  ‘Nice to have the Chief Commander back,’ she said, handing the cup to Phoebe. ‘I think he ought to take a holiday, but he always says that when he can take a holiday then Miss Pinero can’t and when she can, then he is too busy. It’s been a tough year.’

  Phoebe agreed it had been, wondering what Gillian was leading up to.

  ‘Of course, he’s got lots of problems, especially at the moment.’

  ‘I know,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘It’s amazing the people who do get away.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ She felt the prey was coming closer.

  Gillian shook her head. ‘I saw Sergeant Grimm dashing for the train to Paris when I was rushing through Waterloo the other morning. He didn’t see me.’

  ‘Was he on his own?’

  ‘Yes, although he’s not what I’d call the monastic type.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Phoebe. ‘So they say, just gossip.’

  ‘Usually right, though, aren’t they? I always say if you want to know what’s going on in the Second City, ask Mimsie Marker.’

  ‘She is well-informed.’

  ‘Keeps her eyes open. Now, I expect if I told her about the sergeant she’d say, Oh, that’s where he keeps his money.’ Gillian giggled.

  Phoebe drank her coffee, appreciating the nugget of information thus passed. ‘Make a good detective, Mimsie would.’ And not so bad yourself, Gillian.

  Gillian smiled. ‘Of course, that train is so fast, you can come and go in a day and no one knows you’ve been away.’

  The buzzer sounded from the room beyond; Gillian gave a friendly nod. ‘For you.’

  As Phoebe made her way into Coffin’s room she made a mental note to pass over to him the information about Sergeant Grimm. Meanwhile, she would keep it to herself, think about what it meant and consider what to do. There might be merit marks here.

  Coffin stood up, dislodging Gus. ‘I didn’t get much out of Albie, if that’s what you wanted to know. All he meant by muttering Freedom, so he says, is that he thought Freedom was a menace to young girls, and we already know that.’

  ‘Someone will kill Freedom one day,’ said Phoebe. She had been told in full what had happened to Alice and at whose hands. ‘Unless he develops some mortal disease first. He might do. There’s always hope.’

  ‘Robbie wishes to take the girl away to his house in Gloucestershire. I have asked him to wait till we clear some matters here.’

  Phoebe raised an eyebrow. ‘Such as?’

  ‘I don’t think Alice told us quite everything. She says she was in a daze, drugged, so Evelyn thought. Maybe, she may well have been drugged, but all the same, I think she knows where she was and with whom. She did murmur something but later seemed vaguer.’

  ‘Why keep quiet?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what interests me.’

  ‘Frightened again?’

  ‘Could be. She was somewhere near where she was found, I swear. She told me what she could see from the window of the room she was in. And it sounded to me like the area around Drossers Lane Market. And that wasn’t so far away from where Evelyn Jones found her. Walking distance, anyway. But we’ll find out.’

  ‘Important?’

  ‘Well, it’s a funny story, and I’d like to get more sense into it.’

  He pushed Gus aside, noticed that he had not drunk his coffee so he politely finished it, cold, and motioned Phoebe to the door.

  ‘I hope Freedom and Eager are getting nicely irritable. Men talk more loosely then.’

  ‘Don’t women?’ she asked as she led the way down the corridor. Coffin just grinned in reply: not nice women, said the grin. ‘I have Freedom in interview room A and Eager in B. Which do you want first?’

  Coffin didn’t have to think. ‘Freedom first, we will see what we can bounce out of him about the gun. He’s bound to lie, so then get Eager to put the pressure on.’

  ‘And I have the handkerchief whic
h was found round the gun to produce to see if we can tie it to Freedom. Nothing memorable about it, so he will resist it, but worth a try.’

  Room A first then.

  A young WPC was standing politely in one corner while George Freedom paced the room, swearing. They could hear him as they went in.

  ‘You’ve taken your bloody time.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ This from Phoebe. ‘Please sit down.’

  Coffin slid into the seat beside her. Freedom turned his anger this way. ‘Oh, you again. I might have known it. What is it now?’

  Phoebe issued the usual warnings then put a plastic bag containing a grubby handkerchief in front of him. ‘Is that your handkerchief, sir?’

  He didn’t look. ‘No.’

  Phoebe shook the plastic bag so he could get a view. ‘Please look.’

  Freedom gave it a cursory look, and then shrugged. ‘It’s a handkerchief, if you think it is mine, then prove it. Much good may it do you, because I don’t know what all this is about.’

  ‘We may be able to prove you have others like it.’

  ‘Well, good luck to you.’

  ‘And if I tell you that it was wrapped round a gun that killed a woman and almost killed a man?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  ‘And you never went to the Abbey Road Gun Club to ask about shooting?’

  ‘No, I did not, and if you are going on like this, I want my solicitor.’

  Phoebe paused. ‘We could stop, sir, while you call for him.’

  ‘No, he works in London and he costs a bloody fortune just to write a letter. No, thank you.’ He turned on Coffin. ‘Why don’t you say something? Instead of sitting there looking like the judge and the jury all in one.’

  ‘What I want to say is: Will you be willing, in the interest of establishing your innocence, to meet a man who says he knows you and with whom you discussed guns.’

  George Freedom threw up his hands. ‘You’re mad, the pair of you. Bring in your chap, but I warn you he is lying.’

  Coffin gave Phoebe a nod.

  ‘Sending her, are you? She goes trotting off, your pony, obedient to master.’

  ‘Just checking,’ said Coffin mildly. ‘Something we have to do.’