Coffin's Game

by Gwendoline Butler

  Silence.

  From behind a curtain on the window where the stair curved, he saw a tail, then a cautious beady gaze.

  ‘Oh, hello, boy,’ Coffin said. ‘You still here? Better not let Stella see you. You and I are going to have to stop meeting like this.’ Augustus bustled up the stairs behind him, ready to take part in the game, but the mouse was gone.

  The quiet of the tower was telling its own story; it spoke of emptiness. Stella was not here.

  The place did not feel like home without Stella in it. He knew why; marriage with Stella had given him the stable home life which a first disastrous marriage had failed to do.

  Coffin had been in Edinburgh where, amongst other things, he had visited his half-brother in the large, handsome, frigid house he inhabited. William matched the house; so much so that Coffin found it difficult to relate to him as a brother, even half a brother. Their meeting had been stiff and formal as they talked over the research Coffin was trying to do on the life of their eccentric parent. Sometimes, he thought his mother might still be alive and building up yet another family; though she would be near her century now, he did not put it past her. He wished he had known her, but disappearing was her game.

  He was back home now and miserable. In Scotland he had been at a conference of top policemen held in a remote house. It had been one of those conferences which had appeared to be on one subject but which had had a covert purpose.

  Coffin had learnt a few things at Melly House that would concern him and his district, and had been, tactfully, informed of certain others. He, in his turn, had passed on certain information.

  Knowledge, he reflected, as he read Stella’s note, is a painful thing. She will ring, probably from New York. I will know from the tone of her voice if I ought to raise what I learnt at Melly House.’ He was desperately anxious but he kept calm; he knew he must.

  The time passed quietly, with no call from Stella. He had ahead of him several busy days, a meeting in central London, two committees, one about finance. The bombs in his district, the need for increased security all round, had meant extra spending.

  He knew that Stella usually stayed at the Algonquin, so he rang there first. Miss Pinero was not a guest, he was told politely. She was well known there and a welcome visitor, but, regretfully, she was not staying at the hotel just now.

  If she could afford it, or if someone else, like the film company, was paying, Stella liked the St Regis.

  But Stella was not there, either.

  Finally, he did what he should have done at first, but disliked doing: he telephoned her London agent. He knew that Doria Jones thought he was bad for Stella’s career, that he kept her cooped up in the Second City when she ought to be adorning the London or New York stage. In short, she thought Coffin was a chauvinistic, oppressive spouse.

  Doria’s secretary answered his call, saying in her polite but chirpy voice that Doria was out of town and would not be back until the late evening.

  In the evening, he worked on papers and prepared a speech he had to give at an official dinner. That done he had a meal, then a drink, and fell asleep. Then, late as it was, he telephoned Doria at home.

  She replied in person, sounding surprised to hear him. She had a soft, sweet voice and always said that Stella was her favourite client – which may have been true.

  ‘No, darling, I don’t know where Stella is. I did not send her an urgent message. Definitely not.’

  She was willing to go on talking about this, but Coffin was not. ‘Thanks, Doria, I got it wrong. My fault. Sorry I bothered you.’

  He put the telephone down. ‘Stella, damn you, where are you?’ Coffin’s life had ruled out trusting people. Stella was an exception. He still loved and trusted her, but he wanted to know where she was.

  Coffin did not sleep much that night. ‘If I have lost Stella, either physically or emotionally, because she wasn’t what I thought she was, I would not die. I would go on, because I have learnt how to survive, but I would be shrunken.’

  In the dawn he went down to the kitchen and made some coffee, which he sat at the table drinking. The sky outside was pink with light. He couldn’t see the mouse but he heard a rustle by the window.

  ‘Could she be dead?’ he asked himself. ‘If what I heard in Melly House was true, then the company she is mixing with might easily kill her if they scented danger.’ He felt a groan rising inside him. ‘I am part of the danger, although God knows I don’t want to be.’

  It was not all his fault though, and he knew that, too. Stella had to bear her share.

  ‘When she gets in touch, comes back, we will work this through somehow,’ he told himself. He finished the coffee, made toast, put some cheese down for the mouse, then ate the toast standing by the window watching the sun slowly rise into view.

  He felt better. At intervals he told himself that he would certainly know if anything had happened to Stella. He would sense it. Would he, though? Wasn’t that precisely the sort of fallacy he would discourage in other people?

  On the other hand, he would be told, someone would tell him, he was the person who was told things, he was in a position to know what was happening.

  Anyway, Stella would telephone soon. Or walk in the door, then they could talk things over. ‘I don’t blame you for anything, Stella,’ he would say, ‘but I must know.’

  Didn’t that sound pompous, precisely the sort of comment that would make Stella stamp out of the room in a rage? Phrase it better, Coffin. You will when you see her, it will happen.

  ‘You may never see her again,’ a voice whispered in his ear.

  The information appertaining to Stella – lovely professional phrase that, if a little pompous – was nothing much, merely her name on a list, but it had been fed to him so discreetly, almost anonymously and without comment. He had been observed, though; notice taken, as you might say.

  He was surprised to find that during all this inner conversation he had driven himself to work and had arrived, safely, too, in his office.

  He sped through the outer office where two uniformed officers manned the defences, then with a brisk good morning to them he entered the inner office where three people worked – his assistant Paul Masters, and the two secretaries: Gillian, and the new girl, Sheila, who had replaced the elegant Sylvia – before hurrying into his own room which was empty and quiet, and smelt of furniture polish with a touch of disinfectant. Pine, he thought.

  ‘Got back early,’ he announced, as he passed through to his work-laden desk. The usual files to read and initial, a larger than customary folder of letters to sign (and there would be more when his secretary came in, but she was tactfully leaving him for a few minutes), and the notes of telephone calls received and to be returned.

  A call from Archie Young, but no message. Coffin frowned. This was unlike Archie who was always businesslike and not mysterious. He rang his secretaries; Sheila answered.

  ‘Do you know anything about these calls from Chief Superintendent Young?’

  Sheila Heslop had been with him for six months now, more or less taking charge of the outer office and organizing Gillian, who was about to take study leave. In a quiet way, she organized the Chief Commander, too.

  ‘He rang me first to see if you were in, sir,’ she said carefully. ‘I suggested that he speak to Inspector Masters, but he said he wanted you. I think he had something he wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘Oh, well, I expect I will be here.’

  ‘I rather think he might be ringing again,’ she said, with what might have been a touch of nervousness. This made Coffin answer her sharply.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Just a feeling, sir.’

  Coffin looked at his watch. Still early, still time for Stella to ring.

  He took up the report on the bombings in the Second City, which came with photographs and a video of the bombers.

  In two seconds the phone went. Coffin picked it up eagerly to hear Archie Young’s hesitant voice. ‘Some
thing you ought to see, sir. A body … Percy Street.’

  ‘I’ll drive you round, sir,’ Archie Young had said. ‘Unless you would rather use your own driver?’ He could see someone had better drive the Chief Commander. Coffin had a new driver – not a member of the Force; police officers cost too much to train to be used as chauffeurs.

  ‘He’s away,’ said Coffin. ‘Thank you, Archie, you drive.’

  So tense he felt sick, Coffin let Archie Young lead him into the house in Percy Street. There was a ring of fellow officers there, the SOCO team, the police surgeon, and Inspector Lodge.

  With automatic good manners he nodded towards them all, but did not speak. He looked at the body lying on the floor, the terribly damaged face staring upwards. He saw the handbag lying on the floor.

  He walked forward, forcing himself to study well what he saw. He stared for some minutes before turning away. ‘No, that is not my wife. Yes, she wore jeans like that; yes, she had such a handbag, but the body is not hers.’

  Inspector Lodge met Coffin’s eyes with a meaningful stare: I hope you know what you are doing.

  Archie Young muttered something about the material in the handbag.

  ‘I don’t care what is inside the handbag. That is not my wife,’ said Coffin in a quiet voice. ‘It is not Stella.’

  Chapter 2

  Archie Young and Coffin were back in the Chief Commander’s office. Coffin had watched with an expressionless face as the body, which he refused to own, was packed into a black bag to be transported to the mortuary. The police used the one in the University Hospital where a special room had been allocated to them.

  Archie picked up the blue leather handbag, now packaged in a piece of plastic. ‘I think you should look at what was found in this bag.’

  Coffin gave it a bleak look. He was not sure, but he thought he was angry with Archie. For certain, anger from somewhere, caused by someone, was welling up inside him. Perhaps it was from the pain, for there was pain all right. He said nothing but continued to stare at the bag.

  ‘You thought you recognized the bag.’

  The bag was dark leather, very soft and quilted with a gold chain and gold emblem on the front. Even Archie Young had seen similar ones around, swinging from the shoulders of the fashionable. Some were genuine, others imitation. This one looked the real thing.

  ‘Stella has one like it. I gave it to her. Chanel, she chose it herself. But there must be many others, they are so fashionable.’ Which was why he had given one to Stella, who had a taste for what was fashionable and expensive.

  He studied the soft blue leather object, reluctant to open it, even to touch it.

  ‘Better open it, sir. Or shall I do it for you?’ A thin pair of transparent plastic gloves was held out, ready. Still reluctant, Coffin smoothed on the gloves; he knew the rules.

  ‘No.’ Coffin stretched out his hand, now masked, and lifted the tiny gold fastening. The bag yawned open in front of him. ‘It’s been damaged, the bag should open more slowly.’

  ‘Yes, I reckon it’s been wrenched apart. Not malice, I don’t think. Whoever did it wanted to be sure that it fell wide apart. So you could see what was inside. At a glance.’

  Coffin looked at Archie Young sharply. ‘You meant something by that.’

  ‘Take a look, sir.’

  Coffin frowned as he drew out a photograph. He laid it on the desktop in front of him. Archie, watching the Chief Commander closely, saw the colour melt from his face to be replaced by a pallor and then a flush that spread to his throat and touched his temple. Coffin put out his hand and covered the picture. He looked up at Archie Young: ‘That photo is a fake. Stella is not mad, bad and dangerous.’

  ‘No,’ said Archie. ‘Of course not.’ But he said it awkwardly, half defensively.

  ‘Stella does not eat human flesh. God, no. That woman –’ he tapped the picture – ‘is eating an arm, I can see the wrist. A bleeding human arm.’

  ‘Bit of,’ said Archie even more awkwardly. And it wasn’t actually dripping with blood. The blood, if that was what it was, looked dry.

  The picture, of course, was a fake, but why? And the face, and the body, what you could see of it, was certainly Stella Pinero’s.

  Archie felt miserable: it was a bloody awful thing to have happened. No, he mustn’t keep using that word, there was too much blood around as it was. He looked with sympathy at the Chief Commander, who seemed suddenly older.

  ‘The dead woman is not Stella,’ said Coffin. ‘And this photograph is not of Stella.’

  He’s a good man, Archie said to himself, whatever she’s done to him, he doesn’t deserve this.

  The devil got a hold of his tongue because he heard himself say: ‘Some anthropologists think that kissing developed from biting.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was a pause during which Archie Young tried to think of something sensible and wise to say, before he decided that silence might be best.

  Coffin shook himself, like a dog coming in from the rain. ‘Let’s get down to this. We are policemen, investigators. Who is the dead woman, and how did she die?’

  ‘We don’t know the answers yet to the first question. As to the second, it looks as though she was strangled. The face was beaten after death.’

  ‘And the next thing, after establishing identity …’ Coffin started the sentence.

  If we can, said Archie Young silently to himself. He had dread feelings about this dead woman.

  ‘Is to find out how and why she was carrying my wife’s handbag. If indeed it is Stella’s and not a replica,’ Coffin pushed on. ‘And that in itself is a strange thing. Why?’

  It’s all strange, Archie thought, mighty strange. ‘Of course we will find out who she is,’ he said, with more confidence than he felt. He grappled with another problem: how to refer to the Chief Commander’s wife in the embarrassing present circumstance.

  He compromised. ‘Miss Pinero might be able to throw some light on it when questioned.’ Coffin looked at him gloomily, even apprehensively. Archie floundered on. ‘The bag might have been lost or stolen.’

  ‘With the photograph in it?’

  Wonder if he’ll have a breakdown, Archie thought. He looks as though he could. On the edge. But no, he’s a strong fellow, mentally and physically. Except he loves that woman, that’s always dangerous. ‘It’s a joke that photograph,’ he said.

  ‘The dead body is not a joke,’ said Coffin savagely.

  Archie Young was silenced. From the outer room, Coffin could hear Paul Masters chatting away cheerfully. Too cheerfully, he thought sourly, and there was a woman laughing. For a moment, he thought it might be Stella, but it was one of the secretaries. He knew the voice, there was a brassy ring to it which today he found irritating. She laughed again, damn her. He wondered if he could institute a no laughing rule like a no smoking rule.

  ‘I don’t know where she is,’ Coffin heard himself saying. ‘I have not the least idea in the world where Stella has gone.’

  That, thought Archie, is one of the comments you are better off not hearing. He liked and admired the Chief Commander, he liked and admired Stella Pinero, too, but he wanted to keep out of their relationship. Let them sort it out. She would turn up. You had to allow actresses their freedom. ‘She’ll get in touch,’ he heard himself saying.

  Coffin looked at his old friend and colleague and suddenly realized he was being offered sympathy. He laughed and pulled himself together.

  ‘I am sure she will, Archie, and it had better be soon.’ There was a note in his voice which suggested that Stella, when she returned, would have some questions to answer. He stood up. ‘I’d better get back to work.’

  The Chief Superintendent rose too. ‘Anything new on the bombers?’

  Coffin shook his head. What he had learnt on his trip north was confidential even from Archie Young. ‘Nothing much,’ he said in a noncommittal voice. ‘Inspector Lodge was first in to inspect the body in Percy Street, I suppose?’

 
‘Pretty smartish,’ agreed Archie Young. ‘Asked to come with me as soon as he heard about it. He was told, of course.’ Anything to do with the bombed area was for him to know about, he was their expert, the local, middle-range one. All the foremost terrorist watchers had probably been in Edinburgh or wherever it was the Chief Commander had really gone. On this point, Archie had his reservations. Edinburgh first, and then on to – where?

  ‘I suppose he hoped he’d got a dead terrorist.’

  ‘I don’t know what he hoped. He doesn’t show his mind, that one.’

  The two looked at each other. They would be glad to be rid of the Todger, but life was not so simple.

  ‘He’s very good at what he does,’ Coffin allowed. Not a loveable man, but who would be in that job. He could not regard himself as a totally loveable person. He heard Stella’s voice: ‘No, darling, not a cuddly person. Many good qualities and I love you madly, but not cosy.’

  Was that why she had gone away? Was she running away from him?

  Did Stella love him? He had never felt totally sure. You had to remember that she was an actress.

  And where was she, damn her.

  ‘I’ll take the bag with me,’ said Archie Young, reaching out a hand for the bag in its plastic container. ‘Forensics, and all that.’

  Coffin nodded.

  ‘If I could suggest, sir, you might have a look round at home to see if Miss Pinero’s bag is there or not.’

  ‘I will, I will.’ He would get round to it when he felt less sore.

  ‘Or she might say herself …’ Archie left the rest of the sentence delicately unsaid.

  ‘When we speak again, I will certainly be asking,’ said Coffin. He watched the Chief Superintendent depart with careful, depressing tact, closing the door quietly and not smiling.

  Feeling unloved and out of sorts, Coffin slumped back in his chair and went to work on the mound of papers in front of him. Word processors, far from reducing this load, added to it daily. A truism, of course, but he was not in the mood to be original.

  He wondered where Stella was and why she had said nothing which was true; but he shrank from the painful thought that perhaps it was better he did not know more. A lie had to hide something, didn’t it?