Cold Coffin

by Butler, Gwendoline

  When Phoebe, still muttering crossly, had gone, Coffin got back to work on the papers on his desk. He had recently initiated a study of all the clubs in his bailiwick, some of which he suspected of being involved in drug offences and allied crimes. He thumbed through the report: the Cat Lovers’ Club sounded harmless enough, as did Tortoise Friends, but the Ladies of Leisure might need looking into. Several walking and hiking clubs – surely not much trouble there? But he knew from experience you could never be sure. Some were more sinister than others.

  Then he put on a raincoat to go down to look at the flooded excavations.

  The rain had stopped, but it was a damp, dark evening.

  He looked down into the murk and wondered about the babies’ heads, once buried there, now uncovered. Although dark, the water was not quite opaque; reflections shimmered and moved in the lights from the building behind. You could imagine you saw shapes.

  ‘You could almost imagine that was a skull.’ He must have spoken aloud.

  ‘It is a skull.’

  He felt a presence behind him and looked up. There was a tall, sturdily built woman in a raincoat but no hat. Her hair was wet, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was attractive, he found. Coffin moved forward, as if he would try to get the skull out. In fact he wanted to; he disliked intensely the thought of an infant head resting in the mud. He crouched down, trying to get at it.

  The woman put her hand on his shoulder. ‘No, leave it. Let the archaeologists do it. Everything has to be mapped in situ.’

  He stood up; they were about as tall as each other. ‘Dr Murray, I presume?’

  She nodded. ‘And I know who you are, too. I know your wife.’

  ‘You know Stella?’

  ‘She came to a lecture I gave. Introduced herself.’ Dr Murray smiled. ‘You don’t forget Stella once you’ve met her.’

  ‘No. You’re in charge here?’ It was more of a statement than a question.

  ‘I am head of the prehistory and archaeology department at the Second City University. When I got wind of the discovery here, I asked to be involved and they kindly allowed me.’

  No one else wanted to do it was Coffin’s cynical interpretation of this statement.

  ‘But I’m not in charge. A whole team of archaeologists will be doing the real work.’

  And then Coffin got round to what really worried him. ‘I thought you were going to get all the skulls out. Still here, though.’

  ‘That’ll happen. All this rain,’ she said briefly. ‘Water drained in. We thought we would do more damage by rushing. It’ll drain naturally quite soon.’ She smiled. ‘I would be chary of using the phrase “in charge” anyway. Controlling a gang of scholars and technicians is never easy: they argue.’

  ‘I believe you.’ He stared down. Was he imagining a pinkiness down there by one of the skulls? He pointed. ‘Looks different.’ Pinkiness. Just the light reflection. Not blood. Couldn’t be blood. He had had blood on his mind since the Minden Street murders.

  ‘This one is not Neanderthal.’

  He was surprised at her certainty. ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘By the shape. It is much much later. Modern.’

  He wondered what modern meant. ‘How much later?’

  ‘At the moment I cannot be sure.’

  In a car at the kerb, at the wheel, was a young woman, bright blue eyes, a froth of curly fair hair and a broad smile. She was looking at them both with good-humoured amusement. ‘Had enough?’

  Dr Murray ignored this and introduced them. ‘This is Natasha, she drives for me. Well, some of the time. Chief Commander John Coffin, Natasha Broad.’

  Natasha held out a hand. ‘I’m her cousin, but she doesn’t like to admit it. She can’t keep away from this site, can you, Mags? Fascinated by the infant skulls.’

  ‘They are interesting,’ said Dr Murray soberly. She looked at Coffin. ‘You’re interested yourself.’

  ‘Of course, I am,’ observed Coffin mildly. ‘Were the children sacrificed, or did they die naturally?’

  ‘I can’t answer that,’ said Dr Murray. ‘Not at the moment, perhaps never. If I had to make a guess, then I’d say they were sacrificed.’

  Coffin looked thoughtful.

  ‘They probably ate the flesh,’ observed Dr Murray. ‘Neanderthals appear to have been healthy stock, but hungry. Neanderthal man ate what flesh he could get. We have found teeth marks on human bones.’

  ‘The Neanderthals died out, though, didn’t they?’ said Coffin. ‘To be replaced by modern man. Perhaps there weren’t enough babies for them to eat. Or perhaps modern man ate the Neanderthals.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Natasha laughed. ‘Come on, let’s get home.’

  So they lived together, Coffin thought. Wrongly as it happened. Wonder if it’s a happy household.

  ‘Let me know about the later skull. I’m interested.’

  ‘It’s been there some time. Not a police job.’

  Well, you never know, thought Coffin. ‘I’m not looking for work,’ he said.

  Although he disliked the thought of the dead Neanderthal babies, he found himself even more troubled by the later skull. How did it get there? And why? And who put it there?

  He felt a gust of fury at the thought.

  ‘I don’t think he liked what you said about the date of that one skull,’ said Natasha to her cousin, who was recounting her interview with Coffin in detail as they drove to Spinnergate, where Dr Murray owned a charming late eighteenth-century house that she had restored and renovated.

  Margaret Murray did not respond to this gambit. ‘Odd to think that this was once one of the first homes of the English textile industry,’ she said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Spinnergate,’ obliged Dr Murray; ‘Weaver or webster, creating fabrics.’

  ‘Oh you’re always back in the past.’ She drove on deftly. ‘Now, the Chief Commander is not interested in the past.’ She added thoughtfully, ‘He likes a good murder.’

  ‘Only professionally.’

  ‘Well, he’s got quite a choice at the moment.’ The papers had been full of the Minden Street murders, the death of the Jackson family. Horrible, she had thought.

  They drove on with Natasha humming under her breath. Sounded dirge-like. To her cousin, she looked too thin and badly dressed. Margaret didn’t mind that both Nat and her husband only ever wore jeans, but you ought to wear them with style.

  ‘Don’t know what’s the matter with you two. You both work all hours, but you never seem to have any money to spend.’

  ‘Saving,’ said Natasha. ‘You know Jason doesn’t earn much, teachers never do. And we are trying to make improvements to the house.’

  ‘I thought Sam was helping you there.’ Sam was a kind of universal slave labourer. Sam was thought by some to be simple, but closer observers like Coffin saw he had a darker side. Certainly he took a keen interest in his medical specimens. ‘I might have been a doctor with a bit more luck. I reckon I’d have made a surgeon.’

  ‘Even Sam has to be paid.’

  ‘I shall have to take you in hand.’ And she meant it.

  ‘Don’t even try.’ And Natty meant it too.

  ‘We’d better hurry to get home,’ said Margaret Murray. ‘Dave might be there by now.’

  Dave was her husband, a stylist and cutter and Mayfair hairdresser, always on the wing to Los Angeles and New York, the winner of many prizes and medals. She was a little afraid of him, he was such a dab hand with the scissors. Like a surgeon, lovely manners, but you always remembered the knife.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about him.’ Natasha accelerated away. ‘He’s harmless.’

  Margaret bridled a little. No one likes to believe that the husband they have loved, bedded and married was harmless. Besides, she was not sure if it was true.

  ‘He’s not quite what he seems,’ she said carefully.

  ‘No one is quite what they seem,’ said Natasha. She believed this. She got out of the car to help Margaret with h
er boxes and books, and limped to the door. It was a bad limping day; some days were worse than others. It was tiresome when her leg was bad. She had been a dancer once. Almost everyone has several lives, and that had been one of hers. Her very own. Others she had shared.

  Margaret looked at her with a frown.

  ‘I’ll put the car round the corner. I saw a space,’ said Natasha. There was no garage nor space for one; motor cars had not been envisaged when this house was built. You owned a horse, and possibly a carriage, or walked.

  While Natasha parked the car, Margaret ran into the house. ‘Dave?’

  He was not there.

  ‘Damn you, I’ll kill you,’ she said aloud just as Natasha walked in.

  ‘Parked the car. Got the last gap, cars are terrible round here. Who are you going to kill? No, don’t tell me, I can guess, he has two legs and lovely hair.’

  ‘He said he’d be here. He promised – we were going out to dinner. It’s our anniversary.’

  ‘Your wedding?’

  ‘No, when we met.’

  ‘I should think you’d go into mourning for that.’ Natasha went into the kitchen. ‘He’s been here. I can smell him. That aftershave . . . Not here now, though, probably out killing someone. You know, he does a lovely scissor cut.’

  She found Dave attractive herself, but would never betray Margaret with him, in spite of temptation. There were other ways of working out frustration, as she suspected Dave knew.

  ‘Oh, you get back to your own husband,’ snapped Margaret.

  ‘And you go looking for yours.’

  She found herself thinking: Don’t get into trouble, Margaret. She could hear herself saying to her husband that she was worried about Margaret.

  Coffin went home to Stella to tell her the story of the skulls.

  ‘Yes, nasty, but it’s a long while ago.’

  ‘I’m not sure how much that ought to count,’ said Coffin thoughtfully.

  Stella did not answer. She knew he was still grieving for the death of his young assistant, DI Charlie Young, the son, the only son at that, of the Chief Superintendent with whom Coffin had worked for years. Worked gratefully, because Archie Young was hard-working and efficient. And a good man; you could trust his integrity. Archie Young had recently moved to become Chief Constable of Filham in Essex, just north of the Second City.

  Charlie had died while dealing with an armed robbery in Spinnergate. He had taken a shot right in the face and never came round. His wife, Sally, was also a policewoman, a CID officer. They had recently found out she was expecting their first child. Not a good time to lose your husband.

  Stella too had liked Charlie. She looked with sympathy at her husband, but decided that silence was best.

  The room they were using in the tower where they lived, the oldest part of the former St Luke’s Church, was a beautiful, calm place. Usually it worked its magic on Coffin, but tonight it was not doing the job. Stella believed that Coffin was quite unconscious of how the room affected him in this way: he thought he had no aesthetic sensibilities. ‘Blue’s blue and yellow’s yellow. How could they make a difference?’ She answered that it was a good job he wasn’t a surgeon; he’d know the difference between red blood and no blood. Not the right thing to say to a copper – he’d seen plenty of blood in his time. She gave him an affectionate smile. She was softer on him these days.

  ‘And then there is the later skull in there with them. Dr Murray says that it is many hundred years old, but I am not so sure.’

  ‘Oh, she’d know.’

  ‘Would she? Yes, if she’d examined it carefully, but as far as I know she hasn’t done that yet: just had a look.’

  ‘You’ve got enough to worry about, love, as well as dwelling on the dead of hundreds of years ago.’

  ‘I don’t think that skull is so old. It worries me. I want to find out more.’

  ‘No one is in a better position than you to do so.’

  He nodded. He felt better already. ‘I’ll set Phoebe Astley on it. She’ll sort it out if anyone can.’

  This was true. Phoebe was like a terrier searching for a rat when she started into anything.

  ‘If this skull is recent, modern in fact, yet placed there with the other skulls, then someone must have known the Neanderthals were there already.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve thought of that. It’s a puzzle. The site was being prepared for our new building when one of the workmen, just a lad, caught a sight of the top of the pit, a layer of stones and earth. It looked different to him, clever lad, and he told the foreman. The foreman took advice and got the area cleared. Work was stopped when they saw what they’d got, it’s still stopped. The archaeologists have taken photographs.’

  ‘Observant, that workman.’

  Coffin nodded. ‘Turned out he was a student earning a bit of money. And interested in the past. He got more than he expected. But he says he isn’t going to waste it . . . going to write it up.’ He poured himself a drink. ‘I had a talk with the lad himself, asked to see him.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Says he knows you.’

  ‘No! What’s his name?’

  ‘Eddy Buck.’

  Stella raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes, I know him . . . Or I know his mother, she works in our wardrobe. She’s clever too. He’s done some holiday work there too. I believe he can’t make up his mind whether to be a doctor or an actor.’

  He could tell she liked him. Well, he was a good-looking, taking lad.

  Stella studied her husband’s face. He looked tired. ‘You miss Archie Young.’

  Archie had been gone about six months.

  Coffin smiled. ‘I’m glad he got the promotion he deserved. I wanted him to have it.’

  ‘Nice man,’ said Stella reflectively. ‘Tough, though.’

  ‘We had to be,’ said Coffin.

  ‘I know that. I was alive then, too, remember.’

  ‘And I don’t know that times have changed, either. May have got worse.’ He looked towards Stella. ‘I might need your help through this, Stella. You will help me, won’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s the child, isn’t it?’

  Coffin nodded. ‘All the children, but that later one especially.’ He stood up. ‘Something terrible lies behind that head, and it didn’t happen thousands of years ago, either.’

  ‘That’s just a guess.’

  ‘I’m a good guesser. It comes with experience.’

  Stella watched him carefully for a moment. ‘Dearest . . .’

  Coffin stirred. She wasn’t great at endearments. The love was there, but she didn’t put it into speech. He thought that acting had cured her of showing love with words. Real love, not the stage variety.

  ‘Dearest, this couldn’t have anything to do with the Minden Street murders. They were too recent.’

  Slowly Coffin said, ‘I’ve always thought, I’ve known, there was another generation of death behind Minden Street.’

  Stella, no cook – after all, you can’t be a performer and a cook, and I am, she said to herself, a performer – had ordered in from their favoured restaurant a fine meal of roast duck, green peas and salad.

  ‘Let’s eat.’

  They went through to the small dining room, whose window overlooked the theatre. Three theatres in fact, one of which was dark at present. The other two had big successes and royalty was coming to one for charity. Tickets were sold out.

  This was an agreeable room, with white walls and golden curtains. Stella studied herself in the large looking-glass on the wall opposite, where she could see that her latest extravagance, a silk trouser suit from a tailor who had worked at Prada, was probably a success. You had to be cautious, because you had to grow into clothes. The important thing, after a certain age, possibly any age, was to control waist and bottom. The bust didn’t matter, because a good bra controlled it. Good meant expensive, she meditated. Her gaze flicked towards her husband, sitting there, face caught in a frown. Husbands had a risk factor too: waists were the trouble there. Fortunately, owing
to the stresses of his life. Coffin lost weight rather than put it on, lucky thing.

  There was a pucker on his mouth now.

  ‘Wine all right?’ she asked a little nervously. The wine was a claret; Coffin always said he was just a London copper who knew nothing about wine and had no palate, but he could be very testy if the wine did not come up to some invisible standard he had set for himself.

  ‘Not bad at all.’

  ‘I wondered about boiling it,’ said Stella.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Coffin absently.

  Stella started to laugh.

  Coffin apologized. ‘Sorry. The wine is splendid although perhaps better not boiled . . . I’m worried.’

  ‘That much I had grasped.’

  ‘I am sure I saw blood. Or a trace of it.’ He got up.

  ‘You’re not going to look,’ she protested.

  He shook his head, taking out his mobile phone which he kept in his pocket; he liked to feel it was close. A neurosis? Probably. His responsibilities did weigh on him.

  Stella shook her head. ‘I never know if that thing is a good thing or a curse.’ It sometimes seemed almost an extension of his body.

  ‘You use yours often enough.’ He was dialling a number. Stella watched him.

  While he waited for the answer to his call, he studied her trouser suit. ‘That’s new, isn’t it?’

  Stella nodded. Well cut, expensive and made for her, that was the way to get good clothes, she thought. Anyway, after a certain age. She knew this splendid tailor for women (you had to have one who understood the female figure, or they got the legs and bottom wrong) and as a bonus there was a little shop nearby where you could buy a thick, rich, violet essence. Rose too, if you preferred rose, which she hardly ever did herself.

  ‘I like it. If you’d told me before, I would have taken you out to show it off.’ He put out his hand to her. There had been times in the not so distant past when their relationship had been troubled. Two hard-working, ambitious people, both pushing careers forward, sometimes left love aside.

  There was a pause. ‘The duck can wait. Won’t spoil,’ said Stella softly.

  Then Phoebe’s voice, deeper and huskier than usual, floated out of the telephone.