Cold Coffin

by Butler, Gwendoline

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Did you book a table?’

  ‘No. They’ll squeeze us in, I’m sure. Let’s go for a drive first.’

  This was the second occasion he had mentioned going for a drive through South London, but Stella did not say so.

  The streets were not crowded with traffic, but there were delivery lorries, the odd bus, private cars, none very new or smart, all edging forward.

  Through Greenwich and into Deptford, down Evelyn Street and towards Rotherhithe.

  ‘I miss the docks,’ said Coffin. ‘And the sound of the ships on the river.’ He was driving slowly. ‘Of course, it’s not a working river any more, not upriver anyway.’

  Stella kept silent.

  ‘It was all flooded down here once . . . Every twenty-five years they fear a flood.’

  ‘Should be due one soon,’ said Stella. ‘Who was it said that this part of England sinks a centimetre every year?’ She sounded comfortably unbelieving.

  ‘There’s the Thames barrier now. With that in place, statistically it should be one thousand, five hundred years before a huge tide comes over the top.’

  ‘You can’t believe in figures,’ said a sceptical Stella. ‘Après moi le déluge . . . Who said that? Some king, wasn’t it?’

  ‘He must have been a French king,’ Coffin answered absently. He had turned the car before it got into Bermondsey and was driving back. ‘I used to live down here once . . . Just wanted to look around. All changed. Great big housing blocks instead of little streets.’

  ‘What is all this about, love?’

  ‘I had a feeling I wanted to see all these streets again. Nostalgia, I suppose.’

  And something else, she thought. You are sad about something. Those infants’ skulls?

  Across the river, in the streets that they had left behind them, the University of the Second City had all its lights on because a number of its students worked all day and studied at night. The Second City now had three universities, but the USC (which was how students and staff spoke of it) was the most crowded. As with the police Headquarters, it was made up of older buildings and very new ones. Cleaning was done on a shoestring because money for books was accepted as more important, which meant that some of the older buildings, if they had a voice, would have cried out: Remember me, here I am, give me a dust.

  Also attached was the Second City University Hospital, which had an important role since it was an old establishment with a long history of teaching and training doctors and nurses. It was very academic.

  Joseph Bottom, deputy head cleaner, did a lot of extra work, some in the hospital, some in the university proper, without worrying about it. He was proud of working in the University Hospital, so close to the university itself, where his elder daughter was now an assistant professor. Joe was a tall, thick-set man in whom so many nationalities had come together over the generations, London near the docks and the ships in the old days being that sort of city; he used to call himself a walking advertisement for the United Nations. His daughter Flora had creamy dark skin, red hair and bright blue eyes, and was one of the beauties of the university, much loved by her students. She liked work, as did Joe, and both of them worked as many hours as they chose to get the job done. They were death to union rules.

  Joe, a great colonizer, had turned a cupboard-like room into the rest room for him and his assistants. He had painted it white but his helpers had covered the walls with graffiti and advertisements that took their eye. Some advertisements tactfully or blatantly (depending on the publication) offered high wages for anything up to and including what sounded like gun-running or the odd quiet murder.

  It was, of course, recognized that professors and doctors worked all hours and no one questioned it, but when Joe took his cleaning equipment into what he called the ‘museum of bones’ it was a bit on the late side. On a less busy day he might have been having a drink in his local or cooking his wife a supper. She was a nurse who worked even harder than he did and for less pay.

  All the same, he would have been glad to have had the help of his assistant Sam, who hadn’t shown his face.

  ‘Not here, as usual . . . bloody loafer.’ When Joe had said he could have this job, Sam had replied that there was always work for a man, which Joe knew to be only half a truth.

  Sam was efficient when he turned up, but he claimed bad health. Big, dark-skinned and burly, and not much of a talker. Not Joe’s favourite chap, but he felt he must look after him, goodness knows why, it was just the effect Sam had on some people. ‘Ask him to supper and get the wife to cook one of her meat pies. Don’t think Sam feeds himself.’ Sam Brother lived in a small flat, built by the local council, in almost sensuous disarray. Joe would swear the cooker was never used. He drove himself around on an ancient motorbike that he kept in good repair; he was said to love it more than any woman. Not that Joe had ever seen him with a woman. Only dogs and the odd cat. He had a way with animals.

  He threw open the door of the museum of bones, which was, in fact, a smallish room lined with cabinets that exhibited human bones illustrating medical conditions.

  It was not much frequented, since medics don’t do things that way any longer; they have scans, and X-rays and hardly need to look at the human frame any more. But he supposed the odd medical man came in sometimes. He had a key himself, of course.

  As he advanced into the room, he gave a shout and seized his broom, his only weapon of defence since a vacuum cleaner is no help at all. Someone had broken open the cabinets, shattering the glass doors and throwing bones and skulls all around. There was glass on the ground and a body at his feet. A circle of small skulls had been arranged around the head.

  ‘They didn’t get there by accident,’ decided Joe.

  Joe was a great reader of detective novels and he knew he wanted the police. More, he wanted John Coffin, whom he had heard give a lecture on Crime and the Second City. A policeman who had a wife like Stella Pinero was the one for him.

  ‘Get John Coffin,’ he said aloud, looking down at the victim.

  There wasn’t a female version of victim, like ‘victime’ or ‘victima’, but this one was definitely a woman.

  He saw her lips move. ‘Coffin,’ she seemed to say. ‘Yes, yes.’ An echo of his words, or her last wish?

  Then she stopped. Death had silenced her.

  Mr Jones of Farmers Restaurant received them with a smile and showed them at once to a table in a corner. In spite of what he had said Coffin must have rung up and booked a table.

  Stella shook her head at her husband. Mr Jones saw it and looked anxious.

  ‘You prefer somewhere else?’

  ‘No, this is just right,’ said Stella.

  ‘I thought it was what Mr Coffin wanted.’

  ‘It is,’ said Coffin speedily. ‘Just what I wanted. Have you got a bottle of that good Sancerre?’ Then he responded to Stella’s raised eyebrows. ‘When you were putting on fresh lipstick and some more scent.’

  ‘I didn’t think you noticed.’

  ‘I always notice.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I know that the death of the Jackson twins has distressed you.’

  Stella looked down at her hands. One way or another her life with Coffin had brought her close to death, sometimes too close.

  ‘They were only kids.’ Sometimes she felt that being married to a man like Coffin brought death into the family. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it now. Later.’ The best solution was to think of herself as a character in a play, a bit of fiction, and the deaths the same, nothing real.

  He took a drink. ‘I had a letter today. It came this morning, but I opened it just before I came out.’

  Stella looked at him.

  ‘It was from Sally Young. About their baby.’

  Stella nodded.

  ‘She enclosed a letter from Charlie. He wrote it just before he was killed. Didn’t have a chance to post it. He wrote it just after he’d seen the scan on the child. He already knew he had
a son. He rang up his father and asked if it would be all right to ask me to act as godfather.’ He took a swig of wine. ‘Archie said yes, of course. Hence the letter. Sally held on to it for a while, and now she has posted it. The christening is next week.’

  ‘You’ll be godfather, of course.’

  ‘You’ll help me, Stella, won’t you? I can’t do it without your help.’ He held out the letter. ‘Read it.’

  Stella read it slowly, then she looked up at her husband. ‘He admired you – you were a good copper. Straight. He doesn’t use the word integrity, but he means it. He wants the boy to have that. He says he knows you can’t really teach it, but you can show it.’ She put the letter carefully in his hand. ‘It’s a great compliment he paid you.’

  ‘A painful one.’

  Stella considered it. ‘I think the best ones often are, because they have a truth tucked away inside that can hurt. It’s the other side of a compliment.’

  That’s a bit too profound for me,’ said Coffin, who suspected she had made it up that moment to cheer him up.

  ‘I read it somewhere, I think,’ said Stella, confirming his suspicion.

  They were halfway through their meal, after the clear soup and enjoying the roast beef, when Coffin heard his mobile trilling away in his pocket.

  Phoebe’s voice always rang out loud and clear so that Stella could hear every word she said. As, probably, could the couple at the next table.

  ‘Sir,’ said Phoebe. ‘It’s about the head . . . the head that was different.’

  The couple heard that all right, but pretended not to.

  ‘The infant’s skull. We now know where it came from. Sex isn’t clear yet. Nor cause of death.’

  That took the couple’s mind off their smoked salmon. Coffin also had noticed the attention the next table was giving his conversation. ‘Go on.’

  Something in his tone must have told Phoebe she was shouting, because her voice dropped so that even Stella could only catch odd words.

  ‘University . . . museum . . . specimen not noticed.’

  Then Phoebe’s voice became audible again. ‘Yes, sir. I have Inspector Dover with me, this being his patch . . . There’s no need for you to come, but I thought you would want to know.’

  Coffin put his mobile on the table, then looked at his wife.

  ‘Eat up, Stella,’ he said.

  3

  Friday evening.

  Joe stood waiting quietly for the arrival of the Chief Commander. Phoebe Astley, whom he knew – they bought their meat and sausages from the same butcher, of whom there were not many left around, even in the Second City – had told him to wait. He stood looking out of the window on to the street lights below. It was raining, but it had its own romance.

  ‘I love London,’ he said to himself. ‘I am a Londoner. Perhaps I’m not an Englishman.’ Too much mixed blood. ‘But I am a Londoner.’

  This part of London too, the Second City – not Knightsbridge nor Piccadilly, you could have that bit – this was his London.

  He was not ambitious, although his daughter was, which he thought was as it should be. It was all right for men like him to slop around in old clothes and take undemanding jobs – you didn’t need a degree in engineering to dust a floor. He was a man, anyway, and that had to count for something. Women had to try harder.

  ‘Mustn’t get too sentimental, Joseph,’ he told himself. There’s a dead woman in this room and she didn’t put herself there.’ He had never been so close to a dead person before, not one untouched by medical hands and neatly trussed up so that they became someone you had never known.

  He had known the dead woman too, and had even heard her dying words.

  * * *

  Phoebe Astley came back into the room, bringing the Chief Commander with her. Inspector Dover followed behind. His usual spot. She nodded at Joe.

  ‘I know who you are, sir,’ said Joe quickly, before Chief Inspector Astley – hard to think of her as that and not as rump steak, ostrich liver if you have any, and some pork sausages – could give him another of those quick nods and get rid of him. Although he was not an ambitious man, he had a link-up with the local newspaper who printed any little items of news and gossip he sent to them. Working where and how he did, he picked up quite a lot. Behind a Hoover, you were not there.

  Coffin was not listening.

  Joe took a step back. He didn’t even need a Hoover to be invisible, he told himself.

  Coffin studied the woman. This terrible task didn’t take more than a minute. ‘It’s Dr Murray.’

  Phoebe nodded. ‘It is.’

  ‘Anyone had a look at her?’

  Dover answered. ‘The police surgeon who certified her death.’ He nodded towards Joe. ‘And Joe here found her. He called the university security office, who called the police. Sergeant Fermer came, and I followed.’

  Coffin looked at Phoebe with a question.

  ‘I came into it because I had been interested in the Neanderthal skulls. She was interested in the skulls

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Anyway, she had my name and rank on a bit of paper in her handbag.’

  Coffin went to stare again at the body. He knelt down, but did not touch her. A band of blood, like a red ribbon, ran down the face, spreading out to cover the nose and then the chin. The hair was clotted with blood. Her grey tweed skirt and matching jacket were stained too. Blood had even spattered her shoes.

  ‘She could have been hit on the head.’ He got up. ‘First, before the rest, but I don’t think so. The medics will tell us.

  It looks as if someone took her by surprise.’

  ‘No weapon found,’ said Phoebe tersely. ‘Just in case you wondered.’

  ‘She never came in here. No one did,’ said Joe, not loudly but suddenly, as if he had just thought of it. ‘In all the years I’ve cleaned this place, I’ve never seen anyone. It’s kind of forgotten, this place.’ He turned his short-sighted blue eyes on the Chief Commander and CI Astley. ‘She asked for you, sir. With her dying breath, she asked for you.’

  Coffin took it in but did not know whether to believe it: people caught up in violent death had such fantasies.

  Probably the worst fantasy of all was that he would be of any use.

  He looked around at the floor, at all the skeletal remains that lay about which the killer had abstracted from the cabinets and then thrown all over the floor, except for the skulls, where a pattern had been made.

  Or had the dead woman herself taken them out?

  No, the little skulls, babies’ skulls, were arranged round her own head. Certainly she had not done that herself.

  ‘What the hell do the bones and skulls mean?’

  Phoebe didn’t answer.

  ‘No, you don’t know it any more than I do. But whoever did this was angry.’

  The SOCO team arrived.

  ‘You took your time,’ Coffin said crisply.

  ‘Traffic, sir, sorry,’ said the team leader, far from pleased to see the Chief Commander there. Traffic as an excuse was the first thing he could think of. Not strictly true; a bit of an argument between two of the team had slowed them down. He could see by the look in the Chief Commander’s eyes that he was not believed. If I’d known it was you here waiting for us, I’d have been quicker. But the top brass never knew how those down below felt. There had been a lot of irritation lately, partly because of the new building works, which had meant shuffling people around. The skulls were objects of interest, and yet of disquiet too. The water had drained away so that the archaeologists had been at work, measuring and photographing. Then some other police teams had arrived. Men from the scientific side.

  Coffin said, ‘It’s now early evening. I want to know when she was killed. Also, how anyone could get in here. Was it usually kept locked or not? And anything that forensics can turn up.’

  ‘Are you taking over, sir?’ Phoebe kept her voice polite, although she was irritated by him.

  ‘No. You are. But I w
ill be behind you.’

  Behind and in front and in the air above, thought Phoebe. No one who has worked with him has ever exactly been left alone. And yet we all like the bugger. Did I really call him that in my mind? I shouldn’t have done, because he is always polite, sometimes gentle, even at his most ruthless.

  ‘Check these skulls . . . what is known about them, who uses them and for what purpose.’

  ‘A medical purpose, I judge,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘Dr Murray was not a doctor but an archaeologist.’ But he had answered his own question. Archaeologists dealt in bones too.

  He remembered her face as she had looked at that odd little skull with the water washing over it. She had been troubled. No, not exactly troubled: thoughtful, knowing. She had known something about that infant skull.

  Coffin knew nothing about infant craniums, and some of those encircling Margaret Murray’s head looked very, very small, and others looked odd.

  He knew nothing, but there were those that did.

  ‘Get a doctor, preferably a paediatrician, to look at these heads and tell me what he says.’

  Joe said, ‘You don’t need a doctor.’ But once again he was invisible.

  Stella had been left sitting in the car. For a while she was patient, but this patience did not last. She took a deep breath, got out of the car, remembered to lock it, and marched into the hospital building.

  She didn’t know where her husband was, nor did she know her way around. One hospital may be much like another one, but you still have to know the signs: no, not the signs that tell you this way to Ear, Nose and Throat Department, or Pharmacy This Way, or Operating Theatre X, Third Floor, but the flow of people, the sense of urgency. A hospital was in a way like a theatre, she thought: the cutting edge, those in charge, otherwise the surgeons and nurses, and the audience, otherwise the suffering, the patients.

  I must have drunk more than I realized, she thought. Surely not, I drank very little, and anyway on occasion I have a stronger head than my husband. Depends on emotion. If you are really down, you drink the bottles empty but never get high, but if you are happy half a glass can do it.