Coffin glanced down at him. ‘He could do with a bath.’
‘Do I smell as bad as him?’
‘Pretty near. That canal could do with cleaning.’ He looked at Stella assessingly.
They did give me a few injections in there, against everything from cholera to the plague to white dog disease as far as I could make out,’ admitted Stella, answering his unspoken question.
‘What’s white dog disease?’
‘I don’t know. I just made that up. I thought it might make you laugh.’
‘No, I’m not laughing.’ He knew how close she had come to losing her own life. ‘I love you, Stella.
‘You can’t stand by and watch someone drown.’
‘No. You can’t. And that’s why I love you. But once is enough. Promise me. A quiet life from now on.’
Stella reached out to touch his wrist. ‘A fairly quiet life, I promise.’
Coffin took his eyes off the road for just a second to give one of those fond, half-smiling looks that she loved.
CI Astley came in from the outer room where she had been talking with Paul Masters.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I should have told you’ – never use the word ‘forgot’ had been one of the earliest bits of training – ‘that forensics found a letter inside an inner pocket of Natasha’s jacket.’
‘A suicide note?’
‘Looks like it, sir. But unluckily the blue ink has run so badly that it is impossible to read, but forensics are hoping to bring it up.’
Coffin digested the information. Then he said, ‘Have you seen Larry Lavender lately?’
He didn’t know what answer he expected, but he got nothing. Phoebe just shook her head. She had known for a long while that silence is a good answer to some questions.
Aren’t we all wondering? she said to herself. ‘Oh, there’s one thing, sir. I had a quick look at the letter myself to see what I could make of it. Nothing, except for one large letter W, written so firm and hard it tore into the paper.’
It was impossible to work out the word, but Phoebe thought it might be Wergild: Anglo-Saxon body price. But maybe she was being imaginative.
15
Will Christmas ever come?
Death is a chancer, unexpectedly slipping under the fence to join the party without a ticket. All the murder victims had been taken by surprise. Natasha, who claimed to be the killer, had opened the door to death.
But one victim, Marie Rudkin, was pushing death back. And Larry Lavender was conducting his own fight.
‘There is something I should have told you.’ Stella’s voice was urgent. ‘Today, in the hospital, while I was waiting to be set free . . . it felt like that . . . I heard one of the nurses say to another that Mrs Rudkin was sitting up and taking food and talking.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ Then, delicately, because he did not want to upset Stella on this day of all days, ‘Did you get to tell her not to talk about knowing who attacked her?’
‘I haven’t seen her alert again yet. She was unconscious, on a life-support machine, when I called back. I haven’t been since.’ Didn’t really have a chance this morning . . .
I was waiting, Stella said to herself, till she was conscious. And now she is.
Stella looked at Gus sleeping by the fire with the little cat lying across him. ‘I’m going to the hospital myself, Gus, so you keep the home fires burning. And don’t answer the telephone.’
Gus rolled a lazy eye at her. As if I would, it said.
Stella made her way to where her car stood. She was very tired and her limbs felt heavy, but she knew there was a strength inside her that would not let her down. She would drive to the hospital; she would see Marie Rudkin, and if Marie wanted to talk and felt able to do so she could talk to Stella.
That way lay safety. What two people knew was safer than only one. There was a fallacy in there somewhere, but she clung to the thought.
As Stella set out for the hospital, Larry Lavender was sitting waiting for the consultant to see him. In the ordinary way, Larry would have been glad because she was a lovely-looking lady, just the sort he fancied, but he was discovering that there was nothing like anxiety to lower the libido.
This was the day when she would deliver the results of the last test. He dreaded it. He felt she would be giving him a judgement of death approaching. Oh, she’d wrap it up, suggest treatments, palliatives, to hold things up. What was the phrase: Remission? He was aware that this worked for some people, but he just knew it wouldn’t for him. He was about to be doomed.
So he sat there on the bench and waited for Dr Lemming to arrive. ‘Come on, lady,’ he muttered. ‘Let the axe fall, I promise not to scream.’
Still no consultant. He felt like standing up and crying, I am going home, I am cured, I am better.
Indeed, he felt in much less pain. He wasn’t sure if this gave him hope or not.
Then his beautiful consultant appeared round the corner, carrying several folders under her arm, and beckoned him to follow her.
In one of those folders, he concluded, was his life and death.
He went in, she closed the door behind him, and smiled, ‘Now, Mr Lavender.’
Some twenty minutes or so later, Larry Lavender came out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Then he took a deep breath. He felt he could do with a double whisky, no, a triple whisky, but being in the hospital he would have to make do with with coffee.
He swung right in the direction of the coffee-shop. As he did so he saw Stella Pinero come through the entrance. Ah, there was a woman, he reminded people. He watched her gossiping with people, then he avoided eye contact.
Stella hurried into the ward. Marie Rudkin was in a small room to the left of the swing doors, lying propped up against pillows. She smiled at Stella. ‘Hello.’ Her husband was sitting by her bed, holding her hand. ‘So here I am, back in the world.’ Her voice was weak, but clear.
‘I am glad, I really am glad. How do you feel?’
Marie frowned. ‘I couldn’t go to a party or give one. But yes, I feel so much better. I can remember . . .’
She stopped.
Paul gripped her hand tighter, so tight that she withdrew it with a smile and shake of the head.
‘Don’t push yourself,’ he said. He looked at Stella. ‘I told her she shouldn’t do that.’
Stella nodded. ‘Quite right.’
‘I think I must talk, I am beginning to remember things.’ She smiled at Stella, ‘And then there are things I did not know . . . they discovered while I was unconscious that I’m pregnant.’
‘Oh Marie, I am pleased.’
‘Yes, and all seems well . . . not miscarrying or anything.’
‘And you’re not going to,’ said her husband.
‘Three months gone,’ said Marie. ‘And I never knew. You’ve got to admit, that’s something to come round to.’
The door opened and in came Coffin. He looked surprised when he saw Stella, but he didn’t speak to her. ‘I had a message that you wanted to talk to me.’
‘Yes, I wanted to tell you that I remember the face of the man who shot me.’
‘Oh Marie, dear,’ said Paul. ‘I wish you wouldn’t go on.’
‘There isn’t any more to go on about,’ said Marie. ‘That’s all I have to say. I can describe him . . . a bit, anyway.’ She leant back on her pillows and closed her eyes.
‘Tell me,’ Coffin began.
‘Tell you anything,’ said Marie, her eyes still closed. ‘A dark face, very dark, plump . . .’
She’s describing Joe, thought Stella. ‘Joe,’ she whispered to her husband.
He shook his head. To Marie, he said, ‘Have you told anyone?’
‘May just have said I remembered,’ she muttered.
‘Stop questioning her,’ ordered her husband.
Be glad to, thought Coffin. ‘You’re safe now,’ he said to her quietly. ‘I may know that face.’
Behind him a door opened. Ste
lla swung round and called out, gripping his arm.
‘Yes, I know that face,’ Coffin said, turning to look. ‘I saw it through the window in the museum where Dr Murray lay.’ He had seen it dimly, now he saw it clearly.
Marie opened her eyes. Recognition came into them because the man, dressed in hospital cleaner’s overalls, held a gun.
‘I will kill the lot of you,’ said Sam. ‘I have enough bullets, and I have done it before. One, two, three, four.’
He looked first at Marie, and then directed his gaze at Stella. ‘Why, why?’ she heard herself say.
Sam was willing to talk. ‘If you want to know, it started with Mrs Jackson. She knew me and I knew her because she was a nurse, a baby nurse.’
‘A midwife,’ whispered Stella. Keep him talking, a voice inside her murmured.
‘She watched me going round the museum – the one with the babies’ heads.’ His voice dropped to a mutter. ‘She said I went there too often. “I am going to get you away from that place, it’s not good for you.”’
Stella thought about all those tiny skulls, and she agreed with Mrs Jackson. She wondered also about the doctor who had initially set up the museum. A man of science, or a man obsessed?
‘ “I am going to cure you,” old Jackson said. “I am going to see you get away from that place.”
‘After that I didn’t mind killing her . . . especially as I got paid, although the money wasn’t much.’
Stella flinched as she heard what he said. Money?
‘Cure me?’ Sam was laughing. ‘Not good for me? The cheek of her. I am the scholar of the skulls.’ He repeated the words with relish. ‘I know everyone, I have dusted them – no one else did – stroked them.’ He waved his gun. ‘I have this gun, and others and I know how to use them. Guns and skulls . . . when she said that, the two parts of me came together. If you have a gun, you are someone.’ His eyes shone. ‘I was a god with a gun.’
‘He’s mad,’ thought Stella. Behind her, she heard Coffin move. Oh, be careful, she thought, he has a gun and I am in front.
But Sam was talking on. ‘She said to me, “You must have been abused as a child, so I am going to help you.” “No, I wasn’t,” I said. “I lived in a home for lost kids and it suited me. We beat each other up sometimes, but nothing to count.” And you could bet our keepers did not interfere, or they might have got it. It was the lovely museum that made me a god. Joe got me work . . . remember Joe?’
Stella nodded.
‘I wouldn’t kill Joe, Joe’s a gent. I killed Mrs J. because I was paid. It was a job, at first anyway, but I had to kill the others, because they knew me.’
‘Dr Murray,’ began Coffin.
Stella gave her husband a backward kick on the ankle. ‘Shut up.’ Be a husband, not a policeman, she wanted to say.
But Sam had heard Coffin. ‘Dr Murray, now that was a real shame in a way. She was a scholar of the skulls, like I was, but she saw me stroking them. “My god, you’re mad,” she said. God and madness, funny how she coupled them. So I killed her. And I sprinkled a bit of extra blood around . . . I was a blood carrier in the hospital; some was kept for what they called study and future use, the rest disposed of. I gave her some second-rate stuff. Just a bit extra, to go with her own blood . . . Well, she deserved some treatment: she recognized the skull I buried . . . the one with blood dried on it. And then she saw the gold ring . . . that was off a stiff in the mortuary . . . I stole it. I did steal a bit, we all did, this and that. And I was wearing it for luck.’ He paused as if to think about the luck, if luck it had been. ‘That skull I buried was a newish one. Don’t ask me how I got my hands on it, helped myself to it, you could say, and cleaned it up a bit.’ He did not mention how he had done this.
Stella, saying to herself, Talk, talk, it keeps the gun quiet, asked him how he had known where to bury it.
‘Oh, kids, I’m a local, we knew the place where they were. A skull would turn up sometimes, and the dogs would have it, or it would get kicked aside. One came up one day when were larking about and the others wanted to use it as a football, but I buried it.’
Another beginning for the obsession? Stella wondered what the Neanderthals who buried the skulls first would have said. Speechless, though, weren’t they, give or take the odd grunt. Pushed aside by a leaner, faster, articulate and more ruthless race: Homo sapiens. She wondered if the races interbred and produced a hybrid and if Sam was a descendant.
Then she looked into Sam’s eyes and saw the clear ruthless stare of Homo sapiens. No, he’s one of us.
Behind her she thought she heard her husband trying to use his mobile, so she raised her voice louder.
‘So you went on killing?’
‘The Walkers? They called themself the baby lovers, which irritated me, but one of them, Lia, got to know what I was doing . . . or I thought she did. Her husband was a good guesser, and knew me. He’d been in the home with me and he kicked the odd skull himself.’
He pointed his gun. ‘So that’s it, told you a lot, I wanted to tell Joe, but he would never let me talk . . . Not that it’ll do you lot any good.’
Here it comes, thought Stella.
‘Happy Christmas,’ said Sam.
Coffin pushed in front of Stella. Both of them would be between Marie and the gun. Paul flung himself on the bed, on top of Marie.
‘Edge backwards, Stella,’ Coffin whispered, freeing himself from Stella’s grip to get at Sam before the gun went off.
Before him the door opened again. ‘Watch it, Sam,’ said Larry Lavender. ‘You’ll need a bullet for me.’ He threw himself at Sam as the gun went off.
My turn now, thought Coffin, as he got one arm round Sam’s body and another round his neck, wrenching him to the ground. ‘Prison for you, my boy.’
‘You could have been killed,’ said Coffin to Larry Lavender, mopping at the blood on his chest and pressing on the wound to join it together.
‘Not today,’ said Larry gasping with pain. ‘Not my death day.’ He managed to grin. ‘Be glad when the doctor gets here . . .’
‘Here now,’ said Coffin, stepping back.
‘Could see him coming down the corridor. With a gun. Followed.’
‘Glad you did. My good luck day.’
The doctor pushed Coffin aside. ‘Here, let me get there. You’ll kill this chap if you lean on his chest.’
‘Not me,’ Larry managed to get out.
‘Let’s hope so,’ grunted the doctor, as he superintended Larry’s departure for surgery. ‘Now keep quiet, the less talking the better. Had any aspirin or garlic today?’ Doctor, nurse and patient departed. Coffin watched them disappear into the lift.
‘I hope he comes through,’ he said to Stella. ‘Let’s get you home.’
She held back. ‘I ought to say goodbye to Marie.’
‘She’s comfortably in her room, where we left her with her husband. Let’s leave them together.’
They were driven home together in his official car. Coffin was thoughtful. Not one of my triumphs, he thought. I think Larry did better than me.
They had a quiet dinner together, with Stella admitting that it had been a tiring day. But she wanted to talk to her husband. There were things he must tell her.
‘How did you know it was Sam?’
‘Natasha told me.’
‘What?’
‘Forensics managed to bring up the letter she took with her.’ Perhaps she had not meant in the end that he should read it. After all, she had taken it with her, not left it behind, but he had read it and grieved for her.
‘It’s a terrible story.’
‘Tell me. What was it to do with Natasha?’
‘She was guilty of murder. Of one murder at least, that of Mrs Jackson. She paid to have her killed.’
Stella stared at her husband. ‘Why?’
The forensic experts had managed to bring up the text, almost complete, and had sent a copy that afternoon to Coffin.
‘Hatred,’ said Coffin sadly. ‘And the
others died because Sam found he enjoyed doing it. All connected with babies, you might notice. But the first one set him off. It was the first blow that counted.’
My baby was delivered by Mrs Jackson, born dead, she had said, and she never let me even see. I didn’t care how deformed it was, one head, two heads, no head, I wanted to see it. And perhaps it wasn’t dead, but she let it die.
‘I think she was more than a little mad,’ said Coffin sadly. Natasha had written out her pain in a careful print. Wergild for my baby, she had written, then scored it out. Almost out. She went on: It festered inside when I saw my friends walking their babies, the way we had promised ourselves we would do. So I saved up all the money I could; I inserted a carefully worded advertisement in a free newspaper. If you read it more than once you guessed what it meant. Sam answered and I paid him to do it. I didn’t know he would go on with the killing. All connected with children or babies. My cousin guessed, I think. Or he thought she did. For all those deaths I was guilty and could not live. I didn’t want to.
‘It’s always hard to apportion guilt,’ said Coffin, ‘but yes, I think she was right to accept guilt.’
‘And her husband?’
‘As well. I don’t know what will happen to him. Folie à deux, I think.’
As for Sam he did know, and Stella did not ask. He would gladly have killed him if he had hurt Stella. Even in his confession, if you could call it that, Sam had fudged the truth here and there, put a gloss on it. The business of the ring, for instance? He never told the truth there. Coffin felt there would be a mystery to the end. Not all life tidies itself up.
Sam had admitted that he had seen Dr Murray studying the skulls in the museum; he knew of her relationship with his employer, Natasha, and thought she might be suspecting him. As indeed perhaps she did. So he decided at once to kill her, and he used the bucket of blood to throw suspicion elsewhere. He wasn’t quite clever enough to realize that in the end it would all come back to him.
Coffin wanted to tell Stella that Marie had always been the object of his gun at the christening, because she had once worked in the obstetrics department and was associated with births and babies in Sam’s crazed mind. Not me, he wanted to say, never me. He took a bus and set off to the killing. He liked a bus ride, and he went on top to see out.
Cold Coffin Page 20