Coffin in Fashion

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Nothing, thank you.’

  ‘Oh come, you’re not on duty. Anyway, you don’t have to act with me – I’m Paradise Street, remember, we know all about what you police do or don’t do, and most of them drink.’

  ‘Vodka, then.’

  He watched her pour it with a steady hand. In spite of her anger, still bubbling away inside her, she was keeping a kind of control.

  ‘Of course he was quite right. Steve’s nearly always right.’

  They are, Coffin thought; people like Steve are nearly always right. Deep down, they know. It’s one of the things that made them different.

  ‘It’s about the house, and Uncle Mosse, and Steve. I kept him away from Uncle Mosse, but some people seem to fly together, don’t they, and you can’t keep them apart.’ Rose looked at him. ‘I expect you thought you got a good buy in that house.’

  ‘At the time.’

  ‘I let it go cheap. I wanted it to go. Be rid of it. It had been empty nearly two years. Since the old man. I thought no one would buy. He’d let it run down. No one local would buy.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Know what it was known as? The Mad House. That’s it. You heard right: The Mad House.’

  Coffin digested this information. It rang true, it was a mad house, he had felt it himself. No doubt everyone in Mouncy Street knew what he had bought and had been looking or waiting for him to find out. But it was one more fact to add to the picture of Ted Mosse, that ambiguous figure who was heavily disliked in one street, a doubtful ‘poor old fellow’ in another, and more or less mistrusted in all three. Now his old home was The Mad House.

  ‘Why was it called that? It’s not an obvious name. I know the old boy was senile. Not mad, though, more oblivious from what I’d heard.’

  And yet the house had a spiritual entity that seemed to surpass its physical one.

  Rose did not answer him directly. ‘I heard you asking about Uncle Mosse. I don’t know why you wanted to know about him but I’ll tell you. He was never very nice when he was alive and he seems to have got worse now that he’s dead. A real bad influence.’

  Coffin remembered a huge, red-faced man with a jolly, slightly too general smile. It wasn’t specially for you his smile, just around you and about you.

  ‘I can’t remember much. Met him years ago.’

  ‘Oh, you’d be out of his age group. He liked ’em young. Younger than you.’

  I was young then, thought Coffin, but obviously not young enough.

  ‘I know he liked young people. Had them around. Everyone says so. Pity he never had any of his own.’

  ‘The reason he never had any was that his tastes precluded it,’ said Rose, spitting out the words. ‘Except for one or two episodes that I suppose he couldn’t miss, just to try, there was never a chance. And don’t say he was married.’

  Coffin was silent. One or two comments made in Mouncy Street and Decimus Street now meant something.

  ‘Opinions are changing on that line,’ he said gently. ‘You know there was a bill before Parliament. Only the General Election stopped it going through. It will next time.’ He was trying to ease her pain. Unsuccessfully.

  ‘You don’t understand. Perhaps he was harmless enough when he was younger, although I doubt that. He had a kind of shoe fetish – always giving the kids he fancied shoes, one we all knew in Paradise Street, but no one ever said. I suppose we didn’t know the word fetish.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Hang around Paradise Street and you’d learn everything in the end, even if you didn’t know the name.’

  The vodka and her anger were combining to free her tongue. Coffin looked at her with sympathy. He liked her even more, vulnerable and dishevelled.

  ‘So what I’m working up to telling you is that when he got silly he let anyone in that house. It was used, no other word for it. Anyone could drift in and plenty did. That’s why it was called The Mad House. Mad things, bad things, anything went there. He knew. Or didn’t know.’

  Coffin looked at her. ‘Well, thanks for telling me.’

  ‘And it went on after he was dead. Plenty used that house. I knew that when I sold it to you.’

  ‘I could see it was in a bad state.’ It was the process of repair and re-decoration that had uncovered the bodies.

  ‘I was going to tell you to change the locks.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll attend to it.’ He couldn’t keep the dryness out of his voice.

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, you are. And because you are, and because I like you, I’m going to tell you something else: that was The Mad House. Now there’s a new place. I don’t know where but it exists. I think it must. Somewhere.’

  ‘And your son goes there? Steve? And that’s why you worry about him?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about him any more. That’s my business. But he as sure as hell goes somewhere.’

  He doesn’t go somewhere on his own, thought Coffin. Other children, other boys? And at least one adult had to be involved.

  ‘There has to be an adult,’ he said aloud. ‘I mean, doesn’t there?’

  ‘Or two.’

  He studied her face. ‘You know that?’

  ‘Just got that idea.’

  ‘From Steve?’

  But she wouldn’t say any more.

  ‘And I take it you want me to pass this on to the investigating team?’

  No answer, silence seemed to be built into the family genes. Now he thought about it, Ted Mosse hadn’t been much of a talker.

  ‘You are pointing the finger at him – them – being involved in the murders.’ It was a statement not a question. Why had she done it? He didn’t have the answer to that yet, but it wasn’t her anger.

  ‘I’ve told you something. It’s up to you to do what you want.’

  The storm was really on them now, crashing round the room, lighting it with a sudden savage flash.

  Steve appeared silently at the door. ‘I don’t like the noise.’

  ‘We all have our nightmares, son.’ Rose sounded tired.

  Her eyes met Coffin’s. So she does believe in this picture of herself in a murder scene.

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to tell me?’

  ‘Yes. Isn’t it enough?’

  Where her own fantasy fitted in, he did not know. Somehow he had the picture of a private yet public killing: murder for pleasure.

  It’s the crime of the times, he told himself, the ‘Sixties Crime’, murder for pleasure. We’ve always had it, the Victorians must have known all about it. The Middle Ages too, what price Bluebeard? But it was hidden, secret. Now it’s come outside.

  De Sade, take a bow, your public awaits you.

  ‘And what about you?’ He looked at Rose Hilaire, trying to keep his voice neutral, yet open, ready to hear anything. ‘Is there anything more you wanted to tell me? For yourself – on your own account.’

  There was a long pause broken eventually by Rose. ‘Some things you keep to yourself.’

  ‘I know. But perhaps better not.’

  The silence this time was even longer.

  ‘All right. I’ll tell you. I trust you although I don’t know why I should. Twice, three times now I’ve seen this picture of a boy lying dead. Huddled up, face turned away. Sometimes I’m asleep, sometimes I’ve just woken up. Sometimes I’m right outside it, looking at it. Sometimes I’m inside, doing it.’

  She was speaking breathily, her words jerking out in gasps.

  ‘Always it feels real; something that I saw in life.’

  She made a defiant gesture with her hands.

  ‘There you are then: I’ve told you.’

  So it was just as Gabriel said, thought Coffin. She really is telling this story. Wonder what it means?

  Had she really killed a young boy while sleeping? He had heard it could happen. It would have to be a kind of waking sleep.

  Perhaps she had seen it happen while in this automatic state.

  Or possibly she had seen nothing
at all, and it was pure fantasy.

  She might even be lying.

  He looked at her speculatively. She returned it with interest. He was beginning to realize that, a natural fighter, Rose might be down but was never out.

  ‘I don’t see you as a murderess. But I think you could kill someone.’

  And it might be him. Already ahead of him he could see that he would marry, and it might be disastrously, he had that in him, but at the moment what he had was Rose Hilaire and Gabriel and it was 1966.

  He met Steve’s eyes. That boy knows too much, he thought, and yet he knows nothing.

  Suddenly he knew what to say to him.

  ‘Hop it, kid. I want to talk to your mother.’

  It was late before he left, a calm quiet night now, the storm long gone.

  He knew a lot more about Rose Hilaire, and a lot more about himself.

  He was surprised really, but not ashamed. This was 1966, and he was going to help Rose Hilaire, wasn’t he?

  He had no illusions about the trouble she was in.

  Chapter Ten

  He became aware of the consequences to himself the next day. He got into his office early. He had plenty of work to do there. Even as he sat down, almost as if he was expected, the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Jordan here.’

  He was already beginning to think of Jordan as a kind of spiritual weevil or mouse in his woodwork. So he waited.

  ‘Haven’t seen much of you these last few days.’

  ‘Been busy,’ he said cautiously. None of this was real conversation.

  ‘Still looking for your lost relations?’

  ‘A bit of that, too.’ He had thought little of his lost sibling this last day or two.

  ‘Been seeing Rose Hilaire?’

  Dead silence on both sides while Coffin worked it out. ‘Contact made for the first time last night. Who was watching?’

  ‘Not watching. Sometimes observations are made, that’s all.’

  ‘Was it necessary? Who’s put you up to this call? Someone’s told you to talk to me.’

  ‘I’m doing it off my own bat. John. Give Rose Hilaire a miss. Stay away from her.’

  ‘What are you doing to me?’

  ‘Giving good advice. Look what there is against her.’ There was a dead silence from Coffin’s end of the line, but Jordan, a trier if there ever was one, pressed on. ‘It was her house. Originally. She had access. Probably kept a key.’

  He had a point there, his reluctant listener admitted, Rose probably had kept a key. Any woman would.

  Jordan must have felt that he had made a dent, he went on relentless. ‘I happen to know that the forensic boys have found traces on Ephraim Humphreys’s clothes of fabrics and materials from the Hilaire household. Wood and cotton shreds, paint flakes that match.’

  Happen to know is good, thought Coffin. ‘What about the other bodies, then?’

  Silence for a bit, so there was nothing on them, as there would not be in the normal way of life since Ephraim Humphreys had been a friend of Steve Hilaire’s and they, presumably, had not. A plus for Rose and Steve.

  ‘You can’t overlook the boots,’ said Jordan. ‘Rose Hilaire is trouble. And her son too, if I’m any judge of character. Leave that pair alone. I’ve seen a lot of good coppers ruined that way. And you are a good one, John.’

  Not a mouse in the woodwork, or a spiritual weevil, Coffin decided as he put the receiver down, but the voice of conscience.

  Probably Jordan hadn’t really spoken at all, he was a kind of doppelganger telling Coffin not only what he ought to do, but what he also knew. The other half of him speaking, the half that knew it ought to run.

  He and Jordan had known each other for some years, had worked together side by side on a case of armed robbery, and been friends.

  But friends who eyed each other all the time, not exactly with envy, but with care to see who got ahead.

  The patronage of the big man Dander had edged Coffin ahead (not unnoticed by his friend), but then Jordan had made a prudent and happy marriage with the only child of a chief superintendent.

  In a way each admired the other’s skill at living, while enjoying the odd false step.

  In the world where Rose Hilaire and Belmodes moved rumours ran around quickly. Very soon her competitors in their showrooms on the other side of Oxford Street or in the side streets off Bond Street knew that she was in trouble. Some sort of trouble, the exact nature was not precisely clear, but the word murder began to creep in.

  The story about a whole bloodstained cupboard being removed from Belmodes to a police laboratory went the rounds with the speed of light, being especially well received at Teddy Touch’s outfit, marketing street clothes known as Touchline.

  Belmodes was not as big as most of the firms concerned, but Rose was regarded with respect as ‘quality’. She had an eye for talent which they respected, she knew how to pick her designers, and could be relied on to spot a trend developing and to promote it. Never original, they knew that, they respected her position in the market-place.

  But, of course, it would be delightful if she took a fall. The competitors in the fashion world watched each other closely always, for any sign of faltering. They were on a roundabout, anyway, or if you preferred the image, a swing. Sometimes you were up, sometimes you were down, the thing was to keep swinging and not fall off.

  As it was only too easy to do. They remembered with joy when Alberta Monterecchio went in for culotte suits in satin, velvet and even leather, just when the mini skirt was appearing. The clothes were applauded on the cat-walk, but stayed in the racks. Ordinary women seemed to know instinctively that from the hip down (and especially from behind) culottes produced an unflattering outline, the mini won hands down. Then Alberta disappeared, to reappear some time later, working for a wholesaler selling through catalogues. There had been other collapses, there were little ones all the time, and big ones too like the ‘Tim and Teddy’ shops’ rapid demise (which had been simply because of their slovenly accounting), but Rose had a special place. She was genuine, by which they meant she paid her bills in good time, and employed union labour. Belmodes had been around a long time. Rose was the second generation in it, and she had taken it from a back street operation to a small, high class chain.

  But murder? The word was passed around, rapidly, almost secretly, like a small valuable coin. Calculation began at once.

  The first sign of this was two approaches to Gabriel for her services; one disguised as a joking phone call, the other as a polite invitation to lunch, but both real. She knew they were real. Gabriel understood the ways of her world. She saw at once what was happening to her and to Rose, and where it could lead them both. She could read the geography of a life with the best.

  She put the telephone receiver down on the invitation to lunch with a quiet face, but an excited heart.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Nothing, Rose.’

  ‘I don’t like personal calls in work hours.’

  ‘It was about an order, Rose,’ said Gabriel smoothly.

  They wouldn’t fight now, not those two, but the battle would be continued at a time and place of their own choosing.

  Both women went back to work. Gabriel, troubled yet excited. The evening before she had talked about Rose to Charley; she couldn’t believe Rose was a murderer. ‘Plenty of women murderers,’ he had answered, this was one of his subjects. Madeleine Smith, Mrs Merrifield, and Mrs Christofix only last year.

  Rose was worried. They won’t arrest me or Steve, she thought. Lack of evidence, surely. Or is there? What could they have found? She worried away at the problem. Questions biting at her like rats, ending up with the sharpest bite of all. They don’t hang women for murder any more, no more Ruth Ellises. No one hangs. But life imprisonment? The thought was terrifying to one whose whole being was devoted to the outer show.

  Rose moved around her factory aware all the time of the undercurrents from the women working t
here. A good many had worked there for years, some going back to the days of her grandfather. Army uniforms they’d made then, with a percentage of Utility clothes. But Rose knew that wily Grandpa had quietly saved enough cloth to make a few high quality, black market clothes. Not much profit came from these transactions but friends were made and contacts kept up that were to prove useful in the peace. Rose knew that she had built on the foundations well and truly laid by Grandpa. Bombed out of one small premises, Grandpa had moved from factory to factory, finally ending up in what was now Belmodes. Up all the way. There had been a brief downturn when her husband, a disaster if there ever was one, had been general manager. His ideas of management (which had involved business lunches, a Rolls with expensive chauffeur, and a succession of pretty secretaries), had nearly brought them to bankruptcy.

  Nevertheless, it was during this period, just after her son was born, when Rose had opened her first shop. Out of a lot of misery, she created a beginning. That was fighting.

  She was fighting now as she moved about the work floor. Belmodes was busy. In the main factory, heads were bent over the new German sewing-machines in which Rose had recently invested. Money well spent, the girls liked using them. She called them girls but many were women whose working days went back to the Utility dresses and khaki battle-dress. She had inherited a loyal staff along with the business.

  But she had to keep them loyal. In these days of full employment any one of the skilled women could find a job elsewhere easily. In this area a number of small clothing-manufacturers had set themselves up since the war, migrating out from the East End of London. At the end of the war there had been a lot of money-grants for reconstruction as well as tax concessions. Grandpa had not been the only one who grabbed.

  Lily Bates was back at work, Rose could see her unmistakable small figure with her shock of grey hair quickly moving a flow of green jersey through her machine. She was a good worker. One of the best.

  Dagmar silently appeared at Rose’s elbow.

  ‘Bad storm last night,’ said Rose absently, her gaze yet on Lily, her thoughts ever on her own trouble. ‘Sorry I sounded off yesterday. I was worried about Steve.’ Still was, for that matter. ‘He gets under my skin sometimes.’