Coffin in Fashion

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘You worry about him too much.’

  ‘I don’t.’ That was true. Steve had earned every ounce of worry she expended on him. Probably there were depths to worry about in him she had not even plumbed. Occasionally with him she had the sense she was going down through a hole in the floor.

  ‘How is he today?’

  ‘He went to school. I drove him there.’ And watched him walk inside, and sat in the car watching for ten minutes to see that he stayed. ‘It was brave of him really.’

  If it was courage, his face had expressed indifference, but his back had conveyed desperation, while he had slid through the door with his body touching the wall. If posture and where you put your body meant anything (and she had heard sociologists say it did), Steve had a strong desire not to be seen.

  ‘I shall collect him at the end of the day. I think that’s best, don’t you?’

  ‘Still taking off at intervals, is he?’ With certain reservations, Dagmar was in Rose’s confidence.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Ever think of having him followed?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You could get a detective. Hire one.’

  Dagmar came up with some practical suggestions sometimes. It was a good idea. But she had a detective now: Coffin.

  ‘Don’t you think the police are doing that?’

  ‘But they aren’t going to tell you, are they?’

  ‘No.’ Or not yet. Perhaps never. Or possibly in a court of justice. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  If anyone’s brave, it’s you. Brave of you to come here today.’

  ‘Thank you, Dagmar.’ Dagmar was a real pain sometimes, coming out with things you’d rather not have said. ‘But I had to keep an eye on things.’ There were a lot of important orders on hand.

  One of the things that distinguished Belmodes from its rivals was the small chain of shops Rose herself had launched. In them the racks and shelves were filled with clothes made in the factory here. Very, very rarely did she buy in, and if she did, then it was a line of expensive Italian knitwear, or silk shirts from Braganza in Spain. Something special to catch the eye, and never much of it; thus was not money made, and Rose knew it. Money was made by long runs of dresses successfully sold.

  So her shops with their carefully designed clothes sat on top of great orders for dresses and suits that Belmodes made for a handful of big stores who marketed them under different trade names, sometimes their own, but never Belmodes. Usually those clothes were made to toiles selected by the store’s own designers.

  Two such big orders for winter suits were in the make now. They had been much on Rose Hilaire’s mind because the buyer from one store, Morgan’s of Leeds, had shown signs of wanting to move away to a manufacturer offering lower costs. Rose, whose own profits were already cut to the bone to get the order, knew that she was on trial. If Morgan’s left, the others might follow. She guessed that the alternative manufacturer must be deliberately making a loss to get the contract. Belmodes must get its order out on time and impeccably finished.

  She was checking the finish for herself, not a job she usually did, but today it was soothing to her nerves. Because the work was good. Very good.

  ‘This is nice, Lily,’ she said; she had arrived at Lily Bates’s machine, and the words popped out before she could stop them. Niceness and Lily’s cruel life at the moment hardly seemed to go. Nor with her own miseries, come to that. ‘What I mean, Lily, is I’m pleased with the work. Thank you for coming in. It’s decent of you.’ She had been surprised to see Lily there.

  ‘I came because I need the money.’ Lily did not raise her head from her work.

  ‘You know you’d be paid.’ Rose was hurt. She had her own ideas of social justice, and not paying a good employee like Lily because of a death in the family was not one of them.

  ‘I should trust you, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I don’t. Not any more. Not anyone till I know who killed Ephraim.’

  Rose perched on a stool so that her face was on a level with Lily and the woman had to look at her. ‘I too don’t trust anyone.’ And then, delicately, as if it was something she hardly wanted to admit to, ‘Much.’

  ‘Do you think they will want me to identify Ephraim?’

  ‘No, Lily.’ Though someone would have to do the job. But the child had parents. It was for them.

  ‘I’d go. It ought to be me. I’d be best. I asked to see him, but they said no.’

  Rose was silent, only too aware that the whole workroom was listening to them. Lily knew, too.

  ‘The girls are all pretty unhappy.’

  ‘I know it, Lily.’

  Lily’s machine continued to whirr, her experienced hands doing their task automatically.

  ‘They wouldn’t walk out, would they?’

  Lily was silent.

  ‘I see.’ Rats leaving a sinking ship; she felt sick. So they were thinking of it.

  ‘Plenty of work around elsewhere, you see.’

  ‘It would be bad for me.’

  ‘They don’t like the atmosphere, you see.’

  Who did? thought Rose.

  ‘They think – well, the truth is they don’t know what to think. Nor do I.’

  ‘I didn’t do it, Lily.’

  ‘But you might know who did,’ said Lily in a polite voice. ‘I’m not saying you do, but you might.’

  ‘Nor does Steve,’ said Rose with difficulty.

  Lily was silent.

  ‘Oh, damn it all,’ said Rose. ‘It’s like being caught up on a bit of barbed wire.’ Like on a battlefield. ‘And you and I are on it together, Lily. Whether we like it or not, we are.’ And I’m screaming with pain.

  ‘If it makes things easier for you I won’t come in.’

  You never knew who your friends were. ‘No, you keep coming in.’ She gave Lily’s shoulder a pat. ‘But thanks.’ She moved away, half comforted, half deeply concerned at Lily’s information.

  She felt she could not bear to continue her inspection. There seemed no point when the whole place might be on the point of closing, and she herself and Steve in prison.

  Gabriel would go, all the sewing-room would go. Dagmar would stay, and probably Ted Tipper. They were the sort that hung on. From mixed motives, if she knew them.

  She walked towards her office, plenty to do there which might take her mind off these worries by substituting others. There was a letter from her bank manager that had a nasty look to it. In fact, any other time it would probably have terrified her, now she rather welcomed it as a sign that life was normal after all.

  The main door stood wide open making a through draught. A faint smell of Deller’s factory floated in, the air nicely spiced with the usual scent of smouldering rubber that was being burnt somewhere. It was such an everyday smell that Rose hardly noticed it.

  She closed her eyes and leant against the wall waiting for the wave of dizziness to subside. She knew now she was not pregnant, but she was heavy with apprehension.

  A car approached, stopped, a door slammed.

  Rose opened her eyes. She saw a man and a woman walking towards the factory. She had no difficulty in recognizing the man as one of the policemen who had hovered around her and Steve. She had never heard his name. Without conscious volition, she backed into her office and stood behind the door.

  There was a mirror above in whose reflection she saw Ted Tipper advance down the corridor and meet face to face with the police. She could see him. Didn’t that mean he could see her? She shifted her position slightly.

  When you are on the outside looking in, the ways of the police can seem frightening and strange. These two seemed like an invasion force. She wished she could ring up John Coffin to ask what they wanted.

  They had stayed talking very late last night, and he knew a lot more about her than she had ever expected to tell anyone, while she knew something about him. She liked him. To herself she had to admit that she would have been willing to go further than talk. Perhaps
it had been the vodka working. But he had seemed to draw back. No doubt he was wise. He seemed a man who understood her.

  The only way he had let her down was about her nightmare. He had listened to her telling him. In fact, she thought he had listened more than once, she had been repeating herself. The vodka again, no doubt. But at the end he had said to her soberly that it was imagination. Funny sort of imagination, like nothing she had met with before, pulling her inside out like a pair of gloves.

  Ted Tipper and the invading army had met. Ted was already in a bad mood. The removal of the cupboard and the sealing up of the women’s rest-room had seriously complicated his life. He had had to give up his own little hidey-hole in the stockroom to clear a space for them to hang their coats. Even his lavatory was now reserved for them.

  ‘What do you two want? Why do you always come round in pairs? Why can’t you treat us like human beings?’

  ‘Mrs Bates here? I was told she was.’

  ‘This worries me.’

  Rose knew Ted in this mood: he remembered that he was the son of a man who had been dresser to George Robey, and grandson of a woman who had known Crippen.

  She came out of her room.

  ‘I’m Mrs Hilaire. What is it you want?’

  The policeman either knew his way around or had been briefed, because he had already moved in the direction of the workrooms, followed by an angry Ted Tipper muttering about the bloody police.

  The woman police officer and Rose faced each other.

  ‘Is it to identify the boy?’

  All she got in reply was a smile and a shake of the head. ‘Ask Sergeant Davis.’

  Lily appeared through the swing doors with Sergeant Davis, shrugging herself into her coat as she came.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Rose spoke up quickly.

  ‘You’re the last person I’d want.’

  ‘Let me go,’ said Gabriel, suddenly appearing.

  Sergeant Davis looked at the woman detective. ‘Come on, Gillian.’

  Rose intervened. ‘Wait a minute. Why Lily? Why not the mother? Or if not the mother, then the stepfather?’

  Sergeant Davis said, unemotionally, ‘The mother says it is not Ephraim. Cannot be, because she has had a message from a clairvoyant that her son is alive and well and living in Wapping. We can’t trust to that, Mrs Hilaire. His stepfather thinks it might be the boy. Might not. We believe he knows it is, but can’t bring himself to admit it. That’s why, Mrs Hilaire.’ He looked at the policewoman.

  Gillian put a soothing hand on Lily’s arm. ‘It’s only a formal identification, Mrs Bates. We’ll make it as easy as we can for you. Just a quick look. The clothes will do it, probably.’

  Lily jerked away. ‘I shall know what to do. I’ll pay my respects to him without you telling me to take a quick look. I’ve laid them out in my time. I know what death is.’

  Sergeant Davis gave Gillian Murphy a quick, sharp look. ‘All right, Mrs Bates,’ she said. ‘We’ll do it your way.’

  ‘And I don’t want you,’ said Lily to Gabriel.

  ‘Sorry. Only trying to help.’

  ‘Come on, my dear.’ Gillian led her out to the waiting car.

  Gabriel and Rose watched Lily’s back. Unconsciously they had moved together as if for support.

  ‘I’m glad she’s gone,’ said Davis. ‘There’s a bit more to it than an identification.’

  Rose waited.

  ‘Mrs Bates won’t come back here. We shall be taking her home. Be taking a look at her house.’

  ‘She’ll need someone with her.’

  ‘Not you, Mrs Hilaire.’

  Rose looked at him, scenting a mixture of threat and impertinence.

  ‘Because we still need you here,’ went on Davis easily. ‘A forensic team need to have a look round. With your permission, of course.’

  Fear took a firm grip on Rose’s stomach.

  ‘Why? You’ve inspected the washroom, taken away a cupboard, photographed all over the place.’

  ‘Can I just say we need to do it? We know what we are looking for.’

  ‘I don’t know, though. What is it?’

  ‘And don’t worry about Mrs Bates,’ he went on, ignoring her question. ‘I promise you we will look after her. We shall see she’s all right.’

  ‘When will you be here?’

  ‘Can’t say precisely, Mrs Hilaire. You understand our difficulties. But you’ll get a phone call.’

  ‘And how long will it take? I’ve got several big orders to get out.’ Rose was getting frantic.

  ‘We’ll do our best; we won’t get in your way more than we can help.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘It means as much as I can make it mean.’

  Which means precisely nothing, Rose thought.

  Sergeant Davis had managed to conduct the whole conversation nicely balanced on an edge between politeness and aggression. He frightened Rose. She wanted to hit him, and she knew he knew she wanted to. If this was the new breed of policeman, she didn’t like it. His hair was on the long side too, and she was almost sure he bleached the ends.

  ‘Oh, and Mrs Hilaire, one other thing, the message is we may need to see your own place. Where you live, I mean. Riverwalk, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rose uneasily. The hand was now gripping even harder at the centre she called her terror spot. She was beginning to think her heart was involved. Certainly something was banging away painfully inside her and causing her trouble in breathing.

  Gabriel, silent all this time, moved to her side. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Mrs Hilaire?’ said Davis questioningly.

  ‘I’m upset, that’s all! What is it you want from where I live? What are you looking for?’

  ‘I can’t answer that because I don’t know.’

  She didn’t believe him.

  ‘But once again, I promise the whole job will be done as expeditiously as possible.’

  ‘But what’s it to do with?’

  ‘It’s to do with a death, Mrs Hilaire, the death of a boy. It looks as though the body was moved before it was buried. At least once, perhaps twice.’

  At last she had extracted a picture from him. A picture of a boy being strangled, then stabbed. Of that boy being moved, and hidden in the cupboard in the washroom in Belmodes, then moved again to the house in Mouncy Street. A house she had once owned. Somewhere in all the moves the body contriving to lose its boots which then turned up in Steve’s bag at school.

  It all chimed in horribly with that waking vision of hers.

  Whichever way you looked, the Hilaires were right in it.

  Now all she wanted was for him to go, so she could sit down and think it over. It might be sensible to get a solicitor. She could see she was at the point where the police might be going to do some hard questioning.

  ‘Goodbye, Sergeant. I’ll be ready.’ By a miracle she kept her voice steady.

  Gabriel followed her into her office.

  ‘They must have some reason for all this,’ she said uneasily. ‘Something they’ve discovered. On the body or about the body.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Rose wearily. ‘Go away and send Dagmar in.’

  ‘Look, I won’t deny we’ve had differences of opinion. That’s style. Our styles don’t match. But when it comes down to it, women protect women.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so?’ Rose laughed. ‘Can’t say I’ve met it.’

  ‘I’m the new sort of woman. Women against men. This is the 1960s. I’m on your side.’

  ‘Thanks. I’d still like to have Dagmar.’

  ‘He was bloody to you, that man.’

  ‘I’m the goat in this business, Gaby. There’s always a goat; the one that’s going to get its throat cut. You’re from Paradise Street, you ought to know about that.’

  ‘Come on now, Rose.’

  ‘The goat doesn’t know it at first, but learns. I’m learning.’ Her voice took on energy. ‘Well, this goat’s not going to be an easy sacrific
e.’ She reached out a hand for the telephone. ‘This goat’s going to get help. I’m calling my solicitor.’ With one hand she was searching through her address book. ‘Damn. Dagmar? Are you there?’ What’s the telephone number of Fiddlestone’s, the solicitors in New Cross Road?’

  ‘Old Mr Fiddle has not been there for some time, Rose,’ said Dagmar from the door.

  ‘What happened to him? Did he go to prison or die? I always wondered which judgement seat would get him first.’

  ‘He died. Heart. Just came out of the Magistrates Court and dropped down dead. He’d won his case, though. There’s an Indian gentleman running things now. Greenwich 8992.’

  ‘Well, he’ll do for me,’ said Rose decisively.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘You tell her, Gaby, and remember to cut out the philosophy.’ Rose was dialling the Greenwich number.

  Gabriel outlined what they knew, and what was coming to them. She felt involved, the cloud that hung over Rose hung over her, too. As one of her companions on the last CND march had said, ‘When the bomb drops you can’t say: This had nothing to do with me.’ After this the woman had gone on to attack her wearing feminine clothes, and somehow after that, Gabriel, although liking the woman (called Karen, whom she had gone on knowing) and still believing you should Ban the Bomb, had never gone on another march.

  Rose finished her conversation and put the receiver down. ‘Nice voice.’ She sounded reassured. ‘He said nothing I can do, so to let the police in. But to say nothing, remember that, you two, and I’ve got an appointment to see him later today. Perhaps we should all go.’

  ‘I don’t see that,’ said Gabriel: the cloud was getting too close.

  ‘And you might tell Charley: the police will be over his place, too. Bound to be, as it’s more or less part of this.’

  ‘He won’t like that.’

  Rose ignored this. ‘And the solicitor will find out what’s going on. He says he has good relations with the police.’

  ‘That’ll appear on the bill,’ said Dagmar sourly, the ever-cynical voice of Paradise Street.

  ‘I don’t suppose he’ll bribe them.’

  Dagmar laughed. ‘There are ways. And you are Ted Mosse’s niece.’

  ‘I need to know what’s going on. They’ve got some evidence somewhere that’s worrying them. Or if not worrying them, then alerting them. They will be looking for something special. What? I’d like to know what they are looking for.’