Yes, he was here in good time.
He was known; his rank and his position smoothed the way.
Among the trees was a thicket of shrubs with a small path which led to a tiny brick pavilion with a bench in it.
Crouching against the bench as if he was praying was the figure of a man. His back was towards Coffin.
He walked right up to him and stared in the dead face. Eyes open, mouth twisted.
‘Good Lord.’ Not the face he had expected.
‘Know him, sir, do you?’
Oh yes, I know him, and you know I know him.
‘It’s Billy Egan.’ William Howard Egan, who had come out of prison eager to revenge himself on those who put him there. His son-in-law first and then John Coffin. Or possibly the other way round; on that point one had never been quite sure.
And now he was dead himself. Only a few weeks out of prison and murdered.
He looked as though he had been garrotted: there was blood in his mouth and coming out of his ears. Even bloody tears around his eyes.
But in addition, he had been stabbed many times. Cut and slashed as by a madman.
‘I suppose we ought to start looking for Terry Place,’ said Coffin.
On his way home he saw that the steps of No. 22 had been newly washed. Mrs Brocklebank at it again, he thought.
Chapter Two
Terence Place was certainly to be looked for, but he was nowhere to be found. The police investigation into the death of Billy Egan slithered around, not taking hold anywhere. Egan had been first strangled with a tight cord, then stabbed repeatedly. The knife had not been found. But one peculiar fact emerged from a study of Egan’s clothes. He had mouse droppings in his jacket pocket.
Meanwhile the Pitt family held its Welcome Us Back party to which everyone who was invited went and quite a few who were not.
John Coffin attended, but he was among those asked. For years afterwards he regarded it as one of the best parties he had ever been to. Even taking into the account all the things he later perceived as springing from it. The reason he found it such a good party was that no one there, apart from his host and hostess (but with one exception), knew that he was a policeman. There was no denying that if you were known to be a policeman the conversation became stilted and full of boring jokes, all of which he had heard many times before. He resolved to be anonymous ever after. The other reason was that there he came across his half-sister Lætitia; she was the exception, of course. She came into the room in company with a well-known back-bencher MP.
He ought not to have been surprised to see her, after all the Pitts were part of the world she moved in. He knew she’d been living in New York. He was not at all surprised not to see her husband with her. Marriage was a movable feast to his sister.
‘Nice to see you,’ he said, giving her a kiss. ‘But surprised.’
‘I came because I hoped you’d be here.’ A kiss from her in return and a breath of what he guessed to be the newest scent. ‘You know Chris Court?’
‘By name, of course.’ He might have said by reputation, because he thought he knew something of that too. Christopher Court was a clever and energetic man who was known to be ambitious to lead his party. His friends said he might do it, if he could keep clear of scandals. He had fallen into minor trouble once or twice.
‘I’m kind of a gatecrasher here. Chris was coming anyway and I asked him to bring me along.’ She spoke with the supreme confidence of one who had never been unwelcome anywhere. ‘But I knew Eddie and Irene in New York, of course.’
The Pitts occupied the whole of No. 22, all three floors, whereas most of the other houses in Church Row had now been subdivided into flats such as that into which John Coffin had now settled. The party was being held in a large ground-floor room which opened into the garden, where a few guests were already strolling.
Lætitia’s confidence was justified. She was received with a cry of delight from her hostess, who pointed out where Edward Pitt was and said he would ‘just love to see you’. Lætitia looked as if she knew it. She was wearing a cream silk pleated dress with a long rope of pearls; Irene was floating in chiffon of ivory and ice-cream colours; the two women matched, as if somehow they were meant to stand together and be photographed. But Irene moved away with Christopher Court while Lætitia stayed talking with her brother.
‘Come into the garden?’
‘Too cold. Damp as well. I’m not as English as you are, John. English gardens are all right to look at, but not to take a drink in.’
‘I call it quite warm tonight.’
‘Exactly what I mean.’
They were standing by a great gilt wall mirror in which all the room was reflected. The room was part library with one wall entirely covered with books. An ebony stand with a cascade of flowers filled one corner, and in another corner was a bronze head of Irene on a similar stand. Through an open door into another room he could see Mrs Brocklebank carrying a platter of food towards a table. The boy helping her and the tall young creature behind, also carrying food, must be the Pitt son and daughter.
Chris Court and Irene were standing at the door to the garden, poised as if they might walk out. Irene always looked gracefully ready for movement, like the dancer she might have been; she had a natural elegance, with her sculptured profile and creamy skin, which she had groomed and refined to a beauty it might not otherwise have possessed. Above all, she looked intelligent and alert.
They were talking softly, but audibly.
‘It’s been a long time.’
‘Three years. What I promised Edward.’
‘I kept my word. Didn’t try to see you. Although I wanted to. By God, I wanted to. Now Edward’s retired and the bargain is called in. We’re free.’
Irene did not answer. She was staring into the garden. Then she turned to Christopher. ‘Anything to tell me on that business of the student that I asked you to find out about?’
‘Not yet. There will be. I’ve put my chap on to it. I can’t see why you are worried, though.’
‘It’s because she didn’t say anything. Ever. Not to me, not to her father. That alarms me. Come into the garden.’
And in the mirror Coffin watched Edward watching them.
He turned to Lætitia with a question in his eyes. She shrugged.
‘So that’s really why you came? You’re a kind of a chaperone.’
‘I’m very fond of both Chris and Irene. Edward too, for that matter. And also,’ she added deliberately, ‘of my brother whom I came to see, and who never comes to see me.’
‘Poor coppers can’t travel the globe finding you.’
But it was an excuse, and he knew it. He had not tried hard enough. She had a right to be angry if she wanted to be. He had got stuck into his own life, his own problems, and had not looked outside them.
‘I’m coming back to this country to settle. Bought a house on Chelsea Embankment, with views across the river.’
Did it mean another marriage was unfastening itself? She did step out of relationships so easily. She was more like their mother than he cared to admit.
‘How’s Harry?’
‘He will be there too.’ She smiled. ‘You thought not, didn’t you.’
‘Wondered.’
‘There is a reason. Can’t you guess? I am going to have a child. Since I was born in this country I have kept my British passport; my child, if born here also, will have dual nationality, British and American. We thought it a good idea he should be born here.’ She was serenely sure of herself. ‘The place not to be born if you are a boy is France, then you have to do military service, whoever you are. Or keep out of the country. And that might seriously damage his career. One can’t tell.’
He was pleased. His family was growing. Now there would be three of them and a hidden fourth. ‘It is a he? You are sure?’
‘I already know. It is quite possible to know.’
Her life was so much more sure and full of certainties than his own was. That had to com
e from her father’s side of the family. Nothing like it seemed to exist on what he knew of his mother’s. He didn’t know much about his own father, except that he had been an unlikely chap. It had been a surprise when Lætitia had turned up in his life, so much younger, prettier and cleverer than he had dared to expect. Also a woman; he had been on the search for a brother. That brother still existed somewhere.
‘Of course, I am already a little old for a first child,’ she said calmly. ‘One can run into trouble, hence all the tests. But all is well.’
A budget of news.
When he turned back into the room, now crowded with people, he saw that Chris Court and Irene Pitt had drawn apart, the MP to talk to a man John Coffin recognized as a television personality, and Irene to supervise the laying out of the food in the other room. His sister was talking to Edward Pitt, who was giving her some wine, then going on to pour some for Court. He did it with a flourish.
Suddenly Coffin felt sorry for the man. Not much fun to lose your wife after years of marriage. If I was him, he thought, I’d feel like dropping poison in Court’s drink.
Of course you’d have to choose your poison, or someone like himself, some eager beaver policeman, would soon be on your trail.
He enjoyed the party, but left early. His sister had left even before he did. She came across to speak to him before she went.
‘Can I drive you home, Letty?’ They were, after all, well out in South London, well away from Cheyne Walk. He felt sure her new house was on Cheyne Walk, nothing less would do for Lætitia.
‘No, I have a car.’
‘Sure?’
‘I am perfectly fit,’ she said firmly. ‘Don’t fuss. There’s something I want to say. You remember the advertisements we have been running in the papers asking about our missing sibling?’
‘I remember.’ He hadn’t wanted the advertisements inserted, it was making public something he still preferred to keep private, but he had deferred to her.
‘We’ve had an answer. Some woman who thinks she may know something. From Glasgow, of all places. Can one of us really have got to Glasgow?’
‘You got to New York.’
‘But I had help.’ She questioned: ‘So what do we do? Do we go to Glasgow?’
‘One of us ought to.’
‘Then I will send you the letter and all the information I have. I think you will find it interesting.’
As he followed her to her car he saw that Court was already standing by it with the door open.
‘He’s in a hurry, isn’t he?’
‘There’s a Division tonight. A three line whip, he has to get back to the House to vote. Besides, better not to hang around.’
‘Perhaps he’d have done better still not to come.’
Letty shrugged. ‘There’s something worrying you. What is it?’
‘I’ve got a nasty murder case boiling up,’ Coffin admitted. ‘It’s on my mind a bit.’ He told her about the discovery of Egan’s body, just hinting at his personal involvement.
‘Is it a very horrible murder?’ She knew that there were certain types of killing that he found hard to stomach.
‘Bad enough. But I’ve known worse.’
‘Then is it you don’t know which way to go? You have no idea who did it?’
‘Oh I think we do. Probably won’t be too hard to prove, either.’
‘Then you’re home. It’s at an end.’
Slowly Coffin said: ‘That’s just it. It doesn’t feel like the end. More like a beginning. And I’ve got the nasty feeling that it’s not the right murder.’
‘You mean the wrong man was killed.’
‘No, I’m sure the killer meant to get Egan. If he hadn’t, Egan would have got him.’
‘Well, then.’
‘Yes, I know I’m being unreasonable.’
He saw her drive off, then made to leave himself. It was a warm evening for the time of year, with a big yellow moon hanging in the sky. He stood for a moment on the doorstep enjoying the evening. The noise from the party floated out to the street, laughter and happy voices mixed with the sound of music. A good party but now was the time to leave it, you should always leave a party while it was still happy. A good recipe for life.
He walked down the street. Just for the moment he fancied he could get a whiff of the old Deller’s smell, but that must be fantasy. Deller’s, once the boast of the district, had not smelt for over ten years now, vanquished, as it had been, by the Clean Air Act.
It was a night for memories and he had plenty centred on this district. A mixed bag, as memories tend to be, but all of them worth hanging on to. That was something he had learnt over the years, that painful memories could be very valuable, marking a place in your life where you had gone wrong but need not do so again.
As he got to his front door he looked back. To his surprise he saw the tall Fleming boy, he thought Mrs Brocklebank had told him he was called Peter, standing across the road from No. 22.
Poor lad, he thought. Listening to the party, but not of the party. Hearing the gaiety but not invited to it.
Then he saw a figure flit up from the basement and run across the road to the boy. He recognized the daughter of the house.
He let himself into the house and walked up the stairs, half sorry for the pair, half envious. Lucky young beggars, he thought. You’ve got it all to go through and it’s a pain as well as a pleasure, but you’ll miss it when it’s done.
A bit later he took another look from the window. Yes, they were still out there under the street lamp. Just parting under the tree. The boy was hanging on to the girl’s hand, letting go reluctantly, then slowly walking away.
Romeo and Juliet, no less, he thought.
When the party was over Edward and Irene were alone in the kitchen, and both of them knew that something had to be said, was going to be said, but were reluctant to be the one who began.
‘Sandwich?’ Irene examined an open sandwich which still had its piece of smoked salmon adhering to it.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Just as well probably, it’s drying out.’ She put it aside. ‘There’s something unpleasing about a dried-out bit of smoked salmon, isn’t there? Mrs B. didn’t manage badly though. Good marks for her.’
‘There’s one thing you can’t do, couldn’t do in New York and can’t do here where there’s less excuse, and that’s get good servants.’
‘Mrs B.’s all right.’ Irene was both surprised and defensive. It was not like Edward to be hostile. Or rude to her. Angry sometimes, yes, but not unpleasant.
‘She’s an old soak.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Now Irene was really taken aback. ‘Not her.’
‘If the pile of whisky bottles I found neatly hidden away in the basement is anything to go by, she is. I don’t know who else could have left them there.’
‘The Leggetts … ?’ began Irene. ‘We let them the house,’ before she remembered what the Leggetts, vegans and into yoga, were like. No, it couldn’t be them. And anyway they would have left the bottles around. Hiding or even tidying up was not their style. ‘No, I can see it would not be them. But I dispute Mrs B., I don’t think she drinks at all.’
‘Then she’s got a boyfriend who does.’
‘Edward! Why are you being so nasty? What’s the matter with you?’
‘Do you need to ask?’
‘It’s because Christopher came here.’
‘Yes, I could have done without that. He wasn’t asked. Or was he?’
‘I sent an invitation,’ admitted Irene. ‘I wasn’t sure if he’d come.’
‘You were sure.’
‘I knew we’d meet sometime. But we’ve kept our word. I agreed to wait for a divorce until you retired. You agreed.’
‘I don’t have to like it, though, and I don’t have to like him. And I don’t.’
‘I hate you being like this.’ Irene stood her ground, not giving anger back for anger, but she was unhappy. ‘You seem less than yourself. Not wort
hy of what you are.’
‘You don’t really understand, do you?’
Irene shook her head silently.
‘Ask Othello,’ he said under his breath. ‘He knew all about jealousy.’
Irene turned her head away. She shovelled all the unfinished food into the waste-bin. Who wanted to see cold sausages on sticks and soggy pastry with bits of caviare on it in the morning? And clearing up the mess of the party seemed the right and only thing to do in the circumstances.
Edward stood watching her, but not helping.
‘Where’s Nona?’
‘In bed, I expect.’
‘She’s not. I just looked.’
‘Around somewhere.’ Irene was casual. She did not hang over her daughter.
‘You’re a lousy mother.’
‘That’s not true.’ She was hurt. Not only was it not true, but Edward had never shown signs of thinking it before.
‘You ought to know where a child of fifteen is.’
‘Nona is quite grown up.’
‘All the more reason.’
Irene said nothing, just pushed some more rubbish from the party into the bin.
‘There’s been a murder around here, you know.’
‘I do know. Mrs Brocklebank told me.’
‘I don’t want Nona out on her own after dark.’
‘She’s not likely to be killed.’
‘Don’t even say it.’
Then they both heard the careful, quiet closing of the front door.
Nona came into the room, then stopped in surprise. She had returned home expecting them to be in bed. She would certainly have preferred them to be. She had long had her own ways of entering and leaving No. 22 in private, she remembered them from of old. Which to her meant before New York.
‘Hello.’
She was taller than her mother, with Irene’s dancer’s grace turned to athleticism, but she was going to be just as beautiful in a more extrovert way, with a kind of flourish to her that Irene had not. She was very thin at the moment because she hated the idea of putting on weight. Muscles curved gently beneath her skin and she distrusted them also. That was not the way she wanted to go. ‘Hello. Still up?’
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