He had to stop thinking that way: it was dangerous. He felt out of control and God knows he had so many other worries. He was a policeman in the end; it came down to that, God help him.
I won’t be beat, he thought, before the bottle took control; I’ll get the better of this.
He thought that every time.
Stella Pinero had one precious bottle of Arpège scent which she doled out drop by drop. She did not, in fact, like the scent very much, but it was more sophisticated to use it than Chanel No. 5, and even harder to get. The war might be over, but French scent was not easy to come by. Her bottle comforted her. She needed comfort, for her worries were multiplying by the day. Like all actresses, she was emotional, using her emotions, feeding them into the parts she played. She was doing it now with Candida in Shaw’s play, and it was leaving her empty. Into this emptiness came fear. She was going to fail as Candida, she was going to be a disaster as The Virgin or The Lady (both names were used) and the Royal Family would be bored. That was probably inevitable.
Her heart sank. Who in this day and age wanted to be either a virgin or a lady?
Now she was meditating an unselfish act, well, fairly unselfish. She was thinking of giving the bottle (trading anyway) to Bluebell, who had no scent, absolutely none.
Stella knew that she was vulnerable to jealousy and spite. She had grabbed the affections of Eddie Kelly, of Chris, and to a lesser extent and granted he was totally loyal to Joan, those of Albie. She had come into the company, and taken everything.
She was now going to fall on her face with Candida, and would be glad of Bluebell’s friendship. If she could buy it with a bottle of scent, it was worth it.
Bluebell also had a pair of white shoes and a matching shoulder-envelope which Stella greatly coveted. They didn’t fit Bluebell, Stella had seen her limping. Bluebell had big feet for her size, but Stella quite understood why she wore them.
She left her dressing-room and went down the corridor to Bluebell’s.
‘Bluebell. About those white shoes of yours. Where did you get them?’
She knew Bluebell would not answer, but it was a way in.
In an outlying area of Leicester there was a small footwear manufacturing company which had been supplying the army with boots, and which now, with the peace, was turning part of its machinery to making civilian shoes and handbags. They were of good design and good quality, meant for the North American export market.
The owner and manager, David Jenkins, was aware that some of his goods found other destinations. Shoes and even handbags which had some slight defect did not get sent abroad but could be sold in the home market as export rejects. Their sale was legitimate, but some perfect models also, mysteriously, became second-class material and were offered for sale in London.
He did not push his goods that way himself but he felt a sympathy when they went thus into the starved home market. What he did draw the line at was the way in which shoes and handbags packed and despatched for export disappeared on the way to America. His insurers did not like it.
He suspected they disappeared at the docks, where there was no doubt pilfering; there was everywhere else.
He imagined that the stolen goods were then sold off barrows in street-markets, or out of suitcases in public houses. Or just quietly passed from friend to friend.
The police had it in hand. In the end they would find out who was responsible and where the thefts were made.
He studied his bills of lading: the goods went through the Surrey Docks.
The murderer left the café and continued on the walk to the docks. His working life, although not unstructured, allowed him a kind of freedom.
He did not stand out around the docks, where work hours varied according to the tides. Men came and went at all hours.
Ahead of him stretched the Surrey Docks, that great complex of docks, warehouses, and wharves. Beyond that spun the curve of the river which the docks fed. It was a great stretch of land, hardly ever silent, yet with strangely quiet, deserted nooks.
The entrance to the gates was guarded by policemen who might or might not stop you if they did not know your face. The murderer had no intention of trying them out.
He had an idea of his way. There was a strong Russian influence in the street names here: a short walk down Riga Street, then a left turn into Czar Street and you emerged by a passage between two warehouses which led to Convoy Wharf.
At the right time of day, say at night, when the moon was down, no one need see you take this walk. A moon of course was more romantic if you had to consider a girl’s feelings. He might not bother with feelings.
He turned back towards the main road, this time taking a short cut down a little alley which would have appealed to Jack the Ripper. Conduit Court, it was called. He might have gone for Conduit Court himself, since the buildings that made it up were blind, but he had a need of the river. It never occurred to him that he was in the line of succession to some great murderers. He was himself, alone, as ever.
Ahead of him walked two lightermen. No mistaking their individual walk, not quite a sailor’s roll, but a tilt to one side, corrected as they walked by a tilt to the other. Both men moved in unison. All who work on water learn to adjust their walk to the water’s movement.
He walked behind, setting his feet down hard. He had no idea that John Coffin was already listening for his tread.
CHAPTER SIX
The Neck of the Murderer
What difference did the shoe make? After all his hunting, all his triumph of discovery, nothing much seemed to follow the discovery of the shoe.
John Coffin handed it over and saw no more of it.
Things were going on as a result, no doubt, efforts were being made to trace the provenance of the shoe, but no one told him with what result.
Inside himself he nourished the conviction that he, of all the people interesting themselves in the case, was the most aware of the truth. Hard to know why, since in many ways he was pushed to the side by the men from the Yard, was young and junior in any case. Perhaps it was that as he trudged around Greenwich Wick and Greenwich Hythe he felt intuitively closer to the girl and how she had lived, hence to her killing.
Because in her living was death, no doubt of that.
But his intuition was no logic, it was more like a woody outgrowth to his own character.
Several days passed without much action in them, or not much anyone told him about. He did hear, through the usual channels, that the tiny hand found had been identified as that of an adult chimpanzee, probably from the bombed-out pet shop and private zoo in Greenwich Hythe. The search for the Shepherd child ground to a halt. Tom Banbury had a day off sick, then returned to work.
On the third evening, not having seen Chris or Alex or even Mrs Lorimer (‘Mr Coffin, your ration-book, please?’), and with the unfair sense of having been abandoned by all, he washed and changed.
He was going to see Stella Pinero. It was his turn. He had stayed away to give Alex and Chris their turn, which was vanity on his part since he had no reason to believe that Stella perferred him to them. So deep inside himself there had to be another reason, which was probably cowardice. You could fear Stella for what she could do to you.
He bought her some roses at the florist’s in the arcade near the theatre. He was the last customer, surprised to find it still open.
Unusual, the florist told him, he was lucky, but there had been a large order to work on.
‘A wedding?’ Coffin asked.
‘No. A funeral. Local butcher’s widow. Lovely lady.’
‘Large family, I suppose?’ Coffin could see the huge pile of wreaths grouped at the back of the shop. One spelt her name in carnations, Alice, it said in red on white.
‘Lots of friends. Don’t think they had any children. Believe they adopted one.’
One wreath was in the form of two initials side by side.
A. C, it said.
Clarke? Clarke, family butcher?
�
�Stella?’ He knocked on her dressing-room door, the bunch of flowers in his hand, and a buttonhole. ‘I’m a stage door Johnnie come to call.’
Stella Pinero had cleaned her face of make-up and brushed her hair, but she still wore her wrapper, with her street dress swinging on the hanger by her side. It was a new dress, underneath were a pair of new white shoes. She had a matching shoulder-bag hanging in the cupboard beside her. Her little secret as yet.
‘Come in. Oh, it’s you. What do you want?’
‘You. Come out to a meal. I didn’t think I’d even find you here. Why aren’t you at a first-night party?’
‘It’s not the first night, that was last night. It’s the second. And a matinée as well.’
‘I am sorry, Stella. I truly forgot. It’s the way the work has been. Heavy.’
‘There is a party, as a matter of fact, in someone’s dressing-room. Bluebell’s, I think. And Eddie’s gone to one in London. I could have gone. But I didn’t fancy it.’
She was smelling the flowers, early roses. More expensive than they should have been. ‘Come out and have a meal with me. The Padovanis’.’
She was tempted, he was easy company, and she needed the uplift. ‘We’ll go dutch.’
‘Sure.’ He liked the way actresses always paid their way.
‘We could look in on Bluebell’s party.’
‘I’d like it.’ Bluebell was a favourite of his.
‘You are nice.’ She sighed.
‘And you’re in a rotten mood.’
‘Not arf.’ She sighed and held up a mirror to her face. ‘It’s Candida. Doesn’t suit me. And I don’t understand her. Rachel says, don’t worry, play the part and let the audience do the understanding, but I like to know.’
They were alike. He wanted to know also, and in common with Stella he felt frustration. But unlike Stella, he couldn’t show it with tears, nor was anyone going to console him with roses.
‘Cheer up.’
‘I was lousy as Candida, and you know it, that’s why you pretended about the first night. And what’s more you knew I’d be lousy.’
‘No, Stella, that’s not exactly true. I could not know that. I’m not telepathic’
But he had known; he had an insight into Stella Pinero, sometimes sharper than he deserved. He sensed she had a love-affair going with someone, but he didn’t know with whom. There were several candidates, and gossip was ready with names. Edward Kelly was one; Chris another. For all he knew he was on the gossip’s list himself.
‘Don’t mind too much.’
‘I mind failure.’ It had only been comparative failure, the audience had liked her Candida, the gallery would always respond to her star quality, but Stella Pinero judged herself. Also, her peers judged her, and she had known from Eddie’s friendly slap on her shoulder as the curtain came down just how far she foiled. He was offering sympathy, damn him. Her relationship with Eddie was not to include sympathy, she would not have it.
Also, the man from the London management had not turned up.
Bluebell appeared at the door. ‘Hello, Johnny love, come to my party and bring a girl with you. It’s a good party.’
‘We’ll look in.’ Stella was fixing her eyelashes. Little beads of mascara would keep forming and had to be brushed apart.
‘You’ve got that too wet,’ appraised Bluebell professionally. ‘Why don’t you just lick it?’
Stella looked at the block of mascara.
‘Because you borrowed it and licked it.’
‘That’s right. I did. I think Bess and Nicky had a go, too.’ She frowned. The shortage of Leichner’s mascara was a serious worry to her. ‘Well, get along. And bring a bottle if you’ve got one.’
She was gone with a gay little kick of her heels.
‘She’s in a good mood because she was bloody good as Prossy in Candida and she knows it. Also she’s going to be a Thames Water Spirit in the Masque and wear a very romantic costume.’ Stella’s own costume was hideous, but would have to be borne as money was short. Very short.
‘Pretty shoes she’s wearing.’ He had noticed Bluebell’s shoes: they were high-heeled and delicate, their colour a pale tan. They did not resemble the shoe he had found in the river but they were pretty and new. The red shoe had been new when Lorna Beezley had gone for her last walk. Coffin did not connect Bluebell’s shoes with Lorna’s, but he was a policeman and so he noticed them.
‘Yes.’ Stella was noncommittal. If he had known her better he would have listened to that note in her voice. As it was, he did notice it (the policeman again) but thought it was envy.
She did not ask him about his own work, she could tell he was tired and jumpy. Instead she said: ‘Thanks for looking after me the other night. You were gentle and kind. I don’t meet that so often.’
‘How did Mrs Esthart take it?’
‘How do you expect? She was angry. Inspector Banbury came up to see her, but she sent him away.’
‘He wouldn’t like that.’
‘I wasn’t there, but Florrie said he was disappointed. They seem to know each other.’
‘I wonder why she did that?’
‘I don’t know. The bird had a good effect on her, though. Woke her up from her dream world.’
She was waking anyway, Coffin thought, and he found that an interesting process.
‘I think she’s planning something.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Such as I don’t know. What Rachel doesn’t want you to know you don’t learn. Even Florrie can’t read her all the time, and think of the years she’s known her. I’m better in some ways because of being an actress.’
Stella disappeared behind a screen, soon to reappear wearing a dark blue printed silk dress with white shoes. Under her arm she had tucked a white handbag.
She had a quick spray of Arpège. In the end Bluebell had not wanted it: she didn’t like the smell, and a more complicated barter arrangement had been entered into involving ten clothing coupons, a pair of nylon stockings, and two copies of American Vogue.
‘Let’s go to the party. Just look in. She’s a good kid.’
‘Is she really called Bluebell?’
‘Christened it, so she says.’
‘Something’s worrying you, isn’t it? And not just Candida.’
‘Oh, let’s talk about it later, darling. Now let’s be bright, gay and the life of Bluebell’s party.’
Her Coward imitations were not the best thing she did, which was an intimation that she was of the ‘new’ style and, within it, was going to be a great classical actress.
At dinner, after agreeing to split the bill down the middle, they ordered the Padovani spaghetti and a bottle of the ‘special’ red wine. Special in that it was marginally more intoxicating than the others. Perhaps it went to Stella’s head a little.
Elbows on the table, Stella told him all her hopes and plans. Poured them all out. Pale she might be beneath her rouge, and tired after a strenuous week of performance and rehearsals (Candida in repertory now, As You Like It in rehearsal, and the Masque being prepared) but underneath energy bubbled.
She started to tell him all her plans and hopes for the future. She was very ambitious. Love, marriage, children, yes, all very well. But for her, work had to come first. She wanted to play Ophelia while still young, Juliet within the next few years if she could, and Hedda Gabler when she was thirty. A few star parts in long runs would not come amiss, but she didn’t want to get trapped into the commercial theatre.
He knew all the stories about how ruthlessly Rachel made Stella work at her parts on the small stage she had created in the old stables of Angel House. The tales that Stella sat talking to Rachel Esthart as long as that lady desired, all night if such was her mood, all this he knew, too. He had heard how Stella massaged Rachel’s lovely hands, keeping them supple, how she brushed her hair and ironed her silk underclothes.
Slavery, some called it. ‘Letting Rachel Esthart boss you around,’ Bluebell had said, but then she was envi
ous. ‘For God’s sake don’t let her use you, because she will.’ Coffin had heard Edward Kelly say that himself.
The fiercest critic was Chris, who was probably the most in love with Stella of them all, and the one to whom she seemed to pay least heed. Occasionally Coffin had noticed Stella gave Chris a kind of measuring look: he wondered what she was measuring him against. Or for.
He admired Stella, loved her even, and almost against his will, but he thought Stella knew what she wanted and what Stella was in the world for.
‘Anyway, we got paid this week. Albie and Joan are having a hard time, did you know that? Yes, of course you did, I think everyone does. But Candida will fill their coffers even if I am lousy in it.’
Coffin put his hand over hers. ‘Cheer up.’
‘Just as well the London management man didn’t show,’ said Stella, pursuing her grievances.
So that was what was worrying her. Coffin put up a hand to the waitress. ‘Let’s have some more wine.’
Shirley came hurrying over. She loved to serve Stella, the actress she most admired at the moment. As beautiful as Gladys Cooper, as glamorous as Gertie Lawrence, and younger than Shirley was herself. More or less consciously, Shirley was modelling herself on Stella, imitating her style and way of speech.
Thus, by a kind of remote control she was also copying Rachel Esthart whose influence on Stella was already marked.
Those with eyes to see could see these parallel cases.
Coffin did see, with amusement, but not right through Shirley’s innocent mirror to Rachel Esthart.
The murderer was one who saw.
Shirley swung off, her full skirt floating upwards as she moved, revealing a flash of sturdy thighs.
Vic Padovani brought the wine to their table himself. ‘You’ll prefer this wine to the one you ordered.’
Coffin looked at the label. ‘More expensive.’
Coffin on the Water Page 10