A Cold Coffin

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Thank you, Emily.’ Stella managed her first smile of the day. She thought that Phoebe Astley, in one of those offbeat moods she went in for, or was reputed to go in for, might be a better invitee, but it was nice to be found attractive, even if just as one on Emily’s list.

  Emily looked at her and laughed. ‘Okay, Stella, we understand each other. I was just asking. I thought you seemed a bit off the distinguished copper.’

  Back in the Second City, Stella went first to the theatre to hand over the folder of designs to her producer.

  ‘Swatches of silks and cottons are attached to each design, so you will see what you are getting.’

  Fred Fuser touched the silks with a loving forefinger. ‘Beautiful stuff . . . I am going to enjoy working with the costumes.’

  ‘I may have to cut a few corners.’

  ‘Not too many,’ said Fred earnestly. ‘Quality counts. A soprano sings better in a good silk. I’ve seen it, heard it, no joke.’

  ‘You never joke, Fred,’ said Stella as she departed to see Marie. ‘I’m off to the University Hospital.’ She had been transferred from St Thomas’s.

  ‘You’re not ill?’ He was alarmed. His professional life was bound up with Stella’s. He was going to go far, he knew it, but he needed this production of a big musical this millennium year.

  But she was gone.

  Stella found Marie Rudkin propped up on pillows, her face white, but her eyes open. She looked pleased to see Stella.

  Stella took the hand that lay on the sheet. ‘This is the first time the nurses have let me in. I have tried before.’

  ‘I know. And you have telephoned every day. They let me know, even if I wasn’t allowed to do anything about it.’

  Stella sat down by the side of the bed. ‘I haven’t brought any flowers,’ she said apologetically. She looked around the room; no flowers at all.

  ‘I don’t like them. They make me sneeze, and a sneeze is painful when you have a hole in your chest.’ Cheerfully, she added, ‘Better me than the baby.’

  ‘My husband thinks the bullet was meant for him.’

  Marie was quiet. Then she said, ‘It could have been. But I think it was for me. But perhaps the attacker didn’t mind who he hit. If he had to hit someone, perhaps I was the best one to get.’

  ‘I don’t suppose your husband thinks that.’

  ‘If it wasn’t painful laughing, I would laugh. No, he wishes it was him, but that’s rubbish, of course. He couldn’t be spared.’

  Marie paused for a moment, then she said slowly, ‘I saw the man who shot me, I remember that, but I cannot remember his face.

  ‘Not yet. But I think I will remember . . . it’s there at the back of my mind. The curtain will lift.’

  John Coffin listened to Paul Masters and Phoebe Astley give an account of Larry Lavender’s meeting. They had not attended but they seemed very well informed about it.

  ‘Buzzing about like wasps?’ He laughed, but the melancholy inside him since he had set up the Crime Forum, getting the reports from forensics and weaponry, who seemed to have nothing helpful to say on the serial shooter, did not lift. ‘Or is it fleas?’

  He leant back in his chair. His desk was piled with papers he must read, and any moment the telephone might ring, but he wanted to hear this. He hadn’t decided yet whether to be amused or angry, but any moment a strong feeling one way or the other would rush over him and he would know. One bit of good news had been handed to him, unconnected with the murders – a card from the missing Constable Lumsden to the chief of his station to say that he and his wife were touring the Highlands and the dog was with them. He didn’t have much interest in Lumsden, but anything was better just now than a missing constable who might have murdered his wife. And dog. The great British public would probably mind most about the dog.

  ‘Fleas don’t buzz,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘No, they crawl around silently till you scratch. Well, thanks for not joining the crawlers.’

  ‘We weren’t asked.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Larry knew we would tell you,’ said Paul.

  ‘We had our spies there, though,’ Phoebe nodded.

  ‘One inside and one out.’ This was Paul.

  ‘You’re enjoying this,’ said Coffin. They were on his side, but there was a secret pleasure at finding him being buzzed.

  ‘The meeting was in a pub, after all, a private back room, but with a hatch opening on the middle room. Anyone leaning against it could hear everything.’

  ‘And who was?’

  ‘I was, sir,’ said Paul Masters. ‘Good beer they serve there.’

  ‘If you like beer,’ said Phoebe. ‘I go for vodka or gin myself.’ She was in a very good, bouncy mood.

  ‘And who was inside?’ Coffin wondered what had brought this about with her.

  ‘CI Alec Gidding from Tutton Street Division.’

  ‘Oh yes, I know him, of course,’ Gidding was always willing to shout his mouth off and be angry, although his anger never extended to his happy married life and the donkey sanctuary he helped run in Leppard Street on the river side. Coffin respected him for that.

  ‘Larry invited him. Angry man and all that, but he doesn’t like Larry. He says Larry once trod on one of his donkey’s tails and didn’t say sorry.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I’ve ever believed that tale,’ said Coffin.

  ‘No, well, it may not be true but it makes a good story, and he doesn’t like Larry but Larry doesn’t know it.’

  ‘So he was invited to the meeting?’

  ‘Yes, and Alec came to me. He does like me; I have never trodden on a donkey’s tail.’

  Coffin looked at his watch. ‘Nearly time for something to eat . . . Stella left home early to go to London, I think we missed breakfast out.’

  ‘What about the cat?’ asked Phoebe, still oddly the cat’s protector.

  ‘No, the cat has eaten,’ said Coffin kindly. ‘Biscuits, fish and milk. Stella left it ready, but I didn’t fancy joining her. Let’s go to the Leaping Lady.’

  ‘You did know about this meeting?’ accused Phoebe.

  ‘We can walk, can’t we? Just around the corner.’

  ‘Several corners,’ said Paul Masters. ‘Any good asking how you knew about the meeting, sir?’

  Coffin laughed. ‘I am a detective, or I like to think I am. Larry Lavender left too many clues. Perhaps he meant to. Not much good organizing an insurrection if the victim doesn’t know.’

  ‘That’s very cynical, sir.’

  ‘I picked up the feeling at the meeting of the Crime Forum.’

  A good idea with dangerous implications. In retrospect he could see that he had brought together a group of people who resented his ways.

  I’ve only just grasped it, he thought, as they plodded round to the Leaping Lady (which was by no means round the corner and it had begun to rain). This pair have known for some time. It’s not liked when I act as a detective and not the head of the Force. Perhaps they even feel the same, but they’re too decent to show it.

  ‘Sorry you’re getting wet,’ he said to Phoebe.

  ‘That’s all right, sir, not very wet; it’s only just damping down and we’re almost there.’

  ‘You’re bloody loyal.’ And he wished passionately that Stella was with him.

  ‘Yes sir,’

  The lights of the Leaping Lady shone through the rain. ‘This place used to be called the Heart of Oak,’ Coffin said. ‘And don’t ask what that meant, probably one of Nelson’s battleships. Full of the past down here. I dare say there’s a memorial to King Canute if we ask about it.’

  The drinkers in the bar, all smartly dressed men and women of the new City, bankers, brokers, accountants, looked as if they would ask if Canute was a new pop group.

  There was an empty table in one corner of the room, to which Coffin led the way. As soon as they were seated (and just three comfortable seats as Phoebe noted), the landlord hurried over with a tray. A large vodka and two large whiskies
were planted on the table with a smile. ‘Here you are, sir.’ Then he bustled off, still smiling.

  ‘He knew we were coming,’ said Phoebe, still accusatory.

  Straight-faced, Coffin said, ‘It’s the first task of any detective when he comes to a new area to set up his network. Dick here has always been on mine. And as it happens I knew him when we walked the beat together back in Deptford.’

  ‘So that’s how you knew about Larry Lavender’s game,’ said Paul.

  ‘One of the ways.’ Coffin drank some whisky. ‘There might be others.’

  Phoebe sipped her vodka, which was excellent and she was an expert at quality. This was one of the occasions when she never quite knew if the Chief Commander was playing a game of his own with her or telling the straight truth. A mixture of both, likely enough. She was glad to see some of the strain had lifted from his eyes.

  She took a quick look at herself in the big looking-glass on the wall in front and decided that with a little more vodka it would have gone from her eyes too.

  Paul Masters, also reflected in the glass and looking back at her, was wearing dark spectacles, which was as good a way of hiding as any.

  ‘I know I irritate when I interfere on the detection side; on the other hand my clear-up rate is good, and it is part of my job to be successful.’

  The landlord came up with a tray of sandwiches, ‘Ham and beef and smoked salmon.’

  ‘Thanks, Dick. Well done. How’s the wife?’

  ‘Not too bad, all things considered. You could ask after me, triplets at my age are no joke.’ He added, ‘We had been thinking of calling one after you, sir, but they are all girls.’ He picked the tray that had carried the drinks and departed.

  ‘He’s doing well here,’ said Coffin with a straight face. ‘It’s a second marriage. His first wife died young. Take a sandwich.’

  Phoebe helped herself to one of smoked salmon. ‘Twins and triplets are much commoner than they were,’ she said. ‘Almost always the result of artificial insemination.’ The vodka had loosened her tongue rather more than usual.

  ‘Don’t tell Dick that,’ said Coffin. ‘Let’s start at the beginning: I call the Jackson murders the beginning. The forensics team has gone through the murder scene gathering up whatever they can find from skin fragments and hair. These are being DNA-tested.’

  ‘The DNA test is very sensitive and accurate now,’ said Paul Masters.

  ‘Oh yes, if we had a suspect to try it on.’

  ‘It seems as though Mrs Jackson knew her killer. She let him in, walked into the house in front of him and he shot her in the back . . . the two girls must have heard the noise and come to see. They were then shot.’ He added, ‘So the motive, whatever it is, rests with Mrs Jackson. But it’s guesswork, guesswork. Her son might have known something, almost certainly did, and that’s why he was shot too.’ Gloomily, Coffin ended, ‘About the only thing that emerges to my mind is that the killer is local. Because it looks as though Dr Murray must have known or guessed something, because she was killed next.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Phoebe. ‘He has to be local . . . Or she, we can’t rule out a woman doing it. No physical strength needed to pull a trigger against someone who doesn’t suspect you.’

  ‘What Dr Murray knew must have been connected with those infant heads, and somehow with the Neanderthal heads found in a pit in the car park. She was very interested in them.’

  ‘Look for a Neanderthal survivor,’ joked Phoebe. She was playing her part in the investigation of Dr Murray’s death and wanted to get on with it alone.

  Coffin was silent. He had had an idea about the murder of Dr Murray while studying the file on her, but then he had fallen asleep.

  The idea, fleeting, forgotten, sleep-drowned, was still there though.

  ‘It’s a bloody nuisance about Larry Lavender’s little revolt. It gets in the way of the real work. So I expect you want to know what I am going to do about it? Keep it out of the papers and the TV news if we can . . . May not be able to, because he is bound to want publicity.’

  ‘Call him in,’ said Phoebe decisively. ‘And blow his head off.’ She passed over the fact that the Chief Commander’s active role in the investigation of the murder of Dr Murray was not entirely to her interest.

  Coffin said kindly, ‘I’m going to order some coffee for you, Phoebe.’ He held up his hand to the landlord. ‘No, I shall wait for him to come to me.’

  The landlord, who seemed well prepared (or just a good guesser), came across, ‘Coffee, sir? I’ll serve you that in the coffee room. Haven’t pubs changed, sir, since you and I pounded the pavements in Evelyn Street.’ He lowered his voice, ‘I’ve got a chap at the bar who thinks he knows something that might help you with the killing in the University Hospital.’

  Coffin got up and walked across to the bar.

  ‘It’s the fellow on the right in the blue jeans and shirt,’ said the landlord. ‘He works in the hospital, he’s a nurse. This is his regular pub when not working. He seems a decent sort.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘I call him Teddy.’

  Teddy drained his glass as Coffin came up to him. He had a round, jolly face, but he started up nervously, saying that he had just wondered if he could help. Of course, he recognized the Chief Commander. Miss Astley too, he added surprisingly.

  He looked round the room as if he didn’t want to be noticed. It was full, but no one was taking any notice of Teddy.

  ‘These killings we’re having . . . all one man, I’ve heard, sir.’

  ‘It is possible.’

  ‘It’s the blood. I heard that there were two sorts where Dr Murray was found shot, hers and anothers . . . that one was HIV-infected.’

  Coffin nodded. ‘Well?’

  ‘We had a patient in that day, a real bleeder, and HIV on him too . . . I just wondered. I mean, he got better and went home but

  ‘Who was he?’

  Teddy fidgeted and was silent.

  Under pressure, muttering that this was all confidential and he hoped his name could be kept out of it, ‘Not supposed to talk about patients, sir.’ He said that the man’s name was Adam Dodd, and it was all in the records.

  ‘Have you told anyone else this?’

  Teddy shook his head. ‘Wasn’t asked. There have been detectives in the hospital, of course, taking statements and so on, but they never spoke to me.’

  Coffin went back to where the other two were sitting. ‘We might have him,’ he said quietly.

  Phoebe Astley frowned at Paul Masters. She’s getting the medicine now, he thought.

  He did not go to the hospital himself, although he was tempted. He got Paul Masters to send round a sharp request for information on Adam Dodd.

  ‘If no one more senior is in the Incident Room, get James Whitley on to it.’

  That will please them, thought Masters, a little tact wouldn’t do any harm here, but ‘Yes, sir’ was all he said.

  He returned in quicker time than he had expected (he had to admit that Whitley was both tough and efficient) with the address.

  ‘Flat 12, Gabriel Luxembourg Buildings, Shadow Street. He’s on the ground floor, because he can’t manage stairs.’ He added, ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Chief Commander, if he’s as ill as that then he doesn’t sound like our killer.’

  Coffin was non-committal. ‘Let me see him first.’

  ‘They won’t like that,’ Masters said, meaning the team investigating the murder of Dr Murray. But it’s all muddled up, he added to himself; everyone is getting a finger in everyone else’s pie.

  ‘Their own fault,’ said Coffin crisply. ‘They should have got on to him earlier. What’s Whitley going to do?’

  ‘Going round to Gabriel Luxembourg Buildings.’

  ‘Right, you go too, and I will come as well.’

  ‘It’s war,’ Masters said to himself. Phoebe Astley, taking a hand in the Murray murder, would frown even harder.

  Gabriel Luxembourg Buildings in S
hadow Street was named after a popular singer in the Second City. He had drowned when he was singing at a party on a boat in the Thames which sank. He had been doing a drunken version of ‘Rule Britannia’ when the boat went down, which some said had offended the gods of the river, but since Gabriel, drunk or not, had succeeded in rescuing a child and dog before going under himself he was a sainted figure in the Second City.

  The block of flats was plain and unpretentious, with red brick, square windows and white paint. Here and there graffiti was painted on the walls, these too in white paint, but they were of a jocular and light-hearted kind.

  Paul Masters came with Coffin to find that James Whitley had already arrived. Masters looked around; no sign of CI Astley.

  Then the Chief Commander’s mobile rang.

  ‘Astley here, sir. Sorry I can’t be with you, urgent developments here. I will keep you informed.’

  Masters looked at him in query.

  ‘Nothing, or God knows, take your pick,’ said Coffin, shortly. ‘Let’s get on with this.’

  He pressed the doorbell. After a pause, the door opened a crack.

  Adam was a very tall, thin man. He looked frail, but he was erect and he held the door firmly.

  The Chief Commander introduced himself and the others.

  ‘Takes a lot to get you to lead a raiding party.’

  ‘Just some questions. Can we come in?’

  Adam held the door open. ‘Don’t reckon I can stop you. Three against one.’

  ‘We won’t come in if you say no.’

  ‘You reckon? So what it’s all about? You can search the place. No drugs, no illegal whisky or baccy.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The whole party was inside. The place was clean and tidy, modestly furnished with soft pastel colours on walls and curtains.

  ‘Want to seach the place? Go ahead. I don’t know what this is about, but don’t let me stop you.’

  No chance of that if I order a search, said Coffin’s expression at once humane, understanding and strict, but what he said was, ‘Were you in the university hospital recently?’

  Adam’s pale blue eyes met Coffin’s dark blue with an assessing gaze. He was slow to answer. Eventually, he said, ‘I can see what you are getting at. I read the newspapers.’