Feather Street curved down a gentle slope and up the other side until it looked down on the railway embankment, solid Victorian houses with large gardens which backed on to each other so that cats, dogs and even humans could pass freely between them. At the bottom of the hill were a few shops such as a dairy, and a baker’s and a shop renting videos out.
Here still lived Dr Leonard Zeman, his wife Felicity, who was a pediatrician, and his son Tim, who was an architectural student at the Poly. Across the way was the house of his widowed mother and her unmarried niece. The Zeman houses were No.5 and No.22 respectively. Felicity had a white pekinese dog and her mother-in-law had a mongrel called Bob.
The Annecks were the owners of No. 10 and the Darbyshires lived in No. 13. They had Jack Russell terriers, brother and sister, who hated the sight of each other, fought whenever they could and had to be exercised separately at different hours. The families had worked out a rota of dog departures and entrances and a bell was rung before setting out to make sure the enemies did not meet. They were suspected of having killed a cat apiece. These were the families that knew each other best in Feather Street. Mrs Anneck was a local councillor, Harold Darbyshire worked in the Bank, and everyone knew Dr Zeman.
They were all very busy people, fond of their animals but not good at exercising them, so they were walked accordingly to a strict timetable by Jim Marsh, the son of the milkman (C. Marsh, Daily Deliveries, who had not always been a milkman but had been into Flower Power and Love is All and being a Free Soul, only a man must live), who was hoping to be a vet. He was a kind of professional dogwalker, and, as a matter of fact, it was he who had found Anna Mary’s body. With him at that time was the better behaved of the Jack Russells, but even so he had had to pull back the dog from licking at the blood on the pavement.
The dog-walker was a quiet, thin boy, over eighteen but looking younger, who loved the dogs, but even he found this hard to bear. When he got home, he was sick in the kitchen sink before preparing a meal for his father. His mother was dead.
The policeman who had brought him home had been kind but not really understanding. The ride in the police car had been interesting, although not enjoyed by the dog he was walking.
‘You know, Mum,’ he said—he still spoke to his mother sometimes, although she had been dead some months now, and she seemed to pay more attention than she had in the past. ‘It was bad. Bad.’
He too had heard the words that Anna Mary had spoken.
Coffin, having completed his call to Archie Young, prepared to depart for yet another committee meeting, this time one he would chair. He was a desk man these days, and the novelty had worn off with only the boredom remaining. But he was learning how to turn the boredom to his advantage; he could convert it into a kind of anger, and spread it round the committee so that they all shared the desire to get on with the matter in hand speedily. If you enjoy a committee meeting, was his dictum, you are doing it wrong.
He walked down his winding staircase in what had once been the bell-tower of St Luke’s, wondering if his car, left parked overnight in the street, would or would not be vandalized. Last week, some hand, which had in his opinion to be masculine and under fifteen, possibly half of that, had scratched on it several phallic symbols. They might have been cacti or bananas but he thought not.
He could hear voices from the hall where his entrance adjoined that of Stella Pinero in St Luke’s Mansions.
A light silvery voice was saying: ‘They didn’t worry about where the lavatories were in the Globe.’
Stella Pinero could be heard loud and clear, her voice rarely failed to hit its mark: ‘I don’t think they had lavatories in the Globe: they just used the back wall.’
They were standing in the hall, Stella in brown trousers and a cream shirt with a blue scarf tied round her hair. With her was what could only be their new neighbour: a tall, grey-haired man in a suede jacket as pale as his hair. He too wore a blue scarf, but his was knotted round his neck over his matching shirt. He looked distinguished. Was distinguished, since Coffin recognized him as a famous photographer.
Stella turned round.
‘Oh, you’ve got Tiddles.’
‘Have I?’ He looked. He had. Tiddles had come down the stairs behind him, and was now discreetly emptying himself out of the room in the way cats have.
‘You know Sir Harry, don’t you?’
‘By reputation.’ He held out his hand. Harry Beauchamp, recently knighted, was famous for his photographic portraits and revealing group and street scenes. He had an eye. Younger than Cecil Beaton and older than Snowdon, he looked set to beat them all.
‘And I know you,’ said Sir Harry, giving him a tight, hard shake. ‘Saw you in court when Edith Martiner came up for trial. She did it, of course.’
‘Oh yes. She was lucky to get off.’
‘I was doing a series of photos of different types of women. She was a type all right. Wouldn’t have liked to be shut up in a room with her. Thought she’d eat me as it was. Wonder what’s happened to her.’
Coffin, who knew, said nothing.
‘I heard she went to Tibet, beat up a soldier and got shot.’
It was not quite the story Coffin knew, but it might have been truer than the version he had. There were so many ways of telling the truth.
‘I’d be surprised if she’s dead … I thought you were our new neighbour,’ he said.
‘Dick? I’m going to share with him. You’re getting us both.’
Over his head, although tall Sir Harry was shorter than she was, he met Stella’s amused, informed smile. Always do, always have, her lips breathed: a twosome.
‘Sir Harry’s going to do some photographs of our Work in Progress. One of the Sunday supplements is taking it. Lovely publicity for us.’
‘Take some of you, if you like,’ offered Sir Harry. ‘Got any good crimes going? I like a bit of background material.’
There was a screech of brakes and an angry shout from outside.
‘That’s Tiddles crossing the road against the lights,’ said Stella with resignation. ‘He will do it.’
As Coffin got in his car, he saw a middle-aged man and woman standing on the pavement. He knew the woman’s face, he thought she worked in the theatre for Stella. He thought they were studying him, but he did not hear what they said.
‘Is that him?’ asked the man.
‘Yes. He’s late to work today. Very punctual as a rule.’
‘He looks that sort.’
‘You won’t—’ she hesitated‘—do anything, will you, Fred?’
‘No. I just wanted to see him. Get to know his face.’
‘How can that help, Fred? How can it help Anny?’
‘It helps me,’ said Fred Kinver. He strode forward, feet heavy and fast on the ground, he had always been a mover, played football in his youth in the days when there were such things as wingers and a man had to be able to run. She had a job keeping up with him.
‘Walk on,’ he commanded.
‘They’re doing what they can, Fred.’
‘Doesn’t it matter to you that the police haven’t got the man that killed your daughter yet? It matters to me. I screamed when they told me.’
‘I heard you,’ said Mrs Kinver. ‘You kept it up.’
‘You just sat there quiet.’
‘Everyone grieves differently.’
‘I’m not grieving. Not just grieving. I’m working at it. That’s why I wanted to see his face. You can get at that one. Get through to him. I feel better now I’ve seen that. I shan’t let him alone.’
‘Walk on.’
They walked on. Beyond St Luke’s Mansions where Coffin lived and the theatre was rising, past the new police building, down the slope of Feather Street where the Zemans and the Annecks and the Darbyshires lived and where the small dairy, home to Jim Marsh and his father, clung to the bottom of the slope.
‘That’s where he lives,’ whispered Mrs Kinver, ‘the boy who found Anny.’
‘Tha
t tart’s son,’ said Fred Kinver mechanically. He strode on.
I am vengeance, thought Fred Kinver, and I will have my way.
Jim Marsh looking down from his high window saw the two of them and picked up what Fred Kinver was feeling. Something about the hunch of Fred’s shoulder and the way his head was thrust forward. Vengeance personified, he thought, and his own imagination caught fire.
CHAPTER TWO
Tuesday morning through to evening, May 30, to Wednesday, May 31
Five, nearly six days after the finding of the body in Rope Alley felt like three months in Leathergate and the neighbouring area of Spinnergate, for unease spread over here too. Murderers came from anywhere, this one could be far away by now, but he could be local. Was most likely local, everyone said, because of knowing about Rope Alley, dark even in sunlight and with several hiding places in it as well as a quick exit at each end.
‘I think it’s as bad about the boy as anything I’ve ever heard. I mean … him finding her. After his mother.’ The elder Mrs Zeman spoke to her niece. They were sitting over the tea-table, Mrs Zeman favoured a strong blend of Darjeeling, procured at her own special shop in Brook Street. She sipped her tea which was piping hot, just how she liked it. ‘His mother,’ she repeated, between sips. ‘It must have reminded him.’
‘She killed herself, Aunt Kay.’
Her niece had her own small pot of Earl Grey; as with so much of their life together there were carefully defined boundaries. Tea was one of them. Coffee, decaffeinated or not, was another.
Aunt Kay Zeman sniffed. ‘She always was unreliable.’
‘She managed that all right.’
Mrs Zeman did not relent. ‘I’ve always thought it was an accident.’
‘And he didn’t find her. No one did.’
Not for several months anyway, until the river finally delivered her on a muddy bank down the estuary. But of course they knew where she’d gone and where she’d gone in: she left plenty of evidence around. It had never been Clare Marsh’s idea not to punish someone. The only thing was, reflected the niece, she had punished plenty of people who didn’t deserve it.
‘Not entirely the husband’s fault,’ said Mrs Zeman judicially.
‘I should think not indeed.’
‘All the same, he’s trouble. Not really suitable to be your lover.’
‘He is not my lover.’
It was Mrs Zeman’s idea that her niece did have a lover somewhere, but she had not so far been able to get positive proof of the victim’s identity although she had her ideas. She thought of him as a victim. In her experience, lovers were victims, as well as victors, torments, and objects of delight.
She said no more, contenting herself with this probe. Her niece, child of her younger sister, long dead, was called Valerie, which Mrs Zeman regarded as an awkward, unlucky name. Valerie had certainly been some witness to the truth of this belief since she had been a failure as an artist (she had a wooden studio in Aunt Kay’s garden, rent: looking after her aunt), and as a woman with a string of abandoned relationships behind her.
‘You must try and attract someone, Val, hold on, instead of being always a failure.’
‘A lucky failure,’ she retorted at once to this probing sally of Aunt Kay’s, ‘because I’ve ended up happier than you by a long shot.’
Katherine Zeman did not believe this: in her eyes no woman was happy without a settled marriage and at least one son.
‘Happiness is not what an adult expects,’ she replied. ‘A woman should hold on to her man. I held on to mine. You did not. You are a bad chooser.’
‘Someone will kill you one day, Aunt Kay,’ said Val, ‘and it just might be me.’
Mrs Zeman poured another cup of tea. Milk first, she always said, otherwise it stains the cups. Her son had told her that her tea, dark and strong, had long since stained her gullet and stomach deep brown. She did not believe him. Her body would naturally not allow such liberties. She and Val, both strong characters, enjoyed, in fact, a happy relationship in which their sharp differences of opinion were not only allowed but pleasurable. Each knew the frontiers over which not to step and if Mrs Zeman sometimes, as now, strayed too far over them, then she felt it allowed to her as an old woman. It was one of the taxes she levied on Val’s good humour, part of her rent.
‘The girl wasn’t one of Leonard’s patients, was she?’
Valerie occasionally acted as Dr Leonard Zeman’s receptionist and secretary, keeping his records in her fine clear handwriting, so she knew who was on his list.
‘No, I believe she’s with the Elmgate practice.’ The Elmgate Health Centre was a large group of some six doctors near to the Spinnergate Tube station, and was popular with all the company at the St Luke’s Workshop theatre. Dr Greer was the company physician. ‘But Tim knew her, of course.’
‘Sweet on her, was he?’
‘I don’t know, Auntie. She was very pretty.’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised, then.’ In fact, surprised if not. Tim Zeman had an eye for the girls, thought his grandmother complacently. She knew less about Tim than Val did. ‘Well, he wasn’t with us that day.’
‘No, Auntie.’ In fact, they hadn’t seen him for some time. Old Mrs Zeman minded, although she hated to admit it. ‘I believe he was with some friends in Kent.’ The young Edens, Angus Eden had been at school with Tim. He had an even younger and prettier wife.
‘Have you seen him since?’
‘No, he’s been keeping himself to himself.’
‘Upset, I expect.’
‘I think he’s just working for his exams, Aunt Kay.’
‘Certainly what he ought to be doing. Pour some more tea, dear.’
Another cup of dark liquid went down to join the buttered tea-bun and the toasted tea-cake. Yet she was not fat, as Valerie, who put on weight quickly, noticed and thought unfair.
‘Anyway, it’s not Tim, I’m worried about.’
‘I didn’t know you were worried.’
‘I am always worried.’
‘All right. Who especially this time?’
‘I’m worried about Leonard.’
Val drank some tea. ‘Why Leonard?’
‘I don’t think he is happy. And I am sure that Felicity is not.’
‘Well, it’s probably her job. Always dealing with sick babies. It’s a wounding profession.’
‘She cures them.’
‘Sometimes, but not always. Not often, probably. She gets all the serious cases.’
‘It’s her marriage. Something wrong there. I feel it.’
Valerie shrugged. If Aunt Kay Zeman felt it, then she would go on feeling it, and nothing would shake her.
‘Do you think she’s got a lover?’
‘Really, Aunt Kay, I don’t know.’
‘And wouldn’t say if you did know,’ said Mrs Zeman in a not unamiable way. ‘I like loyalty in a woman.’
Val shrugged. So did she, but it was a hard commodity to come by. ‘Sex isn’t always the trouble.’
‘It mostly is. Think of that poor girl. Sex killed her.’
‘All right. I suppose it did. Being the wrong sex.’ Boys got killed too, of course, but not so often. Not nearly so often. And hardly ever by girls, usually by a member of their own sex.
‘So what do you think is the trouble with Leonard?’
She wasn’t going to give up, this was developing into what the family called ‘searching sessions’. Search being the operative word.
‘Do you think he’s got a lover?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I did, and he just laughed. His father wouldn’t have laughed. I didn’t know what to make of it.’
‘I expect the answer is No, then,’ said Val, ‘and he just didn’t want to disappoint you.’
‘He’s very in with that theatre crowd,’ said Mrs Zeman broodingly. ‘And so are you. Get me tickets for their next production, will you? I don’t trust that Pinero woman. Got a roving eye.’
‘Oh, A
unt Kay,’ said Val. ‘People don’t talk that way any more.’
‘They act that way, though,’ retorted Katherine Zeman with grim pleasure.
Val took the two tea-trays through into the kitchen. Her tray with the china pot of Earl Grey tea from Fortnum’s and the thin coconut biscuits from the same shop, and Mrs Zeman’s large silver teapot of the best Darjeeling with the covered dish of hot tea-buns. They occasionally raided each other’s supply of eatables (there was a rich chocolate biscuit cake which they both liked) but never the teapots.
Through the open kitchen door Val could see down their garden to the garden across the way. The Annecks, that would be. Their lilac tree was in full bloom, a pleasure to behold, but in return the Zeman roses would presently be scenting the air for the Annecks.
On the skyline she could see the tower of St Luke’s old church, now called St Luke’s Mansions, where dwelt, among others, her friend Stella Pinero whose reputation she had just defended. There was a small Theatre Club in Feather Street of which she was secretary; all of them were Friends of the St Luke’s Theatre and got special rates for a season’s subscription.
She poured a bowl of tea and milk for Bob, the black and white dog; he liked Darjeeling, liked it weak and lukewarm. Now he tongued it up with great slurping noises, he was not a neat dog.
The telephone rang on the wall in the kitchen. All callers were well aware that Kay Zeman, wherever she was in the house, might grab an extension.
Val lifted the receiver. No, she couldn’t hear Aunt Kay’s breathing, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there.
‘Hello?’
‘Leonard here. I want to talk. Is it all right?’
He meant who’s with you.
‘I’m in the kitchen on my own,’ said Val with caution.
‘The police have been questioning Tim about the Kinver girl. Her murder, that is. Asking how well he knew her, where he was that day and so on.’
Coffin and the Paper Man Page 2