A Grave Coffin

by Gwendoline Butler

  Phoebe, more up to date in the ways of the youth of the Second City than the Chief Commander, laughed. ‘They prefer it at night, less competition from the traffic. Those weren’t the littlest boys.’

  ‘One of them was a girl,’ said Coffin.

  ‘Yes, I noticed. We ought to recruit them, they get about and know everything. It’s a kind of junior Mafia.’ She drove off at her usual speed.

  Stella was waiting for him, talking to Max.

  ‘He’s worried about his grandson, Louie,’ she said, walking forward. ‘The boy is having nightmares.’

  ‘I hope it’s not because he was lying.’

  Stella shook her head. ‘No, Max thinks it’s because he knows something else, but he won’t tell.’

  ‘I’ll tell Devlin, she can go and talk to him, he may tell her.’

  Stella said diffidently: ‘I think he’d like it to be you.’

  Coffin looked into the darkness behind Max’s restaurant. He had no car parked there, the two of them could walk home from here.

  ‘It’s the inquest on the boys tomorrow,’ he said. He took her arm. ‘And you, what about you? Are you still here tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m staying a bit longer,’ said Stella.

  9

  The inquest was held in the early-nineteenth-century building which had once housed Dr Arnold’s Charity School for Boys. It was a long, plain building in whose hall the whole school had once sat, perched on benches, learning by rote from one teacher. It had undergone various vicissitudes in its long career, being turned into a set of slum tenements, then becoming an ARP centre for bombed-out families in the war against Hitler. Reduced to penury after this period, the building was in great danger of being knocked down, but then found itself raised in status by being taken over by the Second City Arts Committee and turned into a cultural centre, so that the walls were now lined with pictures done by local artists, some good and some not so good. The river figured prominently, as was natural, since the Thames had run through the Second City, providing work and occasional floods throughout the centuries. Apart from the river with its barges, animals were well represented: there was one whole wall of dogs, and a lesser array of cats.

  Now, seats had been brought in and a low platform rolled in for the coroner and his clerk.

  A small bus was parked outside when Coffin arrived in time to see the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbours disembarking from it. Last out of the bus was Dr Chinner, who had organized the whole party.

  The driver, Peter Perry, he who drove the school bus, and his friend Ollie Deccon from the sports centre where the boys had gone swimming and skating, were both dressed in dark clothes, with black ties. Peter wore his cap, and Oliver Deccon an old bowler hat which he had borrowed.

  ‘You look like nothing on earth in that hat,’ said Peter, who was nervous and tetchy and in pain. ‘It’s the wrong size, so big it’s sitting on your ears.’

  ‘I know.’ Ollie was humble. ‘I borrowed it from a man with a big head.’ His own was on the small side and had always been a worry to him. He was afraid his head was growing smaller. Impossible, he told himself, but was never quite sure.

  They filed in behind the families, seating themselves on a bench at the back of the room so as not to be noticeable. Peter knew that some suspicion still hung over him.

  Dr Chinner passed down the aisle to take a seat near the front. Inspector Devlin and Sergeant Tittleton had already arrived and were seated unobtrusively in the middle of the hall, which was crowded.

  Coffin hung back to let the parents and friends of the dead boys settle into their seats, then he sat down at the back. Peter Perry shifted uncomfortably, edging away from the Chief Commander, whom he recognized. They can’t hang a man until he’s proved guilty, he told himself. Didn’t hang you anyway. No capital punishment, but from the look on Dr Chinner’s face, he thought that the doctor might find a way to see you got it.

  The coroner, Dr Sam Edginton, who was both a doctor and a lawyer, one of the best coroners in the Second City, strode down the centre aisle, a tall burly man in a dark suit that was unbrushed and shoes that were unpolished. He bowed towards Dr Chinner, whom he knew, then swept on.

  ‘I always want to stand up and sing “God Save the King”, when he comes in,’ murmured Devlin. ‘He gets to look more like George III by the day. Do you think he’s descended?’

  ‘Could be. Plenty of royal bastards around; I’m a republican myself. He’s a good man, though.’

  ‘The best,’ agreed Paddy Devlin. ‘He’ll get through this as quickly as possible with no fuss and the least pain.’

  She was very aware of the four sets of parents sitting behind her. She had got to know them, just a little, in her visits to them over the last few weeks. Dr Chinner did not have the monopoly of pain. Mat Baker’s parents, looking old and drawn, Dick Neville, his parents, were younger than the others, the mother in the canteen at Leathergate, a pretty woman with bright-red curls. The Rick parents were sitting close and holding hands, he was a detective constable in Spinnergate, didn’t make it easier being on the job, harder, probably, because he knew more of what was going on. Could see more clearly what had happened to his son.

  You had to ask, and Paddy Devlin had asked herself, did this killer have a grudge against the police? Or did he just find the sons especially attractive? Her colleagues on the force had asked the same question, and a search was being made of all likely suspects. So far to no avail. All the most virulent police-haters seemed straight about sex. But they were going on looking, but without much belief that they would turn up the killer that way.

  What they needed was a straight bit of forensic evidence, a weapon, a shoe, a personal memento of the killer, preferably one with his name on, and they had none.

  Perhaps the killer chose them because they went on the bus.

  For a moment, her mind dwelt on Peter Perry. There was no evidence against him: he did his work, then stayed home and tended his garden. Or watched television. His girlfriend said so and his neighbours agreed.

  Then, after all, there were thirty other or so boys that used the bus and they were still alive and well.

  Or, you took the straightforward view that the killer was the missing Jeff Diver and concentrated your energies on looking for him, as it now seemed that Arthur Willows was out of it.

  She made unobtrusive notes of the thoughts while the coroner got down to business, meaning to pass them to the Chief Commander. She knew he was there in the hall somewhere, and wondered if he was sitting under the portrait of his dog Augustus, which she had heard he had commissioned from a local artist and which was hung on the wall in this very hall.

  Coffin was indeed aware of the portrait of Gus, he had noticed this at once, but he was listening to Dr Sam who was conducting proceedings with his usual measured dignity and discretion.

  He took the evidence of the young couple who discovered Archie Chinner’s body, as well as that of the police team who found the multiple grave. He was tactful with the medical evidence of the two pathologists.

  ‘He’s not mentioning that there was sexual invasion before and after death,’ muttered Devlin to Tittleton.

  ‘Bad enough for the parents, anyway,’ was his response. He was sitting hunched beside her, his usual good cheer missing. The investigation was getting nowhere and he knew it.

  Coffin, who had read the pathologists’ reports and knew what Dr Sam was passing over, which included any mention of the dead young woman and her leg, was thoughtful; he wondered what Paddy Devlin was making of it. Did she have any necrophiliacs on her wanted list? Had Jeff Diver’s tastes gone that way?

  Dr Sam concluded the short inquest and adjourned it to a date to be decided later. Then he rose and swept out, bowing once again to Dr Chinner and bending his head to the rows of parents and friends of the dead boys.

  Coffin let them walk in front of him, to meet the photographers and the television crews, to whom Dr Sam was gracious, while divert
ing them away from the stricken families. A nice man, Coffin decided.

  Marshalled by Dr Chinner, all the families got into the coaches where Peter Perry and Oliver Deccon followed them, heads bent down in sympathy and mourning.

  The Chief Commander waited for Inspector Devlin and the sergeant to catch him up.

  ‘The funerals next,’ he said to her.

  ‘Yes, they are arranged for tomorrow.’

  ‘All of them, all four?’

  She nodded. ‘All four. I will be there.’

  ‘So Will I.’

  The young couple who had found the first body and who had given evidence walked out together, hand in hand.

  ‘They got married last week,’ said Paddy Devlin. ‘Their meeting in the bushes was meant to be a last, open-air loving, before they were hitched. Romantic, really.’

  ‘You’re in touch?’

  ‘I go in to see them almost daily in case I can dredge up anything else they might remember. I think they were frightened I would turn up to the wedding, and I felt tempted, but I didn’t.’

  Coffin tried avoiding Archie Young, who was looking gloomy and tired, then repented and offered him a lift back to headquarters and his office.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve got my car.’ The gloom did not lift. ‘And I’ve got to drive through the tunnel for the committee on security for the royal visit.’ ‘Through the tunnel’ was police talk for a visit to the other London. This partly accounted for his gloom, since meeting with officers from the larger, richer city was often the occasion for ribald jokes.

  ‘Of course, you’ll have come into it at a later date, sir,’ he said with sombre satisfaction. ‘You’ll be there with the Royals.’

  Acknowledging the truth, Coffin took himself back to his office where Phoebe Astley was waiting for him. Paul Masters had given her some coffee and Gus was sitting at her feet.

  ‘First cheerful face I’ve seen today.’ Coffin ushered her into his inner office.

  He sat down at his handsome new desk as Paul Masters brought in a tray of coffee for the Chief Commander, together with a sheaf of the latest messages. He then bowed himself out of the door.

  ‘I expect you know something about why I am sending you on this errand.’

  Although it was meant to be highly secret, Coffin was under no illusions about the power of his Second City colleagues, and Phoebe Astley in particular, to find out what was going on.

  ‘I have heard something,’ she admitted. ‘It’s code-named TRAINSPOTTING, isn’t it?’

  Coffin ignored the joke, he had heard better, but it alerted him to what the gossips knew and what they didn’t: knew the name began with a T, knew it was regional, did not know its purpose.

  ‘TRANSPORT A, and keep that to yourself.’ Briefly, he told her about the pharmaceutical counterfeiting, the organization set up to combat it with a London central control and various regional centres.

  ‘Heard it had something to do with drugs … didn’t know more.’

  He gave her the names: Felicity Fox in Cambridge; in Newcastle, there was Joe Weir. And Susy Miller, who ‘shot around’.

  ‘Check them all out, see if you can find evidence of unexpected prosperity.’

  Phoebe raised an eyebrow. ‘Is it serious?’

  Coffin phrased his answer carefully: ‘It has its serious side.’ He passed a file of papers across to her. ‘Not a lot of use, but take them for what they are worth. I have nothing else to give you.’

  Phoebe took them; she stood up. ‘Right, I’ll be off then.’

  ‘Expenses to me.’ As she got to the door, he said: ‘Take care.’

  Phoebe turned her head. ‘No parking in dark corners? Count on me.’

  Coffin worked on his usual routine duties that day, which included going to a lunch given by the vice chancellor of the Second City Inner University – a new university upgraded from a college of further education which had fused with a polytechnic going back to prewar days. The vice chancellor was a charming woman, a scientist of distinction, whom he liked.

  The food was uninspired but the company, which included one of the local politicians – a man of some ugliness and great charm who explained what he intended to do when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer – and a famous divine who was interested in miracles, made for interesting conversation. Coffin found himself enjoying it.

  But he made his excuses and left early; Dr Madison, the vice chancellor, walked with him to his car.

  ‘You’re doing well here,’ said Coffin.

  She nodded. ‘We are, but we are on the cusp between middling good and first class. I think we will get there because we are attracting good teachers and researchers who in turn pull in good students.’ She smiled cheerfully. ‘No Nobel prizes yet, but who knows? I have about ten years before I retire, maybe we will have one by then. Although I reckon it takes about half a century to create the right seedbed for that sort of plant to flower … that and a lot of luck. One of my successors might see it happen.’

  ‘What about you yourself?’ He knew that she was a person of enormous intellectual ability.

  ‘No, I am just an administrator now. You can’t do both, I made my decision when I took it on here. And anyway, there’s a lot of chance involved in making an important scientific discovery, and someone might always get there before you. We compete, you know.’

  ‘I met a Nobel-prize winner in Oxford recently: Sir Jessimond Fraser.’

  Her face lit up. ‘Sir Jess?’ Then she said sadly: ‘He’s one of the casualties of success … that stroke.’

  ‘He carries on, I was told his son helps him.’

  ‘He does, indeed. He lectures here, you know, one of our new bright boys, I asked him to lunch but he couldn’t make it, he was watching some vital experiment. I think he just prefers to be alone when he isn’t teaching or with his father. Social life does not appeal.’

  Coffin, who had dropped Sir Jess’s name into the conversation pudding deliberately, felt he had been rewarded with a plum. A bit of the luck which Dr Madison had said was so vital.

  He drove back to his office, removed Gus from his chair, where he was comfortably bedded down, and got back to the day’s routine of telephone calls, faxes, and letters.

  If you are an administrator then that is what you are, nothing else. Coffin did not want to be nothing else. He liked active policing, he liked being a detective.

  That was enough facing truth for the day, he thought, as he packed his briefcase, spoke to Paul Masters, who was working on, put Gus on a leash, and started for home.

  He met Paddy Devlin in the car park. ‘A small piece of news: the blood found on the Chinner boy’s clothing, you remember there were two types – one type, not the boy’s, has evidence of a drug, a painkiller.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A slow release morphine solution. Sometimes shows as the drug, sometimes as metatasis, but is identifiable. Could be just the bit of hard forensic evidence that we need; if we ever find the killer, it should be a help.’

  When we find him, she thought. She added: ‘Nothing about Jeff Diver yet, sir, in case you were wondering. No sightings. Nothing to grab hold of anywhere.’

  Nothing was how he felt, the temporary euphoria of lunchtime quite dried up. ‘Interesting about the drug,’ was all he found to say.

  There were no messages from Phoebe Astley, too soon, of course, but one from Stella saying she was going to the National Theatre on business and would be back.

  He ate a cold meal, alone.

  He fell asleep in the chair, to be awoken by Gus barking and scrabbling at his leg.

  ‘What is it, boy?’ He realized he had been asleep for some time.

  Gus growled, then ran to the door. Coffin rose to follow him. He stood on the stairs, listening. He heard movement below, someone had stumbled, fallen down a stair.

  ‘Stella? Is that you?’

  The choking, gasping noise he heard made him rush down the stairs; Gus leapt past and was there before him.

&n
bsp; She was sitting on the bottom step, shaking. He dragged her to her feet and put his arms round her. ‘Stella, what is it? What’s happened?’ She tried to say something but could not get the words out. ‘Hold your breath, then breathe in deeply … Right …’ As her breathing steadied, and the shaking stopped, he said: ‘Now tell me.’

  ‘There was …’ She took a breath. ‘A man outside …’

  ‘Go on, dearest. When you can.’ He was walking her upstairs with the dog jumping ahead of them, giving small excited barks. ‘Let’s get you some brandy.’ This was so unlike the cool, self-possessed Stella. ‘I could do with some myself.’

  He settled her on a chair in the kitchen, the nearest room, got the brandy, which he poured into two glasses. ‘Come on, love.’ She was quieter but still shivering. The dog was giving a series of little barks. ‘Shut up, Gus.’

  The dog, still barking, ran down the stairs to growl and snuffle at the front door.

  ‘Fool dog.’

  ‘No,’ said Stella, with a shudder, ‘I don’t know what’s out there but let him bark on.’

  Coffin waited while she drank some brandy. ‘Tell me when you can.’

  ‘I parked the car … there’s not much lighting out there, not enough … no moon and there’s a bit of a drizzle … he came at me out of the darkness. His hands came out at me.’

  ‘Did he touch you? What did he do?’ Coffin asked swiftly.

  ‘No, I screamed and ran, I had my key in my hand so I got in quickly.’

  Coffin stood up. ‘I’ll go down to look.’

  ‘No, wait … I think he has been there before … I have thought I saw someone before … in the dark.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘I don’t think it was me he wanted … I’m not sure what or whom he did want …’

  ‘He frightened you, that’s enough for me.’

  ‘It wasn’t what he did, but what he was.’ Stella began to shiver again. ‘I had this feeling that he was, or had been, dead.’

  Coffin looked his wife with doubt, but he tried not to show it. He put his hand on her shoulder, gave it a loving press. ‘Sit here, try to calm down. I’ll go for a look around.’