The man grinned. ‘Yes, sir. Either knew the way here herself or an unknown hand delivered him, but she turned up near the chief superintendent’s car, and he brought her in. I phoned the lady and she came to collect her. Put a good donation in our charity box as a thank-you. But we didn’t find her, she did the job herself.’
Once in the office, Coffin rang up Superintendent Simpson, who liaised with him and the Drugs Control Committee from the Home Office on this matter of the counterfeit drugs, and told him to get the appropriate squad round to the building behind Felicity Street and turn it over. No, not to tell the Met yet.
He was afraid that Mr Barley was in for a bad time. It was a good thing that the girl Isobel Dutton had pedalled away. He didn’t see much future for a pharmacist who had worked in that shop. He had liked both her and Barley.
What is innocence? he asked himself. Hard to prove and, alas, even harder to believe in.
Inspector Paul Masters, who was there as Coffin made the call to Gregory Simpson, managed to look knowledgeable, questioning and incredibly discreet all at the same time.
‘Just a dirty rotten business,’ said Coffin. ‘I believe it is almost sorted. Still a few ends to tie in.’
‘Your wife telephoned,’ said the inspector. ‘She wants you to ring her.’
Coffin agreed that he would do so when he had a moment: he could guess what it was about, the dog and why did he need a bath? He hoped she was giving Gus one.
‘Oh yes, I’ll ring back when I have time.’ Which would be soon, it did not do to keep Stella waiting. He might find she had fled the country without leaving a note and taking all the family with her. Except there was not much of that.
Paul Masters made a sort of mini bow that he had perfected, and bowed himself out. He ought to be in the royal service, thought Coffin, with that obeisance. Perhaps he was training himself for it?
He ought to know more about Masters than he did, but on the other hand, you sometimes learnt things that you didn’t want to know if you probed around.
Like an iceberg rising above the water, his other worry surfaced, silently and coldly.
Another moment when a Dr Watson figure would be useful to send out on the town, observing and listening. But then, Inspector Devlin had a kind of Watson in the specially programmed computer. He hoped that this machine was even now printing out the names and addresses of all males who had come in contact with the four boys.
He rang her to find out what was on the list, probably half of Spinnergate and further east. But Inspector Devlin was out; yes, she would call him back.
Time then to telephone Stella.
She launched at once into the attack. ‘What happened to Gus?’
He could hear a sound of rushing water: Gus was obviously for it. ‘You’re bathing him.’
‘I certainly am. He’s under the shower so the smell runs away quickly.’
‘How are you managing that?’ He could imagine the struggle with an angry wet dog.
‘I’m in there with him,’ she said grimly. ‘But what happened to him?’
Coffin explained. ‘Greed, really. Serve him right. Not you, though. I’ll come hurrying home to take you both out to dinner.’ He wanted to go to Max’s, he needed to see the boy Louie again.
‘You can take me, but not Gus.’
He promised again to hurry home, knowing even as he did so that he might not keep the promise, that was the way his life went.
As he finished speaking to Stella, Inspector Devlin returned his call. He asked her what was coming through on the computer.
‘All males over ten and under ninety who came into contact with the four boys. Practically all Spinnergate with a selection from East Hythe,’ she said wearily. ‘You’d be surprised how many men have some connection with either the police or uniforms. Of course, the driver Peter Perry is on the list, but we have absolutely no positive evidence. We have had him in and talked to him again, but still nothing.’
‘Have you talked to the children who knew the dead boys?’
There was a pause. ‘Yes, and once again the results are null and void.’
‘But it worries you?’
‘Yes, there is something shifty about them. We can’t appear to bully, though.’
Coffin thought about it; he meant to speak to young Louie. In a kindly way, of course.
Devlin went on: ‘We are just about to build in other factors to see what we get.’
‘How is Jeff Diver?’
‘Recovering. Ashamed and miserable. Some people have shame and guilt built into them and I think he is one of them.’
‘That’s sharp.’
A sigh down the line. ‘You get sharp in this job.’
‘Does he still think the birds and fairies fed him?’
She laughed. ‘No, he says some kids threw their bags of crisps away and he ate those. He’s thinking about resigning and going into private-eye work. He has illusions, still, you see.’
Coffin thought about the rollerbladers who had shown such an interest in him. ‘Ask the computer to build in play and leisure activities.’
‘Yes, I thought of that myself.’
‘And there is one other thing.’ It might be far out, mad, but he would try. ‘I want to see the young couple, the Fosters. With you, of course.’ Mustn’t tread on too many toes; he had enough enemies as it was in the Met. ‘Are they back from their extended honeymoon?’
‘I’ll find out.’ She was polite and anxious to cooperate, but puzzled. However, not only was he the boss from whom all promotions flowed, but, as Sergeant Tittleton had pointed out, he often saw further into the wood than most.
No table had been booked at Max’s, but the Chief Commander and Miss Pinero were never turned away, even if tables had to be shuffled around.
But tonight was easy for Max. ‘A nice table by the window?’ The occupants of that table had eaten fast and left early. Trouble there, the cynical Max suspected. They dined with him often, very loving to each other on the first few visits, then working through a touch of detachment to downright quarrelling as tonight. He wouldn’t see them again, or not with each other. The man worked in a big American bank not long moved into the Second City, but what she did, Max did not know, except spend money on clothes. Some sort of a scientist, he had concluded from the way she spoke. Not married, or not to the banker.
Max spared them his usual guide to the menu; they were all old friends.
‘How’s your grandson?’ Coffin asked over the smoked trout. ‘Young Louie.’
‘He’s out back tonight, his mother’s at a class.’ Max frowned. ‘She is studying law … going to be a solicitor.’ He did not quite approve. She was the Beauty Daughter, and that ought to have been enough for her, but with one broken marriage behind her perhaps she did need something else. ‘We look after him.’ More and more, he was the grandparent, even if his wife did most of the grandparenting.
‘I’d like to have a talk with him,’ said Coffin.
‘Surely, surely. I bring him through.’
Max was called away to another table, and Stella turned on Coffin. ‘So that’s why we came here.’
‘I didn’t know the boy was here,’ protested Coffin.
‘Well, it will cost you a bottle of champagne.’
The boy Louie duly appeared with the pudding, he was neat in jeans and a shirt with the words ‘Grinding and Grooving’ on it; he looked quiet but cheerful, in expectation of ice cream or something good to eat.
As Louie spooned up ice cream and mixed fruit, Coffin asked, ‘Remember what you told us earlier about seeing Dick Neville go off with a man you thought to be a policeman?’
Louie did remember and did not seem particularly disturbed at being reminded of it. Bored, possibly, and distancing himself a little, but he had done that before.
‘Was that what you thought yourself?’
Louie said it was. He lifted the ice cream spoon.
‘Did you all think it?’ asked Coffin softly. He put his han
d on Louie’s hand over the spoon.
Louie considered. ‘Yes,’ he said after a while. ‘All of us.’
‘All of you?’
Louie considered again: he couldn’t see any harm in this. All agreed that the Chief Commander was a good chap who could be a help.
‘All of Group Four of the rollers. We will probably push Group Three aside,’ he said appraisingly, ‘and be Group Three … top group after a bit, probably. We are getting better all the time.’
‘And where were Group Four at the time you saw Dick Neville with the man you thought was a policeman?’
‘Rolling up and down the road,’ said Louie, surprised at the question. Self-evident, wasn’t it? Where else were rollers?
‘And who tried to feed Constable Diver?’
Stella gave a surprised sound; she gave her husband a quick look but she said nothing.
Louie thought for a moment. Then: ‘We did when we saw him.’ He returned to his ice cream with a feeling that he had done well.
After he had finished his ice cream and returned to his grandfather. Coffin said: ‘They did see someone, and it wasn’t Diver, it was another man. One they thought they knew. Perhaps were not sure. I believe it was what you might call an imaginary portrait … they built it up from what they knew.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘People look different out of context.’
‘But the boy Dick must have known him?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Coffin. ‘He knew him, and trusted him. We must find out why. I think they know the killer, trusted him once, now fear him, and who can blame them? So they hint, rather than speak out.’
The rollerbladers had given him the key to open the door, he thought.
After the quiet domestic evening which Stella had decreed and to which a humbled and newly fresh Gus quite concurred. Coffin was early to start work.
Stella stumbled down the stairs to share his coffee and toast. ‘I’m off to the National this morning, then making travel plans.’
‘I shall miss you, but I’m glad you’re back for a bit, even if I don’t know why.’
‘To see you,’ she said firmly.
‘And the offer from the National?’
‘That too,’ she admitted without guilt.
I’m the only one around here who feels guilt, Coffin told himself, as he poured her some coffee, and I feel it for Gus as well.
‘What about the nose job?’ Was it to be done or not?
She was bland. ‘Still on hold.’ Now it was his turn to get the questions. ‘I get the feeling that things are coming to a head. I mean, after that talk with Louie last night, you looked satisfied.’
‘Perceptive of you.’
‘And what about Phoebe Astley?’
‘That business? Yes, I think that is drawing to a close.’
‘So I can safely go away and leave you?’
They faced each other, two protagonists, equally matched.
‘Is that how it seems?’ asked Coffin.
‘More or less.’
Then Coffin leaned across the table to kiss her on the lips. ‘I might come out and join you in Los Angeles. But mind you, no nose surgery.’
Coffin’s first news in the office, where Gus had trailed him, was from Superintendent Simpson.
‘We went into the premises on the wharf. One sterile area where some experimental work was going on; the rest full of women, few men, packing and labelling various substances. Illegal immigrants, I should say, a problem in themselves. Accommodated on the site, a real health hazard. The boss figure was not there … in the university lecturing, but we are on the way over. He won’t run.’
‘There might be some link-up with Oxford.’
‘It’ll be checked.’
‘And what about Mr Barley and his assistant?’
‘The girl hasn’t appeared, but we shall find her. The old man claims he knew of nothing wrong … hard to believe.’
‘I’m afraid so.’ Coffin went on: ‘Keep it as quiet as you can in the Second City. I will deal with the inner London side.’
He sat for a moment thinking, the steady weight of Gus on his feet as usual. Then he telephoned Phoebe Astley.
‘It’s all over here. For the moment, anyway.’ Not gone forever. Some other eager hands would start it up again. It was too good a business to let rest, too profitable. ‘You can come out of hiding.’
‘I wasn’t hiding.’ She was indignant. ‘Just resting.’
‘Right, you can stop resting. Have your holiday or come back to work. You can choose.’
He knew which she would choose. She would be back tomorrow.
There was the usual routine of work with Paul Masters, then he had a meeting with some senior officers on various matters like promotions and rescaling of units.
Before they broke for lunch, Inspector Devlin telephoned. ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Coffin, ‘while I wind up here.’ In a minute he was back: ‘So?’
‘I’ve got the young Fosters for you. They came home yesterday and they are willing to see you at once. They say they have nothing to add but want to help.’
‘Good.’
‘Shall I bring them round to you, or will you go there? I am speaking from their flat. By the way, I had better warn you, they have a cat, so dogs are not welcome.’
‘I will come round.’ He looked at Gus. ‘You are not on this trip.’
The young Fosters had a flat in the western part of Spinnergate, not far from where Mimsie Marker, the all-seeing gossip and sage of the Second City, sold newspapers and observed the world go by. Almost certainly she had seen Coffin drive past and go towards MayDay Drive.
Coffin was met at the door by a large and hostile tabby cat. Mrs Foster held the door open, explaining that the cat was hers, that she had had him before she knew Giles, her husband, and the cat had not, as yet, accepted him.
‘Nor anyone else much,’ she apologized, removing the bright-eyed beast, who was growling in a quiet mutter.
‘It’s very kind of you to see me.’
‘We want to help, but I don’t know what we can tell you.’
Coffin took them through the whole episode again. Mrs Foster did most of the talking, her husband sitting on the arm of her chair.
Mrs Foster blushed slightly as she skirted round why they had gone there that night. ‘We went up there. I think we were laughing, weren’t we, darling?’ Her husband nodded. ‘And then we saw the man …’
‘What was he doing?’
She frowned, summoning back a picture of that scene. ‘Just looking down at the ground … then he saw us, and came across.’
‘At once?’
‘No, no, we stared at him and he stared back, then he came to show us.’ She swallowed; her husband put his arm round her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, Giles.’
‘You are being very brave, Mrs Foster.’
‘I don’t mind with everyone here … He came across, and we went to look … well, you know about that.’
‘And he said he was out walking his dog?’
She nodded.
‘Did you see the dog?’
Mrs Foster frowned. ‘Well, I did see a dog, thought it was with him, only the dog acted more detached, as if the man was not its owner. Giles phoned the police and when we looked round he had gone. Have you found him?’
‘Oh yes, he came in to tell us exactly what you have told us. Said he felt ill. Sick.’
Giles Foster said he could understand it, felt the same himself.
‘And you didn’t see him again?’
‘No, I think I heard a car drive off … probably him.’
‘Yes, and what about the dog, did you see the dog?’
The two Fosters looked at each other. Mrs Foster answered: ‘Not sure what happened to the dog.’ She sounded troubled. Paddy Devlin, who had remained silent but watchful, followed him out.
‘You got what you wanted?’
‘You can read my face? I think so, or shall we say I got what I suspe
cted. I think we go and see Mr Arthur Killen at twelve, Dimsey Gardens.
Dimsey Gardens was a line of small detached houses with carefully tended gardens. The garden of number twelve looked a little less cared for than its neighbours. The grass was ragged, the dandelions rampant, and a row of geraniums looked thirsty.
‘No gardener,’ said Paddy Devlin. She walked up the short path, waved cheerfully to the woman next door, who was watering her lawn, then she rang the doorbell.
Coffin followed behind. The inspector turned round and shrugged.
‘No answer? Try again.’
Devlin both rang and banged on the door. ‘Of course, he didn’t know we were coming.’
‘I think he guessed we might.’
He stepped back to look up at the windows of the house, the curtains were not drawn but no one was moving around inside.
He became aware that the woman next door was leaning over the fence.
‘You’re wasting your time ringing there. You won’t get Arthur.’
‘No?’
‘No, Arthur’s in Australia, went out there last month to see his son, he won’t be back till the autumn.’
Inspector Devlin walked back down the path to stand beside the Chief Commander. ‘Are you sure of that?’
‘Saw him off, didn’t we? My husband drove him to the airport. And he phoned us from Perth only last night. Having a lovely time.’
Coffin thanked her, and got back into the car.
So who was the man who had gone to the police station with his borrowed dog?
The same man whom the young Fosters had seen finding the body.
Only not finding but burying.
He turned to Inspector Devlin: ‘Ask your computer to build into its list all the men who not only fulfilled the other criteria but who could have known that Arthur Killen was away.’
Computers work very fast when given the right questions. By that very evening, Inspector Devlin was back with a list.
She handed it over to the Chief Commander: ‘This is the list of the men who would have come across the boys through school, sports, swimming and skating, and other activities, church, choir.
‘James Ady, Edward Brother, Bruce Bowen, Will Canter, Oliver Deccon, Philip Gant, Jim Hand, John Indy, Ross Jenkins, Ted Kelly, Robert Mackay, Peter Perry, Alan Rinten and John Salmon.
A Grave Coffin Page 23