Joe Coffin Season One

by Ken Preston

  Coffin sat up straighter, turned to stare at Emma. “Did you see who these people were?”

  “No, they were covered in sheets, like they were famous, or something, and he didn’t want them to be recognised. The one he was carrying, I wondered if it was a child, but it looked a little too big. Didn’t weigh much, though, Tom wasn’t struggling.”

  “I knew he was involved somehow,” Coffin said. “Have you got a mobile phone on you?”

  “Of course I have. Everybody carries a mobile these days. Don’t you?”

  Coffin ignored her question. “You got Laura’s number on your phone?”

  “Yeah, she gave it to me when I was interviewing her about Jacob.”

  “Call her,” Coffin said. “Let’s see if we can smoke Tom out of there.”

  Emma dialled Laura’s number, held the mobile to her ear, waited. “Hi, Laura? Hi, there, it’s Emma here, from the Birmingham Herald. How is Jacob doing? Uh, huh…yeah…well, listen Laura, I’m so sorry to be bothering you right now, but I need to talk to Tom. Is he there? He is? That’s great. Can you ask him to meet me outside the ward? I’m on my way up.”

  Emma disconnected, looked at Coffin. “What do you think?”

  “I think you should head on up there, and I’ll wait here. Chances are he’ll suspect something’s up and try and avoid meeting you. But I’ll be waiting for him here.”

  “Sweet,” Emma said. “Catch you later, Leroy.”

  “Hey!” Coffin called, as Emma walked for the main entrance. “What’s with this Leroy shit?”

  Emma didn’t even turn around, or break stride, just gave him a wave, and disappeared in through the sliding doors.

  Coffin pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit up.

  * * *

  Stairs or lift? Stairs or lift?

  Emma decided on the stairs. If Tom intended making a break for it before she got up to the children’s ward, he would make better time, and have more control of the situation, if he took the stairs. Besides, if it came to a chase, Tom had no chance trying to outrun her on stairs.

  Emma was the queen of stair running. As soon as she returned to the office, first thing she would do was tell Karl how all that training had finally come in useful.

  Emma pushed open the heavy fire door and sprinted up the steps. The children’s ward was on the second floor, with two flights to get to each level. With fourteen steps on each section, four sections multiplied by fourteen was fifty-six.

  Fifty-six steps.

  Piece of piss.

  When Emma arrived on the second floor, she was winded, and a little nauseous, and dizzy. She put a hand out, palm flat against the wall, for support until she got her breath back.

  What the hell’s going on? That should have been no problem at all. Okay, maybe I won’t tell Karl about this, after all.

  After only a few brief moments, she recovered. Emma pulled the door open and stepped into the hospital corridor. A nurse in theatre scrubs walked past. Emma looked up and down the corridor. It was clear, and Tom was nowhere in sight.

  Perhaps he’d taken the lift after all. Or he was on the ward, waiting for her.

  Or he’d taken another route downstairs. It was a fucking big hospital.

  And maybe Tom knew other ways out, besides the main entrance. Had they made a mistake, announcing Emma’s presence, and leaving Coffin to cover the main hospital entrance?

  If only the big gorilla had a mobile, she could have called him, warned him. But no, in his scuffed leather jacket and white T-shirt, he looked like a relic from the 70s. And even without the scars he now had, his face had looked battered enough he would never have won a beauty contest.

  But he had something, some element of charisma or magnetism, that took your mind off his physical appearance. And look at the women in his life. Laura Mills hadn’t exactly been beaten over the head with the ugly stick, and Steffanie had been a stunner.

  They saw something attractive in Coffin, too.

  Emma regretted the crack about Steffanie, it had obviously hurt him. It had been a stupid thing to say. The trouble was, Emma had never had much control over her tongue, constantly running her mouth off before she put her brain into gear. She had to remember to be careful what she said around Coffin. He had no idea that Emma had known Steffanie, and that his wife was all set to betray him.

  If he ever found out…

  Emma saw the doors for the children’s ward.

  Keep your mind on your job, Emma.

  She walked down the corridor, rang the bell by the double doors. If Tom had already gone, if he was already sneaking out of the back of the hospital, it was too late to be running back downstairs to warn Coffin. She might as well find out if he was still inside the ward.

  “Hello?” a voice squawked over the intercom.

  “Hello, I’m here to see Jacob Mills’ father.”

  “I’m sorry, but visiting hours aren’t until ten o’clock.”

  “I’m not here to visit Jacob, I’m here to talk to his father.”

  “Hold on.”

  There was a muffled conversation, and then a click, and the little speaker in the wall went dead.

  Great! How very helpful.

  Emma reached out to push the intercom button again when she saw, through the window in the door, Laura walking towards her. There was a beep, the magnetic lock released, and Laura pushed the door open, joined Emma in the corridor.

  “You’re too late, he’s gone,” she said.

  “He didn’t want to talk, huh?” Emma said.

  “Doesn’t look like it, does it?”

  “He say anything to you before he pulled his disappearing act?”

  Laura shrugged. She looked tired, worn out, couldn’t meet Emma’s gaze.

  She said, “Peter Marsden died last night.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Emma whispered. “But Jacob, he’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”

  Laura shrugged again, the movement reminding Emma of a sullen teenager who doesn’t care one way or another. “The doctors think so, yeah. But they couldn’t save Peter, didn’t have a clue what was wrong with him. The wound to his throat, they said it was at least three or four days old, should’ve killed him straight away. At first they couldn’t work out how he survived for so long, and now they can’t work out why he died.”

  Emma thought of Coffin, waiting outside the hospital. She needed to get down there, tell him about Tom.

  “Laura, I’ve got to go,” Emma said, and for a moment she wanted to reach out a hand, squeeze Laura’s shoulder. “Jacob will get better, he’ll be okay. You’ve got him back now.”

  Laura nodded, looked close to tears.

  Emma walked back down the corridor, stopped by the lifts. Next to them was the door to the stairs.

  Emma pushed the button for the lift.

  nobody gives a fuck

  Coffin had the feeling he had made a stupid, obvious mistake. Seeing Laura’s car, sitting in the mostly empty car park, had made him impatient. Knowing that Tom was inside the hospital, knowing he had lied about going to the house on Forde Road, had got Coffin all fired up, so much so he wanted to charge in there and drag Tom outside, start beating some answers out of him.

  So he’d come up with the idea of Emma phoning Laura, announcing her arrival, try to flush him out.

  Great idea, Coffin.

  As much as Coffin liked to think Tom was stupid, it wasn’t true. The guy was a weasel, and about as dependable as a cheesecloth condom, but he could be sharp. And he probably guessed that Emma wasn’t here on her own. The bastard had probably snuck out the back of the hospital, would have realised the car was being watched.

  Coffin paced up and down, outside the main entrance, the sliding doors opening and closing every time he walked past them. He’d left it too late, Tom could be anywhere now. And with that stupid mistake, Coffin realised he might have missed his last chance at cornering Tom. If he realised that Emma and Coffin were onto him, what was stopping him from pulling a permane
nt disappearing act? The fact that his son was in hospital would not stop him. The bastard must have known that Jacob was being kept prisoner by that sick fuck, but he still left him there.

  Coffin had never liked Tom, not from their days together at school. He’d always been weak, forever seeking approval off the bigger kids, wanting to be in the gang, ready to pick on anyone who was smaller, weedier than he was, just to prove how hard he was. As an adult, he was just the same. Always whingeing about how shitty his life was, how things should have turned out better for him. Always crying about how Laura had got pregnant with Jacob, saddling him with a child.

  Like she’d done it on her own.

  Tom Mills was the kind of person who seemed to think he’d been handed a bad deck of cards, like everybody else in the world owed him one, and if they’d only get around to his point of view, his life would be so much better.

  Coffin hated that. Joe Coffin’s philosophy on life was simple: Nobody gives a fuck about anybody else. You had to keep that in mind, or else you sank. Sure, there was family, and there was loyalty within the Slaughterhouse Mob.

  Mortimer Craggs had been like a father to Coffin all these years. Better than his own father.

  But beyond that?

  You were dead in the water if you trusted anyone.

  The sliding doors whisked open, and Emma ran up to Coffin. “Have you seen him, did he come out?”

  Coffin shook his head. “He wasn’t there, was he?”

  “Nope. You get the feeling he doesn’t want to talk to me?”

  “I get the feeling we might not see him again, unless we find him soon.”

  Emma glanced back into the hospital concourse. “How many ways out of this place do you think there are?”

  “I don’t know. Too many.” Coffin glanced back at Laura’s car, thought for a moment. “I don’t think he will want to leave his car. My guess is he’s hiding somewhere nearby, waiting for us to go looking for him inside, and then he’ll make a bolt for his car.”

  “So, we just sit and wait for him? We could be here a long time.”

  Coffin shook his head. “No, we disable his car, and then we go looking for him.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  Coffin began striding into the hospital. Emma had to run to keep up with him.

  “If I can get a knife from the canteen, I can slash his tyres. You stay here, keep a watch on his car.”

  “What? Are you an idiot? Do you think they’re just going to hand you a steak knife, just because you ask them nicely?”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  Emma stopped running, looked back. “Hey! There he is!”

  Tom Mills was sprinting across the car park, straight for the car.

  Coffin thundered past Emma, down the hospital concourse, past the reception desk. The security guard looked up as Coffin ran past and spoke into his two-way radio. Coffin ran across the zebra crossing, as a bus squealed to a halt, the driver swearing at him through the windscreen.

  Tom was opening his car door, risked a glance back at Coffin, climbed in his car, slammed the door shut. Coffin picked up his speed, his upper body leaning forward, as though he was neck to neck with his rival in a race. The car juddered to life, tyres squealed on the wet tarmac. The back end swung to the right, before the tyres got traction and the car shot forward.

  Coffin stopped running, looked to his left. There was only one way out, and that was through a ticket controlled barrier. Tom was driving in the opposite direction.

  But then Coffin saw what he was doing. Tom’s car mounted the pedestrian pathway, and powered up towards the main road, the exhaust coughing white smoke in the cold air.

  They’d lost him.

  A Ford Fiesta pulled up beside Coffin, the passenger door swinging open. Emma leaned into his view, grinning up at him from inside the car.

  “Come on, get in! I’ve always wanted to be in a car chase!”

  Coffin looked at the tiny car. Doubted he could even fit in there.

  He pushed himself inside arse first, racked the seat back as far as it would go, swung one leg inside, his head squashed against the car’s roof. The suspension groaned, and the car dipped down on his side. Coffin lifted his other leg up, as he held on to the open door, and he tried to find somewhere to put his foot in the footwell.

  “Fuck, Coffin, take your time, why don’t you!” Emma said.

  “Don’t wait for me!” Coffin said.

  Emma took him at his word, and the car jolted forward, Coffin still half in, half out of the car.

  “Damn, it’s like driving a tank with you in here.”

  The engine struggled to pull the car as Emma shoved the accelerator pedal down to the floor. She swerved onto the pedestrian walkway, and then off again as she saw an old lady, wide eyed and frozen to the spot right in front of her.

  “Fuck!”

  The car lurched to its left as she skidded past the woman, the bottom corner of Coffin’s open door gouging a line in the tarmac.

  “Get us on the main road!” Coffin roared.

  “I’m trying!” Emma yelled. “The fact is, I’ve never tried driving a car with a fucking elephant sitting beside me.”

  Coffin finally got his left foot inside and slammed the door shut. The passenger door clipped a bollard, and then Emma was spinning the steering wheel, the car swerving left onto the main road.

  “I can see him up ahead, he’s approaching the island,” Coffin said, pointing.

  “Right, I’ve got two perfectly good eyes in my head, Coffin, I can see him.”

  Coffin turned his head to look at Emma. In the tight confines of the car, it wasn’t easy. “You don’t like being told what to do, do you? Is that some kind of women’s lib thing you’ve got going on?”

  Emma laughed. “What are you, a fucking dinosaur? Nobody says women’s lib anymore.”

  Emma slowed as she approached the island, waiting for a gap in the stream of traffic.

  “He took a right, third exit,” Coffin said, pointing again.

  Emma slammed her foot on the pedal. The Fiesta lurched forward, cut up a BMW. The driver leaned on his horn and Emma flipped him the bird over her shoulder, not even turning to look at him. She took the island fast, the car leaning heavily to the left. Coffin grabbed the dashboard, steadying himself.

  Emma took the exit, changing up a gear. “I don’t know why you’re holding on, you look jammed in good and proper to me, Coffin. The only way we’re getting you out of there is if I buy some KY, and we lube you up, and pop you out with a shoehorn.”

  “I think he’s headed for the motorway,” Coffin said.

  Tom was four cars ahead. Traffic was growing heavier as they headed away from the hospital.

  “You think he knows that we’re following him?” Emma said.

  “I’m not sure,” Coffin replied. “I’m hoping he thinks he got away, left us behind. That way, he might take us right to his mystery friends.”

  “That whole thing with the sheets over their heads is still weirding me out.” She took a right at the traffic lights, checked she could still see Tom’s car up ahead. “I mean, who the fuck is that recognisable, they feel the need to hide from view like that? You know what? It’s kind of like those news shots you get, when the police are escorting a prisoner to court, and he’s put a jacket over his head, because he doesn’t want his picture on the news, or in the paper.”

  Coffin said nothing, keeping his eyes on Tom’s car, waiting for him to make a sudden turn, any sign he knew he was being followed.

  “Or, maybe they weren’t hiding, maybe the sheets were covering them for…”

  “For what?” Coffin said.

  “Oh, shit, I don’t know,” Emma said.

  “What? You’ve had an idea, what is it?”

  Emma glanced at Coffin. “You’ll think I’m completely batshit crazy if I tell you.”

  “Won’t make any difference to me, I already know you’re crazy. Come on, tell me.”

&n
bsp; “Well, okay, long as you promise you won’t laugh at me. It occurred to me, maybe those sheets over their heads were for protection.”

  “Protection? From what?”

  “From sunshine, daylight.”

  Coffin said nothing, let that one sink in. “You mean like, they were vampires.”

  “Yeah.”

  Coffin said nothing.

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Well, thank you for your vote of confidence.”

  “You believe in vampires?”

  “A couple of days back? Definitely not. But now...”

  “I know what you’re saying,” Coffin replied. “It’s been an interesting couple of days.”

  “Look, he’s definitely headed for the motorway,” They were approaching a large island. Tom was already in the traffic stream headed around it. He took the exit signposted for the M6 North. “Any idea where he might be going?”

  “Nope,” Coffin said. “But you’d better put your foot down, or you’re going to lose him.”

  peaches

  “It’s all fucked up,” Tom said. “I don’t even fucking know why I came back, I should just get the hell out of Dodge, before Coffin gets his fucking hands on me.”

  “Tom, Tom,” Steffanie whispered, stroking his cheeks, her fingers running softly over his flesh. Tom flinched, the touch of her cold, dead fingertips sending a shiver of revulsion running through his body. “But you did come back, and I’m grateful, so grateful.”

  “Yeah, great,” Tom said. “That’s going to be a big comfort to me when Coffin’s ripping my fucking head off my neck.”

  He looked around the darkened Travelodge room, the curtains closed against the weak daylight. The cadaverous old man was buried under a duvet, in one of the twin beds, completely hidden from any daylight. Steffanie didn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects from the dim light, as long as she didn’t get too close to the window. The holdall of blood bags lay open on the carpeted floor.

  The holdall was half empty. How much fucking blood had they got through last night? Maybe they had a party, invited some vampire friends over for drinks.