When Stella came back, she was wearing a soft apricot pink velvet gown and gold slippers. This outfit had been part of the success of ‘Private Lives’ in which Stella had starred. She enjoyed playing in Coward, he offered so much to an actress, and she had bought those of the costumes which suited her best. They had been made for her after all and no one else could wear them. Nor could you give them a part in the latest Pinter.
‘You look like an actress,’ said her husband, giving her a kiss. ‘Glorious.’
Stella looked at him and laughed. ‘I always know when you are lying.’
It was a verbal game in which they took much pleasure. A cut and thrust with erotic undertones appreciated and enjoyed by both parties.
She went up to him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Food, first please. After that … well, we’ll see.’
It was not an occasion for champagne, Coffin had decided, although, thank God, he had Stella back, but he poured some good red wine.
When he judged the moment right, Coffin said quietly: ‘We’ll get the chap.’
‘Chaps,’ said Stella. ‘Two of them.’
By her quickness she had let Coffin see how disturbed she was. He could not blame her.
‘Yes, two men. We’ll have them, Stella.’
‘You think I can’t face this, but I can. These men are the killers who are murdering women in the Second City. I haven’t counted the deaths but I know from the way you have been behaving that there are far too many.’
‘Too many,’ echoed Coffin. Before his eyes he had a picture of one of the bodies he had seen on the mortuary table. They all differed slightly while having a hideous similarity. The thought that Stella might have been another of them: bloody, battered, ripped open, made him feel sick. He took some more red wine.
‘You’re hiding something, aren’t you?’ said Stella. It was a statement more than a question.
‘No, of course not.’ He poured her another drink.
Stella shook her head at the wine. ‘I told you I could always tell when you were lying … then it was a joke, but now it’s true. You are lying; you are hiding something.’
Coffin remained silent.
‘Come on now, I know you’re not hiding a secret mistress in New York, nor that you have helped defraud a bank of over a million because you look like such an honest police chief. Nor have you murdered anyone or shot the cat.’
The cat in question looked up alertly.
Coffin tried to laugh, but found he couldn’t.
‘You’re trying to protect me,’ said Stella, ‘and that’s what is frightening me.’
He could see what she meant. So he told her what he had just heard.
‘I suppose I guessed. Thanks for protecting me from the bitter truth. Or trying, bless you.’
‘Is that how you really feel?’
‘Of course it is. ’ She reached out her hand for his.
‘Darling Stella.’
‘Old Weirdo, yes, he sounds like my fella. I shouldn’t get upset. I know I am safe with you.’ She had her fingers crossed.
They were standing close together, with Gus on Coffin’s feet, when the telephone rang.
‘I won’t answer it,’ said Coffin.
Stella said sadly: ‘But you must.’
He turned towards the telephone. ‘I’ll give it time to ring off.’
But they both knew it would not.
‘It might not be for you. Shall I answer it?’ Words, idle words, she thought. I’m not going to answer the call. I’m frightened and he knows I am frightened. Scared silly, but I am not going to admit it. ‘No, don’t answer that. I know it’s for you.’
The Chief Commander would not be disturbed at home, after the sort of day he had had and been known to have, unless it was important.
Coffin picked up the telephone. ‘Hello, John Coffin here.’ He listened without a word. Then: ‘Right, thank you, Phoebe. You want me over there?’
There was a mutter which Stella could not hear but which she could guess at. Phoebe Astley did want him over there, wherever there was. ‘I’m not jealous of you, Phoebe, but you do pull rank on occasion. Not that I blame you: you’re the detective and I’m not.’ Then a wicked, irreverent thought came to her: But I have the better hairdresser.
Coffin came back, his expression hard to read.
‘It’s not good is it? Something bad? Another murder? It is, isn’t it? No, don’t answer, I know it is. We both knew it as soon as the telephone rang.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, another killing.’
‘One in the series?’
He hesitated. ‘Probably. Seems likely. ’ He would like to believe not, but he could not.
‘So the old weirdo was right?’
He took his time answering. ‘We can’t tell yet.’
‘There’s something else,’ said Stella. She could read his face.
‘Yes,’ said Coffin, sadly.
‘Go on, you must tell me.’
‘Not a woman but a child.’
‘A child? A child may not be part of the series.’ Stella was reluctant to accept it.
‘The working team think so … I do too, Stella, with nothing to go on except intuition.’ He hesitated before saying that he would have to go to the site and see the body. He tried for lightness. ‘You’ll have Gus to look after you.’ In fact, he hated leaving Stella, but he would see that there was a protective presence in a police car outside St Luke’s Tower. Phoebe had suggested it as a sensible precaution, which was one of the reasons for thinking this death was one of the terrible series.
‘Let me come too.’
‘Darling, you couldn’t do anything. You would not even be allowed on the murder scene.’
‘I don’t want to be. I just don’t want to be left behind …’ She tried for a smile. ‘Not even with Gus.’
Stella sat in the car, with Gus on her lap, while Coffin went behind the screened off murder site in company with Phoebe.
They were in a narrow road in Spinnergate, not far from the police HQ. It was not one of the most attractive roads in Spinnergate but it was going up in the world, with some of the old shops putting on new faces and selling pictures and books instead of herrings and pork chops. Spinnergate, richer than it had been once, now bought its food in large supermarkets, or got on the train and went to Harrods or Fortnum and Masons. Coffin saw that one shop was renting hats, which surprised him and made him realise what a sheltered life he led, they were beautiful hats too. Beyond was an area hidden behind a white tentlike affair inside which, he knew, was the body. A uniformed constable stood on guard. At the kerb he recognised the pathologist’s car.
‘Got there before me,’ he thought with some guilt. On the other hand he knew that several of the investigating officers whom he had chosen were there already.
‘You brought Stella with you,’ said Phoebe, who looked untidy, tired and harassed.
‘She didn’t want to be left behind.’
‘Can’t blame her. You won’t like what you are about to see,’ said Phoebe as she led him forward. ‘The body was found about an hour and a half ago by a boy delivering papers.’
‘You got this set up quickly.’ She was efficient, was Phoebe, one of the reasons for her promotion. She would probably go higher, too.
Phoebe shrugged. ‘Had to. We mind about these killings. Especially this one. You’ll see why.’ She led him forward. ‘The pathologist says he was killed about four hours earlier.’
‘Late afternoon then,’ said Coffin.
Inside the covered area, he nodded to the two Scene of Crime officers, then stared down at the small, bloody figure.
‘He’s very young.’
‘Not as young as he looks. Just small boned. Partly a racial inheritance. We know his name, he had a card in his pocket: Charlie Fisher … anyway, one of the officers on duty, DC Edith Dinks recognised him, she knows his mother. You may too or Stella may, she came from Hong Kong to work here and got a job in the wardrobe rooms in St Luke’s Theatre.�
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‘I don’t know her.’
‘The kid worked in the theatre too, an apprentice stage hand: Charlie Chan was his nickname.’
‘You’ve done a lot in a very short time. Good. How was he killed? Strangled wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, the first use of a tie round the throat … then cut up afterwards.’
Coffin nodded, ‘Was he dead when he was cut?’
‘Dr Jerome … you saw him?’
‘He was just leaving as I arrived. We didn’t speak.’
‘He says he can tell us more once he gets the body on the table in the mortuary. He thinks he was dead before the knife went in.’
‘Poor little soul..’ He knelt down and lifted the right hand. Then he stood up shaking his head. ‘Makes me sick. ’ He moved away. Behind him he heard Phoebe say, as if to herself: ‘There’s something iffy about this case The way the bodies are laid out.’
‘You don’t usually talk like that,’ said the young DC who was taking notes.
‘I don’t usually feel like it.’
Stella was out of the car when Coffin returned, standing on the kerb, nursing the dog.
‘Well?’ she said.
He knew what the query meant: how was he killed, was he badly cut up, and who was he?
He answered the last bit first because he would have to come across with the identity but might get away without talking about what had been done to him.
‘A lad, half Chinese, called Charlie Fisher. You might know him, he worked in the theatre. So did his mother.’
‘Charlie Chan? Little Charlie, of course I knew him. Does his mother know?’
‘I expect she does by now.’ He put his arm round her and drew her to the car. ‘Come on, let’s get off. I’ve done all I can for the moment.’
Stella resisted. ‘I want to see him.’
‘No. Can’t be done.’ There was no way he was going to let Stella see the boy’s body. ‘Sorry, love.’
She stood there without moving. ‘Once again there’s more than you are saying. It’s worse. What was done to him?
Gus growled softly.
‘Come on, let’s get home.’
‘Tell me, ’ commanded Stella.
Coffin took a deep breath. ‘His hands were cut.’
‘How?’
Suddenly Coffin could not keep it back. ‘His fingers were completely cut off.’
Phoebe had appeared outside the white tent. She saw the Chief Commander put his arms round his wife and draw her into the car.
Phoebe wished she had someone to put their arms around her. She knew by now she was to work on the serial killings as part of the investigation. ‘Concentrate there’, the Chief Commander had told her himself.
Did he mean it was more her style or that she was getting dangerously obsessed with the paedophile business?
She would find it hard to forget Charlie.
Chapter 9
An early mentor of John Coffin had said to him: Always keep ahead of the game. On the whole he had tried, and often succeeded in this, but at the moment he felt he was way behind. He did not even know the name of the game let alone the rules to play by.
Better not to let Stella know this. She was a great guesser, though.
‘You think that this killer will never be caught. It frightens you. Your first failure.’
‘I’ve had plenty of others,’ he observed mildly.
He was thinking of the killer who had shot two young men and dropped their bodies in the river Thames on the south side. Almost certainly a homophobic killing, but the murderer had never been caught. There was the person who dropped poison into a dish of icecream in a stall outside Fenshone Park behind the tube station - no one actually died but a score of children had a bad time. Then there was the man who almost certainly killed two wives before topping himself. You couldn’t call that a success. And they were only the ones he knew about, the worse ones are those that he never knew about at all.
‘I won’t name them,’ he said, ‘but you probably could do it. You lived with me through them.’
‘Those were professional failures,’ observed Stella. ‘You didn’t mind them in a really personal way. ’
‘I wish you hadn’t said that.’
‘This murderer knows us. Knows you, knows me. That is why you are worried. I think it is true. ’
Coffin nodded. ‘OK, yes, he does feel close. Man or woman. I don’t rule out a woman.’
He had felt a feminine element.
‘I don’t like the feel of it.’
‘You don’t usually talk like that,’ Stella remarked.
‘Phoebe feels the same way.’
The professional mind, thought Stella.
The body of the girl in Pepper Alley had, as yet, no name.
‘It’s Peppard Alley really,’ said Inspector Winnie Ardet, the purist. She, with the others, knew what had happened to Stella and the news of Charlie’s body and wondered where it fitted in. At least Stella had not been attacked in Peppard Alley, she thought with relief.
‘Can’t make much difference to the death.’
‘Might make some difference to finding out who killed her, perhaps.’
Superindenent Miller, Winnie Ardet, Phoebe Astley and the other officers involved on the cases were all in the smaller briefing room in the central police station which all disliked from unhappy memories of the past but which remained one of the few rooms for general use, rank or case unheeded. It was a heavily masculine room with leather furniture and a big table that looked as though it had been used to dance on in boots. (As indeed it had been, to celebrate the last successful case in which Miller and Ardet had been involved. They had not done the dancing but they had clapped along with the best.) It was also a room in which you could be reasonably safe from an entrance by the Chief Commander. He knew what went on there, having an excellent private intelligence service, but he approved rather than felt alarmed. This was their second meeting in as many days.
‘Let’s put the victims in place,’ said the methodical Superintendent Miller. ‘We can’t get far till we do that. Where each lived and worked matters. To us if not to the killers.’
‘You think there was more than one murderer?’ asked Winnie. ‘You could be right.’
‘I was just speculating. Let’s get on,’ he said irritably.
Amy Buckly; Spinnergate, lived and worked there. School teacher.
Mary Rice; Spinnergate, worked in central London. Computer expert.
Phillida Jessup. Lived in Spinnergate. Student.
Angela Dover. Lived across the river in Greenwich. Worked in Spinnergate; office worker. Former secretary to Coffin.
‘All concentrated on Spinnergate,’ said Miller. ‘We don’t know yet about the latest victim, but I guess that she too will turn out to live or work in Spinnergate.’
‘Can we take it then that the killer also works and or lives in Spinnergate?’
‘It might be unwise to assume too much,’ said the cautious Inspector Ardet. ‘But he or she certainly knows the district. Whether that’s any help or otherwise to us we shall find out.’
‘We must establish the identity of the body in Peppard Alley,’ said Phoebe Astley. She had prepared herself carefully for this meeting, anxious to answer any question adequately. She knew she was facing a wide awake and sceptical audience in the police officers. ‘Do your best, Phoebe,’ the Chief Commander had said. ‘I think everything could explode if we don’t make some progress on bringing in the criminal.’
‘I have made a little way forward,’ said Les Henderson, Sergeant, who had hitherto kept quiet. He found the rest of this group intimidating so he was reluctant to speak unless he had something definite to say. This trait was to endear him greatly to the rest of the team while alarming them somewhat at the same time. ‘Les will go straight to the top,’ was their conviction even if unexpressed.
‘They were not exactly unknown to the police, these ladies … No nothing criminous, just that each lady within the l
ast twelve months has made complaints about the police.’ He added. ‘They didn’t get lucky. Got nothing back.’
‘Robbed, were they?’ Miller was quick.
‘Each and every one,’ said Les Henderson. ‘Not for the same amounts. Varied.’
‘Of course, I knew that Phillida had been robbed,’ said Winnie Ardet with some irritation. ‘Robbed and the police were no good at all. I was one of the investigating team and know that we failed.’
‘Oh go on,’ said Miller. ‘They tried.’
‘If you’re the victim and you lose your grandmother’s pearl and diamond earrings that you have just inherited then trying is not enough: you want them back.’ Winnie had got the force of Phillida’s tongue so she knew how the victim felt.
‘Not the only victim. Amy Buckley had her car stolen … she did get it back but somewhat battered.’
There was a list which silently, all members studied. It might help them, it might not.
Mary Rice, lost her mongrel dog. Never got it back. Probably in Aberdeen by now. Aged 22, lived alone, a flat in a large block by the tube station.
Angela Dover. Aged 39. She had a small house in the middle of Greenwich, overlooking the Thames. She was attacked and robbed (raped, she hinted, but no one believed this and such medical inspection as she submitted to did not bear it out), she named her attacker but it was hard to prove him guilty. Just one of those tricky cases from which no one emerges with credit. Angela had certainly hurled accusations around, even attacking the police. No one believed her, but dirt sticks. Angela stayed around in the Second City writing indignant letters to the local press and asking for an interview, repeatedly denied, on the television news from City Central. Of course now Angela had achieved the ultimate publicity stroke by being murdered.
The last victim who had not been named at first had now only just been identified. The report came in to the meeting: she was said to be Charlotte, more commonly known as Lotty, Brister. Age unconfirmed but probably near retirement. Miss Brister was the owner of a shop in Spinnergate but like another victim she too lived across the river in Greenwich, near the Park. She had just put her shop up for sale, likewise her house in Greenwich, saying she was moving to the seaside to be near her sister. All this was very new information and except for the sale of the shop, which was advertised, might not be true. All needed double-checking as Superintendent Miller pointed out.
Coffin Knows the Answer Page 7
