He stroked the plastic face again, almost with affection.‘I wish I could trust you to react with fear the way you should, but you are one tough lady.’ He pushed the face away, so that it swung on its cord. ‘I shall have to work on that.’ He gave the face a hard slap, then walked away.
He had left his mobile phone on the table in the middle of the room. On this table he piled things that did not matter like old newspapers and empty plastic bags from big stores, all anonymous stuff, so that if anyone discovered his secret hidey-hole they would not get much profit from what lay around. It would be discovered in the end. Nothing was a secret for ever in his experience but he planned not to be there then. Move on, and out, that was his plan. Yes, they would pick up a few fingerprints from the plastic bags and even the table itself, but so what? He did not care.
He knew he would be found out as the killer, sooner or later. He wanted to be.
At the end, he wanted Stella Pinero to know all.
He tapped out a number on the mobile and waited for an answer. One came eventually but he knew to wait.
‘Hello. I was busy.’
‘Of course. Well, there you are.’
Conversation between the two was never easy. It was hard to know why since on many issues their views were the same. Just bad communicators, he supposed. Yet in his profession, such as it was, he should be a good one.
‘I wanted to let you know that you had a call from that young woman who is keen on you.’
‘A call in person? Or the phone?’
‘Telephone. I told her you would get in touch.’
‘I suppose I had better.’
‘I think so, she sounded distressed.’
‘She’s got worries, poor woman.’
‘Haven’t we all?’
There was so much truth in this that a silence fell. Then he muttered something about the hospital.
‘Oh yes, the bloody hospital,’ came the even lower mutter in reply.
Chapter 13
Phoebe, knowing the duties of her job, made a report of all she had done to the Chief Commander. As she typed it out she wished she had a lover, a man to pour it all out to in bed, but there was no one around at the moment. Her own fault, no doubt. Anyway, it would have to be another officer of high rank to pass on such information or the Chief Commander would go ballistic.
Might do so anyway since anything connected with Stella made him anxious. Quite right too, Stella was exciting, a compelling actress, but … and there was a but, she could be a flaming nuisance.
But it was not primarily Stella about whom Phoebe thought she must consult the Chief Commander, although naturally she came into it (whenever was Stella out of anything?). Phoebe allowed herself this touch of asperity which she recognised was just jealousy. (Jealous of Stella? she asked herself severely, goodness knows. Well, envious maybe.) There were other things on Phoebe’s mind.
She sat looking at what she had typed, then walked away from it. Perhaps she should not deliver it just yet.
Looked at coldly, it was just full of vague disquiet. All of which she certainly felt, as, she was coming to believe, did the Chief Commander. The trouble was that she had known him a long while, even before she came to the Second City, and their minds seemed to work in the same way. They were often right together but they could also be wrong together.
It might be more sensible to talk to Mercy first, find out why she had sloped off. A firm hand is all that is needed. Mercy, I’ll say, what the hell were you doing out walking when you were said to be prostrate with migraine. This case needs you.
‘Come on, Mercy,’ she muttered as the phone rang. No answer. Either not there or not answering. The answerphone voice muttered something which Phoebe ignored.
She then tried the downstairs apartment of her house hoping to get Mercy’s mother. She answered at once, as if she was waiting for a call. Still, she might have been that sort of woman. I’m often eager myself, Phoebe thought. Usually a work reason these days, lovers being short on the ground.
‘This is Phoebe Astley. Mercy’s not answering. Is she there?’
There was a pause.
‘Well, she should be,’ said her mother at length.
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘She may be still asleep … she sleeps late these days. And it is early.’
‘I would like to talk to her. Could you see?’
‘She may have gone out, we don’t watch each other … Do forgive me, someone at my door.’
Mercy’s not there and Mum knows it and won’t say. Whatever was up, Phoebe was irritated.
More. ‘I’m worried,’ she said aloud. ‘If Mercy knows something about this terrible series of events that I don’t know, and the rest of the team don’t know, not to mention Coffin, then she ought to tell us.’
Although Phoebe knew John Coffin as a friend she knew protocol: you approached Sir John through Paul Masters. The Chief Commander certainly had secretaries, two or three at a time with carefully distributed duties but even in John Coffin’s stable life secretaries came and went: got married, had babies (not necessarily in that order), moved to Australia - one had even won a large sum on the Lottery - but Paul Masters seemed unlikely to do any of these things.
Phoebe did not mind telephoning Paul although she had had a run-in or two with him herself in the past, but in the end it seemed best to go to see him.
‘I’d really like you to have a talk with him. He was trying himself to get into touch with one of the officers working on these serial killings … Sergeant Adams, I think.’
‘I wonder why he wanted to talk to her?’ As Phoebe did herself.
‘Because she seemed to be out of touch,’ said Paul tersely. ‘Sir doesn’t care for that. Not with a serial killer on the loose. I don’t suppose he thinks she’ll solve it but he wants everyone on parade.’ To friends and equals he allowed himself to show a flash of sharpness even about John Coffin whom he much admired. But it always came with a smile. As now.
At this moment Coffin himself strode into the office. He seemed pleased to see Phoebe Astley.
‘Any progress on the three bodies?’
‘At the moment it looks as though the young man killed the girl and the baby and then took poison.’
‘He didn’t bury himself, though,’
‘No. Someone else did that for him.’
‘Or that someone killed all three then buried them. Seems more likely to me. You don’t go round burying bodies as you find them.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Phoebe. ‘A funny business altogether, except I’m not laughing.’
‘We’re going to suffer a Public Enquiry into why we haven’t cleared these cases.’ Coffin shook his head. ‘I can feel it in the air.And after that will come the execution.’
He pulled a long face, and then gave a grin as he walked on and out through the door which led to his private sanctum. You had to be invited into there. Usually a dog in there and on occasion a cat as well.
‘You can’t get him down,’ said Paul Masters with admiration. Phoebe looked thoughtful. ‘I reckon he knows something we don’t’, she said quietly.
Paul Masters questioned: ‘Do you know anything or are you just guessing?’
‘Just guessing,’ said Phoebe sadly.
At the door, Coffin paused and turned his head.‘I am out to see my wife: she says she thinks she recognises the dead young man found with the three bodies. He was a would-be actor who did not get a place in the training scheme for the theatre.’ He added. ‘Stella’s good on faces, in her position she has to be.’
‘Can I interview Lady Coffin, sir?’ asked Phoebe quickly.
‘If she says yes, then you certainly can and must interview her, but let me go first, and a word in your ear: she prefers Pinero to Coffin … well, who wouldn’t?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Phoebe ironically as he disappeared.
‘He’s right,’ Paul Masters spoke up in support of his boss. ‘If he thinks there’s something in
it, then you’ll get first dip.’
‘I wonder why she didn’t say something before?’ queried Phoebe.
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ Coffin asked his wife.
‘Because I had to clear my own mind, make certain I did recognise him.’
‘And you are sure?’
Stella nodded. She had asked Coffin to come to her office in the theatre where Gus sat on her feet, looking up at Coffin. You felt he could never decide which of the two he loved most.
Stella was drinking coffee, hot and fragrant as it would have to be to meet her high standards. In her youth she had drunk too much of what she called “backstage” coffee, weak and cool, to accept anything but the best now. ‘Want a cup?’
She would want something stronger than coffee after a good look at the body now stretched out in a cold drawer in the morgue.
‘No, drink it up and let’s get you down to see if you can identify the body.’
‘I did have a quick look when he was found. That’s when I thought I knew him, poor boy’
‘Now you can have a longer look.’
Stella was silent as Coffin drove her to the police morgue, silent as the drawer was dragged out so that she could look.
She stared for a moment in silence. Even with the contractions and stains of death on the features, she knew him.
She nodded silently to Coffin, then stepped back. He took her arm. What had happened was getting to her.
‘Let’s go and have a drink and talk. Your coffee is marvellous but I fancy a change of scene.’
Without consulting Stella, he drove her to Cafe Blanc, in a side road not far from Mimsie Marker’s stall. He strongly suspected that the establishment was a part of Mimsie’s empire. There was something in the style of food and the presentation of it, and the smiling confidence with which she recommended it.
He found a table for two by the window, sat Stella down at it, and ordered a bottle of wine.
‘Drink up. You need it.’ He poured. ‘Red wine. You’re pale, it’ll do you good.’
Stella picked up the glass. ‘How pale do I have to be to get champagne?’
Coffin laughed. ‘Worse than you are now. Come on, drink up, my love.’
Stella drank some wine, and the colour began to come back into her cheeks. Then she began to talk.
‘He was one of the boys in the competition for a prize and a place in the company: as I remember he was called Robert something - I can look it up. Eglin, I think it was. He was very, very keen, he got through several rounds in which people were eliminated. But he was up against very stiff competition and the final winner was a lad, Andrew Eliot … extremely good, unusual style too.’
‘I think I’ve seen him,’ said Coffin.
‘You might well have seen him around … red hair and a pale face, but hasn’t performed in public yet. Nor will he for some time … I am taking some of the classes myself, but the donation we were given has allowed me to hire a teacher from RADA. He was glad to come too, bit of extra experience.’
Stella was talking too much and she knew it.
‘And Robert?’ Coffin reminded her.
‘I don’t know … never saw him again, until … It’s a harsh profession, the stage.’
Into the pause, Coffin said: ‘He may have killed himself, he may have killed the girl and child, but he did not bury all of them … So that means at least one other person knows about his death.’
Stella said: ‘My office may still have his address … last address that is, and a few personal details … I think he hung around a bit afterwards. And the boy who won may know more … the young and hopeful do tend to chum up a bit.’
‘I’ll talk to him. Or may be Phoebe could.’
‘She can be a bit alarming … Mercy might be better.’
‘I want to talk to Mercy myself,’ said Coffin grimly. The difficulty of making contact with Mercy, one of the team he had set up to deal with the serial killer, had been irritating him. Unwell she might be, absent was not allowed.
He made a decision. ‘I’ll talk to the lad myself … with your help, Stella.’
‘Andy Eliot?’ said Stella. ‘He’s around. I saw him flitting about in the distance this morning.’ She added, thoughtfully: ‘He’s a lovely boy, a lot of potential. I hope we can help bring all that talent into play.’
If Coffin caught the hesitation in her tone he did not show it.
Andrew Eliot was not a conventionally handsome boy, but his face was interesting and alert. Coffin knew enough about the stage by now to know that this was an actor’s face, with features ready to obey orders.
It also told him to be careful of him.
Andy smiled cheerfully at Stella and nodded politely to Coffin.
‘Lady Pinero?’
Stella gave Coffin a quick look. ‘Andy … Robert Eglin was a fellow competitor, he was playing beside you in various roles when you tried for your scholarship.’ She didn’t wait for the boy to answer. ‘You were friends?’
‘We were all friends.’
‘Of course you were. He was very disappointed not to win?’
‘I guess so … but we all knew from the very beginning what a gamble it was.’
‘Have you seen him since?’
Andrew said carefully that No, he had not. ‘We said goodbye, after the announcement of the winner. He congratulated me and walked away. I haven’t seen him since.’
Stella nodded.
‘Why don’t you ask his girlfriend? They were living and loving together.’ There was quiet tartness in his tone that suggested all love should come his way. ‘And there was a baby too. He was very disappointed. Of course, anyone would have been. But we all know about the transitory nature of acting success. All except the great greats have their ups and downs.’ He smiled radiantly at Stelle Pinero. Not you, of course, the smile said.
‘I’ve had my vissicitudes, I assure you,’ said Stella. She turned to Coffin. ‘I’ll consult the files, see what addresses I can come up with.’
‘He’s missing, is he?’ asked Andrew.
‘Sort of.’
‘Anyone might, you know. Just hide for a bit.’
And we know where he is, thought Coffin.
Coffin and Stella walked back to her office. ‘I’ll see what I can find for you to use. Everything may have been destroyed. I ordered them not to keep much.’
‘So it will all have gone.’ He was gloomy, that was police life on occasion: no one helped you.
Stella laughed. ‘No, my team are not speedy movers in office matters … lifting the curtain, performing, yes. We may get something.’
She made a brisk telephone call which soon resulted in the appearance of an apologetic assistant holding out a flat, blue cardboard file.
‘There is this, Lady Pinero … empty really.’ As she held it out a piece of paper fluttered out. ‘That must have got left … just his last address.’
Robert Eglin, 3, Trafalgar Place, off Nelson Street.
‘That’ll do for a start,’ said Coffin reaching out.
It would have to be Phoebe Astley since Les Henderson and Winnie Ardet had assistants answering their phones with the promise to ring back, and Mercy remained elusive.
Chapter 14
‘Nelson and Trafalgar,’ said Phoebe Astley aloud, as she parked her car at the corner of the two streets. ‘They’ve always been keen on Nelson round here.’ She had a young WDC with her, always a wise rule on a house call. ‘Not because they disliked the French, but because it upset shipping and shipping was what this part of London depended on. Docks, and ships and cargoes.’
‘Not now though,’ said the WDC.
‘No, not now. Then, it was part of the world’s biggest port. Now it’s got Heathrow. I don’t know if it’s the worlds’ biggest airport, but it must be near it.’
Phoebe was sensitive about sounds and the constant throb and drum of the planes going into Heathrow irritated her. There was also another airfield further down the river so she g
ot it both ways.
‘You have heard of Nelson and Trafalgar, I suppose? You don’t think it’s to celebrate a football team?’
‘No, of course not.’ Her young DC was indignant. ‘And Lady Hamilton. I saw the film. Laurence Olivier was Nelson.’
History might not be exactly like that film, thought Phoebe, but why worry.
‘Of course, it was an old film,’ said the DC.
Three, Trafalgar Place was one of a terrace of thin, tall houses, clearly let out as rooms, with nothing smart about it. It looked clean but cheap.
‘Ring the bell and get us in,’ she ordered the DC. ‘Oh, all right, if the bell won’t work bang on the knocker.’
The knocker did work so that soon a cross woman appeared. ‘Come in, come in, what is it you want? There’s one room to let but I want references and money in advance.’ She had the grim determined look of one who knows she isn’t going to get a reference (which would be no good anyway) but is absolutely determined to get the money. ‘And more if you two share.’
She thinks we’re a pair of lesbians, decided Phoebe.
Once that confusion was cleared up and Phoebe had asked about Robert Eglin, there was some progress. That is, after the woman had managed to remember who Robert was.
She consulted a large red notebook. ‘Eglin … don’t think that was his real name, he was an actor, or said he was. Probably Potts or Brown.’
Phoebe sighed. One step forward and one back.
‘He’s been gone a long time. He went off with that poor little creature who lived with him, and the baby. He looked like death.’
‘Did he?’ She might have been nearer the truth than she knew.
‘Paid up, though. Didn’t leave owing.’
This was the trio of dead people, Phoebe knew this, but who they really, what their story was, was something else.
Police methods would identify them in the end, she was sure of that, but it would take time. Coffin was not willing to wait.
He might have to, though.
We know who the lad is, we know of his relationship with the girl, and we can guess the child belonged to both of them.
Coffin Knows the Answer Page 12
