‘There doesn’t seem much to know, sir. She seems to have been almost non-existent as a person.’
‘Mimsie Marker said more or less the same thing.’ And had said that all the Tilers married such wives, or turned them into zombies.
‘You can’t believe all that old bag tells you,’ said Young heartily.
‘I like the old woman.’
‘Oh, I do myself, we all do. But she can tell a tale. I heard she’d been taken ill with this bug that’s going round. So I asked her how she was when I went to buy a paper.’
‘She’d keep on her feet if she was dying.’
‘I think she’d started the tale herself. Wanted a bit of sympathy. She’d had a fight with a neighbour and had a black eye.’
‘What was the fight about?’
Young shrugged. ‘Internecine war round here sometimes. Old quarrels, old scores.’ He sounded amused.
Mimsie had said something like this, too. Look at family relationships, she’d said. As had his brother William. If anyone knew about family relationships, he ought to, if anyone did.
‘You lived here long yourself, Young?’ he asked. ‘You seem to have got the hang of things.’
‘No, came here about three years ago. But I’m interested in old habits and old ways. I like to find out. Also, I’ve found it pays to know your district in depth.’
Through the kitchen window they could both see the cat advancing across the garden towards them.
John Coffin turned towards Young whose face looked pink and rosy in the evening sunlight. Ought to let the lad get home to his wife, he thought. ‘What about the shed?’
‘That’s completely empty now. We’ve had the whole floor dug up.’
‘How’s your wife?’
‘Splendid, sir.’ Young sounded surprised. ‘She’s writing an article for some American police journal.’
‘On women and crime?’
‘Oh no, that’s not her speciality. On computer crime,’ said Young in a respectful tone. ‘She has an accountant’s training too.’
The cat completed his journey with a leap to the window-sill, where he sat washing his face.
‘Want to go on looking round, sir? We haven’t done the ground floor.’
‘No. There’s nothing here.’
The cat completed one side of his face, then turned to start on the other, dabbing away without much plan. Clearly, his mind was not on the job.
‘Not much of a washer, is he?’ said Young.
‘Better than we’d be without soap and water and laundries.’ Suddenly he wondered how early hominids had washed. Had they licked their hairy limbs?
‘I wonder if I ought to take him home. He does seem lost.’
Coffin turned away. ‘Next time we come,’ he said absently. ‘Young, that lavatory where we found Mrs Tiler was once a washplace, so the WPC said.’
‘That’s right.’ He followed Coffin in that direction.
‘So it would probably have had somewhere to boil clothes. One of those old-fashioned coppers built into the wall with a fire underneath.’
‘Might have had, sir.’
‘See if you can find the builder who did the alteration. And when. Or anyone who knows anything about it. Get on to Ted Lupus. It’s the sort of thing he’d know about. Also if there are any coppers like that still around.’
For the boiling of a body, such an apparatus might be quite the thing.
The house was locked behind them, safe against all intruders, except the fieldmice, who were permanently camped out behind the kitchen stove, and the cat, who had his own ways of getting in.
Stella Pinero was standing by her own front door in St Luke’s Mansions, her arms full of a huge bunch of lilies. She greeted John Coffin with pleasure.
‘Aren’t they funereal? From an American admirer. He must have just asked the florist to send the most expensive flowers they had. I love the smell, although I know one shouldn’t.’ She looked up at Coffin, her eyes glinting with amusement. ‘Perhaps because of the address, they thought I was a funeral.’
‘Would you like a cat? There seems to be one going spare.’
‘No, I think not. Whose cat is it? You do look tired.’
‘My sergeant thinks it is lost. Not quite sure if I agree with him.’ He had taken her flowers while she got her key out. He knew very well that she still had uneasy feelings about entering her flat alone. ‘Yes, I am tired.’
‘What have you been doing? Let me give you dinner. I believe I have a casserole somewhere.’ Stella looked around her as if the dish might be in the hall.
‘Looking for some red flock wallpaper.’
Stella raised her eyebrows. ‘For interior decorating? Which room? I thought Letty had done your place quite beautifully.’ She had retrieved her flowers. ‘I might take these flowers to Little Billy. I’m going to try to visit him … I don’t quite see you with red flock wallpaper. Where on earth are you going to put it, even if you find it, which you might not these days, hasn’t been fashionable for yonks, although I believe the young fogeys have taken it up.’ Stella, when writing her own dialogue, never built in pauses for breath. ‘But it’s not you, John.’
‘Police business.’
‘Don’t be pompous, my dear.’
He gave her best. ‘Something like it may have been used to wrap or cover a couple of the murder victims. Bits of red embedded in the clothes. I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything?’
‘Come and have dinner and I’ll think.’
He hesitated. ‘I ought to ask you.’
‘No, don’t be silly, we don’t play turns, I’ve got lots of food. I got it in for Charlie, we were going to discuss plans, but he’s buggered off with some excuse about feeling seedy. Other fish to fry, I expect.’
‘If you’re sure …’ But he knew he meant to accept. Stella was becoming a habit. Dr Marcia Glidding’s stock dipped sharply, and Stella’s went up.
‘Oh, by the way, I’ve had a word with Bridie and Will, told them I know what was upsetting them and to treat it as rubbish. I think I’ve settled them down. Good stuff in both of them, I don’t want it ruined.’ There was something between a plea and a command in her voice, a combination only an actress of her skill could produce.
‘I don’t think they killed anyone,’ Coffin answered.
Over dinner, which was indeed a casserole, Stella said: ‘I can’t do you red flock wallpaper, but I recall some old red curtains that were around. Used to hang at the church door when it was a church. I found a rolled up bundle in the Theatre Workshop basement when we moved in.’
‘What did you do with them?’
‘They smelt horrid. Dust, dirt and goodness knows what. I imagine what I would have done was to tell the ASM to get rid of them.’
‘And what would he or she have done?’
‘A girl at the time, as I remember. I expect what she did was to ask the caretaker to throw them out.’
Stella went out to bring in some cheese biscuits, she had shopped for Brie, but with Coffin in mind (she remembered what he liked), she also bought some strong Cheddar.
As she came back, she said: ‘About the cat, if it’s really starving, of course I’ll have it.’
CHAPTER 14
By the next morning, the acting stage manager, a plump girl called Polly Lindsey, said she had asked the caretaker to remove the curtains and burn them, or take them to the nearest dump, and she supposed he had done that. She hadn’t checked.
‘They’d been around for ages. He seemed to know all about them. Almost as if they were his.’
‘And that was Peter Tiler?’
‘It was Tiler. He got the sack soon afterwards.’
DI Lane ordered a search of the nearest rubbish disposal tip, an order not well received by the three constables detailed to do it. But the men in charge of the rubbish showed a surprising willingness to help.
‘It makes a change, mate,’ said one of them. ‘But don’t count on finding anything. Too long ago.’
‘What’s the man’s name? And where does he live?’
A little reluctance was shown by Ginger Griffin to pass on this information, but eventually he produced a name and what might be an address.
‘Old Bean, we called him, and he had a caravan on a derelict site down by the Spinnergate station.’
After consultation with Inspector Young, a detective-constable was despatched to find Old Bean.
The caravan site was large and informal, with a shifting population. It was an opportunist collection of vehicles without any legal right to be there. The whole area would be cleared soon and a block of offices put up. It did not look as if it was going to be easy to lay hands on Old Bean. He was said to have moved to another site.
‘Go on looking,’ ordered DI Lane. And when they did find him, then what? he thought cynically. Another lead that led nowhere?
But afterwards he was to think: No, the Commander was right. Not the red flock, curtains or wallpaper or whatever in themselves, but what came with them; it was the opening up point. It was what followed.
There is always such a point in a successful investigation and you never know when it will come. And as a rule, you only recognize it in retrospect. The canny and the clever know it when it comes. John Coffin looked to be one of that number.
And if you asked him how, he might not know. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs,’ he might answer.
Meanwhile, in another aspect of the case, the police pathologists were willing to advance the view that the small amount of bones scattered through the soil underneath the floor of the crypt made up one person. Or what was left of her.
For the body had been female. No head had been found, so they ventured on the speculation that this body might never be identified.
‘Not unless we get a confession,’ said Chief Superintendent Lane to DI Young. ‘But I don’t think this beggar, if we ever catch him, will be in the confessing game.’
The tentacles of the investigation were spreading out wider and wider.
Archie Lane remembered John Coffin’s suggestion of talking to Ted Lupus about any improvements to the house in Hillington Crescent, but Ted had taken a flight from the new City Airport to Paris on business and was not available. Kath Lupus was at home, but she knew nothing. Ted’s secretary, left in his office, said that her boss would be back on an evening flight, when she would tell him he was wanted.
An architect had confirmed that Yes, there were signs that there had been a boiler at one time in the ground-floor lavatory of Hillington Crescent. He was able to point to the marks where there had once been a chimney.
An old resident of the Crescent recalled the boilers, had had one herself but had replaced it with more modern equipment soon after the war.
‘Then about ten years ago, it got fashionable to have an automatic washing machine in the kitchen and turn the washplace into a shower-room with a lav. A lot of people did that. There was a firm came round doing it.’
No, she didn’t recall the name of the firm.
Ted Lupus, when contacted by Archie Lane himself, was more helpful. For Ted, it had been a normal working day, even the trip to Paris was nothing out of the way for him nowadays.
He came round to the police station in Spinnergate where the central office for this investigation had been established. Briefcase in hand, raincoat over his arm, he looked straight off the flight from Paris. ‘I hear you are looking for me?’
‘Good of you to come round, Mr Lupus.’ Archie Lane, surprised while drinking a cup of coffee and typing a report, stood up, uneasily aware that he hadn’t shaved well that morning and that his suit could do with a brush. Ted Lupus’s suit had come from Jermyn Street and his tie from New York.
‘Spoke to my secretary on the car ’phone as soon as I landed, and drove straight round. What is it? What can I do? Something about the boy? I thought he was mending.’
‘I believe he is. No, it’s just something we thought you could help with. An inquiry about the Tiler house in Hillington Crescent.’
‘Get on with it then, I’ve had a tiring day.’
Archie Young was embarrassed. ‘There was no real need for you to come here, sir, although I’m grateful to you for doing so. I wanted to call on your professional knowledge. Ask you about the lavatory in the Tiler house.’
‘What about it?’
‘It seems it might have had an old-fashioned boiler in it once. You know the sort, a copper to boil the clothes in and a fire underneath to heat the water.’
‘I believe they did have. They were built just after World War One, a bit old-fashioned even for then.’
‘We wondered when and how the Tiler house got rid of its boiler.’
‘Not my firm.’
‘I didn’t think so, Mr Lupus, but we thought you might know which one.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I seem to remember a firm going round touting for that sort of business at one time. About ten years or so ago. A cowboy outfit. I think they’ve gone out of business. Is this really important?’
‘Just might be. Or it might be on the periphery of the investigation. It’s the date we’re trying to establish.’
‘Why do you want to know about the boiler? Or shouldn’t I ask?’
‘I’d rather not say just now. I dare say it will come out eventually.’ It certainly would do, and cause a sensation.
‘They were pretty big, those boilers,’ said Ted Lupus. He had gone white. ‘Women did a lot of washing those days. Do still, but they don’t boil so much.’ He put a hand against the wall to steady himself.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ Archie was concerned.
‘Just a touch of the bug going round, I expect … I’m wondering what you think the boiler was used for.’
‘I shouldn’t dwell on it, sir.’
There was a moment of silence. Ted Lupus shrugged. ‘Right. I’ll get off home if I can’t do any more. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.’
Archie Lane walked with him to the door. There was the car, a nice big BMW, nothing flashy, but sound and reliable and expensive. He watched the car drive away. The chap hadn’t looked well. He passed his hand apprehensively over his own stomach. Surely he himself wasn’t going down with the bug too?
When he got home, Ted Lupus calmed his wife, who was distraught at his late arrival, and poured himself some whisky.
The murders were very much more horrible than he had supposed. He had not been impressed by his talk with Inspector Young. It seemed to him the police were getting nowhere.
‘A drink, Kath?’
‘Where have you been? The flight got in hours ago.’
‘I had to go down to the police station. Would you like a nip, too?’
‘What for?’ She waved away a drink.
‘Just some questions they wanted to ask. About a boiler, as a matter of fact. Can you beat that?’ He gave a short, unamused laugh. ‘Just don’t dwell on it, that’s my advice.’
He took a deep drink.
‘The killings of those women were even worse than I’d imagined. And I thought I knew all about nastiness. Do you believe in cannibalism? Cooking up the dead and eating them? One way of disposing of the bodies. But the murderer had more coining in than he could eat.’ Supposing he had said that aloud to her? He didn’t, of course. But she could read something in his face.
‘I think I will have a drink after all.’ She got up to get one.
‘Do you know, the police don’t have any idea. Can’t see their hand in front of their face. Someone ought to show them.’
‘Don’t drink too much, Ted.’
‘Stupid clowns.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ said his wife. ‘They get there in the end.’
&n
bsp; They sat, drinks in hand, at their open window, looking at the River Thames which flowed, dark and silky, below them. Across the river were the lights of London. A light wind ruffled the water so that it glittered.
‘What news of the boy? How is Billy?’
‘I ‘phoned Debbie. He’s better, but not out of hospital yet.’
‘Still silent?’ asked Ted, who knew about the speaking problem.
‘I don’t know. I shall have a word with his mother. See what she says. I’m going to try to see him.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t. I think it took a lot out of you, that hunt for him. You’ve done your bit.’
Kath laughed. ‘Half term is nearly over. I shall be back to doing my bit for about a thousand like him. I think I can manage Little Billy.’
‘I’m sorry we haven’t got any of our own.’ He reached out to touch her hand.
‘Not your fault, not mine. Anyway, I’m not trying to stand in as mother for Billy, don’t think it, although he could do with one. Oh, by the way, I’ve had a call from someone calling herself an epidemiologist. They seem to be making a connection between my school, the epidemic and the party at the Black Museum. A focal point, she called it. That bloody Black Museum.’
‘Take it easy, Kath, do.’
‘Do you?’
No answer. She knew that neither of them took anything easily. That they had no children of their own had been their small quiet tragedy, but they had known other and bigger ones. Success in business, failure in business, love in the family, death in the family, they had known them all.
‘That policeman, John Coffin, he’s an outsider, he can’t really know what this is all about,’ she said. ‘He’ll get an answer, but he won’t really understand.’
You needed to have lived around here all your life.
She did not say this aloud; it was the unstated but understood truth between them.
Ted Lupus believed it, Peter Tiler would have believed it, JoJo and Lily Goldstone half believed it, Will and Bridie had believed it, Charlie Driscoll still believed it. Mrs Marr was keeping an open mind, and Mimsie Marker believed she was the one who knew all.
Coffin in the Black Museum Page 18
