Coffin on Murder Street

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Looks as though he found something, and got as far as the Papershop Group,’ said Archie Young to the Superintendent. ‘Wish he’d left an address or something. We do need to find the boy. He can’t be alive now, can he?’

  Paul Lane said nothing. He had sent his own family away to visit his parents in Galloway. Just for a holiday, of course.

  But it was their first break.

  And as such, duly transmitted to John Coffin, who was engaged in drawing up his defences against the threatened Commission of Inquiry. His whole area was quiet at the moment, but you could never tell now when racial or social differences would burst out. Who wanted a riot? There was very often some group working on the idea.

  A quick result on the Casey affair, mother and child, would do good. He feared for Tom now. Everyone did.

  Late on the afternoon of that day, a pleasant-faced middle-aged woman got out of a taxi in Regina Street and limped to her own front door. Mrs Bradstock had been a passenger on the ill-fated Tremble Tour, having been specially invited with a free ticket by her neighbour, Jim Lollard. Out of malice, she now believed, seeing all that had happened.

  I shouldn’t have laughed at him and his mass murders, she thought as she fumbled for her doorkey. That was him paying me out, the old devil.

  She had not been one of those made very ill by the sedative drugs, she was a lady of strong constitution, but she had slipped on a rug in hospital and broken a bone in her hip. So there she had had to stay for longer than she fancied. After which she had gone to recuperate with her sister, but Emmy was getting more and more difficult, and she had suddenly decided to come home.

  Home was best, and she had hated being away, but she had a couple of lodgers, quiet men, and she had dropped a note to Mr Hinton asking him to water the plants. She had also asked her neighbour to keep an eye on the house, collect the rent and pay for the milk, that sort of thing.

  She let herself in, the house felt and smelt empty, so both lodgers were out, which she didn’t mind, not fancying to engage in conversation before a cup of tea. She noticed at once that the house was stuffy and unaired. Well, men, she thought, never open a window.

  And don’t do much washing-up, either, she decided after a quick limp into her kitchen revealed a sinkful of dirty dishes. Not much of a hand with the pot plants either, she thought, observing her row of wilted primulas and geraniums.

  ‘Thought better of you,’ she said aloud, as she put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Tea first, then unpack, then look at the garden. It would be dark, but there would be a moon. She had been a countrywoman and knew the waxing and the waning of the moon.

  She had two cups of strong, hot tea, and a slice of shortbread. Emmy might be getting madder and madder but she still baked a good round of shortbread.

  Then she got up to look at her garden. She was quite right, there was a lovely moon.

  The moon shone down on John Coffin also and on The Albion where so much of the mystery had started.

  He was in the garden there because the cat Tiddles had been missing for almost twelve hours now and that was a long time for Tiddles to be absent from his feeding bowl.

  But it was moonlight and spring was on the way, and although Tiddles was officially neutered, his hormones did not always seem to know it. Coffin was not really worried, but he did his duty as a loyal cat-owner and conducted a hunt in the nearby gardens and shrubberies.

  He saw a flash of green eyes from behind a rose-bush. ‘Devil,’ he said fondly. ‘There you are.’ A whisker twitched, the bushes moved and Tiddles sped off, uttering a mawkish cry like a child in pain.

  Coffin straightened his back and stared at the moon. He believed in lateral thinking, and he was remembering something. A cry.

  He turned his steps towards Regina Street. It was a longish walk but he stepped out. He had remembered the night walk when he had heard a child crying in Regina Street.

  Extremely unlikely, he told himself as he walked, that it was Tom. But he was going towards Murder Street.

  WALKER is out and going south, reported the patrol car when it passed him.

  Regina Street looked calm and quiet. He passed Lollard’s house, now closed and shuttered. A few yards down the street a shabby white van was parked with the words HOUSE CLEANING decorating the side. The van itself could have done with a wash.

  Sign of the times, he thought. No more servants, just cleaning teams. Stella had told him how difficult it was to get the theatre cleaned.

  He walked on, still feeling restless. Then, a few houses along, the front door opened and a woman came out. She stood on the steps and stared about her.

  Coffin came up to her. ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Are you a policeman?’

  ‘1 am, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘You’ve been quick. I’ve only just telephoned. They said they’d sent a car.’

  ‘What is it?’

  She held the door open. ‘Come and have a look.’ She was talking as she bustled through the hall and towards the back door. ‘I’ve been in hospital and then staying with my sister. Had enough and come back … It’s the garden.’ She threw open the back door. ‘Look.’ She pointed. In the middle of a small rosebed was a long, low mound. ‘That wasn’t there before, and I don’t like it. Something’s been buried there.’

  ‘Could be,’ said Coffin.

  Well, I want it dug up. Could be a bomb or lot of explosives or drugs. Anyway, it’s not natural and not right in my garden and I want it looked at.’

  There was a shout from the front door. ‘Anyone, there?’ A uniformed constable found his way through the hall and out to the garden. ‘Trouble here, is there?’ He had a slightly aggressive, urgent way with him as if he was prepared to be trouble himself if he didn’t find any. A young man, still in his early twenties and impatient. ‘Come on, mother, what is it?’

  She pointed: ‘Look! That happened while I was away. In hospital.’

  He was puzzled but trying to find his feet. Also, there was something about the man present who was saying nothing that worried him. ‘You’ve been burgled? Someone’s broken in?’

  ‘No, no, I’ve been dug up and that’s not right.’

  The constable took a look at the rosebed. ‘See what you mean, but it doesn’t look dangerous. Leave it for tonight and we’ll have a go tomorrow.’

  ‘No, tonight,’ said John Coffin. He came forward from the shadows.

  ‘You lodging here, sir?’ The constable was aware that Mrs Bradstock took in lodgers.

  ‘No.’ Coffin took a step forward and the moon shone on his face.

  Mrs Bradstock gave a shriek of eldritch amusement. ‘He’s one of you, he’s a copper.’

  The constable’s companion in the patrol car had grown impatient waiting and came through the garden door. ‘What’s up here, Jim, want any help?’ Then, sharper than his companion, he recognized John Coffin, took a step back and saluted. ‘’Evening, sir. What’s the trouble?’

  While they had been talking, Mrs Bradstock had picked up the small spade that had been left by the mound and was moving the earth. Suddenly she stopped, dropped the spade and turned her head towards them. From her country childhood came memories of farmyard smells, she knew what she was smelling.

  ‘That’s death there,’ she said. ‘It’s a grave.’

  A group was gathered in Mrs Bradstock’s garden. John Coffin, who had been there all the time, the police surgeon and the Scene of the Crime officer, who had arrived next. Archie Young, who had been at a concert with his wife, had hurried and got there just after Paul Lane, who had been morosely watching TV on his own, his wife and family being away. This case is marking us out, he thought, those of us who have children and those who don’t. We all mind, but if we’ve got kids we take it more personally. The telephone call summoning him to Murder Street had been almost welcome.

  He had joined the group as they stood around the improvised grave.

  A smallish figure, buried just beneath the earth, fully clot
hed, with a notice wrapped in a transparent plastic envelope and tied to his chest.

  WILLIAM DUERDEN

  executed

  March 6th

  I only buried you, you bugger, because I didn’t want to spoil this nice lady’s house.

  ‘Yes, that’s my lodger. One of them. Mr Lamartine, that’s what I called him.’ Mrs Bradstock looked bemused. ‘No, you needn’t lead me away, I can bear to look. Hasn’t changed all that much, has he? But I didn’t know that was a wig.’ The tumble of blonde hair had come adrift from the head and lay on the earth.

  Later, inside the house and taking another cup of tea with a touch of something a little bit stronger in it, because after all, in spite of what she had said, she was unnerved—Mr Lamartine had been strangled, and that does not improve the features—the questions started and she did her best. Paul Lane asked the questions, while John Coffin listened.

  ‘How long was he with you?’

  ‘About a month, Jim Lollard said he was a weird one. Takes one to know one.’

  ‘Did he say why he had come to you?’

  ‘Everyone knows I let rooms. Never permanent, can’t do with permanent and I advertise in shops. Put a card in the window. He said he’d seen it. No, he didn’t say which but I use lots of places. Newsagents, post offices, video shops, that kind of place.’

  ‘Did he say what had brought him to this district?’

  ‘He said he had friends.’

  A simple truth. William Duerden did speak the truth when he could.

  They left Mrs Bradstock still sipping tea but wondering whether she should go to bed here or return to her sister’s house. The police had offered her a lift, but Em was not likely to be welcoming. Words had passed that would be remembered. Better to stay here. Otherwise the neighbours would think she was dead and that would never do. She didn’t feel haunted, although that might come later. Still, there were a lot of memories walking around Regina Street already. Could ghosts haunt ghosts?

  That must be the whisky talking, she thought. Stop it, girl. You’ve got the police here. All over the place. You are not alone.

  She took a quick look out of the landing window on the way to bed. Yes there they were.

  ‘Well, we know one thing now, don’t we?’ said Coffin, back in the garden. By now a few neighbours had come to their windows to look and speculate. ‘If the inscription is to be believed, and I see no reason for a lie; Duerden died before Tom Casey went missing, before Nell was killed. Of all the crimes he was guilty of this is not one of them.’

  He had come here because he had remembered a child crying and he had arrived for the unburying of the dead William Duerden.

  ‘We ought to have got him before this,’ said Archie Lane. He turned away and looked at the garden wall. Whether you’ve got kids or not, you mind this sort of case. In fact, I think you feel it worse. I don’t blame the chap who killed Duerden and fired the papershop. I’d have done it myself.’ He turned back to look at the others. ‘And where’s the boy? We’ve got Duerden but we haven’t got him.’

  And no idea where to look. All the leads they had followed had led nowhere. He had gone off in a car which might or might not have been driven by a woman and had never been seen again.

  No one went to bed that night, and the long day went on.

  CHAPTER 22

  March 28 and onward

  The long day wore on, becoming a day of thirty-six hours, of forty-eight hours, it was going on for ever. They were making newspaper headlines, grabbing the media attention worldwide. Several contingents of the press wer camping out in Murder Street, but they too were getting no sleep.

  Stella Pinero reported that bookings for all the Festival plays were up and some plays, those with Gus Hamilton in, were sold out.

  Gus, who was followed everywhere by photographers and newsmen, was saying nothing. He had been interviewed again and again by different police questioners, they had asked the same questions over and over in different ways, but Gus always repeated the same story. He knew nothing, had been at home. No witnesses except when he was working. There were traces of skin and blood caught underneath Nell’s fingernails but the work on the traces was not yet conclusive.

  ‘It’s not magic,’ the forensic scientist had said to Archie Young. ‘And we’re not able to pull things out of hat to order. I can’t, as yet, say there’s a match. Give me time. I can’t go ahead of the evidence. You shouldn’t want me to.’

  Mary Barclay was in close touch with Sylvie, visiting her for a talk nearly every day in the hope that something might pop out that would help them to find the boy.

  Copies of such reports as she was able to make were passed on to John Coffin where they added to the bulk of similar reports on his desk. But he read them all carefully.

  She’s a good girl, he thought. She’ll do well in the Force, very well. I must see she makes the right moves. That’s the best way for our relationship to go. I can’t do better, and if I try to get closer, then I may very well do worse. He had the slight, sickish feeling in the pit of the stomach that in younger days he had called a depression. Now he knew it was just his body warning him that events were moving. The trouble was that it never put a label on the warning.

  His legal advisers had told him that it would be wise to let them send a team of three to survey the New City Force and draw up a report. It would provide the basis for his defence if it was needed. They did not say that he too would be investigated and reported upon, but he knew it would be so. The investigator investigated.

  He read Mary Barclay’s latest again.

  I asked Sylvie once more if Miss Casey had mentioned anyone she had quarrelled with. Or any person who could have a grudge against her. Sylvie said No, everyone loved her.

  Then she said: Perhaps not everyone. Miss Casey had said that once she had upset a friend very badly. (Or lover, Sylvie could not be specific on this.) But Nell had defended herself, it hadn’t been her fault. Things had been bad for a bit, but this friend understood her better now. Nell had said that she knew she alienated some people, it was the way she was built, she’d been born that way and it couldn’t be helped, but life rolled on like a river and you went with it.

  No names, Mary Barclay had reported, none mentioned and Sylvie could make no guesses. But since it was at the time when the strange things had started to happen (the affair of the toy dog, the blood on the boy’s shirt and so on) perhaps we should try to follow this up.

  Life rolled on like a river, she said that? Strange she should have used that metaphor and Sylvie have remembered it and passed it on.

  Nell had died in a river.

  He put down the report and went to the window. There, just beyond his view was the River Thames, rolling on its way to the sea. For a while it had carried Nell Casey’s body with it. Did it now carry the body of Tom?

  In the pocket of Nell’s jeans had been a return railway ticket to Staines. Nell had known where she was going.

  A phone call from Inspector Young came through at that moment. ‘I’m dead keen to nail Hamilton for this. I want to take him into custody.’

  ‘Have you got anything new?’

  ‘Yes. He’s gone off. I think we can get him though, because he’s taken his car. The girl he is living with said he went off late last night. They had heard about the finding of Duerden’s body and it upset Hamilton.’

  ‘Who told them?’

  There was a moment of silence, then Young said with reluctance, ‘Seems she has a cousin who works on the telephone at HQ.’

  ‘There’s always someone,’ said Coffin. ‘I suppose she’s been feeding them with information all the time?’

  ‘Probably, sir.’

  Look good on my Inquiry Report, thought Coffin: Security Poor, that would be an easy judgement.

  ‘The Superintendent supports me in this, sir.’

  ‘Then go for Hamilton, you didn’t need to clear with me.’

  ‘Thought we’d better,’ said Young. On account of Miss
Pinero. But he didn’t say this aloud, nor did he have to.

  Into the pause, Coffin put a query: ‘Have you noted Barclay’s reports on her talks with Sylvie?’

  ‘Yes, as soon as they come in. The girl’s out of it, though.’

  ‘Agreed. But did the last report say anything to you?’

  Young took a deep breath. Should he say yes or No? ‘Not really, sir.’

  Coffin said: ‘You’ve got an Interforces Unit going on the Casey death, haven’t you? Then get a search undertaken for a riverside house, a weekend retreat, that sort of thing. Between Staines and Windsor, I would say. Find all likely houses and check them over … The most likely site would be near the castle.’

  ‘What will we be looking for, sir?’

  ‘Anything that has worried the neighbours,’ said Coffin crisply.

  Archie Young put down the telephone at his end. ‘I shall have to think of another way of putting it to those other poor sods,’ he decided. ‘I’ll say: We have information that …’

  He moved across to the Incident Room which was dealing with this multiple crime with arms like an octopus. Here he set in motion the search demanded by the Chief Commander. He could do no other.

  I do hate it when he goes extra-terrestrial, he told himself. When he repeated this comment to the Superintendent, all Lane said was: ‘He’s a difficult man to decode.’

  The long day went on.

  The reaches of the River Thames between Staines and Windsor are fringed with houses running down to the water, some with boathouse. Houseboats, barges, and all types of small river craft are moored along its banks.

  The river itself is lined with meadows, sheltered by trees and dotted here and there with small islands. On one such island, at Runnymede, was the Great Charter sealed. King John had come out from his castle at Windsor to meet his angry baronage. They had more soldiers than he had and a better grasp of political and military realities. Surrounded on an island, a small one at that, there wasn’t much the King could do if he wanted to get off without one of those unfortunate accidents that could happen to a mediaeval king who lost control of his great magnates.