‘It had been a long while,’ said Stella. ‘I daresay I have changed.’ She smiled at her husband.
Inspector Lodge had received his coffee in silence. Now he spoke: ‘He’s not known to me, not under that name,’ he said. ‘But he must be in the records somewhere. Fingerprints, photograph, and so on. We’ll find him, and then we can move on to who killed him and why. You say you did him some injury?’
‘Yes, but not enough to kill him.’
‘Nasty business.’ Lodge drank some coffee. ‘Hard to understand the reasoning behind propping the chap up like that, dressed that way.’
‘And leaving the message for me,’ said Stella. ‘It frightens me.’
‘As it was meant to do,’ said Lodge. ‘Nice coffee.’ He finished his cup, replacing it on the tray. ‘He’s a frightener, this chap, that’s what he is.’ He thought about it. Or was.’
Stella said: ‘He had changed … that’s how it felt to me.’
‘As it happens,’ said Coffin tersely, ‘he is dead.’
‘Not long dead, so the police surgeon thought at the first look,’ Archie Young put in. ‘Matter of hours. Not killed on the spot, though. Probably killed by the stab wound, but he couldn’t be sure at that point. He had other wounds, made earlier so it seems. That would be when you had your struggle … And you don’t know where you were taken and detained?’
Stella shook her head. ‘No, I was bundled in the car, I saw the way at first, down towards the Spinnergate tube station, but then we shot into a maze of side streets … I suppose I should have tried to remember more.’
‘And when you escaped?’
‘I found the main road, and got on a bus …’
She knows more than she is saying, he decided. ‘You would have been confused,’ he said in a soothing voice.
He was talking for the sake of talking and he knew it. To see the pain on the face of the wife of your boss and find it mirrored in the eyes of the Chief Commander himself made it a very embarrassing occasion, but questions would have to be asked; he had put off talking to Stella long enough.
He lowered his eyes: they had to work through this on their own and come out the other side. If they could.
To his relief, his mobile phone rang. He looked at Coffin, who nodded. ‘Take it.’
Archie listened. ‘From the office,’ he said, then handed the telephone over to Coffin. ‘Here, see what you make of this.’
Coffin nodded. ‘Phoebe? Yes, go on, I’m listening … Where did you get this?’ He kept his eyes on Stella’s face as he talked. Other people do have miseries as well as me, he thought, I must get over this on my own. I am in love with her, but I don’t believe she is in love with me. Not any longer.
He put the receiver down, still looking at her. I remember happiness, he told himself. Well, let her hear this, see how she reacts.
‘Phoebe Astley had had a call from a friend who works in Summers Street substation. A doctor from Paget Road Hospital walked in with a report. A patient came in … said he had been attacked by a strange woman whom he did not know. She had bitten him, then knifed him. No, he had not attacked her back. No, he could not understand it, thought she must be mad. After he’d finished treating the man, the doctor asked him to wait, wondering if he should report it, but the man cleared off before he could stop him … After a bit the doctor thought he ought to refer the incident to the police. Which he did.’
‘And it got back to us?’ said Lodge thoughtfully.
‘Phoebe’s young friend is bright. And I’m sure that Phoebe has been making discreet soundings here and there. I’m not surprised she should come back with information, she does.’ Perhaps he wished she had not come back with this particular titbit.
There was silence in the room. Then Archie spoke.
‘Our dead body. He had a recently stitched wound.’
‘Looks like it,’ said Coffin.
‘Pip Eton.’ Stella bowed her head. ‘I suppose he would go to a hospital … It’s not true what he said, you know, the way he describes what happened. I was hurt by him … I suppose I did hurt him back. Did the doctor believe him?’
Coffin’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘As a matter of fact, no. Thought he was a liar.’
Stella said, ‘Thanks. I feel like crying.’
‘I think the doctor was puzzled by the wounds, and by the man, although he kept a professional silence.’ Coffin looked at his wife.
This is a private conversation, thought Archie Young. I shouldn’t be listening.
‘You should have gone to hospital yourself, Stella,’ said Coffin.
‘I was bleeding, I’m a good bleeder,’ Stella said, with melancholy pride. ‘I went to Maisie, she tidied me up. She did a first aid course once.’
Inspector Lodge was studying the Chief Commander’s face. ‘Is that all?’
Coffin withdrew his attention from his wife. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘Something else the doctor had to say: he thought that the patient had someone waiting for him … Apparently he went to the window to look out and saw him again … walking with someone, he thought, towards a car, but he was called away at that point so could not be sure.’
‘Could he see who?’ asked Lodge.
‘Not from what Phoebe’s heard,’ said Coffin, a trace of reluctance in his voice.
‘Sex? Man or a woman?’
‘Seen from the back: tall, wearing jeans, probably a woman, could have been a man.’
Lodge looked at Stella. No one could call her tall, nor manly.
‘Astley did well,’ said Archie Young, rising to his feet. ‘Got contacts all over the place and they work for her, I’ve noticed that before.’
‘She’s going round to the hospital to see the doctor herself.’
‘I shall go too, although I don’t suppose the doctor will have much to add,’ said Lodge. ‘But this man Eton seems to come into my territory.’ He turned to Stella. ‘I should like to talk to you again, if that is all right?’
Stella nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘I shall be present,’ said Coffin quickly.
‘Welcome it, sir,’ said Lodge.
He was punctilious, but his very politeness set a division between them.
Both Young and Lodge refused Stella’s offer of more coffee as they left.
‘What do you make of that?’ asked Archie Young, as they walked across the courtyard to where the police activity continued; SOCO were still taking photographs.
‘God knows.’
Lodge walked on in silence, then he said: ‘You realize that the killer must have come from the theatre?’
Archie nodded. ‘I had worked that out.’
‘I suppose it would be quiet enough to do a bit of killing there?’
‘In certain places, if you knew your way. I think so, yes.’
Of course, he might not have been killed there.’
‘No.’
They walked on, nearly up to where the police unit was working.
‘Terrorism doesn’t just come from outside,’ said Lodge heavily. ‘It’s inside, too. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘I think so.’
‘Has to be so in this case if the Eton chap – if that was his name, probably not his only one – was involved.’
Archie Young did not answer.
‘If you learn anything I ought to know, you will tell me?’ Lodge went on.
‘Of course.’
Lodge nodded. ‘We aren’t much liked, my sort. I can understand it.’
They had come up to the brighly lit enclosure now.
‘What’s the woman Astley like? I haven’t had much chance to get to know her. We will never be buddies. My sort and her sort don’t understand each other easily.’ He smiled wryly.
‘Good at her job.’
‘I got that. I don’t find it easy to work with women, but I can see I shall have to.’
‘Phoebe is easy.’ In some ways, while in other ways she was not, being immensely protective of her own territory,
but the Todger could find that out for himself. ‘She’s done some good work. Very good work.’
As it happened, Phoebe was ahead of them, talking to one of the workers. She nodded as they approached. ‘Hi.’
‘You came through with some interesting news,’ said Archie Young. ‘How did you get it?’
She shrugged. ‘Luck. My friend had passed the word, and then I was in Summers Street station talking to one of the CID sergeants; he was there when the doctor came in, the hospital where he has a clinic is a street or two away: Paget Street. The flat in Jamaica Place where the first dead man lived comes in the same precinct, so I’ve been in and out checking on this and that.’ She was carefully vague. One did not give too much away. ‘It was just a guess that this body had anything to do with the doctor’s story.’
‘We don’t know for sure that it has,’ said Archie, ‘but it makes a good guess. Miss Pinero was able to add something.’
Phoebe stared at him alertly, and then turned towards Inspector Lodge, who was looking down at the paper-clad corpse.
‘Not my man, anyway,’ he said. ‘That’s a relief, I can tell you.’
‘Did you think it would be him?’ Archie Young was surprised.
‘Always expect anything in this job. It’s a theatrical business.’
‘Yes, well, the theatre comes into it somewhere. He may even have been killed here. He was almost certainly undressed here and dressed again … On the other hand, perhaps not. Mustn’t take anything for granted. I can see you’ve noticed what the newspaper is.’
‘Yes,’ said Lodge. ‘We can all read, can’t we?’
The Stage.
Stella said: ‘Did you notice that he almost asked for your permission to cross-examine me?’
‘He’ll be correct.’ Coffin was quiet. ‘But it will have to be done.’
‘I’m sure of it. You’ll be there, anyway.’
‘I will.’ He patted the sofa. ‘Come and sit down, Stella. I want to say something.’ Yet he found it hard to get started. ‘Two men, killed for reasons we don’t know. One was a friend of Dennis Garden, and the other …’
‘I knew him, and I thought I’d be the one that was killed, not him.’
‘Why was he left like that? That’s a question to ask.’
Stella shook her head. ‘I didn’t kill him. I wouldn’t leave a message naming me. You do believe me?’
‘I believe you, Stella, but there is a link with the theatre … you saw what he was covered up in – I won’t say “dressed”?’
Stella looked at her hands. She was quiet for a minute, then she said: ‘Yes, with pages of The Stage. You would need more than one copy to dress a man.’ She raised her eyes to her husband. ‘We had quite a pile of back numbers in my office. I think they may have been used.’
‘And you can’t remember where you were imprisoned?’
Stella shook her head.
She knew that this denial would not hold for ever. In time she would talk, and answer questions.
Coffin would start probing, then Archie Young, then the man Lodge.
She began to think of what she would say. She usually had her best lines written for her, but this time she must write them herself.
Chapter 9
Those two great and dissimilar institutions the Police Force and the Theatre have one thing in common: loyalty. Whatever criticisms are spread within their ranks (and there is as much of that as anywhere else) are contained within it. Some may seep out and be picked up by outsiders, and the press is always on the lookout for something, but sticking together is more admired than gossiping beyond the walls.
Thus when Stella Pinero went into work the next morning no one reminded her, although they were all thinking about it, that she was under suspicion for two murders. There was plenty of police activity, but no one mentioned either killing to Stella. All were pleased to see her, possibly the more so because it meant that Letty Bingham would not be omnipresent. Letty’s commanding ways were not popular in the St Luke’s Theatre community, which preferred Stella’s more relaxed rule.
Alice, not as tidy as usual, greeted her with what was almost a smile from a young woman usually solemn of face. She was there as a protégée of John Coffin, which sometimes seemed to weigh on her, so although always polite to Stella, she was reserved, cautious. Stella herself wondered if the young woman disliked her, but that seemed too harsh a judgement on someone who worked so hard and whom she herself had tried to claim as a friend. ‘She’s unknowable,’ Stella once said to her husband. ‘Just shy really,’ he had answered. ‘Her father was a good copper, her mother was a bit of a wild one, so I’ve heard. Both dead, of course.’ Stella had said: ‘She’s not wild.’ Which was true, for Alice was solemn and quiet, so much so that her fellow thespians, although liking her, wondered whether the theatre world was the right life for her. She didn’t mix; when she did go out for a drink with the others or joined them for a snack in Max’s she was almost wordless, although showing herself to have a sharp sense of humour when she did speak. The current speculation among the company was that she was a bastard sprig of the Chief Commander’s and found her position embarrassing.
Stella did not know of this speculation, of course. ‘I’m glad to be back at work,’ she said simply to Alice.
Likewise John Coffin, who had walked into his office to be greeted politely by Paul Masters and handed a folder of papers. Several of these contained reports on the two murders. But there were other events in the Second City calling for the attention of the Chief Commander: an armed raid on a big bank in Spinnergate with one guard badly wounded; a fire raging in a railway tunnel, and the study of the two bombs.
Coffin had risen early, leaving a note for Stella and taking Augustus with him. After giving the dog a quick walk in the park across the road, he had put him in the car to wait while he talked to the police on duty outside the theatre complex.
The body had been taken away, but the forensic squad were still at work and looked like being there for some time.
‘Apparently happy, with a base of sadness,’ was Paul Masters’ judgement that day on his chief. He liked Stella Pinero – you couldn’t help it, she had such charm – but if there was to be a division of loyalties, then he was John Coffin’s man. Had to be.
There had always been what Paul thought of as a ‘streak of silence’ in Coffin, when he put on his official face and you got no further. He thought that this face was set firmly in position now.
‘Can’t blame the man,’ he muttered to himself as he went back to his own desk. The two secretaries looked at him curiously, waiting to see if he would say anything, pass any comment, and when he did not they went back quietly to their own work. Silence was the only thing just now.
But nothing could stop their thoughts. Sheila had a friend in St Luke’s. They’re all talking about the body in the theatre, wondering how anybody could have put it there with the place milling with people, let alone strip the man’s clothes off and get him dressed the way he was.
Coffin, too, was worrying away at this puzzle, although he knew miracles, even black ones, could be performed in the theatre.
Coffin worked through his papers, dictated a couple of letters, and answered several telephone calls. He did not want to talk to anyone and was glad not to have to. He and Stella had shared a bed but otherwise had not communicated; he hoped it was a loving silence, though he had his doubts. Love on his side, if mingled with a touch of anger, but what on Stella’s?
Slowly, he had to admit that there was a part of Stella’s story that he did not believe. She was not telling the truth.
So events were fizzing away inside him. Eventually he telephoned Archie Young, who was not available, and then Phoebe Astley, followed by Inspector Lodge. All of whom were denied him, and for whom he left terse messages.
‘Probably together, deliberately keeping out of my way while they work. I suppose it’s called tact,’ he decided morosely.
He waited, working on quietly, seeing
those people who had appointments with him, later taking a polite lunch with a visitor from abroad who might have been from outer space as far as Coffin was concerned.
Paul Masters witnessing the tight control the man was keeping over himself, became increasingly concerned about him. Paul was anxious on all levels, but he did not know what to do about it.
So far, neither Young nor Lodge nor Astley had rung back. Paul had made discreet enquiries himself to discover that all three were out of touch.
He did not accept this as natural, nor did he think the Chief Commander accepted it. For some reason they were keeping their distance.
Stella Pinero telephoned, but Paul had to say that the Chief was out giving lunch to a distinguished visitor from abroad but would be back soon. Did she wish to leave a message?
No message.
Stella picked up a note in his voice and bit her lip. She could imagine what was being said about her. She knew how much Coffin was admired and respected, so if she was thought to have harmed him, she would be pushed out into the cold. Nothing would be said, of course, but she would shiver. ‘I was only going to tell him about the The Stage newspapers, but he probably knows already.’
Her mind went back to that morning. She had awoken to find her husband gone, having left her a pot of coffee and a note on the table telling her not to worry. Fat chance, she thought, I am all worry.
Then she had picked her way through the police lines, being checked at intervals, and explaining who she was and that she was on the way to work. She was far from sure the identification helped, but it certainly aroused interest.
She turned away from the telephone, and stared down at her desk while admitting to herself that she felt frightened. No new feeling, of course; she was frightened before every first night, sometimes before every performance, all actors knew the feeling, but this was different. Much more sharply personal.
Alice put a cup of coffee down in front of her. ‘Brought you this.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You look as though you need it.’
She took a sip. ‘You’ve put sugar in.’
‘You want the energy.’
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