Cold Coffin

by Butler, Gwendoline

  ‘I thought I wasn’t. I knew you’d know.’

  Stella gave him a suspicious look.

  ‘Just so I know: who is?’

  ‘Of course there isn’t one. We don’t live like that.’

  ‘Glad to know it. So who rearranged my workroom?’

  Stella said that she supposed she had. And did it matter?

  ‘Not in itself, but there is the stranger in the corner. If it is a stranger; looks familiar to me.’

  ‘You know who it is?’ Stella was relieved. This was going to be easier than she had feared . . . Letty, Letty, what have you done to me? ‘You recognized the face?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was Julius Caesar.’

  ‘It’s from your sister, Letty, it’s a surprise.’

  ‘It was that all right.’

  ‘It’s by Elijah Jones, he’s a coming man, Letty thinks a lot of him. He’s a bit quirky, of course.’

  ‘He’s certainly that.’

  ‘You mean the third arm?’ said Stella nervously. ‘You may not have had a chance to see, but there’s another eye at the back of your head . . . It symbolizes what you are: someone who sees round corners and solves problems.’

  Letty Bingham was Coffin’s much younger half-sister; she had reappeared in his life just at the time when, finding his mother’s diary, he had concluded that, although long vanished, Mother might still be alive. Letty had grown up in the States, and was now a lawyer and a banker and rich. At intervals she descended upon the Second City to see her half-brother, sometimes with a new husband, sometimes newly divorced. Recently she had given up what she called ‘the marrying game’. Needless to say, she and Stella liked each other.

  ‘He’s getting famous and your bust will be very valuable in time,’ said Stella.

  ‘So I’m an investment now, am I?’ grumbled Coffin. ‘Well, the thing is in my way. Move it, please.’

  Nervously Stella said she thought she was hungry. ‘We didn’t eat much. Would you like some soup?’

  She couldn’t make soup, but she was good at opening tins, and these days the best soups came in cardboard containers that you kept in the fridge. She investigated and found none. Oh well, it would have to be hunger and bed.

  She knew how to make bed attractive.

  To her surprise, Coffin found the alternative attractive. He had been half asleep; now he woke up, pointing out that it was just as well there wasn’t a dog to take for a walk before going to bed.

  ‘You’re better than tomato soup,’ he said at one point, ‘but you smell of vanilla.’

  ‘It’s my new scent.’

  ‘What a shame, I thought you might be a new biscuit, edible of course. Vanilla cream . . . That third arm might have its uses now,’ he observed a little later on. ‘Not to mention various other bits of the anatomy.’

  Stella laughed.

  There was no more conversation for a bit, only what Coffin later called a congress of the spirit.

  Later still he said sleepily, ‘You will hide the bronze, won’t you? Don’t want to live with an elongated version of myself.’

  ‘I believe Letty will want to borrow it for an exhibition she is mounting in London.’

  ‘As long as my name is not on it.’ He was almost asleep.

  Stella did not tell him that his name and rank were inscribed on the back of the bronze head under the third eye.

  Chief Inspector Phoebe Astley was not sleeping well. The sex games she played with her friend Jo were just that, games, but she was beginning to be aware that they could fire into something more serious. The trouble was that she wanted a child, but she didn’t want a husband. Well, there were ways round that problem, and Jo knew them. She was a doctor, but her price would be a relationship with Phoebe. You ought to want a husband, she told herself, or anyone who would make a male partner, or just think of offspring from an anonymous source. Of course, it didn’t have to be anonymous, but it had to be said there were no eager applicants around at the moment.

  Her friendship with the Chief Commander, going back some years, frightened a lot of colleagues away.

  She turned over in bed, then reached out for a glass of water. Would the Chief Commander be prepared to make a helpful donation? Joke.

  She drank some more water. What a terrifying child it would be, with her genes and his.

  She lay back on her pillow, drifting towards sleep. She knew that she would never forget the infant skulls, first the little Neanderthal heads and then the collection in the medical museum. It was hard to know which was the most poignant.

  ‘I heard someone say that Neanderthals could not speak, they had no language. It’s thought they could make grunting noises but that their throats, tongues also, were the wrong shape for speech.’

  It made it worse to Phoebe that those long dead little creatures had had no names.

  An evolutionary change altered the shape of our throats and mouth, one which moved the tongue forward and shortened the jaw. Thus modern man learned to speak, and speaking pushed the Neanderthals into oblivion. They might, in their way, have been loving family creatures, but since they could not say so, they were lost.

  On the other hand, Phoebe remembered, they might have made a sacrificial offering of the infants. So they had gods whom they could not name but who demanded a tribute.

  As she relaxed into sleep, she drew up a list of what she should do in the morning, as she always did.

  Read the interview with the cousin Natasha and her husband, Jason, that Sergeant Helen Ash had undertaken. Helen was good at these sensitive first interviews, but she herself would conduct another questioning. Inspector Dover would be talking to the husband, Dave. Once again, Phoebe would talk to him.

  She would also interview the SOCO, studying his photographs and diagrams . . .

  Infant skulls again . . . She hoped he would be schematic about this, and not seek likenesses. She didn’t want to see infant faces staring back at her.

  Post-mortem on Dr Murray with the Chief Commander. Nice of him to come, if he did.

  She drifted into sleep.

  Sergeant Ash was gentle with Natty and Jason. She could see they were both in shock.

  ‘I would like to have seen my cousin . . . if it is her, it might have been someone else.’

  ‘Had you seen her before she was killed? In the evening, I mean?’

  Natty shook her head. ‘No, she was at her own home, waiting for her husband, they were going out to dinner when he got back, I think.’

  She dealt with Dave Upping even more tactfully. He repeated the story of being in Paris, providing the address: François, Rue du Bac. ‘You can check.’

  Ash smiled and nodded. So we will, she told herself, you can count on that. ‘I expert the Chief Inspector will want to speak to you tomorrow, sir.’

  When Ash had gone, Dave accepted a strong drink of whisky and allowed himself to be shepherded to bed. ‘I won’t sleep.’

  ‘No,’ said Natty. ‘I won’t either, but get some rest. It’s going to be a tough time.’

  She looked at her husband. ‘It’s going to be tough for us too. I’m frightened.’

  He put his arm round her. ‘We’ll come through.’

  Phoebe Astley was in the large room set aside as the Murder Room from early the next morning. Since it was a large room it was also being used by the other team she belonged to that was working on the Minden Street murders. She was now reading the transcript of Inspector Ash’s interviews. Ash had done a good job, but it was only a beginning. Phoebe would question them each herself.

  ‘Not much to be learned from what Ash has got as yet,’ she thought, as she put the files of reports aside. After some consideration she picked up the file on the Minden Street killings. Inspector Dover and his deputy had put this and various artefacts together on a table; next to it, on a larger table, lay the women’s bloodstained clothes, together with a few personal possessions.

  Clothes after forensic examination, neatly folded and packaged in plastic bags, so
me blood showing.

  Shoes, handbags. Three handbags, one for each woman. These too were wrapped in plastic. Beside them, but in separate plastic covers, were lipsticks, powder compacts and several opened letters. The letters had been neatly arranged in a pile.

  Other objects had been removed from the house for forensic examination. Cups, glasses and knives and forks. There was one photograph in a silver frame. The face, that of a man, seemed familiar. ‘With love from Jack’ was scrawled across the bottom of the picture. That made it Black Jack Jackson, ten years younger.

  Reluctantly Phoebe was accepting that he was still the most likely killer of his sisters and his mother.

  She turned to the file of notes that Dover and Co. had left . . . not Dover she suspected; he had delegated that task.

  Very little had been made of the photograph, except for identifying it and adding the note that he had been interviewed.

  Then there was a list of people and addresses named in the letters with the note ‘Not yet interviewed’.

  Josie Aspinall.

  Geoff Gish.

  Mrs Lirie at the fish shop.

  Dr Murray.

  That name meant something to Phoebe, as she knew it would to Coffin. Interested to see what more she could find out, she turned to the letters.

  There was nothing she could find that appertained to Dr Murray other than her name on an envelope.

  Was the envelope to her or from her or just a note of her name? Impossible to tell, but it made a link between the two murders. Whoever had killed the other victims maybe had Dr Murray in mind.

  It was still very early morning, but she was so anxious to get in touch that she picked up the telephone. The Chief Commander had better be an early riser. In the old days he had been.

  Stella answered the telephone. ‘Good morning, Phoebe.’

  ‘Can I speak to the Chief Commander?’

  ‘He’s still asleep.’ Then Stella added thoughtfully, ‘But I can wake him up.’

  ‘No need,’ called a voice. ‘I’m awake. Any coffee going?’ He walked over to the telephone. ‘That you, Phoebe?’

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘No one but you would call at this hour of the morning. And it’s the Minden Street murders, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve found a connection with Dr Murray? You’ve found the weapon?’

  ‘No, but there is an envelope with her name on it. The writing has not yet been identified.’

  ‘Get hold of Jack Jackson. It may be his. Get hold of him, anyway.’

  Jack had taken himself off, but the police were looking.

  ‘He was questioned when the three bodies were found. Inspector Dover talked to him.’

  ‘Bring him in again. But handle him quietly.’

  ‘Yes, right,’ said Phoebe. She hesitated before reminding him that he had felt sure Black Jack was not a killer. ‘Are you suggesting he also killed Dr Murray?’ She was crossing her fingers.

  ‘I know what I said about him not being killer material. I still think that’s the case, but I would like to see him faced with a few questions. I want to question him.’

  ‘What about the PM on Dr Murray?’

  ‘See if you can get that rearranged. Who’s down to do it?’

  Phoebe consulted her notes. ‘Dr Everle . . . he’s easy, he won’t mind.’ Probably had a stack of bodies lined up. There had been a bad coach crash the day before and a couple of suicides in the river.

  ‘Right.’

  Jack was already out in the streets, walking. Early morning or late night were all one to him; this was when he liked to walk. Everyone has their habits and this was his, well known to his associates and the police.

  5

  Saturday, very early.

  Jack Jackson, revelling for the moment in his nickname Black Jack, strolled through the streets of the Second City. He had just had a spat with Mimsie Marker, who was tidying her stall before setting up the papers for the early-morning travellers. It was always hard to know when Mimsie slept. A quarrel with Mimsie was one of his treats, setting him up for the day, and he suspected that Mimsie felt the same: they both enjoyed a rousing disagreement. They had known each other since childhood, when they had attended the same school and sat side by side on a double bench, pushing at each other and squabbling. Honours were about equal in those battles, and fondly remembered, but their ways had parted as they grew up, except when they met at Mimsie’s paper stall.

  While not offering him any sympathy for the deaths of the women in Minden Street (it was always hard to know what to say to Jack that was not a well-turned insult or a joke), she was one of those who knew he was no killer.

  She gave his departing back a wave while she sold the next customer a paper and a sandwich. As she did so, she totted up the extra profits that were coming her way since she had added soft drinks and sandwiches to the stall.

  ‘No,’ she said to the customer. ‘That was not the man whose mother and sisters had been murdered.’

  The customer leaned forward to tap Mimsie’s arm. ‘You want your eyes tested, Mimsie Marker, or to get counselling, because you’ve lost it. That was Black Jack. I think I’ll follow him.’ And the customer passed on, neglecting to pay for the sandwich so that Mimsie ground her teeth in anger.

  Jack Jackson turned into the narrow alley, officially Watermen’s Row but known locally as Piss Passage, which led to the riverside near where he lived. When he moved out of the Minden Street establishment (by mutual consent), he had bought a loft conversion above an old factory. To his surprise, another small factory had moved in so that there were now women busy sewing away at T-shirts while he lived in his large empty space above. He liked it rather than otherwise; he could hear the machines going and the women laughing and talking. Not a word of English, but who minded?

  He would miss what he called ‘the Minden Street gang’, because in his own way he had loved them. Quarrel yes, but retain a liking and respect, oh yes.

  He knew he was top of the list of suspects. Probably the only suspect. If the police could have found any evidence or even a motive that pointed at him, then he would have been inside, but they had nothing. Fair enough, since he had not killed his mother and sisters.

  Nor did he have any idea who had done it. He had just one thing his mother had said to him in the week before the murder.

  ‘Know what, I feel worried. I feel like there’s a hand on my neck.’

  ‘Oh go on, Mum. Not like you.’

  ‘Do you know that man Coffin?’

  ‘I know Coffin,’ he had said in a level voice.

  ‘I think I’ll have a talk with him.’

  ‘You do that, Mum.’

  But she had died before she could. ‘I’ll have that talk with Coffin,’ he said to himself. ‘I can do that for her.’

  He heard the soft shuffle of feet, moving quietly. He was a loud mover himself. He swung round.

  ‘Hello.’ He was surprised. He was opening his mouth to say something else when the bullet sliced into his neck.

  A voice spoke quietly into his ear. ‘Sorry you didn’t get done with the others. I would have done you with them, if you had been there. Not that you were paid for, you understand; I did you for free.’

  Jack slid to the ground, sightless and speechless. ‘I will not die,’ he said to himself. ‘I will not die.’

  But he had the terrible feeling that this was him dying.

  ‘No Christmas for me,’ he said on a dying breath. “Why me? Why do I have to die?’

  6

  Saturday, but no weekend.

  Coffin had known even before he woke up, summoned back to life by Phoebe’s telephone call, that it was going to be a difficult day. He would go to the PM on Dr Murray as promised.

  Stella too knew it was not going to be one of those easy days. She had rolled over on her pillow and without opening her eyes asked him what he had been muttering about in the night.

  ‘I don’t know. What d
id I say?’

  Stella opened her eyes. ‘Well, you didn’t say: Darling Stella, what a perfect wife you are and how heavenly to have you by my side.’

  It was at this point that she had got up, put on her favourite pink silk dressing gown, and gone to make the coffee. She took a sneaking pleasure in being well dressed when speaking to Phoebe, wearing something Phoebe could not afford nor would have chosen if she could. Phoebe could be an intimidating person when she chose, so Stella liked to have her own weapons ready.

  Stella served the coffee in her own special china, bought when she had been acting in a play about an aristocratic comedy of the eighteenth century called The King and Lady Bunbury.

  ‘I don’t know if I muttered last night, but I couldn’t sleep well,’ said Coffin as he accepted the cup.

  ‘It shows,’ said Stella dispassionately. ‘You’re getting too old to go without your sleep.’

  ‘Five o’clock in the morning, or is it later?’

  ‘Six,’ said Stella. ‘Nearly.’ A bit of a lie; it was nearer five.

  ‘Six o’clock, you haven’t slept well and you are dragged out of bed with a piece of information that might or might not be important in a murder case. How would you look?’ He drained the cup. ‘And I’ve got the feeling that there’s worse to come.’

  ‘Do you think Phoebe rang that early on purpose?’

  ‘Why should she do that?’

  Stella shrugged. Well, who knows? the shrug said.

  Even as she spoke, the telephone rang again. ‘Your turn,’ she said to Coffin.

  ‘Hello.’

  She saw him frown. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  She could hear Phoebe’s voice, easy to recognize her tones, but this time her voice was high, shrill, not like her usual voice at all.

  ‘Wait, wait, hold your breath. Don’t start being too clever, Phoebe.’

  Phoebe said something out of which Stella picked the word ‘dead’.

  ‘Dead or not dead . . . I can’t get the hang of this on the telephone . . . Come across and talk here. Stella will give you some coffee.’ He looked towards Stella who nodded.

  ‘Who’s dead?’

  ‘Black Jack . . . someone’s put a bullet through his throat. He may not be dead. His heart stopped but the doctors are working on it.’