Cold Coffin

by Butler, Gwendoline

  Behind him, Phoebe said, ‘Look who’s there.’

  In a car outside, Natasha and her husband Jason and Margaret Murray’s husband Dave sat together, watching.

  They knew what had been going on inside.

  ‘I expect he wonders how we knew the hour and the day,’ said Natty. In fart she worked three days a week at the medical library, and she knew and was known by most of the staff, from cleaners like Joe and Sam to the Chief Librarian himself.

  She had not wanted to come.

  ‘I needed to be here,’ said Dave.

  ‘Sure,’ said Jason. ‘We understood, didn’t we, Natty?’ He wound down the car window and nodded to Coffin.

  ‘We don’t have to speak to the police,’ said Natasha. ‘Not now, not at this minute. It’s private.’

  Coffin walked over.

  ‘We don’t have to introduce ourselves, do we?’ Natasha was aggressive. ‘And we know why you are here. Do the police always attend?’

  ‘Usually,’ said Coffin mildly.

  ‘But not the big boss himself.’

  ‘Pipe down, Natty,’ said Dave. ‘She’s upset, Mr Coffin. We all are, but we wanted to come . . . well, I did. It’s a part of mourning.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Well, maybe. I reckon you have to have it happen to you in your own body. You were there in the way of business.’ He was not so friendly as he had seemed at first.

  Coffin did not answer.

  ‘So, what was the verdict? Or do we have to wait for the inquest? There will be an inquest?’ Definitely not friendly now.

  ‘There will be an inquest,’ agreed Coffin. Then he stopped.

  ‘Of course,’ said Phoebe from behind. ‘Dr Murray died from a gunshot wound from a 9mm revolver.’

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Phoebe. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Didn’t take much really, did it?’ said Dave. ‘Just one little shot and she was a goner.’

  ‘We’ll get the killer,’ said Phoebe.

  Dave wound up the window, put the car into gear, and drove off.

  ‘Thanks for taking over,’ said Coffin to Phoebe.

  ‘I was afraid you were going to say we had no idea who the killer was and might never find him,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘I was terrified myself I would do just that.’

  Coffin put Phoebe in her car and walked back to his office the same way he had come.

  If he took a pace or two to the right, he would come to the place where the pool of infant heads had been found. If he looked hard he could see the roof of the house in Minden Street where Janey Jackson and her two daughters had died. And on his left was the university block where Dr Murray had been shot.

  Murder all around him, but what he could not see were any answers.

  The murder of Dr Murray had to be linked to the murders of the Jackson family. Why it was necessary or desirable or good sport to kill Black Jack as well, Coffin could not decide.

  He remembered the collection of infant skulls arranged around Dr Murray, as if in imitation of those found earlier.

  There was the blood all around her, not all hers.

  Blood and bones, that was what this case was all about.

  On impulse, he walked round to the excavation where the infant Neanderthal skulls had rested. The water had drained away from the pit, which was now dry and neat. Two workmen were busy arranging a plastic covering. One man was tall and very thin, the other short and square.

  ‘All tidied away, sir,’ said the tall one. ‘The vicar came along and said a prayer over them. Couldn’t stop him.’

  ‘Perhaps he was right,’ said the short man.

  ‘They’d been dead a long while. Too late to do them much good, I reckon, Jigger.’

  ‘No,’ said Jigger. ‘You don’t know about time, do you, sir? It may go round in a kind of circle so that it was always today for those little kids.’

  Coffin accepted this without smiling, not sure where to put his feet in this philosophical mud. Vague memories of J.B. Priestley’s three time plays, which Stella had produced and starred in, rose in his mind. ‘Could be, I suppose.’ It certainly was not a day he wanted repeated. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure he wanted life repeated at all.

  ‘Don’t think I want to be stuck here with you for ever,’ said the tall man.

  ‘We wouldn’t know. Always a fresh moment in time to us, Pete, no matter how many times we went round.’

  ‘See what I have to put up with, sir?’ complained Pete.

  * * *

  Back in his office, Coffin called Phoebe Astley. ‘What’s become of the infant skulls?’

  ‘Being looked after at the university. It seems they are of great archaeological importance.’

  ‘And the other, newer skull?’

  ‘That’s different. Forensics still have it.’

  ‘I see.’

  No you don’t, thought Phoebe, I can tell it in your voice. You’re cross.

  Coffin was not cross, but he was puzzled and depressed.

  ‘What about the blood found with Dr Murray?’

  ‘The blood that was not hers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, there we might have something . . . The hospital has an HIV clinic, a check is being made on the blood groups of any that matches the blood . . . When we get them, then we can interview all the names.’

  He thought about it. ‘What happens to blood? It doesn’t just float around loose.’

  ‘I asked about that, of course. If there is any quantity of blood, it is bottled. Sometimes it is washed and liquid is added, and it is used if a transfusion to that patient is necessary.’

  ‘The blood is important,’ said Coffin slowly.

  Phoebe made a grunting assent.

  ‘How do you rate it? Are you and your team coming to think of it as a serial killer at work?’ Who might never be caught? He did not say this aloud, but it was there in his voice.

  ‘It’s coming that way,’ admitted Phoebe.

  7

  Saturday still, and on to Monday.

  Stella was waiting for him, and the little cat was on a cushion in a small basket. It looked new.

  ‘I bought them for her,’ said Stella proudly. ‘The vet said I had a natural touch with her. He’s one of my fans.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘Comes to everything I perform in.’

  Coffin looked at the very pretty and, he had to say, expensive-looking basket and cushion. ‘Did you buy the basket from him?’

  ‘No, of course not, but he told me where to go in the covered market. An animal charity has a stall there; the profits, or some of them, go to the charity.’ . The kitten sitting up in the basket looked a good deal better but was still giving Coffin a cold stare. Which was hard, he thought, as he was the cat lover.

  ‘Watch it, cat,’ he said. ‘You’re only here on approval.’

  ‘Oh no, she isn’t.’ Stella was quick. ‘This is her home • now.’

  ‘And she’s not pregnant?’

  ‘He says not.’ Stella was quick to pick things up; she now sensed that all was not well with Coffin. ‘What is it? Is Black Jack dead?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘It’s a bloody, violent business that I can’t see the way through. That’s not how it usually is with me. I’m used to knowing the way. I don’t mean I always know the answer, because I don’t, but I always feel the way to go.’

  ‘All the deaths are the work of one killer, aren’t they, though?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ He sat slumped in his chair; the kitten from her basket stared at him.

  Stella came over, stroked the cat, then touched Coffin’s forehead. ‘You are a bit hot.’

  ‘I’m not ill,’ he said irritably.

  Stella looked at herself in the looking-glass over the fireplace and smoothed her hair. ‘I’m off to the theatre. I have a production meeting. Shouldn’t last more than an hour. We’ll eat
when I get back. I’ll leave you to look after the cat.’ At the door she added, ‘There’s cold chicken if you get hungry and can’t wait.’

  Coffin looked at the cat. ‘I don’t fancy cold chicken, do you?’

  The cat’s expression did not change.

  ‘I don’t suppose you ought to eat it anyway, you being so small. Special cat food, something like that.’ He went down the staircase to the kitchen. As he passed, he stroked the kitten’s head. ‘Come on, say something. Say you would help me if you could.’

  The telephone rang. The house phone, not his mobile. The number was supposed to be protected, secret, but Stella was quite reckless in the way she passed it out. Business, she said.

  ‘Hello.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Who is that?’

  Distantly, he heard a laugh, and, ‘Gotcha, Coffin.’

  Then a voice said, ‘I hate you, Coffin.’

  Coffin did not answer. And you aren’t the only one. I am not universally loved. Au contraire.

  The voice started again: it was very soft, distant. But I can bear it, Coffin thought, I have been here before.

  ‘I may include your wife in this.’ A noise like a laugh. ‘Thinking about it.’

  Coffin put the telephone down while the voice was still talking, softer now, more like a whisper.

  Walker? Was that the word? Or just walking? Or did he say he hated the Walkers? And softly, a word that sounded like babies. Hate for the babies? He debated whether to report the call. It would probably be pointless but, on the other hand, if he didn’t report it and anything happened, he would be at fault. Moreover, Stella had been mentioned. Yes, he must report it.

  Sergeant Marsh on the Aware desk – a name given by Coffin himself to a unit dealing with threats to anyone – was the one to call. He duly did so.

  ‘Right, sir, see what we can do,’ replied Marsh, courteous and helpful as always. You have to sound confident and cheerful, he had said once, it’s part of the job, even though you know there’s not much chance of your getting anything positive done. You can perhaps trace a phone call or an anonymous letter or someone leaving filthy rubbish on your doorstep or daubing your wall, but clearing up the emotion that lies behind it – well, that’s different.

  ‘Miss Pinero was mentioned, so I have to take it seriously.’

  ‘I always do, sir.’

  And so he did. But serious, with what you might call forward action, was not always possible, however much he saw the need for action.

  ‘Let me know what you get . . . if anything,’ said Coffin.

  Marsh agreed that he would certainly do so, sir.

  When Stella came back, she was surprised to find Coffin pacing the room. The cat was asleep in her basket.

  ‘I thought you’d be either asleep or drinking.’

  ‘Oh thanks.’

  ‘No offence meant,’ Stella said, with apology in her voice.

  ‘I’d be glad to think of your being either . . . I’ll have a drink myself. You can get me one.’

  She watched while he poured some wine, red and glossy. ‘You must think I need building up. That’s what claret does, doesn’t it?’

  He poured out another glass for himself, looked at the cat, wondered if cats drank claret, remembered that none he had previously known had done, and replied, ‘So they say.’

  ‘And you think that I need it?’

  ‘I reckon I do,’ he said unhappily. ‘Stella, darling, I just don’t see my way through this.’

  Stella stared. ‘You never call me darling, not when you are sane.’

  ‘I’m mad, then.’

  ‘What’s it about, my love?’

  ‘And you don’t call me that unless you are flaming mad with me.’

  Their eyes met and they both started to laugh. Coffin reached out and hugged his wife.

  ‘The fact is that I had one of those threatening telephone calls while you were out.’

  ‘Here?’ She was surprised, the number of their St Luke’s home was private. Supposed to be; she always had guilty feelings about how casual she was with it.

  ‘Yes, that’s interesting. He got it somehow.’

  ‘It was a man?’

  Thoughtfully, Coffin said, ‘I think it was. Not a very deep voice.’

  ‘In my craft we know what you can do with voices,’ pointed out Stella. ‘I wish I’d heard. I might have been able to tell.’

  ‘You can listen to the recording.’ There always was a recording. He hesitated, ‘I ought to tell you, there is a threat against you too.’

  As always she could surprise him. ‘Well, I’d guessed that. You wouldn’t be floundering around in this way if it was only you.’

  ‘It’s what’s known as the male protective syndrome,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘It has happened to me before,’ Stella reminded him. ‘Remember the thug who tried to rape me, and Gus and I bit him? And the Barlow twins? Sue Ann would have killed me if she could. She did have a go.’

  The Beautiful Barlow Twins, so called by the media, had been torn apart by the jealousy Sue Ann had felt for Bobby Barlow’s interest in Stella. Bobby and Sue Ann Barlow were acrobats and specialist dancers performing in Stella’s Experimental Theatre during the Christmas season three years ago. Their father was Bert Barlow, the poet, so they were known as the intellectual acrobats, and indeed part of their performance was taken from Indian and Chinese sources. Stylistically, anyway.

  Twins claim a special relationship, closer than ordinary siblings, which Sue Ann demonstrated by resenting any other woman who came close to Bobby. Quite a few did, as he was a lad with a wide range of tastes in styles, age and sex, which perhaps added a touch of sourness to Sue Ann’s jealousy when his feeling for Stella became loud, strong and persistent.

  ‘Still, she wasn’t the worst one, although she did threaten to strangle me. Made it sound very real, that threat. Still, I knew it would end at the close of the season when Bobby forgot me.’

  ‘I think she was worried that you wouldn’t forget him,’ said Coffin wryly. He had not enjoyed the episode of the Heavenly Twins (their stage name).

  ‘No fear there. No, the worst was the nameless voice that would ring with hate threats. I did dislike him. It was a him, I think.’

  ‘Yes, that wasn’t nice,’ said Coffin with a frown. ‘Just stopped, didn’t it? Marsh thought it was probably the chap whose body was floating in the river about that time. He had a bad mental history . . . You never let me know how frightened you were.’

  Stella just shrugged.

  ‘Nor did you tell me that Sue Ann had a go.’

  ‘That was theatre business,’ said Stella; she had very strong proprietary feelings where her theatre was concerned. ‘Not a very serious attempt. Bobby stopped her. That was what she wanted really, proved how much she mattered to him.’

  ‘I would have killed her if she had touched you.’

  ‘That would have helped ticket sales, wouldn’t it?’ said Stella. ‘It was at Christmas too. Finances were on a knife-edge that season.’

  Coffin gave her a long, searching look, and apparently was satisfied with what he saw there. ‘Devil,’ he said fondly.

  All the same, he told himself as Stella went to be womanly in the kitchen to work out what they would eat, all the same, I will watch over her.

  And the Security Outfit of the Second City Force would watch over them both. But cynically, sometimes he wondered how much that meant. He had the impression that the same selective behaviour was going on in the Lumsden case.

  They were going slow, seeing the best side of things at present. Maybe they didn’t like Lumsden all that much as a person, but he was one of them, and that counted.

  Like if I killed Stella, Coffin told himself; they’d knock themselves to bits proving it was an accident or that she did it herself in a clumsy moment.

  He walked into the kitchen, where Stella was standing in front of the freezer looking thoughtful. Housekeeping was not her strongest
point.

  ‘We can eat out,’ said Coffin.

  Stella shook her head. ‘No, I can put something together.’

  Coffin’s spirit sagged. He took his eating seriously. Something put together sounded depressing. Silently and without complaint, he left her to it.

  The gods seemed to be indicating how he should fill in the time, so he dialled Inspector Fisher’s Incident Room way over the other side of Spinnergate. Someone would be there, even if the Inspector himself was not. Fisher handled in person all important missing people, of which the Second City had more than the usual supply.

  Fisher was there, however, and prepared to be grumpy at being disturbed when he was on the point of going home, except that the moment he recognized the Chief Commander’s voice he changed, not to sweetness, that not being in his nature, but to great courtesy.

  ‘Evening, sir. You’ve been getting our reports, I hope?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ And nothing much in them.

  ‘The main thing is that Lumsden wants to come to work . . . says that the postcard proves his wife is alive and off because she wants to be. He claims she must have a lover.’

  There was a question in Fisher’s voice. He wants me to decide this question, Coffin thought. For a moment he was silent, then the warning bird came to sit on his shoulder.

  ‘Leave it for another week or so. Say two weeks.’

  Fisher came back promptly. ‘Yes, sir, just what I thought myself.’

  He’s glad I’ve taken him off that particular hook, Coffin thought. It’s what he wanted. The signal here was clear: Fisher was not convinced of Lumsden’s innocence. In fact, probably just the opposite: he thinks Lumsden is guilty. Guilty, at the very least, of frightening away his wife, and, at the worst, of killing her and hiding the body.

  Well hidden too, Coffin thought sourly.

  Stella reappeared with the news that the meal was ready. A succulent smell followed her up the stairs. Coffin was surprised: salads and coffee, Stella was good at, but not food that smelt so tasty.

  He gave her a suspicious look. On the kitchen table, a hot pie was surrounded by an array of vegetables, which had the look, so strange to English eyes, of being all different colours and shapes and only half cooked.

  Stella saw him looking. ‘Good for you to chew your vegetables.’