Coffin in Fashion

by Gwendoline Butler

  As far as Gabriel saw it, that was how that matter rested, but she could see that the workrooms couldn’t leave it there. They enjoyed the idea, whether they would admit it or not, that their employer might be mixed up with murder. It gave them a thrill. Murder of a child was the English crime.

  ‘I don’t see Rose as a child murderer.’

  ‘I’m not saying so. Of course not. None of us would say that. But she came into work with red eyes. She’d been crying.’

  Gabriel shrugged. ‘Leave it.’

  ‘I don’t think we can. The boy that is missing, the one with the red boots, is nephew to Lily Bates.’

  Lily Bates was one of the older members of the sewing room; she had worked in Bianca Mosca’s salon as an apprentice before her marriage and was much respected by her fellows.

  Gabriel looked down at her hands.

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘You don’t know everything on the shop floor. Anyway, Lily’s been away sick. But she’s back today. We have to say something to Rose.’

  ‘I suppose what you are saying is that if I don’t, then Lily will.’

  ‘She’s come back to say something. Have you seen her?’

  Gabriel hesitated. ‘You don’t mean she’d attack Rose?’

  Shirley gave a shrug. ‘If she thinks Rose or her son know anything about her nephew, then I think she’d tear them apart to find out.’

  ‘The police can’t think so.’ If they had then they’d have hung on to Steve. Of course, he was only a kid, but still …

  From the door Dagmar said: ‘Thought I’d find you two here.’ She made it an accusation. ‘Mrs Hilaire wants you, Shirley … And Gaby, we can’t match the trimmings for the blue chiffon shirt dress, not at our price … Rose says it’s up to you.’

  She let the door shut with a bang. No other comment was needed.

  Shirley said without rancour: ‘She heard all that. She’ll go straight to Rose.’

  ‘Save us, then!’

  Gaby opened the rest-room door and, still clutching her mug of coffee, sped off down the passage to the stockrooms; she knew from experience that the discord usually started there. Even when she had gone to considerable trouble to find trimmings that were right and at the agreed price, they usually got it wrong. Like all well-trained recruits from Paradise Street, she suspected graft somewhere. Probably someone’s cousin somewhere had a factory that … She never had to finish the sentence, but ended with the word money.

  As she sped along she did not miss the air of suppressed excitement everywhere. So they did really believe that Steve Hilaire was in trouble. Nasty.

  Ted Tipper hurried through the corridors, he felt the atmosphere and did not enjoy it. A whole workforce of women alarmed him anyway. He passed Gabriel warily, she was not one of those he specially feared, but you had to be careful. He went into the cubbyhole he had built for himself out of packing boxes so that he could swallow an indigestion tablet in private. No one had any idea of the pressures a man could be under.

  Gabriel had a rapid and scorching interview with Theda, the head of the stockroom, then turned into her art-room. She was immediately aware that there was someone there: Sitting in her chair, and staring out of the window.

  ‘Lily!’ The last person she had expected in her room, where hardly anyone came. Dagmar penetrated occasionally and so did Shirley. Rose rarely. She summoned you when she wanted you, a pattern of behaviour that Gabriel meant to emulate in her turn one day.

  ‘Lily, what is it? Do you want me?’

  Lily did not move, she hardly looked at Gabriel. ‘No. This is the only quiet place I could find to be on my own. And I wanted a rest.’

  ‘You don’t look well.’

  And it was true. Lily, who never looked robust, was pinched and frail with a blue mark like a bruise on each cheekbone beneath the eyes.

  ‘I’ve just had a bit of bad news.’

  ‘Oh Lily, what?’ Gabriel drew up the only other chair and sat down beside her.

  Musingly, almost to herself, Lily said: ‘Gave it to myself, you might say.’

  Gabriel sat quiet.

  ‘You know what I’m talking about?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Gabriel bent her head. ‘Your nephew.’

  ‘Yes … Been gone for weeks. Dear little chap. Always small for his age, but wiry. Called me Aunty Billy for Best-loved Aunt Lily.’ Then she said, ‘You heard about his boots?’

  ‘Yes.’ What else was there to say?

  ‘I’ve been away ill … Not so much ill as upset. Not mental.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Nothing like that. Doctors said I should have a rest from work. Put me on Valium. Ever had it?’

  Gabriel shook her head.

  ‘I knew I’d got to come back when I heard last night about Steve having the boots … and that other little boy’s body.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was a boy, that wasn’t in the papers. Are you sure you aren’t jumping to conclusions?’

  ‘The policeman that lives in the house is a friend of a neighbour, he let him know.’

  ‘Good lord, that’s what he is: a policeman.’ Gabriel had wondered what John Coffin worked at and now she knew.

  ‘Yes … A little lad, it was. Been there some time.’

  ‘Well, then it’s not your nephew.’

  ‘The police think he might be another one. One in a row.’

  It was possible. If there was one murdered boy there might be another. But at the moment the connection must be mostly in the mind, although she could understand how Lily’s imagination must seize upon it. Unless the police had some hard information making a connection that Coffin had not passed on to Lily’s friend. That was possible too.

  ‘That’s just pub talk.’

  ‘No, I found something.’ She dropped the statement into the conversation like a lead weight.

  Gabriel felt it hit her.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’ But Lily stayed still without moving. ‘Know the rest-room?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Know the little cupboard under the washbasins?’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ She had never investigated it. As far as she knew, clean paper towels, fresh soap and rolls of lavatory paper were kept in it.

  Gabriel followed Lily down the corridor. There was one solitary woman standing staring at her face in the mirror over the washbasins.

  ‘My poor face,’ she said without looking at them. ‘Disaster.’ Then she put some more lipstick on, a pale intense colour with a lot of blue in it, and walked out, still without looking at them.

  Lily had behaved as if she was not there. Nor did she act as if she saw anyone else; Gabriel began to feel she was not there either.

  Lily advanced towards the cupboard and pulled open the door. ‘Take no notice of her, she’s never had any time for herself since her husband left her.’

  ‘I didn’t think you noticed her.’

  ‘She’s always in here.’ Lily was digging away in the back of the cupboard. She sat back on her heels, digging away like a little animal. ‘What upsets her is he didn’t leave her for anyone else … He moved out to a place in Wapping and is growing his hair long and wearing a white smock, I saw him the other day when he came back to get some money out of her.’ A roll of lavatory paper arrived at Gabriel’s feet. ‘Here. Look … I didn’t touch it, I wanted a witness.’

  So that’s what I am, thought Gabriel, I’m a witness.

  ‘You’ll have to get down.’

  Gabriel obligingly crouched on her knees to look inside the cupboard.

  ‘Right at the back …’

  Nervously Gabriel put her head in the cupboard, wondering what she was going to find. Nothing dead?

  ‘I found it when I was looking for fresh soap.’

  Not true, thought Gabriel at once, you were looking.

  At the back of the cupboard she saw a small bundle of crumpled cloth. It had once been white but was now discoloured.
Nor did she believe that Lily had left it untouched. To her it looked as though it had been screwed up in a tighter ball: you could see the stained folds.

  ‘So what is it?’

  Lily hardly bothered to hide that she had had a closer look. ‘I think it’s Ephraim’s pants. His cotton underpants.’

  ‘Oh, Lily, you can’t know. Just an old rag used for cleaning the floor.’

  ‘Rubbish. I’m going to get it out. You watch, and remember what you see.’

  She drew out the bundle and slowly opened it out. It might once have been a boy’s underpants, or part of them. It was no longer a complete anything. And very stained with some dark stuff.

  ‘It’s a rag, just a rag.’ Gabriel looked at Lily. ‘Truly, it could be anything. Just a bit of cloth for cleaning the floor.’

  She knew she wasn’t going to carry conviction, she read the determination in Lily’s face.

  ‘No, it’s his, and that’s blood.’ Lily pointed to the stains, blotchy and thunderous. ‘Blood that someone has tried to wash out and failed.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And look at the bottom of the cupboard.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gabriel thoughtfully. Where the bundle had rested was an area of stained board that seemed to take its shape from what had sat on it. In an uncertain voice, she said, ‘If you’re really worried you’d better tell the police.’

  Lily gave her a brilliant smile. ‘Something else to do first.’

  Rose was sitting at her desk. She had been crying, the gossips were quite right, the shock of what had happened to her had been considerable. She did not know why her son had the other lad’s red boots in his sports bag, but she accepted his story that he had not put them there. Hard, though, to believe there was not more to the story than he was telling. She could sense trouble hanging over him. He was not telling everything. No doubt the police felt the same way, but they had kept his bag and let Steve himself depart.

  When they got home he had gone straight up to his room and closed the door. She heard the lock turn. No more talking between them.

  Later she carried up a tray of food and knocked on his door. ‘I’ve brought you your supper, Steve … Made your favourite scrambled eggs on fried bread. Then some apple tart with cream.’ One constant had remained between them until now: she had known what he liked to eat and had laboured to produce it. ‘Come on now, open up. You know you must be hungry.’

  Silence and silence again. Perhaps if we had a telephone each we could talk, she thought with a bitter humour.

  In the end she left the tray outside his room and went to bed. It was gone in the morning and the plate and knife and fork washed up and put away.

  While she was standing by the kitchen sink with a cup of black coffee, Steve came down the stairs dressed for school.

  ‘Don’t go to school.’ It wasn’t going to be easy for him. ‘Have the day at home. I’ll write a note or telephone … You can go tomorrow.’ Or even later; a week might not be too long to hide.

  He shook his head, walked past her and out of the door. He was going to be very, very early for morning school, but apparently even that was better than staying in the house with her.

  She put the coffee down and began to get herself ready for work, checking her make-up and patting her pocket for the car keys. Not there. Well, she’d had them last night so they couldn’t be far, but the spare keys hung on the rack in the kitchen and she could take those.

  The spare keys were there all right, but not where she kept them. She was methodical about where different keys hung, priding herself on the routine. Now the spare car keys were hung on top of a set of house keys. Carelessly, casually.

  The act had Steve’s signature all over it, almost as if he wanted her to see and know what he had done. What had he done? Had he taken the keys and played around with the car?

  She replaced the keys where they should go. One of those nights, she thought, when I took a sleeping tablet. No, not the night, doesn’t even have to be the night. Early morning would do. No one around. Perhaps this very morning.

  With tears pouring down her cheeks and shaking with misery and rage, she found her handbag and the other car keys. At least they were where she had left them.

  She went back to her mug of coffee and stood at the sink, crying and drinking. The coffee was no longer hot, it wouldn’t do her any good. She needed to be done good to, she knew that they were both in terrible trouble.

  Ever since he had been born she had loved her son. But apparently she had not been very good at showing it or he would have loved her back, which he could not do. Not and behave the way he did to her.

  She did not look at her morning paper nor listen to the radio as she drove to work, so she did not learn the news about the body in Mouncy Street. Afterwards she realized that Steve could not have known either when he set out. Poor kid, poor kid. What had he walked into? What had she, for that matter?

  She knew the police would be into the factory: there was that matter of the silk. That put Belmodes right in the picture. She was surprised that the police had let them both go home. It had a just-for-the-time-being feel to it.

  And then she had her own particular worry. Surely at her age she couldn’t be in the club again? She’d been so careful. God, if she escaped this time, she’d go on the Pill, in spite of the headaches. She knew a useful quack who would give her a prescription.

  ‘It was the night I tried cannabis.’ In the fashion world it was difficult to avoid cannabis at the moment without feeling you had got left behind. Rose never liked to get left behind.

  She hung up her short lime-green linen coat and replenished her lipstick. It was pale, pale pink, very nearly the whitest shade of white, but all that fashion allowed at the moment. Nor did she wear powder and rouge, the shiny, natural face being required, although her eyelashes were false and long.

  The tresses of blonde hair curling down her back were false too, her own hair would not grow beyond her shoulders. As a result, she envied Gabriel her shining mane and had more than once been tempted to give it a tug to see if it was artificial also.

  She had met no one on her way in, but already, in a mad kind of way, she felt like Myra Hindley. Something bad had touched her and Steve and discoloured them.

  She sat down at her desk to start work. It was necessary to consider her programme for the next two seasons. She knew how much she depended on Gabriel’s flair and taste. For years she had succeeded by quietly pilfering ideas from Paris or Rome. Now London was leading the way. Marvellous, good for trade. But it also meant you had to have some ideas of your own. Gabriel had the ideas.

  Rose surveyed a portfolio of drawings; each was colour-matched in swatches of silk, wool and cotton. Gabriel was suggesting combinations of trousers and short tunics. Were her ideas too extreme? There had to be a certain element of hot pants, fashion was going that way, but Rose’s market demanded tact.

  From outside she could hear Dagmar’s voice. One day she might escape from Dagmar, but at the moment they seemed firmly stuck together by their past. She could never decide whether Dagmar liked her or really disliked her. She had grown up with Dagmar and never known.

  There was another voice mixing with Dagmar’s now and they were both raised.

  She got up and went to the door. ‘What is this – Lily, I thought you were ill?’ She remembered then about Lily’s missing nephew.

  She sounded nastier than she meant, but all the same she was surprised at what she got back.

  ‘You shut up and listen to me.’

  ‘Lily …’

  Lily did look ill. Or rather, strange. As she looked at Lily’s face she saw in it a reflection of what must be in her own that morning: the pain, the anger, and yes, the alienation. They had both looked at something unspeakable: they were different from other people now.

  ‘What have you and that bastard done with my nephew?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You’ve had him here; I’ve f
ound the traces. Where is he now?’

  Lily took an aggressive step forward. Dagmar got between them.

  ‘Don’t be silly, you’re beside yourself, Lily. Mrs Hilaire doesn’t know anything about your nephew.’

  ‘Look at her face, and you can see she does. We all know what was found where.’

  Lily stood there, small, stocky and raging. ‘If you’ve hurt my Ephraim I’ll kill you,’ she said to Rose. ‘Gabriel, go and telephone the police; I’m going back to guard what I found. Remember: you’re my witness.’

  Gabriel looked across to Rose; the message that passed between them frightened Gabriel with its starkness.

  Suddenly, she believed in murder. It wasn’t hypothetical, or jokey, or something that happened to other people. Not foreign territory at all. Murder was for anyone.

  After the police in the person of a detective-constable had arrived, inspected Lily’s find, and taken it away, sealing the cupboard and saying tests would be made, Gabriel was not surprised to get a summons to Rose Hilaire’s office.

  She had been expecting it. In the corridor she passed Dagmar, who was complaining bitterly that all supplies of lavatory paper and sanitary towels had been locked away. As Gabriel walked on she heard Ted Tipper being detailed to bring in fresh supplies. He looked as though he wanted to run away.

  Gabriel felt the same: she could guess at the coming interview with Rose.

  ‘Somehow she knows,’ she reported to Charley that evening, when they were drinking coffee in his flat. ‘She knows a lot too much. All of it. I had a lousy day.’

  She had emerged from Rose’s office with Rose still shouting at her, while the whole shop floor had heard her shouting back. After that it had not been an easy day’s work with an excited workroom and a hostile Dagmar.

  ‘I’ll kill her,’ Gabriel said simply to Charley, ‘if she grabs that set of designs, and she means to. I’ve put my heart into them, and they are mine. I haven’t stinted her in what I’ve done for Belmodes, but these are special, the best I’ve got in me.’

  Charley looked at her with silent sympathy; he thought he knew as much as she did about putting your heart in.

  ‘I like Rose Hilaire,’ Gaby was almost in tears. ‘She’s a great woman in her way, and I see she’s got problems, but she makes me mad.’