Coffin in Fashion

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘I hear rumours going around,’ said Charley. ‘What did she say about that?’

  Gabriel shrugged. ‘We didn’t discuss it. But she’s sending on messages all the same.’ And fierce angry ones they were as well.

  ‘Saying what?’

  ‘She’s frightened, of course.’

  Charley’s living-room in Mouncy Street was also his studio. From the wall the figure of the woman who sold hot potatoes underneath the railway arch stared out at the room from the several hats (she always wore two) and shawls that wrapped her. Hanging next was a glittering photograph of Nancy Wool-right, last year’s Beauty Queen of London. Next to her was a shot, apparently spontaneous, a flick of the shutter, of a street scene at Greenwich Market with a trio of boys at a bookstall. There were plenty of others, townscapes, portraits, even some of his best fashion photographs, but Gabriel was so used to them she hardly saw them, not noticing that Charley changed them at intervals.

  What he did not change was the rest of the décor: the old worktable, the even older chairs, and the lighting equipment suspended ready for use.

  Charley did not count among Gabriel’s list of attractive men; she had known him such a long time that he was unsexed. Nothing more than a friendly kiss even passed between them, for which Charley was grateful.

  He knew his Gabriel, give her an inch and she took a mile, he had no desire to wake up and find himself in bed beside her.

  ‘I’ve met a lovely policeman,’ said Gabriel.

  John Coffin, happily unaware how his name had been on both Lily and Gabriel’s lips, was engaged in his homework. On a tray in front of him was his supper, and by his side on the table the book he was studying on how to trace your ancestors. He was reading the chapter on Parish Records while he ate baked beans with sausages.

  His colleagues who were investigating the body found under the floorboards had let him have his living-room back but the kitchen was still barred.

  The telephone rang. ‘Yes.’ He was far away in 1837 when the registration of births, deaths and marriages was made compulsory. Before that you had to go to parish registers. Coffin had been startled to learn Thomas Cromwell had been responsible for instigating them.

  A local policeman, an old friend, was on the phone.

  ‘We’ve got an ID on the body,’ said Philip Jordan.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A lad from Essex. Eddie Jackson: 12 Archer Avenue, Hornchurch. He was aged thirteen and had run away several times, so he was not reported missing as soon as he might have been. Family thought he’d come back.’

  ‘So he has got a family?’

  ‘When I say family, they weren’t what you’d call close, he had a grandmother and a stepfather, and of the two I’d say the stepfather cared for him most.’

  ‘Mother dead?’

  ‘Gone off. No one knows where. Not dead, though, as she sends the odd postcard. The natural father has remarried and lives in Canada.’

  ‘So no one really cared if he was around or not?’

  Coffin thought: Poor kid.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that: I think the stepfather does mind, but he isn’t the brightest fellow in the world. As for the grandmother, she’s a bit past it. Hardly knows the time of day.’

  ‘Why did he run away the first time? Anything special?’

  ‘Yes, it was in a way. He had a liking for one of his schoolteachers who moved to another area and tried to find him.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘No. Didn’t have any luck, the chap had left London. Then he just drifted around till he was picked up. Went off again after that, but came back under his own steam. The third time, not.’

  ‘And then he turns up in Mouncy Street.’ Coffin added, ‘And not too far away the boots of another missing boy turn up in school. Worth thinking about it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Something more on Ephraim. What looks like a piece of boy’s underpants was found in a cupboard at Belmodes.’

  ‘Belmodes? That’s Rose Hilaire’s outfit?’ And workplace of the gorgeous Gabriel of the longest hair and the shortest skirts.

  ‘That’s right. There are also stains – in the cupboard, and on the fabric, could be blood.’

  ‘And is it?’

  Cautiously his informant said, ‘It appears to be human blood. Can’t go any further at the moment, could be the boy’s.’

  The scientists had another task also. The whole of the cupboard in which the stained clothes had been found had been removed to the laboratory. The blood was blood group A. It was the group of Ephraim Humphreys. Also the blood group of forty per cent of the population.

  ‘Thanks for telling me.’ Coffin thought he would now go back to his family. After all, it wasn’t his case.

  But he was still a bit curious.

  ‘Anything else to say?’

  ‘Know who used to live in your house before you?’

  ‘No. It was empty for over a year.’ The row of modest houses had fallen into disfavour as old-fashioned and beyond change, but now as house prices rose higher, people were moving back in.

  ‘Old man Mossycop. Last tenant.’

  ‘Good Lord! I had no idea he went on so long.’

  Coffin sat thinking about it. Fancy old Mossycop having lived in what was now his house. He was a figure from the past all right. Mossycop, a nickname for Edward Mosse, had been a well-known local figure. A tram-driver before the war, he had come into his own as an Auxiliary Fireman with AFS proudly emblazoned on the shoulder of his uniform. People said he loved that uniform more than his wife and certainly he looked after it better. He had stayed on in the Fire Service as long as the war had lasted and kept the uniform even after.

  As well as his fire-fighting, Edward Mosse had helped to run a Boys’ Club. A lot of lads like John Coffin had been members pre-war, before evacuation and then the call-up drew them away.

  ‘I had no idea he went on so long,’ he repeated.

  ‘Hardly did. He got pretty senile towards the end. Died at home, though, and don’t we all want to do that?’ There was an odd note in his informant’s voice.

  ‘What else? There is something.’

  Again that odd note. ‘You wouldn’t have noticed when you took a look-in. No way of seeing. But when the boy’s body was moved, there was another one underneath.’

  ‘Another boy?’

  ‘No. It looks like it was Mossycop. Think of that.’

  Chapter Three

  Rose was up against it. Blood in her factory; another body found, and possibly identified. (The news had spread around in spite of police silence. No true blue inhabitant of Paradise Street or Mouncy Street ever needed to be told anything from the police; they had ways of finding out.)

  Rose put on more make-up and let her workers know it was business as usual. Under her firm gaze they bent to their machines. She had given Lily a holiday with pay, but Lily had obstinately reappeared and was working with the rest. Her face looked puffy.

  There was a truce between Rose and Gabriel, but none between Shirley and Gabriel because Gaby had discovered it to be Shirley who had leaked her secret to Rose. She had been searching Gaby’s workroom, but she must have had her suspicions before. I suppose I’m easily read, thought Gabriel. In future she would be more careful. Discovery did not alter her plans, only slowed them down.

  Dagmar Blond moved about the factory as an unfriendly, enigmatic figure. This was the face that Paradise Street turned on outsiders.

  Steve had gone back to school, where he kept his head down and avoided his enemies; he felt as if the whole school was his enemy.

  Where Ephraim was no one knew.

  Rose shut herself into her office, grimly applying herself to routine. She was expecting another visit from the police. And not about what had been found in the factory.

  There was something else. She knew it. Dagmar knew it too, she could see it in her eyes.

  They would have to talk it over.

  John Coffin, on his way to work, stopped at the delicatessen
to buy one of their warm ham rolls, then took it into Cat’s Coffee Shop to eat with a cup of the best Kenya. He still had no kitchen.

  Cat was presiding in person behind the counter. A keen follower of fashions, he had been a notable Ted in his day, but had now abandoned the narrow trousers and sharp haircut in favour of golden locks curling on his shoulders worn with a loose striped robe bought in Egypt. He had retained his grandpa’s Albert, however, and wore the watch chain looped round his neck like a medallion.

  At a table in the corner Coffin saw his friend, Philip Jordan, communicator of the news about Mossycop.

  ‘Hello, Phil. What are you doing here? Coffee, please, Cat.’

  ‘Having breakfast, then going to Mouncy Street.’

  Cat came across with the coffee, casting a disapproving glance at Coffin’s ham roll. ‘I could have done you one of those.’

  ‘I wanted one without you smoking hash all over it.’

  ‘I never.’ But there was no anger in Cat’s voice; his bright, clear eyes were focusing in the distance, seeing eternal Peace and Joy.

  ‘One bob. Peace, friend,’ he said, while sweeping the money into his pocket. ‘Peace and Joy.’

  ‘So it was old Mossycop?’ Coffin stirred his coffee. All night he had been thinking: I’ve been sleeping over Mosse’s dead body.

  ‘Looks like it.’ Jordan drank his coffee down to the bottom. ‘Eddie Davis was on the job. He looked down in the hole and he saw Mossycop in his uniform. You know he always wore it for gardening. “My God,” he said. “It looks like Mossycop down there.” ’

  ‘So who was it buried before, if it wasn’t Mosse?’

  ‘Ask someone else. And guess who it was made the original identification and said, “Yes, that’s Uncle Mosse” and was his sole heir?’

  ‘Well, who?’

  ‘Rose Hilaire.’

  Whichever way you looked at it, that name seemed to come up at every turn: Rose Hilaire mother of Steve, employer of Lily, and niece of a body under Coffin’s floorboards.

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘No.’ He must have bought his house off her, remotely. There had been another name: Lee.

  They passed out of the shop together, side by side, falling automatically into step.

  Cat watched them go, all about him hung a sweet smoky smell.

  ‘We’ll raid you one day, Cat. So watch it,’ called Jordan companionably over his shoulder.

  Cat called after them, ‘I can take criticism. But leave me my love-life.’

  ‘What’s he mean?’ Coffin asked.

  Jordan shrugged. ‘They call his place Shrew’s Corner.’

  ‘Why shrew?’

  ‘Small, supple creatures with sharp teeth – that’s the sort he likes.’

  Coffin grunted. Yes, that was Cat’s way of life: he would always be the sex that seemed fashionable at the time.

  At the bus stop he looked hopefully for Gabriel. No sign. Wonder where she is, he thought.

  Gabriel was sitting by Rose’s side in the Porsche. Rose drove slowly, but her face was stiff with tension. Out of the corner of her eye she was watching Gabriel.

  She slowed down at the traffic lights by Sloane Street. The two women were on an inspection tour of the Rose Hilaire empire: Baker Street, Bond Street, Knightsbridge and Sloane Street. In spite of all her problems Rose was keeping to schedule.

  Baker Street had been inspected and its records checked. No one fingered the till in Rose’s jurisdiction. Bond Street had been looked over and found wanting: the clothes not displayed as they should be, the new vendeuse lacking in charm.

  ‘It’s the wrong end of Bond Street,’ grumbled Rose. (Why hadn’t the police been to see her? She would feel so much happier if they had and it was over. She had rehearsed what she would say.) ‘It’s getting too much like Carnaby Street, that patch.’ She avoided a car trying to turn right where it should not, and turned left. Her Sloane Street shop was between an antique shop and a florist’s. She had got the lease two years ago in 1964.

  ‘I’m thinking of the Fulham Road. It’s coming up fast.’ She parked the car. ‘If Belmodes survives. Sometimes I think it’ll all end up Biba.’

  Sometimes Gabriel thought the same herself. She slumped lower in her seat and kept quiet.

  ‘What chance have I got with little cows like you shortchanging me?’

  ‘Haven’t done anything yet,’ muttered Gabriel.

  ‘And nor will you. I’ve fixed it with Teddy Touch. I felt like leaving you to him. You almost deserve it, but not quite. No one deserves Teddy Touch.’ She turned in her seat to stare at Gabriel grimly. ‘You don’t know the rules of this dirty game yet, though you think you do. One day I’ll teach you how to go about ditching your contract.’ She opened the car door and swung her long, beautiful legs out. She was one of those whom tights, as opposed to stockings, suited. She had better legs than Gabriel, and knew it. Her tights were pale, pale, a whiter shade of pale, only women with perfect legs can wear that shade. ‘Oh no, darling, you didn’t think you were the first clever little bitch to have the idea? It’s been tried before, love, and better. It’s the law of the jungle, kid, and you’d better know it.’

  ‘All right.’ Gabriel got out of the car and side by side they walked into Belmodes, Sloane Street, in bad-tempered silence.

  Once inside the shop, however, acrimony faded; they were so alike that it was impossible for them to work together and be at odds.

  Gabriel saw at once that a bell-shaped shift of her own design was being wrongly displayed, while Rose saw to her fury that a whole line of trousers and tabards had been wrongly priced. The errors in both cases were minute, but the experts were angered. They advanced to attack.

  But before they could start in, Rose was called to the telephone.

  ‘A call from the factory, Mrs Hilaire,’ said the shop manager. ‘They said it’s important. Asked you to ring back.’ She too had heard rumours, the telephones from shop to shop must have been red hot, and she looked at Rose with speculation.

  Gabriel sat down in a chair to wait, her gaze moving round the shop. Rose had chosen to have all her shops decorated in apricot and green with clear white paint; it looked stylish and fresh. In the background the latest Beatles’ success was humming away. Rose had decreed there should be music in her shops, and she had selected the repertoire herself. It was changed every two months, making it an expensive item, but one Rose thought essential, as setting the character for an Hilaire shop.

  This particular jewel in the Hilaire crown looked in need of repolishing, however. To Gabriel’s eye, there was a slight but perceptible air of neglect, due probably to a slack manager. The tall girl who had despatched Rose to the telephone was now studying her face in the wall mirror.

  Rose emerged from the back room with a swirl of skirts. Her face was flushed, but her mouth set in a firm line.

  ‘Gaby, we’re off. I’m wanted down there.’ Over her shoulder she said, ‘Flavia, I shall be back. I’m not happy with the look of things here. You’ve let it go. Pull it up or you’re out.’

  As they drove off with some fast acceleration, Rose said, ‘She’s probably out, anyway. I’ve had my eye on her. Stupid cow, she thinks I don’t know what goes on. Her boyfriend has taught her to drink. Worse, too, I expect. No, she’ll have to go.’

  Gabriel kept quiet, well aware she was not Rose’s favourite girl either. She would have liked to ask what was up, but questions were not invited.

  ‘Right here,’ she said seeing that Rose seemed to be about to drive on, unthinking.

  Rose turned right, and seemed to relax a little. Being Rose, this gave her energy to devote to Gabriel.

  ‘That Charley: he’s a good photographer.’

  So Rose not only knew, but had seen; somehow she had got hold of Charley’s photographs. That needed thinking about.

  ‘He’s clever.’ He was more than that, but hard to say what. Inside, Charley was hard to gauge.

  Rose laughed. ‘You’re surprised?
You’re like that girl Flavia: you think I don’t know what goes on around me, but I’ve got my eyes open.’

  Shirley’s eyes, too, no doubt.

  ‘Do you live with him?’

  ‘No. Not in that way. Sometimes he stays around, but it’s only a matter of convenience when we’re working. If it’s any business of yours.’

  ‘None, of course. But you’re jealous of him.’

  ‘I might be,’ muttered Gabriel, stung.

  She was jealous. Charley did not make love to her, and he ought. She felt very strongly that he ought to want to. She might say no, but he ought to try. Her conclusion was that there was someone else.

  But she’d never seen that someone. It was tough being jealous of a nobody.

  Rose gave a laugh. ‘You kid, you’ve got a lot to learn.’

  ‘I’ll learn it.’

  ‘We all think that,’ said Rose. ‘But somehow you never learn quite enough. Take it from me.’ She drove for a few minutes in silence, then she said, ‘You know what I’m going back to?’

  ‘I can guess. The police want to see you.’

  ‘I’ve been expecting it ever since I heard that they found Uncle Mosse underneath the floorboards. I can’t believe it.’ She shook her head. ‘How could he be there? He’s dead and buried.’

  ‘Perhaps someone dug him up.’

  ‘Oh, funny. Listen, I’m going to tell you this and you can believe it or not: Uncle Mosse had been dead about a week when they took me in to identify him. He could have been anyone but he was in the right place: on his own bed in his own house in Mouncy Street, so it had to be him. Only now it looks as if it wasn’t.’

  Rose sounded angry, exasperated with life for arranging things so badly.

  ‘Not his fault,’ said Gabriel in a placatory way. Trying in spite of herself to be a peacemaker.

  ‘I hadn’t seen him for six years anyway. He hated the sight of me. There’s no one he’d have wanted seeing him dead less than me, and the feeling was mutual. But by then there was only him and me left.’

  ‘And your son.’

  ‘Steve? I kept him away from the old man. They weren’t good for each other.’