‘Oh, I know it. I was at school with the littlest Padovani.’
‘Yes, you might have been.’ That made her a good decade younger than he was, but she looked it. ‘As an eating place it’s had its ups and downs, but it’s up at the moment.’ It was, in fact, better when its handsome but feckless proprietor was absent. His amours seemed to upset the cooking.
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
They turned the corner into the street where Gabriel lived; she had a tiny flat.
‘What’s she like, your boss? Really like?’
Gabriel said, ‘I haven’t much idea. She covers up, pretty well. Deep.’
‘I’ve never met her,’ said Coffin thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think.’
‘Oh, you’d know if you had. You don’t overlook Rose if she’s around. Tall, bright blue eyes, mass of hair.’
‘What colour?’
‘Oh, varies – sometimes pale blonde, sometimes more honey-coloured. I’ve even known her red, and that only in the eighteen months I’ve worked for her. But she’s got style. She can’t make it, but she can copy it.’ Gabriel spoke with feeling; she knew what she had contributed to Belmodes since she had started to work there.
‘And what’s she been like these last months?’ What he meant was: Did she act like a woman who might know too much about a murdered boy?
‘Again, hard to say.’ Gabriel had been full of her own plans lately, perhaps not too observant. ‘But she has seemed under pressure. Her relationship with the boy has gone to pot lately. I think we all knew that and she didn’t mind showing it. Don’t know what was behind it. Maybe he didn’t like her friends. Or she didn’t like his.’
‘Think so?’
Gabriel shrugged. ‘It’s a funny old world – and people like Rose, well, they get mixed up in it.’
‘And you? Do you get mixed up?’ He didn’t know where he placed Gabriel. She looked a bright, emancipated little bird, enjoying her freedom, but he thought he detected a native caution underneath her swinging exterior.
‘In and out,’ said Gabriel.
‘I won’t ask questions.’
‘You already are,’ said Gabriel drily.
‘You’ll still have dinner with me?’
‘As long as you don’t ask me who I voted for in the General Election.’ (The country was still sorting itself out after the Election.)
‘Who did you vote for?’
‘Oh, I didn’t bother.’
Coffin was shocked. Far away and long ago seemed the world after the War, into which he had emerged out of the army with the feeling that his vote and the new Labour Government would rebuild England. He still voted Labour, but he was no longer sure why. But not to use a vote, that was what had changed.
A gap opened between them, and they both knew it was called age.
But physical attraction could jump that gap like an electric spark and did so effortlessly. He put his arm round her and they walked on.
‘How do you feel about me being a policeman?’
A bus passed them, bringing with it a flurry of dry dust from the gutter.
‘I never forget it for a minute,’ said Gabriel. ‘Any more questions?’ I’m a slum kid, her eyes were saying, you know that, do you think we forget policemen? ‘What’s democracy in Paradise Street?’ Not policemen. This was not a question, it was an answer. Nevertheless, she would go on knowing him.
They parted with barely a word, but with a strength of unexpressed feeling. They would meet, they would go on meeting, but already they were on opposite sides.
Rose had enrolled Gabriel, with a jump of surprise the girl admitted it. While she had not been looking where she was going, Rose had quietly taken her support. Rose and Belmodes, it was, then.
It was as if she had smelt a meal cooking in the next room; it might not be a meal she wanted to eat, but already it was nourishing her.
John Coffin did not know he was on the wrong side yet, not having so far met Rose Hilaire, but he too realized that there might be a fight ahead.
‘See you tomorrow.’
‘As ever is.’ Gabriel disappeared into her own flat, which was minute, one room and a bathroom, but which she shared with no one. The first upward step of any born in Paradise Street was a room of one’s own. Very few people had seen inside Gabriel’s flat, because that was the other rule for escapers from Paradise Street: do not let the world outside get past your front door. ‘Don’t expect too much of me. Got a busy day tomorrow.’
It was always busy at this time of the year in Belmodes, preparing the collection for the next season. Murder or not it had to go on, and next day it did, Rose saw to that, although she was not herself.
Rose Hilaire had a waking dream, one which followed her into sleep and came out again the other side to stay with her all day, going with her into Belmodes side by side like a fellow worker.
As she slept in her Italian-designed tube steel bed with the iron-grey duvet, she felt sure that Steve in the room across the corridor must know who was in there with her, and as she went to work next day, she felt sure that everyone must see what she was dragging with her. Her nightmare self, her horrible double.
In this dream she was outside herself, yet watching a person who must be herself strangling an adolescent boy.
What she saw was detailed and specific, nothing vague or fancy. Just a pair of hands, reaching out at the end of her arms from her shoulders to grip a neck. Not exactly the sort of thought you wanted to pass on to the police at a time when two boys’ bodies had been found. Yet one that was hard to keep to yourself, she could feel it bursting out all over her. Like a virulent disease. Someone was bound to notice. Excuse me, they might say, you have death all over your face, it could be serious.
At work next day, discussing time-sheets and piecework rates with Dagmar, she could feel her skin irritating her.
She put her hand up to her face.
‘What is the matter with you, Rose? You keep touching your face.’ Dagmar was irritable.
‘I’m having a little trouble with it.’
Dagmar did not answer. She had known Rose since before Rose was born, and had long since resolved to think nothing about Rose except what suited her. It did not suit her now to observe the emotional turmoil inside Rose. Herself the illegitimate daughter of a Danish sailor who had spent one month in Paradise Street before taking ship for ever, she had built herself a firmly structured life which could withstand all but atomic bombardment.
‘You’ve got your warpaint on,’ she said.
Rose was wearing a tulip-red trouser suit, diamond earrings and a large aquamarine ring.
She grunted. ‘If I didn’t believe clothes helped, then I wouldn’t be in this business.’ She sighed. ‘But who said work helps?’ and pushed away from her desk. ‘Are the police still in the washroom?’
Dagmar’s expression did not change from her usual workday look of reserve. ‘The police have gone, but the washroom’s locked up and no one can get in. The girls are having to use the public lavatory on the corner and they don’t like it.’
‘They won’t go on strike, will they?’ Rose feared strikes even more than bankruptcy or the plague.
‘I haven’t heard them mention it,’ said Dagmar in a level voice.
Rose got up and walked to the window. Her suit made of nylon had stuck to her and outlined her figure. Out of the window, she could see the street outside, with one of her own vans drawing away from the kerb. A smaller delivery van from a wholesaler was just moving into her unloading yard. That would be the Italian silk jersey arriving. Good news on an ordinary day, a delight to the eye. This was not an ordinary day.
‘We don’t know a lot, do we?’ she said, fixing her eyes on a policeman in uniform who was walking by.
They were in the middle of the case, working in a building where bloodstained clothing had been found, and where two people whom the police had questioned about a missing boy had more than passing contact, yet they knew less than anyone.
‘Any news about Ephraim?’
‘Not that I know. Anyway, Lily isn’t in today.’
‘Just as well,’ said Rose uneasily. ‘It’s a difficult situation there. See she’s paid, though, won’t you?’
‘You’re a good employer,’ said Dagmar grudgingly.
‘Better than Grandpa? He kept a sweatshop if anyone did. Changed days, couldn’t behave like that now. But I’m standing on his shoulders, Dagmar.’
‘And wouldn’t he have loved it.’ For Dagmar that was a show of humour. Since her mother had been a jolly lady, her missing father must have been a dour Dane indeed if inheritance had anything to do with it.
Rose came back into the room, and sat down at her desk. ‘You don’t think there’s any special reason for Lily being away?’
‘Such as?’
‘Like Ephraim being found?’
‘Did cross my mind.’
‘You know something,’ said Rose suddenly.
‘Not know. Saw.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘You didn’t drive down Mouncy Street from the main road this morning?’
‘No. Came round the other way from Decimus Street.’ She did not say that she was avoiding passing the house in Mouncy Street, but they both knew she was, and had been every day.
‘Two police cars; and an ambulance. Drove off as I went past.’ Dagmar cycled from her flat in one of the new highrise blocks.
‘Same house as before?’ asked Rose carefully. The one I used to own, she meant, the one the copper bought.
‘That or the next one. Both been empty.’
‘Well, thanks for telling me.’ For Dagmar it had been tactfully done. ‘We’ll wait and see.’ And it might mean nothing. But the cameo of death formed in front of her eyes, small, brightly lit and detailed. She closed her eyes.
‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ said Dagmar.
‘No. I’ve got to see Gaby. She’s probably outside now.’
‘She can wait. You’d better tell me what’s upsetting you.’
In a low tone, Rose said, ‘Do you believe in anyone fantasizing murder? Have you ever heard of anyone doing that?’
Gaby, who was outside, heard the word murder and stayed to listen. It was wrong to do it, she knew, but she could not stop herself. She could not hear anything, of course, as Rose’s voice dropped and was interrupted by the rumble of Dagmar’s, but she heard enough.
The question was whether she should tell anyone or no one what she had heard.
That question was decided for her in a most terrible way.
When the rumour reached Gabriel she began to realize what she would say to John Coffin.
Rose had said, in a terrified whisper: ‘Can you fantasize a murder? Feel sure that you saw one happen?’
She didn’t hear Dagmar’s response. But Rose said: ‘I think I might be the killer. I was inside it, and outside it, at the same time.’
What Dagmar said then sounded like ‘a dream’; she couldn’t hear what answer Rose made to that, but she heard the words ‘missing’ and ‘blood’.
Gabriel tried to slot this into what the new death was all about; she was deeply troubled. She slipped out for a cup of coffee with Charley in his studio next to Belmodes; it was one of his days to be there. She had been able to tell that by the sight of his motorbike outside. He flitted about on this machine (which obsessed him) wearing a helmet and goggles so that Gabriel called him The Invisible Man. On wheels.
‘What do you think I should do?’ she said to Charley. ‘You always give me good advice: give me some now.’
‘Do I?’
‘I think so.’
A minute ticked by while Charley said nothing.
Gabriel went on, ‘And then I saw her that night, remember? In Mouncy Street. I told you. She was behaving oddly.’
‘Which night was that? Remind me.’
‘The night I worked late on my own. That was why I had a taxi. You had a job in Paris.’
‘Brussels,’ said Charley absently. ‘I told you Brussels.’
Gabriel irritated him by the way she could get something nearly right but not quite.
Charley sat silent, then took a deep breath. ‘Tell them. You ask me, I say: Tell.’
By lunch-time the rumour was a hard story. So Gabriel knew she had to tell. And to her, in her present mood, that meant tell Coffin.
Chapter Six
‘Since you ask about the boy,’ said Phil Jordan to his friend John Coffin, ‘I will tell you.’
‘But I didn’t,’ Coffin said. They were drinking in the Red Anchor; it was noon or just past, and still a full working day.
‘Oh, come on, that’s why you asked me for a drink. And I’ll have another. You owe me.’
‘Oh, all right.’ John Coffin got up.
‘Well, you’ve got a right to know. He’s in your garden. Three feet down and under a rose-bush. Identified by his clothes. But someone from the family will have to have a look.’
Coffin swallowed his drink. It went down badly, sour to his taste. His throat tightened.
‘When?’
Jordan shrugged. ‘Probably soon after he went missing. The forensics will take time.’ And hedge their bets, then.
‘And how long is that?’
‘Almost three weeks.’ He added, ‘Just after Bank Holiday. Labour Day.’ He had got the impression that for some reason this was important, but he did not know why.
They drank in silence for a minute or two.
Coffin said, ‘I had the house then. Hadn’t moved in, but I got the keys before the holiday. My house.’
‘I know.’
‘I had a look at the garden. He must have been there then.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘And the Big S?’
‘Sexual attack? Forensics say no obvious sign of it. But in my book it has to be there, one way or another. Yes, there was certainly a sexual gratification for the killer, whether man, woman or child.’
‘You mean that? Every word, even child?’
Jordan shrugged. ‘They’re at it younger and younger. We’ve both had cases.’
‘Damn.’
Jordan said, ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think we’re making a good job of it.’
Coffin looked at him. Not like Jordan to be self-critical.
‘It slips away from us. As soon as we think we’re making progress we seem to lose our grip. The forensics, the laboratory stuff – all the stuff we’ve taken in – soil, clothing fragments, even some flakes found on the first boy – they look promising, but we don’t get any further. They don’t point anywhere we can find. Or not without a bit of help. Perhaps this new body will give something extra.’ He frowned. Poor little beast. Perhaps his body would speak for him. It might have a lot to say. ‘I hear they’ve got a problem to worry at there, but details I don’t know.’
‘It’s a lousy business, so it is.’
Jordan sighed and took a drink. ‘Old Mossycop’s the problem, he let anyone in to that place. Anyone could have had access. Got hold of a key, kept it. He didn’t seem to care. When someone like Mosse, who’s had a kind of public face, goes wrong, he really beats all.’
‘Think so?’ It didn’t seem entirely the problem to Coffin.
Jordan thought again. ‘No, it’s not just that. I think the old man isn’t handling it well. Can’t seem to take the emotion. Remember when Tom Banbury went off it all? Lost his grip?’
‘He came back,’ said Coffin quickly, defensively. ‘One or two good results after that.’
‘What’s happened to him?’
‘Retired early. He died a year ago,’ said Coffin shortly; he had liked his first boss.
‘Do you still keep in with the great man Dander?’
‘Yes.’ Commander Dander had been, still was, Coffin’s patron. You needed a patron. Jordan knew all that, he was just asking for asking’s sake.
‘You’re well in there. Gone right to the top, the lucky bastard.’
‘He�
��s got a bit grand for me.’
‘Not what I hear.’
They drank for a moment before Jordan returned to what really worried him about his boss’s handling of the case.
‘The trouble is he can’t talk to people. Not properly. Question, yes. Talk, no.’
‘Tom Banbury couldn’t.’ Couldn’t or wouldn’t. ‘In the end, I think, it killed him.’ Cancer of the larynx cannot come by accident. Or is it falling into the old sin of hubris to say you can will your own death?
The real trouble with old Tom had been that when he came into contact with the evil mind, the scheming, devious, manipulative mind of some murderers, he could not bear it.
‘Someone ought to talk to the family connections,’ Coffin said aloud. ‘People like Lily Bates.’
Someone ought to talk to Lily Bates, yes, that was what he had said and meant, but it might not have been him if he hadn’t seen her for himself that afternoon between five and six, the period between Hook Road School closing and Rose leaving her office at Belmodes; the time Steve would have made his own.
She was standing face to face with a boy in the public park at the end of Decimus Street. He recognized her at once because Gabriel had pointed her out to him and he thought the boy must be young Hilaire. It was a conjunction of two people at once unlikely and yet inevitable. Of course, she’d get at the boy if she could.
He stopped to watch. Where they were talking was a children’s playground, not much used; a small desolation of climbing frames and broken swings. The barbarians had passed over it and moved on.
Afterwards he had to explain why he was there, and found it hard. I was just there, he said, but it wasn’t true. He had gone there on purpose. Not thinking he could see them, but thinking he would see something. Driven there by some distant memory from his youth.
It was a place where boys and vagrants went, had been for years. One of several in the district but the one nearest to Mouncy Street. This was probably in his mind.
Lily and the boy were standing by an old iron play-horse which had once been painted dark green but now was blotched with rust.
Blessed with excellent long-range vision, he stood outside the play area, observing them. The boy had his back to him but he could see Lily’s face and she was doing the talking.
Coffin in Fashion Page 7
