The Coffin Tree

by Gwendoline Butler

  Then, like someone probing a sore tooth, his mind went back to Stella. She had telephoned from the airport in Madrid to announce she would not be home just yet, love, but was flying into New York, stop-over in Paris.

  Not even Heathrow, London, he had noted glumly, as if she couldn’t bear to be on the same island. And to be called ‘love’ – that was bad, very bad. No one really close to Stella was ever called love in that way; it was what she called a fellow actor for whom she had small regard, or a bad director.

  What had he done? Or not done? They had parted on warm, even passionate terms; he remembered it well, that night before she left, now it had all gone cold.

  He would find out in the end; Stella never kept anything to herself when she was angry which he had to suppose she was, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He didn’t enjoy these ups and downs with Stella. He had thought all that sort of thing was in the past, when, God knew, they had enough of them. They had met when young, too young probably, loved and parted, met again briefly before moving away from each other, and then coming together when his sister Letty had created her St Luke’s Theatre complex.

  Happy ever after, he’d thought. He watched Teddy Timpson come through the door.

  ‘Sorry, sir. Got held up.’ The man looked flustered and hot.

  ‘Have a drink before you say another word.’

  ‘Thanks … lager, please.’

  Teddy didn’t drink a lot, unlike some of his colleagues, but he probably had other vices. ‘I got held up. A double stabbing in Cock Street, in the Little Cockatoo pub.’ He drank thirstily. ‘It’s always been a bad place … it’s the landlord.’

  ‘Stabbed?’

  ‘No, he did it. His wife and the barman, they were having it off and he found out. Well, he always knew, I reckon, but only took off today. I blame the weather.’

  ‘At least you’ve got it tied up.’

  ‘Not on your life: he denies it, says some man walked through the door and knifed them both.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘Hiding in the cellar.’

  ‘What about the knife?’

  ‘We can’t find it. And no witnesses, the pub was empty.’

  ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘It is round there,’ said Timpson gloomily. ‘They know when to run. Anyway, he had a bright idea, he set the place alight.’ He lifted his sleeve to his nose. ‘I still stink of smoke.’

  ‘Did the whole place go up?’

  ‘No, no, he didn’t make a good job of it.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, it wasn’t a bad idea. Fire does destroy.’

  ‘I’ve said a bit already as regards what I want to talk to you about. I won’t procrastinate any more.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Timpson cautiously. ‘You’ve said a bit. Not a lot.’ Procrastinate … He’s an intellectual, my guvnor; he doesn’t know it, but he is. Timpson thought about an earlier chief who might have said: This is the business, boys. Or, in a jokey mood: Up boys and at ’em.

  ‘It’s about the new unit.’

  ‘Yes, the one that’s going to be liaising with all City institutions and all police units as well.’ The word was that there wasn’t much money and it was going to have to work hard. ‘A political invention to keep critics happy,’ was what someone had said. ‘It’s going to be smallish, isn’t it?’

  ‘Money,’ said Coffin, then sat thinking about how he should put it to Timpson, whom he had used before as a go-between because Timpson’s negotiating skills were well known. ‘Money’s short.’ He had every reason to be thinking about money. At the back of his mind, not to be discussed now with Chief Inspector Timpson, was a big money problem. He would be seeing Archie Young, now CID supremo, later.

  Timpson waited. Money came in everywhere. Who knew better than he did?

  Coffin looked at Timpson, wondering what the gossip was and how much he knew. ‘There’s quite a lot going on at the moment.’

  Timpson kept a careful opaque look on his face.

  ‘You guessed?’

  ‘Word has got around.’

  Coffin nodded. Thought as much.

  Timpson was cautious enough to say nothing more: if he hadn’t been told, he wasn’t to know. He knew how to be blind, deaf and dumb when he had to be.

  ‘This unit needs the right top man. Or woman. I think it ought to be a woman, I’ve worked with her before and I think she has the right qualities. You are chairing the committee and I will withdraw when she is interviewed, seems fairer.’

  What’s fairer got to do with it, thought Timpson. ‘Sure,’ he said aloud. ‘Of course, we have to consider all three candidates.’

  ‘Of course we do.’

  They seemed to be understanding one another and Coffin was satisfied. ‘Have another drink?’

  ‘My round.’ It gave Teddy Timpson an obscure pleasure to buy a drink for the chief commander whom he both liked and found alarming. He cast around for something to say that would end the meeting on the right note. ‘Saw Miss Pinero on the telly last night,’ he came up with. ‘She’s brilliant.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ agreed Coffin with a tight smile. He knew he had got what he wanted. He stood up. ‘I must go. Another appointment.’

  ‘They’ve done excellent work,’ he said to Superintendent Archie Young just an hour later on this same day, two weeks before the crucial committee for Phoebe. They were in his own home in St Luke’s Mansions; in his flat, not Stella’s, which was on the ground floor. They still kept the two going which was perhaps one of their mistakes. Didn’t happily married people live under one roof? Or did you only meet the survivors? From Coffin’s tower he could see over all his turbulent territory, make out the roof of his headquarters where a new floor had been planted on top of the building, not adding to its beauty but certainly providing much needed space. And if he tried hard enough, he could see the top of one of his new universities and one of the hospitals – the big new Second City General Hospital. When he looked out, he tried to admire the charm of what he saw and not think about the terrible responsibility that they represented.

  ‘You have to hand it to the blokes who trail through financial records and know what’s going on.’

  ‘More so when equally clever minds are doing their best to hide it.’

  Archie had climbed the career ladder quickly: the next promotion, already in line, would make him chief superintendent. He was clever, and sensible enough not to be too clever; a steady, reliable man.

  ‘It’s their job,’ said Coffin, without much admiration; they had landed a mess on his lap.

  They had talked about this several times before, but always in this unofficial way. At the moment, since Stella was in New York (or so he believed), and Archie Young’s clever, high-flying wife was absent on a course in Cambridge, they were eating together. A modest meal sent in from the local fish and chip shop which did a splendid order and deliver service.

  Coffin handed out the chips and fish which they were eating in his kitchen. In his youth, in that far away and long ago London, he would have eaten out of the newspaper but he graduated long since to the white porcelain which had been chosen, and not by Stella, and to pouring out some red wine which was about the only thing that stood up to fried cod. (Once it would have been a pot of strong tea, and still was for many and why not?)

  ‘I had a session with Teddy Timpson today. He was agreeable.’

  ‘He usually is.’

  ‘Yes, no trouble there. I think we’ll get the right head for this little unit.’ Even to Archie Young who knew so much about him by now, he was careful about naming Phoebe. People could tell a lot about the way you spoke of a person.

  And there is always a hidden agenda, the subtext.

  ‘By the way, your own promotion has gone through. You’re up, Archie, but keep quiet for the moment.’

  Archie Young allowed himself a flush of pure pleasure and wished he could smoke, but the Coffin establishment was a No Smoking house. Coffin did not go back to the main subject of their meeting until t
hey had almost finished.

  John Coffin commanded a police force small by the standards of his big brother the Metropolitan police force which towered over him; small by the standards of some of the big north country forces; he knew that the Met joked about the Toy Town City force but he could afford to ignore that now because he was feeling his own powers.

  Rivals and even friends had expected him to fail, but he had built up a very good set of teams from the mixture of local units he had inherited. He had created his own promotion panel which he watched over while allowing it independence. But he had seen to it that the weaker officers were weeded out and clever, hard-working men like Archie Young got fast promotion. He had men and women around him now that he both trusted and liked. ‘I’ve kept you up to date: it seems that drug profits and other illegal monies are being fed into British banks. The powers that be …’ even to Young he did not name them. That might come later, but he was still bound by an oath of secrecy, ‘… are worried that it could damage the whole banking system.’

  ‘Money’s money,’ said the pragmatic Young.

  ‘Apparently not. Might seem so to you and me but the City says not …’ The City in this context meant the bankers and financiers of the First City of London, the money establishment. ‘We seem to have been given a special part. It looks as though a group of banks here in the Second City have been targeted. I suppose they thought we’d be grateful. They had us down for a collection of innocents.’

  Young accepted this silently for a moment, then said: ‘I bet I could name the banks.’

  ‘I bet you could.’

  They had three banks whose origin was far flung and international, but which gave a good rate of interest on savings and so were much used by the small depositors of the Second City.

  ‘Not only us, of course. The cash is being spread around widely, and as I’ve let you know, action is being taken.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But it’s up to us to clear out our own little pigsty … A lot of the money is being laundered here.’

  Archie Young chewed a bit of cod which was unexpectedly solid; he could see the cat eyeing him hopefully. ‘Acting on your instructions …’

  ‘And your own wits,’ said Coffin quickly.

  ‘And my own wits,’ went on Archie, ‘I’ve had a couple of men out there working on it.’

  He put his fork into his food and began to stir it round as if he didn’t see it at all but something quite different.

  ‘It’s been a tough game to play, John.’

  The use of his name, so rarely used even between the two friends, was significant.

  ‘Yes, it hasn’t brought them luck.’

  Two men, two deaths.

  Felix Henbit who had died of an overdose of sedatives and drink. Suicide? Or accident? No one could believe in the suicide.

  Mark Pittsy who had died in a car crash.

  Apparent accidents, both of them.

  ‘Rotten luck,’ said Archie, ‘some cases are buggers.’ He shook his head. ‘You get a run of accidents like that sometimes and I hate it.’

  ‘We have a problem, Archie,’ thought Coffin, but he did not say it aloud. Instead: ‘I’m not happy.’

  ‘Who could be?’

  ‘Felix Henbit had a wife.’ He made it a statement; he had liked Felix but kept his distance.

  ‘Yes, likewise Pittsy; not long married. Also a sister in Cleveland who seemed a bit remote.’

  ‘I’d like to meet Mrs Henbit.’

  ‘I think you should. She’d appreciate it, a nice girl who’s bearing up well. All the usual support groups have been in touch to see how she was getting on.’ Mary Henbit had been bleeding inside but hadn’t let it show too much.

  ‘I’ll get round there.’ He might take Stella if she ever came home again which he sometimes doubted. She was good on such occasions, other women liked her.

  Coffin looked down at his plate of chips. Not my mother, vanishing lady, my mother, you’d be home alone. She’d be long dead now. Or was she? His mother seemed just the sort to read you could live to be a hundred and sixteen and decide to do it. He pushed his plate away; the chips didn’t appeal so much.

  The two men talked for a while longer, then Archie Young went off – still flushed with the news of his promotion, and wishing his wife was at home so that he could tell her – soon after the meal was finished. Promotion had come very quickly; he knew he owed a lot to the chief commander, but he also knew he was a good officer.

  He didn’t have the older man’s imagination, and sometimes he thought the Big Man let the parameters of his imagination spread a mite too far. He was thinking that now.

  Coffin had not told Archie Young all his thoughts even though he trusted him. He never did tell anyone everything. He had seeded the corn and must now await events.

  Later, on the day of her interview, while Phoebe prepared herself for it and then went through it and got a hint of her success; and while Coffin sat thinking of his own problem – all this while the fire burned in the rough ground beyond the old Atlas factory.

  When did it start? It must have started in the early afternoon because such fires burn slowly. The fire burned the mound of wood and leaves which a sexless figure put together, which he or she had lit and upon which, so a watcher said later, he or she had climbed. Hard to believe and the witness did not have good eyesight. Not climbing, perhaps, but dragged?

  First smoke, then flames.

  The body burned, the hair smouldered, the body fats caught and melted, the skin crisped.

  Phoebe, who knew she had interviewed well, who was sure she had got the job, waited for Coffin to telephone her, and when he did not, tried to telephone him at home. He was not there so she left a message on his answering machine.

  Phoebe came back into the picture and Stella returned to the fold on the same day, which was a complication. Both of them left a message on his answerphone.

  Flying back today, fondest love, Stella. Get out the champagne. That meant she was in a good mood. Not necessarily forgiving (what was there to forgive, he asked himself), but certainly loving.

  Phoebe Astley made her plea. Can you give me a bell? I am staying with a mate who has a place near the Tower. We could meet for a drink. I mean we’d better, hadn’t we? We’ve got to talk.

  Coffin smiled wryly as he put down Tiddles’s food and pushed the dog’s nose out of the way. Phoebe always had rotten timing, that was one thing he now recalled about her. Stella, on the other hand, had the impeccable timing of a top actress.

  Well, he would ring Phoebe, but in his own time; Phoebe had to learn about timing, and now it was Tiddles and the dog who came first.

  He fed them both, washed his hands, because cat food (they both ate cat food, fortunately the dog could not read) smelt.

  ‘The thing is, Tiddles,’ he said. ‘To be quiet but not furtive.’ He considered the problem while he fed the dog.

  ‘I know: we’ll go to the Half a Mo.’ He was pleased with Phoebe and his own plans. As he left the interview room – without speaking to her – he had seen her talking to his assistant. She had a carrier bag from Minimal at her feet. Good girl, he had thought. Instinct, that’s what she’s got. Without knowing it, she has started work for me.

  The pub, called Half a Mo by its regulars was placed on the junction by Halfpenny Lane and Motion Street, outside Coffin’s bailiwick and into the City of London.

  Small and dark, it had always been popular with those seeking privacy. Coffin had arrested more than one villain there in the old days. Its real name, shown on the board swinging above the door, was the King’s Head, and there was a bearded head wearing a crown and clutching a glass to be seen, although wind and rain had weathered it. Only strangers to the district called it by that name.

  The Half a Mo had changed since Coffin’s last visit. It had been brightened up, more lights, more paint, more noise. It had never been noisy, as he remembered it; people had muttered quietly over their drinks. Usually because th
ey were up to no good. Now music blasted from several sources, but, as he reflected, this too was a good protection against conversations being heard.

  In fact, he could hardly hear what Phoebe was saying; she had kept him waiting, which just confirmed what he thought about her timing.

  She was sitting opposite him, looking bright-eyed and alert, and a good deal thinner than when he had seen her last year in Birmingham, where she had helped him through a difficult patch. She looked thinner, but that might be due to a smart-looking silk dress she was wearing.

  ‘How are things now?’ She lifted up the gin and tonic which had always been her tipple.

  It was a routine question to which no answer need be given.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. Which was half true and half not true. He had survived a board of inquiry, some hostile media criticism, and been told that he could be sure of a KBE in the next Honours list. Also, he still had a wife, at least he thought so; he would know more about that when he met Stella off the plane tomorrow morning. ‘And what about you?’ Their past relationship meant that there was real feeling in the question.

  ‘Oh well, as you say, fine …’ She sipped her gin and looked away.

  ‘I was surprised when you put in for the job.’

  ‘I heard about it on the grapevine and thought it was one for me … Of course, I didn’t know much about it then, it was just a whisper.’ Now she did know. Or as much as he had told her and as much as she had guessed.

  ‘What about your husband and the children and the dog – do they like the idea of your working in the Second City?’

  Phoebe looked away. ‘Do you like my dress? It’s new, I bought it to celebrate getting the job. I know I have got it; I was tipped the wink.’

  ‘Come on, Phoebe.’

  ‘They don’t exist; there is no husband, no children, not even a dog. I made them up. But I expect you know that.’

  ‘I did check.’ He looked at her without a smile. ‘Why, Phoebe, why?’