‘Moving upstairs,’ said Stella. She put her head on one side. ‘What about it?’
‘I don’t think your husband would care for it,’ Archie said. ‘I think he sees all of me he wants.’
Stella laughed. ‘I’ll go ahead and make the coffee.’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘Wake up the sleeper behind us. I think he’s gone into a trance.’
‘Sorry,’ said Coffin, catching up. ‘I was thinking. What was, all that about?’
‘Just saying hello. Stella’s gone to make some coffee.’
‘Come on up, there’s a lot to talk about with this new incident. Stella won’t stay around, she’ll be tactful.’
No easy thing being the boss’s wife, thought Archie, knowing that his Alison would want to stay around, join in, but Alison was a fellow professional, although mercifully not in this force.
‘I was remembering what happened two years ago.’
‘I wondered if that would come up. Thought the same myself.’
Two years ago there had been a series of four attacks on police officers within as many months; none had died, although two had been seriously wounded and one crippled. The man responsible had been caught.
They stopped at the foot of the staircase up to Coffin’s apartment, Stella had left the door open and the cat had wandered down to look at them.
Coffin bent to pat Tiddles’s head while his thoughts ran on: and if so, I’ve got it all wrong about Henbit and Pittsy. Nothing to do with the money and banking business, but a return to the other affair – a rerun of the attacks on police officers. Perhaps I’ve thought up a whole fantasy and sent Phoebe in to investigate a case that is not there.
‘I remember the man,’ he said to Archie. ‘Edward Adams, wasn’t it? Sent to Broadmoor, wasn’t he?’
They had paused at the top of the stairs where the smell of coffee reached them.
‘And he’s still there; hasn’t escaped or gone for a home visit.’ Archie Young’s feeling about the liberal regime allowed certain prisoners in certain establishments was cynical. ‘But he had brothers and uncles and aunts and cousins and they were all near as batty as he was. It was a personal thing too: they thought the police were after them. And to tell the truth, so we were, since they were behind half the petty crime in East Hythe and Swinehouse.’
Coffin went round switching on lights. Outside, the rain was heavy now, beating against the windows. High up in his tower he could see the flashes that lit up the sky and got ready to hear the thunder. The two phenomena were coming very close together, which nursery lore told him meant the storm was overhead.
‘Have you been thinking this all along?’
‘At the back of my mind: but I knew you had other ideas.’ Not that Coffin had ever said much.
‘You read my thoughts.’
‘Well, sir, you did leave certain signs around.’ It seemed an occasion for politeness and formality and not to presume on old friendship. The chief commander had never been explicit in what he thought, but Archie had got the clear impression that he suspected someone who had close contact with him.
‘And, once you asked for PMs on three bodies, well … I think Timpson is wondering a bit too.’
‘Any news on the PMs?’
‘Nothing. It takes time. And we had to get exhumation orders; that takes time too. Good job the two men weren’t cremated.’ He frowned and sat back in his chair, recalling that Mary Henbit had cremated herself.
Stella returned with a tray of coffee on which she had with generosity added a bottle of brandy. ‘I can see you are going to be late at it, so I am off; I’ve got bills to pay and letters to write.’ She waved a hand from the door, it was a good departure, well choreographed.
Tiddles, who had followed her in, jumped on a chair by the window and fell asleep.
‘He doesn’t mind the thunder,’ said Coffin. ‘But the dog’s terrified and is probably hiding under the bed.’
‘Who is doing the autopsy?’
‘Dr Bickly, I don’t know if you know him, he’s a new appointment at the Lane Grove Hospital, but he also assists Jim Matherson.’ Jim – Big Jim to all who knew him – was the Home Office pathologist, a much overworked man in this criminous city. ‘He’ll do a good job. Everyone says he’s conscientious and gets into everything. Mind you, he’d have to with what they throw at it. The other day, the Met sent him four different legs, just the legs, and asked him for sex and race. And he did it too, not too hard as the legs were thin and pale … It was the toms that got cut up round King’s Cross, their legs, the Met already had the rest of the bodies. No, he’s a clever man.’
‘Who is going down there to watch?’ The postmortems would be done in the police forensic building in Swinehouse. It was not a beautiful building, being bleak and new, but it was efficient as a workplace and very much better than the old building it replaced which had been a Victorian workhouse. ‘I’m glad I don’t have to do it any more.’
‘Timpson is going himself. I believe he’s always sick after it; it’s not a thing you ever get used to, but they say that Bickly manages so well you don’t feel too bad. Not like Big Jim who likes to see chaps keel over.’
‘Good. So about today? First of all, who was it?’
‘DC Frank Talmadge, he’s with the CID team out at Swinehouse.’
‘What happened and how? You’ve told me the outline, now fill me in. Exactly what happened and how was the man killed?’
Archie was apologetic. ‘Sorry, I gave you the wrong impression, he isn’t dead. Or he wasn’t, he may be by now, because he was badly enough hurt.’
Coffin relaxed a little. ‘That’s a relief. I hope he pulls through. Apart from anything else, he may be able to tell us something.’
‘If he remembers anything.’
‘True.’ In any act of violence, the victim’s brain often mercifully wiped out the actual event. ‘So what did happen?’
‘He was driving home, took a left, the car went out of control and hit a wall. Then it exploded.’
‘That way round? It didn’t explode and then crash?’
‘Be nice to know that, but we don’t. The forensic team are working on the car to see what they can discover.’
‘What about eyewitnesses?’
‘Well, there was only one, an elderly woman out with her dog who said it all happened so fast, she couldn’t tell which came first.’ Archie shrugged. ‘And we all know how unreliable eyewitnesses can be.’
He looked at his watch. ‘There’s plenty of media attention, as you can imagine. Switch on the TV news and see what they’ve got.’
They were shot at once into the action. There was the street corner; the brick wall had collapsed into a heap of rubble, the windows were out in the house next door. The camera panned across to where the car was being moved, white uniformed experts were superintending its removal to a transporter. A woman stood at the door of the house that had lost its windows. She was saying what a shock it had been.
A reporter’s voice asked what she had seen.
‘I didn’t see anything, I was out the back.’
‘What did you feel?’
Archie Young groaned. ‘Stupid question, what’s she going to say? That it made her day?’
‘I went to look, I was shocked. I –’
Coffin was leaning forward to see more clearly. On the screen the car was now being lifted tenderly in the air. It swung for a second before it righted and was drawn slowly out of sight.
‘Did you see? It looks as though the rear end was more damaged than the front? That’s odd, isn’t it? The front hit the wall and ought to look worse.’
‘They both looked bad to me.’
While they were talking, the picture changed to that of a prominent politician: he was complaining about the police.
Coffin switched off the set. ‘Just give me a minute. I need to think.’ He went to the window where the night sky had cleared. Without his noticing, the storm had played itself out, all was quiet. Behind him, the dog ha
d emerged from the bedroom to make advances of an unmistakable sort to the cat.
‘I may have got it all wrong,’ Coffin thought. ‘The picture may not be what I thought it was. I might have set Phoebe to investigate a crime that doesn’t exist, while the real crime has been taking place unnoticed.’
He bent down to stroke the cat who had easily discouraged the dog.
‘It’s possible I have been guilty of imposing my view on events without real justification.’ The moon came out from behind a cloud, shining on the distant river, he could just see a gleam. ‘I must let things tell the story. They will if I observe with open eyes.’ It was what detection was all about: observing, recording, taking your time and not drawing up a picture too soon.
He corrected himself: sometimes it was necessary to put together an early picture just so that you could knock it to bits and start again.
‘I might have to do just that,’ he said as he turned back into the room.
‘Didn’t quite hear that,’ said Archie.
‘You weren’t meant to, just me telling myself to be careful. Not to get things wrong.’
‘We all do that sometimes.’ Archie yawned, he was tired and surely the chief commander must be too? He got to his feet.
‘I think I just have. I saw one picture of events while it is possible it was something else altogether.’ He looked at Archie who was yawning again. ‘I’m going down to the hospital, and I’d like you to come too.’
The superintendent followed him without protest, aware that he had no choice, but he did allow himself another hearty yawn. It was fortunate that Alison was away or he would have felt obliged to telephone her with the message that this was going to be another late night.
They drove down Calcutta Street, where Eden had been working late. She had gone out for a quick meal at the Indian restaurant three shops down the street, and then gone back to finish her accounts. As Coffin drove past, she had just locked up and departed; one minute later and he would have seen her leave.
He slowed down when they passed the shop. ‘I’m interested in that shop.’
Archie was surprised. ‘Pricey stuff. Alison had a look and said all she could afford was a pair of tights.’
‘I’ve heard it’s like that. Too expensive for this area, I’d say, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, I’m surprised it’s still there.’
‘The stock changes regularly too.’
You have been watching it, the superintendent commented inside, but he did not say so aloud, although the note of inquiry in his: ‘Really?’ was not lost on Coffin.
‘This shop and some others like it are almost certainly one of the channels through which dirty money is fed.’
This was no news to Archie Young, who had heard all the speculation. It was true that the investigation had been kept under wraps but that did not mean there wasn’t talk. As a matter of course, he kept himself informed.
‘I was case building.’ Coffin speeded up and drove on. ‘I was building up a nice solid little case there, in which the shops somehow had a connection with the death of Felix Henbit and by extension Mark Pittsy too. But now it looks different.’ He drove on, leaving the shop behind.
One security light was left on at the back of the shop, and a spotlight on a carefully chosen dress and jacket in the shop window. It looked attractive, possibly too attractive, but she had decided that if she was ramraided (as had happened to the tailor at the end of the row of shops) she did not care. She had other worries and one of them was embodied in the absent figure of her friend Agnes Page. Twice she had picked up the telephone to ring the police, and once she had considered a private inquiry agent. But each time she had put the telephone down and gone biting away at her worry like a cat with a sore paw.
The hospital in Swinehouse was a new one, built within the last two years and, money being short, was none the more beautiful for that. But inside was a different story. It was well planned with the curving corridors creating islands of privacy, the rubbarized floor quietening all noise. Unlike many hospitals there was a sense of tidiness and quiet.
‘You saw the press?’ The superintendent hurried to catch up with John Coffin.
‘Yes, three of them.’
‘One from the local press, one from the Sun and the other a freelancer chancing it,’ said the knowledgable superintendent. ‘Seen ’em all before. One’s called Rivers and one is called Hill and I can never remember which is which. I don’t think I ever heard the name of the freelance.’
‘The tall one is Hill.’ Coffin too had seen them before. ‘And the freelance is called Frome; I knew his father and you did too – he was one of us.’
Archie stopped dead. ‘Good Lord, yes. Bill Frome, he was …’ he went silent.
‘Yes, he was shot dead. And his killer was shot dead too. End of story.’ Part of the violence and turmoil that could hit his bailiwick any time. ‘Not for the family, though. I kept in touch …’ He looked back at the trio. ‘They didn’t try to speak to us.’
‘Did it on the way out … “What can you tell us, superintendent? What’s the latest news?” They hope they’ll get the very latest. News that the chap’s dead.’
A small group made up of two nurses and a doctor were standing in the corridor outside the small room where the injured policeman lay. The doctor put out a hand. ‘Can’t go in there, sir.’
Coffin explained who he was but it seemed to make no difference. ‘He can’t talk to you, and if he could, then I wouldn’t let you ask questions at this stage. The chap’s hanging on and he needs every ounce of strength left in him for that purpose.’
He was one of the new wave of doctors who, on the whole, did not like the police.
But Coffin was one of the old breed of policemen who did not give way. ‘Is he unconscious?’
‘Not all the time, he comes and goes.’
‘I’d like to see him. He may know me; he may wish to say something.’
The nurses said nothing, but were clearly enjoying the scene. They were on the patient’s side, he must be protected; they were on the doctor’s side, for he was professional too as well as being very handsome. They appreciated his dark curly hair and blue eyes, but on the other hand, Dr Green was exceedingly bossy, showed no sign of inviting either of them out for a drink, and John Coffin certainly had something.
‘You can take a look.’ Dr Green opened the door a few inches for Coffin to see into the room.
Frank Talmadge was wired to several machines and drips were fed into his wrist and down his nose. His face was bruised and swollen; Coffin could not make out eyes or mouth. A nurse stood across the room, dealing with one drip, and his wife sat by his bed with her hand near but not touching his bandaged fingers.
‘Satisfied?’
Mrs Talmadge looked up, she recognized John Coffin with a nervous smile. She was a well-trained police wife, knew who he was, knew he was important to her husband, but she wasn’t sure where her duty lay at this moment.
Then she stood up and came to the door towards Coffin. She was a small woman and he was a tall man. She looked up at him, expectantly, hopefully.
Coffin shouldered his responsibility. ‘This is bad, Mrs Talmadge, but I’ll see that you and Frank are looked after. He’s going to be all right, I’m sure of it, but whatever happens we will look after you.’
This was more or less true, he said to himself, with reservation. But he had made her a promise and would see it through.
‘His legs,’ she whispered. ‘They said he might not walk again.’
‘You can’t be sure of that yet,’ said Coffin, with more conviction than he felt. ‘Wait. Don’t cross any bridges till you come to them.’ He felt ashamed of himself for this dreadful platitude – he was always crossing bridges himself before he came to them, and building them too. ‘What about the children? Is someone with them?’
‘My sister … He was hurrying home to the boy’s birthday party. I told him not to drive fast but he’d be in a hurry. Bringing th
e fireworks. Eddy had asked for a bonfire and Frank always spoilt him.’ The tears were falling now.
Coffin just managed to avoid looking at Archie Young, even though he heard the superintendent’s sharp intake of breath. ‘Fireworks?’
‘Just a few: rockets and Catherine wheels and coloured rain, that sort of thing; not too many because they cost so much now, don’t they?’
They might have cost more than you think. ‘Where would he have put them?’
‘Oh, in the back, I expect; he’d be careful, he smoked you see, so he wouldn’t have them in the front. No, in the back.’
‘Did he keep anything else there?’
Mrs Talmadge was vague, her mind slipping back to her husband’s bed. ‘Oh, just what everyone does. A rug, a few tools. He was careful, thought ahead, he always kept a gallon of petrol, just in case.’
Coffin put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Go back to him and try not to worry.’
As they left, the two men were silent at first, then Young said: ‘Looks as though it was his own fault. Blew himself up.’
Coffin didn’t answer as he drove away, back to the police station in Swinehouse. Don’t carry fireworks near petrol in the back of your car, was in his mind. ‘Let’s see what they have got to say back at his station. There should be some news.’
In Swinehouse, the police kept a low profile, this being politically wise in a district of many races. But the building itself was new, if unobtrusive, you might have thought it a hostel of some sort if it had not been for the police car parked outside. Inside, late as it was, three men were standing by the reception desk. One was the duty officer, another was a fire officer who seemed to be commanding the conversation and directing what he had to say at the third man: Teddy Timpson.
The chief inspector looked at Coffin without surprise, no one was surprised when the chief commander turned up, he got everywhere. They might complain but they got on with it. This call had been half expected, he knew about the hospital visit, he had his lines of communication as did every sensible officer. He was prepared with what to say.
‘The fire officer thinks he was carrying something in the back, sir. He skidded, hit the wall and whatever was in the back,’ he shrugged, ‘went up.’
The Coffin Tree Page 9
