The Coffin Tree

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ said her husband promptly. ‘He’ll want his price, no free lunches, you know.’

  ‘So how’s Phoebe?’

  ‘Phoebe’s doing very well,’ he answered sturdily. ‘I think this affair may be about to fold up and Phoebe will have played her part. Tomorrow I will wait to see if Albert Waters telephones me and if not, I will go and call on him myself. He interests me, and what he has to say could tell a lot.’ He felt full of energy and hope; the mysteries would be cleared up. Phoebe was out there working on it, she had always been a great digger into the background: she’d asked for ‘personal leave’ but he thought he knew better: she would be working. Dangerous, may be? But there was no point in worrying. ‘Come on, change out of that party gear and put on jeans and soft shoes. We’ll take a long Sunday afternoon walk. I’ll drive us to Greenwich Park and we’ll walk up the hill to the Heath. With any luck there will be a fair on and you can ride on the roundabout.’

  7

  The sunlight had been golden on the hill in Greenwich Park as they walked up the grassy slope with its dells and hillocks to the top where General Wolfe stood looking out across the old palace and the Seamens’ Hospital which had been old when Wolfe was fighting the French in Canada.

  Half way up, Coffin paused to look back at the city in sunshine. ‘Looks beautiful.’

  ‘And peaceful, everyone enjoying their Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘But it isn’t, it’s a battlefield down there.’ He held out his hand to her. ‘Come on, we’ll help each other up the hill.’

  They got to the top, then sat there, slightly breathless. Coffin smiled at his wife. ‘Worth it now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, more or less.’ But Stella smiled too. ‘Remember when I played in the old Greenwich Theatre? And you were very very young.’

  ‘So were you. We both were.’

  ‘Somehow I think I was older than you, girls are. It sort of happens and I’d been around about.’ She looked at him from under her eyelashes.

  ‘So you used to boast. I have to tell you that I never quite believed you.’

  Stella picked a blade of grass, drawing it through her fingers, then beginning to chew it. ‘I did exaggerate a bit.’

  ‘I wasn’t all that experienced either.’

  ‘I knew that too. I could tell. But I loved you even then.’

  ‘I did know, dearest Stella, I knew. But you could be a real little bitch.’

  ‘I was so young and ambitious … you were too.’

  ‘I know.’ He was sad. ‘Two for a pair. We wasted years. But we did both have the careers we wanted, even if it cost. And now life has given us a bonus. Perhaps we don’t deserve it, but we’ve got it.’ He put his arms round his wife and kissed her.

  ‘You can be very nice,’ she said. ‘And very sweet and very honest … and it’s usually when you are about to be truly terrible.’ She put her head on one side. ‘So what is it this time?’

  ‘I don’t think I am.’

  ‘You don’t always know, I’ve noticed that, you surprise yourself.’

  Coffin considered: she might be right, he could feel something brewing up inside but he had no idea what. ‘I’m not in love with Phoebe, nor about to fall in love with her.’

  Then he said: ‘I think what I’ve got inside is anger. I feel violent. I want revenge.’ They were his men, those dead policemen, there was possession to fuel the anger as well as the pain of loss.

  Stella was silenced for a moment, absorbing what he had said. ‘You’re very Shakespearean.’

  ‘No. You haven’t got it right. The wrong writer: I’m Dickens or even Wilkie Collins.’

  ‘I don’t mind being Cordelia or Lady Macbeth but I won’t be Little Nell.’

  ‘Shakespeare for you, Dickens for me.’

  Stella stood up. ‘That’s settled then. You can choose between being Inspector Bucket or Sam Weller. Let’s walk on. Let’s go to the old Observatory and stand on the Greenwich meridian. I’ll stand on one side and you can stand on the other, so we shall straddle the globe.’

  The world having been satisfactorily encompassed, they walked across the Heath from which the rioting peasants, supporters of Wat Tyler, had threatened the City of London, but on which a fun fair now caused the only noise. They ate dinner at a fish restaurant overlooking a quiet pond where ducks swam and small boys sailed their toy boats.

  ‘Did you ever sail your boat there?’ asked Stella as she forked up her salmon mousse.

  ‘No.’ Coffin gave a quick glance at the privileged child who was guiding his battery-controlled boat round the pond. ‘No, I never had anything like that, but I had a little wooden canoe that I used to shove up and down the gutters when the weather was wet enough.’

  ‘Oh, you poor deprived child.’

  ‘I was all right,’ said Coffin, who had never pitied himself. ‘I had a good time, and I learnt a lot of my craft on the streets of London. I learnt how to hide when I had to, how to tell a good lie, and how to know a good lie when I heard one. If you don’t take that in with your blood when you’re young, you never do and you’re lost.’

  ‘Neglected, starved but learning to be a good copper?’

  ‘No, I was never starved or neglected exactly. And if no one loved me very much, then I didn’t love them.’

  Stella, child of a comfortable middle class home who had been cherished and even spoilt, knew what he had missed. ‘And that’s what you have had to learn.’

  ‘Well, I do love someone now, and it’s you. And the cat and the dog, that’s enough for me.’

  ‘I never know when you are being serious or not,’ Stella complained. Or whether to believe you.’

  ‘Yes, you do, you know better than anyone. And if other people don’t, that suits me very well.’ He poured her some wine but did not take any more himself; he was serious about drinking and driving, unlike some of the London coppers he had trained with years ago and unlike some of his men now. ‘I’m sure I was a monstrous child, I daresay we all were, Letty, William as well, and I don’t blame Mother for leaving us all behind one after the other.’

  His mother was celebrated, as he knew now that he had read her diaries, for loving and moving on, leaving behind children, but sometimes husbands or less regular partners. She was a prime example of what Bernard Shaw called the undeserving poor.

  They drove home to St Luke’s Mansions in affectionate silence. That night, in bed, with his arm across Stella in a protective way, he reflected that it had been a goodish day.

  He had enjoyed Geraldine’s party, he had been amused to see Stella flirting with and perhaps tormenting Sir Ferdie, who deserved it; then he had gone with Phoebe to meet Eden Brown to whom he had offered a certain amount of protection, although she would be advised not to depend too much on it, and he had his conviction about the deaths of Felix and Mark.

  He would find out about Agnes whoever she was; he thought Albert Waters had a lot of talking to do.

  He turned on to his back, studying the ceiling while he considered his problems. He had two.

  One was Phoebe.

  The other was Chief Inspector Timpson.

  The image of Phoebe seemed to impose itself on the ceiling: he saw her face, usually good humoured and controlled, but this was not how he had seen it this morning. Then she had been tense and secretive. Yes, that was the word: she was hiding something. And she had been crying, her face looked puffy. But he trusted her to be still on the job.

  He considered. Perhaps puffy was not quite the word. It was swollen.

  Phoebe’s face faded away, and was not replaced by that of DCI Timpson. There was no impulse to summon up his image. The ceiling remained blank while the worry increased.

  The cat was sleeping on his feet at the bottom of the bed, and the dog was snoring on the rug by his side, with the intention of climbing on the bed too once Coffin was deeply asleep. He would also try for a good spot on his master’s feet. If he succeeded in dislodging Tiddles then the cat would move up to
sit on Coffin’s head: feet and head, these were the two prime places.

  He shifted his feet but the cat did not move. ‘Get off, you brute!’ He managed to slide his feet away and swung out of bed.

  The problem of Timpson was going to prevent sleep for a while. He had pushed it to the back of his mind for too long, but now the anxiety had broken the crust and come crawling out.

  There were rumours going around about Timpson: no one had said anything to him, he was supposed not to know, but he did know, he knew everything, it was his job to know.

  In this eccentric tower home, the living room was on the top floor where it got the best view and the sunniest light, the bedroom was underneath with the kitchen below that. Coffin crept up the stairs and sat by the window which he had always found to be a good place for thinking.

  He caught a distant sound of music, coming from who knew where, it came and went on the wind like the music of spheres. One of the marvellous things about London, he mused, however late the hour there was always someone around; you were never the last to put out the light. In fact, the light never went out, it was never a sleeping city.

  What was the rumour about Timpson?

  That he was on the take. That he mixed too closely with certain criminous elements, that he was far too friendly with one or two, and that he did favours. Money passed hands.

  Coffin knew this was being said, and he knew that very soon now he would have to take action, he would have to question Timpson. Unofficially first, in one of those mock-friendly interviews that set your teeth on edge, and then, if that did not go well and get straight answers from Timpson that cleared him, launch another set of questions in an official way.

  He thought about Timpson, the solid citizen, the family man with a wife who was a teacher and two children, both of whom must be at university by now. He had only good reports of the children, no trouble there. So why was good citizen Timpson so short of money?

  He was not anxious to find out why, although he would have to, but he would have to find out what he was doing about it.

  He walked to the window, as he so often did, to look out: no lights to be seen but on this summer night there was already that pale lightening of the sky that spoke of the dawn.

  It was already tomorrow: the day on which he must decide what to do about Timpson.

  First, take him off the case because he might be the killer.

  Then suspend him while an inquiry was mounted.

  ‘Damn it all,’ he said aloud.

  The sound of distant music had died away but through the silence, he thought he heard a noise.

  Downstairs, in his own house, was movement.

  St Luke’s Mansions was known to be where he lived, and on this account got protection and surveillance because he was someone who might be attacked at any time. Over the door was a video camera which recorded all comings and goings, although those most frequently photographed were Tiddles and the dog. Even Coffin, who knew them intimately, had been surprised how often they went in and out through their private and personal exit flap. The security expert who checked the establishment had recommended doing away with the flap, but Coffin who had to live with the animals had ignored the advice.

  He turned to the screen to look: the usual empty night scene, no parking was allowed near his door, but on the picture there was a retreating back: a man and by the way he moved, not a young man. He thought he knew that back.

  Downstairs there was a folded sheet of paper in the letterbox. The message was in pencilled large letters.

  I am coming to you tomorrow. Not saying when, not safe.

  I will come in my own time, you wait.

  No telephone, you are listened to. Who have you got who listens?

  The letter was blotched and smudged almost as if the writer had been crying over it.

  The missive was not signed, but it didn’t need to be, he knew it was from Albert Waters.

  And there it was again, that suggestion that someone about him was not to be trusted.

  It was not going to be a night for sleeping.

  He climbed the stairs to the bedroom where he slid into bed beside Stella who moved her hand in sleepy welcome. Tiddles was still there, having expanded quietly into all available space, and the dog had a spot at the bottom. Coffin considered kicking them both off but decided that life had to be lived on the terms offered.

  ‘Have you thought,’ he said aloud to her, ‘that there have been too many stories about the Second City police lately? Well informed stories at that. And have you thought that the source is inside the force and that just might be the hard up Chief Inspector Timpson?’

  Stella did not answer.

  That was what was nice about marriage. Coffin decided, you could ask your wife a question in the middle of the night which she would not answer and you would not mind.

  In the morning he did what had to be done: he sent a message, polite but neutral in tone, asking Chief Inspector Timpson to call on him. Then he ordered a check to be made on Albert Waters’s house. ‘See if he is all right. Talk to him.’ Then, with a shrewd assessment of Albert’s reactions, he added, ‘Better send a woman.’ He wanted to add: the youngest and prettiest you’ve got, but that was not PC and dangerous talk these days. ‘And tell her to let me know what she finds.’

  Then he got back to routine matters, which always seemed to drag in money and resources these days. He had a handsome uniform which he hardly ever wore, and was one expense on the Second City force which he would most gladly have sacrificed. But it seemed that when you met the Queen you had to wear the ceremonial gear, and he had a royal visit coming up next month.

  Planning for this visit had taken up a great deal of his time for the last year: committee after committee, some local, some in at the Palace with the Household officials. Everyone was invariably polite but uncompromising: you did things their way or not at all. He did not anticipate any serious danger to the Queen on her visit: the inhabitants of the Second City were monarchists and enjoyed a royal show if they didn’t have to pay for it, but Coffin knew that danger could come in from outside. But apart from the usual horrors attendant upon any production of this sort (and you had to think of it in terms of theatre), there was no special problem.

  His office was quiet, but noises from the building filtered through to him: loud voices, someone coughing, the constant ringing of telephones.

  He worked on for a while, then he raised his head from the file of papers. Last week he had been with Stella to a student production of Pygmalion; it had not been a good production, the Professor being particularly unconvincing, but the right words now came on his lips.

  ‘I am a patient man,’ he quoted. ‘But where the hell is Timpson?’

  He picked up the telephone and demanded of the CID unit where was the chief inspector. There was an interval before his call was answered.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said an apologetic voice, ‘this is Inspector Marsh here, we seem to have a problem about that … We can’t say where he is just at the moment. He called in with a message saying he was going out on the job.’

  ‘Going where?’

  ‘He didn’t say, sir, and he hasn’t been in touch since.’

  ‘No idea where he’s gone?’

  ‘I tried the forensic laboratory, sir, but no go.’

  ‘What about the incident room?’

  ‘I am in there, sir. Your call was transferred.’ Marsh sounded uncomfortable.

  There’s something wrong here, and he knows it. Coffin decided.

  ‘Give him my message when he does arrive.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The voices from his outer office seemed noisier; he went to the door to see what was going on. Outside was a Detective Brenda James. She had a determined look on her face.

  ‘I was told to report to you, sir.’

  His secretary was flustered: ‘I didn’t think you wanted to be disturbed, sir.’

  ‘This is all right. Don’t worry. I do want to hear. Co
me in and tell me.’ He looked at his secretary. ‘Coffee, please?’

  Inside his own room, he sat Detective James down. ‘Here’s the coffee; help yourself to sugar and milk.’

  Brenda James, unused to such polite attention from her macho colleagues, took her coffee and stored up the moment.

  ‘So what did you find?’

  ‘Well, sir, he’s an old …’ she hesitated.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He’s an old bastard,’ she said with conviction.

  The young woman detective had parked her car well away from Albert Waters’s house, not wanting to draw attention to herself, then she had walked slowly round the corner to where he lived.

  It was a quiet morning, children were at school, husbands or boyfriends at work, and most women putting the weekend’s laundry through the washing machine. It was a sedate domestic street which did not like trouble and had seen enough of the police.

  Both instinct and training warned Brenda James to be cautious. She walked a few yards past the house, then turned back. She allowed herself a moment or two’s study of the Tower of Babel which was slipping to one side as if it would soon tumble down. Not one of Albert’s better buildings, she decided. She had never called on him before but she had gone past his garden when she was still in uniform and walking the beat; she remembered a fine Leaning Tower of Pisa (she supposed it had been that, it had certainly leaned to the left) which she had admired. There had been Nelson on his Column too, she seemed to remember, not such a success.

  She opened the gate and rang the bell.

  No answer.

  She tried the knocker and when this brought no reply, she backed away down the garden path to survey the window.

  ‘You from the social?’ The speaker was Albert’s next-door neighbour.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Social worker … He’s had one of those call already.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Just thought you might be. Insurance then?’

  Brenda kept silent.

  ‘There must be insurance after what happened. He’s in a bad mood, and you can’t blame him after all this. It was a horrible business.’