‘Horrible,’ said Brenda, who felt she must say something.
‘Oh, you know about that do you? Thought you must know something in spite of you pretending not to …’ As she shut her door, the neighbour said: ‘If you’re not the social, and not the insurance, then you must be the police.’ She shut her door with a triumphant bang, aware of having scored.
Brenda James went back to the door, she abandoned the bell and applied herself to the knocker.
‘Come on,’ she called. ‘I know you’re there. Let me in.’
All she got in return was silence. But she knew someone was there, she could sense it, hear soft rustling. Old devil, she thought, he’s playing me up.
She banged the door and rang the bell. More than once. Still silence. Then a movement behind the door.
A husky voice called out. ‘Fuck off!’
‘So I left, sir,’ she said to John Coffin.
‘Quite right. You did all you could. Thank you. He was in good voice, anyway.’
‘He was that,’ said Brenda with conviction.
Pleased with his courtesy, delighted to have had such a contact with the chief commander, whom she only knew by sight, and with the satisfied feeling that she must have done her career a bit of good, she returned to the incident room. What she really planned to do as soon as a suitable moment came was to get a cup of tea in the canteen and let her colleagues know where she had been.
Coffin worked on. No Timpson, no Albert Waters. Bad thoughts fill a vacuum. He was having bad thoughts in plenty.
When people don’t do what you expect, then you do what they don’t expect. If necessary, you go where you are not wanted. So he tidied his desk and left his office. He walked slowly down the stairs. He knew the word would soon go out: Walker is on the prowl.
In mid-afternoon, the canteen was not crowded, but there were more men and women there than he would have expected: small groups around the room, heads down, talking quietly.
It was not a place he went into often, it was their territory, not his, but occasionally he strolled in with someone like Archie Young.
He was noticed instantly and the conversations died away. Then, as he took a cup of tea to an empty table in the window, the talk started up again.
But not naturally, the conversations had changed; whatever they had all been discussing before they had stopped. He could tell. And that told him something: they had been discussing Timpson. The absent Timpson.
One by one, men got up and drifted off. He was careful not to look at them.
Presently, Archie Young came hurrying in, and that told him something too. Archie had been warned and summoned. Word had gone out to him that Walker was out and he had better get down there and do something about it. It was known as a damage limitation exercise. Archie came up, and was friendly. ‘Hello, sir, can I join you?’ He sat down. ‘Don’t often see you down here.’
‘I thought I’d just look around.’
‘Ah.’ Archie put some sugar in his tea, reminded himself that he was, in a way and as far as it could go in their circumstances, a friend of the chief commander. ‘Ah,’ he said again.
‘Oh, come on, Archie, you can say more than that.’
‘Well, does it need saying, sir? Would you be down here if it did?’
‘Timpson.’ Coffin let the name drop into the conversation like a stone.
Archie Young was silent for a moment. There was such a thing as loyalty to your peers. You did not drop a man in it.
Not until you were sure he was deep in the mud anyway and wouldn’t get out.
About Timpson, he suspected that he was in trouble, and behaving foolishly.
‘He’s a silly fellow,’ he said sadly.
‘Go on.’
‘He’s got a girlfriend, and he got into debt.’ The one thing followed the other. ‘And he’s been selling stories to the press. Mind you,’ he added cautiously, ‘this is only talk, I don’t know of my own knowledge.’ By which he meant, this is not official and I shall deny having said anything.
‘How’s it done?’
‘I suppose he meets the contact in a pub and passes over what he’s got. If anything. Probably safer that way. No telephone calls or such.’
‘Who’s the contact?’ For a moment, he wondered if it could be Geraldine. But there were a lot of information hungry journalists.
Archie shrugged. ‘Haven’t heard a name.’
‘How did you hear about this business?’
‘Hard to keep things quiet,’ said Archie simply. ‘But of course, it’s just canteen talk, none of it may be true.’
‘And is that all?’
‘As far as I have heard,’ said Archie cautiously.
‘I won’t ask you how long you have known of the stories going round.’
Archie had the strong feeling that his status as good friend had gone several degrees down. The truth that you cannot ride two horses at once was being made painfully clear to him.
‘Timpson was in charge of the combined investigation into the deaths of Henbit and Pittsy. I suggest you take him off it and assume control yourself.’
‘Already done.’
‘Good. Timpson should have initiated a forensic study of a bill and a small powder compact. If any discoverable fingerprints link up with the burnt body – there was a hand and finger – remember, then you will have the identity of the dead woman.’
‘He did do that; I checked.’
‘I am not sure if that will settle exactly who the woman was; I think she may have had layers of identity, but we shall know what she was calling herself to certain people at certain times.’
Archie Young looked round the canteen which was almost empty, all the tables near them had cleared with speed. It was like being Typhoid Mary, he thought.
‘You’re not suggesting that Timpson had anything to do with the money laundering or the murders … if the two are connected.’
‘I am sure they are, and as for Timpson, I don’t know, but he could have been involved.’ Someone close to him was, if his own suspicions, now fuelled by Albert Waters’s hints, were true.
There was silence between them as they both considered the horrors of bringing Timpson before a disciplinary court. Apart from its effect on morale in the force, the publicity in the newspapers and TV would be enormous. Coffin knew that however scrupulous he was in setting up the tribunal, the words ‘kangaroo court’ would come up sooner or later.
And he had his own reason for not wanting hostile publicity just now; he kept this reason to himself.
It was still very hot weather, a heavy moist heat that was unpleasant. The sky was grey with low mist.
Coffin broke the silence: ‘Well, I’m off.’
‘Yes, I’d better get back. I’ll let you know as soon as the forensics are back.’
Across the room, a trio of uniformed women constables had established themselves, they were very conscious of the chief commander, but were keeping their heads down.
One of them looked up as another woman came into the room. ‘Hi, Brenda, join us?’
Brenda James nodded, she took up a cup of tea, debated a chocolate biscuit, but she might put on weight and so she turned it away. As she did so, she saw the chief commander and Superintendent Young.
The disquiet that had been bubbling up inside her all day burst forth. She marched across to their table.
‘Sir, about what I said this morning … it wasn’t the way he spoke that upset, not the language, I’ve heard worse. Hell, I talk like that myself sometimes, we all do, it was the way it was said … Horrible … And it wasn’t just that.’ She stopped.
Coffin prompted her. ‘Yes?’
‘I’ve been thinking about it all day … I don’t know if it was him speaking. The voice wasn’t right … I think someone else was there in the house.’
Coffin stood up. ‘Thanks for telling me, you’ve been useful.’
He had waited all day to hear from Albert Waters, but he had waited too long. When aler
ted by Brenda James’s anxiety, he went to the house, he rang the bell and knocked only once.
Then he knelt down and peered through the letterbox. No one there. It was then he walked round back of the house, looked in the kitchen window and saw Albert lying in his own blood.
And all the time, there was another body rolling over and over in the Thames, moving with the tide.
8
Interim report. Coffin said to himself, sitting in front of his typewriter and ignoring Stella’s cry that the dishwasher had lost its memory and was pouring hot water over the kitchen floor.
He didn’t believe this, he knew an actress’s cry for attention when he heard it.
Albert Waters died because he was going to tell me something. He was knifed in his own kitchen with one of his own knives. The killer did not bring the knife with him, which might tell us something or it might not.
What Albert was going to tell me must have posed a great threat to the killer or such drastic action would not have been necessary.
That suggests to me that it bears upon the deaths already being investigated. Perhaps Albert knew the murderer and was about to name him.
But I’ve always known that about Albert, he reflected, leaning back in his chair. Or at least since I met him to talk to: that he had a secret inside him that he wasn’t going to let out.
He may not have let that secret out, in fact. I suspect, or indeed, I am sure, that for Albert to know the killer, then there must be a great deal about Albert that I do not know.
He would probably dig out Albert’s secrets, it was what the police were good at. It was probably easier to dig out a dead person’s secrets than a living person’s. The line about taking your secrets to the grave had a certain easy falseness to it.
You of all people should know that, John Coffin, look at the case of your mother. She had secrets, lived a very secret life, but she couldn’t forbear writing them all down and sending them out into the world when she was gone.
Even now, he never used the word dead of his mother. She might turn up.
The death toll was going up, the Second City was getting more publicity than he wanted. So far, he himself had not come in for any criticism, but that could come any day.
He had some information: he had found Albert’s body at a few minutes after five o’clock. The first, quick medical opinion was that Albert had been dead some six hours. He breakfasted, and he had eaten well, and his breakfast was still largely undigested. So it looked as though he had come back from his nocturnal visit to Coffin, gone to bed, and got up to eat breakfast. His bed was still unmade, but he might have been a careless housekeeper. The kitchen and bathroom were clean enough but untidy.
There was no sign of a forcible entry, thus Albert had let in his killer, whom he probably knew.
Or the killer had a key, which again suggested that Albert and his murderer were known to each other.
WDC James’s visit was entered in her notebook as taking place at an hour before midday.
So that when Brenda James called on him, it was probable that he was already dead or dying, thus the voice that had spoken to her must have been that of his killer.
There were no ‘musts’ in detective work, Coffin reminded himself, but he was prepared to accept that one.
Would Brenda recognize the voice again? He had asked her and she seemed eager to try, and yet doubtful at the same time.
Stella wandered into the room, dropping into a chair where she could watch him.
‘How’s the dishwasher?’
‘Pig!’
He laughed. ‘I know you, you see. If it had been really leaking, I would be down there like a shot.’
‘I bet.’
‘Well, on to the plumber, anyway.’
‘I just wanted company.’
‘I know. You think I’m obsessed with these murders.’
‘Taking them to heart too much.’ She curled up in the big chair, voicing her complaint. ‘I hate it when you go all silent and withdrawn like that.’
‘I know. I wouldn’t do if I didn’t have to.’
‘It’s this business, isn’t it?’
‘There are complications, Stella.’
‘It’s not Phoebe Astley?’
‘I’d like to know where she is, but no, it’s not Phoebe, not in the way you mean.’
‘She’s hanging in there, though,’ said Stella. ‘I’m psychic, remember?’
Thank goodness you are not, thought Coffin. I have troubles enough.
‘Have you sorted out the Agnes problem? I mean, I did help there, didn’t I?’
‘You did. Yes, I think we have. I’m waiting for confirmation.’
‘That means she’s dead, and if she’s dead, then she’s the woman that was burnt.’
‘Good guessing.’
As if on cue, the telephone rang. Stella stretched out a hand. ‘I’m expecting a call to finalize a contract … No, it’s for you.’
‘Archie?’
‘Yes. Just to let you know that Timpson called in to say he would be back tomorrow.’
‘Did he say where he’d been and why?’
‘I don’t think we will get much of an answer to that one. If I had to guess, then I’d say he was walking the streets trying to get up the courage to come back … He might even have been thinking of jumping in the river.’
‘I’ll see him tomorrow.’
‘Yes, he expects it, I got the impression he would be glad to talk to you.’
One of my least pleasant jobs, thought Coffin. His eyes rested on Stella who had taken up a magazine but was probably listening to every word. She was wearing a pleated silk trouser suit which looked expensive. No wonder she was interested in a new contract. With whom and for what?
‘And there’s a provisional match on the fingerprints on the letter and bill with the one finger on the burnt body. It was a forefinger on the right hand … it seems this was the woman known as Agnes Page.’
As one problem was solved, another turned up.
The burnt woman was Agnes Page. But there was a query hanging over her head.
Albert Waters who probably knew the answer was dead. So that was a new problem.
And there was still the old one of the mystery surrounding Mary Henbit. Where had she gone, and why? She was not in hospital, she was not in prison, she was not with her family, of which there was only a married sister who did not seem too worried. Both the parents were dead. It is difficult to disappear entirely but she had managed it. Four dead bodies so far, going back to Felix Henbit and Mark Pittsy. And behind it all, the business of the money laundering.
Money came into it, and was the motive for murder, but more and more he was coming to think that this killer had a sharp personal motive.
To add to his troubles, next morning, just as he was leaving, he took a telephone call from Geraldine, whom he suspected of smelling blood, offering to do an article on him and his years of office.
He said no.
And still no word from Phoebe, just an hysterical message from Eden Brown to ask where she was.
9
Although the weather had been hot and dry, the recent heavy storms had made the Thames run fast and turbulent, not like the placid river going about its business as it should. The grey-green surface was flecked with scum, underneath you had the impression that the current was running fast. The Thames in such a mood can be treacherous and mean; it is not an easy river as all bargemen and tugmasters who have to navigate her know, sometimes to their cost. On that morning, bits of debris and rubbish such as only the Thames can collect were swirling round in clumps as if they were growing together in some form of vegetable life.
Coffin knew as soon as he went into the headquarters building, that it was a bad day; he could feel it, almost smell it. They were a close lot these policemen, he knew how they felt, he had been like it himself in the old days when he had been one of them. Now he was not one of them, far from it, and he could arouse hostility with ease. They knew ab
out Timpson, and they were gathering about him in support. You got into the stockade when one of your number was threatened, it was a primitive male instinct; you took the animals and women and children with you, that was instinct too, and he did not know what took its place in the present situation, but it just might be their motor cars, he had seen at least one copper carefully double-locking his car and then going back to look. It must be frustrating not to be able to get your car inside the stockade.
But you could confront the enemy and they were doing that, in their own way, not direct confrontation, careers were on the line here, but quietly; he probably would not enjoy going into the canteen today. Not that he was planning to.
Timpson was waiting in his outer office. He was standing by the window, with his back towards the door. Coffin could tell by the slump of his shoulders how he felt. If it’s any comfort, he thought, I feel lousy too. My breakfast is not sitting easy in my stomach any more than yours is. You have a problem but it is mine also.
He nodded to his secretary, who knew what it meant and quietly departed. ‘Coffee, sir?’
The chief commander nodded. ‘Bring it in to my room for both of us.’ He looked towards Timpson who had turned round and was looking at him now, silently. Coffee was not going to cheer him up, but he appreciated the gesture. He was down the drain but was not going to be kicked as well. Well, yes, he would be, but the chief commander was signalling that humanity was still in place. He followed the chief commander into the room but he did not sit down until asked.
‘Sit down, man.’ Not the most cordial or friendly of invitations but the best Coffin could manage at that moment. He couldn’t treat the man like a naughty child, it was all too serious for that and he was angry, but he wouldn’t bully him.
All this time, Timpson had not spoken, now he did. ‘It’s been difficult,’ he said.
Difficult? Coffin thought, is that what you call it? I think I’ve got another name for it. Like bloody dishonest lunacy. He bit back the words that rose to his lips. ‘You’d better tell me.’ There was no sympathy in his voice, it was not an invitation to kiss and make-up.
Timpson recognized it, and what there was of colour’ in his face drained away. Normally, he was a florid, cheerful-looking man, now he was grey and pinched as though the flesh on his face had shrunk.
The Coffin Tree Page 15
