The Coffin Tree

by Gwendoline Butler

  It probably had, Coffin thought: the man looked as though he hadn’t eaten or drunk or slept for some time.

  ‘When did you last go home?’

  ‘I don’t remember. I think it was the day before yesterday.’ He didn’t look as if he knew when yesterday was. Not a day that he wanted to remember, anyway.

  At this point, the coffee came in. Coffin poured a cup. ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ He took a mouthful, and then drained it as if he was very thirsty but had not known it until that minute. He hadn’t shaved either. Coffin thought, or at any rate, very roughly and probably in the washrooms below. He felt the first real touch of sympathy for Timpson that morning. It must be bloody, sitting there, facing the boss with your chin half shaved. The hand that had come forward for the cup didn’t look too clean either, the nails were grubby. Timpson had normally been a man who set store by an immaculate appearance. He had been drinking too. Coffin could smell beer on his breath. Well, he had to have been somewhere if he wasn’t at home, and he no doubt knew a friendly publican. Or the man, sick at heart as he must have been, reluctant to go home to face his wife (what about her, by the way?), might have just sat by the river with a can of beer with the rest of the dispossessed of this city. The Timpson he remembered had not been too sympathetic to the down and out, maybe he would be now. But somehow he doubted it, the thing about misery and guilt was that it turned you in on yourself. He ought to know: he had had his own dose of it in his time.

  ‘Well? Let’s have it.’

  ‘I needed the money, I had debts – I don’t want to talk about how or why, I don’t want to drag someone into it that doesn’t deserve it, she isn’t guilty of anything. I’m not going to blame her for what was my fault. I was offered a deal and I took it.’

  He sat silent.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that. Who offered and what and for what?’ He had a pretty good idea, the information handed over had to have been on the banking investigation, and possibly, anything on the death of the two policemen, that would be about it, but it had to be spelt out.

  ‘I’ve known Peter Billson of the Trumpet …’ This was the name that they gave to a well-known daily. ‘We were at school together. We had the odd drinks together occasionally.’

  And he dredged the waters for any information you might have and would talk about. You’ve probably been a bit free with him before, only this time it was more important and not free. You fool.

  ‘I never passed anything of importance over, believe me.’

  ‘We will have to go into that.’ It had to have been of some importance to be worth anything to the Trumpet; Coffin knew the editor and he was not a man famous for his generosity. ‘I shall want details, and you will have to make a statement. That’s not what this talk is about.’ Timpson knew how it went as well as anyone. ‘This is just to tell you that you are suspended, that there will be an inquiry.’

  Timpson nodded. There was no need for him to utter a word, nor did he.

  ‘Of course, you will be represented and supported.’ Not quite a kangaroo court, but something pretty close to it; he knew it and Timpson knew it, and the men downstairs knew it which accounted for their mood.

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘You just looked so guilty. And of course, stories about what you were up to have been going around. Did you think they wouldn’t be?’

  This was not quite true. Coffin had his own quiet intelligence service within the force, spies you might have called them, informers in criminal circles, but he knew he had to rely on information coming to him, so he had his contacts. Archie Young was one, but there were others, and of both sexes.

  ‘And what made you come forward?’ Not goodness of heart, he thought, or the straight desire to clear yourself; you’re the sort that would hang on until the bitter end, because you would hate to admit you were ever wrong. I’ve known your sort before, and they were always cocky and self-confident until life caught them out and then they would go on swearing black was white as long as they could. You are one of the brazen-it-out breed, so why not now?

  ‘Geraldine Ducking … she asked me for a drink and when she got me there she sprang it that she was ready to publish an article on corruption and the press … naming me.’

  ‘You believed her?’

  ‘Yes, she showed me what she’d got … photographs, tapes of telephone calls, photocopies of receipts … I never took cheques, it was always cash, but I had to give a receipt of some sort so we made it look like I’d settled accounts at shops and wine bars … I don’t know how she got them, but I’d signed this and that, she had photocopies. Oh, she had done the job. And she hates the Trumpet.’ Timpson fell silent. He seemed to be looking into the pit that had opened before him.

  That bloody Geraldine, thought Coffin, she’s dangerous. I wonder if this is why she’s been courting me and Stella? Not because she loves us so much but because we could be part of a story.

  ‘She rang me yesterday, wanting to talk again.’

  ‘Keep away from her.’

  Timpson muttered something about never wanting to see her again.

  You might have to, Coffin thought, we both might have to, but we shall have witnesses with us. She would too, of course, Geraldine was no fool, so there were not going to be any quiet little meetings in bars. He was surprised that Timpson had not taken more precautions; he was fundamentally a stupid man who had been too pleased with himself.

  ‘I didn’t … know … have anything to do with the killings,’ he hesitated, struggling to get the words out, ‘to do with the deaths of Pittsy and Henbit.’

  Coffin felt cold. The man should not have said that. He looked in his face, hoping to see something wholesome and reassuring there. But no. Just a shifty sense of guilt. It was the sort of remark that commanded suspicion. Rolled him nearer the precipice.

  Coffin stood up. He wanted to say, get out, get out of my sight, but he restrained himself. Probably read it in my face, he thought. ‘That’s it for now. You can go. You are off the case, of course.’

  As he shuffled to the door, Timpson said: ‘Geraldine said I did have knowledge …’

  ‘I told you: keep away from her.’ Coffin suddenly felt weary of it all. ‘That’s the best advice I can give you.’ Except drown yourself. Then he thought of the river and thought that the Thames did not deserve Timpson.

  Even when the door had closed behind him, the room did not feel empty of Timpson, he still seemed to be present. Coffin went to the window and threw it open, a breeze blew in and he hoped that Timpson blew out with it.

  He went back to his desk, feeling that events were moving all round him, more than he knew as yet, which was the way things always happened when they were big events.

  The interest of the media was intense by this time, newsmen from all round the world were encamped outside the incident room from which only guarded statements were being made. There was pressure on Coffin, so far resisted by him, to appear and make a statement. He was so televisual, he was told, to his fury.

  Eden Brown had been told of the forensic tests, she knew that the burnt body had been identified as that of Agnes Page, but she had not been asked to view the remains. Agnes’s flat was sealed and would be examined. Her shop had been visited and the young assistant, ignorant and puzzled, who had been trying to keep things going, had been questioned. The reports would all, in due course, rest on Coffin’s table.

  He had an engagement to go to the theatre with Stella that night, but first he had some other business. He prepared himself for it in a wry mood. He tidied his hair, inspected his nails, and brushed his suit. He was half ashamed of himself for doing this, but it also amused him. This was John Coffin here, who had been a poor boy on the London streets and had come this far, but he was the same inside and he knew it. This surface sophistication was skin deep, one scratch and he would bleed.

  He was interrupted by a call from Geraldine.

  ‘I want to interview you, please. S
oon, now if you can.’

  ‘No, Geraldine, no interview.’

  ‘I’m interested in what’s going on.’

  ‘Leave it.’ His voice was hard. ‘There’s nothing for you here.’

  ‘I am the avenging angel, darling,’ she said with a laugh in her voice. ‘And I think you have a stinking mess on your hands down there.’

  Much as he had liked Geraldine, and respected her achievements, he did not care for this mood of hers, which he had met before.

  ‘I can’t talk to you now and I am not going to be interviewed, believe me.’

  ‘You can’t stop me writing about you and your colleagues.’

  ‘I could probably drop an injunction on you.’

  ‘But you won’t do that.’

  ‘I might. If I feel I have to.’ He did not remind her that she was on a committee of his which might involve her in a dichotomy of interests. Hold that back for now.

  One of the strengths of Geraldine Ducking was that she knew when to back away. They continued talking for a few minutes more, during which her tone changed to being quieter and less aggressive, and she ended on a friendly note.

  ‘I really admire Stella. I think she’s about the best actress on the London stage just now and I love the way she looks.’

  ‘Thanks, Geraldine.’ He thought she was trying for tact.

  When Coffin put the receiver down, he sat there for a moment thinking. That was another thing about Geraldine: she did provoke thought, she stimulated you.

  The important thing about detection, he reminded himself, is that you must see the obvious.

  The other most important thing is that the vital clue may only be presented to you once and you had better see it.

  He had the feeling that already the vital clue had been shown to him and that he had not seen the obvious.

  He stared at the blotter.

  He was interrupted by his secretary. ‘Lady Eastham and Colonel Lee are here.’

  Coffin stood up. ‘Show them in.’

  No greater contrast with Geraldine Ducking could be imagined. Lady Eastham was tall, thin, well-groomed and dressed in a discreet linen suit, she carried white gloves. At a first glance. Colonel Lee seemed a match, equally thin, tall, restrained and well-bred. It was only at a closer look you saw that in fact he was not tall and was sturdily built rather than thin.

  Coffin had done his homework so he knew that the Eastham earldom was both old and respectable, it went back to one of Queen Anne’s more successful generals, but was not rich. Lady Eastham had been one of the Queen’s senior ladies in waiting for some years; she was known to be good-humoured and reliable. Colonel Lee had served in the Guards in the Falklands and was now retired: he was a royal equerry. They were both here to oversee the arrangements for the Queen’s visit.

  Coffin produced maps of the road system which the royal cars would have to go through, and plans of the buildings which would be visited by the royal party.

  Eileen Eastham was efficient, she told what was required, checked that everything was in place, explained that she had to tell the drivers the exact position of the entrances and doors so that the car could drive up where the door would be opened in the correct position for the Queen to make her customary graceful arrival where the welcoming party stood. If the car door opened on the wrong side you were in trouble. Colonel Lee was making notes on the security arrangements.

  ‘Everything will have been double-checked with dogs by my security men here, two days beforehand,’ Coffin assured him. ‘And I shall have men stationed all round of course as usual, and on roofs.’

  All three of them knew that in addition there would be careful searches by the Queen’s own security men, and no doubt by other units as well: some operations were so secret you did not mention them even to those close.

  ‘It all seems in order,’ said Eileen Eastham with a friendly smile. She too had done her homework and knew who John Coffin was and what his career had been. ‘But I expected no less.’

  Coffin thought he could read in that smile a sentence or two about him: You left school as a lad, did your National Service, did well but were not an easy recruit, joined the Metropolitan force, and now you are where you are. How hard you must have worked.

  Coffin had his own thoughts: I have worked hard, and I have had some strange experiences that have educated me. He smiled back.

  ‘Good show,’ said the Colonel. ‘You run a tight ship here.’

  Coffin knew what he meant: We don’t want any riots or street fighting or any scandals before or for some time after the Queen’s visit.

  ‘It’s a good set of people here. You can rely on them giving Her Majesty a warm welcome.’ I have people here who don’t like the police and people here who don’t like the army, but then a standing army has never been popular in England and for that matter nor have the police, but provided I keep a low profile and you don’t wear a military uniform, they will all be out on the streets cheering. It will be a public holiday in the schools so that will make for popularity too. Anyway, in certain junior circles these days, I wouldn’t count on them coming out waving flags. More likely to stay at home and watch the visit on television. But the Queen was probably well used to all this and did not mind at all. She might even have preferred to be at home watching television herself.

  So he smiled cheerfully at the equerry, and offered a reassuring handshake to a man who was trying to do a good job. I am fighting a war here, he said to himself but it is a war against me. I don’t know the face of my enemy yet but I feel his breath on my back.

  He walked to the car with them, stood talking for a moment, realizing that he liked them both, especially the cool Lady Eastham, and then he made his way to the incident room where the investigation was now upped in status to a MAT inquiry, taking precedence over all the others currently being pursued by his CID and enabling it to draw first on men and resources.

  The room was half full, with men crowded round one desk; they all turned round as he came in and fell silent; he knew what that meant.

  They had been talking about him. So the battle had moved to here too? But Archie Young emerged from the heart of the group and he realized that he had been wrong.

  ‘Think we’ve got something, sir, on the Agnes Page case. In the first place, it wasn’t her name, of course.’

  ‘I never thought it was.’

  ‘No, seemed likely it wasn’t. Just her business name, but she let the Eden Brown woman call her by it. I guess she liked her bit of secrecy, and perhaps didn’t trust the Eden woman too much, or thought she wasn’t likely to hold her tongue. Jessop found papers that gave her name as Agnes Gray. It was her married name, he found her passport. She travelled a fair bit.’ He paused.

  ‘So?’

  ‘But except for the passport which a police dog sniffed out in a roll of newspapers, the flat was cleaned out. No personal papers at all. That’s interesting in itself.’

  ‘Jessop thought the passport was hidden?’

  ‘He did, he did. He’s shrewd, is Jessop, and he made up his mind that the whole place had been searched, and that the woman had thought it would be. The passport had been quite cleverly hidden. The passport was in the newspaper but it had been put there deliberately, no accident. He was sure of that, done on purpose.’

  Coffin could tell from Archie Young’s voice that he had something else to tell. ‘Come on, let me have it. I can tell you’ve got something.’

  ‘He found a list of telephone numbers pencilled on the wall by the telephone. Most were business numbers. He will be calling on all the firms to see what he can get, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ It was like squeezing a tube getting anything out of Young at the moment, you had to keep pressing.

  ‘But there was another number partly rubbed out. He was able to get it back … It was Albert Waters’s number … They knew each other. There’s a connection.’

  Coffin had the feeling that an important fact was fleeting past him. So what, he th
ought, I’ll catch it later and hang on to it. But it might be that this was the important bit of evidence he must become aware of at once. See the obvious, he told himself. Don’t, look for the elaboration.

  So what was obvious here? One murder victim knew another murder victim. There was a relationship.

  ‘Find out exactly what the relationship between those two was,’ he ordered.

  ‘Working on it,’ said Archie Young. He was a little annoyed that the chief commander had thought he had to tell him. ‘But she hasn’t left much around for us to work on.’

  ‘She expected trouble; Waters didn’t. I think he was taken by surprise even though he had telephoned me and sounded frightened. He didn’t think whoever was coming for him would come so quick. He didn’t have time to destroy papers. Go over his house. You’ll find something there.’

  With luck, he said to himself, because everyone needed luck and he thought they were due for a piece.

  ‘Will do.’ Young was already turning away. Even he was touched by the slight resentment towards the chief commander. Or perhaps he just wanted to show his colleagues that this friendship of his with Coffin (about which he was careful not to make too much show), would not, could not, corrupt his loyalty to his own. They were watching him from across the room where the green screens flickered and the telephone still rang at intervals. ‘I’ll get on to it.’

  Coffin looked at his watch. He was due to be with Stella in just over an hour, but there would be time. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  A look flashed across the superintendent’s face, and he read it aright: it was not pleasure.

  Albert Waters’s house smelt smoky and cold even though the day outside was hot.

  ‘A damp little house,’ Coffin thought. ‘No wonder he spent so much time outside doing his building.’

  The whole place had already been looked over by the police team, and two men were working there still; he recognized them as being from the forensic team whose work, laborious and methodical, always took longer than that of anyone else. They recognized him at once and seemed surprised to see him. And once again that look; they were not pleased. But they stood up politely and waited to see what he was there for.