‘Four unsolved murders, a royal visit and corruption in the force, that’s enough, surely?’
‘But you are getting somewhere? The fingerprints that show Agnes had been at Albert’s house, been there a lot.’
‘She was his daughter, I think. But where that leads to, isn’t clear.’
‘It goes somewhere,’ said Stella, spreading honey on her toast, covering the burnt bits with a thick layer and crunching through it. He looked at her with liking and love, thinking that those were not always the same thing and how fortunate a man he was to love someone that he liked. ‘And you will sort it out.’
“Thank you for that vote of confidence.’ He sat down to drink black coffee. He picked up the paper to study the day’s headlines, restlessly aware that the murders in the Second City were still getting the screaming big black banners. And there was another little story, neatly placed beside it but no comment, about the illness of DCI Timpson who was retiring from the case.
He recognized the breath of wind that might turn into a hurricane. He folded the paper.
‘Anything there?’
‘Nothing.’
Stella never read the papers, other than The Stage, except for reviews of plays she was either performing in or interested in.
‘Nothing about last night?’
‘Didn’t see it.’
‘Probably went to press too soon. I saw Andy Jacobs there, he’ll give us a piece but he’s very slow. He’ll get it in tomorrow. And there will be the Sundays if we’re lucky, they usually cover the prizes – I hope so, it does cheer up the student body.’
‘I’m off.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘And you needn’t keep talking just to cheer me up. I shall survive, I always have before.’
Criticism from his police committee, snide remarks from the press, an attack from the local MP, he had come through them all.
This time, he just might not.
Archie Young had let him know on the telephone that three high rankers were threatening to resign.
The guerrilla warfare was beginning to escalate. Hotter and hotter the fire would burn, just like the fire that had burned up Agnes Page.
He had better get down to his headquarters straight away.
No Sir John and Lady Coffin, but an ex-copper on a retirement pension and, a last ignoble thought, with Stella still in star roles and earning in gold.
That would be hard to bear. It had to be admitted: men are nastier than women.
As he drove to the headquarters, he thought about what he had not told Stella. That name he did not want to mention. He thought about Phoebe.
I put her to this affair like a cat to watch a rat-hole, and she disappeared. With an excuse, believe it if you could, and I haven’t seen her or heard from her.
Gone to join the rats, I thought.
And now it has to be that damned woman Eden Brown who calls out her name, and Geraldine Ducking is there.
He had arranged to meet Archie Young in his office on his arrival, but the speed with which Archie appeared as he drove into his parking spot showed him the state of the game.
He nodded as he locked the car. ‘Looking for me?’
‘I thought a quick word, now … on the quiet.’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s the finding of the head in the river …’
‘Yes, you told me. It was seen by a group of women of whom Eden Brown was one. A coincidence that I don’t like, but I don’t want to be paranoid.’ Although he thought he was getting that way. ‘And I regret that Geraldine Ducking was there. So?’
‘There can’t be any positive identification of the head just from looking at it,’ said the superintendent. ‘But Eden Brown shouted out that it was Phoebe Astley; God knows why, she couldn’t possibly be sure unless she’s got some information we don’t have.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Under sedation, damn her. But of course what she said went round with the speed of light. Not slowed down by Ducking.’
‘She hasn’t printed anything?’
‘Only because I kept her under questioning all night. She’s shouting for her lawyer, for her editor, for the world … you’re included. Top of the list, in fart.’
‘I hope you handled her with care?’
‘With silk gloves. Except for being so slow in processing what she had to say, she can’t complain. She will, of course. But I didn’t think you’d want the identification all over the papers.’
‘Is there any reason to connect this new body with the other four?’ Four was enough to be going on with, surely? ‘Bodies do turn up in the Thames; not all murder victims, there’s suicide, accident. Why should it be Phoebe?’
‘You can’t even be sure of the sex or age,’ said the superintendent. ‘Not for certain, not just by looking … All the same, I think it is the head of a woman.’
‘I’m coming to the incident room.’
‘Thought you would, sir. They’re expecting you.’
‘Thanks for the warning, I take it it was one?’ Young merely grunted in reply. ‘Who’s there?’
‘The usual team: Jeavons and Eliot and Amy Passant – she’s doing the forensics.’
The names were known to John Coffin, but he did not know the officers in person. Well, they were part of a new, highly skilled intake, good at their jobs, he hoped, but so far faceless to him.
‘None of them threatening to resign, I take it?’ Too young, too ambitious. ‘Name me some names, please.’
‘I haven’t spoken to any of those named,’ said Archie Young. ‘But I’ve heard that Eddie Syres, Tom Gambit, and Luke Franks are the ones.’
The old troublemakers, all friends of Teddy Timpson, all near to retiring age. One small unit in the guerrilla war had identified itself and joined the war against him.
‘Will they actually go, though? What have you heard on that?’
Archie Young shrugged.
So he thought they would. Coffin decided. ‘I could take the initiative, and have a purge on my own account.’
Young looked alarmed. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘I wish I was, but no. I’ll step canny.’
‘I hope so.’
There was a note in Archie Young’s voice that alerted Coffin to more trouble. He’s a natural actor, Stella had said once – very expressive voice.
‘What is it now, Archie?’ They were very close to the door of the incident room. It had been set up in one of the new buildings, and the suite of rooms had been specially created under Coffin’s guidance. He had a lot of experience of what you needed when taking on a major investigation and this was both major and multiple; the burnt body of Agnes Page, the stabbing of Albert Waters, and behind it the deaths of Felix Henbit and Mark Pittsy. All linked, he was sure, with the laundering of dirty money in the shops and banks of the Second City.
Mary Henbit was missing, and Phoebe Astley’s headless body might be floating in the Thames. He resisted that thought with energy, Phoebe must be alive. He insisted on it. Survive, Phoebe, he said fiercely but silently, our pasts are too entwined for you to go down without taking me with you.
‘Can I have a private word with you, sir, before we go in? It’s important.’
Coffin had a moment of dreadful insight. ‘Not you too, Archie?’ he said wearily. ‘If you’re saying you are resigning too …’
‘No, it’s not me. You.’
‘Now you have halted me. What about me?’
‘There’s a rumour going around that you have been selling information, that you are short of money because of your sister’s bankruptcy.’
‘Letty is not bankrupt.’
‘It’s said she’s near it and that puts you and your wife in Queer Street.’
‘Where’s this coming from? Who says it?’
‘It’s all over the place. Syres may have started it, he was the first I heard named as saying it was one of his reasons for going. It’s canteen talk, sir.’
They were standing in the small cou
rtyard before the Prescott Building, which was the new block named after one of the earliest commissioners of the police force set up by Sir Robert Peel. He had not been a great policeman or great man, but he had been famous for his humane handling of both police officers and criminals – he deserved to be remembered. Coffin had chosen the name himself to ward off the suggestion that the building, already showing signs of its age, although so new, would be named after him. He hadn’t wanted to look across to the John Coffin Building every morning of his life.
‘It’s rubbish, of course.’
‘I know that, sir, you don’t have to tell me.’
No, Archie Young was loyal, but he had his moment of doubt, Coffin sensed it, even Archie, whom he counted as a friend.
It was a mark of how dirty the game was going to be. But with a surge of excitement, it also told him how close he must be to getting the right answers.
‘Who else is saying it?’
‘Geraldine Ducking let out that she’s heard it. No one’s using it, but they will.’ After a pause, he added reluctantly: ‘I thought I heard Jim Eliot say something too.’
The media would not use it yet, or not directly, but sliding comments and bits of gossip would appear in the newspapers, so that people put two and two together and thought how clever they were. And when he resigned, as it must be intended he should do, then everyone could say: I told you so.
Coffin stood there, thinking. I must be close to the killer: I don’t accuse the banks or bankers, they have nice legal ways of doing you in, this must be a more personal matter between me and a highly personal killer. This murderer is only concerned with himself.
Damn Geraldine … Or was it good Geraldine, who might be doing him a service by alerting him?
‘You don’t think it started with her? That she let it out to Syres?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so, sir. I don’t see her talking to Syres … and I thought she liked you. Said some very nice things about you in her column.’
‘Yes.’ He too had thought Geraldine liked him and admired Stella, but never trust a journalist. He fought the reaction. He had had enough ignoble thoughts for one morning. ‘Where is she now?’
‘Drinking coffee in my room. I kept her there. One way and another, I thought you’d want to talk to her.’
‘So she’s been here all night?’
‘Not all the time, no. She drove the other two women who found the head home, together with the Eden woman, and then came back here. She’d sobered up enough by then to think about work. I gather that she’d had quite a bit to drink earlier.’
‘I saw her at the theatre; I was there myself with Stella, but I didn’t notice her drinking.’
‘I gather it was later, with the other young women; it was the effect of the Beckett play, they said.’
‘I’ll see her.’
‘She’ll want something in exchange for anything she may tell you.’
‘Have to think about it.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘I’ll go to the incident room first. What’s new there?’
Whatever there is, they won’t want to say, thought Archie Young. They are in a very possessive mood down there at the moment.
‘And where is the head?’
‘In the university pathology lab. We got Professor Evans out of bed to look at it … He said it was human and recently dead, but it has been in the water over a week, possibly nearer two, and he wouldn’t say more. Couldn’t. But he has promised to work on it fast, to see if he can see any cause of death and any identification marks. There won’t be, of course: we should be so lucky.’
‘You’re a cynic and a depressant,’ said Coffin, suddenly feeling amazingly cheerful. ‘I’ll see what’s going on with Jeavons and Co, and then I will talk to Geraldine. Don’t let her escape.’
No one looked up as the two of them went into the incident room which was creating its noise and action. But there were pools of silence, one of which was where Sergeant Jeavons was sitting studying notes of an interview, every so often throwing a remark to the man at the desk opposite him. ‘That’s Eliot,’ said Archie Young quietly.
‘I remember him now.’ Cocky bastard, but clever, no doubt about that, and an able detective. For which, no doubt, one ought to forgive him much. But not too much, reflected the chief commander. He recalled that the young man’s father was the chief constable of a provincial force, and that the son had ambitions.
Not my job, though, he said to himself. Or not yet, and you aren’t helping anyone else to it either.
Amy Passant, the forensic expert, whom he knew from a previous case or two, was a sturdy young woman with big beautiful blue eyes. Her nickname, which she ignored, was Bluebell. She was intent on a computer screen which was lined with files of figures; she touched a button, and a graph appeared, she seemed deeply absorbed, but she looked up at Coffin and smiled.
‘Thought it was you, sir.’
‘Got anything for me?’
‘Nothing special yet, I’m working on the Page-Waters case. They certainly knew each other well, traces of her all over the place.’ Her eyes looked into the distance. ‘I’d like to compare their blood groups … Not my job, of course.’
‘They’re related?’
‘Yeah … kin.’
‘Father and daughter, I think.’
‘Yeah,’ Amy said.
Jeavons and Eliot, alerted, walked over to them. For a moment. Coffin ignored them, then he said, ‘So what’s this about the head in the river? Any of you seen it?’
Jeavons spoke first. ‘No, sir, saw no need.’
‘I went down to the path lab, took a look,’ said Amy, unexpectedly. ‘When I heard it might be Phoebe Astley. I knew Phoebe, we worked together for a bit in the Met.’
Coffin was surprised. ‘Did you?’
‘Did a college course in Wembley together.’
‘So what did you make of it?’
Amy shrugged. ‘Couldn’t tell. You wouldn’t have known if it was your own mother the way the face was.’
‘I’ve been told the face was badly damaged.’
‘Hit something hard. After death, they were saying. A ship’s propeller, something like that, plenty of stuff around in the river. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s Phoebe Astley.’
John Coffin did not answer. No one else spoke. But he could see them looking at him. Speculation about his relationship with Phoebe must be running wild. He could imagine the shrugs and sly comments. He had always come in for criticism from outside as too radical, too popular, but within the Second City, within the force of which he was head, he had been respected and even liked by some officers at some times. But now all this was ebbing away. Times were changing.
He walked across the room towards Jeavons. Progress on the Henbit-Pittsy deaths had almost come to a halt. Routine checks and inquiries were still going on but what was coming in was trivial. Or at least it seemed so, although he had to remind himself that it was the trivial detail that was often important.
Only in the search for Mary Henbit was there development.
Jeavons said: ‘A neighbour who saw Mary after Felix’s death said that she had told Mary she ought to go away for a break and Mary had said she had an old schoolfriend who made the same suggestion and she was going with her. We’re following that lead up. The schoolfriend may be the one called Alice Fraser who sent flowers and a card to Mary when she heard about Felix, we traced her address through the florist. She lives in Devon, in Teignmouth.’
‘So what are you doing about it?’
‘The local police are dealing with it.’ He saw the look on the chief commander’s face and put the right interpretation on it. ‘If he gets some hard information then I will go down myself.’
Mary Henbit might be a route forward on the case, she might know something helpful, or she might not, but just to find her would be something.
Coffin allowed himself to wonder for a few minutes, what, if anything, Felix might have told her about his work: about
Agnes Page, about Albert Waters or some other detail about the money laundering and the personage who was arranging it in the Second City and who must be the killer.
He did not believe there was more than one mind at work, profit and self protection was the motive and had been all along: this criminal was mercenary and ruthless.
He made a quick decision. ‘Let Ducking go. I’ll see her later. If I need to.’
Then he turned back to work, there was plenty to do, he had not been so attentive to routine matters lately as he should have been. To his surprise he worked well and fast. The telephone was quiet, so that it startled him when it rang.
Jeavons wanted to speak to him, he was polite and eager: ‘I’ve heard from Devon, sir. The mother of Mary Henbit’s friend, Mrs Baker – the other girl is married and the husband is with them on the trip. Mrs Baker said Mary telephoned and told her daughter she would like to come on the trip and would meet them in Exeter. She doesn’t know more, it was left a bit vague, but Mary was definitely coming to Exeter.’
‘So where are they?’
‘Touring, but the mother knows the route they planned to take through Devon and into Cornwall; she says her daughter rings up sometimes and she will tell her we want to locate Mary. I’m going to Devon myself so that I can go straight to interview Mary.’
‘Good. I am beginning to think she is aware that she knows something dangerous and is keeping out of the way on purpose.’ And I couldn’t blame her for that with the mortality rate what it is round here at the moment.
Perhaps she knew and was in touch with someone in the Second City. Nothing surprising in that, and there were always the newspapers which had been liberal with details and speculation. He had a pile of cuttings on his desk this minute which did not make happy reading.
‘Let me know at once when you make contact.’
‘Will do, sir. I’m on my way. The mother said her daughter might telephone this evening – it was her usual time – so if I’m speedy, then I can talk to her myself. And with luck to Mary Henbit.’
‘Don’t frighten her, but let her know that I’d like to see her. We needn’t interrupt her holiday.’ Although he would do, ruthlessly, if it seemed right. Nothing to be gained at this stage by not being direct.
The Coffin Tree Page 19
