The Coffin Tree
Page 24
‘She hasn’t actually confessed yet,’ Coffin admitted. ‘But she’s talking and Archie will get it all out. And yes, we do have a case. The Treasury blokes have all the financial stuff, and we can now go through her flat. The forensics will do their best.’
‘What about the letter in Mary Henbit’s pocket? Will you get more from that?’
‘I doubt it; I don’t believe the cleverest lab work can get more out of it. But she didn’t know that.’
In other words, as so often, he had chanced his arm and got away with it. Stella shook her head and smiled. He didn’t change. She did admire him, but no one would call him an easy man.
‘What exactly did Geraldine do?’
‘She was what they call the bagman; she collected the dirty money on her trips abroad and brought it back to the Second City, she skimmed some off, too, I daresay. Anyway, she was well in, our own special carrier of money to launder. There would be others, of course, for different cities.’
‘Why did she do it? She was clever, she had a career.’
‘Looked like easy money at first, I expect, and she liked luxury. Then it got nasty. I don’t suppose the killing was her own idea, it was required of her. She had help, but they saw she was deep in. And she certainly killed Albert.’
Stella was thinking. ‘Agnes may not have been his daughter, but a niece or a cousin. They are clannish, these Dockland families.’
‘We will find out.’ He felt very weary now.
‘What about the ones you call the helpers? Will they be caught?’
‘Oh yes, in the end. Not the really big men, they will still be sitting in their offices in Rome and Istanbul and Hong Kong.’ Only the little, men like Teddy Timpson.
Stella thought about it. ‘Are you in any personal danger?’
‘No, I might have been, and they certainly used the dirty tricks brigade, but I seem to have seen them off.’
Stella looked away, not quite content.
He caught her mood. ‘I’m not as cocky as I sound.’
‘Never thought so for a minute.’
‘I may go down the drain, Stella. It’s evens.’
‘You’ve said that before and survived.’
He drew away. ‘Something terrible happened just before I left. I had a bit of news: Teddy Timpson hanged himself.’
She was shocked. ‘Oh, my dear, how, where? At home?’
‘From a tree.’ He saw her horrified look. ‘No, not the Coffin Tree, although there would have been a touch of the cathartic in that. He knew he was being investigated for taking bribes, and he knew the dirt we would dig up once we started. No, he chose a tree in Greenwich Park. He went in at dusk and managed to hide himself. So he wasn’t found at once.’
Stella put warm, comforting arms around him. ‘Let’s go to bed, that’s the best cure for you.’
With her head on the pillow, she said: ‘You bring me luck.’
He raised himself on one elbow to look down on her.
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’ll tell you one day.’
I’d like to believe it, Coffin thought, but I didn’t bring luck to Felix Henbit and Mark Pittsy, or Mary or Agnes Page. Or even old Albert.
Later, he said: ‘I wonder what really brought Phoebe back … she said this and she said that, but I never felt quite sure what was the true reason …’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Stella. ‘She thought she had a mortal illness, would soon die and she didn’t want to die in Birmingham.’
‘As simple as that?’
‘Life often is simple.’
He drew her to him. Darling Stella, it wasn’t true and he doubted if she even believed it, but he never doubted her courage and optimism.
‘I wonder why she wanted to die in London,’ he said, reverting to Phoebe.
Stella smiled but said nothing except to herself: You will never understand women: it was because you are here.
In the night, the Coffin Tree in the rough ground opposite Albert Waters’s old house in Fashion Street, caught fire and burnt to the ground. No one knew how it happened. Some people, like Albert’s old neighbour, said Albert set fire to it with ghostly hands.
But others, more cynical, said that the chief commander had contrived the fire somehow. After all, it had his name on it.
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About the Author
Gwendoline Butler is a Londoner, born in a part of South London for which she still has a tremendous affection. She was educated at Haberdashers and then read history at Oxford. After a short period doing research and teaching, she married the late Dr Lionel Butler, Principal of Royal Holloway College. She has one daughter.
Gwendoline Butler’s crime novels are very popular in Britain and the States, and her many awards include the CWA’s Silver Dagger.
When she isn’t writing, she spends her time travelling and looking at pictures, furniture and buildings.
Author’s Note
One evening in April, 1988, I sat in the Toynbee Hall in the East End of London, near to Docklands, listening to Dr David Owen (now Lord Owen) give that year’s Barnett Memorial Lecture. In it, he suggested the creation of a Second City of London, to be spun off from the first, to aid the economic and social regeneration of the Docklands.
The idea fascinated me and I made use of it to create a new world for my detective, John Coffin, to whom I gave the task of keeping the Queen’s Peace there.
I have to acknowledge with gratitude the technical advice given to me by Frank Domingo, the forensic artist, formerly of the New York Police Department, and Detective Lieutenant William L. Harrigan of New York Housing Police.
Thanks too, to Colin Wilson and John Kennedy Melling.
Also by the Author
A COFFIN FOR CHARLEY
CRACKING OPEN A COFFIN
COFFIN ON MURDER STREET
COFFIN AND THE PAPER MAN
COFFIN IN THE BLACK MUSEUM
COFFIN UNDERGROUND
COFFIN IN FASHION
COFFIN ON THE WATER
A COFFIN FOR THE CANARY
A COFFIN FOR PANDORA
A COFFIN FROM THE PAST
COFFIN’S DARK NUMBER
COFFIN FOLLOWING
COFFIN IN MALTA
A NAMELESS COFFIN
COFFIN WAITING
A COFFIN FOR THE BABY
DEATH LIVES NEXT DOOR
THE INTERLOPER
THE MURDERING KIND
THE DULL DEAD
COFFIN IN OXFORD
RECEIPT FOR MURDER
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