‘I can tell you where he is now.’ Topper was an alert observer of the scene, as was wise for an ambitious young officer whose superior could be cryptic. ‘Having a session with Chief Inspector Salter. Chips was sitting there waiting for him.’
‘Where’s Jardine?’
‘Where do you think?’
‘Not there.’ Jardine was hardly even a joke between them any more.
‘Gone to his eldest daughter’s degree-giving in Birmingham.’
‘And where’s Lane?’
‘In there with them.’
The two young men regarded each other thoughtfully.
‘A row, eh?’
‘Bound to be coming. And Henley getting wiped out gives Salter something to shout about. She was one of his.’
‘I don’t think she had much time for him. A sharp lady.’
‘Where did you hear about Henley?’
‘In Essex. It was all the talk. Bound to be. Ben Horridge told me himself.’
‘Nice chap, is he?’ Topper always liked personal details. You could never tell when they might come in useful.
‘Hardly had words with him. Seemed reasonable. Non-smoker, non-drinker, that sort. He’s an old pal of the boss. Did you know that?’
‘Glad he’s got some old friends. He sometimes seems all on his own.’
The price of success,’ said Evans sagely.
‘Is that what it is?’
Raised voices came out from behind Coffin’s closed door. They looked at each other pointedly. They knew more of their purpose here than they had been told, but not of all the details in the secret file in the safe in John Coffin’s flat.
Evans raised an eyebrow. ‘Expected Chips to be here waiting, did he?’
‘Must have done. Came in with a face like thunder.’ Topper was not one to strive for an imaginative simile when a well-used one came to hand.
‘That must make two of them,’ said Evans, as the noise of the voices came through.
‘Where’s Jean?’ asked Evans.
‘Been sent to do some shopping, I think.’
‘So it’s a private session? No ears wanted?’
‘Looks like it.’
Again a glance of private intelligence passed between them.
They were doing a job not totally agreeable to them, but they were doing it professionally. On the other hand, there were moments that were not uncongenial.
Both of them listened to the raised voices.
Inside the room, the two men faced each other across John Coffin’s desk. Paul Lane, watching, wondered if there would come a point when he would have to step between them. But no, he decided, the boss was getting colder and colder and his voice quieter. A bad sign for Salter, although he did not seem to know it.
‘You stepped out of line asking Henley to do your work for you. She was off duty and should have said no.’ Chief Inspector Chips Salter was an angry man. ‘But of course she couldn’t. So out she goes and gets herself killed.’ His voice roughened. ‘If it hadn’t been for your interference she would still be alive.’
As this agreed with what John Coffin felt himself, he said nothing. But it did not make him more in charity with Chips Salter.
‘I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again: you are way off course about the death of the Pitts. I know this district better than you ever will, and I say it was a neighbourhood crime. I’ll get the bastards who did it and it’ll be one of the Costers. Probably the eldest and the youngest, they’re the two worst. I’ve been after them for a long time and I’ll get them for this.’
‘And how will you get the confession, Chips?’ asked Coffin in a gentle voice. ‘Beat it out of them? Oh yes, I know a bit about your methods.’
Salter opened his mouth, then shut it again. His colour was ebbing.
‘Hasn’t it struck you that Jumbo Jardine’s loose tongue operates in two ways? I know he talks to you about what goes on in this office, but I get a feedback about you.’
Salter said nothing.
‘Why do you think I chose him to work with me? Because I did choose him, Chips, and quite deliberately, whatever you and he may think.’
Now the old man’s moving in for the kill, thought Paul Lane, with an anticipatory flash of excitement.
‘As well as your ways of getting confessions, I’ve learnt more than a bit about other things connected with you, Chips. Such as that holiday you took in Spain last summer and who paid. And the new car. Oh yes, and the investments you have. I should watch them if I were you, Chips, the Fraud boys from City tell me they are a bit dicey. You shouldn’t have trusted the man who put you in them.’
Chips Salter stood up, his face was blotched with patches of red and white, but he was still fighting. ‘Sod you! You won’t get away with this. I know who to go to.’
‘So do I, so do I. And the work has already been done. I was at a meeting in London yesterday where I handed over my report.’
Paul Lane looked startled. This was news even to him. Close beggar, he thought admiringly.
Coffin stood up. ‘I think when you go back to your desk you will find a letter waiting for you from the Commissioner. As from today you are suspended and under investigation.’
The two young men in the outer office watched as Salter stumbled past.
‘He left quietly,’ said Evans.
Paul Lane walked out next. ‘Got nothing to do?’ he said to them as he passed.
‘It’s always the innocent that get blamed,’ said Evans aloud.
John Coffin did not appear, his door remained closed. Sergeant Evans took an aspirin with a cup of office coffee and reflected that the Chief Superintendent was probably reading his Essex dossier now. He thought he had done a good job.
Coffin sat at his desk, surrounded by the material that Evans had collected in Essex. Photocopies, for the most part, of the originals.
On his right hand he had a pile in black and white of various comics: Horror Gothic; The Torturer; The Monthly Guide to the Underground.
He could only speculate what they would have been like in colour. A plentiful supply of red, he guessed. Red for blood.
These were from the room of Evelyn Bond. She had plenty of others, some English, some American, a few from Germany, and one or two from Italy and France. She might have been a linguist, but he doubted it; after all, the pictures told the story, language was not important.
Evans had also provided photographs of the boxes and contents of some games. Daniel Moore and his friends had been the source of most of these. They had had a fine collection: Tombs and Torturers; Vices and Virgins. And one called: Rope and Rape.
Evans had photographed the rules of Tombs and Torturers.
Players used dice and moved figures around a board. They took on roles and accepted or doled out punishments according to the rules of the game and the arbitration of The Storm Master.
In some games he was just called The Master. Or sometimes The Judge.
The penalties were nasty, violent and cruel. Throw the wrong number, and you could be, as they said, ‘marked for termination’, and you could choose ‘between the following forms of death: poison, stabbing, shot, strangling or by a bomb’.
If carried out literally they could be murderous.
Evans had also provided a note of some cases from other countries where crimes of violence could be associated with the playing of such games.
Two youths in Texas had tried to kill the college principal, failed and poisoned themselves. Poisoning, apparently, said a handwritten note, is a common type of T. and T. murder. From Pennsylvania came details of a group murder, followed by the suicide of two of the killers. A girl had murdered two small children whom she was babysitting for, and had then drowned herself. In Germany there were some three deaths that the police thought could be related to such fantasy games, including one in which a self-confessed Storm Master hanged himself in prison after raping and killing his girlfriend.
There was a scribbled message attached to these las
t details: Information provided by Inspector Horridge. Put together by him for his own interest.
Coffin laid the papers aside and went to the window to look out. A bleak scene outside where it was raining hard, and he felt bleak inside. A litany of names ran through his mind, beginning with Malcolm Kincaid, the student who had killed himself, through Bill Egan, Terry Place and Irene, Edward and Nona Pitt, and ending with Phyllis Henley. It had to be the end.
Rhoda Brocklebank had a part too, although he found it hard to give it a name. A voice crying out a message which you could not always understand or believe in, but which was important. Something between the Fool as in Shakespeare and a Fury as in a Greek tragedy.
Now he thought he knew the sort of case he had to deal with, and what he had read had pointed which way to look for the killer.
He put his head round the door and spoke to Evans. ‘Good work. Now here’s some more.’
He gave Evans a telephone number. ‘That’s the personal number of a friend of mine, Captain Magrath, he’s with the Philadelphia police. Talk to him, tell him all the details of what we have here and see what he says. Similar crimes, and so on.’ Magrath was a police psychologist, and they had met in Rome at an international conference on violent crime. ‘And don’t talk about it to anyone outside the shop.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,’ said Evans, hurt.
As Coffin went back to his desk, he thought: It’s a kind of disease. There doesn’t have to be a motive.
But there he was wrong.
Chapter Fourteen
Rhoda Brocklebank was sleeping well again and eating heartily. She had talked to her friends Shirley Place and Roxie Farmer, and although they knew that they might yet face criminal charges, they had discussed it and decided they did not feel guilty. They had only done what any woman might do, and that made it all right.
She knew it was selfish to feel relief, but nevertheless, she did. She felt as though she had parcelled up her guilt and disposed of it to other people.
Her employer, John Coffin, had come in for a share, although she would have been hard put to say why he deserved it. All the same, she sensed he had got it, and was wearing it on his shoulders like a yoke.
She could almost see it when she went into his house early that morning to say she would be coming back to work and he wasn’t to worry. I’m psychic, she told herself. A sensitive. I pick things up. He feels guilty.
What he had got, she couldn’t have, as if there was only so much guilt going round and you had to share.
Two or three days had passed since the death of Phyllis Henley. It was hard to mark the passage of time, Coffin found. The days seemed to melt into each other and not comfortably, either. Not that he had been idle, routine had kept him busy. In this period he had received information from his friend in Philadelphia about a number of cases, involving both sexes and spanning the age range of twelve to twenty, dealing with suicides, murders and rapes connected with violent fantasy games. It made for disquieting reading. But so far he had said little about it to anyone.
Now he was sitting drinking his morning coffee when Rhoda Brocklebank arrived. It looked a poor brew, so she made him a strong cup of Indian, which anyway she fancied herself. She had to hand it to her employer, there was no nonsense about Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong in his kitchen, but a nice straightforward Ceylon brand in leaves and not bags. She doubted if he had heard of teabags, he did not seem adventurous in his catering.
‘Here you are, sir. Let me take that nasty cold mug away and give you this nice hot cup straight from the pot.’
Thank you.’ Coffin took the cup and abandoned his coffee. ‘I didn’t expect to see you.’
‘Time I came back to work. You have to face things, don’t you? But you mustn’t blame yourself, sir. Not your fault, not mine. Blame the house.’
‘Not sure I understand you,’ said Coffin absently.
Mrs Brocklebank shrugged. ‘Oh, you and I will never see eye to eye on that subject.’
He drank from the cup, rather surprised to find it was tea he was drinking, and where had she found that good china? It went back to the days of his marriage.
‘Mrs Brocklebank, about the key.’
‘The key?’
‘The key to No. 22. You gave one to Sergeant Henley.’
‘Yes. I’ve explained that,’ said Mrs Brocklebank virtuously. ‘I always had one to get in.’
‘That was one key. But you must have needed another to give to Bill Egan.’
Mrs Brocklebank looked interested and slightly sly.
‘I suggest you had one cut. And I guess you had more than one cut. Say two.’
Mrs Brocklebank thought about denying it, but decided not.
‘So you’ve got one now. Will you let me have it, please?’
‘I haven’t got it on me.’
‘So go away and get it.’
For these three days Coffin had been trying to get hold of Christopher Court, MP, but he had eluded him. Not answering his telephone and not to be found either in the London flat or in his constituency, where he had a house. He had lived in it with his wife before she had left him for a famous restaurateur. She was a woman who liked her food. She had decorated his newest eating place (she was a well-known interior decorator) and almost at once they had decided their lives matched. His agent said the MP was ‘abroad’, which might mean anything or nothing, but probably meant he had no idea where the Member was. The House of Commons had not seen him.
Then, this morning, as Rhoda Brocklebank departed to get the key of No. 22 for her employer, the telephone rang.
‘Is that Chief Superintendent Coffin?’
‘Speaking.’
‘This is Christopher Court. I’m not far away. Can I come and talk?’
Coffin thought for a moment. ‘Here or in my office?’
‘Oh, home please. As privately as possible. I’ve been wanting to talk to someone, and your sister encouraged me to try you.’
‘Letty?’
‘Yes. I’ve been with her in Scotland. Didn’t you know?’
‘No,’ said Coffin, ‘but it doesn’t matter. Come right round.’
He shaved and dressed quickly, dumping the Brocklebank tea in the sink, but even so, Chris Court was there before he had slipped on his jacket.
He went down the stairs to let the man in. You shared a street door at No. 5.
‘This is a kind of confessional,’ said Court, as soon as they were inside Coffin’s flat. ‘Nice rug you’ve got there. Letty said you had good taste.’
‘Marginal. I’m learning.’ He wondered if Letty had said this, or if she believed it even if she had.
‘It’s too good to walk on, though. Ought to be on the wall.’
‘My feet like it,’ said Coffin. ‘About this confessional.’
‘Yes. I’m talking too much and about nothing. It’s a professional habit.’ He looked around. ‘Do you think I could have a drink?’
‘Whisky?’ It was a bit early, but still …
‘Water would do.’
‘I’ll make some coffee.’ Once again his kettle was plugged in and the jar of coffee got out. Tea was so intractable, full of bits, leaves, so-called. He wondered if teabags would be better.
He went back into the sitting-room where Chris Court was standing by the window.
‘Come on, out with it. I saw you the other day, by the way, driving down Church Row.’
‘I wondered if you had. I saw you as well. Then when I heard about the murder of the policewoman I wondered if you’d suspect me of the murder.’
Coffin was silent for a moment. ‘Not seriously,’ he said.
‘I should have spoken to you then. I’d already thought of doing so.’
‘After being in Scotland with Letty?’
‘Yes, I came back that day. Since then I’ve just been on the move, thinking.’
‘I suppose it’s too much to ask what you were doing with Letty? None of my business, you will say.’
&nbs
p; ‘I was helping her look for your brother.’ Court sounded surprised. ‘I have contacts in legal circles there. My father was a Writer to the Signet.’
So it’s a brother now, thought Coffin, and legal circles are involved. I hope he’s not in prison.
‘About the confession?’ he said.
In the kitchen the kettle was beginning to boil. Both men ignored it.
‘You know I was in love with Irene Pitt? I was attracted to her the first minute I saw her.’
‘She was a beautiful woman.’
‘Unfortunately, I was also attracted to the girl too.’
Coffin gave him a long, assessing look.
‘Yes, she was very young, it was before they went to New York. Almost a child still, but that was how it was. Oh, don’t worry. Nothing overt happened. But the feeling was there. And I think she knew. Irene didn’t know, but Nona did.’
‘Perhaps you let her know?’
Court bowed his head. ‘Perhaps I did … I suppose you blame me.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘No.’ Coffin thought about his own feelings for Sarah Fleming, and measured them against what Court might have felt. Life could play you some dirty tricks, that was all he thought. He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t blame you.’
‘I came here that day to search the house. I knew Nona kept a diary, wrote stories and anecdotes, her mother had told me. I was worried she might have talked about me. Although I had kept my distance, I had talked to her a lot: about the States – I’d been there recently – about books, pictures, games, the latest crazes. I went into the house. There was no one there, I swear that. I’m sure the policewoman was not there. I walked into the library. But then, suddenly, the feeling of the house got to me, and I couldn’t stay.’
‘What sort of feeling?’
Court shook his head. ‘Beyond describing. I wasn’t frightened, just appalled. Appalled at myself, I suppose. This was a house in which terrible things had happened and I knew I couldn’t search it. I turned round and went home.’
Coffin Underground Page 17
