Coffin waited.
‘Saw Jim Dean today.’
‘Oh, you know him, do you?’
Mimsie didn’t answer that as not being worth comment, she knew everyone. ‘He bought a paper, just like you, then he waited for the bus, but he didn’t get on it. Had his car parked and he got in and followed the bus.’
‘What number bus was it?’
‘147a. But you know that, or you wouldn’t have asked.’
A good example of Mimsie’s maddening hit-the-nail-on-the-head way of thinking.
‘I thought you ought to know. Wonder what he was up to?’
‘Did you see him come back?’
‘No, I reckon he went all the way to the end.’
‘And what’s at the end, Mimsie?’
‘Nothing much. Depends what you want. Woods and marsh mostly.’ Her eyes were bright and alert. ‘Used to test the big guns there once when Woolwich Arsenal was alive.’
‘Thanks, Mimsie, that’s interesting.’
‘Thought you’d say so.’
He hadn’t disappointed her. She watched him sit in his car till the right bus came along, and then drive slowly behind.
He followed it out, past the road which led to Star Court House, out through the dingy inner suburbs to where they lightened, grew more pleasant with pretty gardens, then beyond that to where the houses were scattered, past a cemetery and a crematorium and finally to a cluster of houses round a bus stop. At this point, the bus turned round and came back. End of the road.
Coffin stopped his car and got out. Across the road from a parade of houses, newly built, isolated and windswept, was a stretch of scrubby, empty land with a belt of trees.
He paced it slowly, looking at the ground. There were signs of the passing of a car along a muddy track at the side. On the grass itself were tyre marks.
Hard to say how recent these were. It was probably an area where lovers came. It had that look about it, not to mention the odd spoiled condom lying about.
Under the trees several years of leaf fall lay thick and mushy. He thought he could detect signs that the layers had been disturbed so that here and there the darker, decayed deposit had come to the top. He moved the leaves with his foot.
The earth underneath had been opened, then pressed back. Something or someone had been buried here.
Coffin went back to his car where he made a telephone call, then sat waiting.
When the police van arrived, he took the team of diggers to the spot he had found. He watched while a canvas barrier was set up to protect the area, then he stood back. Very soon he was joined by Chief Superintendent Paul Lane, not pleased to be taken away from his evening at home. Coffin could imagine the grumble going on inside: One more of the Boss’s flights of fancy.
‘Nice evening, isn’t it, sir,’ said Paul Lane. It was, in fact, beginning to rain. ‘For digging, that is,’ he added morosely. For standing about it was damp and cold.
The two men watched in the rain which began to grow heavier. A small crowd of spectators had appeared, as they always did on these occasions, alerted by some underground set of signals.
‘Have to get lights up if we don’t finish before dark,’ said Lane. It was dusk already. ‘No problem, of course,’ he added without conviction. Then he said: ‘They’ve got something.’
A muddy figure was heading towards them from out of the enclosure. ‘A buried dog, sir. Sorry.’
‘That’s it, then,’ said Paul Lane, putting up his collar against the rain. ‘Might as well be off.’
Coffin stood where he was. ‘No. Go on looking. There will be an indication of a disturbance somewhere. Find it, then dig again.’
He took pity on the Chief Superintendent. ‘Come and sit in the car and tell me what’s been going on.’ He himself had had to cancel a dinner engagement with Stella Pinero, who had not been pleased. ‘I hope something has.’
Earlier that day, Chief Inspector Young had received the first forensic reports on the girl’s car. Nothing very helpful, he had thought: traces of the clothes of the girl herself, fingerprints, possibly hers, her father’s (he had acknowledged using the car), and possibly prints of the boy, Martin Blackhall. It would all need to be worked on and checked.
But later, during that afternoon, Chief Inspector Archie Young in company with a woman detective had entered and searched the student room lived in by Amy Dean. This room had been locked for days now, so that when they went in it smelt stuffy. Even sour. Young wondered if there was the smell of drugs; there was certainly stale cigarette smoke.
On the outside it seemed the room was orderly and tidy, but when the drawers and cupboards were opened, there was a different story.
Sordid, dirty, beneath apparent order.
The drawers and cupboards were full of soiled, crumpled clothes. Underclothes, tights, sweaters and jeans, all pushed in the drawers and shoved into the cupboards, not hung up, all disorder and dirt which spilled out in front of them.
Young looked at the woman detective with him who raised her eyebrows and shrugged. ‘Bit of a slut.’
Or mute signs of a confused, unhappy girl, who wanted to be dirty?
The diggers ceased their work and came across to the car.
‘Found something, sir. I think you’d like to look.’
The two men got out of the car to hurry across the grass. The diggers had gone down several feet into the Essex clay.
Under the soil was a roughly made coffin.
‘Better get it opened.’ Lane spoke gruffly, more moved than he had expected.
‘No.’ Coffin was abrupt. ‘No, let’s wait until Dean and Blackhall get here.’
‘It’ll mean waiting some time.’
‘No, they should be here any minute. I telephoned earlier.’
‘My God, you were sure,’ said Lane.
‘Yes, I was sure.’
They watched as first one car and then another drew up, from which Sir Thomas and then Jim Dean got out. They watched in silence as the two men approached. Coffin walked over to them and murmured something. Lane saw them nod, then the whole party moved to the edge of the pit to look down at the coffin.
Ropes were fitted and slowly the coffin was drawn up. ‘Open it,’ said the Chief Commander.
Behind them a girl got out of one of the cars and came running towards them.
Tall, slender, in jeans, fair hair floating over her shoulders. Sir Thomas muttered under his breath that she shouldn’t be here, not his idea. ‘Get back, Angela,’ said James Dean.
‘You promised, you promised! I want to know.’
Jim put his arm protectively around the girl. ‘Go back. I promised you could come. I promised I would tell you. But you can’t look.’
A chisel levered at the wood, the coffin opened with a crack.
CHAPTER 4
Day Seven. A long day
Things had changed. In the old days a killer usually left the body lying around. In special cases he might chop it up, put it in a trunk or deposit it around the countryside. The body might be shrouded, the murderer did not always want to see the victim’s face. But a wooden box, that was something different.
Coffin felt that once they knew how that had happened, they would know the killer.
Of course, he could be wrong. He had been in the past.
He was hungry, he was tired. His day had started early and was still going on. He had the beginnings of a headache, and something inside that might be indigestion but felt more like tension. He had lost a button from his jacket, and as he drove home he saw that his hands were dirty with one nail broken, so he must have been down in the hole, moving the earth away with his own hand, and drawing back the wood from the dead face. Had Dean got his hands dirty?
He needed a bath, a change of clothing, and a drink. But more than this, he needed to talk to someone. Someone who could understand his own particular problem.
There was only one such person. And to see him seemed more important than the bath and the drink. Besides
, Mat was usually good for a drink, provided you settled for his own special brand. Last time he had visited him the brew had been camomile tea.
He sat for a moment, looking up at the tower of the former St Luke’s Church where he lived. The Post Office had recently informed him that his address was now No. 1, The Mansions, St Luke’s Old Church. He could see his cat Tiddles outlined at one window, so that meant he ought to go in and feed Tiddles.
Which would mean reading any post that might have arrived since he had left and listening to any messages on his answering machine. Suddenly he knew he wasn’t going to do any of that. He waved to Tiddles, turned the car and drove off.
As he waited at a traffic light on red, he meditated on his position. He liked his work and thought he did it well, but he had his critics. He had not set up the organization of the Second City Police Force. This had been the creation of a Home Office Panel specially set up for the occasion. He had just walked into it, but he managed it his way. His way.
He drove south to the old docklands, taking the Blackwall Tunnel under the river, mercifully free of traffic at that time of day, and followed the road into Greenwich, once the home of English kings. After a long period of decline, it had become fashionable again with many of the fine houses enjoying the elegance they deserved. He parked the car in a side street near the theatre where Stella had once worked and then walked towards a street running south.
There it was, a quiet shop, not brightly painted, making no pretences: Matthew Parker, Bookseller. His old friend Mat had retired from the Force and started a secondhand bookshop. Not what you expect from a CID sergeant who never seemed to open a book, but Mat was making a go of it. Although it was late by now, the shop had light in it and was still open. It was always open, especially to Mat’s friends. He treated it as a kind of club.
He pushed at the door, setting the bell ringing. ‘Hello?’ he called out. Mat appeared from an inner room. He was a tall, burly man who was older than he looked. A widower of many years, he dressed for comfort in soft old trousers of no special shade, a thick sweater in a tone of grey (although Coffin sometimes wondered if it hadn’t perhaps once been white) and tan leather slippers.
He seemed unsurprised to see John. ‘Wondered if you’d be in.’
‘How’s business?’
‘Mine’s all right. How’s yours?’
‘So-so.’
Mat went over to the door, locked it and drew down the blind. ‘Think we’ll shut up for the night. Not been a bad day. Five customers, two bought something and one tried to nick a book.’ A rumbling laugh provided a comment on this. ‘Come out the back. I’ve got a fire there.’
Coffin took a careful path through the bookcases and the piles of books spread around the floor. He was always amazed that Mat knew what he had in stock, but he seemed to.
‘Not bad for an old copper, is it?’ said Mat, looking at his domain in pride. ‘Want a drink?’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, you can have cocoa, but it’s made with water. Or join me in a cup of green tea, first picking, best quality. It’s the finest tea you can buy. The Japs love it, buy it all the time. Go in to Fortnum and Mason and you’ll see them queuing up to buy.’
‘Tea, then. Do you shop in Fortnum’s then these days, Mat?’
‘No, but my daughter does, and she buys it to keep her old dad happy.’
He might have said, ‘And off the drink,’ because his departure from the Force had had something to do with his heavy drinking. He was off it, now, though, and as far as Coffin knew had not touched a drop for five years. He always said so, anyway.
‘I’ll take the tea.’ Coffin wondered what the green tea would be like, emerald maybe, but the cupful looked just like tea, weak pale tea. Not much flavour either, he thought. He was a strong dark Ceylon tea man himself. But Mat was sipping away with pleasure. But he had ladled in three spoons of sugar.
‘I thought you’d be along,’ said Mat.
‘Oh, why?’
‘I hear things … Smoke?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘I shouldn’t,’ said Mat, comfortably lighting a long dark object that he called a cigar.
‘You hear things before I do, then.’
‘You’ve never been a great listener, Jack.’ Mat was the only person in the world who called him Jack. ‘Watcher, yes, but listener, no. Too busy with your own ideas.’
‘I hope that’s not true.’ Coffin drew the letter he had received out of his pocket. He had read it twice, with mounting anger. ‘I’ve had this.’
Mat put down his cup of tea (he never used mugs and that same loving daughter who bought the tea also provided bone china to drink from; she was rich, ran a successful hairdressing establishment in Jermyn Street) and took up the letter. He read it through slowly once and then again.
‘Short and to the point. Signed Frank Darely. Who’s he?’
‘A kind of local czar,’ said Coffin. Frank Darely was a councillor and had always seemed friendly. No doubt this letter was meant in a friendly way, but it was cheek and angered Coffin. ‘He carries a lot of clout, and of course he’s on the Police Committee.’
‘Big in local government, isn’t he?’
‘Got friends everywhere.’
‘Yes, he sounds that sort,’ said Mat judicially, studying the letter again. ‘Quite friendly put. A kind of advance warning.’
‘He is friendly, damn him.’
Frank Darely had written briefly to say that he had reason to believe that Coffin would shortly be asked to appear before a special sub-committee on the matter of certain relationships of his that the Police Committee felt were not what was expected of the Chief Commander who must be whiter than snow.
‘Reason to believe,’ said Coffin. ‘He bloody knows.’
Mat clicked his teeth. ‘Manners, manners, the dog doesn’t like bad language.’ Mat, who had been among the most profane of heavy drinkers in his day, had cleaned up his act so successfully that even damn was rarely heard on his lips. There was no dog.
‘There’s always been a division on the Committee between those who wanted me and those who thought I was a big risk. I’ve always known that, knew when I was asked to let my name go forward … You know what my career has been like. Patchy. I’ve had my downs.’
Mat was silent; he had shared in one of those downs himself.
‘I take risks, I know I do, I’m not conventional in the way I handle things. I know that too. I’ve got my enemies.’
‘Anyone special?’
‘How special do you want? One of our MPs has his knife in, he’d like to get me out. The other one, Mary Backham, she’s not too bad but she might be gunning for me on the feminist issue. Although I’ve always been in favour of women.’
‘You certainly have, Jack,’ said Mat thoughtfully. He might have added: ‘And not always wise,’ but he chewed on his cigar while he considered and Coffin waited. Oddly enough, the tea seemed to be a powerful stimulant, so that he felt less tired and more cheerful.
Mat folded up the letter and handed it back. ‘I’d keep a copy of that, if I was you … And what’s upsetting them?’
‘Oh, Stella, I suppose, and perhaps some of my sister’s goings-on in the property market, but mostly Stella.’
‘I remember Stella. Nice lady.’
‘Everyone’s allowed their bit on the side, several sides,’ said Coffin fiercely. ‘Adultery and marital rape, we can take all that, but not for me. I ought to have a nice, neat respectable married life and be an example to everyone.’
‘Have you thought of getting married?’
‘I was once.’ And a disaster that had been.
‘To Stella, I mean?’
Coffin got up and started to walk about the room. Pacing up and down.
‘The dog doesn’t like that,’ said Mat placidly.
‘You haven’t got a bloody dog.’
‘How do you know?’
‘One day you’ll say that, and a dog will walk through th
e door,’ said Coffin in a fury.
Mat began to laugh. ‘We’d get on fine, my daughter says I’m a fantasy myself.’
‘I don’t know if I want to marry. Anyway, Stella has a husband. They never meet but he’s still extant. An ex-actor, he has some sort of agency.’
‘It adds to the picture a bit, though, doesn’t it? Especially if he is making trouble.’
Coffin stared at his friend. ‘He isn’t.’
‘Perhaps Fred Darely knows better.’
‘You mean he’s been put up to it?’
‘It could be. You’d better have a word with Stella, see what she knows.’
‘We’re barely talking,’ said Coffin unhappily. His good mood had been very temporary.
Mat poured them both some more tea. Then he got up and put a log on the embers, giving them a stir as he did so. He relit his cigar with a stick from the fire. A scatter of sparks fell on his shoulders, which he ignored.
Coffin patted them out. ‘You’ll go up in smoke one of these days.’
Mat ignored him. ‘Drink up the tea while it’s hot.’
‘The thing is, should I take this letter, this whole business, seriously?’
‘They are taking it seriously,’ said Mat.
‘I thought you’d say that. Damn.’
Mat drained his cup, put it down. ‘Want me to tell you what you should do and how you should do it?’
Coffin made his way home to St Luke’s feeling clearer in his mind after his talk with Mat. He trusted Mat, one of the few old friends who had seen him at his worst. Mind you, Mat’s worst had been something sensational too.
He drove home in a leisurely fashion, not as tired as he had been, and more cheerful. All seemed quiet in Spinnergate as he drove through. A patrol car passed him, recognized him and flashed its lights.
He knew the message would go back to base: WALKER is driving home.
He let himself in and walked up his staircase, where he met Tiddles who seemed pleased to see him. ‘Thanks, old boy.’ He patted Tiddles’s head. ‘In my present mood, any support is welcome.’
There were two messages for him on his machine. One, which had been there for some hours, was from Stella. She wanted to know where he was, asked him to get in touch, and sent her love.
Cracking Open a Coffin Page 6
