A Coffin for Charley

by Gwendoline Butler

‘Oh, they aren’t out of the picture,’ agreed Coffin mildly, ‘although I think Lizzie must be, as she was in prison at the time of the first murder.’ Or the second, if this new body now counted as the first.

  He sat back. There was a moment of silence. Annie, Annie, Coffin thought. I wish I could understand you better.

  Annie licked at the blood on her lip. ‘I’d like a drink of water.’

  ‘We’ll get you one. You know what you have to do? You know what you’re in for?’

  Annie nodded towards the woman detective. ‘She explained.’

  ‘And you’re willing? Can’t make you do it, Annie.’

  There was a lot unsaid between them. He was remembering the frightened child who had seen two dead people being buried, who had faced a murderer.

  Annie did not dwell on the dead old couple, whom she hardly remembered now except as two rolled-up envelopes being deposited in the earth, but she thought of Lizzie Creeley who was still alive and Eddie whom she hated. She found it easy to hate Eddie. He had killed Didi.

  ‘Have you told anyone that you were coming here today?’

  ‘I didn’t have time.’ Annie wished she had spoken to Ashworth and Alex Edwards, both of whom she regarded as her protectors. Alex occasionally sent in emotional bills, Ashworth had so far presented no account. But it was money on results with him, he said, and so far he had done nothing. ‘I wish I had now. You’ve been rough with me.’

  He didn’t apologize, he knew he might have to be rough again. He also knew that there was a sturdiness inside Annie that could take it.

  ‘I want you to promise to keep it to yourself until I say,’ said Coffin.

  Annie nodded. ‘All right.’ But she would tell Ashworth, that was a professional matter. A woman shouldn’t come as close to murder as she seemed to do without telling someone.

  Coffin stood back to let her out of the car. ‘I respect you, Annie.’

  Respects me but doesn’t like me, Annie thought. And he was right, she was not likeable; what had happened to her when aged eight had made her unlikeable. Perhaps she always had been unlikeable and perhaps that was why life had elected her to see those bodies all those years ago. Annie had a profound superstition that life had a plan for you and her plan included death.

  From that all else flowed.

  He took her arm. At the door, Annie paused, she turned to him as if suddenly confused. ‘Why are you here, why am I here?’

  I’m here because I thought the dead woman might be my sister Letty; you are here because she might be Caroline Royal.

  He shook his head but did not answer.

  Annie was led in, white of face but resolute.

  Coffin let her look. Then:

  ‘Is this Caroline Royal?’

  Annie fainted.

  CHAPTER 13

  Fishing as the river is running backwards

  The procession of cars turned back to the Second City. Coffin drove with Chief Inspector Archie Young, whose subordinates followed in another car. Annie, somewhat recovered but very pale, was driven home by the woman detective, with whom she had now established a friendly relationship on the basis that any woman was better than almost any man.

  She was grateful that the body was not Caroline, but knew she had not seen the end of any questions.

  I didn’t know the girl at all, she told herself and all who would listen. It was her face that made me faint. So human and so dead. It might almost have been myself.

  ‘Now calm down, dear,’ the woman detective said. So Annie knew she must have spoken aloud. ‘You didn’t know who it was and that’s all for the moment.’

  They’ll be after me again about Caroline. But this time, Annie was careful not to say it aloud. That’s not over with. She knew it with a sad conviction.

  ‘So she’s Miss Nobody,’ said Archie Young in an unusually poetic vein. He had been moved by the body, so young, so very dead.

  ‘Oh, she’s somebody all right,’ said Coffin. ‘Miss No Name, though.’ Certainly not Caroline Royal, if Annie was to be believed. Nor was she Letty Bingham, his own sister, thank God, but of course it never could have been Letty. He was just being over-anxious. A woman like Letty did not turn up dead in Dulwich, South London.

  ‘Very young, she’s younger than the others.’

  Younger even than Didi. Not a child but not far away.

  ‘Yes, that in itself ought to have told us she wasn’t Caroline Royal … Who remains missing.’

  Young was not so interested in Caroline Royal as his superior was. ‘She’ll turn up. They do in the end.’ Dead women, he meant, murdered women.

  ‘This one is one for us, though. No rape, no signs of attack from the murderer or resistance from the victim. She put up her hand and said yes, just like the other two. Strangled. Same method of killing.’

  ‘And of course, the chewed fingernails.’

  ‘That’s what turns him on.’

  The traffic was dense in the tunnel as they went through to the other side. Like the entrance to Hell, Coffin thought, as they drove in. Dante would have been able to describe it, although he might have been disconcerted by the strong smell of diesel oil and by the noise of pop music from the car radios, and the faint, very faint, smell of death and corruption.

  Or was he bringing that with him from the mortuary? Some smells do stay in your nose.

  ‘Does it strike you that there is a difference, with this unidentified body?’

  The Chief Inspector tried to concentrate. The Old Man’s got something on his mind. Had had for some time. Might be Stella, his own Alison had hinted that certain stresses were taking place. And what wonder, he thought, neither character being of the easiest.

  ‘Bound to be some, aren’t there?’ Abstracted but polite, he avoided a small car that was weaving in and out of the traffic lanes.

  ‘But I think these might be important … Don’t you get the impression that the other two bodies were meant to be found? Found soon and found …’ He paused. ‘As arranged.’ This time it was not a question he was asking but a thoughtful statement.

  Archie did not answer for a moment. ‘Hard to say.’

  Coffin could hear Wally Watson’s voice, repeating an earlier statement: Only found by chance, boys playing in the wood near the hospital, their dog dug her up. Bit of her anyway. An arm sticking out … We’d have found her in the end, though, because that bit is going to be developed as part of the hospital. And then, as I said, it was due for an archæological dig. Roman and possibly early Saxon.

  All this would be well known.

  And again: Some poor kid that’s run away from home and got caught. No one will claim her. Or not for some time. Maybe never.

  Coffin wondered if that would prove to be true. Somehow he thought this girl was one who would be claimed.

  ‘It’s one of the series, though,’ said Archie confidently.

  ‘Think so?’

  ‘The nails prove it to my mind. It’s little things like that that give it away. It’s what he’s looking for. It’s the mark.’ He added, ‘This death brings in the Met and that’s a help.’ Not that he liked sharing, of course, he was like an alley cat in that; what was his, was his.

  And a nuisance, thought Coffin, reading his mind accurately; rivalry between the two Forces was not unknown.

  ‘And we’ve got to accept that there may be other bodies.’

  ‘Could be.’

  Outside it was beginning to rain and even inside the tunnel the temperature was dropping. Coffin felt cold. ‘You’ve known Wally Watson for some time?’ asked Archie Young as he drove out of the tunnel and felt the fresh air.

  ‘For years.’

  ‘He’s a good sort. In his way.’

  ‘He’s a good copper. Could have risen higher if he’d wanted but he likes it where he is.’

  ‘Nice place, Dulwich. Thought of living there myself once. Alison’s got an aunt who says she’s going to leave us her house, but it would have been difficult for work. Long drive.’
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  ‘What will you do about the house?’ inquired Coffin absently, his thoughts still running on the series of murders.

  ‘Sell it, I expect.’

  ‘Property is always useful.’ Letty had taught him that much.

  ‘About the chewed nails,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it strike you that the killer must have known about her nails?’

  Covered, the nails had been with bright red falsies, but the killer had known what was underneath.

  Was he straining the logic there, or was it so?

  ‘Might have done,’ said Archie Young, as if he didn’t think it important.

  They drove on in silence. Presently Young said: ‘There’s your good lady …’ He had this tiresome way of talking sometimes, Coffin thought it was the result of some awkwardness when he had to mention personal relationships. ‘Heading for the Spinnergate Tube Station.’

  There was Stella, wearing dark spectacles, a striped woolly cap on her head and jeans with a tweed jacket. My camouflage clothes, she called them.

  Also, her working gear. ‘She’s off to a rehearsal,’ he said.

  She had her head down and was moving away fast.

  The Chief Inspector slowed down, watching Stella who had stopped to buy a newspaper from the stall hard by the Underground station. She looked up, saw her husband and waved.

  ‘Let me out, Archie, thanks. I think she wants something.’ And Coffin shot across the road.

  ‘Bless you, and good luck to you, Buster,’ murmured Archie Young to himself, with sympathy and irony. He knew a husband whose marriage was under stress when he saw one. He’d been there himself.

  Coffin caught up with Stella.

  ‘Got a minute?’ she said. ‘Something to tell.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m in a hurry, though.’

  ‘I’ll walk beside you … It’s important?’

  Coffin got his wife a ticket from the machine, then went down the escalator beside her.

  ‘It’s Letty, I’ve had a message from her. It was on my answering machine. I don’t know when she left it … I’ve been upstairs with you and didn’t check the machine all day yesterday.’

  This was unusual for an actress, ever hopeful for that big new offer, that angel in the wings.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘So that’s it, really.’ A train was already approaching, moving the air in front of it down the tunnel. ‘She didn’t say anything much, just that she was well and would be in touch … The message is there for you to hear.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Didn’t say.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘Sorry, I know you’ve got a lot on at the moment … And there’s something else, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes, another body. Stella …’ A train was already approaching. ‘Stella, the smell thing. Think about it and let me know if you have anything to add.’

  ‘I think I have already.’

  He could see she didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Have a try. Think people, Stella.’

  Stella stepped through the open door of the train, turned and waved. ‘I will. Promise.’

  Before the doors could close, Coffin said: ‘Stella, what was the name of the shop on the other carrier bag in Caroline’s cupboard?’

  ‘Harrison’s of Bond Street,’ she called out as the doors came together. Then she was gone, the train speeding on into the tunnel towards central London.

  Coffin walked towards his office, where, under the firm eye of his secretary, he set about clearing his desk.

  When he had a gap, he spoke to Archie Young on the telephone. ‘Inquire at Harrison’s of Bond Street if Caroline Royal worked there.’ There was a mutter across the line. ‘Just an idea …’

  He could imagine what Archie Young was saying to his Inspector: ‘The boss is having one of his psychic turns.’ He wouldn’t laugh, though, because he had met this trick of Coffin’s before, been sceptical and then found it had worked.

  And it was no trick, it was based, as he knew, on seeing further into the wood than he did himself. That was the difference between Archie Young and the Chief Commander and why John Coffin was where he was.

  Coffin went into his outer office about to say to his secretary that he was going for a walk (his code name was not WALKER for nothing), only to find himself confronted with Job Titus, MP, and Eddie Creeley. Titus looked as usual, nothing seemed to dent his ebullience, but Eddie Creeley’s face was white.

  Coffin sent a reproachful look at his secretary, but she was new in the post, a career move for one helper and pregnancy for the other had left him naked to the world for a few weeks with only temporary help. Frances, his new secretary, had not yet learnt all the rules, the foremost of which was: Keep them all out. His assistant, young Andrew, was on a course, his office was understaffed.

  However, he admitted that Job Titus would be a hard man to turn away. He himself found it difficult, but he played the card he had in his hand.

  ‘I’m afraid that I’m just going out.’

  Titus took no notice, he brushed past Coffin. ‘Won’t keep you a minute. Come on, Creeley.’ He didn’t look behind to see but he had Eddie Creeley on a string and he knew it. Creeley followed meekly. Last came John Coffin.

  He closed the door behind them. ‘Well?’ He did not ask them to sit down.

  Job Titus drew up a chair and sank down, Eddie remained standing, so did Coffin.

  ‘You’ve got another body.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Into his mind shot a picture of Miss Nobody, the girl with the tumbled black hair and the chewed nails. Titus should not know about her yet.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  You worry me, Coffin decided. You have sources of information I don’t control, I don’t trust you, and I don’t like you. And you don’t like me.’

  ‘It does matter, it matters to me, but we won’t go into that now. What do you want? Why are you here?’ He didn’t sit down. A faint sense of the ridiculousness of the situation was beginning to seep into him. He’d count to three and then he would sit down. Invite Eddie Creeley to do the same.

  ‘If there’s another body and it forms a series, then I’m not guilty of killing Marianna, and Eddie here is not guilty of killing Didi.’

  ‘I loved Didi,’ said Eddie hoarsely. ‘Wouldn’t have touched her.’

  ‘And for what it’s worth, I was fond of Marianna … All right, she could be a pain, so can most women, but you don’t kill them just for being themselves.’

  ‘It’s true that another body, strangled like the first two, has been found, but no conclusions can be drawn yet.’

  ‘Then let me draw them for you: if you have a multiple murderer, then it’s not me and it’s not Eddie. I did not kill Marianna, Eddie did not kill Didi and Eddie did not kill Marianna for money for me … Yes, I know you thought that.’

  Once again, he knew too much.

  ‘So you can stop digging into my life looking for muck.’

  ‘I’m not digging into your life.’

  ‘No, but your men are.’

  Coffin looked at his hands and masked what might have grown into a smile. Good for you, Archie Young, so you have been looking into Job Titus.

  Titus saw him. ‘Well, damn you for being smug.’

  Coffin jerked upright.

  ‘Nothing in your life that you’ve ever been ashamed of?’ Titus was an angry man.

  ‘We all have.’

  ‘Of course you have. So have I. More than I’m proud of, I expect. They’ll find things there if they dig hard enough, but that is not what your job should be. I did not kill Marianna. Must I say it again?’

  ‘I heard the first time.’

  ‘And perhaps it has never occurred to you that I was seeing Eddie because I was sorry for him. Because I think the Creeley family are a sad lot who could do with a helping hand. Apart from anything else, I am their MP, they are my constituents, it’s my duty to look out for them. Lizzie Creeley wrote to me. What she and her brother did all those years ago was
wrong, but she’s paid. I was sorry for her.’

  Coffin took a deep breath.

  He didn’t like Titus, he never had, but he had to admit there was a genuine note to all this. It would be intolerable if he was obliged to like the man or even to respect him.

  He stood up, walked across to a wall cabinet. ‘Let me offer you a drink.’

  Fifteen minutes later he saw them out himself. Eddie Creeley shook his hand several times, muttering thanks. He was limping slightly.

  ‘How’s your leg, Eddie?’ asked Coffin.

  Eddie blushed. ‘Better. My own fault. I did it myself, I thought I could kill myself … cut a vein. Didn’t work. Wasn’t brave enough, hadn’t the stomach, felt sick.’

  ‘Dying can be a harder job than it looks, Eddie. I’d steer clear of it if I were you.’

  Job Titus had moved ahead. ‘Come on, Eddie, I’ll drive you home.’

  When they had gone, his secretary said: ‘Are you still going for a walk?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’m sorry I let them in.’

  ‘It didn’t matter.’

  ‘Oh, good, I thought you were really angry, but now you’re not.’

  He leaned against the door, admitting with reluctance that Titus had altered his mood. That’s charm in operation, he admitted, and I’m not sure if it’s honest or if you can trust it.

  He straightened up. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I will go for a walk.’

  The message went around: WALKER is on the prowl.

  The Chief Commander did not go far, he walked a few hundred yards to a small park which perched on a hill so that it looked down on the river. He sat on a bench thinking.

  He enjoyed surveying this Second City for whose peace he was responsible, and from where he sat he could see the top of St Luke’s Mansion, his own tower was unmistakable. He could make out the curve of Napier Street where Annie Briggs lived, and if he used his imagination he could see where the roof of the Karnival Club must be.

  He thought about the three dead girls; he thought about the tape with Eddie’s name on it. If Eddie had not been the killer, not been named by the soon-to-be-killed Didi because he was there, then he had been named deliberately.

  He thought about the new body whose chewed nails had been covered. The killer had known about them.