I’ll learn,’ said Stella. My God, she thought. What an offer.
‘I loved your father, you know.’ Well, she was supposed to have loved many men. ‘And I owe him something.’
‘I must pay.’
‘I’ll leave all the financial side to Florrie.’
‘Two pounds a week and your ration book,’ said Florrie at once.
From the door, in her glimmer of pearls and aura of Chanel, Rachel said, her face full of mischief, ‘You’ll eat well here sporadically. Florrie knows all the best black-marketeers. She’s related to most of them – and there’s always the Italian restaurant on the Heath when you’re short here. Florrie’s cousin owns that, too.’ There was malice and amusement in her voice.
She was gone, leaving Stella alone with Florrie.
End of Act One, she thought, curtain. Suspense building up.
‘You’ll eat well here,’ said Mrs Lorimer, serving the young men with Yorkshire pudding and roast beef. ‘I’m on very good terms with my butcher.’ And with the local police, and with the Padovanis of the nearby restaurant. During the war she had insinuated herself into a position of power which she had no intention of relinquishing now peace had come.
‘We passed a theatre on the walk here,’ said John Coffin.
‘Oh, you walked did you? There is an odd cab but you have to book it. I’m a keen theatre-goer. I get my complimentary tickets, you know, and if I can’t go I send a friend. I was asked to give a room to a young lady actress, but it couldn’t be done, the rooms were spoken for you.’
‘Who is it plays the piano?’
That’s Chris Mackenzie: he works in the theatre on the stage management side. An old theatrical family.’
‘And who is it who sings?’
‘Singing, is it?’ A shade passed over Mrs Lorimer’s face. ‘That’ll be old Lady Olivia. Have some more potatoes. I grow my own at the back so they can’t ration me there.’
Nothing more was to be said about Lady Olivia, John Coffin gathered. He wondered what her ladyship had done besides sing drunken, seditious songs. Probably been a terror with her blackout curtains.
His landlady interrupted his reflections. ‘There’s a message from your boss to say he wants to see you two this afternoon. You’ll need to go on the bus. 54s do you.’
The two young men looked at each other.
‘He’s a marvellous man. I used to fire-watch with him. We all took our turn. His wife was killed in that rocket at Woolworths in New Cross. Doing the Christmas shopping, she was. A tragedy, but we’ve all suffered.’
Her eyes fell upon John Coffin who had been blown up by a mortar shell and upon Alex Rowley who had a badly injured hand when a sniper’s bullet smashed across his fingers.
The two young men caught their bus, while Stella walked down the hill to the theatre. It was a Sunday, but a working day for them all.
Some weeks later they had had, all of them, a rough time.
John Coffin and Alex Rowley had discovered that Inspector Tom Banbury, perhaps in reaction to the death of his wife, was not an easy boss.
The current crop of post-war crime in Greenwich, Greenwich Wick and Greenwich Hythe was interesting and varied. Nothing major, but most of it time-consuming and exacting. Tom Banbury did not spare himself nor his juniors.
A boffin from Cambridge had committed suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturate drugs, then lying down under a tree in Greenwich Park as night came on. A park-keeper found him. He had left no suicide note; nor was there any easy answer as to why he had done it. No money worries, nor domestic crisis. His widow said she could not understand it. He had been working during the war near Bletchley but was looking forward to a return to private life. Then a man came down from the Foreign Office and a blanket of silence descended.
A lorry parked outside the Sunshine Café on the Greenwich High Road burst into flames and was burnt out. Investigation revealed that it had been totally empty at the time, its load of food and tins having been unloaded sometime earlier. The lorry-driver and his mate, both of a low IQ, were arrested. They had the money for the sale of the rationed food still on them. The black marketeer was not located. A watch on the Sunshine Café and also on The Padovani Italian restaurant (the same owners) failed to produce results. But the sessions at the Padovanis’ were highly pleasurable.
A woman, a known prostitute, was found shot dead in the caravan she inhabited on a bit of flat land down in Greenwich Hythe. She had been shot about six times, her body torn apart by large calibre bullets. Her death was linked with those of two people whose bodies were discovered a week later in their basement flat in Evelyn Street, Deptford; they had died together, probably about the same time as Connie Shepherd. Their son, recently demobbed, was missing. After a search he was found camping out in Epping Forest, where his only explanation seemed to be that it was his mother’s fault. Connie Shepherd’s error appeared to be that she was ‘too soft’. The ex-soldier had with him a German gun he had picked up in Cologne. Connie Shepherd’s young daughter who had lived with her was missing, and remained missing. The soldier claimed to know nothing about her, and so far no evidence one way or another had been found. It was a nasty case.
Both young men felt and displayed anger in this case as they worked, which was noted by Inspector Banbury. He too felt anger at the disappearance of the child but did not show emotion. The kid was dead, he knew it, everyone knew, but until they found her body, or what was left of it, there was no way forward. Inside, he wanted revenge for her, though.
Across the room on this warm spring day he could hear John Coffin taking a telephone call. ‘Lower Thames Street. That’s down by the docks. Right.’ He had flushed red, then the colour drained away.
There was a strange atmosphere in this police station, somewhat alien to police work and perhaps due to those long-ago scholars, generation upon generation of them. The school had started its life way back in the 1880s as a London School Board Elementary School: Boys on the top, Girls in the middle, and Mixed Infants on the ground. Then in the 1930s the London County Council had raised its status, turning it into a Grammar School. Status but not appearance. The architect employed by the old London authorities had a strong house style, a kind of modified Venetian Gothic, so that one red-brick London school closely resembled another. Banbury had gone to such a one himself. So had Connie Shepherd, so had her child. It made a link.
Coffin came straight across. ‘A workman digging on a site in Lower Thames Street found a foot wrapped in newspaper.’
The two men looked at each other. Alex had gone white.
Coffin said, ‘The foreman said a child’s foot.’
‘Get across. Both of you. I’ll follow.’
There was no denying that Alex Rowley had a way of showing awkward emotion. Banbury felt he needed a safety-valve. Marriage might provide it. He seemed the sort that might marry young.
He had seen them both with Stella Pinero in the Padovanis’ restaurant. Separately. Not together.
The foot found on the waste ground of Lower Thames Street was that of a child. It was probably that of Sybil Shepherd, but there was no proof. The foot had been severed at the ankle. The search continued. Nothing more was found on that site.
Shortages of all kinds impeded quick work. Severely rationed petrol meant that most leg-work was literally done on the feet. Lack of telephone lines cut into police communications, creating delays and frustrations.
Space was one of the shortages at Greenwich Wick police station. Privacy was at a premium. From where he worked in his own crowded corner, John Coffin could see both his boss, Tom Banbury and Alex. Likewise they could see him.
But at least he had a window. From his window he could see German POWs clearing the ground where a colony of new houses was going to be planted. There could be a bit of Sybil Shepherd there. Who knew?
He walked over it every day on his way to eat lunch at the Trafalgar Arms public house. He always looked now for evidence of unusual disturbance. Observat
ion counted for so much in detective work. He was exploiting his sharpness of vision.
But it hadn’t helped so far with the Shepherd child. This search looked like their biggest problem, a harrowing and horrible one. He didn’t see it as more than that then.
He walked across the cleared ground on the way home.
His mind was burdened like a pack-horse with bundles of problems picked up in the day, a tightly packed box of private concerns carried with him all the time, and the odd perplexity that was a weight for a while, then put down and of no importance.
Today he was asking himself if the foot was that of the missing child or, as some thought, a left-over from the Blitz which had defied decay? The newspaper ought to give some help there. Then, if the foot did not belong to the Shepherd child, ought they not to be searching for the girl as alive? Could he trust his boss’s judgement on this? Could he trust his boss?
As he walked, his mind performed the throwing away act that lightened his burden every night. First out went the worry of his boss: probably nothing there; next went Alex: let that lad get on with his own troubles. Professional problems did not go away, but were deposited more comfortably about his person so he could think about himself.
He thought: Although I don’t like living at Mrs Lorimer’s and shall get out of it as soon as I can, we are an interesting lot. There’s Lady Olivia for one. Then there’s Chris Mackenzie always composing on the piano, and when he’s not doing that he spends his spare time carving model toys – aeroplanes and motor-cars. These he sells. Gets a good price, he says. Sociable chap. Gave us a drink on our first night here from some Padovani wine, and didn’t complain when a glass got spilt. Said he always split a glass himself on principle.
Mrs Lorimer complained, though, next day and said Alex had spilt some as well. He denied it, but I know he had because it was all over the Penguin I’d lent him.
He walked on.
He had plenty to think about. When he got home that night, just over one month since he had arrived in Greenwich, he began to write an aide-mémoire. A misnomer to call it a diary.
He dated it carefully: April 29, 1946.
And then at once burst into a flow of words about his own personal and private problem.
What Aunt Gert told me: that in August 1922, she thinks the third day of the month, a child was born to Julia Fairbain who later became Julia Coffin, my mother. This child was put out to adoption within the next two months. And Gert said she did not know the sex of the child, nor who adopted it. Her sister told her nothing about it, except that the event had taken place. In 1943 just before she died she told Gertie that the child was still alive and had been in touch with her. She wanted the two of us to get to know each other.
Aunt Gert kept quiet about all this because she didn’t see what I could do. Also, I was in Germany, then in hospital. When she heard I was going to be a detective, she thought I ought to know.
He raised his head from his notebook; he had chosen a red one as being strong and positive. These qualities might rub off on him. Then he wrote:
Aunty is still alive and bearing down on me to come up with an answer.
Query? Aunt Gert is becoming senile. Did she invent the whole story?
If she did not invent it, then can I rely on the details?
If she is passing on those details accurately, then did my mother tell the truth?
He raised his head again. One thing was sure: she had not told much of a story.
Pinned in the back of the red notebook were the only pieces of documentation that his aunt and mother had produced.
A picture-card, addressed to his mother, postmarked, Charlton S.E. And dated October 1940. It said:
Got home safely, so don’t worry. The Blitz won’t get me. I’ll keep in touch.
The picture on the card was of a church and a road.
There was also a single sheet of newspaper. The Kentish Mercury for November 1941. It carried various stories. Also a column of births, deaths and marriages.
That was all he had, and all he would ever have to help him find his unidentified sibling. If he had one.
I have been to the Kentish Mercury [he noted in his aide mémoire], and read the whole of that week’s papers through. I got no help.
I have walked around Charlton and I cannot identify the church or the road.
Think of it as your little hobby, he told himself, when you’re not looking for the murderers of prostitutes, and missing children. Or falling in love with girls like Stella Pinero.
Stella was not writing an aide-mémoire, but she had one great friend to whom she was writing a letter.
Thanks for your letter. Funny to think of you in Stratford. You seem to be getting some marvellous parts. Lucky of you to get your teeth into Ophelia. No one’s offered me Ophelia here, but I’m not doing so badly. What do you say to Major Barbara, Trelawney of the Wells, and Amanda in Private Lives? And I stand a good chance of being Prince Charming in the pantomime at Christmas, so beat that. Also, there’s something more in the offing but that’s still a secret and I mustn’t say.
The Delaneys are super, marvellous management. They’ve got some tremendously good people here. No one I’ve worked with before but names. Edward Kelly, for one. I mean, he really can act. I’m learning a lot.
There’s another bonus too. Where I live. Angel House belongs to Rachel Esthart. Yes. That surprises you, I bet? Remember how we used to try to be like her. Now I don’t have to try. I feel as though I practically am her, I see so much of her, and she’s teaching me. Proper lessons. We go through my parts. She’s got a room rigged up for a theatre. I haven’t told the Delaneys, but I think they know.
Here the writer showed a hint of nervousness. Rachel Esthart had so powerful a personality. I must struggle to be myself as well as her, she thought before going on:
There’s a funny thing about her. She never goes out. Well, hardly ever. I have heard tales that she sometimes hires a car and drives to a first night where she sits in the back of the box wearing white gloves and clapping. Or not clapping if she’s displeased. Then she has supper at the Savoy and drives back.
So she’s not quite a recluse. The house was a shock at first, but the bit we live in is all right. The rest, cobwebs, dear, and dust. Apparently the Miss Havisham thing goes back to when she lost her son. It’s a form of agoraphobia, I suppose. It’s what Miss Havisham could have had, if you think about it.
But there’s something even odder. She drinks a bit. And one night she let out that she doesn’t believe her son is dead. Just gone. One day he might come back. And these last few days she’s acted as if she’d had messages from Heaven that he’s on the way. Oh, poor lady. Most of the time she’s so sane, too. I suppose it’s the gin talking. We all have our fantasies.
I won’t tell you mine, but I will say there are some gorgeous men here. Two policemen (yes!). One so fair, one so dark. And there’s Eddie Kelly. And a pretty good musician who’s our stage manager.
I think I’ve clicked. It might even be the real thing. There’s something very sexy about a slight maiming, isn’t there? The Byron thing. He’s very attractive, rather brutal, I suspect.
Stella finished her letter and posted it.
That afternoon she got the call from John Coffin which obliged her to go to the police station and collect Rachel Esthart and take her back to Angel House on the bus. A journey not without difficulty as Rachel was withdrawn and hostile. The sympathetic union between them was now so strong that Stella felt sick, angry, and yet frightened at the same time and knew this was how Rachel felt.
Florrie met them at the door, and Stella handed her silent charge over.
‘Come on, Mrs Esthart, love. What happened?’ she said to Stella.
Stella told her side of the story.
‘Come on, love,’ said Florrie to her mistress. ‘What’s behind it? I knew something was up, keeping it to yourself, weren’t you? Tell old Florrie.’
For answer Rachel produced a card. It
was a plain white correspondence card with a gold deckled edge, a slight pink shadow, hardly a stain, marked one edge. It said:
I am sending a present to my mother. It will arrive on May 1st from my mother’s son.
‘Yesterday was May 1st,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s late.’
She was like a child whose birthday had been overlooked, but at least she was talking.
Florrie said defensively, ‘I blame the drugs they give her. She’ll be herself when they wear off.’
‘I am myself.’
‘I think that card is wicked. A cruel joke.’
With the bleakness of returning sanity, Rachel said: ‘Either the card is honest, and my son is around. Or somebody hates me.’
Next day the first body arrived, afloat in the river, but late for its appointment. It had got caught in the chains attached to a string of barges. This had delayed its transit up river. Otherwise the tide would have deposited it sooner.
Attached to the body in a pocket, soaked but legible, was a white correspondence card. It said:
A present for my mother.
CHAPTER TWO
The Shape of the Murderer
The first body, that of a young woman, was found soon after dawn by a lighterman going to work his barges. The tidal river has its own pattern and sets its own working hours, so he was early to work. The tide rose about five o’clock, but it was full summer and a fine day so he had light enough to see what was there at the wharf on Fidder’s Reach.
When he had taken it in, Will Summers, lighterman and waterman of the river for thirty-odd years, not without experience of dead bodies, was sorry that he had seen so clearly. I’m never going to forget that sight, he told himself, I shall never forget that girl, poor kid. She’s going to come back every so often and be like a member of the family.
He knew it was a girl from the clothes, otherwise he might have been confused, for the face had been terribly beaten by the chains in which she had become entangled, and a piece of rope had lashed her legs, tearing at them. There were no fish much in the river, but there were eels and some of them must have found her. Or perhaps a river rat, venturing out at night to eat. The pathologists would identify the likely causes of the marks.
Coffin on the Water Page 3
