That was all they knew then. Later they were to discover the reason, but Banbury was never to say anything.
‘There is something about the clothes that I will comment on,’ said Tom Banbury. ‘They look to me the clothes of a quiet, respectable girl. She wasn’t one of Connie Shepherd’s sort.’
The bare legs stretching before them had been pretty, sun-tanned legs, the feet well groomed with neat toenails. ‘She wasn’t flashy.’
‘Wonder who she is?’
Tom Banbury shook his head and shrugged. ‘There might be a name on her clothes. But I doubt it.’
Alex came back from where he had been talking to a uniformed constable. ‘Surgeon’s just arriving, sir.’
‘Know who she is, Alex?’ said Banbury. ‘Any idea? Ever seen her before?’
‘No. Unidentified.’
An unknown girl dragged out of the Thames: that would be the newspaper headlines. It would make the evening paper. There was a stringer from the Star there already, with a young woman from the Kentish Mercury.
‘Somebody knows her.’
‘Sure.’
‘And we’ve got to find that somebody.’ Banbury turned away to meet the police surgeon. ‘That’s how you do it, lad.’ He nodded across to where the press stood, the first two had now been joined by another man. ‘You can tell that lot there if they hang about there will be a description for them to print. They can help us get a name for her with any luck. As I said: somebody knows her, and somebody will be missing her.’
As John Coffin obeyed orders and walked across to the press, taking in that the girl from the Mercury had red hair and pretty ankles, he noticed an arrival.
A smart black car drew up to the kerb from which stepped, accompanied by what ought to have been a flourish of trumpets and felt as if it had been, a burly well-dressed man. The man gave him a quick, perceptive look and passed on, coat flying. Coffin had the same feeling he’d had when he’d encountered a General on the field of batttle. It was a sparkling entrance.
Coffin knew his name but not his face. Chief Superintendent Dander, the Supremo of the CID in this South London police district, the nearest thing to God in Coffin’s professional life, had arrived.
Coffin stood back and waited for his own boss to be walked over, obliterated. It didn’t happen. Instead Dander quietened down, drew Tom Banbury aside for a long discussion in which Banbury took his full part.
The arrival of Dander aroused instant interest in the press, especially in the Mercury girl who said she’d met Dander before and where he went a story flowered, so what was this one here? There was a murmur of agreement from her colleagues. Coffin saw at once she had been put up as spokesman as being the one most likely to get an answer.
‘You know as much as I do. Probably more, because you’re allowed to use your imagination and I can’t. You’ll get a full description of the girl within the hour and then the more publicity you give it, the better my boss will be pleased.’
‘He’s having a nice chin-wag with Banbury,’ said the local stringer from the Star. He knew everyone and all the gossip.
‘It’s breaking up now.’
Already the scene was crowded with figures, one in uniform, others in plain-clothes. One man was a forensic scientist, another the fingerprint expert. The ground was being searched painstakingly for clues. Later on, her body would get the same scrutiny for any evidence the murderer had left behind. Any contact leaves something, but it has to be found and evaluated.
The whole area was being corded off and a canvas tent placed over the body itself. Later, it would go off to the pathologist’s table.
Where had once been relative quiet was now all action.
Tom Banbury and Charlie Dander were strolling on their way, still talking, still amiable. Dander must be more friendly than reports allowed.
‘Wonder if I can get a word.’ The Star man hurried forward. ‘You know, he’s quite bald under that Anthony Eden, that’s why he wears a hat all the time.’
‘He’s a lovely man,’ said the girl warmly. ‘And I think it’s madly attractive to look like that.’
‘He told me once he lost all his hair from alopecia when he joined the Flying Squad before the war and had to tackle an armed villain single-handed.’
‘I think he lost it when his first wife left him.’
‘How many’s he had, then?’ asked Coffin.
‘Two to date, isn’t it, Win?’
The girl shrugged. ‘No one’s told me. Anyway, you can’t wonder at it with policemen. Like being on the stage.’
‘You mean policemen should only marry policemen?’
‘Oh, witty. But that’s about what they do, really, isn’t it? That’s the real alliance, the working one.’
Banbury and Dander parted with a brief handshake, Dander put on the speed, passed the journalists before they could get much out and departed with the same energy and flourish with which he had arrived. On the way he gave Coffin another stare and a quick grin. It was friendly.
I could work with that man, he thought. Also, how to make a good man a slave with one smile. Later he and Stella Pinero would decide that they were both the type that could be easily enslaved. Something to do with their body chemistry perhaps. Later still, he decided that it had all been worth it: a very valuable asset in the CID to have a Patron. Whatever it was, Alex Rowley, judging by the tight expression of his mouth when he looked at Dander, did not feel it. No easy response there.
Tom Banbury looked pleased with himself.
There’ll be something for you in a minute,’ he said to the press. ‘Meanwhile you can have a look round. No touching, though …’ And to Alex and John Coffin: ‘Come into the foreman’s shed, lads. I want to talk.’
Will Summers and the foreman Ted had parted, presumably about their work, but there was a pot of tea and a trio of chipped cups still on the table. A tin of condensed milk offered sweetness and light. Tom Banbury poured out the cups and sat down in the one chair. ‘I’ll be mother.’
Too happy by half, decided Coffin. I wonder what’s up.
It was routine now, Tom Banbury told them. He detailed what their part would be, although they could more or less see what was coming, they had that much experience now. They were just little bits of the machine, pieces that must slot into position while at the same time showing intelligence and initiative. Was this always compatible? he asked himself. But questions were not invited. It might well be that his would be the last generation of young detectives to put up with this treatment. In fact, perhaps he would not put up with it. After all, he’d been through the war and that entitled you to a voice. But he wasn’t going to say so this minute to Tom Banbury who was doing all the talking himself. Coffin got the impression that he was talking for the sake of talking, to relieve some pressure inside himself. It was a thing women did more than men, but a detective with a feminine streak inside him wasn’t a bad idea. Perhaps all the best detectives had one. He might himself. Not Alex, though. From all he could gather Alex had been trained by his father to shoot himself if such a thought ever crossed his mind.
He heard himself being detailed off to interview Will Summers who had already told all he knew, but might be induced to repeat it with additions. You could never tell. Remember that Will Summers, although an honest man and truthful, was not an experienced observer of anything except the tides and might know more than he guessed. That was the idea anyway. So dig. Then he could do the same with Ted the foreman. He might be more difficult, having strong opinions and willing to voice them whether you wanted him to or not.
Alex could do the river police, with whom he had already been doing liaison work. Courtesy came into this and remember it. You had to tread carefully with all river men, they were a bristly lot. Binder was the man to see, Sergeant Binder. What he didn’t know about the tides on the river and what they got up to was not worth knowing.
Alex nodded. He knew the rules. As a matter of fact, he liked the river police outfit and felt at hom
e with them. A good bunch, freer, somehow, than the Met.
So they both knew where to go and they could go. Identification was the first priority. Here they should get some help from the clothes. These would be gone over inch by inch in the laboratory, but they would get a chance to see them. If they were lucky they would get a bit of help from the clothes, but it would lead to … they waited for the words.
More routine.
Tom Banbury drank some tea. From Coffin’s own quick taste the tea was tepid and over-sweet, but the good cheer remained with Tom. Then he explained why. ‘Dander has something for us. Not on this one. The Shepherd child. He has a viewing of her that puts her still alive. He thinks we ought to check.’
Coffin understood the cheerfulness. They had all been brooding on the missing child, whereas the full horror of the present case had not yet quite come home to them.
‘He’s had information that a girl who sounds like the Shepherd child has been living rough in Lambeth. He’s got a witness who claims to have seen her. Says the source is reliable. It could be. I shall check. I’ll do that myself. I want to.’
They could both understand that. It would be one of the better moments of the job if it came off. The girl might not be in much of a state, probably wasn’t, if she’d been living rough, but she’d be alive and they wouldn’t be looking for bits of her.
‘We’ll meet later. When we get a view of the dead girl’s clothes.’ He put his cup down. ‘Nasty stuff,’ he said in a tone of surprise. ‘Dead cold. Don’t drink it.’
Coffin eventually ran both Will and Ted to ground a few yards down river where they were talking to a tally-clerk and watching stevedores unload some barges. There seemed a bit of a dispute about the details on the documents the tally-clerk was waving. A little high talking was going on, but they decided to end it when they caught sight of Coffin, and the matter ended amiably.
Will Summers watched him approach sardonically. ‘Can’t tell you any more than I already have. You policemen got time to waste, I reckon. Not so bad, eh?’
Ted shook his head silently. He did have something else to add but was wondering how to say it. He didn’t like the police, never had, but there was nothing personal about it and he was prepared to give this young one a chance. He was glad it was him come to ask the questions. Apart from anything else (he was polite), he seemed better than most coppers. A nicer look to his face. It was his eyes. Their expression was not what you expected in a policeman, whose face usually said watch it. There was a hope, he thought, that the war might have brought them all round to one side. Anyway, we’re the masters now, he told himself.
Will repeated his account of the morning: how he had come to work, seen the flash of something odd in the water, investigated and found what he had found. No more to it. He was surprised no one had noticed the body as the barges came trailing down the river, but she must have been masked.
Ted said the first he knew of it was when Will came and asked to use the phone. He had gone and had a look for himself but had nothing else to add.
‘Not seen you before, have I?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Don’t know the district, then?’
‘Learning. My family came from round here. Before the war, though. I may have a bit of family here yet.’ If he ever found it, of course, and Gertie had been telling the truth.
Ted nodded. ‘It needs knowing.’
‘I’ll learn.’
‘Better if you want to get on round here. Learn your part too. Not what you might think. You’re a worker, remember. A member of the working class. Not a tool of the government.’
‘Never meant to be.’
‘Ever read any Marx?’
‘No.’
‘Engels, then?’
‘No.’
‘You should.’
‘Stow it, Ted,’ said Will.
‘Only explaining things to him. Making him think, a young man like him ought to think. He ought to know where he stands. It’ll be a help to him when he goes around asking questions. Might help him to ask some questions.’
‘Thanks. See you sometime and have a talk about it, may be?’
‘Come and have a beer. The Black Horse is my local, you’ll find your way there.’
‘Any idea where the body might have gone into the river?’
Ted shrugged. Will spoke weightily. ‘She goes down with the tide, she comes up with the tide. What goes in on the ebb tide, it’ll do a mile and a half and then come back. If it was local, it could have been from the Greenwich Pier. Known it used.’ Will murmured agreement. ‘Be worth looking. It’s very hard to say. Try the river police.’
Coffin nodded. ‘That’ll be done.’
Ted turned back to the tally-clerk and resumed their discussion while Will Summers walked a few yards with Coffin. Whether out of politeness or to see him off Coffin wasn’t sure. It felt like a mixture of both.
‘He always like that?’
‘Always been a bit left. Always disliked Churchill. Doesn’t usually come out quite so strong. A quiet man as a rule.’ Will had a soft, calm way of assessing things that reminded Coffin of Tom Banbury. Brothers beneath the skin. Probably went to school together. He must find out. One powerful schoolteacher could have imposed that way on both minds. ‘You must have upset him. Or the girl.’
As he walked away Coffin was aware that he had been offered something but what it was he was not exactly sure. He would certainly get in touch with Ted again.
One of the journalists was still hanging around when he got to the road, waiting for snippets of information.
‘Anything to say?’
‘Nothing.’ Coffin said it regretfully; he would have helped if he could.
The man put his notebook away. ‘Just as well in a way. We’re so short of newsprint that half the things I write get edited out. But I hope.’
‘Hope on.’
‘Got a car?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll walk with you to the bus, then … Your boss and Dander were pretty cheerful together. Raised each other’s spirits.’
‘Didn’t really notice.’
‘Of course they’ve got a problem in common.’
‘What’s that?’
‘One of Dander’s wives is Banbury’s sister. Divorced now. But not forgotten. She sees to that. Drinks. Whether because she’s unhappy or to drown her memories of life with Dander I couldn’t say.’
‘Thanks for telling me.’
‘It’s as well to know.’
Circles within circles in Greenwich, obviously, and those circles interlinked. Come to think of it, his own circle touched somewhere, if that sibling existed. But as the journalist said, it was as well to know.
He went back to work, carefully making out his report.
Since the police station was located in an old school the two young detectives worked in a room about three times the size that later generations would know.
Speaking for himself, and he had not discussed it with Alex, John Coffin was not grateful.
The office he shared with Alex was painted dark brown with large gothic-style windows; he had a big square desk and a hard wooden chair. Windsor style, the chair, he believed. Handsome in a kind of way, and certainly spacious. But because of where it was he felt as though he was still at school himself, you could smell chalk, and the special kind of floor-cleaning oil that schools always used.
He disliked it greatly; he was never going to be at ease in this place, but he had to act as if he was. That was one rule he had learnt. It was a rule for the way up the ladder. He might break it, but he would certainly try.
Alex came in silently, and sat down at his desk to work. Everyone does it differently, thought Coffin. Him in his small corner and me in mine.
In the distance Tom Banbury’s voice could be heard on the telephone.
‘Any idea what’s happening?’
‘Not a lot.’
Events moved around them. They were supposed to make a pict
ure. This didn’t always happen; it didn’t now. But don’t say so, Coffin told himself.
‘What about the river police? What did you get?’
‘Not a lot. Chap said the body probably went in the river between Greenwich and Deptford Bridge. Would have gone with the tide, a mile and a half with the ebb, back with the flood.’
This was what the two lightermen had said, more or less.
‘Got more details. Tell you later. But the chap pointed out that either the girl walked to the river with the murderer or was transported somehow. Only one or two places that could have been. Only one, Greenwich Pier, is open to the public. And you’d need something like a barrow to get a body along.’
John Coffin considered. A barrow did not seem likely. And what barrow? No doubt he would soon find himself looking for it.
Tom Banbury came in, he had his detective-sergeant with him, a man called Garston Frith. Not unnaturally Garston hated his name, so he was always called Geoff.
Banbury announced his position straight away.
‘No good about the Shepherd child. Nothing at all. The wrong girl. Wrong height, wrong age. Right sex and that was about all.’
‘No go, then? Was it just a lark?’ A bold question from a young detective on probation like Coffin. He was chancing his luck in seeming to criticize Dander.
‘Oh, Dander thought it was good information. It did seem genuine. Damn.’
So they were still looking for the Shepherd child and still hoping to find her alive. Every day that passed made it more doubtful.
‘The body’s down at the mortuary. Let’s get down and look at the clothes.’
Events moved around them, they were supposed to make a picture as facts were thrown at them. Better not say too much aloud, though. Theirs was the shoe-leather job.
The police laboratory was the next to check in with a simple, first account of what she had been wearing. They would send a detailed survey later.
Simple clothes, pretty, inexpensive clothes. The underclothes, knickers and a slip, were made of Celanese, an artificial silk, and had been bought at a well-known multiple store. No stockings. The shoes had gone.
Coffin on the Water Page 5
