Tom Banbury opened the door himself. He surveyed Coffin without a word. Without surprise, either.
‘Come on in then, Moses.’ He opened the door wider, the cat entered, followed by Coffin.
‘Moses?’ Funny name for a cat. ‘Why do you call him Moses?’
‘Seemed to suit him.’
It was true the cat did have a cool, legalistic look as if he might be a great law-giver. The nose for it, you might say.
Banbury was drinking. Not whisky as yet but a mug of tea. He put down a plate of fish for Moses, a large cod’s head with dull eye stared up from the dish.
‘Have some tea.’ It was a statement not a question. He poured a dark stream from a pot with a broken spout, depositing a spatter of dark stains to join others on the table.
Coffin hugged the mug to him, not wanting to drink with Tom Banbury. He needed to get the conversation over first. It takes a funny sort of a man to shop a mate.
‘Drink up.’ He made it an order.
Coffin took a sip: so that was where the whisky was.
‘Don’t fancy it? Don’t you like whisky?’
‘It’s not that, sir.’
‘But you don’t think it’s right to be drinking my whisky?’
This was so nearly true that Coffin was silenced.
‘I suppose you don’t remember what today is?’
More than a tipple from the brown pot, thought Coffin; emotion as well.
‘It’s the day the jury will decide that Ned Summers is guilty of killing Connie Shepherd. In the statutory time he will be hanged.’
‘Oh, that. Yes, I did know.’
‘And you’re not thinking about it? You ought to be thinking about it.’
‘I am, sir. In a way. I think he asked for it and he got it. We did our job.’ He added deliberately, ‘I think there was an over-reaction to the Shepherd murder. I guess you noticed it yourself, I thought I noticed it. And I’d say a report went to Dander. Right at the beginning, that would be. Perhaps there had already been a note that this chap got worked up in a way he shouldn’t.’ But it was not only because of Summers, it was the girl’s body.
‘How old are you, Detective-Constable Coffin?’
‘Twenty-two, sir.’ And you know, sir.
There was silence. Banbury put his mug down with a bang. ‘Come on, then. Out with it. What you came to say.’
Coffin got his speech into some sort of shape. Perhaps the whisky helped it all out.
‘There’s a question of loyalties, see.’ The native Londoner was showing through his speech more and more, the little Cockney fighting to get out. ‘Someone you got to know in the army, saw things through with: Vic Padovani.’
‘So you feel loyal to him?’
‘Like him.’ The reply was dogged. ‘Don’t want to see him go down for murders he did not do.’
Tom Banbury was silent. ‘You think so? He’s done other things.’
‘Yes. Dealt in black-market shoes and fake wine. He always did do that land of deal. I knew that in the army. It’s the way the Padovanis live.’
‘So?’
‘That’s one loyalty, but then there’s another kind. Loyalty to what I am now, loyalty to someone I’ve worked with. Got to like.’
‘Oh, you have, have you?’
Tom Banbury laughed. It was a kind laugh, no threat in it as with some laughs, but almost without humour. A laugh like a full stop. Then he pushed the teapot Coffin’s way again. ‘It’s a bugger, isn’t it? Drink up. If it’s any comfort to you, I know what you know.’
‘I thought you might.’
‘Vic Padovani didn’t kill those women. Not the type. I know it and now you know it.’ He stood up. ‘How long?’
‘Almost from the beginning. When I saw the first body, saw the card with the stain. Reminded me of something. I know I was on the edge of everything. Thought nothing of it at first, then I thought, no, it’s deliberate. Policy.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Other duties. Segregation as if we had an infectious disease. Well, I knew I didn’t have it, so I had to work out who had. I thought I could make out a picture. Of course I knew Warwick and Dander must have put together a dossier, full of details that I didn’t know. But I thought I had something they didn’t have. I was close. And I saw someone who had shown a strong reaction to the murder of Connie Shepherd, more than I would have expected. Perhaps been obsessed by it. Particularly in relation to the child. I thought the child-mother relation was crucial. That was where Rachel Esthart came in.’
Tom Banbury did not answer.
‘But although it looked as if she was the centre, I don’t think she was.
‘It seemed to me that the murderer hated women who were unmaternal. Perhaps he had a personal reason for hating them. Perhaps his own mother had ill-treated him. Or rejected him. He might have been an orphan. Or unloved.’
‘Go on.’
‘He went for three women who rejected children, so perhaps he was punishing them. That was how I thought. Lorna Beezley didn’t like the children she taught. Every one seemed to know. Shirley Cowley complained bitterly about family responsibilities. Eileen Gaze left her child at every possible opportunity. She wasn’t a loving mother.’
‘You’ve got some interesting ideas, there.’
‘We were all fussing around Rachel Esthart on account of the letter. So it looked as if the origin to it all must lie in her past. Not so.’
‘No?’
‘Oh, she was hated all right. And for the same reason the other women were killed; because she had abandoned her child. But the first victim did not have a card. She died before that started.
‘So the killings started after the death of Connie Shepherd, but before Rachel Esthart got her letter. Connie Shepherd was the clue, not Rachel. Mrs Esthart was a bit of embroidery that came later. It was a way of making her suffer, killing her in another way. I should think the killer enjoyed it.’
‘I believe he may have done, son.’
‘But she wasn’t crucial. She thought she was, but she was really unimportant. He may have liked that too. Dragging her down.’
‘He did.’
‘So I was looking for a killer, who had, as I had seen for myself, reacted strongly, even unnaturally to the death of Connie Shepherd; who hated women because of his own family background, who probably hated sexual relations. A man who had and knew how to use a knife. A man who knew the theatre crowd, who knew The Padovani, and who knew Rachel Esthart. Right?’
‘I don’t reject the picture. It’s got a lot of truth in it.’
‘The killer was someone I knew. Someone I worked with. That was what I came to see, that was where loyalty came in.’ He had known from the moment that the killer spoke of the card in Shirley’s brassière, he should not have known. ‘I might have stayed quiet. Only might. But poor old Vic. Couldn’t let him go down without a try.’
The words had come tumbling out. The murderous sequence of events, established bit by bit in his mind, had to be displayed to Banbury. He was the man he had to tell. It seemed only right. Loyalty went that far.
Connie Shepherd was the precipitating factor. Her murder set the killer off, finally pushed him into a violence that his own childhood, and then the war, had prepared him for. He was not a man who should have chosen the job he had. Or should have been weeded out. Connie Shepherd had died. The killer had probably not sought out Eileen Gaze, had perhaps not even understood then what he was looking for. But once found he had known what to do.
He had known how to ingratiate himself (poor old Vic and his black-market shoes), to get on easy terms. But having killed once, then he went out looking for victims to hate, to mutilate and kill. Thus Lorna Beezley and Shirley Cowley, not picked on arbitrarily but chosen, definitely chosen.
What turned a policeman into a killer? Or did he become a policeman because he was attracted to what he feared?
Tom Banbury said deliberately, ‘What you know, and what I know, you can bet Dander and War
wick know. Suspected quite a while, I’d say. Dander’s a sharp one. That was why we were all set carefully aside while they worked it all out. Had to be sure, you see. Loyalty again.’
Coffin said: ‘One thing this man – ’
‘Whom you haven’t named.’
‘Whom I haven’t named. This man, the killer living in a fantasy world, wouldn’t he try to create his own reality by keeping a record? Writing down his truth?’
There was a silence.
‘Yes. Clever boy.’ Tom Banbury opened a drawer, he produced a neat, stapled-together clutch of papers which he held for a moment in his hand, then offered silently to John Coffin.
Coffin took them. ‘Typed?’
‘You wouldn’t expect it to be handwritten. Typed on my own office typewriter.’
‘And?’
‘Taped beneath a drawer in the office. Safe enough till the painters came in today and dislodged them moving furniture and handed them to me. Not a bad place to keep them if you think of the psychology of policemen.’
And wanted to take the mickey out of them, thought Coffin. Policemen usually keep their own kennel clean.
He read through the pages quickly. It was all there: the names of the victim, dates, and details. One blank page at the end. He didn’t like that.
Banbury said, ‘Did you speak to anyone about all this before you set out?’
‘I left a note or two around,’ said Coffin awkwardly. ‘You know what I mean? I had a feeling Dander and Warwick were moving in.’ There had been rumours flying around the station all day. ‘So I did that, then came on here to talk to you.’
‘You silly young fool you’ve really stuck your neck out.’ Banbury sounded almost sympathetic, as if, had the situation been otherwise, he would have done the same.
Memories of the seagull pinned to the door of Angel House were flooding back, bringing panic with them. Coffin had been wrong to dismiss all that as icing on the cake! The bird had meant something after all and Stella had known it. Wasn’t she the seagull?
Tom Banbury drew breath. ‘You bloody fool.’ Then he relented. ‘You young, bloody fool.’
Stella’s body lay spreadeagled on the ground. Her eyes were wide open so that she could see the sky, she could hear the ships on the river. What she felt was the murderer’s hands on her neck.
‘You’ll be the exception. Not in the river, but you were too good to miss, Stella. And I’ve had you on my mind all along, little bird.’
‘Why me?’ she managed to gasp. Keep talking, Stella, she told herself.
‘You instead of Rachel Esthart. She’s too old, but if I kill you I will kill her child again for her. She’ll hate that or love it, who knows?’
Stella whispered, ‘Please don’t, Alex.’
‘I’ve known about her since I was a kid. Saw her once, and she saw me. Never told her that. My father, my own father Charley King, not the bastard who became my stepfather and made me take his name, was a copper in Oxfordshire where the kid drowned. I was not understood. Do you understand that? I was not understood.’ He was shouting. Then his voice dropped. ‘I saw the drowned boy – never forgot it. Every time I saw a body in the war I saw the kid beside it. Not really, I’m not mad. But it certainly made me interested in putrefaction.’ He gave Stella a shake. ‘You next.’ It was a hard, cruel movement, full of violence to come. ‘I found the letter in which you named me as a man you feared. Clever, but silly, Stella, to name names.’ In his pocket was Stella’s letter; the powdering of rust which had fallen inside it had rested upon his name, staining it. ‘And even if you are Rachel’s substitute, my little seagull, you count on your own because you are as bad as those other bitches. They hated children, I heard them say so. That’s why I chose them. They were not fit to go on living.’
‘I am, please,’ whispered Stella. ‘Let me live. And you will be caught. I wrote your name on another letter.’
‘No, you didn’t, little seagull. I don’t believe you. I can tell truth from lies. I cannot be stopped. Cannot. I am invulnerable. I will never be caught. The only thing that might point to me were the shoes which I got for Lorna, Shirley and Eileen. That was why they went out with me. I got them from Vic, but who’s going to believe him now? No. It is evidence against Vic as a killer. A bit of luck for me.’ He tightened his grip on her. ‘Anyway, who believes in luck? Not me. I plan. If I am caught I shall be punished. And I shall deserve to be punished. But I won’t get caught. There’s a ship sailing tonight on the high tide from the King William Dock. High tide is an hour from now. I’ll be on her. When she docks in Liverpool I’ll melt away. Who finds anyone in Liverpool? I might start again there.’
Stella knew what he meant by ‘start again’. Would there be no end? She moved a little, trying to get her neck free. ‘Let me go. Please.’
‘To tell you the truth, I never believed I was Charley King’s son, either. I knew I didn’t belong in that set-up. I had a fantasy I was really Rachel Esthart’s lost son. That lasted a long while, longer than you’d think, even though I knew it wasn’t true. I was going to be her son and a ballet-dancer. I used to masturbate and think about it.’
Stella gave a moan, speedily repressed by the killer with rough hands.
‘By that time Charley King was dead and I’d had my name changed by my stepfather; I hated him, but I hated my mother more for abandoning me. That’s what she’d done. I don’t think she even liked me: she said I was a difficult birth. A mean, lying, peevish, selfish woman, just like those others. Like Rachel Esthart. Like you would be if you got the chance. You are her, a monster in the making, fit to be killed.’
As he pressed against her, she felt the knife in his hands: a small, squat weapon, sharpened by his honing.
Bloody Boy Scout, thought Stella. A fierce anger gave her a surge of strength. She dragged at his hands, trying to free her throat.
In the bushes that grow on the hill by the Royal Observatory, just above where Alex Rowley had taken Stella, crouched a small figure.
Paul Shanks, no longer the intrepid Eagle Scott, was a frightened little boy. But a brave one.
He began to shout as he ran forward, just as Stella began to scream.
Coffin would have liked to have been the one to rescue Stella and lay his hands on Alex Rowley, but that pleasure was denied him.
The honour went jointly to Paul Shanks and Albert Jones, lighterman, exercising his pregnant bull-terrier bitch, Patsy, in Greenwich Park.
Come to think of it, perhaps Patsy did the best job. Her jaws fixed themselves firmly in Alex Rowley’s arm.
That wet summer of 1946 came into its full flower.
The King and Queen together with the two princesses made a triumphant tour through the bombed streets of South London. They paused to take tea at Greenwich and to watch the entire cast of the Theatre Royal, Nelson Street, perform their Masque. Stella was a delight as the Virgin, while Bluebell charmed everyone as her attendant nymph, one pretty shoulder bare. Chris Mackenzie’s music could hardly be heard in the open air for the sounds of river and traffic, but a notable patron was there and did hear enough to commission a mass for the music festival he was about to launch in Windsor.
The real triumph was Rachel’s. As her price for financial rescue of Joan and Albie’s repertory company, she took the part of The Virgin Queen away from poor Joan.
RACHEL ESTHART RESURGENT, ran the headlines in The Times. The Kentish Mercury had a full page of pictures, together with a special interview from Rachel who radiantly declared her intention of returning to the theatre. It was what she had been planning. Now Stella knew, she could only admire her skill.
Paul Shanks delivered this paper in person. He was wearing his gold watch, a joint present from Rachel and Stella. He was accompanied by a small bull-terrier puppy called Stella.
‘You had to see the joke,’ said Stella to John Coffin. ‘That boy will go far, damn him.’ She took his hand. ‘I’m going far, darling, too.’
They ate at The Padovani restaurant wh
ere one of the girls served them. Vic and his papa were serving a sentence for their black-market dealings. The beetroot wine which had stained the cards sent out by Alex was still mysteriously on sale. It had a different name but the flavour was all its own.
‘With Chris,’ he said bitterly.
‘As to that, darling, who can say?’ Who could, with Stella? ‘But I’ve had an offer, solid, from a London management. A star part; Albie is releasing me. I’ll be off, darling. But I do love you. Always will, in a way, my way.’
Tears of regret welled up in her lovely eyes.
Arms around each other, they walked back to Angel House. Coffin still lived at Mrs Lorimer’s; you couldn’t desert the old bird. He still hadn’t met Lady Olivia, though, but she had been quieter.
He was very unhappy inside at what he’d done to Alex. The trial would come up soon. Then that condemned cell business. He understood Tom Banbury on that matter a bit better now. There has to be a hangman, of course, but you didn’t have to like it. Tom Banbury had gone to Aberdeen, where he believed he had evidence about Sybil Shepherd. He turned out to be right. A couple there had the child in their care. They also had a story of befriending a runaway lost child, of wanting to keep her. It sounded true. But the main thing was the girl herself was safe and well. She might even have found herself a home.
‘What about you?’
‘Me?’ I have made an ally, a patron, of Chief Superintendent Dander, I have not exactly endeared myself to Inspector Warwick, and I really like Tom Banbury, God bless his brown teapot. ‘I’m doing all right.’ In my pocket I have a small cyanide capsule which I liberated in Germany from a Gestapo officer, who lost his nerve. I might slip it to Alex if I get my nerve. He saw himself there, in the condemned cell, trying to talk, and Alex as silent as ever. No expression on his face as he palmed the capsule. ‘Did I tell you I called at that house in Charlton? The old chap there said no, it wasn’t him that adopted a child, but his senior butcher; a man called Carver. Carver bought a shop of his own in Deptford in 1936. He gave me the address. He knows there was a child.’ Coffin gave Stella a regretful smile. ‘But he can’t remember the sex, boy or girl, he doesn’t know.’
Coffin on the Water Page 18
