Augustus emerged from under the desk where he had been asleep, and began to make his presence felt by jumping up and down at Coffin’s feet.
‘Get away, you devil,’ said Coffin. ‘Train this creature, Stella.’
‘No, that’s man’s work … lovely to be collected in this way.’ She put her head on one side. ‘But what’s up?’
He put his arm round her, lately he had found just touching Stella gave him comfort. ‘Come on home, and I will tell you.’
They passed down the corridor together, Stella, Coffin and Augustus.
From behind a half-closed door, they heard Ric’s voice: ‘What’s the policy here? Do we all sleep with anyone who asks, to keep the company happy?’
‘Listen, it’s a personal matter.’ This was Martin. ‘No policy.’
‘Oh, if you say so. Not like my last company.’
‘Where was that then?’
‘That would be telling, but it was in Scotland.’
‘You do surprise me …’ Another voice chimed in: Alison Summers.
‘What’s she doing in there?’ whispered Stella.
Ric was going on: ‘There’s no accounting for taste, we had an old spaniel who wouldn’t drink from a bowl of clean water but lapped up a dirty puddle on a walk.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Alison again.
‘Just making a comparison.’
Coffin drew Stella on. ‘You’ve caught a corker there.’
She bent down to pick up the dog. ‘Home or a drink at Max’s?’
‘Home.’
Serious talk, Stella thought. ‘Right. Well, it’s not a champagne evening, that’s clear, but I would enjoy a cup of tea. Strong and Indian and with cream.’
Stella made the tea herself in a brown earthenware pot. ‘Tastes better that way.’ She carried the tray up to their sitting room where she poured a cup for each of them. ‘So, what is it?’
Coffin took his cup of tea to the window from which he could see the old churchyard. Light shone through the trees. So Phoebe and her team were at work.
‘It’s old Lavender … I don’t know whether to believe what he says or not. He seems to spin stories out of his own mind. Today he said that Jack Bradshaw was his son, the result of a love affair that was kept secret.’
‘I can believe that,’ said Stella thoughtfully. ‘Richard Lavender was quite a lover of women, everyone knows that, seems to come to some men with power.’
‘How do you know so much about him?’
‘Read about it. I do read, you know. Well, let’s be honest, someone sent me a script once.’
Coffin was walking up and down. ‘It didn’t end there: he claims he was a lover of Jaimie Layard’s grandmother and her mother or father perhaps was his child too. He denied it first time round.’
‘Was he joking?’
‘God knows. I think he is fond of Jack Bradshaw, he may believe he did kill the girl, and he is putting all this up as a kind of smokescreen.’
‘Does he know about Martin and his sister … who they are, and Martin’s affair with Jaimie?’
‘I am sure he does. I am beginning to believe that in spite of his air of withdrawing from the world, he maintains an efficient information service … probably run by his niece. If Janet is his niece,’ Coffin added. ‘I don’t know what to believe. He claims that Bradshaw is his son, but is not aware of it. I don’t know if that is true either.’ And there is also the fact that the dead girl was pregnant. They would have to take specimens from Bradshaw and Marlowe to see if either was the father. But he did not say this aloud to Stella.
Stella said it sounded a bit mad.
‘I have thought that myself,’ said Coffin with bitter conviction. ‘He speaks with such an air of telling the truth, telling it to me and me only. Isn’t that what politicians always do? I don’t know if he believes all this is true. I am beginning to think I sent Phoebe Astley off on a goose chase.’
Stella joined him at the window. ‘What are all those lights?’ she asked.
Coffin did not answer. Digging up nothing, he said to himself. What a fool I am.
She’s dead, sir, long ago.
The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington
8
The room was quiet but they were both conscious of the lights across the road. Coffin, who had good distance vision, could see a line of police cars plus a dark van parked along the kerb.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought a few interested watchers had also turned up.
Already, he thought.
The telephone rang. Stella, who was nearest, picked it up and handed it to Coffin. ‘It’s bound to be for you.’
Coffin listened. ‘Phoebe here. We have something. Do you want to see?’
‘I am coming across at once.’ He stood up. ‘I won’t be long.’
Stella stood up and said: ‘I am coming too.’
Coffin hesitated. ‘I’m not sure …’
‘Augustus needs a walk.’
‘Don’t bring the dog,’ said Coffin sharply, before he could stop himself.
Stella stared at him. ‘It’s a body then. Another one.’
‘Stella, I don’t know. Not yet.’
‘I think I will come. You can order me not too, of course, you are the Chief Commander.’
‘It’s police business, Stella, darling, not fun.’
‘Did you imagine that I thought it was?’
‘No.’ He didn’t know what to say. ‘Why do you want to come?’
‘I want to be a part of your life. You join in mine, I let you into the theatre, you never let me into yours.’
‘It’s totally different.’ Anyway, she often crashed in.
They stood looking at each other, very close to a quarrel then.
‘I want to help.’
‘You do help, Stella, just by being there.’ The conviction in his voice got through to her. ‘It’s a bloody awful job I do most of the time, and it’s getting worse.’ He was speaking from the heart: political pressures, shortage of money, the loss of good men from the Second City Force, all added to his burdens. ‘I was happier as a CID officer in South London in the old days. Except for having you, Stella. That makes all the difference.’
Stella gave a sudden smile. ‘Thank you for saying that, my darling. All right … I won’t push. Tell you what: I will put a coat on, put Augustus on the leash and walk across the road with you, then I will take Augustus round the block.’
At the bottom of the stairs, as he opened the front door, Stella looked up at him, her face circled with the fur collar of her coat: ‘It’s difficult being a wife.’
‘It’s difficult being a husband,’ said Coffin with feeling.
Stella laughed. ‘I knew you would say that; I can always provide the cues for you.’
They walked towards the old churchyard in companionable silence, with Augustus pulling at his lead ahead of them. Around the cars, a trio of uniformed police were standing by the black van, and beyond them a small gathering of onlookers. Coffin recognized a local journalist.
‘It’s beginning to rain,’ said Stella. Faithful to her word, Stella and the dog drew away. She did not look back, but walked briskly on. She did spare a thought for wet diggers in the sad, sodden grave. Mud seemed to make everything worse.
Coffin was saluted by the uniformed officers, and was then attended by a silent sergeant who showed him the way through.
Phoebe Astley came forward; she was wearing a raincoat but her hair was wet.
‘We’re putting up covers to protect the digging area. I’m afraid it’s muddy.’ She was walking ahead of him down the track already beaten out on the grass. ‘We’ve made a bit of a mess putting up lights and everything. We had to get the local council’s garden department to give us permission, but we got it, on the promise to restore everything as we found it … It wasn’t so great, actually, might look better if we left it tidy.’
‘Meant to be a wilderness, I think,’ said Coffin, slithering on the wet g
rass.
‘Watch your step … it gets worse where we’ve been digging.’
Ahead was a large canvas tent which in turn was protected by canvas barriers. A wet figure shrouded in a white uniform already earth-stained stood by the entrance.
‘Was that Stella I saw with you?’ Phoebe asked as they came close enough to the shrouded figure to see his wet red face and recognize one Sergeant Appletone.
‘Yes, she was taking the dog for a walk.’
‘You should have let her come in and bring the dog. He could have done some digging.’ Said straight-faced, this was typical of Phoebe’s bleak humour. She went on:
‘This may be a surprise to you. Of course, we know this was a graveyard, but we didn’t expect a spare coffin.’
‘What?’
Phoebe did not answer, instead waved him forward for a look. There was a spread of canvas to his right and straight ahead was where they had been digging. In the light of big lamps, Coffin saw that they had been digging where one of the mounds had been beneath the trees.
No very deep excavation had been necessary to reveal a wooden coffin.
It was open and empty. A width of disintegrating wood still partly covered with earth was close by.
‘Nobody in it,’ said Phoebe with grim satisfaction. ‘Just an empty casket.’
Coffin stared down into it. ‘Not quite empty, a lot of earth and leaves.’
‘Know what I think?’ asked Phoebe. ‘I think it got dumped here when the bombs fell and gradually covered up. Perhaps it was booked for a body and just didn’t get it.’
‘Amazing the things you find when you start digging,’ said one of the white-clad figures.
‘It’s a little bit of past history.’ Coffin studied it. ‘But I would like to know what that history is.’
Phoebe was assured. ‘We’ll find out.’
‘It hasn’t been there since 1914.’ This was from another of the diggers.
‘I agree.’ Coffin nodded. ‘The layer of leaves and earth and debris is not thick enough.’
‘The last war,’ said Phoebe again.
‘Probably …’ He turned to her. ‘But this isn’t why you brought me over here.’
‘You guessed?’ She allowed herself a touch of irony. ‘No, have a look over here.’ Phoebe nodded to the diggers. ‘Open up, lads.’
The stretch of canvas to his right was rolled back so that Coffin could see what was underneath. Not much earth had been removed so all he saw was a shallow pit. He moved forward to take a closer look.
From the earth, a bone protruded, sticking straight up. A small slender finger.
‘I suppose that is a finger,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘I don’t know, a finger-shaped piece of bone … but it means we have to go carefully now, spoon the earth up. It’s going to be a slow business … Do you want to stay around?’
‘Can’t even be sure this is a human bone.’ Coffin was studying what he could see of the yellowing piece of bone. ‘Could be anything.’
Phoebe did not answer, but knelt down to get a better look. Then she shook her head. ‘I am no anatomist, but I’d guess it’s human.’ She stood up. ‘Of course, we could cover it up and go home.’
There was a faint, hopeful murmur from the three diggers, but they knew it was a joke.
‘This deserves the Edgar Wallace touch; pity we haven’t got him here,’ said Phoebe.
‘I don’t think Edgar Wallace would be much good to you.’
‘Oh, he would: he would write a short story called The Finger of Mr Bones.’
‘Or Mrs Bones.’
‘You staying to watch?’
Coffin said: ‘I will just go and tell Stella what is happening and then I will come back.’
He found Stella in the kitchen drying Augustus, who was growling softly with displeasure. ‘I didn’t mind getting wet myself, but apparently Augustus hates it.’
‘He smells, of course,’ pointed out Coffin. ‘The wet brings it out. Doggy but strong. And you don’t: at least, only of your own special scent and soap.’
Stella laughed. ‘Miss Dior today, thank you.’ She threw the towel from her and planted Augustus in his basket. ‘I walked past all the police cars and the van, and concluded it was real business.’
‘I think so. I am going back.’
Stella hesitated. ‘I saw something when I was out … I saw Clara Henley. Augustus and I walked down the road to the big shopping centre near Edward Street and Fisher Street. It’s not far from the hospital where she works and not far from the car park where Jaimie’s body was found … the shopping centre has its own parking, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Coffin, wondering where Stella was going.
‘I saw her parking her car; Augustus had stopped for a sniff, he likes the wall there, it’s kind of a newspaper for him, tells him the day’s news and who’s around … She didn’t recognize me, but I knew her … she drives what used to be called an estate car … you don’t see so many of them around now … the back lets down.’ Stella looked at Coffin. ‘You could get a pram in and out easily.’
‘So you could.’
‘It’s not likely that pram could have gone far through the streets. And, of course, she’d be used to handling bodies.’
‘I don’t know if surgeons do much of that,’ said Coffin.
‘Then Augustus and I walked on to the Spinnergate tube, it’s not so very far from there, and had a talk with Mimsie Marker – she was just packing up.’
‘And what did she have to say?’ Mimsie Marker sold newspapers and magazines from a stall near the tube station. She always wore a smart hat with flowers in summer and fur on in winter. She heard everything and knew everything. She was willing to talk to those she trusted: Stella was one, she admired Stella. ‘A marvellous performer,’ she said.
‘She was wearing a mink hat, a new one, so trade must be good … Isn’t she supposed to be a rich woman with a house in the country as well as a luxury flat overlooking the river? She said she had seen Martin and his sister around the car park several times … she knows who they are.’
‘She would do.’
‘They were just walking around talking, but she thought it strange … there must be better places to walk.’
‘I am sure she had more to say than that.’ Coffin knew his Mimsie.
‘She said that there are at least three ways out of the car park, so it’s easy to get out. One way towards the hospital, one to the theatre, or more or less … Another to Spinnergate underground station. A way out for each … She didn’t say that but I could see what she meant.’
‘She seems to have thought it all out.’
‘You know Mimsie … It’s interesting. She says she’s seen Clara park her car there too. She did not draw any conclusions but you could see what she was thinking.’ Stella added: ‘Never saw Jaimie there, she says.’
‘She knew Jaimie too?’
‘Oh yes, knew her other pen name too. Said you can’t trust a woman with two names.’
‘Phoebe thinks we need the pen of the late Edgar Wallace, but who needs him when we’ve got Mimsie Marker.’
Stella looked at her face in the looking glass opposite the door; she sighed deeply – ‘What a wreck.’
‘That was a long walk for you and Augustus,’ said Coffin.
‘Oh, I took a cab back, that’s why I went towards Spinnergate and Mimsie. She rang up for me.’
Coffin laughed and shook his head. That was his Stella.
‘You are going back to the dig, I suppose?’
‘Must do.’
‘What about food? You haven’t eaten anything.’
‘Save me something.’
Stella and the dog watched him go across the road, and as Coffin went out, the cat came in. Stella called after him, cheerfully, he thought:
‘Mimsie said she likes Dr Bradshaw but doesn’t like the housekeeper.’
That would be Janet Neptune. No doubt, Coffin decided as he walked to the churchy
ard, whom it was Mimsie and probably the neighbourhood thought guilty of killing the girl: Martin with or without his sister. And that was without knowing the girl was pregnant. He knew that both Bradshaw and Marlowe had given body samples, but neither had been told the very special reason.
–I don’t think I like cases which join in the middle with another case, especially if that one is eighty-odd years old and involves, or so some say, the spirit of Edgar Wallace.
Phoebe Astley came forward to meet him. ‘The bones are human, but we are going slow. Dr Marriot has turned up.’ Henry Marriot was one of the police surgeons in Spinnergate. Coffin could see him through the trees. ‘We haven’t given him much to work on at the moment.’
Marriot nodded to Coffin. ‘Been dead a long time.’ He was a deeply moralistic man who was made gloomy and depressed at some of the sights he saw. He usually identified with the victim. ‘Not sure if I need have come so soon.’
‘Sorry to have brought you out on a wet night,’ said Coffin politely. He had met Henry Marriot before, with whom he sympathized because he occasionally suffered from the same depression himself. He had never got used to the bodies of those dead by violence, fractured, raped, mutilated, and although he saw less of them now he was Chief Commander, those he did see were just as hard to take.
Bones, however, were easier to bear. Far away and long ago, yes, that did make it less painful. If you picked up a bone on the battlefield of Waterloo or Agincourt you were respectful and interested but not pained.
Sixty to eighty years were, however, marginal. Empathy was alive still.
They were moving the earth away, spoonful by spoonful, sieving it, studying it carefully, then moving on. By careful degrees the surface was being lowered, exposing the bones.
A Double Coffin Page 11
