A Double Coffin

by Gwendoline Butler

  One of life’s nastier boils was about to be lanced, painfully too. He had never perhaps totally trusted the man but he had liked him.

  No wonder Phoebe had looked so peaky sometimes, she too had liked the man. Still, dirt has to be washed away, and they were both of them ruthless when required.

  One of the things he loved about Stella, possibly that which made her so valuable to him, was that she was not ruthless but had a kind of silent skill that made ruth unnecessary to her. She walked round dirt, it did not come near her; she saw it from afar and kept her distance. Not many people have that skill. He rather thought the quality was called integrity and if some of it rubbed off on him he would be the better for it.

  All the while these thoughts were rumbling through his mind, he was reading what Phoebe had recorded about the murdered women of so long ago.

  The strange thing was that it did not read like an historical novel.

  The characters, the bodies of Mildred Bailey, Mary Jane Armour and Eliza Jones were alive and moving. They were not ghosts, although dead so long ago.

  Mildred Bailey had been a seamstress to a London Court dressmaker, she was good with her needle but the wages were so poor and, when the Season was over, workers like Mildred were often laid off. It was a tough world, so that she had to make money how she could. She was twenty-six when she died.

  She lived, Phoebe did not write of her in the past tense, with a widowed mother and an invalid sister, they too sewed for dear life. The house was in a Dike alley which no longer existed, having been knocked down for a new road through Spinnergate in 1922.

  Mildred’s body had been found just around the corner from where she lived. It was not investigated until the next morning. She had been seen but passers-by (and there was always someone around in those poor streets) had thought she was drunk.

  This first death had not initially got the publicity that came to it when Mary Jane Armour’s body was found; she too was strangled and left about like a bit of litter. In her case she was deposited between a horse trough and a drain.

  Mary Jane was only seventeen, a poor little drab who had worked as a cleaner in a local hospital, long since gone, swallowed up by two wars and the National Health Service but good in its time and dedicated to sick seamen. She too earned extra money to pay for her lodgings in the only way open to her.

  When her body was found, and that of Eliza Jones, the idea of a multiple killer, a new Ripper, sprang forth.

  Perhaps Edgar Wallace played his part there; it was the sort of story he delighted in.

  Isobel Haved was different from the other girls. She was older, thirty-two that summer, and she was an elementary schoolteacher for the London County Council.

  Her body was never found but she was believed to be the fourth victim of the killer; she was very regular in her habits and her landlady could think of no other reason for her lodger’s disappearance. ‘She was a pearl of a girl,’ Mrs O’Hanaran had said to the reporter. ‘I am afraid he got her.’

  One curious thing: the landlady left it three days before she reported her lodger missing. In fact, it is not clear if she ever did so, it being the teacher’s headmistress who went to the police. She was anxious and afraid.

  I am afraid he got her, to quote the landlady. Who was He? Phoebe’s study of the newspapers revealed that several men came under suspicion.

  Charles Heddon, ship’s carpenter but unemployed at the time of the murders, came under suspicion first because he had been drinking in the public house, the Anchor, near to which the first body was found. He was known to be a violent man whose wife had left him; he had been seen talking to Mildred Bailey on the night of her death.

  But he was able to prove he had spent the night in his sister’s house. Nothing was found to indicate he was the killer.

  Ralph Dream, a seaman without a ship, was another suspect, he had known both Mildred and Mary Jane, and so sharp was the public feeling by then that he was mobbed and had to be rescued by the police.

  Nothing could be proved against him.

  Phoebe went on: ‘Various other names came up.’ She gave a list.

  Peter Picker – may have been Picquet, he was half French, a street musician.

  Jerry Browning, butcher, he was employed by a local shop and went regularly to Smithfield.

  Frederick Tramer – unemployed dock worker.

  All these men were taken in for questioning and were let go. No proof. Phoebe’s comment: poor police work?

  It was at this point that Phoebe began to express her doubts about Richard Lavender’s story.

  ‘There is no mention of the Lavender name. All right, he never came under suspicion, but a mention would have been satisfying.

  ‘Also, all of the victims lived well away from where the Lavenders lived.

  ‘Well, OK, if you are a killer then it is wise to operate away from your own territory. I see that, but I wonder … ?’

  Phoebe Astley had attached a note:

  ‘I know we have the remains of a woman where Richard Lavender claims he and his mother buried her.

  ‘There is also another body there. The forensic evidence is not very helpful, but the man may have been a soldier.

  ‘All in all, I find Richard Lavender’s story flawed.’

  Coffin sat at his desk, considering what Phoebe had got; she was still digging away. To her note, he added his own:

  You are right, it is interesting about the landlady. Go on searching to see what you can find.

  Then he put the diary in a sealed envelope (Phoebe had sent it en clair, she was often casual about security) and had the diary sent back to her; they would meet that evening at the Egg and Bacon supper.

  While Coffin was reading the diary and considering what Phoebe had turned up, Richard Lavender was lying in bed. He was half awake and half asleep. It was dark as yet on this cold November morning and since Janet had not come in with his morning tea he decided that it must still be early and went back to sleep again.

  In the night he had stirred, thinking he heard movements in the flat as if someone was walking around. He had called to Janet, hadn’t he?

  Or he had tried to. It was probably all a dream, he dreamt a lot one way and another. He had had a restless, wretched night, full of bad visions. His hands felt sticky and his body ached this morning as if it had had no rest. Old age, he decided, half joking, as he tried to relax, was hard work.

  Better to ignore the nightmares, they soon faded with the morning and he forgot them until night came. He had had them all his life, even before that drama of which you did not speak, although no one knew of them except his mother. Well, she gave them to him, didn’t she? He regarded them as her gift. He had never let his wife know, yet she might have guessed but been too tactful to mention it. She liked being the wife of a famous man and would not have wanted to spoil it in any way. A pity she had died young, he missed her now when it was too late. His second wife had been rich, of course, and bought the Rolls Royce which he still had but rarely used.

  The dreams were always about death, natural enough, considering his family history, and he did not think the less of himself for having them, but he kept quiet about them. A political leader must be a strong man, even ruthless, and he had push enough for two, leading his party forward into reforms, some of which they had not been prepared for or welcomed. He had fought his way to the top from nothing, beginning as a kind of errand boy to a local MP, and was entitled, he always felt, to both his dreams and his nightmares. He had been PM for only one Parliament, but a great one, that all agreed. The next election had seen his party out, and the opposition in with a huge majority which was probably always the fate of a great Prime Minister, whereupon he had retired. Glad to, he had got where he wanted, leave at the top was a good idea, he was no longer young, he had a pension and his wife was rich. There were no children, a son had died as a baby. No close relations, either. He had been an only child as had his wife; Janet was the granddaughter of his mother’s brother. Jan
et had come to them as a girl to help his wife as her secretary, and stayed – she was useful, if a bit of a bully.

  He lay back on his pillows, tired after what had been a restless night. There had been those noises. Had it been he himself walking about? He had been known to sleepwalk, which was another thing he kept quiet about. Sometimes in his sleep he had the sensation as if his hands were pressing hard on warm flesh, and with those dreams there was blood as well. He knew he had these dreams, the thirteen-year-old Dick Lavender inside knew whence they came.

  Before he died himself he wanted to get one secret out of the past and into the light. When it was there, in hard fact, then anyone who wished could write about it. This was what lay behind his request to John Coffin, the Chief Commander of the Second City Police, a man whom he had known at once he could trust in one way and not in another.

  John Coffin would do what seemed right to him, he was not to be controlled by an old man, even if he had once held the keys of power. An old man who still had inside him that boy, Dick Lavender, aged thirteen, who had seen and done things that no one should do. That boy would not die but must come out into the light.

  Dick Lavender tossed and turned in his bed. ‘I would have brought it all out anyway, but once that girl came prowling around, I knew it was time.’ A politician knew the value of timing.

  She had been known to him as Marjorie Wardy but it seemed her real name was Jessamond Layard, a much prettier name and pretty young woman. He had wondered how she had got on to what had been so carefully hidden?

  A mystery in itself now she was dead.

  He opened his eyes to the dark November day again. He turned on the light and reached out for the silver vacuum flask of iced water. As he did so, he saw that there was blood on his hands. Blood on the sheet in front of him, too.

  ‘Janet,’ he called out. ‘Damn it, Janet, where are you? I am bleeding.’

  Perhaps this was death coming, God knows he felt bad enough.

  Janet did not answer so he got up and put on his thick winter dressing gown and stumbled out round the flat, calling for her.

  ‘Janet, Janet.’

  She did not answer.

  The place was cold and dark, with no sign of Janet anywhere. Her bedroom light was on, with clothes tossed to the floor as if she had got up in a hurry.

  It was at this point he realized that he was not bleeding and never had been bleeding – the blood belonged to someone else.

  Slowly and with difficulty, with shaking hands, he got himself dressed, putting on a thick tweed suit and shoes and socks. He forgot the shirt and had to go back and insert himself into that, he ignored a tie. He had forgotten underpants and vest too but he decided not to bother.

  Then he crept out of the door and down the stairs. No one was around, it must be later in the morning than he realized. Or perhaps it was earlier, time had vanished for him.

  He was not even sure why he was walking down the stairs or what he hoped to find. At the bottom, he sat to think about it.

  He was looking for Janet. That was what he was doing.

  He crawled out into the street where a soft dark rain was falling. Still there was no one to be seen. No one walking along the pavement, no cars passing. It was always a quiet corner but today it seemed dead.

  There were several cars parked in the forecourt, including Janet’s little white van. Bemused as he was, he thought that must mean she was here.

  The van door was partly opened so he took a look, but there was nothing there. Except he saw a smear of blood. The garage where she put the van at night was close by. He pushed at the door which gave easily before him. The light was on.

  Inside was Janet, she was lying on her side with blood on her.

  The old man knelt beside her, wondering what to do. He crouched there, he did not know for how long. Time seemed to have stretched itself out into something long and thin.

  He sat there until a young constable pushed his way into the garage.

  ‘Now, now. Grandpa,’ he said. ‘What have you done now?’

  15

  The Egg and Bacon supper took place in the evening in the senior officers’ dining room. This room was long and narrow, a bit like a short tunnel; in fact, its habitués called it the tube. ‘Going down the tube,’ they said. ‘Or ‘Up the tube’. It was painted pale yellow with a serviceable dun-brown carpet. One wall bore several pictures of the Second City painted by a local artist in bright colours. No one ever looked at them. By the door and with the light from the window full on it there was a photograph of a man in spectacles and with a big moustache. He was called Jack the Ripper by the senior officers but he was, in fact, an early Chief Constable of the Force before the formation of the Second City, and his portrait was there because it had survived the Blitz and was one of the few portraits they had. Coffin always hoped that his portrait would not figure there one day.

  He came late to the supper, he had learnt from experience, not to mention his own memories of such functions in his junior days, that it was more tactful to let his men get a few drinks inside them before he appeared. Then he knew to leave early. He could smell that there was egg and bacon to eat, but he knew from past suppers that there would be cold beef and pork pies and apple tart with ice-cream. Hot mince pies too, probably, as Christmas was approaching.

  Looking round he could see George Darcy and Archie Young. No sign of Phoebe, it was to be hoped she would turn up, they were short of women in the senior ranks. He saw that one Federation representative was there, talking to a woman from the uniformed branch who had been given an award for bravery; she had rescued a child and a dog from a blazing car, the child had bitten her. That was police life, she had said, you always got bitten by the one you didn’t expect.

  Coffin was glad that the Fed rep was talking to her and that the pair seemed happy, but this occasion was really meant to be one when the senior officers mixed in a friendly, relaxed fashion with the other ranks. It was also an occasion for entertaining important visitors like the attaché from the German Embassy who was in charge of his country’s secret service in the UK, and the writer who was working on police history, and a superintendent from the Danish police seconded to the Second City. Coffin let his gaze run over the guests, knowing he must do his duty and talk to each.

  Stella had telephoned him just before he came to the party. ‘Just back.’ She sounded cheerful.

  ‘Saw your agent?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Anything interesting coming up?’ He knew her casual voice. It meant there was something good in the offing.

  ‘I have been offered a series.’

  ‘But that’s good.’

  ‘They want to see me. I don’t audition,’ she said loftily.

  ‘Of course not.’ He knew she wanted him to ask. ‘What’s the part?’

  In a neutral voice, she said: ‘Woman detective. As before. I’m a success in the part, it seems.’

  ‘A private eye?’

  ‘No, nothing like that … with a force in southern England. Downsville or some such. Very similar to my earlier part, but this time I am the most important character.’

  ‘Almost a character part,’ said Coffin.

  ‘Don’t laugh; I am thinking about it. See what the money offer is. But you know the risk with these things, if it’s a success then you get labelled, and if it’s a failure then that’s a downer too … Of course, having my theatre, I can fight off being typecast … I can play Hedda Gabler or Medea next time round.’

  ‘Of course you can.’ He could tell she wanted to take the part, had probably already agreed to do so which meant she had an idea that the money was good. ‘Who is writing it? Pinter, Plater?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. No, it’s a woman – Geraldine Diss. A new girl but good.’

  ‘You do it then,’ he advised, looking at his watch. He ought to be off to the E and B supper. His answerphone was flashing on the other line, and a page was coming through the fax, but he decided to ignore them both
. There had to be an end sometime.

  ‘Martin came to work today. I gather he did a good performance, he’s a real professional.’

  So he might well be, thought Coffin, at more than one craft.

  ‘His sister was in too. I like her very much. I find it hard to believe she killed her father.’

  ‘It happened.’

  ‘They were so young. You know she told me that Martin really can’t remember anything much about it. She has told him, of course, and so did a lot of other people. The psychologist man said he mustn’t be allowed to repress it. Bad thing, distort his adult vision of life, give him nightmares. Probably break up his sex life.’

  ‘Something did,’ observed Coffin, thinking that his own life had probably been distorted early, and was he better or worse for it? ‘He and Jaimie quarrelled violently and she is dead.’ Better perhaps if they hadn’t met.

  ‘Clara thinks that Jaimie made a play for Martin so that she could get material for a book on him and Clara and the death of their father. It was going to be a kind of double book. Martin and Clara on one side and Richard Lavender and his mother on the other. She hated the idea, she had a great struggle to get into medical school, special dispensation really, she didn’t want anything brought out again and I don’t blame her.’

  ‘How did Jaimie know about Dick Lavender? Supposed to be a deep secret.’

  ‘We know she did find out … it was why you were brought in.’

  Coffin was thinking. ‘We know she was working on this book, but the typescript pages found in her office were sparse and not very revealing.’

  ‘She probably had it on a tape … and that might be why there was this quarrel,’ said Stella carefully. ‘I mean, he might have taken it.’

  ‘You mean you know he did?’

  Stella kept her voice smooth. ‘Just guessing.’