A Cold Coffin

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘You’d have to ask the nurses in reception that. By the time he got to me, he was done up in a gown ready for the op, which he enjoyed, I may say; he seemed to know the routine.’

  ‘Where is the nurse?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask in reception. I’ll help.’ He put his arm round her shoulders and led her out of his office to the long reception desk.

  Come on, doctor, she thought, but then it really was nice to that feel that firm medical grip on her. And the smile too; she was getting to like that smile, as well as the faint smell of antiseptic that hung around him. Made her wonder what she smelt of.

  Dr Timson addressed the whole row of faces lined up at the desk, passing over the lines of patients waiting to register.

  ‘Which of you was here that day? Remember it?’ He looked at Phoebe, who nodded. ‘And took in the bleeder.’ All knew the bleeder; day yes, dates?

  A hand was held up, ‘Adam Dodd? It was him again. It was me.’ A plump girl wearing big spectacles.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I took his particulars, which I reckon I know by heart, sat down on a bench and . . .’ A pause. ‘The day of the killing. One of the killings.’

  Dr Timson smiled. Got there. ‘And?’

  ‘Jenny Sledger took over . . .’ She nodded. ‘She’s over there.’

  Jenny, a nurse with a tough expression, admitted she remembered the case, which she had delivered, when the time came, to Dr Timson and his team.

  ‘What was Dodd wearing?’

  She frowned. ‘Jeans, a sweater, pretty bloodstained, and a jacket. I folded them up, put them in a plastic bag, as always,’ she was a brisk lady, ‘and handed them over to him.’

  ‘Was the coat heavy?’

  ‘Light as a feather.’

  No gun then. He didn’t bring a gun in.

  Dr Timson walked with her to the door. ‘So Dodd didn’t bring a gun in.’

  ‘You read my mind.’

  ‘Read it? I was there before you. You’re not the first police officer to visit here, not by a long way, and they all look for guns. A and E departments get all the dicey woundings. Not to mention the police all over the place after the murder looking for guns and hiding places for guns. Yes, they thought of that. So don’t go thinking he hid a gun here and then went to get it when he fancied a shooting.’

  ‘You’re not nearly such a nice man as I thought,’ said Phoebe sadly.

  ‘Yes, I am. Much nicer.’ The grin came back. ‘Give me a chance to show you. Tonight, maybe?’

  Phoebe walked home, reflecting that she had a date with a doctor who was younger than she was and who might not turn up (she herself might decide not to), but that she had brought nothing good back for Coffin.

  She made contact with Inspector Dover, and both came to the conclusion that Adam Dodd was not the killer. His blood had been used by another hand.

  Perhaps they should suspect Dr Timson.

  Coffin received the news calmly but gloomily. ‘Pity. Dodd looked like a good fit. Have to eliminate him from the enquiry. I had hopes there. Going to rub Larry Lavender’s face in it.’

  ‘I’d go careful there, sir, if I were you.’

  ‘Know something I don’t, do you?’

  He sounded irritable, which was not like Coffin, so this must be handled carefully.

  ‘I’m going to see Dr Timson again. See what I can get out of him. I have an idea he knows something.’

  ‘Get what you can.’

  ‘Oh I will, sir.’ Tonight, 8.30, at the Café Blanc. ‘I’ll report back.’ But not everything.

  She then passed on what Mimsie had told her about Larry Lavender.

  To her relief, it made Coffin laugh. ‘It’s all in his records, but I don’t hold it against him. Often felt like going on strike myself. Still, I’ll bear it in mind, and thanks for reminding me. Wonder how Mimsie got to know? We ought to employ her. Oh, and watch with Dr Timson . . . He’s a great womanizer.’

  And he put the telephone down quickly before she could come back at him.

  * * *

  When Coffin let himself into St Luke’s Tower, there was a sweet-scented smell on the air, which indicated the passage down the staircase of Stella. It was another new perfume, not one of the sharp spicy scents she used, but a new one. Not really new, she had said, started life in Paris in about 1890 and is now having a comeback. We can smell like ladies again, not refugees from a brothel. Coffin liked it.

  The small cat was sitting on the stairs looking down at him.

  ‘Hello cat, all on your own?’

  ‘She is not,’ Stella called down the stairs.

  Ahead of her floated the sweet fragrance and behind came a more savoury smell from the kitchen.

  ‘You’re cooking, Oh good, I’m hungry.’

  ‘Fish,’ said Stella. ‘Salmon. We can share it with the cat.’

  ‘Invited any other guest to dinner?’ Coffin continued up the staircase.

  Stella was not wearing very much, a pale printed chiffon dress with narrow shoulder straps.

  ‘Are you warm enough in that?’ enquired Coffin. ‘It’s chilly in here.’

  ‘Oh, quite warm enough, I’m trying out one of the new designer dresses. Do you like it?’

  ‘Very much. You could go to bed in that.’ It did look like a nightdress. ‘You could try that later.’

  ‘It’s not exactly mine, or not altogether: it’s for a new production of the Coward play later in the year, his centenary, you see.’ She swung round, flirting the skirt. ‘I think it has the feeling of a nineteen thirties dress while being of the twenty-first century.’

  They talked quietly during the meal, of which the cat took a full cat’s share, which is larger than a human’s share.

  Stella told Coffin about her plans for the new season and how she hoped to get Daisy Moore for a leading role in a Shaw play she meant to stage if she could get backing.

  And Coffin told her that he had been unpleasant to Phoebe Astley and now regretted it.

  ‘Sheer malice and ill humour on my part,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘She’ll get her own back.’

  ‘I hope so, seems only fair. She’s a good officer. You know about the little insurrection?’

  Stella nodded. ‘It’ll come to nothing.’

  ‘Spoken like a loyal wife.’

  Stella considered. ‘Which, on the whole, I am.’

  ‘There might be a bit of fuss in some of the papers. I might even make the BBC news. If they want to interview, shall I say yes?’ he asked lightly.

  Without hesitation, Stella said, ‘Yes.’

  In her world there was no such thing as bad publicity. Might be different for him, Coffin thought. But after all, what did he want from life? He had a job he loved, give or take the odd patch, he had a wife he loved too, and -he looked down at something nuzzling at his leg – he had a cat who seemed to like him.

  He didn’t want to retire to the country and keep bees.

  ‘Do you mind if I take my work to my workroom and get on with it alone?’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve got some work to do as well. Shall I bring you some coffee?’

  Coffin retired to his room, the cat coming too, the one to go to sleep on the desk and the other to sort his papers, read and think.

  Reading the records then thinking was more a part of detection than the outside world understood. It wasn’t all questioning suspects, checking alibis and being the hard man. That too, but in the end understanding the picture as a whole was what counted.

  You needed to be a good, quick reader too, he decided as he assembled all his papers and got down to work, at intervals removing a furry tail that seemed to spread over them, flipping gently with pleasure.

  ‘Make a copper of you yet,’ he said, displacing it with care, remembering that not far from the tail were a set of sharp claws.

  He worked slowly through the case notes of each murder, beginning with Mrs Jackson and her daughters, down to the attack on Marie Rudkin.


  He remembered the infant skulls ranged round Dr Murray. He saw again the Neanderthal heads in the pit, with the one alien head.

  He picked out from his collection of paper the photograph of the body of Dr Murray on the museum floor, circled by the skulls and in a pool of blood. He had requested an enlarged copy of this photograph.

  There was the face looking through the window, just as he remembered it. Enlargement had brought the face forward and bigger, but it was fuzzy, lacking definition.

  The face of a killer? Or the face of an innocent if curious bystander? At the moment an unanswerable question.

  But there were some things he could say about the face: first it was plumpish, second it was the face of a man, third it was not an old face, and finally it was the face of someone who knew his way around the hospital.

  Mustn’t stretch it too far; of course, if he was the killer, then he certainly knew what had taken place in the museum, but he might just be an interested passer-by.

  Must have a look at the passage behind that way. If it was a passage. The photograph did not make it clear.

  Coffin put the photograph down, retaining the feeling that somewhere he had seen that face before. He knew that face.

  The little cat moved forward to stare in his face, not purring, but interested.

  He sat thinking and gently stroking the cat. Then Coffin stood up and went to the window: there is something in common with each victim.

  He picked up the phone and rang Paul Masters.

  ‘Paul, I know it’s late. This is what I want you to do tomorrow morning. Early. I want the details of Mrs Jackson’s last two working years. Likewise Mrs Pomeroy. And Mrs Rudkin. All the records should be there. Also check who were the midwives or nurses in charge of Lia Boston’s childbirths. That will do for the moment.’

  Oh good, thought Paul Masters. Only about six months’ work in one morning. He came back, ‘Oh sir, there was a call from Inspector Lavender earlier . . . he’d like to see you.’

  ‘Right,’ said Coffin briskly. He thought about it: soon, but not too soon. ’Tomorrow, late morning.’

  Stella came in just then with the coffee. ‘Hope you weren’t waiting for this; I got caught up in some work of my own.’

  She was no longer wearing the chiffon dress but trousers and a silk shirt. Coffin thought she looked just as good if not better. How is it that men wear the same clothes all the day whereas a woman can change from one style to another? Why aren’t we like that?

  Then he thought of himself in a floating chiffon dress and had to laugh. I haven’t got the legs for it.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’

  ‘At myself.’

  Stella had brought with her two cups and a small silver coffee pot from which she poured some throbbingly strong coffee. He had known her say modestly that it had been her great-grandmother’s and had come down to her, but Coffin knew that she had bought it off a stall in Greenwich Market. When taxed with this, Stella had said that it might have been her great-grandmother; it was certainly someone’s great-grandmother, so why not hers? It was what she called a publicity lie: only offered to certain people at certain times.

  ‘You don’t look as worried as you did.’

  ‘I ought to; my friend Larry Lavender wants to see me tomorrow.’

  ‘Mimsie Marker is on your side.’

  ‘It’s not a war.’ It might be a fight, but he could deal with Lavender, might even enjoy it. He liked the man, a good copper when he didn’t get political.

  ‘It will be if Mimsie gets going. Good for the sale of papers.’

  ‘I’ll have to have a word with her.’

  ‘Hard to control Mimsie.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of trying. But she’s a worldly lady. I think I can get her to see how to play it.’

  Stella was fiddling with a small silver spoon. ‘I went to see Margaret Murray’s husband today. He did my hair once or twice, still does when I feel I can afford his prices.’

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘How you might expect. What people always say when interviewed by the TV or radio: shattered. Turned inside out, not knowing where to go or what to do. Natasha seemed under the worse strain, though. She didn’t want to talk to me, but she did a bit and I think I helped. I hope so. Such a clever girl, easy to like. Her husband’s rather a honey. I could see that he minded for Nat.’

  ‘All there, were they?’

  ‘Yes, I think they are living together for the moment, till they sort themselves out.’ It was going to take time. She was still twisting the spoon round and round.

  ‘No guilt there, though?’

  ‘No guilt.’ She had to have the spoon twisted into two soon.

  Coffin looked at her lovingly. ‘I ought to send you round all the victims’ families and see what you come back with.’

  Almost nervously, she asked, ‘Have you been to see Marie Rudkin?’

  ‘I thought you had.’

  ‘So I have.’ She put down the spoon. ‘I didn’t tell you, but when I talked to Marie Rudkin she said she thought she would soon remember the face of the man with the gun.’ Stella added, ‘She was serious. Ill, but she knew what she was telling me.’

  Coffin listened quietly to what Stella had to say. Soberly and with conviction, he said, ‘Tell her not to repeat that to anyone else. Not a word.’

  14

  Almost the last day.

  The morning was bright, clear and cold. A telephone call from the vet said that Gus was ready to be collected; the sooner the better was the implication that Coffin understood, because a bored Gus was a snappy Gus. Especially if they had had him on a diet, as seemed likely.

  He settled with Stella that he would collect the dog while she would shop for some of his favoured food while working out how to arrange the meeting between Gus and the cat. Gus had been on friendly terms with their old cat, an animal of dignity and power, not easily crossed, but this new one was small and frisky.

  As promised, he collected Gus, who met him with enthusiasm tempered with reproach. His illness and the subsequent operation must clearly have been Coffin’s fault. Still, Gus conveyed, it was nice to see him again and he would be forgiven in time. He conveyed nothing about Stella, because in the intervening weeks he had forgotten her, that being the way his memory worked, but once he saw her again, he would recall everything and all affection would come rushing back.

  He led Gus back up in the lift, through his outer office where Paul Masters held sway, assisted by the couple of secretaries. Masters greeted Gus with pleasure, getting in return a measured careful look together with a slight wag of the tail, but when Masters followed them in with a bowl of water and biscuit bones, he got a more enthusiastic reception.

  Masters retreated. Gus took up his usual spot under the Chief Commander’s desk, where Coffin settled himself for the morning’s work.

  ‘Oh Paul, when’s Lavender coming in?’

  ‘About midday . . . I thought that would suit you? I can ring back and change it.’

  ‘No, let him come.’

  On the desk in front of Coffin, Masters had arranged a neat pile of newspapers, the locals to one side, the London broadsheets in the middle, and the popular scandal and picture papers to the right.

  Coffin figured in all of them. He read each story carefully: ATTACK ON POLICE CHIEF, CRITICAL ATTACK ON DISTINGUISHED CHIEF COMMANDER, down to WATCH IT COPPER.

  The burden of each story, however, was supportive of him, jokes apart. He had to accept that he made a good butt for jokes, but there was more praise than mockery.

  ‘I might have got a peerage out of this if the House of Lords wasn’t being abolished,’ he said to Masters.

  ‘You might get one of those working peerages, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I doubt I’d get away without work coming in.’ Coffin pushed the papers aside. ‘Wonder what Lavender made of his press.’

  ‘He wasn’t named.’

  ‘Better get down to work before Lavender arrives Coffin looke
d at Masters. ‘Something’s up, I can see it in your face.’

  ‘Lia Boston’s husband wants to see you.’

  ‘Not sure I want that. It’s going to drive Larry Lavender even further up the wall of protest. Isn’t he leading the team into the Bostons’ killings?’

  ‘Boston insists on seeing you.’

  ‘He’s not exactly my favourite criminal, and I think he knows that. He’s a devious bugger.’

  ‘He trusts you. He thinks you are honest.’

  ‘So is Lavender.’

  ‘He admits that, but he thinks in certain circumstances Lavender might stitch him up. You wouldn’t.’

  ‘Well, thank him for that vote of confidence. Not quite sure what to make of it coming from him. And he’s in those “circumstances”, is he? Come on now, you know what he’s talking about.’

  ‘No, sir. But knowing Boston, I can guess: something illegal that he’s guilty of.’

  ‘Which covers a wide range.’

  ‘He says that the whole of CID and the uniformed lot have marked his card.’ He hadn’t put it as politely as that. They certainly had his name marked in red, an honour well earned over the years.

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Downstairs, upright. PC Diver on the front desk wouldn’t give him a seat.’

  ‘First time he’s been upright in years.’

  ‘He made that joke himself, sir.’

  ‘You went down to see him,’ accused Coffin.

  ‘Yes, he’s always good for a laugh, and I speak as one who has helped put him away more than once. Anyway, I really went down to see he was stowed away somewhere where he won’t meet Larry Lavender and give him an interview for the press.’

  ‘Show him in now, then. Let’s get it over before Lavender bowls in. And be here yourself, and take notes. I want a witness.’

  He sat watching as Tom Boston came in, prepared, as Coffin could see, to be aggressive. Good, Coffin thought, aggression I can handle. He was a short man, with a crest of thick hair, always beautifully dressed. Had his suits made in Milan, so fable had it. Not London tailoring anyway, Coffin reckoned, jacket lapels too curving and swoony, jacket itself too loose, and trousers beautiful and dancing free. Nothing Jermyn Street about them.