Coffin and the Paper Man

by Gwendoline Butler

  Where had he been. Val wondered. ‘I expect they are going round all the girl’s friends,’ she said.

  ‘So I suppose.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Not Tim,’ said his father with feeling. ‘Mrs Anneck rang up. They had Peter in.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. The police are just doing the rounds.’

  ‘Don’t tell Mother. I don’t want her worried, her heart’s bad.’

  Val sighed. ‘She’ll pick it up. She’s sending out signals like a TV station as it is. She might very well be listening now.’

  ‘About the murder?’

  ‘Not only that. She wonders if you have a lover.’ She held the receiver to her ear, listening carefully.

  Leonard Zeman managed a laugh; he too had heard the sound of breathing. Mother had arrived. Where had she been until now? Probably cleaning her teeth after all that strong tea.

  ‘Or if Felicity has one, or even me. But she thinks I’m a failure there.’ Val did not mind repeating this; after all, it was no news to Mrs Zeman, whose breathing could be clearly heard now, and Leonard ought to know.

  ‘Tell her I’m sending her medicine round, will you? It’s a new tablet prescribed for her to try.’ Not by him, of course, but by one of his partners, he did not treat his own family. ‘See she takes the proper dose, will you?’

  The conversation moved on to things medical which it was perfectly allowable for Mrs Zeman to overhear, and which, indeed, he was talking about so that she could.

  He and Val had learnt plenty of tricks.

  As she leant against the kitchen wall talking, Val could see Mary Anneck come out of her back door and walk down the garden path with her dog.

  Mrs Anneck strolled down the paved way between the geraniums with her Jack Russell nipping at her heels. She was used to this, wore stout shoes and boots sometimes on purpose.

  She knew she was right to have telephoned Leonard Zeman. She had the feeling that at a time like this they must stick together. The police had been in her house interviewing her elder son, Peter, her daughter, her daughter’s current boyfriend (although he hadn’t been that last week and might not be next, they changed so fast), and her young son Adrian. She supposed that they had to question all Anna’s friends, although it was hardly likely Adrian could be of much use to them since he was only twelve, but you never knew these days.

  It was what you never knew that made her heart sink.

  ‘Be quiet, Edie,’ she said to the terrier bitch who had caught sight, or thought she had, of a whisker of her brother and best enemy through the garden hedge and was screaming in fury.

  Mary Anneck concluded that the dogs would get no regular exercise until the dog-walker, Jim Marsh, had recovered his balance. He must be having quite a time with the police too, poor boy.

  Like Kay Zeman she was worried about him. Life could be so unfair. She thought he’d had enough. He always looked so frail physically too, with those narrow bones and that thin face, but of course, he couldn’t be, because he walked all the dogs and handled them beautifully. She must try and feed him up, she was a great believer in red meat and none of this vegetarian business that his mother Clare had gone in for. Anorexic she’d been in Mary’s opinion and her death no disaster to anyone once they’d got over the shock.

  It was a mystery why Clare had killed herself, but by all account she’d made one or two earlier attempts. Perhaps she just didn’t like being a milkman’s wife. And that was no joke, thought Mary Anneck, because Clare had almost certainly started out life with different ideas. Philosophy at Oxford, hadn’t it been?

  Then to her surprise, she heard the bell ringing from the Darbyshires’ back door, which must mean that Jumbo (their little disaster of a dog was called Jumbo, although he was the smallest, shortest Jack Russell imaginable) was going out on his walk. And since Philippa Darbyshire had broken her ankle, and her Harold hated the dog even more than Jumbo hated him, it must mean that Jim Marsh was on the job. With any luck he would come for Edie next.

  Philippa Darbyshire limped back to her chair from her bell-ringing exercise, thankful to see the back of Jumbo for a bit. With plenty of exercise you could just be in the same room with him; without a lot he was unbearable. He was always unbearable, Harold said, but that was unkind. Jumbo had defended Philippa from a mugger once, and although it had been a task after his own heart, and the mugger had felt desexed by his wounds for some months and had considered claiming damages, it had ensured Jumbo a longer life than might otherwise have been expected, taking his ferocious habits into account.

  Philippa herself was still shaken from the death of Anna Mary. Since no payment was asked she had tutored the girl in extra mathematics for her computer studies out of love of the subject and sympathy with the girl, so ambitious, so pretty, so badly taught elsewhere. Harold had helped here too.

  She had been questioned by the police and so too had Harold. She hadn’t liked the idea of that interrogation, because that was what it had been judging by Harold’s face afterwards, cross and white. What had Harold got to do with the death of this girl he hardly knew? He only saw her when she came to the house for tutorials.

  The boys would be back from Scotland tomorrow, when no doubt the police would want to interview them too. They had been friendly enough with Anna, close even, she knew it and no doubt that smooth policeman Inspector Younger knew it too. They had not been in London the night she was killed. Presumably you called t-hat an alibi.

  She might have a talk with Valerie Humbertson about it, Val was about her closest friend, but she thought that Val had troubles of her own.

  Stella Pinero could be more helpful, she knew how to give advice. Had been through the mill herself. Many a time and oft, as she had once said with feeling. Stella was not a close friend, but an admired one, and the girl’s mother had worked for her. Still did, probably, if she was up to working for anyone now. Mrs Kinver had worked for Philippa herself once, but when the offer of a job at the theatre had come up, she had been unable to resist it. Philippa had understood, she was stage-struck herself.

  It was a horrible business, but the police would soon sort it out.

  On this hopeful note, she awaited the arrival of Jim Marsh to exercise old Jumbo.

  Two days, three days, a week. Unease was still oiling itself all over Leathergate with Spinnergate feeling it too. The discomfort, quite physical for some people like the Kinvers, husband and wife, reached even St Luke’s Theatre Workshop where the company directed by Stella Pinero had embarked on advance preparation for its most ambitious production so far.

  They needed something popular so they were going to do Cavalcade, using local actors for part of the huge cast. Not that their cast was going to be Drury Lane big. Stella had pruned sternly.

  Using local talent was a wise political gesture (low cunning, some said) since the theatre received a grant on condition it hired graduates from the Drama Department of the new Dockside University. Using amateurs fulfilled the spirit of the thing, Stella maintained, with the advantage they did not have to be paid. She was always short of ready cash. Lætitia Bingham, her ultimate controller, kept them on a rolling budget.

  Hopefuls were flooding in for audition, their arrivals organized by several amateur acting societies and the Theatre Club in which Mary Anneck and Philippa Darbyshire were prominent. But with this flood came also a spate of rumours and anxieties about the murder of Anna Mary.

  She was surprised how guilty many felt. Guilt and alarm seemed spread about the community. Somehow it was their fault, they were a bad lot in Leathergate and getting no better.

  John Coffin came in for a drink that evening, one full week after the discovery of Anna Mary’s body in Rope Walk, bringing Tiddles with him. Tiddles liked a sweet sherry in a saucer.

  ‘Any news?’ She stirred a cocktail, she was learning to make them now, they were the smart thing, and anyway she wanted to get into the Coward mood.

  ‘Don’t make that thing too sweet, will you?�
�� Coffin stared at what she was doing disapprovingly. ‘I can’t bear sweet drinks. About the murder? No, nothing much.’

  ‘This brew will be as bitter as hell.’ Stella handed over the drink.

  He had seen all the usual reports, of course, forensic, technical, photographic, made a point of it, so his comment was not strictly true, but there was no news that counted. Not what she meant. No strong suspect in sight.

  ‘I miss Mrs Kinver. She came in to work today, but she wasn’t really with us, I sent her back home.’

  ‘She might have been better working.’

  ‘I thought of that, of course, but her husband turned up, was walking up and down outside, frightened to let her out of his sight. That worried her. Worried me, too. He’s in a bad way, John, taking it worse than the mother, really, although you can never be sure what’s going on inside.’

  Coffin frowned and sipped his drink. Repulsive, he thought, and looked for somewhere to pour it away. ‘He needs help. I can probably get him some. We have a psychiatrist on the Force who specializes in helping victims of violence.’

  ‘Is he good?’

  ‘I think so. He helped me.’

  Stella gave Coffin a surprised look, but he did not explain his words.

  ‘I think Kinver’d like to kill someone,’ she said. ‘Anyone, but preferably the murderer of his girl.’

  ‘Is that what his wife thinks?’

  ‘I bet it is.’

  ‘Then she needs help too.’

  The telephone rang.

  He managed to slip his drink into Tiddles’s saucer while Stella’s attention was diverted. Tiddles took a sip, then looked at him with a baleful green stare. Poisoning me, are you? the stare said. Well, I know what to do about that. Tiddles stepped in the saucer, overturning it.

  She turned round from her desk. ‘It’s for you. How did they know where to find you?’

  He shrugged. ‘They always know where I am.’

  He took the telephone. His old friend Superintendent Paul Lane passing on a report from Archie Young. He listened. ‘Yes, that is interesting. Good. Keep me up to date.’

  He returned to Stella. ‘Swinehouse have picked up a man with dried blood on his clothes. And a knife.’

  Stella stared. ‘Wouldn’t he change his clothes? If he was the killer?’

  ‘Yes. If he could. This man could not. He couldn’t, didn’t have any.’

  A vagrant. Living rough.

  Next day was the day on which they had the first letter from the Paper Man.

  It was sent straight to John Coffin himself, as if the writer wanted to be sure he got it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Wednesday to Thursday, May 31

  When they parted that evening, John Coffin to see an exhibition of designs of uniforms for his new Force and Stella to make a speech at a Charity dinner about ‘Theatre in the New City’, in a reversal of their usual roles, she said to him fiercely:

  ‘Go and see this man they’ve detained. Go yourself. Don’t feed me that stuff about it not being your job any more. It’s all your job. Take a look yourself. The Kinvers deserve that you should.’

  ‘Would you like me to make your speech for you?’ he observed mildly. ‘Then you can do my job and choose the uniforms.’

  ‘Do what I ask. You always do what I ask.’

  ‘Not always.’

  ‘Oh, come on, you love me.’

  ‘Like a brother.’

  ‘I have heard of incest,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘Times have changed.’

  ‘It’s not times, it’s people.’ She put on her sad face and walked to the window, carrying Tiddles and her cocktail glass.

  Beautifully done, he thought. ‘Shall I clap?’

  ‘Pig.’

  ‘I’ll see the man.’

  ‘Not so changed, then.’

  ‘I was going to anyway, you’re not the only one with a personal interest.’ He hadn’t known the girl, nor her parents, but a long while ago he had been involved in a series of similar murders of women, and the scar of that terrible case remained.*

  Stella, who had known him in those days, and nearly been a victim herself, nodded. ‘We go a long way back, you and I. Go and select your uniforms. I’ll be here when you come back. If you choose, that is.’

  Outside the door, he leant hard on it so that Tiddles could not follow. ‘I’m learning. How many years, and I’m learning at last.’

  The man in the cell had been reluctant to change his bloodsoaked clothes for the fresh ones provided by the police. They didn’t fit, he said, too long in the arm and short in the leg.

  ‘I’m not a bloody gorilla.’

  He had been in police hands for over twenty-four hours when Coffin saw him and in that time had said little else. But he had been picked up wearing bloodstained clothes and carrying a knife of the kind which could have slashed Anna Mary Kinver.

  Forensic tests were now going on to determine if the blood was hers. (No wound on the man, who would not give his name, so the blood was not his.) The knife too was being examined.

  A witness claimed to have seen a man like him hanging about in the neighbourhood of Rope Alley for some hours on the day of the murder.

  As Coffin arrived an identity parade was just about to take place. Not to his surprise, an old friend, Mimsie Marker, who sold newspapers outside Spinnergate Tube Station, was the witness. She was known as the eyes and ears of Leathergate, Spinnergate, East Spinnergate and Easthy-the. The district of Swinehouse was just a bit too far away even for her excellent sensory perceptions. People had been known to move there, just to get away from Mimsie. But those were her enemies, most people admired Mimsie. Liking was harder. Coffin was one of those who managed both.

  Mimsie went slowly down the line. She took her time. It was not her first exploit of this sort and she knew the ropes.

  ‘A job lot, you’ve got here,’ she said in a judicial manner. ‘I wouldn’t say you matched them up any too well. Still, there’s not many like him. That’s him.’ She nodded. ‘Number Seven.’

  Number Seven, who had not wanted to be number seven, protesting that it was an unlucky number, was a tall, thin man with a face that looked as if the dirt had worked in over the years and would now never wash out. It was probably the case, Coffin thought.

  The line-up of men were returned to their own lives, and No.7 back to his cell.

  ‘There all day, he was,’ declared Mimsie. She gave John Coffin a nod as from one old friend to another, both equal, which they certainly were, and more since Mimsie was reputed to keep a sock of gold under her bed.

  ‘All day, Mimsie?’ asked Detective-Inspector Young, who knew his Mimsie.

  ‘Perhaps not all day, not every bloody hour, what do you expect, he’s only human whatever he looks like. Most of the day. On and off. He did move around a bit. But he was there.’

  ‘You’ll go into court and say so?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thanks, Mimsie.’

  After she had gone, he said to Coffin. ‘She’s a good witness, goes into court like a soldier.’

  ‘Have you got anything else besides Mimsie putting him in the place at the right time?’

  Archie Young shook his head. ‘Waiting for forensics.’

  ‘Anything from the man? Identity, past record?’

  ‘He hasn’t got a record,’ said Young regretfully. ‘As far as we know, he is baby-clean.’

  ‘What about Interpol?’

  Young gave his chief a sharp look. ‘He has got a foreign look, I picked that up too, but I think it’s just dirt. His clothes seem to be English. But we are trying Amsterdam.’ He considered it for a moment. ‘I dare say they won’t know him, he looks nameless to me. You get an instinct about these things, and that’s how I feel about him.’

  No.7, when brought in for questioning, elected to remain silent. He did not deny being in Rope Alley nor admit it, but just let the questions wash over him like the water to which he seemed so alien.


  He was a man whose eyes roamed round the room all the time, but never resting on a face. Narrow brown eyes with large violet stains beneath them. Still quite a young man, he had plenty of hair and his teeth were white, not broken or jagged. His hands were the worst thing about him, worse even than the perpetually moving eyes; they were long-fingered with chewed nails and scarred and stained. The wrists had their own set of scars, some dark red and new, others old and puckered as if these parts of him had led a battered life of their own.

  Somewhere some mental hospital must have known him, possibly even now some anxious social worker was wondering where he was, speculated Coffin. But possibly not, he looked like a man who would manage everything on his own, even his own death. It might be very hard to track his passage through the world.

  While Coffin studied him, he started to walk about the interview room with big, fast steps. Young sprang to his feet.

  ‘Leave him,’ said Coffin.

  No.7 paced up and down the room.

  Finally, as he was led away, he said: ‘Of course, I did it, but you’ll never prove it.’

  ‘Won’t we, by God,’ said Young. ‘If he did it, then we will prove it.’

  ‘But you don’t think he did?’

  Archie Young was silent. Then he gave a shrug. ‘Doesn’t look so good somehow. I’m beginning to think not. The forensics will help. Maybe decide.’

  ‘I don’t think so, either,’ said Coffin. ‘I think he’s just having a bit of fun at our expense.’ But he didn’t look like a character with a whole lot of fun in him.

  ‘Heartless as a shark,’ said Young.

  ‘What else have you got going?’

  ‘I’m still working on the girl’s friends. Looking into the lot. Every one she knew. Kids at the disco she went to every week. Even her father.’

  ‘There’s something else. Don’t know what to make of it yet.’

  He went to his desk, removed a manilla folder from a drawer and handed it over to Coffin.

  ‘I went over her room at home. Found these tucked away under a pile of tights.’

  A roll of writing paper. Three pages. Each page had faint typewritten lines on it.