Coffin and the Paper Man

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘I didn’t recognize his voice, if that’s what you mean, but the howling was coming from that direction.’

  ‘But it’s stopped now.’

  ‘He’s a selfish old sod,’ said Felicity. ‘Once he’d got himself comfortable, he’d give up.’ Arthur, her white peke, came and lay across her feet. Danger here, he was saying. ‘It’s not him I’m worried about.’

  ‘You don’t sound worried.’ Nor did she, she sounded calm and quiet as if she was not surprised, as if this might even be something she had been expecting or even waiting for. Of course, she didn’t like Val.

  ‘I’ll ignore that. Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes, I’d better investigate.’ The juice had woken him up. ‘Are you coming too?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘This may be about nothing. Val can look after herself.’ He was taking the keys of the what had been his mother’s house from the board where they hung for anyone to take as required.

  ‘I’m glad you think so.’

  ‘Where’s Tim?’

  ‘Still asleep. Tomorrow he goes for his interview with Superintendent Lane. I shall go with him, of course.’

  ‘I think it would be better if I went.’

  ‘As you wish,’ she said. ‘I just thought it might be easier for him if I went.’

  ‘I’m close to Timmy,’ said Leonard defensively. ‘As close as anyone. I don’t think one ought to keep bothering the lad.’ He ignored the fact that the police, not to mention life itself, were about to bother Timmy in a substantial way.

  ‘I don’t think anyone is very close to Tim,’ said his mother. ‘Not at the moment, poor lad.’ She led the way down the garden and along what they called the dog walk. A gap in the hedge would, by skirting the Anneck house, bring them to the other Zeman house. ‘I think he’s in a state of clinical shock. We really ought to get him looked at. Lieberman’s good. He might be the man to go to.’

  ‘My God, you can be cold sometimes, Fe.’

  ‘Oh no, not cold at all.’

  Felicity was not a Feather Street lady, you could tell it by her kitchen, by the way she walked. This was perhaps why she was not liked by the other ladies. They felt she was a different sort of animal.

  ‘Lieberman, though. So that’s what you think of Timmy. That would please the police, if we walk in there with Timmy in the care of an expert in criminal psychology. They’d probably get the handcuffs out straight away.’

  ‘Lieberman has other interests,’ said Felicity coolly. ‘And Timmy has other problems. You may not choose to call them that, but I think he does.’

  When you approached this Zeman house from the back you saw how badly it needed painting, Leonard, who was his mother’s executor, knew that she had left it to Val for her lifetime and then to Timmy. Val knew this, and probably Tim too. The unwritten provision was that with the house went Bob the dog.

  Everything was very quiet, but Val never got up early.

  ‘Shall we go in at the back?’

  ‘We can’t just burst in,’ said Leonard.

  ‘Val won’t be too surprised if she sees you, will she?’ said Felicity drily. ‘I mean it won’t be exactly the first time.’

  Leonard ignored this. ‘I’ll ring the bell.’

  ‘No one ever answers that backdoor bell. I can’t think when anyone ever rang it. My goodness, there isn’t a tradesmen’s entrance these days.’

  They were standing arguing in the garden.

  Leonard got the keys out of his pocket and opened the back door. ‘Val, you there? Val?’

  No answer.

  He went through the kitchen, where there were signs that Val had made herself a drink at one point, there was the open tea-caddy and the tin of biscuits. She had left the bottle of milk outside the refrigerator; in the hot night it had gone sour and looked solid.

  In the sitting-room, Bob was in his basket, sleeping heavily, he gave little snorting snores every so often.

  ‘Told you he’d be asleep,’ said Felicity. ‘But where’s Val?’

  ‘She’s upstairs asleep, I expect,’ said Leonard. ‘We shall look fools.’

  ‘But why doesn’t she answer?’

  Felicity went to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Val, are you there? It’s Felicity.’

  She started to move up the stairs, but Leonard drew her back. ‘Wait. Let me.’

  Felicity halted. She was a doctor too, but if there was anything wrong, then probably Val would prefer Leonard to find her. In this restraint Felicity was unlike the Feather Street ladies, not one of whom would have hesitated to go bounding up the stairs to see what was what.

  She stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking at her hands, capable, well scrubbed, good hands. Hands which obeyed her behest, whatever she told them to do.

  Leonard came to the top of the stairs. ‘Fe … Come up.’ His speech was unsteady, as if he could not breathe.

  Felicity walked up the stairs slowly, not hurrying.

  In the back bedroom which had always been hers, Val was lying on the bed on her side, her face buried in the pillows. She had been sick.

  On a tray by the bed was a small teapot with a cup and saucer. A plate, empty except for chocolate-coloured crumbs, was on the floor, as if Val had knocked it from the table.

  Her body was still warm, but she was not breathing.

  Felicity drew away from the bed.

  ‘Shall we try resuscitation?’

  ‘No.’ Leonard was still having difficulty with his breathing. ‘It’s been too long. If we did bring her back, the brain would be gone. There would be nothing there.’ He drew a bedcover over Val’s face. ‘She’s not there now.’

  Felicity picked up the plate and put it on the table.

  Leonard was still looking at the bed. ‘There’ll have to be an inquest this time.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ A strange thing to say. This time? When was last time? She was aware she should not have asked. But some questions just pop out.

  ‘I’m not sure. At all events I can’t give a death certificate. She’s not my patient. Not even in our practice.’

  Of course not, thought Felicity, they would be too wise to mix patient and lover relationships.

  ‘She’s under Jeff Green at the Elmgate Centre. I don’t know what he’s been prescribing. If anything.’ It was hateful to talk about darling Val in this way, as if she had not been a person he loved, but professional training helped.

  ‘I’ll ‘phone him for you, shall I?’

  ‘No, I’ll do it myself. Better that way.’ He looked at the plate. ‘Not sure if you ought to have touched that plate.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The police …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. ‘It depends on what Jeff Green says, but I think it’s something we’ve got to face.’

  They went down to the kitchen together. The telephone was in the hall; Kay Zeman stuck to that old-fashioned placing when everyone else had them all over the place, and even in a pocket.

  Leonard started to dial the Elmgate Health Centre and his wife went through to the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s the dog?’ he called out, telephone in his hand.

  ‘Asleep in his basket.’

  Bob was still in his basket, still asleep, still breathing heavily, but now irregularly in bursts.

  ‘Cheyne-Stokes breathing,’ recorded Felicity absently, without thinking much, her mind still on Val and the telephone call Leonard was making and what might follow.

  Then she looked at the dog, knelt down by him, and touched his nose. He did not stir. He was too deeply asleep.

  She thought: It wasn’t for Val he was howling, but for himself. Bob thought he was going to die.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tuesday, June 20

  In no time at all, the Paper Man had his message in to John Coffin. He could have written it any time, but he must have posted it on the Monday because Coffin got it the next day. So did Inspector Archie Young, so did Stella Pinero. The network was widening.

  I
t was one of his now usual letters in style and presentation.

  Told you there would be a second death, didn’t I? The Paper Man.

  He was actually calling himself that now. Somewhere he had picked up the name, or gone out looking for it, anyway. It was a name he liked. It suited him, what he was, or pretended to be. A name you could hide behind.

  The Paper Man began to meditate on the next steps in his campaign. It was a campaign. He had never served in any army so the phrase had no military connections for him, but it sounded aggressive, and hostile and punitive. All of which he intended to be.

  Stella didn’t know what to make of her letter, except that she didn’t like it. Nasty associations began to brew up in her mind with the lout with the teeth. She could not forget him, because she had a horrible feeling he meant to remember her.

  Mrs Kinver had come back to work in the Theatre Workshop, moving around quietly but doing her job as well as ever.

  What a nice woman, Stella thought, watching her ironing a blouse. Only reflecting thoughtfully that it was Lily Gold-stone’s blouse, not one of her own. Trust Lily to get in on the act and Mrs Kinver to do a favour. Of course, Lily would pay her, no doubt about that, but Mrs Kinver would have done it in any case. She was a fan of Lily’s and went to all her plays, even those sternly intellectual ones that Lily delighted in and hardly anyone enjoyed. (Although never admitting it openly. Lucid, they would say; a revealing theatrical appearance which left this critic stunned.)

  Stella watched the iron go back and forth. You can see she’s unhappy but she isn’t letting it be a nuisance to other people.

  She herself felt tense and unhappy. She had gone to bed on Saturday night full of fears about her own safety. Life seemed so precarious, civilized ways so threatened. Sunday morning had dawned quietly, with coffee in bed and the newspapers to read. Then the telephone had rung with the news that Val was dead. Even now she had hardly taken it in, but the shock was there.

  Neither of the two women spoke to each other of Anna Mary or the murder investigation which was going on all around them. Stella had shown her sympathy on a much earlier occasion and she understood that Mrs Kinver wanted to get on with her grief in her own way, not be dug up every so often to see how she was getting on. They both knew that Tim Zeman had been back in the police’s hands, and had submitted to having blood and other specimens taken. The word was he was out again, still uncharged.

  It was mid-afternoon on a fine Tuesday. Tuesday was the day Mrs Kinver always did the ironing and she was sticking to the rules.

  The ironing done, she usually had a quiet cup of tea, then went home, to come back to the theatre as required. Tuesday was not a matinee day.

  ‘Like a cup, Miss Pinero?’ Mrs Kinver made the offer in a kindly spirit. Stella was hanging about, not settling to any of the work she had in front of her, scripts to read, bills to check, letters to write.

  ‘Please.’ They sat down together in a friendly way at the kitchen table. When Letty Bingham, Coffin’s sister and ultimate owner of the freehold of these flats, had planned the kitchen, she had said to Stella: ‘You won’t need a table, no one has a kitchen table now,’ but Stella had replied firmly that she had always had a kitchen table and she meant to have one now, and she trotted out to Peter Jones and bought a beauty. Pale marble with iron legs, not very comfortable to sit at, as it turned out, but lovely to see.

  Stella drank her tea with thirst.

  ‘Another cup, Miss Pinero?’

  For answer, Stella pushed her cup forward.

  ‘You don’t look well, miss.’

  ‘I’m still getting over Val Humberstone dying like that.’ If it was tactless to talk about death to Mrs Kinver, it would be even more tactless to falsely deny the shock of Val’s going. It was one death too many. ‘It was so unexpected.’

  ‘Missed her aunt, poor lady.’

  ‘Oh, but Val didn’t …’ Stella started, then stopped. Didn’t kill herself, she had been going to say, but how did she know? She had no idea what had caused Val’s death. She had taken something, either by accident or design, because Bob had had some too. Val would never have poisoned Bob. But how did you know?

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Mrs Kinver. ‘Not that she killed herself. We’d know that by now, wouldn’t we? And they haven’t said.’ The mysterious They who often figured in Mrs Kinver’s conversation were both omniscient and omnipotent but also anonymous. Just one aspect of the powers that operated on her life and over whom she had no control. She had never heard of Kafka but would have recognized a fellow spirit. This time she meant the police, but it might have been the government or the National Health Service. All were ‘They’. ‘No, I just meant if she was ill and perhaps didn’t even know it, then her aunt dying might have taken away that last little bit of energy she needed. Do they know the cause? Her heart, was it?’

  ‘I don’t know what Val died of. I don’t think anyone knows yet.’ There was going to be a post-mortem and then, necessarily, an inquest, but she would not mention that to Mrs Kinver.

  Mrs Kinver shook her head regretfully. ‘We’re not lucky round here, are we? The milkman’s boy, young Jim Marsh, told me the little dog was ill too.’

  ‘Bob’s all right,’ said Stella. He was at present living with her. No one else seemed to want him. She wasn’t sure if she did, and Tiddles certainly didn’t, that wily animal had moved in permanently with John Coffin, who didn’t know it yet but would soon realize that this was forever and no passing visit.

  ‘Such a nice lady too,’ went on Mrs Kinver. ‘She should have got away.’

  It wasn’t clear what she meant by this remark, although Stella could guess. Got away before her fate, whatever it was to be, caught up with her. An appointment in Samarra, she thought. You can’t run from what gets there before you.

  ‘You ought to go away on holiday yourself,’ she said. ‘Later on.’

  An unspoken dialogue was going on between them. What Stella meant was: After the murderer has been caught.

  ‘Depends,’ said Mrs Kinver. ‘You never know, do you?’

  What she meant was: If he ever is caught.

  ‘I’m worried about Fred, Miss Pinero.’ She looked down at her cup. She shook her head. ‘Not himself.’

  In their private dialogue this meant he was, in fact, behaving in a highly abnormal fashion.

  Not surprising, thought Stella, she did not feel normal herself. This wasn’t how life should be. ‘Seen the doctor?’

  Mrs Kinver shook her head.

  Not physically ill then, more mental. And who could blame him? It was amazing how Mrs Kinver was holding together. A strong woman.

  ‘I’m afraid he might do something.’

  Something violent, she meant. But to himself or to others? Probably she did not know. Stella took this confidence seriously. Something would have to be done.

  ‘Oh, he wouldn’t,’ said Stella.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose so, he’s a gentle man, my Fred. But I feel better now I’ve had a cup of tea and talked to you. I can see I’m being a silly woman. Now I’ll wash things up. That is, if you’ve finished.’

  ‘I’ll have another cup,’ said Stella mechanically. Certain things in this conversation needed thinking over, and had been uttered so that she should think about them.

  ‘Do you want me in this evening?’ Mrs Kinver was running the water into the bowl; there was a dishwashing machine, but she never used it. Under running water and then a good dry with a clean cloth was so much better. She acted as dresser to Stella in the theatre, if needed.

  ‘If you can manage it. It’s a costume run-through, later tonight, after the show, for Cavalcade.’

  Mrs Kinver’s face lit up. ‘I’ll love it. Give me a real lift, it will.’

  ‘We could do with Fred giving a hand backstage if you think he’s up to it.’

  ‘Do him all the good in the world, Miss Pinero. I’ll see he does.’

  Stella went through to her bedroom to prepare herself fo
r her evening’s work. She hadn’t a big part in the present production, since she had only just come out of a West End show, nor was she its director (that honour had gone to a young graduate from the University Drama Department who had done a great job), but one or two things had gone awry lately and they were going to have a conference about it.

  She put on some clean white cotton trousers and a new shirt of red silk. She felt she was divided into two people. One person was the practical and accomplished actress who was driving forward with all her ambitions for the Theatre Workshop and, incidentally, for herself. That person was pragmatic and optimistic.

  But there was this other person who was shivering inside, who had premonitions of bad things to come, who believed in evil.

  Bob was asleep in the middle of her bed, his round form covered in rough ginger and white fur making a dent in the antique lace cover.

  Trying it on, thought Stella. He’d have to learn better than that. She pulled at his collar. ‘Off, boy.’

  Bob gave a soft growl, but Stella was not intimidated. ‘If you want to live with me, and frankly, I don’t fancy the prospect, we will have to come to terms. Off the bed.’

  Bob, no fool when it suited him not to be, slid off the bed, leaving behind him on the white lace a nicely grubby and ginger patch.

  When Stella had gone to her meeting, he walked slowly round her flat, investigating it. She had left a bowl of water and a dish of food out for him, so he dealt with these first, then he took another look round. Not his idea of a good home, no cosy nooks, not many soft spots for a dog to rest. The food was decent, though, and appreciated now he was beginning to feel more himself. It would do. But he missed the garden. He had forgotten Val, forgotten Mrs Zeman, forgotten Jim Marsh, but he would remember him as soon as he saw his face.

  He was not used to the noises of this place; there were plenty of them, feet coming lightly but firmly down some stairs nearby, the sounds of voices through the open window, a distant noise of traffic, together with all the creaking and whisperings of an old building.

  He thought he heard someone at the door. Being a dog who took his duties seriously, he gave a low, firm growl.