The interview was interrupted at various points, Tim being left on his own except for a uniformed constable. No doubt the boy tried to talk to this young man, probably near his own age. But this was not recorded.
He would not have put it past Archie Young to have been running a private tape of his own to check on the times when the boy might relax his guard, but such tapes, supposing them to exist, would not be shown to the boss.
Coffin stopped the tape and went to the window of his office to look out. Night was coming on, but it was a light, pale summer night with a rising moon.
He had had a busy day, with several committees, a session with the local MP in the House of Commons, and a public meeting with an address to make. There were files and tapes on his desk, other cases, other problems, but he chose to stay with this one. It might be the most crucial of all.
He knew that Felicity Zeman had been in the building most of the day, although not in the room with her son. She had been joined towards the end of the day by Leonard Zeman.
He switched the tape back on again.
Another repetition of more or less the same set of questions to which Tim Zeman kept his answers in line with what he had already said. But he was tiring.
‘Did you remove and take away one of Anna Mary’s shoes?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Someone did. And we’ve never found it.’
‘Not me. I’m not a shoe fetishist.’
‘I never suggested you were. But you might have had other reasons, the shoe might have had your fingerprints on it.’
‘I’ve told you: I wasn’t there.’
Then Paul Lane slipped in his surprise: ‘What would you say if I told you that I had a witness who places you in Spinnergate and near to Rope Alley on that evening?’
Coffin felt a shock of surprise.
There was silence from Tim Zeman.
Lane went on: ‘A woman at the disco who knows you well. She works there.’
Silence still from the boy.
‘You were wearing a hat and dark spectacles, but she recognized you.’
This had the ring of truth to it.
Tim collapsed. For a moment more the silence continued, then, in a choked voice, came the admission:
‘Yes, I was there. I did ride back. But not to see Anna Mary. I never did see her. I never killed her.’
He would not say whom he was hoping to meet, or where.
A little later, very quietly, possibly in tears, Tim agreed to have any necessary tests made by the police surgeon, and to provide any specimens required. He asked for one of his parents to be present at the examination, and to this Superintendent Lane agreed.
Coffin switched off the tape.
You pulled a fast one there, Paul, he thought, but it worked.
On the whole, he was surprised that Lane had let the boy go that night, as he had done. But possibly they had had some forewarning that Dr Livingstone was going to ask to dig up his grandmother and wondered what poisoned broth was being brewed.
With the tapes had come a plastic folder containing the blow-ups of Sir Harry’s photographs of Rope Alley at night.
He spread them around him on the desk. There was Rope Alley in the shadows of that dusky May night which had been moonless and overcast. One solitary street light had illusminated it. He could see the figure of the girl whom they had identified possibly, just possibly, as Anna Mary.
And there was the man to whom she might or might not be advancing with open hands. Coffin thought she looked as if she was doing that, but would not stake his life on it.
The male figure reminded him of something, he was looking at a round, tight little bottom.
What was the thought floating at the back of his mind, unable to surface? Push it back, leave it, and see what happens, experience told him. But it nagged.
He thought he might have a session with Solomon Wild, now undergoing therapy in a local clinic under police supervision. He was said to ‘be coming round’, although it was admitted on all sides he would never be totally normal. But he had been in Rope Alley and probably knew more than he was saying.
Coffin sat down thoughtfully. He got back to other work, but the problem stayed with him like an ache that would not be eased. He was uncomfortable, yet he hardly knew why.
He did not like the way this case was shaping. It had an ugly feel to it.
So this was how Coffin felt about the case at this point. Puzzled, sceptical, quite sure that there was something underground that was gradually pushing itself upward.
The Paper Man, on the other hand, although not privy to the evidence on the tapes, or to the photographs, felt that things were going just right.
Two days passed quietly enough. Fred Kinver was sleeping badly again. His wife knew that he got up at night and went walking. He still locked her in, but she had her own keys now. She had thought of getting up and following him, but she was too frightened. He was not a violent man, or never had been, but she was beginning to wonder what he was capable of just now. He seemed at his worst in the morning and in the middle of the night. During the day, he had gone back to doing odd jobs around the theatre for Stella Pinero, and running errands for John Dibbin, the local vet, who was doing a bit more drinking these days than was good for him or his practice. There was certainly a rivalry here between Fred and young Marsh, they were not friends and never would be, but managed to work together because they both liked animals, better than humans, anyway. Fred on the whole preferred cats, and Jim liked dogs.
Rehearsals for Cavalcade continued peacefully. It was going to be a good summer season. A whole troupe of locals had been recruited for the crowd scenes, which Stella felt must be right for public relations. She kept a wary eye open for the lad she called Teeth, but he was not seen and had not auditioned for a part. Not a would-be actor, obviously.
The slogans had duly been painted back on two outer walls of the Theatre Workshop complex, appearing overnight. YUPPIES FUCK OFF was the message this time, hastily removed but not before everyone had seen it.
The next morning the message just said: SHIT.
Lily Goldstone, coming in early for reasons of her own, but probably connected with her love-life, saw it and dealt with it.
She cleaned off the S and just left HIT, large and clear.
‘Win by seeming to lose,’ she said with a giggle. ‘That’s what the police say.’ Surely her new lover could not be a copper?
Just occasionally, as on that Friday morning, a little frisson of terror, sheer terror, passed over Stella, but she dismissed it as nerves, and certainly told no one.
The Feather Street ladies, agreeing with each other for once, had postponed for a week a committee meeting about arrangements for a charity performance at the theatre in which Val had been deeply involved, and settled instead for a coffee session at Councillor Mary Anneck’s house. Children and dogs were quiet and under firm control in Feather Street these days. Harold Darbyshire had gone off, grateful to be away, to a banking conference in Brussels. Even his slight relationship with Anna Mary Kinver had made him feel a marked man. He had known her, he had liked her, she had known him and had apparently said she liked him. That seemed to be enough to get you suspected. So the various writers of anonymous letters claimed. He was happy to have a rest from it all.
The police, guided by a strangely irresolute Superintendent Paul Lane, were still holding back on asking for an exhumation order on Mrs Kay Zeman. Paul Lane had had a conference with the Chief Commander who agreed to leave it up to Lane.
Meanwhile Dr Livingstone, bright girl and prude, if you believed Superintendent Paul Lane, had made a decision.
She telephoned Paul Lane, her voice cool and light. ‘I’ve come to a conclusion. You’ll get my report tomorrow.’
‘You don’t want to dig up Ma Zeman then?’
Her voice became even cooler. ‘No, but you may want to.’
‘Ah. It’s poison then? So what is it?’
‘It’s a bit t
echnical.’
That meant she intended to keep to the rules and he could wait and read what she had to say. But he tried again. As, she would discover, was his way. A nice man, tall, fair-haired, not running to fat, but very persistent.
‘Can’t you just tell me now?’
‘You’ll get my report in the morning. It’s probably on its way now.’ Her voice was soothing and calm, like a doctor hiding a bad report on your health from you, but managing to give an advance warning that you were right to be nervous at the same time.
He deserved that, she thought, as she put the receiver down. Archie Young did not deserve it, neither did that nice man John Coffin whom she had heard give a talk at a police forum, but they would have to wait as well.
So she went home, took a bath, put on a very nice dress from Annabelinda that had cost much more than she should have spent and went out to dinner with her boyfriend. She intended he should be a good deal more than that but she was giving him time.
She was still young enough for time to be infinitely expansive, but for other people, time was running out.
Another scientific report was quicker at arriving on the desks of Superintendent Lane and Inspector Archie Young. In fact, they had been alerted by telephone calls at home on Friday evening. Archie Young had set up an arrangement by which the laboratory would let him know when they had the results of the tests on Tim Zeman, whatever the hour. He then passed the news on to Superintendent Paul Lane whose wife was on holiday with her mother, so that he was just thinking about taking a bottle of wine round to a certain WPC he knew.
But the message was not one that they were glad to have; it spoilt a case they thought they had tied up.
Tim Zeman had not raped Anna Mary Kinver. Whatever he had been up to on that night, he was clear on that one.
John Coffin heard the news as early as anyone, although he had set up no special contacts, maintaining a sturdy confidence in the ability of news to get to him, bad news first, good news maybe a little later. This news was neither good nor bad, but interesting.
It was Archie Young, who was taking his wife to the theatre that night and met the Chief Commander in the bar at the Theatre Workshop in the first interval, who passed it on.
‘Not what we expected, is it?’
‘I didn’t expect anything one way or another, I was just waiting to see,’ observed Coffin.
‘I must admit my money was on Tim Zeman for the killing. I still think he was up to something. He’s in there somewhere.’ Young hated to give up on what had looked like a good idea.
The bar in the Theatre Workshop was one of the successes of Letty Bingham and her interior decorator. It had a spare, black and white charm, by Habitat out of Oggetti. When Coffin first saw it, he had thought: No one will want to linger here for a drink, it’s not cosy enough. But he was wrong. People felt relaxed and cool in it, sophisticated denizens of a high tech world.
A large bronze piece of sculpture was set on a pedestal by a small fountain. It might have been a leaping fish, but it might also have been a leaping woman, except that there were no feet. But it certainly had style.
Archie Young collected his white wine. ‘One of the perks of the job, having this theatre to come to, isn’t it? We come regularly, Libby’s dead keen. We both admire Stella Pinero, and she seems to use Lily Goldstone a lot. That’s definitely another perk, she’s pure gold.’
‘Lily’s a local,’ said Coffin, picking up his own drink. He was having supper with Stella afterwards. Max from the Deli was instituting a light after-the-theatre supper service: it was an experiment, but he had great hopes of it. ‘She does it for that, I think.’
The bell sounded for the next act and Archie melted into the crowd, while Coffin slowly followed. He had a front row seat, courtesy of the management, where he would have to avoid meeting Stella’s eyes. Their relationship was on a knife edge at the moment. Probably they ought not to meet for a time, but when you live within a few yards of each other, this is not easy to arrange. Perhaps they weren’t trying?
On the wall of the foyer through which he had to pass to get to his seat was a large poster about the charity for which the Feather Street ladies were working, a hospice for actors suffering mortal or crippling illness. A good, serious charity, they were serious ladies, the Feather Streeters. Val had done a lot for it, she would be missed.
After the performance, John Coffin waited in the basement bar for Stella to join him. They would not be the only diners, for several other tables were set out with the parties already seated. Young, bright, well-dressed people. Max was opening a bottle of champagne, and on the table rested what looked very much like a tub of caviar on ice.
Twenty, even ten, years ago such a party, such a theatre, would have been impossible to imagine in the neighbourhood. This had been working-class London, not champagne territory. Beer and jellied eels, not wine and caviar.
Nice people, he thought, sitting at his table, but making a problem for me. But as well as making his problem, he was aware they had also made his job. He wouldn’t be here if the new city, with all it meant, had not been created. He himself might fail, possibly he would, but someone afterwards would succeed. The Second City was not going to die.
Stella appeared, wearing the wide black trousers so fashionable that summer, with a white silk shirt and dangling gold earrings. She waved towards the other table as she came to join him.
‘Some of my keen supporters,’ she said as she gave him one of her best professional kisses: a light embrace meaning nothing and transferring no lipstick. It took training to do that without blurring an outline. ‘The bank they work for gave us a large donation this year. I have hopes of them sponsoring a festival next year.’
Stella was in sparkling form, which was soon explained. ‘I’ve had a firm offer for a film, not a big part but juicy. Mostly in Spain but a bit in the States.’
‘You’ll take it?’
‘Be a fool not to.’
‘What about the theatre here?’
‘It was always part of my contract with Letty that I should be allowed time away. Lily might take over. Be a great coup for the Workshop if she did, although goodness knows what sort of a repertoire she’d build up. All plays from her left-wing Marxist friends, I expect …’ Stella accepted a plate of smoked salmon mousse from Max. ‘No, I do Lily an injustice. She has excellent taste and a keen sense of commercial values, especially where her own money is concerned, and I think Letty will be negotiating for her to put some in.’
Letty Bingham too had a keen sense of the value of money.
‘How long will you be away?’
‘Oh, only a few months. Not really long …’ She put her hand across the table to touch his. ‘Sort us out, won’t it?’
So Stella’s mind had been working on the same lines as his? Stella was always shrewder than you expected.
‘You mean absence making the heart grow fonder and so on?’
‘Or the opposite.’ Always the realist, Stella.
He caught sight of a familiar figure behind Max. ‘Isn’t that Fred Kinver helping out in the bar?’
Stella nodded. ‘Yes, he’s doing a bit of this and that.’
‘How is he?’
‘How do you think?’
Fred Kinver was moving around efficiently enough, but occasionally flicking a glance at the diners. The glances were cold.
‘He looks as if he’d like to poison the lot of us,’ said Coffin.
Stella shrugged. ‘I expect he would. I think he hates everyone who is alive and not dead like his daughter.’
‘Even himself?’
‘Especially himself, I’d say. I’m only employing him to help his wife out. He’s giving her a bad time.’
After the meal, as they crossed the courtyard to St Luke’s Mansions, unwilling to end the evening, he said: ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
Stella looked at one delicate sandalled foot. ‘Not in these shoes.’
‘Put something else on, then.’
She pulled a face, but reappeared with reasonable speed wearing jeans and trainers.
‘I wasn’t suggesting a marathon,’ he said, tucking her arm under his, ‘but you’ve got the right idea.’
They strolled through the streets towards the river. The street lights were on, but there were still plenty of people about. Everywhere windows were wide open because of the heat, and you could see people moving about in the rooms inside, hear music and voices.
Then they were out of the noisy well-lit area into darkness. The moon had gone down.
Suddenly Stella made a protest: ‘You’re taking me down Rope Alley!’ She moved closer to him.
‘It’s all right. You’re with me. You’re quite safe. And in case you didn’t notice, a patrol car just went past and checked us … Just wanted another look around here after seeing a blow-up of one of Harry’s photographs.’
Rope Alley was not empty tonight. One or two other pedestrians were filtering through it towards the main road. From the river came a ship’s siren, hooting its message.
‘High tide,’ said Coffin. ‘That’s a ship going out. Sometimes I forget this is still a working river and that there are some craft on it.’ A thought was taking shape in his mind.
As the other walkers came past them, he thought they looked very like sailors from one of the ships. Dutch, perhaps, or Scandinavian. A rat darted from a hole in the wall of the alley, and a cat watched it. Rope Alley was alive at night all right with its own private life.
‘I don’t think you forgot,’ said Stella. She withdrew her arm. ‘I think you brought me down here to listen.’
He laughed and took her arm again. ‘Come on, let’s go back.’
In companionable silence they walked back to St Luke’s Mansions. When she saw the tower of St Luke’s outlined against the sky, Stella said, ‘I probably will take this film offer.’
‘Of course you will. Silly not to.’
He kissed her gently. ‘Good night, Stella, sleep well.’
From behind her door came a soft snuffle and growl. Bob was on duty.
‘You know, I think I will. I don’t feel quite so nervous now I’ve got that dog. It’s a quiet night.’
Coffin and the Paper Man Page 12
