‘Now, baby, now.’
I’m an actress, Stella thought, Act, for your life. Virtue didn’t really seem to matter so much, getting stabbed did.
‘I’m not frightened of you,’ she managed to say. ‘I’m theatre, remember. I’ve seen better things than your rather pink and puffy member.’ He hit her hard in the face. ‘Pig.’ She managed to get contempt in her voice. Come on, Egypt, she commanded herself, Royal Egypt, forward Lady Macbeth, up Clytemnestra.
All the same, she did not seem able to resist what appeared to be happening to her. She seemed to be being pressed against the table, she could smell sweat. What’s going to happen, she asked herself, am I going to enjoy this bloody process?
The radio was still playing and even at that moment she found herself able to take in the announcer’s voice saying that the siege in Elder Street was over with no casualties. Fred Kinver had surrendered.
Toothface had said nothing, she had already summed him up as someone who would not be able to have an orgasm and talk at the same time, but the obtrusive teeth were cutting into her lips.
Summoning up all the suppleness and muscular strength that long years of theatre exercises had given her, she arched her back, got her face a few crucial inches away, then leant forward and bit his nose.
He screamed. Suddenly the knife was on the floor. She kicked it away, and bit him again.
They were on the floor, rolling against each other. He was grabbing at her, forcing her legs apart. She hit his face and started to shout for help.
Bob, suddenly brave again, leapt upon them, barking wildly. There was blood over both of them. Whether it was coming from Bob, him or her did not seem clear.
A puzzling smell of smoke and burning was coming in from outside.
I’m not going to get out of this, Stella thought. All the same, she managed to edge her hand nearer to the knife.
John Coffin heard the news about the fire at St Luke’s over the radio of a patrol car as he stood in the precinct of the police station congratulating Inspector Lee on the successful ending of the Kinver siege. Both the Kinvers had been admitted to hospital for observation.
‘A fire reported at St Luke’s Mansions, old St Luke’s Street. A break-in suspected. Car and fire brigade on the way.’
As Coffin was driven there himself, they were passed by a car full of young men going the other way and leaning out of the car and shouting.
When he got to St Luke’s, the fire in the quadrangle was already under control.
‘A window is broken at the back,’ reported the man from the patrol car.
‘That’s Stella Pinero’s place,’ said someone else. Lily’s party members were crowding round.
‘I rang the bell. No answer, sir,’ said the patrol man. ‘Shall I break the door down?’
Coffin hesitated only for a moment. ‘I have the key,’ he said.
He put the key in the lock, the chain was on, and, full of fear, he and the constable shouldered the door to break a way through.
As he did so Stella staggered out towards him and he put his arms round her. ‘I don’t think I’ve killed that chap, but I might have done. Thank God it’s all over.’
He looked around him at the blood and confusion. Not quite, he thought. This might be, but there is still the murder of Anna Mary Kinver.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Thursday, June 29, in daylight. Then on into July
During the night, the streets of Leathergate and Spinnergate were cleared of the wreckage of the night before and then they were washed. A faint odour of disinfectant hung over some streets where the trouble had been greatest and messiest. The paving stones on the floor of the quadrangle in St Luke’s Mansions were blackened by the fire, but the architect and his builder, who had viewed it, said they could easily be replaced. There was just a small stained area by Stella’s front door, as if someone had deliberately marked it, that might be difficult to remove and which thus would remain there as a permanent memorial to her experience.
Coffin had taken Stella to his own flat after a police surgeon had examined her, and there she had spent the night.
In the morning, accompanied by Bob, who was minus several teeth, he took her some breakfast in bed. Leaning against the pillows, she looked tired and a little battered but cheerful.
‘I believe I am going to have a black eye.’ She drank some coffee. ‘But why me?’
‘You stand out, Stella. And you were there, that’s why.’ Also, you can be aggressive, but this was not the time to say so.
‘He didn’t really do anything, you know. I defy any man to achieve maximum penetration with a dog on his back chewing his ear.’
‘Especially when he is getting his nose bitten as well … You didn’t damage the lout, by the way, the knife wound you gave him was a scratch. Most of the blood came from his nose and from Bob. We’ll get his DNA profile, though, it might come in useful.’
‘What about …’ Then she stopped. A question had to be asked but she was frightened.
‘No, he was not HIV positive,’ said Coffin quickly.
‘Thank goodness.’
‘I should have told you that at once.’
‘It ought to have been funny,’ said Stella, ‘but by God, it wasn’t.’
‘I should think not.’ He still felt both sick and furious at what had happened to Stella. His Stella.
‘Nor enjoyable.’
Coffin gave her a surprised look. ‘Did you think it would be?’
Very carefully, Stella put down her cup and took his hand. ‘No, silly talk. Thanks for everything.’
‘I’ve sheltered you from a lot of police life, Stella. But it’s a rough, cruel world out there and you can get trampled on.’
‘I am saying thank you.’
‘And I heard. There’s a lot of things we’ve got to talk about, but the Zeman affair is over, cleared up. Nastily but effectively. No more Paper Man. I’ll tell you all about it later. But meanwhile there’s someone I’ve got to see.’
Dr Felicity Zeman was alone in the house in Feather Street. She was surrounded by flowers, brought in and arranged by her friends in Feather Street, Phil Darbyshire and Mary Anneck leading the band. She need not cook a meal for weeks, her freezer had been filled. Or she could come to them? Felicity was to say. She had not been one of them, but now she was welcome to join the sisterhood, they would be glad. A little overwhelmed by such friendliness, Felicity was happy to be alone. Some griefs need silence and solitude, she thought, and I hope they never have to know it.
Nevertheless, she welcomed John Coffin. With some humour, she said: ‘Would you like some coffee? Or blackberry cordial? Or damson gin? I can also offer you shortbread, banana cake, and gingerbread.’
He refused all these. ‘Just had breakfast. A bit late this morning.’
‘You had quite a night from what I hear.’
He smiled. ‘You could say so. But I thought you’d be glad to see me, and I needed to talk to you. You know how things stand?’
She nodded. ‘Inspector Young and Superintendent Lane came in person to see me earlier this morning. Jim’s in custody, I believe?’ Coffin nodded. ‘It’s a shock to know he hated us so much.’
In Jim Marsh’s bedroom the police had discovered videos called Brain Warrior and The Double Man, so they knew where he had got some of his ideas.
‘A psychopath, I’m afraid, with a lot of hate inside him.’ Coffin shook his head. ‘Very cold and manipulative. And of course, he blamed his father for his mother’s death.’
‘It’s ironic that it was his own father who probably saved my husband’s life.’
‘I think Jim hates him for that.’
Felicity said, ‘I think he did love Anna Mary Kinver in his way. And he did find her body, one has to remember that. It must have been a terrible shock when it was the girl he admired and loved.’
‘Yes, and thought Fred Kinver ill-treated her, which he may have done. A lot of darkness there, I’m afraid. But it is about h
er death I want to talk. I think you’ve got something to tell me.’
He waited. Then prompted her: ‘Tim did have some guilt to bear, didn’t he?’
‘How did you know?’
‘I guessed. Picked it up. Policemen get the trick. I think Val Humberstone knew a bit and you know all there was to know. He must have told someone, and it had to be you.’
Felicity said: ‘Not all, I don’t know all. I can’t tell you what Tim would have said. I can only tell you how he told it to me.’ She got up, hugging Arthur to her. ‘I think we will have some coffee.’
‘Jim Marsh accused Tim of the murder.’
Felicity took a deep breath. ‘I think I can guess that Tim would have accepted that responsibility. Although not of the actual killing.’ She put some coffee on the stove to heat. ‘Parents and children … it’s difficult?’ She made it a query.
‘I know,’ said Coffin, thinking of his own wandering mother whose diary was presently giving him such a problem. To publish, as Letty wanted, or not?
‘Perhaps if Timmy had got on better with his father. Or I had been a better mother … One blames oneself, but it might be genetic. Or should one just accept that people, even one’s own children, have a right to be what they want?’
‘I think that’s the best solution,’ said Coffin gravely. His parent had just dumped him and left. That was voting with your feet, if you liked.
‘Anyway, after experimenting a bit, Tim decided where his sexual tastes lay. He talked to Anna Mary, she helped him there. Probably physically, but I’m not sure about that. I hardly knew her, but I think she must have been a sensitive and loving girl. She understood, although I believe she loved Tim. That’s sad, isn’t it?’ Coffin nodded to her. ‘Of course, she wasn’t without experience.’
Coffin waited for Felicity to continue her story.
‘He told me all this afterwards, you understand? I said he must talk to you or someone like you, but he was so frightened. He’d had a bad time with your Inspector and there was a lot of hostility towards him on all sides. Well, you know that yourself … I think he would have told you in the end.’
‘What would he have told me? I have a few ideas myself.’
‘A day or so before what happened in Rope Alley, he met a boy. About his own age, seventeen or eighteen, maybe older, and he was violently attracted. Fell in love, I suppose I’d have to say. It was the first time it had happened to him in such a strong, physical way … He didn’t know how to handle it.’
‘Difficult at any time,’ said Coffin with sympathy. It could strike anyone, that particular virus, and was always painful.
‘He thought the boy liked him back. First approaches seemed welcome. But they had a sort of quarrel. Tim went off that day to visit friends, to think things over, he said … As you know, he came back.’
‘And he didn’t spend all the time that evening he said he did sitting in a park?’
‘No. He went to the disco where he knew the lad would be. I think by that time they had both had something to drink. Drugs too, possibly, although Timmy swore this was not so in his case … This time he was bold enough to make a direct approach to the boy.’
‘So?’
‘The boy, young man really, was savage. Taunted Tim, screamed at him. According to Tim, it was more than just anger. Frenzy. And then he yelled at Tim that he was going out to get a girl. “I’m going out to get a girl,” those were his words.’ She covered her eyes for a moment. ‘And he did. He got Anna Mary Kinver.’
There was a moment’s silence.
She looked up. ‘I suppose you’ll never get him now?’
‘Oh, I believe we might,’ said Coffin. ‘You see, Anna Mary named him.’
Felicity looked up in surprise. ‘Oh, but …’ she started to say.
‘No, not Zeman, but seaman. He was a seaman, and I think Sir Harry got his photograph.’ And a man called Solomon Wild, now undergoing treatment for a mental illness, might have been a witness to the quarrel and then the murder. Coffin had him down for questioning. ‘I think her killer was off one of the ships on the river that day. A few small vessels still come up-river, but not many, which makes our task easier. I believe we will get him.’
Some weeks later, after much patient work, police in the port of Rotterdam boarded the small vessel, SS Don Romolo, flying under a flag of convenience. Inspector Archie Young was among them with the correct papers to detain and arrest his suspect.
They went to the cabin of one of the young seamen, a Dutch boy called Vannie. He was sitting on his bunk, reading a comic. He looked surprised to see the police and frightened.
He was taken away for questioning. Inspector Archie Young asked for certain specimens of body fluid to be taken. He knew he had got his killer.
Because before they had left his cabin, it had been searched. When a locker on the wall was opened, out fell half a dozen women’s shoes.
One was small and silvery, one of the pair that Anna Mary Kinver had bought the night of her death.
Vannie looked at it and started to mumble. ‘I must have one shoe,’ he said. ‘Always I have to get a shoe. Always.’
Tears started to pour down his face. ‘Always before she let me have a shoe when we made love, but that night no. No, to everything, because of the silver shoes.’
Poor Anna Mary, poor little Cinderella, killed for a silver shoe.
Thus the case started with the code word GRIM had at last wound to its conclusion.
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About the Author
Gwendoline Butler, who died in 2013, was a Londoner, born in a part of South London for which she still had a tremendous affection, and where Coffin on the Water is set. She was educated at one of the Haberdasher’s Schools and then read History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. After a short period doing research and teaching, she married Dr Lionel Butler. They had one daughter, Lucille.
It was while her husband was Professor of Mediaeval History in the University of St Andrews that Gwendoline first began writing crime fiction. In her lifetime she wrote seventy-seven novels, thirty-four of which feature Detective John Coffin.
Also by the Author
John Coffin novels
Receipt for Murder
Dead in a Row
The Dull Dead
The Murdering Kind
The Interloper
Death Lives Next Door
A Coffin for Baby
Make Me a Murderer
Coffin in Oxford
Coffin Waiting
Coffin in Malta
A Nameless Coffin
Coffin Following
Coffin's Dark Number
A Coffin from the Past
A Coffin for Pandora
A Coffin for the Canary
Coffin On the Water
Coffin in Fashion
Coffin Underground
Coffin in the Black Museum
Coffin and the Paper Man
Coffin on Murder Street
Cracking Open a Coffin
A Coffin For Charley
The Coffin Tree
A Dark Coffin
A Double Coffin
Coffin's Game
A Grave Coffin
Coffin's Ghost
A Cold Coffin
A Coffin for Christmas
Coffin Knows the Answer
Major Mearns and Sergeant Denny novels
The King Cried Murder
Dread Murder
Standalone novels:
Sarsen Place
Olivia
The Vesey Inheritance
Meadowsweet
The Red Staircase
Albion Walk
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in 1990 by Collins
Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1990
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780006470663
Ebook Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9780007544707
Version: 2014–05–07
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