I bet there was talk at school, Coffin thought.
‘Besides,’ said Max slowly. ‘He said Dick went off with a policeman.’
In the silence that followed, Coffin found himself thinking what fool would abduct a child when wearing a uniform. Was it a uniform that Max’s grandson recognized, or did he know the man and know him to be a policeman?
And yet somehow his nerves told him this was important, crucial evidence, a key which might unlock a dirty door.
‘We will have to talk to the boy,’ he said.
‘Yes, that was expected. I have his address.’ And Max pushed a piece of paper across the table. ‘He is a nervous child.’
‘He will be handled carefully. And, of course, his mother will be there, too, all the time.’
Max gave a dignified bow, then he left. The theatre party with Mac was breaking up. He must present the bill.
Across the room, Coffin saw the restaurant door open. Chief Superintendent Archie Young stood there; he was looking round the room and when he saw Coffin he walked across quickly.
There could be no good news in this visit. Coffin thought, and wait till he hears what I have to tell him.
‘Hello, how did you know where to find me?’
Archie Young sat down facing Coffin. ‘I asked Paul Masters for a suggestion when I discovered you were not at home. I got him on his mobile … When I banged on your front door, the dog barked, by the way.’
‘He always does, thinks he’s a watchdog. Have some coffee.’
Archie Young shook his head. ‘No, thank you.’
‘So what is it? I don’t suppose you’ve come just to keep me company.’ He saw the look on the chief superintendent’s face. ‘No, don’t tell me, let me guess: you have found the body of another boy?’
‘All three,’ said Archie Young. ‘Together. You might call it a communal grave.’ He added with feeling: ‘Trussed up together like turkeys and crammed in together.’
THE KEY
4
Cross the river, go through the tunnel, on to the motorway, choose your route. Take the M25 and then on to the M40 because that will give a sight of Oxford where you will be going next, then on the motorway to Warwick and Coventry.
The University of Warwick, one of his calling places, is in Coventry, although they don’t dwell on that much.
The mind split two ways: thinking of Coventry and Tim Kelso, who had sounded abrupt and unwelcoming on the telephone, but thinking also of the dead boys cocooned together like dead larvae.
Split three ways, because there was always Stella. With new nose or not. He wished he could drop that rueful, irreverent thought. It wouldn’t be a whole new face, after all, would it?
And then: I bet I am the only leading police officer with a wife with a new face. But there must be a lot in the media, probably happened all the time. You went out, shot a film in India, say, or did a long run in a provincial theatre (were you allowed still to talk of the provinces?), came back and your wife had a different face. You still knew her, though.
He felt guilty at going, leaving the investigation behind, but would have felt just as bad if he had not set out.
It was important, hundreds of people, perhaps thousands might suffer, or die, if they took corrupted, diluted, worthless drugs.
Besides, he had left a very competent team behind. Inspector P. Devlin, Sergeant Tittlemouse … no, mustn’t call him that, it was Tittleton.
It was borne in on Coffin that he had had very little sleep last night, or the night before, what with setting up the office and organizing a home elsewhere for the dog. He had arranged for Paul Masters to pick him up, left Augustus eating, and got into the car. Didn’t want to upset the old boy.
It was a calm, misty early morning.
On either side of the motorway, the countryside was green and damp and empty. Very tidy, not a soul around. When did the farming work get done? Did a great machine creep out at night and sow, and later creep out to crop what it had sown? No need for the peasant to come out and weed as in medieval tapestry because there were no weeds. Slain at birth, before it even, they never came to birth, by the chemicals he would be investigating.
He had managed a talk with Inspector Paddy Devlin yesterday. A nice woman, but toughish. Had to be to have gone so far and ambitious to go further, she was still forty-two and looking for promotion. He had studied her record. A degree from Durham University, she had started on the beat and worked her way up. She was ambitious; he got the impression that although she was something of an expert on crimes concerning children, she would want to move on to more general fields, such as Serious Crime with a view to climbing the ladder.
He had liked her: a tall, solid, youngish woman, not pretty, no, never that, but handsome in an unobtrusive way. Well groomed, he had been around Stella long enough to know a good haircut when he saw one. She was divorced and rumoured to be hard to get close to.
Sensible woman, Coffin thought, knowing some of his colleagues. But she was also said to be a decent sort who did not let you down. In a war, she would have been a good soldier.
Their conversation of yesterday was running through his head as he drove. Inspector Devlin had come to sit in his car to talk while Sergeant Tittleton walked around the burial pit with the Scene-of-the-Crime team. It was at this point he told her about his conversation with Max. She listened carefully.
‘It might be well to see the boy and his mother.’
‘I certainly will, sir. Thank you.’
They both looked towards the sergeant’s slow walk round, staring in at the bodies and photographing them.
The triple grave was on the same patch of woodland and scrub where the first body had been found, but it was deeper into the trees.
‘Not found by chance,’ said Devlin. ‘Once the Chinner boy’s body was found we started to take a good hard look round here.’
‘Of course.’
‘We had help, one of the SOCO’s team on the first burial is a keen gardener and he pointed out that there were signs of track marks in the grass – such as it is, hardly a lawn – as if something heavy had been wheeled over it. Only a gardener could read the signs.’ She was half laughing. ‘Of course, we were looking and would have found this grave, but his sharp eyes helped.’
Coffin was thoughtful. ‘They have not been officially identified yet but I suppose there is no doubt these are the three other missing boys?’
‘They have to be,’ said Devlin confidently. ‘They haven’t been touched yet, just photographed. The police surgeon gave a quick look just to say they were dead.’
‘You could see that,’ said Coffin, remembering the discoloured, swollen faces.
There had been a moment of silence then.
‘I am guessing,’ she said, ‘but my guess is that the Chinner boy was the last killed. The pathologist and the forensic teams will set us right.’
‘Sure. I suppose you will be using Denis Garden?’ Garden was a famous local figure, a professor in the old Docklands University, now upgraded to a superior status if with not much more money, as was the Thames Water District Hospital where he had a pathology department; a man much loved by the media for his careful, slightly flamboyant dressing. He photographed well.
‘As usual, he can be very difficult, but he is very good. If not, then I shall go for Dr Bickley from the Lane Grove Hospital, he would probably do it in the old police forensic lab in Swinehouse which would be easy for us.’ Devlin was moving on: ‘The other boys were killed earlier, and at different times … guessing again, but it seems likely.’
Coffin nodded.
‘But we think they were all three buried here at the same time … only the one set of wheel marks and those not so old. Even our sharp-eyed SOCO man would not have noticed them if the grass and weeds had had time to grow over.’
‘So only one trip. Possibly not long before the other boy was buried.’
‘And separately.’
‘No room in the grave,’ replied Devlin
bluntly. ‘But you see what it means, don’t you, sir?’
He thought about it: only one trip for the three bodies.
‘They were killed and kept somewhere else.’
‘Yes, for some time, it looks like in the case of at least one boy …’ The most decomposed, she meant, but did not say.
‘Professor Garden will help you there, as well as the forensic team.’
‘We have to find where that place is.’
‘And the vehicle that was used to bring them here … the tyre marks may help to identify the car. If it was a car – a four-wheeled vehicle of some sort.’
‘Well, good luck.’ He knew how these hunts went: following hopeful leads that turned out to be rubbish, following hints and whispers that got you nowhere. Starting off with energy and enthusiasm (because you always did, however often you had done this sort of thing before) and ending up dogged, and tired but persevering. In the end, perseverance could pay off.
‘Thank you, sir, we are going to need it.’
‘If you need more officers, let Chief Superintendent Young know … I am sure he will do something about it.’ Not only have I told him to be generous, but he has his own interest: the Chinner boy is his godson.
‘It’s bad for him, sir.’
‘He’s better in there working. He will keep in touch … I want the details, not just the general picture.’ His eyes signalled that he wouldn’t nag, but he wanted to know.
‘Right, sir.’ Devlin had given that little jerk with her head that he was beginning to recognize.
She had one last piece of information to hand on, something for Coffin to chew on as he drove north and west.
‘There was a suicide in East Hythe a week ago. Floating in the canal. He was Joe Partoni, a known paedophile – I’ve been trying to convince myself he was our murderer.’
Coffin looked at her in query. ‘But he isn’t?’
‘Be so easy, wouldn’t it, to have solved the case before it’s started. You get sick, sometimes, when you don’t find out who did the killing, don’t even get close. Or worse, when you know and can’t get proof.’ She shook her head, that little jerk, half bitter, half amused. ‘Sometimes, I hate this job, but someone has to do it, and I am good at it … I suppose Joe could have killed those boys, I would like him to have been the killer, and dead, because he was a horrid little man.’
‘He is dead,’ Coffin reminded her.
‘It’s just possible he was murdered, there was a bruise on the side of his head that might mean he was beaten and thrown into the river. I hope he was. I cherish the thought. But Big Jim …’ Big Jim was Jim Matherson, the Home Office pathologist. ‘Big Jim did the autopsy and he is the king of pathologists and he thinks not, it was suicide.’
Down below there was Oxford, he couldn’t see it through the mist but it was there.
He wondered why Devlin had fed him that bit of information about Joe Partoni, suicide. She meant something by it and for certain she wanted him to remember Joe.
One thing was sure, Partoni had never been a policeman. Could have got a uniform, though, from a costume-hirer. Or perhaps he had been a postman … they hardly wore uniform these days, did they? His thoughts were moving fast, and concentrically.
The mist lifted, but still no sight of dreaming spires. Coffin had had an early and successful case in Oxford, he had enjoyed it and had happy memories of the city. Must take Stella there, have a meal, go to that place in the country where they do operas … Garsington … she’d like that. She had played the old Playhouse once, but that was when they were at odds. Dead, dusty years, better not think about them.
Think instead about the job ahead: a traitor, and almost certainly a murderer, in Ed Saxon’s team.
There was a stirring and heaving beneath the coats and rugs he had thrown on to the seat beside him. Coffin, startled, turned round to look.
Augustus rose from beneath them, first his head, then the rest of his white, furry body, he gave himself a shake.
‘Gus, how did you get there?’
‘I got in the car while you were on the telephone … you do go on, you know. I made myself cosy, knew you wouldn’t want me to be uncomfortable.’
Thus would Augustus have spoken had he had speech. As he was speechless, he was far too canny to growl, but contented himself with a slight flick of his feathery tail. Nothing too strong, just a gentle indication that he was happy to be here. Sometimes the motion of the car made him sick, he hoped it would not do so this time.
‘If you are sick,’ said Coffin fondly, ‘then I will kill you.’
He drove on, Oxford behind him, forward on to the motorway, passing the Banbury turn, till he came to the Coventry exit. The traffic had been getting heavier all the time, and he meant heavier, with great lorries nudging at him as they passed.
The road into the city itself was quieter. He stopped at a pub for an early lunch. A large notice said NO DOGS PLEASE, but he solved that problem by taking Augustus for a brisk walk down the road first – it was well lined with trees, which suited Augustus who lingered here and there to read the smells which sent out signals of the new land he was venturing into. He seemed well content: new country, old smells.
Coffin ordered a sandwich for himself, then took a hamburger out to Augustus, before going back to drink coffee, a glass of doubtful red wine and to eat his sandwich. Neither his body nor his spirit felt nourished by his meal, and he was not surprised that Augustus had spurned the hamburger and gone to sleep.
From there, on his mobile, he telephoned Tim Kelso once more.
Oh yes, I know who you are and what you are; Ed had to tell me: you are our secret number. No one else is to know.’
‘That’s about it, I suppose.’ It was a long while since Coffin had been a secret figure.
‘You can talk to me whenever you want, but for the others … so few, so few, you are on your own and must scrape an acquaintance how you will.’ Kelso sounded very cheerful at the thought.
‘I would like to talk to you.’ I shall need some addresses for a start, and a quick look at you to sum you up, friend.
‘Of course, sir, of course. Want to talk now on the telephone or face to face?’
‘Face to face.’
The address and the way there was transmitted clearly and happily.
‘City centre, and when you see the City Library look to your left and raise your eyes, and there we are on the third floor of a modest Art-Nouveau building.’
Coffin was already beginning to form a picture of Tim Kelso as thin, tall, with snapping black eyes. A pleasant voice, baritone and lively.
He told Tim Kelso to expect him within the hour, then he drove into a quieter road where he parked, and consulted his documents.
Here, parked under a tree with Augustus snoring by his side, he read again the papers on the pharmaceutical business.
It appeared that there were two ways of getting hold of cheap, fake drugs.
One was called parallel importing. This was when a manufacturer found he could make a drug more cheaply in Taiwan than in Middlesex. The quality of the tablets and their strength would be the same, also the bioavailability …
Must find out what that means, Coffin told himself.
The tablets might not look the same, which would be confusing if it was your regular pill and you were oldish and your sight was not good. The instructions could be in Mandarin or high Japanese.
Coffin could see this was a sharp practice and tiresome but would not kill you.
Counterfeiting, however, could kill. This was a big problem, the cardboard boxes are printed as exact copies of the real thing, but the drug inside could be made in a backyard in Burma or Greece with bioavailability, purity and contamination all different from the genuine article. Unscrupulous pharmacy importers buy them, false serial numbers and all. They then offer them to pharmacists at a very reduced rate. This enables them to make a hearty profit on the NHS prescribing while poisoning the hapless patient.
Somet
imes the pharmacist concerned was an innocent party, but sometimes not.
Also, you might not like the idea of drugs from a country with which you or your father had once fought a war.
He absorbed what he could, then drove on to see Tim Kelso in his office near the City Library in Coventry. It was easy to find, but hard to park. When he at length tucked the car away, he had to solve the problem of Augustus who stood up at once, ready to take the air.
Coffin debated whether to take the dog, then decided that although he might be a useful ally when he met the bouncy Tim Kelso, he was better off in the car.
He had expected Kelso to be a tall man wearing bright tweeds, with a golf bag propped up in the corner of the room.
In fact, he was a thin, neat fellow wearing jeans and a sweater; his voice was bigger than he was.
In this voice, which remained friendly and cheerful even as his face grew more and more serious, he managed in a few minutes to get more information over to Coffin about the nature of the TRANSPORT A operation than Ed Saxon, weighed down by his miseries, had achieved in half an hour.
‘We don’t expect to be a long-term operation … it’s like in war, we are a kind of special unit.’
‘Commandos,’ said Coffin, looking at the feet of Tim Kelso which were encased in muddy white trainers.
‘Something like … we are sent in to snuff out the enemy in the shape of the people who are either importing these fake drugs or making them here.’
‘They aren’t all from abroad?’
‘Far from it, the UK has got a bad case of it, and the sources are scattered around. That’s why Ed created regional squads … When I say squad, there is only me and one other.’
‘Leonie Thrupp?’
‘Yes, seconded for the purpose. You understand we are meant to be very quiet about things because, well, it can be dangerous. Not the people actually making the drugs, or I don’t think so, nor the poor little pharmacists who buy it, but the man or men who are organizing it. Because it is organized and we are meant to find out by whom.’
A Grave Coffin Page 7
