A Grave Coffin

by Gwendoline Butler

  ‘Who was the Marquis of Granby?’ asked Archie Young. ‘Must have been a great drinker, you see his name on pubs all over the south of England.’

  ‘A conquering general, I expect,’ said Coffin. ‘It’s always a general or horse. Perhaps he won the Derby.’

  But no, said the landlord as he served them, the chap was a general who lost his wig in the battle and went it bald-headed.

  They settled in a dark corner with their drinks. Coffin was abstemious now, and Archie Young had always been a modest drinker.

  ‘I hear you had a bit of trouble last night.’

  Coffin had long since accepted that any news about the Chief Commander was passed around with speed.

  ‘Stella got the brunt of it. She was terrified, he didn’t touch, I’m not sure if he meant to, I have a feeling it was me he was after … I can’t even be sure if he was real … all I got was a smell. What do you make of smells as proof of identity?’

  ‘Smells are real enough,’ said Archie Young with feeling. ‘I’ve known one or two ripe villains.’

  ‘I’d certainly know that one again if I smelt him.’

  They went on talking about the everyday problems of policing the Second City. Eventually, Coffin said it was time to get off. ‘I’ll give you a lift back.’

  Archie Young looked surprised.

  ‘I told the car to meet me here.’

  Everything arranged for, thought Archie Young, admiring the administrative skills of the Chief Commander as he followed him out.

  ‘I want to drive round to the school all the lads went to,’ Coffin said, ‘not to talk to anyone unless we have to, just to look round.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky if you get away without the Head catching you.’

  ‘I ought to speak to the Head first, by rights, but I don’t want to. I just want to make a silent tour of the cloakrooms.’

  ‘For what?’ Archie Young asked himself silently but knew better than to ask aloud. ‘He’s on one of his psychic kicks,’ he said to himself. He knew Coffin in this mood, sometimes it got results, which he laid at the door of telepathy, or precognition, or just plain luck.

  If there was luck this time, Coffin did not acknowledge it. He walked slowly through the ground-floor cloakrooms and lavatories.

  Groups of rollerblades, neatly labelled with the owner’s name, stood beneath the pegs with jackets and thick sweaters.

  Archie saw him looking. ‘It’s a way of life now, even if they go in the school bus they still have these round their necks. Sometimes clump in on their feet. The Head forbids the use in school or in the playground.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  His luck deserted him there, because a tall, pretty woman wearing a smart trouser suit met him at the door. She held out her hand.

  ‘Jennifer Rhodes, Deputy Head. I saw you come in, the Headmaster is away today. Can I do anything?’

  Coffin introduced himself.

  ‘Oh, I know who you are. I recognized you at once. I was at the funeral too. I saw you there.’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you … just wanted to look around. One is always looking for ideas.’

  A profoundly sceptical look came over her face. Archie Young sympathized with her, but kept his own expression bland.

  ‘Inspector Devlin has been here several times.’

  ‘I know, Miss Rhodes.’ Coffin prepared for retreat.

  ‘Ms Rhodes.’

  ‘Ms Rhodes. I apologize and I won’t waste any more of your time.’

  Ms Rhodes looked as if she could have wasted it willingly in a sharp reproof, but she contented herself with a dignified bow and an offer to see them out.

  Back in the car, watching her well-tailored back, Coffin laughed. ‘She put me in my place.’

  ‘Did you get what you wanted?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.’

  You’ve picked up something, Archie Young decided; he had his own touch of telepathy, and it had to do with those rollerblades.

  Good luck was offered to Coffin in the next few minutes. They passed the chemist’s shop with a window full of great antique jars and beakers, full of nameless liquids of shining colours, sapphire-blue, emerald-green and strong yellow.

  Coffin read the name: H. Pennyfeather.

  ‘So that’s H. Pennyfeather.’

  ‘Oh, he isn’t called that. I believe Pennyfeather lived there about the turn of the century. Tom Barley just liked the name and restored it. His son works in the Second City University, he is a chemist too but more academic. Oxford, you know, degrees and research. Someone told me he was working on something with Sir Jessimond Fraser … or might be with Sir Jess’s son.’

  ‘They could be working together.’

  ‘Fraser is a professor there, runs the department of pharmacy. Not been there long, but stirred things up.’

  ‘I believe you,’ said Coffin thoughtfully. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘My wife’s nephew, he is doing a degree there.’

  Coffin and Archie Young were not the only pair having a quiet drink.

  Peter Perry and his fellow driver at the funeral were having a post-funeral drink in the long dusty shed where the two buses were housed, as well as several old cars and vans which looked as though they were refugees from a war.

  ‘Thought your brother would be back,’ said Ollie.

  ‘Had a few days extra. Can’t blame him.’

  ‘You’re too soft with him.’

  They were drinking tea from a big brown pot, brewed up by means of a kettle on a gas ring. There was a small refrigerator as well. You could live there for a time and on occasion, Peter had done.

  He poured them both another cup of tea and popped a white tablet in his mouth. ‘Screws are bad today.’

  ‘Saw you limping.’ Ollie looked at him with sympathy. ‘Pain comes and goes, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Comes more often than it goes,’ grumbled Peter. ‘Drugs rot your brain, but I was born stupid.’

  ‘Never. Not you.’ Ollie pushed his cup forward. ‘I understand.’

  ‘You would. Another cuppa? You’ll have tannin poisoning.’ Peter limped over to the kettle, felt it. Still hot.

  ‘I’m poisoned already.’

  ‘Dr Chinner asked us round to his place, but I couldn’t do it, couldn’t face it, so I said no for us both.’

  ‘I heard. Glad you did.’ Ollie finished his third cup of tea, and rose. ‘What are you doing for the rest of the day?’

  ‘Schools closed, sympathy and all that. So I shall go home and watch telly.’

  ‘I’ve got to go to the centre. I’ve got a swimming class and then a skating group.’

  He got into his battered white van, another relic from the war zone, and departed.

  Peter tidied up, checked and cleaned the coaches, then he went off too.

  Back in his office, John Coffin found there was a call on tape from Phoebe. It was one of her fluent monologues.

  ‘I like Cambridge,’ she said. A handsome town, and the Backs are beautiful. More beautiful than Oxford, perhaps.’

  ‘You aren’t there to admire the scenery,’ muttered Coffin with impatience.

  ‘Absolutely no sign of unearned riches on anyone, and Harry Seton had already done a thorough check on bank accounts, putting up the backs of several bank managers as he did so. I did a check again and was even more unwelcome. No rich clothes, no valuable cars, all concerned pleading poverty. They knew why I was here, of course.

  ‘Counterfeit drugs still on sale, sometimes from a market stall, sometimes in an outlying village. The team regarded themselves as efficient, and are annoyed that as soon as they clear up one set of outlets there is a rash of others. Never any shortage of supplies … all good stuff, it seems, but copies and dirt cheap. They can understand the attraction for those who buy and those who sell. They had expected to be on the job for a short time and are surprised to see it looks like life work.

  ‘HM Customs bearing down on everyone heav
ily, no evidence that counterfeit drugs are smuggled in.’

  ‘They are not,’ said Coffin to himself, before going back to Phoebe’s voice.

  ‘Ed Saxon set the outfit up, as you know. No love lost between Ed and Harry Seton. But I guess you know that too.

  ‘Off to Newcastle.’

  Phoebe signed off at this point, with a sigh. She knew the taste of a waste of time when she got one into her mouth.

  Coffin listened to what she had to say, rewound the tape, then listened again.

  Good old Phoebe, she was getting to the heart of the mission. He considered telephoning, but instead tried for Inspector Davenport of the Met.

  The man was not easily brought to the telephone, but this time he came on almost at once.

  ‘Fancy you calling,’ he said breezily. ‘I was thinking of calling you.’

  ‘You were?’ This year, next year, sometime never, more like it. ‘So how are you getting on with Harry Seton’s killing?’

  ‘I’d like to say we were nearly there’ – silence for a second – ‘but it wouldn’t be true. Harry’s body was nicely trimmed of all possible clues …’

  Coffin winced.

  ‘Done by an expert. You can see what that suggests.’

  ‘A contract killing?’

  ‘Sure. But who bought the contract and who carried it out, we don’t yet know … the wife is high on the list. Always look at the family, eh? They were on bad terms, and she’s in and out badgering us. I always reckon that’s a sign, don’t you.’

  ‘Could be,’ said Coffin cautiously.

  ‘But I have some good news: we caught the man who torched Seton’s office. He’s a man we know, a low-grade local villain, Len Macellan; he says he got the job through the post. A letter, no less, and payment half before the job, half on completion. Believe that if you can.’ Davenport’s tone suggested he didn’t. ‘I do not see him doing the killing, though, so we are checking his friends and associates.’

  ‘How was he actually paid?’ questioned Coffin.

  ‘Pushed through the door … that part I do believe.’ A pause during which Davenport thought about what to say. ‘I think he knows who paid him but won’t say. I put Mrs Seton in the frame here.’

  ‘What’s the evidence for that?’

  ‘Money, the place was well insured by Harry. And, as I say, they were on bad terms; I reckon she hated him. And she knew he was on to some work he thought important, some women might be spiteful about that.’

  ‘Arson and killing is a bit more than spite.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ agreed Davenport cheerfully. ‘She’s a remarkable woman. Her shop’s on the rocks, you know, rent owing, rates not paid, but you’d never know it from the colour of her hair.’ A sigh came over the line. ‘Still, there you are, she might have hired a killer, but she’s a lovely lady. This is all confidential, of course.’

  ‘I shan’t broadcast it. Does Ed Saxon know what you think?’

  ‘Ah now, that’s a bit different, sir. Have to keep old Ed in touch, but I don’t tell him all that’s in my mind.’ He added meaningly: ‘And I think he’s got a bit of a soft spot for Mrs Seton.’

  ‘And you feel pretty sure the arsonist is not also the murderer of Harry Seton?’

  ‘No,’ said Inspector Davenport regretfully. ‘Not got the brains, couldn’t organize it. No, I shall get the man in the end. We are working through the names of likely characters.’

  ‘I hope you pick up the killer.’ Coffin remembered the sight of Harry’s dead body with some pain.

  ‘Oh, I will,’ the inspector said with confidence. ‘And when I do I will screw the name of the hirer out of him.’

  I think you might be surprised at it when you get it, thought Coffin, who had his own ideas on the subject.

  Coffin sat back when the conversation ended, to consider what he believed of all that: he found he could believe that Mrs Seton had hired an arsonist, but it was harder to believe she had hired a killer.

  He was interrupted by the entrance of Paul Masters.

  ‘Sorry to break in, sir, but I have had a phone call from Miss Pinero.’

  Just for a moment. Coffin felt that irritable scratch that Stella’s obstinate clinging to her own name could arouse. He scratched his arm to relieve it, then reproached himself. Stupid. ‘Yes, what does she want?’

  ‘She didn’t want to ring you herself for fear of disturbing, but would you bring a special wine home for dinner. She told me what to ask for.’ He consulted a bit of paper. ‘A Gerwurtztraminer, it’s an Alsatian wine.’

  ‘I know that.’ The irritation returned and demanded another scratch.

  ‘Two bottles, in fact, sir.’

  ‘Did she say why she wanted it?’

  ‘A dinner party, I think, sir.’

  The irritation returned, full force, and he resisted the temptation to kick Gus, who was resting, confidingly, on his feet.

  Then his usual good humour reasserted itself. Stella, I love you, he thought, and at least it shows you are yourself again, but you can be a bloody nuisance.

  There was a solitary constable patrolling the area around St Luke’s when he parked the car; he saluted Coffin. ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘Good. Not even across the road?’ And the Chief Commander nodded towards the old churchyard.

  ‘No, sir, not even there. Not unless he’s tucked up in a tomb.’ As a joke, it failed for Coffin who walked on home, just saying: ‘Check.’

  Stella greeted him with open arms. ‘Kiss me, I have a triumph.’

  He waited.

  ‘I have a firm contract to produce at the National. Aren’t I lucky?’

  ‘What about St Luke’s?’ Coffin embraced his rejoicing wife.

  ‘Oh, I will do that too.’

  ‘And the film?’

  ‘Naturally, I will do that first. There is a contract,’ she said reprovingly.

  ‘And you will keep the same nose?’

  She sighed. ‘Now that I do regret, but I really can’t fit it in. Later perhaps.’

  ‘So what’s the party? Here’s the wine,’ he said, producing the bottles and fending off Gus, who was sitting on his feet.

  ‘We are the party.’ She threw her arms wide. ‘We are it. Don’t you love me?’

  ‘I do, Stella, I do.’

  She looked at him. ‘It’s been a long day, hasn’t it? You look beat.’

  The bell sounded below. Twice.

  ‘I’ll go,’ he said quickly, remembering last night.

  ‘It’ll be Max, our dinner. I said two rings or I wouldn’t open the door.’

  So she did remember last night.

  ‘It’s fish, sole and lobster and prawns … that’s why I chose that wine. The head waiter at the Ritz said that’s what you drink with fish.’

  ‘And when did he tell you that?’ said Coffin from the door.

  ‘Some day I might tell you.’

  ‘And who was with you?’

  ‘Tell you that too.’

  He came back with the great silver tray loaded with heated dishes. ‘Where do I put this?’

  Stella led the way. ‘In the dining room, of course.’ She had laid the table out with silver, glass goblets and candles, alight and flickering.

  ‘Did you do this yourself?’ Stella was not famed for domesticity. ‘Or did Mrs James?’

  Mrs James was the small but robust lady who cleaned the tower dwelling from top to bottom, grumbling at the inconvenience of so many stairs while glorying in her illustrious employers.

  ‘I did, as you know. Jean has been away with a bad back.’

  ‘I had noticed,’ agreed Coffin lamely. ‘There did seem to be a bit of dust around, but she always avoids me when you aren’t here. I don’t know if she thinks I am some sort of domestic rapist. You’ve done it beautifully.’

  Stella agreed with a pleased smile, without admitting that the table had been laid by one of Max’s helpers. Services rendered and duly paid for.

  ‘Put the dishes on the hot plate. No
t this one, though.’ She was investigating what was on the tray. ‘Oysters in a creamy sauce. We eat that first. Have a good helping, oysters are an aphrodisiac. For a happy ending to the evening, you know.’

  It was never easy to be sure with Stella when she was speaking for herself or acting in some play.

  ‘I shall look forward to it,’ said Coffin politely. ‘Now I know what you have in mind.’

  ‘Best ending to a celebration.’

  He decided she meant it, for herself and him. That bit of dialogue was certainly not out of Pinter or Tennessee Williams or Shepard. Might be Ayckbourn. He laughed.

  ‘Funny, is it?’ demanded Stella.

  ‘No, I am laughing at myself.’

  The oysters were delicious.

  There was no talk of murders or of intruders at the meal, but Stella told theatrical anecdotes to make him laugh.

  ‘You made that one up,’ he said at one point. ‘That one about George the Fifth and Queen Mary and John Gielgud can’t be true.’

  ‘Well, I doctored it a bit.’

  At the end of the meal, Stella stood up. ‘It’s supposed to be a bad thing to go to bed after a large meal, but a little exercise might change that.’ She put her arms round his neck. ‘Do you still wonder why I came home?’

  ‘Not at this moment,’ said Coffin huskily. ‘You are a beauty, Stella.’

  ‘And a good wife?’

  ‘A very good wife.’

  They were standing there when the telephone rang. ‘Ignore it,’ said Stella.

  It went on ringing. And ringing.

  She took a step away. ‘No, I can tell that you can’t.’ She watched his back as he walked towards the telephone; she knew the call was not for her just as she knew it was bad news.

  She listened, trying to assess what was being said.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s right.’ Then a pause. ‘Yes, she was. On my instructions. Yes, it must be her.’ Another pause. ‘Thank you for telling me. Let me know when you have confirmation, please.’

  He put the telephone down, then stood there looking at it for a while.

  Stella came over to him.

  ‘Tell me.’

  Slowly, he said: ‘A report has come through of an explosion in a hotel room in Newcastle … A woman has been killed, she seems to have been identified as Phoebe Astley.’