‘Not that one,’ said Coffin gravely. ‘So what changed you?’ He could see Ollie’s face was sweating.
He was breathing heavily. ‘The girl, the dead girl, I found her body. I used to go and look at it … her innocent deadness.’ He slumped to the floor, and covered his face. ‘I only did … that to them after they were dead.’
And the girl? Could he believe what Ollie said? For the girl must have been decayed, putrified.
Not true, thought Coffin, and his mood hardened, the dead do not bleed and bruise as these boys did.
‘I used to visit her … before, you know what I mean, before I did anything … She was so like a boy, more like a boy than a girl as she lay there … A rat or a dog was savaging her … I cut off her leg, and buried it … I did it out of love for her.’
Ollie looked up. ‘I feel better now I have told you.’ This was not true, but he knew it was the sort of thing that they expected you to say.
Coffin was grimly satisfied. ‘I don’t want you to feel better, I want you to feel worse. And you will, Ollie, because we will prove all this.’
Ollie stared, his eyes pale and wary.
‘There is the blood on the clothes where you buried Archie Chinner. Traces of dihydrocodeine in it, prescribed for your wife originally, but you used them for a painkiller. It’s a slow-release morphine, it metabolizes in the blood; it can be identified.’ Coffin studied his face. ‘That’s a nasty injury you had there. It must have hurt, you took it then, I guess. Of course, it passes through the system and it was out of yours when you were tested. Perry had some, from you, but he wouldn’t say. What hold did you have over him? Some trouble with a girl? Underage? It will all come out and Perry will talk.’
He put out his hand, and dragged Ollie to his feet by his collar. ‘Stand up, you miserable, snivelling little sod. Don’t think you will get away with anything. You and Perry both. You are back in the real world where there will be DNA testing of the blood, and where forensics will go over the white van in the garage, over this house, and have the skin off you if need be.’
‘I kept them in the garage.’ Suddenly he was willing to talk. Deccon pulled a small diary from his pocket. ‘Here, you can have this … I wrote it all down. I’ll tell you the code … WP means Wet Pants, they all wet themselves. S means sicko … a police connection didn’t help them.’ He gave a giggle which he tried to change into a cough.
‘You chose them for the connection,’ said Coffin, hating the man, holding his hands off him with an effort.
He reached in his pocket for his mobile phone. ‘Thank God for science. It may not be a walk to the gallows for you, but you will feel the touch of the whip if I have anything to do with it.’
‘You aren’t meant to threaten, sir,’ said a voice from the door. It was Archie Young. ‘I followed you, sir.’
Coffin stood back from Deccon. ‘Not a threat but a prophesy. We both know what happens to men like him in prison.’ If he doesn’t hang himself first.
Stella was waiting for him. ‘You look sick.’
‘I feel sick.’ He bent to pat Gus’s head. ‘And an end to a lousy business and a bad day.’
‘It’s not over yet, I’m afraid.’
He looked up sharply. ‘What’s that?’
‘While you were out there was a phone call for you from Mary Seton.’
‘Ah.’
‘Will you ring her, as soon as you can? She sounded very distressed.’
Stella handed him the phone. ‘I’ll leave you to it and take Gus for a walk.’
‘No need for you to go.’ He held out his hand to her.
She took his hand in a firm grip. ‘I think there is. Come on, Gus.’
The phone felt heavy in his hand, this was a call he did not want to make. Mary Seton answered on the first ring. ‘Thank God you have rung. Please come, you must come. I am terrified.’
‘Now? Tonight? It’s not easy.’ Inspector Devlin would want to talk to him; Archie Young might yet be around again.
But he had realized that the searching of the whole pharmaceutical premises, shop and all, would be explosive. He had known too that some of the debris would be coming his way. It was just happening a bit sooner than he had expected.
Tonight, rather than tomorrow.
‘I’ll come. Where to?’
‘My flat. You know where it is?’ She explained how to get to her home in Battersea. Not Chelsea, but nearly. ‘Just over the bridge, big block of flats, Conygham Rise. I am on the third floor.’
He could hear noises in the room with her. It sounded as if a chair had fallen over.
‘I must go. See you.’
Coffin stood up as Stella came back into the room, bringing a rush of fresh air with her. ‘You weren’t gone long.’
‘We didn’t go far. I thought if I was away too long you might not be here when I got back. Wherever you are going tonight, I am coming too.’
‘What makes you think I am going anywhere?’
Stella chose her words carefully. ‘Let’s just say that I’ve been around you a long time, and I have learnt to read the signs.’ She looked down at the dog who had pressed himself against the door so it could not be opened without moving him. ‘So, for that matter, has Gus.’
‘Right, get your coat. But not Gus.’
In the car, Coffin said: ‘I said not Gus.’
‘He didn’t hear you.’
‘I don’t know how he does it.’
‘I don’t know either,’ said Stella placidly, lying, because she had smuggled Gus in under her coat.
Coffin undid his seat belt. ‘Give me a minute, I’ve forgotten something.’
Stella sat quietly with Gus; she did not know exactly where they were going but she was determined to go with Coffin to Mary Seton. She was a little tired of all the women surrounding her husband, clamouring for his attention.
Coffin slid back into the driving seat. ‘Sorry about that.’
He drove quickly and neatly out of the Second City and westwards towards Chelsea and then Battersea.
As he drove, he told her, first of all about Peter Perry and Oliver Deccon, and then about the pharmaceuticals affair. ‘It’s not the end of that business, it’s like a field of mushrooms but as far as I am concerned it is over.’
‘What about Ed Saxon?’
‘It’s wait-and-see time there, Stella.’
For the rest of the journey there was not much talk. Coffin was close to exhaustion, aware that he had neither eaten nor slept much for twenty-four hours. Not exactly insomnia, he told himself as they passed over Battersea Bridge, but a touch of nightmare.
He got lost trying to find where Mary Seton lived, but a passing cabby set him right.
‘That’s it,’ he said, looking up at the redbrick block which had been new when the century was young. ‘Third floor – you stay in the car, I will try to be quick.’
Stella ignored this advice, she was already opening the door of the car.
‘Not Gus then.’
She nodded, putting the dog on the back seat. ‘All right, not Gus.’
‘I know he’s a brave boy, but I don’t want him killed.’
‘What?’ She was startled.
‘You heard.’ Coffin was already walking forward. In the big front entrance there was a panel of bells with entryphones. He pressed the bell under Mary’s name, and she answered at once.
‘Come up. I’ll have the door open.’
There were three lifts in a row. Stella started towards one, but Coffin put his hand under her elbow. ‘We’ll walk.’ At the third floor, Coffin stood looking about him.
Mary was standing by her door. ‘It’s good to see you … Stella.’ She held out her hand. ‘I didn’t expect you.’
Less good to see me, Stella decided, but polite about it. Leaving Gus in the car was the right thing to do.
They went straight into the sitting room. Mary stood in the middle of the room; in the light there they could see a bruise on her cheek.
; ‘How did you get that?’ asked Coffin.
Mary did not answer. Another woman pushed open an inner door and stood looking at them. Her face was bloody and swollen, thick bruises were already lining up around her eyes and mouth.
‘The same way she got those. You know Ed Saxon’s wife, I take it?’
‘He didn’t know me this way, be surprised if he knows this face.’ Laurie Saxon had a deep, husky voice.
‘I know you, Laurie,’ said Coffin. ‘Did Ed do that to you?’
‘Who else?’
‘And he hit you too, Mary.’ It was not a question and Mary Seton did not answer it. ‘Why?’
‘Not because he loves us, but because he is angry and when Ed is angry he has to hit someone. Preferably someone who can’t hit back.’
Coffin turned to Mary. ‘Is that why you sent for me?’
She licked her lips. ‘He’s very, very angry. I was frightened.’
‘Where is he?’
The inner door opened. ‘He’s here,’ said Ed Saxon. He stood, feet apart, looking large and dangerous. ‘I’m glad you came; I thought you would if I got Mary to phone you. You always were a ladies’ man. I see you’ve brought Stella with you. I wish you hadn’t. Stella, you shouldn’t have come.’
Coffin pushed Stella behind him.
‘I don’t want to spoil your pretty face …’
‘I know all about you and TRANSPORT A to give it that name. I know you were the corrupt one in the middle, and this was why you sent me off on that wild-goose chase.’
‘Aren’t you the clever one?’
‘You gave me those files so I would be inspired to get off to Coventry and Oxford, to get me out of the way, because you knew that Humphrey Gillow of the Home Office had put me on to investigate the whole business. I was meant to be killed, as you killed Harry Seton, because he didn’t only suspect, he knew.’
‘Mary and I didn’t want that, did we, Mary?’
Something like a moan came through Laurie’s swollen lips. Mary said nothing. Practically everything she had said and done had been false, a lie, Coffin thought. Everything began to look like a set-up now from the fire, which either Saxon or Mary or both had organized (she had certainly gone there to check up), to some of the file messages.
Not the Pennyfeather mention, though – that had to be a genuine contribution from Seton which had not been deleted by his killers.
Right, let’s sum it up, a cynical question arising about the probity of that forensic search. But go on.
So it was Mary, Coffin thought, who had gone into Seton’s office, messed it up, and left confusing messages on the computer. A dear little traitor. And ASK COFFIN, that was her idea to intrigue me, spur me on, because I had liked Harry Seton.
‘But I didn’t kill Seton. Not me.’
‘You paid. Or did Mary pay? Inspector Davenport suspects it was her.’
‘Only because of you. Davenport couldn’t see through a glass wall, sod him.’
Not drunk, Coffin decided, but high, wild on something.
‘But you can all go together, a bullet each: you first Coffin, ladies afterward. Not Mary, I’ve grown attached to her face … quotation, you are not the only one who reads. Mary can come with me. But not my dear wife who has been helping herself to my money.’
He was drawing a gun from his pocket.
I wish I had brought Gus up here, thought Stella, he would have leapt forward.
‘I came ready,’ Ed said.
‘And so did I,’ said Coffin; he slid a small gun into his hand. ‘I got this out of stock just in case. And if I miss you, Ed, don’t think I didn’t send a message ahead. Davenport might be outside now.’
He fired the gun straight at Ed Saxon.
‘You didn’t hit him,’ said Stella as they drove home.
It was late at night, they had both made statements, and answered all the questions that Davenport had asked. They had agreed to come back if more was needed.
‘No, I never meant to, he wasn’t worth the killing, but I did enjoy the look on his face when he thought he was a dead man. He never had any bottom.’
‘What about the money?’
‘There won’t be any. My guess is that he took money with him when he went abroad and paid it into accounts there. Laurie had been milking it. She will probably quietly disappear and live on it in comfort. Ed loved money, but more than that he resented his lack of promotion. It would have given him real pleasure to wipe me out.’
‘Yes,’ said Stella, ‘I admit I was overjoyed when Inspector Davenport and his cohorts burst in.’
‘Yes, I had the forethought to let him know where I was and to come on round. I went back to telephone.’
‘I wondered what you did then … At one point I longed for Gus and his attacking teeth.’
‘He did sterling work barking down below. It certainly alerted Davenport and made him get a move on.’
‘Do you think Gus could hear and knew we were in danger?’
‘No, I think he just wanted to join in the fun.’
‘I am glad you call it that.’
They drove on in silence. They were nearly home, with the lights of the Second City all around them, when Stella said: ‘I might as well tell you that the National deal coming up was a godsend. I was glad to have an excuse to come home … All these women who seem to be in your life … Phoebe, Paddy Devlin, Mary Seton … I was jealous.’
Coffin drove on. ‘I knew it,’ he said, a touch smugly.
Stella went to bed, exhausted, but while she slept, Coffin sat up, thinking over the events of the last few days.
Had justice been done? Would it be better if men like Ollie Deccon and Ed Saxon died? Both of them had used other human beings, which was surely the ultimate sin.
As dawn came, he went into the kitchen to make some coffee. Gus got out of his basket to come in search of food and company.
The telephone in the kitchen rang, and Coffin answered it quickly in case it should disturb Stella.
He listened to what Inspector Davenport had to say. ‘Yes, thank you for telling me. Probably for the best.’
He put the telephone down and gave Gus a pat. Later he would tell Stella.
Ed Saxon had died from poison soon after being charged and detained. ‘He must have had a suicide pill in his mouth,’ Davenport had said. He sounded disappointed.
If you enjoyed A Grave Coffin, check out these other great Gwendoline Butler titles.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gwendoline Butler is a Londoner, born in a part of South London for which she still has a tremendous affection. She was educated at Haberdashers and then read history at Oxford. After a short period doing research and teaching, she married the late Dr Lionel Butler, Principal of Royal Holloway College. She has one daughter.
Gwendoline Butler’s crime novels are very popular in Britain and the States, and her many awards include the Crime Writers’ Association’s Silver Dagger.
When she isn’t writing, she spends her time travelling and looking at pictures, furniture and buildings.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
One evening in April 1988, I sat in Toynbee Hall in the East End of London, near to Docklands, listening to Doctor David Owen (now Lord Owen) give that year’s Barnett Memorial Lecture. In it, he suggested the creation of a Second City of London, to be spun off from the first, to aid the economic and social regeneration of the Docklands.
The idea fascinated me and I have made use of it to create a world for detective John Coffin, to whom I gave the tricky task of keeping there the Queen’s Peace.
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
Coffin’s Game
A Double Coffin
A Dark Coffin
The Coffin Tree
A Coffin for Charley
Cracking Open a Coffin
Coffin on Murder Street
Coffin and the Paper Man
Coffin in the Black Museum
Coffin Underground
Coffin in Fashion
Coffin on the Water
A Coffin for the Canary
A Coffin for Pandora
A Coffin from the Past
Coffin’s Dark Number
Coffin Following
Coffin in Malta
A Nameless Coffin
Coffin Waiting
A Coffin for Baby
Death Lives Next Door
The Interloper
The Murdering Kind
The Dull Dead
Coffin in Oxford
Receipt for Murder
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
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United Kingdom
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United States
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http://www.harpercollins.com
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