A Coffin for Charley (20 page)

Coffin walked towards his office, where, under the firm eye of his secretary, he set about clearing his desk.

When he had a gap, he spoke to Archie Young on the telephone. ‘Inquire at Harrison's of Bond Street if Caroline Royal worked there.' There was a mutter across the line. ‘Just an idea …'

He could imagine what Archie Young was saying to his Inspector: ‘The boss is having one of his psychic turns.' He wouldn't laugh, though, because he had met this trick of Coffin's before, been sceptical and then found it had worked.

And it was no trick, it was based, as he knew, on seeing further into the wood than he did himself. That was the difference between Archie Young and the Chief Commander and why John Coffin was where he was.

Coffin went into his outer office about to say to his secretary that he was going for a walk (his code name was not W
ALKER
for nothing), only to find himself confronted with Job Titus, MP, and Eddie Creeley. Titus looked as usual, nothing seemed to dent his ebullience, but Eddie Creeley's face was white.

Coffin sent a reproachful look at his secretary, but she was new in the post, a career move for one helper and pregnancy for the other had left him naked to the world for a few weeks with only temporary help. Frances, his new secretary, had not yet learnt all the rules, the foremost of which was: Keep them all out. His assistant, young
Andrew, was on a course, his office was understaffed.

However, he admitted that Job Titus would be a hard man to turn away. He himself found it difficult, but he played the card he had in his hand.

‘I'm afraid that I'm just going out.'

Titus took no notice, he brushed past Coffin. ‘Won't keep you a minute. Come on, Creeley.' He didn't look behind to see but he had Eddie Creeley on a string and he knew it. Creeley followed meekly. Last came John Coffin.

He closed the door behind them. ‘Well?' He did not ask them to sit down.

Job Titus drew up a chair and sank down, Eddie remained standing, so did Coffin.

‘You've got another body.'

‘How do you know that?' Into his mind shot a picture of Miss Nobody, the girl with the tumbled black hair and the chewed nails. Titus should not know about her yet.

‘It doesn't matter.'

You worry me, Coffin decided. You have sources of information I don't control, I don't trust you, and I don't like you. And you don't like me.'

‘It does matter, it matters to me, but we won't go into that now. What do you want? Why are you here?' He didn't sit down. A faint sense of the ridiculousness of the situation was beginning to seep into him. He'd count to three and then he would sit down. Invite Eddie Creeley to do the same.

‘If there's another body and it forms a series, then I'm not guilty of killing Marianna, and Eddie here is not guilty of killing Didi.'

‘I loved Didi,' said Eddie hoarsely. ‘Wouldn't have touched her.'

‘And for what it's worth, I was fond of Marianna … All right, she could be a pain, so can most women, but you don't kill them just for being themselves.'

‘It's true that another body, strangled like the first two, has been found, but no conclusions can be drawn yet.'

‘Then let me draw them for you: if you have a multiple murderer, then it's not me and it's not Eddie. I did not kill
Marianna, Eddie did not kill Didi and Eddie did not kill Marianna for money for me … Yes, I know you thought that.'

Once again, he knew too much.

‘So you can stop digging into my life looking for muck.'

‘I'm not digging into your life.'

‘No, but your men are.'

Coffin looked at his hands and masked what might have grown into a smile. Good for you, Archie Young, so you have been looking into Job Titus.

Titus saw him. ‘Well, damn you for being smug.'

Coffin jerked upright.

‘Nothing in your life that you've ever been ashamed of?' Titus was an angry man.

‘We all have.'

‘Of course you have. So have I. More than I'm proud of, I expect. They'll find things there if they dig hard enough, but that is not what your job should be. I did not kill Marianna. Must I say it again?'

‘I heard the first time.'

‘And perhaps it has never occurred to you that I was seeing Eddie because I was sorry for him. Because I think the Creeley family are a sad lot who could do with a helping hand. Apart from anything else, I am their MP, they are my constituents, it's my duty to look out for them. Lizzie Creeley wrote to me. What she and her brother did all those years ago was wrong, but she's paid. I was sorry for her.'

Coffin took a deep breath.

He didn't like Titus, he never had, but he had to admit there was a genuine note to all this. It would be intolerable if he was obliged to like the man or even to respect him.

He stood up, walked across to a wall cabinet. ‘Let me offer you a drink.'

Fifteen minutes later he saw them out himself. Eddie Creeley shook his hand several times, muttering thanks. He was limping slightly.

‘How's your leg, Eddie?' asked Coffin.

Eddie blushed. ‘Better. My own fault. I did it myself, I thought I could kill myself … cut a vein. Didn't work. Wasn't brave enough, hadn't the stomach, felt sick.'

‘Dying can be a harder job than it looks, Eddie. I'd steer clear of it if I were you.'

Job Titus had moved ahead. ‘Come on, Eddie, I'll drive you home.'

When they had gone, his secretary said: ‘Are you still going for a walk?'

‘No, I don't think so.'

‘I'm sorry I let them in.'

‘It didn't matter.'

‘Oh, good, I thought you were really angry, but now you're not.'

He leaned against the door, admitting with reluctance that Titus had altered his mood. That's charm in operation, he admitted, and I'm not sure if it's honest or if you can trust it.

He straightened up. ‘I've changed my mind. I will go for a walk.'

The message went around: W
ALKER
is on the prowl.

The Chief Commander did not go far, he walked a few hundred yards to a small park which perched on a hill so that it looked down on the river. He sat on a bench thinking.

He enjoyed surveying this Second City for whose peace he was responsible, and from where he sat he could see the top of St Luke's Mansion, his own tower was unmistakable. He could make out the curve of Napier Street where Annie Briggs lived, and if he used his imagination he could see where the roof of the Karnival Club must be.

He thought about the three dead girls; he thought about the tape with Eddie's name on it. If Eddie had not been the killer, not been named by the soon-to-be-killed Didi because he was there, then he had been named deliberately.

He thought about the new body whose chewed nails had been covered. The killer had known about them.

That must mean that the killer was not a man picking
at random, this killer was working deliberately, choosing victims and casting suspicion on purpose.

This killer was at home among them.

The wind blew from the river bringing dampness on its breath. He got up, walking down the path to the gate.

Out there, the police machine was working on. Interviews were being taken and recorded, telephone calls made, and all details passed to the Locating Officer. The computers would be working overtime (if they didn't break down) and now it was an inter-force investigation, the Metropolitan CID would be involved.

With all this concentrated work, they ought to nail the killer.

But luck came into it too, you always needed that special bit of luck.

He walked back to the office, checked the latest letters and faxes and calls that had come in. All routine, nothing fresh as yet from Archie Young and his team.

He went home, his mind calling up his other current worry: sister Letty. He had a key to Stella's flat, so he let himself in to listen to Letty's message on her recording machine.

Letty had not had much to say and had probably chosen her time when Stella would be out so that she would not speak to her directly.

Don't worry about me, she said, I'm all right and will be in touch. Trust me.

He listened carefully. She had been speaking on a public telephone in a noisy place.

He ran it again. Voices and movements in the background. A voice speaking on a public address system. The speaker was making an announcement of some sort.

A railway station? And if so, where?

He left Stella's place and climbed his own staircase. It might be possible to bring up the voice, hear what it had to say, and identify the location.

Possibly. Science was magic. But then Letty herself was still on the loose and doing what?

The whole place was dark with no sign of Stella. The dog was asleep on the bed and the cat was looking out of the window, so there was life around.

He made himself some coffee and considered a strong nip of whisky but he had gone that way once too often in the past and it was better avoided.

As he went to the refrigerator he found a note from Stella stuck to the door. ‘I will cook dinner,' it said.

Fat chance, he thought, looking around the bare room. There might be food there but it was well hidden. He sat down in the kitchen to drink his coffee and continue to think.

But when Stella arrived within the hour, she confounded him: she was followed by a trio of helpers from Max's Delicatessen, each bearing dishes.

She smiled at him and kissed his cheek. ‘Friends?' She had never quite understood why she had been cast into darkness after telling about Job Titus, but she was glad to be back in the warm. She felt sure she was.

‘Did you say cook?' said Coffin, looking over her shoulder.

‘It counts as cooking.' She waved her hand as her supporters deposited dishes on the table. ‘Beef en croûte, salad and garlic bread. I think there are mushrooms in that dish.' She lifted a lid: ‘And orange pudding in this.' She distributed tips and smiles lavishly to the dish-bearers, then took up the conversation begun in the Underground as if they had only just parted.

‘So what about Harrison's of Bond Street?'

Coffin broke off a lump of garlic bread. ‘I don't know yet. Just an idea … There's enough garlic in here to keep off vampires.'

‘Perhaps that was my idea.'

He looked at her sharply. ‘What's that?'

Stella sat down, facing him. The cat leapt on to her lap where she stroked it. ‘My follower was back today.'

‘What?'

‘Yes, just as I came out of the Tube … Must have been waiting. There's a dark corner there, good to lurk in.'

‘He, she or it threw something at me.'

She saw the alarm in his face. ‘No, it wasn't a bomb although it could have been. It was this.' She reached into her pocket and put a rose on the table.

‘If that's from Charley, then I think it's goodbye.'

In the murky river

No one disturbed them that night except the cat demanding to be let out and then in again.

‘Stella, I am going to take the tape from your answering machine and see if I can get the background noises brought up. It should be possible, technically … It might help to work out where Letty is.' God knows what she was up to.

‘I wish you would. I'm worried about her.' Stella studied her face in the looking-glass on her dressing-table while she considered what shade of lipstick would give her most uplift today. Sometimes a bright colour destroyed you, whereas on another day it was just what you needed. Soft colour today, she thought. Then she said, as if one decision made released another, ‘About the smell. It wasn't totally masculine. Men and women do smell differently, you know, and I don't just mean aftershave and toilet water. It's the hormones.'

‘I know,' said Coffin. Did he though?

‘And the figure that came near me that day … Well, the clothes smelt of a man, smoky and masculine, but there was the smell of a woman too.'

‘And that's what you picked up in the Karnival Club?'

‘Yes. Similar.'

‘Thank you,' he said. He knew where that thought led him.

But in the morning, as soon as he arrived in his office he got the telephone call he had been hoping for about Caroline Royal.

‘Yes,' said Chief Inspector Young. ‘Yes and yes. Harrison's of Bond Street do know Caroline Royal, they have employed her for years and she still works for them. I don't know how you knew.'

‘Just something I saw.'

‘It's a pity my lot didn't draw the right conclusions, eyes and no eyes,' said Archie Young somewhat sourly. He did not enjoy being set on the right track too often by the boss. Just once, he prayed to his anonymous God who sounded very like his former headmaster at school, just once, let it be me.

‘And you have an address?'

‘We have an address for her. South London.' Then he added: ‘They haven't seen her for some time. She'd been on a business trip to America and since then has had a bit of leave.'

‘Have they spoken to her?'

‘Not recently.'

‘Well, good luck to you.' Coffin hesitated and the Chief Inspector crossed his fingers. ‘I wish I could come with you but I can't.'

The Chief Inspector uncrossed his fingers and said cheerfully that he would keep in touch.

Middle of the day and the river running fast

Caroline Royal was not expecting a visitor, she was lying in bed reading. By her side was a mug of coffee and some fruit. Breakfast as a meal was out; she was a tall, well-built young woman who dared not put on weight. She wore trouser suits a lot, all the travelling she did made it convenient, but her clothes were tailored, made for her at Harrison's and she could not risk expanding out of them. No one was allowed to get fat at Harrison's.

She looked down at her legs stretched out on the bed. Nice around the ankles, a bit thick on the thighs, put on more weight and she would look like a middle-aged man
in that latest tweed. Lovely colour, of course, like ripe mulberries, and delicious texture, you couldn't beat the Italians.