A Coffin for Charley (21 page)

But not to look like a man, although she did admit that she had had fun once or twice, wearing a tie and putting on a felt hat. Which had been a mistake in one way, clearly a mistake, because it gave certain people the wrong idea. One certain person, anyway.

I am Caroline Royal, she said to herself. She said it again, like a mantra. Caroline Royal, Caroline Royal.

It was as well to remember it, because she hadn't been christened it, had sort of invented herself. The fashion world was a tough business and the power to invent yourself and reinvent yourself was important.

She had done it more than once and thought she might soon be moving on again.

When the doorbell rang she was under the shower, she considered ignoring the summons, but it rang again with the sort of energy that forced an answer from you.

She wrapped herself up and got there before the next ring. ‘What do you want?' she said aggressively. The sight of three men there both alarmed her and got the adrenalin rising at the same time.

Chief Inspector Young and a sergeant from the Second City investigating team, together with a man from the local CID because this street was in the Met's territory, stood there. Politely he identified himself before asking if she was Miss Royal and could they come in?

‘Why me?'

He murmured something about a murder inquiry but he was watching her with interest. As Caroline stepped back into the room, he summed her up as a masculine-looking girl who could probably look after herself.

‘Wait while I get dressed.'

She returned wearing a pleated skirt with a silk shirt in which she looked entirely feminine. Women could always surprise you, Young thought.

She seemed startled to be asked about Napier Street and
Annie Briggs, who had not, she implied, been an ideal landlady.

‘No,' said Caroline Royal. ‘No, I haven't lived there for weeks. Months. I paid my rent and cleared out. I didn't like my landlady, she was creepy. And no, I didn't leave male clothes behind. And I didn't have a man there. Not once, not ever.'

I have no sex life to speak of, except in the odd hotel room in Paris or Rome or New York. I am always on the move, and even then it is usually to cement a deal. They are not celebrations of sex but a kind of business arrangement.

‘She had a man about the place, more than one possibly. I caught the odd glimpse.'

Caroline did not think she could identify the man, just the odd flash, they knew how it was.

‘No, it was not the reason I moved, it was not my sort of place, not as near the City Airport as I'd thought, and miles from Heathrow. I travel a lot, just back now … It's how I come to have heard of the murder. I liked Didi.' She frowned. She was right to have got out. It might have been her.

‘Was it Annie?' she asked. ‘I mean … is it Annie who killed Didi and the other one?'

‘Why do you say that?'

Caroline paused, shrugged and looked doubtful. ‘Don't know. Just came into my mind. She's that sort, could be anything.'

Late afternoon. Low tide on the Thames

Archie Young went back and made his report to the Chief Commander. ‘So Caroline is alive and well, has not lived in Napier Street for some time, and she fingered Annie for the murders.'

‘You thought she was honest? Telling the truth?'

‘I did. A tough young woman, but honest.' A touch masculine, but attractive.

And Annie had lied. Lied up down and round about. Had them for fools. Coffin found he resented this treatment, and he knew what to do about it.

‘Better see Annie, then.'

‘She's playing the same card as before. Won't see anyone if you aren't there.'

Coffin looked at his diary: ‘This evening, then. Keep her in play until then.'

It was true that the Chief Commander was busy with the routine duties of his office, but he needed time to think. He hoped Archie Young was doing the same.

He allowed himself an hour which he called his Think Session.

He read through the file that contained all the up-to-date reports on the deaths of Marianna Manners and Didi Dunne. He had nothing yet on the new and unidentified victim.

As far as he could see, there was no circumstantial evidence that connected any known suspect with the death of either girl. No fingerprints, no discernible body traces, no forensic evidence of any kind. The killer had been clever or lucky.

Job Titus was clever, Eddie Creeley was not. Job Titus might be lucky, Eddie Creeley belonged to a family that passed on bad luck like a legacy.

He knew what Young would say. ‘When we know who it is, then we will get the forensic evidence,' and he would think: Oh, Archie, Archie, those days are done. Evidence first, please, and then the arrest. Not the arrest and then dig out the evidence that convicted. Tempting but dangerous.

So they had two dead bodies, and a third, and nowhere to look. He knew the police machine was rolling on and any moment now might produce a vital piece of information.

But at this moment there was nothing but questions.

The tape with Eddie's name on it.

The chewed fingernails.

The fact that the last victim had been the first killed.

These were interesting facts that had to be explained.

In all cases, there were left questions unanswered, puzzles with no easy answer, and perhaps this was what they had there.

He drank some cold coffee which tasted rank on his tongue. A long while since he'd dealt with a poisoning case, he thought, but cold coffee would be a way to administer it. If you could get the victim to drink.

What was he thinking then: that the three deaths were connected, one killer involved? Yes, he accepted that as real.

So they had a serial killer?

Why then did he have this uneasy feeling that this was not a serial crime in the classic sense?

Because he had the strong feeling that all the deaths were meant to be discovered and the first death was to be found last.

It might be they had found the last girl too soon for the murderer. Was that a feasible thought?

The power of analysis and then of synthesis that had given him such power as a detective was forcing him now to break down the events into various pieces, not just as previously seen, and he was putting them together in another mosaic.

A killer with a plan. A Charley, not sexually driven but otherwise motivated.

What motive? Love, hate, revenge, money, malice, these were good sign words.

He supposed you could fit Annie out with revenge. She had long given signs of wanting revenge on the world.

As Archie Young met him, walking across the pavement on Napier Street to that tall, ugly house with the empty top floor, he said: ‘One more thing: Caroline Royal said, “Ask Annie about the Karnival Club.” She seemed to think it meant something.'

‘I bet it does.' That place seemed to fit into everything. But Caroline Royal's words echoed his own thoughts. Young's too, judging by the look on his face.

Without another word, they went in to see Annie
together. The door was opened by a uniformed woman police officer who had the tired, baffled look that contact with Annie seemed to bring on.

When they got there, Annie was supported by Tom Ashworth and Alex Edwards.

‘Hello, Annie. You wanted me, here I am.' Coffin nodded towards the two men.

‘I asked them to come.' Annie jerked her head defiantly. Go on, blame me, send them away if you dare, she was saying.

No one was better at body language, thought Coffin, a natural performer. Or was dissembler a better word?

‘So, Annie, you know why we are here? To get the truth about Caroline Royal. She has not lived in the flat above for some weeks, has she? She gave notice and left and you knew it.'

Annie remained quiet.

‘Come on, Annie, the male clothes found there were not hers. Nothing to do with her. Whose were they?'

Alex Edwards went across to where Annie sat and put his arm round her. ‘Don't bully her.'

‘Am I bullying you, Annie?'

‘Don't Annie me.'

‘Let's go up the stairs and look around, examine the clothes. Shall we?'

Alex said loudly: ‘I call that bullying. Don't go, Annie.'

‘I don't want to go,' said Annie.

‘I think we'd better, Annie.' Coffin's voice was cold. He held out his hand. Still Annie stayed where she was. ‘Or shall we bring them down to you?'

‘Don't go,' said Alex.

Annie stood up suddenly. ‘Shut up.' The Annie underneath, who was not so docile and good and gentle as the Annie on top suddenly showed. ‘Let's get this over.'

All four trailed up the iron staircase. ‘You've got a key,' Annie said. ‘Must have. I gave you one.'

Archie Young produced a key and unlocked the front door. Inside, the flat smelt damp and empty. Easy to believe now that it had been unlived in for weeks.

Coffin said: ‘Let's get those clothes from the cupboard. You do it, Annie.'

She didn't move.

‘All right, I will.' Coffin went into the bedroom, brought out the dark overcoat, boots and hat. He held them out. ‘Try them on, Annie, try them on for size.'

She took them and threw them on the ground.

‘They are yours, aren't they? You wore them. My wife and others saw you in them. You like dressing in them. Annie here, Charley at the Karnival Club.'

Tash said, ‘Say nothing, Annie.'

‘My wife saw you. You hung around. You frightened her.'

In a rough quick voice, Annie said: ‘I didn't harm her, I love her, I just looked.'

‘Looks can be a threat,' said Coffin.

‘I wanted a part of her.'

Coffin winced. Poor Stella, many wanted a part of her, unlikely vultures. Perhaps he was one.

‘Let's go back downstairs,' said Tom Ashworth.

But Annie, having started to talk, could not stop. ‘I knew when I saw those two Creeleys burying the old man and woman that I was different. Not like other children. It took me a time to realize what it was, years really, although I was always worried. Then I knew. I didn't have one sex, I had two. I could be what I liked. But don't get me wrong, I was a good wife and mother. Only I suppose my husband could tell … But I'm a good mother.'

‘I'm sure you are,' said Coffin gently. ‘Where's the child now?'

‘She's with her gran, my husband's mother. They get on. I sent her away.'

‘Annie, be quiet,' said Tash.

‘I'm advising her,' said Alex Edwards. ‘I do that.'

‘You be quiet too.'

‘I didn't kill anyone,' said Annie. ‘I didn't, I didn't.' She started to scream at the top of her voice. ‘Get out, all of you.'

The noisy, violent unstable Annie was out in the open.

Dead water

Chief Inspector Archie Young meditated aloud: ‘So we've got an occasional transvestite who has an obsession with your wife and possibly other ladies but who probably didn't kill anyone.'

‘I think she could kill someone,' said Coffin, who had been alarmed by the look in Annie's eyes. ‘But it might be herself.'

‘She has friends, helpers. Alex Edwards for one, although he's an odd bloke and I wouldn't choose him as my own best friend, but she seems to like him. Or perhaps she hasn't got much choice, he does hang around. And there's the chap from Tash. I suppose she's paying him?'

‘He likes payment,' said Coffin, thinking of the substantial bill for Stella's divorce. And no doubt Letty,
in absentia,
was clocking one up also.

‘You can tell Mrs Coffin to stop worrying now.'

‘I think she was telling me herself,' said the Chief Commander, remembering the look on Stella's face when they had talked about the scents of men and women. How long had she known?

‘I'm afraid I haven't helped you much in this case,' he went on. ‘All I seem to have done so far is eliminate one suspect after another.'

Job Titus was gone, Eddie Creeley was out, now Caroline Royal and Annie. Had they ever been serious suspects?

‘You've been interested, sir,' said Archie smoothly, ‘and that always encourages chaps in the field.' He was being tactful and he knew it.

‘Did I tell you I had a conversation with Titus and Creeley?' Not that Creeley had said much. ‘All bluster and puff and as much oil as the water would bear.'

‘You don't like Titus.' Young was reflective. ‘But who does?'

‘His constituents seem to. And a fair number of women.'

‘It's his face,' said Young. ‘He looks like a chastened angel.'

Poetry from Archie Young was always a surprise. Coffin gave a moment's consideration to whether Archie had picked up any gossip about Stella and Job Titus; it was about fifty-fifty that he had done.

‘I'd like to get him for something,' he heard himself say. ‘Corruption or unfair pressure in getting the Creeley pair out of prison.' Titus made him feel wicked.

‘Did you really say that aloud, sir?' asked Young politely.

‘You didn't hear me.'

They walked into Police Headquarters side by side. ‘I'll just go into the Murder Room to see what they've got that's new,' said Young.

‘Let's have a drink first. In my room.'

Once inside the Chief Commander's comfortable room, Young relaxed, enjoyed his whisky and wondered what was coming.

‘I seem to have lost my sister,' said Coffin. ‘Mislaid her, anyway.'

‘I had heard something of that sort.'

Coffin nodded. ‘Thought you might have.' Of course. Little in his life was secret from these professionals, from his relations with Stella to what he had for lunch.

‘I've met her once or twice. She struck me as a very sensible, rational lady. Down to earth in a nice kind of way. Not one to do anything without good reason.'

‘That's what worries me.'