A Coffin for Charley (29 page)

‘It'll have to be the police.'

John Coffin had convinced the two other policemen.

‘So what next?' asked Young.

‘Take him in,' muttered Wally Watson.

‘But can we charge him yet?'

‘There's the fingerprint,' said Coffin.

Young looked doubtful. ‘That could be explained away.'

‘It'll do for a start.'

‘We have the address to go to, his office.'

‘Will he still be there?' questioned Wally Watson. ‘What about the telephone call from Birmingham?'

‘I don't suppose he really rang from there,' said Coffin. ‘I think he's still here. But not for long. Let's go.'

Two cars set out, Coffin and Walter Watson in front, with Archie Young and a sergeant following.

They drove through Spinnergate to the small building with dirty windows and a basement with iron bars next to a betting shop. Coffin had been there before and did not like it any better this time. He stared down into the basement and felt cold: Mary Andrews had been kept there, and starved.

He felt the chill of malice and evil in that starvation. Hatred of a person. Money was not the only motive, he thought, there was hate, evil, inside this man.

They pushed inside without waiting for an invitation.

A pleasant-faced young man with dark hair got up from behind a desk. ‘What can I do for you?' He hesitated. ‘You're police officers, aren't you?'

‘And who are you?' asked Coffin.

‘Tash. T. Ashworth,' the young man said.

Coffin nodded. ‘And how long have you been using that name?'

‘For about forty-eight hours. It's not illegal, I've bought the business. It's my professional name. It's not my real name, nor was it the last chap's, there hasn't been an Ashworth for the last ten years.'

‘So where is the last Tom Ashworth?'

‘I don't know. My solicitor must do, he arranged the contract. Indemnity and all that. The chap's out there somewhere.' He was blithe about it.

Then he looked anxious. ‘What's up?'

‘Nothing that you've done. But I am afraid that we will
have to turn you out and seal up the premises. You'll get back in, don't worry … Archie, leave the sergeant here to do what's necessary.'

The sergeant licked his lips in anticipation. If he played this well, he could see a chance of promotion. He nodded. ‘I know what to do, sir.'

Other teams of experts would be surging in, fingerprinting, photographing, searching the very dust of the place, but he had the luck, he was here first.

‘Be careful with the basement,' said Coffin. ‘I want that dealt with inch by inch, and nothing missed.' I'll get that bastard, he thought. Hanging would have been too good for him, frying would have been better.

The two cars drove back together, but this time the Chief Inspector drove with Coffin so that they could talk.

‘He's got away. Too carefree altogether, that young man who bought the firm.' Coffin was tense.

‘But we know where he must go,' said Young. ‘To that other identity he will claim. Charles French, where are you?'

When they got back to Headquarters, they heard the news that Lizzie Creeley was waiting for them: she had made her report.

‘I suppose forensics are in Napier Street,' said Coffin to himself. To his surprise, Lizzie answered: ‘I don't know. I went with Annie to hospital.'

‘Hospital?'

‘Well, someone had to.'

‘Then she wasn't dead?'

‘Not sure,' said Lizzie. ‘I thought she was.'

But she would not have gone to hospital, dead bodies do not go to hospital.

Coffin and Archie Young consulted. ‘I'll go,' said Young. ‘On my way.'

‘Right.' At that moment Coffin's secretary arrived. ‘Oh, sir, your wife telephoned and left a message. She's on her way home. About forty minutes, she said.'

‘Thank you.' Coffin turned to Young. ‘I'm coming with you.'

‘She's probably dead by now,' said Young as they drove. ‘Just our luck.'

But she was not.

‘That's a tough lady,' said the doctor who met them. ‘She must have a different constitution from most. But enough oxygen must have got through to the brain to keep her going.'

‘I think that's a fair description,' agreed the Chief Commander.

‘Of course, she may be brain damaged.'

But Annie proved them wrong. She opened her eyes, closed them again, and said: ‘Stella.'

Stella Pinero had driven herself home to St Luke's Mansions after a happy day. She was convinced that she had secured a new backer for St Luke's Theatre, and one who was prepared also to be patron to the new Drama School. With such a patroness, the school would surely get all the certifications necessary to tap all possible funds. Money was the game, but she must practise her curtsies.

She got out of her car and was locking it when she looked over her shoulder, there was a dark figure lurking behind her. Damn, surely that lark was over.

‘Annie, is that you?'

But she knew at once that this was not Annie: the smell was all wrong, this smell was totally masculine. But there was another smell as well. It was petrol.

Her shoulders were gripped and then something leather and hard slid round her neck. She began to choke. She felt herself pulled backwards, and her feet began to slip beneath her. She fell against her attacker who silently dragged her backwards.

Silently, silently.

The smell of petrol began to be stronger, she was choking and gasping for air. I am being doused in petrol, Stella thought, I am going to be burnt alive.

The body has its own survival instincts. Her arms and legs were constricted, she could hardly breathe, but she had the use of her legs. Performers know how to use every
part of their body, Stella kicked backwards at her opponent.

Her attack seemed unavailing, he was dragging her into the darkness of St Luke's courtyard, where he would set her alight and deposit her on her own doorstep.

I'm not going to let him, thought Stella. Anger gave her new strength.

The leather thong round her neck was biting into her skin. She heard the click of cigarette lighter, smelt the flame. Then suddenly headlights flared as a big car shot into the street, she and her attacker were caught in the beam. With new energy she thrust herself against the man, kicking with her high heels, struggling to free herself. One kick went home, she delivered another.

He swore at her: ‘Bitch!'

Then, with the sinuousness of a body trained in exercise, Stella swung round, pushing him as far away as she could. The man staggered against the wall of St Luke's, the petrol bottle fell to the ground, splashing him as it went.

Flames leapt all over him in one sudden eager movement. He was a flaming torch, reeling, rolling round the courtyard, screaming.

Stella's coat was burning, she tried to tear it from her back, but she was restricted by the belt round her throat and could hardly breathe, she wrenched at the leather, dragging it loose. Then she was pulling at her coat, staggering against the wall, still hearing the screams.

Coughing, she saw a figure leaving the car, dragging a smaller figure by the arm. She knew that car.

‘Letty …' it was all she whispered. ‘Letty! Help me! I'm on fire.'

Later, lying down in her bedroom, with Letty and the doctor, and somewhere in the room, her husband, she heard herself say: ‘Letty, what were you doing?'

‘I've come bloody home,' said Letty, who never swore. ‘And with my rotten, lousy daughter.'

Stella was breathing deeply. ‘Don't be too hard on yourself … I think you two saved me from being incinerated.'

The tide has turned

Stella sat in front of her dressing-table mirror examining her neck where a blue bruise was forming. The skin was torn where the buckle on the belt had bitten into her. There were patches of blisters, covered with dressing, lower down the neck, her hair had been singed and she needed a hairdresser, but on the whole, her condition several days later was not too bad. She had been scorched but not burnt.

Tash had gone up like a fireball and with eighty per cent burns had died within the day.

‘I shall need make-up on that,' she said, looking at what she could see of her neck.'

Thank God her face was unmarked, thought Coffin. He had a tightness in his throat that would not go away.

‘Dark cream, I think,' she went on, picking up a stick of make-up and beginning to pat on little blobs of colour. ‘I believe I like this tint. I last used it when I was in a Maugham play, I believe I came from somewhere south of Rangoon and was not quite a good woman . .. You know we hardly use make-up now, it's all meant to be so natural. Of course, if you're playing a corpse or an old man, you have to use slap.'

Her husband was sitting watching her. ‘You're talking too much,' he said in a fond voice. ‘Let her talk,' the doctor had said.

‘I know, that's because I'm feeling emotional. I smelt him burning, you know, I smelt burning hair and flesh.'

Coffin took her in his arms, but gently because her skin was tender.

‘I was nearly victim number five.'

‘Annie's still with us,' said Coffin. ‘So you would have been number four.' He wasn't joking, though, and he kept his eyes on her as if he could not let her out of his sight.
‘Annie's palled up with Lizzie, of all things.' You could hardly call it a friendship, but it was a relationship. Lizzie did the shopping for Annie while she was recovering, and they both watched television while Annie talked.

‘A complete waste, it would have been,' Coffin went on. ‘I feel vengeful about that: I hadn't read Didi's notes about getting help in her acting from Tom Ashworth who had trained actors and knew how to audition.'

‘Had he?'

‘He might have done a bit of acting, he was blond as Tash, but in nature it seems he is dark-haired and wore spectacles. The strange thing was that he had run the Tash agency for one whole year, establishing his identity. Back in Coventry he had worked in an estate agency, which is presumably where he got the idea of the big way to make money.'

‘If you'd arrived a bit earlier, you could have rescued me and not Letty.' But she had really saved herself with that last kick at the killer which threw him away. Still, Letty had wrapped Stella in her own coat, putting out her smouldering clothing. Yes, Letty had helped.

‘It's time Letty did something.' He was not feeling forgiving towards his darling sister. ‘She knew about Tom Ashworth, or guessed something.' That was what she had meant about the box and what was inside being something different. ‘And she never spoke clearly. Never came out with it.'

‘She had her own worries,' said Stella tolerantly, glad that the money bags were back. ‘Will Elissa and the boyfriend be charged?'

Coffin shrugged. ‘I'm not interfering. But yes, with several things, I expect, and so will the girl. He attacked a police officer, young thug, so there's that for a start.'

He got up. ‘All right, I'll mend fences with Letty, but the girl has to take what's coming to her.'

‘You ought to be grateful to her. If you hadn't gone to Birmingham you would have never have found the murderer's identity.'

‘Letty was my excuse for going, not my reason. I was
looking for what I found. I knew there had to be something like that behind the killings: money, I knew it the moment I saw that it had been intended that the first girl should be found and identified … she was in a site that was going to be excavated and she had her name tucked underneath her.'

‘What a great deal of detail he knew about places and people.'

‘Who better than a detective? Always had my eye on him, although I suspected the social worker for a bit. He seemed to fit.'

Stella dusted her neck with powder. ‘So the other two girls were just a cover-up? That's horrible. Where did he get the idea?'

‘I don't know,' said Coffin. ‘Read it in a book, I expect. Agatha Christie. I dare say. I expect we will find a row of crime books on the shelves when we search where he lived.'

‘Where did he live? Apart from here as Tom Ashworth … Oh, he was good-looking,' she said sadly.

‘He had a flat in Coventry.' He had looked like a cigarette burned at both ends by the time he got to hospital. The gods do a thorough job once they start. On the other hand, he had been found to have a huge cancer inside him, so who knew what games the gods were playing?

‘Poor Didi,' said Stella, ‘but she has people who grieve for her. Those other two girls, Marianna Manners and Mary Andrews, who grieves for them?'

‘I won't forget,' said Coffin. ‘And somehow, I think Annie will remember them all. She said she is going to pray for them. Lizzie with her, I expect. They seem to do things together now.'

Stella laughed. ‘Shall we give a party and ask them?'

‘Heaven forbid. She might come as Charley.'

But Charley had died, gone up in smoke.

Coffin looked at his wife. ‘Should I change my life? Should I retire?'

Stella put down the stick of Leichner. ‘You're not serious? What would you do?'

‘I might put in an offer for Tash. I would be with you a lot more.'

‘Darling, I love you dearly, but I think we are both better working … Oh, by the way.' She pulled a card from behind a bottle of scent. She held it out to Coffin. ‘Phœbe? Who is Phoebe?'

Her eyes were alight with amusement, and something else as well. Me and Job Titus, she was saying, so what about you?

‘Ah,' said Coffin.

Attack was the best method of defence. ‘We've got Job Titus,' he said. ‘He was picked up this evening … For kerb-crawling.'