A Coffin for Charley (8 page)

She hoped Caroline upstairs was careful.

While they were out, Caroline, if it was Caroline, came in. She couldn't stay, she was in her usual hurry.

The place was tidy, she always left it tidy and there was no need for Annie to come in and dust.

She went into her bedroom, looked over her clothes. They were not many in number because she liked quality, and they were what she called ‘mood' clothes. She stroked one or two pieces with a smile.

I always look good in that. Lovely cloth. She held the
jacket up against her. Mustn't put on weight. Not much chance of that, the way she worked and kept on the move. It needs a press, though.

Well, it could wait. She gathered up her hat, and her big despatch case which marked her out as a person who had important business to attend to every hour. This person is me, she said to herself, and sex doesn't come into it.

She was very conscious of that other presence, even if a quiet one. Asleep, must be asleep, she supposed. Not drunk, although she kept a bottle of whisky in the cupboard. All the same, accepting his sobriety as taken, sometimes more of the whisky was gone than she would have expected. Then she would replace the bottle without allowing herself to think too much about it.

She went to the window. A lot of lunatics out there. There was a man who was building Stonehenge in his garden, and for all she knew he was putting up a pyramid in the back yard. Symbols, she supposed, of something or the other.

Then there was the woman down at Spinnergate Tube Station who sold newspapers. She herself bought a paper there if the headlines looked interesting, although she tried to have the change always ready and be unobtrusive about it in case Mimsie noticed everything as she was reputed to do. Mimsie Marker always wore the same sort of flowered hat in summer and one with feathers in the winter, she kept loose change in a leather pouch like a kangaroo, and lived in a basement near the police station. And yet the story was she had a mansion in Epping and owned a Rolls. If that wasn't mad, she didn't know what sanity was.

The police were out there too. As a protection, of course. But also as interfering, sceptical, unbelieving nosey-parkers.

And murderers also walked.

She was really undecided what to do for the best, but time was short. She could get him up, see if he was still alive. But she knew he was. Had to be. There is death and death, and she knew Charley was not dead. Better if he was, maybe. She decided not to question the matter.

As she left, she said: ‘Don't move today, Charley. Better not, stay where you are. I've read your horoscope and I know it's best for you. I have business to attend to.'

Sadly she thought that this person that she was, that she had become, had to say that kind of thing.

Napier Street led into Fedan Street and Fedan Street turned right into Dockland Road, the busy artery which had the headquarters of the Police Authority, where the Chief Commander had his offices at one end and Karnival, the transvestite club, stood at the other.

John Coffin drove down Dockland Road early on the afternoon of that Thursday. He was on his way back to his own office after a boring morning on a dull but necessary committee. Not even any quarrels, which usually livened up the desert of three hours' staring at an agenda on controlling London's traffic when everyone knew that nothing could be done short of banning all traffic or knocking the capital down and starting again. You cannot control the uncontrollable and road traffic these days seemed to be a force of nature: always growing faster than you allowed for. His own district had its own particular problem of just one big artery in and out. Dockland Road joined this artery at an angle and then made its own way, as it had since Saxon times, out towards the Estuary.

He remembered the road well with all its junctions and blockage points. He never minded going slowly because it made for thinking time, something he was seriously short of.

As he drove, he was considering the death of Marianna and wondering what part, if any, the Karnival Club played in it. He had to pass where it was and might look in. Stella had been there too; he had a personal interest now.

Dockland Road was long and winding, nothing straight about it. Karnival was in Leathergate, at the western end of his bailiwick. A little bit further west and Karnival would have been sitting in the lap of the Tower of London and been the responsibility of the City of London Police. As it was, it was for him.

A narrow passage, Ladd's Alley, turned off to the west; this cul-de-sac was where the club had been for the last twenty years. No name, no one needed a name. It was marked, however, in its own way. A big lavender-coloured urn stood in a recess above the door. At night a single light shone on it. This was how you knew it. ‘Going down the Lav,' was how the frequenters put it. An old joke that no longer caused a giggle.

The club was housed in what had been a garage and the cul-de-sac had been its cobbled forecourt. There was nothing smart about the Karnival but at night it looked cosy and friendly.

Closed and shuttered as it was now, it looked depressing. He sat in his car surveying it from the road. Then he got out and walked down Ladd's Alley. Presumably in the distant past it had been Ladd's Garage.

On the other side of the alley was another door, painted red with a legend curving round the top of the door: STAND UP AND SHOUT FOR JESUS. He wondered if there was much shouting and what Karnival thought about it and what happened when both clubs were in full shout. But Karnival had the reputation of being a quiet and well-behaved club.

There was a car parked on the cobbles. In the gloom he could see a man sitting in it. Men sitting in parked cars in blind alleys arouse the instant interest if not downright suspicion of the police, and from long training John Coffin reacted.

He went over, rapped on the window and stared inside at the man.

Tom Ashworth rolled down the window. He recognized the Chief Commander at once, it was his job to know that sort of thing, and jumped out of the car. ‘Just taking a look.'

Coffin said nothing.

‘As you are yourself,' Ashworth added. ‘It's closed. No one there. I've tried the bell.'

He wasn't nervous, Coffin thought, but self-conscious.

‘One of your clubs?' he asked.

‘Only in the way of business. If I've got to watch someone.'

There are people in this world you have to know but don't want to go on knowing, and I think you're one of them, Coffin decided.

‘Are you watching anyone at the moment?'

Ashworth was silent, his eyes thoughtful. He looked across the road at the SHOUT FOR JESUS.

‘Wonder if they ever do?' he said. ‘And if the Karnival crowd join in?' He decided he would talk. ‘I've been looking over Job Titus. I didn't come here to watch him the first time, another job altogether, but when I saw him here I was interested. Not that he did anything. He behaved himself, sat there drinking and talking, just like a constituency meeting, didn't get up to dance or anything. Not with anyone or by himself, a few do that.'

‘No law against it.'

Ashworth grinned. ‘No, but an awful lot of prejudice.'

‘In certain quarters,' said Coffin in a neutral tone. He had nothing against anyone who danced with himself. Stella had taught him to be open-minded and generous in certain important ways. It was part of the gift of living that she had brought with her.

But Job Titus, he did not like.

‘All over the front pages today, isn't he? On some mercy mission, heaven help the poor sods who get him. I reckon you really know you're in trouble when Titus flies in.'

Coffin was aware that Job Titus had flown from Heathrow that morning, his departure and return had been quietly agreed upon. He'd be back tomorrow.

‘He knew the girl that was killed. I expect you know that? If you're doing your job, you should.' He took Coffin's silence for assent. ‘Don't know if he met her here or came here to see her. They were talking away.' He added carefully, ‘Quarrelling, I think. Yes, I think you'd call it quarrelling. Not shouting or anything but bitching quietly.'

His eyes went distant again. ‘You see some faces there all right, dressed in this and dressed in that, some you know, some you don't. Anyway, now I'm watching him for
a client, because he's seeing someone I don't care for very much. Scion of a murderous clan.'

He talked like that sometimes.

Creeley, thought Coffin. This is where our paths cross. And again he thought of Stella. Had Titus and Eddie Creeley seen her there? Creeley had been back from New Zealand by last summer.

He looked at his watch. ‘I'm going back to the office. Follow me, let's have a talk.'

‘I've got an appointment,' said Ashworth hastily.

Coffin ignored this. ‘And you can tell me why you are here now today.'

‘Watching,' said Ashworth, as he got back into his car. ‘Looking around. Just like you.'

Coffin sat him in a chair with a view of the river if you sat tall and had good long sight, and poured him a drink. ‘You look nervous,' he said kindly.

‘You make me nervous.'

‘So what took you into Karnival? The first time?'

‘Another bit of business,' said Tom vaguely. He wanted to keep his secrets.

‘And you saw Titus there with the girl? Well, we know about that. But you've also seen Titus with Edward Creeley? You get about a bit.'

‘I'm looking after things for Annie Briggs if you remember who she is.'

‘Oh, I remember all right.'

‘So she's nervous, and she has this idea that young Creeley is out to get her. Revenge, you know, family honour. Of course, Auntie's coming out, plus Uncle who's not with us in the world any more, so perhaps he doesn't mind too much about the honour, if he ever did.'

‘And you've been keeping an eye on him.'

‘Sort of.'

‘And while doing that, you saw him drinking with Titus? Are you suggesting he was a hired killer.'

Ashworth looked nervously around the room. ‘Is this being taped? That'd be slander or libel or something, wouldn't it?' He was acting more naïve than he really was.
He saw Coffin's sceptical look and decided to tone it down a bit. ‘It struck me as odd, that meeting. But Titus has interested himself in the Creeley case and may even have been responsible for getting Lizzie out.'

‘You're well informed.' Coffin wasn't quite so kind now.

‘I listen to things.

‘And what were you doing in the alley today? Apart from looking around, of course.'

Tom Ashworth felt the scepticism in the Chief Commander's voice and shifted uneasily.'

‘I had a contact there. Chap I knew. I was going to ask him if he'd seen the Creeley boy there.

What a liar you are, thought Coffin. One day I'll find out what the lie is. But he was half indulgent: he knew well that secrets are a private detective's stock in trade.

‘With or without Job Titus, MP,' Tom went on. ‘I was interested, it establishes character, doesn't it? The sort they are. I wanted to know.'

‘And what sort is young Creeley?'

‘You don't know him?'

Coffin shook his head.

‘I've got a photograph.' From an inner pocket, Tom took a coloured photograph which he handed over.

He waited quietly while Coffin studied it. A tall, plumpish, fair-haired young man was leaning forward over a bar-room table talking to Job Titus. He had a pleasant boyish face without a lot of expression. Titus seemed to be doing the talking.

‘I don't think he's a killer,' said Ashworth, ‘but I'm not sure.'

‘You're doing our job for us.' Coffin handed over the photograph. ‘Let me have a copy, will you?'

‘Sure.' He reached inside his pocket. ‘Here's another.'

‘You're worrying me,' said Coffin, as he reached across to take it. ‘What else is on offer?'

He didn't wait for an answer.

This time the photograph was of the same young man still wearing the expression of empty good humour as if he couldn't take it off. He was seated at another table in
another bar with a young woman. He had his arm round her shoulders.

‘Who's the girl?'

‘Didi, she's the sister.'

Coffin raised an eyebrow.

‘Annie Briggs's sister. Years younger.'

‘She's a beauty. Creeley's seeing her?'

‘I think she's in love with him. Could be. If she's not in love with someone called Charley.' He sounded thoughtful. ‘I can't get clear on that.'

‘Who's Charley?'

‘It's a name that crops up.'

‘Where?'

‘You could ask that and get different answers. Here and there. Movable man, is Charley. The Karnival for a start. Odd bars. You know the picture.'

‘Was Charley the reason you went to the Karnival?'

‘Let's say I was interested.'

Was he into blackmail? ‘Does Titus know Charley?'

‘I haven't been able to establish that,' said Tom with obvious regret.

‘Why were you interested?'

‘I am interested. It's my job. You never know what will be useful. Like the kid, Didi, with the Creeley boy. What's the relationship there? Boy and girl? Or something else? Anyway, they meet a lot. My client is the kid's sister, I don't think my client knows too much about it. Should I tell her? Well, maybe I will and maybe I won't.' He held out his hand for the picture but Coffin was still studying it. ‘Meanwhile I'm keeping an eye on him which is what I'm paid for.' Not that Annie had paid him yet. Not a penny. But she would do. Tom knew how to get his bills settled.

‘A copy of that picture too, please.'

‘Right.' He put the photograph back in his pocket and as he did so, another fell out. Coffin picked it up. This time the picture was of a middle-aged man holding open the iron gate to a tall house up whose side ran an iron fire staircase, an escape route from the top floor.