Coffin Knows the Answer (18 page)

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Authors: Gwendoline Butler

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‘Where's the next address?' he asked.
Phoebe fumbled with her papers; she did not usually fumble but her boss was making her nervous.
‘In order of killing then that is Phillida Jessup although I don't know if it's the nearest address.'
‘Let's go and have a cappuccino and think things over,' said Coffin.
Phoebe was surprised at this offer by her usually austere chief. ‘Is there anywhere near where we can get one?'
‘We can go to Mimsie Marker's. Her stall is not far away.' He began to drive away. ‘She's spreading too, she'll soon have an empire.'
Mimsie watched them approach. ‘Not seen you two together recently,' she said, folding her arms on her ample waist. Fashionably dressed, though, Mimsie always dressed well.
‘Work,' said Coffin. ‘And now we need some coffee, good and strong but with some cream.'
‘Treating yourself, eh?' asked Mimsie, starting the preparation.
‘A case like this you need it.'
‘Then I bet I know the case it is.' As she spoke she was pouring out the coffee and getting ready to carry it over to them.
A curving bench ran round one side of her stall with a shade over it to keep off sun and rain. Mimsie herself was well protected from the elements.
Coffin went up to get the coffee and to pay for it. The cappuccino looked good and strong, creamy on top and dark brown underneath. If anything could make Mimsie talk as you wished on the topic you wished (for talk she always would) it was praising her coffee.
‘This is powerful coffee, Mimsie, just what I need today.'
‘It's that serial killer,' she declared, ‘Knew it was soon as I saw you both. Written in your faces. Rotten business.'
Coffin did not deny it.
‘Take my advice, check the girls, find out what they had in common. You'll find the reason they were killed there. I know the theory is that these multiple killers strike at random … well some may, but I believe they go to each victim for a particular reason … find it and you are almost there.'
As Coffin began to make an acerbic response, a clutch of business men came up to get some lunch and a cup of coffee so the conversation had to stop.
Phoebe and Coffin enjoyed their coffee together with the piece of special shortcake that Mimsie had added.
‘Now where is it that Jessup lived?'
Thought you never forgot anything, said Phoebe to herself, as she consulted her list. ‘Six, Murt Terrace.'
‘And where is that?'
‘Thought you'd know, it's the road behind the old hall that the theatre uses for one of its rehearsal rooms. Lady Coffin would know it.' And I bet you do, she said to herself, but for some reason you don't want to say so.
‘Murt Terrace? We'd better go there then.'
‘Know the way, sir?'
‘I can find it.' As of course, he could, it was the place where he and Stella had once parted forever.
Well, for twenty-four hours. And it had been Stella who had given way and rushed to come back to him.
But the pain while he wondered if he would see her again had been real enough, It came back sharply as they drove down Murt Terrace, a row of neat little houses like much of this part of the Second City.
Mrs Jessup, for she had been married once, lived on her own with no sister or mother to check on her empty home. Someone would in the end, but they had not done so far. It looked neglected.
‘We can get in,' said Phoebe. ‘I came here originally myself.'
‘I didn't know she was one of yours.'
‘She wasn't. I came with Les.'
‘Let us in then, Phoebe.'
Phillida Jessup had lived in the whole little house which she had kept neat and tidy. Now it just felt empty, the owner was dead and the house knew it.
Coffin and Phoebe stood on the threshold. ‘She hasn't left much around,' complained Phoebe. ‘I thought that when I
came with Les. He was quite put out, he likes things to sort over.'
‘Let's go in,' said Coffin, leading the way.
There was an entrance hall, narrow and neatly carpeted with a sitting room on one side, the kitchen next to it and the bedroom and bedroom facing each other across the corridor upstairs. The classic two up, two down, now back in fashion.
‘That's it,' said Phoebe. ‘Of course, the forensic boys have been in but even they haven't made much of a mess for once.'
‘Look in the wastepaper bins again,' said the knowledgeable Coffin. ‘I know you looked once but things get passed over sometimes as you just discovered at Amy Buckly's. And the odds and ends can tell you a lot about a person's character.'
Phoebe frowned at him. ‘I knew what I was doing,' she allowed herself.
‘Of course you did,' said Coffin soothingly. ‘But it's worth a look.' He was taking one himself. ‘Only torn up paper here,' he said of the basket in the kitchen. He was examining them, confident that Phoebe had done so already. Just small bills, mostly for food.
He went on into the bedroom. The basket by the bed table was a pretty blue to match the wallpaper.
Phoebe watched him from the door. ‘Only a bundle of used theatre tickets in there.'
‘So I see, a play my
wife
was in.' He looked at Phoebe without speaking.'
‘She has a lot of fans,' Phoebe said.
They went on to the bathroom, finding nothing there. It was tidy, bare, with the towels neatly arranged.
‘Do you think she knew she wouldn't be back?' said Coffin.
‘No,' said Phoebe vehemently. ‘Do we go on?'
‘Yes.' Coffin was clear. ‘Angela Dover next, then the body in Pepper Alley … Lotty Brister, wasn't it?'
Angela Dover had her own house in Greenwich not far from where she worked. She shared it with another
woman, Hester Carter. Miss Carter did not seem pleased to see them.
‘You lot back again? What is it this time? You couldn't stop Angie getting killed.'
‘We can find out who did though,' said Coffin.
‘Oh, do you think so? Then you must be cleverer than you look.'
Coffin thought about it for a minute. ‘We are,' he said. ‘Can we walk round the rooms that Angela used?'
‘If you must. Get on with it. Five minutes.'
Coffin went into Angela's sitting room and then her bedroom. Phoebe, rightly interpreting Coffin's look, stayed behind to keep Hester Carter in talk.
Coffin went round the bedroom and sitting room, they were tidy, as if Hester had already been in there. A pile of theatre programmes on a desk interested him. They were all recent, so perforce featured his wife.
Where did Stella come in all this?
He thanked Hester as he emerged. She gave him a small nod, not unfriendly but not especially warm either.
‘You'll miss her,' he said.
‘We didn't live in each other's pockets, but yes, of course I will.'
‘It's good to have company for the theatre or any outing,' said Coffin.
Hester did not answer but politely showed him to the door. ‘Seen all you want? I hope you catch him.'
Didn't like her much,' said Phoebe as they left.
‘She was more polite towards the end. I think she was very fond of Angela.'
‘Did you get anything useful?'
Coffin didn't answer and Phoebe knew from experience you did not push him.
Finally there was the home of Lotty Brister to go to. Lotty was so far the last body. She was the oldest of all the victims.
She had been cast aside in her working clothes her body was dropped in the gutter.
The two stood outside her house. Not a smart address, but there were window boxes full of geraniums, red and white, while a tabby cat sat on the doorstep.
‘I don't think I need to go in,' said Coffin. ‘Lotty is one on her own, she isn't part of the series. I feel sure of that. She doesn't match.' As they turned back to their car, he said he hoped someone was looking after the cat, but even as he spoke the front door was opened and the cat went in. Vaguely cheered, Coffin started the car. Someone was living there.
‘Three more dead,' he said thoughtfully, ‘We haven't talked about the bodies just found, or poor Charlie Fisher.' He added: ‘The three found at the theatre were the first to die, you know. I had the pathologist's report this morning. I'd been told verbally, of course.'
‘You think these earlier deaths are connected with the serial killings?'
‘They are all part of the crime pattern somehow. The lad's death could be suicide, after killing the girl and the child - he had failed to get the prize of best young actor. Everyone agrees he was depressed. So he killed the girl and their child.'
‘And then killed himself?'
‘He was preparing to, I think, but someone else may have done it for him. Then buried him. And just where Stella was preparing to build … I don't like it.'
Phoebe was silent. Coffin was not a man to let his imagination run away with him, although the said imagination was a powerful machine inside him which had helped him as a detective. She was more limited herself and she knew it.
‘And today. You noticed I'm sure, although you didn't say anything, that somehow Stella and the theatre crept into the background of every girl except the last, and there might have been something there if we'd really looked … It's like a terrible ballet with all dancing to the same music and all in pain.'
‘Now that really is over the top,' said Phoebe.
To her relief, Coffin grinned at her. ‘Yes, you're right. I must be more rational.'
He drove Phoebe back to the Headquarters. On the way they passed the big teaching hospital. He saw a familiar figure swing past him towards the entrance.
‘There's Joe Jones. Going to the hospital. I hope he's not ill.'
Then he remembered: his wife worked there.
Another car followed Joe's in.
‘That's Mercy Adams,' said Phoebe. ‘Are they together?'
Mercy Adams parked her car near to Joe's. Far from being with Joe, she had not even been aware he was there in the hospital. She was going to visit her boyfriend, Dr Stephen Wrong.
She was going to tell Stephen that she was not pregnant and never had been. She did not know if he would be pleased or not. He had sounded excited at the idea of a child.
‘Marriage, why not? And you can give up this terrible work you do.'
He did not like the idea of Mercy as a detective, especially when the crime was murder.
‘But you are very interested in it, you question me about it, and you must read all the details in the newspapers because you always know the details before I tell you,' she said. ‘Sometimes, I think you know more than I do.' She had no intention of giving up her work, especially as he seemed to find it so absorbing too.
He hadn't cared for that, had denied it indignantly moving them into one of their very rare quarrels.
‘But if we don't fight,' Mercy said to herself, ‘it's because I watch my tongue.'
Mercy was worried about Dr Wrong. To her mind he took too keen an interest in the serial murders.
He was a doctor, so perhaps his desire for detail was understandable, but she thought his interest obsessive. She knew, although he had not told her, that he had got into the morgue to see at least two of the bodies when they were being investigated.
An outsider, someone who did know him as well as she did, might be suspicious of him.
Doctors could be killers, Phoebe had suggested as much the other day.
Had he really said “they cut up beautifully”?
‘You could be a killer yourself,' she'd said, a case of not watching her tongue, at which he had been very angry. Anyway he was not a surgeon but on the medical side, working with allergies.
She felt split loyalties; she was going to see Dr Wrong to say that it might be better if they didn't see each other again.
At least not while the murder investigation went on.
Mercy had hinted to Phoebe about her worries over Stephen and considered talking to Les Henderson or Winnie Ardet but so far she had said nothing officially. It didn't seem fair to Stephen somehow. So she had been keeping quiet.
She was careful about talking to John Coffin. He was the big boss, you only went to him when you had a very good reason, as she had done before. He had a reputation for being both kind and perceptive, but he was also formidable. Stella Pinero, his actress wife, was more easily approached but she was intensely loyal to her husband.
Stephen Wrong was sitting at his desk studying some records. He looked up, pleased to see Mercy.
He stood up and came up to her. ‘Nice to see you.' He studied her face. ‘That's good, it's a smile. You've been giving me some strange looks lately, That's the worst of being a copper, I suppose, you worry about everyone. Come and have some coffee and talk. I'm fond of you, Mercy, perhaps more than that. We could be happy together but not if you are going to keep looking at me as if I am raping the cat.'
‘You
have
worried me,' said Mercy. The hospital canteen was quiet for once, and the coffee hot and good. ‘I suppose I have been over-imaginative.'
‘About me you have. You ought to look closer home.'
As she drank, he went into details.
‘I see what you mean,' said Mercy.
‘I hope you do. I wondered whether to speak to you or not because you are part of the team investigating the killer. That's why I have been so curious.'
Mercy nodded. Then she frowned. ‘Oh, I don't know, it is just so hard for me to suspect that particular person.'
 
The Chief Commander had seen both Mercy and Joe go into the hospital.
‘Working?' he asked Phoebe. ‘Are they both working?'
‘Could be. It may be nothing.'
‘It's when you think it may be nothing that it's worth taking a look.' In fact, he had a very clear suspicion inside him. He was not passing just by chance, after all. His suspicions had been growing for some time now, but without any hard evidence. Perhaps now was the chance he had needed.
He drove to the police HQ where he dropped Phoebe, then told her he planned to go to the hospital. She offered to come with him, but Coffin refused.
‘I'll just go on my own and take a look round. Casual. It'll seem more official if you come with me.'
‘I'd better come,' Phoebe insisted.
‘No, if I'm not in touch in half an hour, you can come then. Bring Les Henderson if he is around.'
Before going he telephoned Stella. She came out of a rehearsal to speak to him. ‘What is it?' She wasn't too pleased to be interrupted.
‘I'm off to the University Hospital. No, nothing wrong with me, but I think something is going on there and I want to find out what.'
Then he told her what he wanted her to do in certain circumstances.
 
Coffin drove back quickly to the hospital. There were three entrances so he chose the one which Inspector Jones had used. Joe might need help.
He walked in to a long and busy corridor with sub corridors opening off it. No sign of Mercy or Joe.
He walked slowly down towards the end where large
doors opened on to a big ward. He didn't expect to see Mercy or Joe in there.
‘What am I doing?' he asked himself. ‘Wasting my time.' But he kept on walking. Then out of the crowds passing all around him, a nurse came up to him.
‘Chief Commander Coffin?'
He stopped. ‘Yes?'
She was a pretty young woman, but her face looked tired. ‘I'm Charge Nurse Pritchard.' She looked too young to have a lot of responsibility but she also looked efficient. ‘I went to a talk you gave once so I recognised you.'
He looked at her. One of the Coffin fan club? No, she was in earnest about a real problem.
‘I was looking for someone to report to and all our security men seem absent …' She gave Coffin a charming smile. ‘So I was glad to see you.'
‘How can I help?'
‘I think there's something going on in the side office on Ward E. It's a waiting room for general use.'
‘What sort of something?'
‘Maybe a fight,' she said. ‘It sounded serious.'
‘Take me there.' Coffin ordered.
She led him through the crowd, then took a side turn down a short corridor. A big door led to Ward E, but at the end of the passage there on the left there was another door.
The nurse nodded towards it. ‘In there.'
Coffin could see through the glass door. There were four people in there: two women and two men. He knew them all but felt surprise all the same. This was not what he had expected to find.
‘I know the doctor and the nurse but do you know the other man?'
Coffin took a long, thoughtful look. ‘Oh yes. I know him.'
He said in a low voice. ‘One of my officers … Inspector Joe Jones.' He felt more shocked than he could show.
Joe was holding a knife, with a gun in his other hand.
‘You'd better get away.'
‘What about you?'
‘I'll be all right,' said Coffin. ‘I doubt if he will attack me although he may want to.'
Privately he was not so sure.
‘He won't touch me.' In fact he was far from sure - perhaps Joe wanted him as well as Stella. Or was it Joe's wife, that tall, lean angry figure by his side?
‘I've never been quite sure if you are man or woman,' Coffin thought to himself. ‘And I don't believe you know either.'
He pushed open the door. ‘Well, Joe, so this is it?'
Nurse Pritchard called after him: ‘I'll get help.'
Coffin strode into the room. ‘I didn't know the killer was you, Joe.'
‘Who said it was?'
‘I do. But why?' The obvious question, but somehow he had to ask it.
A voice from the other side of the room spoke up: ‘The dead boy, the one dug up, was my son … Joe's stepson … he wanted to win the prize and position as actor that your wife Stella was offering … he didn't get it, so he killed himself and his woman and his child. We buried him where it would do most damage to Stella Pinero.'
Coffin looked towards the tall, thin, figure of Joe's wife. She was wearing a trouser suit and managed to look more masculine than Joe. She continued in a harsh voice.
‘I had to avenge him. So I killed the Stella Freaks …'
‘Yes, I had noticed the connection.'
‘I'd have had
her
in the end.'
Coffin was silent, but he gritted his teeth.
‘Don't blame Joe … he's a little bit mad as you may have noticed. And I enjoyed the killings. You can, you know. Or do you?' She looked questioningly at Coffin.
‘Over the years, I have learnt that sad truth,' said Coffin.
Josephine went over to stand beside her husband. He had his gun and knife, she too carried a knife.
The bond between them would have been touching if it hadn't been so terrible. Can you catch madness? Coffin asked himself.
‘Some of you may get out of here alive, but I'm not sure who.' Josephine faced them defiantly.
Mercy leaned against the wall, she looked as though she was on the point of fainting. Dr Stephen Wrong had his arms round her.
Coffin took a breath. ‘You must think I am a fool … Do you really think I came here tonight without back up?' He had to keep talking because Mercy was pulling herself together and edging towards Joe and his wife.
‘Phoebe and Stella and I have a code. When I told them tonight I was coming here, they knew to send some support.'
Of course he had his mobile telephone in a convenient pocket, but sometimes the sight of the telephone in use provoked danger. So he said a silent prayer that Stella would get it right.
 
Stella did know what she had to do and it involved sending a message to tell Paul Masters to send help. Les Henderson and Phoebe too. She had her instructions.
Stella had been told: ‘If I don't telephone you once within the first half hour then tell Paul Masters to see I get help. Ask Les to come with the unit. Phoebe will know where, Paul Masters can empower everything. But Les is the one to come. He may have to look for me, but he's clever.'
‘Do I come too?' Stella had asked, and got a firm NO. ‘I don't want you mixed up in it.'
‘But I
am
mixed up in it,' she had protested: ‘I didn't know all the women, but I bet they all knew me.'
Stella Pinero, famous actress and the power behind the theatre complex she had created for the Second City, was a vital part of this series of murders. She was the cause, she knew it. She didn't know why, but it all revolved around her and the theatre.
What she didn't say to him was that she felt their ghosts pressing down on her head with every day that passed.
So she watched and when she saw Les setting out, with two supporters, not police constables she knew but she recognised their style - toughies - she followed. Les soon saw that she was following him and he knew that the Chief Commander would not want her there because of the very real danger she would be in. But she was the Guvnor's wife and he did not feel able to stop her.
There was Phoebe following him, as well, he saw.
Between the two of them, they might manage to lose Stella inside the hospital. But she was out of her car, parked and going through the hospital with her eyes fixed on him. She was just behind him.
He swung round to face her. ‘Miss Pinero, Lady Coffin.'
‘Make up your mind.' She kept her tone gentle but he could feel the whip of anger.
‘Do not follow me.'
‘Did he tell you to stop me?' She held out her hand to grab Phoebe who had drawn level with them.
‘No, but I know he told you to stay away.'
‘How do you know?'
‘I'm a detective, Miss Pinero.'
‘I am sure that he has got hold of the serial killer and that I am part of the motive. I want to be there.'
She could not get past him without pushing.
‘Lady Pinero, Lady Coffin …' he was flustered, but he got himself together. ‘Stella, the man in there … he abducted you once.'
‘I got away.'

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