Coffin's Ghost (23 page)

‘Go on.’

‘We had Albie Touchey’s single word “Freedom”, nothing else. I’ve got his diary and the chain of engagements in it give alibis for all-important dates . . . the limbs, he says he was with you, then in bed and asleep; the first shooting, he says he would never use a gun in anger and was in bed when Etta was shot . . . admittedly he seems to have been in the Second City when Albie was shot, but working at home and making telephone calls which prove it, so he claims. But is this the truth? It could all be a carefully constructed tissue of lies.’

‘So why are you now saying he is in the picture?’

‘Because he is, sir. He is all over it.’ Phoebe defended herself with her usual energy. ‘His name keeps coming up in the
places where there’s been trouble . . . And the detective firm that was hired, Geoff Fraber, gave up without pay, didn’t trust either of them. I’ve spoken to Fraber and although he is being professional and discreet, he got out. Freedom lives pretty close to where the baby was found, he might have known the old man was away . . . Alice hasn’t told the truth about the birth, and we don’t know if the child died in labour or in utero. And he admits he knew Etta . . . well, he admits he saw her in an eating place. He claims to be vague but I reckon he knows he was seen there and that other people saw him too. Admitting it because he has to. We don’t know where this eating place was, but I’m betting it is near what was Chopping Tree Lane. Say the Stormy Weather eating place? The sort of place he might like . . . good food and probably criminous. He permeates everywhere, Freedom does.’

Coffin considered. It was true but meant little. He disliked Freedom and certainly believed he would be a ready man with a gun. ‘Not much, Phoebe,’ he said. ‘Motive?’

‘Yet to be established, sir, but there will be one. I guess he thought she knew too much about him. Perhaps she did.’

Coffin wanted to believe it.

‘But that’s not all: the gun has been traced.’

Coffin sat up. ‘What? Where?’

‘Near the canal. Found in grass on the side.’

‘Not in the water?’

‘No.’ Phoebe’s voice suggested that she too found that carelessness puzzling. ‘But there was a handkerchief with it. Let’s see if it’s Freedom’s.’

‘I’m thinking,’ said Coffin. ‘Where did it come from, any clues?’

‘It’s got to be the gun that was used, sir. I don’t believe in coincidence.’

Coffin thought that he did not believe in lucky chances either but he did not say so. ‘Provenance?’ he asked.

‘Too early to say, but it matches with one of the guns stolen from the Abbey Road Gun Club.’

Coffin said: ‘Well done, Phoebe, I’m impressed.’

‘Yes, I reckon he stole it from the Abbey Road Gun Club.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to have bought one. Plenty floating round the place.’

‘I think he’s the sort of man who likes to do things himself. If he bought a gun there would always be the chance of blackmail afterwards.’

‘But did he know the place?’

‘Yes. I have spoken to the man who runs it. He remembers Freedom. Freedom went in there and tried to join. Looked all over the place, inspected the guns and where they keep them. Just before the flood which may not have been an accident.’

‘You need a reference to get in there,’ said Coffin cautiously.

‘And guess who backed him? One of ours, DC Radley.’ Not Sergeant Grimm about whom her suspicions were darker and deeper.

Coffin saw that in Phoebe he had recruited someone who was as anxious to get Freedom as he was himself.

Danger there, he couldn’t risk Phoebe going over the top.

‘Bedworthy Radley?’

‘Oh, you know that name?’

‘Everybody knows it.’

‘He’s a good officer. On the whole,’ said Phoebe, who saw Tim Radley’s attractions herself but had been far too prudent to take advantage of them.

‘Right, well, we’re going to talk to Radley.’

He was taking this investigation into his own hands, he was involved, now he meant to make sure the killer was found.

And as for Anna, it had to be hoped she turned up alive and well. Preferably in Australia.

Tim Radley, whose day off it was, was still in bed when he got the call from Chief Inspector Astley. He was not alone in bed and was reluctant to answer the call. He rolled over and grabbed the phone. ‘I must, Claudia.’

‘You took your time.’ Phoebe was irritable. ‘Who’s Claudia? No, don’t answer.’

‘Ma’am . . .’ began Radley, draping the sheet across himself. DCI Astley did not come his way very often, or not directly,
but he did not wish her to see him naked. She had been a patron of his pal Ryman-Lawson, now in deep trouble because of his connection with Mercer and Lightgate, whom he also had known. Bad news.

‘She can’t see you,’ murmured his bed companion, dragging the sheet away and kissing him.

Radley covered himself again, he was beginning to feel he would need all the protection he could get.

‘And don’t tell me it’s your day off, I want you round here now, and what’s more, so does the Chief Commander.’

‘Hell,’ muttered Radley.

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’

‘On my way,’ said Radley.

‘And get dressed first.’ DCI Astley was reputed to be able to see through brick walls and it seemed now as if she could, and distance no object.

‘Good . . . And I’ll see you get some time off in lieu.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he answered, looking sadly at Claudia, who would almost certainly not be here in his bed tomorrow or the next day. She had been hard enough to get there in the first place.

He cycled to the Headquarters, not far from where he had a house, a very small house built before the Crimean War, with a garden just large enough for one tomcat. With his way of life, a house was essential and the cat came to keep the rats out. It was just his luck that Ginger was a very active male. In truth, he admired Ginger with his perpetual lust and instant performance. A bit too sudden, possibly, but you couldn’t have everything.

He arrived, hot and flushed from all his activities, and was shown into the small side annex to the incident room.

He’s just a boy really, thought Phoebe, looking at him with sympathy, which she suppressed when she remembered what trouble boys could be.

John Coffin was standing by the window, his back to the light which, it being a sunny day, could fall straight on Tim Radley’s face. He did not smile or offer any politeness to the constable, but just nodded at Phoebe.

Phoebe sat down and drew up a chair for DC Radley. ‘Sit
down.’ He was out of breath and deserved a chair, besides she wanted to talk to him, not make it an inquisition.

‘You aren’t a part of the inquiry now going on into a quartet of crime, but you know about them.’

Radley nodded. He did indeed, the whole Headquarters and every substation knew, passing on gossip. Plenty of that, and rumours, plenty of those too. His eyes flicked towards the Chief Commander. Good luck to him, he thought, what if he did have it away with that bird that got chopped up? Who’s to blame. He stopped short of thinking that the Chief Commander had done the job on her himself, although that was one of the rumours. Of course, that was rubbish.

He looked away from the Chief Commander towards DCI Astley, whose expression was not promising. Tell the truth, he told himself, and no man can harm you. Not true, he thought.

‘Do you know a man called George Freedom?’

‘Is that his name? I always thought it might be made up.’

‘It’s his name,’ said Phoebe shortly.

‘I don’t really know him, but I’ve watched some of his comedies on TV. He does them with another bloke. That one about the pair of chaps working in the glue factory, I really laughed at that one. It was what I was talking about with a mate when he came up. Told me who he was.’

‘You hadn’t seen him before?’

‘No. I knew his name, didn’t know his face.’

Coffin walked forward. ‘Did you just talk about his comedies?’

‘We had a drink together. The mate I was with had to go off to meet his bird so I stayed talking to Freedom. He seemed to want to talk.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Is it important, sir? Not sure if I can remember much . . . we were drinking. Wipes things out a bit, sometimes, sir.’

‘Do you remember any talk about guns? Did you talk about guns? You belong to the Abbey Road Gun Club?’

‘Oh yes, I do. The best club in town.’

‘Sergeant Grimm belongs too?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘See much of him?’

‘No, ma’am.’ He sounded surprised. ‘Only in the way of work. He’s on sick leave at the moment.’ What he had in common with Sergeant Death was women, but best not to mention that.

Because I told him he’d better take some leave because we might be investigating him, thought Phoebe. And why might that be? We are investigating him and the dossier is filling up. Along with others, probably this boy here too. I hope to God Grimm isn’t in his villa in Spain. Joke. But he’s got something somewhere, must have. Money, money, money.

‘Did Mr Freedom ask you to take him there?’

‘Yes, we went down there together.’ He had a nice smile and knew how to use it; in view of all the pitfalls in his life, he thought he had better start using it. ‘It’s my hobby, I hope to get into the Second City Gun Squad.’ No harm in putting in a pitch for yourself.

This was well received and he got a smile back from Phoebe Astley. Coffin remained unsmiling. Radley had heard that he did smile, but he personally had never seen it happen.

But it was the Chief Commander who spoke: ‘So you took him down there and he was shown round and you offered to act as his reference. Is that right?’

‘He asked me to do all this.’

‘How did he know you belonged . . . you hadn’t met before. Or had you?’

‘No, no. I suppose he heard me talking about it to my mate.’

Boasting, thought Coffin.

‘And I didn’t offer to take him to the Gun Club, never struck me he would be interested. A writer. But he said that was it, he was going to set a sitcom in a gun club.’

‘Right,’ said Phoebe. ‘Wait outside, will you? I’ll see you before you go.’

Tim Radley took himself off, to lean against a wall in the incident room and smoke a cigarette where the air was already too full of the mist of tobacco.

‘Freedom lay in wait for him,’ said Coffin. ‘Knew who he
was and got what he wanted from him. They may have met before in spite of what Radley says.’

‘Could be.’ Phoebe nodded. She had not been too impressed with boy Radley’s performance.

‘Do you think money changed hands? That Freedom slipped him something?’

Phoebe nodded. ‘Could be. Shall we have him back and ask him?’

‘Not much point, he’ll only lie.’

‘What about Freedom?’

‘He’ll lie too.’ Coffin thought for a moment. ‘Might not be the same lie, though, if we can keep them apart. I want to see the Gun Club. We’ll take Radley down with us.’

Tim Radley could not make up his mind whether it was a good career move to be seen going off with the Chief Commander and DCI Phoebe Astley or whether life afterwards with his contemporaries in Cutts Street would be unbearable.

Not that he had any choice.

He sat in the back of DCI Astley’s car, which she drove. She did not need him to tell her the way, which told him she had been here before, since the Gun Club was tucked away in an old mews running behind Abbey Road. The front door was in the mews but the club extended back towards the main road.

‘Do you have keys to this place?’

‘Some members do.’ He was shifty about this admission.

Not very good security then, Coffin thought, flood or not. They went in as a trio with Tim Radley leading the way, while at the same time trying to hide himself. The Gun Club was a tight unit and two extra members of the police sailing in would not be welcome.

However, it was afternoon, and not too many members used it in this time of the day.

The secretary, Bill Eager, was there. He was always there. Paid to be. Ex-army, ex-copper but from the Met, he was not known to Coffin.

He came out of his office, slowly and deliberately, pretending, as so often, to be more stupid than he was. In
fact, he was a sharp-minded man, not a deep thinker but acute.

He held out his hand. ‘Chief Commander, sir.’ He knew why they had come, of course, since he had already had a visitation from DS Tony Davley on the subject of the gun.

Although the Chief Commander did not remember it, they had met in the past when John Coffin was already an important CID officer, while Bill Eager was a recruit, walking the beat. He’d seen Coffin working a case.

Eager ran an appraising eye over him, he himself had retired on an injury pension, and felt able to allow himself this liberty. The man had worn well, hardly gone grey and hadn’t gone bald. Not fat either, but he had been a success and perhaps success kept you thin.

Coffin took his hand. ‘I remember you: Kettle Street Station, wasn’t it? That bank murder with arson?’

‘That’s right, sir, but you can’t remember me?’

Coffin smiled without answering. No, he thought, but I do my homework. ‘You had a flood?’

‘Yes, a tap was left running in the upstairs toilet. Accidental or on purpose. We’re still fighting that out with the insurers. It wasn’t me, I can tell you that.’

‘How did it happen?’

‘Some fool pulled the piping away from the cistern in the lavatory . . . the water came pouring out, but I didn’t notice till a real torrent had built up. I was downstairs in the basement.’

‘Did a lot of damage?’ Coffin looked around, it still had the sour damp smell of carpets and curtains drying out.

‘Blew the wiring and took most of our security with it. We had a lot of trouble, took the computer where we keep all the records. The devil, it was.’

Coffin nodded.

‘So you didn’t know what guns you’d lost?’

‘Shouldn’t have lost any. The big cupboard where they are kept works on an electronic card; I got the cupboard open but I couldn’t secure it again. Not properly, but it all seemed all right. All the members stayed away as no shooting was possible till we dried out.’

‘But one gun went?’