Cold Coffin (17 page)

Board C: Jack Jackson, only recently a murder case. Sergeant Ward and WDC Morris. The usual photograph, an autopsy report . . . Jackson had been in good health. A list of the contents of his pockets. Money, keys, diary.

Board D: The school bus . . . not too much on this one. WDC Morris had spoken to all the children on the bus and made notes. More to come, no doubt. No one had been hurt on this occasion.

Board E: The christening. D C Parsons. A map of the district, a photograph (which Coffin had already seen) of the victim. The telephone number of the Southern Counties CID. Not much, so far, but Parsons was doing his best.

Board F: Lia and her children. D S Ireland. Again, photographs and sketches. The bullets in the bag.

In addition to all this, a bundle of witness statements, such as there were, had been pinned to the board.

‘Dross,' Coffin said to himself as he read them, noticing with some amusement how carefully a way was cleared for him as he moved from board to board. ‘No good. No one saw anything or anybody.'

He poured himself some more coffee while talking to one of the young detectives. He knew that although he was popular in the Second City Force, there were those who thought he was too active in the CID.

‘It's an addiction,' he had heard someone say. ‘He should stick to being a figurehead and leave the hard stuff to us.'

Jim Ward, that had been. And there was Jim, standing next to him while drinking coffee.

‘Hello, Jim.'

‘Hello, sir. Can I get you some more coffee?'

‘No, I'm all right. How's your wife?'

Jim's wife was a young, efficient, industrious house surgeon at the local hospital.

‘Working hard,'

‘It's addictive,' said Coffin soberly. ‘I know about that. I guess you do, Jim.'

Jim grinned. He knew he'd been sussed. ‘She says she wouldn't mind if she never saw another Caesarean.'

‘She shouldn't have settled for obstetrics.'

‘She's good, sir.'

Coffin liked him for admiring his wife. ‘I will have some more coffee, Jim. Black.' Looking round the room as he waited for his coffee, he realized that he had got together some of the brightest and most ambitious of young officers. His meeting had achieved that, at least. As he thanked Jim for the coffee, he wondered how ambitious Jim was, or if his ambitions were subsumed into his wife's. Perhaps you only needed one ambitious party. He thought about himself and Stella, where certainly his early ambitions and Stella's own had kept them apart. But somehow they had now achieved a working partnership.

Witness today's gathering. Would he have put it together if Stella had not injected him with a little of her theatricality? Because this was a staged occasion, and would go on being so.

He soon realized that he was not the only one doing a little staging. Each of the officers had attached his or her name to the board of evidence that had been put together and had accompanied their senior officer to the meeting.

Coffin reflected that he had not invited them, but that they had been very sensible in deciding to come. Clearly there had been communication between them and a common decision had been made.

Passing the board by which Jim Ward now stood, head erect, ready for questioning, Coffin said, ‘What made you all decide to turn up?'

‘Seemed right, sir.'

Coffin waited for more.

‘Each of us wanted to see what the other teams were getting.'

‘But you have ACE.' Access and Exchange was the system set up by Coffin himself. ‘Information should be exchanged that way.'

Jim Ward met the Chief Commander's questioning face without expression. He said nothing.

‘I see, silly of me, you don't exchange . . . or only what suits you.'

Coffin realized that he had been living in a rarefied atmosphere, on Mount Olympus, forgetting what life was like lower down. Well, I am getting to know the groundlings.

‘Has it been worth it?'

‘Yes and no, sir.'

Having inspected all the boards to see what the other investigating teams were up to, they decided that nothing very exciting had been handed over.

Which was what they had expected. Do you tell the other chap the results of your best work? No, not unless obliged.

Coffin knew this as well as anyone.

‘Sit down everyone. Today is just a beginning. I shall want the records kept up to date . . . perhaps more fully than some are today.' Here he kept a straight face. ‘Because I suggest they are studied daily. Each and every case. Because it is all one case.

‘I am taking control of the investigation into the killings,' he said. ‘They are linked.'

Only one voice was raised in question. ‘Can we have copies of the file of evidence in each case, and photographs?' It was DS Annie Bertram, who was dealing with the death of Dr Murray. ‘If I have to regard the deaths as connected, then I want to have all that's to hand . . . It's not very much,' she allowed herself to say.

‘More may be added,' Coffin said.

‘And I'd like to see the photographs, if copies can be given.'

‘Yes,' said Coffin. He looked at Phoebe Astley.

She had been prepared for this. ‘It's in hand.'

‘Good.'

‘And I think a suitably censored report of this meeting ought to be given to the press,' said Phoebe.

‘Yes. I'd like the killer to know we are all after him. Or her.'

There was a moment's silence. ‘You can't believe this killer is a woman?' said Phoebe.

Coffin said, ‘Somewhere in the files you are putting together is the name and face of the murderer. I believe that.'

Then he said, ‘And include your own photographs.'

There was a stunned silence in the room.

Coffin let the moment run without interrupting it. He enjoyed the second or so it lasted. They're working out whether it's a joke or whether I mean it, and deciding I do.

Jim Ward allowed himself a joke. ‘I don't take a very good photograph, sir.'

‘A passport photograph will do,' said Coffin, unsmiling.

Jim Ward abandoned the joke and decided to be brave. He could live on his wife's earnings. ‘And will you submit a photograph, sir?'

Coffin looked at CI Astley.

‘One is already preparing,' she said with a straight face.

Coffin had no idea if this was true or not, but it fitted in with what he was about to say.

‘You see now what I want: when we come into the Record Room daily to see what is on the boards, I want us to feel we are walking into a large room with the victims and the murderer all around us. We are in the middle, watching the story grow.'

‘Sounds like new science,' said Annie Bertram, who had a son at school.

‘I believe we should get an answer,' said Coffin. ‘And whoever gets there first, then I hope you will tell me. DI Masters and DCI Astley are the channels to use.'

Sergeant George Cummins was taking notes and using his tape-recorder; he would like to have taken a photograph of the proceeding, moving if possible. He decided he must ask the Chief Commander if he could do this on another occasion. It wasn't the sort of thing you did without asking him. He presumed he would always be the record keeper.

Questions were coming in now. D C Geoff Little said that he had been part of the team working on Dr Murray's murder and he was worried about the heads found arranged round her. Couldn't see a reason.

‘Not a reason,' said Annie Bertram. ‘This killer is not reasonable.'

‘Mad, you think?' asked Coffin.

‘Yes, probably, sir, and that ought to help us to find him.'

Geoff Little said that he had been told about the discovery of the skulls of the Neanderthal babies. ‘Was there a connection?'

‘Possibly,' said Coffin. ‘There was also a more modern head. Forensics have been working on that. So far, nothing to use in the current cases; may have no connection.'

There was a murmur from the rest. This was something they all wanted to know. There was a bubble of questions.

Phoebe Astley looked at Coffin. ‘I guess this is what you wanted to provoke, sir?'

‘In part, Phoebe. I always want more than I get.'

Then DC Parsons, in charge of Board E, stood up. ‘Sir, I am getting stories that you were meant to be the victim in the church shooting.'

Coffin said that he had heard that story too; it was possible. He was always likely to be a victim of a man with a gun.

‘Or a woman,' muttered Phoebe. ‘Don't let's forget women. You mentioned women at first. Keep it up. We can shoot.'

‘You mean you think it could be true,' said a voice from the floor. ‘That you were meant to be the victim?'

Coffin said yes, he was willing to be
a
victim. Even
the
victim, but it looked as though this killer was spreading the role around.

‘Could anyone be a victim?' said the same voice. It was Grahame Godley. ‘Or was there a certain sort of victim?'

‘I think it's anyone who comes in handy,' said someone who hadn't spoken before, a tall man called James Whitley, part of the team working on Dr Murray's murder. Uninvited officers were creeping in as opportunity offered. No one wanted to be left out of what was exceedingly important.

‘No, I can't accept that,' said Annie Bertram. ‘The children's bus must have been followed and so must the Chief Commander's car. No, no chance.'

‘The choice of victims must have some point,' said Phoebe Astley. She wanted this to be so because it would make finding the killer easier: find the reason for the killing and you are halfway there.

That was her view anyway, and she got a mutter of agreement from her colleagues. There were rules about killing, sometimes broken, but more consistent than murderers thought because the killer believed he was unique.

‘What are the motives?' Phoebe said, standing up so she could be heard and staring into faces to see what reaction she got.

Anger . . . really vicious, physical rage.

Jealousy.

Mental trouble of some sort.

Fear. Potent as a motive, this.

Money . . . killers could be paid.

‘Have I missed one out?' she asked.

‘No.' Coffin knew she was saying all this to see what she would get back from her audience. ‘I think that list covers it.'

‘Did you get what you want?' asked Stella, who had regarded his meeting with the eye of a theatrical producer.

‘Some interesting questions came up. You could say I banged their heads together.'

They were enjoying a before-dinner drink, if enjoy was the word when Stella was checking a play script and Coffin was drawing several large packets from his briefcase.

‘I ought to have given you a trunk not a briefcase for your birthday,' said Stella, observing the load he had been carrying around. The elegant case she had chosen had been distorted out of shape by the burden pressed inside it. ‘Did you have to bring all that home?' Even Stella recognized that this was a very wifely remark. She blamed the Jacobean-style drama she was reading called
Did the Wife Do It?

‘Yes, good old Phoebe,' said Coffin absently.

Maybe I should be jealous of Phoebe, thought Stella, returning to her play. But no, a woman who can wear shoes such as she does, with legs like hers, needs help not envy. She looked down with approval at her own neat Prada sandals. Well, I haven't the least idea what we shall eat for dinner tonight, and that'll teach him.

Down below the bell rang on the front door, a loud but delicate chime.

Coffin looked up. ‘Oh, I forgot to say that I ordered a meal from the restaurant. I knew you were busy, and I knew I was, but we must eat.'

‘Do you order it, or did Phoebe?'

‘I didn't even hear that.'

Stella folded the script and threw it at him, just missing.

Coffin picked up the script, smoothed it straight. ‘Well named,' he said. ‘I think the wife did do it . . . I will go to collect the meal.'

He took in the tray; the meal had been arranged on it by Alfredo, who was running the restaurants (there were three now) while his father was in Italy. In spite of their Italian names and pride in their Milanese ancestry, they were South Londoners from generations back.

‘Thanks.' He passed over payment plus a good tip. ‘How's your dad?'

‘He's having a good holiday and trying to learn Italian.'

Coffin raised an eyebrow.

‘Yes, I know he always pretends we speak nothing else at home. Not true. We speak English.'

Alfredo spoke beautiful English; he was clever and in his final year at one of the better local universities. His chosen subject, as Coffin knew, was mathematics. ‘That's my language,' he had said.

Stella knows about faces, he thought, as they ate the chicken and salad. I'll ask her. ‘Stella, if you could spare the time, would you look at some photographs with me?'

She reached out and took one. ‘That's one of the Jackson girls.' Her face was pale and her eyes puckered. ‘I know it is one of them, but I can't recognize which one. The face is changed.'

‘Violent death does that to the face,' said Coffin. And the girl had been dead some time when this photograph was taken, but he thought he wouldn't tell Stella. The dead girl was Alice Jackson. He had an idea that Stella had liked Alice a good deal; he also thought that Stella was looking at Alice's battered and slightly decayed face with fear but could not admit it.

He did not let her see the photograph of her twin Amy because it was, on the whole, worse. He did not care to dwell on it himself. There was something that disturbed and worried him.

The picture of Mrs Jackson herself showed her face down, as if she had been hit from behind, which was thought to be the case. The girls had looked at their killer, known what was coming.

The rolled-up overall that Mrs Jackson had worn at work in the hospital was by her side and caught some of the blood. It seemed as though she had just come in from work when she was attacked. She might even have let her killer into the house, innocently walking in front of him. If it was a him.