Cold Coffin (19 page)

‘Larry,' said a voice from the back, ‘we are detectives . . . grant us that much.' It was Geoff Little, drinking his beer but keeping his eye on the door. He wanted to know who came in and went out. The early departures might carry their own message . . . like a vote in the House of Commons. His cousin had just got into Parliament for a marginal seat at the last general election, and he felt he knew how politics worked.

That's what this is about: every man,' he cast a quick look round, ‘and woman too, is a highly professional detective. We are at good at what we do. Forgive me if I am talking at you like a doctor or a college lecturer . . .'

‘No,' said a voice, not Geoff Little this time, but a detective sergeant from the outer limits of the Second City. ‘Get on with it, Larry, I've got a date to keep.'

‘Right, this is it: we've each of us been doing a damn good job on this serial gunman we've got. All right, we haven't caught him yet.'

‘But we will.' This time it was Frank Fielder, working on the Jackson case. One of the Jackson cases. ‘If we don't get too much help from above . . .'

‘You call it help?' There was a murmur, no more than an echo in the room.

‘It's better too, isn't it?'

‘I don't know about that,' said Larry, ‘but what I know is I want to be allowed to do my job in my own way.'

Into the silence that followed, he said, ‘Now you know why we are here. I thought we would all meet here to talk it over.' His voice was gentle.

‘You could call it a protest meeting,' said a voice.

It's insubordination, thought Geoff Little, it's insurrection, it might be a revolution. Not the French Revolution, because that began on the streets, but the Russian Revolution, put together by a devious and clever mind. Lenin Larry Lavender, step forward. Little was doing a degree in historical studies with the Open University. He had said once that if you were just a copper there was no hope for you; you had to make something else of yourself, even if it was only bee-keeping. Joke. See Sherlock Holmes.

Larry Lavender was speaking again, his voice ever more gentle. ‘In several of the most recent important cases, the Chief Commander has come in and interfered. Now we know he is moving into this serial killer. We don't want that, do we?'

He might have been moving a vote of thanks.

That was the thing about old Larry, thought Little, who had worked with him once or twice, he could make the direct threat sound like an invitation to the vicar's tea party. Because it was a threat to John Coffin. And to everyone in that room, if it failed.

He couldn't make up his mind whether to run for the door or stay there. But his legs would not move.

12

Monday. The days get blurred
.

What remained of the Walkers held a small sad meeting in Letty's house to talk about the death of Lia. Letty's house was a good meeting place, because it was in central Spinnergate, on a quiet side road. Letty's house was decorated by her husband, who liked being a good houseman, so the paint was always fresh and the wallpaper new. He liked strong colours, so visitors sometimes blinked at the vivid blues and orange reds. Perhaps on this account, Letty usually entertained in the kitchen, over whose colour scheme she had had control; it was white and pale grey. She made good coffee and offered homemade shortbread.

Even Natty came this time, apologizing for being absent so often. Unlike the other two, she looked tired and untidy, in pale blue jeans and a dark shirt.

No one wears jeans now, not this season, not that colour or shape, Letty thought. And she might have combed her hair.

‘Oh we understand, love,' said Sheila. ‘Of course we do.'

‘And I hadn't got a pram to push,' said Natty sadly. ‘Well, I've got the pram. I never sold it, but it's empty.'

‘Perhaps not for ever,' said Sheila.

‘I think so. You can't fight the gods.'

Sheila thought you could if you chose. ‘Depends which god you are talking to.'

‘Oh, talking,' said Natty. ‘What about Lia, she was a talker and look what's happened to her . . . What did she say, by the way?'

Sheila shrugged. ‘Not much, just hints of what she said her husband had told her. But she always did exaggerate. And he's such a liar too, anyway, we told her that, or we tried to.' Had they? She couldn't now remember. She certainly had thought Lia's husband was a stranger to the truth, and often claimed knowledge he did not have. Look at the time he had spread the story that he had joined the Montjoy gang as the electronics expert and they had raided the Bank of England but it had been kept quiet, hushed up, because the authorities were ashamed. A fool if you believed that, but many did.

Letty came in with a jug of coffee and a plate of chocolate biscuits, not homemade this time. To please her husband she was wearing a tight orange-red skirt, but to please herself she was wearing a crisp white shirt. ‘I know we are all on diets but choccie biccies are cheering and we need cheering up. I'm terrified as well as miserable. How are you?'

‘I think a strong gin might help me more than coffee,' said Sheila. ‘Letty, that skirt makes me blink.' She herself had on a blue and white jersey dress. Neat and not conspicuous.

Letty was ever practical. ‘We can have that afterwards.' She passed over the comment on her skirt.

‘Good job you're not still feeding the kid,' said Natasha.

‘Lord no, that's long past. Just as well, ruins the figure.' She drank her coffee. ‘Nice to see you, Nat. How are you?'

‘Lousy,' said Nat. ‘This is a bloody business.' She took a deep breath, then, ‘And with my cousin being killed too . . .'

Letty and Sheila exchanged glances. Although they had discussed it already, they did not know what to say, or whether to say anything. Natasha was never easy to read, sometimes lively and witty, at other times morose.

‘She has secrets, that girl,' Sheila had said.

‘Don't we all?' Letty had answered. ‘I've got a few, and I bet you have.'

‘I think it's gin time,' said Letty, producing a bottle. ‘Or whisky. I believe there is some if my husband hasn't drunk it all. He doesn't drink gin, calls it a woman's drink.' She was prattling on, anxious to keep the mood light. Jolly they could not be, since this was, in a sense, a wake. ‘So choose, gin or whisky, friends.'

Natty took a good long drink of gin and lemon. ‘I think I know why my cousin went to look in the museum of old bones.'

Letty coughed.

‘Oh well, you know what I mean . . . part of the forensic outfit in the hospital, its skulls of interest. My cousin knew it, but no one went there much. Science is different now.'

‘Is it?' asked Sheila.

‘She said so. It's true not many people bothered with it. Yet she went there . . . So why?'

‘You'll never know, will you?' said Letty solemnly; the gin was getting to her too.

‘I met her with the car, as I very often met her from work . . . I used to help her out all the time . . . kind of like a secretary, chauffeur and homehelp combined. She was rich, richish anyway, and we weren't. Anyway, she left me a legacy, but naturally most of her money has gone to her husband . . .'

Letty began to wonder if she had been wise to pour out the gin. I gave her too much, she thought. She's had a bad time, her cousin and everything; she's disturbed.

‘She had seen the deposit of infant skulls just uncovered . . . Chief Commander John Coffin was there too. She told him they were infant Neanderthal skulls, decapitated babies, probably sacrificial victims, the flesh eaten.'

Letty swallowed hard.

‘I don't think he liked the idea . . .'

‘Nice man,' said Sheila soothingly.

‘I think that's what took her to the museum . . . she wanted to check up on something.'

‘Perhaps she thought there was a colony of Neanderthals living near here . . . There is Nean Street, isn't there?'

She is drunk, thought Letty. I overdid it there.

‘Little short men with big hands.'

‘I expert there's some of them about.' She wanted to add that they would be harmless, but she couldn't quite say so, because who knew? She saw such a specimen doing his shopping at irregular hours and she believed he lived in Nean Street, so if anyone could be called a modern-day Neanderthal it would be him. But surely a man who did his own shopping and bought frozen fish pie must be harmless?

‘Poor Lia did mix with a bad crowd, thanks to Boston,' said Sheila. ‘The police must be looking at her husband.'

‘He'd never kill his own children.'

‘You just can't tell.'

Letty tried to decide whether to offer more coffee or more gin, but Nat stood up and said she must go. ‘I do have a husband, and I'm even looking after my cousin's husband too. We go round every day, or he comes to us. And of course, the police keep coming around asking us all the questions they can think of.'

‘We've had a bit of that too,' said Letty. ‘Haven't we, Sheila? It looks as though we were the last people to see her, so naturally the police keep thinking about us. I wouldn't say they suspect us, but they certainly think we could help them. “Who are her friends? What people was she in contact with?” That sort of thing . . . I suppose they think if they ask often enough we might come up with something.'

‘I thought I might go into the church round the corner and say a prayer for Lia and light a candle,' said Sheila.

‘She's past all that,' said Natty, sadly. She kissed each cheek. ‘End of the Walkers.' They were all part of it, the Walkers.

‘Fraid so,' said Letty. ‘Already over really, anyway, wasn't it? But fun while it lasted.'

‘Over for me before it began,' said Natty.

When she had gone, the other two looked at each other. ‘I'm glad we've got our kids, aren't you?' said Letty. ‘Makes even having a husband worthwhile.'

Then they both began to laugh and advise each other to have some more gin.

This was their little holiday, their morning off. Sheila had taken her two children to a nursery school in Spinnergate and Letty had got her mother to look after hers. ‘Can't afford the nursery school. Wish I could.'

‘Neither can I,' said Sheila, ‘but I told my husband that if he didn't do something about it, I would go mad. Since he didn't want a mad wife, he agreed. They only go twice a week, but it's enough.' She had been an extremely efficient computer expert and hankered to go back, but she had given it up to look after the recalcitrant babies.

‘You'll go back,' Letty assured her. She had not been so high-powered herself, and had no hankering to go back to selling bras and pants.

‘In that business,' said the computer whizz kid gravely, ‘you get out of date so soon. I'd have to be reborn almost.'

Letty felt it would not be past her.

‘I wish we could have helped Lia.'

‘She had plenty of money.'

‘Crook money.'

‘Maybe.'

‘And it killed her in the end. Anyway, that's what I think, but who cares, no one will ask me for my opinion.'

‘I don't know about that,' said Letty gravely.

Sheila studied her face; this was not the gin talking. ‘You know something I don't?'

Letty lowered her eyes. ‘My sister-in-law works in the Chief Commander's office. Only the outer office, you understand, but she's in charge of the telephones and the faxes . . . She told me that the Chief Commander is very worried. He's taking charge himself and will be interviewing all friends and contacts.'

‘Us,' said Sheila.

They drank a little more gin, then Sheila put down her glass with decision. ‘Let's go and light that candle for Lia.'

‘And say a prayer?'

‘Yes,' said Sheila seriously. ‘That must come first. Can't do one without the other.'

The church across the road was small, dark, quiet and empty. No parson, no other worshippers, but there were some candles.

‘You've been here before,' Letty accused.

‘Yes, I often pop in. I find it helps.'

‘I wish it was easy as that for me,' said Letty.

‘Oh, it's not easy. Doesn't come automatically, like eating chocolate.'

‘No?' Strange comparison, Letty thought.

‘You have to work at it.' Sheila bought them each a candle, handed one to Letty and lit both, since Letty was strangely clumsy.

‘We ought to say a prayer for ourselves too,' she said softly.

‘Yes, if you think so.' Letty was doubtful, but willing. ‘But we're outside it all, aren't we?'

‘I'm not so sure,' said Sheila. ‘Bad crimes have a kind of a circumference. Make a circle. And I think we are inside.'

‘And I think you are frightening me.'

‘Not on purpose.' She added, ‘Brian would agree with me if I talked about it to him.'

‘Brian?' said Letty absently.

‘My husband.'

‘Oh, yes, of course – it's just that you usually call him Bri.'

‘Not when I'm talking seriously. He knows then I'm in earnest. Don't you have words like that?'

Letty thought about it. ‘No.'

Brian was an ambitious young man on his way up; she wasn't sure what he worked at, but it was something in advertising, and he probably did need two languages. Her own husband taught in a large comprehensive school in the Second City, where he said that life was a fight for survival. He did survive though, and on a visit to a school concert Letty had observed that he was on good terms with his pupils, whom he clearly liked. Not such a bad life after all, she had decided.

‘And anyway,' said Sheila with resolution, ‘we aren't outside it, not with Natty's cousin being killed and now Lia.'

‘But that's just coincidence.' Letty tried to sound cold and intellectual about it. ‘These serial killers just go for who's handy.'