Читать книгу Coffin’s Ghost - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 9

There was a police van outside the house in Barrow Street and several police cars parked along the road. Outside the big Victorian house there was an area taped off around the steps and the front door. A police constable stood on duty.

He looked bored and cold. A colleague who had been examining the ground around the house joined him.

‘You knew one of the women here, didn’t you, Ron?’ he asked PC Ryman-Lawson, whose double-barrelled name, itself the subject of jokes, got reduced to Ron.

‘Yeah. She worked here.’ Henriette Duval. Long-legged, and very pretty. She had come over to learn and she had certainly learnt it. ‘We went around for a bit. Then she dropped me. Said I was too young and she liked older men better.’

‘Not usually that way.’

‘I think she meant I didn’t have enough money to spend on her.’

‘Ah, that figures. A bit of a goer?’

Ryman-Lawson did not commit himself. ‘Bloody cold here.’

‘What’s become of her?’

Ryman-Lawson shrugged; the rain was running down his collar. ‘Gone back home, I expect.’

Barrow Street not being a place to ignore anything exciting was providing an audience even though it was raining and not warm. Barrow Street knew a good thing when it saw one and was making the press welcome also. There was lively expectation of a TV van. You might see your own face on the screen in your own living room.

‘Always trouble there,’ pointed out a sturdy woman as she pushed her bike past on the way to work. ‘Trouble House or my name’s not Mona Jackson. Shouldn’t be here in a respectable street. Police, we don’t want them.’

She achieved a small triumph by running her bike over the toes of an approaching police constable, who leapt back. ‘Watch it, missus.’ He added something under his breath.

‘Mrs Jackson to you, sonny,’ and she passed on in splendour. ‘And don’t think I don’t know you, Tad Blenkinsop, and I could report you for that language.’

Not everyone thought Barrow Street so respectable, and by his expression, he was one of them.

‘I suppose we might be more popular if we were a nunnery,’ said Mary Arden, warden of the Serena Seddon Refuge, a hint of a wail in her voice. Mary had a distinguished record with a degree in social studies from a famous college in the University of London, a period nursing in a hospital, and another time working as an assistant in a care centre. ‘Although goodness knows, no community could be more off sex than we are here. Had too much of it.’

‘Cheer up,’ advised her fellow worker and assistant. Eve Jones was also a nurse and often needed in that capacity.

‘I could call myself Mother Mary.’ She was making some coffee. ‘Have a cup? It’s the real stuff, extravagant, I know, but I need it today.’

‘I don’t fancy being Sister Evelyn.’

‘You’ve been called worse.’

‘True. But being a nun means not just being off sex but also a vow of chastity. Don’t see most of our lodgers taking that one.’

The police were already in the house, moving from room to room, trying to be tactful as they questioned the residents. Mary and Evelyn had already been interviewed. But they knew more would be coming their way.

Mary had handed over her records to be studied.

They were in Mary’s small office and sitting room – they were too pressed for space for even the warden to know much privacy. Her comfort, too, was modestly allowed for, with one cupboard for clothes, and a divan bed. There were two bathrooms in the house and Mary took her turn with everyone else. ‘At least it means I know if there is hot water and the bath is clean.’

Ready hot water, clean linen and a little, a very little, privacy, was the best she could do for her guests. It helped some more than others.

The residents helped to keep the house tidy and clean, but Mary employed a pair of contract cleaners once a week as well.

Her one luxury was a small flat of her own which she used when she had time off. She did not grudge herself this because she had to have somewhere to retire to if she ever reached that haven.

Evelyn did not live in, she was married, to a man who worked backstage in the St Luke’s Theatre Complex, and she went home at night. A night assistant came in then to be on duty till morning. The Serena Seddon House was not one in which nights were necessarily peaceful. There was a telephone line straight through to the local police station in Pelly Row for emergency use.

Evelyn took two lumps of sugar to give her strength, while wishing that she still smoked. ‘I suppose we shall have the police all over the place for days.’

She had been the first to find the bundles when she arrived for work that morning. ‘As soon as I picked one up, I guessed what it was. It just felt dead and heavy. Thank God, I didn’t do more than pick it up and put it down.’ She went to the window to look out. ‘Gone now.’

Mary pushed a tin towards her. ‘Have a biscuit. Fortnum’s best … it’s all right, a present from my mother.’ Her mother always chose the best she could afford. And this went for clothes and scents. Her mother thought she was mad to work where she did, while saying fondly that she admired her for it.

Mary chose a biscuit with nuts in it. ‘I suppose the forensic lot will be in and looking us over. Depends what they find in the bundles.’

‘Two legs, two arms. We know that.’

It was just guesswork, no one had told them, but Evelyn was an experienced nurse. ‘Didn’t have to be human,’ she said, ‘but I guess they are. Right shape, right weight, right feel.’ She shook her head. ‘I think I felt a finger.’

‘Phoebe Astley made it clear she thought it was one of our former lodgers, poor soul. I hope she was dead when it was done to her.’

‘Mary.’ Evelyn gave a shudder.

‘You can’t count on it, the men some of the women here attract. I’m not joking.’

‘And I’m not laughing.’

‘There was something written across the packets – did you read it?’

‘Didn’t you?’

Mary was silent. She answered after a pause. ‘Yes.’

‘Make anything of it?’

‘No.’ The best thing, the easiest thing to say. ‘Some things you don’t, do you?’ Again the easy answer. ‘Phoebe Astley will tell us something, perhaps. She’s a decent sort. More coffee?’

Evelyn held her cup out. ‘You ought to go in for mugs, they hold more. She a friend?’

‘We belong to the same club.’

Evelyn waited, and eventually asked, ‘Which club is that?’ She did not have a club herself, not being clubbable. I suppose I have a husband instead, she told herself.

‘The University Club in Lomas Street. Not the same university, she was Birmingham, and I was St Andrews, but the same club.’

‘I always knew you were more of an intellectual than I am. I knew it when I heard your mother crying about your hair.’

‘No, she didn’t.’ Mary shook her unshorn locks indignantly.

‘Yes, she did. Implored you to go to her hairdresser.’

‘So I would if I could afford it.’

Evelyn smiled. She knew all the signs of comfortable private income when she saw it.

‘Anyway, you know yourself that it wouldn’t do to look too … well … too groomed here.’

Evelyn laughed. ‘Have a go, they might enjoy it. Don’t be patronizing.’

Mary looked shocked. ‘Do you think so?’

There were bangs and sounds of screaming from above.

‘Oh, screw it.’ Mary jumped to her feet. ‘Come on. You too, in case there is bleeding.’

Side by side, they ran up the stairs in the direction of the shouting. On the stairs they passed a young WPC who gave them a questioning look. ‘Leave this to us,’ said Mary as she passed. ‘Our job, we cope.’

As she sped on, she muttered:

‘Whenever I hear two of our residents going on at each other like this, I think that maybe they were not the only ones in the marriage to get battered. Not an acceptable PC view, I know.’

The noise was coming from the communal sitting room on the first floor.

‘Miriam, Miriam,’ said Mary as she pushed open the door. ‘At it again.’

A small, sturdy figure, a round face with short, cropped hair, swung round. Miriam Beetham; she called herself Mrs Beetham but no marriage ceremony had taken place with Tommy Beetham and the title was purely honorary.

The room showed signs of battle with a chair overturned and a sofa shoved at an angle against the wall. A small child was sitting on the sofa, looking interested rather than frightened. Billy Beetham recognized Mary.

‘How do you know it’s me?’

‘I recognize your voice. And you, Ally.’

Ally was tall, thin, but capable of swift physical action if required. Learned behaviour, Mary thought sadly.

The two women had been friends and enemies since schooldays, the relationship not improved by the fact that Ally was indeed Mrs Beetham, although she called herself Ally Carver. Husbands and lovers had shuttled between the two since they first took up sex. It was bad luck that had brought them into the refuge at the same time.

Or had they fixed it between them? With this pair, you never knew.

Evelyn was examining Ally’s nose. ‘Not broken. It’ll stop bleeding soon.’ She produced a wad of tissues which she held to the nose. ‘And keep quiet.’

‘What’s it all about?’ demanded Mary. ‘No, don’t tell me. Come to the office later. I wish we had a vow of silence in this place.’

The battle was over, showing every sign of starting again. ‘Her fault,’ muttered Ally through the tissues. ‘And you can’t say we’ll have the police in, ‘cause we got them already. And they will know about whose fault it is … they know.’

‘She said my Billy was simple.’ The rejoinder came from Miriam in a loud voice. ‘So I hit her. Do it again.’

‘He is simple.’

Looks sharp enough to me, thought Mary, ageless too, six coming on sixty and the devil kissed him. Now what do I mean by that, she asked. I mean he’s wicked through and through. Shouldn’t think like that, should you? Children can’t be wicked.

But she knew they could be.

‘Tidy up the room,’ she said. ‘And get Billy to help you. And calm down. Have a cup of tea.’

There was always tea and milk left ready in the sitting room.

‘It’s because of what was left on the doorstep,’ called Miriam after them. ‘We’re all upset.’

The child Billy gave a cry, something between a wail and a hiccup of laughter.

I think he likes bits of bodies, Mary thought. But no, he can’t know anything about it. We haven’t said: Keep quiet, the police told us.

On the stairs, she said to Evelyn, ‘What is wicked?’

Over another cup of coffee, Evelyn said she thought it was a matter of feeling. You felt something or someone was wicked.

‘Even a child? I shouldn’t have been so sharp with those two. Not professional. Gentle does it.’

‘You mean Billy, I suppose?’ said Evelyn, crunching a biscuit. ‘The wicked bit?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s a mite young to get the full judgement, but he’s coming on nicely.’

‘They all know about the parcels of limbs on the steps. When they asked, I said I had no idea. But they know. They know there wouldn’t be all that police activity for just a dead dog.’

‘Probably making guesses who it is.’

‘Oh God, yes.’ Good accurate guesses too. On such a subject they would be well-informed.

‘Phoebe Astley will know how to handle it, she’ll assess what they say, work out if there is anything in it.’

‘They’ll say plenty.’ Mary continued to be gloomy. ‘Make it up if they have to.’

‘Phoebe …’ began Evelyn.

‘Yes, she’ll know how to weave her way through it. If she does it herself. You know how it goes.’ They were not without experience in police visits. ‘Uniformed branch first, then CID, it’ll be women because of what we are, and then, if it’s important, we shall get the top brass. Or toppish. Remember how it was when Jodie Spinner hid the stuff her husband had stolen in her bedroom?’

Evelyn nodded. That had brought Chief Inspector Astley in sharpish.

‘She’ll check on the really interesting stuff … if any.’

‘I wouldn’t mind asking her a few questions myself.’

The interesting thing was that Phoebe Astley had been round here so speedily that morning, even before the first SOCO team had finished photographing the front steps. Off again now.

She had not had much to say, even to Mary. Police business, her expression said.

Evelyn said: ‘Do you think it could be Henriette?’

‘The dead woman? Etta? Oh no, she went home to France.’

‘We’ve never heard from her. No one has.’

Henriette Duval had worked with Mary and Evelyn in the Serena Seddon for about eighteen months to earn her keep while doing an English language course at the University of the Second City. Then she had said her farewells and gone home to Versailles.

‘Oh, but that’s not so surprising.’

‘She said she would keep in touch. We liked her, everyone did, and she was marvellous at cleaning the kitchen, a real eye for dirt.’

‘People always say they will keep in touch; they hardly ever do. Doesn’t make her a candidate for being chopped up.’

Evelyn was quiet for a minute, then she said: ‘Thought I saw her in Drossers Lane Market. Tried to catch up with her but she disappeared.’

Mary shrugged. ‘A mistake, the girl just looked like Etta.’

‘Not many like Etta … red hair, tall and thin, skirts up to her thigh. No, I thought it was Etta.’ She added: ‘With a man, of course.’

‘Well … Etta …’ said Mary. ‘If it was Etta …’

‘She would be with a man.’

‘Still doesn’t make her a candidate for killing.’

‘You know the sort she went with: either villains or policemen. Both the type that might kill and cut up a girl.’

Mary wondered what Phoebe Astley would make of this comment, then realized she would raise an eyebrow and laugh, half accepting the judgement. It was true, the police did deal in violence.

Some truth in what Evelyn said then; violence was part of their life for the police. For some of them, not necessarily the worse, just the more vulnerable, perhaps because of something inside, it rubbed off on them.

‘Just because you saw Etta alive in Drossers Lane Market doesn’t mean she’s going to turn up dead on our doorstep.’

Evelyn looked unconvinced.

‘You can’t even be sure it was her.’

Evelyn looked even more unconvinced, and Mary remembered that you could never argue Evelyn out of anything: she just got more stubborn.

‘Have another cup of coffee,’ she said instead.

‘Swimming in it already.’ But Evelyn held out her cup. ‘Should I say anything about it when I am interviewed. I suppose we are being interviewed?’

Mary nodded. ‘Bound to be. Especially you, you found the bundles.’

‘I’ve already told them about that.’

The police noises about the house were becoming quieter; Mary sensed that they would be leaving. And others coming.

‘We’ve all answered a few questions. It’s just a beginning. We will have to go through it again, and perhaps again.’

‘Even if we don’t know anything?’

‘They have to be convinced of that.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

Yes, thought Mary. I once went to bed with a policeman. In fact, quite often. It lasted about six months. I learnt a lot.

I learnt that you could lie to him, and get away with it, or thought you had, but somehow in the end, and sometimes not too much later, you found the truth came out.

Not that I ever had much to lie about, she added to herself. If I did it at all it was in self-protection because otherwise I would have gone up in smoke.

A uniformed sergeant appeared at the door. ‘Just off. Miss Arden. Anyway for the moment, but there is a constable on the door and the forensic team would like to come in, if that’s all right?’

Mary nodded assent.

‘Try saying no,’ growled Evelyn as he left.

‘You go home. If you are wanted, I’ll telephone you. Don’t go out to eat a quick curry with Peter though, just in case.’

Evelyn swung her shoulder bag on. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Peter doesn’t eat curry. But I’d like to get back. Miss Pinero has two new contacts who might be putting together a show: Freedom and Gilchrist, sound like a stand-up comedy team, don’t they? And they have this driver and handyman who aids and assists. All means business, which as you know has not been brisk lately. But you can always trust Miss Pinero to bring it in, I say.’ Having said this, at the door, she turned. ‘Look after yourself, and do ring me if there is anything I can do.’

‘Miriam and Ally will be quiet now, they like each other, you only quarrel like that with friends. I’m on their side, or I wouldn’t be here. But they don’t like to feel I am kind of a social doctor treating a disease, so in a way they feel better when I lose my temper. It puts us on a level.’ She added: ‘You have to be a bit tough sometimes, of course.’

‘Yes, sure,’ said Evelyn. With a wave, she was gone.

After the front door banged behind Evelyn, and she heard her speaking to the constable outside, Mary tidied up the coffee pot and cups, then went up the stairs to see Miriam and Ally.

She passed one of the other occupants on the way up. ‘Everything all right, Fanny?’

‘Fine, Mary. I’m just off to get my prescription from Dr Meener. The police girl said it was all right.’

‘You do that then.’

Fanny nodded towards the sitting room door. ‘They all right, then?’

‘I think so.’

‘Do they know who it is outside? Whose bits, I mean?’

Mary said. No, not as far as she knew.

‘I just wondered …’ Then Fanny stopped. Mary waited. ‘Just wondered if it was that foreign girl who helped here for a bit.’

Mary said in a careful way: ‘I think she went home.’

‘Only I saw her around in Poland Street.’

Poland Street was close, very close to Drossers Lane Market. In fact, Drossers Lane Market was virtually in Poland Street.

‘The other day … She did put it about a bit.’

‘You’d better tell the police when they ask questions. If you think it’s important.’

‘Might be, mightn’t it?’ and Fanny took herself down the stairs and out the front door.

Mary made her way to the communal sitting room where Ally and Miriam were sitting companionably side by side, smoking and watching TV. The boy, watching too, no longer looked evil, but just like any unsettled child who had seen too much of life for his age.

Someone, Miriam probably, had made the room tidy, picking up the knocked-over furniture and restoring the cushions to the sofa. Someone else, again probably Miriam, had made a pot of tea and yet another person, and this time probably the boy, had managed to get a bag of chips which they were now passing from hand to hand in a peaceful and friendly fashion.

They had been joined by one of the new arrivals, Betty, who had come in last night and was still nervous. She seemed to have been welcomed into the group and was certainly getting tea and a sympathetic chip.

‘You shouldn’t be eating chips, Miriam,’ Mary reminded her. ‘You know what the doctor said.’

No one bothered to answer this comment, although Betty looked even more nervous.

And who could blame her, Mary thought. What a welcome to the Serena.

The chip bag was waved in her direction, and absently she took one. The vinegar and salt were harsh and strong but somehow it was tasty. The programme they were watching didn’t look bad either.

At this point, Billy slipped off the sofa and, ignoring his mother’s request to sit still and stop being a regular nuisance, went to the window.

‘There’s men out there in white suits like ghosts,’ he announced loudly.

‘Scientists, forensic ones,’ growled his mother. ‘Seen on the telly.’

Mary went to the window to look. Three men in hooded white cotton outfits were on their knees.

‘What are they doing round the side of the house?’ demanded Billy acutely. ‘The bits were found on the steps.’

Mary had been wondering this herself. ‘They have to study the ground all around.’

A sudden burst of laughter from the sofa drew the boy back to the television screen, muttering that it was a waste of time out there.

Mary, who had been thinking this herself, moved away from the window and towards the door.

As she touched the handle, Miriam said, over her shoulder and not looking at Mary, not taking her eyes off the television screen: “They found a handbag there, round the side of the house.’

Mary swung round, walked over and deliberately planted her body between them and the television screen. Impolite, pushy, irritating, but essential, as experience had taught her.

‘Where’d you get that from?’

Miriam gave a little nod of her head sideways. ‘Betty told me.’

Mary looked at Betty, who shifted her shoulders uneasily – alarm came promptly to her.

I must be gentle, Mary reacted at once, I am not always gentle enough here.

No, perhaps gentleness isn’t right. What is needed is to give to each what they need, and that is harder, because you have to be intelligent and responsive.

Words, she said to herself sadly, you use too many words, girl. ‘Where did you learn that, Betty?’

Betty looked down and fidgeted again. ‘The copper told me,’ she whispered.

‘The one on duty outside?’ said Mary doubtfully. It didn’t sound likely.

‘I was at school with him,’ Betty whispered. ‘We lived next door. My brother was his best mate.’

‘Right …’ Mary hesitated, wondering whether to say anything. ‘Perhaps he didn’t mean you to tell anyone else.’

Betty was silent. ‘Only told Miriam. She asked.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Miriam, again without turning her head. ‘You can trust us: we won’t tell our stories to the newspapers or TV. Unless they pay us.’

‘Ha, ha.’ A mirthless comment from Mary as she left the room; she never found it easy to know when Miriam was joking. No doubt Miriam could have said the same of her. We don’t understand each other, that’s the truth of it, she thought, giving Miriam a last look: an enigma wrapped up in a thick cosy cover of flesh, and inside not cosy at all.

That helped explain the boy. And probably why she was here in the refuge.

From the policeman to Betty, from Betty to Miriam, and from Miriam to me, this was the channel of communication.

Mary walked down the stairs wishing she could talk to Phoebe Astley. Phoebe always gave a straight answer to a question. If asked if the dead woman was Etta, Henriette Duval, who had worked in the refuge, she would answer Yes or No.

If she could. Answers did not always come easy.

And if asked further if it was possible her killer could be a member of the Second City Force, Phoebe would answer that too. But with circumspection.

Mary paused on the stairs to look out of the window. She ran her finger down the glass. Outside it was beginning to rain, the rain would come through this window.

The Serena Seddon House needed money spent on it, money it did not have. It was as comfortable and welcoming as it could be made inside, and that was what counted. Outside in Barrow Street it aimed for anonymity with no blue plaque displaying the name and just a discreet Number 5 on the door. And you had to come up to the door to see that.

The partners of the battered women had been known to come looking for them so being unnoticed counted. Even so, the house was known in the area and not loved.

Number 5 had been built at the end of the last century, it had celebrated its centenary, but it was showing its age. And who could blame it, Mary thought, since it had been a private home, home to a doctor who had been a police surgeon, and afterwards a dentist’s surgery, afterwards rented as home to the new Chief Commander of the Second City, one John Coffin, and then left empty for a clutch of years.

Now it was a home for the fearful and the dispossessed. Interestingly, in the time of its first occupant, the doctor, it had got the reputation of being the home of Jack the Ripper: Dr Death.

Mary Arden walked down the stairs. There was a WPC sitting on an upright chair in the hall.

‘You all right? Would you like a more comfortable chair?’ If there is one, Mary thought, even as she asked the question.

‘No, thank you, Miss Arden. This one does me.’

‘Is it true that a handbag was found outside the house?’

‘I haven’t heard, Miss Arden.’

And wouldn’t say.

Mary opened the front door to breathe in the cold, damp air. Phoebe Astley, who had been talking to the forensic team, swung round to look at her.

‘Hello, you advance guard, or doing the questioning yourself?’

‘Just checking.’ Phoebe came into the hall, sniffing the air. ‘I always wonder how you manage to keep this place smelling so fresh when …’

‘You mean when we don’t wash enough here.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that and you know it. I mean you have a very mixed and floating population here, and yet it never seems institutional.’

She does mean it doesn’t smell. Mary grinned.

‘I work on it, it’s meant to be pleasant. We all like a hot bath or shower and there’s always hot water. And I provide lavender bath soap … they don’t have to use it, they may prefer their own, but it’s there.’

Phoebe looked trim and brisk, her dress sense had tightened up; she carried a neat black notebook, the successful detective officer.

I admire you, Phoebe, Mary said to herself. But what would you say, if I said: I could read what was written on the two terrible bundles and I saw the initials J.C.?

What would you make of that, Phoebe?

Not the signature of the sender, you would say at once, but a suggestion of the recipient?

All she said was: ‘I suppose you want to talk to everyone here?’

‘Not me in person, but a couple of WDCs will be in.’

‘Don’t upset them, please. All the women have been through a lot. They need to be treated with care.’

‘That’s why I am sending women officers. They have been carefully chosen.’

‘Good.’

‘Just whether they heard or saw anything in the night or early morning. You too will be asked, Mary.’

‘I saw nothing,’ said Mary quickly. ‘Heard nothing. I don’t think anyone here will be able to help you. It can’t be anything to do with current residents.’

Phoebe nodded but did not commit herself.

‘And the bag?’

‘May have nothing to do with the remains of the body.’ Phoebe was still being cautious.

Suddenly, Mary said: ‘I know what was written across the bundle. I did go out to look when Evelyn came running in. I couldn’t make it out.’

Phoebe allowed herself a shrug. Who can, it said.

‘I send it back from me to you, although it was yours before … Sounds like a quotation.’

‘We’re working on it.’

‘And J.C.? What does that mean?’

Phoebe did not answer. Not even a shrug this time.

‘Some of the girls here think the body or what there is of it might be from Etta … she worked here for a bit. I thought she’d gone home, but it seems she’s been seen around the district … She had some risky friends, the sort that might use violence.’ Mary let the next words drop out slowly, as if she had just thought of them: ‘And she went about a bit with a few local coppers.’

Phoebe could have said that she had heard this, but she did not. Never divulge information unnecessarily was a dictum she had been taught. Especially in a case like this. ‘We’ll work it out,’ said Phoebe patiently. ‘Trust us.’

But trust, as she knew, was always in short supply in the Second City.

And she wasn’t too sure how much she had of it herself. She nodded to PC Ryman-Lawson as she left, acknowledging that he was wet and cold.