Читать книгу A Grave Coffin - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 8

A small crowd of people stood at the kerb, with the air of having fled from the building in a hurry, but even as he looked they were disappearing into a small bar at the end of the cul-de-sac. The Queen’s Arms, it proclaimed itself, with a large portrait of a crowned lady who might have been Queen Victoria or Mary, Queen of Scots, since she was long since faded into a gentle blur. You could see the crown, however.

Coffin walked towards the police constable stationed at the door of the building. He did not identify himself.

‘Can I get in there?’

‘No, sir, sorry, no chance.’ The constable was young, blue-eyed and with red hair.

Coffin stared up at the building. It looked to him as though the fire was out, the flames had died down.

‘I need to get in urgently.’

Coffin was still assessing the scene. It might have had the making of a nasty fire, but it had been controlled and the building looked solid still. There was an outer fire staircase which could be used. He nodded towards it. ‘I could go up there. It’s mostly smoke now, isn’t it?’

‘You can have a word with the Chief Fire Officer, that’s him over there.’ The constable nodded to a large, uniformed man standing by a car. ‘I can’t give permission, out of my power.’

‘Yes, I understand that. Where did it start?’

‘Top floor. Or so I’ve been told.’ The fire was certainly damped down, but there was still smoke and heat. Coffin was both curious and anxious. Had the flat to which he had the keys been damaged?

If so, was it by a genuine accident or by deliberate attempt?

If it was arson he was very interested indeed.

He strolled towards the Chief Fire Officer. The man glanced towards him without interest, then turned away to speak to one of the firemen. It was then that Coffin realized the disadvantage of being anonymous. For years now, he had had quick attention to his questions, he was not used to being ignored. In short, he had grown into being the Chief Commissioner of his force and was now going to have to shrink back in size.

He stood there thinking the problem out: a certain duplicitous honesty was his best line. If the fire had not happened, then he would have slipped in and out with no one noticing. If anyone had asked, just one of the forensic team. But no one would have asked.

Slowly he advanced to the Chief Fire Officer, who went on talking, then finally addressed him over his shoulder.

‘That your car there?’

Coffin looked towards a car parked at the kerb. Before he could speak, the Chief Fire Officer said: ‘Move it. Shouldn’t be there.’

Coffin bit back the comment that the car appeared to be perfectly parked and in no one’s way, but contented himself with saying politely that it was not his car. He could, however, see someone sitting in it, but decided not to mention this.

‘Is it safe to get into the building yet?’

‘No.’ A blunt refusal.

Coffin nodded. ‘Right,’ he said peaceably. ‘So when?’ Tomorrow, next week, he would have to accept it, and hope that the firemen had not destroyed too much.

‘Can’t say.’

‘I need to get into flat twelve.’ He held up the keys, swinging them a little.

‘You the tenant? You rent the place?’

Smooth, taking manners, thought Coffin, charming fellow. ‘I am part of a police forensic team that has been examining the place.’ It seemed safe enough to say this much. It might easily be common knowledge, passed around the other tenants.

He needn’t have worried. It cut no ice.

‘You can get in with the others when it is safe. Can’t say when yet.’

Reluctantly, Coffin faced the fact that he had got used to being speeded through any obstacles back home in the Second City and that life was tougher outside.

He walked down the road to the pub into which he had seen the rest of the tenants disappear. He noticed that the car was now empty and a figure was walking into the pub. To his surprise, it was a woman.

The Queen’s Arms was old and small and dark, it could have been there since the Great Fire of London in 1666, or even have survived it. Certainly it had survived the Blitz and all the rest of the bombs that particular war had thrown at it. Now it had a large notice advising customers to watch untended bags because of IRA bombs.

Inside it was crowded. Coffin stood at the door, wondering if he could work out who were the tenants who had fled from their offices.

He ordered a drink, which he stood by the bar drinking while he let his eyes study the crowd.

Well, he knew the woman: the back disappearing down the road had been wearing a black coat. So there she was with a drink in her hand at a table in the window.

And oddly enough, she was looking at him. Looking at him looking at her.

He stared down at his drink to break the link, but he could still see her in his mind’s eye: she looked lean, intellectual and sophisticated. She was dressed in black, but not dead black, there was a gleam of leather and the hint of silk at the throat. In other words, she looked expensive. Life with Stella had at least taught Coffin what good clothes cost.

Around him, the crowd of the dispossessed were drinking and shouting at each other.

‘I blame the chap on the top floor.’ This was a stout man in a check suit. ‘We never had anything till he moved in, and then we had the police, and now the fire brigade. And where is he now? It’s him.’

‘It did start there, damn it. I ought to know as I was near it. But I don’t think he’s there any more. I never see him now.’ A pretty, slight girl in the shortest skirt and with the longest hair that Coffin had lately seen walking around London. (‘On the way out, that Loopy Lu look,’ Stella had told him. ‘And it’s time the wearers knew it, but it’s got to be a uniform for them and they really don’t see themselves. They will be dinosaurs before they notice it.’) ‘I think he’s gone. They weren’t police you saw, they were debt collectors.’

‘Didn’t look like debt collectors to me,’ said Check Suit, ‘more official. And they locked the door.’

‘Trust you to notice that.’

‘They didn’t set fire to anything, though.’

‘Wonder who did? I hope my notes on the report I am writing for Lord Herrington on fiscal controls and the EU aren’t too kippered. I couldn’t bear to do it again, he’s so stupid you have to make it easy.’

This was Miss Miniskirt, so she was the intellectual heavyweight of the two? She was a lawyer, he guessed, so what was Check Suit? Another lawyer? No, a businessman of some sort. Probably he imported or exported something, handbags or lacy knickers.

‘Lord H. is always kippered himself, isn’t he, the way he drinks and smokes? I will say this for the fire people, they got there fast and put the fire out damn quickly. I don’t think I will have lost anything.’

‘The smell of smoke on everything is bad enough,’ grumbled the young woman. ‘And that foam stuff they use as well as water …’ But she didn’t sound too worried. Lord Herrington would have to put up with his smoked report.

The two of them turned away to talk to the rest of the homeless.

While listening to all this, and trying to assess what it told him about Harry Seton’s activities, Coffin had been watching the woman in the window.

The second sense that all long-time coppers develop told him that she was watching him while listening to the man and woman, just as he was.

That told him something.

He met her eyes and this time, she smiled and nodded at him. The moment was flooded over by a burst of laughter from the dispossessed to his right.

Coffin got up, walked across and stood looking at her; he said nothing.

She held out her hand. ‘I know who you are: John Coffin. My husband had a photograph of you. He was in it too.’ Still she kept her hand extended. ‘Mary Seton.’

Coffin took her hand, noting the softness and the shining tinted nails, not what you expected somehow from a copper’s wife, although heaven knew, his own wife Stella was typical of nothing, not even the stage.

‘Mary Beaton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael and I …’

The line from the old Scots ballad ran through his mind; he could not remember who ‘I’ was, but he did know that she came to a bad end. On the scaffold, having killed … whom? Her lover or her bastard child?

‘I think we are expected to meet to talk about my husband. Ed Saxon told me you would be around.’

‘I was going to call. But today I wanted to have a look round his office.’

‘The one that someone tried to burn? Yes, I wanted to see it too. We picked the wrong day, didn’t we? Sit down, do. You make me nervous standing there.’

Coffin put his glass on the table, then sat down opposite her. He doubted if he could make Mary Seton nervous.

‘You know, I had no idea the office existed until Harry died … I only learnt then by accident. Wives are supposed to be kept from too much knowledge, painful knowledge, that is. Or that’s Ed Saxon’s philosophy.’

Are you sure, thought Coffin cynically, wondering if he could believe her ignorant. I think he doles out the painful bits as it suits him, and if he let you know about this office then it suited him.

He was, he feared, a natural cynic where Ed Saxon was concerned.

He nodded his head. ‘I know Ed has his ways.’

‘I came today to look round. I didn’t have a key but I thought I could get in. I would have done too.’

Coffin believed her.

She made a gesture with her hands. ‘Well, you saw … when I got here there was the fire brigade and the police.’ She nodded towards the talkers and drinkers near the bar. ‘So I followed this lot in here.’

She had sat in the car watching, Coffin commented to himself, a careful, cautious woman. He liked the way she used her hands. Stella would have approved of that: what you do with your hands on the stage is so important, they give you character or take it away. Never walk on the stage without knowing what to do with your hands and never let them droop.

He could see that Mary Seton would never walk on to her stage with drooping hands.

She must have picked up his thoughts. ‘I know you are married, I have seen your wife act. I admired her.’

‘Stella’s in Los Angeles at the moment.’

‘You must miss her.’

‘I do, of course, but we agreed when we married that she must be free to follow’ – he paused – ‘well, whatever the theatre demands. I wouldn’t want her to lose by being married.’

‘It applies to you too.’ She sipped her sherry. ‘But men don’t expect to lose by getting married, it’s just an extra, nothing to get in their way.’

Coffin gave her a cautious look.

‘I don’t think most policemen’s wives have happy marriages,’ she went on. ‘Stella is lucky.’

Coffin thought that Stella was not so much lucky as good at fighting her battles, probably he would have been as selfish and demanding as any, but Stella had not allowed it.

‘She deserves it,’ went on Mary Seton. ‘She is so talented.’

‘I think so,’ said Coffin, glad to be on solid ground at last.

‘I made my own career – I own a small chain of fashion shops, I don’t think Harry minded, or if he did it didn’t show. It meant he didn’t see so much of me as he might have done … I have to travel a bit.’

The noise from the group at the bar interrupted them; loud laughter and a small bit of horseplay with Miss Miniskirt doing most of the pushing; she was not one to overlook. Coffin decided.

‘Jolly, aren’t they? They aren’t worried about the fire, or why it was started. Harry was destroyed and now someone has had a go at destroying what he was working on.’ She turned her head towards the window; Coffin saw the glint of tears on her lashes.

‘We don’t know that it was arson.’

‘Oh, we do … it started on the top floor, Harry’s floor.’

Coffin had been looking out of the window, from where he could see that the fire engines were drawing away. He would probably be able to get into the building quite soon, if the top floor was not too hot. Or wet.

‘I want to have a look round myself, so I am hoping that it may not have been destroyed.’

She looked at him and shook her head.

‘They didn’t let me see Harry’s body. Just his face, so I could identify him, the rest was wrapped in sheets.’ There was no mistaking the tears on her cheeks now. ‘So I suppose they had a reason.’

You insensitive ox, Coffin told himself, all this bitter talk she’s been throwing at you is because she is bloody unhappy. She loved the man.

There was another burst of laughter, and Miss Miniskirt swept past. ‘Going to inspect the ruins,’ she called out.

Mary watched her go; through her tears, she said: ‘She spent a lot on that suit but she wasted her money: it doesn’t fit her. Didn’t you notice the sleeves?’

Coffin shook his head, he had not noticed the sleeves. All right, he had thought the black suit expensive, so he got that right.

‘You think I’m a bad-tempered cow, all right?’

‘No, I think you are a very unhappy woman.’

There was a pause. ‘I loved him. I didn’t always like him, but I loved him.’

There was silence.

She stood up. ‘I’m going to follow that woman. See if I can get into the building? Are you coming too?’

‘Yes, but I don’t know what our chances are.’

‘I am going to get in, I saw a fire escape. I shall go up that.’

‘I saw it too.’

‘I was working it all out as I sat in the car.’

‘Why are you so anxious to see Harry’s office here?’

Mary slowed her pace, they could both see the woman in the miniskirt arguing with the police constable now on solitary duty.

‘Because Ed Saxon didn’t want me to. I only got the address because I read it upside down on his desk. What about you?’

‘Work,’ said Coffin evasively. ‘An investigation.’

‘Are you working on Harry’s death?’

‘No, the Met are handling that, of course …’ This was true, although he would be privy to what they turned up and in return they would want to look at anything he got. A strange position to be in, he thought, never happened before. It made him feel two-headed.

Mary looked at him sceptically, but she said nothing, moving ahead of him towards the office block. The woman in the miniskirt was still talking to the police constable. She seemed to be arguing fiercely.

Both of them had their backs to Coffin and Mary Seton. Without a word, Mary put her foot on the bottom rung of the fire escape, gave Coffin a meaning look, and ran up, leaping from step to step.

Coffin followed her. He was agile himself but she was nimbler. Good mind too, Harry Seton had been a lucky man. Only his luck had ended. Older than Mary. Hadn’t there been a first wife? He had memories of hearing of one called Elsa. Elsa he had never met, but he was willing to admit that she had been pretty and lively and clever, as with Mary. Did one always marry the same woman? What had happened to Elsa? Had she dropped Harry or the other way round?

These questions flashed through his mind with speed as he went up the staircase. He was at the top before he remembered the answer: Elsa was dead.

Curious thing, the mind, why had he just remembered Elsa and her death?

Mary was looking through the glass door, it was darkened, stained by smoke. ‘A bit kippered, but you can see through.’

Coffin was feeling in his pocket. ‘Got a key?’

‘No. I haven’t a key. Harry never gave me one, I wasn’t told about this place, remember? I only found out when he was dead, and Ed Saxon certainly wasn’t about to give me a key. Keep wives out is embroidered on his chest, that one. I was going to break in if I could. So I was always coming up this way.’ She looked down at her feet, ‘I was going to knock my way through the glass with a heel.’

Coffin was sorting through the bunch of keys. ‘You’d have a job breaking this glass without a wound or two. Good thing you met me.’ He wasn’t sure how much he believed her, but she had a beguiling way with words. ‘Are you sure you weren’t going to bribe your way in?’

She grinned. ‘Somehow, somehow. Maybe, maybe. But I found you. Come on, let’s get in.’

The lock turned easily enough but the door was stiff; it gave way, though, before his shoulder.

‘Here we are. In.’

Harry’s office had not been burnt to bits, or flooded with water. It smelt of smoke and was untidy, but that might have been Harry, not the firemen.

His files had been in metal cabinets, but some drawers had been opened and the papers were on the floor. They were scorched but not destroyed.

‘If they were after Harry’s work, it was a shitty job,’ said Mary.

‘Maybe not, maybe just a warning … to you or to me. How do you know about where the fire started?’

‘I was listening to that workshy crowd who had evacuated the building. All full of joy and even accusing each other of doing the job.’ She had advanced into the middle of the room, and was looking around her. ‘No, you are right … it’s a warning only.’

‘You ought to work for the CID,’ said Coffin, who had also heard the conversation, with admiration. ‘Are you sure you didn’t start it yourself?’

‘I didn’t hate Harry and his work that much …’ She was still looking round the room. ‘But you are quite right: there were times when he was alive … All wives hate their husbands in patches.’

‘Thanks for that,’ said Coffin, wondering if he had better watch Stella for one of those patches.

‘I might well have burnt his office down, but not now he is dead.’ Then she said: ‘He had a period in a clinic when he had a kind of breakdown … did you know that?’

‘No.’

‘Drink, mostly. Usually is with coppers, isn’t it?’

‘I can see you admire us.’ But he couldn’t say no, because he had been down that road himself. It was likely that Mary Seton knew it, too.

Coffin looked round the room. It was dampened down by a spray of water from a fireman’s hose, but was not damaged. He was pulling open the drawers of the desk … still warm, but there was stuff inside. Not much but something. He thought that Harry probably hadn’t kept much stuff there anyway. Wise fellow. Not that it had availed him much in the long run.

There was also the computer on a table against the wall, perhaps he was more of a computer man.

It was not a comfortable room, probably the smallest and cheapest (no lift to it) in the building, but Harry had tried for a personal touch: there was a pot plant, now dead, on the desk.

‘Wonder who gave Harry that plant?’ said Mary. ‘Not me. Some fool thought it would cheer the room up.’ She touched the soil. ‘I see he never watered it.’

He may not have had much chance, thought Coffin. Mary read his face.

‘Yes, all right, he died.’

Coffin began to gather up the files from the desk, then those on the floor. He could see traces of the forensic efforts, with pale powder marks distributed freely over almost every surface, desk top, drawers, and the files inside.

Not as many files as he had expected, he would have to ask a few searching questions about what, if anything, had been carried away. No doubt every document had been photocopied. He scooped them up, wishing he had a bag to put them in. Then he saw a carrier bag in the wastebasket. It was from a shop in Birmingham: FOOD GALORE, Reform Street. So someone had been in Birmingham.

Then he turned to the word processor.

Mary, who had stopped prowling round the room, watched him. ‘Harry wasn’t much good at that. I ought to know as I had to teach him what he had to know – the basics, anyhow.’

‘I’m not much good myself,’ said Coffin, ‘but I know how to switch it on.’

The screen glowed blue.

‘The fire doesn’t seem to have hurt it, you can never tell with these things.’

‘It’s on battery,’ Mary pointed out. ‘He travelled around with it. It wouldn’t be touched by any power loss.’

He pressed a key and a list of files came up. They were numbered, not named, so Harry must have kept a key or relied on memory.

He pressed the key for Number One. The first page came up.

In big capital letters, he read:

WE’VE HAD A LOOK AT THESE.

WE KNOW YOU WILL BE LOOKING TOO.

HA HA.

‘Ha ha to you,’ said Coffin, pressing on to page two of File Number One.

It was blank. Someone, possibly Harry, had wiped it clean. A quick glance through the next three files showed these to be blank also.

Frowning, Coffin turned off the machine. Mary, who had been watching over his shoulder, said nothing. ‘I’ll just pack this up and take it with me.’ He looked around for the carrying satchel which was on the floor. ‘Right, that’s it.’ For the moment; he would be back and without Mary Seton. ‘Seen all you want?’

‘Yes, nothing to see really. Hasn’t given me much idea about Harry’s last days. If you learn anything you can tell me, will you?’

Coffin nodded. ‘I will.’

She smiled at him. ‘Of course, I know what that means, you being a policeman. Can I give you a lift?’

‘To the Tower terminus of the Docklands Railway? That’ll see me into my territory. Thank you.’

They were both silent on the short drive; Mary Seton drove efficiently through the traffic, delivering him near the entrance to the Docklands Light Railway, already known by regular users as the Dockers’ Delight.

‘How long does the battery last at full strength on this machine?’ He tapped the computer.

Mary shrugged. ‘About two and a half to three hours when used.’

‘And unused?’

‘I don’t know. Just guessing, I should say about a week or a little more.’

Coffin considered this; the machine he had on his lap registered two hours’ working time left. So it had been plugged into a socket and the power stepped up.

By whom? Also why?

He occupied his mind with this question as Mary drove.

‘Thanks for the lift.’ Coffin opened the car door.

Mary leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Thank you. You helped me through a bad patch.’

Coffin was thoughtful as he let the train swing its way through old Docklands. It was a journey he usually enjoyed because it provided a perfect example of the whirligig of time bringing in its revenges: the former run-down, working-class area was now full of smart and expensive flats powered by the new businesses which had moved in. He was satisfied to see history being made. His own Second City partook of both elements, a good deal of it still solid working class with a new dash of upmarket chic in converted factories and warehouses. Crime was about equal in both communities.

But he wondered about Mary Seton. A kiss is just a kiss. Of course, but why me, he asked himself.

The train stopped at the Spinnergate station which was where he had parked his car on the journey in. His car was still there; he checked to see if all the wheels plus wheel hubs were in place, as you were well advised to do in Spinnergate if you left your car alone for any length of time. All present and correct. His force’s pressure on the petty criminal must be paying off.

At last, he thought, as he got in the car to drive home. No joy there without Stella, though, without her it didn’t seem like a home. Even the dog, Augustus, seemed low spirited, but that was probably due to overeating because Coffin just fed when he asked, which in Gus’s case was often.

Gus appeared to greet him with a wagging tail and a small bark of complaint.

‘No, I couldn’t take you with me today. Not today, Gus. Grow up, you are a big dog now and must learn to live alone.’

Gus barked again. He had no intention of learning anything which did not suit him. But he meant to be guileful, since if he was too difficult he remembered that Coffin would get Phoebe Astley to look after him. The chief inspector was not gentle and persuasive like Stella Pinero, nor absent-minded and kind like his master, Coffin. No, Phoebe was firm, and strict, leaving a dog with not much freedom.

Coffin fed the dog from a tin of his chosen meat, then he went to see if he had any message from Stella, either faxed or on the answerphone.

The big sitting room was cold and dark. He turned on a light before drawing the curtains at the large window. If he looked out of this window, he could just see the roofs of the University Hospital, where a talk with the head of the pharmaceutical department was something he meant to take. He knew Perry Curtis slightly, but well enough to value his insight and judgement.

Nothing from Stella, but a message from his own office.

‘Paul Masters, here, sir. Could you ring back as soon as possible, please?’

The inspector’s voice sounded tense. Paul Masters administered the Chief Commander’s office with calm skill. He did not readily show strain.

Coffin picked up the telephone and dialled the number that rang straight through to the phone on Paul Masters’s desk.

‘Coffin here. You wanted me?’

‘Ah, yes indeed. Chief Superintendent Young wanted to talk to you … As it happens, he is here now.’

Archie Young spoke quickly. ‘We have the body of one of the missing boys.’

‘Which one?’

‘The last to go missing, the ten-year-old from Percy Street.’

‘He has been identified?’

‘Yes, by his father. We have his body.’ Archie Young hesitated. ‘And parts of another.’

‘How was he found?’

‘In a wooded area by a young couple … looking for somewhere quiet and dark.’

‘How did they come to find the body … was it buried?’

‘Yes, but working free from the soil and leaves … they didn’t see it themselves at first, but they saw a man with his dog staring at something among the trees. He was holding back the dog. Or seemed to be, the dog was in the bushes. He said to them that there was something funny that they ought to look at. The young man did so while the man stood back. He soon saw it was a body, saw the feet, he says … he had his mobile with him and telephoned the police.’

‘And the man?’

‘He disappeared into the dark.’

Coffin put the telephone down slowly. ‘I’ll be in,’ he muttered. ‘We will talk it over then.’

When one question bothers you, there is always another one weighing on your mind.

There was one way of getting an answer to one problem.

He rang the Home Office man who had urged him so persuasively to investigate the pharmaceutical problem for Ed Saxon.

‘Tell me straight: why was I picked for the job?’

There was some silence. ‘You stand high, Chief Commander, you have a great reputation.’ Then he added carefully: ‘And of course, we both know Humphrey Gillow.’

‘Did Ed Saxon want me?’

‘He was very glad to get you.’ That came quickly. ‘You’d worked together before. In fact, he said that Harry Seton had named you as a good person in trouble.’

Oh yes, old friends. ‘Had he got a choice? I mean, did you have a list of suitable names?’

Silence again. An answer probably brewing up there, but taking its time.

‘So it was just me?’ And wasn’t I lucky with Harry naming me and everything. ‘But there was a special reason. So let me guess: something to do with the Second City.’

‘Yes, there is reason to believe that an important connection of this outfit is in the Second City.’

One question answered brings another right out. ‘So why did you not tell me straightaway.’

‘We wanted you to approach it unbiased, with an open mind.’

So it wasn’t me that was so wanted, it was the place I came from. I knew Ed Saxon wasn’t being straight with me. I could tell it in his eyes.

There was something else too; I shall find out.

He put Augustus on his leash, and set out to walk with him through to his own office in the police headquarters not far from Spinnergate tube station.

The Second City, created out of old dockland London, with a long history behind it, a town before the Romans came, a city to greet the Normans, so large and rich by the time Napoleon was defeated that the Prussian General Blucher cried out in envy: ‘What a city to sack.’ Hitler thought it might fall to him too, but was disappointed in his turn.

Now the Second City, its four districts of Spinnergate, Swinehouse, Leathergate and East Hythe had clung on to its character while absorbing banks and newspapers, watching old warehouses converted into expensive flats and eighteenth-century dock houses become cherished dwelling places again. Meanwhile, the indigenous population resisted rehousing in tower blocks as far as it could, preferring, with an obstinacy that had served them well in the past, to live in the old terraces of houses that had survived the bombs.

There were bombs sometimes now, although planted overnight or delivered in person by hand or mortar and not dropped from the air, but these bombs too the Second City could cope with and survive.

Coffin was most familiar with Spinnergate because this was where he lived in the tower of the old St Luke’s Church, now secularized to provide him a home, as well as being the site of St Luke’s Theatre complex. His wife, Stella Pinero, was the theatrical brain behind the theatre, while his half-sister, Letty Bingham, a much-married wealthy banker and lawyer, helped on the money side.

Dog and man strode through Spinnergate, companionable and silent. Augustus encouraged his master to walk as much as possible on the grounds of health and pleasure: he was thinking of himself, but he had noticed that master (not a word Augustus accepted, food giver, walker, protector, these were how he thought of Coffin in a wordless way) needed little persuasion. Augustus had a few words: his own name, walks, dinner, these sounds he recognized, more complex emotions were known but not given labels.

But Augustus recognized the route they were taking and felt a tinge of depression, he was going to the ‘other place’, this being how he sensed Coffin’s office. It was a kind of home to him, he was welcomed, he had a warm corner, there was a bowl of water, even food on occasion, but that said, he was ignored. This obliged him to plant himself across Coffin’s feet to remind the man of his existence.

Coffin strode in, was greeted politely at the door, and took the lift to his offices. In the outer office, were two secretaries who changed constantly, usually through a career move or a baby. One woman, the tall, well-dressed Sheila, had been with him for some time now and he had hopes she would stay. Coffin valued constancy in his relationships.

He nodded and spoke to Sheila, then looked across to the corner of the room where his valued assistant, Inspector Paul Masters, had created a kind of personal territory.

Paul got up and came across. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Letters and messages as usual on your desk.’

‘Right.’ Coffin was already walking towards his own quarters while Augustus was sidling across to Sheila, a known and secret source of chocolate. ‘Anything special?’

Paul Masters hesitated. ‘You’ve spoken to the chief superintendent … I don’t know more than he will have told you then.’

‘He told me a boy had been found, dead, and identified by his father. One of the missing boys. And parts from another.’

‘That’s right, sir. It’s all that’s known at the moment. The chief superintendent was off to see the father, but he wanted to get in touch with you first.’

Coffin advanced to look at his desk where Paul Masters had arranged a display of files and papers. He had an aesthetic sense, Coffin always felt, so that papers, although grouped logically, were fanned out in a neat presentation. He even managed to control the faxes, while keeping them in a separate group. All the same, they represented work, work and work, and there was always a special collection marked URGENT.

‘He will be in to see you, sir, after he has seen the father.’

‘Who is running the investigation?’

‘The chief superintendent is in overall charge, of course – he’s keeping a watching eye on things.’

‘And who’s running the investigation?’ he asked again. He was shuffling the papers on his desk as he spoke. All the information he was asking for would be there, but it was quicker to get it out of Paul Masters, who might also oblige with a few case histories of the officers concerned, and how well they were doing the job. This was done tactfully, but Coffin knew how to read between the lines.

‘Inspector Paddy Devlin is the senior officer in charge, with Sergeant Tony Tittleton … they are both very experienced in dealing with children.’

‘Experienced children-watchers?’

‘That’s it, sir. Paddy Devlin, whom I know quite well, sir, I trained with her, handled the paedophile case in East Hythe last year. She is very, very competent.’ Due for promotion too, and hopeful of getting it.

Red-haired and handsome too, but he did not mention this fact.

‘Yes, I remember now. Nasty case. Is there reckoned to be any connection with this lot?’

‘Could be, but I haven’t heard it said.’ One of Paul Masters’s assets to Coffin was that he heard all the gossip that got held back from Coffin. It worked both ways, because if there was anything an officer wanted Coffin to know then he would take care to let Paul Masters know. ‘But it is one of the things they will be looking out for, of course.’

Coffin handed over to him the computer in its case, and the bag of documents.

‘Get this computer to John Armstrong and ask him to get back, if he can, all wiped documents. It’s urgent.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And the documents in the bag: I want them photocopied. I will think about the next step when that is done. They are confidential.’

‘I’ll do them myself.’

‘Good.’

Paul Masters disappeared tactfully while Coffin turned to the papers on his desk. He did not dislike the task as much as he sometimes let people think; there was satisfaction in running a tidy, tight ship.

He read and signed letters, initialled reports, reflecting as he did so that the end product of a career as an ambitious and successful detective was to be an administrator.

However, with some skill and some luck, he had kept his hand in as a detective. Just as well, he considered, in view of the job now handed to him by Ed Saxon.

As to that matter, he had no idea where to start, and the very clear idea that it seemed stupid to separate what he was asked to do from the investigation into the death of Harry Seton.

Not that he intended to do that himself; he would be thinking about Harry’s death with every move he made. And the note found on Harry’s PC suggested that the Met team would be thinking about him.

Maybe they should meet.

The sound of voices in the outer office disturbed him; Paul Masters knocked and put his head round the door.

‘Chief Superintendent Young is here, sir.’

It gave Coffin pleasure that it had been he who had promoted his old friend and fellow worker to this rank, but Archie deserved it. A tall, still thin man (his wife kept an eye on his diet) with a kind heart and a shrewd brain. An invaluable comrade and friend.

Now the man looked sober. ‘Not good news, I’m afraid. You know the outline of the case: over a period of two months, four boys have gone missing.’

Coffin nodded.

‘Three still missing and one found,’ said Archie Young heavily. ‘And the leg of another child, possibly one of those missing.’

Coffin had a list:

Matthew Baker, aged eight years and three months.

Archie Chinner, ten years old and one month.

Dick Neville, eleven years old and a week.

Charles Rick, ten years old and four months.

‘And which one has been found?’

Archie Young’s voice was still quiet and sombre. ‘Archie Chinner was the boy whose body was found. He was hidden in the bushes on that bit of scrubland where the Delaware Factory once was. It’s due for redevelopment but nothing much has happened yet. As I told you, a courting couple found him last night.’

‘Who interviewed the couple?’

‘Devlin. And I spoke to them as well. It’s all on tape, but I have given you the gist.’

‘Have to try and get hold of the man who pointed out the body.’

‘Devlin is organizing it, using the local media to ask him to come forward, but she’s not hopeful, he would have stayed around if he had meant to be helpful.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Just a man with a dog to the couple. They were surprised to see him, not usually anyone around up there. He left the dirty work to them, they found the body and it shook them up. I have looked into them, just what they seem to be.’ His voice was heavy.

‘And his father identified the boy?’

‘Yes, he had been dead a few days but he was recognizable. Easily.’

‘How did you know which father to call in?’

‘We had photographs of all the boys. All four of them went to the same school, the Junior School of the Royal Road Comprehensive – the Clement Attlee School is the full name, and the parents supplied photographs.’

Coffin waited, he could tell that Archie was quietly making his way up to what he wanted to say.

‘So he was identified easily enough,’ Archie went on. ‘No trouble there … the only thing is …’ And here he paused.

Coffin waited. You didn’t hurry Archie when he was taking his time.

‘His father said that the clothes he was wearing were not his own … Not a stitch he had on was his.’

‘Any idea where the clothes came from?’

Archie shook his head. ‘They look newish, may not have been worn much but not shop-fresh. Some boy has worn them.’

‘That may help.’

‘May do … But there was blood on them.’

‘Much blood?’

‘Quite a bit … but the interesting thing is that preliminary tests on the blood groups suggest blood from two people: one the boy’s and the other from an unknown person.’

‘From one of the other boys?’

‘Could be … Or from the murderer.’

‘How was the boy killed?’

‘Can’t be sure until the PM. Smothered, possibly.’

‘So where did his blood come from?’

‘Probably from the anus … he had been sexually assaulted. Pretty badly, too.’

Coffin tightened his lips. This was a horrible business. ‘That may be why he was smothered: he was too badly hurt to send him back into the world.’

‘And he may have known his abuser.’

Coffin was starting at the list of names. ‘Wait a minute, Chinner … not a usual name. Is the father … ?’ He stopped, letting the query rest on the air.

‘Yes, he’s one of ours. A police surgeon, Dr Geoffrey Chinner, a local GP as well.’

‘I know him, he worked on a case that interested me.’

One of the many, thought Archie Young.

‘We kept that information quiet when the boy went missing because we weren’t sure how it would touch his chances of survival. The media found out but went along with us.

‘That is not all: every one of the missing boys had a parent who was one of ours.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I was coming to you with it.’

Coffin was silent. Ed Saxon’s call had come in yesterday, he had been preoccupied with other problems, there was always something urgent.

‘I am supposed to know that sort of thing.’

‘I am sorry, sir.’

‘Before anyone else.’

Archie Young was silent.

‘All right,’ said Coffin grouchily. ‘I was in Los Angeles.’

Coffin got up. ‘I want to see where the boy was found. Then I want to see his body.’

‘I’ll drive you.’ Archie Young was still prickly with apology, while feeling that he had been unfairly treated: the Chief Commander had been in Los Angeles, a holiday, God knows he rarely took one, and there had been a silent feeling that this break should be respected.

In the car for the drive across Spinnergate to East Hythe, they talked.

Coffin stared about him at the streets as they drove. There was a good deal of traffic, buses and many private cars. His eye was caught by a flash of yellow, red and green in a shop window. Great glass bottles full of colour and underneath a more sober display of packets. ‘What shop’s that?’ They were going down what had once been the main shopping street of old East Hythe and was still the High Street. A memory of the shop stirred inside Coffin. He ought to remember more.

Archie Young took a quick look. ‘Oh, that’s old Mr Barley’s chemist’s shop, he keeps it old-fashioned like that. You should see inside. Doubt if he does much trade, but tourists love it.’

He gave a nod to the west: ‘And you can just see the roof of the school the boys went to. We are trying to keep it from the children – it’s mixed, of course – as much as possible. There’s the Junior School attached.’ The lost boys had gone there, sent by hopeful parents because it had a good reputation.

He drove on quietly, the traffic was heavy here.

‘Miss the old trams,’ Coffin said. ‘They packed the people in.’

‘I don’t remember trams.’ Archie Young was concentrating on weaving his way through the traffic.

‘No, you’re too young. Tell me about the parents of the boys.’

He sounds a bit better, thought Archie with relief, he’s loosening up

‘Not all the parents are officers: the Neville lad’s mother works in the canteen at the Leathergate substation, the Rick lad’s father is a DC in Spinnergate, and Matthew Baker’s dad is a CID sergeant in Spinnergate.’

Coffin looked at him. ‘Archie Chinner?’

The chief superintendent looked away, out of the window. ‘Yes, the boy’s my godson. His father is a police surgeon as I said.’

‘Sorry.’ There was a pause. ‘Would you like to withdraw from any interest in the case?’

Young shook his head. ‘No, I couldn’t. In any case, Paddy Devlin is really handling it for all practical purposes, and she’s good.’

‘So I have heard.’ They were passing through a large council estate, the Attlee Estate, which provided plenty of work for the Second City force. The press blamed youth unemployment, but Coffin wondered.

‘From different districts but, you say, all four boys went to the same school?’

‘It’s a very big comprehensive, good academically so parents are pleased if their kid goes there, got an Oxford scholarship last year. A bus goes round picking up the pupils to ferry them there.’

‘It’s worth thinking about the school,’ said Coffin thoughtfully.

‘You can bet we are. Going over the place with a fine comb, nobody missed out.’

The road wound up a hill crested with trees and open land. ‘Plans to turn this into a park, but nothing has come of it yet.’

There were several police cars parked at the kerb, and a uniformed constable talking to a TV camera team. Coffin and Archie Young drove past the group fast.

At the top of the hill there was a thick belt of trees and bushes. Here an area was marked off by tape.

‘He was found buried there.’ Archie Young nodded to where the grass was already dug up. ‘A shallow grave; the couple that found him noticed the flies buzzing around … And the smell,’ he added. ‘Then they saw the top of a shoe … trainer, the sort kids wear all the time now.’

Coffin walked over to look at the grave where white-coated forensic workers were still going over the ground. Other men were slowly searching the little patch of woodland.

‘Looking for anything,’ said Archie Young. ‘Not much to go on so far …’

‘Except the bloody clothes. And the other limb.’

‘Already in the lab being gone over.’

A tall woman appeared through the bushes. “Afternoon, sir.’

Coffin smiled and held out his hand. ‘Inspector Devlin. I believe I saw you at a party my wife gave in the theatre.’

‘I’m one of her fans, go to nearly everything she does – I think she’s brilliant. And I was in the audience for you, sir, when you talked to us about advances in communication-techniques crime.’

‘You’ve got a nasty one here,’ said Coffin.

Paddy Devlin gave Archie Young a quick look. ‘Yes,’ she said to Coffin. ‘We are giving of our best, I can promise you.’

‘I just wanted to come and look.’

‘Glad you did, sir.’

He looked up the slope of the hill. ‘How was the body brought here? Or was he killed on the spot?’

‘No, it looks as though he had been dead a day or two before he was buried here. As for being brought here …’ She shrugged. ‘You could park a car on the road up there, it’s very deserted at night, then carry the body down, or use a market trolley. You wouldn’t have to pinch one, plenty of them left around the streets.’

Coffin took a few paces through the trees, looking towards the road. ‘I think you are right. There will be traces left.’

‘Forensic think they have found some … marks on the ground, broken branches on the bushes.’

‘Good.’ He looked from Inspector Devlin to Archie Young. ‘I would like to speak to the boy’s father myself. All right?’

‘I think Dr Chinner went back to work … It’s a one-man practice and he felt he must do. On the Attlee Estate, no one else will work there.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ said Archie.

Coffin still had his eyes on Inspector Devlin as they drove away. ‘I hope she’s up to it.’

‘She certainly is.’ Archie spoke out loud and clear. ‘One of the best we’ve got. I can’t say what state Chinner will be in; he had himself under control but it may not have lasted … and I wouldn’t blame him.’

‘What about the mother?’

‘She’s dead. Geoff and I knew each other at school, and we were neighbours … he always had this missionary, must-help-the-public, spirit, that’s why he works in the Attlee bunker. It is that … metal grilles on the windows, special locks on the door … broken into about once a week even then.’

‘I can imagine.’

Archie Young drove efficiently towards the Attlee Estate, straight up to the surgery which did indeed have an embattled air, but where the outside windows were newly painted and there was a flower in a pot on the outer windowsill.

‘I hope he’s got that geranium nailed down,’ said Archie as he parked. ‘Or perhaps he takes it home at night.’

‘He doesn’t live over the shop?’

‘No, would you? Got a nice house round the corner from me in Oakwood Drive … but neglected since his wife died.’

‘Keeps this place up, though,’ said Coffin, getting out of the car.

Archie did not answer, he was already striding forward to Dr Chinner’s surgery.

The waiting room was not crowded: an old man with a stick and bent back, a woman with a baby on her lap, and a dog that seemed to have come in for attention on his own – he had a bandaged leg.

‘Thank God I haven’t got Gus with me, he’d probably join the queue.’ He knew, as any dog owner does, that dogs are terrible hypochondriacs.

Dr Chinner appeared, ushering out the last patient, a woman with her child. ‘There’s that dog again,’ he said. ‘Why can’t he go home. Hop it, Jason.’

Jason did not.

‘He thinks he’s your dog, you see. Doctor,’ volunteered the old man.

‘I expect he will be in the end,’ said the doctor. He looked at Archie and Coffin, gave them a nod, and said that they could have five minutes and no more.

Coffin thought that he had never seen a man holding the pressure inside him down more strongly and dangerously: he might explode any minute … You’d think a doctor would know, he said silently. Dr Chinner was a short man with a crest of red hair and bright-blue eyes. Normally he must have looked friendly and approachable. No mean feat as a professional working on the Attlee Estate.

‘I will tell you anything I can, answer any questions, but get on with it, please.’

Coffin hesitated. ‘I don’t have a question, Doctor. I just came to offer my sympathy. I am very, very, sorry. We will do all we can to get the man who did it.’

Thank you. Thank you.’ There was a bare admission in his tone that he recognized it for an act of kindness, and that he knew the Chief Commander.

He had not asked them to sit down, nor did he now. He had never even quite closed the door to his surgery.

Coffin looked at Archie, who went forward and patted his friend on the shoulder. ‘I’ll come round to see you later. Or you can come to us … what about a meal?’

Dr Chinner nodded, but it was not exactly a yes, or a no. ‘Thanks for coming. I think I am better on my own just at the moment, Archie.’

He held the door for them, and as they went out, he said: ‘Next patient.’ And the dog got up and trotted in.

‘So what did you make of that?’ asked Archie as they drove away. He had sensed a query behind Coffin’s polite goodbye.

‘Well, he’s good with dogs.’

‘Seriously.’

Coffin shook his head. ‘I know we start with the family, but I don’t think he killed his son.’

‘No,’ said Archie fiercely. ‘So?’

‘But don’t let friendship blind you – I think he knows something.’

Archie said nothing as he sat hunched over the driving wheel. ‘Drive you back, sir, shall I?’

They parted with not much more said. Archie was disconcerted, angry and uneasy.

At the school, the Royal Road Comprehensive, the day had ended, but small groups hung around the playground, skateboarding, rollerblading, or just talking and scuffling in the dust with a football. It was not encouraged that they should do this, but not forbidden either.

One group were skateboarding but coming back together to talk. Just a quick comment, they were not into long conversations, dialogue was an adult skill not altogether mastered. This group was well informed, picking up scraps of information and assessing them. To be well informed, you have to be interested, and this group, four boys and two girls, were very interested.

‘We have to be,’ said one to another. ‘It’s up to us. And we ought to do something.’

‘What?’ said his friend, the same age more or less, but female.

‘I’m thinking.’

‘My parents stop talking when I come into the room,’ the girl said, and she laughed.

‘Tell you what,’ her companion said: ‘We ought to get someone to say something.’

Coffin went to his office, and collected Augustus. ‘You missed something, pal,’ he said. ‘You could have had your leg bandaged.’

There was a message from the wizard, John Armstrong, an old friend, who was looking into Harry’s computer. ‘I think I ought to be able to get most of the deletions back, they were not deleted by an expert. But I can’t promise. If you don’t hear from me then it is, No.

‘One left alive, anyway, and I think you ought to know of it.

‘It is a file on you, complete dossier of life and career, with present address.

‘It lists strengths – pertinacity, imagination, sharp mind.

‘Weaknesses: likes to be right.

‘I don’t know who put this together or why,’ went on John Armstrong, ‘but someone doesn’t like you.’

Coffin dialled his friend, his answerphone was on also, so the Chief Commander left a message:

‘Fax me that file, please. And to my home.’

His friend must have got back to his desk very speedily, (if indeed he had been away and not just sat there listening as the message came through) because the fax was waiting for Coffin when he got back to St Luke’s.

He flipped through it quickly, noting without pleasure that Harry had left something else.

There was a short, accurate profile of his wife, Stella Pinero, including the fact that she was now in Los Angeles.

Somehow, he did not like it.

But then he remembered the sort of man Harry had been and what he had said once.

A bit drunk, words spilling out, he had said: ‘I want to get all I can on you, Coffin, because you hide a lot, you’ve got plenty going on that I would like to know about. Your past career, too. You’ve been in trouble, but look at you now. Yes, you are worth a study. And that lovely wife of yours. To know her is to know you.’

Coffin shook his head. That was Harry. Friend or enemy, who knew which?

Did Harry know himself?

But what Coffin knew was that he would always protect Stella.