Читать книгу Coffin in the Black Museum - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 6

Stella Pinero was downstairs in the old vestry, now converted into her smart dwelling place, but as yet bare of furniture. She heard the voices on the staircase and wondered what was going on.

‘I know that voice,’ she said to herself, standing in what would be her bedroom. ‘Doesn’t change.’ Her knowledge of that voice went years back.

Stella had her own entrance on one side of a newly created lobby where John Coffin also had a front door. There was a third door already prepared for the so far unfinished third residence in the Chapel of St Jude. Stella could have waited to move into this flat, which had many attractions including a large stained glass window, but she did not feel holy enough. Also she did not believe that the stained glass would suit her complexion, yellow and blue were not her colours, not on the face, anyway.

‘And I am in a hurry to get settled,’ she had explained to Lætitia Bingham, whom she had known even before the start of the Theatre Workshop project but had recently got to know much better. ‘But this place looks fine,’ and they had settled down to discuss the details of No. 2, St Luke’s Mansions. ‘Who did your interior decorating? Flora Apsley? I thought I recognized her style.’

‘I think she’s good on city properties, gets the colours right. She’s done her homework, knows the sort of person who’s going to live here. I mean, it’s no good putting in a huge freezer for someone who hasn’t even got a window-box to grow tomatoes in and isn’t going to eat at home much, anyway’. Letty had assessed what the way of life of Stella, and for that matter of her half-brother John, was going to be.

‘Right,’ said Stella.

‘But you want a good-sized refrigerator even if it’s only for the ice cubes and champagne bottles.’

Stella gave her landlady a wary look. ‘I’m into still mineral water myself,’ she said. She was on a diet, trying to lose the weight put on over the last eighteen months of not much work. She always gained weight when she wasn’t working and lost it the moment she was acting again. Another reason for never retiring, she thought, although an ex-husband with no money and a child at boarding-school were reason enough.

‘And, of course, an efficient microwave is an essential,’ went on Letty. ‘You know how to use one?’

‘Right,’ said Stella. ‘I can even cook with a wooden spoon.’

The two women went to the same hairdresser in both London and New York, it made a kind of bond. In Los Angeles, where their hairdresser also had a branch, they had not as yet made contact. Letty said her husband had ‘a lot of business there’ but she herself went but rarely. Stella said she went there only when she was filming and she ‘hadn’t done a lot of that lately’.

‘And the carpets and curtains suit, do they?’

‘Yes, fine, to my taste, strong but neutral.’ Unlike John Coffin, Stella travelled light and would be bringing no carpets with her, just her clothes, some books, a few photographs (and even of these she had had a therapeutic clear-out only the other day), and a treasured ornament or two.

‘Oh look, and there’s a splendid shelf in the bathroom for my Oscar.’

‘Is that where you keep it?’

‘Just this one. I’ll have to think again for the next one.’ If ever, Stella thought. Fat chance. When had she made her last film?

Their eyes had met in a glance of amused understanding; they liked each other, a friendship could be put together here of the more detached, long-range sort that women rarely manage.

‘Are they really made of solid gold?’

‘I don’t think so. Mine isn’t,’ said Stella absently. ‘I believe I shall be happy here.’ She was due for a spell of being happy. Everyone had their turn, didn’t they?

‘I hope the building still in process won’t disturb you too much. Don’t worry about security, it’s pretty good. I had special locks and bolts put in. I’ll see you get your keys. We used to have a caretaker on the site, but the last one left without giving notice.’

‘That’s the way it goes.’

‘He’d been here some time, too. I think he had a quarrel with the builders. But I’m interviewing another one. And my brother has the apartment in the tower. He’s a policeman.’

‘I know,’ said Stella. She had seen him around, and kept her distance. ‘I know him. Have done for years. On and off.’

When they had first known each other, he had loved her and she had not loved him back, or not much. When they had next got together, she had loved him more, or so she thought, and he had been more casual. Now they hardly seemed to know each other at all, and that was sad. It was not how it should have been. Somehow, somewhere, they had missed a turning they should have taken.

‘He’s a good bloke.’

Stella had agreed, but to herself she had added: A difficult man. Too much death hanging about him. I mean, she said to herself, what is it when you make love to someone and you smell carbolic on his hands? And you say: My God, what’s that, what have you been doing? And he says: Well, just something I came close to and I thought I’d better … Yes, wash it off. Well, what did that do to you?

The kitchen was small but well arranged.

I might even try to cook again, thought Stella. She looked at her beautifully painted nails. The only bad thing about cooking was the washing up. Her last marriage had foundered on the piles of dirty crockery filling the sink. Marry an actor, marry a successful one, and he hasn’t got time to do the dishes, either! Marry a failure, and it’s beneath his dignity. Somehow they had never got round to buying a dishwasher.

She opened the refrigerator. Letty had left a bottle of champagne inside with a card that just said WELCOME. The refrigerator had a nice freezer on top but this she did not open.

What was that noise she could hear? People talking loudly and a car arriving. Louder voices now. She hoped she wasn’t always going to be so aware of her neighbours.

Correction: the neighbour. The only one she had so far: John Coffin.

In the living-room with a view on to the old churchyard, now turned into a piazza and garden leading to the Theatre Workshop, she paused to realize for the first time that living so close to the job would make her vulnerable to all those members of the cast she might want to avoid. There was always someone, usually more than one, in a company who wanted to argue, complain, cry or even just talk. Her present production was blessed, if that was the word, with a young actress, Lily Goldstone, from a notable theatrical family, who had strong political views. She was always trying to buttonhole Stella.

But the evening sun rested so beautifully on the wall, filling Stella with hope. I can be happy here, she thought, and she poured herself a glass of champagne from the bottle that Letty had left her. Why not? She could go back to mineral water tomorrow.

While she sipped it she stared out of the window. From another window she could see the main road. She stared.

There was a police car, with lights flashing and a party was being loaded into it. She could see a small boy, and two women wearing flowery hats, while a fourth figure seemed to be explaining that he could not leave his cleaning cart.

Good actor, that man, I like his mime, thought Stella, watching the moving figure. I must find out what is going on.

She went into the hall, flinging open her front door with a flourish, but clutching her wine.

She walked straight into John Coffin. They stared at each other.

‘What’s happening?’

He did not answer at once.

‘No, don’t tell me. Who’s dead?’

He still didn’t answer.

Stella shrugged and held out her hand. ‘Well. It’s a way to meet.’ She was half amused, half cross. It was so like their whole career together, which had stretched over many years and endured many ups and downs.

‘I have seen you around. I thought you were avoiding me.’

‘Yes and no.’ Stella showed her glass. ‘Come in and have a drink. Your sister left me a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator as a coming-in present.’

‘More than she did for me.’ But come to think of it, perhaps she had; he hadn’t opened the refrigerator since he moved in, he must take a look.

He followed Stella into the bare living-room. At least he had carpets down and pictures on the wall, he was one step ahead of her.

‘You don’t mind a toothglass?’ Letty’s interior decorator had provided two, one each side of the basin. The basin looked like pale green marble but probably was not. ‘You’re in the tower, aren’t you? What’s it like?’

‘Fine,’ said Coffin, adding cautiously, ‘so far.’

‘And what was all that commotion about?’

‘Nothing that need concern us here.’

‘I hope you are right. I haven’t moved into a murder den, have I? With dead bodies hidden under the floorboards?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So what was it?’

He remembered she never gave up. And then he thought that word would soon get around about the head. Mimsie would see to that, not to mention the road-sweeper and the boy.

‘I suppose I might as well tell you, but keep quiet about it. It was a head. In an urn. And it somehow got mislaid.’ He did not believe that to be true for a minute.

‘And turned up where?’

‘In the gutter and was brought to me here.’

‘Why?’

‘It seemed to be addressed to here. To the church.’ Stella drank some champagne. ‘Your sister told me that no bodies had been buried here for a long while.’

‘That’s quite true.’

Stella poured them both some more champagne. ‘Drink up, it doesn’t keep. So did you recognize the face?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’ Hard to distinguish the features in that swollen face. He hadn’t tried very hard. But no, he didn’t think he knew him. Or her.

‘Well, someone out there has lost a head.’

‘Can we stop talking about the head?’

Stella moved a step away, placing herself with unconscious artistry in mid-scene and where the spotlight of the sun fell upon her. ‘I ought to congratulate you on your big success, what you’ve done, where you’ve got to.’

‘Consider it said. What about you?’

‘Up and down. You know how it is in this business.’

‘Letty says you are going to have a big success with your production of Hedda Gabler.’

‘We’ll have to wait and see. Letty has put in a very good actor-manager. Do you know him? Charlie Driscoll.’ Coffin shook his head. ‘He’s formed a theatre club and got Peter Pond to find the money to put on four plays. I’m doing one of them, the Ibsen. Charlie will be Judge Brack.’

‘Not acting any more?’

‘Not given it up, don’t think that. I might do something with Peter later. Something modern … What will happen to the head and the little party that were carrying it away?’

‘They will be taken to the local station, where the head will be deposited. Then they will give statements, after which they will be driven home. Why are you so interested?’

‘I believe I know the boy. He hangs around the theatre, I think he’s stage-struck.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Older than he looks, like all of us pro’s.’

‘You aren’t suggesting he knows anything about the head?’ It was, after all, a highly theatrical discovery.

‘No, of course not. But I can’t think of anyone who will get more out of it than he will.’ Stella picked up the bottle. ‘Let’s finish the champagne.’

Theatricals have a notoriously strong tolerance for drink, and so do policemen, it goes with the job, but what with not having eaten and the closeness of Stella, John Coffin began to feel as if he was floating.

Stella started again.

‘And what about the head? Where will that go?’

‘An inquiry will start to establish whose head and where it came from. I expect they will begin by asking questions at the funeral parlour.’

‘I don’t like it. The poor chap who’s lost his head! Was he dead when it was cut off?’

She had a point there.

‘That will be one of the questions asked. I think it was probably cut off after death.’

Either way it was nasty.

Stella shivered. ‘Well, I hope it’s no one I know.’

‘That’s not likely, is it?’

‘No, none of my friends are missing,’ Stella agreed. ‘But some of them would have to be gone a very long time before I noticed … And then, where is the rest of him?’

‘I expect we will find him,’ said Coffin. Bodies had a way of turning up.

‘Supposing you found two bodies, and both were headless, how would you know to whom the head belonged?’

‘Stella, how much champagne have you had?’

She put her glass down on the table. ‘Far too much. Would you like to take me out to dinner? I’m interested in crime at the moment.’

‘We can go to the Indian place round the corner, I suppose.’

‘Oh, how keen you sound.’

‘I am keen. Why are you interested in crime?’

‘I’m producing Hedda Gabler. She was a criminal, a delinquent soul if there ever was one. I don’t see her as a tragic heroine but as a criminal.’

‘Poor Ibsen. Well, come on, let’s go and eat curry. And tomorrow, if you are still interested in crime, you can come to a reception for some foreign policemen in our Black Museum and take a look round.’

The Indian restaurant, the Empress of India, was a friendly place, quiet and dark, where Stella seemed fully as well known as John Coffin, if not better.

‘We often eat here after rehearsal. This is my first play as director, but I had a part in Trelawney of the Wells, which opened the Workshop.’

‘What part was that?’

Stella grimaced. ‘Not Trelawney. I’m a year or two too old for that, alas. No, I was Mrs Mossop. I had to pad, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Coffin loyally.

‘But not as much as all that,’ went on the ever honest Stella. ‘So I’ve been on a diet ever since. Not tonight, though.’

Over the curried chicken and poppadoms they gossiped about the Theatre Workshop. The boy was mentioned.

‘What did you say his name was?’

‘Well, we call him Little Billy. What did he tell you?’

‘William Larger.’

‘There you are, then.’

Not for the first time, Coffin registered the sometimes simple jokes that satisfied theatre folk.

Over a last glass of wine, Stella leaned forward. She had been making up her mind to speak and the wine helped.

‘Didn’t tell you quite all the truth.’

‘No?’

‘Someone has gone missing from my circle.’

‘Who?’ Coffin asked.

‘A girl. One of the group at the Workshop. She just went off and never came back. She had had a quarrel with some of the cast about the costumes.’ Stella leaned back and looked at him. There was a lot more to tell, but she would get it all out by degrees. ‘Could the head have been hers?’

‘What was she like?’

‘Very young. Pretty face, blonde hair and big blue eyes. Strong-boned. Quite a big girl.’

‘I don’t think it was her.’

‘No?’

‘No. Anyway, she must have had friends and family who would be missing her.’

‘I don’t know.’ Stella was doubtful. ‘She came from New Zealand. It might be some time before they noticed.’

Coffin thought about the teeth he had seen. The teeth had looked big and old. Stained and irregular. One or two missing.

‘I think it was a man,’ he said. ‘Probably a man.’

But you could never be sure. Teeth in a dead head always looked bigger than they were.

Little Billy felt he was not getting the attention he deserved from his parents. His arrival home in a police car had caused some concern, but now they seemed more preoccupied with a fierce discussion about selling their time-share villa in Spain. His father had recently started his own business in Leathergate and wanted every penny, whereas his mother was thinking about her suntan.

‘Let me get Rowanworks off the ground and we can afford a villa in Tuscany,’ pleaded his father. ‘Spain’s getting too crowded now, we’d be better off making a move.’

He had judged his wife aright. Tuscany was assuredly more chic. Her opposition softened.

‘I do prefer Italian fashion to Spanish,’ she said, giving a considered, judicial verdict.

‘There you are, then. You can shop in Rome.’

‘Milan is the place.’

‘You shall shop in Milan, then.’

‘Or Florence,’ she said musingly. ‘Florence may be best after all.’

‘Florence, then,’ said Keith.

Little Billy managed to get his voice in. ‘Mum, Dad, you aren’t listening to me.’

‘Don’t call us that,’ said his mother automatically, ‘it’s so vulgar.’

He ignored this. ‘Mum, you don’t seem interested in what I found, the head in the urn.’

‘I think it’s horrible. You shouldn’t dwell on it any more. Put it out of your mind.’ She turned back to her husband. ‘All right then, sell the place in Lasada.’

‘Dad, there’s something I want to tell you.’

‘Don’t encourage him, Keith.’

‘Haven’t you got some lines to learn?’ Keith Larger paid the fees at the well-known school for young performers attended by his son and he was a man who liked to get value for his money. The boy had talent, fine, but you had to work as well. He always had.

‘Word perfect.’

‘That’s not enough,’ said his mother. She had been a theatre child herself in her time, it was from her that Billy got the urge to perform, and she understood that there was more to knowing a part than having the words.

‘I think we ought to consider buying outright this time, Debbie,’ said Keith, pursuing his advantage. ‘Give me a year or two and I’ll be ready to buy.’

His wife considered the proposition. ‘We could rent somewhere while we think about it. What about Lucca?’ She had several smart friends who had bought old farmhouses near Lucca. There must be more English there now than native Italians. ‘Do you think we ought to go out to Italy in the autumn and start looking around?’

They plunged into their conversation, ignoring Billy.

Through the welter of words such as Tuscany, Lucca being too popular, and Valentino being right for grand clothes but really Ferragamo was so marvellous otherwise, and of course Gucci for bags, he carried on regardless. He had often sat in on such family conversations.

Over their voices, he said loudly: ‘I think I know who it was in the pot. I recognized the face.’ He frowned. ‘Well, not the face itself. It was the hair.’

His parents did not seem to hear.

‘Not by name, maybe,’ continued Billy, his voice rising above theirs, ‘but seen about. Someone I’d seen.’

They took no notice. Quite possibly they did not believe him.

He settled himself into thinking about what he could do with what he regarded as his nugget of information.

The reception in the Black Museum for the foreign visitors was a great success and not surprisingly the star was Stella Pinero.

She arrived late, when the room was already crowded, but in time to make a splendid entrance, looking suitably elegant in black, smelling of lily of the valley. She was well received (as they say in theatrical circles) by Herr Hamburg, Dr Copenhagen, Professor Uppsala (he was a very honoured criminologist), and Monsieur Bruges, these being the labels Coffin had attached to his distinguished visitors. He had their real names on a list secreted in his hand for introduction, hardly necessary except as a politeness since they all wore labels for those who were long-sighted enough to read them.

Stella, having fascinated the visitors, turned her attention to Tom Cowley.

‘Now, you’re the expert!’

‘Wouldn’t say that.’ But he looked pleased.

‘It’s your museum.’

‘Wish it was.’ He cast a look at his old friend, John Coffin.

‘You’ve got some marvellous things here.’

Marvellous was not quite the word, Coffin thought. Stella was overdoing things a bit, as she so often did in private life, while being subtle and restrained on the stage. Her natural exuberance had to burst out somewhere.

‘This old boot, for instance. I mean, it’s so evocative of its period, isn’t it? What did it do?’ The boot was mounted on a small stand enclosed in a glass case. It was unpolished with the laces undone as if just cast aside. A big foot.

‘The foot inside it kicked a copper in the head so that he died. His murderer tried to throw the boots away, but was caught with one on and one off.’

‘An historic boot,’ said Herr Hamburg, who had taken a fancy to Stella.

Had it really belonged to the grandfather of Mimsie Marker?

‘What date was this murder?’

‘1922, John. Louie Fischer was the killer, one of the Swinehouse gang that were operating then. They all wiped themselves out in the end. Fischer killed PC Arnold.’

It was just possible Louie had been one of Mimsie’s grandfathers, then.

‘And this length of rope in the case here?’ Herr Hamburg pointed to a twist of dark rope displayed in a row of objects. Next to it were several guns, and a couple of knives.

‘Jim Cotton, the Leathergate strangler. He did in five people with rope like that. That length was found on him while he was attacking his last victim. She got away.’

A row of guns of various kinds were displayed next to the strangler’s rope, and Tom Cowley ticked off their exploits one by one: armed robbery, a murder then suicide, a multiple murder on a housing estate. The violent deaths spanned six decades and more. There was plenty of blood behind the display in this room. That was the attraction, of course, although not one that people actually put into speech.

A group of local dignitaries arrived at this point. The new Lord Mayor apologizing for being late. He was a business man, head of a large concern with factories all over the world, but whose headquarters were in Leathergate.

He was a man who knew how to be jovial to men so much less rich and powerful than he was himself. ‘Had a committee, Tom. But I’ve brought Katherine and Ted with me.’ This was Mr and Mrs Lupus. The Lord Mayor’s wife, Agnes Fraser, was a friend of Katherine Lupus. ‘And this is Frank Llywellyn who works with me.’ Llywellyn was a neat, quiet young man, an actuary by training and temperament. He was never bored by detail and demanded little of life in the way of excitement. He too had an office in Thameswater and had been lured into local government by the persuasions of Bert Fraser, his role model at the moment, although he had had others before and might have others afterwards.

‘We’ve come back for a second look,’ said Katherine Lupus. ‘I brought a school party and didn’t really get a chance for a good look round.’

‘That was the day two of them were taken ill, wasn’t it?’

‘It was,’ said Katherine Lupus with feeling. ‘But it was the day they had had injections on account of a school trip to Turkey.’ She looked about the room with a practised eye, saw that Agnes was doing her duty as Lord Mayor’s wife by talking to the foreign visitors, and not flirting with anyone personable (usually Frank Llywellyn) as was her wont, and decided she could enjoy herself. ‘Oh, Miss Pinero, I am so pleased to meet you. I have watched you act so often and admired you so much.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re doing Ibsen, aren’t you? Hedda Gabler?’

‘I am directing, not acting,’ said Stella with a serious face. She knew exactly how to present herself to her women admirers. ‘My first attempt, so I am nervous.’

‘After Ibsen, you must try Strindberg,’ said Professor Uppsala, promoting his own national deity. ‘He is more full of passion.’

Agnes Fraser joined them. ‘I hope you will do some modern work. Say Howard Brenton.’ Used to exercising social glitter herself, she recognized Stella as a rival attraction. A tall, slender, girl with red-gold hair, she knew that she was younger than Stella and her jewellery was better, but Stella had what used to be called star quality. ‘Or possibly some of the good new women writers.’ She tried to think of some names and failed.

‘I’ll do anything anyone gives me a good part in,’ said Stella gamely. ‘There aren’t so many for women.’

Agnes Fraser turned to John Coffin. ‘I know your sister, Lætitia Bingham. We’ve worked together on a couple of committees. She chaired one.’

It did not surprise John that Lætitia was on several committees, nor that she had chaired one of them; she was a lady who managed things. He remembered he had not heard from brother William and wondered why not. It was a little niggle at the back of his mind, suggesting no good of itself.

‘She’s not here today?’

‘No.’

Agnes lowered her voice ‘I hear a head has been found, no body, just a head.’

‘How did you hear that?’

‘The son of some neighbours of ours found it.’ The Frasers had a penthouse overlooking the River Thames, part of an old East Indian trade warehouse. In addition they had a country house (cottage, they called it, but it was said to be considerably more than that) in Berkshire, still not far away from the Thames, for which they seemed to have an affection and in which they certainly had a strong commercial interest. ‘He told his mother that he knew who it was. He thinks she wasn’t listening and didn’t hear, but of course she was. She doesn’t know if he’s lying or not.’

‘He’s her child.’ If she couldn’t tell, who could?

‘He does have a vivid imagination. But this time she doesn’t think he’s lying.’

‘I’ll see someone goes round to talk to him.’ Or he might go himself. Little Billy had interested him. ‘Has he told them who he thinks it is.’

Agnes shook her head. ‘Someone from the theatre, they imagine. He’s there so much.’

‘Is that what his mother thinks?’

‘It’s what I think.’ She was talking for herself as much as for Little Billy, Coffin realized. It was what she thought, and it worried her. ‘It’s sinister, that place, the old church ambience, don’t you think? It’s got a feel to it. My daughter used to go to Guide meetings in the hall and I always hated it. Nothing to do with the present use of it, something left over from the past.’

Then she smiled. ‘Mind you, if anything could wipe out the past, then the current theatre group could. Some strong characters there. Have you met them?’

‘Only Stella.’

Both of them turned towards the end of the room.

An enthralled audience had gathered around Stella, constantly replenished as those who had had their word with the lady, drifted away and others took their place. Coffin admired the expertise with which she dismissed some and hung on to those she still wanted round her. She was holding a kind of court, at the heart of which were the foreign policemen with Herr Hamburg maintaining his place with skill.

At the end of the room a long table was spread with a buffet where Tom Cowley was presiding over the wine.

By the table was a display cabinet. Some strange exhibits were laid out here. One woman’s stocking, much laddered. An old raincoat, stained with mud. A dirty, crumpled square of linen. These were on one side, then to the right, as if associated with these objects but a little a separate, was another stocking, just as laddered as the one on the other side, but of a paler shade and smaller foot. It had belonged to another woman. Still to the right was a bloodstained sheet of old newspaper. It looked yellowing and brittle, but on one side was a faint, bloody fingerprint.

‘Don’t you find an atmosphere in this place?’ Coffin asked Agnes. ‘Wine? Or would you prefer gin or whisky? Tom seems to have thought of everything. I think there’s even some Perrier.’

‘Oh, I do feel an atmosphere, but that’s to be expected. It’s full of a kind of visible evil. But it’s been cleared up, the investigations are over.’

‘Not that one,’ said Tom Cowley, pointing to the display case. Ted Lupus, who had been looking at it, moved away hastily. ‘That was a failure. The case was not cleared up. We never caught that one.’

‘At home we have plenty of those,’ said the policeman from Hamburg. ‘More than we care for.’ But he studied the case with interest.

‘We thought we had the killer at one point. But it turned out not to be so,’ said Cowley. ‘I remember the case. Two young women, one after the other, raped and strangled. I should think we all remember it round here. A real nasty one.’

‘A famous case?’ asked the Belgian policeman.

‘No, it got very little notice outside the district. But we had a special reason here. The first victim was a policewoman and the first suspect was a young copper.’

‘Were these two young women the only victims?’ asked Herr Hamburg.

It was a shrewd question, Coffin felt, with his own memories of the case flooding back.

‘We always wondered that,’ said Tom Cowley. ‘Especially after the second killing. There was circumstantial evidence linking the policeman to the death of the first victim. When the second one was killed it looked as though he could have done that too. So he was arrested. And then, a bit later, this piece of newspaper was found. It should have been found before, but it wasn’t. That was bad.’

‘These things happen,’ said Herr Hamburg.

‘Yes, but you always feel they shouldn’t.’

‘They never should.’

‘But they do. Anyway, there was blood on this paper. She’d bled a bit, that girl. And there was this fingerprint. Her blood. Not her fingerprint. Not the young copper’s, either.’

‘You have it all pat.’

‘Fifteen years ago?’ Cowley shrugged. ‘I was young myself then.’

‘Was the second victim also a policewoman?’ asked Dr Copenhagen alertly.

‘No. But that’s clever of you, because she very nearly was. She’d applied to join as a graduate police officer, but was turned down because of eyesight.’

‘And you never got anyone?’

Tom Cowley shook his head. ‘One of our failures, an unsolved crime.’

‘And no more murders?’

‘None that we know of,’ said Tom Cowley.

‘And the young policeman?’

John Coffin and Tom Cowley looked at each other.

Coffin said: ‘His wife had died while he was under suspicion. Childbirth. When he got out he hanged himself. That right, Tom?’

‘Right,’ said Tom Cowley heavily. He didn’t look too well. He needed that holiday, Coffin thought.

It was amazing how some cases never lay down and died.

John Coffin and Stella Pinero walked home to St Luke’s Mansions together. Without admitting it to each other, they were both edging towards a closer relationship.

‘What about Herr Hamburg?’ The chap had hung on.

‘I’m meeting him tomorrow for dinner,’ said Stella. ‘He is interested in the theatre.’

I bet, thought Coffin. He was annoyed to find he minded.

They crossed the busy main road by the Spinnergate Tube station, where Mimsie was sitting by her paper stand. She gave them an alert look. Today she was wearing a red straw boater with feathers at the back.

Coffin bought a paper. It was considered bad luck locally to pass Mimsie by without buying and he never ran unnecessary risks, tucked it under his arm, and they turned the corner into Black Archer Road.

‘That’s the house where Rosie Ascot had rooms.’ She pointed to the second in a terrace of tall, yellow brick houses, some of which were due for renovation and some of which had already experienced a sharp rise in status. The house Stella indicated was still awaiting change.

‘Rosie who?’ said Coffin absently.

‘The girl who went away.’

‘Oh yes. What about her landlady? Wasn’t she worried?’

‘Not that sort of place. Almost a squat. No one cared.’

‘What was she like, this girl? Describe her to me.’

‘Tall, fair. But I can do better than that.’

Once at St Luke’s Mansions, Stella led him inside her flat where packing cases stood about in the hall. ‘I’m camping out. Wait a sec while I look in this box.’ She rummaged in a cardboard carton, emerging with a clutch of photographs. She handed one to Coffin and dropped two on the floor.

‘This her?’ He was studying a publicity photograph of a smiling, blonde girl with curly hair and neat features.

‘Yes, she sent in photographs when I was auditioning people for Hedda.’ Stella studied the photograph. ‘I didn’t want her for that, I’ve got Goldstone, but I gave her Mrs Elvsted. She had the right look somehow. Bridie Peel has the part now.’

Coffin: ‘What’s this, though?’ The girl was in uniform, grinning at the camera from a car. Don’t say she was in the police force?’

‘No, her agent sent that in. She had a part in a TV police series.’

‘Right.’ He returned the photograph. ‘Hang on to that. Thanks for showing me. You staying here now?’

‘As from tomorrow. But just now I am going over to the Workshop for a run through.’

Together they left Stella’s flat.

The door to the main church stood open.

‘Let’s take a look,’ said Coffin. He pushed the door further open. ‘Smells a bit.’

Stella wrinkled her nose. ‘Earthy. And damp.’

‘Coming from the crypt. The builder has started work, digging up the floor.’ He took a step forward. ‘Does it seem sinister in here to you? Any bad feel?’

Stella shook her head. ‘Only the smell.’

It was quite strong, an earthy decaying smell.

Stella kissed his cheek and walked on to the Theatre Workshop where a strong-minded group, such as Lily Gold-stone and Charlie Driscoll, did not believe in any ghosts other than the one that walked on Friday, and the one that hung over the ‘Scottish play’ whose name one must not speak.

Later that day, when he was at home again, he took a call from his sister Lætitia Bingham.

‘I’ve heard from William. Have you?’

‘No.’

‘Oh well, you will. He’s coming to London on the shuttle and wants us to meet him for lunch. He’ll go back that night.’

‘Really?’ William had a more than usual economical turn of mind. If he was spending money it boded no good. ‘Where?’

‘He’s leaving it to me to say. I shall say the White Tower, I like it there.’

Coffin decided not to interfere. He had an idea that William was perhaps, as they say in Scotland, the ‘warmest’ of the three of them. ‘What’s it about?’

‘He says that he has been investigating the family archives and has found something we ought to see.’

‘Family archives? What’s he mean by that? I didn’t know we had any.’

‘Oh, that’s just the way he talks. Whatever it is, we shall find out. Next week. Tuesday.’

No sooner had he put the telephone down than it rang again. This time it was Superintendent Paul Lane, a man he had worked with before and who had transferred to the new Force with him.

‘Got a bit of news. You know that head you found?’

It was a rhetorical question which Coffin did not answer.

‘It’s the head of a man.’

‘I thought so.’ Not Rosie, then. Had he ever really thought it was?

‘The funeral parlour deny that it is anything to do with them. Never saw him, don’t know anything about him. The urn is not one they would ever use, probably came from a garden centre, they say. And as for the label, there are always some around in the office to put on flowers or some such. Anyone could have taken one.’

‘Not much further forward, then.’ He was wondering about Rosie Ascot.

Lane was triumphant. ‘We are. It’s been identified. A chap in the office here recognized the face.’

‘I’m surprised.’

‘Yes, but he saw the hair, apparently the way it grew reminded him and he thought about it, took another look and decided it was. The chap used to be the caretaker in St Luke’s.’ He paused. ‘Where you are now.’

Letty had said that the caretaker had left. For ever, apparently.

‘So that was where he went.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing. Name?’

‘Peter Tiler. Usually called Pete. In his forties.’

‘Any record?’

‘No record.’

No help there, then. An ordinary man.

‘He’s been dead a bit. Could have been kept under refrigeration.’

‘Ah. That’s the suggestion, is it? Not just your idea?’

‘The pathologist thinks so. You can tell, apparently.’

Coffin had a passing thought for his own small freezer. Yes, it was just about head-sized. He hoped the late caretaker had not rested there.

‘But that’s not all. Underneath the head … I don’t suppose you looked?’

‘I did not.’

‘There was a hand. Just one. The right one. Wacky, isn’t it?’

Later still that day, Stella went back to her new apartment, she was expecting to entertain a few friends and made for the refrigerator to investigate the chances of ice-cubes. She took a look in the freezing compartment.

She gave a scream at what she found there, and fainted.