Читать книгу Coffin and the Paper Man - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 6

Wednesday to Thursday, May 31

When they parted that evening, John Coffin to see an exhibition of designs of uniforms for his new Force and Stella to make a speech at a Charity dinner about ‘Theatre in the New City’, in a reversal of their usual roles, she said to him fiercely:

‘Go and see this man they’ve detained. Go yourself. Don’t feed me that stuff about it not being your job any more. It’s all your job. Take a look yourself. The Kinvers deserve that you should.’

‘Would you like me to make your speech for you?’ he observed mildly. ‘Then you can do my job and choose the uniforms.’

‘Do what I ask. You always do what I ask.’

‘Not always.’

‘Oh, come on, you love me.’

‘Like a brother.’

‘I have heard of incest,’ she said hopefully.

‘Times have changed.’

‘It’s not times, it’s people.’ She put on her sad face and walked to the window, carrying Tiddles and her cocktail glass.

Beautifully done, he thought. ‘Shall I clap?’

‘Pig.’

‘I’ll see the man.’

‘Not so changed, then.’

‘I was going to anyway, you’re not the only one with a personal interest.’ He hadn’t known the girl, nor her parents, but a long while ago he had been involved in a series of similar murders of women, and the scar of that terrible case remained.^*

Stella, who had known him in those days, and nearly been a victim herself, nodded. ‘We go a long way back, you and I. Go and select your uniforms. I’ll be here when you come back. If you choose, that is.’

Outside the door, he leant hard on it so that Tiddles could not follow. ‘I’m learning. How many years, and I’m learning at last.’

The man in the cell had been reluctant to change his bloodsoaked clothes for the fresh ones provided by the police. They didn’t fit, he said, too long in the arm and short in the leg.

‘I’m not a bloody gorilla.’

He had been in police hands for over twenty-four hours when Coffin saw him and in that time had said little else. But he had been picked up wearing bloodstained clothes and carrying a knife of the kind which could have slashed Anna Mary Kinver.

Forensic tests were now going on to determine if the blood was hers. (No wound on the man, who would not give his name, so the blood was not his.) The knife too was being examined.

A witness claimed to have seen a man like him hanging about in the neighbourhood of Rope Alley for some hours on the day of the murder.

As Coffin arrived an identity parade was just about to take place. Not to his surprise, an old friend, Mimsie Marker, who sold newspapers outside Spinnergate Tube Station, was the witness. She was known as the eyes and ears of Leathergate, Spinnergate, East Spinnergate and Easthy-the. The district of Swinehouse was just a bit too far away even for her excellent sensory perceptions. People had been known to move there, just to get away from Mimsie. But those were her enemies, most people admired Mimsie. Liking was harder. Coffin was one of those who managed both.

Mimsie went slowly down the line. She took her time. It was not her first exploit of this sort and she knew the ropes.

‘A job lot, you’ve got here,’ she said in a judicial manner. ‘I wouldn’t say you matched them up any too well. Still, there’s not many like him. That’s him.’ She nodded. ‘Number Seven.’

Number Seven, who had not wanted to be number seven, protesting that it was an unlucky number, was a tall, thin man with a face that looked as if the dirt had worked in over the years and would now never wash out. It was probably the case, Coffin thought.

The line-up of men were returned to their own lives, and No.7 back to his cell.

‘There all day, he was,’ declared Mimsie. She gave John Coffin a nod as from one old friend to another, both equal, which they certainly were, and more since Mimsie was reputed to keep a sock of gold under her bed.

‘All day, Mimsie?’ asked Detective-Inspector Young, who knew his Mimsie.

‘Perhaps not all day, not every bloody hour, what do you expect, he’s only human whatever he looks like. Most of the day. On and off. He did move around a bit. But he was there.’

‘You’ll go into court and say so?’

‘Of course.’

‘Thanks, Mimsie.’

After she had gone, he said to Coffin. ‘She’s a good witness, goes into court like a soldier.’

‘Have you got anything else besides Mimsie putting him in the place at the right time?’

Archie Young shook his head. ‘Waiting for forensics.’

‘Anything from the man? Identity, past record?’

‘He hasn’t got a record,’ said Young regretfully. ‘As far as we know, he is baby-clean.’

‘What about Interpol?’

Young gave his chief a sharp look. ‘He has got a foreign look, I picked that up too, but I think it’s just dirt. His clothes seem to be English. But we are trying Amsterdam.’ He considered it for a moment. ‘I dare say they won’t know him, he looks nameless to me. You get an instinct about these things, and that’s how I feel about him.’

No.7, when brought in for questioning, elected to remain silent. He did not deny being in Rope Alley nor admit it, but just let the questions wash over him like the water to which he seemed so alien.

He was a man whose eyes roamed round the room all the time, but never resting on a face. Narrow brown eyes with large violet stains beneath them. Still quite a young man, he had plenty of hair and his teeth were white, not broken or jagged. His hands were the worst thing about him, worse even than the perpetually moving eyes; they were long-fingered with chewed nails and scarred and stained. The wrists had their own set of scars, some dark red and new, others old and puckered as if these parts of him had led a battered life of their own.

Somewhere some mental hospital must have known him, possibly even now some anxious social worker was wondering where he was, speculated Coffin. But possibly not, he looked like a man who would manage everything on his own, even his own death. It might be very hard to track his passage through the world.

While Coffin studied him, he started to walk about the interview room with big, fast steps. Young sprang to his feet.

‘Leave him,’ said Coffin.

No.7 paced up and down the room.

Finally, as he was led away, he said: ‘Of course, I did it, but you’ll never prove it.’

‘Won’t we, by God,’ said Young. ‘If he did it, then we will prove it.’

‘But you don’t think he did?’

Archie Young was silent. Then he gave a shrug. ‘Doesn’t look so good somehow. I’m beginning to think not. The forensics will help. Maybe decide.’

‘I don’t think so, either,’ said Coffin. ‘I think he’s just having a bit of fun at our expense.’ But he didn’t look like a character with a whole lot of fun in him.

‘Heartless as a shark,’ said Young.

‘What else have you got going?’

‘I’m still working on the girl’s friends. Looking into the lot. Every one she knew. Kids at the disco she went to every week. Even her father.’

‘There’s something else. Don’t know what to make of it yet.’

He went to his desk, removed a manilla folder from a drawer and handed it over to Coffin.

‘I went over her room at home. Found these tucked away under a pile of tights.’

A roll of writing paper. Three pages. Each page had faint typewritten lines on it.

What he had before him were three short poems. He read them with a frown.

‘Love poems,’ he said aloud. ‘Faintly pornographic, but fairly harmless.’

‘Shows something,’ said Archie Young. ‘Shows something about her. Don’t know what yet, but I hope to find out. Don’t know who wrote them to her either, but I’ll find that out too.’

‘Any idea?’

‘I’m thinking of the people in Feather Street,’ he said. ‘They’re an educated lot. I showed these poems to my wife. She writes poetry. She says they are good poems. In their way. Not what she’d write, but good.’

The Zemans, the Annecks and the Darbyshires were the names in his mind.

‘The poems may not have anything to do with her murder, of course,’ said Coffin.

But he agreed it was something to work on.

*

When Coffin got home, he found the letter from the Paper Man waiting for him.

The letter was correctly addressed to him.

Chief Commander John Coffin, OBE. And the right address in St Luke’s Mansions. He had been accurately researched.

The communication was built up of letters cut out of newspapers and magazines, a kind of job lot, all sizes and colours and shapes.

The message was short:

The man you have in custody is not the right one. If you don’t get the right one, I will do the job for you.

This letter had no address, not to be expected, and no signature. The name Paper Man came later.

The police were still optimistic of an early conclusion to their investigation.

No.7 was still on their books, not entirely in the clear, far from it, he kept saying he had done it, and he had described her killing. He had seen it, if nothing else. But the blood on his jacket was animal blood, source unknown, while the knife could not have been the weapon: the blade was the wrong shape. Nor did his body secretions match those found on Anna’s body.

They had the poems. They were looking for the silver shoe. They were still hopeful.

But as time went on, it all went cold on them.