Читать книгу Coffin on Murder Street - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 8

There was a special scent for trouble, Coffin thought. Somewhere between sour smoke and vinegar. The exact smell varied according to the quality of the trouble. The very worst of trouble took your breath away, it was so sharp, so acrid. He had smelt it once or twice in his life and hoped never to smell it again.

It wasn’t the sort of thing you mentioned, especially if you were a senior police officer, because other people might not smell it. Possibly did not. But everyone had something, he guessed, some little forerunner of trouble about. To some it might be a pain in their big toe. Or indigestion. Or even just a strong desire to quarrel with their wife. He had no wife himself. He had one once, but that was long since, and she lived now in another country and he bore her no grudge. Hell it had been at the time.

He walked home to his flat, Stella having eluded him, and considered what trouble Nell Casey could be bringing with her. Gus, certainly, was high on the list. In fact, he might be the trouble.

Certainly connected with it, he thought, as he put his key in the lock.

He did this with a certain pleasure. He liked his handsome oak front door, old as the church itself, with a great lock whose brass key weighed down his pocket. He liked his home, of which he was quietly proud, and of himself for owning it. He had paid his sister, who had converted the church, a pretty price for the place, but it was worth it. Up in his tower he felt at peace, and peace was not a thing that came easily in his life. In the course of his career, he had had many homes in different places, some decidedly scruffy. Now he lived in his church tower with a sweeping view of his bit of London.

He walked up the winding inner staircase, past his kitchen up to his sitting-room on the top. Above him he had the turret and a tiny roof garden where his cat sunned himself among the geraniums and daisies which were all the flowers that Coffin managed to grow. They were, he found, indestructible plants, which even he and the London climate could not destroy.

Tiddles, the cat who had chosen to live with him and who answered to no name or any according to mood, sidled up to him, suggesting a little snack would be acceptable.

Coffin liked to say he lived alone, but while he had Tiddles he was never alone. Tiddles, although a quiet animal, had a strong presence. He was not to be ignored, as witness the feeding bowl in the kitchen, the sleeping basket complete with plaid blanket by the window (he rarely inhabited this but a cat liked to have a bit of property), and the supply of his favourite food, minced beef, in the refrigerator.

‘Later, boy,’ Coffin said to Tiddles, throwing his coat on a chair. He had decorated this room with his few good bits of furniture, several large bookcases, and his treasured large oriental rug. Letty had ordered him to buy a Chinese rug because she said it matched the ceiling, but he had resisted her advice and bought a Bokhara. On the walls he had three biggish oil paintings which he had bought himself, backing his own taste. You had to be strong with his sister Letty or she bullied you. He loved her, though, and was delighted to have her in his life.

For so long, he had not known he had a sister, although he had suspected he had a sibling. Then this beautiful, clever, enigmatic sister, Laetitia Bingham, had identified herself. Life had then delivered a bonus in the form of brother William. He did not love William, but he was prepared to like him and he certainly respected him. He suspected that his half-brother was, as they say in Edinburgh, a ‘warm man’, and Coffin who had never made more than his salary had to respect a man who could make money. Willy might be warm but his money was never burnt. William was both canny and cautious and that inheritance must have come from his father’s side of the family, from his mother’s it was impossible. Only in his marriage did William show a streak of that lady, for his wife was flaxen, buxom and extravagant. It was William who had come across his mother’s diary in some old property left for safe keeping with the family that had brought him up, read what she had written with a mixture of shock and amazement at her racy ease, and Letty who had suggested the diary should be published. ‘Not exactly the memoirs of an Edwardian lady but the frank, honest account of a real woman’s life before, during and after the war. That is how we must sell it,’ she had said.

Frank, Coffin admitted; honest, he doubted. He thought Ma might be a bit of an old liar. It almost seemed as if she had written for publication. A mystery there. He would probe it, and one day might get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile, it gave him something to exercise his mind on in the wakeful stretches of the night. A recent recruit to the ranks of insomniacs, he had plenty of those.

He checked his answering machine: no messages. His telephone remained quiet. Such inactivity was unusual, since he had instituted the rule that he received notice, even if briefly, of all important activities involving his force, whatever the time of day or night. He never wanted to be caught off guard. He was well aware that the social tensions in his area between those who had and those who had not, between the new inhabitants who had paid a lot for their property and did not want it sullied by the proximity of the old inhabitants who had ways of their own, not to mention various racial undercurrents, made for an inflammable mixture. If there was going to be a riot, he wanted to be the first to know.

As he handed out some food for the cat and then prepared for bed, he found he was more worried by the quietness than by a stream of messages. He checked again all the machines that ought to have been speaking to him, but found nothing wrong with them. Just a very quiet night.

Tiddles, fed and let out through the window which gave on to a roof so that he could descend, tail waving, upon the town like a Restoration gallant, had gone about his business, and Coffin poured himself a drink.

He would have to come to some resolution of his relationship with Stella Pinero. That was why he wasn’t sleeping. He loved Stella, had loved her for years, but Stella engaged in her own career and living elsewhere was one thing, Stella always on the premises was quite another. They had tried it once, in the distant past when they were both a good deal younger, and it hadn’t worked.

I jolly nearly did her in, he reflected, that night she threw the saucepan at me and I threw it back. Stella had missed; he hadn’t. It had been the instinctive action of a good games player, but it had brought him up short. Violence towards Stella was not something he wanted to exhibit. He had helped her up, asked her to forgive him and moved out. Shortly after Stella had gone on a long tour of a Rattigan play with the first company, and he had gone on a course in Cambridge. They had not met for years.

Over, he had thought, all over. But it was never over between him and Stella, it was like a disease they had both caught, in which there were many remissions (in one of which he had married, and in another, Stella had done so) but no real cure.

She was part of his life forever, and living, moreover, only a stone’s throw away. Those facts had to be faced and dealt with.

I’ll do that tomorrow, he thought.

Tiddles leapt back in through the window, his fur smelling of the fresh air.

Coffin turned his mind to other things. Odd about the child. No, not odd at all. Everyone, all young achievers, had one these days, in or out of wedlock, they were fashionable. Even if you didn’t fancy one for its own sake, then it was the smart thing to do. But this kid was loved, you could see that.

Was it Gus’s? The age was about right, according to the chronology of the story as transmitted by Stella, who was actually accurate about things of this sort. She could be madly wrong and ill-informed about matters of national importance but about personal details she could be relied upon.

A night without a single crime, he thought, a peerless, uncorrupted night. What a treat. Nothing to think about.

He and Tiddles were just about to go to bed, they shared one, not from Coffin’s choice but because Tiddles offered none, he was always there, soundly asleep with his head on the pillow. The utmost freedom allowed to Coffin was to take the other pillow. He had Tiddles and Tiddles had him.

He was just choosing which book to read in bed when the telephone rang.

‘Sir?’ It was the duty officer at his headquarters. ‘Just to inform you that a coachload of tourists on a trip through the City has disappeared.’

‘How many?’

‘Twelve plus the driver.’

Thirteen people missing, then. A bumper crop, the peerless evening effortlessly racing ahead of itself and creating a record.

Still, no reason to believe they were dead or otherwise harmed. Just missing.

‘No accident reported?’

‘No, sir, not in our districts or outside.’

Of course not, that would have been the easy answer and he would not have been bothered in the small hours. It was now nearly one o’clock in the morning.

‘Any messages, demands for ransom, anything of that sort?’

‘No, sir. Silence.’

‘There may be something later.’

‘Not a very rich firm that runs the tours, sir. And the people they get on the tours aren’t in the millionaire class.’

‘They’ll turn up,’ Coffin said confidently. They’d have to, dead or alive, you couldn’t easily dispose of that many bodies.

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Let me have the details,’

‘Just faxing them, sir.’

The sight of Tiddles’s well-licked food bowl made Coffin feel hungry himself, so he put together some coffee and a sandwich, not a neat one, which began to fall apart. He stopped in the window of his sitting-room to take a hasty bite.

By this time, the faxed pages were arriving, slipping out of the machine and neatly disposing of themselves. Along with them came information about several committee meetings tomorrow, a multiple accident on the motorway (not in his area, but a number of people had been killed and that was bad), and a survey, with graphs, of the fire risks in all the police stations in Thameswater. None of which statistics he wanted at this moment. A fax about a suspected child murderer who was believed to have moved into the district was different. He paused to read:

William Arthur Duerden, believed moved into this area. Suspected of several child murders (details attached) but no proof. He goes under several aliase. (names attached). Born 1945. Five feet four, brown hair, blue eyes, no distinguishing marks. May alter appearance with wig and contact lenses.

All this paper just waiting there to spring out at him.

He picked out what he needed to read. That was the trouble with machines, the desire to take over was built into them. They always wanted to do too much. Otherwise they broke down and were called failures, and scrapped. Naturally no machine wanted that to happen, it was better to overdo it.

Whoever had kidnapped, murdered or mislaid thirteen people had overdone it. Thirteen was too many.

The missing coach belonged to Trembles Tours Ltd, a licensed operator having two coaches. The drivers were the twin brothers, John and Alfred Tremble, who owned the firm. The brothers always set out their route and approximate timetable and informed the traffic police. They had never been in any trouble and had no record.

Now one of the brothers, together with his coach and all his passengers, had disappeared.

‘Damn.’ His quiet night had gone. Crime in his bailiwick was like the rain over England: if there was one dry day, then it levelled up the next day with a steady downpour. The average was always the same in both cases: high.

He drank his coffee and went back to studying his lines. No doubt Maugham would send him to sleep. There was a kind of deadness behind its smart dialogue and dated good sense. He wondered if Stella and the ladies of the Reading Club had been wise to choose it? But they were supposed to know their audience and tickets were selling. He had a suspicion it had been chosen because a prominent member of the group had red hair … like Lady Kitty.

Over one of Lady Kitty’s speeches, he nodded off to sleep, but one last thought rolled across his mind.

So I was right, there is trouble, trouble in triplicate, but not Nell Casey’s trouble, not the trouble I smelt, that’s still on the way. This is extra trouble.

But trouble was what he lived by and it paid his wages.

Nell Casey had taken her son home, first borrowing a pint of milk from Stella Pinero.

‘I’d forgotten what London was like for shopping,’ she apologized. ‘Shops all closing at six o’clock sharp.’

‘Not quite that bad any longer, not round here, anyway. Mr Khan down the road by the Spinnergate Tube stays open till midnight, and Max’s Deli about the same.’

‘Not all night, though.’

‘Not all night.’ Stella handed over the pint of milk. She hardly drank milk herself, but the dog loved it and in spite of what her neighbour John Coffin believed, the cat Tiddles spent a lot of time eating and drinking in Stella’s establishment. The dog, of course, was a privileged animal, having once saved Stella’s life. Or from a fate worse than death. The story as Stella recounted it never lost drama in the telling. Still, it had been a bad enough episode in truth.

‘I’ll pay you …’

‘Don’t bother, love.’ Stella repressed a yawn, and pressed Nell’s hand gently. ‘Off you go, I’m dropping where I stand, even if that kid’s wide awake.’

A pair of bright bird-sharp eyes met hers as he leaned over his mother’s shoulder.

‘What was the matter with him, by the way?’

‘His dog. Seems to have got lost.’

‘Bonzo,’ said the child lovingly.

‘You brought a dog from the States? Did you smuggle it in?’

‘It’s not a real dog, a toy dog, stuffed.’

‘Bonzo, Bonzo.’ Now it was beginning to be a shout. Very soon there would be tears.

‘He doesn’t look tired at all,’ said Stella. ‘I admire stamina in a man. You’ll have to put him on the stage, Nell.’

‘Heaven forbid, I’m going to make him a stockbroker who’ll earn lots of money.’

‘Isn’t he a bit heavy for you to carry?’ If he is Gus’s son, Stella speculated, then he would be. That man has heavy bones. Any one who had been on a stage with him knows that. It shakes.

‘Yes,’ said Nell shortly. ‘Come on, Tommy, shut up and find your feet. You can walk.’ She stood him on the ground. ‘We’re still on New York time, you see,’ she said turning back to Stella. ‘That five hours doesn’t seem so late to us.’

‘You wait till morning.’

Nell and Tom walked slowly, hand in hand, round the corner to The Albion. It was March but not cold and there was a moon. If they made a strange couple, mother and small son walking through the empty streets, Nell was not aware of it.

Presently she looked up at the church tower where, high up, a light still shone. A figure could be seen in profile.

‘Look, a man eating,’ said Tom.

‘Yes, a man, still up. Just like us. I don’t suppose he’s eating.’

‘Eating,’ said Tom firmly. He was a child of one idea at a time.

In the flat, Nell said to her French au pair: ‘I think he’s hungry. Give him something to eat.’ She handed over the milk. ‘How did he manage to lose the dog?’ Considering that Bonzo had come with them on all her tours, surviving overnight stays in motels, plane trips across the American continent as well as two flights across the Atlantic, it was strange he should go missing now.

‘Tom says that after the journey Bonzo needs to go into the garden,’ said Sylvie simply. ‘So I put him in the garden.’

One of the things that Nell Casey liked about the girl was that she took Tom seriously. She took the boy seriously herself, but she could see that a slavish adherence to Tom’s dictates could have its drawbacks. She sighed. ‘You’ve looked all over the garden?’

There was a communal garden for The Albion, nicely laid out but not large.

‘Everywhere in the garden,’ said Sylvie firmly. ‘And Tom helped. Bonzo is not there.’

Tom, busy drinking a mug of milk, a feat which demanded all his attention, did not set up a wail for Bonzo, but his eyes staring at them over the mug were unrelenting. Bonzo or else, they said.

Nell knew what that meant: a child who would stay awake, who would not cry but would keep up a constant low keening sound, more painful to listen to than deep sobs.

It’s all an act, she said to herself. He’s a performer, can’t blame him for that, but I don’t feel strong enough for one of his performances tonight. Seeing Gus again had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t want to give Tom a smart slap, not what a good mother did, but it had worked on occasion.

She struck a bargain. ‘Let Sylvie put you to bed and I will go down and look in the garden myself.’

Sylvie protested that it was too late, too wet, too cold, but a judicial nod from Tom let her know she could go ahead.

‘Oh, Miss Casey, someone tried to call while you were out earlier this evening, but by the time I got to the door, whoever it was had gone.’

‘Oh? Well, they might have waited.’

‘I was slow,’ apologized Sylvie, ‘I am afraid I was. I called out Please wait. But Tom was-on his pot and I must stay with him.’

Nell nodded. She knew the importance of Tom and his pot and the rituals that went with it. Heaven forbid you should omit them or tamper with them in any way, or the worst happened.

‘Not important,’ she said.

Who knew she was here? A small card stuck by the bell said CASEY. In Los Angeles and even more in New York, people had seemed happier to call her Casey. She liked it. Casey felt free and vibrant and, although very female and attractive, sexless in an interesting kind of way. Not one to be put down. An achiever, that was Casey, and Tom was a bit of her equipment like a Gucci handbag or a bottle of Giorgio. But now she was in London, she couldn’t help noticing that the English air was converting her back to Nell. Nell would lower her voice a decibel or two, would probably drop that scent and wear another (the new Guerlain, say?) and admit freely that Tom was the person she adored.

‘I didn’t expect anyone,’ she said.

‘It was a man, I think.’ Sylvie picked up Tom and stood there with him straddled on her hip.

‘Oh, why?’

‘Heavy feet,’ said Sylvie thoughtfully. ‘On the stairs. I opened the door and heard the feet. Then the front door shut. That was heavy too.’

As the two disappeared towards bed, Nell went to get a raincoat. The flat was small but conveniently arranged, she had a bed with what amounted to a bathroom and dressing-room attached. They had been here over twenty-four hours but not all her clothes were unpacked yet; however, she knew where to find her raincoat.

She took a quick look round the room before she left it. A wide bed, pale wood for the dressing-table … Not bad for a furnished place, she had known worse. Many worse in her upward career. It was nice to have a bit of money to burn, the TV series had done that for her. But now she was back, to do some serious theatre work, starting with the play for the Festival. Her agent had already sent some scripts for her to read. It was a beginning. This flat would make a very good base from which to operate.

Stella Pinero had been so encouraging and helpful, she really liked Stella, admired her as a performer, respected her as a person. Stella had been through the mill and knew what it was like.

She felt optimistic and happy, lovely to have things to look forward to, lovely to be back in London.

If only Gus wouldn’t mess things up. There was no love left between them, surely there wasn’t, but Gus was a powerful and disturbing force in her life. She had great regard for his talent, which was huge and still growing, but as a man he could be frightening. The guy that had died in Sydney had been torn in two by Gus, destroyed as a person and as an artist by Gus’s criticisms in class, never mind any sexual element that might have come in, through her or Gus. And she didn’t think Gus knew what he had done. The memory troubled her. Almost everything about Gus troubled her.

I didn’t like the way he looked at Tom. She went down the stairs, unlocked the heavy front door to let herself out into the garden. I ought to have brought a torch. But there was light coming from a street lamp.

She could see the garden walls where a strong cotoneaster grew, and the edging of flowerbeds of daffodils and tiny irises. A conifer stood up in the middle of a patch of lawn. The garden ran round the corner of the house before terminating in a high brick wall. This corner garden was nothing but a strip of grass. The street light barely reached it but light came down from lighted windows in the flats above. They were the windows in her own dwelling.

A bit too eager, she said to herself. Gus definitely looked a bit too eager. I hate that look on his face. She wished he hadn’t seen Tom. Why was she frightened of Gus? He couldn’t hurt her, couldn’t hurt Tom. I can look after Tom and myself. She had been independent and self-supporting for a long while now. It had been a hard slog but she had done it. The two of them could afford a reasonable way of life now. Which included Sylvie, who was responsible for the loss of the valued Bonzo.

He wasn’t in the garden. She had searched and the Bonz was not there. Since he could not walk, someone or something had taken him. An urban fox or a rat? But would any creature of right mind want an aged stuffed dog?

If it was hungry enough, perhaps.

The thought of there being animals around here hungry enough to eat Bonzo made her shiver. She hadn’t cared for Bonzo, he had been too much trouble to her, the constant focus of alarm and crisis, nor did she care for his black and white spotted coat and his bold and leering eyes. Eye, one lost. Still he had deserved better than being a London meal. But if so, wouldn’t there be a bit of Bonzo left around? A calico ear and bit of tail, a scrap of stuffing?

She looked around again. Nothing.

But under the oak tree was a small mound with a piece of wood stuck into it.

If I didn’t know that it couldn’t be, she told herself, I would say that was a grave.

A small grave with a tiny inscribed wooden stake.

She knelt down on the damp earth and in the light from the street lamp tried to read what was written. On one side was the faded name: Rosa alba. Just plucked from the garden here, she thought, but this is no rose and she was not reassured.

On the other side was one word, fresher, and unfaded, it appeared to have been written in black pencil and it said:

TOM.