Читать книгу Coffin on Murder Street - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 9

Nell drew out the little wooden slip, she couldn’t bear to leave it there in the mud with Tom’s name on it, and crept up the stairs. The flat was quiet. Tom’s room was dark but with the door left open, as he liked. Sylvie was locked behind her own door, she was playing a pop record but very, very faintly.

Must get her a Walkman, thought Nell as she moved past, keep her happy. If you have a Tom in your life, then you also need someone like Sylvie, that is, if you are a working mother. There had been a period when Nell had been a solo parent and it had been tough. Either way it was tough: if you were working, then you paid someone an arm and a leg to look after the beloved offspring, which left you penniless, and if you were unemployed (and that happened frequently in the theatre world) then you did it yourself and were still broke. But to have a child, that counted.

Nell stood by the child’s bed. He was deep in sleep already, on his back, arms flung wide, his face flushed with the comfort of his slumber.

‘You all right?’ she whispered, touching his warm cheek gently. Yes, he was well and happy. He had been abused by the misuse of his name, but he personally was not touched.

But Nell felt the threat. Inside that tomb was Bonzo, but it could have been Tom.

She went back to the sitting-room where she dialled Stella Pinero’s number. For a time there was no answer, still she hung on, praying that Stella was home, alone and not entertaining anyone. The chances were good. Stella hadn’t looked in that sort of mood.

‘Hello?’ Stella’s sleepy voice.

‘It’s Casey. Nell Casey.’

‘You still on New York time?’ said an aggrieved Stella. ‘I was asleep. What is it?’ She was awake now and beginning to be alarmed. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’ve found Bonzo.’ Stumbling in her speech, Nell told her. ‘In a grave.’

Oh, come on now, Nell.’ Stella fumbled on the bedtable for her spectacles and put them on. She thought she could feel more awake and sensible if she had them on. She listened while Nell described what she had found. ‘You don’t know that the dog is in there.’

‘No, all I could think about was getting back to Tom.’

‘He’s safe?’

‘Oh yes, asleep.’ In a desolate, small voice, Nell said: ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘You stay with him. I’ll come round.’

Stella dressed herself, considered waking the sleeping mongrel Bob to come with her as protection, then dismissed the idea. He was apt to be too enthusiastic and thorough as a guardian.

But she took a torch and the trowel she used for her window-boxes. Bonzo was unlikely to be buried too deep.

As she walked round the corner to The Albion, she glanced up at the tower where John Coffin lived. A yellow light shone.

‘Oh good, he’s still up.’ It was reassuring. The two had many brisk disagreements, eveh quarrels, usually but not always her fault, but he was a strong, comfortable presence in her life. A good deal more than that, indeed, but she wouldn’t dwell on that now.

Strengthened by this thought, Stella went into the garden. The moon was up now and she could see about her without difficulty, although the moon lengthened and darkened shadows.

No one seemed about, which was just as well since she desired no audience for what she was going to do. There was the oak tree, and yes, there underneath was a small mound of newly turned earth.

So Nell had not been imagining things. Never thought she was for a minute, Stella assured herself stoutly. Not a scrap of imagination in Nell Casey, one of her drawbacks as an actress, feet too firmly planted on the ground. Big feet, of course, it was one of the things you noticed about Nell, her hands and feet were on the large side.

Her own feet in their light slippers felt damp and cold on the grass. She was muttering under her breath to keep her courage up. ‘Wish I’d brought some gloves, I’m getting earth all over my hands.’

A worm moved sluggishly away from the trowel, a brown and pink creature not wanting to be disturbed.

Stella took scoops out of the earth, it was soft, and easy to move. The trowel struck something, not hard like wood or stone, but softer. She stopped digging for a moment and sat back on her heels. ‘Oh dear, I don’t believe I’m going to like this.’

Dropping the trowel, she brushed the earth aside with her hands. There was a cardboard box about twelve inches long and six wide; the sort of box shoes come packed in. In fact she could see the lid said Armstrong Shoes.

She lifted the box out of the earth, laid it on the grass beside her and lifted the lid.

Bonzo was there but he had been strangled. His head had been twisted round so it rested on his back. Something odd had happened to his feet, they had been extended and twisted too.

As far as you could murder a stuffed dog, Bonzo had been murdered.

Stella stood up. Only lightly buried, she thought. Buried but meant to be found.

How on earth could she show this to Nell Casey? On the other hand, Nell was up there waiting for her, she would expect to hear what Stella had found. How could she not tell her?

After some thought, Stella knelt down on the grass again, put Bonzo back in his box, and reburied him. She pressed the earth down with a firm hand, making all as tidy as she could. If you looked hard, you could see signs of disturbance, but probably no one would look.

Then she rang the bell for Flat No. 3 and when the answerphone spoke, announced herself.

‘It’s Stella.’

‘Come on up.’ The door opened for her and she made her way up to Nell Casey’s temporary abode. Nell had the door open and was waiting for her.

She drew Stella in. ‘So? What did you find?’

‘It’s Bonzo, all right. He’s in a box and just under the soil. Not deep.’ She had left the trowel behind. Damn, must remember to collect it on the way home. ‘Before you ask: I left him there. He didn’t look too good, poor Bonzo. I don’t think you’d like him.’

‘No.’ Nell put her hand to her head. ‘What am I going to say to Tom? I promised him I’d find Bonzo.’

‘Well, you have done. But you can’t give him that particular Bonzo. Can’t you get another one?’

‘Tom wouldn’t stand for it,’ said Nell, all mother figure. ‘He’d know. Probably throw it at me.’

‘You’ll have to tough it out, Nell.’ No child would want to play with the Bonzo down below.

‘Couldn’t we tidy him up?’

‘You can make up your own mind in the morning when you’ve had a look. But there’s something else. Think about it, Nell. It’s not good what’s happened. It looks like a threat to me, one directed at Tom.’

‘I know,’ said Nell unhappily. ‘Not Tom now, Tom next time. So what do I do?’

‘You know that or you wouldn’t ask. You tell the police, see what they can do.’

‘Yes.’ Nell accepted it. ‘Tomorrow. But Tom? What about Tom? Shall I send him away? Hide him? And Bonzo, how on earth will I handle that?’ Nell Casey sounded distracted.

‘Hell, I don’t know what you’re going to do about that. But my advice on the dog is a straight cash offer.’ She had formed her own opinion of Tom, and she thought money would speak.

‘Yes,’ said Nell thoughtfully. ‘I believe that would work with Tom.’

‘Never known it fail,’ said Stella briskly. Her own daughter always took a rake-off in either disaster money or triumph money, it sweetened the world remarkably. It was known either as incentive or bribery, according to how you looked at the world. She called it comfort money, herself.

She kissed Nell and gave her a consoling hug. ‘Go to bed, get some sleep. I won’t say it’ll seem better in the morning but at least you will have the strength to face it. I’m off.’ Must pick up the trowel, she told herself.

As she held the door open for her, Nell said: ‘Do you think the police will take it seriously.’

‘I know one who will,’ Stella promised. Or she would know the reason why, she told herself.

Cars were parked at intervals along the quiet street, but she had no sense of being watched or followed as she turned in to St Luke’s Mansions. She looked up at the window in the tower. Still alight.

Should she call now? But even as she looked the light went out.

Before she drifted off to sleep, one question worried her. How had the person or persons who grabbed Bonzo known he belonged to Tom? For that matter, who had known about Tom, his name and who he was? Nell Casey and her son had only been in the country for a few days.

The same question was worrying Nell herself, as she lay in bed. It must be someone who knows us, she thought.

Some person, somewhere, in this country she had come back to, hated her and Tom enough to torment them. She had an enemy, but who was it?

A secret enemy was a frightening thought, but an enemy who moved in one’s own world, whom you know, perhaps had liked and trusted, that was even more frightening.

‘But there’s another way of looking at it,’ Nell said to the silent interlocutor who was conducting the inquiry inside her, ‘someone whom you know to have a grievance.’

Someone like Gus.

Sleep was not going to come easily tonight. It was haunted by thoughts of Gus, whom she had once loved, and still admired, and whose character she knew to be striped about equally with generosity and anger. He was capable of anything, probably.

John Coffin slept soundly, his dreams not disturbed by fantasies of the missing coach with its pilgrims to horror, nor even by the child murderer who might now be one of his own flock. He had learnt long since to dismiss the worries of the day as far as his work was concerned. He had built up an efficient CID force, ably backed by the uniformed men. Let them get on with it. They had radio telephones, fax machines, and a computer network to help them. He could let them get on with it.

That said, he had enjoyed being a detective, puzzling out the truth of a crime, looking for the evidence and then putting one patient piece after another into the jigsaw until he had the truth. After that came the job of getting a case together and conviction in the courts, and there, he had to admit, he had not always been successful. There were one or two men and several women walking around who had escaped the law. They probably hated him just as much as if they had gone down. He got several hate letters a week. More sometimes. This too did not disturb his sleep.

Stella Pinero, however, could always disturb him, and she did so now. The telephone rang by his bed, waking him up.

‘Stella?’

‘Yes, of course, it’s me.’

‘What is it?’

‘Come down and have breakfast with me and I’ll tell you.’

‘I don’t eat breakfast.’

‘Not true. I’ve seen you having a croissant and coffee at Max’s.’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to do that today. I’m in a hurry.’ Not quite true, but if Stella detained him too long, then he would be. Holding the phone away from his ear while he removed the cat from his chest where Tiddles seemed to have spent the night, he could hear her voice still talking. ‘Peace, Stella, I will come down. Put the coffee on.’

When he rang her bell, she opened the door at once, looking businesslike in spectacles with her long hair tied back.

‘I like you looking like that.’ He kissed her lightly on the cheek.

‘Like what? Come into the kitchen.’ The smell of coffee was floating towards them. Other people’s coffee always smelt better than your own and Stella’s could be relied upon. She had learnt how to make a good rich brew in her first job as ASM to Douggie Fraser, who liked his food, and had kept up the standard.

‘Like a power lady. You are a power lady.’

‘Have to be.’

Stella had not slept well but she had turned her wakefulness to good use. She had risen, showered and dressed in her white linen track suit, and then settled down with her notebooks. There was always plenty of work to do, it seemed to get more not less as her ambitions and those of Letty Bingham flowered. Also, Letty was always mean about money and kept the theatre on a rolling budget which demanded Stella’s constant vigilance to avoid going cap in hand to Letty.

Cash was always one of her preoccupations. Hence the Festival, the Charity Night which the Friends of the Theatre were organizing (up to them in theory, but in practice Stella liked to keep a sharp eye on what was going on … there was trouble about tickets, they would keep allocating the best seats to their own friends), and the Workshop for Students which Gus was about to conduct, and she’d kill him if he misbehaved. A good grant from Thameswater Educational Authority was involved here, they mustn’t lose it.

‘Come on then, tell me what’s worrying you.’ He had finished his first cup of coffee and was holding his cup out for another. He had his own worries. Before coming over to her, he had taken a quick look at his fax sheets. There was a fire in the tunnel near the Spinnergate Tube station and a train, complete with several hundred early commuters, was held up there. A man had just reported that he had blown his wife’s head off with a shotgun in his house in Poland Street, Swinehythe, and the coachload of tourists was still missing. Two potentially major incidents boiling up, with the only good bit of news being a late fax suggesting that the man in Poland Street was a fantasist who had no wife and no gun.

Briefly, Stella told him. He heard her out, then put his coffee-cup down smartly. Suddenly the coffee sat sourly on his palate.

‘Damn, oh damn.’

She was surprised at the force of his reaction, but not alarmed. ‘You take it seriously, then?’

Oh yes, he did. But this did not seem the moment to tell Stella about the arrival of a suspected child murderer in Spinnergate.

‘Come on, let’s go and look at this dog.’

For a moment, he considered bringing in the whole CID apparatus. Scene of Crime officer and all. But what crime? None had as yet been committed. Assault on a stuffed dog hardly seemed to be enough.

‘Bring the trowel you used before and a pair of gloves.’ He wouldn’t handle anything himself, and traces of Stella must be all over everything already.

It was a perfect spring morning with a pale blue sky and a soft breeze. Just the morning for a little digging.

Stella led him round to The Albion, and pointed out the site of the burial. ‘There, under the tree. You can see the earth is heaped up.’

‘Yes.’ Earth was sprinkled over the grass. ‘Anyone could see.’

‘I thought I left it tidier than that. It was darkish, though.’ And she had been upset.

There was movement behind them, and there was Nell Casey, holding her son’s hand. He was wearing an immaculate pair of jeans and a shirt with TOM embroidered on it. No trouble in identifying who he was, thought Coffin.

‘Good morning. Saw you from the window. So we’ve come to look.

‘Should the boy be here?’ asked Coffin bluntly.

‘Can’t leave him, Sylvie’s just popped round to the deli to get some milk and croissants.’

‘Well, take him for a walk while I do some excavating.’

But Tom had spotted something. Wrenching his hand away from his mother’s, he ran over to the bushes.

‘Bonzo, Bonzo,’ he cried in triumph, pointing to a low branch on the cotoneaster. ‘Bonzo in the bushes.’

There, suspended by his neck, looking a wreck, yet somehow quite relaxed and comfortable, was dear stuffed Bonzo.

Tom seemed unmoved and unalarmed by the damage done to Bonzo; perhaps with a child’s selective vision he did not even notice. He reached up and plucked Bonzo down, holding him firmly to his bosom. Nell made a noise of protest but her son ignored her.

Coffin looked from him to the little tumulus, then turned to Stella. ‘Open it up. Let’s see what we’ve got here.’

‘Well, nothing, I suppose.’

‘I’m not so sure.’

Stella knelt down and got to work. She regretted the green stains on her white trousers but this was no time to be selfish.

‘With gloves,’ commented Coffin. He ought to have been feeling better about things, just a joke of a dubious nature here after all, but he had that nasty feeling at the pit of his stomach that suggested otherwise.

Slowly, with nervous hands, Stella moved the earth away until the cardboard box was uncovered. ‘Still there,’ she said.

‘I see that.’ Coffin knelt down beside her. ‘Give the gloves to me.’ Without disturbing the box in situ he lifted the lid which was lined with plastic film. It came away with a little sucking noise as if it had got stuck.

Inside was one small, perfectly formed child’s hand. Severed at the wrist.

And streaked with blood. A bloody hand.