Читать книгу A Dark Coffin - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 5

It’s all very well, all this sympathy with Jekyll, but what do you think it’s like being Hyde – shut up inside all the time and only let out, escaping, when you can? And knowing all the time that you are fertile, and may breed worse than yourself.

Jekyll and Hyde and another Hydelet, eh? Well, think about it. And Hyde doesn’t like Hyde’s face any better than the world does. Hyde has eyes to see, and ears to hear. What Hyde sometimes lacks is a voice to speak.

All theatres have their own histories, their heroic moments, their tragedies, and their own ghosts. It is what gives them their colour, their character.

St Luke’s Theatre in the New, the Second City of London, had a short history as a theatre, with not much chance to build up stories and ghosts. It was the creation of Stella Pinero, the actress wife of John Coffin, distinguished policeman, Keeper of the Queen’s Peace in the Second City. Stella had had the idea of making a theatre here in her husband’s bailiwick, and it had prospered. She had seen it grow from a small outfit to one which now had a main theatre, a smaller theatre workshop where more experimental productions could be mounted, and a fledgling drama school which worked in conjunction with one of the newest universities in the Second City. And soon, her theatre would have its own festival for two weeks in the summer. (After Ascot and Wimbledon and just as the schools broke up for their holidays.) The first festival was being organized and Stella was hopeful for a royal patron. Maybe a Princess?

But if St Luke’s Theatre was new, it was housed in an old building. Stella had made use of an old church, bombed and fallen into disuse. She had rescued it from a future as a Bingo Hall. In the tower of the converted church, she and her husband had an apartment of great attractions with a splendid view towards the river, and perhaps less convenience if you lived up a winding staircase with rooms on every floor and a cat and a dog asking to be let out.

Coffin had received a quiet, unofficial backroom hint that the next Honours List could see him with a knighthood, but even if it was a life peerage, they would never move. It was so convenient being next to the theatre. You could almost say their marriage was founded on it.

St Luke’s was a grey stone building, solidly constructed by its Victorian builder, who had been his own architect, with plenty of marble and decorative fretwork; it was not beautiful but it had charm. It had been built upon an older church, which had itself rested upon an Anglo-Saxon foundation. People said that a Roman temple had been the original holy spot whose dangerous powers had been exorcized by the planting of a church there by the early fathers of the English Church.

It was a workmanlike building, sitting upon the ground with some heaviness.

‘It has such a comfortable, good feel, hasn’t it?’ enthused Stella. ‘You feel so safe here.’ She looked happily towards the stage which stretched out towards the audience with no sub-barrier. Stella belonged to the theatrical generation which had found the abolition of the proscenium arch exciting, so inevitably, when she had a theatre to plan, it had had to have a great apron stage stretching out into the audience which camped out all round it. Owing to the architecture of the church, two great pillars stood one each side or the roof would have fallen in, so there were created two boxes looking curiously royal. They were dark, and not much used as the sight lines were bad, and represented a problem. No one liked them. But Stella had seen to it that the seats in them were comfortable and were protected behind by a fretted screen. She called one the Royal Box, although no Queen had so far sat in it. The other box she called the Author’s Box and there was a bust of Shakespeare in it, to prove it.

There was something about an empty stage which always excited Stella. ‘Theatres can be spiritual places, can’t they? We mustn’t forget the origin of drama in religion. And this place was a church, after all. No wonder I feel St Luke’s is good.’

If places could be good.

She was standing in the middle of the auditorium with her husband, John Coffin, beside her, and the theatre’s general manager, Alfreda Boxer, on her right hand.

Stella looked taller and thinner since her recent session at a health farm where she had dieted and exercised. A film contract for a tall, thin lady with reddish hair was under discussion and Stella meant to have the part. Her husband found himself getting thinner out of sympathy; he was a tall, slender man in any case with bright blue eyes and hair now greying in a neat way. He was a neat man altogether who managed to make his clothes look good on him.

‘Are places spiritual?’ he asked now. ‘A church must lay claim to it. I suppose.’

Alfreda looked thoughtful and said nothing. She thought St Luke’s was hard work and might be a good place and might not. On that subject she was neutral. She thought places were neutral too, they were what you made them. This one paid her wages.

‘That’s why it’s got no ghosts,’ Stella went on.

‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ said Alfreda. ‘Are you sure you do. Miss Pinero?’ She always called her employer Miss Pinero, this being her stage name, although Alfreda well knew she was Mrs Coffin. She could have called her Stella, since the actress was not stuffy about that sort of thing and the theatre was more and more informal, but Alfreda herself felt more at ease with a bit of formality. It protected you somehow.

She kept her distance from John Coffin, because to her own alarm, she found him attractive. That way lay trouble.

Not that the Chief Commander had ever given any indication that he fancied her, or that his affections had wandered from his wife. But they did say … but that was all in the past. Before Stella.

‘How’s the boy shaping?’ he now asked in a jovial voice. He was finding that he dropped into a kind of false joviality with Alfreda which alarmed him. Why was he doing this? What was there about her? She was very attractive, certainly, and he was susceptible, but he had Stella now whom he loved.

‘Fine, he’s very happy.’ Alfreda’s son had graduated from drama school and was now an assistant stage manager at St Luke’s. He was one of the reasons that Alfreda had taken the job of general manager for which she was, in some ways, overqualified. But keeping an eye on her offspring was a way of life with her. ‘Well, I love him,’ she used to say defensively, if she picked up any criticism on the lines of mother’s apron strings, ‘and I don’t hang on to him.’

Coffin hesitated, as if he had forgotten the lad’s name.

‘Barney, plain Barney,’ she said.

There it was again, that jesting, jousting tone, as if inviting battle. Inviting something, anyway.

‘I don’t think he’ll ever make an actor but he might produce, or even write. He’s dead keen on the theatre.’

Stella stopped admiring the stage (which she felt was her own creation), and turned her attention to Alfreda. ‘Rubbish, don’t downgrade him, I think he might make a very good character actor, he’ll grow into it. Perhaps not do anything much until he’s over thirty and then find his feet.’

‘May I live to see it,’ said his mother.

‘I’ve seen it happen. And there’s money in it.’

Coffin stirred with a touch of restlessness, unusual in him, but he had a lot on his mind, some problems, and he had been reluctant to take this tour round the theatre.

Stella picked up his mood. Understood it and sympathized, but he really must not brood. ‘Let’s take a walk.’ They had been redecorating St Luke’s and she wanted to see it. ‘Decorators out?’

‘Just.’

‘They promised the end of last week.’

‘Oh, you know how it goes. But they are good workmen.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Stella was striding forward into the passage that led backstage. It was gleaming with new white paint. ‘For what they charged.’

‘We had a little bit of a flood where one of them left a tap running, no one admitted to it, but it must have been one of the painters.’ There had been several little accidents lately, but she did not dwell on them. Accidents happen.

‘They can pay,’ said Stella firmly. ‘No fire, or anything like that?’

‘No fire. You’d have been told.’

‘I think we would have smelt it,’ said Coffin in a mild voice. His worry was eating inside him but he didn’t want to show it. ‘I sometimes think we can smell the greasepaint up in our tower.’

‘No one uses greasepaint now … not much slap at all, it’s all meant to look so natural.’ Stella touched the paint. ‘Not quite dry. Better be dry by the time we open.’

Alfreda followed Stella at a distance, letting Coffin get ahead of her. She had her own thoughts. In spite of Stella’s words about this safe and comfortable old building, one or two of the girls had started to say things about not wanting to go through the corridors on their own, and not liking all the dark corners. There were a lot of dark comers. Getting darker by the day, some of them; the lights seemed to malfunction more than usual.

Coffin followed his wife in a dutiful fashion. Yesterday afternoon, a girl of eight had been knocked down and badly injured by a police car which was chasing a stolen van. Swinehouse was always a volatile and irritable district, so no one was surprised that a crowd had gathered quickly outside the Swinehouse police station. The mood had looked nasty, but a shower of rain had dispersed them before they got beyond shouts and threats. But he knew that the medical reports on the girl were bad, she might be permanently crippled if she survived at all. Since she was a popular little girl and her father was a local footballer, there would be more trouble when this got out. He had heard before coming out with Stella that the signs of trouble on the streets were there already in Swinehouse and could spread to other districts.

It was how the mood went, the report said.

In addition, the girl was reported to have a sweet singing voice which made her a local star. She might now have no voice at all.

He also had a slight problem with his wife. But he hoped he was more aware of that than she was. Imagination came into it. And there was one other ulcer gnawing away at his vitals.

Alfreda, striding by the side of Stella, decided that it would be better not to say anything about nervous actresses to her. Anyway, it was entirely possible she had picked up the stories too, she usually knew everything, and this was just her way of calming things down.

This is your day to be anxious and miserable, Alfreda told herself, take it, and cherish it and perhaps good will come of it. That was her philosophy of life at the moment, and it served.

She took a deep breath and walked on behind Stella. She wanted to be in a good mood because Barney would be home for supper tonight and her cooking depended on her mood, as she had discovered to her cost. Bad mood, burnt steak. Barney liked his food. Not a natural mother, she thought sadly, a natural mother would always cook well, no matter what her mood.

Behind them, in the Royal Box, the electrician was at work, testing the lighting in there. The bulbs in what he called ‘that fucking box’ seemed to burn out more than they should. Lately it always seemed to be darkness in that box.

He couldn’t find anything wrong, so once again he replaced the light bulb.

Stella was on the stage itself now, where she always felt at home, and her husband was standing on the floor below, looking up at her.

‘All right?’ he said. ‘Looks good to me.’

‘Yes, I am really pleased with all the redecoration. It was generous of Letty to finance it.’

Letty was her sister-in-law. Coffin’s half-sister, daughter of their much-married, mysterious, long-dead (one hoped) mother with a taste for moving on and finding different spouses. Although whether she married them all no one knew. Coffin hoped not, because if so bigamy must have come into it somewhere.

Letty Bingham, also much married, was younger and richer than her half-brother. Very much richer at the moment (her capital wealth did vary from time to time, and crisis to crisis), having climbed back after a time of disaster during which Coffin had feared the worst.

‘Least she could do.’

Letty had invested in the theatre and was a member of the Theatre Trust over which Stella presided.

Coffin followed the two women with as much patience as he could, while they continued the tour, inspecting the workroom where the scenery was prepared. He was always amazed how brilliantly the audience was conned into believing that bits of old wood repainted and rearranged from production to production, were a bit of the Roman senate, Hamlet’s mother’s bedroom, or Lady Windermere’s drawing room. Or even, for that matter, the kitchen in Look Back in Anger.

The two moved on, inspecting the designs for the play currently on line: Oh What a Lovely War, which would be preceded, just to get the mood right, by a scene from Journey’s End. He had thought himself that Macbeth might be a better play with which to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the last war, but Stella had let her new young producer, Monty Roland, and his Young Theatre Group, have the choice.

‘Just a quick look at the dressing rooms. I hope everyone is happy with them.’

‘Oh, very pleased, Miss Pinero. And of course, having showers and hot water makes a big difference to them all.’

‘So it should. I can remember having to change in a kind of barn, no water, not even cold, and walk across an open courtyard from the dressing rooms to the stage. Why do I say dressing rooms, we had but one, the sexes were separated by a curtain, which pulled across or didn’t as the mood took us. But that was in Scotland and it was an old cowshed.’

And a long while ago, thought Coffin, but knew better than to say so.

He had come to support Stella and be part of her audience, but now he would like to get home.

Stella had nearly finished her inspection, by which she had been pleased. ‘Came today just at this time on purpose,’ she said. ‘Not to get in anyone’s way.’

Tomorrow the last frantic rehearsals began, today was a day off. Not that the theatre was empty, theatres rarely are, except in the small hours, and perhaps not then if the ghosts are out. Someone always seems to be around.

The wardrobe mistress was checking the garments for the dress rehearsal tomorrow and her assistant, Deborah, was ironing a shirt.

She rolled her eyes at Stella. ‘The clothes those Tommies wore … I don’t know what they felt like on, but they are bloody.’

‘Don’t swear,’ said May Renier, automatically. Her face was flushed.

Deborah went on with her ironing. ‘That wasn’t swearing. And there is blood on this shirt … meant to be. It’s the one the chap gets killed in.’

She held it up for Stella to see. ‘Look, Miss Pinero, bloody, isn’t it?’

But Stella had seen stage blood before, worn it once or twice, and was more interested in soothing her wardrobe mistress who was known to become a near hysteric (while pretending to be cucumber-cool) around final dress rehearsal time.

‘How’s it going, dear?’

‘I believe we shall get through all right. Something will happen, of course, something always does, but we shall get through.’

You could almost hear May’s teeth grinding. Coffin wanted to offer her a glass of water.

‘We all know you suffer. May,’ said Alfreda, without a great deal of sympathy.

‘Your boy is looking for you,’ May came back with, knowing where to strike.

‘Where is he?’

‘Looking for a knife, I think. He thought you might have one.’

‘What for?’

‘Well, not to kill himself or you, although I wouldn’t blame him.’

Alfreda burst out laughing. ‘What for?’ She looked at Stella – Don’t take any notice of us, just our game, and it helps May let off steam.

‘He was going to cut a cake that Deb brought in.’ She nodded towards a table in the corner on which a large white iced cake sat.

‘Is it your birthday, Deborah?’ asked Stella.

‘Well, she isn’t going to be christened or married, so yes,’ said May.

‘Where’s he looking for the knife?’

May shrugged. ‘On your desk, I expect, you seem to have everything else there, so we thought there might be a knife.’

‘He won’t find one there.’ Alfreda went to the door and shouted down the corridor. ‘Look in my handbag.’

‘Knew you’d have one,’ said May.

Coffin looked at Stella. They can keep this up for ever, his gaze said, and if we aren’t lucky we shall have to stay and eat some of that cake.

Stella did the right thing, as she always did when it suited her. ‘There’s a bottle of champagne in my office. In the fridge. Send Tom for it and you three have it, with my love. Bless you all.’

She swept out, in her new blue and white Jean Muir, and Coffin followed.

In the corridor they passed Barney, plain Barney, who pressed himself against the wall politely so they could pass.

I think his mother beats him, thought Coffin, he always has a kind of bruised look.

‘Rubbish, he’s just young and nervous and in his first job,’ said Stella, as if he had spoken aloud. Well, not quite his first job, he had worked on that stall that sold sandwiches and hot dogs, but that was just to earn money as any student might.

‘What did I say?’ Coffin asked. ‘Did I speak?’

‘You said poor devil.’

‘Would you want Alfreda for a mother?’

‘She’s devoted to him. You can see it. As he is to her.’

‘I don’t know about mother love, it never came my way.’ Coffin’s parent had dumped him early in life to be brought up by a woman he called his aunt, although their exact relationship continued to worry him. His memory let him down and the evidence was perplexing. Sometimes he told one story about himself, sometimes another. Meanwhile his mother had gone gallivanting off with numerous romantic encounters to her credit. If you could believe her own diary, discovered well after her death. If she was dead. The one truth about his mother was that you could not believe everything you heard.

No, he hadn’t known much about mother love.

‘And he has me as a guv’nor,’ Stella finished triumphantly. ‘He couldn’t do better.’

She took him by the arm. ‘Come on, they are not the only ones in need of comfort, you are. And there is some more champagne in our tower.’ She looked in his face. ‘Or you can have whisky or a hot cup of tea.’

‘Do I look as bad as that?’

‘Pretty well, love.’ She put her arm round him. ‘I know you are in trouble … Come on, let me bind your wounds.’

They walked the few yards to their tower.

‘It’s not just the child, although that’s bad enough, nor worry about the riot – they probably have a right to kick up a stir,’ said Coffin awkwardly, after a pause.

‘No?’

He didn’t say anything more, but took a deep breath.

‘You want to answer or not?’

‘I usually tell you everything.’ Usually, but not quite always. I am not, for instance, going to tell you that I am sick inside about the man you met in Rome, Rome for romance, and who telephones you all the time. ‘In the end.’ It was a lame, doubtful finish.

‘So not yet?’

‘I think that’s about it. Not yet.’

Too powerful, too horrible. Too much his. Not to be spoken of too soon.

‘You’re glum, that’s what you are,’ said Stella lightly, opening their front door, and stepping up the stairs. Right you are, her back said; her elegant swaying step said, I accept silence. Only not for ever. ‘Glum and tense.’

‘Not cross.’

‘Very, very angry inside. I can feel it … Never mind, I don’t mind a bit of tension in a relationship, it shows it’s alive.’

She gave him a sharp look as if she might have doubted it otherwise. He did not respond.

Their living room smelt stuffy and hot, so Stella threw open the big sash window. The big tabby cat jumped on to the windowsill from the high branch of an overhanging tree and purred at her. ‘You’ll kill yourself one day doing that jump, cat. You’ll get it wrong and fall.’

The cat ignored this, which he knew could never happen. Not to him. To the dog, possibly, or to another cat, but not to a brave cat. He knew that jump as well as he knew his name, and the certainty that, any minute, his mistress was going to give him his supper.

Coffin walked over to his desk. Amongst all the other communications, there was a message on his answerphone from the office.

‘Harry Trent called from Greenwich. Inspector Trent. He will call again. He said it was personal.’

Stella, having fed Tiddles and also the dog, had returned. ‘Shall we eat in or go out?’

He looked at her without seeing her.

‘Answer, please.’

In a very little while, Stella’s quick temper would show itself and that tension which she claimed to like in a relationship would prove itself very alive and very active. Boiling oil might come into it somewhere.

‘Out.’ Then he thought about Harry Trent trying to reach him on the telephone on some personal matter. ‘No, here.’ And then, to hell with Harry Trent, out would be better. He liked Harry Trent, no question about that, a good man, and he had enjoyed working with him, but he was a man after whom trouble came trailing. Perhaps he was always so anxious himself. ‘No, let’s go to Max’s.’

Over the years, the simple café with which Max had started out had flourished and altered its name from Max’s to Maxi’s and was now Maximilian’s. Still Max’s to Coffin, though.

‘I’ll just go and change, then.’ Stella was cheerful at once. She loved changing her clothes, being in the theatre, putting on costume, taking it off, changing make-up was no hardship to her.

‘Be quick then.’ Or Harry Trent might slip in his call before they escaped. He wanted to escape.

‘You could do with a fresh shirt yourself.’ There was gentle but loving reproof in her voice, that rich voice that could express anything she wished it to.

But Harry Trent got in while he was still halfway clothed; he heard the bell and hoped she had not.

‘Don’t answer that,’ he called to Stella. But she already had.

‘It’s for you.’ And she handed him the telephone.

‘Harry? Thought it might be you.’

‘Is this a good time to talk?’

Coffin caught his wife’s eyes, buttoning his shirt with one hand as he did so. ‘Not too good.’ But this was Harry, a man he had worked with and trusted. ‘Make it quick.’ But that sounded rough. ‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Difficult to talk on the phone. I need your help. Can we meet and talk?’

Coffin thought. ‘Later maybe, I’ll have to think. Things are complicated.’

‘You mean about Swinehouse? I might be able to help you there.’

Coffin felt his eyebrows shoot up. What was Swinehouse to Harry Trent? And it shouldn’t be. He was surprised, resentful and possessive. He hated the riot, at the moment, he hated Swinehouse, but it was his. What was Harry doing on his territory. ‘Where are you?’

‘Quite close. I’m having a meal at a place near you. Maximilian’s, it’s called.’

‘Ah.’ Ah, indeed. What was Stella going to say? ‘I know the place. Hang on, will you?’ He covered the phone while he spoke to Stella.

She was surprisingly understanding, and possibly even interested in Harry. Anyway, she made no opposition to meeting him.

‘He can sit and watch while we eat, I suppose. And you can talk and I won’t listen … there’s bound to be someone there I know, there always is.’ A good proportion of the floating population of performers working or rehearsing or just about in St Luke’s Theatre ate in Max’s. ‘What’s he in trouble about?’

‘Don’t know. But he seems to think it’s one I can share in.’ Or was it that Harry thought he could pass it on to Coffin?

‘How well do you know him?’

‘We worked together on and off on various cases when I was in Greenwich. He’s much younger than I am and was a very junior officer. I got to know him a bit, not well, perhaps, but he was quiet about himself. Reserved, I suppose, didn’t talk about himself.’ He didn’t really want to talk about Harry; he added thoughtfully: ‘Not a happy man, but then he got married and that seemed to cheer him up. Or for a bit. But it didn’t mean he talked more, he said almost nothing about himself and his wife. Unlike some.’ But Coffin hadn’t been a talker himself, so he understood that side of Trent. In a company of men, it was really better to keep a still tongue. Who said men were not gossips? Coffin knew better. ‘But I liked him and trusted him. Yes, we were friends, but I was senior-ranking officer and that drew a line.’

Max’s was crowded but Harry had a seat in the corner from which he could see the door and anyone coming in, so even if they had wanted to avoid him, it couldn’t have been done.

He stood up when he saw them and waved his hand. That was Harry, discretion was not and never had been in his character. Coffin saw a man with broad shoulders, brown eyes and hair with no touch of grey. He looked as untidy as Coffin remembered him, but he found himself glad to see the man and held up his own hand in acknowledgement.

Naturally Max, who had greeted them because he loved Stella and somewhat feared John Coffin, took it in. ‘A table near your friend?’

Stella smiled, and Coffin realized with a pang that while Harry with his stocky figure and crest of hair might be no beauty, might be untidy, while his suit could do with a brush, yet the hormones were all there and what he did exude was a still-youthful maleness. Stella never minded that in a dinner companion.

‘I’ll go for a walk, then come back, I’d like a look round,’ he said efficiently. ‘Don’t want to interfere with your meal.’ Coffin remembered that Harry was always efficient.

‘I’ll disappear after we’ve eaten, and you two can talk. Several people I know here.’ Stella looked round the room.

Harry rubbed his eyes. ‘Don’t mind if you stay. You might be a help.’ Suddenly, he looked tired.

Stella decided. ‘Then why don’t you bring your coffee over here and you can talk while we eat?’

Coffin studied Harry’s face, on which fatigue had left marks. Fatigue through work, which was common enough in police circles, or fatigue through something else? ‘Have some wine with us.’

Harry rubbed his eyes again, as if there was some irritation behind them. ‘Better not. I’ve been drinking whisky. I’ll have some mineral water and coffee. Whisky makes me thirsty.’

Max told them what was best to eat that night and they took his advice: wild Scotch salmon, with cooked cucumber and salad.

‘The food’s good here,’ said Harry. ‘Not that I was in a noticing mood.’

‘Clever of you to find Max’s.’

‘No cleverness … I was looking for you.’ He rubbed his eyes again. ‘It’s about my brother.’

‘I didn’t know you had a brother.’

‘You’d know it if you saw him: like as two peas, we are. Henry and Mark. It didn’t matter which name we got, they just handed them out. Twins. Two halves of one egg. He got called Merry, although God knows he never was.’ Unless inside himself, he thought, he did have a secret laugh.

‘I have a brother,’ said Coffin, before he could stop himself. ‘But I didn’t know him, never met him or even knew he existed, until we were both adults.’

‘Well, I knew mine from the minute I could open my eyes. Before, I daresay, in the womb.’ He added with some bitterness: ‘And we were not happy little boys.

‘Too different, or too alike, I’m not sure. He hates me, I think, and I don’t exactly love him. He said I sat on him all through gestation, and I daresay I did.’

‘I don’t like my brother very much,’ said Coffin thoughtfully.

‘We have such different lives; I went into law enforcement, and …’ Harry hesitated. ‘And he went the other way.’

‘You mean … ?’ Coffin felt his eyebrows shoot up.

‘Yes, he’s a criminal. Even the army couldn’t control him, and chucked him out … I think he is wicked. He may be the most evil man I know.’

Stella was shocked. ‘You don’t believe in evil?’

‘I do when it’s in the family.’ He sounded weary. ‘And I only said may be … I always pray he isn’t.’

Coffin said sharply, ‘And you think he’s in the Second City?’

‘I think he is in Swinehouse,’ said Harry simply. ‘And if you are having trouble there, heaven help you, because he is probably behind it. In there driving it forward.’

‘And why do you think he is here?’

‘Because we were fostered as kids for a while, just a short while with a couple called Macintosh, strict, rigid even, but it suited him somehow; I think he has come back.’

Coffin thought about it. ‘He kept in touch with them then?’

‘He never kept in touch with anyone in his life.’

‘So what makes you think he’s here?’

‘I saw him on TV. On the news, at the riot, he was laughing.’

‘I see. Thanks for telling me. You’re sure?’

‘I know his face. I see it every time in the mirror when I shave myself … He might be staying with the Macintoshes. If he is here, he came because he remembered them.’ There was something heavy in his tone.

‘And you don’t like that?’

‘No.’ A bleak, cold monosyllable.

Coffin thought about it. ‘So what’s he running from?’

Harry dropped his head and looked at the table. ‘I dunno … maybe murder. He could have killed a woman in Woolwich. Strangled her and left her on Woolwich Common. He says not, but he would, wouldn’t he?’

‘I don’t know, Harry, he’s your brother. Did you believe him?’

‘I never believe a word he says.’ But Harry kept his eyes fixed on the table.

‘Look at me, do, Harry.’ He looked up, his eyes blind. ‘And? Come on … And?’

‘I’m worried for the old couple. How do I know what he wants? He may harm them. He is dangerous.’

A couple called Macintosh lived in Swinehouse, Joe and Josie who ran a mobile fish-and-chip van. They also served hamburgers, sausages, fried chicken and toasted sandwiches. With tea and coffee to drink. All good, all fresh and tasting well. They were popular local figures who were welcomed as they toured the streets of Swinehouse where eating houses were hard to come by. They regularly parked in spots around the theatre. Even Coffin ate there sometimes when Stella was away and he wanted a quick meal, and he was sure that Bob, their dog, hung about the van when he could get out on his own, while the cat probably ate there regularly when fish was frying. The cat was an animal with a strong character and a habit of roaming in search of good food.

Josie cooked and Joe served, except that sometimes the positions were exchanged and Joe cooked and Josie served – they were interchangeable. Josie was tall and thin, Joe was just as tall and very nearly as thin. They bounced jokes off each other like two old comedians.

The van was always parked in the shed beside the house in Tolliver Street. Once vandalized, the neighbourhood took such strong revenge on the lad that did it, that it was never again touched. Tolliver Street itself had changed radically since the Trent boys had lived there. Once a row of small houses, only the Macintosh house remained. On either side the rest had been replaced by blocks of flats. The Macintosh house, which had once, long ago, been a livery stable, sat in the middle of its own freehold.

The Macintoshes were nice, gentle, quiet people who were always very circumspect with the world outside and each other, as if they had been badly hurt once and were on the lookout for when it happened again.

That night, when Coffin was talking to Harry Trent, and while a tall man was just about to throw a brick through the window of Tallow Street Police Station, the Macintoshes’ van was parked near the theatre where it was doing a good trade in hot sandwiches, in spite of the heat of the evening.

This was not their usual beat on a Wednesday night, but the Macintoshes knew enough to keep away from Tallow Street where the crowds were gathering.

‘We’ve always managed to keep out of the rain, haven’t we?’ Josie nudged Joe.

‘It’s going to be a bloody thunderstorm this time, loved one.’ Joe was usually the gloomier of the two. ‘Pass me the sausages.’

Josie handed them over. ‘It can’t be that bad, can it?’

‘Guess it could be, lover.’

‘No, no, I won’t believe. We are imagining things.’

Joe did not answer, he just got on with cooking the sausages. ‘We could always get out,’ he said at last.

‘Get out? Do you mean what I think you mean?’

He turned the sausages in the big pan. ‘Yes. Not such a bad thing. Out.’

Josie was buttering the rolls. ‘Are we in the firing line then, Joe? No, I won’t believe it.’

Joe didn’t answer, just went on with the sausages, and Josie remembered something else.

‘Joe, do we know someone called Merry? He wants to come round. Left a message on the answerphone.’

Coffin sat over his wine with Harry while Stella tactfully took herself off for a theatre gossip with some cronies across the room. She knew when to make herself scarce.

‘They were decent enough people, the Macs, although they had a tough side, you kept their rules. They ran a small ice-cream van in the summer and fish and chips in the winter.’

‘I think they still do something similar,’ said Coffin thoughtfully.

‘Do they? Thought they might have retired by now.’

‘No, not yet. Gone upmarket, I’d say.’

‘Really? You surprise me. Didn’t seem that sort.’

Coffin leaned forward. ‘Your brother, what do you want done?’

Harry looked thoughtful. ‘Dunno.’

‘I could bring him in, I suppose. If he’s been in the riot, have him charged.’

Harry had sorted himself out a bit. ‘I think I just want to lay hands on him before he does something terrible … I know I am a grown man, and so is he, and we are both responsible for our own actions, but I feel as though I am responsible with him. as if he is a part of me. Or I am of him.’

He looked at Coffin and spread out his hands. ‘Twins are different.’

‘They must be. Does he feel the same about you?’

‘No, I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. It may be because I went into the police, he became what he is, perhaps couldn’t help himself. You don’t believe that?’

‘And I don’t think you do.’

‘Some of the time, oh yes, I do. The worst times.’

‘What’s his record? Come on, you can tell me. I can find out.’

Harry trotted a sad, bitter little list of shoplifting, robbery, succeeded by robbery with violence.

‘Has he ever killed anyone?’

Harry took a deep breath. ‘I think he did once. The girl that I told you about, but it was never proved and he always said No, not him.’

‘That’s the worst, is it? There’s nothing else I ought to know?’

Harry seemed to debate inside himself. ‘We’re still close, not telepathy or anything like that, but I like to know where he is and what he’s up to. And sometimes I pick up feelings, sensations … I don’t know if he is the same way with me, it was so when we were kids, but that was a long time ago.’

He waited for Coffin to laugh or crack a joke, which was why he never admitted any abnormal closeness with his twin in the society of policemen in which he moved. Probably wouldn’t admit them anywhere, he told himself, but it seems necessary now.

‘And now you have a bad sensation?’

‘Horrible,’ said Harry frankly. ‘Like knowing you’ve got a mortal disease … I think he is my mortal disease.’

Coffin stood up. ‘I think we need a stronger drink, both of us. I will see what Max can do, and I ought to make a telephone call.’

Trent nodded. ‘I suppose I ought to call the wife.’

‘There are two phones here. A fax as well. Max has everything. How is Louise?’ He had to work to remember her name.

‘Fine,’ said Harry without notable enthusiasm.

‘How are things?’

Harry pulled a face. ‘Not one of those failed police marriages, if that’s what you mean … It works, she goes her way and I go mine.’

Coffin remembered that Louise was a career woman. ‘She’s not in the Force too?’

‘No, nothing like, miles away. She’s a solicitor.’

‘Not such miles.’

Harry laughed. ‘Don’t you believe it. She’s part of what’s called a Citizens’ Legal Agency, me and mine are the people she fights against. We’re dirt in her book.’ He gave Coffin a wry look. ‘Businesswise, of course. Nothing personal.’

Not a lucky man. Coffin thought. He nodded towards the end of the room. ‘Phone’s over there.’ As he did so, he caught Stella’s interested gaze. She had probably been doing some lipreading.

They went off to their separate telephones to stand, side by side, backs to the room.

Stella looked at them and shook her head. You could see they were both coppers, she thought, from the way they stood. Coppers or villains. The steam of the world in which they moved had blown over them both. She went over to them.

‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Do you remember anyone called Merry? He wants to come round. He’s left a message with Max.’

Merry, as he walked, was thinking: he’s close, somewhere around here, I can smell him. He’s coming out, that’s what it is. It’s like an old familiar smell. I suppose I hate him. Or does he hate me? Maybe the same thing. I’ll track you down, Harry, we have a score to settle, and we will. That’s a promise. From me to you.

And then he said aloud, so that all of Shambles Passage could have heard if it wished: ‘Doesn’t he realize what a sham his marriage is?’

Back at the theatre, the electrician had finished his work and gone home.

The lights in the box on the prompt side worried him. They were working tonight, but dim.

There was too much darkness altogether in that box, he didn’t understand it, but he didn’t like it.

‘I’m a practical man,’ he said to himself. ‘But there is something wrong here.’

Coffin finished his telephone call first and went back to his table. Stella walked over.

‘Good news or bad?’

‘Middling. Jim Tanner is in charge and says he’s controlling it, and I’d better keep away.’

Superintendent Tanner of the uniformed police was a good and efficient officer. And also tactful.

‘He didn’t put it like that.’

‘No, but he let me know I might just inflame them down there if they saw me and certainly get the media.’ Which in turn would have its own inflaming effect, probably. ‘They have got a camera going. So we shall see who’s there.’

‘You mean Harry’s brother?’

‘Do I?’ said Coffin blandly. ‘Harry, how’s things?’

Harry Trent sat down, he looked more cheerful. ‘Lou’s all right. She sort of gave me her blessing on coming here. She’s blamed me more than a bit for what Merry is, also she had her own advice as it happens, she thought I ought to look up the Macintoshes.’

‘Will you? You can put up with us if you like?’ Coffin looked at his wife, who still owned an apartment in St Luke’s, used it as an office, but did not sleep there.

‘Sure.’ Stella smiled. ‘You can have my flat for the night or so … I’ll let you have the key. Walk round with us and I will show you the place.’

‘I’d like to, thanks.’ He gave Stella an appreciative look. ‘Lou says I’m housetrained.’

‘You can call round on the Macintoshes.’

‘I have tried. The house is still there but no one answered the bell. It’s all changed round there.’

‘I expect they were out selling hot dogs.’

‘I’m surprised they are still at it.’

‘Come to the theatre tomorrow with us, they will be outside.’ Stella had decided she liked the man.

‘I’d like that … Have a drink with me first, here … No, come to the flat, your flat, I’ll do some shopping and we can have a drink and some sandwiches.’ He did not add ‘in the quiet’, but might have meant it, because Max’s was hotting up with some younger members of the theatre staff, laughing and talking.

Max never minded, he encouraged voices and laughter, but it had to cease before midnight.

At home, Stella and Coffin prepared for bed in companionable silence. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stella’s shape in a soft apricot satin nightgown and enjoyed it. But he said nothing.

‘Well?’ said Stella. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘Partly about you.’

‘And partly about Harry Trent? Don’t you like him? I wondered.’

‘We were very close at one time; he nearly got me killed.’

‘That doesn’t seem a reason for closeness.’

‘Oh well, I nearly got him killed too, we were in it together … too close to a pair of villains with guns. And unprepared. As much my fault as his. More really, since I was the senior by a long way.’

‘So, what’s the trouble?’

Coffin was silent, he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘What did you make of him?’

‘I liked him. Why?’

‘I’m not sure if I believe his story … I never heard about the twin before. I suppose there is one.’

‘What an extraordinary thing to say.’

‘Might be an excuse.’

‘What for?’

‘I don’t know. Excuses are always useful.’ Good excuse for a lot of things if you can bring it off.

While they were talking, the watchman who walked through the theatre slowly, carefully at night, checking for intruders, came into the auditorium. By the low security light which was always on, he could see it was empty.

He paced on round. No one.

He stood still for a moment and looked around. Still no one.

He walked on, looking at intervals.

Why did he have this feeling that someone was about?

In the shadows, a dark figure flitted away.

Evenings when a new show opened were always a cause for celebration at the St Luke’s Theatre. Each new production was a rebirth.

This particular evening was no different, Stella was happy and excited, she always was, while her husband went with her because he enjoyed her company and had to admit that he liked the theatre. Stella had said to him once that he was a closet tragedian, but he had settled for being a lost comedian which seemed more desirable for a policeman somehow.

Especially for a policeman who had the riot police out two nights running. Last night, thank God, had been quieter, and if Harry’s brother had been around, he had not been noticed. But Coffin now had his address in Swinehouse, knew where he was staying, or a man who fitted the description, although not why, and the owners of the house had received a quiet warning from Sergeant Fraser who claimed to know them well. Coffin was now debating whether to tell Harry or not.

They had met Harry for drinks first. As promised, he had done some shopping so that he could offer them a good white wine, as well as smoked salmon sandwiches. All courtesy of Max.

‘What’s the day been like?’

‘Bearable, just about.’ Coffin sounded weary, so that Stella gave him a sharp look but said nothing. ‘You helped us there in identifying your brother.’ He saw Harry wince. ‘It’s all right, he wasn’t arrested, in fact, he hasn’t been back to where he was lodging, he may have cleared out.’ Harry did not look relieved but Coffin went on: ‘So, not too bad a day.’ The streets were quiet but not peaceful, there would be trouble again if the child died and the news of her condition was not good.

‘I had a look round, wondering if I could find Merry. Didn’t.’ He looked at Coffin.

‘I can give you his address in Swinehouse,’ said Coffin slowly. ‘Or where he was. An old seamen’s lodging house. Or it was when the river had seamen on it, now anyone can live in it. Mother Arbatt’s, is the local name, two, Shambles Passage … there used to be an abattoir in the passage when cattle came in live from Canada … long gone, of course, but locals say you can smell it on a hot day. Not sure if you would be wise to call, not one of the best houses in the world.’

‘It wouldn’t be if they let Merry live in it.’

‘He’s been living there for some weeks.’ Registered, anyway, but not seen much. A popper-in, you might say, rather than a continual inhabitant.

‘I’ll go tomorrow.’

Coffin nodded, watching Stella quietly mopping up the mess where the wine had dribbled on to a good table. It was her table, after all. ‘Up to you.’

‘I told you I went to see the Macintoshes yesterday. Found the house, all changed of course, with flats on either side.’ Must be a valuable site, he had thought, but the house looked run down. ‘They weren’t there. Out with the van, I suppose. I saw where they parked it. I tried to track it down but couldn’t find it … but I may see them tonight. They are going to be at the theatre.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Max told me … I was talking to him when I bought the wine … Said someone had made them a present of some tickets and they were going.’

‘Max always knows everything,’ said Stella. ‘He is very helpful.’

‘When it suits him.’ Coffin had made it his business to find out about Max since he was now so much a part of his wife’s business life with the way he ran the theatre catering – very well, it must be said. Coffin wanted to know. Max had come to England from Northern Italy as a young lad, after the war; he had come on his own, with no money, to make his fortune, which he was in a fair way to do. Coffin reckoned he would die richer than the Chief Commander himself ever would. Starting in a small way, Max was getting richer.

Stella was practical. ‘Will you know the Macintoshes again after all this time?’

‘I think so, unless they have changed a lot, but they will look older. Max said that they told him someone had given them a box.’

‘Oh, that will make it easy, there are only two boxes. One on each side of the stage between pillars of the old church that could not be used. The sight lines are poor but you can hear well.’

‘I’m surprised there are boxes … I thought it was a theatre in the round.’

He’d been doing his research, Stella thought with amusement.

He read her mind. ‘I’m interested in the theatre. Like to have been an actor, I know I couldn’t have been, no talent but the interest is there. Unusual in a copper, I suppose.’

‘What about me?’ Coffin had the feeling he was being left out.

‘You married into it.’

‘I married you, Stella,’ Coffin observed mildly. ‘Not the theatre.’

‘Same thing. I wonder if you would have married me if I hadn’t been an actress.’

‘But you wouldn’t be Stella,’ he said unanswerably and honestly.

Stella looked enraptured. She came over and kissed him. ‘You angel … you do know the right things to say.’ Then as she drew away: ‘Mind you, I’ve told you before that you are a bit of an actor yourself.’

Then she turned her attention back to Harry, and Coffin wondered once again about the man in Rome. American, wasn’t he? Probably not a bit important to Stella but he wished he was sure. That kiss just now, not like Stella as a rule, she played it cool in public. Perhaps she felt she owed him something.

‘I can feel evil,’ said the nightwatchman to one of the ushers. He intended to stay to see the performance: not only an old performer (in a humble way, an extra at Elstree, a chorus boy, a man who walked on), he had also fought in the war. He wanted to see.

‘Oh, come on with you, Albie,’ said the usher. ‘There’s Miss Pinero coming in with her husband and a friend. No evil when she’s around, she wouldn’t allow it. Keeps the discipline, that one. And look at her smile, such a happy smile.’

‘Fool,’ muttered the old man. ‘Evil has nothing to do with discipline or a happy smile. It’s like blood, you can smell it.’ All the same, he smiled himself at Stella as she went past in a gust of Jolie Madame. ‘Evening, Miss Pinero.’

* * *

They were late to the theatre. ‘Excuse me,’ said Harry, disappearing. ‘Won’t be a minute.’

Stella and Coffin waited. Weak bladder, Stella thought. She had a performer’s bladder herself and felt no discomfort till the show was over.

Harry returned with an apology – ‘Sorry’ – and followed Stella as she led the way to their seats and although Harry Trent looked around him, he didn’t see the Macintoshes.

‘Already in their seats.’ Stella led the way to the special house seats always reserved for her and her friends.

The young and ambitious producer, Monty Roland, had decided to make his mark on the world with this production: there would be no interval (something no management liked because it cut down bar profits, but he was too young to think this mattered or was any concern of his), it would break the mood, but the pace would be fast and there would be a party afterwards.

For celebrities, critics and his friends.

Harry was looking around him as they settled in their seats, but the lights were already being lowered, slowly shade by shade, so that people seemed to recede into the shadows. ‘Can’t see them, can’t see into the box.’

‘Perhaps they are in the other box, on the prompt side.’

Harry did not know which was the prompt side, but he could see into one of the boxes which was full of teenagers. ‘No, I can see into that one, and it’s not them. Their grandchildren maybe, if they have any.’

The other box was very dark, but there might be two figures sitting there. Yes, there were, you could just make out the shapes. Harry relaxed a little.

‘Oh, grandchildren, had they, do you think?’ Stella was always interested in personal details, it was one of the things that made her a good actress, because she carried within herself a compendium of people’s behaviour, their relationships, desires, ambitions, loves and hatreds. She had this reservoir to call upon when required to build a part.

‘I believe there’s a daughter.’

Stella was clearly about to ask about the daughter, but all the lights went out, and heavy, complete darkness descended upon the theatre.

It lasted for a long moment, then a distant thunder of artillery fire.

Then silent darkness again and the Last Post sounded.

The curtain went up on a trench in Flanders, World War One.

‘I don’t know anything about that, she may be dead,’ said Harry hastily to get his word in before the action started on stage. He looked at his programme and fidgeted a little while Stella smiled at her neighbour on the other side, an actor she knew and had played with but who was currently out of work.

Harry turned to Coffin. In a low, uneasy voice, he said: ‘I feel as though my brother is here. I can sense him.’

‘Oh, come on. You always were one for a bit of a rigmarole, Harry. I remember when we worked together and I used to enjoy it. But now … look around. Can you see him?’

‘I don’t need to see him,’ muttered Harry as the actors began to speak.

Coffin did his best to attend to the performance, it was a duty that Stella expected of her spouse, but his attention kept wandering. He found he enjoyed the extract from Journey’s End more than he expected but after that he went back into his own thoughts.

No interval, unluckily, but he would telephone to find out how the girl was holding up the minute the show ended. If there was any trouble on the streets the message would get to him anyway. He had left instructions on that score.

As the curtain came down to enthusiastic applause from the audience, which Monty had carefully packed with friends and relations, Stella leaned across to Harry. ‘Wasn’t bad, was it? I think Monty might develop very nicely. He’s a bit mannered now, of course.’

‘You mean the soldiers in underpants?’ said Coffin.

‘That was just to show they were dead, Monty wanted shrouds or naked, but I said not.’

‘I think you were right.’

Stella ignored this. ‘Harry, Monty’s having a party backstage to celebrate, we must all go. You’ll enjoy it.’

But Harry had his eye on the box in which he could see two figures still sitting.

‘I want to see the Macintoshes first.’

Coffin said that he would come too, he would take the chance to see if there were any messages for him. No riot tonight, or he would have been plucked from his seat already.

Stella was moving ahead out of their seats and down the aisle, greeting people as she passed. ‘See you at the party, then.’

Coffin and Harry together made their way to the back of the box. There was no door as such, but a low balustrade which opened.

Two figures were there, in their seats, but one lolled against the other whose head was flung back.

Coffin stopped and put his arm on Harry to hold him back. ‘Wait … something wrong here.’ He went through into the box, and looked down upon Joe and Josie Macintosh.

Joe stared back with open, sightless eyes. He was quietly dead.

The movement of air caused a small piece of paper to flutter to the ground. Coffin bent down to pick it up.

Coffin wondered what it was, but at that moment he did not realize it had two functions.

One was: a message from Hyde out of Jekyll. Hyde was out and walking round and Jekyll did not yet know.

Not for sure, that is, but Jekyll had suspicions that the enemy was loose.