Читать книгу A Dark Coffin - Gwendoline Butler - Страница 6

Coffin held the piece of paper in his hand; he had picked it up carefully using a folded envelope from his pocket as a kind of pincer. Such behaviour was automatic with him. Fingerprints, they might be important, you never knew. He hardly thought about it, just did it, always the policeman.

It was a sheet of writing paper, a little dirty, almost as if someone had trodden on it. One corner was bent over. Several lines of writing in pale ink were to be seen.

He glanced at it quickly. ‘It looks like a suicide note.’ He did not hand it over to Harry who had pressed into the box by his side, and was staring down at the two figures. There was not much room but the low door had been pushed apart so Harry could get in. Behind him a small, interested crowd of theatregoers was gathering.

Coffin waved them back. ‘Go away, please, just leave, there has been a death here.’

He turned to Harry. ‘You stay here and keep people out while I get things moving …’ He moved away quickly, pushing the small crowd in front of him. Alfreda had appeared, together with Barney, she gave Harry a quick look, Coffin motioned her to follow him, talking rapidly as they went, explaining what he wanted her to do: clear the area as quietly as possible, keep the audience there if she could but if not get the names and addresses of people as they left, but to hang on to all those with seats near the box. And the performers and theatre staff must stay, of course. Yes, he said, it appeared to be a suicide pact but they must make sure.

‘I understand.’ Alfreda nodded, Barney, full name Barnabas, only used when he was in disgrace, stood by her side, wide-eyed and interested; he had never seen death before and now he was getting a double dose. He found it absorbing, worth observing, almost like a show. One of the bodies, Joe it was, leant against the other as if asleep, while Josie, he thought it was Josie but oddly he got them mixed sometimes, lay with her head sagging back. You could see at a glance that he – she was dead, while Joe might have been asleep.

‘Are they really gone?’ he asked, but no one answered. He was Barney – not important. His mother tugged at his arm to pull him away.

Harry watched them go. Get things moving, he thought, wouldn’t it be better to get everything stopped? He groaned inside himself. Too late, far too late.

I cannot believe what I am seeing, he told himself. I can’t believe my own eyes.

The squad car arrived with a uniformed man and woman, to whom Coffin spoke.

‘Where is that police surgeon?’ he demanded. ‘I want these bodies moved.’

So did Alfreda who had returned to hover in the background, anxious and pale. Stella stood by her with Monty, who was silent and angry. How could anyone die on his first night?

‘Who is the surgeon?’

‘Dr Mason, sir,’ the policewoman answered. ‘Dr Margery Mason.’

Coffin nodded; he knew Marge; she did a good job, sometimes in unpleasant circumstances on odorous and difficult corpses but always behaved with gentleness to the dead, long dead although they sometimes might be.

Tonight would be a comparative treat for her, he thought. When she arrived. If she had a fault, and he recognized it was a small one, she was tardy.

‘She’s on her way, though, sir,’ said the policewoman, who also knew Dr Mason and perhaps guessed his thoughts. ‘She already had a floater down at Craven Creek but she called in to say she was coming. The creek’s not far, sir.’

Dr Mason was wearing a smart evening dress when she arrived, but she showed no anger at having been called away from her dinner party by two incidents on the same night.

She looked surprised to see the Chief Commander there, this was top brass indeed, but she acknowledged to herself that this was his wife’s theatre and did not allow his presence to break her composure as she knelt to make her inspection.

‘Well, they are dead. I can certify that. Exact cause as yet to be established. If there’s a suicide note, I will make a guess at a drug of some sort.’ She rose to her feet, giving Joe and Josie a thoughtful look. ‘They seem peaceful enough, but you can’t tell. Perhaps a faint look of surprise on the man’s face. The postmortem will tell more.’

She would not be doing that. ‘I suppose Dennis Garden will fall for this … he’s just back from a holiday in Spain.’

‘He ought to be in an easy mood then.’ Coffin was not an admirer of Mr Garden, too bossy by half, a man of self-importance, but he admitted the man was the total professional.

‘He’s very good,’ said Marge Mason loyally, picking up her bag.

They both knew she hated his guts. Dedicated and determined homosexual as he was, he had made a single-minded play for her boyfriend.

She shouldered her bag and made for the door. Geoff was loyal, thank goodness, no doubt about that, but all the same …

She turned back for a look again at Joe and Josie. Something was worrying her. ‘Who are they? Have you got a name?’

‘Macintosh.’

She frowned. ‘I feel as though I know the faces. Of both of them.’

‘I expect you do, if you ever bought a hamburger or an ice-cream from their stall,’ said Coffin.

‘Leave you to it then, sir.’

‘Be off myself as soon as the CID team turn up.’

In the ordinary way Sergeant Davis and DC Armitage might not have hurried themselves to a suicide, but a suicide in the Pinero Theatre and the presence there of the Chief Commander and his wife meant that they were walking in even before Marge Mason had left, and were perhaps a little put out that she had got there first.

‘Better try wings next time, boys,’ she murmured quietly as she walked past. ‘I’ll be sending in a report, looks like double suicide. The boss knows all and is waiting for you. Good luck.’

‘Come on,’ said Coffin wearily to Stella, after a few words with Davis. ‘Let them get on with it, not my job, and they don’t want me here.’ It had been his job once, which the two CID officers knew, just as they knew what his reputation for efficiency and flair had been.

‘All right, love, just let me have a word with Alfreda.’

She turned towards Harry Trent who was standing there in silence, looking white. ‘This can’t be good for you, you knew them.’ He muttered something wordlessly about it being a long while ago. ‘Forgive,’ she said, with one of her famous smiles. ‘Back soon.’

To Alfreda she said: ‘Sorry to leave you to it. Monty can’t have his party. It wouldn’t be tactful. The bodies are still here.’

‘He wants it, of course. Says all this is nothing to do with him, and the food will go off.’

‘He’s got no judgement. Tell him he can have it tomorrow and bother the food, Max can do some more.’ As, for a price, he would. ‘I’m afraid you are going to have to hang around until the police go. Take your line from them.’

Alfreda nodded. ‘Barney will stay with me.’

‘Good lad,’ said Stella, once again distributing her famous smile.

With knobs on, as Barney said cynically to himself, even as it warmed him. ‘I’ll stay with Mum, of course I will.’ He had to admit to himself that it was interesting and that he was enjoying himself.

He placed himself protectively by his mother. He was a lanky lad, as tall as she was, with bright blue eyes and a crest of reddish hair. Otherwise they were not alike, and he prided himself on taking after his dead father. If he was dead, he cherished the idea that what Alfreda had told him of the death in an accident was a lie, and that Dad would turn up, rich and famous. He had to be both or need not bother acting Lazarus.

‘Remember what old Albie said about feeling there was someone around who shouldn’t be?’

‘The nightwatchman? He talks too much, I’ve thought so before,’ said Alfreda gloomily. ‘I ought to sack him but I can’t bring myself to do it.’

‘Think he’ll tell the police?’

‘Bound to. If he gets the chance.’ Alfreda was keeping her eyes on the police pair, she couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they didn’t seem too anxious. A death was a death, this didn’t look too important to them. ‘I think we will be on our way soon. I think the police will let us go quickly, we aren’t important. I’ll tell Monty about his party, but I must have a drink first, he can wait. He’s stalking about like a cross cat as it is; let him stalk.’

‘Think we ought to stop Albie talking?’

‘Can’t be done. If he wants to, he will.’ She yawned. ‘No one takes him seriously. That pair won’t. You can tell by the way they are going about things that they like routine up and down and all the time, and no trouble.’

‘We ought to let him,’ persisted Barnabas, he felt a slight touch of the Barnabas syndrome coming on, but he was trying hard not to let it happen. Disgrace is thy name, Barnabas boy. ‘Only decent.’

‘Decent? What a word, I’m having none of it.’ She yawned. ‘Bloody awful evening it’s been, hasn’t it? And Monty’s production wasn’t that good either. Come on, we’ll go round the theatre and check up, then see if we can slip away home.’

She stalked off with what Barnabas called her Lady Macbeth walk. I am always Barnabas when she is like that.

Barnabas followed, wondering: If you opened up my mother, if you could, and called Come out, come out, I wonder what would come out?

Death was so close and she wasn’t giving it due dignity.

He said to her back: ‘There wasn’t any blood, was there? I didn’t see any blood.’

‘No blood,’ said Alfreda. ‘Not that I looked.’

The two of them lived in a rented flat close to the St Luke’s Theatre complex of which the Pinero Theatre was now the biggest part, although the new, tiny Festival Theatre which was used for student and experimental production was getting increasingly important. Barnabas hoped he might be given a job there if he did well as junior assistant stage manager, than which there was no lower form of life.

Once launched, he meant to move into a place of his own. He loved Alfreda, but she was bossy and inhibiting. A chap found it difficult to maintain his own life.

He loved her though, and protected her.

‘May Renier is a bit of a cow, isn’t she?’ he said as he followed his mother into her office. ‘Pooh, the stink in here, you’ve been smoking.’

‘I’ve got to have one vice.’

‘You’ve got more than one.’ He threw open a window. ‘I saw May being downright cruel to old Albie … and I’ve seen her with other oldies. She doesn’t like them. She’s a shoot-all-the-over-fifties sort.’

‘She’s nearly forty herself,’ said Alfreda with a yawn. ‘I remember her years ago, both locals, we went to the same infant school, but I don’t think she’s noticed. No, she’s no chicken, and I don’t think she likes me very much.’

Barney gave a hoot of laughter. ‘Let’s shoot her then, shall we?’

‘Not till we’ve got over this production.’ Another yawn. ‘I wish I could get off to bed.’

‘I’ll make you a milky drink.’

‘Put some whisky in it.’

‘Will do.’ And he bustled off towards the kitchen area attached to her office. He was a good cook, better than Alfreda, and did most of the housekeeping at home, as a result of which his hands bore numerous cuts and scars. While the milk was heating, he did a small amount of washing up. He was good at it, at home they had a dishwasher but he liked to do some things like knives and silver by hand. He hated mess and there was no denying that Alfreda was careless about her home.

Behind them the bodies were being moved on to pallets to take them to the university hospital mortuary where they would be examined.

Two tiny spots of blood were left behind where they had rested.

The Chief Commander and Stella, together with Harry Trent, went home across the courtyard together. Stella went between the two men, arm in arm with both. It was not her usual way of going on, but somehow it seemed right tonight. She was picking up tensions in both that she did not understand.

‘Come up for a drink, Harry?’

He shook his head. ‘Won’t, if you don’t mind.’

‘Tired myself.’

Another of her smiles, but he was new to them, so he was the more pierced, a kiss on his cheek, a breath of Jolie Madame, and they were gone into their tower.

Coffin had never said a word.

Harry Trent remained outside for a moment, reflecting how like Coffin to end up living in a tower. It fitted with his character somehow, he was a climber.

Harry moved towards his own borrowed front door and took out his key. It was a big old key which looked as though it had been around a long time, perhaps a key from the old church.

He was just fitting it in the door when a figure came out of the shadows.

‘Hello, Harry boy, heard you were looking for me.’

Harry moved his head slowly. ‘Merry, my God, it’s you.’

‘Of course. You knew it was me, you knew I’d be here.’

‘I did not.’

‘Thought it likely, then.’

‘How did you know where I would be?’

‘Telepathy.’ Merry laughed. ‘No, a copper told me, he picked it up about the Chief Commander; your friend, I believe. They gossip about him, you know? Well, wouldn’t you? I’m on better terms with the coppers than you think. They aren’t all trying to run me in, you know.’

‘Where are you living?’

‘You know: Shambles Passage, old Mother Arbatt’s den, and a right old pigsty too, I’m not there more than I can help. Nice place you’ve got here.’

‘Just lent.’

‘Like you to ease yourself into somewhere good.’

‘You really do think I’m a skunk, don’t you?’

‘Bit of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?’ Merry was almost laughing.

Harry took a deep breath. ‘Come up and have a drink. I’m glad to see you looking so well. I came here to find you, heard you were here.’

‘I don’t drink. You’re the drinker out of the two of us.’

Since this was true, Harry said nothing, but opened the door. ‘Just come in and tell me what you want and what you are doing here.’

Merry did not follow him in, but stayed in the shadows. ‘I told you: I heard you were looking for me. We are twins, after all. We keep in touch whether we like it or not.’

‘What are you doing in Swinehouse?’

‘Earning a living. Just like you. I’ve got a job in a haulage business. I have to live … There’s someone else we both know in Spinnergate.’

‘I don’t want to talk about her. Forget it. I saw you on the TV news, in the street fighting.’

‘I wasn’t doing any fighting, I was there, yes. You might have been yourself, we were expressing what we felt. I knew that kid, thank God she isn’t dead.’

‘That’s the latest news of her, is it?’

‘It is. I went to the hospital myself: stable.’

‘Two people died in the theatre tonight.’ Harry sounded weary. ‘Looks like suicide.’

‘I know, I was there, dropped in for the performance, got a cheap ticket. I knew something was up, didn’t know what.’

Harry said wearily, ‘Look, I don’t want to talk about it now, but I want you to remember that I am your twin and I love you and you can talk to me.’

‘I know what you think of me: I didn’t rape and strangle that girl in North Woolwich, although by God, she nearly raped me. Anyway, she isn’t dead. I saw her walking in Greenwich Park the other day.’

That’s you all over. Merry, thought Harry. Always with an answer. So glib.

‘I won’t take a drink off you, but I’ll keep in touch, you know where I am.’

Harry nodded. ‘So I do. Don’t move away without telling me.’

‘What about you? Will you push off now you have found me?’

‘Not until I have found out what happened to the Macintoshes.’

‘Always the detective … they were a gloomy old pair, don’t wonder they decided to drop over the side. Surprised they did it together, though, never felt they were that keen on each other.’

‘They were kind to us.’

‘Think so? Didn’t feel like kindness to me … to tell the truth, I thought they were a spooky couple. I don’t feel sorry they are gone.’

‘I shouldn’t say that aloud too often.’

Merry smiled. ‘Don’t worry about me, if there’s one thing I am good at it is hiding my feelings. Hiding, in fact. It’s kind of an occupation.’ He looked his brother in the face. ‘And that is not a joke, with a childhood like ours, you can’t be surprised. I hide, you search, that’s your occupation. Two sides of one coin.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘I’ll oblige … this is me saying goodbye … Say goodbye to Lou for me. How is she?’

Harry did not answer, but waved his brother off as the darkness ate him up, they were twins after all and Merry didn’t always say what he meant or tell the truth, they couldn’t be parted. Or not without surgery.

He was laughing to himself as he went into his borrowed home. ‘Might come to that,’ he said to himself. ‘Oh God, so it might. Take a sharp knife and cut someone out. Hara-kiri of the soul. God, I must be drunker than I thought.’

He picked up the telephone and although it was late, he rang his own home. ‘Lou, I’ll have to stay on a bit longer … things have happened that mean I must be around. No, just a continuing investigation.’

He had not told her that he was hunting for Merry, it was a name he preferred to leave unspoken, a bad word between them. He had the horrible feeling she liked Merry the better of the two of them and would have wished to have been his wife.

He had another drink while he thought about the dead couple, the Macintoshes. In the morning, if he was still there, and you never knew, he would talk to John Coffin.

He took a drink to bed, head against the pillows while he sipped it. Merry was right, Harry was the drinking twin. As he drank, he thought about his Louise. She was so tall and slender and desirable. Clever, too.

He finished the drink, put the glass on the floor beside the bed, wondered briefly what high sexual jinks the bed had known when Stella had used it, he did not underrate the Chief Commander.

Enjoying his mildly lascivious thoughts, envious ones too, he slipped into sleep.

Tomorrow would come whether you like it or not; he might hide, like Merry, but he could not run away. Things would have to be said.

Stella took a shower, washing off the scent of Jolie Madame and replacing it with fresh verbena. Then she knotted the towelling robe and emerged to confront Coffin.

‘Come on, what’s up?’

He was standing by the bedroom window, holding the cat, and staring into the night. Neither seemed happy.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were dead silent on the way over from the theatre, and didn’t say a word to Harry. Bit rude, I thought.’

‘I’m worried.’

‘What about?’

He could have said: the trouble on the streets, the child in hospital who may be lamed, your man in Rome, and my own personal little worry, but he said: ‘When I touched the back of the chair where the man Joe Macintosh had been lying, my hand came away with blood on it.’

‘Oh.’ Stella absorbed this news. ‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know, not yet. Maybe nothing. He may have cut himself.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Harry was odd.’

‘He was upset. He knew them, after all.’

‘That’s what worries me.’

‘You can’t think he had anything to do with it … he was with us all the time.’

‘Not all the time,’ said Coffin in a careful voice, not meeting her eyes as he put Tiddles down on the floor.

‘Besides, it was suicide, there was a note.’

‘So there was,’ said Coffin. ‘I noticed.’

Stella leaned back against her pillows. Oh, come on, come to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.’ She held out her arm. ‘Dearest, I know you are full of worry, let me help.’

He sat on the bed beside her. ‘Tell me about Jack in Rome?’

Stella opened her eyes wide, then laughed. ‘Oh, come on, you aren’t thinking anything … No, you couldn’t. We were acting together.’

‘But he keeps telephoning.’

Stella allowed herself a luxurious pause. ‘Perhaps he had a little thing about me. Doesn’t mean I had one back.’

Coffin groaned. ‘Oh, Stella, Stella, Stella.’

‘Perhaps a tiny, tiny one, but nothing to count. Truly, am I a liar?’

‘I know what you are,’ he said slowly. ‘A tease.’

She leaned forward and took his hand in a firm grasp. ‘But never with you, never with you.’ Or this time round, she told herself. I was a devil in the past and punished both of us, but you were no angel either. ‘We are truly married, my dear, and I would never risk breaking that bond.’

‘I believe.’

One worry gone. Only three to play for now.

DS Davis and DC Armitage had finished their survey of the death site in the theatre, the SOCO had observed and made notes, photographs had been taken, and the two detectives drove back to their Swinehouse office. They were not luxuriously housed, but the canteen was clean and efficient so they went there for a late cup of tea. Davis could always eat, so he had toast as well, while Pat Armitage drank her tea and wished that smoking was not forbidden almost everywhere.

‘See you upstairs,’ she said, picking up her cup. In the office she could smoke if she was careful about it.

While she drank the tea and gave a grateful draw on the cigarette, she studied the notes and photographs which were already on her desk. She would say one thing for their current SOCO, he was speedy. He would soon move on, SOCOs did if they were good. She had done the job herself for a spell and not found it life enhancing.

She studied the photographs with care, it paid. All right, this was a suicide, they had the note which said so, but the postmortem was still to be done, and anyway, the Chief Commander was involved. So take care, Pat, she thought.

Davis returned as she spread the photographs out on the desk. ‘You smell of smoke.’

‘You smell of toast.’ She had her elbows on the desk and was leaning over the pictures. ‘You know, you are quite right, the man does look surprised.’ She raised her head. ‘I suppose the moment of death can be a surprise even when you have planned it.’

‘We don’t know that he planned it, maybe she did and didn’t tell him.’

Pat Armitage picked up the suicide note, now a neat plastic envelope. The coroner would want to see it. ‘It’s signed by him. JM.’

‘They both had the same initials.’

‘True, but I don’t think a woman would do it that way.’

The note said: IT IS BEST TO END IT AND GO NOW.

‘Bit bleak,’ said Davis.

‘Probably the best way to do it if you must.’

‘That’s it, isn’t it? If you must. Can’t imagine doing it myself.’ She stared at the note, which was on yellowing paper, none too clean. ‘Maybe she didn’t want to.’

‘Well, we will never know.’

‘I take it you don’t believe in the after life?’

‘Some of the bodies I have seen, then I hope not. I would definitely not want to know them again.’

Then he came out with the great question that no one had so far voiced: ‘Why on earth did they do it in a theatre?’

The hospital which housed the mortuary where the two bodies lay was associated with the very new University of Swinehouse, making the third in the Second City. The university had previously been Swinehouse Polytechnic until recent reforms had upped its status, and was housed in the old buildings. The hospital was not new either and the mortuary itself was old, but the new buildings to house the medical school were almost complete. Mr Garden worked in the mortuary but had a fine new office.

Time conscious as he was, Mr Garden got on with things, he was a quick worker. Apart from being what he was, an egoist of the first class, he had no irritating tricks as he worked: he did not hum, nor did he crack foul jokes – the general opinion was he knew no jokes, obscene or otherwise. But he was very interested in the human body, which he admired. If his detractors had realized this, they might have liked him better.

He dealt with Joe’s body first, and then Josie’s. His face was not one which allowed much expression, but he pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow as he took it all in.

‘Well, I never,’ he said. ‘Interesting.’

He removed his overall and gloves, washed, then went into his office. His secretary. Alma Flint, who had been taking notes, had once worked in Coffin’s office, which he felt made a link with the Chief Commander. He found him attractive but tried not to make it too obvious. A little touch of the obvious was not a bad idea, the most surprising people responded on occasion, but one did not stick one’s neck out.

He looked at the clock, a pretty little ormolu thing he had picked up at an auction. Nine o’clock, he had started early, having a midday lecture to undergraduates to give. ‘Bring me some coffee, Alma.’

The carpet beneath his feet was a rich confection of colour made for him in Portugal. On the wall was an oil painting he had done himself. Coffin had never been here. Yes, he should see it.

‘Alma,’ he said, as he poured the coffee from the thin china pot. ‘Get the Chief Commander on the line. I want to see if he could come round here. It’s about the PM on the couple found dead in his wife’s theatre.’ He liked Stella too, but no bedding her!

Coffin had been at work for a couple of hours, engaged in routine administration, when the call came through. His secretary filtered calls as a rule with a fine discrimination, but she let this one through.

‘Have you got time to come round? It’s walking distance. But quicker if you drive, of course.’ This was Garden’s notion of a joke. ‘Drink before lunch. Have a light lunch, I can lay it on. I thought you might like the PM report in person.’

‘Can’t you fax it?’ Somehow I never like the idea of a meal in a mortuary.

‘In my room in the new wing, of course,’ said Garden as if he read his thoughts. ‘I think you will find this one interesting. And bring that nice Inspector Trent with you. Did I get the name right?’

‘You did,’ said Coffin without emphasis, but he took in the interest. ‘But I am not sure if I know where he is at the moment.’

In fact, he knew very well; Stella had called in on her way to an audition to ask Harry if he wanted anything, there wasn’t much food in the flat – and reported that he was stretched out on the bed, dead asleep, with a whisky bottle on the floor beside him. ‘But it wasn’t quite empty,’ she had reponed with careful honesty.

‘I don’t know what to make of him,’ Coffin had said, and Stella had replied: ‘Why don’t you find out?’

‘I might ring Greenwich and ask, I still know a few people there.’ Even though the old friends had gone, dead or retired. This one of cancer, this one gone to live in Spain. What do old coppers do, he asked himself, they don’t retire, they just disappear.

He must have repeated that he was ‘Not sure’ because he heard Garden say: ‘Oh, what a shame. I thought you were friends.’

‘We worked together once. It was a long time ago.’

‘I thought he had such an interest in this case.’

‘Where did you pick that up?’ The thing was not to react to Garden, but he could not always manage to hold back.

‘Oh, I hear things, words get passed on. I thought he knew the old couple.’

‘I believe he did, once. A long while ago.’

‘I think he would be interested in what I have found.’

There was no denying a kind of sneaky laughter there. It was true what people said of him: a real bastard. Death was not a subject for humour.

‘Of course, the report will be going out to the investigating team, but you know yourself, that takes time.’

So it wasn’t just a double suicide?

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Fine, lovely, after one, then?’

The conversation was over.

Coffin went to his window to look out at the scene below. It was something he had done often in his years as Chief Commander of the Second City of London, where he was responsible for keeping the Queen’s Peace in a stretch of old Docklands. Spinnergate, Swinehouse and East Hythe made up his territory. He had lived in Spinnergate for some years now, ever since he took up his present position; he loved his tower dwelling, it seemed his first real home. Perhaps this was because he shared now with Stella, at last his wife. Close by was the theatre complex created by Stella in the church itself. The old churchyard remained, but was now a pleasant garden with flowers and shrubs around the graves bearing the names of long-dead parishioners: Ducketts, Cruins, Birdways, Deephearts and Earders, families still to be found on the school rolls and among the ratepayers of the area. Also among the criminal fraternity, for the Second City had always had its violent side, its inhabitants not easy to control as the Romans and the Normans had found in their day. There was a deeply ingrained Them and Us mentality which Coffin still confronted.

The injured child had been a Birdways, Thelma Birdways of Pomeranian Street, Swinehouse.

It was a name he was not going to forget. Birdways – a good old Anglo-Saxon name imbedded in there, he thought, just as with Earders, but Cruin he felt might be a corruption of an early Celtic name.

They had been there a long time, a lot of the people in his bailiwick, nor had successive waves of invaders and immigrants moved them on.

He liked the view, liked his office, liked having a large staff, it had to be admitted: and liked his position. It was a long way from that earlier basement office of his in Deptford which was reputed to have rats and certainly had mice. Good days, though, in many ways – young, energetic, thrusting days.

Drunker days too, a little voice inside said, that’s behind you and you owe that to Stella, so whatever she does now or has done, you owe her.

He turned away from the window. What had to be done, had better be done.

He picked up the telephone. He knew the man in Greenwich CID that he wanted.

‘Fergus? Is that you?’ But he knew it was, he recognized the gravelly smoker’s voice, even if unheard for some years.

Chief Inspector George Ferguson admitted that it was indeed he, and to whom was he speaking.

‘Your grammar has improved since the old days … you would have said who were you speaking to once.’

There was a silence, and then, ‘Coffin, by God, haven’t they knighted you?’

‘Not done the actual deed. Coming up soon. I’m a kind of honorary knight at the moment … but as they say: it comes up with the rations. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. Looking forward to my retirement.’

‘Don’t say it.’

‘Oh, I’ve a way to go yet. I only said I was looking forward to it. So would you round here.’

‘Bad, is it?’

‘Well, it doesn’t get any better.’

All that said, Ferguson sounded cheerful enough. ‘So what can I do for you? I take it there is something?’