A Coffin for Charley (12 page)

‘I thought I'd rather have a talk here, sir. Wanted to talk the Manners and Dunne cases over with you.'

‘You think they are related?'

Archie drank some beer, noting that the Chief Commander had restricted himself to tonic with lemon in it. ‘Yes, I do. We haven't got the forensics in on the Dunne girl, and I don't know if they will give us anything but I'm hoping. But yes, there has to be a link.'

‘Not a copycat killing?'

‘I dunno. Could be. But neither victim seems to have struggled and that's got to mean something. They went willingly. So they knew the killer. Or trusted him.'

‘Or it was a person they could trust,' said Coffin. ‘Like a doctor or nurse. Or someone in uniform like a policeman?'

‘It has been said.' Young was dour. ‘And uniforms can be hired.'

‘Yes, theatres do it all the time. So are you looking for an actor?'

‘We aren't ruling anything out, but frankly we're floundering. There are differences as well as likenesses. Manners now, well, she mixed with a wide range of characters, not all wholesome. And she had quarrelled with Job Titus.' There was no love lost between Titus and any member of the Second City law enforcers. Titus had attacked them too often.

‘But the Dunne girl had no enemies that we can find. Then Manners was killed indoors and the other outside, probably under the arch near where her body was found. And for the killer that's running a risk.'

‘And why didn't she scream or shout?'

‘Well, she may have done, we don't know that. We may get a witness yet.' He was not hopeful.

‘Same method of killing but different settings,' said Coffin. ‘So those are the differences. May not be important but must mean something about the killer.'

‘No motive, sir, not that I can see. The girl had no enemies and only one young man she went about with.'

Coffin drank some tonic water and tasted the lemon. ‘So if there is no motive it looks like a killer who does it for fun.' He thought about it. ‘Who's the boyfriend?'

‘You've got it there, sir.' Young banged on the table. ‘Eddie Creeley.'

Coffin mopped up the tonic water that had spilt. ‘Go on. Let's add it up.'

Young did so. ‘Eddie Creeley was mentioned in connection with the Manners death. He comes from a criminal family with an inherited feud against the girl's sister. You might think he would be one person the girl would avoid. But no, he's the lad she's been seeing.'

‘He hasn't been in any trouble, has he? No record?'

‘No.' Archie Young shrugged. ‘But coming from a family like that, who knows? They've got crime bred into them, that lot. Auntie is coming home this week. Parole.'

Coffin nodded. ‘Yes, Job Titus helped there.'

‘Yes, that seemed the link-up with the Manners girl: Titus helped with Auntie and young Creeley got rid of an encumbrance that Titus didn't want around.'

‘I had wondered myself.'

‘Well, that was one set of thoughts, although no evidence. But I had a look at the Creeley boy and he seemed, for one of that family, to be of good character. Getting the house ready for his aunt, looking for a job. And so he seemed less and less likely, somehow.

‘So?' Coffin was patient, he knew that Young liked to think aloud but he seemed to be taking his time.

‘That was until the Dunne girl's body turned up. Even then, I thought: Serial killer, or copycat crime. It wasn't that I didn't want it to be Eddie Creeley, but once I'd seen him face to face, he didn't seem like a killer.' Young opened the folder of papers, reports, a photocopied page or two, then put his large hand firmly on them as if that wasn't where he was starting.

He took a drink, and said: ‘I know you've worried about Miss Pinero.' It was universally accepted that this was how they referred to his wife. Mrs Coffin wouldn't do for Stella, even though he had been at their wedding. Alison called her Stella and so did he on more private occasions. ‘She's had trouble from one of these starwatchers, so-called.'

Coffin nodded. ‘Get on with it, Archie.'

‘We know that Marianna Manners had the same complaint or she thought so; Annie Briggs also … Well, that may have been Eddie Creeley or it may not, but …'

He laid a sheet on the table in front of Coffin. ‘Photocopy of a page in the sister's diary.'

Half way down the page was a pencilled name with a question-mark.

Charley?

Young laid his finger against it, then moved down a line.

Miss Pinero.

No question-mark this time, just Stella's name.

‘No connection maybe, but all in all, I wanted to show you before you got the official report.'

‘I don't know what it means. I don't know if Stella knows anyone called Charley.'

‘She wouldn't have to know him, sir, would she? Not by
name. But it may be a man called Charley we ought to be looking for.'

So there was another player on the scene.

‘We shall be looking for Charley in Marianna Manners's life,' said Young. ‘With luck we will find something.'

Coffin had a sudden memory of Didi's face lying on the muddy grass. Stella's face became superimposed upon it.

But it was impossible that Stella would ever be found lying in the mud.

He telephoned her after leaving the Chief Inspector. After some difficulty she was located in the Theatre Workshop talking with the new lighting manager who seemed to have grander ideas than they could afford.

‘Darling, I must have known many men called Charles or Charley in my career but I can't recall one in particular nor one that I know at the moment.'

He didn't tell her why he asked, and she was left puzzling, although she could guess.

‘What's your second name, dear?' she said to the lighting expert, studying the name badge she wore, as they all did these days for security reasons. Elizabeth C. Rust. ‘Not Charlotte or Carlotta?'

‘Claire,' said the girl. ‘What's the joke?'

‘Not laughing,' said Stella. ‘Just wanted to know.'

But she felt better today.

No silent, breathy telephone calls, and no feeling that someone was treading quietly behind her. In fact, if only Letty came back (Letty was a problem in herself at the moment; those two thought they were not alike, but they were—both obsessive and capable of rage), and the money things worked out for the Drama School she would have no worries.

On none other than those all women and all actresses carry with them as luggage.

The ground where Didi had been found had been searched very thoroughly. Her handbag with her small possessions and her diary had been found at once, lying so close to her
body that she must have dropped it as she was strangled and the killer hadn't cared.

Robbery was not his motive.

The whole area had been cordoned off and the search had gone on until dark. An alert-eyed constable had found a cassette from a tape-recorder under the arch. It was half hidden behind a pile of old bricks but clearly to be seen once you had your eye in.

The tape was taken back to the Murder Room where it was played. The sounds that came out were blurred. Then after about five minutes of playing time they heard a girl's voice.

The investigating team could hardly believe what they heard.

Under the arches

The young constable who had searched among the mud and old bricks and rubbish under the bridge was as amazed as anyone at what he had found.

‘I tripped over a brick and there it was. I nearly trod on it trying to right myself but I had my eye on it and knew that even if I broke my neck I must see I didn't damage what was there. No, I remembered to pick it, up with a plastic glove.' He shook his head. ‘I just knew in my bones it was important.'

He was only on probation as a detective-constable but he felt sure he would make it now. Who could turn away a man who brought back such a valuable bit of evidence?

Knew it for what it was, too. At once. No mucking about.

To his fury, he had not been allowed to carry his find back to the Murder Room himself, but although instructed to go on searching, he had managed to get in to hear it played.

For a few moments he thought he had brought back a
booboo after all. First there was nothing, just a running blank, then a few blurred sounds. Traffic noises, a plane going across the sky.

I've bombed, he said to himself (he was his own best friend) but then it came good.

They heard a girl's voice.

‘Eddie,' she said. And then once more but clearly enough to be heard. ‘Eddie.'

In what came to be known as the Eddie Creeley tape, that was all that could be heard, but it was enough. The tape was rushed to the forensic laboratory to see if more sound could be brought up but no, what they had was what they got.

Archie Young played it over several times before bringing it to the attention of the Chief Commander.

‘This is only a copy, sir,' he said. ‘Original's over in the lab to see if they could bring up anything else.'

Coffin listened. ‘What it has seems to be enough. I suppose it is the girl's voice?'

‘I'm betting so. Haven't asked the sister to listen yet.'

‘I should leave that for the moment.'

She was liable to be seriously disturbed, hysterical, Coffin thought. He went to his office window and looked out on the early autumn scene. It had been raining in the night, but now the sun was out. The leaves on the trees in the little park beyond were turning a pleasant yellow. ‘But what was it doing there?' he said aloud. ‘Why was it there? And why was it made?'

Young was too busy with his own thoughts to listen seriously; it was there. He was counting it lucky the tape had been found and been readable. He had the girl's voice and he had a name. That was enough.

So then I had to think again. I haven't forgotten to look for Charley but I'm taking Eddie Creeley in for questioning.

‘But how was it made? Why was it made? And why was it there?'

‘You're not thinking it's a fake?'

Coffin shook his head. Didi's voice had carried a conviction. ‘Just asking questions.'

But Young had the bit between his teeth. ‘Those are questions, I admit it,' he said briskly. ‘But we will find out the answers when we get the killer.'

Eddie Creeley had tried to call on Annie Briggs as soon as he heard about Didi. It was not an easy decision because he knew how Annie felt about him and how she was likely to behave.

He had taken a job as a hospital porter at Spinnergate General. It was work he enjoyed because it made him feel a valued member of the community, which was not a feeling often allowed to a Creeley. Although there were moments when he felt the responsibility. For instance, the night before last, when he had seen a nurse book in a patient called T. Ashworth, a chap complaining of severe stomach pains, and had heard the same nurse say next day that the man was a fool to discharge himself because he almost certainly had a carcinoma of the stomach.

Should he say anything? Had he an obligation to do so? He felt guilty himself and a bit sick. Death seemed so close and everywhere.

He worked a day and night shift according to a rota and a split shift every third week when he had hours free in the day and then went in again at night. Other weeks he worked all day, and then every fourth week he was on all night and had the day to sleep.

This was a split shift week, always hard on the nerves.

By this time he had his Aunt Lizzie home from prison and back in the house. This was not something that pleased him or a state of affairs that he wanted, but he had no choice. The Creeleys hung together.

Prison had not improved Aunt Lizzie. She had never been an agreeable woman but she was now silently, sullenly unpleasant. She tried, Eddie could see that she was trying, to make herself an easy companion, but if she had ever had the knack she had lost it.

Eddie looked at her as she tried to prepare a meal, which
she said she wanted to do to help him. There was something pathetic about a person who was fundamentally horrible trying to be nice.

She cut her finger as she chopped onions and swore. Her cooking skills had not been improved by being banged up, although she said that towards the end the long stay prisoners (of whom she was certainly one, having served beyond her term on account of various nasty things she had done to fellow prisoners and the odd warder while inside) had been allowed the use of a small kitchen.

Curiosity had driven him. ‘What did you cook?'

‘Oh, this and that. What I could get. I didn't have much cash.' She looked at him accusingly as if it was his fault. Probably she did blame him. ‘Beans on toast, mostly. Eggs. But eggs are never very fresh in prison.'

She had heard about Didi's death, and seemed' to be treating it as a homecoming present.

He hadn't wanted to tell her. He had collected her from the prison, driven her home, and then had a few quiet days while he assessed what his life was going to be with her in the house. Now when he looked at her he could see his own features duplicated in her eyes. This did not make him feel better.

Then she heard him being sick.

‘Why did you do that?'

‘It's how I feel,' he had muttered, wishing she hadn't heard. But it was a small house and what you did in one room was always heard in the next.

‘What's up with you? Good luck to whoever did it.' She meant the murder of Didi.

‘It wasn't me.' He wasn't sure why he said that. Of course it wasn't him. He felt the vomit rise up in his throat again.

‘More's the pity. Shame it wasn't the other one.' This time she meant Annie.

It wasn't as straightforward a matter as calling Lizzie immoral or amoral or evil. She just didn't belong to the human race, that was how Eddie felt.

And he had the same blood in him. Oh, Didi, Didi, if
you and I could have made a match of it, perhaps we could have healed … But no, some wounds were past healing.