A Coffin for Charley (2 page)

He had in his bailiwick several hospitals, a university, numerous schools, and a high number of bookmakers' shops. One legal casino and one illegal gambling house that moved on and reopened as soon as it was closed down. He had at least two brothels which called themselves Party Clubs, a flourishing transvestite night club, and a variety of religious foundations including chapels, churches and one man who was building a replica of Stonehenge in his back garden. Very handsome it was too, if necessarily on the small side. Its creator, Mr James Eldon, told the local press that he was not a Druid or worshipping a Bronze Age goddess, his motives were purely æsthetic: he just fancied it. He had invited the Chief Commander to a glass of nettle wine and a view of his henge.

Coffin had not gone but he had warmed to Mr Eldon as one of the most harmless of his eccentrics.

As he continued looking out of his window, he knew that at any one time he had in his area any number of juvenile delinquents, several rapists, a clutch of child molesters, numerous sexual deviants more or less within the law, at least one murderer who was known but against whom they could not get proof, one killer who was about to be arrested, and possibly more than he cared to think about that were secret and undetected in their murders.

It was these last ones that worried him most.

He turned away from the window with a yawn. Tarts, rogues, evil-doers and saints, he had them in his care. He had known one saint himself but she was dead; it was really
just as well because otherwise he might have been obliged to send her to prison.

He yawned again. Detective Chief Inspector Young looked at him with sympathy. He was tired himself having been up all night on a murder inquiry.

‘It's the heat,' said Coffin. He was talking to Young because he was dealing with the case, which was a sensitive one in which an MP had been, still was, involved. ‘Go on.'

‘He said: “It's nothing to do with you who I fuck or who I don't. Push off.”'

‘Nice fellow.'

‘No witnesses,' said Young briefly. ‘He knew I couldn't quote. He was drunk,' he added in a neutral voice.

Job Titus, MP. He had started in one political party, crossed the floor of the House to join another, and finally set out his own stall. No settled party, continually changing his opinions, an Independent, very popular in his constituency, but as someone once said: ‘Of no fixed abode intellectually.' A drinker, famous for it, violent, and famous for that too, and twice divorced. ‘Where does he get his money?' people asked. ‘Where does he get his energy?' others said. He had a crest of yellow curls and bright blue eyes. A political gigolo.

‘And the girl's dead?'

‘And the girl's dead.'

Silence for a short space.

‘How was she killed?'

Young pursed his lips. ‘There was a bit of doubt at first, but the informed opinion is that there was an attempt to strangle her and then she was smothered. Manually. Hand over her mouth and nose.'

Marianna Manners had been a ballet dancer, out of work, but hopeful of joining a big London company. Meanwhile she had tried for all sorts of other parts because she could act a bit and one thing could lead her to another. In her case it looked as if it had. She had a wide circle of friends and lovers, one of whom might be Job Titus, MP, but there was no proving it. She had said Yes to her friends, he said No to the police.

‘Nasty … And Job Titus?'

‘No evidence that points to him in a strong way. He's been seen drinking in the Balaclava Arms talking several times to one man and that makes me wonder.'

The Balaclava Arms in Spinnergate had a bad reputation. It was known as Drinking in Hell.

‘And he knew her. And she claimed it was more than that. They both lived in Swinehouse in the same block of flats. And I'd love to get him for it.' He didn't say the last sentence aloud.

‘Yes,' said Coffin, agreeing with what hadn't been said. ‘That's it for the moment, then?'

‘Right.'

‘What sort of a girl was she?'

‘Nice-looking, of course. Well made-up, well turned out. Quite expensive clothes. One strange thing for a girl like her … she had badly bitten fingernails. Didn't really try to cover them up, either. No varnish or anything like that. Almost as if she didn't care.'

The two men had a friendly relationship which stretched outside working hours because their wives were friends. Stella Pinero and Alison, the ambitious, brilliant young wife of the Chief Inspector, had met at an official party and taken a great liking to each other.

The police service being what it was, Coffin and Young had to keep a certain distance at work (although well aware that the married lives of both had come under female discussion), but it made for friendliness.

It enabled Archie Young to say: ‘Annie Briggs has been in again.'

Coffin frowned. ‘What is it this time?'

‘She thinks she's being watched.'

‘She might well be.' He walked to the window again to look out. ‘Haven't been any death threats lately, have there?'

‘No. None that I've heard of. But they're a grudging lot, the Creeley clan, and they never forget. Pity they came back from New Zealand, I was a lot happier when it looked as though they'd emigrated. But they're back and in the
same street, the same house. Well, the boy is, there's only him left now, he came back and moved in.'

‘Wonder how he managed that?' Property being what it was.

‘Never sold it. Just moved back in.'

Coffin was curious. ‘What sort of household does he run there?'

‘Not as bad as you might think. It was very mucky, the tenants not having been as careful as might be, but the young one, grandson Eddie, has been painting and gardening. He's on his own at the moment although the odd cousin has been to stay.'

‘How do you know all this?'

‘Community policing,' said Young. ‘The local officer managed to insert himself in the house for a look round. He had a word with Eddie about car parking, Eddie Creeley has three old bangers parked outside and the neighbours were complaining. Eddie's a car mechanic as hobby but he's working in a hospital. Our man reported favourably on him. I think he liked him.'

‘I didn't think you could like a Creeley.'

‘The old lady's gone, of course. But her spirit lives on. Anyone who does a Creeley down gets it back in spades. They've never forgiven Annie, that's the story. Or you, for that matter.'

‘They won't do anything now. It's too late, too long ago. Oh, writing on her front door, dog dirt through the letter-box …'

‘They did all of that in the past, but not lately, not since the shift back from New Zealand. Perhaps Eddie's different, who knows?'

‘I know old Mrs Creeley said one or other of them would kill Annie in the end. They never took that back. Never did much about it, either.'

‘She still sees it coming.'

‘She's lived a long while with that on her mind. How long is it now? Over twenty years? We can't watch all the time.'

‘I've been told that Lizzie Creeley is being given parole.
The brother's had a stroke, he'll get out too but go straight to hospital,' said Young. ‘I dare say Annie has heard the news.'

‘How old is she now?'

‘She was about eight then. Thirty-odd now. A daughter of her own. The sister lives with her. She wasn't born then.'

Twenty-odd years ago when John Coffin, even then a controversial figure with friends and enemies, had been called across the river from his own area to consult on a case which seemed to have a parallel with a murder he was dealing with. Whether the death of old Addie Scott had a connection with the Creeleys had never been established, but the Creeleys had gone down anyway for another crime. Coffin knew this area of old, because as a raw young constable he had lived here in what was in those days a working-class district of the great metropolis. Lodged with ‘Mother'. She had not been his mother, of course; nobody's mother, certainly not his.

A child, Annie Dunne, hiding in the garden of her home one foggy night had heard strange noises, she had crawled through the next-door hedge to watch and had seen two people burying an old man, and his wife.

Coffin had been the man who persuaded her to talk.

The killers were a brother and sister, Will and Lizzie Creeley. Without Annie's testimony the bodies might never have been found nor the two convicted. The Creeley family swore to get her.

Annie had grown up, had married, and had a child herself. But for some time the Creeleys had still lived three streets away. Bad years for Annie, until the family had emigrated, but one by one they had drifted back. Eddie was the latest. Creeleys had lived in Swinehouse for many generations and were embedded in the district like weeds.

‘She wasn't believed at first, you know, when she told her story.'

Archie Young nodded.

‘But I believed her … And then, of course, the rumour went round that there were other bodies buried in the garden. As if it was a kind of cottage industry that the
Creeleys had there: killing for money. But there were only the two, as if that wasn't enough … I suppose Annie's heard about this murder?

‘I don't suppose she thinks Marianna was murdered instead of her.'

‘She did live two streets away.' Marianna had a tiny flat in the Alexandra Wharf block, and Napier Street, where Annie Briggs lived was only a few yards away.

‘They didn't know each other. Not as far as we know.'

‘I bet she hopes that if the Creeley boy did it we get him for it fast.'

‘Doesn't look like a Creeley crime, they were strictly business as far as we know, and there was no profit in Marianna. Straight sex there, I reckon.' Young added wistfully: ‘If I had to choose between getting Job Titus or a Creeley for Marianna I don't know which I'd go for.'

‘Hard choice,' said Coffin.

‘But poor Annie. I mean, she's a nuisance, always popping in with crisis calls, but you can see why.' He looked at the wall. ‘She's got in a private investigator.'

‘My God, who?'

‘The Tash Agency,' said Young, still not meeting Coffin's eyes.

‘Tom Ashworth. My wife used him on her divorce.' Stella had claimed her divorce was amiable on both sides, Coffin had only learnt later that this was not quite true.

Young, who knew this, he made it his job to know everything about his boss that he could, kept silent.

Then he said: ‘Annie says she liked him, trusts him … Whatever that means.'

Stella had said the same. ‘I think it means he's attractive,' said Coffin.

He had discovered that where Stella was concerned he was capable of quick and ready jealousy. He kept quiet about it and hoped she had not noticed, but it was there. To his surprise, jealousy was cold, not hot, and penetrated everywhere like a gas.

Stella was naturally flirtatious, and meeting desirable
men all the time. She said there had to be chemistry, it was all part of the job. Very likely it was.

‘There aren't so many people Annie Briggs trusts. Her husband left her, couldn't stand it.' Young kept in touch with his world. ‘She's got a social worker who calls in, the sister gave them a bit of trouble once. Can't blame her, it's hardly been a normal life.'

Coffin said: ‘She is on my mind and on my conscience all the time. I'll go and see her.'

He knew what was lined up for him in his diary, so it wouldn't be today or tomorrow, but sometime. Soon. Might get Stella to help, unofficially, of course. She was good with women.

At the door, Archie Young paused. ‘Supposing the man that Job Titus was seen drinking with was the Creeley boy? Sounded like him. May be nothing in it.'

Driving home that night Coffin thought: Supposing Job Titus got a Creeley to do Marianna in, and then Titus promised to help the Creeleys get Annie somehow?

It was an interesting idea. He could feel sorry for Titus if he let the Creeleys get a hook in him. He might be a smart political operator but the Creeleys had millennia of criminality behind them. A Creeley man or woman, the women being fully as bad, had probably conned a Roman centurion and then slit his throat.

He let himself in, wondering if Stella would be home. Sometimes she was and sometimes not, but she always left a note around saying where she was. ‘At the theatre.' ‘Downstairs.'—This meant in her own flat. ‘Gone to see Jay.'—Jay was her agent.

He was beginning to enjoy what he called ‘Stella's little notes'. Part of his new life, he always felt in touch. They had promised never to be apart for long. When you marry late, then you cannot afford too many absences.

On his desk that day he had found a card and invitation:
Phœbe Astley invites you to celebrate her promotion.
An address in Birmingham and a scrawl:
Why don't you come up and see me?

Phœbe had occupied a niche in his life before Stella came
back into it. She was post-Stella and pre-Stella. She had moved away, joined another force and risen sharply. Clever girl, Phœbe, but I won't be coming. I shall be home with my wife.

Tonight he smelt cooking. So she was home. Here. His spirits rose. Darling Stella.

And he smelt cigarette smoke: so that meant Letty too. He liked his sister and admired her. She had been around a lot lately. She and Stella were putting together a scheme to help beat the recession in St Luke's Theatre by opening a small drama school which local youngsters would be encouraged to join. A keep-the-kids-off-the-streets scheme. There had been a lot of idle vandalism lately.

It would help the neighbourhood and, with local sponsors, would assist the theatre too. It was going to be very professional.

For so long resistant to economic stress, the theatre was now getting the full effects. And just at a time when Letty's property investments were in decline. More than decline, rushing precipitately down hill. But he backed Letty, he had noticed that nothing had stopped her buying her new autumn wardrobe in Paris and New York, and he took that as a sign, while being grateful that Stella could fund her clothes at less expensive outlets. Not that he bought her clothes. She bought her own and always had.