A Coffin for Charley (28 page)

Job Titus heard all about it as he travelled home, so did Alex C. Edwards, who telephoned Annie, who told Tom Ashworth. Annie had been doing some digging on her own account since receiving Didi's notebook with Eddie Creeley's signed photograph. Didi had kept a rough diary of an intimate nature which told Annie more than she had expected. Lizzie Creeley heard the news while she was shopping in the chemist for some headache tablets and something to cure sickness. She hadn't told Eddie yet because he wasn't up to it.

The river in flood

The murderer was saying Relax to Annie; he suspected her of blackmailing him in an Annie-ish sort of way, in other words, mad and muddled. She couldn't focus, that woman, but he was in charge; he had made his plans, wasn't really here at all. Packed and on the way. Early retirement. You could call it that.

It wasn't that he liked killing, it was a business matter. Anyone might do the same for his reason, and a number had, but he had found it surprisingly easy to get women to agree to be murdered. Except the first one, Mary Andrews, the bitch; he had had to lure her south with a few lies, such as ‘I can help you with your acting career. I know it's what you've always wanted, get you a foothold in the theatre
down here.' He did the same later with Marianna and Didi.

All women are gullible when it is news they want to hear. Maybe they think: Well, he's lying but let's give it a go, and that's their weak point. The window of opportunity. And by the time he had got them planting the false clues, Eddie, Eddie, they were dying without knowing it.

Mary had to be imprisoned for a bit because Grandpa was not dead and she might get in touch. Food and drink had been a problem but he had solved that by not giving her any. She soon went quiet, damn her, let her eat her nails. She always had chewed them, he remembered those chewed hands that had slapped his face.

None of this came out in his smooth flow of talk. ‘Annie, you're a great girl, I love you.'

Annie listened to his soothing words, and went on with her talk. ‘Like
HER
,' she was saying, and then: ‘Did like
HIM
but he betrayed me.'

‘Never,' said the killer sardonically. ‘Cops never do that.'

‘Can't trust him. Can't trust people. Can't trust you. It's because I don't trust you, I can use you.'

‘Well, thanks. That is a vote of confidence. I always thought you were loyal. Loyal Annie, I called you.'
Stupid woman, stupid woman, I am a tiger in the undergrowth, you can never trust a tiger, especially a hungry tiger, because he waits and he watches, chooses his prey, then pounces.
This tiger did observe his victims; if they thought they watched, then they were watched.

‘I've been pushed around too much,' said Annie. ‘Now I want to get my own back on some people. They patronize you,
HE
did,
SHE
did, I won't have that. You can help me.' She did not say Revenge, but he smelt it on her breath like gin.

‘I don't know,' said the murderer, with his false smile, ‘it's not really my job. I'm supposed to be neutral.'

‘But you'd do it for me,' said Annie beguilingly, ‘especially because of what I know.'

Dangerous talk.

‘For instance, I know, you dye your hair.'

‘I do not dye my hair.'

‘I know what's natural and what's not. It's a wig or dyed, you are dark, not fair, I can see it in your eyes. And perhaps I know even more about you than you think,' she said. ‘I've been reading Didi's notebook.'

‘So it's turned up.' Not good news.

‘And I've got it.' She pointed to the table on which rested the notebook with the scatter of photographs. ‘I'm not saying you killed Didi, but you were seeing her and I didn't know. I hate being betrayed.' She put her head on one side. ‘So?'

‘I'll help.'

‘No choice, have you?' Then she slid in that remark which doomed another woman. ‘By the way, Stella had the notebook.'

‘Is that so?'

‘Said she didn't look in it, but …' Annie shrugged. ‘Who knows?'

Damn, and Damn.

He had heard that the identity of the murderer was known, the rumour had reached him, but he was about to disappear in any case, his time was up.

Thoughts circled as Annie talked. They discussed plans of how to settle scores all round. She really was crazy now, her friend decided.

‘We might use Eddie Creeley.'

‘Eddie, Eddie, oh, I do like the sound of that,' said Annie. Her eyes glittered.

Mad, he thought, over the top and waving a flag as she goes.

‘I don't want to hurt
HER.
Not really. Just frighten
HIM.
'

‘It won't hurt her.' Or not for long, but Eddie would be incriminated again. ‘And you have to think of yourself here, what is due to you.'

‘If you say so.'

‘I do.'

‘So what about the Eddie bit?'

‘We write his name on a bit of paper, anything will do, just something she grabbed and managed to scrawl before …' He left that open.

‘Wouldn't he take it away?'

He would, of course.

‘Hide it underneath her body as if she fell on it.' The killer was used to hiding little bits of evidence to turn up as he desired. He had done it with Marianna, and with Didi and with Mary, who had to be found if his plan was to work, and had been found just a touch too soon. But he'd be off, over the hills and far away.

‘But it won't look like Stella's writing. They can check.'

Annie was being difficult now, it was time for her turn at dying.

‘Big block letters, harder to identify.'

‘Are you sure?' Annie tried, scrawling the letters as he suggested. ‘Oh yes, I see what you mean.' But she still had doubts. ‘I don't mind her being frightened, chilled a bit, you know, but not hurt.' And she had another worry. ‘Won't she see me, then tell?'

‘You won't be seen, you'll be invisible.'

‘Will I?'

There was no doubt that Annie could be a nuisance. But he smiled on her and spoke gently: ‘I'll show you how it's done, and you will know for yourself. Stand there. Head back. That's right.'

We all have our little madnesses, we need them to carry through a strong enterprise. And my madness has at least been profitable. Yes, on the whole I am in favour of madness.

The matter of the fingernails, well, that was something to admit to: useful because it made the police latch on to the serial murder idea, but chewed fingernails did turn a man on. Hard to say why, like the smell of female sweat really, something hormonal.

Mary had chewed fingernails, particularly ragged on the right hand, and she had slapped his face with that hand, on which was a scar he had given her with a knife as a child. He had marched about the business of murder wearing two heads and he had come through. He gave his head a shake.

I am sane again.

Goodbye, Annie.

The river is very cold

Coffin got back to London before dark, he went straight to his office where he at once telephoned Stella. She did not answer nor had she put her answerphone on.

‘Keep on trying,' he said to his secretary. He wanted to hear Stella's voice, he needed her warmth, her sanity.

Then he looked for news of Letty and her daughter, but Birmingham was silent still on this matter. It was probably too soon for a resolution.

His secretary said: ‘Chief Inspector Young was asking for you, he's got Chief Superintendent Watson with him.'

Good, that was what he wanted to hear.

‘Where are they?'

‘In the Chief Inspector's room. Shall I ask them to walk across?'

‘Yes, please, and order some coffee and sandwiches.' Suddenly he was very hungry. Archie Young and Wally Watson came in together at the same time as the sandwiches and coffee.

After a look at Wally Watson's face, Coffin produced some whisky as well. He poured each man a good measure, but took none himself. He had to do the talking and he had to convince two practised, hard-headed professionals.

‘Glad to see you back.' Wally Watson supped his whisky. ‘Downey said he saw you.'

‘Have the Birmingham team put a watch on the house, as I asked?'

‘The house is important, is it?'

Coffin considered his words: ‘Very important. It's the motive for everything, and in it there should be proof of the murderer's identity.'

Archie Young cleared his throat in a way familiar to
Coffin, expressing at once doubt and a desire to be convinced.

‘Oh yes, it's the motive for the murder of Mary Andrews, just as her murder provides the motive for the deaths of the other two women: to establish that we were dealing with a serial murderer, whereas in fact the murderer was out for money.'

Watson put down his sandwich. ‘Was the girl rich?'

‘No, but when her grandfather died, I believe she would have inherited his house, and that house is going to be a valuable profit—'

‘A house? Is that enough of a motive?'

‘Murders have taken place for a few pounds, and one way and another this house is going to be worth a lot more than that.' And the killer may have hated Mary, Coffin had picked up the smell of hate. She had been imprisoned and starved before dying, that had to count for something personal.

Wally Watson said: ‘We've had a call from the next of kin, says he's willing to do the formal identification.'

‘I bet,' said Coffin. ‘What did he sound like?'

‘Nice young man. Bit of a Brummie accent.'

‘There would be,' said Coffin. He could act, this chap.

‘What name?'

‘Charles French, a cousin, all that's left of the family. He said he is the grandfather's executor.'

‘Oh, the old man's dead, is he? He wasn't earlier today.'

Wally Watson shrugged. ‘He seemed to know about the will.'

‘I'm sure he did.'

The other two men looked at him, and he knew what they were asking: Out with it, enlarge on these hints, explain.

The Chief Commander got up and started to walk up and down the room, talking as he went. ‘You, Wally, have a fingerprint, I have a picture of the murderer's face, and you—' he stopped in front of Archie Young—'you have the murderer living here in Spinnergate.'

He poured some more whisky for the others, this time taking some himself.

‘And I'll tell you where to go to find him.' He might be still there, a working day, after all, and he had no reason as yet to believe himself a suspect. Or so Coffin hoped.

‘I'll just try to get my wife on the telephone, and then we will go on talking.'

He went to his outer office to telephone Stella. He longed to hear her voice but there was still silence.

Lizzie Creeley was ministering to her nephew Eddie who was sick in bed. Every so often he would go to the bathroom to lie groaning before trying to vomit.

Lizzie fussed around. ‘You're doing yourself no good.'

‘I know I'm going to be sick. I want to get it over,' he moaned.

‘You'll feel better when you have been sick,' said Lizzie hopefully. She helped him back to bed. ‘Why don't you try these tablets I got you?'

‘They won't help.'

‘They might, the chemist said they would. He's got migraine, I said, so try these, he said.' Lizzie was enjoying being a nurse, she was beginning to feel a real person again, as if her young self and her old self had joined up again after being separated for so many years.

Eddie groaned and rolled out of bed. ‘I believe I really shall be sick this time.'

‘Oh good,' said Lizzie, following him to the bathroom door. ‘There you are, you see, you are clever, Eddie, although you say you are not, because you have migraine. Only clever people have migraine.'

‘Then I wish I wasn't,' said Eddie, returning from the bathroom. ‘I wasn't sick.' He groaned.

‘Better luck next time,' said Lizzie. She helped him back to bed.

‘Thanks, Lizzie, you're an angel.' What a thing to say to a murderess, he thought, and at once felt sicker than ever. I believe I shall manage to be sick next time, he told himself, and then I shall feel better. He groaned again.

‘It's nerves that brought it on. You're highly strung.'

‘I don't think I am. But I do keep thinking of Didi, I'm not out of that wood yet, Auntie.'

‘I blame Annie Briggs,' said Lizzie, who had been in that wood herself.

‘It's not her fault.'

Later, when Eddie had been sick and sick again and then fallen asleep, Lizzie put on her coat.

‘I'm going to see that Annie for myself and have it out with her.'

The distance between the two houses was not great, Lizzie was soon in Napier Street. Annie's house was dark, with no light showing in any of the front rooms.

‘Doesn't mean she's out, though,' said Lizzie. She rang the bell. In the old days when they had been neighbours, doors had not always been locked. So it was no surprise to Lizzie to find the door opened when she gave it a push.

‘Annie? Annie, are you there? It's Lizzie, you remember Lizzie.' She walked into the hall. ‘Annie?'

Then her foot touched something, she looked down, and in the light from the street she could see Annie on the floor, her face puffy and discoloured with a belt drawn tight round her neck. Lizzie bent down to touch Annie's face. It was still warm.

Lizzie did not scream, her life had toughened her, but she gave a little cry before picking up the bit of paper with Eddie's name on it.

Thank God, my boy's been home all day and I can swear to it, she thought.

She leaned against the front door, breathing deeply. What to do. Go away, say nothing? Burn the piece of paper. But she had given up lies, and these days even preferred the truth, because it always stayed the same and did not turn into something when you took your eyes off it, as lies sometimes did. For this reason, her mind turned to John Coffin. He could be bleak and hard but he was straight.