Coffin's Ghost (20 page)

Phoebe Astley was waiting for her, she had been walking up and down the corridor impatiently.

‘Didn’t like to come in.’

‘I’m not sure if I’m surprised to see you or not.’

‘I’m here because we found the body of a baby, it was buried in an old man’s garden and his dog tried to dig it up.’

Mary drew her breath in. ‘You think it is Alice’s child?’

‘That’s why you are here, isn’t it? Tests will show if the girl is the mother,’ said Phoebe bluntly. ‘What does she say?’

‘Not much.’

‘I’d better come back and talk to her.’

‘Keep out of it, Phoebe.’

‘This might be a police matter.’

During all this time, DC Geoff Little and WDC Eleanor Brand were trawling the area around and behind Drossers Lane, trying to find Robbie Gilchrist and George Freedom; they had addresses for both men, but they were elusive. They lived in apartments in the same converted factory but on different floors and on opposite ends of the building. This, as Stella could have told them, was the epitome of their relationship. Near each other but not too near. Was either man here? Or had both taken a move to somewhere? This was a check.

There were several such buildings, one or two derelict, another used by temporary tenants for storage, and yet another, which had once been a frozen meat store (it had its mini-railway to the docks) and was now empty, condemned by the Health and Food officers. It was well-decorated with graffiti. The block where George Freedom and Robbie Gilchrist lived was painted and clean. Sophistication stopped at that point.

There was no doorman and no obvious security, you just walked in.

They tried the Gilchrist door first; DC Little rang the bell, and getting no answer hammered on the door. Still no reply.

‘Out,’ said Eleanor Brand. She bent down and looked through the letter box. ‘No post lying there, and no newspaper.’

‘Maybe he had no letters and doesn’t take a newspaper.’

“Course he does, he’s a writer, he’ll want to know the news.’

‘You seem to know about him.’

‘I do my homework, Geoff. You never know when a bit of knowledge will come in.’

DC Little sighed. It could be wearing working with an ambitious woman.

‘Bang again.’

Little did so, and with greater force, keeping up a sort of fusillade.

Along the corridor a door opened and a woman’s head peered round. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘He’d have answered now if he wasn’t dead. Or even if he was dead, I should think.’

With interest, Little said, ‘You don’t think he is dead?’

‘I shan’t answer that.’ And she closed the door.

Eleanor moved down the corridor. ‘Let’s try Freedom.’

This time, she rang the bell, leaning on it somewhat heavily.

Speedily the door swung open. A tall, thin woman wearing an apron made of sacking and thick rubber gloves appeared. She carried a mop in one hand and a scrubbing brush in the other. She was clearly one of the old school of cleaners, not prepared to use any modern pieces of equipment like vacuum cleaners and floor polishers. ‘No need to break the bell.’

‘Mr Freedom?’

‘Not at home.’ She was preparing to close the door.

Eleanor Brand asked politely when he would be back.

‘Gone. Paid my wages, packed his bags, and gone.’

‘What? For how long?’

‘I dunno, do I? I’m not his nursemaid. He’s a fly-by-night, anyway, theatricals often are.’

The door closed.

‘Don’t relish going back and telling Chief Inspector Astley we haven’t got them.’

‘Not our fault.’

‘It will be somehow, in the end, you’ll see,’ said Little with a glum face.

‘She’s not like that.’

‘Not one of the worst,’ admitted Little. ‘Let’s go and have some coffee in that cafe place in the market. They may know something.’

‘They won’t.’

‘We can say that’s why we went in. Use your brain.’

The first and best eating place in Drossers Market, which they both knew, Stormy Weather, just offered:
FOOD ALL DAY
.

This included, as they well knew, drink and possibly drugs, but that had proved very hard to establish.

DC Little went to collect two cups of coffee and two doughnuts, he was not on a diet although probably Eleanor Brand was. Another man was leaning against the counter, and he gave Little a quick look before turning away.

‘Jam or chocolate?’ asked the truly large lady, almost the largest he had ever seen. ‘Doughnuts, jam or choc?’ she prodded him.

‘Jam.’ She did not seem the most approachable of women, this large lady, and yet there was a look in her eyes imbedded in her flesh which suggested she knew the street scene.

She’s been more than once up and down the street, he thought.

‘I called on Mr Freedom, lives in the new block of apartments, he wasn’t home. I wondered if you knew him and if he’d been in . . . I know he pops in here to eat.’ A lie, this, but there you are, he had to say something.

She did look at him but said nothing, just a shake of the head.

Little went back, and planted the two cups with the plate of doughnuts in front of Eleanor Brand.

‘No luck there.’

In a corner table was a man with red hair and a twisted nose who seemed to be discussing his supper with his neighbour, tall and thin with spectacles. Beef seemed on order.

‘Who’s that?’ Eleanor nodded towards the red-haired man.

Little took a quick look. ‘Oh, that’s Hamish Scott. Not a bad villain as they go.’

‘Is he a Scot?’

‘Not as far as I know. It’s only his name. Beef, did he say? He’s always been a big eater.’ He embarked on a doughnut with some satisfaction.

The man who had been at the counter came across. ‘You were asking for Mr Freedom.’

‘Yes, do you know him?’ Little put down his coffee.

‘Not to say know. Know who he is. Seen him around the theatre.’

‘You’re an actor?’

‘When I can be,’ said Dave with a grin. ‘And if you want Mr Freedom, I saw him go off in a taxi with a suitcase.’

‘Ah, thanks.’

Dave went back to the counter, where he said to the large lady that he’d told ‘em Freedom was in a taxi and off.

‘Best to keep away from the police.’

‘If you can,’ he said, but without emphasis. ‘I saw Freedom hit a girl across the face, kid that works in the theatre a bit . . . I like to help a woman when I can.’

‘You’re an attractive man, Dave,’ said the fat lady. ‘Not a good man, but attractive.’

‘And you’re attractive too, my dear, and not good either.’

Eleanor, who had watched this byplay, said nothing, and leaned across to Little. ‘And I know him . . . Saw him when he came to make a statement . . . he’s the one who found the cat’s head.’

‘He’s been a bit helpful.’ Little drained his coffee.

‘Not because he loves us,’ said Eleanor thoughtfully.

Alone in his office, Coffin called Stella. He had had a phone call about the state of the girl Alice.

‘I’m with them,’ Phoebe said. ‘Just going back to the Serena Seddon with them. I’m not wanted but I am going.’

Phoebe was a friend of Mary but she was not always tactful. They did not know each other that well.

‘Have you got time to go round to the Refuge Seddon to talk to Mary Arden?’

Stella sighed. ‘You’d better tell me: what is it you want me to do?’

‘Get round there. Check if all is well?’

‘What is it all about?’

‘No. Later.’

‘No – not even what all being well means?’

‘You’ll discover. But be tactful.’

‘If it’s of interest to you, I have George and Robbie here now. No, they did not go to New York, just wanted out. They heard on the grapevine you want to talk to them and they are undecided whether to stay around and be talked to or to take Concorde out on its next flight to anywhere.’

‘Are they in the room with you?’

‘No,’ she said smoothly. ‘I have parked them in that little room where I put actors who want a part that I am not going to give them. They thought I was a safe pair of hands.’

‘Leave them then, and pop round to the Serena Seddon.’

‘Suppose they break out?’

‘They won’t break far,’ said Coffin grimly. ‘And say nothing to them, nothing. Will you do this for me?’

‘Yes, that part is easy because nothing is what I know . . . But I can’t see why one of your nice cosy policewomen can’t do it.’

‘You may not believe me, but I am thinking of the girl.’

Accordingly, Stella put her head round the door of the room in which Freedom and Gilchrist were walking up and down impatiently. ‘Be with you in a sec, boys. Hang on.’ She returned to the phone to finish her conversation with Coffin.

George Freedom made a kind of sideways dancing step across the room as she left. ‘Goodbye, lady, goodbye . . . Not a bad idea for a song, Robbie. Perhaps we could do a duet.’

‘What part do I get?’

‘You can be soprano.’ Georgie was still tiptoeing here and there. His line was unsteady.

Robbie looked at George’s dancing feet.

‘My footwork is better than yours.’

George stopped dancing. ‘We ought to be on the stage.’

‘Ha, ha, you always were the jokes man.’

‘And the money man, don’t forget that.’

‘I’d like to continue this conversation on that account,’ said Robbie, standing up, ‘but you are boring me. That’s one thing: two, is don’t you wonder why the police want to see us, both of us, together, and why we are put in cold storage.’

‘Yes,’ said Freedom, sitting and taking off his shoes. ‘God, these shoes pinch . . . Something has happened.’

‘And what is it that links us together?’

‘Money, the theatre, Stella Pinero.’

‘They are all one and the same thing. What else?’

After a pause, in which he put his shoes back on, Freedom said: ‘The girl we share in common: Alice.’

‘I don’t like the way you put that,’ said Gilchrist, ‘but yes, Alice . . . When she turns up – if she turns up – I hope she tells us what you’ve done to her.’ He began to shiver.

‘You too,’ said Freedom.

Robbie hurled himself at Freedom and began to punch him.

A drop of blood appeared down Freedom’s nose and ran down his shirt collar. He swore and kicked at Robbie.

Stella heard them while she was still talking to Coffin. ‘I must hang up. I can hear those two men fighting.’

Parted by Stella, who displayed her usual determination and control, and advised to calm down, Freedom and Gilchrist were driven round to Coffin’s office.

Stella called Coffin and told him she would be bringing them in on the way to the refuge.

‘I’ll send a car,’ he said at once.

‘They will hate that. Like being arrested.’

‘Freedom has been arrested once, he ought to know what it feels like.’

But Stella, as shrewd a psychologist as her husband, drove them herself. If they survived, she still wanted their money. Also, and this was where the psychology came in, she did not believe that either of the men, even Freedom, was guilty of the sort of crimes that had happened. The bloody man even liked cats.

Also, and she faced this fact: her husband wanted to get Freedom, he wanted him to be guilty.

When they arrived at the Headquarters of the Second City Police Force, a new and architecturally fierce building created by an architect who was into brutalism, she stopped the car and sat there, letting the two men see the force of the building and know apprehension.

She could see it in Freedom’s face, although he tried to hide it. He had had one stay in prison, and did not desire to go back. It’s not the inmates, he was thinking. It’s the warders. They hated me. They hated him because the charge against him was of attempting to kill a young girl. She was very badly hurt. Only but for the grace of God was he a murderer, was believed of him.

‘Go in, boys,’ she said, ‘and unburden your soul.’

‘We have got one each,’ snarled George. ‘Not one soul between us.’

‘I’ve often wondered,’ said Stella, departing. ‘Someone in uniform will see you up. There is no lift, you will have to walk.’ She was lying, but she thought a walk up a flight of stairs was just what they deserved.

By now, Coffin had spoken to Phoebe Astley again and she had passed on the speculation that George Freedom was the father of the child born to Alice and that he had hit the girl on the face, which had brought on the premature birth. No details, though, Phoebe had said regretfully, the girl is not yet talking. She had added, But Mary Arden and I will get the full tale, no fear.