Cold Coffin (12 page)

Coffin looked at the cat. ‘I don't fancy cold chicken, do you?'

The cat's expression did not change.

‘I don't suppose you ought to eat it anyway, you being so small. Special cat food, something like that.' He went down the staircase to the kitchen. As he passed, he stroked the kitten's head. ‘Come on, say something. Say you would help me if you could.'

The telephone rang. The house phone, not his mobile. The number was supposed to be protected, secret, but Stella was quite reckless in the way she passed it out. Business, she said.

‘Hello.'

There was silence.

‘Who is that?'

Distantly, he heard a laugh, and, ‘Gotcha, Coffin.'

Then a voice said, ‘I hate you, Coffin.'

Coffin did not answer. And you aren't the only one. I am not universally loved. Au contraire.

The voice started again: it was very soft, distant. But I can bear it, Coffin thought, I have been here before.

‘I may include your wife in this.' A noise like a laugh. ‘Thinking about it.'

Coffin put the telephone down while the voice was still talking, softer now, more like a whisper.

Walker? Was that the word? Or just walking? Or did he say he hated the Walkers? And softly, a word that sounded like babies. Hate for the babies? He debated whether to report the call. It would probably be pointless but, on the other hand, if he didn't report it and anything happened, he would be at fault. Moreover, Stella had been mentioned. Yes, he must report it.

Sergeant Marsh on the Aware desk – a name given by Coffin himself to a unit dealing with threats to anyone – was the one to call. He duly did so.

‘Right, sir, see what we can do,' replied Marsh, courteous and helpful as always. You have to sound confident and cheerful, he had said once, it's part of the job, even though you know there's not much chance of your getting anything positive done. You can perhaps trace a phone call or an anonymous letter or someone leaving filthy rubbish on your doorstep or daubing your wall, but clearing up the emotion that lies behind it – well, that's different.

‘Miss Pinero was mentioned, so I have to take it seriously.'

‘I always do, sir.'

And so he did. But serious, with what you might call forward action, was not always possible, however much he saw the need for action.

‘Let me know what you get . . . if anything,' said Coffin.

Marsh agreed that he would certainly do so, sir.

When Stella came back, she was surprised to find Coffin pacing the room. The cat was asleep in her basket.

‘I thought you'd be either asleep or drinking.'

‘Oh thanks.'

‘No offence meant,' Stella said, with apology in her voice.

‘I'd be glad to think of your being either . . . I'll have a drink myself. You can get me one.'

She watched while he poured some wine, red and glossy. ‘You must think I need building up. That's what claret does, doesn't it?'

He poured out another glass for himself, looked at the cat, wondered if cats drank claret, remembered that none he had previously known had done, and replied, ‘So they say.'

‘And you think that I need it?'

‘I reckon I do,' he said unhappily. ‘Stella, darling, I just don't see my way through this.'

Stella stared. ‘You never call me darling, not when you are sane.'

‘I'm mad, then.'

‘What's it about, my love?'

‘And you don't call me that unless you are flaming mad with me.'

Their eyes met and they both started to laugh. Coffin reached out and hugged his wife.

‘The fact is that I had one of those threatening telephone calls while you were out.'

‘Here?' She was surprised, the number of their St Luke's home was private. Supposed to be; she always had guilty feelings about how casual she was with it.

‘Yes, that's interesting. He got it somehow.'

‘It was a man?'

Thoughtfully, Coffin said, ‘I think it was. Not a very deep voice.'

‘In my craft we know what you can do with voices,' pointed out Stella. ‘I wish I'd heard. I might have been able to tell.'

‘You can listen to the recording.' There always was a recording. He hesitated, ‘I ought to tell you, there is a threat against you too.'

As always she could surprise him. ‘Well, I'd guessed that. You wouldn't be floundering around in this way if it was only you.'

‘It's what's known as the male protective syndrome,' he said apologetically.

‘It has happened to me before,' Stella reminded him. ‘Remember the thug who tried to rape me, and Gus and I bit him? And the Barlow twins? Sue Ann would have killed me if she could. She did have a go.'

The Beautiful Barlow Twins, so called by the media, had been torn apart by the jealousy Sue Ann had felt for Bobby Barlow's interest in Stella. Bobby and Sue Ann Barlow were acrobats and specialist dancers performing in Stella's Experimental Theatre during the Christmas season three years ago. Their father was Bert Barlow, the poet, so they were known as the intellectual acrobats, and indeed part of their performance was taken from Indian and Chinese sources. Stylistically, anyway.

Twins claim a special relationship, closer than ordinary siblings, which Sue Ann demonstrated by resenting any other woman who came close to Bobby. Quite a few did, as he was a lad with a wide range of tastes in styles, age and sex, which perhaps added a touch of sourness to Sue Ann's jealousy when his feeling for Stella became loud, strong and persistent.

‘Still, she wasn't the worst one, although she did threaten to strangle me. Made it sound very real, that threat. Still, I knew it would end at the close of the season when Bobby forgot me.'

‘I think she was worried that you wouldn't forget him,' said Coffin wryly. He had not enjoyed the episode of the Heavenly Twins (their stage name).

‘No fear there. No, the worst was the nameless voice that would ring with hate threats. I did dislike him. It was a him, I think.'

‘Yes, that wasn't nice,' said Coffin with a frown. ‘Just stopped, didn't it? Marsh thought it was probably the chap whose body was floating in the river about that time. He had a bad mental history . . . You never let me know how frightened you were.'

Stella just shrugged.

‘Nor did you tell me that Sue Ann had a go.'

‘That was theatre business,' said Stella; she had very strong proprietary feelings where her theatre was concerned. ‘Not a very serious attempt. Bobby stopped her. That was what she wanted really, proved how much she mattered to him.'

‘I would have killed her if she had touched you.'

‘That would have helped ticket sales, wouldn't it?' said Stella. ‘It was at Christmas too. Finances were on a knife-edge that season.'

Coffin gave her a long, searching look, and apparently was satisfied with what he saw there. ‘Devil,' he said fondly.

All the same, he told himself as Stella went to be womanly in the kitchen to work out what they would eat, all the same, I will watch over her.

And the Security Outfit of the Second City Force would watch over them both. But cynically, sometimes he wondered how much that meant. He had the impression that the same selective behaviour was going on in the Lumsden case.

They were going slow, seeing the best side of things at present. Maybe they didn't like Lumsden all that much as a person, but he was one of them, and that counted.

Like if I killed Stella, Coffin told himself; they'd knock themselves to bits proving it was an accident or that she did it herself in a clumsy moment.

He walked into the kitchen, where Stella was standing in front of the freezer looking thoughtful. Housekeeping was not her strongest point.

‘We can eat out,' said Coffin.

Stella shook her head. ‘No, I can put something together.'

Coffin's spirit sagged. He took his eating seriously. Something put together sounded depressing. Silently and without complaint, he left her to it.

The gods seemed to be indicating how he should fill in the time, so he dialled Inspector Fisher's Incident Room way over the other side of Spinnergate. Someone would be there, even if the Inspector himself was not. Fisher handled in person all important missing people, of which the Second City had more than the usual supply.

Fisher was there, however, and prepared to be grumpy at being disturbed when he was on the point of going home, except that the moment he recognized the Chief Commander's voice he changed, not to sweetness, that not being in his nature, but to great courtesy.

‘Evening, sir. You've been getting our reports, I hope?'

‘Oh yes.' And nothing much in them.

‘The main thing is that Lumsden wants to come to work . . . says that the postcard proves his wife is alive and off because she wants to be. He claims she must have a lover.'

There was a question in Fisher's voice. He wants me to decide this question, Coffin thought. For a moment he was silent, then the warning bird came to sit on his shoulder.

‘Leave it for another week or so. Say two weeks.'

Fisher came back promptly. ‘Yes, sir, just what I thought myself.'

He's glad I've taken him off that particular hook, Coffin thought. It's what he wanted. The signal here was clear: Fisher was not convinced of Lumsden's innocence. In fact, probably just the opposite: he thinks Lumsden is guilty. Guilty, at the very least, of frightening away his wife, and, at the worst, of killing her and hiding the body.

Well hidden too, Coffin thought sourly.

Stella reappeared with the news that the meal was ready. A succulent smell followed her up the stairs. Coffin was surprised: salads and coffee, Stella was good at, but not food that smelt so tasty.

He gave her a suspicious look. On the kitchen table, a hot pie was surrounded by an array of vegetables, which had the look, so strange to English eyes, of being all different colours and shapes and only half cooked.

Stella saw him looking. ‘Good for you to chew your vegetables.'

‘Yes,' agreed Coffin, helping himself. ‘As long as they don't bite back. I broke a tooth on that parsnip last week.'

‘Does it taste good, that's what counts?'

‘Who cooked it?'

‘Max, or his kitchens in the Experimental Theatre.'

Experimental food too, was what Coffin thought, as he chewed on a thick slice of baked tuna.

‘What are you giving your godson as a christening present? It's only days away, you know.' The question was malice to a degree, since Stella knew that Coffin had chosen no present nor even thought of one.

But Coffin was a quick thinker. ‘Oh, money. A cheque to his mother to be banked until he is old enough to want it.'

‘That won't be long,' said Stella. ‘They start needing spending money as soon as they can toddle.'

Coffin got his revenge. ‘I'll add a little toy, one of those soft ones; you can shop for that, if you will, please.'

‘I don't like you when you are in one of these hard, clever-clever moods, and I can hear one coming along,' said Stella thoughtfully. ‘I was only trying to jolly you along, cheer you up.'

‘I wasn't being clever, just worried. This threat business. How did anyone get our number? Did you give it to anyone?'

‘Not since the last time it was changed,' said Stella. This was true, but it was also true that she scribbled the number on numerous pads and odd bits of paper for her own convenience. I can't remember everything, she told herself.

‘Things do get about,' she said vaguely.

‘Oh, Stella.' It was a reproach, but the telephone number could soon be dealt with. ‘I can get you a walker with dog. Just to see you through the next few days, while we see how things go.'

‘No, thank you,' she said with decision. ‘I suppose we ought to have another dog, if Gus should die, but I can't bear to think of replacing darling Gus when he isn't dead.' Ill, but not dead.

‘I'd run behind you if I could,' said Coffin with mournful savagery.

Stella was still defending herself. ‘If someone is hating us, it's better to know. That's reasonable, isn't it?'

‘You don't understand how the process works,' said Coffin gloomily. ‘A successful call like that this morning may be just his need to turn fantasy . . . because a lot of such calls are fantasy . . . into reality. Make it something hard that the caller can visualize.'

Stella removed the plates, noticing that her husband had, after all, made a good meal, and placed cheese and fruit on the table.

‘When we go to the christening, you'll see Archie Young again.'

‘Archie and Gus, both gone,' said Coffin sadly.

‘Archie is not dead, and neither is Gus,' reminded Stella with some sharpness, ‘and this is a christening, my love, not a funeral.' She took some cheese. ‘You get champagne at a christening. Drink a lot of it, it'll take your mind off your troubles. And don't worry about drinking and driving. I shall hire a car: Sid Gubbins.'

Sid did all her driving in the district; in London she used the tube and cabs.

Sid Gubbins accepted the date, wrote it in his work diary, and told his wife.

‘You can come too, make a day out of it. Miss Pinero will say yes, she never minds that sort of thing, you've been before. Be nice to see the Chief Super again – Chief Commander now.'

Sid was a retired policeman who had known Archie Young when he was a young sergeant. Mrs Gubbins, May Ann Gubbins, was a nurse, who went into the hospital when they needing extra nursing help. She was just coming to the end of her stint; a day out would be welcome.

I'll get my hair done, she told herself.

* * *

Next day CI Phoebe Astley made her report to the Chief Commander. Nothing much to say, nothing fresh, in fact she had the feeling the team was making very little progress on the three sets of deaths, Mrs Jackson and her daughters, Dr Murray, and Black Jack, that were connected by the gun. She covered this up, of course; no need to tell the Chief Commander what he would soon think for himself. In due course there would be inquests that would be adjourned to allow the police teams to work on.