A Coffin for Charley

A Coffin for Charley Gwendoline Butler When three young women are murdered, Inspector John Coffin must investigate the past to unravel the present. From one of the most universally praised English crime writers, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.Annie Briggs, whose evidence as a child was responsible for convicting two killers, feels a sense of unease and fears she is being watched. She then discovers that the murderers have been released and are living nearby. Annie is terrified and dreads the revenge she knows will come. When three young women are murdered, Inspector John Coffin is challenged to connect the present-day incidents to the past. GWENDOLINE BUTLER A Coffin for Charley COPYRIGHT (#ulink_373b7653-5535-5350-9940-ab938003de4f) Published by HarperCollinsPublishersLtd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk (https://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1993 Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com Gwendoline Butler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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CONTENTS Title Page (#uf55245c3-ddcb-572d-968e-a6368454012b) Copyright (#ulink_7cc3f4f1-a0d4-547a-aaf6-da5faa51c45d) Dedication (#ulink_9afbe62b-56f4-57d7-a4d3-3f2890f19a1d) Prologue (#ulink_f3020d8d-cc27-5e37-9f72-5c75913fc2bf) Chapter 1 (#ulink_b784e347-faa7-5c9f-92a6-07da1de674d6) Chapter 2 (#ulink_a317e348-9135-5d44-b6bf-8ae58feeb65e) Chapter 3 (#ulink_02b27c1c-bb98-5124-a602-8792e2bbd369) Chapter 4 (#ulink_dfc4c762-9f1a-5acd-938e-af7dc597cfce) Chapter 5 (#ulink_15495077-cd8a-5ada-93a0-c2688cd3bf5a) Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo) Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PROLOGUE (#ulink_73695b85-8e8a-5af7-89d0-7ad94b6fa21c) A brief Calendar of the life and career of John Coffin, Chief Commander of the Second City of London Police John Coffin is a Londoner by birth, his father is unknown and his mother was a difficult lady of many careers and different lives who abandoned him in infancy to be looked after by a woman who may have been a relative of his father and who seems to have acted as his mother’s dresser when she was on the stage. He kept in touch with this lady, whom he called Mother, lodged with her in his early career and looked after her until she died. After serving briefly in the army, he joined the Metropolitan Police, soon transferring to the plain clothes branch as a detective. He became a Sergeant in 1958, and was very quickly promoted to Inspector a year later. By 1969 he was a superintendent and nine years later became Chief Superintendent. There was a bad patch in his career about which he is reluctant to talk. His difficult family background has complicated his life and possibly accounts for an unhappy period when, as he admits, his career went down a black hole. His first marriage split apart at this time and his only child died. From this dark period he was resurrected by a longish period in a secret, dangerous undercover operation about which even now not much is known. But the esteem he won then was recognized when, in the late 1980s as the Second City of London was being formed, he became the Chief Commander of its Police Force. He has married again, very happily, to an old love, Stella Pinero. He has also rediscovered two siblings, a sister and a brother. CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_01237b4b-d9f1-5e23-96b3-2c36598692cd) Monday. Towards the river Darkness. The two people stood facing each other. The girl with her back to the wall, the man looking at her, legs apart. He held out his hands. ‘I never like being killed,’ said the girl. She moved her hands forward as if to protect herself. She had long beautiful nails, painted bright red; on her left hand was a deep, diamond-shaped scar. Almost as if she had been branded. ‘It’s happened to you before?’ ‘Several times. I’m the type, I suppose, and I never enjoy it. It’s so awkward. They never get it right.’ ‘They?’ ‘The killers.’ ‘Oh, I will get it right. Think of all the things I’ve been doing … Watching you, admiring you, loving you, hating you. I’ll get it right.’ ‘You will?’ ‘I’ll get it so right you’ll never know you are dead.’ Quite a promise. Darkness absolute. ‘Shall we move in for the kill?’ But he wouldn’t be killing her just yet. For that, she would have to wait. Wait in hunger, wait in darkness. Light. One light, a spot above the dressing-table, focused on the lovely face of Stella Pinero, actress, now for a single rocky year Mrs John Coffin. An up and down year. But she forgave her husband. As always, she had contributed her share. I must put a bit more lipstick on; I’m looking pale. I blame last night. Possibly blame was the wrong word, not one to be associated with the evening before. Sex was good for you and improved the complexion, but sometimes fatigue made you pale. The dressing-table had its full equipment of make-up, sticks of colours, pots of creams, tubs of powder, sprays of scent, Stella took a professional interest in her looks. She smiled reminiscently as she considered the night. That was a bit of the up and down. A quarrel and a reconciliation. It had been her fault. Probably her fault. A rocky year. Right to marry, of course, but they had difficulties. All the same, she’d enjoyed the twelve months and she rather thought he had too. Not a man to want a quiet life was John Coffin. He thought he did, thought of himself as the reserved scholarly type more interested in editing his rakish mother’s rakish memoirs than anything else, but in truth he liked a battle. Or anyway, a bit of a skirmish. Wouldn’t have become a policeman else, would he? Well, he had had one big battle but not with her, and won it. His management of his Police Force in the Second City of London had come in for criticism on various grounds—not of inefficiency, it was agreed that he was very competent, but because with some people he was too friendly and with others too remote. And then there was his relationship with her (well, that had sorted itself out) and his connection with his highly successful sibling Letty Bingham, property tycoon and owner of St Luke’s Theatre Complex which contributed handsomely to Stella Pinero’s income. Or had done. This recession was biting sharply into Letty and so into Stella. It had taken a year or two for the slump to hit the theatre but it had done so now. Property developers were not popular in the Docklands of the Second City where they had erected great office blocks and compounds of luxury flats which the local population resented. This had counted in the whispering campaign against John Coffin, but he had faced up to it, and also to the overt criticism of his Police Committee, and he had won. But it had not made for an easy first year of marriage. I was sensible to keep on my own flat, Stella decided. If the Queen can have a separate bedroom, then I can have a separate flat. Somewhere to hide when things got too hot. Also, she was performing this season in St Luke’s herself as well as producing two plays and she liked to have her friends in after a performance or after a particularly gruesome rehearsal and her friends did not always fit in well with the murder and mayhem that was part of her husband’s life. They loved it, of course, but she found their questions difficult. She lived in St Luke’s Mansions which had been converted from the tower of an old Victorian church which had fallen into disuse. The St Luke’s Theatre Complex was adjacent. The main theatre in the round was in the old church itself while a theatre workshop had been built across a small courtyard. I am attractive, she told herself, and I am a well known, if not exactly a famous, actress. Which is why that man watches me. Hangs around, follows me, watches me. Like all actresses, she had had followers, men who called with flowers, met her at the stage door, wrote little notes. It was part of theatrical tradition, the Stage Door Johnny. She had liked it, even found some of the men attractive; she was no prude. But this was different. She went to her window to look out. The dark-coated figure was not to be seen but he was probably there. She never got a good look at his face because he wore a hat which he pulled low, and dark spectacles. Not a pleasing sight. So that’s it, she said to her reflection. I’m a femme fatale. The fatale bit did not please her. She could tell her husband who would certainly act. What was the point of being married to a policeman if you could not call upon him when you were alarmed. She was alarmed. John Coffin, Chief Commander of the Second City Police Force, looked out of his window in his office. He got a better view from the sitting-room of the tower in St Luke’s Mansions, where he lived, sometimes with Stella and sometimes without her, but his view had improved since one tower block of council flats had been knocked down before it fell down so that he got a distant view of the river. He enjoyed looking out … It was something he did quite often. Partly because it gave him pleasure to look down on this London which he loved (although he would not have admitted to the feeling) and partly because (and again would he have admitted it?) he liked to keep an eye on it. It was a rough world down there and famously criminous. New wealth had not changed old ways. There were groups of streets where Victorian Peelers had refused to go except in pairs; there were still streets in which constables on the beat liked to feel they had good back-up. But he did not allow NO GO areas. Everywhere was policed. It was the Queen’s Peace he was responsible for keeping and he trusted she was grateful. Whispers had come to him about the next Honours List, so he supposed she was. He already had the Queen’s Police Medal, awarded when he took up his present position. If he did get an honour it would be a surprise since he had had several close brushes with his local MP and the Police Committee. The fact that they then passed what amounted to a vote of confidence in him did not mean they loved him the better. Within his authority he had the old boroughs of Spinnergate, Leathergate, Swinehouse, and East Hythe, whose very place names testified to their antiquity. The Vikings had got as far as these four Anglo-Saxon settlements in their ravages up the Thames, the Norman warlords had swept in replacing the old English landowners, but the indigenous population had survived and their descendants, spiced with immigrants from every land within the old Empire, were there now, tough, wily and ready to cause trouble. They had never been particularly law-abiding and recent events had done nothing to change their mind. New money had poured into the district in the last decade turning old warehouses and dockside buildings into offices and luxury apartments, and the old poor still in their terrace houses or council housing were resentful. Ill-feeling had turned to wicked mirth as the new rich became victims of the recession. 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 ?sthetic: 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: Ph?be Astley invites you to celebrate her promotion. An address in Birmingham and a scrawl: Why don’t you come up and see me? Ph?be 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, Ph?be, 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. The cat and the dog were home too. He knew that from the two food bowls on the staircase by the living-room. Why they chose to eat there he did not know. Stella said it made them feel free, but he thought it was because he had once tripped over their bowls and had fallen down the stairs. They were waiting for him to do it again. Both women turned round to look at him as he came in. ‘Talking about me?’ ‘Thinking about you.’ ‘Always, I hope.’ He gave Stella a kiss. ‘Hello, Letty.’ Letty raised an eyebrow, it was an eyebrow trained to rise. ‘Oh, come on, she’s got other things to do.’ Letty’s marriages never prospered because she always had other things to do. ‘Rescue me,’ said Coffin’s eyes to Stella. His beautiful sister could terrorize him on occasion. He suspected she was like their eccentric, errant, delinquent mother who had abandoned her children one after the other. Letty was wearing black silk jeans with a leopard print silk blazer in which she looked sinewy and alarming. ‘Help me out.’ Stella almost did. ‘Well, not all the time, not when I’m learning my lines or on stage, but underneath, darling, I think about you and I expect I always will.’ When necessary, Stella could deliver lines as if from a Coward play. He sniffed the air. ‘What are you cooking?’ ‘One of my chicken casseroles.’ He knew better than to criticize Stella’s cooking efforts. ‘Do you think it could be burning?’ His tone was tentative, questioning humbly. ‘No, I think it’s meant to smell like that.’ ‘Ah.’ He certainly hoped so, but it seemed doubtful. Was carbon an ingredient in the best meals? But they could always go round to Max’s Delicatessen and eat there. He had what he called his Bar, just a few chairs and tables, usually full of performers from St Luke’s Theatre grabbing something to eat. The comfort level was low but the food was excellent. Coffin had eaten there a lot as a bachelor, as had Stella Pinero, but just lately she had decided it was her duty to be the Perfect Wife. A part for which she was not naturally gifted. He knew he would have to live with the idea until she got tired of it, but he had preferred the former, unreconstructed Stella. ‘That is, I think so,’ she said. She too could smell something dark and burnt. ‘I wonder if I ought to go and look.’ ‘Forget it,’ said Letty. ‘Past praying for, I expect.’ ‘Someone will murder you one day, Letty.’ ‘One or two have tried,’ admitted Letty. ‘But I was too strong for them.’ ‘Don’t joke,’ said Stella. Her tone was sharp. She went to the window. Nothing there. Well, even lurkers, Stage Door Johnnies, go home. Coffin looked at his wife. ‘What is it? You’re worried.’ He drew her away from the window. ‘Come on, sit down and tell me.’ Nervously, she said: ‘There’s this man … hanging around. Sometimes he’s outside the theatre. I have seen him near the old church hall where we rehearse. This last week he’s even got as far as the TV studio.’ Stella was filming a new series in which she had a plum part as a female detective. ‘He was further away there because of the security patrol GTV have there, but I know it was him.’ ‘Is it always the same man? Have you seen his face?’ I’ll kill anyone who touches Stella. ‘Only a glimpse, he wears dark spectacles and hat. A wig too, I think, not a good one, something cheap.’ As an actress, Stella knew a wig when she saw one. ‘And yes, I’m sure it’s the same chap, same clothes, same posture.’ Coffin frowned. ‘Go on talking. Give me all the detail you can. How long has it been going on?’ He wanted to observe Stella. Many successful actresses (and some unsuccessful ones too) had people who stalked them: men and women who were ardent fans and wanted to get to know them. Or to watch them come and go from the theatre. Stella had had her share of those, and she knew how to deal with them. They did not make her nervous. Now she was nervous. I’ll kill him. Dutifully, Stella went on, providing what meagre details she could. She had first observed the man almost a year ago, but his appearances had been sporadic at first and she had not taken them seriously. Now he was very regular. Of course, he couldn’t get into the St Luke’s complex of buildings easily, but he sited himself under the clump of trees across the road from where he could see her windows. Kitchen and bedroom. Bathroom too for that matter, but she had clouded glass on that so it wouldn’t do him much good. ‘He can see your windows too. But it’s not you he’s looking for. I’m surprised you haven’t seen him yourself.’ ‘Keeps out of my way, I expect.’ But from now on, he would be looking. ‘I wish you had told me before.’ Stella was silent. ‘I thought I was being foolish to worry. It might have been kind of flattering …’ Her voice died away. ‘But it’s not. Doesn’t feel right.’ ‘Why does he frighten you?’ Stella said slowly: ‘I feel his concentration. It’s obsessive. Not admiration … something else. Hungry.’ His sister Letty said: ‘I think he’s watching me too.’ ‘Oh, I don’t believe that’s likely.’ ‘Well, thanks, brother. You do know how to make a girl feel attractive.’ ‘What I meant was, men like that are usually, invariably, obsessed with one person at a time.’ ‘I’ve seen him there, too. I wish I’d said something sooner. He’s just as Stella said: dark glasses, soft hat pulled over the face.’ ‘You’re welcome to him,’ said Stella. ‘He’s all yours and good luck to you.’ ‘There’s another thing: I think he uses binoculars.’ ‘If you saw that you certainly should have told me, Letty.’ Coffin was angry. Letty shrugged. ‘London’s full of weirdos. New York is full of weirdos, so is Paris. The world is full of weirdos.’ I have a weirdo all my own. Charley, Stella thought without pleasure. Who would like to take on my Charley? Letty can have him. Coffin stood up and went to the telephone. ‘Stella, I should look at that casserole. There’s burning and there’s burning and there’s incineration.’ ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘I can order a patrol car to call regularly, and the constable on the beat to look in as well. That ought to frighten the man away. If he hangs around, then we’ll take him in.’ Stella nodded. ‘It was a wig, you know … and the face, there was something not quite right there, I swear it.’ ‘You serve the meal.’ If it could be served, and not put out with water. ‘And after I have made this call, then I will walk around and see if he’s there now.’ Stella looked relieved. ‘So silly to mind, makes me feel a fool, but he has worried me.’ ‘Me too,’ said Letty, anxious not to be left out. Coffin called the dog, ‘Come on, Bob,’ attached a lead to his collar and went out. Bob was, as ever, eager and dragged ahead, breathing heavily in expectation. It was dusky outside with a light rain falling, the street lights were on, but the pavements were empty. The theatre was dark tonight, with no performance, but that didn’t mean it was empty. A read through, a rehearsal, or just a meeting of the Friends of St Luke’s Theatre might be going on. There was never a really dead night. Letty and Stella encouraged activity. He walked slowly, his thoughts anxious. He knew what the women did not: that there was a killer in the district. He looked up and saw Stella profiled against the kitchen window. He could see her turn her head as if speaking to someone, she appeared to be opening the window and in the circumstances of the chicken casserole, he could see why; then she moved away out of his vision. He must remind her to keep the blind down. He felt very protective of her and yet awkward at the same time. He was surprised how powerfully and vigorously that sight of Stella had affected him. Strong feelings came and went with him at the moment. He was floundering with Stella just now. It was odd, this marriage thing. Although they each kept their separate apartments, and although they had, let’s face it, been lovers on and off for years, marriage had subtly and definitely altered their relationship. He was less sure of himself with Stella than ever. She was trying to be everything she could to him, he could see that, but he didn’t want her to try, he wanted her to be, just to be. Spontaneous. Happy. He walked on. No dark-spectacled figure to be seen under the trees or on the corner or in a doorway tonight. He could go back and tell the two women that it was all clear. Although that did not mean the man had not been there or might be there again. No need to alarm Stella and Letty by telling them that a girl called Marianna Manners had been strangled and then stifled. But he had to think about it. It was possible that she might have been killed by Job Titus whom they both knew. Or Titus might have contracted for her death with one of the Creeley family, a youngster with a violent reputation. In both those instances, Stella and Letty were under no threat. Or Marianna might have been killed by just the sort of man that was watching them. He walked back to St Luke’s Mansions. A patrol car passed him, slowed for a look, recognized him, and passed on. So his orders were already being followed. A prosperous-looking dark blue car was parked in the kerb near by. An expensive-looking car and he thought he had seen it before. He walked round the front to study the windscreen and saw on it a card which empowered the driver to park his car in the area reserved for Members of Parliament. The last thing he wanted just now was a visit from Job Titus. There were good sound reasons for not entertaining in your home a man who might be a murder suspect. He walked up his stairs quickly, arriving at the kitchen in time to hear Stella saying that they were going to eat at home but something had gone wrong with a casserole she was doing and she thought they would now be eating out. Job Titus was sitting at the kitchen table holding a glass of red wine. He had been drinking already, Coffin could tell from his eyes, but had himself in hand. He was supposed to be able to charm all women and Coffin thought he was doing so now. Letty was smiling and Stella would probably be asking Titus to join them at dinner if he didn’t move fast to stop her. Job stood up as Coffin came. John, of course we’ve met, you remember?’ He held out his hand. At a large charity dinner in the Docklands, if you could call that meeting. They had shaken hands, no more. And as far as Coffin was concerned, they could leave it there. They were not friends. Job had certainly joined in the late campaign to get his resignation, even if he had kept his name hidden. My secret enemy, he thought. He left the outstretched hand hanging and after a second, Job withdrew it, covering the moment with a smile. ‘I always believe in going to the top with a complaint. Your men have been harassing me. I don’t want to make it official, cause trouble for you. I want to keep it friendly.’ ‘I can’t discuss anything,’ said Coffin stiffly. Like to slit your throat. From Stella’s startled look at him he guessed this notion came across to her. ‘John …’ she began. ‘It’s all right, Stella, Mr Titus is just leaving.’ Job Titus stood up. He put his arm round Letty who showed no sign of resenting it. ‘I just love this leopard lady. You aren’t listening to me, John. I did not kill Marianna Manners. You might pass that word on to your murder squad. They are ill-mannered bastards who take a lot for granted and if I swore at them, then they deserved it. This was meant to be just a friendly warning for you to pass on. Next time I will make it official.’ He moved away, knocking over the glass of red wine. ‘Look, I told your men that Marianna had been complaining of a man trying to get to know her. Go for him, not me.’ ‘I’ll see you out,’ said Coffin. ‘Before we go, just one more thing: Marianna auditioned for a part in the amateur play in the Theatre Workshop here. She was out of work, you see, and she thought anything was better than nothing. Maybe she met her killer there. Bear it in mind.’ Coffin just held the door without answering. Job Titus hesitated, then moved towards the door. ‘Goodbye, Stella, goodbye, Letty. Mrs Coffin, I suggest you tether your husband.’ ‘What did he mean by that?’ said Stella as Coffin came back. ‘Tame, tie up, he was just being offensive. He’s frightened, I think.’ Stella started to mop up the wine. ‘I wish he hadn’t come here. I don’t like it when your work and mine cross.’ ‘He’s a madman,’ said Letty. ‘Attractive, but mad. Did he kill the girl?’ Coffin shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ He was watching his wife: she had not failed to notice the phrase about the man trying to get to know Marianne. ‘It’s your job to know.’ ‘It takes time. He may have had a hand in it.’ Stella said: ‘I think we had better eat at Max’s. The casserole got away from me.’ She spoke of it as if it was an animal she had been training. No wonder she had trouble cooking, Coffin thought, if she’s always trying to tame the meat. ‘I booked a table while I was out,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. Coming, Letty?’ ‘Why do you think I am dressed in Versace? I knew that casserole would never come to the table. I too booked a table. You’re my guests, by the way. I’ve got something to discuss.’ Over the prosciutto and chilled melon, Letty said: ‘I wanted to tell you that my daughter has disappeared and that I have engaged a private detective to look for her.’ Coffin opened his mouth to speak but Letty stopped him. ‘Don’t say it. It is not a matter for the police. Elissa is eighteen, she sent a letter telling me she was going, and she has the money from a small trust fund. I don’t think any police force is going to spend any energy looking for her, not even yours, brother.’ ‘Did she say why?’ ‘I am too dominating, too successful, she needs to lose me.’ ‘I see.’ He wondered if he did. It was a fair description of Letty: successful, bossy. But were daughters supposed to mind that? ‘But really, I think, she is our mother’s descendant. Every so often she must shake herself free and depart.’ ‘You are taking it very well.’ ‘No, I’m not. I’m trembling with fear inside. Which is why I have engaged a private detective to find her. Just locate her … Stella recommended one.’ ‘Did I?’ Stella was surprised. ‘Well, you talked of him. Tash. You probably know of him?’ She turned to her brother. ‘He’s known,’ said Coffin tersely. The Tash Agency had been around for some time. ‘He’s seems efficient and to have a good reputation. I inquired around. And he’s attractive. I like him for that. Lovely fair hair with bright brown eyes, and well groomed. I didn’t want a seedy, backroom sort of man.’ ‘Certainly not that,’ said Coffin. ‘But he’s pretty much a one man band. Can he cover the field?’ ‘I think he can do it; he has some help. I’m convinced she’s still in London. He thinks not.’ Coffin still looked doubtful. In his opinion London was no place for a girl of eighteen to roam around in. Was she on drugs? Did she have a boyfriend? He considered asking Letty but decided now was not the moment. ‘You can always call on me.’ Letty smiled at him and nodded. ‘So now you know why I am taking the state of near-bankruptcy and the decline in the theatre with relative calm.’ Stella put her hand gently on Letty’s arm. ‘I too have a daughter.’ ‘But you know where she is?’ ‘Yes, she’s putting together a play for the Edinburgh Fringe. She’s in the family business, I’m afraid. I had a card from Fife. She was there last week.’ A small crowd was leaving the precincts of the Theatre Workshop as they came home. Most of them were young people and they were talking loudly and cheerfully. Coffin raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s this?’ ‘The Friends of St Luke’s Theatre are auditioning for their summer play. They’re throwing it open to all this year because we’re using it as preparation for the Drama School. See who comes in, sniff out talent, get local interest.’ Money, she meant. The Friends, a redoubtable group of local ladies, would be one of the great supports of the new Drama School if she was lucky. ‘What are they doing?’ ‘Oh, an Agatha Christie mystery. It usually is.’ In bed that night Stella turned to her husband. ‘It’s nice on the top of the tower like this. I think I prefer it to my place.’ Both the animals had come up with them, Bob on the bed and the cat watching from the window through which he would shortly depart on to a lower roof. ‘Open the window for Tiddles.’ Coffin, who was making a neat pile of his possessions on his bed table, coins stacked, clean handkerchief beside the pile, keys by a pad of paper with a pencil, obliged. ‘Funny business about Letty and the daughter,’ said Stella. ‘I don’t always understand her.’ ‘Who does?’ Letty was his much younger sister, child of his errant mother and an American serviceman. There was a third sibling called William, issue of yet another father, who was a successful lawyer in Edinburgh. The one thing you could say about his disappearing mother (who must be presumed dead) was that her offspring were surprisingly different and surprisingly successful. He himself had lived in ignorance for years of his true parenthood and of the existence of Letty and William. Even now, he found it hard to believe in them. Well, not Letty. She was around so much. But he still felt surprise sometimes when she walked through the door. ‘Did you believe what she said?’ ‘Well, you can never tell with Letty … No, not altogether.’ ‘What’s this private detective like?’ ‘You know him,’ Coffin said tersely. He did not like to be reminded. ‘I met him once and I paid his bill, that’s all. Is he honest?’ ‘As far as I know.’ Stella settled back against the pillows. Without any conscious effort, she had turned what had been a bachelor’s masculine bedroom into a feminine boudoir. The fourposter bed, an early extravagance of Coffin’s, had been piled with pillows and silk cushions. She had brought in an embroidered bedcover and there was always a scent of rose geranium. Coffin liked it but sometimes felt like a member of an alien species. ‘John …?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Why did Job Titus say that about Marianna coming to the Theatre?’ ‘He just wanted to vomit in my backyard,’ said Coffin with some bitterness. There was silence for a moment. ‘I don’t like this stalker,’ she said softly. ‘Charley frightens me.’ He drew her down towards him. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’ And Letty, and Letty’s child, and Annie Briggs and all the people in my command. But he knew that whatever he said he could not offer total protection. The lunatic always got through. Annie Briggs, formerly Dunne, was pleased to see her younger sister home. ‘How did the audition go?’ ‘I think I’m in. Just a small part, one of the policewomen in Witness for the Prosecution, was a man originally but they have more women auditioning. I’ve got some good lines.’ ‘I am glad, dear.’ And glad you are home, I am always nervous when you are out late. ‘I’m in the second company.’ Anxious to take in as many young amateurs as possible, the ruling body, the Friends, had decided to have two casts who would appear alternately throughout the run of two weeks. ‘You’d be surprised at the people who turned up. Even one of those Creeleys.’ ‘Ah.’ Didi did not share her sister’s terror of the Creeleys, whom she regarded as harmless relics of the past. The younger Creeleys were different and of considerable interest to her. Especially Eddie Creeley. ‘Lots of faces you’d know, Annie.’ ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Annie, trying as ever to shut out what she could not bear, past, present and future. Didi drank the coffee that her sister had poured for her and ate a sandwich. Then swallowed what she was eating. ‘Don’t worry about the Creeleys, love. They’re nothing now. The old ones were stinkers but the young lot are all right. I like Eddie.’ She took her sister’s hand and gave it a little pat. ‘You’ve got Caroline in the flat upstairs.’ It was true that Caroline seemed to her more of an absence than presence. ‘You said yourself she helped.’ ‘She does,’ Annie admitted. The flat at the top of the old house, with its own entrance up a metal fire escape, was let to C. Royal, it said so on a printed card. ‘But she has a job. She’s away a lot.’ ‘They were talking about the murder.’ Didi had finished her sandwich. ‘Marianna Manners. I wonder if we ever saw her? In the supermarket or getting on the Tube at Spinnergate maybe, but without knowing.’ She knew it was better to bring the subject of murder out into the open. ‘Don’t let her hide from the world,’ the social worker had said. ‘She can face it, she can do it, never you mind.’ He was an Alex C. Edwards. Wonder what the C stands for, Didi had thought? He said he had to use it to distinguish himself from another A. Edwards, but Didi thought he liked it. Carolus, Cornell, or what? He was a nice man, Alex C. Edwards, too nice really for this world. He’s in love with Annie, of course. This ingenuous comment being her way of recording sexual attraction. CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_07ff6405-3fbf-5a93-aa95-90659e3047c1) In the Arches of the Years Three people remembered the story of Annie Briggs. She had been Annie Dunne then, but she married young and never dropped entirely from the police’s view. The most important memory was that of Annie herself, but she had been so young that she sometimes wondered now how much she truly recalled and how much of it was what she had been told. But some pictures were so vivid she knew they were real. Had been real, were real, would burn into eternity. That was what eternity was, she told herself, an endlessly revolving kaleidoscope of horrors. Lizzie Creeley remembered what Annie had said because she had been the subject of it, in company with a corpse or two and her brother Will, but since his stroke he had no memory. Coffin had special memories of it all because he had always wondered if they got it right. He had his own remembrances of this district to contend with as well, some of them peculiar to say the least. He had lived here as a raw young copper with the woman that politely but falsely he had called ‘Mother’. She had asked him to do so. At the time he had understood that she was a distant relation of his father, a cousin, because the old lady who had certainly been his grandmother and the woman who had probably been his aunt and who had superintended what there was of his childhood, had assured him she was and that he should take rooms with her. People did that sort of thing then, now they lived in bedsits. She had been his mother’s dresser, or so she said, and was a bit mad. She had given him ham for his supper and called it kippers and given him kippers and called it ham. But they had rubbed along all right. Every day he had travelled across to South London where he worked. After a bit she had moved there to a flat above a shop in the Borough. Soon after this he emancipated himself. But he sat with her when she died in Guy’s Hospital. Died with some pain, still calling herself Mother. He had been the only mourner at her funeral and out of charity he had sent several wreaths in different names. Never my true mother, but more of a mother than the other one. He had come back to this district, then part of the Met, called in as a seasoned detective who was working on a similar case across the river, in time to hear Annie’s story and receive Lizzie Creeley’s confession. Where had Stella been then? Not with him, one of their early bitter partings. His picture differed from both Lizzie’s and Annie’s because he had seen Annie and heard her tale, he had seen Lizzie and listened to what she had to say, while those two had never spoken face to face. Annie remembered creeping out of the house on a foggy November night to go down the garden to what had been an old privy and now housed some pet rabbits to inspect her favourite Angora whom she suspected of eating her litter. In the dark she had heard voices and movements. She had crawled to the hedge, kept wild and uncut, to see two people, a man and a woman, dragging out from the house the old couple who lived there. Before her terrified eyes, they were tumbled bloody and perhaps not even dead (so the pathologist had reported later) into a pit and the earth thrown over them. It had taken her a week to tell what she had seen and longer still to identify Lizzie and Will. She had done so from behind a special window that allowed her to see them while they could not see her. She had been flanked by two social workers. One, a girl whose name she had forgotten, and the other a very young man, Alex Edwards, whose name she had never been able to mislay because he visited her often to this day. Several policemen had been present, one of whom was John Coffin. Lizzie Creeley remembered hearing Annie’s written testimony read out in court and biting her lower lip till the blood ran. Her counsel hardly bothered to raise a question. She knew she was done for at that point. She wanted to kill him as well, and see that Annie got hers too if she could. She had signalled as much to her father sitting watching. In court, she had cried out: ‘She’s lying, the little bitch,’ and been reprimanded by the Judge. Coffin remembered Annie’s pinched and terrified face, and Lizzie’s fox-like fury, and never doubted the child’s truth for a moment. But as he knew, there are truths and truths. CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_4e885bfc-a5fa-5b36-9126-b8572d8a41c0) The same Monday evening The house where Annie Briggs now lived and where she had spent her short married life and from which her husband had left her (not for another woman but for what he called another life) was not far away from her childhood home from whose garden she had witnessed the two Creeleys bury the old man and woman. Looking back, she thought she could remember them striking blows as well. Hitting them on the head. Skulls splitting like eggs. Had she heard that? Two deaths it had been, people forgot that, she told herself, when they talk about letting those horrors out. Talk about pity and compassion and people having served their time. Those two cannot serve their time; for what they did such time does not run. I ought to know. I was the one who saw, who heard. And who testified. She had hoped they would die incarcerated, but remembering. Annie certainly intended to do her best to see that they did: on the anniversary of the killing she always sent them letters, one each, describing that night. People said that they did not get the letters, that the letters were intercepted, but she knew better. She knew they got to their destination, not to the heart, those two had not got hearts, but to their liver and guts where fear dwelt. She knew, she sensed it. She was always sick herself on that day. It was interesting and might be no coincidence that on that anniversary day in her eleventh year she had started to menstruate and still kept that celebration with blood. After hearing the killing in the garden of the two old people, she had been a ‘disturbed child’, a name she still wore like a label round her neck. A disturbed child is a disturbing child. Her parents had discovered that fact almost at once. ‘Not that I went in for any of that poltergeist nonsense,’ said Annie to herself. ‘Although I could have done, I could have worked it, but it’s stupid, that sort of thing.’ She had been anorexic, had tried a little thievery and gone in for a bit of arson. Nothing big, she wasn’t a big person, but certainly ‘disturbing’ if you had to live with it. Then someone, a boy, told her she was pretty and she shed all the ‘disturbed’ symptoms overnight and grew up. You cannot be a disturbed adult, not if you are looking for sympathy, you are meant to pull yourself together, or they give you pills or electric shocks or put you away, or a combination of all three, and Annie wasn’t having any of that. So she put that portmanteau of disturbance behind her, recognizing that it had been self-induced and not wholly satisfying. Marriage she had enjoyed while it lasted. She was sad when it ended, not blaming Jack Briggs or herself, thus proving to her own satisfaction that she was grown up at last. The house in Napier Street where Annie and her small daughter and her young sister, Didi, now lived was one of three tall, narrow houses. The top two floors had been formed into a separate flat, while Annie inhabited the bottom two. The top flat had its own front door reached by means of an iron fire escape of solid Victorian construction. Miss Royal had rented the flat from Annie about eighteen months ago and had been an object of interest to Annie ever since. To the neighbours as well when they got a chance to view her. Miss Royal was blonde, leggy, wore trousers almost all the time, which caused the unkind old neighbours next door, Nancy and Bob Tyrrett, to say she must be a lesbian, and they didn’t mean it as a compliment. The Tyrretts had watched her move in and kept their eyes open since but had not managed more than the odd fleeting glimpse. Miss Royal was a buyer in fashion for a large chain of department stores and not home a lot. ‘She has to travel a lot on business,’ Annie had explained to her sister. ‘But she finds it fascinating and loves it.’ ‘She never says a word to me, just shoots past.’ Not that she had done that lately either. Must have wings, thought sister. ‘Well, she does to me. On occasion. When she feels like it.’ ‘And she’s asked you to call her Caroline?’ ‘Oh, everyone does that now.’ ‘Does she call you Annie?’ ‘Sometimes,’ said Annie, unwilling to admit that Miss Royal never did. ‘Does she have a man up there?’ Annie blinked. ‘Well, I’m her landlady, not her keeper. So what if she does? She’s adult.’ Didi frowned. ‘Thought I’d ask.’ She drank some coffee. ‘What sort is he?’ ‘The usual sort, I suppose. Why?’ ‘He looks,’ she hesitated … ‘different. I saw him once.’ ‘Keep out of things,’ advised Annie. ‘She lives her life, let us live ours. Laissez-faire.’ A new phrase on Annie’s lips; she had left school too young and was now getting an education as a mature student. She knew who Metternich was, and Lord Palmerston, and had heard of Adam Smith. Annie was doing a course at the local university, the new one, upgraded from a polytechnic. She had a small grant which just allowed her to eat while she studied Law and History but the great plus was that Maida, her child, went to the university children’s group daily. She had read all about Marianna Manners’s murder even if she did not admit it. How could they think I was not interested in murder, I who know more about it than most. ‘I wonder if she’d talk to me if I went up,’ Didi speculated, more to see what Annie said than because she intended to try. ‘I need to talk to someone about fashion if I’m going in for drama. I haven’t got my image right.’ ‘She told me she specialized in fashion for the older lady,’ said Annie. ‘But you could try.’ That means don’t bother, assessed Didi. As if I was going to, anyway. The front doorbell rang. ‘Late,’ said Annie.’ I shan’t answer.’ She began to tremble. ‘Not that late. Depends what sort of life you have.’ The bell rang again. ‘I’m going to answer it.’ ‘Look out of the window first.’ Didi said: ‘Oh, it’s that man.’ She moved fast. ‘I’ll open the door.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Tash.’ Tom Ashworth. ‘What does he want so late?’ ‘Like I said: it’s not so late if your life is like that.’ Didi let him in, she had been looking forward to meeting him ever since Annie had told her that she had employed a private detective. She thought it was a waste of money but it certainly gave them status. No one else in her set had their own detective. Makes me up there with the Princess of Wales. Not that she’d boasted about it, of course, but she had certainly let the news creep out. Tom Ashworth was a tall, easy-mannered young man who must have used the gentleness to advantage in his work. Not quite as young as he looked, he was genuinely polite and did genuinely like people. ‘Saw your light on so I thought I’d pop in. I have something to report.’ ‘Oh, good. I mean it is good, is it?’ ‘I think it’s good news. Or most of it. You always get a mixture, don’t you? It’s how life is.’ He smiled at Didi who smiled back. Annie watched nervously, wondering if she ought to offer him a drink. Detectives drank, didn’t they? There was some gin and a bottle of aged sherry if it hadn’t dried up. Caroline liked gin, so she always kept gin and tonic in case Caroline came down here. ‘Would you like some coffee? Or something stronger?’ ‘Coffee would be lovely.’ ‘I’ll get it,’ said Didi. She went out to the kitchen, using her special stage walk. ‘So what’s the news?’ asked Annie. After the news would come the bill and she wondered if she would be able to pay it. ‘What do you want first… The good news or the bad?’ Didi was listening at the kitchen door as she heated the coffee. She liked him. ‘Well, I’ve checked out the Creeleys, the young ones, and they seem clear. Eddie anyway. No debts, credit is good, no record. And there is no reason to believe the boy is hanging around you to no good purpose.’ ‘He knows me,’ said Annie grimly. ‘Yes, he knows you, but I think you can stop worrying about him.’ ‘Here is the coffee,’ said Didi, swivelling in, hand on hip, mug of coffee in the other. ‘I don’t know why they’ve come back,’ said Annie, continuing with her grievance. ‘Eddie couldn’t settle in New Zealand, that’s the story. And he had the house, owned it, so he came back. You can’t blame him for that.’ ‘It was let to perfectly decent people.’ ‘You didn’t know them,’ said Didi in surprise. ‘That was what was decent about them,’ said Annie with feeling. ‘I didn’t have to know them. I have to know the Creeleys, they live inside me.’ Ashworth and Didi exchanged looks and Didi gave a little shrug. Tom Ashworth took his coffee from Didi before she spilt it. ‘Houses are important.’ Annie had seen the glance and resented it. She decided to give Didi a slap. ‘You ought not to bite your fingernails if you want to succeed on the stage.’ Tom looked at Didi appreciatively. You’re the sort of girl I’m looking for, his glance said. Both the sisters were pretty, with thick dark hair and blue eyes, but Didi did not have Annie’s perpetually apprehensive expression. She would not have frown lines on her forehead so soon. ‘Actress, are you?’ ‘No, not yet. No Equity card or anything.’ ‘She’s only just left school.’ Annie’s voice was sharper than she meant it to be: Didi’s chosen career was a source of friction between them. ‘She could be at a university, she got very good A-level results.’ ‘I will be at the university, in the drama department, and that will be working with the St Luke’s Theatre School when it’s set up.’ ‘Which it isn’t yet.’ This was the real rub. ‘Miss Pinero says it will be. Soon.’ ‘Pinero, Pinero, that’s all we here now.’ Annie turned to Tom. ‘And meanwhile she’s working in a Delicatessen shop selling brioches.’ ‘And coffee,’ said Didi, who knew how to needle her sister. ‘Not acting at all?’ Tom looked at Didi. ‘I’m auditioning for a part in an amateur production. It’s a kind of pre-run for getting a place at the drama school. Annie doesn’t realize how competitive it is. I’ve got to fight for a place.’ Didi shook her head. ‘Do anything.’ Tom looked at her admiringly. ‘Good for you.’ It was the sort of thing he might have said himself. ‘I seem to know the name Pinero … Isn’t she married to the chief of police here?’ The vagueness was professional discretion, he knew Stella Pinero, had acted for her but one did not mention one client to another. ‘Yes. Do you know him?’ ‘Not to say know. But in my business you run across the police so you have to know names at least.’ ‘Is that how you started out yourself … in the police?’ Tom did not like answering personal questions; it was the wrong way round. He asked, others answered. So he skipped answering automatically. ‘And the bad news—’ he turned to Annie—‘since you didn’t ask, is that Will Creeley has had a stroke and is being given parole, so Lizzie gets the same. She’ll be out. Probably out now.’ Annie had heard a rumour of this but had chosen not to believe it. ‘Going home? Back to Wellington Street?’ ‘Reckon she’ll have to. She isn’t going to live long, Annie, she’s no danger to you.’ ‘Yes, she is, you’ll see.’ Annie’s voice was a wail. ‘And what about him? Will?’ Now for the bad bad news. ‘He’s tucked away in hospital, can’t walk or talk, he’s in a worse state than she is. So they are both out. Natural justice, I suppose that’s the reasoning.’ ‘He’ll kill me,’ said Annie, white-faced. ‘He’s an old man now, Annie. I don’t think he’s a threat.’ Annie stood up, she could be as dramatic as Didi when she liked, and swept to the window. ‘There’s a murderer out there. A killer. Marianna Manners lived not far from here. It could be young Creeley. Family business. You say he’s not been hanging around. I think he has.’ Tom took a deep breath. ‘Well, maybe I haven’t been quite straight with you there. I think he’s looked around, seen the house. Even rung the doorbell.’ Annie stared at him. Tom turned to Didi. ‘Come on, Didi, you know the boy, don’t you? It’s you he’s after. And not to kill.’ Annie turned on her sister. ‘Is this true?’ ‘I told you I liked Eddie, he’s decent. He wants to act too. We rehearse together.’ ‘Good for you,’ said Tom. ‘I trust him,’ said Didi. ‘You can’t trust a Creeley. You’re a fool, Didi.’ Annie made a dramatic gesture with her hands. ‘You know what you’re doing, you two? You are talking to a woman who is dying. I am going to be killed.’ Tom made an opportunity to speak to Didi at the door. ‘Keep an eye on her.’ ‘Oh, she’ll be all right. She’s got her social worker looking after her.’ He considered. ‘Still?’ ‘I think he’s off the job, it’s personal now. He’s in love with her.’ ‘That’s not ethical.’ ‘What’s ethical? Life’s not ethical.’ Tom laughed. ‘You’re right there. What’s his name? I’ll look into it.’ ‘Alex Edwards. I don’t know his address.’ ‘I’ll find it.’ He saw she was more anxious about her sister than she wanted to admit. ‘Don’t worry too much, kid. I think your sister will have a long life.’ He was not in a position to be sure of this, who could be? But he wanted Didi to be happy. ‘She does get so upset.’ ‘Don’t we all?’ ‘Not you.’ ‘Me too. When I’m keen on something. Or I like a person.’ He smiled, and after a pause, Didi smiled. ‘I’m serious.’ As he drove away, he wondered if he ought to have told her to be careful with the Creeley boy. But that night be over-egging the pudding. He would seek a chance to have a word with the Chief Commander, John Coffin, and say something quiet. Go into one of the pubs he used and take his chance. Like a careful man, he had taken the trouble to run a check on the life and habits of John Coffin. Meaning him no harm, he told himself, but it is as well to know what you can. After all, he could say, I am looking for your sister’s missing daughter (although in my opinion the mother knows more about the child than she is letting on, and they just don’t want to meet for reasons all their own but which I intend to know) and I helped with your wife’s divorce and that was a fudged-up affair as I expect you know. Or didn’t you know? And as he drove, he said quietly to the traffic lights as they turned red: I have put my foot in that pool and I am not taking it out. CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_4c17bed0-a449-52cf-9d3b-50a5491927cb) Tuesday through to Wednesday. In Spinnergate Stella Pinero, as she went about her business for the next day or two kept a watch for her obsessive admirer. If that was what he was. Stalking a star, that was the phrase, wasn’t it? She seemed to be free at the moment. In her life she had been the object of passionate love, of jealousy, and of dislike. Even sometimes, almost harder to bear, of indifference. But there was something uncomfortable about being the object of an obsession. She considered what she knew of the figure in the shadows, Charley, she called him. There was never any attempt at contact. She had never been touched, had had no letters, never been sent a photograph, had no telephone calls. She had seen the man in the courtyard outside the St Luke’s Theatre after a performance. In the road outside St Luke’s Mansions, looking up, just the flash of dark glasses turned her way. Once she had seen him on the station at the Spinnergate Tube, but he didn’t get on the train with her. There may have been many occasions when she had simply not seen him. Certainly in the beginning, before she became alerted, there must have been such times. I am just watched. Perhaps admired, perhaps hated. At Coffin’s request she had made a list of the physical characteristics as she had had a chance to make them out. ‘Tell me all you can,’ he had said. ‘Every detail helps, just jot it down.’ So she had made a list. As much for her own comfort as for his. To make the observer observed took away some fear. So: a thin figure of medium height. A hat pulled down over the face. Dark glasses. Hands covered in gloves. Wears boots, and a wig. A secretive man. It came to a slim catalogue and not likely to help identify the man. She knew enough of her husband’s colleagues to know that they might suggest it was all her imagination. A fantasy blown up in her mind. They would not say so directly to John Coffin, but they had their ways of showing scepticism. She wasn’t sure, indeed, how much even her husband had believed her. He must be a secret man, but someone somewhere knew him and was protecting him. That was what they always said, wasn’t it? But perhaps no one knew this man’s face? I am having a hard time. I am frightened, she told herself. And that is a fact. My fear is a fact. So she looked about her as she went out and kept an eye on the street. She spent hours at a rehearsal of a TV series in which she was involved, she visited her agent’s office and signed a contract, she kept an appointment with her hairdresser in Beaumont Place. ‘You’re fidgety, love,’ said her hairdresser. He had known her for years, and had placed a signed photograph of her on the wall above the washbasin. He had other stage ladies there too. ‘Keep your head still or I can’t get the cut right.’ ‘Sorry, Kenny.’ Stella took a deep breath. ‘Bit on edge.’ ‘I can tell … Why not go downstairs and get some massage? Saw you on TV last night. You were lovely.’ ‘Oh, good.’ He was cheering her up deliberately and she knew it, but it was his pastoral skills as well as his brilliance as a cutter that kept his shop in Knightsbridge in the top league of hairdressers. Kenny watched her walk away (without having gone downstairs to his new and expensive health and fitness salon for a soothing massage of the neck and back). He watched her passage past the hatter’s window display and the jeweller’s boutique and the little couture house where royalty shopped, all with their flowered window-boxes and bright front doors, and shook his head. He had known her for years. That woman’s worried. Stella turned round to see him looking, she gave a wave, and stepped into a taxi. ‘Spinnergate,’ she said. ‘And don’t tell me it’s too far.’ One of the disadvantages of living in the Second City was that taxi-drivers complained about taking you there. Not safe, they said, or no fares back. But this one gave her a grin. ‘Lady, for you, anything.’ He leaned out of the window. ‘Saw you in Candida. Great acting.’ She had recently done a back to back couple of productions of Candida and A Doll’s House, first on TV and then taking them to St Luke’s Theatre on a wave of public interest to boost audiences. It had worked. ‘My wife liked it too,’ he shouted as he drove away. Well, that’s two of them that like me, thought Stella. Then she went home for a meeting with Letty Bingham and the rest of the committee which was setting up the Drama School, they would be discussing the constitution and the difficult matter of charitable status. And on the mat outside her door was the cat and the cat was sitting in a wreath of white roses. So he admires me this observer? And sends me white roses? Stella said to herself. By God, I’ll get him. I don’t have to be passive, I’ll go after him myself. Inevitably by this time the story that Marianna Manners had thought she was being watched had gone the rounds and Stella was told about it by Mimsie Marker as she bought a paper from the stall by the Tube station and by the chemist when she bought some aspirin. (And if ever a woman needed it, I do.) She had not heard about Annie Briggs’s similar fears. She had hardly any knowledge of the Creeley family. Murder is always noticed locally. People come to stare at the home of the victim, some take photographs. The media is always there, although they melt away as a new story breaks. The police take their time in measuring, photographing, and taking samples for forensic investigation. The body of the victim seems forgotten. Not in this case, however, since she had a beautiful and much photographed body and that body had been loved by a well-known MP. Used, said the local feminist organization, used and abused and finally sacrificed. This group of women who had a club room in Spinnergate admired Stella Pinero, deplored her marriage to John Coffin (A policeman, just think! She was better free!) and disliked Job Titus, MP. They were pretty libertarian, this group of Feather Street ladies, and did not advocate sexual austerity for men, women or beasts; they liked sex themselves, they just hated Titus’s way of going about it. They thought he was a coarse fellow. Coffin was soon made aware that the murder of Marianna Manners was not going to be an easy one to handle. The appearance of Job Titus on various TV news flashes, of Job Titus as he left his flat to go to the House of Commons or walked his dog in the park, reminded him of this even if he had felt like forgetting. Apart from anything else, Titus was demanding police protection from the harassment of the media while issuing threats of legal action if his name was mentioned as a suspect. Because of the sensitivity of the case, Coffin kept himself informed of all that went on in the Murder Room which had been set up in a church hall in Swinehouse on the border of Spinnergate, close to where she had lived and been murdered in the block of flats in Alexandra Wharf, near to Napier Street where Annie Briggs lived. There had been a good many changes in the Serious Crime Section in the last year or so as Coffin had worked through his senior police officers and weeded out the weaker members of the team by means of early retirement, sideways promotion, and in one case by death. The unit was now smaller but more efficient. Archie Young headed all important cases, and had taken personal charge of this one. It was important for Young as well as John Coffin, he was a very ambitious man. His wife, Alison, knew this trait and used her influence on him to moderate an open show of it. She was cleverer than he was and knew that ambition had to be masked. She valued her friendship with Stella Pinero which both of them used to communicate worries about their husbands and to put a brake on the men when it seemed wise. Both of them were convinced that without their efforts their spouses would be dead of overwork. ‘She was strangled and stifled but there was no rape, no semen traces, nothing like that … All the same, the pathologist thinks there might have been some sexual satisfaction involved.’ ‘Why?’ ‘He thinks the killer took his time about it, that’s all. Getting some kicks.’ ‘How does he know? About the going slow?’ It was not a picture he was going to cherish. ‘I don’t know. Something to do with the bruising, the flow of blood. Or perhaps he’s just guessing. Percy’s good at guessing.’ Professor Percy Peters had worked with them, on and off, for some years now. They knew him well enough to value his intuitions. He had been at it so long that he seemed to have developed a sympathetic link with both killer and victim. It was that or black magic, Young said, and he was a rationalist by long habit. Inside himself, he admitted that Percy could make his flesh creep. ‘Been turning up some things about her lifestyle. She was a good dancer and an actress as well, apparently they all have to do everything now, even a bit of singing. She was unemployed a lot.’ ‘Aren’t they all?’ Coffin had been well schooled in the politics of The Profession by his wife. ‘She took what work she could get.’ He paused. ‘Did a stint at Karnival in Ladd’s Alley.’ Coffin raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, the transvestite club. No evidence that she was into that, for her it was work. Or probably.’ He said probably because, unlike Percy Peters, he was no mind-reader and how could you know what went on inside people? Maybe Marianna had found it agreeable to dress up as a man. She was a tall, muscular girl and would have looked the part. Karnival was a club for those who wanted to dress up and dance. It also offered a cabaret. Fun, Fizz, Frou-Frou and Frolic, it advertised. It was well run and although probably seedy-looking in the hard light of day, in the evening managed to be most of the things it promised. ‘Ever been there, sir?’ ‘Yes, once. I was watching a female impersonator. He was good, the whole act was good, even I thought he was good and I knew who and what he was.’ He had had to arrest him, though, but for theft not for dressing up. ‘Of course, I think some of them get the most kick out of a man who doesn’t manage to look quite like a woman. Or a woman who doesn’t quite fit together as a man, however butch she is. The other sex still hanging out seems to give more of a thrill.’ ‘And that’s where Titus seems to have met her.’ ‘Good lord!’ Coffin breathed in sharply. ‘Now you have surprised me. What was he doing there?’ ‘He’s straight as far as we know.’ And the Special Branch usually did know that sort of thing and had been approached by Young. ‘He may be a bit of a voyeur. I think he visited for the hell of it. Just to look and pry.’ He didn’t like Job Titus. ‘Anyway, he picked up Marianna there. So maybe they both had something in common.’ ‘A lovely man.’ Coffin considered. ‘How did you get this?’ ‘Judy Kinnear, Special Branch. She keeps an eye on him, just in case. I knew she’d be on to whatever there is to know, it’s her job. And I’ve known her for years. Worked together once. Before she moved over to Special. Do you know her, sir?’ Coffin shook his head. ‘Know the name.’ ‘She looks like a hard-faced bitch, but when you get to know her she’s one of the best.’ ‘I don’t suppose Titus is a security risk?’ ‘No,’ said Archie Young regretfully. ‘Not much chance. He’s not in the government nor likely to be. He might be a killer, though.’ ‘Worth having a look round at Karnival. Marianna might have run into someone there who killed her.’ ‘Or she could have met a man anywhere and taken him home. Or it might be an old friend that we know nothing about yet. Or she might have been watched and followed, as she said. If Titus didn’t make that up.’ ‘Interesting that he was seen talking to young Creeley.’ ‘I’m told that the young Creeley is a reformed character and could never harm a woman. That’s the latest word on him.’ ‘The entry book is wide open,’ said Coffin, ‘and we don’t know the names of the runners.’ ‘She auditioned for a production at the St Luke’s Theatre; an amateur affair. Do you think Miss Pinero would know anything about her?’ They were all careful how they brought in Stella’s name; the Chief Commander had been known to be savage, and he was not a man whose bark was worse than his bite. ‘She has nothing to do with that production,’ said Coffin. ‘But I did ask her.’ He added: ‘I’m worried about her.’ ‘I had heard. Don’t you worry, sir. We won’t let anyone touch her.’ If there was an ‘anyone’ and it wasn’t Job Titus. Stella had said no, she had not been present when Marianna was auditioned, the producer of the play with a colleague from the Drama Department at the University had that task. A lot of hopefuls were coming to be auditioned because it was known a Drama School was being established and that this was a kind of pre-run. The news had been on the local radio, and she herself had been interviewed on Docks TV. In a time of recession it was good news. Yes, she was able to say all the groundwork had been done, the constitution of the school settled: it was to be registered as a charity, the Rector of the University was going to be one of the trustees, and Lady Barningham, another. The school had already been accepted by the local education authorities so students would be eligible for grants. Yes, they expected some mature students also. The name was going to be the Pinero School of Dramatic Art. Yes, they had the premises: the old Rectory of St Luke’s which had housed a private secretarial school, now defunct, would be converted. Later, they would build. ‘Might be a lot later,’ said Letty gloomily. She flexed her hands nervously, she had long delicate fingers which she loaded with rings. She favoured heavy smooth gold. ‘Money’s tight.’ Her gloom might have been entirely due to the economy but Stella knew her sister-in-law better. ‘No news about Elissa?’ ‘No, I am having an interview with Tash tomorrow and he’s going to report progress but from what he said on the telephone there isn’t any.’ ‘I am sorry.’ ‘I do miss her so, I loved her even when we quarrelled.’ A tear appeared in her eyes. ‘Here.’ Stella went across to the drinks table and poured out a gin. ‘Drink it up, mother’s ruin but I reckon it helps.’ Letty looked at the glass. ‘Is there any ice?’ ‘Oh, you Americans. Yes, I’ll get some.’ She came in with a bowlful of ice lumps and some sliced lemon. ‘I’ll have one with you. I don’t feel too jolly myself.’ ‘Your daughter? How is she?’ Stella’s daughter was in The Profession but had recently married. ‘She telephoned from Edinburgh this morning to say she is expecting twins. I can’t believe it. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I’ve only just got used to her being married.’ Letty dabbed the tears from her eyes and managed a grin. ‘Hello, Grandma.’ ‘Yes. I won’t be called Gran or Granny.’ ‘What will John say?’ ‘Grandpa?’ Their eyes met and they both began to laugh. ‘Serve him right for marrying a woman of my age.’ She was slightly, very slightly, older than her husband whom she had first met as a raw young detective, had loved, quarrelled with, and left. Only to meet him again and repeat the process. They had met for the third time and this time had married. It had to last. ‘He’ll probably be very, very pleased.’ ‘He’s lucky, very lucky, to have you,’ said Letty. ‘You keep him this side of sanity.’ ‘Oh, he’s very sane.’ ‘I don’t think his is a job you stay sane in, you see so much that’s corruptible and devious and horrible. I’ve seen him have terrible rages.’ ‘Not so much as he used to have.’ ‘They were nearly all inside, I don’t suppose he let them show. We’re a very odd family.’ ‘That diary,’ said Stella. ‘Exactly.’ A few years ago a diary kept by the mother of the three, John, Letty and brother William, had been discovered in an attic. It revealed a life even more full of lovers, strange adventures and alarming anecdotes than anyone had suspected. None of the three had memories of their mother, whose habit had been to see each child was looked after by someone else as she moved on. Moving on was her speciality. Letty had handed it over to Coffin to read and edit with the idea of publishing it. A film had been talked about. She might put money in herself. That was when she had money, she thought regretfully, that lovely liquid stuff. Stella had her regrets too. ‘I read some of it when there was this idea of a film. I wouldn’t have minded getting the part of Ma but I thought she was a liar. Did you believe it?’ ‘Believe, what’s believe?’ Letty nodded tolerantly. ‘But it was fantastic and a marvellous read. I thought: Well, if that’s my mother, I hope I have inherited some of her flair. She could live, that woman.’ ‘Several lives at once,’ said Stella. Letty leaned forward. ‘You know the thing I dread most … and it’s why I gave up the idea of a film: she might still be alive. She might be alive and come forward and say, That’s me. I began to have dreams, nightmares, in which she came back; she tapped me on my face and I woke up and there she was, standing by my bed. That was when the nightmare began.’ ‘I think John has a nightmare like that,’ said Stella. ‘Perhaps that’s why he married me.’ ‘No, oh no.’ Letty’s lips curved in a smile of great sweetness which yet echoed some expressions of her brother’s face. ‘He married you for one reason only: that he loved you and could not see life without you.’ Stella shook her head. ‘We all have our own nightmares, and mine is that one day he will say, Well, that’s it, Stella, sorry it didn’t work. Goodbye.’ ‘He’s worried about you at the moment,’ said Letty abruptly. ‘But he’s taking measures.’ ‘Yes, I’ve seen the patrol cars going past. But they can’t watch me all the time. One day I might go round a corner or get in a lift and there he is with a knife or a gun, and no one to stop him. And sometimes I have an even worse fear: that he horribly, terribly likes me.’ This time it was Letty who poured them both a strong gin. Then they turned to discussing the appointment of the Principal of the School of Drama for which they had several good candidates. It was not until Letty left that Stella went back to look again at the ring of white roses found on the mat before her front door. It was a small ring of blooms, more funeral than celebratory, with a chewed and torn appearance as if it had been about the world a bit. Tiddles the cat had been on it and may have been responsible for the depressing, even menacing look. As she took the roses in her hand, she thought: And they’re not even real roses. A card fell out on to the mat. A small old card which, like the flowers, looked as if this was not its first use. It said: LOVE. That evening, up the stairs in Coffin’s tower, she handed them over to her husband. He had an apron on and was in the kitchen. A pleasant smell as of savoury chicken greeted her. They had arranged to cook in turns and her husband was now doing his part. Even acting the part with his striped butcher’s apron. She guessed the food had come from a famous store which specialized in providing prepared food. She congratulated him, she would do the same. She did do the same, had been doing so for weeks. No good pretending that they were an orthodox domestic pair. Dinner was quiet and attended by both animals, cat and dog, who received their own bowls of food with suspicious pleasure. The cat had taught Bob to inspect what he ate before touching a mouthful in case it was poisoned and the dog had taught Tiddles to eat fast or the chap next to you in the feeding line might get it. ‘I shall be staying the night.’ ‘I should hope so.’ He was surprised it had to be mentioned. On the whole, their nights were spent in his tower. At first Stella had called it romantic, now she just called it home which he liked even better. The wreath of plastic roses rested on a bookcase by them. ‘I feel more nervous than ever. What can you do with the roses?’ He poured her some more wine and looked across at the wreath, sitting in a melancholy way as if it had a life of its own on the bookcase by the window where Tiddles often sat. ‘I don’t suppose the roses take fingerprints well, although you never know, but it shall go off for forensic examination.’ He drank some wine himself. ‘No one saw it delivered?’ ‘Who could I ask?’ said Stella. ‘Letty didn’t know anything.’ ‘People from the theatre … coming and going?’ Stella shrugged. ‘I’ll try. But I don’t think so.’ ‘Don’t worry too much.’ But he was worried himself. ‘But don’t you see, he’s coming closer. Closer. He knows my face and I don’t know his.’ ‘Come to bed. It’ll seem better in the morning.’ Stella smiled. ‘The nice thing about being married is that there is the morning as well as the night.’ Coffin traced his finger delicately down her profile. ‘You have a very charming nose, did you know it?’ Without warning he remembered the face of Marianna Manners, seen in the police morgue that morning. She too had a nice nose but one now suffused with dark colour. An actress, like his Stella, but not so talented or successful with her chewed fingernails. Trying, though, to justify her Equity card, taking whatever part she could get. ‘Did you ever hear of the Karnival Club?’ he asked Stella. Stella looked surprised. ‘Yes, I know about it. Why do you ask?’ ‘Marianna Manners had an engagement there. She was at the Karnival a week. It was where she met Job Titus.’ ‘I went there once,’ said Stella. ‘You did?’ ‘I was producing a play about a transvestite. I wanted to get it right.’ ‘Did it help?’ ‘So-so. The production was scrapped anyway.’ He wouldn’t question her now, but tomorrow, in the morning, he would get out of her the date and details of her visit. But he couldn’t resist one question. ‘What did you wear?’ She considered. ‘Well, it was work. I didn’t dress up.’ Hastily she added, ‘Not that way, or any way. It was summer. Jeans and a shirt, I think.’ One more question had to be asked now after all. ‘Which summer?’ ‘This summer. When it was hot, in June.’ This summer, not so long ago. Not too long ago for a person to have seen both Marianna and Stella. Damn, he thought. Damn and damn and damn. CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_1c61ab1f-e0f0-5eb9-9345-66e6d451e1af) Thursday. Down Napier Street Morning did not always bring joy. Annie woke up with a headache and a gut feeling of worry. ‘Always worse in the morning,’ she told herself. She battled against misery, always had, she was a fighter. Annie cleared away the breakfast and took her daughter to nursery school. Didi was still asleep, she seemed to use more than the average ration of oblivion. Annie couldn’t remember if she had been that way herself but she thought not. Sleep, surely, had been a commodity hard to come by after that episode in the garden. Moreover, there had been a generation change and it had happened between Annie and Didi, a matter of some ten years. Girls were different now. Her thoughts veered away to Caroline Royal. Caroline, the tenant upstairs, was someone she thought about often. As soon as Caroline had rented the flat, Annie had known she was going to be important in her life. There was something different about Caroline. Caroline’s flat at the top of Annie’s house was always beautifully in order but with an empty feeling to it, as if Caroline left nothing behind when she went out to work. It was hardly her home because she travelled so much. Perhaps Heathrow was where she really lived. Annie went up the outside staircase next day, the day after her conversation with Tom Ashworth. Didi was out doing whatever Didi did every day. She said she was working at Max’s Delicatessen near St Luke’s Theatre and much frequented by those acting at the theatre and their hopeful hangers-on who thought there might be an agent or a company scout drinking coffee and nibbling Max’s special almond brioches, but Annie doubted if she was there all the time. Annie had a key which she used so that she could see if any post was accumulating for Caroline. She had an address to which to send it and if she felt like it, she did so send it. Occasionally, if the place looked dusty she would give a quick flick round with a duster but she didn’t bother much. Caroline would not notice. One of the things that Annie had observed about Caroline was her relative in-difference to the appearance of where she lived and the freedom this gave her. Annie saluted her for all her freedoms. There was no post. Annie looked around. The flat felt empty but no one knew better than Annie that appearances were deceptive. She stood on the threshold and let the silence of the flat sink into her. ‘Caroline, Caroline,’ she murmured, half aloud. ‘Keep Charley tethered today. Don’t let him out.’ Is Charley a dog, Annie said sadly to herself, as she locked the door behind her and went down the stairs, that I must talk about him so? Annie went back to her sitting-room where she settled herself at the table with her books to do her essay of the week on the Treaty of Vienna. She was a slow worker, but thorough. Didi came back at lunch-time. She was late and tired. ‘Had a rush,’ she complained. ‘I had to help at the counter as well as the tables and my feet ache.’ She kicked off her shoes. ‘Can I get you something?’ ‘Some coffee if you’re making it,’ said Annie, her head still bent over her notes. ‘Can do.’ Didi padded off to the kitchen. The sisters were fond of each other and happy in each other’s company most of the time. ‘Why didn’t you stay to eat at Max’s?’ Annie called after her. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/gwendoline-butler/a-coffin-for-charley/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.