GWENDOLINE BUTLER

The Coffin Tree

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollinsPublishers 1994

Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1994

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

The Author asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780006490289

Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007545506

Version: 2014–07–04

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Keep Reading

About the Author

Author’s Note

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Prologue

The Coffin Tree grew in London’s Second City. The upper branches had been struck by lightning several years ago, a blow that would have killed some trees, but this one struggled on, putting its strength into its lower branches.

There were three great, thick, heavy branches, each one that could be cut down and made into planks.

No one owned the tree …

1

That hot summer when the old Docklands of London sweltered in the great heat and drought was talked of and people made jokes about the saint who sat on the gridiron, this was the summer when John Coffin walked his Second City of London and felt that life was unravelling about him.

He was seriously worried about the death of two young men, two detectives. The deaths were said to be accidental, but two accidents were two too many.

He walked and observed and distrusted far too many people; this was his burden at the moment, he was lonely and perturbed. Something had to be done and it was for him to do it.

When a new, smart and very expensive shop called Minimal opened in Calcutta Street which was the busiest street in Spinnergate, the locals didn’t know what to make of it.

Phoebe, who had inspected the area a week or so ago when she considered moving to London from Birmingham, had noticed the shop at once. It was in her nature to look over a district before she moved there (and she was almost certain that she would be doing so) and the Minimal shop caught her eye.

She was now moodily running over a rack of high priced shifts, watched by the manageress who wasn’t sure what she had in Phoebe. Rich lady incognito or shoplifter? That was Phoebe’s dark outfit with a large shoulder bag because she planned to stay the night.

Minimal certainly did not apply to the prices of the clothes sold there, she considered, wondering how many sales were made. It might describe the decor which was white and empty.

‘Not even a chair to sit on,’ as one of the girls from the chorus in the musical currently running at the Stella Pinero Theatre complained. ‘Not even a curtain to draw when you try on. Just that little bamboo screen which hides nothing … I don’t want everyone seeing me in my bra and pants for free … Let them pay and buy a ticket.’ The musical was not playing to full houses.

‘There is a curtain of sorts behind, Philly,’ said her friend, Eleanor. Eleanor Farmer was older than Phyllis Archer by a few months but they resembled each other in their long fair hair, blue eyes and neat footwork; not strictly pretty, they were good dancers. They were known as Ellie and Philly and regarded as almost twins; they always worked together if it was possible.

‘Net, net and full of holes.’

The holes were embroidered and pretty but you were certainly visible through them.

In spite of these drawbacks, both Ellie and Philly tried on several garments each with little intention of buying, although Ellie was tempted by a short tunic and flared trousers with a distinguished label, and Philly would certainly have bought the off-white Donna Karan body and skirt if she had not overused her credit card and been overdrawn at the bank.

But each of them bought a white cotton shirt, so they went out carrying the black on white Minimal carrier bag in triumph. The bags looked good slung over the shoulder.

It was a hot summer’s day and as they stepped outside, they sniffed the air. It didn’t smell so good, but little Londoners both, they were used to the strange city smells.

Still, this was richer and sharper than most.

‘Something’s burning, Philly.’

‘Something not nice.’

‘Nice when it was alive, maybe, but I think it was dead.’

‘Put your hanky to your nose, Philly, and run for that cab.’ Cabs were few and far between in this part of Spinnergate so you grabbed one when you could.

They barely noticed Phoebe but Phoebe noticed the two girls because it was both her habit and training to notice people.

‘They’re girls from the show at the Stella Pinero Theatre.’ The manager spoke somewhat nervously; she was a jumpy young woman, stylish but on the alert. ‘I recognized their names from the programme: Phyllis and Eleanor, they kept calling each other Ellie and Philly. I was at the show – I didn’t recognize their faces, of course, but you could tell they were dancers. Stella Pinero lives near here. Do you know her?’

‘Of her,’ said Phoebe. ‘I do indeed.’

‘I had Miss Pinero in here the other day.’

‘Did she buy anything?’

‘A silk shift.’ She nodded towards a display of three shifts, one blue, one yellow and one black; they looked good, you had to admire the professionalism and skill of the establishment. Which made it all the more surprising in Spinnergate which was not a rich, upmarket area.

Here in the Second City of London where John Coffin was chief commander of the police force, responsible for the keeping of the Queen’s Peace in the turbulent boroughs of Spinnergate, Leathergate, Swinehouse and East Hythe, the rich inhabitants (and there were such in the new expensive residences lining the old Docklands) drove to Bond Street and Knightsbridge to shop and the poor sped towards charity shops and the large department store in Swinehouse which held regular mark down sales.

‘That one over there, but in cream. She has wonderful taste.’

I bet, thought Phoebe. But I’d better not buy a cream shift. Not that she was going to.

‘The black would suit you.’

Phoebe fingered the thick, lustrous silk, taking in the price with some amusement: Stella might afford it, she wouldn’t. (Although she had heard that the Stella Pinero Theatre was not doing too well financially just now. But Stella herself had a TV series going and had been filming abroad. Money there, no doubt.)

‘I’m trying to cheer myself up before an important interview,’ she confided. ‘I thought if I found something really good, I could call it a happy omen.’

The manager studied Phoebe. ‘Would you wear it to the interview? Do call me Eden, it’s more friendly.’

‘No, I wouldn’t wear it, just a cheer up thing really.’ Phoebe studied her face in a long wall mirror; she didn’t look as good as she would like. She rubbed her cheek thoughtfully. ‘That your name? Unusual, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a family name. The other one is Brown, so you can see my mother thought I needed something livelier.’ Eden was a small, neat blonde with tiny hands and feet and big brown eyes, her olive skin suggested that the blonde hair was dyed.

Well done, though, Phoebe decided, and no roots showing. Phoebe was tall and slender but she had good muscles and was limber and athletic.

‘No, I wouldn’t wear it,’ she said, turning away from her image. ‘This is my interview gear.’

‘What about this dress?’ Eden came from behind a white screen with a plain linen dress. ‘This is anthracite grey.’ Her customer seemed to go for dark colours. She did not understand about the interview. What was she being interviewed for, for heaven’s sake? A funeral parlour? Surely something cheerful and strong was the best bet? ‘Very nearly black … I have it in tangerine, too.’ She pointed to a flame-coloured dress.

‘I like it,’ said Phoebe, ignoring the grey linen and going towards the flame-coloured one. She studied the label and assessed the price from that particular Milan designer.

‘Try it on.’ Eden knew that once a customer had tried on a garment you were that much closer to a sale.

Phoebe held it up against her. ‘No, I won’t do that … Tell you what – keep it for me.’

‘Well …’

‘I’ll put down a deposit, and if I get the job, then I’ll come back and buy it.’ Then she had another thought. ‘No, I’m going to take both. And I’m going to take them with me.’

She had no doubt she would get the job, for which she was highly qualified, and John Coffin was head of the force in which she would be working. He would be on the interviewing committee. They had once been close, very close, but that might mean he would feel obliged to be neutral. But there were other factors …

Still, she was tense.

‘And if you don’t get it?’

‘Oh, to hell with it!’

‘It’s unusual,’ Eden said doubtfully, thinking of her deposit. Who was this woman?

‘I’m an unusual woman.’

You can say that again, said Eden to herself.

‘No, I think I’ll get it,’ said Phoebe absently. She stared at herself in the looking glass again and moved her finger down her cheek. ‘Do you know, I think it’s swollen … I’ve got bad faceache.’ It might be more than toothache and that was why she was taking two dresses. She had to opt for life.

‘It’s tension.’ Eden was sympathetic. ‘I get red blotches all over my face when I’m tense.’ But she was still worried about the bill.

More tension than you know, Phoebe admitted inside her head as she held the dress against her. More than I’m going to admit to. Her mind made pictures; this tension comes in packets, personal packets named Phoebe Astley and a more formal packet labelled Job Description.

Inside both packets was the name of John Coffin because he came into both bundles.

In the past they had known each other well, too well, he might now think since his marriage. They had met recently in Birmingham where she had been working, heading her own small unit. The case he had been engaged upon then had been both personal and painful, she had helped him, he would be the first to admit, but they had walked carefully around their past relationship.

She didn’t know what truths and lies he had told but she had let him have more than her average number of lies. He was going to find out now; the matter would not come up at the interview session, of course, although she could imagine the amused, informed stare from his blue eyes as the matter of her married status came up. Nothing much would be said, he had probably long since checked that particular untruth anyway, but later, ah, yes, later … she would be asked questions.

The truth will out, she said to herself, although as a serving police officer she knew that it did not always do so.

The maddening thing was that he would understand, and might not laugh. He had a kind heart beneath the steel.

Stella Pinero was lucky and Phoebe hoped she knew it. She had heard that Stella had tantrums, but then she was a beauty and a celebrated actress, and was entitled to her tantrums; they came with the job. And for all Phoebe knew, Coffin enjoyed the tantrums, she could see he might.

He would certainly know how to control them; the man she remembered had known well how to give as good as he got. Except that love did hobble you and the word had reached her that he loved Stella extremely.

She was going up for this interview for a position which she truly wanted and which offered interest and great responsibility as well as some danger, and it wasn’t going to help that she had once been in love with John Coffin.

Once or still? Be quiet, she told herself.

She had her own reasons for leaving Birmingham upon which she would certainly be questioned at the interview but she had already settled on the half-lie. Later, to John Coffin, she would have to be more truthful.

Phoebe dug into her shoulder bag. ‘I’ll give you a cheque, all right?’

‘Sure.’ Eden added cautiously. ‘Make it a third; please.’

‘No, I’ll pay for the two. How’s the shop doing?’ Phoebe was writing her cheque; she was calculating, a substantial sum by her standards.

‘Fine,’ said Eden. She was of the opinion that this was entirely too personal a remark. ‘We’re opening a branch in East Hythe next month.’

‘Is that so?’ Phoebe handed the cheque over and waited for her receipt. ‘How many does that make?’

‘Three. One other in Swinehouse. Horrible name, isn’t it?’

‘You don’t live locally?’ You couldn’t if you hate the name that much; full of history that name is, even Phoebe knew that. Pre-Norman, pre-Saxon and probably pre-Roman.

‘No, I drive through the tunnel. Still Docklands, though.’

The new Thames tunnel joining London north of the river and the Second City was a great link; Phoebe had driven through it herself this morning, fighting traffic all the way and had thought it a great death trap with poor lane discipline, but that was Londoners for you. A lawless lot. Still, no one dead by the roadside that she had seen.

‘I’ll be looking for a place if I get the post. What’s it like round here?’

‘Can be expensive. Depends. Spinnergate’s your best bet. I’ll be looking there myself soon. I’ll be looking for a lodger too; we might suit.’

‘I’ll remember what you say.’ I’ll remember everything. I usually do, it’s my job.

She rubbed her cheek. The pain in her cheek was not really bad but it contained just the hint that if could get to be nasty and that worried her. She knew she had cause for worry. There was pain and pain, and this could be a bad one.

Outside, a church clock sounded the hour. Forty minutes to her appointment. Just time to drive and park the car and take three deep breaths. She had reconnoitred the route earlier and knew where to go.

She smiled at Eden as she pushed the heavy glass door. ‘See you again.’

‘The dresses suit you. You’ll enjoy wearing them, I promise.’

Phoebe paused at the door. ‘Can you smell burning?’

Eden sniffed. ‘It’s some way off. Sort of strong, though. There’s an old chap round here has a lot of bonfires. And he’s not the only one.’

Albert Waters had had one fire already today, possibly that was what they could smell?

‘If I didn’t know better,’ began Phoebe, then stopped. ‘What does he burn?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ If I didn’t know better, then I would say it was flesh burning.

Phoebe walked to her car, parked just around the corner, this spot too had been prospected earlier; she sat still for a few minutes recalling the scene behind her, remembering Eden, the shop with its contents, and the outside in that busy street. On one side there was a grocery store and on the other a chemist’s shop: both old stores but with a certain prosperity. Further down the street was a bank, and a pet shop where a small white puppy slept in the window. He had a basket, a cushion, a bowl of water and a few hard biscuits. Phoebe had hoped that someone would buy him soon; it was no life for a dog in a hot window.

She fixed Eden in her memory: the pretty blonde with the small hands and feet, and the big ego. She felt sure about the ego. Once inside Phoebe, all these details would be there for ever, and would pop out whenever required without effort on her part. Press the button, the right button, and out it came. It was the way her memory worked.

Having fixed it all, Phoebe started the car and drove away. The car window was open so that the smell of burning came into the car and drove away with her. The smell bothered her.

Mortuaries burnt odds and ends of human remains, so did hospitals, but she had studied her map and there was no hospital near here.

It had been a quiet, ordinary shopping day; both women if questioned would have so described it, but there is always a subtext.

Eden took the opportunity of an empty shop to make a local telephone call. She dialled the number and hung on for some time waiting for an answer.

‘Oh, come on, Agnes. Where are you? Two days I’ve been ringing you and you know we need to talk.’ She went away to make herself a cup of coffee. ‘You do flutter around, Agnes, just when you ought to stay put.’ The two women were business acquaintances rather than close friends; they worked for the same organization, but Eden liked Agnes Page. ‘Probably popped over to Paris without telling me to look for clothes.’ Or New York or Milan or Hong Kong. This was fantasy as all the clothes were purchased by the buyer, a hirsute woman with blue hair and long red nails who had been in the rag trade for decades and Agnes was on the accounts side, but it was a game they played between them, that one day, they would open a shop and buy from all the best houses. You needed a fair bit of capital for such a venture. ‘Money, money, money,’ hummed Eden as she drank her coffee.

On her way to her crucial interview, Phoebe wound up the car window to keep out the smoke.

The fire was burning and the smoke was blowing John Coffin’s way.

He felt the fire too. There had been a fire in his life for a few weeks now, and on the day of Phoebe Astley’s interview for a job in his force, he began talking about it openly to a group meeting in his room.

They were the interviewing board being entertained for drinks and coffee, all carefully selected men and women.

They would be interviewing the shortlist of three candidates.

He poured out drinks, letting his eyes wander out the window, wide open because it was so hot.

The Second City of London shimmered in the heat. In the distance was the river, but all he could see was the roofs of Spinnergate with – far away – the tower blocks of Swinehouse, and beyond, the factory tops of East Hythe.

For some years now, John Coffin had been chief commander of the Second City’s police force, responsible for maintaining law and order in this most difficult and rowdy of cities with a millennium-long tradition of being obstructive to authority. The Romans had suffered from its citizens as her legions had landed at the dock now being excavated by the archaeologists from the New Docklands University, digging up camp sites where the soldiers had been gulled and robbed by the locals. The English folk who settled when the Romans went picked up the same tricks and became as bad, worse really, because, being English, they kept a straight face and made a virtue of it. Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor: this part of London was not controllable, it kept its own laws. They withdrew behind the walls of London and its tower and left the villages and hamlets along the river to get on with it. And, with the river for their thoroughfare, so they did.

With every generation, the population grew, so that by the time Victorian notions of morality arrived, there was a dense population obstinately reluctant to be evangelized.

The hot air came heavy with the smells of the living and the long dead that came floating in through the window and hit Coffin in the face. He hoped he wasn’t going down with one of the odd viruses which were on the move in the Second City this summer. He couldn’t afford to be ill with Stella in the state she was in over her theatre (or was it his sister Letty’s theatre? It had been Letty who had helped put together the St Luke’s Theatre complex, now renamed the Stella Pinero Theatre).

He handed round the drinks: whisky with ginger – he ought to shudder and his Edinburgh half-brother – lawyer William – would certainly do so, but it seemed to be what Alfred Rome wanted.

‘Sir Alfred.’

‘Ferdie, please.’

Sir Alfred, Ferdie to his friends, he must remember that, was the warden – he preferred the title to vice chancellor or president – to the very new university tucked away in the east of the Second City, in the Bad Lands, not hitherto considered educable, but no doubt Ferdie Rome would change that. He was of the new breed, educated at Ruskin College, Oxford, then at Birkbeck College in the University of London, then a short period in the Cabinet office. The unusually rapid promotion suggested to Coffin that this was a political appointment, which made Sir Alfred all the more formidable. Tough, square-shouldered and completely bald in his late thirties, he looked fit for anything. Coffin now had two universities in his area and had to protect both from the rebels and the lawless.

Coffin carried two glasses across the room to where two of the women, Jane Frobisher, banker, and Professor Edna Halliday, economist, stood talking. Edna’s stocky figure was in skirt and shirt but Jane, usually impeccable, was wearing a long-sleeved silk dress – she looked hot.

‘Jane, gin and tonic; Professor, white wine.’

Three other members of the group were senior policemen, two from this force: Chief Inspector Teddy Timpson, CID, and Superintendent William Fraser, from the uniformed wing, and the third. Chief Inspector Clare Taylour, from the Thames Valley. The extra figure, there to keep the balance, was a figure from the outside world, a journalist and barrister: Geraldine Ducking. When you said outside world, that was with reservations because Geraldine came from a family deep rooted in the old Docklands. It was for this reason Coffin had called her in. Geraldine was the tallest and largest woman there, but she dressed well, so that her size was unnoticed, and she had small, neat hands and feet.

Clare Taylour had refused wine and spirits and was drinking mineral water; she was a calm, forceful woman who intimidated most people, but not John Coffin, who had known her for years. Today she had a bandage wrapped round her ankle and was limping. ‘We’re all walking wounded today, look at Geraldine and Jane – she says she’s been sunburnt.’

Coffin carried whisky round to all the others, including Geraldine whose favourite tipple it was, she was a self-proclaimed deep drinker, but managed to stay remarkably sober. She was also one of the cleverest people Coffin had ever met. She held out her hand, on her arm was a dressing. ‘Wasp bite,’ she said.

Among this group of people were some of his closest friends and colleagues; outside of Stella and his sister Letty, these were the people he liked and trusted.

And there had been Felix, the happy man, aptly named. Twenty-eight years old, ambitious but friendly, and now dead.

Dead for a month. One young friend gone by violence.

He looked round at them: Sir Alfred he knew less well but he was beginning to enjoy the sight of that sturdy figure always wearing what looked like, but surely couldn’t be, the same suit and the same grey suede boots. He had small feet and delicate hands. Jane Frobisher, talking away with her usual animation, but she did not seem as happy as usual in her lovely clothes that Coffin, under the tutelage of Stella, could recognize as couture. Of course, bankers earned that sort of money, even in these days of recession. Professor Edna Halliday, by contrast, looked as if she had got out of bed and put on whatever was to hand. Skirt and striped shirt were clean but creased, her hair pinned back with a casual hand so that bits of it were escaping. But it would be wrong, he thought, to describe her as unattractive. On the contrary, she was full of life and humour and he knew for a fact that she had a string of lovers, usually two at a time. He had never been invited to be one himself (the list was by invitation only), she liked them younger, much younger. This did not seem to be held against her by other women and she got on with everyone. Clever lady.

You never noticed what Clare Taylour was wearing and that was probably part of her own skills and why she was such a success as a detective.

The two policemen had the right anonymous clothes as well, although Teddy Timpson was young enough to wear a sharp tie. Fraser was in uniform and putting on weight.

Coffin felt sympathy there; his hand strayed to his own waistband. Marriage seemed to be fattening; accordingly, Stella had put him on a starvation diet. He didn’t get enough exercise, that was the trouble.

Coffin was on the committee but would not be chairing it; that task fell to Teddy Timpson. He would also withdraw when one of the candidates whom he knew appeared.

‘Important looking lot, aren’t we?’ said Sir Ferdie jovially. For such a tiddly little job – he did not say this aloud but Coffin could read his thoughts.

‘I’ve been lucky to get you all,’ he said. ‘But it’s an important job, more important than it looks.’

An innovation of his own. The officer appointed would have the rank of chief inspector or superintendent, according to age and experience, and would liaise with all the important institutions in his bailiwick.

There was too much what Coffin called ‘loose crime’ floating around.

The unit would be small but hand-picked.

As had the committee been; it had been carefully put together whether the members knew it or not. At least one of them was beginning to suspect and to wonder if acceptance had been wise.

‘You ought to look after us, though,’ said Sir Alfred, ‘important we may be, healthy we are not. Now there’s me, on tablets for my blood pressure, there’s Geraldine who’s had collagen injections –’

‘Oh, surely not.’ Geraldine was not famous for her beauty but she had kept what looks she had and glowed with health. Coffin hoped she could not hear what was being said. Geraldine was younger than the other women there, in her early forties, whereas they were in their fifties. She had the careless charm of someone who always got her own way. She was generous, cheerful and interested in men. She had made one careful advance to the chief commander, more as an experiment than anything else, but she had not been annoyed when he did not respond. She was younger than the others but a little bit older than she admitted.

Coffin knew all the ages. Among other things. ‘Oh yes, I recognize the shine. And one of us has just had an operation for cancer and we’re probably all on tranquillizers. Not you, of course.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘By keeping my eyes and ears open. You ought to do the same.’ Perhaps I do. Coffin thought, perhaps I do. I don’t know everything, but I always know something – that’s my job.

Years as a detective had made him observant of friends and foes alike. It was automatic with him. For instance, he had seen Sir Alfred travelling to London from Oxford (where they had both been attending the same conference) on a second class ticket in a first class coach. Naughty or just absent-minded? He had seen Geraldine entering the block of buildings in East Hythe which housed a doctor, a solicitor and on the top floor, an inquiry agent.

Josh Armer, the solicitor, was not the most respectable lawyer in the business and was friend to more criminals than Coffin cared to think about. Professional friend, of course, Josh always sent in a bill. The phrase ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’ might have been invented for him. A plump, gently spoken man, Josh was a classical music fan and supposed to be an expert on Rachmaninov.

Arabella Hammer, the female inquiry agent upstairs, was his equal and they were reported to be lovers.

Then he had remembered that Josh Armer belonged in this district, one of the families that had lived here for decades in a vast kindred. There weren’t so many of them left now, but they popped up occasionally. Geraldine’s family was such another.

You had to remember that some of these dockland areas were like villages where kids married to live near mum, just as mum and dad had in their generation. There was a lot of intermarrying and probably a bit of incest as well. Such a way of life was dying out of course, but pockets still remained. Kindred loyalty went back to the Anglo-Saxons and earlier, when an eye for an eye meant just that.

‘What’s the name of this new unit?’ asked Sir Alfred, examining his papers. ‘Seems to have escaped me.’

Coffin let his eyes flicker round the room before he answered. Teddy Timpson had married a local girl and that meant he was sometimes biased. The trouble with being a detective was that you automatically suspected everyone of having secrets.

Especially when you had one or two yourself.

Coffin said, ‘The provisional name is Unit AN, but it hasn’t got a settled name yet,’ he went on. ‘Perhaps the committee can think of one.’

‘Leave that to Geraldine, shall we?’ said Ferdie. ‘She’s the word girl.’

‘Long time since I was a girl,’ called Geraldine over the top of her whisky, ‘but thank you for the name.’ She took a swig of her drink, but actually, as Coffin observed, drank very little. ‘When are you going to let me have a look at your mother’s memoirs? I could make a lovely TV series out of them.’

He laughed. ‘That’s what worries me.’

‘What a lady!’

A lady, in the genteel, white gloves and carrying-a-handbag style, his mother had never been, thought Coffin. A wanderer, an adventurer, and several-times-married lady, probably several times a bigamist and probably a liar into the bargain, leaving behind three abandoned siblings who only discovered each other late in life. There was John Coffin himself, his beautiful sister Letty and industrious William in Edinburgh and goodness knew who had sired him.

‘I think Stella wants to get her hands on it.’

‘I bet she does … Where is she now?’

Coffin hesitated. ‘In New York at the moment …’

‘I thought it was Spain.’ He saw the glitter in her eyes which was not drink nor sympathy. ‘It was Spain.’ Damn you, Geraldine, for being so well informed. ‘But she flew straight on to New York.’

He let them linger with their drinks for one more minute, then he caught Teddy Timpson’s eye and nodded. Time to begin.

Round the table, they shuffled the papers in front of them. Why did a committee always fidget? But they always did, some worse than others; this lot were moving the papers as if they were about to play a hand of cards with them … In a way they were – poker – but they didn’t know it.

‘We have three candidates, whom we will see in alphabetical order,’ began Chief Inspector Timpson. ‘Two men and one woman.’

He had their names in front of him: Simon Daly, from the Met, a very strong record and destined to go high; James Wood, who was from his own force, ambitious, pushing, a difficult character but able.

And Phoebe Astley.

‘The woman is good,’ he had said to Timpson. ‘She was doing a very fine job where she was. I was surprised when she put in. She deserves serious consideration. You’ll know when you see her.’

And that is where I will go out, Coffin nodded to himself, partly because I know Phoebe – she is a friend and for a time was more than that so I don’t want to seem prejudiced – and partly because I am absolutely determined she is chosen.

And also because I have fixed it that you will, Phoebe.

I want you here, Phoebe, and I want you now.

He looked across at Teddy Timpson who stared back. Both of them were skilled at communicating without words. They were both remembering a conversation that they had had earlier in the month, and behind that conversation was a train of events which explained why he wanted Phoebe on his team.

He had spoken to Teddy Timpson two weeks ago. Not a man with whom he felt wholly at ease or wholly safe. He had a lot to tell him; information that Timpson had to be told, but all the same, Coffin had edited it carefully. Placed as he was, at the top of an uneasy pyramid, he kept a lot quiet inside him. Some topics were hotter than others.

Security, for instance, where he was in communication with various government agencies. Sometimes he was obliged to pass on all he learned to the responsible units in his force; at other times, he kept details to himself.

For a few months now he had had meetings in the old City of London with a committee made up of men from the Treasury, the Bank of England, the City of London, the Inland Revenue and the hard boys from Customs and VAT, a man from Scotland Yard and Coffin; the major clearing banks were represented also.

The committee was called the Resources (Police: London) Committee – RPC for short – and a man from the Treasury kept the minutes, in his head presumably, since no one ever saw them again. Too secret. Coffin made his own notes of what went on. There was never an agenda, the Chair, Althea Adams from the Bank of England conducted the meeting in her own terrifying way.

The resources of the three London Forces, the Met, the City of London, and his own, it did not discuss. Money, it did.

They were a group of men of influence and power who were really looking into what one member called ‘dirty money’.

Coffin found these meetings, which took place at irregular intervals and in different rooms, both stimulating and alarming. He enjoyed meeting all the trained, tough-minded professionals.

Earlier in his career, he would have found them intimidating, products as they were of schools and universities he had never entered; the Treasury man, Winchester and New College (of course); the two men from the clearing banks, Eton and Trinity, Cambridge (again, of course) and Althea, Cheltenham Ladies College, Girton and Harvard (this time, not of course, but predictable). Now he took them as he found them: clever and hard-working.

Besides, he had done his homework: he knew that Althea had a sick child whose care preoccupied her, that the Treasury mandarin was about to divorce his wife, and one of the men from the clearing banks had just come through a gruelling treatment for cancer.

He hadn’t been able to get much about the Inland Revenue and Customs chaps, which he regretted because he suspected them of being the prime agents behind this committee.

What the committee made of him, he did not examine, but he kept quiet and took it all in. He was not surprised at his own self-confidence, but he did remember the thin youth with the dark hair who would once have been ill at ease in such company. Anyway, what could they have said of him? There’s John Coffin who’s having a bad time with his missus?

It was with all this in his mind (and when he already knew that Phoebe would be up for the new job), that two weeks ago he had suggested that Teddy Timpson meet him for a drink in the pub near Spinnergate tube station, a comfortable establishment too far away from police headquarters to be used by the local coppers. He sat waiting in the Black Dog where they had no air conditioning on this hot day so that the ice in his glass was melting fast. It was not like DCI Timpson to be late, he was a brisk and cheerful man.

But he found himself glad of the quiet time. It wasn’t the best of days. He was alone in his home in the tower of the old St Luke’s church, now converted into the three flats with the theatre complex adjacent. Stella was away, filming in Spain, leaving him in charge of the cat and the dog. The dog, Bob, who answered to any name and the cat, Tiddles, who never answered at all unless it suited, were his sole companions.

His sister Letty was in Scotland visiting brother William, probably with a view to extracting some money from him for her reeling property empire. She’d be in for a disappointment there, he thought, as William was a tight man with money. Still, it would be an interesting meeting – Greek joining battle with Greek. On the whole, he backed Letty but you could never be sure.

Then, like someone probing a sore tooth, his mind went back to Stella. She had telephoned from the airport in Madrid to announce she would not be home just yet, love, but was flying into New York, stop-over in Paris.

Not even Heathrow, London, he had noted glumly, as if she couldn’t bear to be on the same island. And to be called ‘love’ – that was bad, very bad. No one really close to Stella was ever called love in that way; it was what she called a fellow actor for whom she had small regard, or a bad director.

What had he done? Or not done? They had parted on warm, even passionate terms; he remembered it well, that night before she left, now it had all gone cold.

He would find out in the end; Stella never kept anything to herself when she was angry which he had to suppose she was, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He didn’t enjoy these ups and downs with Stella. He had thought all that sort of thing was in the past, when, God knew, they had enough of them. They had met when young, too young probably, loved and parted, met again briefly before moving away from each other, and then coming together when his sister Letty had created her St Luke’s Theatre complex.

Happy ever after, he’d thought. He watched Teddy Timpson come through the door.

‘Sorry, sir. Got held up.’ The man looked flustered and hot.

‘Have a drink before you say another word.’

‘Thanks … lager, please.’

Teddy didn’t drink a lot, unlike some of his colleagues, but he probably had other vices. ‘I got held up. A double stabbing in Cock Street, in the Little Cockatoo pub.’ He drank thirstily. ‘It’s always been a bad place … it’s the landlord.’

‘Stabbed?’

‘No, he did it. His wife and the barman, they were having it off and he found out. Well, he always knew, I reckon, but only took off today. I blame the weather.’

‘At least you’ve got it tied up.’

‘Not on your life: he denies it, says some man walked through the door and knifed them both.’

‘Where was he?’

‘Hiding in the cellar.’

‘What about the knife?’

‘We can’t find it. And no witnesses, the pub was empty.’

‘Is that likely?’

‘It is round there,’ said Timpson gloomily. ‘They know when to run. Anyway, he had a bright idea, he set the place alight.’ He lifted his sleeve to his nose. ‘I still stink of smoke.’

‘Did the whole place go up?’

‘No, no, he didn’t make a good job of it.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, it wasn’t a bad idea. Fire does destroy.’

‘I’ve said a bit already as regards what I want to talk to you about. I won’t procrastinate any more.’

‘Yes,’ said Timpson cautiously. ‘You’ve said a bit. Not a lot.’ Procrastinate … He’s an intellectual, my guvnor; he doesn’t know it, but he is. Timpson thought about an earlier chief who might have said: This is the business, boys. Or, in a jokey mood: Up boys and at ’em.

‘It’s about the new unit.’

‘Yes, the one that’s going to be liaising with all City institutions and all police units as well.’ The word was that there wasn’t much money and it was going to have to work hard. ‘A political invention to keep critics happy,’ was what someone had said. ‘It’s going to be smallish, isn’t it?’

‘Money,’ said Coffin, then sat thinking about how he should put it to Timpson, whom he had used before as a go-between because Timpson’s negotiating skills were well known. ‘Money’s short.’ He had every reason to be thinking about money. At the back of his mind, not to be discussed now with Chief Inspector Timpson, was a big money problem. He would be seeing Archie Young, now CID supremo, later.

Timpson waited. Money came in everywhere. Who knew better than he did?

Coffin looked at Timpson, wondering what the gossip was and how much he knew. ‘There’s quite a lot going on at the moment.’

Timpson kept a careful opaque look on his face.

‘You guessed?’

‘Word has got around.’

Coffin nodded. Thought as much.

Timpson was cautious enough to say nothing more: if he hadn’t been told, he wasn’t to know. He knew how to be blind, deaf and dumb when he had to be.

‘This unit needs the right top man. Or woman. I think it ought to be a woman, I’ve worked with her before and I think she has the right qualities. You are chairing the committee and I will withdraw when she is interviewed, seems fairer.’

What’s fairer got to do with it, thought Timpson. ‘Sure,’ he said aloud. ‘Of course, we have to consider all three candidates.’

‘Of course we do.’

They seemed to be understanding one another and Coffin was satisfied. ‘Have another drink?’

‘My round.’ It gave Teddy Timpson an obscure pleasure to buy a drink for the chief commander whom he both liked and found alarming. He cast around for something to say that would end the meeting on the right note. ‘Saw Miss Pinero on the telly last night,’ he came up with. ‘She’s brilliant.’

‘Brilliant,’ agreed Coffin with a tight smile. He knew he had got what he wanted. He stood up. ‘I must go. Another appointment.’

‘They’ve done excellent work,’ he said to Superintendent Archie Young just an hour later on this same day, two weeks before the crucial committee for Phoebe. They were in his own home in St Luke’s Mansions; in his flat, not Stella’s, which was on the ground floor. They still kept the two going which was perhaps one of their mistakes. Didn’t happily married people live under one roof? Or did you only meet the survivors? From Coffin’s tower he could see over all his turbulent territory, make out the roof of his headquarters where a new floor had been planted on top of the building, not adding to its beauty but certainly providing much needed space. And if he tried hard enough, he could see the top of one of his new universities and one of the hospitals – the big new Second City General Hospital. When he looked out, he tried to admire the charm of what he saw and not think about the terrible responsibility that they represented.

‘You have to hand it to the blokes who trail through financial records and know what’s going on.’

‘More so when equally clever minds are doing their best to hide it.’

Archie had climbed the career ladder quickly: the next promotion, already in line, would make him chief superintendent. He was clever, and sensible enough not to be too clever; a steady, reliable man.

‘It’s their job,’ said Coffin, without much admiration; they had landed a mess on his lap.

They had talked about this several times before, but always in this unofficial way. At the moment, since Stella was in New York (or so he believed), and Archie Young’s clever, high-flying wife was absent on a course in Cambridge, they were eating together. A modest meal sent in from the local fish and chip shop which did a splendid order and deliver service.

Coffin handed out the chips and fish which they were eating in his kitchen. In his youth, in that far away and long ago London, he would have eaten out of the newspaper but he graduated long since to the white porcelain which had been chosen, and not by Stella, and to pouring out some red wine which was about the only thing that stood up to fried cod. (Once it would have been a pot of strong tea, and still was for many and why not?)

‘I had a session with Teddy Timpson today. He was agreeable.’

‘He usually is.’

‘Yes, no trouble there. I think we’ll get the right head for this little unit.’ Even to Archie Young who knew so much about him by now, he was careful about naming Phoebe. People could tell a lot about the way you spoke of a person.

And there is always a hidden agenda, the subtext.

‘By the way, your own promotion has gone through. You’re up, Archie, but keep quiet for the moment.’

Archie Young allowed himself a flush of pure pleasure and wished he could smoke, but the Coffin establishment was a No Smoking house. Coffin did not go back to the main subject of their meeting until they had almost finished.

John Coffin commanded a police force small by the standards of his big brother the Metropolitan police force which towered over him; small by the standards of some of the big north country forces; he knew that the Met joked about the Toy Town City force but he could afford to ignore that now because he was feeling his own powers.

Rivals and even friends had expected him to fail, but he had built up a very good set of teams from the mixture of local units he had inherited. He had created his own promotion panel which he watched over while allowing it independence. But he had seen to it that the weaker officers were weeded out and clever, hard-working men like Archie Young got fast promotion. He had men and women around him now that he both trusted and liked. ‘I’ve kept you up to date: it seems that drug profits and other illegal monies are being fed into British banks. The powers that be …’ even to Young he did not name them. That might come later, but he was still bound by an oath of secrecy, ‘… are worried that it could damage the whole banking system.’

‘Money’s money,’ said the pragmatic Young.

‘Apparently not. Might seem so to you and me but the City says not …’ The City in this context meant the bankers and financiers of the First City of London, the money establishment. ‘We seem to have been given a special part. It looks as though a group of banks here in the Second City have been targeted. I suppose they thought we’d be grateful. They had us down for a collection of innocents.’

Young accepted this silently for a moment, then said: ‘I bet I could name the banks.’

‘I bet you could.’

They had three banks whose origin was far flung and international, but which gave a good rate of interest on savings and so were much used by the small depositors of the Second City.

‘Not only us, of course. The cash is being spread around widely, and as I’ve let you know, action is being taken.’

‘Sure.’

‘But it’s up to us to clear out our own little pigsty … A lot of the money is being laundered here.’

Archie Young chewed a bit of cod which was unexpectedly solid; he could see the cat eyeing him hopefully. ‘Acting on your instructions …’

‘And your own wits,’ said Coffin quickly.

‘And my own wits,’ went on Archie, ‘I’ve had a couple of men out there working on it.’

He put his fork into his food and began to stir it round as if he didn’t see it at all but something quite different.

‘It’s been a tough game to play, John.’

The use of his name, so rarely used even between the two friends, was significant.

‘Yes, it hasn’t brought them luck.’

Two men, two deaths.

Felix Henbit who had died of an overdose of sedatives and drink. Suicide? Or accident? No one could believe in the suicide.

Mark Pittsy who had died in a car crash.

Apparent accidents, both of them.

‘Rotten luck,’ said Archie, ‘some cases are buggers.’ He shook his head. ‘You get a run of accidents like that sometimes and I hate it.’

‘We have a problem, Archie,’ thought Coffin, but he did not say it aloud. Instead: ‘I’m not happy.’

‘Who could be?’

‘Felix Henbit had a wife.’ He made it a statement; he had liked Felix but kept his distance.

‘Yes, likewise Pittsy; not long married. Also a sister in Cleveland who seemed a bit remote.’

‘I’d like to meet Mrs Henbit.’

‘I think you should. She’d appreciate it, a nice girl who’s bearing up well. All the usual support groups have been in touch to see how she was getting on.’ Mary Henbit had been bleeding inside but hadn’t let it show too much.

‘I’ll get round there.’ He might take Stella if she ever came home again which he sometimes doubted. She was good on such occasions, other women liked her.

Coffin looked down at his plate of chips. Not my mother, vanishing lady, my mother, you’d be home alone. She’d be long dead now. Or was she? His mother seemed just the sort to read you could live to be a hundred and sixteen and decide to do it. He pushed his plate away; the chips didn’t appeal so much.

The two men talked for a while longer, then Archie Young went off – still flushed with the news of his promotion, and wishing his wife was at home so that he could tell her – soon after the meal was finished. Promotion had come very quickly; he knew he owed a lot to the chief commander, but he also knew he was a good officer.

He didn’t have the older man’s imagination, and sometimes he thought the Big Man let the parameters of his imagination spread a mite too far. He was thinking that now.

Coffin had not told Archie Young all his thoughts even though he trusted him. He never did tell anyone everything. He had seeded the corn and must now await events.

Later, on the day of her interview, while Phoebe prepared herself for it and then went through it and got a hint of her success; and while Coffin sat thinking of his own problem – all this while the fire burned in the rough ground beyond the old Atlas factory.

When did it start? It must have started in the early afternoon because such fires burn slowly. The fire burned the mound of wood and leaves which a sexless figure put together, which he or she had lit and upon which, so a watcher said later, he or she had climbed. Hard to believe and the witness did not have good eyesight. Not climbing, perhaps, but dragged?

First smoke, then flames.

The body burned, the hair smouldered, the body fats caught and melted, the skin crisped.

Phoebe, who knew she had interviewed well, who was sure she had got the job, waited for Coffin to telephone her, and when he did not, tried to telephone him at home. He was not there so she left a message on his answering machine.

Phoebe came back into the picture and Stella returned to the fold on the same day, which was a complication. Both of them left a message on his answerphone.

Flying back today, fondest love, Stella. Get out the champagne. That meant she was in a good mood. Not necessarily forgiving (what was there to forgive, he asked himself), but certainly loving.

Phoebe Astley made her plea. Can you give me a bell? I am staying with a mate who has a place near the Tower. We could meet for a drink. I mean we’d better, hadn’t we? We’ve got to talk.

Coffin smiled wryly as he put down Tiddles’s food and pushed the dog’s nose out of the way. Phoebe always had rotten timing, that was one thing he now recalled about her. Stella, on the other hand, had the impeccable timing of a top actress.

Well, he would ring Phoebe, but in his own time; Phoebe had to learn about timing, and now it was Tiddles and the dog who came first.

He fed them both, washed his hands, because cat food (they both ate cat food, fortunately the dog could not read) smelt.

‘The thing is, Tiddles,’ he said. ‘To be quiet but not furtive.’ He considered the problem while he fed the dog.

‘I know: we’ll go to the Half a Mo.’ He was pleased with Phoebe and his own plans. As he left the interview room – without speaking to her – he had seen her talking to his assistant. She had a carrier bag from Minimal at her feet. Good girl, he had thought. Instinct, that’s what she’s got. Without knowing it, she has started work for me.

The pub, called Half a Mo by its regulars was placed on the junction by Halfpenny Lane and Motion Street, outside Coffin’s bailiwick and into the City of London.

Small and dark, it had always been popular with those seeking privacy. Coffin had arrested more than one villain there in the old days. Its real name, shown on the board swinging above the door, was the King’s Head, and there was a bearded head wearing a crown and clutching a glass to be seen, although wind and rain had weathered it. Only strangers to the district called it by that name.

The Half a Mo had changed since Coffin’s last visit. It had been brightened up, more lights, more paint, more noise. It had never been noisy, as he remembered it; people had muttered quietly over their drinks. Usually because they were up to no good. Now music blasted from several sources, but, as he reflected, this too was a good protection against conversations being heard.

In fact, he could hardly hear what Phoebe was saying; she had kept him waiting, which just confirmed what he thought about her timing.

She was sitting opposite him, looking bright-eyed and alert, and a good deal thinner than when he had seen her last year in Birmingham, where she had helped him through a difficult patch. She looked thinner, but that might be due to a smart-looking silk dress she was wearing.

‘How are things now?’ She lifted up the gin and tonic which had always been her tipple.

It was a routine question to which no answer need be given.

‘Fine,’ he said. Which was half true and half not true. He had survived a board of inquiry, some hostile media criticism, and been told that he could be sure of a KBE in the next Honours list. Also, he still had a wife, at least he thought so; he would know more about that when he met Stella off the plane tomorrow morning. ‘And what about you?’ Their past relationship meant that there was real feeling in the question.

‘Oh well, as you say, fine …’ She sipped her gin and looked away.

‘I was surprised when you put in for the job.’

‘I heard about it on the grapevine and thought it was one for me … Of course, I didn’t know much about it then, it was just a whisper.’ Now she did know. Or as much as he had told her and as much as she had guessed.

‘What about your husband and the children and the dog – do they like the idea of your working in the Second City?’

Phoebe looked away. ‘Do you like my dress? It’s new, I bought it to celebrate getting the job. I know I have got it; I was tipped the wink.’

‘Come on, Phoebe.’

‘They don’t exist; there is no husband, no children, not even a dog. I made them up. But I expect you know that.’

‘I did check.’ He looked at her without a smile. ‘Why, Phoebe, why?’

She shrugged. ‘Well … I didn’t think I’d ever see you again after you swung into my office that day in Sparkhill, you hadn’t answered my party invitation. You just came in because you wanted help. And you looked so married.’

‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know being married changed the looks.’

‘Well, it’s changed yours. And for the better, I may add.’

Coffin just stopped himself looking at his reflection in the wall mirror. ‘But you were doing very well in the West Midland force.’

‘You checked that too?’

He was silent.

‘Of course you did, you’re a thorough man, John, always were … I suppose I will have to call you Chief Commander and Sir now.’

‘You needn’t call me anything.’

‘I have called you some names in my time.’

‘Sorry, Phoebe. I expect I deserved them.’

‘I’ll tell you one day how much you deserved them.’

Coffin felt his spirits sinking. ‘I hope we are going to be able to work together.’

Phoebe moved sharply. ‘Will we be? I’ll be heading my own little unit and you are the big boss.’

‘I’ll explain.’

‘Perhaps you had better … When you telephoned in Sparkhill after I applied for the position, I knew you wanted me. I don’t say you fixed getting me the job, although you could have done, but you didn’t do it for love of me, so what else is there?’

First of everyone, she had caught on to the hidden agenda.

‘I knew you were the right person.’ He got up. ‘What about something to eat? The food used to be reasonable here, and I’m hungry.’

When he came back with a plate of sandwiches, Phoebe said: ‘I was surprised when I got a packet of photocopied advertisements from Second City News … A couple of dress shops, a fast food chain, not one I knew, two hairdressers … I didn’t think shops were touting for my custom, and then I remembered a copper who had sent me an advertisement for a new restaurant with the date and time and question mark scribbled on it and I thought, well, I know someone who does that sort of thing. Perhaps when he doesn’t want to commit himself too much.’

Coffin offered her the sandwiches. ‘Cheese or ham?’

‘Cheese. And then I thought: But, the John Coffin I knew was never anonymous about work.’

‘I’ll take the ham then. Pickle? I remember you liked it.’

‘Not onions though. You have to know someone very well to breathe onion over them. Of course, I do know you well, or I did. I thought: whoever sent those papers to me was nervous. And the John Coffin I knew was never nervous without cause.’

‘I always valued your powers of observation and deduction. You are the right person for what I want.’

‘Yes, but what is it? I am to run a small unit which will communicate with all principal institutions in the Second City. I shall have the rank of chief inspector, which I am glad about, by the way, but not much money to spend.’

Coffin looked about the bar which was crowded, but no one was taking any interest in them in their seat by the window where they could not be overheard.

‘Yes, you will be all that, and the unit and your position were not invented for you, but as soon as your name appeared as an applicant, I decided to make use of you.’

‘Oh, thanks.’

He ignored her sharpness – it was part of Phoebe. ‘Let me explain: large sums of dirty money, money from drugs, and crime, are being put through the City of London banks. We are getting our share. This is seen as threatening and damaging.’

Phoebe, listening, absently popped a pickled onion into her mouth. ‘But I’m not a financial –’ she began.

‘Stop and listen, the financial side is being handled by the Met and the City of London squad working with the Second City fraud experts … We’re only small but I’ve recruited some good brains.’

Phoebe choked on the onion and Coffin stood up to hit her on the back.

‘Oh, come on, Phoebe, listen. You will have two juniors working with you. Your ostensible job will be to liaise with all the institutions in the Second City, you know that, that was your remit.

‘But I am going to use you in another way.’ He moved the dish of onions away so that she could not get at them. ‘Some money is being laundered, here in the Second City. Where, we can guess; from that we can move to guessing by whom, but they are getting help from someone close to us.

‘Two of my young men who were working on it are dead. Felix Henbit and Mark Pittsy. Felix was a clever and resourceful officer; Pittsy was brilliant – he would have gone right to the top. Both of them died in what were supposed to be accidents. The papers that I sent you came to me anonymously. I don’t know if they have a connection, or who sent them but I sent them on to you. Not exactly anonymous; I thought you’d guess they were from me, but I didn’t want to make any comment; I wanted you to take them cold and react.’

Phoebe looked down at her new dress. ‘They took me into Minimal.’

‘That may have been exactly the right thing to do.’

Phoebe remembered some of the other names: Dresses à la Mode, KiddiTogs, Feathers and Fur. ‘You may have to give me a dress allowance if I’m to shop at all of them.’ But probably they were not all as expensive as Minimal; the names suggested different markets, and Feathers and Fur might be quite specialized.

Coffin ignored this; life with Stella had taught him caution when discussing money spent on or for clothes. ‘What we have here is a classic murder puzzle: someone is picking off my men. I don’t think that Felix Henbit or Mark Pittsy died because they had drunk too much; coppers do drink, but those two were careful men. Somehow they were killed.

‘I’m not sure of what the motive is: whether it was because they were close to me, or because they had enemies I know nothing about, but I feel the motive must lie in the financial investigations they were both working on. I want you to investigate their deaths.’

‘Don’t you trust your own men?’

Coffin was silent. ‘I have built a good structure up here. I took over a rambling set of CID and uniformed units and I’ve built up a force with its own identity. But I’ve had to do it on the quick. Of course I trust them but this is murder in my own backyard. I want you to investigate it for me.’

‘I see.’

‘You will have yourself and you will have me.

‘My own feeling is that someone is protecting the machine that is feeding the illegal money into this area. We have a Minder, and I want him or her caught. I want you to identify the Minder.’

Phoebe considered, she knew now what she was taking on. ‘I shall want back up. Leg work, help with interviews …’

‘You’ll get it.’

‘Forensics …

‘You’ll get it. Once we identify the Minder, then we will get the proof.’

Phoebe’s mouth went dry. ‘I never thought I’d hear you put it that way round.’ For the first time, she saw the metal in John Coffin. ‘I think you’d better get me another drink because I see what I am; a kind of stalking horse. If I succeed at all you want, I stand a good chance of getting killed myself.’

When he came back with her drink, she noticed he had got one for himself too and it looked strong. Good, at least he cared something for her. ‘I almost wish I hadn’t put in for the job.’ She looked down at her new black dress, the colour of which now seemed uncomfortably appropriate.

‘Phoebe, why did you apply? The truth now. I want you for this job, confirmation has to go through channels, but I’d like you here now. Only I need to know why you wanted to come.’

The drink lessened the dryness in her mouth. ‘Oh well, you might as well know: I put away a rough type with a long record who threatened to get me personally, if you know what I mean … He comes out about now. Could be out already. I thought I’d be better off down here in the Smoke where he wouldn’t have the contacts.’

Coffin considered. ‘Doesn’t sound like you, Phoebe.’

She looked out of the window. ‘Well, there was a sort of an affair.’

‘Ah, yes, that would complicate matters. So it got personal … He still wants you?’

There was a long pause. ‘It wasn’t quite like that. You see the affair, such as it was, was not with him but his wife.’

‘Now I am surprised.’

‘It was something that just seemed to happen … I wasn’t too happy, neither was she, poor girl, but for me, it was a mistake.’

‘Only not for her?’

Phoebe nodded. She was thinking about Rose with sadness and liking, but not love, not physical love. ‘No. I’m afraid I treated her badly. You might be surprised to learn that treating their lovers badly is not the prerogative of men.’

Stella herself could not have delivered a shrewder blow. ‘So you’ve run away?’

‘I’ve run away. Don’t we all?’

As they talked, the fire had been quenched and the blackened shrivelled body found; from one hand an unburnt finger stuck up as if in accusation.

The inhabitants of this particular area were few – a small terrace backed on to the open ground – moreover, they had among them the eccentric figure of Albert Waters who had built a small replica of Stonehenge in his back garden and who was now erecting the Tower of Babel in the front. They took it for granted that this fire was something to do with him.

He was into suttee now.

2

A quiet buzz sounded in Coffin’s pocket. ‘Damn! I’ve been summoned.’

‘Still attached to your bleeper?’ said Phoebe.

‘As ever.’ He also had a portable telephone but he preferred a call such as this and then to go to his car phone. More protected.

Phoebe raised an eyebrow, a sceptical gesture she should have denied herself when she knew how much she was going to depend on him. ‘I thought with your new eminence you would have given that up.’ He wasn’t a man who minded being laughed at, not as much as most men, but you couldn’t go too far. In the past she often had.

He stood up. ‘I must go to the car. How did you get here?’

‘I walked.’ I was on the verge of going too far, she thought, I must remember, I must remember.

‘I’ll give you a lift back.’ To where you are staying, he meant, wherever that was.

She would have known his car from any other man’s as soon as she looked at it. Nothing flamboyant: a good dark-coloured Rover, you could tell he had some money; he hadn’t had once, but always bought the best he could afford whether it was a car or a coat. No litter in the car, but a neatly folded raincoat on the back seat with a pile of road maps. He liked to know where he was going. She had used to wonder why he didn’t carry a compass as well. Not a joke to make now. He was quieter and more controlled than he had been once, gentler perhaps, but in a grim mood. He was angry.

In the car he listened to Archie’s voice. ‘I don’t know if you want to come, but you need to know. A body on a bonfire, looks deliberate.’

Phoebe watched and listened as Archie poured out his words. There was a faint scent on the air: Stella, she thought, her scent, and was horrified to feel a stab of jealousy. She was wearing Giorgio herself: strong, assertive and sexy and she had better give it up because if you want to be anonymous, and professionally this might be wise at the moment, then this was not the scent to wear. People remembered it. What Stella’s scent was, she could not recognize.

‘Is it still burning? Under control? But the body? Yes, I get it.’

Whatever Superintendent Young had to say did not please the chief commander because Phoebe saw him frown.

‘Right, I’m coming. I want to take a look for myself.’ He turned to Phoebe. ‘You’d better come along too. There is a fire and a body and it doesn’t look like an accident. And an old man I know seems to have something to do with it.’

He looked at Phoebe’s smart dress. ‘Will you risk that? You can never tell when you go to an incident.’

‘I’ll risk it … Did you notice – no, I don’t suppose you did – that the large woman on the committee was wearing another version of this dress in red?’

‘That was Geraldine, she always wears red when she’s on the warpath.’

Phoebe blinked. ‘And was she?’

‘She must have been. Powerful lady, Geraldine. Keep on her right side if she comes your way.’

‘And will she?’

‘Can’t tell. She knows the district pretty well. I think she may even know old Waters, the man who seems to have something to do with this new body.’

‘It doesn’t connect with that other business?’ She would always refer to the problem in this elliptical way from now on. ‘Only connect,’ E. M. Forster had said; he ought to have been a detective, she thought.

‘I hope not, or the whole thing will be even crazier than it is now, but who knows, he’s a strange man, but no, I don’t see a connection … Superintendent Young is there and he is one of the people you’ve got to know.’

And to get on with, Phoebe interpreted this as meaning. ‘I know something about him already. I know he worked with you before you came here, that he’s got a good record, that he’s done two courses at Saxon Police College, and always come out among the first half dozen, but that he always says his wife is the clever one.’

Coffin started the car. ‘You have done your homework.’ But he had expected no more of her and would have done the same himself in her place. She had perhaps demonstrated to him the range of her contacts, which interested him, and made him wonder who was using whom in this new appointment.

‘I’ve met his wife, by the way.’

‘How was that?’

‘Oh, just by chance, at a meeting in Birmingham University: she was the guest speaker.’

‘Interesting, was it?’ He was guiding the car through the traffic which was unexpectedly heavy on this hot evening where the going down of the sun had not lowered the temperature much. He glanced at Phoebe’s dress, there wasn’t much of it, so she was luckier in the heat than he was.

He didn’t believe for one minute that she had met Alison Young by chance; she had gone to the meeting on purpose, part of her pre-planning.

‘Yes, it was interesting.’

Archie Young was not himself an interesting speaker although it was well worth listening to what he had to say. He got his facts right.

He turned left at the traffic lights, leaving the busy main road through the Docklands behind him and driving into a side street lined with small houses with neat front gardens: Palgrave Drive. Beyond Palgrave Drive was Frances Street which was less neat, and from Frances Street he drove down the poetically named Golden Alley. Golden Alley was not neat at all since several old cars and various abandoned shopping trolleys had been left there to rust, next to a gas cooker of antique appearance.

‘We are in Swinehouse now and you’d better get to know it.’ He was driving slowly. ‘When can you start?’

‘I’ve already asked for a transfer. I have some leave. Straight away, if you want.’

‘It’ll have to be unofficial, but that suits me; I want you here, working for me, quietly.’

‘OK. Suits me too.’

‘Where will you live?’ The car was bumping over cobbles. The only good thing about Golden Alley was that it was short, it led into Brides Street. Every time Coffin came this way, he thought that if a modern Ripper got going (and praise be, it would not be in his time and his bailiwick) it would be in Brides Street. Brides Street was narrow, lined with houses in which people lurked rather than lived.

‘I’ll look around. Rent something till I sell my place in Edgbaston.’ She looked out of the window with interest. There seemed to be property for sale and to let around here. And she had not forgotten Eden Brown’s invitation: she liked Eden and it would be interesting to start off with her. She did not anticipate staying, she’d need her own place in the long run. But Eden was clearly quite a girl.

You could smell the fire now.

Brides Street wound its way into Fashion Street where, by contrast, the houses were pretty and well painted. Coffin came this way at irregular intervals to visit an interesting old inhabitant called Waters who had built Stonehenge in his garden. The neighbours had complained, so he removed his Henge, stone by stone, and built a pyramid in the back instead with an attempt at the Tower of Babel. His pyramid had a little door and Mr Waters lived in it himself when he felt like it, as did several itinerant cats and an old urban fox.

Behind Fashion Street was a stretch of rough ground in which Albert Waters sometimes operated and where he had once built a mini earthwork that he called Waters’s Way. Beyond the now weed-overgrown earthwork, lay the Swinehouse football ground.

In the rough ground, was the fire.

A fire engine, an ambulance and several police cars blocked their way. A small crowd was penned behind a police barrier.

‘I smelt a fire burning when I was shopping,’ said Phoebe.

‘Yes, Calcutta Street, where you were, is parallel with Fashion Street but nearer the river. The wind must have been blowing your way. It’s a funny district, I’ve smelt some weird smells there myself, almost as if the past had caught alight and was burning.’

He was recognized as he walked towards Archie Young and a shout came through the air. He had no difficulty in recognizing Albert’s voice. ‘Come over this way, sir, and I’ll tell you all about it. I am an innocent man.’

‘Be quiet, Bert, I’ll speak to you later.’

‘What’s he on about?’ he said to Archie Young as the superintendent came up.

‘Oh, some of the neighbours thought the fire was his fault; he’s always up to something, and he’s been talking about the Great Fire of London for weeks now.’

Albert was still calling out and Phoebe heard him shouting about ‘Your lady wife,’ and to her horror realized he meant her.

‘Shut up, Bert,’ said Coffin, he looked annoyed. ‘Archie, this is Phoebe Astley who might be joining us as head of our Liaison Unit.’

Archie held out a hand, he knew how to read this, she would be joining them. ‘Glad to see you here. We’ve got something interesting for you.’

‘Let’s take a look then.’

Young led the way through a gate into the patch of ground. ‘Was a row of allotments once, you can still see the outlines of the beds, and Waters uses that old shed over there.’

‘Oh, does he?’

‘For purposes of his own, which are God knows what. Anyway, that’s how he comes into it. He’s always over here so whatever goes on, the neighbours just assume it’s him. And he admits himself he had started to build something here.’

He was walking ahead of them. ‘This is it.’

A circle of blackened grass which was sodden where the fire hoses had played ran round a large pile of what had been wood and straw and wooden boxes. On the top lay a blackened hard object. Over everything was the sour, nose-pricking smell of burnt flesh.

‘The police surgeon couldn’t get too close – the heat; the fire chief said to leave it to cool down, but he had enough of a look to say it was human. Once.’

‘Badly charred,’ said Coffin.

‘Yeah … the wood and hay and stuff were smouldering for some time and no one took any notice; they thought it was old Waters burning something. It seems there were two fires: Albert started one in the morning.’

Coffin walked right and then the other way, widdershins.

‘What does Albert have to say about it?’

‘He’ll tell you himself, only too anxious to talk. Says he had an early morning bonfire … He admits he started to build something, not sure what, but invention gave out so he was waiting for the gods to give him a clue. But he denies putting a body there.’

As he would do.

Something in Archie Young’s voice made Coffin look at him. ‘So? So what?’

‘One neighbour said she saw a person she thought was Albert, climbing on to the pyre. Albert says no.’

‘Well, he didn’t get burned to death which bears that out. And he’s not a liar; inventive, yes; mad, yes, and often a nuisance, but not a liar.’

Phoebe in her turn had walked round the bonfire site. The ground all round was muddy and trampled down. But she spotted something lying further away on the grass.

‘There’s a shoe here.’

Coffin nodded. ‘I know, I saw.’

Young said: ‘It’s left there till we’ve photographed everything. That’s about to be done; just waiting for us to clear away.’

‘It’s a woman’s shoe. Neat, high heeled. Looks expensive.’

‘Doesn’t mean the body is that of a woman,’ said Archie Young carefully. ‘The witness we’ve got said she saw a man. Or she thought so, wearing trousers.’

‘Women wear trousers.’

Young didn’t bother to answer that. His wife wore trousers, Stella Pinero wore trousers, half the women he worked with wore trousers. ‘When the body is examined we shall know the sex.’

‘I wonder what sort of trousers they were,’ said Phoebe. ‘The sort of trousers can tell you a lot about a woman. I mean, tight jeans, flares, jodhpurs, Turkish trousers, caught at the ankle.’

‘She just said trousers, I think that was all she could see. Ask her if you like, she lives next door to Albert Waters – she made a statement.’

Phoebe looked at Coffin. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll have that word I promised Albert.’

‘Right.’ She could read his face: Be my eyes, he was saying, be my ears, then report back. I want to know.

‘Number six. Fashion Street,’ said Young. ‘I think you’ll find her there, I saw her looking out of the window. She’ll probably enjoy a visit, I think she’s hoping to be on the evening TV news.’

Phoebe walked away while Coffin turned towards Albert Waters who was leaning against the fence and smoking a pipe.

‘I haven’t smoked a pipe for years, but I needed it today and one of your chaps let me go and get some pipe tobacco … It isn’t what it used to be, I think the tobacco leaf has changed. You hardly ever smell a decent pipe smoke now.’

‘Not many people smoke them these days.’

‘Not in public, in private maybe.’

Coffin leaned against the fence beside the old man whose hands were trembling. ‘You’re talking too much, Albert,’ he said kindly.

‘I always do when I’m nervous; you should have known me in the war, Hitler’s war, even I’m not old enough for the Kaiser. Talked a blue streak, I did then.’

‘What did you do in the war?’

‘Gunner. Not in the air, thank God, that was the killer, I did have a tank all round me.’

‘So what’s making you nervous now?’

‘What do you think? I did light a fire there, this morning. I thought I’d get rid of some rubbish. It smouldered all day but I didn’t take any notice; it couldn’t harm anyone, I thought.’

‘Didn’t the smell worry you?’

‘I had some old mattresses on them filled with horse hair, I thought it was that.’ Albert looked tearful. ‘You don’t think of bodies … then I saw the flames, and I thought: Here you are, better have a look at that … Then I saw what was burning up there. It was me called the police. Police first, fire brigade next.’

‘You knew it was a body?’

Albert chewed at his pipe. ‘Smelt it. I knew that smell. Told you I was in a tank, didn’t I? Smelt a jerry like that. One of ours too, mate of mine.’

‘All right, I understand. The smell reminded you of too much.’

Albert kept quiet for a moment. ‘I could do with a drink.’

‘Later, Albert. I’ll stand you one myself.’

Albert grinned – he had a pleasant grin, and Coffin could see the cheerful young cockney who had gone to war. What ever happened to him in that tank in that desert?

‘You built the bonfire?’

That roused him. ‘No, I did and I didn’t. My bonfire wasn’t the size of what this one was. I had a few planks of wood out there. I was going to build the Ark but I couldn’t seem to get going. The invention drained away. Does sometimes. So I left it there, what I’d done, and waited for inspiration.’

‘How long?’

Albert considered. ‘Week or two. Might have been. Inspiration’s been a bit slow lately. You can’t call it up to order, you know. Wish you could. The Greeks had a special god they used to call up when they needed help. I wish we had one, I could do with one like that.’

So could I, thought Coffin. I wonder what the right god for detection would be? Bacchus, Thor? Wrong pantheon, of course, but Norse or Greek, he didn’t expect an answer.

‘Anyway, this morning I thought I’d have a burn up, bits of this and that, like I said. It raises the spirits.’

Coffin wondered who or what spirits he was hoping to raise. ‘If you didn’t build the fire up, then did you see who did?’

‘No, not to notice.’

‘Your neighbour says she saw a man – you, she thought – piling it up and then someone – a man, perhaps you – climbing up on it.’

‘Think I’d burn myself?’

Coffin shook his head. ‘No.’

‘She can’t see anyway, not Mrs Thorn, can’t rely on her.’

‘And you saw nothing? Sure of that?’

Albert said: ‘These last days, I’ve been working on my construction in the front.’

‘Oh yes, I heard about that, the Tower of Babel, isn’t it?’

‘Mini,’ said Albert with dignity. ‘Mini Tower of Babel. You have to keep yourself within your own limits.’

Coffin looked towards the remains of the bonfire which was now being photographed. The full police operation was in action; two big vans had arrived, one of which would be the incident room and the other, if he knew his friends, would be the canteen.

‘Come and have a drink,’ he said to Albert, ‘there’ll only be tea or coffee in the van, but I keep a flask of whisky in the car in case.’

‘I’m a case,’ said Albert happily, ambling forward. ‘I’m definitely a case.’

Coffin looked towards the house into which Phoebe had disappeared. He trusted her, he had to trust her. He trusted himself, he trusted Archie, he had to trust Phoebe, and outside of that, he trusted no one.

There was Stella, of course, mustn’t forget Stella, whom he had to collect quite soon at Heathrow.

Phoebe could see the two men walking towards the police coach from where she sat in Mrs Brenda Thorn’s bow window. She had a cup of tea in front of her and a chocolate biscuit. Mrs Thorn was explaining that she had certainly thought it was Albert Waters who was building up the bonfire because everything that went on over there always was Albert, but her eyesight wasn’t too good as she was willing to admit, so she might have been mistaken.

‘Right,’ said Phoebe, wiping melted chocolate off her fingers and hoping it wouldn’t get on to her new dress. ‘So why did you think it was a man?’

‘I could see between the legs, dear,’ said Mrs Thorn. ‘Another cup?’

Phoebe thought about a short skirt, shorts, even tight jeans. ‘No, thank you.’

‘Besides, he looked like a man. Big. Men are big.’

‘Usually. Mr Waters isn’t big though.’

‘Big enough, bigger than me,’ said Mrs Thorn who was built like a square-shouldered eight-year-old with heavy bones and short legs. Her top half and her bottom half did not match.

‘So when was this?’

‘Morning, late on.’ She could see this was not precise enough. ‘Before the one o’clock news. Before Neighbours.’

That made it about twelvish, Phoebe thought, before my two-fifteen interview. ‘Is there anything else?’

The teapot came into operation again as Mrs Thorn filled up her cup. ‘I don’t take sugar, dear, I daresay you noticed, I have to watch my weight … No, nothing else, I wish there was. Who did you say it was that got burned to death?’

‘I didn’t, we don’t know yet.’ And whoever it was might be dead when put on the bonfire. I sincerely hope so. ‘We have to establish identity. Any suggestions?’

‘No …’

That’s it then, thought Phoebe; she stood up, not much to report to the chief commander. What would she have done if she was still in Sparkhill? To begin with, she would have known much more about the street, probably have walked down it once or twice in the recent past – she liked to know her neighbourhood. She would have been able to talk to the community policeman who, if he was doing his job, would know Mrs Thorn.

Mrs Thorn lifted the teapot, then put it down. ‘Empty … I usually drain it. Grew up during the war, you see, rationing, no waste …’ The teapot seemed to improve her memory. ‘There is something.’

‘Go on.’

‘I think there was someone else there, another person on the other side of the bonfire. It was only just lighted then and smoking.’

‘What did you see?’

‘Nothing else. I went to my washing to stop it getting kippered and then I didn’t look again … I was watching TV.’

‘Well, thanks. Thanks for helping.’

‘It wasn’t the first fire he’d had, you know. He liked a bonfire, but don’t we all, I’m fond of one myself. We had a beauty down here for the coronation.’

Phoebe made her way to the door. ‘Did Albert live here then?’

‘Always lived here, never lived anywhere else. His mother before that, and her mother. There used to be a lot of them. “Wherever you go, there’s a Waters”, Mother used to say. Not true now. Only Albert left.’

Coffin and Albert Waters had been joined by Superintendent Young who intended to keep a friendly but watchful presence on the scene. Around them in the long coach, the mobile incident room was busy setting itself up. Phones were already ringing on two desks (no one was answering them, Coffin noticed), while a young policewoman sat staring at a laptop computer. The screen woke up and started to spell out a message to her, she did not react.

Albert Waters did though. ‘I know her, she used to walk round here when she was training.’

The WPC turned her head and gave him a smile.

‘You’ve got a lot of friends,’ said Coffin.

‘Wouldn’t call Brenda Thorn a friend, she doesn’t like me. But then I don’t go a lot for her. She says I built the bonfire, well I didn’t. If she’d looked she’d have seen me at work in the garden at the back. I saw her, getting her washing in.’

‘So this confirms his story and hers,’ said Coffin, as he and Phoebe exchanged information. ‘He saw her doing what she says she did do.’

‘But she didn’t see him. I did ask, as I left, I said: “Did you see Mr Waters when you got the washing in?” and she said that no, she hadn’t seen a thing, but Albert could be invisible when he liked. And she didn’t mean it kindly, not really friends, those two.’

‘So he says.’

‘I think the really important thing that comes out is that she thought there were two people … One who climbed up on the fire and who was wearing trousers and was big, and one the other side.’

‘But invisible?’

‘That’s right,’ said Phoebe. ‘I think she was hinting at Albert.’

‘A hint isn’t evidence. Do you think she saw anything or anyone?’

‘Yes,’ said Phoebe, ‘I think she did.’

‘Can’t say who or won’t say? In your opinion?’

Phoebe shrugged. ‘I think she’s gone as far as she can.’ To herself, she added: Give her a hot, full teapot and who knows what might come out?

Coffin said: ‘I’m going to walk the ground again. See what I can see. Come with me.’

Lighting was being set up as night came on. The body was being moved under the careful eye Of the police surgeon and a pathologist; they were moving it carefully because burnt bodies are fragile.

Coffin watched for a moment, then eyes down, paced the grass. ‘It rained yesterday,’ he said to Phoebe, ‘so the ground is soft … Do you see what I see?’

‘Yes, tracks, wheel marks.’

‘Paired wheel marks, as if a trolley or some such was used. The wheels dug in, so the trolley was heavy.’

The marks, which had already been taped off by the police team, were patchy, sometimes you could see them, sometimes not.

The two of them walked back to the road where the body was about to be put in an ambulance. Archie Young was there talking to another officer.

‘Has Waters got anything to pull or push with two wheels?’

‘The tracks, you mean? I saw those. No, he says not. He says he has a wheelbarrow and a supermarket trolley that he nicked, and nothing else. Those marks were not from a wheelbarrow or a trolley, though. I know what you are thinking: a body could have been moved out to the fire on wheels.’

Coffin drew back the covering: a curled up, blackened form, head down, arms extended. It was impossible to guess the sex or age. But Coffin knew what he was looking at: ‘This person was not dead when burnt, but died while burning.’

He turned back to the road. ‘Let’s go.’

Phoebe walked beside him, just for a moment she thought she got a flash of a face she might know – or could have known if she’d concentrated – in the little crowd of onlookers, then Coffin touched her arm and she looked away.

‘Can I drive you anywhere?’

‘No, I saw a tube station not too far away. I want to walk, get some air.’ The corpse had made her feel sick. ‘And get to know the district a bit.’

‘Right.’ He hesitated. Was a warning justified or even wise? Phoebe had her prickles. ‘Look after yourself.’

‘Oh, I will, don’t worry. I know how to watch my back. And nobody knows me.’

Phoebe had her own reasons for not wanting to be driven home by the chief commander. She needed to think.

That night as Phoebe got into bed, not in the flat of a mate as she had told Coffin (God, the lies she had told that man), but in the rented room in a small guest house which was all she could afford, she thought about the day.

She had the position she wanted, she was back in London, but she was broke till she sold her house, sensationally unhappy and now she was anxious.

Frankly, after today, she wondered what she was getting into.

She rolled over in the narrow bed and considered. Now I must do something highly sensible. And also a good career move.

For a start, she would call on Eden Brown and see if she could join up as a lodger. I don’t think she’d want me if she knew what I was working at. Bad for trade.

Don’t tell her, said another voice inside her.

Had it been Eden watching the bonfire? No, probably one of those mistakes.

She touched her cheek which was tender, the pain was still there. Was it worse? She reached out for the bottle of painkillers.

Some pains you could exorcize, but others not.

As soon as Coffin got back to his home in the tower of the old St Luke’s church, the telephone rang. He considered ignoring it but it might be Stella with a change of plans.

‘Hello.’ He kept his voice cautious.

‘Geraldine here.’

‘Ah.’

‘You made a good appointment today.’

‘The committee did.’

She laughed. ‘Your choice, though.’

‘I was open minded. Didn’t want to influence things one way or another.’

‘Not what I thought. She was the best person for the job, you thought so and I thought so. I’d like to meet her. What about coming round for a drink?’

‘She’s still based in Birmingham; she’s got to find a place to live.’

‘Oh, no trouble there, plenty of empty flats and houses; one benefit of the recession if you aren’t a property owner.’

There was a note in her voice that made Coffin wonder if she had his sister Letty in mind; Letty had invested in a lot of local property and was now suffering some pain. He said nothing, Letty could look after herself in his opinion and would certainly break back.

‘I’m entertaining on Sunday morning from midday onwards … my At Home. My little salon.’

Geraldine’s salon was famous. She lived in a large, early nineteenth-century house where top Customs officials had held sway while the Docks were still alive.

‘When’s Stella back?’

He looked at the clock, past midnight. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘today.’

He was there early, having been woken by a telephone call he would rather never have had, but Stella’s flight was early too, a wind behind them, and as he walked in, Stella walked towards him.

She was wearing a full pale yellow skirt and a white shirt and she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her.

She ran towards him, cheerful and full of energy, not at all as if she’d just been travelling all night. She threw her arms round him. ‘Lovely to be back, heaven, heaven.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘I’ve brought you a present. Well, several … Oh, you smell of smoke … it’s in your hair.’ She drew back and looked at him. ‘You look peaky … What’s wrong? Bad time?’

‘I’ll tell you in the car.’

He did tell, an edited version; he could trust her, but for her own sake it was better not to say too much.

‘Those poor young men … I remember Felix.’

‘I thought you would. I was going to ask you to visit his wife with me.’

‘Of course, you know I would … But that’s not all, is it?’

The traffic was building up as they crossed the river; it was still early but commuters were driving into work.

He told her about the body on the funeral pyre.

‘Burnt. Totally burnt, how terrible. Who was it?’

‘I’ve heard now: it was a young woman.’

‘She was dead?’

Alive or dead, that was the question.

‘She was alive when she set the fire and she meant to do it. Suicide. She left a note.’

Stella looked at his face.

‘It was Felix’s wife.’

Alive or dead.

Suttee.

3

The moment Stella came back, the theatre came to life: a new play opened in the big theatre in the old church (now called the Stella Pinero Theatre), an innovative piece was rehearsing in the theatre workshop, and the drama school had a new intake. It was Stella who had waved the magic wand, and life began again.

He realized how much he had missed her.

She had returned with all her usual enthusiasm and cheerfulness to breathe energy into the schemes at the theatre that she had left behind.

Coffin relished this side of it; the glitter and sparkle that Stella brought with her made a counterweight to the tragedies that hung over him. Felix, Mark Pittsy and now Felix’s wife.

Suicide, of a particularly terrible kind. How could she do it?

‘I don’t know, darling,’ said Stella as she unpacked her presents for him. ‘But if she was in great pain in her mind, I suppose physical pain might not matter so much.’ She contemplated a day in which she herself could do such a thing and could not find it there. No, she would always battle on. ‘I couldn’t do it.

‘No, I’m such a coward … I’m surprised any woman could, but they do, in India. There, it’s part of the culture, or it was, but this was her own private hell, poor love.’

Coffin sat on the bed and watched her unpack. ‘Here’s a bottle of your favourite Jack Daniels. I know you don’t drink as much as you did, but it’s nice to have it by you.’

‘I drink enough,’ said Coffin gloomily. Especially when she was away – he’d had plenty this time, but life had been tough.

‘But not as much as once,’ she said, her voice firm. ‘And if you stick to the best whisky and champagne, you won’t go wrong.’

It was the sort of remark he loved her for, redolent as it was of her own zest for the superior.

‘Geraldine has asked us to one of her mornings.’

‘Oh, we’ll go, she always has the best people there. And with this new play coming on, I could do with nobbling a few critics.’ Stella held up before him her latest purchase from Bergdorff Goodman. ‘Look at this, isn’t it lovely?’ It was a plain, short little shift of black. ‘You’d never believe how much it cost.’

‘I expect I would.’ Coffin was beginning to be an experienced husband. ‘Especially when I see it on.’

‘Oh, you are a love. And quite right. A cheap dress.’ (Cheap by Stella’s standards did not necessarily mean a small price.) ‘A cheap dress often looks good when on display and a couture dress nothing, but when you wear them … ah, that’s when cut and fit show.’

She seemed prepared to elaborate on this but Coffin said: ‘She wants us to bring Phoebe Astley.’

‘Ah.’ She was perhaps not best pleased to find Phoebe Astley so ensconced in his life. ‘Well, of course. I like Phoebe. Of course, I’ve never really got to know her,’ she added carefully.

‘I need her in this job, Stella. I couldn’t see anyone else doing it. I wanted her here.’

‘I know. And I’ve decided to be big about it.’

‘And she’s clever and ambitious; she’ll move on.’

‘Think so?’

He nodded. He felt like opening the bottle of whisky already; Stella, when she started to probe, could get close to the bone, very close. He had told her some of the reasons for wanting Phoebe to head the Unit, but not all the secret investigation as well. It was really better not. Safer.

Because he might be the ultimate victim, and he didn’t want Stella involved. She was not for burning.

‘Well, I won’t ask why you really wanted her,’ said Stella, letting him know she could read his mind more than a little, ‘but why did she come?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Coffin slowly. ‘I know what she said, but I’m not sure if it’s the truth.’

‘And I’m not to ask?’

‘Oh, just a love affair that went wrong.’

‘Just,’ said Stella with a little nod. ‘Just.’ She continued with her unpacking, while her husband watched her, leaning across the pillows. ‘You look lovely in bed, darling. At your age.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re really unhappy and worried. I could feel it while you were making love to me, not really there.’

‘Not true.’ Perhaps it was though, horrible thoughts had intruded.

‘You’re getting to be megalomaniac, you know, dear. I hate to say, but I’ve seen it growing on you.’

‘You mean paranoid.’ He rested back against the pillows. ‘You could be right.’

‘But I love you, and you have a lovely, smooth …’

‘Say any more and you’ll make me blush.’

‘Temper,’ finished Stella, sitting on the edge of the bed and giggling. She threw across to him a soft, silk dressing gown. ‘Here, in thanks for your lovely smooth, rounded temper.’

‘There’s terror about,’ he said gripping her wrist. ‘It’s an infection. Like the Plague. It’s got me; I don’t want it to get hold of you.’

‘It won’t,’ and added with her elegant, brutal honesty, ‘although I am often afraid of almost anything: of the dark, of spiders, of being ill in a strange place.’

She removed her wrist. ‘You’ve got quite a grip, you know; you’d have made a good actor, I think.’

‘Why do you say that?’ One or two of his colleagues would have called him one already.

‘You get the action to fit the words; you grabbed my wrist at just the right moment. It would have looked good on stage.’ She got on with her unpacking. No more presents for him appeared, but a small collection of carefully wrapped parcels were placed on her dressing table. Stella always brought gifts back for her friends. Those who were closest to her at the time (and they varied, usually being people she had last worked with or would be working with next), could count on a bottle of scent or a little piece of jewellery or a special silk scarf. Stella prided herself on her presents.

‘Well, you won’t want me to go and see the poor woman now. She’s dead, poor love.’

‘No.’ Coffin was up and finishing a cup of coffee. Tiddles appeared at the window and was let in. ‘He must have good take-off, that cat,’ he said as he opened the window. ‘I never know how he does that jump from roof to windowsill.’

‘He’s eaten enough birds,’ said Stella, ‘he’s probably got little wings developing under that fur.’

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