Cracking Open a Coffin. Gwendoline Butler
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said John Coffin. He had budget problems himself. In the few years that he had been Head of the Force in the Second City of London, he had never had enough resources to do all that was required in the turbulent area for which he was responsible. The old villages of Spinnergate, Swinehouse, Leathergate and Easthythe that were bound together in his Second City were expensive to police.
‘But they have been very generous with help, the Drama Department there, so vital, isn’t it? And such a vigorous Music Department.’ The Music Department was providing the orchestra, musical director and conductor as well as a few singers to audition. Philippa Darbyshire was half in love with the conductor, a beautiful young man, some sixteen years her junior and none the worse for that, she thought.
My goodness, she said to her inner self, how times have changed. My mother wouldn’t have dreamt of letting herself be attracted to a man so much younger than herself, wouldn’t have admitted the possibility, but I’m not only admitting it, I’m enjoying it.
She even enjoyed the fact it was not reciprocated. It might have been awkward indeed if it had been, for Harold might not have liked it. Well, wouldn’t have done. Harold was her husband. Once a banker, now enjoying early retirement, he was doing a course at the nearby university. Not in drama or anything dangerous like that, thank goodness, she thought (she was the one allowed temptation, not Harold), but in fine art.
The university had been put together out of a Polytechnic and College of Advanced Technology, when it was decreed that the new Second City of London must have its own university.
This Second City had several great hospitals, one of which had a history going back to a monastic foundation of the thirteenth century, three museums, two art galleries and an assortment of old and new industries. It was represented in the House of Commons by two MPs and in the House of Lords had one recently ennobled peer who bravely called himself Lord Brown of Swinehouse.
Many of the old warehouses of the former docklands had been converted into smart apartment blocks, but old streets and grimy old housing estates still supported the old poor who eyed their new rich neighbours without love.
It was no easy area to police, with violence never far below the surface and always threatening to break out. A large garage attacked only yesterday. A few days ago a robbery with savage violence in a shop in the Tube station in Spinnergate, two badly injured, a crime that was still being investigated, no leads.
On the two large housing estates which were separated by a railway line and a belt of expensive upper-class apartments, gangs formed, fought each other, and the police too if they could, then melted away as fresh and younger outfits took their place. The Dreamers, once the most powerful group, had gone into decline when several members had been sent to prison and another couple had married, which as far as active gang life went came to the same thing. This had left the field to their rivals, who called themselves The Planters after the Planter estate where most of them lived. But somehow, without the competition, The Planters too had gone into decline. With no one to fight, what was the point to being? There was a short-lived revival of Dreamers Two, but it failed to inspire. Either the police were getting quicker to stamp out trouble-makers or the gangs were getting weaker. Who could say?
At the moment there were no big gangs, but Coffin had heard stories of a new one forming itself around a female leader. He believed it.
He had not met her yet, but no doubt he would if she became powerful enough. He had heard she was called Our General.
Such was the Second City where John Coffin held the Queen’s Peace and in which he lived.
‘You can’t think,’ said Philippa, ‘how hard it is to find women warriors who can sing.’
Wonder if I should suggest she tries Our General, thought Coffin.
‘I’m not sure if I like the Valkyrie concept anyway,’ said Philippa. Under the influence of the Drama Department, whether she admitted it or not, she had started to intellectualize her reactions to plots and story lines. ‘I mean, I don’t know any.’
They exist, thought Coffin.
Philippa finished her coffee, looked regretfully at a plate of chocolate croissants, but she mustn’t, she really mustn’t, that last inch on her hips since she had given up being a vegetarian was one inch too many, and got to her feet. ‘I must be off. Got an appointment with the Head of Drama at the university, he’s going to help me find some extra Nibelungs. I could do with some really short, dwarflike men with good voices.’ The Head of Drama was a handsome man too, she was looking forward to the half-hour together. She picked up her bags, Philippa always travelled with a full complement of shoulder-bags, clutch bags and the odd plastic carrier. Her mood was good in spite of the difficulties with the Valkyries. She would see her beautiful young musician, he had promised to be there, bringing a few young male singers to audition. It was wonderful how a family growing up and leaving home emancipated you. I am a New Woman, she announced to herself.
‘I’ll hang on a bit longer,’ said Coffin. He watched her departure with indulgence and a touch of sympathy; he could guess her motives. There was one thing about being a policeman: you often knew more about your friends and neighbours than they guessed. He knew about the young conductor, Marcus Deit. He even knew more about Marcus than she did, but that would be telling. ‘Goodbye.’ He was glad to sit thinking.
‘They have been gone two days. This is day two and we are into day three, and nothing, not a word. With students, you never know, just gone off, you say to yourself. But she’s my child, my child.’ He could hear the man’s voice, rough with worry. ‘And her car has been found.’
John Coffin would not normally have been concerned with the story of the missing students. Or not so soon. The Chief Commander of the Second City Force had access to all information about what was going on in his difficult and lively territory. He was responsible for all and was meant to know all. That was the theory. As with the Queen, all important documentation came his way for signature but it took time. Reports were filtered through subordinates, prepared and then presented on his desk. His secretaries might do a bit of selection here too, he was protected and had to keep a wary eye on that protection. He knew that things were kept from him.
So he had developed the habit of just dropping in on departments. Of prowling round and asking questions. The CID inevitably got a lot of his attention. He couldn’t give up the habit; once a detective, always a detective. Also inevitably, this interest did not meet with the total approval of the CID teams, and although obliged to grin and bear it, they had ways of getting their feelings across.
Coffin had noted with amusement and understanding the tactics of Chief Superintendent Paul Lane and the wily manœuvring of Chief Inspector Archie Young. Young’s tricks were cleverer but Paul Lane got away with more: experience did tell, Coffin had told himself wryly while furthering the recent promotions of both men. The nominal head of the CID was Harry Coleridge, but he was a quiet, efficient administrator who would soon be retiring.
Jockeying for Coleridge’s position was already going on, but John Coffin was considering bringing in an outsider. What about a woman? Was there one? Yes, there was, he knew a name. Keep quiet, he told himself, and watch events. He had learnt politics, willy-nilly, in his job.
But in the matter of the missing students he had not had to go out and ask: he had been dragged in on Day Two of their disappearance. In person.
He got a notebook out of his pocket and put a photograph of the missing girl on the table before him.
There she was: small, dark-haired, not really pretty but interesting, a good face. Amy Dean, nineteen years, with a birthday coming up next week if she was still alive to enjoy it.
She had been snapped against a background which he recognized as the University Senate and Library, she was sitting on the steps in the sunlight with a bag of books at her side and the columns of the portico showing behind her.
The older buildings of the university were undistinguished, having been taken over from the earlier establishments from which it had been put together. Utility was all they aimed at, but the new blocks had higher artistic ambitions.
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