A Grave Coffin. Gwendoline Butler
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There was a message from the wizard, John Armstrong, an old friend, who was looking into Harry’s computer. ‘I think I ought to be able to get most of the deletions back, they were not deleted by an expert. But I can’t promise. If you don’t hear from me then it is, No.
‘One left alive, anyway, and I think you ought to know of it.
‘It is a file on you, complete dossier of life and career, with present address.
‘It lists strengths – pertinacity, imagination, sharp mind.
‘Weaknesses: likes to be right.
‘I don’t know who put this together or why,’ went on John Armstrong, ‘but someone doesn’t like you.’
Coffin dialled his friend, his answerphone was on also, so the Chief Commander left a message:
‘Fax me that file, please. And to my home.’
His friend must have got back to his desk very speedily, (if indeed he had been away and not just sat there listening as the message came through) because the fax was waiting for Coffin when he got back to St Luke’s.
He flipped through it quickly, noting without pleasure that Harry had left something else.
There was a short, accurate profile of his wife, Stella Pinero, including the fact that she was now in Los Angeles.
Somehow, he did not like it.
But then he remembered the sort of man Harry had been and what he had said once.
A bit drunk, words spilling out, he had said: ‘I want to get all I can on you, Coffin, because you hide a lot, you’ve got plenty going on that I would like to know about. Your past career, too. You’ve been in trouble, but look at you now. Yes, you are worth a study. And that lovely wife of yours. To know her is to know you.’
Coffin shook his head. That was Harry. Friend or enemy, who knew which?
Did Harry know himself?
But what Coffin knew was that he would always protect Stella.
An old schoolmaster of John Coffin, who had had a great deal of influence on him although Coffin never liked to admit it, had been in the habit of pronouncing: Life is real, life is earnest. He usually said this at exam time, which was perhaps why Coffin geared himself up grimly and got good marks. He wasn’t an exam man, they were not things he thought about often, but just the word ‘Life’, pronounced the right way, could spur him into action even now.
But at the moment he did not need it: the juxtaposition of two cases, their lifelines crossing, was enough to make him only too aware of the seriousness of life. His life in particular at the moment, and without Stella here to laugh and ease him into happiness, it was going to be bad.
Without Stella, he thought, so why was she figured in the file on Harry Seton’s PC? Not good news. So perhaps it was as well she was safely out of the way across the Atlantic. He felt like going back there himself, but life over here had a firm grip on him. It had a firm grip on Archie Young, too.
What was more important: the mission wished on him by Ed Saxon (and others higher in the chain of command), and apparently suggested by Harry himself with the words ‘Ask Coffin’, to find out who was doing the dirt in the pharmaceutical world, with special reference to Ed Saxon’s outfit, or the murder enquiry on a child in his own Second City.
All policemen get used to dealing with two cases, or more, at once. In his time, Coffin had handled as many as ten, carrying all the details in his mind and yet keeping them distinct, so why was he getting the feeling that there were parallel lines here which converged in the distance?
Of course, Harry had been murdered too, but that was the Met’s job, and if the message on the word processor was from them, they were not too pleased to have him walking on their ground.
Territory, there was a lot of territorial feeling in this job. Always had been and always would be. Probably Sir John Fielding’s officers in those distant days in the mid eighteenth century when he invented their force had had strong feelings about where they operated and who might interfere with them. The Peelers of a century later had carried on the tradition, because Dickens’s portrayal of Inspector Bucket did not suggest a man who would welcome intruders.
Coffin took a deep breath and pulled towards him the files he had brought down from London, already photocopied by the industrious Paul Masters.
He now had two stacks of files: the photocopies and the originals. Now why did I want copies, he asked himself, and came swiftly back with the answer that he wanted them in case there was another fire.
Or the equivalent – theft. Whoever had killed Harry, had tried to get the files destroyed. True, the Met had had a look at them first, and might have been coming back for more, but someone had tried, not too efficiently, to burn the lot.
He looked from the photocopies to the scorched originals.
In the outer office, Paul was packing up to go home; he worked a long day, getting in before the Chief Commander, rarely taking a lunch break, and usually still at work when John Coffin left. Coffin saluted an ambitious man. But tonight, Paul was leaving early since he was off to the opera. Coffin suspected he had a new girlfriend who liked Mozart. Or his wife, there was one, but who knew what went on in Masters’s private and somewhat secret life?
Inspector Masters put his head round the door. ‘Want me to take the dog for a walk before I go, sir?’
Augustus looked up and wagged his tail hopefully. He got up and shook his body, he was a shrewd psychologist and knew how you did it. Generations of his ancestors had wagged their way into comfort and pleasure, and the genes were still working.
‘Go on with you, then,’ said Coffin, and to Paul Masters: ‘Thank you.’
When the pair had gone, he turned back to his papers. The photocopied files were offering sparse information.
There was a map of Coventry with some street names marked in pencil. One area had a ring drawn round it. Attached to this were some scribbled notes which seemed to be of times and routes. It looked as though Harry had set off early and driven there.
Against the name H. Pennyfeather, he had put a query. And Coffin had a question mark in his own mind there. Did he know that name or not? Half a dozen further names were just recorded and given a tick.
Did this mean they were passed as all clear, whereas Pennyfeather was not? Or did the tick mean that they had been interviewed and Pennyfeather had not been at home.
Or did it mean something else altogether? Coffin ground his teeth and worked on.
A photograph was attached to one of the pages. It was the photograph of a woman.
It was not a photograph of Mary.
He saw a youngish, smiling face, with a smart, short haircut and large earrings. The woman was wearing a dark business suit. It was not a posed, studio photograph, but appeared to have been taken at a meeting of some sort, since he could see figures in the background. M. G. was written there.
Coffin worked through the papers, assessing them quickly. There was a similar group with a map of Oxford, and another of Newcastle. In each case, the map was marked, and it came with a list of names, some ticked and one or two with a question mark.
Thrupp in Coventry, and Weir in Newcastle, each had a question mark, as had Fox in Cambridge and H. Pennyfeather, but with no place name. So that made four in all. Sex not clear, but Ed Saxon had said he had a few women working for him. Possibly M. G. was one of them, although he hadn’t named her.
He sat thinking about TRANSPORT A and its problems which high authority thought stemmed from the Second City, curse it. Thus was I lumbered, he thought.
When