A Grave Coffin. Gwendoline Butler
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fire?’
Ed Saxon admitted he knew about the fire. ‘I had Mary in here.’
‘What did she want?’
‘She said she’d met you. You seem to have made an impression. Not easy on that one, she’s a hard case. What she wanted was what you’d expect, to find how near we were to getting Harry’s killer. Not too near, I had to tell her. She didn’t take it well.’
‘I can’t blame her.’
‘Who’s talking about blame? But she was casting plenty of it around, she blames me in particular. And she isn’t far wrong. After all, I chose him for the job.’
‘It may have nothing to do with that, you know.’
‘You’ve got an idea? What? What is it?’
There was silence. Coffin could hear Ed striking a match for a cigarette, the man was in a pressured state.
‘Have you any idea, something you’re not telling me?’
‘No, Ed. And the Met are investigating Harry’s death, remember? Not me. But I shall have to make contact with them.’
‘Yes,’ said Ed, as if the idea did not please him.
‘I am beginning to get the feeling that Harry knew he was about to be killed.’
‘Oh God, is that your great thought for the day?’
‘It’s a start.’
‘Where did you get it from? Out of the air, I suppose?’
‘No. From you.’
‘Don’t get you.’
‘Oh, come on, Ed. I’ve known you a long time and you don’t change. I think he told you he was frightened, that he knew there was a threat. And he knew who it was from; it was from the figure in your outfit who is profiting from the sale of phoney medicines and drugs. That was why you wanted an outsider like me to carry on the enquiry.’ There was another reason, of course, why I actually got the job, but you may not know of it. The Second City is involved.
Wouldn’t Ed know this? Why did he not know? Perhaps he was not fully trusted himself. Wheels within wheels, he didn’t like. Touch dirt and you get dirty, he thought.
Ed was staying silent.
‘And perhaps you thought my investigating skills might have got rusty with the years and I wouldn’t turn up what you feared.’
There was still no answer from Ed.
‘Who was it he suspected? Not you, by any chance, Ed?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Come on, Ed.’
‘He was just guessing, in my opinion … there was a woman … she had been working for us, not in a high capacity, but on this pharmaceutical case – she was investigating likely medical contacts, she’d been a nurse and knew the language. He suspected her. Called her bad. I said, “Don’t go Gothic on me, Harry.”’
The one in the photograph. Coffin thought.
‘He thought she was dangerous, I thought he was wrong.’
‘Does she have a name, this woman?’
‘Margaret Grayle. You might as well know … we had an affair. Over now, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Coffin, half ironically. In his experience, whenever anyone, man or woman, admitted to an affair it was always claimed to be over. It might be or it might not. It was in his mind to be wary and sceptical of this lady. ‘You had better give me her address.’
‘Oxford. But you should find it in Harry’s papers.’
‘In case I don’t.’
A sigh came across the line. ‘If she’s still there, it was Owls House, Raven Road, Oxford.’
Not sure if I believe that address, thought Coffin, but he wrote it down.
‘And have you told the Met about Miss Margaret Grayle?’
‘Did I say Miss? She is married. And no, I haven’t said anything. The Met have good men on the case, they will find Harry’s killer. And it won’t be Margaret.’
Not in person, Coffin thought, but she might have hired someone. Or been pressured to help get rid of him by associates she might have in the pharmaceutical racket. The body cut into five pieces, that sounded like a professional job.
‘Was Harry having an affair with her too?’
‘Not as far as I know,’ said Ed gloomily.
‘We’d better meet sometime and you can tell me what it is you do know.’ Coffin tried to keep the irony out of his voice. ‘Meanwhile, I have a very nasty murder on my hands here in the Second City, so I can’t give your affair all my attention.’
Then he moved the conversation back a step. ‘Wait a minute … you said as far as you know, Margaret was not having an affair with Harry … Does that mean you think she was but can’t prove it?’
‘It was just an idea I had, can’t put it any stronger, and it could have been wrong at that.’
‘And did Mary know?’
Silence for a minute. ‘She might have done.’
‘You mean you know she did,’ said Coffin bluntly.
‘She might have guessed … she’s a clever woman.’
‘Don’t tell me you are having an affair with her too?’
‘As soon have an affair with a piranha fish,’ said Ed bitterly.
Perhaps both women had joined together to kill Harry. Now that was a picture.
Let me read myself a scenario, thought Coffin. Mary got to know about Margaret, who didn’t love Harry so much after all. (Or had a lot to hide and wanted him out of the way.) So she got together with his wife and they did the job. Wasn’t there a French film with that theme? Was it Les Diaboliques? He had seen it with Stella. But the body being cut into five bits still worried him. It didn’t sound like a female killing.
Still, it wouldn’t do to be sexist.
He must find out if it was physically possible for the two women to have done it. Check on the physical force required, check on where they were at the relevant times. It would explain Mary’s strange need to get into her dead husband’s office. She might want to know what was there that could incriminate either of them.
Not a bad scenario; it needed working on, though.
Wait a minute, he told himself, this is the Met’s job, not yours.
The telephone was bleating away. ‘Are you still there?’ Ed was saying.
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘You’d gone dead quiet. I thought I was talking to myself.’
‘No, I was listening.’ Didn’t hear a word, however. ‘Tell me, who is in charge of the investigation?’
‘Larry Davenport. That was what I was telling you. Nice chap, he’ll get in touch,’ said Ed gloomily. ‘Although some of his juniors are a pushy lot.’ Could have been one of those who left me the rude message on the computer, thought Coffin. ‘He remembers you.’
Paths do cross, Coffin admitted to himself, sometimes to your advantage and sometimes not.
‘He says he grew up in East Hythe and his sister still lives there.’ He added with relish. ‘He’s a useful chap, he’s one that knows where all the bodies are buried.’
Coffin thought that he knew the burial sites of more than a few bodies himself. He pointed this out to Ed Saxon. ‘I’ve always had thoughts about