A Grave Coffin. Gwendoline Butler
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troublesome, unloved policeman. Time and its whirligigs bringing in its revenges, as Shakespeare had remarked.
He put his hand in his pocket, where he felt the bunch of keys that Ed Saxon had passed over to him. On impulse, he put his hand up for a passing taxi.
‘Three, Humper Place, off Fleet Street,’ he said.
‘I know, gov,’ said the driver, slight reproof from one who knew his Knowledge.
He could have walked from where he was, but he wanted a space to think while the taxi crawled through the London traffic.
A right into Fleet Street, another right and there was Humper Place.
‘Doesn’t look good, gov,’ said the cabby, breaking into his thoughts.
Two red fire engines and a police car blocked the way.
Coffin paid the cab off and walked forward.
Number three, Humper Place was smouldering.
The fire seemed to light up something in his mind: Wait a minute, he told himself, supposing I am being asked to investigate this corruption business because the Second City is involved?
A small crowd of people stood at the kerb, with the air of having fled from the building in a hurry, but even as he looked they were disappearing into a small bar at the end of the cul-de-sac. The Queen’s Arms, it proclaimed itself, with a large portrait of a crowned lady who might have been Queen Victoria or Mary, Queen of Scots, since she was long since faded into a gentle blur. You could see the crown, however.
Coffin walked towards the police constable stationed at the door of the building. He did not identify himself.
‘Can I get in there?’
‘No, sir, sorry, no chance.’ The constable was young, blue-eyed and with red hair.
Coffin stared up at the building. It looked to him as though the fire was out, the flames had died down.
‘I need to get in urgently.’
Coffin was still assessing the scene. It might have had the making of a nasty fire, but it had been controlled and the building looked solid still. There was an outer fire staircase which could be used. He nodded towards it. ‘I could go up there. It’s mostly smoke now, isn’t it?’
‘You can have a word with the Chief Fire Officer, that’s him over there.’ The constable nodded to a large, uniformed man standing by a car. ‘I can’t give permission, out of my power.’
‘Yes, I understand that. Where did it start?’
‘Top floor. Or so I’ve been told.’ The fire was certainly damped down, but there was still smoke and heat. Coffin was both curious and anxious. Had the flat to which he had the keys been damaged?
If so, was it by a genuine accident or by deliberate attempt?
If it was arson he was very interested indeed.
He strolled towards the Chief Fire Officer. The man glanced towards him without interest, then turned away to speak to one of the firemen. It was then that Coffin realized the disadvantage of being anonymous. For years now, he had had quick attention to his questions, he was not used to being ignored. In short, he had grown into being the Chief Commissioner of his force and was now going to have to shrink back in size.
He stood there thinking the problem out: a certain duplicitous honesty was his best line. If the fire had not happened, then he would have slipped in and out with no one noticing. If anyone had asked, just one of the forensic team. But no one would have asked.
Slowly he advanced to the Chief Fire Officer, who went on talking, then finally addressed him over his shoulder.
‘That your car there?’
Coffin looked towards a car parked at the kerb. Before he could speak, the Chief Fire Officer said: ‘Move it. Shouldn’t be there.’
Coffin bit back the comment that the car appeared to be perfectly parked and in no one’s way, but contented himself with saying politely that it was not his car. He could, however, see someone sitting in it, but decided not to mention this.
‘Is it safe to get into the building yet?’
‘No.’ A blunt refusal.
Coffin nodded. ‘Right,’ he said peaceably. ‘So when?’ Tomorrow, next week, he would have to accept it, and hope that the firemen had not destroyed too much.
‘Can’t say.’
‘I need to get into flat twelve.’ He held up the keys, swinging them a little.
‘You the tenant? You rent the place?’
Smooth, taking manners, thought Coffin, charming fellow. ‘I am part of a police forensic team that has been examining the place.’ It seemed safe enough to say this much. It might easily be common knowledge, passed around the other tenants.
He needn’t have worried. It cut no ice.
‘You can get in with the others when it is safe. Can’t say when yet.’
Reluctantly, Coffin faced the fact that he had got used to being speeded through any obstacles back home in the Second City and that life was tougher outside.
He walked down the road to the pub into which he had seen the rest of the tenants disappear. He noticed that the car was now empty and a figure was walking into the pub. To his surprise, it was a woman.
The Queen’s Arms was old and small and dark, it could have been there since the Great Fire of London in 1666, or even have survived it. Certainly it had survived the Blitz and all the rest of the bombs that particular war had thrown at it. Now it had a large notice advising customers to watch untended bags because of IRA bombs.
Inside it was crowded. Coffin stood at the door, wondering if he could work out who were the tenants who had fled from their offices.
He ordered a drink, which he stood by the bar drinking while he let his eyes study the crowd.
Well, he knew the woman: the back disappearing down the road had been wearing a black coat. So there she was with a drink in her hand at a table in the window.
And oddly enough, she was looking at him. Looking at him looking at her.
He stared down at his drink to break the link, but he could still see her in his mind’s eye: she looked lean, intellectual and sophisticated. She was dressed in black, but not dead black, there was a gleam of leather and the hint of silk at the throat. In other words, she looked expensive. Life with Stella had at least taught Coffin what good clothes cost.
Around him, the crowd of the dispossessed were drinking and shouting at each other.
‘I blame the chap on the top floor.’ This was a stout man in a check suit. ‘We never had anything till he moved in, and then we had the police, and now the fire brigade. And where is he now? It’s him.’
‘It did start there, damn it. I ought to know as I was near it. But I don’t think he’s there any more. I never see him now.’ A pretty, slight girl in the shortest skirt and with the longest hair that Coffin had lately seen walking around London. (‘On the way out, that Loopy Lu look,’ Stella had told him. ‘And it’s time the wearers knew it, but it’s got to be a uniform for them and they really don’t see themselves. They will be dinosaurs before they notice it.’) ‘I think he’s gone. They weren’t police you saw, they were debt collectors.’
‘Didn’t look like debt collectors to me,’ said Check Suit, ‘more official. And they locked the door.’
‘Trust you to notice that.’
‘They didn’t set fire to anything, though.’
‘Wonder