A Grave Coffin. Gwendoline Butler
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was Miss Miniskirt, so she was the intellectual heavyweight of the two? She was a lawyer, he guessed, so what was Check Suit? Another lawyer? No, a businessman of some sort. Probably he imported or exported something, handbags or lacy knickers.
‘Lord H. is always kippered himself, isn’t he, the way he drinks and smokes? I will say this for the fire people, they got there fast and put the fire out damn quickly. I don’t think I will have lost anything.’
‘The smell of smoke on everything is bad enough,’ grumbled the young woman. ‘And that foam stuff they use as well as water …’ But she didn’t sound too worried. Lord Herrington would have to put up with his smoked report.
The two of them turned away to talk to the rest of the homeless.
While listening to all this, and trying to assess what it told him about Harry Seton’s activities, Coffin had been watching the woman in the window.
The second sense that all long-time coppers develop told him that she was watching him while listening to the man and woman, just as he was.
That told him something.
He met her eyes and this time, she smiled and nodded at him. The moment was flooded over by a burst of laughter from the dispossessed to his right.
Coffin got up, walked across and stood looking at her; he said nothing.
She held out her hand. ‘I know who you are: John Coffin. My husband had a photograph of you. He was in it too.’ Still she kept her hand extended. ‘Mary Seton.’
Coffin took her hand, noting the softness and the shining tinted nails, not what you expected somehow from a copper’s wife, although heaven knew, his own wife Stella was typical of nothing, not even the stage.
‘Mary Beaton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael and I …’
The line from the old Scots ballad ran through his mind; he could not remember who ‘I’ was, but he did know that she came to a bad end. On the scaffold, having killed … whom? Her lover or her bastard child?
‘I think we are expected to meet to talk about my husband. Ed Saxon told me you would be around.’
‘I was going to call. But today I wanted to have a look round his office.’
‘The one that someone tried to burn? Yes, I wanted to see it too. We picked the wrong day, didn’t we? Sit down, do. You make me nervous standing there.’
Coffin put his glass on the table, then sat down opposite her. He doubted if he could make Mary Seton nervous.
‘You know, I had no idea the office existed until Harry died … I only learnt then by accident. Wives are supposed to be kept from too much knowledge, painful knowledge, that is. Or that’s Ed Saxon’s philosophy.’
Are you sure, thought Coffin cynically, wondering if he could believe her ignorant. I think he doles out the painful bits as it suits him, and if he let you know about this office then it suited him.
He was, he feared, a natural cynic where Ed Saxon was concerned.
He nodded his head. ‘I know Ed has his ways.’
‘I came today to look round. I didn’t have a key but I thought I could get in. I would have done too.’
Coffin believed her.
She made a gesture with her hands. ‘Well, you saw … when I got here there was the fire brigade and the police.’ She nodded towards the talkers and drinkers near the bar. ‘So I followed this lot in here.’
She had sat in the car watching, Coffin commented to himself, a careful, cautious woman. He liked the way she used her hands. Stella would have approved of that: what you do with your hands on the stage is so important, they give you character or take it away. Never walk on the stage without knowing what to do with your hands and never let them droop.
He could see that Mary Seton would never walk on to her stage with drooping hands.
She must have picked up his thoughts. ‘I know you are married, I have seen your wife act. I admired her.’
‘Stella’s in Los Angeles at the moment.’
‘You must miss her.’
‘I do, of course, but we agreed when we married that she must be free to follow’ – he paused – ‘well, whatever the theatre demands. I wouldn’t want her to lose by being married.’
‘It applies to you too.’ She sipped her sherry. ‘But men don’t expect to lose by getting married, it’s just an extra, nothing to get in their way.’
Coffin gave her a cautious look.
‘I don’t think most policemen’s wives have happy marriages,’ she went on. ‘Stella is lucky.’
Coffin thought that Stella was not so much lucky as good at fighting her battles, probably he would have been as selfish and demanding as any, but Stella had not allowed it.
‘She deserves it,’ went on Mary Seton. ‘She is so talented.’
‘I think so,’ said Coffin, glad to be on solid ground at last.
‘I made my own career – I own a small chain of fashion shops, I don’t think Harry minded, or if he did it didn’t show. It meant he didn’t see so much of me as he might have done … I have to travel a bit.’
The noise from the group at the bar interrupted them; loud laughter and a small bit of horseplay with Miss Miniskirt doing most of the pushing; she was not one to overlook. Coffin decided.
‘Jolly, aren’t they? They aren’t worried about the fire, or why it was started. Harry was destroyed and now someone has had a go at destroying what he was working on.’ She turned her head towards the window; Coffin saw the glint of tears on her lashes.
‘We don’t know that it was arson.’
‘Oh, we do … it started on the top floor, Harry’s floor.’
Coffin had been looking out of the window, from where he could see that the fire engines were drawing away. He would probably be able to get into the building quite soon, if the top floor was not too hot. Or wet.
‘I want to have a look round myself, so I am hoping that it may not have been destroyed.’
She looked at him and shook her head.
‘They didn’t let me see Harry’s body. Just his face, so I could identify him, the rest was wrapped in sheets.’ There was no mistaking the tears on her cheeks now. ‘So I suppose they had a reason.’
You insensitive ox, Coffin told himself, all this bitter talk she’s been throwing at you is because she is bloody unhappy. She loved the man.
There was another burst of laughter, and Miss Miniskirt swept past. ‘Going to inspect the ruins,’ she called out.
Mary watched her go; through her tears, she said: ‘She spent a lot on that suit but she wasted her money: it doesn’t fit her. Didn’t you notice the sleeves?’
Coffin shook his head, he had not noticed the sleeves. All right, he had thought the black suit expensive, so he got that right.
‘You think I’m a bad-tempered cow, all right?’
‘No, I think you are a very unhappy woman.’
There was a pause. ‘I loved him. I didn’t always like him, but I loved him.’
There was silence.
She stood up. ‘I’m going to follow that woman. See if I can get into the building? Are you coming too?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know what our chances are.’
‘I am going to get in, I saw a fire escape. I shall go up that.’
‘I saw it too.’
‘I