A Grave Coffin. Gwendoline Butler
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both see the woman in the miniskirt arguing with the police constable now on solitary duty.
‘Because Ed Saxon didn’t want me to. I only got the address because I read it upside down on his desk. What about you?’
‘Work,’ said Coffin evasively. ‘An investigation.’
‘Are you working on Harry’s death?’
‘No, the Met are handling that, of course …’ This was true, although he would be privy to what they turned up and in return they would want to look at anything he got. A strange position to be in, he thought, never happened before. It made him feel two-headed.
Mary looked at him sceptically, but she said nothing, moving ahead of him towards the office block. The woman in the miniskirt was still talking to the police constable. She seemed to be arguing fiercely.
Both of them had their backs to Coffin and Mary Seton. Without a word, Mary put her foot on the bottom rung of the fire escape, gave Coffin a meaning look, and ran up, leaping from step to step.
Coffin followed her. He was agile himself but she was nimbler. Good mind too, Harry Seton had been a lucky man. Only his luck had ended. Older than Mary. Hadn’t there been a first wife? He had memories of hearing of one called Elsa. Elsa he had never met, but he was willing to admit that she had been pretty and lively and clever, as with Mary. Did one always marry the same woman? What had happened to Elsa? Had she dropped Harry or the other way round?
These questions flashed through his mind with speed as he went up the staircase. He was at the top before he remembered the answer: Elsa was dead.
Curious thing, the mind, why had he just remembered Elsa and her death?
Mary was looking through the glass door, it was darkened, stained by smoke. ‘A bit kippered, but you can see through.’
Coffin was feeling in his pocket. ‘Got a key?’
‘No. I haven’t a key. Harry never gave me one, I wasn’t told about this place, remember? I only found out when he was dead, and Ed Saxon certainly wasn’t about to give me a key. Keep wives out is embroidered on his chest, that one. I was going to break in if I could. So I was always coming up this way.’ She looked down at her feet, ‘I was going to knock my way through the glass with a heel.’
Coffin was sorting through the bunch of keys. ‘You’d have a job breaking this glass without a wound or two. Good thing you met me.’ He wasn’t sure how much he believed her, but she had a beguiling way with words. ‘Are you sure you weren’t going to bribe your way in?’
She grinned. ‘Somehow, somehow. Maybe, maybe. But I found you. Come on, let’s get in.’
The lock turned easily enough but the door was stiff; it gave way, though, before his shoulder.
‘Here we are. In.’
Harry’s office had not been burnt to bits, or flooded with water. It smelt of smoke and was untidy, but that might have been Harry, not the firemen.
His files had been in metal cabinets, but some drawers had been opened and the papers were on the floor. They were scorched but not destroyed.
‘If they were after Harry’s work, it was a shitty job,’ said Mary.
‘Maybe not, maybe just a warning … to you or to me. How do you know about where the fire started?’
‘I was listening to that workshy crowd who had evacuated the building. All full of joy and even accusing each other of doing the job.’ She had advanced into the middle of the room, and was looking around her. ‘No, you are right … it’s a warning only.’
‘You ought to work for the CID,’ said Coffin, who had also heard the conversation, with admiration. ‘Are you sure you didn’t start it yourself?’
‘I didn’t hate Harry and his work that much …’ She was still looking round the room. ‘But you are quite right: there were times when he was alive … All wives hate their husbands in patches.’
‘Thanks for that,’ said Coffin, wondering if he had better watch Stella for one of those patches.
‘I might well have burnt his office down, but not now he is dead.’ Then she said: ‘He had a period in a clinic when he had a kind of breakdown … did you know that?’
‘No.’
‘Drink, mostly. Usually is with coppers, isn’t it?’
‘I can see you admire us.’ But he couldn’t say no, because he had been down that road himself. It was likely that Mary Seton knew it, too.
Coffin looked round the room. It was dampened down by a spray of water from a fireman’s hose, but was not damaged. He was pulling open the drawers of the desk … still warm, but there was stuff inside. Not much but something. He thought that Harry probably hadn’t kept much stuff there anyway. Wise fellow. Not that it had availed him much in the long run.
There was also the computer on a table against the wall, perhaps he was more of a computer man.
It was not a comfortable room, probably the smallest and cheapest (no lift to it) in the building, but Harry had tried for a personal touch: there was a pot plant, now dead, on the desk.
‘Wonder who gave Harry that plant?’ said Mary. ‘Not me. Some fool thought it would cheer the room up.’ She touched the soil. ‘I see he never watered it.’
He may not have had much chance, thought Coffin. Mary read his face.
‘Yes, all right, he died.’
Coffin began to gather up the files from the desk, then those on the floor. He could see traces of the forensic efforts, with pale powder marks distributed freely over almost every surface, desk top, drawers, and the files inside.
Not as many files as he had expected, he would have to ask a few searching questions about what, if anything, had been carried away. No doubt every document had been photocopied. He scooped them up, wishing he had a bag to put them in. Then he saw a carrier bag in the wastebasket. It was from a shop in Birmingham: FOOD GALORE, Reform Street. So someone had been in Birmingham.
Then he turned to the word processor.
Mary, who had stopped prowling round the room, watched him. ‘Harry wasn’t much good at that. I ought to know as I had to teach him what he had to know – the basics, anyhow.’
‘I’m not much good myself,’ said Coffin, ‘but I know how to switch it on.’
The screen glowed blue.
‘The fire doesn’t seem to have hurt it, you can never tell with these things.’
‘It’s on battery,’ Mary pointed out. ‘He travelled around with it. It wouldn’t be touched by any power loss.’
He pressed a key and a list of files came up. They were numbered, not named, so Harry must have kept a key or relied on memory.
He pressed the key for Number One. The first page came up.
In big capital letters, he read:
WE’VE HAD A LOOK AT THESE.
WE KNOW YOU WILL BE LOOKING TOO.
HA HA.
‘Ha ha to you,’ said Coffin, pressing on to page two of File Number One.
It was blank. Someone, possibly Harry, had wiped it clean. A quick glance through the next three files showed these to be blank also.
Frowning, Coffin turned off the machine. Mary, who had been watching over his shoulder, said nothing. ‘I’ll just pack this up and take it with me.’ He looked around for the carrying satchel which was on the floor. ‘Right, that’s it.’ For the moment; he would be back and without Mary Seton. ‘Seen all you want?’
‘Yes, nothing to see really. Hasn’t given me much idea about Harry’s last days. If you learn