Coffin's Game Read online

  GWENDOLINE BUTLER

  COFFIN’S GAME

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road

  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997

  Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1997

  Gwendoline Butler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

  Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

  Source ISBN: 9780006510116

  Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007545483

  Version: 2014–07–08

  DEDICATION

  My thanks to Professor Geoffrey Lee Williams for help about terrorism and terrorists, and to Inspector Euan Forbes and John Kennedy Melling for details of technical procedures.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Prelude

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  PROFILE OF THE AVERAGE TERRORIST

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  THE CASE OF ALICE YEOMAN

  Keep Reading

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Also by the Author

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  A brief Calendar of the life and career of John Coffin, Chief Commander of the Second City of London Police.

  John Coffin is a Londoner by birth, his father is unknown and his mother was a difficult lady of many careers and different lives who abandoned him in infancy to be looked after by a woman who may have been a relative of his father and who seems to have acted as his mother’s dresser when she was on the stage. He kept in touch with this lady, whom he called Mother, lodged with her in his early career and looked after her until she died.

  After serving briefly in the army, he joined the Metropolitan Police, soon transferring to the plain-clothes branch as a detective.

  He became a sergeant and was very quickly promoted to inspector a year later. Ten years later, he was a superintendent and then chief superintendent.

  There was a bad patch in his career about which he is reluctant to talk. His difficult family background has complicated his life and possibly accounts for an unhappy period when, as he admits, his career went down a black hole. His first marriage split apart at this time and his only child died.

  From this dark period he was resurrected by a spell in a secret, dangerous undercover operation about which even now not much is known. But the esteem he won then was recognized when the Second City of London was being formed and he became Chief Commander of its Police Force. He has married again, an old love, Stella Pinero, who is herself a very successful actress. He has also discovered two siblings, a much younger sister and brother.

  For the urban terrorist, logistics are expressed by the formula MDAME.

  M mechanisation

  D money (dinheiro)

  A arms

  M ammunition (municos)

  E explosives

  Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla

  Carlos Marighella

  Despite the popular image there is no reliable archetype of terrorist personality. While they are undeniably cruel, virtually none has been found to be clinically mad. But there are always exceptions.

  A recurring syndrome is what psychiatrists call externalisation, coping with failure by blaming an outside source.

  Terrorism

  Professor Geoffrey Lee Williams

  Alan Lee Williams

  Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies

  PRELUDE

  ‘The Chemin des Dames, that’s the name,’ said Charles. ‘Do you know that in 1917 the whole French Army was in revolt because of the terrible deaths on the Chemin des Dames. That wonderful army that Napoleon built, reduced to chaos and despair … that’s the mood I want to create with our bombs. Then we can rebuild society.’

  Not me, thought Jerry. I’m a soldier, I get instructions from above, I do the job, and walk away. Also, I get paid.

  There were three of them in the rented room above an empty shop in Mordecai Street; the neighbours, such as took any interest, thought they were charity workers helping Africa or Tibet.

  Present were Jerry, the supreme professional, the leader and the technician on the bomb, Andrew, an old colleague on the bomb run, and Charles, the college graduate, the sort to go out on a crusade. Jerry found him useful, but did not trust him.

  Nor did he trust the fourth member of the team, known as the Secret Card, brought in by Pip for local knowledge and inside information on the Second City Police.

  None of them used their own names, not even Jerry and Andrew. Only Jerry knew and had contact with the man next in the chain of command, and he knew him only as Pip. Jerry knew that they were only the second team, not entrusted with the bigger bomb, but they were operators.

  The local knowledge of the Card had told them which street was strategically placed for a bomb, near a big supermarket for maximum damage, yet neutral; a thorough-fare where people took not much notice of each other and where cars and vans could park unnoticed. Arch Road, with Percy Street, in which many houses were empty, just round the corner. Arch Road – put the bomb there.

  ‘Cameras, videos?’ Jerry had queried, having observed the police cameras going up on street corners in the Second City.

  ‘None in Arch Road, nor Percy Street yet. The city has to persuade local businesses to come up with the cash.’

  That was where the Card’s knowledge of the police had come in useful.

  The Card was not present at this last meeting before the bomb. Might be due for a quick exit. Jerry would decide.

  In any case, the group (and there were others of whom this little coterie knew nothing) would soon split up and disappear.

  Job done.

  But Jerry had not quite taken in the tricky character Pip had enlisted in the Card.

  Pip could have enlightened him, but saw no reason to do so.

  Chapter 1

  There were two great explosions on the same day in the Second City that autumn. One bomb went off, near the entrance to the new tunnel under the Thames which the Queen had opened but two years before. The tunnel was not damaged. The other bomb went off later in a shopping street. Most of the damage was in the ancient riverside borough of Spinnergate, but it had been heard as far away as East Hythe, and even Swinehouse, further east, had felt
the blast. The new rich areas of Evelyn Fields and Tower Hill with their loft conversions in old warehouses and their smart flats in former factories had been spared – to the fury of Spinnergate, which was not smart or converted in any way. There had been deaths and more injuries in the second bomb, houses and offices nearby were blasted, but the tunnel itself was already open, with traffic running through it. Still, the Second City was used to surviving onslaughts, having come through the ravages of Romans, Vikings, and Normans, not to mention later enemies, amongst whom they numbered all governments, whether home-based or across the Channel. The habit of the population was to pick itself up and get on with living while cursing its rulers.

  They did regret that the complex system of video cameras placed high on many buildings around the Second City had yet to be extended to lesser streets, where it might have provided better clues. Instead they had to wait for the bombers to claim their work. Which they did, only when they thought they were safely away.

  It was war, after all.

  The other explosion, more personally aimed, was about to happen.

  Six days after the explosions, a row of houses which had been damaged in the blast was being tidied up. There was no major structural damage and the repairs, which were in the hands of a local firm, were expected to be finished quickly. The firm, William Archer Ltd, a small outfit which knew Percy Street well, glad of the work, was not going to rush, tacitly admitting that if the bomb brought work it was not altogether a bad bomb.

  Bill Archer, the boss and owner of the firm which his father had started, was in a bad mood, irritable because of the absence of his office manager who had taken some days off. Peter Corner had gone sick, sending a brief message that he had migraine.

  ‘Didn’t think men got migraine,’ grumbled his employer, ‘that’s for women. Why can’t he just take an aspirin and come in?’

  ‘You can be quite ill with migraine,’ said his wife, who had taken the message on the telephone. She was in the office doing the work herself so that if anyone had a grievance it was her. ‘You pay him women’s wages anyway.’

  ‘I pay him what he deserves, and I won’t pay that if he doesn’t turn up. Nancy boy. I bet it was a man on the phone to you.’ Mrs Archer admitted silently that it was. ‘Gone off together somewhere, I bet.’ Bill was sharp. He often had labour problems. He employed casual labour, taking them on for a job and then sacking them. It was the way of his work, he would say; there had always been casual workers in the building trade. There were always men to be had. For instance, at this moment, he had a former bank clerk, a university graduate doing a thesis on economic history, and a seaman without a ship. His son and a nephew – his sister’s son – he employed all the time.

  ‘I’ll be round the corner in Percy Street.’ He picked up his jacket as he departed.

  Bill Archer’s son, George (they went in for royal names), was in charge and his cousin, Phil, was doing most of the work.

  Number five Percy Street was the third house in the row and had been empty and up for sale for six months or so. This was known by both George and Phil who had been given the key by the house agent and told to get on with the roof and the windows and ceiling in the top floor front room.

  Phil ran up the stairs cheerfully, his first job of the day and a light one. It was very early in the morning; he liked to get a good start. He was a thin and eager man. Behind him came Tom McAndrew, taller, heavier and older, he it was who was working on a thesis and looking for a university job. Any job. But he was a good brickie and could turn his hand to anything electrical. Woodwork and plumbing, no.

  Phil pushed open the door. The wind blew through the shattered windows and shivered up to the rafters through the torn ceiling. If it had not been for the wind, he reckoned, there would have been more of a smell.

  On the floor, face in profile, was a body.

  ‘Don’t touch,’ said Tom, putting out a restraining hand, ‘better not.’

  Bill, who had been talking to his son in the street outside the house, could be heard coming up the stairs. He was not going to be pleased.

  A call from George Archer in his capacity as works foreman on the job brought a police patrol car to inspect 5 Percy Street and then two more senior officers to take another look.

  Sergeant Mitchell and Detective Ellis Rice arrived before the police surgeon and before the Scene of Crime team. They stared down at the body lying on the floor of a room where the ceiling was half down and the windows out. They made a quiet, delicate, gloved inspection of the corpse and her possessions. She had a short fall of fair hair, she wore jeans, a white shirt, tucked in and belted, and on the hands were bloodstained white cotton gloves. There was a handbag on the floor. Mitchell carefully put on plastic gloves, then opened the bag and looked inside. He raised an eyebrow. Silently, he let Rice see what he had been seeing.

  ‘That bag hers?’ asked Archer, who had come up the stairs with them. They had told him to stay behind, but he had ignored this advice.

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘It’s a good bag.’

  It was; soft leather with an initial in gold.

  ‘That is no bomb injury,’ said George Archer, staring at the corpse. ‘Not the face.’ He said this sadly; he was a former soldier who had served in the Falklands, he knew what wounds were and how they were made. Hands had done this work. Brutal, determined hands.

  ‘No,’ said Mitchell. ‘Not disputing that.’ He crouched down to replace the woman’s handbag on the floor beside her. He turned in query to his colleague. A meaning look passed between them: a question wanting an answer.

  ‘It can’t be,’ said the other. ‘Can’t be her.’

  ‘There’s the handbag,’ said Mitchell. ‘That means something. Could have been stolen, I suppose.’ He walked away. ‘This is too much for us.’

  ‘SOCO will be here soon.’

  Mitchell had made up his mind. ‘That’s not enough,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I am going to telephone.’

  Within the hour, two very senior detectives had arrived. The first to march up the stairs, quickly and lightly, was Chief Superintendent Archie Young. Behind him, climbing with that soft creeping movement that had won him the nickname of the Todger, was Inspector Thomas Lodge, a man of specialized knowledge and many tongues. He was an outsider who ran his own game.

  The two men walked into the room together, one tall and burly although quick moving, and the other several inches shorter, while the recently arrived SOCO team stood back.

  Archie Young surveyed the body, then knelt down for a closer look. ‘I can’t say; I ought to be able … I knew her – know her,’ he amended. ‘I simply can’t say, the face has gone.’ He looked at Inspector Lodge. ‘Any views?’

  ‘That can probably be reconstructed. To some extent. In the long run it will be of use. Fingerprints also.’

  ‘You are looking at this from your point of view,’ said Archie Young with some irritation. As you usually do, he muttered to himself. ‘I can’t go round collecting fingerprints to check if this is the body of the woman we think it is. Not this woman.’

  ‘The circumstances are unusual,’ said Inspector Lodge calmly.

  ‘They bloody are.’

  Lodge drew his lips together. He rarely swore, but when he did he had a wide-ranging vocabulary in which to do it, from Russian to a couple of Chinese dialects, picked up in Soho.

  ‘There’s nothing for it: we have to get the Chief Commander himself.’

  ‘He’s away, isn’t he?’

  ‘Back today, here now.’ Archie Young looked at his watch. Still early, but he reckoned the Chief Commander would be in his office.

  ‘In situ?’

  ‘Yes, here and now.’

  Lodge nodded gravely, watching as Archie Young drew his mobile phone from his pocket. ‘I hope that phone is protected,’ he said.

  ‘It is, as you know very well. All mobiles are in this Force, no one can eavesdrop.’ And to himself, Archie Young said: No wonder they ca
ll you the Todger. I wouldn’t have you with me now if I didn’t have to; you are the king of this particular territory. ‘Sir,’ he began, when John Coffin, Chief Commander of the Second City Police, answered on his private reserved line, and found himself stumbling, wondering how to go on.

  Four days after the explosions, Stella Pinero had gone away.

  Before her going, there had been a moment of confusion and despair. And in the theatre, too.

  Stella Pinero was lost. She had stood centre stage and realized she had lost her words, lost where she was in Act One (that bit she could remember), and very nearly forgotten what play it was.

  Tension, that was the cause. Fear, yes, she could say that too.

  A voice prompted her: ‘What letter?’

  Stella came to herself. ‘You thought the letter had been destroyed. How foolish of you. It is in my possession, it was a swindle, Sir Robert.’

  An Ideal Husband, she said to herself, that’s the play. Why on earth did I choose to produce that play here in my own theatre, when I had a free choice? Because it is popular with my audience, and I serve that audience.

  And because I have husbands on my mind; I am terribly, terribly worried about my own husband.

  At last a voice got through to her: ‘Your carriage is here, Mrs Cheveley.’

  Stella once more came to and obliged with the speech: ‘Thanks. Good evening, Lady Chiltern.’

  Then she realized what she had said and what it meant. It was a painful moment. Oh God, I must have gone through almost an act on autopilot. This could happen, all actors knew the phenomenon, but it would not do. She gathered herself together and carried on.

  Stella Pinero as Mrs Cheveley – she had naturally given herself the female lead – went backstage and sought comfort. Alice Yeoman was standing in the wings, watching.

  Stella had been persuaded to employ Alice by her husband, John Coffin. ‘She’s the child of a chap I served with,’ he explained. ‘We did a job together, he saved my life, got hurt himself. When he died last year, he asked me to look after the girl … he’d been too old a father and her mother was gone. I don’t see myself as a father-figure, but I promised I would see the girl through.’ There had been a bit more to it, but this was not something to talk about. Alice was like Bill Yeoman and yet different.