Coffin Knows the Answer Read online

  ‘One lucky lad is chosen.’

  ‘And her new theatre?’

  ‘Well, the auditioning and so on has brought her the publicity she hoped for, and now she has to face the actual building work.’ He smiled affectionately.

  ‘And that’s on the way?’

  ‘Starts very soon.’

  The phone rang, and this time it was what Phoebe knew to be his private line. ‘Stella? Lovely to hear your voice. How are you? Oh good. How is the work going?’ He smiled, so work was going well. ‘A box … Do you want me to collect it? …Yes sure, of course. I’ll take the dog and walk round there. What do you want me to do with it … Right.’

  He hung up and turned to Phoebe. ‘She’s had a message to say that a parcel is waiting for her in St Luke’s Tower. She thinks it’s some new makeup she ordered … Doesn’t want it sitting in the sun.’

  ‘Might get nicked’ Phoebe said. ‘Can’t I collect it for you and bring it back here with Gus?

  Coffin considered.

  ‘I’d like the walk with the dog … while I think over this paedophile case you want me into.’

  ‘Well in,’ said Coffin, making it almost a command. ‘That’s what it needs, Joe and Mercy have been floating the surface a bit.’

  ‘I suppose Joe wasn’t fit. And Mercy had a row with that doctor she’s been seeing.’

  ‘Make them more determined to get the perpetrators. Keener.’

  ‘But frightened too.’

  Coffin was silent. Then he said: ‘No names have been mentioned in the press or on TV. Joe and Mercy have not been mentioned.’

  ‘No,’ said Phoebe.

  More silence. Coffin took a deep breath. ‘I won’t pretend I don’t know what you are getting at. Or that I have not considered it.’

  Phoebe waited.

  ‘The paedophile group may contain one or more people I know.’

  ‘And who work with … us.’

  ‘Possibly a member or members of the Second City Force.’ said Coffin. ‘And Joe and Mercy will have sensed this. That’s about it, isn’t it?’

  Phoebe nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I agree with you. And it’s one of the reasons I have asked you to take charge. How does that make you feel?’

  Phoebe took a deep breath. ‘That I want to get on with it, sir.’ She looked down at the dog, ‘Come on, Gus, we’ll take that walk.’

  On the stairs in the theatre she passed a tall, thin youth who was, although she did not know it, Andrew Eliot, the lad who had won Stella’s prize audition and who would be working in Spinnerwick. He bowed and smiled at Phoebe, who smiled back. She liked good looking youths. Andrew was doing secretarial work at the police station to earn money for a nose job, to make him even more good looking for his acting career.

  As she set out with Gus, trotting cheerfully in front as if ready to walk miles (although she knew from past experience, he would soon be looking up and saying he couldn’t walk another step and now could she carry him), her thoughts were not focused on the dog.

  She wondered how Mercy would take her arrival in charge. Mercy, polite and friendly as she was, had the reputation of protecting her own territory.

  And then there was the matter of her love affair. Since her divorce Mercy could be tricky. Phoebe had never been quite sure if Mercy was divorced or widowed. Both was her secret opinion: divorced then remarried and widowed. She certainly had a taste for men.

  Joe had surely declared his position by falling ill. All right, he didn’t invent it, who would, but she knew Joe well enough to guess that in the normal way he would have carried on working if at all possible.

  Phoebe went up to her small office on the third floor. Would she still be working from there when she got into the paedophiles? Probably not. A bigger office would be necessary, but she would be back here, it was the nearest place to her working home since she had left Birmingham.

  She rang Mercy, with Gus sitting on her feet, looking hurt. Where was that walk? ‘Mercy?’

  ‘Oh hello. So you’re taking over?’ Her voice was brisk and Phoebe had known it friendlier.

  ‘Working with you,’ said Phoebe, ‘that’s more the way of it. I didn’t get a lot of choice, you don’t with the Chief Commander when he’s made a decision.’

  Mercy knew it. ‘It’s not a nice piece of cake, you know.’

  ‘Then we needn’t eat it like that, need we?’

  Mercy laughed and relaxed. ‘No, sure. Well, there you are, we do it together.’

  ‘How’s Joe?’ Phoebe asked.

  ‘Not too bad. Turns out he hasn’t got leukaemia, the symptoms looked right but when they did some tests, it wasn’t. But he’s got to rest.’ She added, a shade wistfully: ‘He’s out of hospital. Home, being cherished.’ At least, she thought that was what it was.

  Taking a month or so off, thought Phoebe, she couldn’t blame him. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Mercy did not pretend not to understand. ‘I expect to keep well. I’ve sent my son to Fife to stay with family. I think with two brothers who are into judo, not to mention two guard dogs, he will be safe enough.’

  ‘Right.’ Phoebe looked down at Gus. And I haven’t even got a cat or dog to worry about. Another reason why I got chosen. Perhaps she could get a cat. Or later on, even have a baby. People did, you weren’t obliged to have a father, although it was probably nicer, just a little bit of semen. But she could no doubt manage the father if she gave her mind to it. Jokey speculation like that always cheered her up.

  ‘What sort of mood is the Lord High Executioner in? Approachable?’ Mercy wanted to know.

  ‘He’s always approachable, isn’t he?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Mercy’

  ‘Sometimes more so. Stella’s away, he can be edgy. He’s jealous, you see.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Of course, she’s an attractive woman, and it’s her job to let people see it. I’m jealous myself sometimes.’

  ‘I never know whether to believe you or not.’

  Phoebe laughed.

  ‘Anyway, I want to see him, need to see him, and I hope he will listen to me.’

  ‘Try him and see, ’Phoebe advised.

  ‘Yeah, might do that.’

  ‘I’ll be back.’ said Phoebe. ‘And we’ll mop up this paedophile outfit, I’m determined. May be only a small group. Even a one man band, feels to me like that.’ And then she was determined she would be transferred to the Stalker investigation.

  Phoebe said goodbye to Mercy and then she and Gus trotted off together; Phoebe feeling more cheerful and Gus more determined to get his walk.

  On the way, she saw Mercy, also on her way somewhere … ‘Hi.’

  ‘As we’re soon going to be working together,’ Mercy said, ‘we’ll have to get used to meeting.’ She sounded only half pleased at the prospect. ‘There’s a room for you to work in been found.’

  ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘It hasn’t been opened yet. Waiting for you, I think …Joke. This is a bloody difficult case.’

  Mercy did not know for sure as yet who was going to be in charge now Joe was off. She wanted the job, but Phoebe outranked her. And in fact she had a strong feeling that she was going to be on the outskirts of this case. One of those CID officers who is occasionally seen but seldom heard. A disappearing act which somehow wins promotion. If Phoebe sought to be transferred to the Stalker outfit, then no doubt she would be, Mercy thought.

  Anyway, a call on the Chief Commander might settle her mind.

  Even as tolerant and polite a Chief Commander as John Coffin (who well remembered his own humbler days) could not be seen without a preliminary talk with Paul Masters who ‘kept the book’ as he liked to describe it.

  He had a desk in one corner of the big room with two acolytes of either sex (one no longer called them secretaries) at their computers and various other electronic aids on longish tables.

  Paul had run in the London Marathon once, he and Mercy had trained together and Mercy
had got through while he had had to drop out. An experience like that gives you respect for the other person. Liking too in this case, because Mercy had never once made a joke of him. Never even mentioned it, so most of his colleagues, who would certainly have referred more than once to Drop Out Paul, never knew of it.

  Paul showed Mercy in, asked Coffin if they would like coffee, and then brought it in. He then tactfully retired. It was up to Mercy now.

  Coffin, who knew the value of silence, waited for her to speak.

  ‘Stench.’

  The word shattered the silence.

  ‘It smells, you must think so yourself, sir.’

  ‘Certainly it presents some unusual features,’ Coffin said cautiously, waiting to hear what she had to say. Did she know about the photographs sent to Stella?

  ‘It seems aimed at us, not personally, but sent on purpose.’ So she didn’t know about what had come to Stella.

  For that matter, Stella herself did not know. Not yet. May be she would never have to.

  ‘That’s what had Joe puzzled. I don’t say it made him ill, of course it didn’t, but by God, it helped. ’ And maybe he wasn’t as ill as he acted; he just wanted out.

  ‘In these cases we have to seek out evidence of paedophilia. You know we do: it’s a secret activity and they want it kept secret.’ Mercy continued.

  ‘Except among themselves,’ said Coffin

  ‘It’s almost a proxy activity, the passing round of the photographs is as important as the activity itself.’

  ‘Pleasure enjoyed in remembrance,’ said Coffin.

  ‘And we’re part of the pleasure: the police team, you even, sir.’ she did not see Coffin give an imperceptible flinch, ‘and we don’t like it. I don’t like it, Joe didn’t like it. Phoebe won’t like it when she gets a whiff of it.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Coffin.

  ‘As a rule we have to go searching, but now it is coming at us and we don’t have to look, it is supplied. By the perpetrators? Not something they usually do. This case is not typical, I can feel it.’

  Coffin nodded.

  Mercy stood up. ‘Thank you for seeing me and letting me talk … I just wanted to let you know how uneasy Joe and I have been. In case anything goes wrong.’

  ‘Do you think it will?’

  Mercy nodded. ‘Could do. But how and what I can’t tell … just a feeling.’

  ‘Feelings count,’ said Coffin, speaking from memories of his past.

  ‘I hear that another body has arrived in our area, courtesy of the killer of the other girls?’

  Coffin nodded.

  ‘No connection with the paedophiles?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. If you find one, let me know.’ He was holding the door for her.

  Never forgets he’s a gentleman as well as the Boss, thought Mercy. ‘At once, sir.’

  She deserved a smile from him and got it.

  Phoebe and Gus took a leisurely walk through the little old churchyard, now a small park and then turned back to the tower where Coffin and Stella had made their home. Three stone steps led up to the front door. Phoebe had half convinced herself that she would find nothing, but there was a small parcel lying on the grey stone.

  It was addressed to Stella.

  ‘Right, Gus, we’ll take it to your master.’

  The parcel, in thick brown paper, typed address, was square and while not heavy just a trifle more solid than she had expected.

  Managing Gus who was keen to get back to Coffin, she dropped the parcel. ‘Shook that up a bit,’ she said as she picked it up. ‘Don’t suppose it matters.’

  They walked up the stairs to Coffin’s office since Gus did not like either the lift or the escalator and passed Paul Masters with a wave.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ Masters asked.

  Phoebe shook her head and marched in to the Chief Commander’s office.

  She handed the parcel over to Coffin who was seated at his desk, then looked at it. ‘Something’s leaked,’ she said. ‘I dropped it, what did I do when I dropped it?’

  She stared at her hand. ‘It’s blood.’

  Coffin took the packet from her, ripped off the paper, increasingly wet with blood. Inside was a tin that had once held biscuits, the lid had been dislodged when it fell. Perhaps it had never fitted very well, nor the packer cared.

  In the box, swimming in its own blood, was a body organ.

  ‘Human,’ said Coffin bluntly. Not dog, cat or horse but human, he was sure.

  ‘A ute,’ whispered Phoebe, she had done some premed stuff at university which had included anatomy. ‘I don’t think it’s human, though. Wrong size.’

  ‘I know it is a uterus,’ said Coffin, half to himself. ‘And there is a certain opacity which suggests there is an embryo inside.’

  ‘It’s part of the paedophile crimes, I’m sure, damn it. I knew they were building up to even more nastiness.’

  Through the blood he could see that the address bore Stella’s name.

  ‘Why Stella?’

  ‘I wondered that myself,’ said Phoebe.

  Stella Pinero, Lady Coffin but she preferred her professional name, was at that moment filming a comedy in Scotland. It was a good part, the best, and the film looked like being a big success. Coffin did not want anything to touch her happiness.

  ‘I’ve never known Stella more bouyant, or sure that she was doing good work. And she is. I’ve seen some of the rushes … she could get an award. It matters to her, I couldn’t bear to take the shine off that. No, we must just catch the lunatic who’s sending these messages. Shouldn’t be difficult.’

  ‘You think whoever sent this to Stella knew about her success?’

  Coffin shrugged. ‘She’s had some publicity in the national press recently’ He added: ‘I shan’t tell Stella.’

  ‘Won’t she find out?’

  ‘I won’t tell her, and you won’t.’

  Phoebe knew she would not say anything, but she had a well-founded respect for Stella’s ability to winkle things out.

  ‘Perhaps it’s aimed more at you than Stella.’ She added quietly : ‘I expect Mercy will have something cogent to say. I’ll get this mess to her, shall I?’

  ‘You’re in charge now.’

  ‘Mercy won’t like that much.’

  ‘She’s out of her depth, and knows it.’

  Phoebe was not so sure: Mercy was a clever, hardworking officer. She was also ambitious. ‘We’ve had a talk. And I met her by chance earlier today.’

  ‘Good. Did she say anything?’

  ‘Not much. We’ll work together well enough,’ Phoebe said.

  ‘I hate the human race sometimes, don’t you,’ Coffin said aloud. It wasn’t truly a question, but a statement, and a sad one.

  Chapter 2

  In a car parked near St Luke’s House, a man was dealing with a body. He was a strong man but he was struggling.

  It is always difficult carrying a woman’s body if she does not help. Like putting her arms round your neck, or tucking her legs up neatly. This body was not helping.

  Never would help, could not.

  ‘Come on, love,’ he said. ‘An inflatable doll could be more sexy than you are.’

  He had put the car where he and the body could not be overlooked from the theatre area. It was a risk, of course, that he would be seen and he knew that. Cut and run if someone does appear, he told himself. Just go. Or he might call out: Giving the lady a lift home from dinner, had a drop too much. Being English, they would certainly hurry off in embarrassment. But so far he seemed to be managing.

  It wasn’t easy, though. ‘Don’t be awkward now … I may have to lop your arm off to get you along.’

  Somehow the notion pleased him.

  As he moved forward, he was trying to decide where to leave the body. Inside the house or outside in the garden?

  He was not entirely a free agent: he thought he could get into the house and take her with him. There were difficulties: actually getting inside
he knew he could manage, but then there was the dog. There was a cat but he did not expect trouble there, cats were different, they had their thoughts and their claws, but leave them alone and they would leave you alone.

  He found his decision was made. Inside it was. ‘Off we go, baby.’

  In spite of the owner’s efficient security treatment of his house, the man thought he knew how to gain entrance.

  He got himself in first, then went back for the body. He did have to deal with the arm, but he twisted it back without too much trouble. He always carried a knife, but a knife would not do here.

  ‘I am not mad,’ he told himself. ‘Eccentric, I will accept. This is me having an eccentric joke with you, lady.’

  A wave of nausea swept through him. This was not the place to be sick, better get the job done. Since he couldn’t be pregnant, it was time to get home.

  Chapter 3

  Coffin went home after speaking to Phoebe, where he fed the dog and the cat. Stella had taken care to provide a variety of tins and packets, all of which the animals were said to like. He spooned the food, a fishy mixture for the cat, meaty for Gus, into the dishes and then stood back.

  Gus inspected his dish, next to him the cat was carefully looking over her offering. Then she stood back while Gus came over to see what she had on offer.

  Gus decided it was his day for fish, so the cat, judging it was wiser not to try sharing, started on his meat. It found favour.

  Coffin stared down at them. I don’t know what it is with you two, he said to himself, but when Stella feeds you then you eat what she gives you, when I put it out, you move around. I think you are passing judgement on me, not the food.

  ‘Watch yourself, you two. Mind your manners or I will report you to the boss. She knows how to see you behave yourselves.’

  After a while, the cat moved away from the dog’s dinner, leaving it half finished. She gave Coffin an indifferent stare, then sat down to wash her face and paws. Presently Gus, a fast eater, finished the fish and turned his attention to what was left of his own meal which he despatched efficiently.

  Coffin found it was relaxing and soothing talking to the animals who didn’t care a damn for bloody guts inside tins, except possibly as food, but even this he doubted. Both of them liked their meals carefully and delicately presented to them. Stella had indulged them, no doubt about it.