Coffin in the Black Museum

Coffin in the Black Museum
Gwendoline Butler

The first John Coffin story with a contemporary setting. A recently-promoted John Coffin soon has his hands full when a severed human head turns up the steps of his new home. From one of the most appraised English mystery authors, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.John Coffin now commands his own force in the newly created second city of London, established on the site of the old Docklands.Life is good for Coffin – he's earned a promotion and has just moved into a new home in the tower of a renovated church-turned-theatre. Then a severed human head is found in an urn on the church steps, and a hand turns up in a freezer upstairs. Coffin must hunt down the serial killer before more body parts start appearing.

GWENDOLINE BUTLER

Coffin in the Black Museum

COPYRIGHT (#ulink_3534fc50-2c91-58ad-926a-6536494b32bc)

HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in 1989 by Collins

This edition first issued in 1991 by Fontana

Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1989

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

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

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Source ISBN: 9780006179108

Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007545476

Version: 2014–07–07

CONTENTS

Cover (#u84957fef-e03b-5610-94ff-a9cc0a58b6aa)

Title Page (#u32c7fecb-e08f-5195-b6ef-a03393c40bf2)

Copyright (#ulink_c8e08fa0-745a-5c04-9810-78ec91654b23)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_6c956059-ce48-58d9-8ec6-2614979382f4)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_505c4418-4ea0-52a9-847b-740f16716157)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_2ca04f99-20fb-500b-8537-e6db291c8815)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_68341f49-3e05-52a0-90c2-d39642a4bcdc)

‘What is that crowd?’ said John Coffin, looking down from his tower at the street below. A grey London street. ‘Who’s dead now?’

It was a joke, but he thought a lot about death. In a way it was his job.

Death was a long-stay visitor in the district he was observing with a proprietary interest. Poverty, disease, and several wars over the centuries had seen to it. But death comes in different packets, sometimes mercifully, sometimes stealthily, sometimes brutally and murderously. The district had known plenty of that sort of death too.

In the Middle Ages an instrument of violent death, whether cudgel, knife or even a simple horse that had thrown its rider, was deemed too dangerous to be let loose on the world, was declared ‘deodand’, given to God.

In twentieth-century England, such an object is apt to be put by the police in a Black Museum. But perhaps the power is not thus exorcized.

‘I suppose it’s going a bit far to call it a crowd.’ On closer inspection it appeared to be a child and two women staring at something in the gutter. But over the years John Coffin had developed a certain sensitivity to a group of people staring at a something. Professional sensitivity. It usually meant trouble on the way, and that was where he came in.