A Double Coffin

A Double Coffin
Gwendoline Butler

John Coffin is left reeling after the former Prime Minister makes a shocking confession. A dark and gripping crime novel from one of the most appraised English mystery writers, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.A visit to the riverside apartment of the long retired former prime minister, Richard Lavender, is to have startling consequences for John Coffin. For it transpires that the old man, nearing the end of his life, has a confession to make: he is the son of a serial killer. He tells Coffin how, as a boy, he helped to bury one of his father’s victims. Feeling death is near, he wants to repair and reclaim the past – with Coffin’s help.Unsure whether Lavender is caught up in fantasy or telling the truth, Coffin agrees to investigate and appoints Chief Inspector Phoebe Astley to the task. But then a young woman is found murdered on a foggy November night, and all too soon the sins of the past and present come together in a terrifying denouement.

GWENDOLINE BUTLER

A DOUBLE COFFIN

Copyright (#ulink_19ac9245-a7a9-5fd7-81e9-a7a2a4f8e43b)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1996

Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1996

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

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

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

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780006497745

Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007545445

Version: 2014–07–07

Contents

Cover (#u4aec5fb5-1dc0-5425-bc4d-eccabd3a528d)

Title Page (#u9e045ec1-433f-52e5-8a90-94e2d64445d0)

Copyright (#ulink_17ae8535-23f8-543a-b0e4-18cc1799afbf)

Prologue (#ulink_d1e01633-ede0-57d7-ac7c-d9124916545d)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_403093ff-18ae-5c45-b567-8db0fffd819e)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_0490b739-fe6b-5c39-9a6f-56a7e4abe1db)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_61b7242e-6b8b-564a-916b-661e65dc6199)

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)

Prologue (#ulink_dc9e6c8d-642f-5ae0-ad1f-0954ea1df45a)

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.