A Coffin for Charley

Annie had heard a rumour of this but had chosen not to believe it.

‘Going home? Back to Wellington Street?’

‘Reckon she’ll have to. She isn’t going to live long, Annie, she’s no danger to you.’

‘Yes, she is, you’ll see.’ Annie’s voice was a wail. ‘And what about him? Will?’

Now for the bad bad news. ‘He’s tucked away in hospital, can’t walk or talk, he’s in a worse state than she is. So they are both out. Natural justice, I suppose that’s the reasoning.’

‘He’ll kill me,’ said Annie, white-faced.

‘He’s an old man now, Annie. I don’t think he’s a threat.’

Annie stood up, she could be as dramatic as Didi when she liked, and swept to the window. ‘There’s a murderer out there. A killer. Marianna Manners lived not far from here. It could be young Creeley. Family business. You say he’s not been hanging around. I think he has.’

Tom took a deep breath. ‘Well, maybe I haven’t been quite straight with you there. I think he’s looked around, seen the house. Even rung the doorbell.’

Annie stared at him.

Tom turned to Didi. ‘Come on, Didi, you know the boy, don’t you? It’s you he’s after. And not to kill.’

Annie turned on her sister. ‘Is this true?’

‘I told you I liked Eddie, he’s decent. He wants to act too. We rehearse together.’

‘Good for you,’ said Tom.

‘I trust him,’ said Didi.

‘You can’t trust a Creeley. You’re a fool, Didi.’

Annie made a dramatic gesture with her hands. ‘You know what you’re doing, you two? You are talking to a woman who is dying. I am going to be killed.’

Tom made an opportunity to speak to Didi at the door. ‘Keep an eye on her.’

‘Oh, she’ll be all right. She’s got her social worker looking after her.’

He considered. ‘Still?’

‘I think he’s off the job, it’s personal now. He’s in love with her.’

‘That’s not ethical.’

‘What’s ethical? Life’s not ethical.’

Tom laughed. ‘You’re right there. What’s his name? I’ll look into it.’

‘Alex Edwards. I don’t know his address.’

‘I’ll find it.’ He saw she was more anxious about her sister than she wanted to admit.

‘Don’t worry too much, kid. I think your sister will have a long life.’ He was not in a position to be sure of this, who could be? But he wanted Didi to be happy.

‘She does get so upset.’

‘Don’t we all?’

‘Not you.’

‘Me too. When I’m keen on something. Or I like a person.’

He smiled, and after a pause, Didi smiled.

‘I’m serious.’

As he drove away, he wondered if he ought to have told her to be careful with the Creeley boy. But that night be over-egging the pudding. He would seek a chance to have a word with the Chief Commander, John Coffin, and say something quiet. Go into one of the pubs he used and take his chance. Like a careful man, he had taken the trouble to run a check on the life and habits of John Coffin. Meaning him no harm, he told himself, but it is as well to know what you can.

After all, he could say, I am looking for your sister’s missing daughter (although in my opinion the mother knows more about the child than she is letting on, and they just don’t want to meet for reasons all their own but which I intend to know) and I helped with your wife’s divorce and that was a fudged-up affair as I expect you know. Or didn’t you know?

And as he drove, he said quietly to the traffic lights as they turned red: I have put my foot in that pool and I am not taking it out.

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_4c17bed0-a449-52cf-9d3b-50a5491927cb)

Tuesday through to Wednesday. In Spinnergate

Stella Pinero, as she went about her business for the next day or two kept a watch for her obsessive admirer. If that was what he was. Stalking a star, that was the phrase, wasn’t it?

She seemed to be free at the moment. In her life she had been the object of passionate love, of jealousy, and of dislike. Even sometimes, almost harder to bear, of indifference. But there was something uncomfortable about being the object of an obsession.

She considered what she knew of the figure in the shadows, Charley, she called him. There was never any attempt at contact. She had never been touched, had had no letters, never been sent a photograph, had no telephone calls.

She had seen the man in the courtyard outside the St Luke’s Theatre after a performance. In the road outside St Luke’s Mansions, looking up, just the flash of dark glasses turned her way. Once she had seen him on the station at the Spinnergate Tube, but he didn’t get on the train with her. There may have been many occasions when she had simply not seen him. Certainly in the beginning, before she became alerted, there must have been such times.

I am just watched. Perhaps admired, perhaps hated.

At Coffin’s request she had made a list of the physical characteristics as she had had a chance to make them out. ‘Tell me all you can,’ he had said. ‘Every detail helps, just jot it down.’

So she had made a list. As much for her own comfort as for his. To make the observer observed took away some fear.

So: a thin figure of medium height. A hat pulled down over the face. Dark glasses. Hands covered in gloves. Wears boots, and a wig.

A secretive man.

It came to a slim catalogue and not likely to help identify the man. She knew enough of her husband’s colleagues to know that they might suggest it was all her imagination. A fantasy blown up in her mind. They would not say so directly to John Coffin, but they had their ways of showing scepticism. She wasn’t sure, indeed, how much even her husband had believed her.

He must be a secret man, but someone somewhere knew him and was protecting him. That was what they always said, wasn’t it? But perhaps no one knew this man’s face?

I am having a hard time. I am frightened, she told herself. And that is a fact. My fear is a fact.