A Dark Coffin

‘Bit of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?’ Merry was almost laughing.

Harry took a deep breath. ‘Come up and have a drink. I’m glad to see you looking so well. I came here to find you, heard you were here.’

‘I don’t drink. You’re the drinker out of the two of us.’

Since this was true, Harry said nothing, but opened the door. ‘Just come in and tell me what you want and what you are doing here.’

Merry did not follow him in, but stayed in the shadows. ‘I told you: I heard you were looking for me. We are twins, after all. We keep in touch whether we like it or not.’

‘What are you doing in Swinehouse?’

‘Earning a living. Just like you. I’ve got a job in a haulage business. I have to live … There’s someone else we both know in Spinnergate.’

‘I don’t want to talk about her. Forget it. I saw you on the TV news, in the street fighting.’

‘I wasn’t doing any fighting, I was there, yes. You might have been yourself, we were expressing what we felt. I knew that kid, thank God she isn’t dead.’

‘That’s the latest news of her, is it?’

‘It is. I went to the hospital myself: stable.’

‘Two people died in the theatre tonight.’ Harry sounded weary. ‘Looks like suicide.’

‘I know, I was there, dropped in for the performance, got a cheap ticket. I knew something was up, didn’t know what.’

Harry said wearily, ‘Look, I don’t want to talk about it now, but I want you to remember that I am your twin and I love you and you can talk to me.’

‘I know what you think of me: I didn’t rape and strangle that girl in North Woolwich, although by God, she nearly raped me. Anyway, she isn’t dead. I saw her walking in Greenwich Park the other day.’

That’s you all over. Merry, thought Harry. Always with an answer. So glib.

‘I won’t take a drink off you, but I’ll keep in touch, you know where I am.’

Harry nodded. ‘So I do. Don’t move away without telling me.’

‘What about you? Will you push off now you have found me?’

‘Not until I have found out what happened to the Macintoshes.’

‘Always the detective … they were a gloomy old pair, don’t wonder they decided to drop over the side. Surprised they did it together, though, never felt they were that keen on each other.’

‘They were kind to us.’

‘Think so? Didn’t feel like kindness to me … to tell the truth, I thought they were a spooky couple. I don’t feel sorry they are gone.’

‘I shouldn’t say that aloud too often.’

Merry smiled. ‘Don’t worry about me, if there’s one thing I am good at it is hiding my feelings. Hiding, in fact. It’s kind of an occupation.’ He looked his brother in the face. ‘And that is not a joke, with a childhood like ours, you can’t be surprised. I hide, you search, that’s your occupation. Two sides of one coin.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘I’ll oblige … this is me saying goodbye … Say goodbye to Lou for me. How is she?’

Harry did not answer, but waved his brother off as the darkness ate him up, they were twins after all and Merry didn’t always say what he meant or tell the truth, they couldn’t be parted. Or not without surgery.

He was laughing to himself as he went into his borrowed home. ‘Might come to that,’ he said to himself. ‘Oh God, so it might. Take a sharp knife and cut someone out. Hara-kiri of the soul. God, I must be drunker than I thought.’

He picked up the telephone and although it was late, he rang his own home. ‘Lou, I’ll have to stay on a bit longer … things have happened that mean I must be around. No, just a continuing investigation.’

He had not told her that he was hunting for Merry, it was a name he preferred to leave unspoken, a bad word between them. He had the horrible feeling she liked Merry the better of the two of them and would have wished to have been his wife.

He had another drink while he thought about the dead couple, the Macintoshes. In the morning, if he was still there, and you never knew, he would talk to John Coffin.

He took a drink to bed, head against the pillows while he sipped it. Merry was right, Harry was the drinking twin. As he drank, he thought about his Louise. She was so tall and slender and desirable. Clever, too.

He finished the drink, put the glass on the floor beside the bed, wondered briefly what high sexual jinks the bed had known when Stella had used it, he did not underrate the Chief Commander.

Enjoying his mildly lascivious thoughts, envious ones too, he slipped into sleep.

Tomorrow would come whether you like it or not; he might hide, like Merry, but he could not run away. Things would have to be said.

Stella took a shower, washing off the scent of Jolie Madame and replacing it with fresh verbena. Then she knotted the towelling robe and emerged to confront Coffin.

‘Come on, what’s up?’

He was standing by the bedroom window, holding the cat, and staring into the night. Neither seemed happy.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were dead silent on the way over from the theatre, and didn’t say a word to Harry. Bit rude, I thought.’

‘I’m worried.’

‘What about?’

He could have said: the trouble on the streets, the child in hospital who may be lamed, your man in Rome, and my own personal little worry, but he said: ‘When I touched the back of the chair where the man Joe Macintosh had been lying, my hand came away with blood on it.’

‘Oh.’ Stella absorbed this news. ‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know, not yet. Maybe nothing. He may have cut himself.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Harry was odd.’

‘He was upset. He knew them, after all.’

‘That’s what worries me.’