A Double Coffin

‘Come and have dinner with us tomorrow night, tell me what you’ve got.’

‘Will Stella like that?’ Phoebe had no illusions of how and why Stella was not too fond of her; she liked Stella, admired her, but had no desire to get closer.

‘She will.’

Stella would not be there, though, he knew very well she would be in the north, seeing a possible new production and that he would take Phoebe to Max’s restaurant and talk to her there. To make sure, he rang up and booked a corner table for tomorrow night. Less easy to be overheard in a corner. Also, Max understood about corners and he had some nice private ones where you could hardly be seen at all.

It was nothing to do with him and Phoebe in the past, or any possible relationship now, there was none, but he did not want any questions about this piece of investigation floating around the Second City.

Once again, he found himself thinking about the girl Jaimie, she struck him as a clever, pushy young woman.

After leaving Coffin and Stella the evening before, Jaimie and Martin had quarrelled, or rather, let the anger surge up again. It was one of their better quarrels in as much as after a certain amount of pummelling and throwing of china, accompanied by the shouts that sooner or later one of them would kill the other, they ended up in bed. But the resentments between them were still there.

‘You knocked me over,’ said Jaimie, examining her bruises.

‘You fell,’ said Martin in a tired voice. He was not unscarred himself. He put his arm round her and nuzzled her head. He was all for peace now, spent, worn out.

Jaimie rolled over on her back and looked at the ceiling.

‘Every time you touch me, I feel as though you are touching your mother.’

Martin shot away, his skin tingling. ‘Damn you, damn you, damn.’

Although it was in the small hours, he got up and banged out of the flat.

‘Goodbye, Jaimie, or whatever you call yourself.’ He shouted it out over his shoulder.

‘It’s true,’ she shouted after him. ‘True, true, you think about your mother when you make love to me. Run away if you like, you always run away.’

‘I’ll come back and kill you,’ he shouted back at her. Then he slammed the door and walked through the rain to his sister.

His sister lived in part of a house near the hospital where she worked which she shared with another doctor. She had the ground floor and a dark basement which led on to a tiny garden where she grew plants in pots. Her rooms were painted white and sparsely furnished, there was no untidiness; you got the impression that every object had been chosen with great care. She said herself it was the only way to live after her years in a controlled world. Another sort of person might have burst out into wildness, but she had come to like the idea of smallness of choice. It was not without significance that she specialized in microscopic surgery. Knives hardly came into it.

Clara was as tall as her brother, as blonde as he was and almost as tall. She was always beautifully if casually dressed, with her hair cropped short. She remembered her parents and knew that she looked like both of them.

She came to the door to let her brother in. ‘I knew it was you. Only you, Martin, could ring the bell at three in the morning … I am on call, so if I have to leave, you are on your own. What’s the trouble now? But need I ask?’

He came in, shaking the rain off his hair like a dog.

Clara tossed him a towel. ‘Here, dry yourself.’

‘One of our worst rows … Jaimie really is the end. It’s terrible to love someone you cannot stand.’

Clara kept silent. She remembered her mother and wondered what else you could inherit besides hair colouring and blue eyes. Was there a gene for loving the wrong person?

‘She thinks I want to kill her,’ said Martin, rubbing his hair.

‘And do you?’

‘No, consciously, no. What do you think I am?’

‘I don’t know, my dear,’ said Clara, sitting down and looking at him. ‘I don’t know what either of us are.’

‘Oh Clar, darling, don’t go all philosophical on me. I just need a bit of home comfort.’ He had finished drying himself. ‘She brings out the worst in me, that’s all. I’ll get over it. Can I stay the night?’

‘Just for one night … I don’t want you staying here. I have enough watchful looks to contend with without them adding incest to the list.’

She did not hide her identity from those who wished to know, but she had changed her name, thinking, and rightly, that here patients might not care for a surgeon so handy with a knife. She was Miss Clara Henley, FRCS. Henley had been her maternal grandmother’s name. She was training herself to speak freely.

‘Don’t,’ said Martin, flushing, remembering what Jaimie had said about his mother. ‘Clar, there’s something I ought to tell you about Jaimie … You know she’s a journalist? Well, she’s been researching some story, but she wouldn’t say much about it. I thought it was about some long dead-and-gone figure … well, maybe it is, but maybe not. I think she’s been researching us, and that’s what she is going to write about.’

There can’t be much left to say.’ Clara took a deep breath.

‘She’ll find something,’ said Martin with conviction. ‘I think that’s why she moved in with me. She’s going to make a story out of it.’ He looked at his sister’s face. It wouldn’t do him much harm, and the publicity might even help him, but Clara, that was another matter. He knew how hard she had struggled to get where she was, and how even now she was working in a lower position than her age and qualifications merited, but she had started from a low base. ‘I’ll kill her, I really will kill her.’

‘Oh, go to bed,’ said Clara wearily. ‘You can kip down on the sofa. Good night.’ At the door, she turned back. ‘Don’t worry if you hear me go out, it’s just that I am on call. I will take the phone through so it won’t disturb you.’

He thought he did hear her later, the door seemed to open then close quietly, and in the morning she was dressed as if she had been out. ‘Yes, I had a call. One of those emergencies which call me out but not my consultant. I hope I didn’t disturb you.’

Martin had not been disturbed by any noise, but he had had bad nightmares on and off through the night.

Coffin knew nothing of Martin’s disturbed dreams, although later he was to hear of them.

He worked on routine matters all the rest of the day. There was an arson case in an electrical factory that was getting a lot of attention, and a police officer had been shot at, not hit, thank God, but lucky to be alive; the newspapers were giving both cases the big treatment and were not full of praise for the Chief Commander.

Perhaps Phoebe was right, he reflected as he drove home, and he was being conspired against. He knew he had enemies. It seemed a roundabout way of doing it though, and it wouldn’t put a gloss on the name of GOM Lavender. There must be easier methods of bringing down John Coffin.

He could think of at least three. He allowed himself a smile as he parked the car. Someone who had lived his sort of life had left plenty of strings for enemies to pull upon. He had lied at various times, knocked one man unconscious and killed another, all in the cause of duty, of course, but you weren’t supposed to do it. No malice. That is one thing you can say about me, he said to himself, as he opened the door, there is no malice in me. Anger, yes; resentment occasionally; jealousy at odd times; and the other lusts of the flesh as the occasion called out for.

Tiddles met him at the door.

‘She’s out, is she?’ Coffin knew the signs.

The dog came down the staircase more slowly, since his short legs found the risers taxing.

At their silent but earnest request, he went into the kitchen to open tins for both. Both were eating dog food tonight; sometimes they both ate food marketed for cats, but they never seemed to notice the difference.

A savoury smell coming from the oven hinted that someone, probably not Stella, had been preparing an evening meal. He opened the oven door to make an inspection. A large casserole was simmering away.

‘I didn’t know we had one of those,’ he said aloud.

From the door, Stella said: ‘We don’t. One of Max’s assistants from the restaurant comes round to do it, this is chicken and ham.’

‘Smells like it.’

‘It’s a very good new service that Max is thinking of starting up. Kind of luxury meals on wheels. You can choose from three menus and Max says they will change from week to week, according to what is in season.’

‘How long has it been going?’ asked Coffin suspiciously.