Coffin’s Ghost

The two men had moved into similar apartments in a renovated and restored warehouse in Spinnergate. The building now called The Argosy, was in Rickards Passage and had once housed imports from the East. It still smelt of spices, so George and Robbie claimed. Friends (or enemies, it was sometimes not easy to be sure which) for decades, they were also business associates who worked together in the theatre: George Freedom was the money man and Robbie Gilchrist was on the artistic side, choosing the plays, and then supervising the production. They had had a string of successes. Likewise failures. They had both married the same woman, she had left Gilchrist for Freedom. Coffin wondered about their relationship.

‘Well, good luck to you. Shall I stay home and eat with you or clear off and eat at Max’s?’

It would be the same style of food anyway as Stella had almost certainly ordered the meal from Max’s since this was their local restaurant. Max always did his best for Stella, whom he admired.

‘Oh stay, darling, and give me support. I want to try to launch a Festival of Spinnergate and if they will help it would be an enormous boost. I have already spoken to Robbie and he sounded keen.’

‘If I won’t be in the way.’ He was aware that his presence, what he was and his position, made some people self-conscious, ill at ease in his company. ‘I don’t think they like me much.’

Stella shook her head. ‘That’s their professional look: No like, no trust. I think that’s better than the pros who are all over you, all jovial and friendly, and you know it’s all an act. At least with George and Robbie what you see is what you get.’

Coffin said he would probably enjoy it. ‘Remind me which is which, I get them confused.’

This was not strictly true: he possessed a pretty good idea of George Freedom. They had met. He did not like him. Mutual.

Stella was ready. ‘Freedom is the small, stout one, with a quiff of dark hair. Not a grey hair to be seen.’

‘Dyed?’

‘Probably. But well done. And Robbie is the tall thin one, bald as could be, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He tried a wig once but said it was too hot and itched. That was when he was married to Mariette, it was to please her. Didn’t work, she went off anyway.’

‘He was lucky there,’ said Coffin, who recalled Mariette vividly. Mariette you did not forget.

‘Yes, I think so.’

Stella was silent for a moment, then she said: ‘You heard about Georgie’s problem?’ But of course, he had.

Coffin said, Yes, he had heard.

She said hesitantly: ‘It was when you were ill, so I wondered.’

‘I heard about it, though. I wasn’t ill, just an operation.’ Did he say that aloud? Yes, he obviously did because she answered.

‘Yes, just an operation.’ They opened you up with a sharp knife, saw what the damage was, tidied up a bit of this and that, then closed you up again. A picnic. You enjoyed it.

The operation was made necessary by an attack, but she did not mention this: Coffin was touchy about it.

She was never ill herself. Performers never were. Provided she still had a voice, Stella knew she would crawl on to the stage and do her bit. Voice? Even when that went she would mime her part.

Slowly, she said: ‘George knows he was lucky not to go to prison for much longer.’

Coffin said he had had a good lawyer.

‘Not the end of it, of course. There’s going to be an appeal. Damages, that sort of thing. You wouldn’t think of him as violent, would you? Of course, he isn’t really, he was just unlucky, an accident, a terrible accident, a little push and …’ Stella shrugged. ‘She had a thin skull.’

Still has, Coffin pointed out, she wasn’t dead, was she?

‘No, not dead,’ said Stella, ‘but her mind – they call it brain damage …’ She shrugged. ‘Then there’s his stepdaughter too. That’s another problem, taken herself off. You know his second wife was Robbie’s wife? Or one of them. So Robbie was her stepfather too and fond of her. It’s complicated. I’m always surprised that Robbie and George still work together. Money, I suppose. Anyway, the stepdaughter took off about the time George got out from his spell in prison. The girl who was hurt was a friend of hers.’

‘She might come back of her own accord, it can happen. Pretty kid, nice long fair hair.’ Not clever, though. Simple.

‘You do know all about it,’ said Stella. Of course you do, you always do, whatever you pretend. Your job.

‘Just heard about it, probably from Mimsie Marker, or someone, and saw a photograph somewhere.’ He looked at Stella. ‘Perhaps I’d better take myself out.’

‘No, don’t.’ She knew, and she understood now that he too knew, that the ‘problem’ which had been mentioned was not what happened to the stepdaughter but what had gone before.

The other accident. Another girl who worked for him.

And the one before that. No official complaint there but all in the dossier.

Freedom was a man to whom accidents happened.

Stella looked at her legs. It was funny about flesh, some days bits of you looked saggy and tired, and other days, they looked good. Today her legs looked trim and neat. Might be the new tights she was wearing from the place in Bond Street. Cost the earth but worth it.

‘I’ll go and put something sleek and flashy on, that’s what they like, those two.’

‘I’ll behave.’ Coffin gave her a wary smile.

Coffin got back to his literary labours which he was enjoying. Nice to be free of crime for a bit. Not that the Second City was ever truly crime-free, any more than any other big city, only at the moment it appeared free from murder, rape, drugs and pornography. Someone’s put the lid on it all for a bit, he told himself cheerfully.

And all the time, he had waiting for him on the doorstep of a battered women’s refuge, four limbs: two legs and two arms.

George arrived first, but late (and he was usually punctual), to be received by Stella in her new Vivienne Westwood trouser suit of satin with a fringe. The soft golden colour became her, as she was well aware – she hoped George noticed, but he seemed abstracted. He accepted a strong whisky and was sipping it when Robbie turned up full of apologies for being late.

‘My wife would talk to me on the phone.’ He was divorced from wife number two (Mariette had been number three), but husband and wife kept in touch, more closely than he cared for at times. ‘I thought she’d never get off the line. She’s worried sick about her eldest daughter, Alice; my stepdaughter, but I’m fond of her.’ He looked at George. ‘His stepdaughter too, for that matter, we married the same woman. A beauty but a bitch. Alice is seventeen, not a kid, really. She’s gone off with her boyfriend, that’s my opinion.’ He did not go into it because he did not quite believe it.

‘It happens,’ said Stella. ‘Did it myself once.’

Coffin gave her a wry look. Wasn’t with me, he thought.

‘She was in your outfit, Stella, for a bit. In the stage manager’s team.’

‘I remember her, very pretty girl. Kind of innocent, really. She’ll turn up.’

Robbie nodded. He hoped so. ‘Her mother is worried, they had a quarrel before she left.’

‘She’s always been a trouble, that girl,’ said George over his whisky. He had no children himself, although several times married. ‘And you know it.’

‘It’s all money,’ said Robbie gloomily. ‘Always about money. Her mother says she spends too much, I say they both do. But the girl’s not bright.’

‘Money,’ said George. ‘Don’t mention it. We all have our worries. How do you manage all this theatre complex, Stella?’

He really wanted to know. It was one of the reasons he had accepted to come to dinner. Apart from the fact that he liked the grub and liked to look at Stella. More than look if he got the chance, but it didn’t seem likely with her husband there.

Stella said she got support from the local university who used the small theatre for their Drama Department, and that the Second City Arts Council had been generous, but that it was a squeeze. ‘We’ve been lucky, we’ve had a couple of good commercial successes which we have sent on to the West End, and in one case to New York. It all helps.’

Stella led them in to dinner. Max had sent an assistant to set out the table.