A Cold Coffin

Margaret looked at her with a frown.

‘I’ll put the car round the corner. I saw a space,’ said Natasha. There was no garage nor space for one; motor cars had not been envisaged when this house was built. You owned a horse, and possibly a carriage, or walked.

While Natasha parked the car, Margaret ran into the house. ‘Dave?’

He was not there.

‘Damn you, I’ll kill you,’ she said aloud just as Natasha walked in.

‘Parked the car. Got the last gap, cars are terrible round here. Who are you going to kill? No, don’t tell me, I can guess, he has two legs and lovely hair.’

‘He said he’d be here. He promised – we were going out to dinner. It’s our anniversary.’

‘Your wedding?’

‘No, when we met.’

‘I should think you’d go into mourning for that.’ Natasha went into the kitchen. ‘He’s been here. I can smell him. That aftershave . . . Not here now, though, probably out killing someone. You know, he does a lovely scissor cut.’

She found Dave attractive herself, but would never betray Margaret with him, in spite of temptation. There were other ways of working out frustration, as she suspected Dave knew.

‘Oh, you get back to your own husband,’ snapped Margaret.

‘And you go looking for yours.’

She found herself thinking: Don’t get into trouble, Margaret. She could hear herself saying to her husband that she was worried about Margaret.

Coffin went home to Stella to tell her the story of the skulls.

‘Yes, nasty, but it’s a long while ago.’

‘I’m not sure how much that ought to count,’ said Coffin thoughtfully.

Stella did not answer. She knew he was still grieving for the death of his young assistant, DI Charlie Young, the son, the only son at that, of the Chief Superintendent with whom Coffin had worked for years. Worked gratefully, because Archie Young was hard-working and efficient. And a good man; you could trust his integrity. Archie Young had recently moved to become Chief Constable of Filham in Essex, just north of the Second City.

Charlie had died while dealing with an armed robbery in Spinnergate. He had taken a shot right in the face and never came round. His wife, Sally, was also a policewoman, a CID officer. They had recently found out she was expecting their first child. Not a good time to lose your husband.

Stella too had liked Charlie. She looked with sympathy at her husband, but decided that silence was best.

The room they were using in the tower where they lived, the oldest part of the former St Luke’s Church, was a beautiful, calm place. Usually it worked its magic on Coffin, but tonight it was not doing the job. Stella believed that Coffin was quite unconscious of how the room affected him in this way: he thought he had no aesthetic sensibilities. ‘Blue’s blue and yellow’s yellow. How could they make a difference?’ She answered that it was a good job he wasn’t a surgeon; he’d know the difference between red blood and no blood. Not the right thing to say to a copper – he’d seen plenty of blood in his time. She gave him an affectionate smile. She was softer on him these days.

‘And then there is the later skull in there with them. Dr Murray says that it is many hundred years old, but I am not so sure.’

‘Oh, she’d know.’

‘Would she? Yes, if she’d examined it carefully, but as far as I know she hasn’t done that yet: just had a look.’

‘You’ve got enough to worry about, love, as well as dwelling on the dead of hundreds of years ago.’

‘I don’t think that skull is so old. It worries me. I want to find out more.’

‘No one is in a better position than you to do so.’

He nodded. He felt better already. ‘I’ll set Phoebe Astley on it. She’ll sort it out if anyone can.’

This was true. Phoebe was like a terrier searching for a rat when she started into anything.

‘If this skull is recent, modern in fact, yet placed there with the other skulls, then someone must have known the Neanderthals were there already.’

‘Yes, I’ve thought of that. It’s a puzzle. The site was being prepared for our new building when one of the workmen, just a lad, caught a sight of the top of the pit, a layer of stones and earth. It looked different to him, clever lad, and he told the foreman. The foreman took advice and got the area cleared. Work was stopped when they saw what they’d got, it’s still stopped. The archaeologists have taken photographs.’

‘Observant, that workman.’

Coffin nodded. ‘Turned out he was a student earning a bit of money. And interested in the past. He got more than he expected. But he says he isn’t going to waste it . . . going to write it up.’ He poured himself a drink. ‘I had a talk with the lad himself, asked to see him.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Says he knows you.’

‘No! What’s his name?’

‘Eddy Buck.’

Stella raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes, I know him . . . Or I know his mother, she works in our wardrobe. She’s clever too. He’s done some holiday work there too. I believe he can’t make up his mind whether to be a doctor or an actor.’

He could tell she liked him. Well, he was a good-looking, taking lad.

Stella studied her husband’s face. He looked tired. ‘You miss Archie Young.’

Archie had been gone about six months.

Coffin smiled. ‘I’m glad he got the promotion he deserved. I wanted him to have it.’

‘Nice man,’ said Stella reflectively. ‘Tough, though.’

‘We had to be,’ said Coffin.

‘I know that. I was alive then, too, remember.’

‘And I don’t know that times have changed, either. May have got worse.’ He looked towards Stella. ‘I might need your help through this, Stella. You will help me, won’t you?’

She nodded. ‘It’s the child, isn’t it?’

Coffin nodded. ‘All the children, but that later one especially.’ He stood up. ‘Something terrible lies behind that head, and it didn’t happen thousands of years ago, either.’

‘That’s just a guess.’

‘I’m a good guesser. It comes with experience.’

Stella watched him carefully for a moment. ‘Dearest . . .’

Coffin stirred. She wasn’t great at endearments. The love was there, but she didn’t put it into speech. He thought that acting had cured her of showing love with words. Real love, not the stage variety.