Coffin on Murder Street

Lollard was not to be stopped. ‘I’ve got it all on paper, don’t you worry. I keep a record. And I’ll see it gets noticed.’

‘Oh, pop off, dad.’

‘You lot wouldn’t know a crime coming if it got up and waved its hand at you,’ Lollard flung angrily over his shoulder as he departed, nearly knocking over in his anger the only other regular caller at the station, a young freelance-journalist always hopeful of a story. So to make up to the young man, Jim Lollard took him for a drink at the Rip and Vic, which although expensive had good beer and an atmosphere that jelled with his own.

That had been some months ago, but the comment from the sergeant had rankled. He had seen several suspicious circumstances since then and was convinced that he had his eye on at least one killer and that a mass murder was on the cards. But he had plans. Ideas catapulted out of his mind, one after the other. Get attention, he told himself, publicity is what you want. Set up a scene they can’t ignore. His imagination accelerated.

He saw the newspaper interviews. He would produce his records, show his diary of events. Let them see the kind of scoreboard he kept on the kitchen wall. Sell it, there would be money in it. He’d get on the Wogan Show. He saw himself sitting there, telling the tale.

Two of the items on his scoreboard related to the last two weeks. He always dated them, sometimes putting what the tide was on the river. In his old days as a waterman this had been important to him.

Mr Lilly, what does he do with his cats? Eat them?

And then: A strange fellow in No. 16. Will bear watching, ran one scrawl. What’s he doing here, not our sort, and what has happened to him? He had the darkest suspicions and had told a neighbour who let rooms what he thought. She laughed, but he’d show her. Show her something, anyway, to surprise her; he had his plans made.

Later that night a tentative telephone call came through to the Thameswater headquarters asking if they had any information about a tourist coach that had entered their area earlier that evening but had failed to return to base. Had there been a road accident? Had the coach broken down anywhere?

Sergeant Bond phoned around, but had to return the answer that nothing was known. He had zero to report.

When was the bus last seen? That was not clear, no one seemed to know. They had been sighted in Murder Street.

‘Regina Street,’ corrected the sergeant who lived not far away and did not like the nickname.

And the coach had not called in at the Ripper and Victim pub. But then I wouldn’t myself, reflected the Sergeant. Tourist trap, the landlord overcharges you.

The party in the bar of the Theatre Workshop was showing signs of breaking up at last.

Stella Pinero was speeding it on its way. ‘Come on now, you lot. I shall want you all in for a workout tomorrow early, then rehearsal—’ for she was producing the next play in repertory herself—‘and then there will be a meeting of all of you to hear details of the Festival productions. I will be handing out castings and you will be meeting Stan Odway and Jean Allen who are co-producing.’

The names struck awe in some of those present who started to melt away. Odway and Allen were hot stuff, names to conjure with, and Stella had been lucky to get them, all present acknowledged that, but they were tartars and you needed all your strength to cope.

Coffin, who was tired but had been hoping for a quiet half-hour with Stella, decided to depart himself.

The door opened and a dark-haired girl came into the room. She was carrying a bright-eyed little boy.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Casey, but I couldn’t get him to settle without saying good night to you.’

The child held out his arms and Casey gathered him up.

‘You should be tougher with him, Sylvie.’

Sylvie, who had a charming French accent, started a confused explanation, muttering about something or someone being missing. A favourite toy, perhaps? Coffin raised an eyebrow at Stella.

Nell had rented a flat in The Albion, which was hard by St Luke’s Mansions. The Albion had once been a public house, exceedingly seedy in appearance and not at all respectable, but it was of great antiquity, with cellars that looked as though they could have been there since the Domesday Book was compiled. Geoffrey Chaucer was said to have stayed there and Charles Dickens to have taken his friend Trollope for a drinking session there. Since then it had fallen on hard times, until converted recently into costly new apartments. Owing to the recent drop in property values most of them were as yet unsold, and the owner was turning them into furnished rented properties on short lets. Stella was suggesting them as homes for a number of her visiting stars in the approaching Festival. All expenses tax deductible, as she was pointing out.

‘Her child?’

Of course.’

Across the room, Coffin saw Gus staring hard at Casey and the boy. Casey was picking up her coat and hustling Sylvie out of the room. Stella followed. He moved forward and got the door open for them. The child gave him a smile as he passed in his mother’s arms.

Nice kid, he thought.

And then: So that’s what she brought with her.

And that wasn’t all she’d brought. Long years of experience had made his nose sensitive.

He could smell it, it was all around her: Trouble.

CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_17d1f508-18c1-5118-9173-d6baca4820e2)

March 5

Late that evening, March 5, Ellice Eden was reading the newspapers as he took his nightcap. He had been too busy that day to get at them before. He had all the dailies delivered as a matter of business, plucking out of them all the reviews of his fellow critics. He cut out those he did not like and stuck them on a board with a sharp and vicious pin. Those he approved of he put in a drawer and asked the writers for a drink at the Groucho after the next show. He liked some of his rivals, he had a kindly streak inside him, although not all performers would have agreed with this judgement if they had suffered from his acid pen. But it was universally acknowledged that he was more often right than wrong. Which was, as one unhappy victim had pointed out, no comfort at all.

There was an auction at Sotheby’s of the theatre objects he collected, such as costume, bits of jewellery, even the odd wig and piece of furniture or china connected with famous players or plays. He had a notable collection. He also had a modest collection of Victoriana, pictures mostly. He ticked what he might bid for.

He poured himself a cup of chocolate, which he drank with cream and very hot. Since the days of efficient servants (Oh Bunter, oh Jeeves, where are you now?) had long since passed, he had made it himself.

Today, however, he had finished with the critics (two to fix with a pin), and was reading the news. Something there troubled him.

He poured out another cup of chocolate and, after a moment’s thought, padded across his golden Afghan carpet to fetch a bottle. He had recently acquired a taste for malt whisky and was presently experimenting with Glen Fiddich.

It was a strong measure but was allowable tonight. Morning almost. This morning. He drank it, then went back to his chocolate.

Presently he reached out for the telephone. It was late, but theatricals never sleep early and he knew this one did not. His toes did a sort of dance inside the blue and white slippers which matched the blue and white silk dressing-gown from Turnbull and Assher. In his youth he had breakfasted once with Noël Coward in the house in Gerald Road and had decided that he too would look like that one day if he could afford it. (Although not so red of face.) Now he could afford spotted silk dressing-gowns, and he even had a maisonette in Gerald Road to go with it, and very convenient it was.

He was a man who liked to dress with style and present a well-manicured appearance to the world. Hair, face and hands all received daily attention with lotions and creams.

From his window as he stood sipping his chocolate, hand on the telephone, he could see the police station. He knew some of the faces over there and a very decent set they were.

‘Gus dear, there you are. Did I wake you up?’ He didn’t name himself. If Gus Hamilton did not recognize his voice, so much the worse for him. ‘How are you? What about lunch one day? We haven’t talked for a long while. Admired your work.’ Not perhaps you yourself, my dear boy, not your character and your ways, but you are a peerless actor. In the making, anyway, not perhaps Olivier yet. ‘But it’s about Nell. Yes, our Nell. Your Nell, my Nell.’

Gus could be heard muttering something.

‘All right, as you wish, not your Nell. But the child? The picture I have just seen in the paper of Nell, clutching a largish infant. How did that come about?’

Gus muttered that it was nothing to do with him. Very likely not, thought Ellice, won’t disagree with you on that, but babies are not produced by a kind of spontaneous conception whatever your views on virgin birth. Two parties are required, even if one is represented in a test tube. Not that he thought that was how it had been with Nell Casey. No, indeed.

‘She has said nothing about it. Kept very quiet. A mistake.’ Every woman was entitled to one mistake, but Nell had made more than her share in his opinion.

The explosion of anger that Gus delivered over the telephone surprised him.

He had meant to get some information from Gus, not to call up a storm.

Ellice began to put the telephone down, not having, as he had intended, asked Gus to lunch. He would invent some other treat for that young man.

He had not, of course, been quite truthful in what he said to Gus. With his excellent intelligence system he had picked up news about the child. She had not exactly kept quiet about it, but not spread the word either. Her own business, she had implied.