Coffin’s Game

She could not talk it over with her husband because it was his career that could be ruined.

‘I am not a fool,’ she said aloud. ‘I know it is not the sexual element that would do him in – society is not so unsophisticated – nor the fact that I look as though … No, I won’t utter what it looks as if I am doing. And it’s not that, even, it’s the security side that would destroy him.’

She drank some coffee. The darkness outside seemed to creep in behind her eyes so that she could not see. ‘Emotional mist,’ she said in a loud voice, shaking her head.

She went down the stairs to the large sitting room one floor below and poured herself a large glass of whisky which she then carried upstairs. She had seen tired detectives come back to life after a slug of it, so she guessed it would do the same for her.

As she sipped it, she heard a rustle at floor level. She turned slowly to see what was there. A small grey mouse sat staring back at her. In the old days the cat had brought them in as an unwanted present for her mistress. This one must have made its way there under its own steam, or be a survivor. She found that thought comforting.

‘Hello, friend,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, you are safe with me tonight. I know how you feel: trapped in a hostile world.’ She drank some more whisky. ‘Fear not. Appearances to the contrary,’ she added, ‘I won’t eat you.’

The mouse slid quietly away on his own business. He was a resident, knew the ways of the house, would not be seen again for some time.

Stella finished her whisky, then took herself upstairs to her bedroom. Off the bedroom was a small dressing room contrived out of a corner of the room.

She looked at her clothes hanging in a neat row behind a glass door. She changed into a comfortable trouser suit, packed a small bag.

One more task and the most painful: a lying letter. She hated deceiving her husband, partly because she was a naturally truthful person – which all actresses must be, since nothing shows up more on the stage than falseness – but also because the Chief Commander had a sharp eye for an untruth.

Dearest,

A late call from Silverline Films for the part of Annie Burnett, the prosecutor, in their new detective drama series. My agent says I simply must try for it … I am flying out to New York overnight.

Give me time. I will get in touch. I have to think.

Truth will out, she told herself, as she wrote the last words.

Then she scrawled: ‘I really want this chance’. Again the truth; she did want such a chance, if offered. Her career had been on hold lately, and Coffin knew she fancied this part. Heaven knows, she had talked about it enough. He would believe her, accept the letter.

‘All my love,’ she ended.

Then she went across to the fax machine which lived on a shelf from which the messages popped out and slid to the ground. None there at the moment.

She wrote a note for her assistant in the theatre – Away for a few days – and the same to her co-producer, both of which she then faxed out to them.

Hardly had she moved a step away when the fax rang and a message spilled itself out in front of her. Slowly, feeling heavy with premonition, she bent down to pick it up.

IN THE NEXT MINUTE THE TELEPHONE WILL RING. ANSWER IT.

Stella picked up her bag and turned away. That was one bell she would not answer.

She was at the door when the telephone rang. It became hard to breathe. She hesitated, knowing that she wanted to ignore it, but she was like a rabbit before a stoat. Stuck, frozen.

But you never knew with telephone calls. Perhaps it really was a summons from her agent. She knew it would not be John Coffin. He was driving down the M40 – probably, she didn’t really know where he was. He had a professional knack of disappearing. The thought went through her mind as she picked up the telephone; if he can disappear, so can I.

She held the receiver in her hand without speaking.

‘I know you’re there, Stella. I can hear you breathing.’

‘How did you get this number?’ Silly question, it was supposed to be secret, but it was this man’s life’s work to get at secrets.

A laugh came back as a reply. ‘I want to meet you, Stella. I think you need to see me to take me seriously. This is serious.’

Stella did not answer.

‘Come on, Stelly, I won’t eat you.’ He laughed, and Stella felt sick. ‘Meet me at Waterloo, under the clock. Remember, that, Stelly? It was always the same place, wasn’t it? Be there.’

Stella stood there, still clutching her bag. ‘No, no, I can’t, I can’t.’

She picked up her bag, went down the staircase and out of the door.

Outside, in the night air, she looked around in case anyone was there.

Silence, quiet. Not a mouse stirring.

A whole day after Stella had gone away, John Coffin, Chief Commander of the Police Force of the Second City of London, let himself into his home. He was back some twenty-four hours before he was expected, and meant to have a quiet time working. He was accompanied by the white peke Augustus who had appointed himself dog-companion to Coffin and insisted on going everywhere he could with him. Coffin had gone away after the bombs had exploded; his departure had not been unconnected with that happening. His assistant, Paul Masters, kept him in touch.

Coffin was glad to be back; he had observed that the play running at the Pinero Theatre was no longer An Ideal Husband which meant, he hoped, that he would find Stella at home.

He put down his bags and ran up the stairs, calling out: ‘Stella, I’m back.’

He was a big man, but spare of frame and light on his feet. His hair, which had been reddish in his youth, had darkened with the years and was now greying neatly about his temples. He was neat in everything he did. Thin as a young man he had never put on weight, although he took no exercise, other than running up and down the stairs of his home in the tower; he took part in no sports and never had. ‘We didn’t in my day in working-class London,’ he said once, ‘except a bit of street football and pavement boxing. Pugilism, more like,’ he had added thoughtfully. But there was muscle beneath the suits, which, under Stella’s control, were well and expensively tailored. Still done in the East End of London, but now he knew where to go. And how to pay.

‘How come you have such muscles here and there?’ Stella had said once.

‘Inherited,’ Coffin had answered. ‘Runs in the family.’ Though he had hardly had a family. Orphaned, he had only discovered in later life that he had a disappearing, much married mother, who had provided him with two siblings, one half-brother, a stiff Edinburgh lawyer, and the other, from another alliance, his darling half-sister. Mother herself remained an absentee, except for leaving some extraordinary memoirs.

Silence.

From behind a curtain on the window where the stair curved, he saw a tail, then a cautious beady gaze.

‘Oh, hello, boy,’ Coffin said. ‘You still here? Better not let Stella see you. You and I are going to have to stop meeting like this.’ Augustus bustled up the stairs behind him, ready to take part in the game, but the mouse was gone.

The quiet of the tower was telling its own story; it spoke of emptiness. Stella was not here.

The place did not feel like home without Stella in it. He knew why; marriage with Stella had given him the stable home life which a first disastrous marriage had failed to do.

Coffin had been in Edinburgh where, amongst other things, he had visited his half-brother in the large, handsome, frigid house he inhabited. William matched the house; so much so that Coffin found it difficult to relate to him as a brother, even half a brother. Their meeting had been stiff and formal as they talked over the research Coffin was trying to do on the life of their eccentric parent. Sometimes, he thought his mother might still be alive and building up yet another family; though she would be near her century now, he did not put it past her. He wished he had known her, but disappearing was her game.

He was back home now and miserable. In Scotland he had been at a conference of top policemen held in a remote house. It had been one of those conferences which had appeared to be on one subject but which had had a covert purpose.

Coffin had learnt a few things at Melly House that would concern him and his district, and had been, tactfully, informed of certain others. He, in his turn, had passed on certain information.

Knowledge, he reflected, as he read Stella’s note, is a painful thing. She will ring, probably from New York. I will know from the tone of her voice if I ought to raise what I learnt at Melly House.’ He was desperately anxious but he kept calm; he knew he must.

The time passed quietly, with no call from Stella. He had ahead of him several busy days, a meeting in central London, two committees, one about finance. The bombs in his district, the need for increased security all round, had meant extra spending.

He knew that Stella usually stayed at the Algonquin, so he rang there first. Miss Pinero was not a guest, he was told politely. She was well known there and a welcome visitor, but, regretfully, she was not staying at the hotel just now.