Coffin’s Game

He unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. From inside, he withdrew a bundle of letters. Underneath was yet another, smaller bundle, older and grubby, as if much opened and read. All the letters were from Stella, he had kept every letter she had written to him: the older packet dated from when they first met, before they quarrelled and parted. The more recent letters were since they met again, and were written by Stella when away filming or on tour. He had asked her to write as well as telephone and he had written back.

‘My secret hoard,’ he said aloud. He never asked if Stella kept his letters.

There were no photographs. ‘I hate being photographed except in the way of publicity business,’ Stella had said, adding with a giggle: ‘Besides, photographs are dangerous.’

Yes, Stella, they certainly are.

He packed the letters in his briefcase to take home where he could study them to see if they could tell him who took that photograph of Stella and, more importantly, who doctored it.

Who did you know, Stella, who could treat you in that way? Who wanted to make you look half-woman, half-beast?

He picked up the telephone. Paul Masters answered promptly, as if he had been awaiting the call.

‘You know what’s been going on?’

‘Just a bit, sir. If I may say so, sir, don’t worry.’

He’s sorry for me. Coffin accepted the gift with resignation. No doubt there was sorrow and pity all around him at Headquarters, seeping out into the whole police division which he commanded. Many a laugh and a joke too.

But the photograph was not to be laughed at. Some strange fish had swum into his pool and must be accounted for, and, if necessary, caught.

‘Get me Chief Inspector Astley, Paul, please.’

‘She’s here actually, sir. Outside. Shall I send her in?’

‘Yes, do.’ So had it been Phoebe laughing?

She swung into the room a second later, her face grave. She had not been laughing. But she smiled when she saw him. ‘I was on my way to you. I knew I had to see you to tell you what the latest was.’

‘You know about the body in Percy Street? Of course you do.’

Phoebe advanced into the room with the confidence of an old friend and ally; she perched herself on the windowsill. She invariably dressed soberly for work; today she wore black trousers with a cream silk shirt, but there was always the impression with Phoebe that underneath was lace and silk, probably in red. It was a tribute to her impact on her colleagues because, as she confided to her friend Eden when she heard the rumour going around about her red knickers, in fact they were white cotton, ‘from my favourite high street store, and made in Israel’.

‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘Yes. I thought you’d given that up.’ In an early brush with what might have been but was not something malignant, Phoebe had given up all sins of the flesh from food to sex. Rumour had it that those days were over. Rampantly, cheerfully over.

‘I’ve started again.’ She lit up. ‘When under stress.’

‘And you are under stress?’

‘I’m catching it from you.’

‘Right,’ said Coffin. For a moment he said no more. He trusted Phoebe, to whom he would probably speak more openly than to anyone else. Except Stella. The Stella he had lived with and loved, but it looked as though there was a Stella he had never known. I won’t allow this thought to enter my mind, he told himself. I have to trust Stella, to believe in Stella.

‘I was coming to see you because the Todger called me in.’ She looked at him gravely.

‘He would do,’ said Coffin. Phoebe’s area of responsibility touched upon that of Inspector Lodge. They did not like each other, but there was respect.

‘I went round to Percy Street, the body had gone by then. I was told why they had thought it was Stella and got you round there, although I am bound to say I would not have thought it was her for a minute.’

‘There was another factor …’ he could hardly bring himself to call it a reason.

‘The handbag? I was told about it and what it contained.’

‘That was why I was brought round at speed,’ Coffin said gloomily. ‘I understand it, the bag has gone for forensic testing, and I am supposed to be going through Stella’s things to see if the one she owned, her bag, is still there. But I am not doing it because I am perfectly certain the blue Chanel bag is the one and original.’

‘Could be,’ said Phoebe, ‘but I shouldn’t let it worry you, it’s just a dirty trick. We’ll sort that one out, don’t worry. Her bag was used to create the illusion, someone wanted to distress you.’

‘Someone succeeded.’

‘But it wasn’t Stella, and I am surprised that the illusion held for as long as it did. Once the body was moved and taken round to Dennis Garden for examination.’ Phoebe picked a loose piece of tobacco from her lips, and smiled slightly. Professor Garden, an academic from the local university, was a pleasure to cross swords with. ‘Once Dennis got it on the table – even before, I should guess – he knew not only was it not Stella Pinero but that it was not a woman. Too flat, no breasts.’ She went on talking, giving him time to start breathing again; he seemed to have stopped. How long can the brain go without oxygen? ‘The pelvic structure, of course. Quite different, you can always tell.’

‘I suppose that, unconsciously, I saw that too. I knew it wasn’t Stella.’ Coffin went to the window to stare out. He could see across the road to the big car park where his own car had its privileged place; looking beyond was a large modern school where he had once given away the prizes, and further away the roof of the University Hospital where Dennis Garden taught and operated on the living and gazed upon interesting corpses with whom he was able to set up a relationship at once intimate yet impersonal. He fancied he could see one of those discreet, black-windowed ambulances turning in now to deliver another customer for Dennis’s attentions. Coffin turned back to Phoebe. ‘I suppose as Lodge called you in he thinks there is some terrorist connection.’

‘His antennae are twitching,’ said Phoebe.

Coffin came back to sit at his desk. ‘That needs thinking about.’ He tried to wave away Phoebe’s cigarette smoke. ‘I wish you’d put that out.’

‘Fag finished.’ Phoebe crushed the cigarette out on the sole of her shoe, then threw the stub away. The need for the counter irritant was over: Coffin was back on the job.

‘Pity about the face,’ said Professor Dennis Garden. He sounded genuinely moved. ‘The hair was a hairpiece on a band. Very good quality,’

‘It does make identification difficult,’ agreed John Coffin.

‘Not only that, but from what I can make of the bone structure, he had a graceful, pleasing face. Small-boned altogether, or he would never have got into the jeans,’ Garden said in a regretful tone.

‘Strange there wasn’t blood,’ observed Coffin. ‘Not much on the hair or hairpiece. What do you make of that?’

‘Not much at the moment.’ Garden was giving nothing away. ‘I have not examined the body properly yet.’

‘There was not too much blood in the room where he was found, but he was probably killed there. Interesting in itself. I wonder why?’

Professor Garden smiled happily. ‘Your problem, my dear, not mine. I deal with only this end of the affair. It’s for you to fiddle out the rest. If you can.’ He waved a hand to an attendant. ‘Seen all you want? Right, let’s put this poor fellow away to rest.’ The attendant wheeled the trolley to the refrigerated cage. ‘I shall have to be at work on him later, but I promise you I’ll do it delicately.’ His pale blue eyes glinted with amusement at Coffin. ‘Bit below you, isn’t it, to be taking an interest in a simple case like this?’

‘I always knew it wasn’t my wife,’ said Coffin bleakly. He knows all about it, every last detail, probably seen a copy of the photograph, or a drawing, or heard it with every elaboration and joke that his colleagues’ humour could devise …

‘Of course, of course. Very nasty moment it must have been. But soon over, you knew at once it was not Stella.’ He crossed himself carefully. Amid a myriad of other interests in Dennis Garden’s life was a feeling for a god. He was not always sure which god but he knew it was one to keep on good terms with. Besides, he liked Stella (inasmuch as he could admire any woman, his tastes not going that way), and wished her well. He would not have enjoyed doing a postmortem on her. He had an idea already that he was not about to enjoy this one.

‘What about the hands?’ Coffin asked.

‘Ah, you saw the significance of the gloves?’

‘One of the ways I knew it was not my wife,’ said Coffin. ‘I knew that Stella would not wear white gloves with jeans. So, what about the hands?’

‘You were right to be worried; the fingers were cut off at the knuckles.’

Coffin nodded. ‘No fingerprints then? What about the thumb?’