The Coffin Tree

‘I knew you were the right person.’ He got up. ‘What about something to eat? The food used to be reasonable here, and I’m hungry.’

When he came back with a plate of sandwiches, Phoebe said: ‘I was surprised when I got a packet of photocopied advertisements from Second City News … A couple of dress shops, a fast food chain, not one I knew, two hairdressers … I didn’t think shops were touting for my custom, and then I remembered a copper who had sent me an advertisement for a new restaurant with the date and time and question mark scribbled on it and I thought, well, I know someone who does that sort of thing. Perhaps when he doesn’t want to commit himself too much.’

Coffin offered her the sandwiches. ‘Cheese or ham?’

‘Cheese. And then I thought: But, the John Coffin I knew was never anonymous about work.’

‘I’ll take the ham then. Pickle? I remember you liked it.’

‘Not onions though. You have to know someone very well to breathe onion over them. Of course, I do know you well, or I did. I thought: whoever sent those papers to me was nervous. And the John Coffin I knew was never nervous without cause.’

‘I always valued your powers of observation and deduction. You are the right person for what I want.’

‘Yes, but what is it? I am to run a small unit which will communicate with all principal institutions in the Second City. I shall have the rank of chief inspector, which I am glad about, by the way, but not much money to spend.’

Coffin looked about the bar which was crowded, but no one was taking any interest in them in their seat by the window where they could not be overheard.

‘Yes, you will be all that, and the unit and your position were not invented for you, but as soon as your name appeared as an applicant, I decided to make use of you.’

‘Oh, thanks.’

He ignored her sharpness – it was part of Phoebe. ‘Let me explain: large sums of dirty money, money from drugs, and crime, are being put through the City of London banks. We are getting our share. This is seen as threatening and damaging.’

Phoebe, listening, absently popped a pickled onion into her mouth. ‘But I’m not a financial –’ she began.

‘Stop and listen, the financial side is being handled by the Met and the City of London squad working with the Second City fraud experts … We’re only small but I’ve recruited some good brains.’

Phoebe choked on the onion and Coffin stood up to hit her on the back.

‘Oh, come on, Phoebe, listen. You will have two juniors working with you. Your ostensible job will be to liaise with all the institutions in the Second City, you know that, that was your remit.

‘But I am going to use you in another way.’ He moved the dish of onions away so that she could not get at them. ‘Some money is being laundered, here in the Second City. Where, we can guess; from that we can move to guessing by whom, but they are getting help from someone close to us.

‘Two of my young men who were working on it are dead. Felix Henbit and Mark Pittsy. Felix was a clever and resourceful officer; Pittsy was brilliant – he would have gone right to the top. Both of them died in what were supposed to be accidents. The papers that I sent you came to me anonymously. I don’t know if they have a connection, or who sent them but I sent them on to you. Not exactly anonymous; I thought you’d guess they were from me, but I didn’t want to make any comment; I wanted you to take them cold and react.’

Phoebe looked down at her new dress. ‘They took me into Minimal.’

‘That may have been exactly the right thing to do.’

Phoebe remembered some of the other names: Dresses à la Mode, KiddiTogs, Feathers and Fur. ‘You may have to give me a dress allowance if I’m to shop at all of them.’ But probably they were not all as expensive as Minimal; the names suggested different markets, and Feathers and Fur might be quite specialized.

Coffin ignored this; life with Stella had taught him caution when discussing money spent on or for clothes. ‘What we have here is a classic murder puzzle: someone is picking off my men. I don’t think that Felix Henbit or Mark Pittsy died because they had drunk too much; coppers do drink, but those two were careful men. Somehow they were killed.

‘I’m not sure of what the motive is: whether it was because they were close to me, or because they had enemies I know nothing about, but I feel the motive must lie in the financial investigations they were both working on. I want you to investigate their deaths.’

‘Don’t you trust your own men?’

Coffin was silent. ‘I have built a good structure up here. I took over a rambling set of CID and uniformed units and I’ve built up a force with its own identity. But I’ve had to do it on the quick. Of course I trust them but this is murder in my own backyard. I want you to investigate it for me.’

‘I see.’

‘You will have yourself and you will have me.

‘My own feeling is that someone is protecting the machine that is feeding the illegal money into this area. We have a Minder, and I want him or her caught. I want you to identify the Minder.’

Phoebe considered, she knew now what she was taking on. ‘I shall want back up. Leg work, help with interviews …’

‘You’ll get it.’

‘Forensics …

‘You’ll get it. Once we identify the Minder, then we will get the proof.’

Phoebe’s mouth went dry. ‘I never thought I’d hear you put it that way round.’ For the first time, she saw the metal in John Coffin. ‘I think you’d better get me another drink because I see what I am; a kind of stalking horse. If I succeed at all you want, I stand a good chance of getting killed myself.’

When he came back with her drink, she noticed he had got one for himself too and it looked strong. Good, at least he cared something for her. ‘I almost wish I hadn’t put in for the job.’ She looked down at her new black dress, the colour of which now seemed uncomfortably appropriate.

‘Phoebe, why did you apply? The truth now. I want you for this job, confirmation has to go through channels, but I’d like you here now. Only I need to know why you wanted to come.’

The drink lessened the dryness in her mouth. ‘Oh well, you might as well know: I put away a rough type with a long record who threatened to get me personally, if you know what I mean … He comes out about now. Could be out already. I thought I’d be better off down here in the Smoke where he wouldn’t have the contacts.’

Coffin considered. ‘Doesn’t sound like you, Phoebe.’

She looked out of the window. ‘Well, there was a sort of an affair.’

‘Ah, yes, that would complicate matters. So it got personal … He still wants you?’

There was a long pause. ‘It wasn’t quite like that. You see the affair, such as it was, was not with him but his wife.’

‘Now I am surprised.’

‘It was something that just seemed to happen … I wasn’t too happy, neither was she, poor girl, but for me, it was a mistake.’

‘Only not for her?’

Phoebe nodded. She was thinking about Rose with sadness and liking, but not love, not physical love. ‘No. I’m afraid I treated her badly. You might be surprised to learn that treating their lovers badly is not the prerogative of men.’

Stella herself could not have delivered a shrewder blow. ‘So you’ve run away?’

‘I’ve run away. Don’t we all?’

As they talked, the fire had been quenched and the blackened shrivelled body found; from one hand an unburnt finger stuck up as if in accusation.

The inhabitants of this particular area were few – a small terrace backed on to the open ground – moreover, they had among them the eccentric figure of Albert Waters who had built a small replica of Stonehenge in his back garden and who was now erecting the Tower of Babel in the front. They took it for granted that this fire was something to do with him.

He was into suttee now.

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