A Dark Coffin

Coffin and Harry together made their way to the back of the box. There was no door as such, but a low balustrade which opened.

Two figures were there, in their seats, but one lolled against the other whose head was flung back.

Coffin stopped and put his arm on Harry to hold him back. ‘Wait … something wrong here.’ He went through into the box, and looked down upon Joe and Josie Macintosh.

Joe stared back with open, sightless eyes. He was quietly dead.

The movement of air caused a small piece of paper to flutter to the ground. Coffin bent down to pick it up.

Coffin wondered what it was, but at that moment he did not realize it had two functions.

One was: a message from Hyde out of Jekyll. Hyde was out and walking round and Jekyll did not yet know.

Not for sure, that is, but Jekyll had suspicions that the enemy was loose.

2 (#ulink_f0668ad5-2efd-51e2-b20a-5a2ffa93a3da)

Coffin held the piece of paper in his hand; he had picked it up carefully using a folded envelope from his pocket as a kind of pincer. Such behaviour was automatic with him. Fingerprints, they might be important, you never knew. He hardly thought about it, just did it, always the policeman.

It was a sheet of writing paper, a little dirty, almost as if someone had trodden on it. One corner was bent over. Several lines of writing in pale ink were to be seen.

He glanced at it quickly. ‘It looks like a suicide note.’ He did not hand it over to Harry who had pressed into the box by his side, and was staring down at the two figures. There was not much room but the low door had been pushed apart so Harry could get in. Behind him a small, interested crowd of theatregoers was gathering.

Coffin waved them back. ‘Go away, please, just leave, there has been a death here.’

He turned to Harry. ‘You stay here and keep people out while I get things moving …’ He moved away quickly, pushing the small crowd in front of him. Alfreda had appeared, together with Barney, she gave Harry a quick look, Coffin motioned her to follow him, talking rapidly as they went, explaining what he wanted her to do: clear the area as quietly as possible, keep the audience there if she could but if not get the names and addresses of people as they left, but to hang on to all those with seats near the box. And the performers and theatre staff must stay, of course. Yes, he said, it appeared to be a suicide pact but they must make sure.

‘I understand.’ Alfreda nodded, Barney, full name Barnabas, only used when he was in disgrace, stood by her side, wide-eyed and interested; he had never seen death before and now he was getting a double dose. He found it absorbing, worth observing, almost like a show. One of the bodies, Joe it was, leant against the other as if asleep, while Josie, he thought it was Josie but oddly he got them mixed sometimes, lay with her head sagging back. You could see at a glance that he – she was dead, while Joe might have been asleep.

‘Are they really gone?’ he asked, but no one answered. He was Barney – not important. His mother tugged at his arm to pull him away.

Harry watched them go. Get things moving, he thought, wouldn’t it be better to get everything stopped? He groaned inside himself. Too late, far too late.

I cannot believe what I am seeing, he told himself. I can’t believe my own eyes.

The squad car arrived with a uniformed man and woman, to whom Coffin spoke.

‘Where is that police surgeon?’ he demanded. ‘I want these bodies moved.’

So did Alfreda who had returned to hover in the background, anxious and pale. Stella stood by her with Monty, who was silent and angry. How could anyone die on his first night?

‘Who is the surgeon?’

‘Dr Mason, sir,’ the policewoman answered. ‘Dr Margery Mason.’

Coffin nodded; he knew Marge; she did a good job, sometimes in unpleasant circumstances on odorous and difficult corpses but always behaved with gentleness to the dead, long dead although they sometimes might be.

Tonight would be a comparative treat for her, he thought. When she arrived. If she had a fault, and he recognized it was a small one, she was tardy.

‘She’s on her way, though, sir,’ said the policewoman, who also knew Dr Mason and perhaps guessed his thoughts. ‘She already had a floater down at Craven Creek but she called in to say she was coming. The creek’s not far, sir.’

Dr Mason was wearing a smart evening dress when she arrived, but she showed no anger at having been called away from her dinner party by two incidents on the same night.

She looked surprised to see the Chief Commander there, this was top brass indeed, but she acknowledged to herself that this was his wife’s theatre and did not allow his presence to break her composure as she knelt to make her inspection.

‘Well, they are dead. I can certify that. Exact cause as yet to be established. If there’s a suicide note, I will make a guess at a drug of some sort.’ She rose to her feet, giving Joe and Josie a thoughtful look. ‘They seem peaceful enough, but you can’t tell. Perhaps a faint look of surprise on the man’s face. The postmortem will tell more.’

She would not be doing that. ‘I suppose Dennis Garden will fall for this … he’s just back from a holiday in Spain.’

‘He ought to be in an easy mood then.’ Coffin was not an admirer of Mr Garden, too bossy by half, a man of self-importance, but he admitted the man was the total professional.

‘He’s very good,’ said Marge Mason loyally, picking up her bag.

They both knew she hated his guts. Dedicated and determined homosexual as he was, he had made a single-minded play for her boyfriend.

She shouldered her bag and made for the door. Geoff was loyal, thank goodness, no doubt about that, but all the same …

She turned back for a look again at Joe and Josie. Something was worrying her. ‘Who are they? Have you got a name?’

‘Macintosh.’

She frowned. ‘I feel as though I know the faces. Of both of them.’

‘I expect you do, if you ever bought a hamburger or an ice-cream from their stall,’ said Coffin.

‘Leave you to it then, sir.’

‘Be off myself as soon as the CID team turn up.’

In the ordinary way Sergeant Davis and DC Armitage might not have hurried themselves to a suicide, but a suicide in the Pinero Theatre and the presence there of the Chief Commander and his wife meant that they were walking in even before Marge Mason had left, and were perhaps a little put out that she had got there first.

‘Better try wings next time, boys,’ she murmured quietly as she walked past. ‘I’ll be sending in a report, looks like double suicide. The boss knows all and is waiting for you. Good luck.’

‘Come on,’ said Coffin wearily to Stella, after a few words with Davis. ‘Let them get on with it, not my job, and they don’t want me here.’ It had been his job once, which the two CID officers knew, just as they knew what his reputation for efficiency and flair had been.

‘All right, love, just let me have a word with Alfreda.’

She turned towards Harry Trent who was standing there in silence, looking white. ‘This can’t be good for you, you knew them.’ He muttered something wordlessly about it being a long while ago. ‘Forgive,’ she said, with one of her famous smiles. ‘Back soon.’

To Alfreda she said: ‘Sorry to leave you to it. Monty can’t have his party. It wouldn’t be tactful. The bodies are still here.’

‘He wants it, of course. Says all this is nothing to do with him, and the food will go off.’

‘He’s got no judgement. Tell him he can have it tomorrow and bother the food, Max can do some more.’ As, for a price, he would. ‘I’m afraid you are going to have to hang around until the police go. Take your line from them.’

Alfreda nodded. ‘Barney will stay with me.’

‘Good lad,’ said Stella, once again distributing her famous smile.