Coffin’s Ghost. Gwendoline Butler

us: we won’t tell our stories to the newspapers or TV. Unless they pay us.’

      ‘Ha, ha.’ A mirthless comment from Mary as she left the room; she never found it easy to know when Miriam was joking. No doubt Miriam could have said the same of her. We don’t understand each other, that’s the truth of it, she thought, giving Miriam a last look: an enigma wrapped up in a thick cosy cover of flesh, and inside not cosy at all.

      That helped explain the boy. And probably why she was here in the refuge.

      From the policeman to Betty, from Betty to Miriam, and from Miriam to me, this was the channel of communication.

      Mary walked down the stairs wishing she could talk to Phoebe Astley. Phoebe always gave a straight answer to a question. If asked if the dead woman was Etta, Henriette Duval, who had worked in the refuge, she would answer Yes or No.

      If she could. Answers did not always come easy.

      And if asked further if it was possible her killer could be a member of the Second City Force, Phoebe would answer that too. But with circumspection.

      Mary paused on the stairs to look out of the window. She ran her finger down the glass. Outside it was beginning to rain, the rain would come through this window.

      The Serena Seddon House needed money spent on it, money it did not have. It was as comfortable and welcoming as it could be made inside, and that was what counted. Outside in Barrow Street it aimed for anonymity with no blue plaque displaying the name and just a discreet Number 5 on the door. And you had to come up to the door to see that.

      The partners of the battered women had been known to come looking for them so being unnoticed counted. Even so, the house was known in the area and not loved.

      Number 5 had been built at the end of the last century, it had celebrated its centenary, but it was showing its age. And who could blame it, Mary thought, since it had been a private home, home to a doctor who had been a police surgeon, and afterwards a dentist’s surgery, afterwards rented as home to the new Chief Commander of the Second City, one John Coffin, and then left empty for a clutch of years.

      Now it was a home for the fearful and the dispossessed. Interestingly, in the time of its first occupant, the doctor, it had got the reputation of being the home of Jack the Ripper: Dr Death.

      Mary Arden walked down the stairs. There was a WPC sitting on an upright chair in the hall.

      ‘You all right? Would you like a more comfortable chair?’ If there is one, Mary thought, even as she asked the question.

      ‘No, thank you, Miss Arden. This one does me.’

      ‘Is it true that a handbag was found outside the house?’

      ‘I haven’t heard, Miss Arden.’

      And wouldn’t say.

      Mary opened the front door to breathe in the cold, damp air. Phoebe Astley, who had been talking to the forensic team, swung round to look at her.

      ‘Hello, you advance guard, or doing the questioning yourself?’

      ‘Just checking.’ Phoebe came into the hall, sniffing the air. ‘I always wonder how you manage to keep this place smelling so fresh when …’

      ‘You mean when we don’t wash enough here.’

      ‘No, I didn’t mean that and you know it. I mean you have a very mixed and floating population here, and yet it never seems institutional.’

      She does mean it doesn’t smell. Mary grinned.

      ‘I work on it, it’s meant to be pleasant. We all like a hot bath or shower and there’s always hot water. And I provide lavender bath soap … they don’t have to use it, they may prefer their own, but it’s there.’

      Phoebe looked trim and brisk, her dress sense had tightened up; she carried a neat black notebook, the successful detective officer.

      I admire you, Phoebe, Mary said to herself. But what would you say, if I said: I could read what was written on the two terrible bundles and I saw the initials J.C.?

      What would you make of that, Phoebe?

      Not the signature of the sender, you would say at once, but a suggestion of the recipient?

      All she said was: ‘I suppose you want to talk to everyone here?’

      ‘Not me in person, but a couple of WDCs will be in.’

      ‘Don’t upset them, please. All the women have been through a lot. They need to be treated with care.’

      ‘That’s why I am sending women officers. They have been carefully chosen.’

      ‘Good.’

      ‘Just whether they heard or saw anything in the night or early morning. You too will be asked, Mary.’

      ‘I saw nothing,’ said Mary quickly. ‘Heard nothing. I don’t think anyone here will be able to help you. It can’t be anything to do with current residents.’

      Phoebe nodded but did not commit herself.

      ‘And the bag?’

      ‘May have nothing to do with the remains of the body.’ Phoebe was still being cautious.

      Suddenly, Mary said: ‘I know what was written across the bundle. I did go out to look when Evelyn came running in. I couldn’t make it out.’

      Phoebe allowed herself a shrug. Who can, it said.

      ‘I send it back from me to you, although it was yours before … Sounds like a quotation.’

      ‘We’re working on it.’

      ‘And J.C.? What does that mean?’

      Phoebe did not answer. Not even a shrug this time.

      ‘Some of the girls here think the body or what there is of it might be from Etta … she worked here for a bit. I thought she’d gone home, but it seems she’s been seen around the district … She had some risky friends, the sort that might use violence.’ Mary let the next words drop out slowly, as if she had just thought of them: ‘And she went about a bit with a few local coppers.’

      Phoebe could have said that she had heard this, but she did not. Never divulge information unnecessarily was a dictum she had been taught. Especially in a case like this. ‘We’ll work it out,’ said Phoebe patiently. ‘Trust us.’

      But trust, as she knew, was always in short supply in the Second City.

      And she wasn’t too sure how much she had of it herself. She nodded to PC Ryman-Lawson as she left, acknowledging that he was wet and cold.

Chapter 3

      Because Coffin had once lived in the house in Barrow Street (which was attracting intense if discreet media attention), he was being kept informed of the investigation as it went on. Reports of all important crimes in the Second City always went to him as a matter of course, but this was different. Archie Young had decided he must see and hear of everything.

      The message scrawled on the two bundles was being kept quiet although rumours went around the watchers.

      Coffin knew of them, had seen a photograph of the bundles, although not the bundles themselves. He knew what was written there, and understood why Archie Young and Phoebe Astley were keeping an eye on the investigation.

      Keeping an eye on him too, he thought with some irritation.

      The initials J.C., taken in conjunction with the fact he had once lived in the house was giving them pause for thought.

      And they were probably thinking also, quietly to themselves: And what about the woman?

      The House in Barrow Street – he thought of it as The House that belonged in a sensitive part