The Coffin Tree. Gwendoline Butler

and rain had weathered it. Only strangers to the district called it by that name.

      The Half a Mo had changed since Coffin’s last visit. It had been brightened up, more lights, more paint, more noise. It had never been noisy, as he remembered it; people had muttered quietly over their drinks. Usually because they were up to no good. Now music blasted from several sources, but, as he reflected, this too was a good protection against conversations being heard.

      In fact, he could hardly hear what Phoebe was saying; she had kept him waiting, which just confirmed what he thought about her timing.

      She was sitting opposite him, looking bright-eyed and alert, and a good deal thinner than when he had seen her last year in Birmingham, where she had helped him through a difficult patch. She looked thinner, but that might be due to a smart-looking silk dress she was wearing.

      ‘How are things now?’ She lifted up the gin and tonic which had always been her tipple.

      It was a routine question to which no answer need be given.

      ‘Fine,’ he said. Which was half true and half not true. He had survived a board of inquiry, some hostile media criticism, and been told that he could be sure of a KBE in the next Honours list. Also, he still had a wife, at least he thought so; he would know more about that when he met Stella off the plane tomorrow morning. ‘And what about you?’ Their past relationship meant that there was real feeling in the question.

      ‘Oh well, as you say, fine …’ She sipped her gin and looked away.

      ‘I was surprised when you put in for the job.’

      ‘I heard about it on the grapevine and thought it was one for me … Of course, I didn’t know much about it then, it was just a whisper.’ Now she did know. Or as much as he had told her and as much as she had guessed.

      ‘What about your husband and the children and the dog – do they like the idea of your working in the Second City?’

      Phoebe looked away. ‘Do you like my dress? It’s new, I bought it to celebrate getting the job. I know I have got it; I was tipped the wink.’

      ‘Come on, Phoebe.’

      ‘They don’t exist; there is no husband, no children, not even a dog. I made them up. But I expect you know that.’

      ‘I did check.’ He looked at her without a smile. ‘Why, Phoebe, why?’

      She shrugged. ‘Well … I didn’t think I’d ever see you again after you swung into my office that day in Sparkhill, you hadn’t answered my party invitation. You just came in because you wanted help. And you looked so married.’

      ‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know being married changed the looks.’

      ‘Well, it’s changed yours. And for the better, I may add.’

      Coffin just stopped himself looking at his reflection in the wall mirror. ‘But you were doing very well in the West Midland force.’

      ‘You checked that too?’

      He was silent.

      ‘Of course you did, you’re a thorough man, John, always were … I suppose I will have to call you Chief Commander and Sir now.’

      ‘You needn’t call me anything.’

      ‘I have called you some names in my time.’

      ‘Sorry, Phoebe. I expect I deserved them.’

      ‘I’ll tell you one day how much you deserved them.’

      Coffin felt his spirits sinking. ‘I hope we are going to be able to work together.’

      Phoebe moved sharply. ‘Will we be? I’ll be heading my own little unit and you are the big boss.’

      ‘I’ll explain.’

      ‘Perhaps you had better … When you telephoned in Sparkhill after I applied for the position, I knew you wanted me. I don’t say you fixed getting me the job, although you could have done, but you didn’t do it for love of me, so what else is there?’

      First of everyone, she had caught on to the hidden agenda.

      ‘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