Coffin’s Ghost. Gwendoline Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ might come back of her own accord, it can happen. Pretty kid, nice long fair hair.’ Not clever, though. Simple.

      ‘You do know all about it,’ said Stella. Of course you do, you always do, whatever you pretend. Your job.

      ‘Just heard about it, probably from Mimsie Marker, or someone, and saw a photograph somewhere.’ He looked at Stella. ‘Perhaps I’d better take myself out.’

      ‘No, don’t.’ She knew, and she understood now that he too knew, that the ‘problem’ which had been mentioned was not what happened to the stepdaughter but what had gone before.

      The other accident. Another girl who worked for him.

      And the one before that. No official complaint there but all in the dossier.

      Freedom was a man to whom accidents happened.

      Stella looked at her legs. It was funny about flesh, some days bits of you looked saggy and tired, and other days, they looked good. Today her legs looked trim and neat. Might be the new tights she was wearing from the place in Bond Street. Cost the earth but worth it.

      ‘I’ll go and put something sleek and flashy on, that’s what they like, those two.’

      ‘I’ll behave.’ Coffin gave her a wary smile.

      Coffin got back to his literary labours which he was enjoying. Nice to be free of crime for a bit. Not that the Second City was ever truly crime-free, any more than any other big city, only at the moment it appeared free from murder, rape, drugs and pornography. Someone’s put the lid on it all for a bit, he told himself cheerfully.

      And all the time, he had waiting for him on the doorstep of a battered women’s refuge, four limbs: two legs and two arms.

      George arrived first, but late (and he was usually punctual), to be received by Stella in her new Vivienne Westwood trouser suit of satin with a fringe. The soft golden colour became her, as she was well aware – she hoped George noticed, but he seemed abstracted. He accepted a strong whisky and was sipping it when Robbie turned up full of apologies for being late.

      ‘My wife would talk to me on the phone.’ He was divorced from wife number two (Mariette had been number three), but husband and wife kept in touch, more closely than he cared for at times. ‘I thought she’d never get off the line. She’s worried sick about her eldest daughter, Alice; my stepdaughter, but I’m fond of her.’ He looked at George. ‘His stepdaughter too, for that matter, we married the same woman. A beauty but a bitch. Alice is seventeen, not a kid, really. She’s gone off with her boyfriend, that’s my opinion.’ He did not go into it because he did not quite believe it.

      ‘It happens,’ said Stella. ‘Did it myself once.’

      Coffin gave her a wry look. Wasn’t with me, he thought.

      ‘She was in your outfit, Stella, for a bit. In the stage manager’s team.’

      ‘I remember her, very pretty girl. Kind of innocent, really. She’ll turn up.’

      Robbie nodded. He hoped so. ‘Her mother is worried, they had a quarrel before she left.’

      ‘She’s always been a trouble, that girl,’ said George over his whisky. He had no children himself, although several times married. ‘And you know it.’

      ‘It’s all money,’ said Robbie gloomily. ‘Always about money. Her mother says she spends too much, I say they both do. But the girl’s not bright.’

      ‘Money,’ said George. ‘Don’t mention it. We all have our worries. How do you manage all this theatre complex, Stella?’

      He really wanted to know. It was one of the reasons he had accepted to come to dinner. Apart from the fact that he liked the grub and liked to look at Stella. More than look if he got the chance, but it didn’t seem likely with her husband there.

      Stella said she got support from the local university who used the small theatre for their Drama Department, and that the Second City Arts Council had been generous, but that it was a squeeze. ‘We’ve been lucky, we’ve had a couple of good commercial successes which we have sent on to the West End, and in one case to New York. It all helps.’

      Stella led them in to dinner. Max had sent an assistant to set out the table.

      Coffin saw that Stella had laid out the best silver, chosen by and paid for by her out of film earnings. He picked up a fork and balanced it in his hand. He liked the stuff, good style, as you would expect from Stella, but not the sort of thing that a copper could afford. Like, yes; pay for, no.

      The china was old Minton, apricot and gold. They did not have a complete set, never had had, bought it at an auction, but enough to use for a small dinner.

      George turned one plate over to examine the back. ‘About 1880, I’d say, the colours are right. Nice stuff.’

      Stella was pleased. ‘You are clever, George, they come from a house in Shropshire. Not a complete set, of course. Let me give you some wine. Claret or hock?’

      The soup was vichyssoise and the toast that was served with it was crisp and hot. Cold soup, hot toast – Max’s idea.

      George took hock.

      She doesn’t know, thought Coffin, that it is possible that a few years ago he killed a woman.

      And later yet another.

      Something I know, and she doesn’t. (Or does she?)

      And all the time, he had waiting for him on the doorstep of a battered women’s refuge, four limbs: two legs and two arms.

      The remains were wrapped in brown paper. There was no torso and no head.

      ‘Delicious soup,’ said George, crunching toast.

      Stella took advantage of the good mood of both men to start a delicate introduction to what she had in mind for them. They worked together as a team so regularly that when asked to dinner as a pair by someone like Stella Pinero they knew it was business.

      An interesting story, Coffin thought, studying George’s face. Did George guess that he knew? And did George care?

      After all, it was only what the police, at the time, thought. Never got outside publicity. Oh, the deaths, yes, but not George’s connection.

      He was a bit of a comedian, Coffin decided, watching George with Stella.

      Of course, it was all a soap on TV. Coffin had watched a lot of television in his private room after his operation, and enjoyed it more than he had told Stella. She had been in some of the shows.

      Not the deadly, killing-off-the-ladies one, that George had produced and, some said, written.

      Only TV, just a bit of script, but it told you something about a man.

      When they left (rather later than Coffin cared for, that was the theatre for you), George Freedom suggested to Robbie that they walk home rather than go to the cab rank by the theatre.

      ‘I’d like a stroll, take a look around.’

      Gilchrist СКАЧАТЬ