Coffin’s Ghost. Gwendoline Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ That was before I decided there was more money to be made on television.’

      ‘If you can do it.’

      ‘But we can … Place has changed a bit. I had a grotty little flat over Drossers Lane Market. Let’s go that way, it’s on the way home.’

      Of course, it was all changed now. Behind Drossers Lane was the new Pepys Estate, an area of small terraced houses with one block of flats. Central to it was Pepys Park, an attempt at urban prettification, although the spirit of Drossers Lane seemed to hang around it still and resisted prettiness.

      Even the grass looked sad and the shrubs and small trees did not flourish. It was much loved, however, by the small gangs of roving boys that were also part of Drossers Lane, indeed of East Hythe itself. The police were always being called to Pepys Park.

      ‘Changed now,’ said Robbie Gilchrist.

      ‘Don’t suppose Drossers Lane has changed, still full of pushers and pimps and policemen looking for a catch,’ said Freedom. ‘You could eat well there, though, greasy spoons maybe, those cafés, but they turned out good grub for not much cash. Bet they still do.’

      Freedom stepped forward confidently and Gilchrist saw he did indeed know the way. They stepped out together through the night, walking off Stella’s good wine. Freedom stopped at the head of one dark road.

      ‘Knew a girl who lived around here. Bit of a bitch but a real goer.’

      He stared into the darkness.

      ‘There it is, Barrow Street … Never liked the place.’

      ‘You know it then?’

      ‘Said so, didn’t I? Once.’ He turned away. ‘We don’t have to go down it. There’s a better way home.’

      Gilchrist yawned again. ‘How’s Mariette?’

      Mariette was the moveable wife that they had had in common.

      ‘Fine,’ said Freedom. ‘Don’t see much of her these days.’

      ‘Who’s she with then?’

      ‘You tell me.’

      Gilchrist changed the subject. ‘How did you think our host looked?’

      ‘All right,’ said Freedom, who never noticed anyone but himself. ‘Lucky to have her.’

      Chief Inspector Phoebe Astley said: ‘He looks better, doesn’t he? More himself.’

      The two of them were standing in the car park of Police Headquarters after a long day, ending in a meeting of the officers dealing with the latest crime.

      Murder, it looked like.

      She admired the Chief Commander although he could be the devil to work with. She was talking to her immediate boss, Archie Young, whom she also admired, but differently. There was, she had to admit it, a strong sexual element in her feeling for John Coffin (sternly held in check these days, of course, but still there), but not so with the chief superintendent.

      ‘Thinner,’ said Archie Young. ‘Thinner,’ he said again, a shade enviously. He gave his own waistband a tug. He was losing his hair and putting on weight and envied the Chief Commander’s apparent power to resist both processes. Didn’t diet either, nor take much exercise. There was the dog, of course. Coffin did walk the dog.

      No, you’re not thinner, thought Phoebe. She was solidly, but attractively, built herself, and after a threat of a nasty illness a year or two ago, rather welcomed her solidity as a sign of health. She wore her usual working garb of a well-cut dark jacket with jeans. She admired the way Stella dressed, but clocked the price and did not seek to emulate her. ‘Suits him.’

      ‘He’s never been ill before. Not that I remember.’

      Coffin had been ill before, of course; Phoebe did not know everything.

      ‘Doesn’t like it talked about. Prefers to pretend it didn’t happen.’

      ‘I was really glad when he came back to life,’ she said seriously. ‘Resurrected.’

      ‘It wasn’t that bad.’

      ‘I thought he was gone.’ Then she laughed. ‘Well, only for about a minute. But remember I was walking to the car with him when the chap dug the knife in. It was the Chief Commander or me, and the Chief saw to it that it wasn’t me.’

      ‘You got the man though.’

      Phoebe nodded. ‘Ten years inside. Wish I could have got the knife into him.’

      Then she said: ‘We haven’t told the Chief about the legs and arms?’

      ‘He’s got to know. I am preparing a report which he will see in the ordinary way of things. Since he reads everything.’ And remembers it, he had a phenomenal memory. ‘He will know.’

      ‘On his doorstep too.’

      ‘Not his present doorstep,’ corrected Chief Superintendent Archie Young. ‘He didn’t live there at first, when he came to the Second City. St Luke’s was just being converted and he was on his own. Her ladyship was working in the States.’ He frowned. In fact, he was not sure what exactly had been the state of the marriage at that time. He had heard rumours. On and off. Happy enough now, though, it appeared.

      Lovely woman, and talented, no doubt about that, but he personally always handled her with care.

      ‘Miss Pinero wasn’t there?’

      ‘Not at the time, she always seemed to be on the move. She came and had a look round, of course, so I suppose she spent the odd night there but practically speaking, he lived alone in Moorbank House. It had been a doctor’s house. Or was it a dentist’s? Been both, I think. Called something else now.’

      ‘So when he moved out, it became a women’s refuge?’

      ‘I think it was something in between.’ Archie frowned. ‘Yes. We used it for CID offices. We were all busy creating the Second City Police Force. Some of us came from the Met and others were local to the old Docklands.’

      ‘And some were completely new to it like me.’ Phoebe had come later from Birmingham. By the time she had arrived, the theatre complex was almost complete with only the smallest theatre waiting completion. The Coffins’ home in the converted tower of the old church was lived in. Must have been expensive, she remembered thinking.

      ‘You’ve been in touch with Stella, haven’t you?’ Archie Young put a question to which he knew the answer.

      ‘Yes, sure, she was what you might call a character witness for George Freedom. I had to come at it sideways, as it were, not to make too clear what I was after. That I thought Freedom was a killer.’ She was cagey, careful with what she said. Anyway, she thought he was the sort that got off. There were types like it.

      Justice or not? She didn’t know.

      ‘Hit a girl on the head, didn’t he?’

      ‘Yes, СКАЧАТЬ