Coffin’s Game. Gwendoline Butler

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      Stella went to a locked drawer on the make-up table and withdrew a thickish envelope. She looked at it for a moment before opening it.

      Three old letters, two very recent ones, and a photograph. How wrong she had been to let that photograph be taken.

      Not drunk, not mad, just silly, she told herself. I cannot even claim that I was so young, she added. He was, I wasn’t. Stupid, I was, carried away by emotion. Even now, when she knew what he was, what he had become, she remembered his physical beauty.

      She looked away from the letters, and inside herself let the dialogue go on: I did not know then that I would meet John Coffin again, that I would marry him and become the wife of a top policeman. When I married John, I tried to tell him of a few past affairs, but he laughed and said he did not want a General Confession, and he had not been without lovers himself.

      It was, she admitted to herself, one of her treasured moments, because it showed what a nice man John Coffin was, with a knack for good behaviour. He was also tough-minded, resolute and quick-tempered. Oh dear, she could hardly bear to think of all that being turned against her.

      He was fair, she told herself, very fair.

      For some reason, she found this no comfort as she stared at her face in the looking glass, for fairness could be a very sharp weapon. She touched her cheek with a careful finger. ‘I must look after my skin, stress is bad for it. Maisie was right, I am a wreck.’

      She leaned, resting her chin on her right hand, and, ever the actress, mimed tragic despair.

      Possibly not a wreck, she allowed herself, withdrawing her hand, she had been a beauty and still was. Like many actresses she could make herself beautiful. She turned away from the looking glass to get dressed.

      Her hasty movement knocked the letters and the photograph to the ground. Three old letters from her, and two new ones from him. Unwelcome, unwanted letters, threatening letters, demanding letters.

      Pip Eton, student, actor, stared up at her from the photograph on the floor. How he had changed from what he had once been, to a treacherous beast. Once her lover, now … What could she call him but a blackmailer, a criminal, a traitor?

      No, be fair, she told herself bitterly, it is you, Stella Pinero, whom he invites to be the traitor. And to betray whom? Your own husband, not sexually as a lover, but professionally as a policeman.

      A reviewer had once called Stella the ‘modern comic muse’. Stella had valued that comment, she knew that she was a very good, possibly great comic actress, but now she felt a sting. Life had offered her a comedy, she reflected bitterly, and now she was being asked to play it as tragedy.

      She put the letters and the photograph into her big black crocodile handbag which she had bought when she had won the Golden Apple Award on Broadway, and forced herself to calm down.

      She could always kill someone. Preferably, Pip; if not, then very likely herself.

      Her husband was away from home tonight, she would have the place to herself. There were times when it was better to be on your own.

      Dressed in her street clothes, Stella sped through the back corridors of the Pinero Theatre, ignoring a wave from Jane Gillam and a cheerful shout from Adam Fisk, who had played Lord Chiltern, to join them for a drink – they were going on to Max’s for a meal afterwards. ‘Can’t manage tonight,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Have a lovely time.’

      ‘What’s the matter with her?’ said Adam to Fanny and Jane. ‘She always comes at the end of the run. Tradition.’

      ‘Her husband, I expect,’ said Jane.

      ‘Why do you say that?’

      Jane shrugged. ‘Just think so.’

      Stella stepped out into the open air, took three deep and calming breaths, then walked briskly to where she lived with the Chief Commander in the tower of the old church now converted into the theatre. There was one good thing about living on the job: you did not have far to walk home.

      She let herself in, switched on the light that illuminated the winding stair and listened, in case Coffin had come back, then walked up the stairs into silence.

      There was no cat or dog to greet her, both animals of the earlier generation had died within a few months of each other, as if, rivals and enemies as they were, they could not endure life without each other. And although Stella had often cursed the old cat, a battered old street cat, for waking her in the morning with its paw on her face, and grumbled at the dog for demanding that late-night walk, she missed them, too. They had been replaced by a sturdy white peke called Augustus, but he had declared himself Coffin’s dog who must go where the boss went, so he was off now with Coffin on his travels.

      She made herself a pot of coffee, prepared a sandwich with cheese and, defiantly, a crisp spiced onion, something no performer would normally do, which she sat at the table in the kitchen eating. The strong hot drink together with food helped her to clear her mind.

      ‘I don’t see the way forward yet, but I know I need to think it over and I will do that best on my own.’

      She could not talk it over with her husband because it was his career that could be ruined.

      ‘I am not a fool,’ she said aloud. ‘I know it is not the sexual element that would do him in – society is not so unsophisticated – nor the fact that I look as though … No, I won’t utter what it looks as if I am doing. And it’s not that, even, it’s the security side that would destroy him.’

      She drank some coffee. The darkness outside seemed to creep in behind her eyes so that she could not see. ‘Emotional mist,’ she said in a loud voice, shaking her head.

      She went down the stairs to the large sitting room one floor below and poured herself a large glass of whisky which she then carried upstairs. She had seen tired detectives come back to life after a slug of it, so she guessed it would do the same for her.

      As she sipped it, she heard a rustle at floor level. She turned slowly to see what was there. A small grey mouse sat staring back at her. In the old days the cat had brought them in as an unwanted present for her mistress. This one must have made its way there under its own steam, or be a survivor. She found that thought comforting.

      ‘Hello, friend,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, you are safe with me tonight. I know how you feel: trapped in a hostile world.’ She drank some more whisky. ‘Fear not. Appearances to the contrary,’ she added, ‘I won’t eat you.’

      The mouse slid quietly away on his own business. He was a resident, knew the ways of the house, would not be seen again for some time.

      Stella finished her whisky, then took herself upstairs to her bedroom. Off the bedroom was a small dressing room contrived out of a corner of the room.

      She looked at her clothes hanging in a neat row behind a glass door. She changed into a comfortable trouser suit, packed a small bag.

      One more task and the most painful: a lying letter. She hated deceiving her husband, partly because she was a naturally truthful person – which all actresses must be, since nothing shows up more on the stage than falseness – but also because the Chief Commander had a sharp eye for an untruth.

      Dearest,

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