Coffin on the Water. Gwendoline Butler

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      She was having a strange effect on him: he had the feeling that if he asked his limbs to move they would not answer his command.

      ‘You’ve had a bad time,’ he said awkwardly, surprising himself with his sympathy.

      Three men appeared through the swing doors behind him: one older man in a dark suit with untidy hair, two young men, one very dark, one very fair, with golden to auburn hair.

      They came on stage moving like veterans, natural actors, and dead on cue.

      ‘So that’s it about the Royal visit,’ said the older man: Detective-Inspector Banbury. ‘Now you know what’s what. And you can stop thinking about the Shepherd business.’

      He was only half joking: they had recently been dealing with the murder of a prostitute in a caravan off the Woolwich Road, an unpleasant murder. And there had been complications with a child. He had been surprised at the effect on his two young men and would be adding his judgement to his report on them. They had reacted too strongly. Then he looked across to where the woman and Harry Tew still confronted each other. She was keeping up a soft babble of sound. He walked across. ‘Come on now, Mrs Esthart, sit down and we’ll see what we can do.’ Over his shoulder he said: ‘Ring up Engel House and ask someone to come up here and fetch Mrs Esthart. Number in the desk-book.’ He had written the number there himself. For good reason.

      ‘She’s had a drop, I think, Tom.’ Tew was dialling. Presently he said, ‘No answer.’

      John Coffin came forward: ‘I think I can help. I know who to get. A girl called Stella Pinero. She lodges with Mrs Esthart. It’s all right, sir, I’ve got to know her quite well. I’ve met Mrs Esthart once or twice. Alex and I both have. Good morning, Mrs Esthart. Stella will handle this.’

      ‘Stella? This is John. Could you come down and collect Mrs Esthart? I think she needs help.’ He hesitated. ‘She’s in some sort of trouble.’

      ‘What’s it all about,’ said Harry Tew. ‘Who is that?’

      ‘Rachel Esthart,’ said Inspector Banbury. ‘A famous lady and I’ll tell you why: she’s been under suspicion for murder for nearly twenty years.’

      Seventeen years ago, Rachel Esthart, an actress at the height of her power, famous, glamorous, wealthy, had suffered a terrible tragedy. Look at it how you will, calling her guilty or not, it was tragic.

      Banbury said: ‘Seventeen-odd years ago her son was drowned. She took him out for a picnic. Or so she says. But it turned out later she had left her husband after a quarrel over a love-affair. She was jealous. She’d been drinking, and she wasn’t used to drink. Ran away, taking the boy. They were both missing. She turned up later, wandering around. Lost her memory, she said.’

      ‘And the boy?’

      ‘He wasn’t with her. She said she didn’t know where he was. Seemed surprised to be asked. But his body was found in the river. Drowned.’

      ‘Nasty.’

      ‘A lot of suspicion fell on her. But the coroner brought in a verdict of accidental drowning. Didn’t stop the talk, though.’

      ‘I bet.’

      ‘And she would never accept that he was dead. Carried on as if he’d come back. Always said he’d be home again. And when he didn’t, and didn’t, she retired to Angel House and hid.’

      ‘I remember hearing,’ said Tew. ‘It’s coming back to me.’ He thought Rachel Esthart looked calmer and more rational now, as if Banbury had had a good effect.

      ‘Over the years she’s often been in asking, roughly speaking, if we’ve got him. And of course, we never have. So what’s new this time?’

      In a wondering way Harry Tew said: ‘She told me she’d had a card from her son saying he was sending her a present, only it hasn’t come.’

      He knew now what it was that was unlucky about the day: it was this visit of Rachel Esthart. It depressed him. Especially with whale steak for supper.

      ‘She hasn’t been in lately. To tell you the truth I thought she’d given up. Cruel of someone to start her up again like this as a joke.’ Banbury felt angry.

      If it was a joke.

      The day Stella Pinero arrived in Greenwich was also the day a murder started to grow. Think of murder as a plant that has to have time to grow. Think of this murder as a plant with deep roots. The times get the murders that suit them. These murders were as bang in period as a page-boy hairstyle or a square-shouldered suit.

      It is harsh to associate Stella with murder, pretty, charming, ambitious Stella, but the truth is Stella, and that little streak of ruthlessness in her, was integral to the plot. Yet, if it had not been her, one has to say, it might have been another girl. In which case the story would be different, and not the one laid out here. Yet even that may be doubtful. Probably it was all laid out, the way it would go, very early on.

      Perhaps, as some philosophers suggest, there are alternative universes in which these murders are not taking place.

      Stella Pinero, a young policeman called John Coffin, and another, Alex Rowley, arrived on Greenwich railway station on the same day. It was new boys’ day. Stella Pinero going to the theatre, the two young men to their lodging-house and then on to report to the police station. Never mind it being Sunday. Actresses and policemen travel on Sunday.

      One other person got off the train with them, but they were too busy noticing each other to notice him.

      It was a cold day in March with a light rain just beginning to fall.

      Stella walked up the platform by the side of a porter pushing a trolley with her bags on it; all she owned in the world was in those bags and she had to keep an eye on them. She was aware of the two young men following her, aware that they must be admiring her long, silken legs and hopeful that her stockings didn’t have a ladder in them.

      Without a word they hurried their pace so that they were just behind her when the porter deposited her bags. Her name was written in large white letters across the cases so they knew who she was from the beginning. Where she was going also. Theatre Royal, Greenwich, said a large label.

      In the street outside an aged hansom cab with an elderly horse was drawn up, with the driver sitting slumped over the reins.

      ‘I thought there’d be a taxi-cab,’ Stella was saying in a puzzled voice.

      ‘No taxis, miss. Not since the war. But there’s old John and his horse.’

      ‘Oh, the poor old horse. I don’t think I could. I think I must be stronger than he is.’

      But she had started to shift her bags when a tall, slender man came out of the station and cut across her path, apparently without noticing her, and jumped into the cab. He was driven off.

      Stella stood there looking.

      ‘Well, I’m damned. What cheek.’ John Coffin came forward; this was his chance.

      Stella was staring after the cab. ‘It’s Edward Kelly. I saw his face. I don’t suppose he even noticed me.’

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