A Coffin for Charley. Gwendoline Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘He married you for one reason only: that he loved you and could not see life without you.’

      Stella shook her head. ‘We all have our own nightmares, and mine is that one day he will say, Well, that’s it, Stella, sorry it didn’t work. Goodbye.’

      ‘He’s worried about you at the moment,’ said Letty abruptly. ‘But he’s taking measures.’

      ‘Yes, I’ve seen the patrol cars going past. But they can’t watch me all the time. One day I might go round a corner or get in a lift and there he is with a knife or a gun, and no one to stop him. And sometimes I have an even worse fear: that he horribly, terribly likes me.’

      This time it was Letty who poured them both a strong gin.

      Then they turned to discussing the appointment of the Principal of the School of Drama for which they had several good candidates.

      It was not until Letty left that Stella went back to look again at the ring of white roses found on the mat before her front door.

      It was a small ring of blooms, more funeral than celebratory, with a chewed and torn appearance as if it had been about the world a bit. Tiddles the cat had been on it and may have been responsible for the depressing, even menacing look.

      As she took the roses in her hand, she thought: And they’re not even real roses. A card fell out on to the mat. A small old card which, like the flowers, looked as if this was not its first use. It said: LOVE.

      That evening, up the stairs in Coffin’s tower, she handed them over to her husband. He had an apron on and was in the kitchen.

      A pleasant smell as of savoury chicken greeted her. They had arranged to cook in turns and her husband was now doing his part. Even acting the part with his striped butcher’s apron. She guessed the food had come from a famous store which specialized in providing prepared food. She congratulated him, she would do the same. She did do the same, had been doing so for weeks. No good pretending that they were an orthodox domestic pair.

      Dinner was quiet and attended by both animals, cat and dog, who received their own bowls of food with suspicious pleasure. The cat had taught Bob to inspect what he ate before touching a mouthful in case it was poisoned and the dog had taught Tiddles to eat fast or the chap next to you in the feeding line might get it.

      ‘I shall be staying the night.’

      ‘I should hope so.’ He was surprised it had to be mentioned. On the whole, their nights were spent in his tower. At first Stella had called it romantic, now she just called it home which he liked even better.

      The wreath of plastic roses rested on a bookcase by them.

      ‘I feel more nervous than ever. What can you do with the roses?’

      He poured her some more wine and looked across at the wreath, sitting in a melancholy way as if it had a life of its own on the bookcase by the window where Tiddles often sat.

      ‘I don’t suppose the roses take fingerprints well, although you never know, but it shall go off for forensic examination.’ He drank some wine himself. ‘No one saw it delivered?’

      ‘Who could I ask?’ said Stella. ‘Letty didn’t know anything.’

      ‘People from the theatre … coming and going?’

      Stella shrugged. ‘I’ll try. But I don’t think so.’

      ‘Don’t worry too much.’ But he was worried himself.

      ‘But don’t you see, he’s coming closer. Closer. He knows my face and I don’t know his.’

      ‘Come to bed. It’ll seem better in the morning.’

      Stella smiled. ‘The nice thing about being married is that there is the morning as well as the night.’

      Coffin traced his finger delicately down her profile. ‘You have a very charming nose, did you know it?’

      Without warning he remembered the face of Marianna Manners, seen in the police morgue that morning. She too had a nice nose but one now suffused with dark colour.

      An actress, like his Stella, but not so talented or successful with her chewed fingernails. Trying, though, to justify her Equity card, taking whatever part she could get.

      ‘Did you ever hear of the Karnival Club?’ he asked Stella.

      Stella looked surprised. ‘Yes, I know about it. Why do you ask?’

      ‘Marianna Manners had an engagement there. She was at the Karnival a week. It was where she met Job Titus.’

      ‘I went there once,’ said Stella.

      ‘You did?’

      ‘I was producing a play about a transvestite. I wanted to get it right.’

      ‘Did it help?’

      ‘So-so. The production was scrapped anyway.’

      He wouldn’t question her now, but tomorrow, in the morning, he would get out of her the date and details of her visit.

      But he couldn’t resist one question. ‘What did you wear?’ She considered. ‘Well, it was work. I didn’t dress up.’ Hastily she added, ‘Not that way, or any way. It was summer. Jeans and a shirt, I think.’

      One more question had to be asked now after all. ‘Which summer?’

      ‘This summer. When it was hot, in June.’

      This summer, not so long ago. Not too long ago for a person to have seen both Marianna and Stella.

      Damn, he thought. Damn and damn and damn.

CHAPTER 5

       Thursday. Down Napier Street

      Morning did not always bring joy. Annie woke up with a headache and a gut feeling of worry. ‘Always worse in the morning,’ she told herself. She battled against misery, always had, she was a fighter.

      Annie cleared away the breakfast and took her daughter to nursery school. Didi was still asleep, she seemed to use more than the average ration of oblivion. Annie couldn’t remember if she had been that way herself but she thought not. Sleep, surely, had been a commodity hard to come by after that episode in the garden. Moreover, there had been a generation change and it had happened between Annie and Didi, a matter of some ten years. Girls were different now.

      Her thoughts veered away to Caroline Royal. Caroline, the tenant upstairs, was someone she thought about often. As soon as Caroline had rented the flat, Annie had known she was going to be important in her life. There was something different about Caroline.

      Caroline’s flat at the top of Annie’s house was always beautifully in order but with an empty feeling to it, as if Caroline left nothing behind when she went out to work. It was hardly her home because she travelled so much. Perhaps Heathrow was where she really lived.

      Annie СКАЧАТЬ