A Cold Coffin. Gwendoline Butler

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      Coffin did not answer.

      ‘That means it’s someone I know.’

      Coffin gave a little shake of his head.

      That didn’t say yes and didn’t say no,’ complained Stella sharply, but inside herself she was saying, By God, yes it did. I know this dead person, dead woman, I know it’s a woman . . . But who is it?

      Ignoring her husband, she pushed past him into the room. ‘Who is this doctor you thought I was?’

      Coffin muttered something about skulls, a paediatrician.

      Stella had taken a pace within the room. She could see the half a dozen or so skulls that had been made into a macabre ring round the dead woman’s head.

      ‘Doctor . . .’ she said scornfully. ‘You don’t need a doctor. I don’t know what this doctor will tell you, but I would have thought you could have seen for yourself.’

      ‘Each of these little creatures was malformed . . . no normal baby has a skull like that.’

      Dr Merchant came strolling up with the ease of one who knows that there is no hurry. All his specimens were dead.

      ‘Mr Coffin, I am sorry if I kept you waiting . . . I had to come across from the university, a committee meeting.’ He looked around him. ‘I am the curator of this little museum, one of my subsidiary jobs. The Jordan Jones Museum, a Victorian doctor and donor. Not much used now, ways have changed, but he left a bit of cash too.’ He gave a half-smile, ‘But I see you managed all right without me.’

      Coffin said tersely, possibly with a touch of grimness, ‘We managed.’

      Merchant advanced to look. ‘Poor soul, poor soul. How was she discovered?’

      Joe had found her in fact and called security, but Phoebe preferred to put it her way. ‘We had arranged to meet here.’ Phoebe Astley was short.

      Merchant looked his question.

      ‘She was helping me with my enquiries.’

      ‘Poor woman, poor woman. And yet, you know, you could almost have predicted a violent death for her. There are some people like that. And if they miss it one way, then they get it another.’

      ‘You know who she is?’

      Dr Merchant almost gave a friendly smile. ‘Of course. There is no more efficient gossip mill than a hospital.’ He added, half thoughtfully, ‘Her husband cuts my hair.’ He ran his hand over his designer trim, layered and shaped. Everyone has his own vanity.

      ‘You know him?’ asked Phoebe Astley.

      ‘He does some private work, out of the Mayfair salon. Just the cut and the styling. Calls himself a man with a knife and a pair of scissors.’ Then he realized what he had said, and added hastily, ‘I’m sure it was a very happy marriage and he will be devastated. Does he know yet?’

      Phoebe did not answer. She had no idea. Somewhere in Spinnergate, no doubt the uniformed men would be dealing with that part, might already have done so.

      ‘He might not be there, of course,’ went on Ken Merchant. ‘He’s away a lot. Demonstrations and photographic sessions.’

      You seem to know a lot about him, thought Coffin, who had been silently observing the scene and realizing that Phoebe not only knew Dr Merchant, or of him (he’d have to think that one over), but also didn’t like him. Might be worth finding out.

      This view was confirmed when, moving forward to thank Dr Merchant for coming, he gave him the polite dismissal and said that Chief Inspector Astley would be taking his statement. He saw the look of satisfaction flit across Phoebe’s face. What had he done to her?

      ‘Statement?’ No pleasure there, instead surprise and hurt dignity.

      ‘Just routine,’ Phoebe assured him. ‘Anyone who has access to the museum.’ She murmured something about fingerprints with some satisfaction.

      He must have either spumed her or raped her, thought Coffin. He did not usually form such wicked witticisms about a colleague and friend, but even he sometimes had a thought better not expressed that he pressed firmly down, and this one had escaped.

      He realized he was in shock.

      Stella meanwhile had performed the well-known theatrical trick of disappearing while still being there. (She could do the opposite too: not being there but seeming to be present, while really being at the hairdresser’s having a tint.)

      ‘I’ll clear off,’ said Dr Merchant. ‘Leave you to it. I’ll be in my room working, if you want me. I am preparing a lecture for tomorrow. Room 3A in the Bedford teaching block.’

      Thank you,’ said Coffin, his eyes on the group round the body. However often you saw it and however tough you were, there was something final about the journey to the pathologist’s table.

      ‘Ready to move her now,’ said Phoebe Astley.

      Something rolled from the body, out of a pocket in her jacket.

      Golden, round and shining. It was a wedding ring.

      ‘Were the clothes searched?’ Coffin found himself unable to say ‘her’ clothes . . . too personal, better keep it neutral.

      ‘Not really, sir,’ said Dover. ‘A quick search to establish identity . . . The rest will be done by forensics when the clothes come off.’ Subdued hint of reproof here: You know the ropes, sir.

      Coffin knew them. To Phoebe Astley, he said, ‘Keep me up to date.’

      ‘I will, of course.’

      Underneath, they were conducting a different dialogue. Coffin was saying that this was a particularly bloody murder in which he had been named and called in, and he wanted to know why.

      From Phoebe, proving that great minds do not necessarily think alike, came the thought that she was irritated by this and wished he would keep out. She would call him when it was necessary.

      Coffin picked up the irritation as he watched the body removed.

      ‘What about the MO?’ he asked Phoebe. ‘Does it remind you of the Minden Street murders?’

      Phoebe shrugged. ‘We don’t know if she even knew where Minden Street was.’

      ‘Minden Street may have known where she was.’ He was pacing the area where the body had rested.

      Plenty of blood. Too much. Amazing the way the heart keeps pumping it out when it would be better to stop. Even if help had got there earlier, she would probably still have died.

      And she had asked for him, allegedly. By name.

      Coffin. Get Coffin. Sounded like a Hitchcock film.

      To Phoebe he said, ‘Get the blood tested.’

      Surprised, Phoebe nodded. ‘We always do, СКАЧАТЬ