A Dark Coffin. Gwendoline Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ thought. ‘Later maybe, I’ll have to think. Things are complicated.’

      ‘You mean about Swinehouse? I might be able to help you there.’

      Coffin felt his eyebrows shoot up. What was Swinehouse to Harry Trent? And it shouldn’t be. He was surprised, resentful and possessive. He hated the riot, at the moment, he hated Swinehouse, but it was his. What was Harry doing on his territory. ‘Where are you?’

      ‘Quite close. I’m having a meal at a place near you. Maximilian’s, it’s called.’

      ‘Ah.’ Ah, indeed. What was Stella going to say? ‘I know the place. Hang on, will you?’ He covered the phone while he spoke to Stella.

      She was surprisingly understanding, and possibly even interested in Harry. Anyway, she made no opposition to meeting him.

      ‘He can sit and watch while we eat, I suppose. And you can talk and I won’t listen … there’s bound to be someone there I know, there always is.’ A good proportion of the floating population of performers working or rehearsing or just about in St Luke’s Theatre ate in Max’s. ‘What’s he in trouble about?’

      ‘Don’t know. But he seems to think it’s one I can share in.’ Or was it that Harry thought he could pass it on to Coffin?

      ‘How well do you know him?’

      ‘We worked together on and off on various cases when I was in Greenwich. He’s much younger than I am and was a very junior officer. I got to know him a bit, not well, perhaps, but he was quiet about himself. Reserved, I suppose, didn’t talk about himself.’ He didn’t really want to talk about Harry; he added thoughtfully: ‘Not a happy man, but then he got married and that seemed to cheer him up. Or for a bit. But it didn’t mean he talked more, he said almost nothing about himself and his wife. Unlike some.’ But Coffin hadn’t been a talker himself, so he understood that side of Trent. In a company of men, it was really better to keep a still tongue. Who said men were not gossips? Coffin knew better. ‘But I liked him and trusted him. Yes, we were friends, but I was senior-ranking officer and that drew a line.’

      Max’s was crowded but Harry had a seat in the corner from which he could see the door and anyone coming in, so even if they had wanted to avoid him, it couldn’t have been done.

      He stood up when he saw them and waved his hand. That was Harry, discretion was not and never had been in his character. Coffin saw a man with broad shoulders, brown eyes and hair with no touch of grey. He looked as untidy as Coffin remembered him, but he found himself glad to see the man and held up his own hand in acknowledgement.

      Naturally Max, who had greeted them because he loved Stella and somewhat feared John Coffin, took it in. ‘A table near your friend?’

      Stella smiled, and Coffin realized with a pang that while Harry with his stocky figure and crest of hair might be no beauty, might be untidy, while his suit could do with a brush, yet the hormones were all there and what he did exude was a still-youthful maleness. Stella never minded that in a dinner companion.

      ‘I’ll go for a walk, then come back, I’d like a look round,’ he said efficiently. ‘Don’t want to interfere with your meal.’ Coffin remembered that Harry was always efficient.

      ‘I’ll disappear after we’ve eaten, and you two can talk. Several people I know here.’ Stella looked round the room.

      Harry rubbed his eyes. ‘Don’t mind if you stay. You might be a help.’ Suddenly, he looked tired.

      Stella decided. ‘Then why don’t you bring your coffee over here and you can talk while we eat?’

      Coffin studied Harry’s face, on which fatigue had left marks. Fatigue through work, which was common enough in police circles, or fatigue through something else? ‘Have some wine with us.’

      Harry rubbed his eyes again, as if there was some irritation behind them. ‘Better not. I’ve been drinking whisky. I’ll have some mineral water and coffee. Whisky makes me thirsty.’

      Max told them what was best to eat that night and they took his advice: wild Scotch salmon, with cooked cucumber and salad.

      ‘The food’s good here,’ said Harry. ‘Not that I was in a noticing mood.’

      ‘Clever of you to find Max’s.’

      ‘No cleverness … I was looking for you.’ He rubbed his eyes again. ‘It’s about my brother.’

      ‘I didn’t know you had a brother.’

      ‘You’d know it if you saw him: like as two peas, we are. Henry and Mark. It didn’t matter which name we got, they just handed them out. Twins. Two halves of one egg. He got called Merry, although God knows he never was.’ Unless inside himself, he thought, he did have a secret laugh.

      ‘I have a brother,’ said Coffin, before he could stop himself. ‘But I didn’t know him, never met him or even knew he existed, until we were both adults.’

      ‘Well, I knew mine from the minute I could open my eyes. Before, I daresay, in the womb.’ He added with some bitterness: ‘And we were not happy little boys.

      ‘Too different, or too alike, I’m not sure. He hates me, I think, and I don’t exactly love him. He said I sat on him all through gestation, and I daresay I did.’

      ‘I don’t like my brother very much,’ said Coffin thoughtfully.

      ‘We have such different lives; I went into law enforcement, and …’ Harry hesitated. ‘And he went the other way.’

      ‘You mean … ?’ Coffin felt his eyebrows shoot up.

      ‘Yes, he’s a criminal. Even the army couldn’t control him, and chucked him out … I think he is wicked. He may be the most evil man I know.’

      Stella was shocked. ‘You don’t believe in evil?’

      ‘I do when it’s in the family.’ He sounded weary. ‘And I only said may be … I always pray he isn’t.’

      Coffin said sharply, ‘And you think he’s in the Second City?’

      ‘I think he is in Swinehouse,’ said Harry simply. ‘And if you are having trouble there, heaven help you, because he is probably behind it. In there driving it forward.’

      ‘And why do you think he is here?’

      ‘Because we were fostered as kids for a while, just a short while with a couple called Macintosh, strict, rigid even, but it suited him somehow; I think he has come back.’

      Coffin thought about it. ‘He kept in touch with them then?’

      ‘He never kept in touch with anyone in his life.’

      ‘So what makes you think he’s here?’

      ‘I saw him on TV. On the news, at the riot, he was laughing.’

      ‘I see. Thanks for telling me. You’re sure?’

      ‘I know his face. I see it every time in the mirror when I shave СКАЧАТЬ