A Dark Coffin. Gwendoline Butler

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      ‘No.’ A bleak, cold monosyllable.

      Coffin thought about it. ‘So what’s he running from?’

      Harry dropped his head and looked at the table. ‘I dunno … maybe murder. He could have killed a woman in Woolwich. Strangled her and left her on Woolwich Common. He says not, but he would, wouldn’t he?’

      ‘I don’t know, Harry, he’s your brother. Did you believe him?’

      ‘I never believe a word he says.’ But Harry kept his eyes fixed on the table.

      ‘Look at me, do, Harry.’ He looked up, his eyes blind. ‘And? Come on … And?’

      ‘I’m worried for the old couple. How do I know what he wants? He may harm them. He is dangerous.’

      A couple called Macintosh lived in Swinehouse, Joe and Josie who ran a mobile fish-and-chip van. They also served hamburgers, sausages, fried chicken and toasted sandwiches. With tea and coffee to drink. All good, all fresh and tasting well. They were popular local figures who were welcomed as they toured the streets of Swinehouse where eating houses were hard to come by. They regularly parked in spots around the theatre. Even Coffin ate there sometimes when Stella was away and he wanted a quick meal, and he was sure that Bob, their dog, hung about the van when he could get out on his own, while the cat probably ate there regularly when fish was frying. The cat was an animal with a strong character and a habit of roaming in search of good food.

      Josie cooked and Joe served, except that sometimes the positions were exchanged and Joe cooked and Josie served – they were interchangeable. Josie was tall and thin, Joe was just as tall and very nearly as thin. They bounced jokes off each other like two old comedians.

      The van was always parked in the shed beside the house in Tolliver Street. Once vandalized, the neighbourhood took such strong revenge on the lad that did it, that it was never again touched. Tolliver Street itself had changed radically since the Trent boys had lived there. Once a row of small houses, only the Macintosh house remained. On either side the rest had been replaced by blocks of flats. The Macintosh house, which had once, long ago, been a livery stable, sat in the middle of its own freehold.

      The Macintoshes were nice, gentle, quiet people who were always very circumspect with the world outside and each other, as if they had been badly hurt once and were on the lookout for when it happened again.

      That night, when Coffin was talking to Harry Trent, and while a tall man was just about to throw a brick through the window of Tallow Street Police Station, the Macintoshes’ van was parked near the theatre where it was doing a good trade in hot sandwiches, in spite of the heat of the evening.

      This was not their usual beat on a Wednesday night, but the Macintoshes knew enough to keep away from Tallow Street where the crowds were gathering.

      ‘We’ve always managed to keep out of the rain, haven’t we?’ Josie nudged Joe.

      ‘It’s going to be a bloody thunderstorm this time, loved one.’ Joe was usually the gloomier of the two. ‘Pass me the sausages.’

      Josie handed them over. ‘It can’t be that bad, can it?’

      ‘Guess it could be, lover.’

      ‘No, no, I won’t believe. We are imagining things.’

      Joe did not answer, he just got on with cooking the sausages. ‘We could always get out,’ he said at last.

      ‘Get out? Do you mean what I think you mean?’

      He turned the sausages in the big pan. ‘Yes. Not such a bad thing. Out.’

      Josie was buttering the rolls. ‘Are we in the firing line then, Joe? No, I won’t believe it.’

      Joe didn’t answer, just went on with the sausages, and Josie remembered something else.

      ‘Joe, do we know someone called Merry? He wants to come round. Left a message on the answerphone.’

      Coffin sat over his wine with Harry while Stella tactfully took herself off for a theatre gossip with some cronies across the room. She knew when to make herself scarce.

      ‘They were decent enough people, the Macs, although they had a tough side, you kept their rules. They ran a small ice-cream van in the summer and fish and chips in the winter.’

      ‘I think they still do something similar,’ said Coffin thoughtfully.

      ‘Do they? Thought they might have retired by now.’

      ‘No, not yet. Gone upmarket, I’d say.’

      ‘Really? You surprise me. Didn’t seem that sort.’

      Coffin leaned forward. ‘Your brother, what do you want done?’

      Harry looked thoughtful. ‘Dunno.’

      ‘I could bring him in, I suppose. If he’s been in the riot, have him charged.’

      Harry had sorted himself out a bit. ‘I think I just want to lay hands on him before he does something terrible … I know I am a grown man, and so is he, and we are both responsible for our own actions, but I feel as though I am responsible with him. as if he is a part of me. Or I am of him.’

      He looked at Coffin and spread out his hands. ‘Twins are different.’

      ‘They must be. Does he feel the same about you?’

      ‘No, I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. It may be because I went into the police, he became what he is, perhaps couldn’t help himself. You don’t believe that?’

      ‘And I don’t think you do.’

      ‘Some of the time, oh yes, I do. The worst times.’

      ‘What’s his record? Come on, you can tell me. I can find out.’

      Harry trotted a sad, bitter little list of shoplifting, robbery, succeeded by robbery with violence.

      ‘Has he ever killed anyone?’

      Harry took a deep breath. ‘I think he did once. The girl that I told you about, but it was never proved and he always said No, not him.’

      ‘That’s the worst, is it? There’s nothing else I ought to know?’

      Harry seemed to debate inside himself. ‘We’re still close, not telepathy or anything like that, but I like to know where he is and what he’s up to. And sometimes I pick up feelings, sensations … I don’t know if he is the same way with me, it was so when we were kids, but that was a long time ago.’

      He waited for Coffin to laugh or crack a joke, which was why he never admitted any abnormal closeness with his twin in the society of policemen in which he moved. Probably wouldn’t admit them anywhere, he told himself, but it seems necessary now.

      ‘And now you have a bad sensation?’

      ‘Horrible,’ said Harry frankly. ‘Like knowing you’ve got a mortal disease … I think he is my mortal disease.’

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