A Dark Coffin. Gwendoline Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ to call the wife.’

      ‘There are two phones here. A fax as well. Max has everything. How is Louise?’ He had to work to remember her name.

      ‘Fine,’ said Harry without notable enthusiasm.

      ‘How are things?’

      Harry pulled a face. ‘Not one of those failed police marriages, if that’s what you mean … It works, she goes her way and I go mine.’

      Coffin remembered that Louise was a career woman. ‘She’s not in the Force too?’

      ‘No, nothing like, miles away. She’s a solicitor.’

      ‘Not such miles.’

      Harry laughed. ‘Don’t you believe it. She’s part of what’s called a Citizens’ Legal Agency, me and mine are the people she fights against. We’re dirt in her book.’ He gave Coffin a wry look. ‘Businesswise, of course. Nothing personal.’

      Not a lucky man. Coffin thought. He nodded towards the end of the room. ‘Phone’s over there.’ As he did so, he caught Stella’s interested gaze. She had probably been doing some lipreading.

      They went off to their separate telephones to stand, side by side, backs to the room.

      Stella looked at them and shook her head. You could see they were both coppers, she thought, from the way they stood. Coppers or villains. The steam of the world in which they moved had blown over them both. She went over to them.

      ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Do you remember anyone called Merry? He wants to come round. He’s left a message with Max.’

      Merry, as he walked, was thinking: he’s close, somewhere around here, I can smell him. He’s coming out, that’s what it is. It’s like an old familiar smell. I suppose I hate him. Or does he hate me? Maybe the same thing. I’ll track you down, Harry, we have a score to settle, and we will. That’s a promise. From me to you.

      And then he said aloud, so that all of Shambles Passage could have heard if it wished: ‘Doesn’t he realize what a sham his marriage is?’

      Back at the theatre, the electrician had finished his work and gone home.

      The lights in the box on the prompt side worried him. They were working tonight, but dim.

      There was too much darkness altogether in that box, he didn’t understand it, but he didn’t like it.

      ‘I’m a practical man,’ he said to himself. ‘But there is something wrong here.’

      Coffin finished his telephone call first and went back to his table. Stella walked over.

      ‘Good news or bad?’

      ‘Middling. Jim Tanner is in charge and says he’s controlling it, and I’d better keep away.’

      Superintendent Tanner of the uniformed police was a good and efficient officer. And also tactful.

      ‘He didn’t put it like that.’

      ‘No, but he let me know I might just inflame them down there if they saw me and certainly get the media.’ Which in turn would have its own inflaming effect, probably. ‘They have got a camera going. So we shall see who’s there.’

      ‘You mean Harry’s brother?’

      ‘Do I?’ said Coffin blandly. ‘Harry, how’s things?’

      Harry Trent sat down, he looked more cheerful. ‘Lou’s all right. She sort of gave me her blessing on coming here. She’s blamed me more than a bit for what Merry is, also she had her own advice as it happens, she thought I ought to look up the Macintoshes.’

      ‘Will you? You can put up with us if you like?’ Coffin looked at his wife, who still owned an apartment in St Luke’s, used it as an office, but did not sleep there.

      ‘Sure.’ Stella smiled. ‘You can have my flat for the night or so … I’ll let you have the key. Walk round with us and I will show you the place.’

      ‘I’d like to, thanks.’ He gave Stella an appreciative look. ‘Lou says I’m housetrained.’

      ‘You can call round on the Macintoshes.’

      ‘I have tried. The house is still there but no one answered the bell. It’s all changed round there.’

      ‘I expect they were out selling hot dogs.’

      ‘I’m surprised they are still at it.’

      ‘Come to the theatre tomorrow with us, they will be outside.’ Stella had decided she liked the man.

      ‘I’d like that … Have a drink with me first, here … No, come to the flat, your flat, I’ll do some shopping and we can have a drink and some sandwiches.’ He did not add ‘in the quiet’, but might have meant it, because Max’s was hotting up with some younger members of the theatre staff, laughing and talking.

      Max never minded, he encouraged voices and laughter, but it had to cease before midnight.

      At home, Stella and Coffin prepared for bed in companionable silence. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stella’s shape in a soft apricot satin nightgown and enjoyed it. But he said nothing.

      ‘Well?’ said Stella. ‘What are you thinking?’

      ‘Partly about you.’

      ‘And partly about Harry Trent? Don’t you like him? I wondered.’

      ‘We were very close at one time; he nearly got me killed.’

      ‘That doesn’t seem a reason for closeness.’

      ‘Oh well, I nearly got him killed too, we were in it together … too close to a pair of villains with guns. And unprepared. As much my fault as his. More really, since I was the senior by a long way.’

      ‘So, what’s the trouble?’

      Coffin was silent, he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘What did you make of him?’

      ‘I liked him. Why?’

      ‘I’m not sure if I believe his story … I never heard about the twin before. I suppose there is one.’

      ‘What an extraordinary thing to say.’

      ‘Might be an excuse.’

      ‘What for?’

      ‘I don’t know. Excuses are always useful.’ Good excuse for a lot of things if you can bring it off.

      While they were talking, the watchman who walked through the theatre slowly, carefully at night, checking for intruders, came into the auditorium. By the low security light which was always on, he could see it was empty.

      He paced on round. No one.

      He stood still for a moment and looked around. СКАЧАТЬ