A Double Coffin. Gwendoline Butler

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      Phoebe Astley was a senior police officer who had been brought into the Second City by John Coffin to head a special unit. Since one of the purposes of this small and secretive unit was to check on the performance and behaviour of the local force, he had taken Phoebe from another county. Phoebe was a forceful, dark-haired woman with great energy. Charm too when she chose to use it, but because of the delicacy of the tasks she was given, she preferred a smooth neutral manner. Archie Young was her nominal chief but she reported directly to the Chief Commander.

      Underneath, however, she was never neutral, as Coffin knew well. Their paths had crossed in the past, tangled together, you might say, and the memory of their past relationship was something they chose to bury. What remained was trust and friendship, and that was good. In his career Coffin had found that you needed a colleague you could trust, and there were not too many of them. In Chief Superintendent Archie Young he had such a one, and he was coming to feel that his young assistant Paul Masters was another.

      He considered Phoebe for the task; in the past, the joke had been that work was her love and sex was her hobby. These days she seemed to be keeping that side of things discreetly in the background. He doubted if she had turned into a nun, but there were no tales and no gossip. Yes, he could use Phoebe Astley without the fear that she would meet the scholarly Jack Bradshaw and eat him up. The old Phoebe might have tried a nibble or two, because there was no denying that Dr Bradshaw was attractive, if dry and occasionally pompous. A scholar, he said to himself, probably cannot resist having that manner.

      Phoebe’s office was tucked away, hidden almost, on the top floor of the new police building. She had three anonymous-looking rooms, which suited her, finding she did not mind in the least that the furniture was standard equipment with little charm but very practical. The great pleasure was the splendid view from windows over the Thames and the Second City. Phoebe drew strength from the panorama stretched out below her which she stood looking at when she had a problem to solve. The shifting light on the Thames seemed to illuminate her mind.

      Her home, if you could call it that, because she never seemed to settle, was at present in a one-room flatlet on the Isle of Dogs from which she commuted by means of the Dockland Light Railway. Her flat was minimum care and since she never did anything but sleep in it, eating always on the job and drinking black coffee as soon as she got to work, it suited her. She said her only virtue as a housekeeper was that she did not smoke. Even this had not been true a few years ago when a bad health scare had put her in hospital and given her pause for thought. Now she ran and swam as often as she could.

      She had a staff of two, a man and a woman, who managed the computer and the equipment added to it, and unobtrusively worked with her. To be unnoticed was part of the job. Coffin knew her well enough to be sure that Phoebe maintained an active social life in districts well beyond the Second City.

      She was always at work early, so that she was there when Coffin telephoned her the morning after his meeting with Richard Lavender and Jack Bradshaw.

      ‘I want to talk to you.’

      ‘Is it a job?’

      Yes, one for you alone.’

      ‘Aren’t they always?’

      ‘It’s an odd business. One you may not care for. Or you may be greatly interested. Either way it needs careful handling. It might be as well if you did not involve Gabrielle or Leander.’

      ‘That might be hard to do.’

      ‘As little as possible then.’

      ‘I’ll be over, if it’s that confidential you’d better send Sylvia and Gillian out.’ Coffin was silent, his two secretaries did not listen at doors, but Phoebe must be allowed her jokes, she was often a bit sharp about other women. (It worked the other way too; Stella for instance treated Phoebe with friendly caution.) ‘Will Archie Young be there?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘It is secret then.’ Phoebe gave herself an invisible pat on the back. Although she liked Archie Young, who never got in her way, she was a natural competitor who liked to outscore others. Every case to which she was privy alone, she regarded as a top mark. But she was fair and did not regard this as one of her better traits, only a natural one.

      She walked into Coffin’s office, passing Paul Masters, who was talking to Gillian, with a wave. He moved quickly to get to Coffin’s door but Phoebe was quicker. ‘Expected,’ she said blithely.

      Paul turned to Gillian. ‘I’m supposed to check everyone who goes in.’ But he said it without rancour: he liked Phoebe.

      ‘Take a tank to stop that one,’ said Gillian.

      Coffin stood up politely as she came in. ‘Thank you for coming round straight away.’

      ‘You’re the boss. I have plenty of work on hand, the Pickles case to begin with, but I walked right across.’

      ‘It’s something I have promised to do myself.’ He paused. ‘But I need help.’

      He told her the story, complete with names and personal impressions. She knew the name Lavender, she said, it was in her schoolbooks, and she knew he wasn’t dead, but she had never thought of him as a live person moving around the London scene, somewhere between a ghost and a memory.

      Now it turned out he had a secret. Either that or he was nursing a little madness.

      ‘I believe I have met Dr Bradshaw … He gave a lecture at the John Evelyn Public Library on the writing of history.’

      ‘Sounds incredible, doesn’t it? Can you believe it?’

      ‘Yes, I think I can. СКАЧАТЬ