Название: A Double Coffin
Автор: Gwendoline Butler
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
isbn: 9780007545445
isbn:
Not great on memory, then. Coffin thought. ‘Does he remember who he is himself?’ Better to establish that fact at once.
‘He remembers who he was,’ said his companion tersely.
‘An old Prime Minister.’
‘A former Prime Minister,’ corrected Dr Bradshaw tartly.
Significant difference. Coffin thought, as he approached the flats’ entrance. I am being taught my lines.
I’ll have to leave the dog in the car … Stay, Augustus.’ The dog looked at him thoughtfully, seemingly content to stay where he was in the great car.
A small white van was parked nearby. ‘Belongs to the old man’s niece,’ said Jack Bradshaw shortly. ‘Uses it for shopping. Ferries himself in his chair sometimes.’
As he walked into the entrance lobby Coffin was remembering what he knew of the origin of this block of flats: they had been built by a housing association to provide pleasant, medium-priced homes for retired professionals. The rents were not high, nor meant to be.
The entrance hall was in line with what you might expect from this policy, being plain, with stone-coloured walls and tiling floor. There was a lift in one corner.
Surely former Prime Ministers could afford better than this? There was a pension, wasn’t there?
‘Hard up, is he?’ Coffin asked. When you were nearly ninety (or over it, more likely) money might have dried up. Money had that way with it, sometimes seeming of organic growth, and a plant capable of drying up mysteriously and almost malevolently. Coffin had had this happen himself in his younger days and knew it could happen again. You had to watch money and water it with your attentions.
‘No, or as to that, it’s not my business to know, I don’t touch his financial affairs, but I should say not. No, he lives here because he likes it. He was born here. Before they were bombed to bits in the last war, there was a tenement block here and in one of them he was born. The eldest son of Edward and Ada Lavender …’
‘Yes, I know that bit – Dick Lavender,’ said Coffin. ‘It’s in all the books. But I did not know this was his birthplace.’ He wondered if it was true really. Even old Prime Ministers, sorry, former Prime Ministers, could have fantasies. Even tell lies. ‘Do we take the lift or walk up?’
‘Lift, he’s on the top floor … that was the only thing he asked for. Otherwise no favours, he took what he was offered.’
Took what was offered but took the best; the view from the top floor across the river must be splendid.
The lift delivered them to a plain lobby, the mirror image of the one below. There were two front doors.
One other person lives up here then?’
‘Yes,’ said John Bradshaw, in his usual Jovian style. ‘A tiresome person.’ He did not add to the statement.
He rang the bell on the door nearest, and they waited.
‘Lives alone, does he?’
‘No, a niece lives with him. Runs the domestic side.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Coffin. ‘Tell me a bit about why I am wanted. You do know, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I know,’ admitted Bradshaw stiffly. ‘You are wanted because you have the resources; it’s a police matter. Of course, the Special Branch keep a watchful eye, but this isn’t one for them.’
‘I guessed that. Any connection with the tiresome neighbour?’
‘No.’ Bradshaw sounded surprised. ‘None.’
‘But it’s a serious business?’
‘Serious enough,’ said Bradshaw, as the door opened. ‘Death always is.’
The door was opened by a short, plump woman with a froth of white hair cut short, she wore bright-pink lipstick and blue-rimmed spectacles, a lively and cheerful figure. ‘Oh hello. Jack, you’ve made good time, you’re back sooner than I expected. Uncle’s still dressing … Good morning, sir.’ She turned to Coffin. ‘I’m Janet Neptune … silly name, isn’t it, but my own. Tell you about it some day if you ask … He’s dressing but he’s been up and about for some time.’
She too, knew why he had been summoned. Coffin was convinced of that, knew it was about death but was not letting it get her down. ‘Miss Neptune or Mrs?’ he asked politely.
‘Miss, miss, I am not married. Asked for once or twice but never took on. It doesn’t suit everyone, you know. Not to be expected, is it? I mean, nature is prodigal and various in its arrangements.’
‘I can see you and I have much the same notion of nature,’ said Coffin.
‘It’s common sense, isn’t it? Now come into the dining room the two of you and have a cup of something while Uncle is getting ready, we don’t hurry him, sir, not at his age … Jack, he’s turned up another great pile of letters, you’ll never get that life of him written at this rate.’
‘Is that what you are doing?’ Coffin was interested. ‘Writing his life?’
‘Ghostwriting,’ said Bradshaw without much expression in his voice. ‘It’ll come out in his name. Who but himself could write his life?’
A rhetorical question, needing no answer.
‘It’s not my only job; I have others.’
The room into which Coffin had been led was a step into the past. He felt he had been moved back in time by a hundred years. It was a small room made smaller by massive furniture in a style favoured by the merchant classes of Victorian England. In the middle of the wall facing the door was a large square looking glass of gilded wood, the sides fretted with little shelves for china pots and photographs. Coffin thought it must have been the devil to dust. Another wall was covered by a monument in dark wood with another mirror set in a nest of shelves and drawers. From his memory he dredged up the word chiffonier. An oval table of mahogany ranged around with chairs, the seats covered in red plush, filled the centre of the room. Underfoot was a dark Turkish carpet.
Janet Neptune saw Coffin looking around him as she came in with cups of coffee. ‘He bought the furniture for his mother when he started to earn well, it was her taste. Made her feel a lady, he said. I think he likes it himself because he’s never got rid of it.’
‘What about his wives? How did they take it?’
‘Oh well, I don’t suppose they liked it, but the furniture lasted and they didn’t.’
She was handing round the coffee, which was strong and good.
Janet Neptune said: ‘I can hear noises, he’s ready to receive company, I know that cough he gives.’
Several generations of MPs had known that cough too in the House of Commons before an important speech.
‘Right.’ СКАЧАТЬ