Gwendoline Butler - Coffin in the Black Museum

Some time ago he had saved John Coffin’s life by providing pints of the special type of blood Coffin had needed. Just like John Coffin, his friends said, to need blood only another copper could provide. Cowley was not a man to call in a debt but the fact was there in the background. He was owed something.

‘I think the matter is settled, Tom.’ The truth was that the whole building, once the main station house for one of the largest boroughs in his new unit, the old Leathergate, was due to be demolished to make way for a new structure. The museum could have been moved to new premises, but there was a strong plea for centralization and economy.

‘It’s territory, John, you shouldn’t give away territory. Thameswater ought to have its own museum.’

He had a point there and Coffin acknowledged it, but he had other things to fight for; his new authority had to establish its identity in face of rivalry, envy, and indifference. Perhaps they should keep their own museum. Thameswater stood for the future, but it couldn’t ignore its past. A past gave you another dimension, a kind of legitimacy. And this area had always had a strong character, brawling, lively and independent.

Perhaps Tom Cowley had instinctively hit upon a truth.

‘I’ll see you at the reception, Tom.’

He put the telephone down, conscious that he had not handled the conversation well, and that one more old friend would go about saying John Coffin’s changed, promotion’s done him no good. There were a lot of other Toms in his life, men he’d started out with, served with and now left far behind.

Promotion always did change you, there was no way round it. You were changed, those around you changed towards you.

His doorbell sounded. One long commanding peal. The front door was two winding flights down; even if you hurried it took time. The bell sounded again.

‘All right, I’m coming.’

Outside was a small, sturdy boy, carrying in his arms what looked like a bronzed urn. Behind him was Mimsie, he had been right about the hat, another woman, by appearance a blood relation to Mimsie Marker, and the street sweeper, always called Alf, surname unknown. The three adults were leaving the talking to the boy.

‘We brought this to you, sir.’

‘You did? Why?’ Coffin was on his guard, it was wiser so with lads, some of whom you could trust and some of whom you couldn’t. Mimsie in the background was a kind of credential, she was far too streetwise to come near anything that might mean trouble. He thought the boy was about ten, with an alert, lively face, which might have been called cheeky once, but that expression was not so much used now. ‘What is it?’

‘Can I put it down, sir? It’s heavy.’

‘Not till you’ve told me what it is?’

‘It’s a burial urn, sir.’ The boy’s voice was serious. ‘It’s got the ashes of a dead man in it.’ He did put it down, thus demonstrating an independence of spirit which Coffin was to get to know.

‘Or woman,’ said Mimsie from the background.

‘Or woman. And we found it in the gutter. But it says St Luke’s Church, so we brought it to you.’

The urn which was of a fair size, bigger than such urns usually are, was certainly made of metal even if not of bronze. It looked more like a garden urn that had been adapted for this purpose.

But on it was a printed label: Black and Binder, Funeral Parlour. On the label was a typed address: St Luke’s Church.

‘What was it doing in the gutter?’

‘I don’t know, sir, I just found it. I found it first, and then these ladies and gentlemen came along and we discussed what to do. Then we thought we’d better bring it to you.’

A corporate decision, eh? ‘It feels too heavy to be just ashes.’ Too big, he thought.

The urn was closed by a lid with a small knob on top. Watched by the three, he tried to raise it. The lid gave easily. He lifted it up, casting aside prudence which suggested that it could be a bomb.

Then he dropped the top back quickly.

‘No, not ashes,’ he said.

Inside was a head. He saw the matted hair, the dull open eyes, the stained, blotched skin, and felt the whiff of decay. He could not tell if he was looking at the head of a man or a woman.

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