Gwendoline Butler - A Grave Coffin

‘Not in the way you are telling it. Go on.’

‘We are small in numbers, but regional: Mercia, Wessex, Deira, Anglia … all old-English groupings, and of course, the headquarters in London. In Mercia, my head man is Tim Kelso … you won’t know him, he’s young and new, but good. In Wessex, I have Peter Chard; in Deira – the ancient name, I chose it because I liked the sound but it is the Newcastle area, in fact – there is Joe Weir; in Anglia I chose Felicity Fox, who is very good. There is also Susy Miller, who shoots around as wanted. And I mustn’t forget Leonie Thrupp, also in Coventry, that’s Mercia territory.’

‘And where was Harry Seton based?’

‘London, with me. He was my back-up.’

There was a pause.

Coffin felt he had to prod, so he said: ‘But that was only a cover from what you say. He was that and more. His real job was quite other.’

Another pause, then Saxon sighed. ‘Yes, three or four months ago, March it was, we began to notice that investigations initiated in all good faith were failing as if the word had got round. False drugs were going round the country and into the shops, sometimes through genuine if gullible traders, sometimes through outlets that knew exactly what they were doing and knew it before we did. As a unit, we were not only failing to do our job but failing radically. We looked around for a reason, and found only one: corruption from within.’

‘Was it a shock?’

Saxon said, honestly, ‘Yes and no. It’s always something to look out for in this sort of operation. So I put Harry in to investigate … On the quiet, no one to know what he was doing.’

‘Do secrets like that hold?’ In Coffin’s experience they did not, perhaps should not.

‘No, probably not, or not for long. But I thought Harry would clear it up quickly.’

‘Was there any reason why you should think that?’

‘Money does show up as a rule, and I thought Harry would sniff out the man who was living above his income. I mean, if you are corruptible, you want to enjoy the fruits, it goes with the crime.’

Saxon started to fiddle with the papers in front of him, moving his hands quickly away as if they were hot. Perhaps to him, they were.

‘So, he made progress?’

‘He said he was “getting into things”, whatever that meant.’

‘How did he report?’

‘Nothing in writing … we met in a pub for a drink. Not always the same one, but the sort of pub we might have gone to naturally in a friendly kind of way. He talked but never gave names. That was in character, partly why I gave him the job; I knew I could trust a discreet tongue.’

‘And he didn’t talk to you either?’

‘No, I didn’t want it particularly when it was still in the air. I had to meet these people, act normal, not show suspicion. I am not a good actor, I would have given signs, which could be dangerous.’

Not too bad an actor, Coffin thought. I remember you in the past, Ed Saxon, you could act a bit then. Remember the Billy Trout murder in the late seventies … 1978, was it? You capered around then like magic. I used to think I would see you in panto, but I was never sure as What: Buttons, the Clown, the Wicked Stepmother, or even, Ed, one of the Ugly Sisters … I knew about that side of you, Ed. The one part I never gave you was the Good Fairy, and I am not giving it to you now.

Ed’s eyes flicked away.

Whatever you really want from me is going to be good for you and maybe not so good for me, thought Coffin, seeing the look.

‘So you have no idea what he was working up to? There was something? He wasn’t just null and void?’

Sunlight was pouring into the room. Saxon got up to pull down the blinds, cutting out the sun, but making the room even more closed and private than before. Wasn’t there an animal that hid from the sun. Coffin asked himself, and was it a nice animal or a nasty one?

‘The sun doesn’t worry me,’ he said politely.

Saxon said briefly: ‘Don’t like it on my face.’

But that’s life, almost what life is: shining a light in your face that you don’t want. Happens the minute you are born. Perhaps Saxon had preferred the womb. Not what you could say to him, though. ‘So what had Seton got to say?’

‘On our last meeting, in the Rose Revived in Harters Lane … do you know it?’

‘Remember it.’ A big pub with dark corners. Like my mind, Coffin passed judgement on himself. I am afraid that I have got one or two dark corners where you are concerned, Ed, my lad. As you will have for me.

‘So what did he say then?’

‘That he had found three people who seemed to have a higher standard of living than he had expected.’

Coffin considered this: ‘He said people? Did you think that an odd word to use? Did he mean that a woman might be included in his list.’

‘I do have some women officers in the unit, as I said before.’

‘How many?’

‘Several. And a few whom you might call helpers.’

‘I’ll bear them in mind, pay special attention just in case.’

‘You shall have their names. I will take care you have all the records. Where they are based and all that.’

‘And Harry kept to your quiet agreement not to name names to you?’

‘He did.’

Coffin sat silent, then said, ‘And you believe him? Believed he was making progress?’

‘He could tell lies,’ said Saxon, ‘I knew that, but they were always what you might call political lies – they pushed a job forward. So, yes, I believed him: three people, sex ambiguous.’

‘Did he seem nervous? As if he thought he might be attacked?’

‘No, not Harry. He never showed nerves. I’m not saying he didn’t know when to be cautious, of course he did, or he wouldn’t have survived …’ He stopped.

‘As long as he did,’ Coffin said for him. ‘Because he didn’t survive, did he? He is dead.’ He stared again at the photograph. ‘Terribly dead.’

‘I didn’t see him again. No one heard from him, not even his wife, but he was working underground in a way, so there was no worry.’

‘Not even from his wife?’

‘No, she said she was used to silence when he was on a case. He might make the odd phone call, this time he didn’t.’

‘Pity she didn’t scream for action.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference, Harry was long dead. He could have been killed soon after we met at the Rose Revived. So the medics think.’

Coffin got out the photographs of Harry’s dead body, all five of them, and shuffled them in order round the table. There were five photographs because Harry had been cut into five bits.

Coffin arranged them in the order he thought right: head first, the torso second, the arms next, and one leg … the other leg had disappeared. You had to remember that where this body was found in Deptford Park there were urban foxes.

‘How was he killed?’

Painfully, Ed Saxon said: ‘By degrees.’

‘I don’t think so, even if it looks like it, I don’t think death gropes for you; one bite and you’re gone, that’s how I see it.’

Saxon shrugged, as if he did not care for this way of talking, it might even be meant to be a joke. ‘If you say so.’

‘Where was the body found?’

‘In the bandstand in the park – it is partly boarded in. He may have been killed there, there was enough blood.’ Saxon gave the files another push towards Coffin. ‘It’s all here, medical reports and the forensic stuff, you can read it all up.’

‘I might want to ask the pathologist and the forensic chaps questions.’

‘Sure. You will find names and places in the files, you may know some of the team from when you were in the Met.’

‘Probably younger than I am.’

‘Oh, they stay with us a long time in this business.’