Gwendoline Butler - A Double Coffin

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John Coffin is left reeling after the former Prime Minister makes a shocking confession. A dark and gripping crime novel from one of the most appraised English mystery writers, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.A visit to the riverside apartment of the long retired former prime minister, Richard Lavender, is to have startling consequences for John Coffin. For it transpires that the old man, nearing the end of his life, has a confession to make: he is the son of a serial killer. He tells Coffin how, as a boy, he helped to bury one of his father’s victims. Feeling death is near, he wants to repair and reclaim the past – with Coffin’s help.Unsure whether Lavender is caught up in fantasy or telling the truth, Coffin agrees to investigate and appoints Chief Inspector Phoebe Astley to the task. But then a young woman is found murdered on a foggy November night, and all too soon the sins of the past and present come together in a terrifying denouement.

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It was a rough old world out there, the denizens of which had in their times troubled the Romans, the Normans and all rulers from the Plantagenets to the House of Hanover.

‘You are quite right, I did know … but I never expected to meet him. And he wants to see me?’ This was a surprise. He had made some good friends in his years as Chief Commander, and collected a few enemies. Which was the old man? They had never met, but Coffin knew you can make enemies without meeting them.

‘Most anxious.’

He heard himself ask: ‘Has he got a wife?’

‘Widowed. Married twice, widowed twice.’

Coffin stood up and went to the window. ‘I did see him once, I was only a kid, and he came through Greenwich … Election night, it was. The last big one he fought. Was he PM? I was too young to know. He looked like a film star.’

His visitor nodded. ‘Remember it myself.’

‘So what is it about?’

His visitor rose. ‘He will tell you himself. Shall we go?’

Coffin stood up, his dog stood up too. ‘Can he come?’ He looked doubtfully at Augustus. ‘He’s no trouble, well behaved.’ This was not true, but he had agreed with his wife Stella to offer this lie.

His visitor had a car waiting, he held the door open for Coffin and Augustus to get in. The car was an antique, a Rolls built in a style not used for many decades. Upright and sturdy with huge wheels and great windows, Coffin felt as if he was entering a hearse. Inside, the seats were covered in dark-grey brocade with a small silver flower holder by each seat. There were no flowers. On the air was a very faint smell of lavender and dust.

Coffin sat down, removed Augustus from the seat to which he had leapt, and stared at the glass barrier that separated him from his companion who was doing the driving. The car, old though it was, started without fuss and glided forward with an ease which was a testimony to the engineering which had produced it.

As a passenger. Coffin found you had to be prepared for the rolling motion which came with the steady regal progress through the streets. It was a bit like being on board a great liner; you could be travel sick. He also had to bite back a strong impulse to wave at the passers-by as he was driven along. Against his will, he found himself bending forward from the waist. Damn it, he was bowing.

He felt archaic, he was living in the past. Was the old man living in the past? Well, I wondered if he was dead. Coffin reminded himself, so perhaps he is.

But he had been practical and shrewd enough in his day, or so the political memoirs said. Feared too, a magnificent, mesmeric figure. And a great drinker. Other pleasures as well, if all that was told was true.

Now he was a memory, but alive. Alive, and still enough of a power in the land to call in the likes of John Coffin when he needed help.

The car carried him through one of the more pleasant districts of his Second City to the riverside, where a modest block of flats overlooked the Thames. He had been here only once before, so the view was fresh to him. He could see across the water to an area of trees through which a large building just showed its roof. He did not recognize this either, but he decided it was a public park with a municipal building inside it, perhaps a museum or a picture gallery or one of the new universities. It did not look industrial, although it was true that many commercial enterprises were moving out of central London and establishing themselves in something as near a great country estate as they could achieve.

The car stopped and he stepped out into the chill, sunlight air. He nodded across the river. ‘Do you know what that building is?’

‘The Central Bank of Arabia,’ said his companion briefly. ‘Lovely building. Empty though, of course, since the bank went broke.’

Sign of the times, Coffin thought, banks created wonderful buildings for themselves, then could not pay their bills and went out of business.

‘It was built as a prison in 1850 by Victorian reformers. Out of use as a prison a hundred years later, that is when the bank bought it.’ He added without a smile: ‘Himself admires the view, but I am never sure if he remembers it is no longer a prison.’

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.’

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