Gwendoline Butler - The Coffin Tree

‘Oh, just by chance, at a meeting in Birmingham University: she was the guest speaker.’

‘Interesting, was it?’ He was guiding the car through the traffic which was unexpectedly heavy on this hot evening where the going down of the sun had not lowered the temperature much. He glanced at Phoebe’s dress, there wasn’t much of it, so she was luckier in the heat than he was.

He didn’t believe for one minute that she had met Alison Young by chance; she had gone to the meeting on purpose, part of her pre-planning.

‘Yes, it was interesting.’

Archie Young was not himself an interesting speaker although it was well worth listening to what he had to say. He got his facts right.

He turned left at the traffic lights, leaving the busy main road through the Docklands behind him and driving into a side street lined with small houses with neat front gardens: Palgrave Drive. Beyond Palgrave Drive was Frances Street which was less neat, and from Frances Street he drove down the poetically named Golden Alley. Golden Alley was not neat at all since several old cars and various abandoned shopping trolleys had been left there to rust, next to a gas cooker of antique appearance.

‘We are in Swinehouse now and you’d better get to know it.’ He was driving slowly. ‘When can you start?’

‘I’ve already asked for a transfer. I have some leave. Straight away, if you want.’

‘It’ll have to be unofficial, but that suits me; I want you here, working for me, quietly.’

‘OK. Suits me too.’

‘Where will you live?’ The car was bumping over cobbles. The only good thing about Golden Alley was that it was short, it led into Brides Street. Every time Coffin came this way, he thought that if a modern Ripper got going (and praise be, it would not be in his time and his bailiwick) it would be in Brides Street. Brides Street was narrow, lined with houses in which people lurked rather than lived.

‘I’ll look around. Rent something till I sell my place in Edgbaston.’ She looked out of the window with interest. There seemed to be property for sale and to let around here. And she had not forgotten Eden Brown’s invitation: she liked Eden and it would be interesting to start off with her. She did not anticipate staying, she’d need her own place in the long run. But Eden was clearly quite a girl.

You could smell the fire now.

Brides Street wound its way into Fashion Street where, by contrast, the houses were pretty and well painted. Coffin came this way at irregular intervals to visit an interesting old inhabitant called Waters who had built Stonehenge in his garden. The neighbours had complained, so he removed his Henge, stone by stone, and built a pyramid in the back instead with an attempt at the Tower of Babel. His pyramid had a little door and Mr Waters lived in it himself when he felt like it, as did several itinerant cats and an old urban fox.

Behind Fashion Street was a stretch of rough ground in which Albert Waters sometimes operated and where he had once built a mini earthwork that he called Waters’s Way. Beyond the now weed-overgrown earthwork, lay the Swinehouse football ground.

In the rough ground, was the fire.

A fire engine, an ambulance and several police cars blocked their way. A small crowd was penned behind a police barrier.

‘I smelt a fire burning when I was shopping,’ said Phoebe.

‘Yes, Calcutta Street, where you were, is parallel with Fashion Street but nearer the river. The wind must have been blowing your way. It’s a funny district, I’ve smelt some weird smells there myself, almost as if the past had caught alight and was burning.’

He was recognized as he walked towards Archie Young and a shout came through the air. He had no difficulty in recognizing Albert’s voice. ‘Come over this way, sir, and I’ll tell you all about it. I am an innocent man.’

‘Be quiet, Bert, I’ll speak to you later.’

‘What’s he on about?’ he said to Archie Young as the superintendent came up.

‘Oh, some of the neighbours thought the fire was his fault; he’s always up to something, and he’s been talking about the Great Fire of London for weeks now.’

Albert was still calling out and Phoebe heard him shouting about ‘Your lady wife,’ and to her horror realized he meant her.

‘Shut up, Bert,’ said Coffin, he looked annoyed. ‘Archie, this is Phoebe Astley who might be joining us as head of our Liaison Unit.’

Archie held out a hand, he knew how to read this, she would be joining them. ‘Glad to see you here. We’ve got something interesting for you.’

‘Let’s take a look then.’

Young led the way through a gate into the patch of ground. ‘Was a row of allotments once, you can still see the outlines of the beds, and Waters uses that old shed over there.’

‘Oh, does he?’

‘For purposes of his own, which are God knows what. Anyway, that’s how he comes into it. He’s always over here so whatever goes on, the neighbours just assume it’s him. And he admits himself he had started to build something here.’

He was walking ahead of them. ‘This is it.’

A circle of blackened grass which was sodden where the fire hoses had played ran round a large pile of what had been wood and straw and wooden boxes. On the top lay a blackened hard object. Over everything was the sour, nose-pricking smell of burnt flesh.

‘The police surgeon couldn’t get too close – the heat; the fire chief said to leave it to cool down, but he had enough of a look to say it was human. Once.’

‘Badly charred,’ said Coffin.

‘Yeah … the wood and hay and stuff were smouldering for some time and no one took any notice; they thought it was old Waters burning something. It seems there were two fires: Albert started one in the morning.’

Coffin walked right and then the other way, widdershins.

‘What does Albert have to say about it?’

‘He’ll tell you himself, only too anxious to talk. Says he had an early morning bonfire … He admits he started to build something, not sure what, but invention gave out so he was waiting for the gods to give him a clue. But he denies putting a body there.’

As he would do.

Something in Archie Young’s voice made Coffin look at him. ‘So? So what?’

‘One neighbour said she saw a person she thought was Albert, climbing on to the pyre. Albert says no.’

‘Well, he didn’t get burned to death which bears that out. And he’s not a liar; inventive, yes; mad, yes, and often a nuisance, but not a liar.’

Phoebe in her turn had walked round the bonfire site. The ground all round was muddy and trampled down. But she spotted something lying further away on the grass.

‘There’s a shoe here.’

Coffin nodded. ‘I know, I saw.’

Young said: ‘It’s left there till we’ve photographed everything. That’s about to be done; just waiting for us to clear away.’

‘It’s a woman’s shoe. Neat, high heeled. Looks expensive.’

‘Doesn’t mean the body is that of a woman,’ said Archie Young carefully. ‘The witness we’ve got said she saw a man. Or she thought so, wearing trousers.’

‘Women wear trousers.’

Young didn’t bother to answer that. His wife wore trousers, Stella Pinero wore trousers, half the women he worked with wore trousers. ‘When the body is examined we shall know the sex.’

‘I wonder what sort of trousers they were,’ said Phoebe. ‘The sort of trousers can tell you a lot about a woman. I mean, tight jeans, flares, jodhpurs, Turkish trousers, caught at the ankle.’

‘She just said trousers, I think that was all she could see. Ask her if you like, she lives next door to Albert Waters – she made a statement.’

Phoebe looked at Coffin. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll have that word I promised Albert.’