Gwendoline Butler - The Coffin Tree

What had he done? Or not done? They had parted on warm, even passionate terms; he remembered it well, that night before she left, now it had all gone cold.

He would find out in the end; Stella never kept anything to herself when she was angry which he had to suppose she was, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He didn’t enjoy these ups and downs with Stella. He had thought all that sort of thing was in the past, when, God knew, they had enough of them. They had met when young, too young probably, loved and parted, met again briefly before moving away from each other, and then coming together when his sister Letty had created her St Luke’s Theatre complex.

Happy ever after, he’d thought. He watched Teddy Timpson come through the door.

‘Sorry, sir. Got held up.’ The man looked flustered and hot.

‘Have a drink before you say another word.’

‘Thanks … lager, please.’

Teddy didn’t drink a lot, unlike some of his colleagues, but he probably had other vices. ‘I got held up. A double stabbing in Cock Street, in the Little Cockatoo pub.’ He drank thirstily. ‘It’s always been a bad place … it’s the landlord.’

‘Stabbed?’

‘No, he did it. His wife and the barman, they were having it off and he found out. Well, he always knew, I reckon, but only took off today. I blame the weather.’

‘At least you’ve got it tied up.’

‘Not on your life: he denies it, says some man walked through the door and knifed them both.’

‘Where was he?’

‘Hiding in the cellar.’

‘What about the knife?’

‘We can’t find it. And no witnesses, the pub was empty.’

‘Is that likely?’

‘It is round there,’ said Timpson gloomily. ‘They know when to run. Anyway, he had a bright idea, he set the place alight.’ He lifted his sleeve to his nose. ‘I still stink of smoke.’

‘Did the whole place go up?’

‘No, no, he didn’t make a good job of it.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, it wasn’t a bad idea. Fire does destroy.’

‘I’ve said a bit already as regards what I want to talk to you about. I won’t procrastinate any more.’

‘Yes,’ said Timpson cautiously. ‘You’ve said a bit. Not a lot.’ Procrastinate … He’s an intellectual, my guvnor; he doesn’t know it, but he is. Timpson thought about an earlier chief who might have said: This is the business, boys. Or, in a jokey mood: Up boys and at ’em.

‘It’s about the new unit.’

‘Yes, the one that’s going to be liaising with all City institutions and all police units as well.’ The word was that there wasn’t much money and it was going to have to work hard. ‘A political invention to keep critics happy,’ was what someone had said. ‘It’s going to be smallish, isn’t it?’

‘Money,’ said Coffin, then sat thinking about how he should put it to Timpson, whom he had used before as a go-between because Timpson’s negotiating skills were well known. ‘Money’s short.’ He had every reason to be thinking about money. At the back of his mind, not to be discussed now with Chief Inspector Timpson, was a big money problem. He would be seeing Archie Young, now CID supremo, later.

Timpson waited. Money came in everywhere. Who knew better than he did?

Coffin looked at Timpson, wondering what the gossip was and how much he knew. ‘There’s quite a lot going on at the moment.’

Timpson kept a careful opaque look on his face.

‘You guessed?’

‘Word has got around.’

Coffin nodded. Thought as much.

Timpson was cautious enough to say nothing more: if he hadn’t been told, he wasn’t to know. He knew how to be blind, deaf and dumb when he had to be.

‘This unit needs the right top man. Or woman. I think it ought to be a woman, I’ve worked with her before and I think she has the right qualities. You are chairing the committee and I will withdraw when she is interviewed, seems fairer.’

What’s fairer got to do with it, thought Timpson. ‘Sure,’ he said aloud. ‘Of course, we have to consider all three candidates.’

‘Of course we do.’

They seemed to be understanding one another and Coffin was satisfied. ‘Have another drink?’

‘My round.’ It gave Teddy Timpson an obscure pleasure to buy a drink for the chief commander whom he both liked and found alarming. He cast around for something to say that would end the meeting on the right note. ‘Saw Miss Pinero on the telly last night,’ he came up with. ‘She’s brilliant.’

‘Brilliant,’ agreed Coffin with a tight smile. He knew he had got what he wanted. He stood up. ‘I must go. Another appointment.’

‘They’ve done excellent work,’ he said to Superintendent Archie Young just an hour later on this same day, two weeks before the crucial committee for Phoebe. They were in his own home in St Luke’s Mansions; in his flat, not Stella’s, which was on the ground floor. They still kept the two going which was perhaps one of their mistakes. Didn’t happily married people live under one roof? Or did you only meet the survivors? From Coffin’s tower he could see over all his turbulent territory, make out the roof of his headquarters where a new floor had been planted on top of the building, not adding to its beauty but certainly providing much needed space. And if he tried hard enough, he could see the top of one of his new universities and one of the hospitals – the big new Second City General Hospital. When he looked out, he tried to admire the charm of what he saw and not think about the terrible responsibility that they represented.

‘You have to hand it to the blokes who trail through financial records and know what’s going on.’

‘More so when equally clever minds are doing their best to hide it.’

Archie had climbed the career ladder quickly: the next promotion, already in line, would make him chief superintendent. He was clever, and sensible enough not to be too clever; a steady, reliable man.

‘It’s their job,’ said Coffin, without much admiration; they had landed a mess on his lap.

They had talked about this several times before, but always in this unofficial way. At the moment, since Stella was in New York (or so he believed), and Archie Young’s clever, high-flying wife was absent on a course in Cambridge, they were eating together. A modest meal sent in from the local fish and chip shop which did a splendid order and deliver service.

Coffin handed out the chips and fish which they were eating in his kitchen. In his youth, in that far away and long ago London, he would have eaten out of the newspaper but he graduated long since to the white porcelain which had been chosen, and not by Stella, and to pouring out some red wine which was about the only thing that stood up to fried cod. (Once it would have been a pot of strong tea, and still was for many and why not?)

‘I had a session with Teddy Timpson today. He was agreeable.’

‘He usually is.’

‘Yes, no trouble there. I think we’ll get the right head for this little unit.’ Even to Archie Young who knew so much about him by now, he was careful about naming Phoebe. People could tell a lot about the way you spoke of a person.

And there is always a hidden agenda, the subtext.

‘By the way, your own promotion has gone through. You’re up, Archie, but keep quiet for the moment.’

Archie Young allowed himself a flush of pure pleasure and wished he could smoke, but the Coffin establishment was a No Smoking house. Coffin did not go back to the main subject of their meeting until they had almost finished.

John Coffin commanded a police force small by the standards of his big brother the Metropolitan police force which towered over him; small by the standards of some of the big north country forces; he knew that the Met joked about the Toy Town City force but he could afford to ignore that now because he was feeling his own powers.