Coffin's Ghost (26 page)

Phoebe agreed it had been, wondering what Gillian was leading up to.

‘Of course, he’s got lots of problems, especially at the moment.’

‘I know,’ said Phoebe.

‘It’s amazing the people who do get away.’

‘Isn’t it?’ She felt the prey was coming closer.

Gillian shook her head. ‘I saw Sergeant Grimm dashing for the train to Paris when I was rushing through Waterloo the other morning. He didn’t see me.’

‘Was he on his own?’

‘Yes, although he’s not what I’d call the monastic type.’

‘No,’ agreed Phoebe. ‘So they say, just gossip.’

‘Usually right, though, aren’t they? I always say if you want to know what’s going on in the Second City, ask Mimsie Marker.’

‘She is well-informed.’

‘Keeps her eyes open. Now, I expect if I told her about the sergeant she’d say, Oh, that’s where he keeps his money.’ Gillian giggled.

Phoebe drank her coffee, appreciating the nugget of information thus passed. ‘Make a good detective, Mimsie would.’ And not so bad yourself, Gillian.

Gillian smiled. ‘Of course, that train is so fast, you can come and go in a day and no one knows you’ve been away.’

The buzzer sounded from the room beyond; Gillian gave a friendly nod. ‘For you.’

As Phoebe made her way into Coffin’s room she made a mental note to pass over to him the information about Sergeant Grimm. Meanwhile, she would keep it to herself, think about what it meant and consider what to do. There might be merit marks here.

Coffin stood up, dislodging Gus. ‘I didn’t get much out of Albie, if that’s what you wanted to know. All he meant by muttering Freedom, so he says, is that he thought Freedom was a menace to young girls, and we already know that.’

‘Someone will kill Freedom one day,’ said Phoebe. She
had been told in full what had happened to Alice and at whose hands. ‘Unless he develops some mortal disease first. He might do. There’s always hope.’

‘Robbie wishes to take the girl away to his house in Gloucestershire. I have asked him to wait till we clear some matters here.’

Phoebe raised an eyebrow. ‘Such as?’

‘I don’t think Alice told us quite everything. She says she was in a daze, drugged, so Evelyn thought. Maybe, she may well have been drugged, but all the same, I think she knows where she was and with whom. She did murmur something but later seemed vaguer.’

‘Why keep quiet?’

‘Yes, that’s what interests me.’

‘Frightened again?’

‘Could be. She was somewhere near where she was found, I swear. She told me what she could see from the window of the room she was in. And it sounded to me like the area around Drossers Lane Market. And that wasn’t so far away from where Evelyn Jones found her. Walking distance, anyway. But we’ll find out.’

‘Important?’

‘Well, it’s a funny story, and I’d like to get more sense into it.’

He pushed Gus aside, noticed that he had not drunk his coffee so he politely finished it, cold, and motioned Phoebe to the door.

‘I hope Freedom and Eager are getting nicely irritable. Men talk more loosely then.’

‘Don’t women?’ she asked as she led the way down the corridor. Coffin just grinned in reply: not nice women, said the grin. ‘I have Freedom in interview room A and Eager in B. Which do you want first?’

Coffin didn’t have to think. ‘Freedom first, we will see what we can bounce out of him about the gun. He’s bound to lie, so then get Eager to put the pressure on.’

‘And I have the handkerchief which was found round the gun to produce to see if we can tie it to Freedom. Nothing memorable about it, so he will resist it, but worth a try.’

Room A first then.

A young WPC was standing politely in one corner while George Freedom paced the room, swearing. They could hear him as they went in.

‘You’ve taken your bloody time.’

‘Sorry, sir.’ This from Phoebe. ‘Please sit down.’

Coffin slid into the seat beside her. Freedom turned his anger this way. ‘Oh, you again. I might have known it. What is it now?’

Phoebe issued the usual warnings then put a plastic bag containing a grubby handkerchief in front of him. ‘Is that your handkerchief, sir?’

He didn’t look. ‘No.’

Phoebe shook the plastic bag so he could get a view. ‘Please look.’

Freedom gave it a cursory look, and then shrugged. ‘It’s a handkerchief, if you think it is mine, then prove it. Much good may it do you, because I don’t know what all this is about.’

‘We may be able to prove you have others like it.’

‘Well, good luck to you.’

‘And if I tell you that it was wrapped round a gun that killed a woman and almost killed a man?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘And you never went to the Abbey Road Gun Club to ask about shooting?’

‘No, I did not, and if you are going on like this, I want my solicitor.’

Phoebe paused. ‘We could stop, sir, while you call for him.’

‘No, he works in London and he costs a bloody fortune just to write a letter. No, thank you.’ He turned on Coffin. ‘Why don’t you say something? Instead of sitting there looking like the judge and the jury all in one.’

‘What I want to say is: Will you be willing, in the interest of establishing your innocence, to meet a man who says he knows you and with whom you discussed guns.’

George Freedom threw up his hands. ‘You’re mad, the pair of you. Bring in your chap, but I warn you he is lying.’

Coffin gave Phoebe a nod.

‘Sending her, are you? She goes trotting off, your pony, obedient to master.’

‘Just checking,’ said Coffin mildly. ‘Something we have to do.’

‘Don’t tell me the boss man always conducts the checks himself? Seems a bit personal to me. You are exposing yourself, you know. Publicity, people asking questions. Wouldn’t like it to get in the papers, would you?’

‘I don’t think the chief inspector will be long. In fact, I believe I can hear her now.’

‘Chief Inspector, eh? I do get the high-rankers, don’t I? Or is she your girlfriend?’

Phoebe was moving down the corridor with Bill Eager. He was talking with animation. ‘Am I glad to see you, I was stuck in that room wondering what was going to happen. And why. I hope you don’t mind me saying that I don’t understand what I’m doing here.’ He strode along beside her, anxious to oblige. She could sense his anxiety.

‘Just want you to tell Mr Freedom you remember him coming into the Gun Club.’

‘I remember all right.’ Interestingly, Phoebe felt that his anxiety had not diminished.

The two went into the room, Phoebe first, ushering Bill Eager after her.

George Freedom looked at both of them but showed no special interest, other than saying: ‘Now what’s he here for?’

‘Well, Mr Freedom, we thought Bill might be able to convince you that you wanted to join the Gun Club.’

She turned to Bill Eager and held out her hand. ‘Your turn, Bill, go ahead. Refresh his memory.’

Bill stared at George Freedom and then he stared at John Coffin and back to Phoebe. ‘What’s the game? That’s not Mr Freedom.’

George Freedom leaned back, clapped his hands and began to laugh. ‘Well done, well done. Couldn’t have done better myself if I had written the text.’

Bill Eager was puzzled. ‘What’s going on?’

John Coffin and Phoebe Astley withdrew to talk things over. ‘It’s fallen apart,’ said Coffin, he was angry. ‘Get hold of Tim Radley.’

Radley, his conscience which usually slept easily, was awake and irritating him so that he went on duty determined to do a good job.

He was at once sent out in a patrol car to drive down to the docks where it was expected that a cargo of dodgy beef was being loaded. Rotterdam was the port destined to receive the beef carcases. Operation
BEEFSTEAK
, it was called, and had been running for a week with no notable success.

‘They know they are being watched,’ said Radley to the two detectives who appeared quietly from a side alley.

A shrug. ‘Probably sold the stuff over here, you might be eating it tonight.’

The patrol car circled the dock area, pretending just to be on a routine job, then drove off. Reporting no sign of anything.

This was the sixth day of the watch. Radley had been part of the team once before, and was uneasily aware that he knew where some of the beef might be resting in frozen peace.

‘Can’t blame chaps,’ he thought.

He did not think he himself had eaten any dicey beefsteaks. He was careful where he ate.

They were considering dropping in for a quick cup of coffee in the Stormy Weather eaterie where both men were known when a call over the radio told DC Radley that he was wanted in DCI Astley’s office.

‘What have you been up to, you naughty boy?’ said his driver as he swung the wheel and reversed away from Drossers Market. ‘Nothing more than usual, I daresay. Perhaps she’s going to ask you for a date.’

Radley, who was equipped with special sensitive sex antennae, which had already told him that DCI Astley did indeed find him attractive, blushed.

He was deposited outside Headquarters and the driver promised to wait if he wasn’t too long . . . ‘seeing that you could call it an official fuck.’

‘Shut up, and watch your tongue,’ said Radley as he disappeared.

The driver blew him a kiss before backing the car into some shade.

Radley felt like a dog that might be going to get a whipping or might be offered a hot meal, it all depended. When he met Phoebe on the corridor outside the incident room, he knew the dish was cold and empty.

‘The Chief Commander wants you.’ She led the way briskly back down the corridor to the interview rooms. She threw open the door. In the room, the Chief Commander and George Freedom sat on either side of the table. Radley gave them both a quick look. He was still puzzled, unsure why he had been brought here.

In the corner of the room was Bill Eager, looking depressed. He managed to give Radley a tired smile.

‘Good morning, sir,’ Radley managed to Coffin.

‘Good morning. Now say hello to Mr Freedom.’

Radley stared. ‘Eh?’

‘Greet Mr Freedom, greet Mr Freedom,’ said Coffin.

Radley looked for help to Phoebe Astley. ‘I would if I could, ma’am,’ he said, thankful to be able to speak at all. ‘Shall I go round and call on him at home. Is he at home?’

‘He’s here,’ said John Coffin, pointing to the man at the table with him. ‘Here.’

Radley knew now he was mad. ‘That’s not my Mr Freedom,’ he said.

Is this a farce, or is this a farce? Play it for laughs.

‘Not unless he’s had a face change, sir.’ Be hung for a sheep as a lamb. ‘Lost six inches from his legs and put it on round his bottom.’

Coffin went back to his own office, having exchanged a few words with Phoebe. ‘Well, I don’t think that lad will climb to the top of his career ladder, if indeed he stays on it –’ hint of a threat there – ‘but he certainly made his point.’

‘So we have someone using Freedom’s name, pretending to be the man.’ Phoebe was thinking aloud. ‘So is he someone who knows George Freedom?’

‘That would help us find him, but possibly not. He knows who George Freedom is, but so do a lot of people.’

‘He knew who didn’t know Freedom,’ pointed out Phoebe. ‘He knew that Radley did not know him, except by name, and neither did Eager. We know he was taller and thinner than Freedom.’ Eager and Radley had together provided a description of a man nearly six feet tall, thin, with a lined face. Spectacles, and dark hair.

An image flashed through his mind of the man running away from Albie’s room at the hospital. A tall, thin man in a black hat . . .

‘One thing we can be sure of,’ said Coffin. ‘He went to all that trouble, acting a part, to get a gun, then he did the shooting all right. We have to find him.’

‘I reckon he did know Freedom and didn’t like him.’

‘Who does?’ said Coffin.

‘Think it could be a woman? One who didn’t like Freedom. And . . .’ She had been going to say, and has a grudge against you, but prudence suggested she keep quiet.

Coffin knew what she was going to say. Anna, he thought, my God, not Anna. She was tall for a woman and might now have a lined face.

It was more than ever necessary to find the missing torso and head to the limbs left outside the house in Barrow Street.

‘Phoebe, collect all the new info that I don’t know, anything extra about the two shootings and the cat and the limbs. Get them to me by this evening, I will take them home with the rest of the files to study tonight. I may pick something up that I have missed.’

At the end of the day, George Freedom went back to his flat in the building now called The Argosy in Rickards Passage where he was alone, where he knew the number to call to see the right sort of girl was sent.

Bill Eager went back to his set of rooms above the Gun Club, from which his wife had long since moved out.

Tim Radley repaired to his Victorian dwelling where he was alone, the cat being out ratting and not expected back till dawn.

Phoebe Astley was also alone, but she had dinner with DS Tony Davley in a Chinese restaurant across the river from the Second City and then went to see a film. Crime was not mentioned. Nor was sex, love or hate.

Coffin did not walk home, as so often, to give the dog a walk, or he might have been aware of a tall, thin, dark-haired figure following him at a distance.

The figure’s motives were not friendly, vicious rather, but the figure knew that this was just a time for looking. The spectre (which Coffin might have thought it was) turned away before St Luke’s, a thought surfacing.

Inside every fat creature is that thin one trying to get out. This was something the figure knew at close hand, and how dangerous it could be.

The unknowing Coffin was in the official car in which he sat in the back and documents in thick folders were piled in beside him and on top of which sat Gus so he could look out of the window, bow his head, and wag his tail, pretending to be the Queen.

But he was thinking about the strange tall figure. He ought to have discussed the puzzle of that figure at more length with Phoebe. If he could bring himself to talk about it to her she would probably be helpful.