The Coffin Tree

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.’

‘Right.’ She could read his face: Be my eyes, he was saying, be my ears, then report back. I want to know.

‘Number six. Fashion Street,’ said Young. ‘I think you’ll find her there, I saw her looking out of the window. She’ll probably enjoy a visit, I think she’s hoping to be on the evening TV news.’

Phoebe walked away while Coffin turned towards Albert Waters who was leaning against the fence and smoking a pipe.

‘I haven’t smoked a pipe for years, but I needed it today and one of your chaps let me go and get some pipe tobacco … It isn’t what it used to be, I think the tobacco leaf has changed. You hardly ever smell a decent pipe smoke now.’

‘Not many people smoke them these days.’

‘Not in public, in private maybe.’

Coffin leaned against the fence beside the old man whose hands were trembling. ‘You’re talking too much, Albert,’ he said kindly.

‘I always do when I’m nervous; you should have known me in the war, Hitler’s war, even I’m not old enough for the Kaiser. Talked a blue streak, I did then.’

‘What did you do in the war?’

‘Gunner. Not in the air, thank God, that was the killer, I did have a tank all round me.’

‘So what’s making you nervous now?’

‘What do you think? I did light a fire there, this morning. I thought I’d get rid of some rubbish. It smouldered all day but I didn’t take any notice; it couldn’t harm anyone, I thought.’

‘Didn’t the smell worry you?’

‘I had some old mattresses on them filled with horse hair, I thought it was that.’ Albert looked tearful. ‘You don’t think of bodies … then I saw the flames, and I thought: Here you are, better have a look at that … Then I saw what was burning up there. It was me called the police. Police first, fire brigade next.’

‘You knew it was a body?’

Albert chewed at his pipe. ‘Smelt it. I knew that smell. Told you I was in a tank, didn’t I? Smelt a jerry like that. One of ours too, mate of mine.’

‘All right, I understand. The smell reminded you of too much.’

Albert kept quiet for a moment. ‘I could do with a drink.’

‘Later, Albert. I’ll stand you one myself.’

Albert grinned – he had a pleasant grin, and Coffin could see the cheerful young cockney who had gone to war. What ever happened to him in that tank in that desert?

‘You built the bonfire?’

That roused him. ‘No, I did and I didn’t. My bonfire wasn’t the size of what this one was. I had a few planks of wood out there. I was going to build the Ark but I couldn’t seem to get going. The invention drained away. Does sometimes. So I left it there, what I’d done, and waited for inspiration.’

‘How long?’

Albert considered. ‘Week or two. Might have been. Inspiration’s been a bit slow lately. You can’t call it up to order, you know. Wish you could. The Greeks had a special god they used to call up when they needed help. I wish we had one, I could do with one like that.’

So could I, thought Coffin. I wonder what the right god for detection would be? Bacchus, Thor? Wrong pantheon, of course, but Norse or Greek, he didn’t expect an answer.

‘Anyway, this morning I thought I’d have a burn up, bits of this and that, like I said. It raises the spirits.’

Coffin wondered who or what spirits he was hoping to raise. ‘If you didn’t build the fire up, then did you see who did?’

‘No, not to notice.’

‘Your neighbour says she saw a man – you, she thought – piling it up and then someone – a man, perhaps you – climbing up on it.’

‘Think I’d burn myself?’

Coffin shook his head. ‘No.’

‘She can’t see anyway, not Mrs Thorn, can’t rely on her.’

‘And you saw nothing? Sure of that?’

Albert said: ‘These last days, I’ve been working on my construction in the front.’

‘Oh yes, I heard about that, the Tower of Babel, isn’t it?’

‘Mini,’ said Albert with dignity. ‘Mini Tower of Babel. You have to keep yourself within your own limits.’

Coffin looked towards the remains of the bonfire which was now being photographed. The full police operation was in action; two big vans had arrived, one of which would be the incident room and the other, if he knew his friends, would be the canteen.

‘Come and have a drink,’ he said to Albert, ‘there’ll only be tea or coffee in the van, but I keep a flask of whisky in the car in case.’

‘I’m a case,’ said Albert happily, ambling forward. ‘I’m definitely a case.’

Coffin looked towards the house into which Phoebe had disappeared. He trusted her, he had to trust her. He trusted himself, he trusted Archie, he had to trust Phoebe, and outside of that, he trusted no one.

There was Stella, of course, mustn’t forget Stella, whom he had to collect quite soon at Heathrow.

Phoebe could see the two men walking towards the police coach from where she sat in Mrs Brenda Thorn’s bow window. She had a cup of tea in front of her and a chocolate biscuit. Mrs Thorn was explaining that she had certainly thought it was Albert Waters who was building up the bonfire because everything that went on over there always was Albert, but her eyesight wasn’t too good as she was willing to admit, so she might have been mistaken.

‘Right,’ said Phoebe, wiping melted chocolate off her fingers and hoping it wouldn’t get on to her new dress. ‘So why did you think it was a man?’

‘I could see between the legs, dear,’ said Mrs Thorn. ‘Another cup?’

Phoebe thought about a short skirt, shorts, even tight jeans. ‘No, thank you.’

‘Besides, he looked like a man. Big. Men are big.’

‘Usually. Mr Waters isn’t big though.’

‘Big enough, bigger than me,’ said Mrs Thorn who was built like a square-shouldered eight-year-old with heavy bones and short legs. Her top half and her bottom half did not match.

‘So when was this?’

‘Morning, late on.’ She could see this was not precise enough. ‘Before the one o’clock news. Before Neighbours.’

That made it about twelvish, Phoebe thought, before my two-fifteen interview. ‘Is there anything else?’

The teapot came into operation again as Mrs Thorn filled up her cup. ‘I don’t take sugar, dear, I daresay you noticed, I have to watch my weight … No, nothing else, I wish there was. Who did you say it was that got burned to death?’

‘I didn’t, we don’t know yet.’ And whoever it was might be dead when put on the bonfire. I sincerely hope so. ‘We have to establish identity. Any suggestions?’

‘No …’

That’s it then, thought Phoebe; she stood up, not much to report to the chief commander. What would she have done if she was still in Sparkhill? To begin with, she would have known much more about the street, probably have walked down it once or twice in the recent past – she liked to know her neighbourhood. She would have been able to talk to the community policeman who, if he was doing his job, would know Mrs Thorn.

Mrs Thorn lifted the teapot, then put it down. ‘Empty … I usually drain it. Grew up during the war, you see, rationing, no waste …’ The teapot seemed to improve her memory. ‘There is something.’

‘Go on.’

‘I think there was someone else there, another person on the other side of the bonfire. It was only just lighted then and smoking.’

‘What did you see?’

‘Nothing else. I went to my washing to stop it getting kippered and then I didn’t look again … I was watching TV.’

‘Well, thanks. Thanks for helping.’

‘It wasn’t the first fire he’d had, you know. He liked a bonfire, but don’t we all, I’m fond of one myself. We had a beauty down here for the coronation.’

Phoebe made her way to the door. ‘Did Albert live here then?’

‘Always lived here, never lived anywhere else. His mother before that, and her mother. There used to be a lot of them. “Wherever you go, there’s a Waters”, Mother used to say. Not true now. Only Albert left.’

Coffin and Albert Waters had been joined by Superintendent Young who intended to keep a friendly but watchful presence on the scene. Around them in the long coach, the mobile incident room was busy setting itself up. Phones were already ringing on two desks (no one was answering them, Coffin noticed), while a young policewoman sat staring at a laptop computer. The screen woke up and started to spell out a message to her, she did not react.

Albert Waters did though. ‘I know her, she used to walk round here when she was training.’

The WPC turned her head and gave him a smile.

‘You’ve got a lot of friends,’ said Coffin.

‘Wouldn’t call Brenda Thorn a friend, she doesn’t like me. But then I don’t go a lot for her. She says I built the bonfire, well I didn’t. If she’d looked she’d have seen me at work in the garden at the back. I saw her, getting her washing in.’

‘So this confirms his story and hers,’ said Coffin, as he and Phoebe exchanged information. ‘He saw her doing what she says she did do.’

‘But she didn’t see him. I did ask, as I left, I said: “Did you see Mr Waters when you got the washing in?” and she said that no, she hadn’t seen a thing, but Albert could be invisible when he liked. And she didn’t mean it kindly, not really friends, those two.’

‘So he says.’

‘I think the really important thing that comes out is that she thought there were two people … One who climbed up on the fire and who was wearing trousers and was big, and one the other side.’

‘But invisible?’

‘That’s right,’ said Phoebe. ‘I think she was hinting at Albert.’

‘A hint isn’t evidence. Do you think she saw anything or anyone?’

‘Yes,’ said Phoebe, ‘I think she did.’

‘Can’t say who or won’t say? In your opinion?’

Phoebe shrugged. ‘I think she’s gone as far as she can.’ To herself, she added: Give her a hot, full teapot and who knows what might come out?

Coffin said: ‘I’m going to walk the ground again. See what I can see. Come with me.’

Lighting was being set up as night came on. The body was being moved under the careful eye Of the police surgeon and a pathologist; they were moving it carefully because burnt bodies are fragile.

Coffin watched for a moment, then eyes down, paced the grass. ‘It rained yesterday,’ he said to Phoebe, ‘so the ground is soft … Do you see what I see?’

‘Yes, tracks, wheel marks.’

‘Paired wheel marks, as if a trolley or some such was used. The wheels dug in, so the trolley was heavy.’

The marks, which had already been taped off by the police team, were patchy, sometimes you could see them, sometimes not.

The two of them walked back to the road where the body was about to be put in an ambulance. Archie Young was there talking to another officer.

‘Has Waters got anything to pull or push with two wheels?’

‘The tracks, you mean? I saw those. No, he says not. He says he has a wheelbarrow and a supermarket trolley that he nicked, and nothing else. Those marks were not from a wheelbarrow or a trolley, though. I know what you are thinking: a body could have been moved out to the fire on wheels.’

Coffin drew back the covering: a curled up, blackened form, head down, arms extended. It was impossible to guess the sex or age. But Coffin knew what he was looking at: ‘This person was not dead when burnt, but died while burning.’

He turned back to the road. ‘Let’s go.’

Phoebe walked beside him, just for a moment she thought she got a flash of a face she might know – or could have known if she’d concentrated – in the little crowd of onlookers, then Coffin touched her arm and she looked away.

‘Can I drive you anywhere?’

‘No, I saw a tube station not too far away. I want to walk, get some air.’ The corpse had made her feel sick. ‘And get to know the district a bit.’

‘Right.’ He hesitated. Was a warning justified or even wise? Phoebe had her prickles. ‘Look after yourself.’

‘Oh, I will, don’t worry. I know how to watch my back. And nobody knows me.’

Phoebe had her own reasons for not wanting to be driven home by the chief commander. She needed to think.

That night as Phoebe got into bed, not in the flat of a mate as she had told Coffin (God, the lies she had told that man), but in the rented room in a small guest house which was all she could afford, she thought about the day.

She had the position she wanted, she was back in London, but she was broke till she sold her house, sensationally unhappy and now she was anxious.

Frankly, after today, she wondered what she was getting into.

She rolled over in the narrow bed and considered. Now I must do something highly sensible. And also a good career move.

For a start, she would call on Eden Brown and see if she could join up as a lodger. I don’t think she’d want me if she knew what I was working at. Bad for trade.

Don’t tell her, said another voice inside her.

Had it been Eden watching the bonfire? No, probably one of those mistakes.

She touched her cheek which was tender, the pain was still there. Was it worse? She reached out for the bottle of painkillers.

Some pains you could exorcize, but others not.

As soon as Coffin got back to his home in the tower of the old St Luke’s church, the telephone rang. He considered ignoring it but it might be Stella with a change of plans.

‘Hello.’ He kept his voice cautious.

‘Geraldine here.’

‘Ah.’

‘You made a good appointment today.’

‘The committee did.’

She laughed. ‘Your choice, though.’

‘I was open minded. Didn’t want to influence things one way or another.’

‘Not what I thought. She was the best person for the job, you thought so and I thought so. I’d like to meet her. What about coming round for a drink?’

‘She’s still based in Birmingham; she’s got to find a place to live.’

‘Oh, no trouble there, plenty of empty flats and houses; one benefit of the recession if you aren’t a property owner.’

There was a note in her voice that made Coffin wonder if she had his sister Letty in mind; Letty had invested in a lot of local property and was now suffering some pain. He said nothing, Letty could look after herself in his opinion and would certainly break back.

‘I’m entertaining on Sunday morning from midday onwards … my At Home. My little salon.’

Geraldine’s salon was famous. She lived in a large, early nineteenth-century house where top Customs officials had held sway while the Docks were still alive.

‘When’s Stella back?’

He looked at the clock, past midnight. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘today.’

He was there early, having been woken by a telephone call he would rather never have had, but Stella’s flight was early too, a wind behind them, and as he walked in, Stella walked towards him.

She was wearing a full pale yellow skirt and a white shirt and she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her.

She ran towards him, cheerful and full of energy, not at all as if she’d just been travelling all night. She threw her arms round him. ‘Lovely to be back, heaven, heaven.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘I’ve brought you a present. Well, several … Oh, you smell of smoke … it’s in your hair.’ She drew back and looked at him. ‘You look peaky … What’s wrong? Bad time?’

‘I’ll tell you in the car.’

He did tell, an edited version; he could trust her, but for her own sake it was better not to say too much.

‘Those poor young men … I remember Felix.’

‘I thought you would. I was going to ask you to visit his wife with me.’

‘Of course, you know I would … But that’s not all, is it?’

The traffic was building up as they crossed the river; it was still early but commuters were driving into work.

He told her about the body on the funeral pyre.

‘Burnt. Totally burnt, how terrible. Who was it?’

‘I’ve heard now: it was a young woman.’

‘She was dead?’

Alive or dead, that was the question.

‘She was alive when she set the fire and she meant to do it. Suicide. She left a note.’

Stella looked at his face.

‘It was Felix’s wife.’

Alive or dead.

Suttee.

3

The moment Stella came back, the theatre came to life: a new play opened in the big theatre in the old church (now called the Stella Pinero Theatre), an innovative piece was rehearsing in the theatre workshop, and the drama school had a new intake. It was Stella who had waved the magic wand, and life began again.

He realized how much he had missed her.

She had returned with all her usual enthusiasm and cheerfulness to breathe energy into the schemes at the theatre that she had left behind.

Coffin relished this side of it; the glitter and sparkle that Stella brought with her made a counterweight to the tragedies that hung over him. Felix, Mark Pittsy and now Felix’s wife.

Suicide, of a particularly terrible kind. How could she do it?

‘I don’t know, darling,’ said Stella as she unpacked her presents for him. ‘But if she was in great pain in her mind, I suppose physical pain might not matter so much.’ She contemplated a day in which she herself could do such a thing and could not find it there. No, she would always battle on. ‘I couldn’t do it.

‘No, I’m such a coward … I’m surprised any woman could, but they do, in India. There, it’s part of the culture, or it was, but this was her own private hell, poor love.’

Coffin sat on the bed and watched her unpack. ‘Here’s a bottle of your favourite Jack Daniels. I know you don’t drink as much as you did, but it’s nice to have it by you.’

‘I drink enough,’ said Coffin gloomily. Especially when she was away – he’d had plenty this time, but life had been tough.

‘But not as much as once,’ she said, her voice firm. ‘And if you stick to the best whisky and champagne, you won’t go wrong.’

It was the sort of remark he loved her for, redolent as it was of her own zest for the superior.

‘Geraldine has asked us to one of her mornings.’

‘Oh, we’ll go, she always has the best people there. And with this new play coming on, I could do with nobbling a few critics.’ Stella held up before him her latest purchase from Bergdorff Goodman. ‘Look at this, isn’t it lovely?’ It was a plain, short little shift of black. ‘You’d never believe how much it cost.’

‘I expect I would.’ Coffin was beginning to be an experienced husband. ‘Especially when I see it on.’

‘Oh, you are a love. And quite right. A cheap dress.’ (Cheap by Stella’s standards did not necessarily mean a small price.) ‘A cheap dress often looks good when on display and a couture dress nothing, but when you wear them … ah, that’s when cut and fit show.’

She seemed prepared to elaborate on this but Coffin said: ‘She wants us to bring Phoebe Astley.’

‘Ah.’ She was perhaps not best pleased to find Phoebe Astley so ensconced in his life. ‘Well, of course. I like Phoebe. Of course, I’ve never really got to know her,’ she added carefully.

‘I need her in this job, Stella. I couldn’t see anyone else doing it. I wanted her here.’

‘I know. And I’ve decided to be big about it.’

‘And she’s clever and ambitious; she’ll move on.’

‘Think so?’

He nodded. He felt like opening the bottle of whisky already; Stella, when she started to probe, could get close to the bone, very close. He had told her some of the reasons for wanting Phoebe to head the Unit, but not all the secret investigation as well. It was really better not. Safer.

Because he might be the ultimate victim, and he didn’t want Stella involved. She was not for burning.

‘Well, I won’t ask why you really wanted her,’ said Stella, letting him know she could read his mind more than a little, ‘but why did she come?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Coffin slowly. ‘I know what she said, but I’m not sure if it’s the truth.’

‘And I’m not to ask?’

‘Oh, just a love affair that went wrong.’