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.
Rivals and even friends had expected him to fail, but he had built up a very good set of teams from the mixture of local units he had inherited. He had created his own promotion panel which he watched over while allowing it independence. But he had seen to it that the weaker officers were weeded out and clever, hard-working men like Archie Young got fast promotion. He had men and women around him now that he both trusted and liked. ‘I’ve kept you up to date: it seems that drug profits and other illegal monies are being fed into British banks. The powers that be …’ even to Young he did not name them. That might come later, but he was still bound by an oath of secrecy, ‘… are worried that it could damage the whole banking system.’
‘Money’s money,’ said the pragmatic Young.
‘Apparently not. Might seem so to you and me but the City says not …’ The City in this context meant the bankers and financiers of the First City of London, the money establishment. ‘We seem to have been given a special part. It looks as though a group of banks here in the Second City have been targeted. I suppose they thought we’d be grateful. They had us down for a collection of innocents.’
Young accepted this silently for a moment, then said: ‘I bet I could name the banks.’
‘I bet you could.’
They had three banks whose origin was far flung and international, but which gave a good rate of interest on savings and so were much used by the small depositors of the Second City.
‘Not only us, of course. The cash is being spread around widely, and as I’ve let you know, action is being taken.’
‘Sure.’
‘But it’s up to us to clear out our own little pigsty … A lot of the money is being laundered here.’
Archie Young chewed a bit of cod which was unexpectedly solid; he could see the cat eyeing him hopefully. ‘Acting on your instructions …’
‘And your own wits,’ said Coffin quickly.
‘And my own wits,’ went on Archie, ‘I’ve had a couple of men out there working on it.’
He put his fork into his food and began to stir it round as if he didn’t see it at all but something quite different.
‘It’s been a tough game to play, John.’
The use of his name, so rarely used even between the two friends, was significant.
‘Yes, it hasn’t brought them luck.’
Two men, two deaths.
Felix Henbit who had died of an overdose of sedatives and drink. Suicide? Or accident? No one could believe in the suicide.
Mark Pittsy who had died in a car crash.
Apparent accidents, both of them.
‘Rotten luck,’ said Archie, ‘some cases are buggers.’ He shook his head. ‘You get a run of accidents like that sometimes and I hate it.’
‘We have a problem, Archie,’ thought Coffin, but he did not say it aloud. Instead: ‘I’m not happy.’
‘Who could be?’
‘Felix Henbit had a wife.’ He made it a statement; he had liked Felix but kept his distance.
‘Yes, likewise Pittsy; not long married. Also a sister in Cleveland who seemed a bit remote.’
‘I’d like to meet Mrs Henbit.’
‘I think you should. She’d appreciate it, a nice girl who’s bearing up well. All the usual support groups have been in touch to see how she was getting on.’ Mary Henbit had been bleeding inside but hadn’t let it show too much.
‘I’ll get round there.’ He might take Stella if she ever came home again which he sometimes doubted. She was good on such occasions, other women liked her.
Coffin looked down at his plate of chips. Not my mother, vanishing lady, my mother, you’d be home alone. She’d be long dead now. Or was she? His mother seemed just the sort to read you could live to be a hundred and sixteen and decide to do it. He pushed his plate away; the chips didn’t appeal so much.
The two men talked for a while longer, then Archie Young went off – still flushed with the news of his promotion, and wishing his wife was at home so that he could tell her – soon after the meal was finished. Promotion had come very quickly; he knew he owed a lot to the chief commander, but he also knew he was a good officer.
He didn’t have the older man’s imagination, and sometimes he thought the Big Man let the parameters of his imagination spread a mite too far. He was thinking that now.
Coffin had not told Archie Young all his thoughts even though he trusted him. He never did tell anyone everything. He had seeded the corn and must now await events.
Later, on the day of her interview, while Phoebe prepared herself for it and then went through it and got a hint of her success; and while Coffin sat thinking of his own problem – all this while the fire burned in the rough ground beyond the old Atlas factory.
When did it start? It must have started in the early afternoon because such fires burn slowly. The fire burned the mound of wood and leaves which a sexless figure put together, which he or she had lit and upon which, so a watcher said later, he or she had climbed. Hard to believe and the witness did not have good eyesight. Not climbing, perhaps, but dragged?
First smoke, then flames.
The body burned, the hair smouldered, the body fats caught and melted, the skin crisped.
Phoebe, who knew she had interviewed well, who was sure she had got the job, waited for Coffin to telephone her, and when he did not, tried to telephone him at home. He was not there so she left a message on his answering machine.
Phoebe came back into the picture and Stella returned to the fold on the same day, which was a complication. Both of them left a message on his answerphone.
Flying back today, fondest love, Stella. Get out the champagne. That meant she was in a good mood. Not necessarily forgiving (what was there to forgive, he asked himself), but certainly loving.
Phoebe Astley made her plea. Can you give me a bell? I am staying with a mate who has a place near the Tower. We could meet for a drink. I mean we’d better, hadn’t we? We’ve got to talk.
Coffin smiled wryly as he put down Tiddles’s food and pushed the dog’s nose out of the way. Phoebe always had rotten timing, that was one thing he now recalled about her. Stella, on the other hand, had the impeccable timing of a top actress.
Well, he would ring Phoebe, but in his own time; Phoebe had to learn about timing, and now it was Tiddles and the dog who came first.
He fed them both, washed his hands, because cat food (they both ate cat food, fortunately the dog could not read) smelt.
‘The thing is, Tiddles,’ he said. ‘To be quiet but not furtive.’ He considered the problem while he fed the dog.
‘I know: we’ll go to the Half a Mo.’ He was pleased with Phoebe and his own plans. As he left the interview room – without speaking to her – he had seen her talking to his assistant. She had a carrier bag from Minimal at her feet. Good girl, he had thought. Instinct, that’s what she’s got. Without knowing it, she has started work for me.
The pub, called Half a Mo by its regulars was placed on the junction by Halfpenny Lane and Motion Street, outside Coffin’s bailiwick and into the City of London.
Small and dark, it had always been popular with