in those days a working-class district of the great metropolis. Lodged with ‘Mother’. She had not been his mother, of course; nobody’s mother, certainly not his.
A child, Annie Dunne, hiding in the garden of her home one foggy night had heard strange noises, she had crawled through the next-door hedge to watch and had seen two people burying an old man, and his wife.
Coffin had been the man who persuaded her to talk.
The killers were a brother and sister, Will and Lizzie Creeley. Without Annie’s testimony the bodies might never have been found nor the two convicted. The Creeley family swore to get her.
Annie had grown up, had married, and had a child herself. But for some time the Creeleys had still lived three streets away. Bad years for Annie, until the family had emigrated, but one by one they had drifted back. Eddie was the latest. Creeleys had lived in Swinehouse for many generations and were embedded in the district like weeds.
‘She wasn’t believed at first, you know, when she told her story.’
Archie Young nodded.
‘But I believed her … And then, of course, the rumour went round that there were other bodies buried in the garden. As if it was a kind of cottage industry that the Creeleys had there: killing for money. But there were only the two, as if that wasn’t enough … I suppose Annie’s heard about this murder?
‘I don’t suppose she thinks Marianna was murdered instead of her.’
‘She did live two streets away.’ Marianna had a tiny flat in the Alexandra Wharf block, and Napier Street, where Annie Briggs lived was only a few yards away.
‘They didn’t know each other. Not as far as we know.’
‘I bet she hopes that if the Creeley boy did it we get him for it fast.’
‘Doesn’t look like a Creeley crime, they were strictly business as far as we know, and there was no profit in Marianna. Straight sex there, I reckon.’ Young added wistfully: ‘If I had to choose between getting Job Titus or a Creeley for Marianna I don’t know which I’d go for.’
‘Hard choice,’ said Coffin.
‘But poor Annie. I mean, she’s a nuisance, always popping in with crisis calls, but you can see why.’ He looked at the wall. ‘She’s got in a private investigator.’
‘My God, who?’
‘The Tash Agency,’ said Young, still not meeting Coffin’s eyes.
‘Tom Ashworth. My wife used him on her divorce.’ Stella had claimed her divorce was amiable on both sides, Coffin had only learnt later that this was not quite true.
Young, who knew this, he made it his job to know everything about his boss that he could, kept silent.
Then he said: ‘Annie says she liked him, trusts him … Whatever that means.’
Stella had said the same. ‘I think it means he’s attractive,’ said Coffin.
He had discovered that where Stella was concerned he was capable of quick and ready jealousy. He kept quiet about it and hoped she had not noticed, but it was there. To his surprise, jealousy was cold, not hot, and penetrated everywhere like a gas.
Stella was naturally flirtatious, and meeting desirable men all the time. She said there had to be chemistry, it was all part of the job. Very likely it was.
‘There aren’t so many people Annie Briggs trusts. Her husband left her, couldn’t stand it.’ Young kept in touch with his world. ‘She’s got a social worker who calls in, the sister gave them a bit of trouble once. Can’t blame her, it’s hardly been a normal life.’
Coffin said: ‘She is on my mind and on my conscience all the time. I’ll go and see her.’
He knew what was lined up for him in his diary, so it wouldn’t be today or tomorrow, but sometime. Soon. Might get Stella to help, unofficially, of course. She was good with women.
At the door, Archie Young paused. ‘Supposing the man that Job Titus was seen drinking with was the Creeley boy? Sounded like him. May be nothing in it.’
Driving home that night Coffin thought: Supposing Job Titus got a Creeley to do Marianna in, and then Titus promised to help the Creeleys get Annie somehow?
It was an interesting idea. He could feel sorry for Titus if he let the Creeleys get a hook in him. He might be a smart political operator but the Creeleys had millennia of criminality behind them. A Creeley man or woman, the women being fully as bad, had probably conned a Roman centurion and then slit his throat.
He let himself in, wondering if Stella would be home. Sometimes she was and sometimes not, but she always left a note around saying where she was. ‘At the theatre.’ ‘Downstairs.’—This meant in her own flat. ‘Gone to see Jay.’—Jay was her agent.
He was beginning to enjoy what he called ‘Stella’s little notes’. Part of his new life, he always felt in touch. They had promised never to be apart for long. When you marry late, then you cannot afford too many absences.
On his desk that day he had found a card and invitation: Phœbe Astley invites you to celebrate her promotion. An address in Birmingham and a scrawl: Why don’t you come up and see me?
Phœbe had occupied a niche in his life before Stella came back into it. She was post-Stella and pre-Stella. She had moved away, joined another force and risen sharply. Clever girl, Phœbe, but I won’t be coming. I shall be home with my wife.
Tonight he smelt cooking. So she was home. Here. His spirits rose. Darling Stella.
And he smelt cigarette smoke: so that meant Letty too. He liked his sister and admired her. She had been around a lot lately. She and Stella were putting together a scheme to help beat the recession in St Luke’s Theatre by opening a small drama school which local youngsters would be encouraged to join. A keep-the-kids-off-the-streets scheme. There had been a lot of idle vandalism lately.
It would help the neighbourhood and, with local sponsors, would assist the theatre too. It was going to be very professional.
For so long resistant to economic stress, the theatre was now getting the full effects. And just at a time when Letty’s property investments were in decline. More than decline, rushing precipitately down hill. But he backed Letty, he had noticed that nothing had stopped her buying her new autumn wardrobe in Paris and New York, and he took that as a sign, while being grateful that Stella could fund her clothes at less expensive outlets. Not that he bought her clothes. She bought her own and always had.
The cat and the dog were home too. He knew that from the two food bowls on the staircase by the living-room. Why they chose to eat there he did not know. Stella said it made them feel free, but he thought it was because he had once tripped over their bowls and had fallen down the stairs. They were waiting for him to do it again.
Both women turned round to look at him as he came in.
‘Talking about me?’
‘Thinking about you.’
‘Always, I hope.’ He gave Stella a kiss. ‘Hello, Letty.’
Letty raised an eyebrow, it was an eyebrow trained to rise. ‘Oh, come on, she’s got other things to do.’ Letty’s marriages never prospered because she always had other things to do.
‘Rescue me,’ said Coffin’s eyes to Stella. His beautiful sister could terrorize him on occasion. He suspected she was like their eccentric, errant, delinquent mother who had abandoned her children one after the other. Letty was wearing black silk jeans with a leopard print silk blazer in which she looked sinewy and alarming. ‘Help me out.’
Stella almost did. ‘Well, not all the time, not when I’m learning my lines or on stage, but underneath, darling, I think about you and I expect I always will.’ When necessary, Stella could deliver lines as if from a Coward play.
He