‘Jaimie is a pretty name, but unusual.’
Jaimie’s face did not change, but she was willing to provide some information. ‘I took the name myself, I got it out of a book at the time – I was aged eight. I was christened Jessamond and it wasn’t right for me, I didn’t want to go through life as Jessamond. Jaimie did me, I might have chosen anything though. I don’t see why you shouldn’t change your name as you grow.’
‘Actresses do change their name,’ said Stella. ‘I use my own, but it might have suited me to change it. And if there had been another Stella Pinero on the boards, then I would have had to change. Couldn’t have two of us.’ She smiled at Jaimie. ‘A professional matter. You are a writer?’
‘Journalist.’ Jaimie accepted the glass of wine that Coffin was offering to her.
‘Which paper?’ asked Coffin.
Jaimie drank some wine. ‘Freelance,’ she said after a pause.
‘Martin says you are working on a story?’
She shrugged. ‘Oh, it’s something or nothing. I may drop it.’
How does a freelance journalist live, if she drops her story without getting it into print? Coffin asked himself. Jaimie, although plainly dressed, was not poorly dressed, her clothes were expensive, the bag thrown over one shoulder was beautifully shaped and of very good leather. Even her hair was designer-unbrushed. Then he remembered her name was Layard. Money, there. He remembered something else about the Layard family too: soldiers, fighting men all, Jaimie looked a fighter.
At the moment, she looked a cross, aggressive fighter who was not pleased with Martin, not pleased to be dragged up the tower, and even less pleased to meet a policeman and his actress wife. Maybe she suffered from jealousy and if so he had a fellow feeling.
The telephone rang on the table by his side. He picked it up.
‘This is Dr Bradshaw … May I speak to John Coffin?’
‘Speaking.’
‘It really is John Coffin himself? This is such a very confidential matter.’
Coffin covered the telephone. ‘Stella, I will take this call downstairs. Please excuse me, everyone.’
In the kitchen, he asked what the call was all about.
‘First, here is the telephone number of the journalist.’ Jack Bradshaw read it out. It was a local number. ‘But I have not succeeded ever in talking to her directly, you get the answerphone and later she rings back.’
A phone in a rented room. Coffin thought. But we could trace it easily enough.
‘Her name.’ Jack went on, ‘did I say, is Marjorie Wardy?’ His voice dropped.
Coffin held the receiver to his ear: And I might already know who she is.
‘Can you describe her?’
‘Tall, wearing dark spectacles, with curly black hair.’
Ah. Well, there were wigs.
‘I expect I can find her. And she is digging around in the story?’
‘I think so, from the questions she asked. But I cannot imagine how she got on to it.’
‘Dick Lavender hasn’t spoken of it to anyone?’
‘Not that I know of, he’s only recently told me. I could sense he was working up to something but he took his time. To tell you the truth, I believe it was her questions that made him feel he must unburden himself before it was done for him.’
‘Would it be so terrible if it came out? It will in the end if I go investigating.’
‘He thinks so. If it comes out that his father was a killer of women, then he wants to be the one who tells the story.’
‘Yes, I see the force of that.’
‘But there is something else: I told you he had had anonymous letters … Today there was an attack on him.’
‘What? Is he harmed?’
‘A big bunch of mixed flowers was delivered … it was covered in transparent paper; when it was opened it appeared that the flowers had been covered with some sort of irritant powder affecting the eyes, nose and throat.’
‘So what happened?’
‘It was opened by Janet, she deals with all parcels, he never came near it, but it was meant to hurt. For an old man the result might have been serious. No, it was sent by an ill wisher.’
‘Not one who knew the ways of the household, though.’
‘True. So no one close. There is hardly anyone, to be honest, only Janet and the woman who comes in once a week to help with the laundry – the old man likes all his personal linen washed and ironed by hand, no laundry. But Lavender thinks, and I think too, that it is someone who knows the story. And wants …’ He hesitated.
‘Vengeance? It’s been a long time coming. Hardly likely to be a contemporary of Lavender as a boy.’
‘No, but possibly the descendant of one, someone, man or woman, who knew about it from parents or grandparents. Seriously, I believe there is someone out there who is after the old man. And I cannot believe it goes back to his days in government, although God knows he made enough enemies then. But most of them are dead. No, this is someone else.’
Oh good, Coffin thought, not only do I have to find the remains of a long-dead woman, but I also have to find a hunter in the shadows.
He went to the kitchen to look out; he was nearer to the old churchyard on this lower floor. A child was playing on the grass while his mother stood watching. An older woman was walking towards one of the flower beds. An old man sat on one of the seats, smoking and reading a paper.
Peaceful scene. Coffin thought. I may be about to turn it into a less tranquil place. He could imagine the digging, the police screens set up to shield what they might have found.
He turned away. I have been told an extraordinary story. The threatening letters to Richard Lavender, and now this bunch of flowers, they are not dangerous episodes in themselves, but there is a threat.
He heard Martin and Jaimie tumbling down the stairs, he could hear voices which sounded angry. He thought he heard her say she didn’t want to come to this house again.
Upstairs, Stella was finishing her drink with a thoughtful look. ‘I didn’t ask them to stay for a meal, I think they are about to have a quarrel. One of many, I fear. So I encouraged them to go.’
Coffin sat down beside her, he picked up the end of the silk girdle that went round Stella’s waist and was tied up on the side. ‘Do you think you could hide all that fair hair of hers under a wig?’
Stella shrugged. ‘I expect you could. Yes, I daresay. Why?’
‘Tell you later, but I feel as though I am being led into an unpleasant business.’
And as if the past had reached out a bony hand to tweak him. He did not enjoy being reminded of his own boyhood and youth, when he had felt that he might get stuck in a world he did not like and when he knew it was up to him to fight his way out.
He was going to need assistance with the problem the former Prime Minister had set. It was like being given an errand by Mr Gladstone, the moral imperative was strong.
Phoebe Astley, he thought, he would set her to work.
He looked at Stella; if she was jealous of any other woman in his life, then it was Phoebe.
Phoebe Astley was a senior police officer