there was a lot of territorial feeling in this job. Always had been and always would be. Probably Sir John Fielding’s officers in those distant days in the mid eighteenth century when he invented their force had had strong feelings about where they operated and who might interfere with them. The Peelers of a century later had carried on the tradition, because Dickens’s portrayal of Inspector Bucket did not suggest a man who would welcome intruders.
Coffin took a deep breath and pulled towards him the files he had brought down from London, already photocopied by the industrious Paul Masters.
He now had two stacks of files: the photocopies and the originals. Now why did I want copies, he asked himself, and came swiftly back with the answer that he wanted them in case there was another fire.
Or the equivalent – theft. Whoever had killed Harry, had tried to get the files destroyed. True, the Met had had a look at them first, and might have been coming back for more, but someone had tried, not too efficiently, to burn the lot.
He looked from the photocopies to the scorched originals.
In the outer office, Paul was packing up to go home; he worked a long day, getting in before the Chief Commander, rarely taking a lunch break, and usually still at work when John Coffin left. Coffin saluted an ambitious man. But tonight, Paul was leaving early since he was off to the opera. Coffin suspected he had a new girlfriend who liked Mozart. Or his wife, there was one, but who knew what went on in Masters’s private and somewhat secret life?
Inspector Masters put his head round the door. ‘Want me to take the dog for a walk before I go, sir?’
Augustus looked up and wagged his tail hopefully. He got up and shook his body, he was a shrewd psychologist and knew how you did it. Generations of his ancestors had wagged their way into comfort and pleasure, and the genes were still working.
‘Go on with you, then,’ said Coffin, and to Paul Masters: ‘Thank you.’
When the pair had gone, he turned back to his papers. The photocopied files were offering sparse information.
There was a map of Coventry with some street names marked in pencil. One area had a ring drawn round it. Attached to this were some scribbled notes which seemed to be of times and routes. It looked as though Harry had set off early and driven there.
Against the name H. Pennyfeather, he had put a query. And Coffin had a question mark in his own mind there. Did he know that name or not? Half a dozen further names were just recorded and given a tick.
Did this mean they were passed as all clear, whereas Pennyfeather was not? Or did the tick mean that they had been interviewed and Pennyfeather had not been at home.
Or did it mean something else altogether? Coffin ground his teeth and worked on.
A photograph was attached to one of the pages. It was the photograph of a woman.
It was not a photograph of Mary.
He saw a youngish, smiling face, with a smart, short haircut and large earrings. The woman was wearing a dark business suit. It was not a posed, studio photograph, but appeared to have been taken at a meeting of some sort, since he could see figures in the background. M. G. was written there.
Coffin worked through the papers, assessing them quickly. There was a similar group with a map of Oxford, and another of Newcastle. In each case, the map was marked, and it came with a list of names, some ticked and one or two with a question mark.
Thrupp in Coventry, and Weir in Newcastle, each had a question mark, as had Fox in Cambridge and H. Pennyfeather, but with no place name. So that made four in all. Sex not clear, but Ed Saxon had said he had a few women working for him. Possibly M. G. was one of them, although he hadn’t named her.
He sat thinking about TRANSPORT A and its problems which high authority thought stemmed from the Second City, curse it. Thus was I lumbered, he thought.
When the phone rang, he had a premonition it was going to be Ed Saxon, and so it was.
‘How are you getting on?’
‘I haven’t got far yet.’ Not anywhere, really. ‘It looks as though I’ll have to go to Coventry first … You know about the fire?’
Ed Saxon admitted he knew about the fire. ‘I had Mary in here.’
‘What did she want?’
‘She said she’d met you. You seem to have made an impression. Not easy on that one, she’s a hard case. What she wanted was what you’d expect, to find how near we were to getting Harry’s killer. Not too near, I had to tell her. She didn’t take it well.’
‘I can’t blame her.’
‘Who’s talking about blame? But she was casting plenty of it around, she blames me in particular. And she isn’t far wrong. After all, I chose him for the job.’
‘It may have nothing to do with that, you know.’
‘You’ve got an idea? What? What is it?’
There was silence. Coffin could hear Ed striking a match for a cigarette, the man was in a pressured state.
‘Have you any idea, something you’re not telling me?’
‘No, Ed. And the Met are investigating Harry’s death, remember? Not me. But I shall have to make contact with them.’
‘Yes,’ said Ed, as if the idea did not please him.
‘I am beginning to get the feeling that Harry knew he was about to be killed.’
‘Oh God, is that your great thought for the day?’
‘It’s a start.’
‘Where did you get it from? Out of the air, I suppose?’
‘No. From you.’
‘Don’t get you.’
‘Oh, come on, Ed. I’ve known you a long time and you don’t change. I think he told you he was frightened, that he knew there was a threat. And he knew who it was from; it was from the figure in your outfit who is profiting from the sale of phoney medicines and drugs. That was why you wanted an outsider like me to carry on the enquiry.’ There was another reason, of course, why I actually got the job, but you may not know of it. The Second City is involved.
Wouldn’t Ed know this? Why did he not know? Perhaps he was not fully trusted himself. Wheels within wheels, he didn’t like. Touch dirt and you get dirty, he thought.
Ed was staying silent.
‘And perhaps you thought my investigating skills might have got rusty with the years and I wouldn’t turn up what you feared.’
There was still no answer from Ed.
‘Who was it he suspected? Not you, by any chance, Ed?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Come on, Ed.’
‘He was just guessing, in my opinion … there was
