gone off his rocker. Perhaps both. He’s dangerous. His sister knows it and I reckon we know it.’
‘Then we’d better find him fast.’
‘He’s living locally,’ said Paul Lane. ‘I swear it.’ He bent down to get a package. ‘I found this rolled up in a cupboard in the Farmer house. I persuaded his sister to let me take this tweed coat away. She didn’t want me to have it, but it looked to me as if it matched the scrap of cloth caught on the saddle of the bike. I think it is Place’s. I believe there is blood on it.’
He was holding out an old grey tweed jacket which had seen better days. It was wrapped in a big plastic bag to protect any evidence. There were dark stains up the front and on the sleeves.
‘Mad to leave it around.’
‘I think he might be mad. Or near enough. But in any case, he might not have expected me to go to Abinger Road.’
‘Any mice about? Egan had mice droppings on him.’
‘I don’t think they had Egan in Abinger Road. And from what I know of Roxie Farmer, no mouse would stand a chance. No, Place didn’t have him there.’
‘I suppose I ought to be grateful to him for killing Egan, seeing Egan was after me,’ said Coffin.
‘I found this in the pocket.’ Lane held out a scrap of paper enclosed in a plastic envelope. He had done that himself. Standard practice. ‘It’ll have to be tested for traces. But he’s got your address on it.’
Coffin studied it. The piece of paper had been much folded so that the pencil scrawl was hard to read, but he could make out Church Row well enough. ‘That’s Egan’s writing.’
‘I think so.’ Lane nodded.
‘So he knew where I was.’
‘And now Place knows. Took this off Egan’s body, and he meant something by that.’
‘I hope I’m going to go on being grateful,’ said Coffin grimly. ‘Got anything else, or is that the lot?’
‘There is this ticket to the Cutty Sark. He’s been there, and quite recently too. He’s always loved the river. He’ll be down that way now. I’ll take a bet on it.’ He spoke with the utter conviction of someone who knew he was right. ‘Why don’t we look for him down there?’
Paul leaned forward and became urgent. ‘Why don’t we pour men in? Flood the place with searchers. Flush him out quick.’
‘Going to take a lot of overtime,’ said Coffin, somewhat sourly. You always had to think about money now.
But they agreed to try. If they could get the manpower. The TAS squad was small and its demands not welcome. But it could be done.
‘Leave that stuff with me,’ said Coffin, motioning towards the jacket and the paper in its plastic envelope. ‘I’ll take responsibility.’
Coffin saw his visitor to the front door. As he closed it behind Lane and walked up the stairs he had the feeling he got sometimes that wheels were moving. It was never a wholly pleasant feeling, unsettling and worrying.
Mrs Brocklebank would have called it ghosts, the spirits operating. But Coffin recognized it as human relationships interlocking and interacting and setting the machine in motion.
When you thought about it, it all came down to people.
He picked up the piece of paper again and held it to the table lamp. ‘Wait a minute. I didn’t look at this properly before and neither did Paul. Paul misled me and he misled himself. Not my address here. My number is 5 …’
He looked again. He could just make out that there was a faint number written there.
‘No. 22.’
The murder case slipped easily into its next phase, as if it had been programmed by a computer that had access to several personal files and knew where they interacted.
Coffin was still pondering on the significance of what he had seen written on the piece of paper from Place’s jacket. He had sent jacket and paper off to the laboratories, demanding an instant report. This had arrived and a copy had been sent to Inspector Lane. As far as they could tell, the writing, by a ballpoint, was Egan’s. The paper was of poor quality and had been torn off a pad of the kind you might keep in a kitchen or by a telephone. In Place’s pocket it had picked up fluff and minute scraps of human skin and hair. It had both Egan’s fingerprints on it and those of Place, blurred but identifiable.
At the same time a determined police search for Terry Place began in the area down by the river. It was neither quiet nor unobtrusive, since it was not intended to be. The aim was to frighten Place into acting hastily. Within a further twenty-four hours, his sister, Mrs Roxie Farmer, divorcee, was taken in for questioning at Royal Hill police station, but claimed she knew nothing. In spite of an onslaught by Inspector Paul Lane, she gave nothing away.
That is, until the very end of the interview. Lane had been assisted by a woman police officer, Detective-Sergeant Phyllis Henley, a thickset girl, whom he had called in because she was an old friend or enemy of Roxie whose own life had not been without criminal excitements.
On the table between the two police officers, in view of Roxie, lay the forensic report on the jacket found in Roxie’s house.
‘Come on now, Roxie, you know me.’ Sergeant Henley prided herself on her power to prise out information by a mixture of persuasion and light bullying like the icing on a cake, and although this had never worked particularly well with Roxie in the past, this was no reason not to try it now.
Roxie stayed silent as if she was determined not to be cozened, but she shifted uneasily in her chair.
‘You can trust me.’ Roxie looked sceptical, but still said nothing, just another little fidget. ‘If I say we know your brother has been with you, then you can believe we do know. And if I say we think you know where he is now, then you can believe we know that too.’ It was a long speech for Sergeant Henley, who relied on smiles and sighs and significant silences. And then a snap. The snap came now. ‘Roxie, you had a tweed jacket hanging in your hall and that tweed jacket was worn by him very recently.’ She did not add that it had blood on it, although she knew that too, having just read the forensic report.
Roxie shrugged.
‘Something sharp cut the pocket lining. Lost a kitchen knife, have you, Roxie?’
Roxie looked sullen.
‘Threaten you with it, did he, Roxie? Where’s your daughter, Roxie? Sent her away, haven’t you? Threaten her with the knife, if you talked, did he?’
Roxie found her voice. ‘Shut up, you.’
Sergeant Henley gave the Inspector a quick triumphant glance. ‘I think I could make a guess where your daughter is, and probably so could he. I know where your aunt lives. He’s better caught. Tell us where he is then, Roxie.’
Roxie set her mouth firmly in
