Coffin Underground. Gwendoline Butler

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was this?’

      Bernard worked it out. ‘About three years ago. Just over.’

      ‘One of life’s little mysteries,’ said Coffin.

      Then the talk turned to other things, and he buried the story of Malcolm Kincaid, student, at the back of his mind.

      One of those puzzles you think about in the middle of the night and can never decide on an answer. It could go in the drawer with Mr Qualtrough of Men-love Gardens East, and where was the axe that killed the Bordens?

      He thought a bit about William Egan the grudge-bearer, and kept on his guard, but there was no sign of him. Nor any movement in the undergrowth of the local criminal jungle that might show his passage. Once or twice he thought he saw Mrs Brocklebank, that conveyor of news around the town, giving him a thoughtful look as if she knew something he did not, but that probably meant nothing more than that she was news-gathering.

      He liked the new flat in Church Row, where over the roofs and through the trees he could see the top of the clipper, the Cutty Sark. At the moment the trees blocked his view, but in winter when the leaves had thinned he would be able to see the intricate rigging of the ship. He liked that thought. Living here was bringing him back to an area he had known as a boy and where he had worked at the beginning of his career. It was a part of London for which he retained an affection. For ten years he had been living away from the suburb, he had moved off deliberately, there were mixed memories, some good and just a few downright painful, but now he was glad to be back. It felt like home. It was amazing how life stitched itself together again into a piece if you gave it a chance.

      Every time he walked down Church Row on the way to work, he took a look at No. 22. It had been empty for some months since the last tenants had left. Then one day he saw the windows had been washed and plants put in the window-boxes. It was spring, they were daffodils. Yes, said Mrs B., the owner and his family are coming back. Edward Pitt had retired from the FO; he had been working at the United Nations. John Coffin was looking forward to meeting him again, a friendly, vital man, as he recalled. The whole family was interesting. People said they were artistic and amusing. They had a few critics too, but that was understandable. There had been ‘family’ problems, whatever that meant, but even the easiest of families did not always see eye to eye. Interesting to watch how they got on in No. 22, where by all accounts they had never lived much. He might find out what they knew of the story of the three students. He looked down at the front steps. No real sign of blood.

      Blood.

      He had got his life settled: he had got someone reliable to clean his place in Mrs Brocklebank, who, he now realized, ‘did’ for most of the road, and who had really acquired him rather than the other way round; and he had arranged for two newspapers to be delivered daily, and had settled on a milkman who also sold bread and eggs. You could live on bread, milk and eggs if you had to. Everything was in train. The only drawback was that Mrs Brocklebank would not iron his shirts. Or anything of his.

      ‘I do Brock’s and that’s my lot.’ It was the first time he had realized there was a living Mr Brocklebank; he had supposed her to be a widow. She had the vigorous healthy look of a woman who lived for herself alone.

      He tried drip-drying his shirts himself, but he liked the cuffs ironed. He tried ironing them himself. It was easy if you didn’t scorch them. He did scorch them. Quite often. Too often.

      He sought help.

      Mrs Brocklebank surveyed the burnt offerings without sympathy. ‘It’s quite simple if you keep the heat on the iron adjusted.’

      ‘I do keep it adjusted. But it leaps up.’

      ‘I’m not a laundress myself.’ She considered; Coffin waited hopefully. ‘I suppose you could try Sarah Fleming. Sal has a good hand with the iron, she ought to have with the practice she gets looking after that brood of hers, and she’s usually glad to earn an extra pound or two.’

      He left the arrangements to her, with the result that she took away his washing on a Monday and it reappeared, neatly packaged and with the bill, on his doormat every Wednesday. Mrs Brocklebank acted as banker.

      Occasionally messages came back through Mrs B.

      ‘Sal says you need a new blue shirt. The cuffs are frayed and it’s not worth the trouble of ironing.’

      Sal obviously had high standards. He bought a couple of new blue shirts.

      ‘Sal says could you try not to get lipstick on your collar.’ This message was delivered with a slight smirk. ‘She says it’s hard to get off.’

      ‘It’s red ink,’ said Coffin, lying.

      Living as a bachelor, and at the moment wifeless, he was not celibate. But he felt it was his business and not Sarah Fleming’s. Sal, he decided, could look after her own affairs, if she had any apart from laundry, and leave his alone. Old witch.

      Two weeks had passed. There was no news of either William Egan or his son-in-law but the daughter had taken herself off to Spain. It might mean something, or it might mean no more than that she had had enough of both father and husband. The general feeling was that she had a right to such a reaction.

      But the Pitts had arrived home and No. 22 was looking lively. Windows opened to let the sun in, new curtains and a big car parked outside the door. John Coffin had not met them again yet, but had seen them once or twice as he passed and given a wave. Whether he was remembered or not he was unsure, but diplomacy and good manners prevailed, so that he got a wave back. Edward Pitt was tall and handsome, every bit the diplomat. With white hair he looked older than he probably was, just as his wife looked younger. Irene Pitt was still youthful, a pretty, curly-haired woman with bright eyes and skin with a shine on it. But the beauty of the family was the daughter, a slender, leggy creature of fifteen years. She had joined a smart London girls’ school and disappeared on the train every day to her studies. There was a younger boy who had been recruited to the local public school, and heaven help him there, said Mrs Brocklebank. She added the information that Mr Pitt, although retired from the Foreign Service, was going to join the foreign bureau of a London newspaper, and that Mrs Pitt, who was an economist, intended to find some work too. She was a lot younger than her husband. There were also a dog and a cat to join the household but they were at present in quarantine.

      That concluded her head count, but she added the news that the Pitts would be giving a party for friends and neighbours to celebrate their return.

      Nothing was said about the bad character of the house, but Coffin felt it hung there like a grim smile on the face of a friend.

      No sign anywhere of William Egan, but his son-in-law had been spotted once down by the river. He had got on a bus and disappeared in the direction of Woolwich before he could be stopped.

      The contact who claimed to have seen him, a GBH man of many violent episodes and many incarcerations, now going straight, said he was just standing by the river staring at the Cutty Sark.

      Thanks,’ said Coffin over the telephone to Bernard Jones. ‘I’ll keep my eyes open for him myself. I think I know his face. Red hair with a matching moustache on Place, as I remember, and a bit of a bent nose.’

      ‘You’ve got the man. And it was his wife who bent the nose. With her handbag. Like father, like daughter.’

      Bernard Jones was his hot line to what was happening inside Greenwich; it was always useful to have one, especially

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