LITMIR.BIZ

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backed by the uniformed men. Let them get on with it. They had radio telephones, fax machines, and a computer network to help them. He could let them get on with it.

      That said, he had enjoyed being a detective, puzzling out the truth of a crime, looking for the evidence and then putting one patient piece after another into the jigsaw until he had the truth. After that came the job of getting a case together and conviction in the courts, and there, he had to admit, he had not always been successful. There were one or two men and several women walking around who had escaped the law. They probably hated him just as much as if they had gone down. He got several hate letters a week. More sometimes. This too did not disturb his sleep.

      Stella Pinero, however, could always disturb him, and she did so now. The telephone rang by his bed, waking him up.

      ‘Stella?’

      ‘Yes, of course, it’s me.’

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘Come down and have breakfast with me and I’ll tell you.’

      ‘I don’t eat breakfast.’

      ‘Not true. I’ve seen you having a croissant and coffee at Max’s.’

      ‘Well, I wasn’t going to do that today. I’m in a hurry.’ Not quite true, but if Stella detained him too long, then he would be. Holding the phone away from his ear while he removed the cat from his chest where Tiddles seemed to have spent the night, he could hear her voice still talking. ‘Peace, Stella, I will come down. Put the coffee on.’

      When he rang her bell, she opened the door at once, looking businesslike in spectacles with her long hair tied back.

      ‘I like you looking like that.’ He kissed her lightly on the cheek.

      ‘Like what? Come into the kitchen.’ The smell of coffee was floating towards them. Other people’s coffee always smelt better than your own and Stella’s could be relied upon. She had learnt how to make a good rich brew in her first job as ASM to Douggie Fraser, who liked his food, and had kept up the standard.

      ‘Like a power lady. You are a power lady.’

      ‘Have to be.’

      Stella had not slept well but she had turned her wakefulness to good use. She had risen, showered and dressed in her white linen track suit, and then settled down with her notebooks. There was always plenty of work to do, it seemed to get more not less as her ambitions and those of Letty Bingham flowered. Also, Letty was always mean about money and kept the theatre on a rolling budget which demanded Stella’s constant vigilance to avoid going cap in hand to Letty.

      Cash was always one of her preoccupations. Hence the Festival, the Charity Night which the Friends of the Theatre were organizing (up to them in theory, but in practice Stella liked to keep a sharp eye on what was going on … there was trouble about tickets, they would keep allocating the best seats to their own friends), and the Workshop for Students which Gus was about to conduct, and she’d kill him if he misbehaved. A good grant from Thameswater Educational Authority was involved here, they mustn’t lose it.

      ‘Come on then, tell me what’s worrying you.’ He had finished his first cup of coffee and was holding his cup out for another. He had his own worries. Before coming over to her, he had taken a quick look at his fax sheets. There was a fire in the tunnel near the Spinnergate Tube station and a train, complete with several hundred early commuters, was held up there. A man had just reported that he had blown his wife’s head off with a shotgun in his house in Poland Street, Swinehythe, and the coachload of tourists was still missing. Two potentially major incidents boiling up, with the only good bit of news being a late fax suggesting that the man in Poland Street was a fantasist who had no wife and no gun.

      Briefly, Stella told him. He heard her out, then put his coffee-cup down smartly. Suddenly the coffee sat sourly on his palate.

      ‘Damn, oh damn.’

      She was surprised at the force of his reaction, but not alarmed. ‘You take it seriously, then?’

      Oh yes, he did. But this did not seem the moment to tell Stella about the arrival of a suspected child murderer in Spinnergate.

      ‘Come on, let’s go and look at this dog.’

      For a moment, he considered bringing in the whole CID apparatus. Scene of Crime officer and all. But what crime? None had as yet been committed. Assault on a stuffed dog hardly seemed to be enough.

      ‘Bring the trowel you used before and a pair of gloves.’ He wouldn’t handle anything himself, and traces of Stella must be all over everything already.

      It was a perfect spring morning with a pale blue sky and a soft breeze. Just the morning for a little digging.

      Stella led him round to The Albion, and pointed out the site of the burial. ‘There, under the tree. You can see the earth is heaped up.’

      ‘Yes.’ Earth was sprinkled over the grass. ‘Anyone could see.’

      ‘I thought I left it tidier than that. It was darkish, though.’ And she had been upset.

      There was movement behind them, and there was Nell Casey, holding her son’s hand. He was wearing an immaculate pair of jeans and a shirt with TOM embroidered on it. No trouble in identifying who he was, thought Coffin.

      ‘Good morning. Saw you from the window. So we’ve come to look.

      ‘Should the boy be here?’ asked Coffin bluntly.

      ‘Can’t leave him, Sylvie’s just popped round to the deli to get some milk and croissants.’

      ‘Well, take him for a walk while I do some excavating.’

      But Tom had spotted something. Wrenching his hand away from his mother’s, he ran over to the bushes.

      ‘Bonzo, Bonzo,’ he cried in triumph, pointing to a low branch on the cotoneaster. ‘Bonzo in the bushes.’

      There, suspended by his neck, looking a wreck, yet somehow quite relaxed and comfortable, was dear stuffed Bonzo.

      Tom seemed unmoved and unalarmed by the damage done to Bonzo; perhaps with a child’s selective vision he did not even notice. He reached up and plucked Bonzo down, holding him firmly to his bosom. Nell made a noise of protest but her son ignored her.

      Coffin looked from him to the little tumulus, then turned to Stella. ‘Open it up. Let’s see what we’ve got here.’

      ‘Well, nothing, I suppose.’

      ‘I’m not so sure.’

      Stella knelt down and got to work. She regretted the green stains on her white trousers but this was no time to be selfish.

      ‘With gloves,’ commented Coffin. He ought to have been feeling better about things, just a joke of a dubious nature here after all, but he had that nasty feeling at the pit of his stomach that suggested otherwise.

      Slowly, with nervous hands, Stella moved the earth away until the cardboard box was uncovered. ‘Still there,’ she said.

      ‘I see that.’ Coffin knelt down beside her. ‘Give the gloves to me.’ Without disturbing the box in situ he lifted the lid which was lined with plastic film. It came away with a little sucking noise as if it had got stuck.

      Inside was one small, perfectly formed child’s hand. Severed at the wrist.

      And streaked with blood. A bloody hand.

CHAPTER 5

       March 6 contd

      ‘Stella, take Nell and the child upstairs.’ Coffin’s voice was rough with tension, ‘take her up there and keep her up there. I don’t want her to come down again.’

      ‘Right, come on, Nelly.’

      ‘I

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