A Coffin for Charley
When three young women are murdered, Inspector John Coffin must investigate the past to unravel the present. From one of the most universally praised English crime writers, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.Annie Briggs, whose evidence as a child was responsible for convicting two killers, feels a sense of unease and fears she is being watched. She then discovers that the murderers have been released and are living nearby. Annie is terrified and dreads the revenge she knows will come. When three young women are murdered, Inspector John Coffin is challenged to connect the present-day incidents to the past.
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GWENDOLINE BUTLER
A Coffin for Charley
Published by HarperCollinsPublishersLtd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers
Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1993
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Gwendoline Butler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780006478904
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2014 ISBN: 9780007545421
Version: 2014-07-02
‘So I said to Charley …’ Traditional theatrical cover-up when the speech drops dead.
CONTENTS
A brief Calendar of the life and career of John Coffin, Chief Commander of the Second City of London Police
John Coffin is a Londoner by birth, his father is unknown and his mother was a difficult lady of many careers and different lives who abandoned him in infancy to be looked after by a woman who may have been a relative of his father and who seems to have acted as his mother’s dresser when she was on the stage. He kept in touch with this lady, whom he called Mother, lodged with her in his early career and looked after her until she died.
After serving briefly in the army, he joined the Metropolitan Police, soon transferring to the plain clothes branch as a detective.
He became a Sergeant in 1958, and was very quickly promoted to Inspector a year later.
By 1969 he was a superintendent and nine years later became Chief Superintendent.
There was a bad patch in his career about which he is reluctant to talk. His difficult family background has complicated his life and possibly accounts for an unhappy period when, as he admits, his career went down a black hole. His first marriage split apart at this time and his only child died.
From this dark period he was resurrected by a longish period in a secret, dangerous undercover operation about which even now not much is known. But the esteem he won then was recognized when, in the late 1980s as the Second City of London was being formed, he became the Chief Commander of its Police Force. He has married again, very happily, to an old love, Stella Pinero. He has also rediscovered two siblings, a sister and a brother.
Monday. Towards the river
Darkness.
The two people stood facing each other. The girl with her back to the wall, the man looking at her, legs apart. He held out his hands.
‘I never like being killed,’ said the girl. She moved her hands forward as if to protect herself. She had long beautiful nails, painted bright red; on her left hand was a deep, diamond-shaped scar. Almost as if she had been branded.
‘It’s happened to you before?’
‘Several times. I’m the type, I suppose, and I never enjoy it. It’s so awkward. They never get it right.’
‘They?’
‘The killers.’
‘Oh, I will get it right. Think of all the things I’ve been doing … Watching you, admiring you, loving you, hating you. I’ll get it right.’
‘You will?’
‘I’ll get it so right you’ll never know you are dead.’
Quite a promise.
Darkness absolute.
‘Shall we move in for the kill?’
But he wouldn’t be killing her just yet. For that, she would have to wait. Wait in hunger, wait in darkness.
Light.
One light, a spot above the dressing-table, focused on the lovely face of Stella Pinero, actress, now for a single rocky year Mrs John Coffin. An up and down year. But she forgave her husband. As always, she had contributed her share.
I must put a bit more lipstick on; I’m looking pale. I blame last night. Possibly blame was the wrong word, not one to be associated with the evening before. Sex was good for you and improved the complexion, but sometimes fatigue made you pale.
