Coffin in Fashion by Gwendoline Butler

Author:Gwendoline Butler
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

Out of Decimus Street, and round the corner into Paradise Street, and immediately he was back in his childhood, eight years old and with itchy feet.

Until this moment he hadn’t remembered that he had actually been here before. It was a fabled street, but for him it had been forbidden territory. But now he could smell and feel the past of that boy. He had been here before, and on a hot afternoon. Did he remember cricket with a bat from Woolworth’s and the wicket marked in chalk on that brick wall? There had been a barrel-organ playing then, he was sure of it.

No barrel-organ now, but pop music bouncing from a transistor through an open window.

He walked slowly down the pavements. No front gardens in Paradise Street; the flat-faced little houses fronted straight on to the road. He knew well that you opened the front door to walk into the kitchen. In the old days, Grandma was usually propped up on an upright chair and sat in the open door to enjoy the street scene. All day.

A few doors were open tonight, but he couldn’t see any old ’uns. He was looking for Brenda Blond.

He had heard the name Blond, Dagmar, through Gabriel and stored it in the back of his mind. Dagmar was a friend of Rose Hilaire’s. Blond didn’t sound like a Paradise Street name, especially with Dagmar thrown in. Surely they had all been Blackers, or Tickles or Sprotts. Or those that got to Hook Road School. Of course, there were always the others who never went to school, who never declared themselves, but lived out their lives very privately, avoiding the school officer, the rent man, the army, and sometimes even prison.

The two elements, those who more or less kept the rules and those who never tried, had always lived side by side in Paradise Street.

Old Eddie Mosse had been a strange man to come out of Paradise Street. And yet perhaps not, because the more you looked at Mosse the odder he became. What he was looking at was not a murderer, but a man at the roots of murder. A man who attracted crime. Who perhaps found it attractive.

A beautiful metallic green sports car was parked at the kerb. A rich car for Paradise Street; he looked at it curiously, noting the number automatically. There was a boy sitting in the car. A fair-haired, beautiful boy.

A yard in front of him a door opened smartly and two women emerged; both made for the car. If they saw him, he was of no significance.

‘Rose, don’t be too upset. You’re going to end up lucky, I can feel it.’

‘I’m going to kill him.’

‘No, Rose, not even in joke do you say that.’

‘He let me down.’ She was looking directly at Coffin now, but was not seeing him.

‘Men always do let you down.’ The authentic voice of Paradise Street talking.

Rose Hilaire had observed Coffin properly now, and knew what she was seeing.

‘I told you from the beginning that Joe Landau was no good for you.

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