Coffin on Murder Street by Gwendoline Butler

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

CHAPTER 10

Still the evening of March 16

St Luke’s Mansions where they both lived was quiet and still when Stella and John Coffin got back. Even the Theatre Workshop was dark, while the building works in the main body of the old church had the desolate air that half-finished work always has when the stonemasons and carpenters have left. But the enterprise was well under way and already, if you stood in the middle of the church, you could see that what was arising around you was an open-plan theatre. The old building was slowly taking on its new character. Badly damaged in the war, left to quietly disintegrate for a decade or so after that, it was being reborn. Hope out of ashes.

Stella yawned. ‘I’m really tired, but I must take the old dog out for his late-night walk.’

Bob was a good-natured mongrel into whose body many and diverse breeds must have contributed their genes through generations of ancestors, so that the final effect was a smallish, scruffy, rough-haired basic dog, the type from which all breeds had sprung and to which all would return if left to themselves. He was a gentle soul, but extremely quick to defend himself and those he had taken under his protection. He had once saved Stella’s life.

Coffin looked at her fondly: her hair had collapsed into wispy curls about her face, her eyes were shadowy with fatigue, and there was not a trace of make-up (Stella who was so punctilious about grooming) left on eyes or lips.

‘Send the old boy down,’ he said with sympathy. ‘I’ll take him. I’d like a stroll.’ After all, his code name, as he very well knew, was WALKER. ‘Then he can spend the night with me. Give Tiddles some company.’

‘He’ll like that,’ said Stella, yawning. ‘He’s fond of Tiddles.’

Coffin, with Bob on a leash, set out through the moonlit streets. It was the Chief Commander’s habit to make a kind of patrol of his area. Not every night, but frequently.

Soon he was marked by a patrol car, and the message went out: WALKER is loose.

Partly the message was protective, he would be watched over, but it was also a warning, he would be watched for, since it was as well to know what the Chief was doing and where. The odd cigarette, the hasty bite of hamburger, these could be tucked away if he was around. Coffin ran a tight ship and discipline was strict.

He knew what went on, of course, and knew when to turn a discreet blind eye. At the moment, with the MP on the attack, he was not ignoring anything.

Coffin, led by an eager Bob, walked towards Spinnergate Tube station. It was a good spot from which to start a walk. Closed now and quiet, the last train had gone and there would not be another for five hours, when the early morning workmen’s train rolled out. Mimsie Marker’s newspaper kiosk was locked and shuttered.

No one ever tried to break into Mimsie’s little

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