Coffin in the Black Museum

While he was thinking, Lætitia had finished talking and rung off. He had the feeling he was left alone in the room with Stella. Darling Stella.

She had put on a bit of weight lately, that was why she was pretending not to see him.

The telephone rang again. This time it was Tom Cowley, the gruff voice was unmistakable. Coffin had heard it frequently as the battle to preserve the Black Museum hotted up. For some time now, Tom, canny about publicity, had been running Open Days for local groups. School parties (if they wished to come and a surprising number did), women’s associations, and other bodies like the Rotarians and the Freemasons. Not to mention the press, whom Tom provided with a good strong drink paid for by funds he seemed able to tap at will. Like a lot of old policemen, Tom usually knew where to go for money.

There was a strong, if unofficial, linking between all these groups, a kind of seepage of information. Thus the Chairwoman of the Townswomen’s Guild was married to one of the local journalists, Ron Peters, a keen supporter of Tom and the Black Museum. Mrs Peters was a friend of Mrs Lupus, the deputy head of St Luke’s Comprehensive, who on the advice of her friend (‘It’s educational in the best way, Katherine, take the kids, that’s my advice’), had brought two parties to view the museum and who was married to a Rotarian who was also the builder who had constructed the flats where Coffin now lived. This couple in turn were friends of the Lord Mayor of the new Dockland City, Albert Fraser, and his young, appealingly silly wife, Agnes. And all three couples knew, although they had never spoken to, Amelia Marr who ran the small but discreet bawdy house in Petty Poland Street. Amelia had come in on her own, speaking to no one but taking it all in. Mimsie Marker, of course, knew everyone and spoke to and of them with freedom and as it suited her. She liked Tom Cowley. He was a ‘real man’.

‘Hello, you there?’ He never stood on ceremony with his old friend, not in private, anyway. ‘About tomorrow. Now I’ve been thinking: two Frenchmen, a Swede and a German, that’s a bit international for me. Do you think they speak English?’

A group of high-ranking foreign policemen were on a visit to London and the new area of Thameswater was on their visiting list. The Black Museum in Thameswater was to be inspected and a buffet lunch would be served. Not the place one might choose for a luncheon, but the truth was that Coffin’s new area was short of buildings. Architecturally speaking, he was living from hand to mouth. Some splendid new buildings were going up on a cleared area of dockland but would not be complete until next year.

‘Sure to,’ said Coffin. He did not think that Tom was as unsophisticated as he pretended to be, but he had never been quite sure. It was a good act.

‘Of course, I won’t talk to them unless I have to.’ And possibly not even then.

‘So what is it, Tom?’

‘We’re putting on a good spread. Drinks. They won’t go short on them.’

‘I knew I could trust you there, Tom.’

‘These Krauts like a drink.’ He liked one himself. ‘Not convenient to me as it happens. I had been going to watch the West Indians at the Oval.’

‘You can go later, Tom.’

‘It’s a one-day match.’

‘I thought you called those an abomination and a spoiler of good cricket.’

‘I did, but I should still have enjoyed it,’ said Tom with perverse self-satisfaction.

‘Are you all right, Tom?’

‘Have felt better. But I’m getting a few days’ leave when this bash is over. Taking the wife to Turkey for a week.’ But he had something else to say. ‘If we go, that is.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t like leaving this place.’

‘It won’t run away.’ Nor get closed down while you are away. Sometimes Tom reduced you to infantile rejoinders.

‘Don’t like leaving it unguarded. Supposing we lost something.’

Old man Marker’s boot, perhaps?

‘Not likely. Besides, you’ve got an assistant.’

‘Worse than useless, she is. Not got her mind on the job.’ Tom was not an admirer of career women, especially in an outfit he regarded as peculiarly meant for men. It was like mining, wasn’t it? Women just didn’t have the muscle, and when there was any trouble you’d want to push them behind you, wouldn’t you? ‘I’m not saying we’ve had stuff lost so far, because we haven’t, but things have got moved around, out of place. If I heard someone had been in here illegally I wouldn’t be surprised.’

‘Don’t tell me it’s haunted, Tom.’

Tom ignored this pleasantry. ‘Be a crime to let this place go.’ It was said without joking.

‘It’s not going,’ said John Coffin patiently. ‘Not exactly. It’s going to join up with the Met museum. All the contents will be preserved and displayed in a fine set of rooms. You ought to be pleased.’

But a cosy little niche that Tom Cowley enjoyed filling would be gone. Not an ambitious man, he had finally slotted himself into just the position he enjoyed in the Black Museum, where he had ruled as undisputed king. Affable and informative to all the visitors, helpful to the young constables who came in as his assistants as part of their job experience before moving on, and a careful custodian of his exhibits. The ropes, the knives, the cudgels, the assortment of guns, the very bloodstained rags of some victims were displayed by him with the reverence accorded to the remains of a Tutankhamen or a holy shroud. He had developed a manner somewhere between that of a postmaster and a librarian, with the policeman only showing when his authority was threatened. It was showing now.

‘Well,’ he said. No more, but Coffin knew what he meant.

Some time ago he had saved John Coffin’s life by providing pints of the special type of blood Coffin had needed. Just like John Coffin, his friends said, to need blood only another copper could provide. Cowley was not a man to call in a debt but the fact was there in the background. He was owed something.

‘I think the matter is settled, Tom.’ The truth was that the whole building, once the main station house for one of the largest boroughs in his new unit, the old Leathergate, was due to be demolished to make way for a new structure. The museum could have been moved to new premises, but there was a strong plea for centralization and economy.

‘It’s territory, John, you shouldn’t give away territory. Thameswater ought to have its own museum.’

He had a point there and Coffin acknowledged it, but he had other things to fight for; his new authority had to establish its identity in face of rivalry, envy, and indifference. Perhaps they should keep their own museum. Thameswater stood for the future, but it couldn’t ignore its past. A past gave you another dimension, a kind of legitimacy. And this area had always had a strong character, brawling, lively and independent.

Perhaps Tom Cowley had instinctively hit upon a truth.

‘I’ll see you at the reception, Tom.’

He put the telephone down, conscious that he had not handled the conversation well, and that one more old friend would go about saying John Coffin’s changed, promotion’s done him no good. There were a lot of other Toms in his life, men he’d started out with, served with and now left far behind.

Promotion always did change you, there was no way round it. You were changed, those around you changed towards you.

His doorbell sounded. One long commanding peal. The front door was two winding flights down; even if you hurried it took time. The bell sounded again.

‘All right, I’m coming.’

Outside was a small, sturdy boy, carrying in his arms what looked like a bronzed urn. Behind him was Mimsie, he had been right about the hat, another woman, by appearance a blood relation to Mimsie Marker, and the street sweeper, always called Alf, surname unknown. The three adults were leaving the talking to the boy.

‘We brought this to you, sir.’

‘You did? Why?’ Coffin was on his guard, it was wiser so with lads, some of whom you could trust and some of whom you couldn’t. Mimsie in the background was a kind of credential, she was far too streetwise to come near anything that might mean trouble. He thought the boy was about ten, with an alert, lively face, which might have been called cheeky once, but that expression was not so much used now. ‘What is it?’

‘Can I put it down, sir? It’s heavy.’

‘Not till you’ve told me what it is?’

‘It’s a burial urn, sir.’ The boy’s voice was serious. ‘It’s got the ashes of a dead man in it.’ He did put it down, thus demonstrating an independence of spirit which Coffin was to get to know.

‘Or woman,’ said Mimsie from the background.

‘Or woman. And we found it in the gutter. But it says St Luke’s Church, so we brought it to you.’

The urn which was of a fair size, bigger than such urns usually are, was certainly made of metal even if not of bronze. It looked more like a garden urn that had been adapted for this purpose.

But on it was a printed label: Black and Binder, Funeral Parlour. On the label was a typed address: St Luke’s Church.

‘What was it doing in the gutter?’

‘I don’t know, sir, I just found it. I found it first, and then these ladies and gentlemen came along and we discussed what to do. Then we thought we’d better bring it to you.’

A corporate decision, eh? ‘It feels too heavy to be just ashes.’ Too big, he thought.

The urn was closed by a lid with a small knob on top. Watched by the three, he tried to raise it. The lid gave easily. He lifted it up, casting aside prudence which suggested that it could be a bomb.

Then he dropped the top back quickly.

‘No, not ashes,’ he said.

Inside was a head. He saw the matted hair, the dull open eyes, the stained, blotched skin, and felt the whiff of decay. He could not tell if he was looking at the head of a man or a woman.

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