Coffin's Ghost Read Free Page A

taken herself off. You know his second wife was Robbie’s wife? Or one of them. So Robbie was her stepfather too and fond of her. It’s complicated. I’m always surprised that Robbie and George still work together. Money, I suppose. Anyway, the stepdaughter took off about the time George got out from his spell in prison. The girl who was hurt was a friend of hers.’
    ‘She might come back of her own accord, it can happen. Pretty kid, nice long fair hair.’ Not clever, though. Simple.
    ‘You do know all about it,’ said Stella. Of course you do, you always do, whatever you pretend. Your job.
    ‘Just heard about it, probably from Mimsie Marker, or someone, and saw a photograph somewhere.’ He looked at Stella. ‘Perhaps I’d better take myself out.’
    ‘No, don’t.’ She knew, and she understood now that he too knew, that the ‘problem’ which had been mentioned was not what happened to the stepdaughter but what had gone before.
    The other accident. Another girl who worked for him.
    And the one before that. No official complaint there but all in the dossier.
    Freedom was a man to whom accidents happened.
    Stella looked at her legs. It was funny about flesh, some days bits of you looked saggy and tired, and other days, they looked good. Today her legs looked trim and neat. Might be the new tights she was wearing from the place in Bond Street. Cost the earth but worth it.
    ‘I’ll go and put something sleek and flashy on, that’s what they like, those two.’
    ‘I’ll behave.’ Coffin gave her a wary smile.
    Coffin got back to his literary labours which he was enjoying. Nice to be free of crime for a bit. Not that the Second City was ever truly crime-free, any more than any other big city, only at the moment it appeared free from murder, rape,drugs and pornography. Someone’s put the lid on it all for a bit, he told himself cheerfully.
    And all the time, he had waiting for him on the doorstep of a battered women’s refuge, four limbs: two legs and two arms.
    George arrived first, but late (and he was usually punctual), to be received by Stella in her new Vivienne Westwood trouser suit of satin with a fringe. The soft golden colour became her, as she was well aware – she hoped George noticed, but he seemed abstracted. He accepted a strong whisky and was sipping it when Robbie turned up full of apologies for being late.
    ‘My wife would talk to me on the phone.’ He was divorced from wife number two (Mariette had been number three), but husband and wife kept in touch, more closely than he cared for at times. ‘I thought she’d never get off the line. She’s worried sick about her eldest daughter, Alice; my stepdaughter, but I’m fond of her.’ He looked at George. ‘His stepdaughter too, for that matter, we married the same woman. A beauty but a bitch. Alice is seventeen, not a kid, really. She’s gone off with her boyfriend, that’s my opinion.’ He did not go into it because he did not quite believe it.
    ‘It happens,’ said Stella. ‘Did it myself once.’
    Coffin gave her a wry look. Wasn’t with me, he thought.
    ‘She was in your outfit, Stella, for a bit. In the stage manager’s team.’
    ‘I remember her, very pretty girl. Kind of innocent, really. She’ll turn up.’
    Robbie nodded. He hoped so. ‘Her mother is worried, they had a quarrel before she left.’
    ‘She’s always been a trouble, that girl,’ said George over his whisky. He had no children himself, although several times married. ‘And you know it.’
    ‘It’s all money,’ said Robbie gloomily. ‘Always about money. Her mother says she spends too much, I say they both do. But the girl’s not bright.’
    ‘Money,’ said George. ‘Don’t mention it. We all have our worries. How do you manage all this theatre complex, Stella?’
    He really wanted to know. It was one of the reasons hehad accepted to come to dinner. Apart from the fact that he liked the grub and liked to look at Stella. More than look if he