A Coffin for Charley Read Online Free PDF Page A

this?’
    â€˜The Friends of St Luke’s Theatre are auditioning for their summer play. They’re throwing it open to all this year because we’re using it as preparation for the Drama School. See who comes in, sniff out talent, get local interest.’ Money, she meant.
    The Friends, a redoubtable group of local ladies, wouldbe one of the great supports of the new Drama School if she was lucky.
    â€˜What are they doing?’
    â€˜Oh, an Agatha Christie mystery. It usually is.’
    In bed that night Stella turned to her husband. ‘It’s nice on the top of the tower like this. I think I prefer it to my place.’
    Both the animals had come up with them, Bob on the bed and the cat watching from the window through which he would shortly depart on to a lower roof.
    â€˜Open the window for Tiddles.’
    Coffin, who was making a neat pile of his possessions on his bed table, coins stacked, clean handkerchief beside the pile, keys by a pad of paper with a pencil, obliged.
    â€˜Funny business about Letty and the daughter,’ said Stella. ‘I don’t always understand her.’
    â€˜Who does?’
    Letty was his much younger sister, child of his errant mother and an American serviceman. There was a third sibling called William, issue of yet another father, who was a successful lawyer in Edinburgh. The one thing you could say about his disappearing mother (who must be presumed dead) was that her offspring were surprisingly different and surprisingly successful. He himself had lived in ignorance for years of his true parenthood and of the existence of Letty and William. Even now, he found it hard to believe in them. Well, not Letty. She was around so much. But he still felt surprise sometimes when she walked through the door.
    â€˜Did you believe what she said?’
    â€˜Well, you can never tell with Letty … No, not altogether.’
    â€˜What’s this private detective like?’
    â€˜You know him,’ Coffin said tersely. He did not like to be reminded.
    â€˜I met him once and I paid his bill, that’s all. Is he honest?’
    â€˜As far as I know.’
    Stella settled back against the pillows. Without anyconscious effort, she had turned what had been a bachelor’s masculine bedroom into a feminine boudoir. The fourposter bed, an early extravagance of Coffin’s, had been piled with pillows and silk cushions. She had brought in an embroidered bedcover and there was always a scent of rose geranium.
    Coffin liked it but sometimes felt like a member of an alien species.
    â€˜John …?’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Why did Job Titus say that about Marianna coming to the Theatre?’
    â€˜He just wanted to vomit in my backyard,’ said Coffin with some bitterness.
    There was silence for a moment.
    â€˜I don’t like this stalker,’ she said softly. ‘Charley frightens me.’
    He drew her down towards him. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’
    And Letty, and Letty’s child, and Annie Briggs and all the people in my command.
    But he knew that whatever he said he could not offer total protection. The lunatic always got through.
    Annie Briggs, formerly Dunne, was pleased to see her younger sister home. ‘How did the audition go?’
    â€˜I think I’m in. Just a small part, one of the policewomen in Witness for the Prosecution, was a man originally but they have more women auditioning. I’ve got some good lines.’
    â€˜I am glad, dear.’ And glad you are home, I am always nervous when you are out late.
    â€˜I’m in the second company.’ Anxious to take in as many young amateurs as possible, the ruling body, the Friends, had decided to have two casts who would appear alternately throughout the run of two weeks.
    â€˜You’d be surprised at the people who turned up. Even one of those Creeleys.’
    â€˜Ah.’
    Didi did not share her sister’s terror of the