Coffin Knows the Answer Read Online Free PDF Page B

herself.’ Something in his voice made Coffin give him a sharp look. ‘I will see you have everything necessary so you are well briefed, sir.’
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    When you are dealing with the likes of Jack Miller it is good to be well prepared, Paul Masters was right enough there, so Coffin had the files on the earlier murders sent to him.
    He sat studying them.
    First: Amy Buckly.
    Second: Mary Rice,
    Third: Phillida Jessup, name just established. Still to be confirmed.
    Now a fourth girl, so far name unknown.
    One thing all the deaths had in common, apart from the method of murder and the rape, was that they took place in the district of Spinnergate.
    It was not like Jack Miller to show much emotion. Coffin had thought that he had trained himself to regard victims as non-people, (although he was reputed to be a good family
man and loving husband, fond of dogs too), but this case must be different.
    Amy Buckly had been found by the Close Canal, an eighteenth century construction which still carried barge traffic today. Her body was stretched, face down, in the mud and weeds on a narrow path which bordered the canal. She had been dead about six hours. Aged twenty-four, she was a school teacher who had taught a class of some twenty infants in Close Street School. She had been a pretty girl. Her Jack Russell dog had been with her on that last walk by the canal, one they often took together, so Coffin was told, and it was his return home alone to where she lived with her family that started the search. She was found by a woman police constable who had been at school with Amy.
    Ten days later, Mary Rice was found dead near the railway station she used to travel into central London every day to work in an office, where she had a job in IT. She was in her late twenties. She often stayed late in London after work to eat with friends, perhaps have a drink, and then come home. She had a small flat, sometimes shared with a boyfriend, sometimes alone. Currently, she had been on her own. Her body was tucked away in an alley behind the railway station where it had been found by a man going on early shift the next morning. She had been dead about five hours.
    Phillida Jessup had died just a couple of days after Mary Rice, although her body had not been found so soon. It was finally discovered on Pilling Common, a notorious place of death. She was the youngest of the three victims, a student at the local university in her first year reading for a language degree. Her body had been found in the University Botanical Gardens. Her father was a CID officer in the London Met.
    When Coffin read that he wondered if this was why Jack Miller was anxious to see him.
    He was just considering that, and turning his eyes towards the folder on the latest victim who had also been found on
Pilling Common, though not near where Phillida Jessup had turned up, when Jack Miller and Winnie Ardet arrived.
    Ever the gentleman, Superintendant Miller let Winnie walk in first. Winnie managed her usual smile but both officers looked worried.
    â€˜Thanks for seeing us so soon, sir,’ said Miller.
    â€˜Serial killings have a horror of their own,’ said Coffin with sympathy. ‘And you are sure that this is what you are handling?’
    â€˜Oh it’s one man all right,’ said Miller gloomily. ‘And a cunning one too … even if we cop him we might have a job pinning it on him. He leaves none of his blood or semen around. Pity he didn’t start operating in the Met. area. Why us in the Second City?’
    â€˜Lives or works here?’ said Coffin, making it a question.
    â€˜Not hard to get here to do the work,’ said Winnie. ‘Could start from anywhere. That’s what I think. So far, we have no evidence.’
    â€˜Certainly knows the district,’ said Jack Miller. ‘I wish he had kept out of Spinnergate. Seems keen on Pilling Common, but he isn’t the first. Probably not the last.’
    â€˜Could be one of