Cold Coffin by Gwendoline Butler Page A

and diagrams . . .
    Infant skulls again . . . She hoped he would be schematic about this, and not seek likenesses. She didn’t want to see infant faces staring back at her.
    Post-mortem on Dr Murray with the Chief Commander. Nice of him to come, if he did.
    She drifted into sleep.
    Sergeant Ash was gentle with Natty and Jason. She could see they were both in shock.
    â€˜I would like to have seen my cousin . . . if it is her, it might have been someone else.’
    â€˜Had you seen her before she was killed? In the evening, I mean?’
    Natty shook her head. ‘No, she was at her own home, waiting for her husband, they were going out to dinner when he got back, I think.’
    She dealt with Dave Upping even more tactfully. He repeated the story of being in Paris, providing the address: François, Rue du Bac. ‘You can check.’
    Ash smiled and nodded. So we will, she told herself, you can count on that. ‘I expert the Chief Inspector will want to speak to you tomorrow, sir.’
    When Ash had gone, Dave accepted a strong drink of whisky and allowed himself to be shepherded to bed. ‘I won’t sleep.’
    â€˜No,’ said Natty. ‘I won’t either, but get some rest. It’s going to be a tough time.’
    She looked at her husband. ‘It’s going to be tough for us too. I’m frightened.’
    He put his arm round her. ‘We’ll come through.’
    Phoebe Astley was in the large room set aside as the Murder Room from early the next morning. Since it was a large room it was also being used by the other team she belonged to that was working on the Minden Street murders. She was now reading the transcript of Inspector Ash’s interviews. Ash had done a good job, but it was only a beginning. Phoebe would question them each herself.
    â€˜Not much to be learned from what Ash has got as yet,’ she thought, as she put the files of reports aside. After some consideration she picked up the file on the Minden Street killings. Inspector Dover and his deputy had put this and various artefacts together on a table; next to it, on a larger table, lay the women’s bloodstained clothes, together with a few personal possessions.
    Clothes after forensic examination, neatly folded and packaged in plastic bags, some blood showing.
    Shoes, handbags. Three handbags, one for each woman. These too were wrapped in plastic. Beside them, but in separate plastic covers, were lipsticks, powder compacts and several opened letters. The letters had been neatly arranged in a pile.
    Other objects had been removed from the house for forensic examination. Cups, glasses and knives and forks. There was one photograph in a silver frame. The face, that of a man, seemed familiar. ‘With love from Jack’ was scrawled across the bottom of the picture. That made it Black Jack Jackson, ten years younger.
    Reluctantly Phoebe was accepting that he was still the most likely killer of his sisters and his mother.
    She turned to the file of notes that Dover and Co. had left . . . not Dover she suspected; he had delegated that task.
    Very little had been made of the photograph, except for identifying it and adding the note that he had been interviewed.
    Then there was a list of people and addresses named in the letters with the note ‘Not yet interviewed’.
    Josie Aspinall.
    Geoff Gish.
    Mrs Lirie at the fish shop.
    Dr Murray.
    That name meant something to Phoebe, as she knew it would to Coffin. Interested to see what more she could find out, she turned to the letters.
    There was nothing she could find that appertained to Dr Murray other than her name on an envelope.
    Was the envelope to her or from her or just a note of her name? Impossible to tell, but it made a link between the two murders. Whoever had killed the other victims maybe had Dr Murray in mind.
    It was still very early morning, but she was so anxious to get in touch that she picked up the