Cold Coffin Read Online Free

new building when one of the workmen, just a lad, caught a sight of the top of the pit, a layer of stones and earth. It looked different to him, clever lad, and he told the foreman. The foreman took advice and got the area cleared. Work was stopped when they saw what they’d got, it’s still stopped. The archaeologists have taken photographs.’
    â€˜Observant, that workman.’
    Coffin nodded. ‘Turned out he was a student earning a bit of money. And interested in the past. He got more than he expected. But he says he isn’t going to waste it . . . going to write it up.’ He poured himself a drink. ‘I had a talk with the lad himself, asked to see him.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Says he knows you.’
    â€˜No! What’s his name?’
    â€˜Eddy Buck.’
    Stella raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes, I know him . . . Or I know his mother, she works in our wardrobe. She’s clever too. He’s done some holiday work there too. I believe he can’t make up his mind whether to be a doctor or an actor.’
    He could tell she liked him. Well, he was a good-looking, taking lad.
    Stella studied her husband’s face. He looked tired. ‘You miss Archie Young.’
    Archie had been gone about six months.
    Coffin smiled. ‘I’m glad he got the promotion he deserved. I wanted him to have it.’
    â€˜Nice man,’ said Stella reflectively. ‘Tough, though.’
    â€˜We had to be,’ said Coffin.
    â€˜I know that. I was alive then, too, remember.’
    â€˜And I don’t know that times have changed, either. May have got worse.’ He looked towards Stella. ‘I might need your help through this, Stella. You will help me, won’t you?’
    She nodded. ‘It’s the child, isn’t it?’
    Coffin nodded. ‘All the children, but that later one especially.’ He stood up. ‘Something terrible lies behind that head, and it didn’t happen thousands of years ago, either.’
    â€˜That’s just a guess.’
    â€˜I’m a good guesser. It comes with experience.’
    Stella watched him carefully for a moment. ‘Dearest . . .’
    Coffin stirred. She wasn’t great at endearments. The love was there, but she didn’t put it into speech. He thought that acting had cured her of showing love with words. Real love, not the stage variety.
    â€˜Dearest, this couldn’t have anything to do with the Minden Street murders. They were too recent.’
    Slowly Coffin said, ‘I’ve always thought, I’ve known, there was another generation of death behind Minden Street.’
    Stella, no cook – after all, you can’t be a performer and a cook, and I am, she said to herself, a performer – had ordered in from their favoured restaurant a fine meal of roast duck, green peas and salad.
    â€˜Let’s eat.’
    They went through to the small dining room, whose window overlooked the theatre. Three theatres in fact, one of which was dark at present. The other two had big successes and royalty was coming to one for charity. Tickets were sold out.
    This was an agreeable room, with white walls and golden curtains. Stella studied herself in the large looking-glass on the wall opposite, where she could see that her latest extravagance, a silk trouser suit from a tailor who had worked at Prada, was probably a success. You had to be cautious, because you had to grow into clothes. The important thing, after a certain age, possibly any age, was to control waist and bottom. The bust didn’t matter, because a good bra controlled it. Good meant expensive, she meditated. Her gaze flicked towards her husband, sitting there, face caught in a frown. Husbands had a risk factor too: waists were the trouble there. Fortunately, owing to the stresses of his life. Coffin lost weight rather than put it on, lucky thing.
    There was a pucker on his mouth now.
    â€˜Wine all