The Thirteenth Coffin Read Online Free

really know until after the post-mortem, but there are no signs of violence, no bullet holes, knives in the back, depressed fractures of the skull, that sort of thing.’
    Lapslie gave Bradbury a sideways glance. She knew what he was thinking and looked down at her feet.
    ‘Okay, well thanks for turning out.’
    Whitefoot nodded. ‘I thought Inspector White was on call-out?’
    ‘He is, got a stabbing to deal with.’
    ‘Really? That I suppose would also explain why I’m here. Doctor Catherall is presumably at the stabbing.’
    ‘We all have our cross to bear, Jeff. Let me have your report as soon as you can.’
    Whitefoot looked slightly indignant. ‘It will be on your desk first thing, as it always is and always will be.’
    Lapslie nodded his appreciation before walking past him to where the body was lying. He looked down at the pile of rags that had once been a human being. He often wondered how and why people ended up like this: what it was within their personalities that had allowed this to happen. But then, perhaps they were just unfortunate.
    He remembered his first sergeant, Fred Gimber. Gimber had been his sergeant when Lapslie was still a probationer. He had been a sergeant in the Royal Marine Commandos during the Second World War. Hard as nails, a man you didn’t cross lightly. Local villains were terrified of him. Yet there was this one old tramp that he looked after as if they were related. Lapslie had been with him one Christmas Day when Gimber had searched and found the tramp just so he could give him a bottle of whisky and a hundred cigarettes before driving him to a shelter in the area car to make sure he had a decent Christmas dinner. Later Lapslie had discovered that the old tramp had served with Gimber during the war and had won the Military Medal for bravery. He had stayed in the Army after the war, but had been kicked out a few years later due to a stomach ulcer. Without the formal structure of the Army, he had quickly fallen apart. He died a few years later and Gimber had paid for his funeral. Such was the man. Small gestures. If everyone took responsibility for what was within the reach of their arm then the world would be a better place.
    Lapslie guessed that if you scratched the body of the man lying before him there might well have been a similar story. Around the corpse was an array of foodwrappers, old papers, empty and broken bottles, and a worn-out haversack with ripped seams. He looked across at Jim Thomson, who had followed them to the scene. ‘So what do we know about this poor old sod?’ Thomson shook his head. ‘Nothing much. Just these.’
    He handed Lapslie several old black-and-white photos of a man with a pretty wife and two small children. It was impossible to say if the man decomposing at his feet was the same one in the photo. He turned to Bradbury, handing her the photos. ‘Try and find out who he was. Natural death or not, I would like to know.’
    Bradbury dropped the photographs into an exhibit bag that Thomson handed to her.
    ‘I’m still wondering how the hell he got in,’ Lapslie said.
    ‘We are working on that, sir.’
    ‘Don’t suppose for some bizarre reason he could have had a key? Maybe he used to be a local councillor.’
    Bradbury shrugged. ‘No idea, sir.’
    ‘Well, when we find out who he is we might have a better chance of finding out how he got in and what he was doing here, besides keeping warm and drinking.’
    Bradbury nodded. She glanced away, awkwardly. ‘There’s something else I’d like you to see, sir.’
    ‘Something connected to this body?’
    Bradbury shook her head. ‘No, I don’t believe so, sir – but odd to say the least.’ She moved away and Lapslie followed when she walked into a small antechamber just off the main room. She turned to Lapslie. ‘This room had been locked, sir—’
    ‘Nothing odd in that, Emma.’
    ‘No, sir, but it was locked with a new-style Chubb lock. Took our locksmith longer to open this door