Coffin on the Water. Gwendoline Butler

her with any luck. As I said: somebody knows her, and somebody will be missing her.’

      As John Coffin obeyed orders and walked across to the press, taking in that the girl from the Mercury had red hair and pretty ankles, he noticed an arrival.

      A smart black car drew up to the kerb from which stepped, accompanied by what ought to have been a flourish of trumpets and felt as if it had been, a burly well-dressed man. The man gave him a quick, perceptive look and passed on, coat flying. Coffin had the same feeling he’d had when he’d encountered a General on the field of batttle. It was a sparkling entrance.

      Coffin knew his name but not his face. Chief Superintendent Dander, the Supremo of the CID in this South London police district, the nearest thing to God in Coffin’s professional life, had arrived.