“Did she say anything about him?”
“Only the usual dreamy stuff you would expect from Liz. That he was rich and handsome and had finally agreed to dump his undeserving wife. I asked her if she was certain and that was when she told me about expecting a baby. The idea seemed to delight her. She said she could hardly believe that it was all happening to her at last. The man she wanted and a kid as well. It’s time for me to settle down, she said.”
Matt’s face had darkened as he spoke. Something in his tone, a thinly veiled anger, made Harry say, “And were you happy for her?”
“Happy? I was sick with rage and envy. There she was, prattling away about this bloke who’d stepped out of the pages of a woman’s magazine, and all I wanted to find out was who was the father of the baby.”
Startled by Matt’s outburst, Harry demanded, “Why did it matter so much to you?”
The little man lifted his head defiantly. “If you must know, I wanted to find out if the child was mine.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Harry stared at Matt in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”
“What I say.” The words were blurred and indistinct, as though they were all that remained after tears had been choked away. “Liz and I slept together. Yes, that shocks you, doesn’t it? Yet it’s true. I say “slept”, but we made love for a couple of hours and then she said she had to go. It was last Christmas Eve. You remember, when the snow fell? The shop had closed, the takings were good and we’d been celebrating, with too much to drink. Liz was on the Bacardis. Suddenly she put her arm round me and asked if by any chance I wanted her. I was lost for words, but she simply laughed and told me to hail a cab for a hotel at the other end of town. We had a room the size of a shoebox and a bed that screeched each time we moved, but none of it mattered to me. I had her and it was the moment I’d been waiting for half my life.”
He took a deep breath and continued, “I don’t need to describe how I felt. Let’s just say that all through Christmas I was in a daze. I suppose I’d loved Liz since the day I met her. Even as a kid, her smile could melt an icecap. And she was good to me, too. Teased me about my height, yeah, but never in a cruel way, just as an old mate would do. And she always kept in touch. But I never thought I’d have a chance with her, not when I was only half a man and she was able to pick and choose. On Christmas Day I woke up though and asked myself if I could make it happen after all. Could I offer her enough to make her mine? Stupid, eh? Behaving like a moonstruck teenager.
“Of course, it didn’t last. When she came back to work after New Year, it was as if we’d simply kissed and wished each other goodnight, as if nothing had occurred to change the way we were. I couldn’t fathom it at first. Then one day she said something about my Christmas present and treated me to a grin that ran from ear to ear. I realised that she’d just been doing me a kindness, that was all. To Liz it meant no more than helping a man with a white stick across the road.”
“No need to be bitter, Matt.”
The little man’s face was a fiery red. “When she told me about the baby, I couldn’t help myself. I asked if she was sure it belonged to her latest beau. She curled her lip and said that it certainly wasn’t Coghlan’s. And then, as plainly as if I could read her mind, I saw it dawn on her that I thought I might be the child’s father.”
He made a low moaning noise, like an animal in pain. For a short while neither of them spoke. Eventually he looked up and said, “God help her, she laughed. Not intentionally heartless, that might have been easier to bear. It was the sheer - I dunno - unexpectedness to her of the idea that a dwarf could ever sire a child of hers. She tried to keep her face straight and I realised that for all our times together over the years, the fun we’d had, not just in the shop and going out on the town every now and then, but back in the days when old Ma Wieczarek was alive, she’d never regarded me as a proper man. She’d been able to behave more naturally with me than with any other feller, you included, simply because she didn’t think of me as one of them. I was a midget, a member of a race apart. Then she solemnly said that she was sure I wasn’t the one responsible for putting her in the family way and wasn’t I glad that I wouldn’t have to do the decent thing and marry her? Christ, if only she knew.
“I walked out on her. There was no other option. If I’d stayed a moment longer I would have hurt her. The old red mist had descended, you understand. Believe me, right at that instant I could have murdered her and not have turned a hair.” He barked with mirthless amusement at Harry’s reaction. “Oh, yes, I know what you’re thinking. But I didn’t creep up behind her in Leeming Street. I wouldn’t have killed her in a hole-and-corner way and then slunk off to save my own neck. No, I didn’t re-open the shop that afternoon, but it wasn’t for any nefarious reason. I simply needed to try to flush her out of my system. So I went on the piss. I toured round the pubs - can’t even remember all the ones I supped in. Some kind soul chucked me into a taxi and I spent most of Friday drying out. No, Harry, you’ll have to look elsewhere for your culprit.”
“Why not tell me all this to begin with?” To his dismay he heard himself posing the same question as D.S. Macbeth. “Why did you lie?”
“Would you believe I was ashamed? And scared, but mostly ashamed. People had seen me with her in Mama Reilly’s. I must have caused a bit of a stir when I walked out, though I was fighting back the tears and didn’t take any notice. When it seemed the police hadn’t latched on to the fact that we’d been together, I made up my mind to keep stumm. I couldn’t help them, offer any clues. She was murdered hours later and I had no idea where she went afterwards. No, all I would get for mouthing off would be the third degree from tired scuffers desperate for an arrest. Funny how the mind works, builds up defences. I even convinced myself I was helping by not distracting the cops with my squalid little tale that didn’t have any bearing on Liz’s murder.”
“I wish you’d told me.”
Matt looked sheepish. “Truth is, I felt guilty as far as you were concerned. After all, you were her husband.” He sighed. “I always envied you your time with her. Still do, as a matter of fact. At least it’s there, it happened. All I have is the memory of two stolen hours. It’s more than I ever dreamed of, but it isn’t enough.”
Tracey’s purple head bobbed round the door. “It’s gone time for me break,” she said.
“With you in a minute.” Matt stood up. “Sorry. I should have been franker. I remember you once told me that Crusoe and Devlin make more money out of their clients’ lies than from the times when they forget themselves and tell the truth. But we don’t always do what we should, do we?”
Harry joined him at the door. “You can say that again.”
“Look. It must have been Coghlan. There’s no other explanation.”
“I don’t think it’s as simple as that.”
A fierce look crossed the small man’s face. “Why not? He drove her to despair and then he lost her. He’s not the sort to take that lying down.”
“Maybe not. I’ll see you, Matt.”
Harry walked through the shop and out into the morning drizzle. His head was buzzing and the sense of well-being that his night with Brenda had engendered had ebbed away. Matt’s story had rocked him; he felt more hurt by Liz’s ignorance of the little man’s secret hopes than by the news of her latest adultery.
He picked up a newspaper. Froggy’s death hadn’t even made the front page, which was devoted to ructions within the city council. He found a half-column headed riddle of tip death under Ken Cafferty’s by-line, but there was no hint to link the murder with that of Liz. Ken was too shrewd not to have sniffed out the connection once he learned that the same police team was handling the Evison case, but he had obviously been asked to keep it quiet and the report concentrated on the location of the body. A local politician had already suggested that it was all the fault of cuts in security and manning levels at the Pasture Moss site. Soon someone would be blaming the Government.
He ti
pped the paper into a litter bin and turned his thoughts to his next move. Now, at least, the pattern of Liz’s last day alive was emerging. She had risen late, tried to call him at the office, been too lazy to keep ringing and, to amuse herself, wandered into town to spend some time with Matt. When he had left her, she must have paid up at Mama Reilly’s and headed back through town. She had been in Water Street at the time of meeting Derek. More than likely, with time on her hands, she was en route for Fenwick Court. When Derek had offered her a meal at the up-market Ensenada, she must have decided to indulge in a little shopping to celebrate, and taken her haul back to Empire Dock. There she had exchanged a few words with Brenda outside the door of the flat before getting ready for the date with her brother-in-law. For the third time in less than twenty-four hours she had in her carefree way demoralised a man who had dared to believe that her leaving Coghlan opened the way for him. Might either Matt or Derek, unlike himself, have translated anger and humiliation into murderous action? Harry thrust the thought aside. Matt was right. Forget the police’s reluctance to arrest the obvious suspect. Concentrate on Coghlan.
Time to pay that gentleman another visit, Harry told himself. Make him understand that no amount of beating would throw him off the track. Force him out into the open. Pressure him into making a mistake. Confront him at the gym.
He picked up the car and drove to Brunner Street. From the outside the Fitness Centre seemed strangely lifeless. As Harry walked over from the opposite side of the road, he realised that yellow blinds had been drawn at the windows. Reaching the door he saw that the closed sign was up. Beneath it someone had scrawled in black felt tip until
FURTHER NOTICE - WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.
Baffled, he pulled at the steel handle and banged on the opaque glass pane.
He heard footsteps from inside, followed by the drawing-back of bolts and a chain. A clean-cut young man in a tweed suit that seemed a size too big and a generation too old for him finally broke his way through the security and smiled regretfully.
“The Centre’s closed today, I’m afraid.”
“So I see.” Harry craned his neck to look beyond the young man. There was no sign of the gum-chewing assistant or Paula or Arthur. On the floor of the shop front were several large cardboard boxes and a girl in a smart jacket and tight black skirt was kneeling beside them and inspecting their contents, a clipboard in her hand. “Is Mr. Coghlan around?”
The young man said, “Sorry, he isn’t. Are you a member here?”
“No, but I do need to see Coghlan. What’s going on?”
His cheeks pink, the young man said, “I’m afraid there has been a slight hiccup. My colleague and I are from the office of the joint receivers, Bowler, Goldsmith and O’Gorman. We . . .”
“Receivers? You mean the place has gone bust?”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t go so far as to . . .”
“Spare me the professional niceties, Bowler’s are my firm’s accountants.” Harry extracted an old business card from his wallet. “Don’t worry, I don’t act for Coghlan, I just need to find him. Fast.”
The girl had joined her colleague at the door. Her manner was as crisp as the cut of her short fair hair. After scrutinising the card, she said, “The bank called us in this morning. Michael Coghlan has defaulted on his loan repayments and they decided to pull the plug. Where he is, no one seems to know. The staff are upstairs, helping our people to fathom how the business works. There’s an idea it might be sellable as a going concern. Trouble is, it’s closely identified with Coghlan and there’s an unconfirmed rumour that he’s been arrested.”
“Arrested? Why?”
The girl shrugged. “No idea. Hand in the till, I suppose. That’s the usual in these situations, isn’t it?”
Harry stared at her, thinking on his feet. An arrest. Was the long search over at last? He must speak to Skinner. Or Fingall. “Can I use your phone?”
“Be my guest. Or rather, the bank’s guest.”
She stepped aside and he dialled the number of the Canning Place headquarters. Skinner and Macbeth were out, as was Dave Moulden, and the junior detective on the murder inquiry team to whom he was put through deflected his questions in a more-than-my-job’s-worth manner. Harry rang off. He would have to go there in person. On his way out, he thanked the fair girl, who had resumed the tedious chore of stock-taking.
“No trouble. Any of your clients wants to buy a gym, let George Harvey-Walker know.”
“If he believed any of my clients was rich enough to buy a business from a bank,” said Harry, “George would put up my audit fees! See you in the office some time, perhaps.”
He smiled at the girl and left. In the space of five minutes his spirits had soared. Arrested? Rumours like that didn’t spring out of nothing. Evidence must have come to light connecting Coghlan with the crime - perhaps both of them. As he crossed the road to the car he smacked the air with his fist in celebration. Now let the bastard sweat.
Before calling at Canning Place he decided to visit Coghlan’s solicitor. The reception area at Fingall’s office was crammed with a family of gypsies whose members were all trying to talk at once to the hapless secretary who had been sent out to deal with their complaint about a delay in handling some legal work on their behalf. Harry fought his way to the front and asked the small, mousy-haired girl behind the desk to tell her boss Harry Devlin wanted to see him right now.
Experienced in resisting such demands, the girl said that Mr. Fingall was down in London on an important case and wasn’t expected back that day.
“What is he . . .?”
The bleeping of the switchboard distracted the girl. She picked up the phone and said, “Fingall and Company . . . oh, yes . . . not till tomorrow afternoon? Certainly. I’ll ask Veronica to check your diary.”
Struck by the note of deference that had entered her voice, Harry leaned forward. “Is that your boss?”
Irritated at his interruption, the mousy girl nodded. “Excuse me, love.” Harry laid a hand on the receiver and pulled it from her, ignoring a shriek of protest that for a moment silenced even the grumbling gypsies in the background. “Ruby? This is Harry Devlin.”
Even at a distance in excess of two hundred miles, Ruby’s anger was unmistakable. “Devlin? What the hell are you doing butting into my conversation with a member of my own staff? You’ve - ”
“Is it true Coghlan is under arrest?”
“Still waging your crusade? You’re a fool, Devlin, I said you were wasting your time trying to pin your wife’s killing on my client.”
A sick sense of defeat engulfed Harry. Was the rumour untrue after all? The switchboard girl tried to retrieve the receiver, but he brushed her tiny hand away as if swatting a fly. “So he hasn’t been arrested?”
In a tone evasive yet indignant, Fingall said, “Mind your own business. Put me back to my receptionist.”
“Tell me one thing . . .”
The phone went dead. Harry swore and banged the receiver down on the desk. The girl glared at him and said, “Satisfied?” He grimaced and strode back through the melee to the door. One of the gypsies was apparently about to commit an act of criminal damage on the property of Fingall and Company in the hope of grabbing attention and Harry barely resisted the temptation to shout encouragement.
Outside again, he quickly decided on what to do next. He hurried over to the Magistrates’ Court round the corner and used the payphone to call Ken Cafferty. Whilst he waited he watched the scurrying of barristers and solicitors, the frantic conferences with clients, the striking of deals with the prosecution. Normally he would be in the thick of it all himself, but today the concerns of his professional colleagues seemed as remote as those of a race of extra-terrestrials in a bad S.F. movie. He was wondering if Coghlan would ever be brought to trial, when the reporter’s breeezy voice came onto the line.
“What can I do for you, pal?”
“Can you spare me a few minutes?” Harry consulted his watch. “Look, my
throat’s as dry as a bone and it’s almost opening time. We could talk in the Dock Brief in five minutes, perhaps?”
“This is about your bete noir, Mister Michael Coghlan, I suppose?”
“Right. I’m hoping you’ll be able to shine some light in the darkness.”
“Doubtful. After all, I’m a journalist. But the Dock in five minutes is all right by me. Mine’s a pint.”
“I’ll have it waiting for you,” Harry promised.
He arrived at the pub as the doors were opening and had collected the drinks when Cafferty arrived. The reporter’s cherubic face was pinker than ever and he was breathless from hurrying through the town.
“Glad to see you’re still out of jail, Harry.”
“So far.” He raised his glass. “Now tell me what’s going on. Have they arrested Coghlan for the murders or not?”
Ken Cafferty took a couple of sips and then said, “As you legal chaps like to say, on the one hand yes and on the other hand no. That is to say, he has been arrested. The Met issued a statement an hour ago.”
“The Met?” So that was why Ruby was in the capital. Harry was still mystified. “What’s it got to do with London police?”
“Everything. You see he’s been arrested on counts of attempted murder and conspiracy to steal four million quid from a security outfit in Leytonstone. The big bullion raid last Wednesday.”
Of course. Harry had read about it casually in the Bridewell.
“Apparently he was big mates from way back with some bloke who ran a heavy mob down the East End.” Cafferty sniggered, unable to resist a dig at the soft South. “Stupid bugger, he should’ve known that a gang of Cockneys couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery! Anyway, he was in the car and he took a pot shot at a have-a-go guard who was brave or daft enough to try to stop the gang. The man’s still on a life support in intensive care.” Unable to conceal his pleasure in announcing a scoop, Ken paused to finish his pint whilst Harry stared at him.
All the Lonely People Page 20
