Eve of Destruction: A Harry Devlin Mystery

by Edwards, Martin

  From somewhere inside the house, an infant voice experimented with a pleading whine about a dinosaur. She shrugged. ‘If you want.’

  As he stepped inside, she banged the outside door shut and at once the brightness and warmth of high summer became a memory. Following her into a hallway overlooked by a gallery, he could see that interior designers had been hard at work, co-ordinating the beige rugs which covered much of the stone-slabbed floor with tied-back curtains and plentiful soft furnishings. Yet they had not been able to conquer the draughts or the darkness. Everywhere he turned he saw heavy oak panelling. The pungent whiff of wood polish assailed him and he could taste the bitterness of the air on the tip of his tongue. Even the larger windows were leaded slits which filtered out the sun. He had the impression that the walls were closing in all around and he found himself itching as he might have done if trapped within the Empire Dock lift, If sounds heavenly, Becky had said. To Harry, St Alwyn’s was closer to hell.

  Not looking where he was going, he tripped over a toy car. As he picked himself up, he caught the eye of a small teddy bear which had also been left on the floor. The bear’s expression seemed to mock his clumsiness and, absurdly, he felt himself blushing.

  ‘Better mind your feet,’ the girl said. ‘I’ve given up trying to tidy after the little boy. He leaves things everywhere.’

  The child cried again. ‘Back in a minute,’ the girl called. She glared at Harry.

  ‘Sorry. I’ve come at a bad time.’

  She paused and looked him in the eye. ‘I’m beginning to think there’s never a good time.’

  An unexpected chill of guilt made him shiver. I shouldn’t be intruding. Why do I always have to interfere? There were spots of colour on her cheeks. At first he thought her mood was merely one of blind anger, but her defeated tone made him realise that she was also in despair. In his professional life he had seen many victims and he could recognize that something had crushed her. This was a girl who had suffered humiliation. For an insane second he was seized by the urge to clutch her and to try to offer words of consolation, to say that he was well aware she was being unjustly suspected of sleeping with her boss. But as her flip-flops slapped across the stone floor, he told himself that he could not take everyone’s problems on his shoulders. He found it hard enough to cope with troubles of his own.

  The girl knocked on a door at the far end of a passageway. ‘I must see to him.’ She grimaced. ‘Her ladyship will be with you in a minute.’

  She turned on her heel and hurried away moments before the door swung open with a bad-tempered flourish. ‘What is it now?’ Emma Revill snapped. When she saw Harry standing in front of her, she gaped for a moment, then made a valiant effort to recover her poise. ‘Mr Devlin. This is a surprise.’

  He moistened his lips and wondered why he had not rehearsed a script for such an encounter. ‘Sorry to turn up unannounced. I was passing by and – er, I simply thought I’d take the opportunity to check whether you’ve had any luck with a locum. I assumed Dominic would be here. I didn’t want to interrupt you if you were busy.’

  She forced her strong features into a smile that did not extend to her eyes. Her arms hung stiffly by her side and the rest of her body was taut as if she were controlling her temper with a huge physical effort. He was sure that only a few minutes had passed since she had exchanged harsh words with the girl. It was not difficult to imagine her face twisting with anger as she confronted the nanny with the accusation of stealing her husband and her cold contempt when offered a stuttering denial. ‘Not at all,’ she said tightly. ‘It’s good to see you. Do come in to my office.’

  Her room was dominated by a desktop screen, photocopier and fax machine. A year planner on the wall was festooned with circles and oblongs of a dozen different colours. A touch of pride entered her voice as she said, ‘So what do you think of St Alwyn’s? This used to be the vestry, you know.’

  He glanced at the spreadsheet she had put on top of a four-drawer filing cabinet and said truthfully, ‘I’d never have guessed. As for the house as a whole – I’ve never been anywhere like it.’

  She seemed pleased by this. ‘I’m so sorry I was abrupt when you knocked, I didn’t realise …’

  ‘As a matter of fact, your nanny kindly showed me the way. I think I caught her at a difficult moment.’

  Emma set her jaw again. ‘It’s always a difficult moment with her,’ she said sharply. ‘The girl simply doesn’t understand the pressures on a working mother – even one whose office is at home. I finally lost patience half an hour ago and put her on a week’s notice. Frankly, I was a fool ever to employ the wretched girl.’

  Psychometric tests let you down, did they? he was tempted to ask. Aloud, he said, ‘If it’s easier, I can give you a ring another time.’

  ‘We’ll come back to you shortly,’ she said. No question: she was struggling to be businesslike at a time when she simply was not in the mood. ‘Just as soon as we have finalised the shortlist of candidates for you and your partner to interview. Dominic has it all in hand, I can assure you.’

  The glib salestalk did not disguise her involuntary wince as she mentioned her husband’s name. Perhaps she was reminding herself that in fact he had very different things on his mind. He studied her: a woman in her forties, torn between a small child, a demanding business and an unfaithful spouse. He had no doubt that underneath the carefully applied make-up, her face was deeply lined. Emma Revill, he sensed, was all too well aware that Dominic had found himself a mistress, so she had sacked the girl she regarded as her rival. The snag was, she had picked on the wrong culprit.

  When he arrived back in the office, Lucy said that Steven Whyatt was already waiting for him. He had asked her if he could listen to the most recent cassette tape, so she had left him in the spare room with a portable recorder. As soon as he put his head round the door, Harry could tell that Whyatt’s nerves were on edge. He was fiddling with a piece torn from a page of the old magazine on the table in reception and his face was the colour of chalk.

  ‘This – this can’t go on,’ he said as soon as he’d sat down in Harry’s room. ‘She really is planning to murder me! I found it impossible to believe at first. But the more I think it over, the more things seem to fit together.’

  ‘Such as?’

  The Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘Take – take one example. You remember my attack of food poisoning the other day? I don’t believe it was an accident after all!’

  ‘The same thought occurred to me.’

  ‘She’s dangerous, isn’t she?’ Whyatt bit his lip. ‘I never dreamed she would actually go so far when I …’ He coloured with embarrassment and did not complete the sentence.

  Harry gave him a curious look. ‘This man she’s seeing, Dominic Revill, he seems as appalled by your wife’s intentions as we are. I should tell you that I’ve met him. His firm has offered to do some recruitment work for us, as it happens. I don’t care for him, but I don’t believe he’s a potential killer. Even so, we need to decide what to do – and without delay. The first question is whether we go ahead with preparing the papers for a divorce. Have you decided?’

  Whyatt squirmed in his chair. ‘I – I don’t see that I have any choice. How can I even feel safe in her company again? And yet I’m desperately worried about the financial implications. I’ve explained to you already how much my business means to me.’

  He paused, as if hoping that Harry was about to offer an answer to his prayers. It was a perfect cue. ‘I’ve been thinking about that and the law may offer a solution.’

  Whyatt’s eyes widened and he leaned forward, almost theatrically absorbed in what Harry was saying. ‘Which is?’

  ‘A few years ago the courts heard a case called Evans v. Evans. A woman who had been convicted of conspiring to murder her husband had the nerve to ask for more money from him. They turned her down flat. Your case is less straightforward. There has been no criminal trial, let alone a conviction. There’s no proof that she
tried to poison you with the seafood cocktail, though it has occurred to me that a woman working in a medical practice must have access to plenty of means of murder. Even so, the evidence of the tapes strikes me as compelling. There are no children and on the figures you’ve given me, Becky hasn’t contributed much to the marital home or family expenses. You said she treated her own wages as pocket money.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Whyatt said. He relaxed back in his chair, his eyes gleaming with the satisfaction of one who has heard what he wanted to hear.

  ‘One other thing. I reckon the time has come for you to tell the police and let them listen to the tapes.’

  Whyatt frowned. ‘I’d need to think about that.’

  Harry folded his arms. ‘Believe me, it would be the sensible …’

  ‘If she loses out on the divorce, that will be punishment enough.’

  ‘Without an effective police investigation into the whole business, I can’t guarantee how a court will regard the tapes.’

  His client was beginning to twitch with agitation and the Adam’s apple was on the move once more. ‘The conversations I’ve heard are clear enough. What more could a court want?’

  Harry rubbed his chin. He felt Whyatt was a man he would never understand. ‘She’s trying to talk your brother into killing you. Quite apart from the impact on the matrimonial case, that must be something the police need to know about.’

  ‘Jeremy would never do it.’

  ‘Not even if he saw it as a means of making the deal with Verdant Pastures?’

  ‘He’s my flesh and blood!’

  Harry smacked his palm on the desk. ‘I’ll be blunt with you. I’ve met half a dozen murderers who didn’t disturb me as much as your brother. Remember how he threw that garden tool at the kid who works for you? And there’s one other thing. He’s killed before.’

  ‘That was different! An accident, not murder in cold blood. I – I really would rather avoid involving the police. It won’t do either Jeremy or Becky any good at all. I’ll talk to her this evening. I’ll explain that I know the truth about her affair and her – other plans. I’ll see if we can reach agreement on a clean break. No!’ He raised his hand to forestall Harry’s objection. ‘It may be blackmail, but I know what makes my wife tick.’

  ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Mr Devlin, I need to drive a hard bargain, but I don’t want to see Becky in jail. And despite everything that has happened, I have to remind myself of one thing. There was a time when I loved her.’

  Harry gazed silently at his client and wished he could believe him.

  On his way back to his room after showing Whyatt out, Harry put his head round his partner’s door. Jim was sitting at his desk. A mound of files squatted in front of him, but he was staring at the wall.

  ‘How’s John?’

  ‘What? Oh, fine, thanks. He had his appendix out and everything has gone smoothly. I rushed round to the hospital as soon as I heard the news this morning and I only landed here again a few minutes ago. He’s in good shape, all things considered. Of course, I’ll be visiting him this evening.’

  ‘And Heather?’

  Jim coloured. ‘She’s fine, too. Panicked a bit when the boy was in pain. All mothers do. Now the worst is over, she’s counting her blessings. I haven’t come in for the third degree.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Lucy, now, she’s different. How much does she know – about last night?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m sure of that, though leaving your briefcase here wasn’t a smart move.’

  ‘You may remember that I had a lot on my mind when we left this place last night.’ Jim sighed. ‘She’s been cross-examining me. Quite subtle, as you would expect, but I can tell she thinks something is amiss.’

  ‘Trouble is, she’s known both of us a long time, but I’ll swear she has no idea about you and Lynn. Have you spoken to her, by the way?’

  ‘Lynn? No, no. I haven’t called her and she hasn’t called me.’ Jim gnawed at his lower lip. ‘Matter of fact, I’ve picked up the phone a couple of times, started dialling her number once. Then I put the receiver down. Decided it wasn’t a good idea.’

  ‘No.’

  Jim hesitated. ‘About last night – I wanted to say thanks.’

  ‘Nothing to thank me for. It’s forgotten.’

  ‘Not by me,’ Jim said softly. ‘Not by me.’

  Every now and then in Harry’s life, the work ethic – his equivalent of the red mist – descended and he took a stack of files home for the night. ‘When do you get any work done?’ was a constant refrain from lawyers in other firms who were well aware of his passion for extra-curricular mystery-solving. Yet sometimes, away from the confines of the courtroom and the demands of his office diary, he would crouch over his desk in the flat until the small hours, fuelled by a zest that was often elusive between nine and five. This evening was the same, although he admitted to himself that catching up with the backlog was the best way of keeping his mind off the mysteries which still intrigued him about Steven Whyatt and his marital difficulties. He spent a couple of hours sifting through paperwork, but thoughts about his client were never far from his mind. Never mind all the talk about the construction of labyrinths, he reflected as he dredged through a turgid expert’s report, the law was the greatest maze of all.

  Finally he admitted to himself that this time his heart was not really in it. On an impulse, he picked up the phone and dialled Kim Lawrence’s number. Her cool voice came on the answering machine: ‘Sorry there’s no-one available right now. If you’d like to leave your name and number, I’ll call back as soon as I can.’

  He put the phone down, then cursed his own cowardice and dialled again. When the tone sounded after Kim’s message, he spoke with a soft urgency. ‘It’s Harry. I’d like to have the chance to talk to you sometime. I don’t see what we have to lose. Anything’s better than letting things simply slip away, don’t you agree? I hope so. If you do, please get in touch.’

  Would she respond or not? Enough, he told himself. There was no point in agonising. His ankle was beginning to throb and, pouring himself a drink, he settled down to Detour a film that fascinated him by its sheer awfulness. He could identify with Al Roberts, the hapless pianist whose clumsiness caused the death of the rich man who gave him a lift and then of the girl who blackmailed him into assuming his victim’s identity. Everything Al did plunged him deeper into the pit of despair. Each time Harry saw the film he flinched as Al, trying to escape his destiny, inadvertently strangled the drunken Vera with a telephone cord. Who had written this rubbish? Yet even on a third or fourth viewing he still found it compelling and as Al moped in Reno in the closing reel, Harry found himself sleepily anticipating the piano player’s final words: ‘Fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all.’

  The shrill of the telephone woke him. He’d been dreaming about Kim and his first fuzzy thought was that it must be her, ringing back at last. His whole body, let alone the damaged ankle, felt sore and stiff and he realised that he had fallen asleep in his armchair. Craning his neck so that he could see the clock, he saw that it was ten past six.

  He stumbled to the phone and muttered, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Harry Devlin?’ The croaking voice belonged unmistakably to Steven Whyatt.

  ‘Mr Whyatt? Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s urgent. The police gave me your number.’

  ‘The police? What – what’s happened?’

  ‘Becky’s dead. She’s been murdered. And she’s not the only one.’

  After

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘I – I simply can’t take in that she’s dead,’ Steven Whyatt said. They were in the conservatory at the back of his house, sipping coffee. From the wicker chairs they could look out upon a garden ablaze with colour. On such a day and in such a place, the horror of the triple murder at St Alwyn’s seemed to belong to another world of nightmarish unreality.


  Harry had always found Whyatt enigmatic and difficult to like, but he understood, better than most men could ever do, the confusion and despair that his client must be feeling. He cast his mind back to that dreadful day when two policemen had broken the news of Liz’s murder. Time had, thank God, faded the memory just a little, but he could recall the daze in which he had walked along the waterfront that bitter February morning, unable to comprehend that never again would he see the woman he had adored.

  There, of course, lay the difference between the two of them. Whyatt had never, surely, felt the devotion to Becky which Harry had for Liz. Hardly surprising, in the circumstances, yet there was no doubt that the news had hit him hard. His hands had been shaking as he poured from the cafetière and he seemed to have aged overnight. Even if he was not consumed by grief, there was no denying that his high brow was deeply furrowed with dismay. Harry thought he could detect fear in the jerky way his client had spoken about the killings. Could these be signs of guilt? The police would undoubtedly regard Whyatt as a prime suspect. He said they had taken him to the station at midnight and questioned him in detail about Becky and the marriage and they had made it clear that they would talk to him again before too long. Prior coming out here, Harry had listened to the news on the local radio. Few details had so far been released by the police, but it was immediately apparent that this was one of the most sensational crimes to hit Merseyside for many a day. A multiple killing in a converted church meant the press were bound to have a field day. As well as Becky, Dominic Revill was dead and so was the nanny whom Harry had met the previous day. The investigating officers would be under enormous pressure to come up with a result.

  Harry looked miserably around him. The décor in the Whyatt’s home reflected Becky’s taste, of that he was sure. Steven would not have chosen the fussy floral pattern on the blinds, far less the soft focus David Hamilton photographs which covered the walls. He could see a magazine rack crammed with her romance magazines, smell the pot pourri which she had placed in a bowl near the door. If he shut his eyes he could almost believe she was present in the room, imagine the caress of her voice on the telephone and the ingenuous look in her innocent eyes.