Eve of Destruction: A Harry Devlin Mystery

by Edwards, Martin

  ‘Mr Whyatt,’ said a woman who bore a disconcerting resemblance to Glenda Jackson, ‘are you saying to us that you had no idea about what was going on between your wife and Dominic Revill?’

  ‘I – I’m not saying that, I’m simply saying …’

  Glenda pounced. ‘So you did suspect your wife of infidelity?’

  Whyatt twisted his head and glanced at the detectives lined up with him behind the desk on the makeshift platform. If he was hoping for moral support, he was disappointed. Pardoe was there, together with three more senior officers, but the face of each of them was studiously sombre. Lynn was nowhere to be seen. After speaking to Harry, she had disappeared to report back to Beeding on the latest disclosures. Perhaps Beeding was one of the old school, who did not relish the idea of a young and good-looking constable attracting more than her fair share of attention. Harry suspected that she’d be given a follow-up enquiry job arising out of the information about the tapes whilst her superiors soaked up the limelight and waited to see whether Whyatt would crack. If he had something to hide, an investigative press corps was as likely to sniff it out as a team of highly trained police officers. Although in theory the right of silence applied in the context of a public relations exercise, most journalists Harry knew interpreted reluctance to talk to them as incontrovertible proof of guilt coupled with a licence to indulge in accusation by innuendo. He caught his client’s eye and mouthed: ‘You don’t have to answer.’

  Whyatt picked at his fingernails and contemplated the whitewashed ceiling. Harry could almost smell his fear as he cleared his throat before speaking into the microphone again. ‘My – my wife had many faults. That doesn’t mean she deserved to be gunned down like a wild animal. I want to see the bastard who shot her caught and punished. And that is all I have to tell you. I’m sure you’ll understand that I’m desperate for today to end.’

  He rose awkwardly and stumbled through the door at the side of the room. Harry followed and caught him jamming coins into a vending machine. He didn’t look up at Harry’s approach, but muttered, ‘I – I couldn’t take any more.’

  ‘You did the right thing.’

  Whyatt breathed out. His hand was trembling and drops were spilling from the plastic cup of lemonade. ‘Thank you, but I wish I’d ignored your advice about co-operating with the police.’

  ‘You …’ Harry let his voice die away as Pardoe joined them. He thrust his body between his client and the policeman and said, ‘You can see that Mr Whyatt has suffered an ordeal today. He’s made a voluntary statement which I’m sure has given you a great deal to investigate. I don’t think he can assist you any further at the present time.’

  Pardoe gave him a let-me-be-the-judge-of-that look and said, ‘Just one or two more questions, if I may, sir. We need your permission to check your financial affairs. You and your wife may have had joint bank accounts, that sort of thing. We need to build a complete picture of her circumstances.’

  ‘For God’s sake, why?’ Whyatt asked.

  ‘She’s been one of three victims in a murder enquiry, sir. We have to look into every aspect of the lives of those concerned to see if we can find any clues that might help explain why someone not only broke into Mr Revill’s house but also killed all the people he – or she – found there.’

  Whyatt seemed too weary to argue. ‘I – I suppose whatever I say, you’ll do as you please.’

  ‘I’m asking for your permission, sir.’

  ‘Very well. I gathered the same information together for Mr Devlin here when I was consulting him about my matrimonial position. I can let you have copies.’

  ‘That would be most helpful. It is, of course, only a matter of routine.’

  Whyatt nodded, but Harry knew the detective was telling less than the whole truth. When shotguns were used, the police were bound to consider the possibility of a hired assassin. For all their supposed interest in Becky’s finances, he had no doubt that they would be poring over Steven Whyatt’s records with the avidity of racing fans studying the latest form. Their aim would be to see if there was any hint of a recent and substantial cash payment to an unknown recipient. Money that might have been handed over in return for the deaths of Becky Whyatt and her lover.

  After parting from his client, Harry drove straight back to the city centre, but having parked his car, he did not make immediately for New Commodities House. Rather, he began to limp up and down the streets and alleyways around Fenwick Court, searching for the confirmation of the theory he had formed while listening to Steven Whyatt speak. The heat of the day was enervating and the grit from the roads stung his eyes, but the urge to learn the truth drove him on. Three people had died and he owed it to them, as well as to the client, to do anything that might help to bring the killer to justice.

  The market researcher still had her clipboard tucked under her chunky arm and was anxiously scrutinising the dress and demeanour of each passer-by to make up her latest representative sample of the population of Merseyside. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘may I ask you a question?’

  ‘It’s rather a reversal of roles,’ she said with an unexpectedly attractive smile. He sensed immediately that she was eager to talk. ‘But it will make a change. Fire away.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that you’ve been around here for a week or two.’

  ‘And I’ve seen you passing by,’ she said. It crossed his mind that she might think he was trying to pick her up and he felt himself blushing. ‘I’ve been on the point of stopping you once or twice, but you’ve never quite fitted the category I was looking for.’

  ‘The story of my life,’ he said. ‘Never mind. You must have seen the busker who plays guitar.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, poor Roger.’

  Bull’s-eye! He found it difficult to resist punching the air. For some time he’d had the nagging feeling that the guitarist’s voice reminded him of someone. The man who had thanked him for throwing a few coins was the same man who had called Becky Whyatt and begged her to see him. In speaking to his ex-wife, he’d even stolen a phrase from his repertoire of old Beatles songs. We can work it out.

  ‘Poor? Judging by the coins in his cap, he doesn’t seem to do too badly.’ He spoke quickly, scarcely able to disguise his excitement. He no longer felt weary or conscious of the aching of his ankle. Perhaps he had within his grasp the solution to the mystery of St Alwyn’s.

  She sighed. ‘I didn’t mean that. We’ve bumped into each other several times and we’ve exchanged words. He seems deeply unhappy about something.’

  ‘Any idea what it may be?’

  ‘He said something about his former wife. I have the impression that he still carries a torch for her. It’s always a mistake. You need to move on and start again, don’t you? After I split up with my …’

  ‘Have you seen Roger today?’ He was sorry to interrupt and on another occasion, he would have been happy to listen to her reminisce. He had little doubt that she was lonely. But he was keen to get away. Instinct told him that time was short. The former psychiatric patient must be as desperate as he was dangerous.

  ‘As a matter of fact, it’s strange. I haven’t.’

  ‘Why strange? Buskers move around.’

  ‘I imagine they do, but I saw him just before five-thirty yesterday afternoon and mentioned I was off. I’m sure I said, “See you tomorrow”, and he said yes. So I expected him to be here again today.’

  Harry nodded. That had been the other clue: he had noticed the quietness around Fenwick Court earlier in the day, but had not realised the cause of it. There was no guitar, no mournful singing. Shades of Sherlock Holmes and Silver Blaze. He imagined teasing Pardoe with his perspicacity: ‘Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?’ ‘To the curious incident of the busker this afternoon.’ ‘The busker did not turn up this afternoon.’ ‘That was the curious incident.’ And what did it amount to? Simply that, the very day after his ex-wife’s murder, the building society man turned busker had vanished.


  ‘I don’t suppose that by any chance you know where he lives?’

  She gave him a rueful glance. ‘We certainly didn’t get to the stage of exchanging addresses.’

  He swore silently. ‘Thanks all the same. You’ve been most helpful.’

  She seemed sorry to have disappointed him and as he turned away said, ‘Wait! He did say something yesterday. I said my feet were killing me and I was looking forward to getting home. He said he would be off very soon. There was a big cricket match going on across the road from where he lived and he said he loves the game. He was planning to time his return so that when he arrived back he would be able to slip in and watch the last half hour free.’

  ‘Cricket? So he lives in Aigburth?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she said dolefully, ‘I don’t know anything about cricket. I’ve always found it impossible to understand.’

  ‘Compared to figuring out human beings,’ he said, ‘it’s a doddle.’

  He set off for Riversdale Road, home of Liverpool Cricket Club and the scene at the moment, he knew, of a four-day championship match between Lancashire and Derbyshire. It was the road in which James and Florence Maybrick had lived and the place where Dame had ended her tour of the city’s murder spots. The memory of that evening reopened a deep wound. He had accompanied Kim back home with such high hopes: what had gone wrong? And if she cared for him, why hadn’t she returned his call? The only good thing about the St Alwyn’s murders, he reflected as he sped past Festival Park, was that at least they had distracted him from his own concerns. Yet as soon as the thought occurred to him, he realised its selfishness. Three people had died. Not only Becky Whyatt and her lover, but an innocent young girl.

  Hunched over his steering wheel, he became aware of the churning of his stomach. Should he have spoken to the police before setting off? Of course it would have been the sensible thing to do, but he had never quite mastered the art of doing the sensible thing. Letting his mind roam as he neared the cricket ground, Harry pictured the scene on the afternoon a few days ago when Becky had suddenly bumped into her ex. She would be looking as glamorous as ever, he down-at-heel with his begging bowl. No wonder she had been desperate to get away from him and determined to resist his demands for a meeting. She had moved out of his world and was intent on not being dragged back down into it. After failing to persuade her to see him again, he had decided on drastic measures. It would have been easy enough to pick up a gun – there were more than enough pubs in Liverpool where quiet men with hard faces carried on an arms trade that a defence contractor would envy. Possibly the story about the cricket match was a crude attempt at establishing an alibi. Or perhaps he had bumped into Becky unexpectedly. In any event, he must have followed Becky to her tryst with Dominic Revill and murdered the pair of them in a fit of jealousy and rage. And then, presumably, he had turned his fire on the nanny whose misfortune it was to have come back home too soon.

  Harry had no plan of campaign, or script of questions designed to elicit evidence of guilt. He told himself that it would be enough to satisfy his curiosity if he could find out precisely where Roger was living and confirm that he was indeed the man who had telephoned Becky Whyatt. But of course the truth was different. Not for the first time in his life, he felt a burning need to talk to someone who had killed, to try to learn more about the reasons for their savagery. He was prepared to gamble that Roger’s rage had ebbed. Maybe that was why his quarry was nowhere to be seen on the streets of Liverpool. He must be devastated by what he had done, killing the one woman he had loved.

  Turning into Riversdale Road, an idea struck him. Perhaps Roger had a billet in Cassar House. It was a hostel near here which was run by the local authority in association with a couple of mental health charities. A man who had recently been discharged from Ashworth might be offered a place there while he adjusted back to life in the outside world. Because of the cricket match, police NO WAITING signs and cones were everywhere and he cruised slowly in search of a suitable parking spot. Then he realised that, although a glance at the morning paper had told him that Lancashire were in deep trouble, even the most criminal batting or bowling would not necessitate such a heavy police presence. A sense of frustration seized him as he realised that he had been beaten to it.

  He finally managed to leave his car five minutes’ walk away from the activity. Sure enough, it centred on the small cul-de-sac called Riversdale Hey in which Cassar House stood. A sickly smell of melting chocolate wafted from the doughnut and snacks stall parked on the pavement and a wave of nausea swept over him. As he retraced his steps, he spotted a slim figure emerging from a double-fronted mock-Gothic building on the corner of the two roads which overlooked the cricketers’ scoreboard.

  ‘Lynn!’

  She turned at the sound of her name and moved slowly towards him. Her shoulders were rounded, her whole bearing suggestive of a sense of personal defeat. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve picked up a lead on Roger, Becky Whyatt’s first husband. I gather he lives in this neck of the woods.’

  She furrowed her brow. ‘I know all about your reputation as an amateur detective, but this is something you should have left to us.’

  ‘We all sometimes fail to do what we should.’

  She gave him a sharp glance and said, ‘You’re right, as it happens. After hearing about your client’s tapes, I spoke to Ashworth. They told me the story of Roger Phelan and confirmed he had been offered the chance of staying at Cassar House.’

  ‘So you’ll be bringing him in for questioning?’

  ‘If only,’ she said grimly and he realised that, beneath the surface composure, she was even more badly shaken than on the evening when he had discovered her at Fenwick Court.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He must have decided the game was up,’ she said. ‘I found him hanging from a hook in the ceiling of his room.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Roger Phelan had left no suicide note. Harry gleaned from Lynn only that preliminary indications suggested he had killed himself either the previous night or that morning. Spending cutbacks had affected staffing at Cassar House and no-one had seen Roger for over twenty-four hours: care in the community had come to mean leaving people pretty much to their own devices. Even an autopsy offered no magic formula for fixing time of death with absolute precision, but it seemed likely that the murders at St Alwyn’s had occurred before Phelan put the rope around his neck and kicked away the chair.

  After parting from Lynn, Harry returned to his car, slumped back in the driver’s seat and closed his eyes. The nervous energy which had kept him going so far had finally drained away. Any satisfaction he might have experienced in having pinpointed Roger’s guilt had been drowned by a tide of melancholy. Murder was easy, but it was also futile. Even as the busker fled from the bloodbath at the old church, he must have begun to be tortured by the prospect of imminent apprehension by the police. As well as, perhaps, remorse. So he had decided that he had no choice but to end it all. It made everything neat and tidy: the dead could be buried and the survivors allowed to get on with the rest of their lives.

  And what does the rest of my life hold? Harry wondered. He was too despondent and confused to want to hazard a guess. With an effort of will, he turned the ignition key and put the car into gear. Stumps had been drawn in the cricket match and the last spectators had drifted home, leaving just a hard core of sightseers speculating pleasurably about what the police were up to in Riversdale Hey. Driving past them, he thought he could read their minds. Always said there would be trouble in that place. Why do they let those madmen out? No-one’s safe any more. No-one is safe.

  Almost without realising what he was doing, he left the dual carriageway and followed a curving road which led to a modern housing development. This was where Kim lived. He parked on the opposite side of the road from her maisonette and stared at the windows of the living room. The low sun was glinting on th
e panes and he could see nothing of anyone inside. She might be out, hard at work on her latest compassionate campaign. In a sudden flash of insight, he realised that she struggled so hard to help others in part because it took her mind away from the question of how she might help herself. Why could she not learn to be more selfish and start to concentrate on building her own life?

  She might, of course, be at home. All he had to do was to walk up to the frosted glass door and ring the bell. But a second rejection would be too much to bear. He realised belatedly that she might glance outside and see for herself his lack of courage. Hastily he switched the engine back on and set off for the city centre.

  Harry’s idea of home cooking was to sling a frozen meal into the microwave, but tonight even that culinary cop-out was beyond him and he called once more at the Baltic Takeaway. As he walked through the door Rene was making herself heard above the sizzle from the fat fryer by bellowing, ‘Chicken beansprouts, chips and rice twice for Simpson!’ The transistor radio had been replaced by a portable television tuned to a soap opera much improved by having the volume turned off. Harry sucked in the greasy air. The sight of burgers in batter glistening in the glass-sided warmer on the counter was enough in itself to clog the arteries. When his turn came, Rene thrust her hands in the pockets of her overalls and gave him a mocking grin.

  ‘Thought you’d gone in for healthy living. But here you are limping like Liverpool’s answer to Long John Silver and all set to order your second cod dinner in the space of a few days.’

  He was glad to have someone to talk to. ‘It’s a mistake to rush things, Rene. I’ve decided to ease myself gently into the new lifestyle.’

  ‘No problem. We now offer food that is cholesterol free, you know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, we don’t charge for it!’ As Harry laughed, she said, ‘Matter of fact, I’m glad you called in. I wanted to have a word with you about our Shaun. No, you can wipe that look off your face, he’s not been nicked by the busies again.’