First Cut is the Deepest (Harry Devlin)

by Edwards, Martin

  Daniel Roberts tapped away at his keyboard. The words were flowing. He’d never realised that it could be like this. The Journal was nearly finished. He could feel his skin tingle as the blank screen filled. The draught in the cottage meant nothing to him. He hadn’t even bothered to bring the coal in or light a fire.

  There was another reason, of course. The long wait was almost over. This was to be the day when he finally introduced himself to Harry Devlin. He tried to picture the look on the other man’s face, but had to give up. He did not lack imagination, but he found it impossible to guess the reaction he would evoke. Would Harry recoil, stammer, run?

  Rhodri had offered to tinker with the van, check it over to make sure that despite its age it could handle another long trip. Daniel had accepted readily, muttering something about someone he needed to see a few miles away. He could not match Rhodri’s mechanical expertise and he dared not risk another breakdown. That was important, today of all days. And if Rhodri was motivated by curiosity, if he thought he might find something in the van which revealed more about the mysteries of Daniel’s private life, he would finish up sorely disappointed. There wasn’t a single thing. Naturally, Rhodri had never seen anything suggesting the existence of the Journal.

  He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Not long to go, now. He planned to set out early in the afternoon. He did not know what Harry’s movements would be, but that did not matter. Even if he was away from his flat when Daniel arrived, it was fair to assume that he would turn up during the evening. Daniel did not mind biding his time. His search had taken years. At times he had despaired that it would ever reach a successful conclusion. A few more hours would not hurt him. Rather, they would add to the anticipation.

  By the time Harry’s hangover began to ease, it was mid-day on Sunday. After Errol had finally left him to rejoin Gavin Lacey, he’d sat on a stool at the end of the bar and drunk the evening away. No-one else had bothered him; even the man who looked like Rowan Atkinson’s younger brother had become engrossed in conversation with one of the staff. From time to time his eyes drifted to the match on the screen, but he could not remember who was playing, far less who scored. Eventually he’d staggered from the Jesse to his flat and slumped on the bed fully clothed before falling into deep yet unsatisfying sleep.

  He dreamed that the Welshman Andrea had described was following him along the dark city streets. In the end he found himself trapped in an alleyway closed off by a brick wall. He had turned to face the stranger and asked, ‘What do you want?’

  The other man’s voice was soft and lilting. ‘I was sent by Casper May. He’s never liked lawyers, you see. But Symons and Horlock were lucky. They were dead before I started to cut.’

  As he swallowed the first coffee of the day, he cast his mind back to his conversation with Errol. If what he said was right, Suki must be in the frame. Yet whilst she had a motive for killing Carl, it was impossible to understand why Nerys should have met a similar fate. All right, Suki may have fallen out with Nerys over the tribunal claim - but a disagreement about tactics with one’s legal adviser is scarcely a reason to commit murder. At least, Harry hoped not.

  He had to talk to her. It wasn’t enough simply to wait and hope that he might bump into her in the Law Courts on Monday morning. He checked the phone book for Anwars and rang the likeliest number. First time lucky.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘This is Harry Devlin.’

  ‘Oh … hi.’ Very cautious.

  ‘Sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but there was something I meant to ask.’

  ‘Well - go ahead, then.’

  ‘The tribunal case. Nerys Horlock was representing you. A claim of sexual harassment.’

  Dead silence. He didn’t break it for a full half minute.

  ‘Are you still there? I was asking about the claim Nerys put in for you. Against Carl Symons and the CPS.’

  ‘I heard you.’ A different note had entered her voice. For the first time in their acquaintance, she sounded frightened. ‘But - I never made any claim. End of story.’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve been told,’ he said gently. ‘Last night I was talking to one of the clerks from the tribunal. He saw the form, the originating application. Nerys signed it on your behalf.’

  ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ she snapped. ‘Sorry, but I have to go out now. Goodbye.’

  The moment she banged the receiver down, Harry started putting on his trainers. She was lying and he needed to know why. He could imagine few experiences more horrific than being raped by a colleague. There were many reasons why Suki might have wanted to keep quiet about it. One thing was clear. The man accused of raping Suki and the woman who had made the accusation on Suki’s behalf had both been murdered. He itched to know whether it was a mere coincidence.

  The address in the phone book was Vauxhall Hey. He couldn’t find a road of that name in his A-Z and guessed from the postcode that it was a new development off the Leeds-Liverpool canal. The area had been ruined by pollution and derelict for years, but lately a ton of Eurocash had been spent on cleaning it up and grassing over the waste land. Rows of new houses had sprung up along the water’s edge. It was only ten minutes away. He grabbed his car keys from the hook in the kitchen. Even if Suki slammed the door in his face, at least he would have tried to solve the puzzle.

  He drove slowly along Vauxhall Road, squinting at the names of the streets on the left that crossed over the canal to a yellow brick housing estate. After turning off the main road, he soon became lost in a maze of cul-de-sacs. Children were playing football, men fiddling with car engines. He wound down his window to ask the way and was directed to a road that ended in a row of bollards outside a community centre. Suki’s house was a neat semi; a red Citroen was parked outside.

  He rang the bell long and hard. No sign of life. He rapped on the door until his knuckles hurt. Nothing. Perhaps she was hiding from him. But if she wasn’t at home, she couldn’t be far. He strolled past the community centre on to a bridge painted sky blue which carried a footpath to the main road. Halfway across, he paused and leaned on the parapet, checking out his surroundings. As he looked down over the dark ribbon of water, he saw a familiar figure in a tracksuit, loping along the towpath away from him.

  ‘Suki!’

  She stopped in her tracks and turned round slowly to gaze up at him. ‘Leave me alone,’ she called.

  ‘I’ll only take five minutes of your time.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  She flipped her hand, as if dismissing him from her life. As she jogged away, he gripped the edge of the parapet, unsure what to do. Of course she was entitled to her privacy. He was well aware of the lasting pain that rape caused its victims; more than once, he’d seen their distress at first hand. He was supposed to be compassionate, or so people sometimes said. If they were right, he should drive straight back home and forget all about reopening old wounds.

  But he couldn’t do it. He’d come this far. There was no choice but to go on.

  A gate adjoining the main road gave on to the canalside. By the time he’d reached it, Suki was out of sight. He hurried down the long slope and, breaking into a run, followed the curve in the towpath under the next bridge until he caught a glimpse of her lime green tracksuit far in the distance. She moved smoothly, rhythmically, not seeming to exert herself. He increased his pace, but soon she vanished round another bend. It was a while since he’d taken any serious exercise - his footballing days were long over - and presently he felt his heart begin to thud against the walls of his chest. Not for the first time over the past couple of years, he made a mental note that he needed to cut down on the chip suppers in front of the television and make an effort to recover some sort of semblance of fitness. His breath was coming in shallow gasps as he crunched along the pathway. Much more of this and he’d finish up in an oxygen tent. He caught his heel on a brick that some delinquent had left lying in the way and felt the pull of a muscle in his calf. It hurt but he kept on go
ing. He couldn’t lose her now.

  When she came into view again, he had cut the gap between them to less than a hundred metres, but he realised she was bound to hear his trainers pounding on the gravel. Sure enough, she glanced over her shoulder and slowed to a halt.

  ‘Go away!’

  ‘I just want to talk.’

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ she scoffed.

  ‘Why don’t you want to discuss the tribunal claim?’

  ‘I told you. I never made a claim.’ She jabbed a finger at him. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  He’d caught up with her at last. His injured leg was throbbing, his feet were sore, he was huffing and puffing like an old steam train, while she had scarcely broken sweat. But at least he had found her and it didn’t look as though she was going to run away again.

  ‘I realise Nerys went too far,’ he panted. ‘She was shocked by what you’d told her. You said that Symons had raped you.’

  Suki flinched. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you, okay?’

  ‘I saw Symons’ body,’ Harry said, more harshly than he had intended. ‘Have you ever seen a decapitated corpse? Not a pretty sight.’

  ‘He was never a pretty sight,’ she said, matching the roughness of his tone.

  ‘He was butchered, Suki. I’d like to know why.’

  ‘You ought to leave it to the police.’

  ‘And the police know he raped you, do they?’

  ‘Nerys broke a confidence. She shouldn’t have done what she did. I never asked her to.’

  ‘I suppose she thought she was acting for the best.’

  ‘Yeah, isn’t that what most of the trouble-makers through history have said?’

  ‘She believed in justice,’ Harry said. ‘She was desperate to see it done. And yet - you stopped her in her tracks. What I’m wondering is - why.’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘You were keen enough to talk to me before. When you wanted to find out whether I knew how Carl Symons died. When you wondered what the police had told me about the murder of Nerys.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘Are you so sure?’

  ‘Yes, I bloody am!’ She was trembling with anger. ‘This - what you’re asking me - is personal. Private stuff. You’re crossing the line, Harry, and you don’t have the right. You’re harassing me.’

  He wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. ‘I don’t mean to. I could have scuttled off to the police and told them what I’ve heard, leave it to Mitch Eggar to have a word with you.’

  ‘And I’m expected to be grateful? You’re not a knight in shining armour, you know. You’re just a bloody nosey-parker. Always sticking your oar in where it doesn’t belong!’

  ‘Sure. I admitted that at the Maritime Bar, remember? But listen, if Symons was a rapist, isn’t that something the police ought to know about? You’re a prosecutor. You know better than me that it might give them a fresh lead.’

  ‘What makes you think I haven’t told them?’

  She leaned against the brick wall that divided the path from the flat roofs of a row of garages. The tracksuit emphasised her muscles. The thought flashed through his mind that perhaps she might, just might, have possessed the physical power to cut a man’s head from its body.

  ‘Because you seem so desperate to keep your secret.’

  ‘Is that surprising?’ She could shift ground as fast as a flyweight in the ring. One day she’d be a great court advocate. ‘You’re telling me you’re not able to understand how I felt? How many rape victims have you known?’

  A girl Harry knew had once been raped. Her life had been left in ruins. ‘A few,’ he said tersely.

  ‘Then are you saying I’ve made it up? That Symons never touched me?’

  He shook his head. ‘Somehow I don’t have too much difficulty believing he was a rapist. Or that you were his victim. That’s not the point. It would have taken plenty of courage to bring the claim. Lots of people wouldn’t do it. But you’re not short of guts. You’d already told Nerys about the rape…’

  ‘Just between the two of us,’ she interrupted.

  ‘Okay. She was up in arms on your behalf. My guess is, she kept on until the last minute for making a claim, trying to persuade you to bring it out into the open. To buy herself a bit of time, she sent the form to the tribunal, so you wouldn’t lose your right to compensation. I expect she was still thinking that when push came to shove, you’d allow her to represent you, to expose Symons for the man he really was. Maybe she knew enough about him from their days as partners to be confident that you were telling the truth. But even then, you wouldn’t go through with it.’

  ‘Nerys didn’t just want me to sue Symons for sexual harassment, she said I should claim against the CPS as well. They employed him. He had the desk next to mine, he was my reporting officer. I said no. I didn’t want to screw up my career.’

  ‘If you’d come out in the open, there’s every chance Symons’ bosses would have taken your part. The odds are that he’d have been sacked and you’d have been free of him for ever.’

  She shook her head. ‘You just don’t understand. I’d never have been free of him. He’d have made sure he destroyed me.’

  ‘There are safeguards. The Press couldn’t print your name during the hearing. The law wouldn’t allow you to be victimised for bringing the claim, even if you lost.’

  ‘Get real,’ she scoffed. ‘We both know how the justice game is played, don’t we? I’ve seen plenty of women put through the wringer under cross-examination. Questions about their love life. Whether they wear saucy knickers, watch dirty films. No, thanks. I’d rather be on the right side of the witness box.’

  ‘You’re holding back on me.’

  ‘And you’re treating this like a bloody cross-examination,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t have to answer your questions, okay?’

  ‘And I don’t have to resist the temptation to tell Mitch Eggar what I’ve found out. But my impression is, you don’t want me to do that.’

  ‘Can’t stop you, can I?’

  ‘I’m not promising to keep my mouth shut if the police ask me straight questions, whatever you tell me now. All the same, I won’t go mouthing off to all and sundry. It’s up to you.’

  She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her tracksuit trousers. ‘You’re wondering if I killed Carl, aren’t you?’

  ‘I never said that. I’m curious, that’s all.’

  ‘What is it to you? The world’s a better place without him. Isn’t that all you need to know?’

  ‘What about Nerys? Is it all for the best that she’s dead, too?’

  She ground her heel into the path. ‘You know, I’ve decided Nerys had things in common with Carl. In different ways, they were both selfish. Couldn’t see anyone else’s point of view.’

  He moved closer towards her, felt her warm breath on his cheeks. ‘Selfishness isn’t a capital offence.’

  A couple of kids approached them, a boy and girl aged fourteen or fifteen. He had his hand inside her T-shirt; she was pretending to wriggle away from him. As they passed, the girl glanced at Suki. Harry guessed she was seeing a woman with her back to the wall, confronted by a man with only one thing on his mind, and drawing her own conclusions. She gave Suki a sidelong smile, as if to say: they’re all the same, aren’t they?

  ‘Okay,’ Suki said when the teenagers were out of earshot. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Not quite. How did Nerys react when you told her to withdraw the claim?’

  She shrugged. ‘It was her fault. She should never have done it. I’d told her I didn’t wish to make an issue about what Carl had done to me. She and I were close, I trusted her to respect my feelings. I’d never asked her to act as my lawyer.’

  ‘So when she let you down, that was the end of a beautiful friendship?’

  ‘She was furious.’ Suki closed her eyes. He could tell she was reliving the past. ‘You knew her. She was a fighter, always. For her, it was imposs
ible to understand that I might not be able to cope with the flak in a tribunal hearing.’

  Harry agreed with the dead woman. Suki still wasn’t telling him the whole truth; his advocate’s instinct told him that. There was no point in pressing her further, though. Not yet.

  ‘She went ballistic, accused me of making the whole thing up. Lying to win her sympathy because I knew she detested Symons.’

  ‘Did you manage to persuade her that it wasn’t a lie?’

  ‘In the end, I didn’t even try to make her see sense.’ She opened her eyes and looked straight at him. ‘If she chose to believe that I’d been fantasising, that was up to her. No-one who really understood me could imagine that I was capable of inventing something like that.’

  ‘Nerys rang me just before she died.’

  Suki stared at him. ‘To say what?’

  ‘I wasn’t there to take her call, so I’ll never know for certain. She left a message, but I never had the chance to ring back before she was killed. My guess is, she wanted to share her knowledge about Symons being a rapist. Not to point the finger at you, simply to test my reaction. Perhaps she hoped I’d tell the police without involving you or her. There might have been other victims. It would have opened up a fresh line of inquiry.’

  Suki said slowly, ‘I wasn’t the only woman he chanced his arm with. There was Andrea Gibbs, too.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘So Nerys told me. When she found out her partner was trying it on with their trainee, Nerys put a stop to it. There was never a formal complaint. But Symons was an animal. He thought of nothing and no-one but himself. His own pleasure.’

  ‘Muriel Scawfell reckons the pair of you had a thing going on at one time.’

  ‘She’s got a vivid imagination,’ Suki said shortly.

  ‘So you were never his girlfriend?’

  ‘For Chrissake. He made my flesh creep. Always.’

  ‘But he took liberties with you in public. Touched you up, fondled your bum.’