First Cut is the Deepest (Harry Devlin)

by Edwards, Martin

  ‘That’s right.’ Brett stretched out his arms, as if in supplication. It was as if, having spent days in the darkness, he was learning how to talk again to a fellow human being. ‘I’m sorry I scarpered. I should have called for help.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Someone else did that.’

  ‘Looks like you’ve made a pretty good recovery. Not sure about the beard, though.’

  ‘At first I felt as though I’d been steamrollered, but I’m fine now.’

  ‘I’m glad. You see, I’d wanted to talk to you that Sunday. I couldn’t think of anyone else.’

  ‘What about - Andrea?’

  ‘Not Andrea,’ Brett said harshly. ‘I knew you’d listen - but then you ran under my wheels. I simply lost it. I drove off and left the Sierra near Paddy’s Wigwam.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘How did you find me?’

  Harry gestured at their surroundings. ‘You’re interested in Merseyside’s underworld, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes, but…’

  ‘I saw a book in your flat with that title, the night Nerys was murdered. Merseyside’s Underworld. At the time, I assumed it was all about true crime, stories about protection rackets and drug wars, that sort of thing. Then I came across the phrase again this morning. You know the Pool of Life café in Dale Street? I saw the words on a display board featuring Joseph Williamson. The text was an extract from the book. A couple of things suddenly clicked into place.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I remembered you had another book, about pot-holing. Suppose you were keen on tunnels, knew the network of caves under Mason Street? You’d decided to disappear off the face of the earth. Where better to hang out than in a ready-made hiding place a few minutes’ walk from your home?’

  Brett blinked. ‘Clever of you.’

  ‘It was a neat trick, a bit like that story by Edgar Allan Poe. You’re right under the nose of the police, yet this is the last place they’d look for you.’

  ‘The security people are more of a worry. They’re pretty efficient, they patrol the site regularly. The guards come with their Alsatians, at any time, day or night. I have to make sure I keep well out of their way. So I’ve only been above ground a couple of times since I arrived here.’ Brett frowned. ‘But you didn’t come here just because you read a tourist sign in a cafeteria.’

  ‘No, I decided to check my idea out. I found Merseyside’s Underworld in the Bluecoat shop. The author’s introduction expresses thanks for assistance from colleagues in the Subterranean Merseyside Society. Your name’s included.’

  ‘I joined years ago. Not that I’ve been to any meetings since the firm folded. Too much else on my mind, you know.’

  ‘He even mentions that you’re a particular aficionado of Williamson and his mining activities. It all added up so I raced over here. Of course, I’ve never been inside the tunnels before, but I thought it must be worth taking a look.’

  ‘I’m sure you weren’t disappointed,’ Brett said. He was looking a little less like a zombie, showing animation at last. This was his domain, he was talking about his special subject. ‘Spectacular, isn’t it? Look at the way the sandstone has been cut and shaped in this chamber. Doesn’t it remind you of the pyramids of Ancient Egypt?’

  The comparison was a bit fanciful, but Harry couldn’t help nodding. ‘There’s a whole lost world down here.’

  ‘You’ve not even seen the Banqueting Hall yet.’ Brett was starting to gabble with excitement. ‘That’s the most famous cavern, but it’s not the biggest. In one place, the caves are as deep as the police station outside is tall. The audacity of it simply takes your breath away. The tunnels go on for miles, you know. Nobody knows how far.’

  ‘You’ve stayed here ever since you knocked me over?’

  ‘That’s right. I - I panicked. I dumped the car, but then I didn’t know what to do, where to turn.’

  ‘You could have talked to Andrea. She’s been worried sick about you.’

  ‘How could I trust her?’ Brett hissed.

  Harry said carefully, ‘Did this vampire nonsense…?’

  Brett shuddered. ‘So you know about that, as well? Let’s not talk about Andrea, eh? She and I are finished.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’

  ‘Finished, I said.’ Brett’s voice had begun to rise again. ‘We’re incompatible, understand?’

  ‘She cares about you.’

  ‘And I’m crazy about her, but it’s no good. It can never work. We’re wrong for each other. In the end I decided this was the safest place to be. I know my way around. There are a couple of entrances that no-one else knows about. You can’t find everything in the guide books. I was sure I could stay here - well, more or less indefinitely. I could come and go as I pleased, as long as I made sure that no-one who mattered saw me if I ever needed to leave to get fresh provisions. Follow me and I’ll show you where I’ve been sleeping.’

  He led Harry through an opening the shape of a keyhole and into a narrow, curving tunnel. ‘You’ll have to wriggle on your belly, there’s no alternative. Come on. Just till we get round the bend. It’s not far.’

  ‘All right,’ Harry grunted, ‘I needed to buy a new suit anyway.’

  ‘You ought to have come properly equipped if you were planning to look for me down here,’ Brett said severely.

  ‘I’m a bit short of pot-holing gear,’ Harry muttered as he tried not to crack his head against the roof of the tunnel.

  Brett manoeuvred himself round the bend with the ease of long practice. Scrambling after him, Harry saw that the passage opened out into another chamber. The air was fresher than he would have expected; there must be ventilation shafts nearby. It wasn’t too cold, either, considering the time of year and that they were beneath the ground. In the corner was a heap of belongings: warm clothes, a pillow, a mattress, a handful of books.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ he muttered as he wiped the dirt off his jacket and trousers.

  ‘I needed time to myself. After Nerys died, the police started closing in. It was only a question of time before they discovered that I’d never qualified as a solicitor. Then they would find out that Carl Symons knew the truth.’

  ‘How did he find out?’

  ‘One of my tasks was to deal with all the paperwork for the Law Society. Carl and Nerys were happy with that - one less job for them to worry about. It was the only way I could keep pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. The trouble started when I took a holiday and Carl started to sniff through my private filing cabinet. He soon realised that something didn’t stack up.’

  ‘That’s when he started blackmailing you?’

  ‘He didn’t put it like that, of course. To listen to him, you’d have thought he was doing me a favour. The way he put it, I’d jeopardised his career and livelihood. He’d teamed up with me in the utmost good faith. It was up to me to make reparation. And you know the funny thing? I could see his argument.’

  ‘He was a lawyer. He could argue any cause.’

  ‘Yes, we’re good at that, aren’t we? If nothing else. So I had to pay the price.’

  ‘Even though it was crippling.’

  ‘Oh yes. Pulling out of our partnership cost Carl nothing. It ruined me, in every way. You see, I had nothing to lose by coming down here. I could think things over, try and get myself sorted out.’

  ‘And have you?’

  Brett shrugged. ‘It’s not so easy.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have stuck with local history instead of getting involved with the law.’

  ‘Oh, I became fascinated by Williamson after I moved to Liverpool, but I was always keen on the law as well. You don’t need to have letters after your name to be seduced by the idea of courtroom drama. When I was growing up in Maryport, I set my heart on becoming a solicitor. But I couldn’t cope with Law College. I kept flunking the exams. It didn’t seem fair. I had the knowledge, the commitment. There were worse lawyers than me who sailed through.’

  Harry wondered uncomfortably if he was one o
f them. ‘Yeah, I suppose that’s dead right.’

  Brett leaned forward, jabbing Harry’s chest with a finger to emphasise his point. ‘You meet them all the time in private practice. People whose advice to clients is positively dangerous. I’ll tell you something, Harry. Whatever lies I may have told, no-one ever suggested that I wasn’t a good lawyer.’

  Harry took in a lungful of air. Brett had a point: a cynic would say that telling lies was part of a solicitor’s job. ‘So you decided to pretend you were qualified. Didn’t people check up on you?’

  ‘I went to London for a while. There was nothing to keep me in the north. Besides, no-one knew me down there. Firms were crying out for staff. They weren’t too fussy about checking the paper trail. I interviewed well, spun a few yarns, forged a couple of documents. It was like playing a game. You’d be surprised how easy it is. Easy to succumb to temptation, to get in deeper and deeper.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ It took all sorts, Harry thought. From time to time, he too fantasised about what it might be like to lead a Walter Mitty existence. But he’d always envisaged it as a way of escaping from legal practice, not as a means of signing up for it.

  ‘Before I knew what was happening, the wishful thinking had come true. I was offered a job. I suppose I should have stopped there, but the line between my little game and the real world was getting pretty blurred. For me, I suppose it always has been. I had the opportunity to become Brett Young, solicitor of the Supreme Court of Judicature. Chance of a lifetime. So I took it.’

  ‘Yet you came to Liverpool. Bit of a contradiction there, surely?’

  ‘Don’t knock it. The place isn’t so bad and I wanted wider experience, simple as that. I saw a job offered in the Gazette and applied. By now, I had a track record. I’d shown what I could do. It didn’t bother me too much that I didn’t have the right qualifications. Why should it? I’d earned that job, earned it on merit. I didn’t think I was deceiving anyone. Not really.’

  Harry was familiar with that kind of logic. His criminal clients used it all the time. And so, sometimes, did he. He said gently, ‘Did you resent the fact that Carl and Nerys were qualified and you were not?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Brett raised his eyebrows. ‘Still looking for a motive for me to kill them?’

  ‘The police will want to know. You may as well be prepared for their questions. They won’t mess about. Not with Rick Spendlove dead as well.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be trying to trap me, would you?’ Brett demanded. He hadn’t twitched with shock at mention that Spendlove was dead, but there was a wildness in his voice which made Harry edge away from him.

  ‘How would I do that?’

  ‘You think I know Spendlove’s dead because I killed him, but it’s not true. I’ve not spent all my time down here, you know. I’ve been out a couple of times, once at night, once first thing this morning before the security guard did his round. I went to the mini-mart on Congress Street and bought the Daily Post. Look for yourself, it’s over there. And it’s full of Spend love’s murder.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Harry said softly. ‘What do you make of it?’

  Brett glared at him. ‘You still believe I killed them, don’t you?’

  Harry had his back to the cavern wall. Maybe attack was the best form of defence. Launching into cross-examination mode, he leaned forward, starting to wag his finger like a latter-day Rumpole. ‘Didn’t you see them as vampires? Carl and Nerys because you thought they’d conspired to wreck your career. Your whole life. Spendlove because he took a shine to Andrea and you were afraid he’d steal her from you.’

  Brett shuddered. He seemed to want to shrink away, to curl up and try to fade away into the darkness. ‘No! It’s not true!’

  ‘A stake was driven through Carl’s heart.’ Harry spat out the words. He wouldn’t go easy on Brett. It was too late to relent. ‘Same thing with Nerys. Their heads were cut off. With Rick Spendlove, it was similar, though maybe the killer was disturbed before he could finish the job. Nerys’s office was burned. Rick’s car was dumped in the dock. Fire and water, you see? Tell me - how much have your troubles with Andrea played a part in this? The whole thing has been about destroying vampires, hasn’t it?’

  Brett’s breathing had become laboured. ‘You’re fucking well out of your mind.’

  ‘I’d say whoever killed those three lawyers was the crazy one, wouldn’t you? You have to be pretty disturbed to decapitate a corpse, don’t you agree? Besides, there’s more. There’s the business of the tunnels.’

  Brett stared at him. ‘What about the tunnels?’

  ‘When I glanced at the book that told me about Joe Williamson, I had a quick look at some of the other chapters. One thing I never realised is how many tunnels there are in Merseyside.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Brett muttered. ‘They’re all over the place. People simply don’t understand.’

  ‘Smugglers’ tunnels on the Wirral, for instance. Dawpool’s mentioned in the index. The place where Carl Symons lived, you remember. Contraband used to be taken from the ships that docked in the anchorage. That’s why a customs officer had to be based there.’

  ‘So fucking what?’

  ‘Nerys’s office is only a few hundred yards from here,’ Harry persisted. ‘Handy for the Williamson tunnels. And Rick Spend love was drowned within a stone’s throw of Birkenhead Priory. The Priory’s mentioned in Merseyside’s Underworld, too. Something about a legend that a couple of monks were buried alive in a tunnel which led to the river. They were trying to hide the Priory plate from Henry VIII’s heavy mob.’

  ‘What in God’s name are you getting at?’

  Harry gazed at Brett’s white face, trying to ignore the doubt that nagged him like a bad tooth. Driving over here, an idea had begun to form inside his head. He hadn’t had time to work out the details of his latest theory, but the big picture looked persuasive. Once he’d seen Brett’s name in the author’s acknowledgments, he’d decided he must be on the right track. The tunnels must be significant. Perhaps the killer had lain in wait beneath the ground, or used the tunnels to store the tools of murder: stake, axe, petrol to start the fire. Everything pointed to Brett’s guilt. He was the tunnel expert, he was hiding down here, for God’s sake.

  ‘You used the tunnels before you killed them.’ He was making it up as he went along. ‘You kept the weapons there, you…’

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ Brett said fiercely. He clutched at Harry’s sleeve. ‘Suppose you’re right. Suppose it just for a moment. Wasn’t it stupid of you to come down here on your own? I could kill you easily and your body would never be found. You hear stories going back a century, of people who came to explore the tunnels and were never seen again. There are so many places I could leave a corpse to rot.’

  ‘You won’t do that,’ Harry said. His hands were clammy and his heart was pounding, but he was determined not to let his fear show. ‘It’s not part of your plan. I’m no vampire. You don’t need to murder me. What would be the point? You can’t stay here for ever. Sooner or later, you’ll have to go back above ground. Look, why don’t you come back with me? We can talk to the police, see what we can sort out.’

  Brett’s eyes widened. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘You need to face up to things,’ Harry insisted. ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘No, I was talking about the tunnels. I mean, have you studied the book?’

  ‘Of course not. I haven’t had time.’

  ‘Give it to me.’ Brett reached out and snatched the book, a gesture so sharp and swift that Harry almost lost his footing. He flicked through the pages and then thrust it back into Harry’s hands. ‘There. Something you missed when you skimmed through. Read it.’

  Harry glanced at the text. ‘Attractive though the legends about passageways running from the Priory are, there is sadly no truth in them. The opening which can be found in the crypt leads nowhere. Indeed, no evidence is available to suggest that there ever existed even a short underground tunnel to the Mersey, far les
s the supposed network extending as far as New Brighton in one direction and Ince in another.’

  ‘I don’t believe everything I see in black and white,’ he said mutinously. ‘You said yourself that the stuff about Williamson and these tunnels is incomplete. Maybe you’re aware of stuff that no-one else knows.’

  Brett shrugged. ‘If there are tunnels at the Priory, I’ve yet to come across them. As for Dawpool, there is supposed to be at least one tunnel, but I’ve never got round to exploring that area, just the old colliery workings further down the river at Neston.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘Why should I lie? If I’m as deranged as you seem to believe, you’re dead meat anyway.’

  ‘You can’t just brush aside what I’ve said.’

  ‘Why not? It’s a load of bollocks. I’ve never killed anyone.’

  ‘All right.’ Harry’s heart wasn’t beating quite so fast now. It was absurd, but he had the feeling that he was being pushed back on to the defensive. As he had driven over here, his reasoning had seemed watertight. Down here in the labyrinth, it was starting to resemble a wild stab in the dark. ‘Even if you didn’t make use of the tunnels for the murders…’

  ‘Get real, Harry. You’re talking nonsense. Most of the tunnels you’re talking about don’t exist.’

  ‘You had the motive…’

  ‘Christ, I’ve never denied that I was glad when Carl Symons got his come-uppance.’ Brett puffed out his cheeks. ‘But I wouldn’t say I hated Nerys, even when she sided with Carl. Not so that I would kill her.’

  ‘And Rick Spendlove?’

  Brett glared. ‘He was a bastard. In his way, he was as bad as Symons. I won’t pretend to any remorse about his death. He treated women like shit. Led them on until he had his wicked way, then dumped them. Nerys acted for one of them, a woman called Tuesday Jones.’

  Harry blinked. ‘Tuesday Jones?’

  ‘Yes, sort of name that sticks in your mind, isn’t it? She was Spendlove’s secretary and they started an affair. She thought he was going to marry her, but when he realised she was serious, he kicked her into touch. That’s the kind of man he was. I tell you, he was no loss, Harry. No loss at all.’