First Cut is the Deepest (Harry Devlin)

by Edwards, Martin

  Harry rubbed his chin. ‘Why don’t we talk to the police?’

  ‘You must be joking. I’m the obvious suspect. You’ve said as much yourself. They’d lock me up.’

  ‘You can’t stay down here for ever.’

  Brett shrugged. Eventually he said, ‘We’ll see what happens.’

  ‘I ought to be going.’ Harry spoke in a measured, deliberate way but his mind was working frantically.

  Brett waved in the direction of the way out. ‘No-one’s stopping you.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll blow the gaff?’

  Brett chewed at his lower lip. ‘Not really,’ he said at length. ‘You’re no fool. And it won’t help if you confuse the issue. After all, you know I’m innocent, don’t you?’

  Harry let out a breath. ‘Yes. I suppose I do.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Five minutes later he was back in the Lord Mayor’s Stable Yard, blinking hard as he adjusted to the light in the outside world. His hands and face were filthy and his suit jacket and trousers were torn. Next to him, the average scarecrow would resemble Beau Brummel. He could smell the fumes of the traffic and the drizzle had turned into a downpour, yet coming out into the open from the caverns was like emerging from the snow-covered mountains into the valley of eternal sunshine in Lost Horizon.

  His final questions had nonplussed Brett Young. ‘What are you suggesting?’ Brett had asked, after telling him what he wanted to know. ‘Surely you don’t think she…’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything yet,’ Harry said. ‘I learned my lesson when you shot down my idea about the tunnels. This time I’m going to check my facts. Something they used to teach at law college, remember? I shouldn’t have been so hasty.’

  ‘I’m not ready to talk to the police,’ Brett said, his cheeks reddening. ‘You understand that? I won’t let them put me through the third degree.’

  ‘You can’t stay here for ever.’

  ‘I’m not giving myself up.’

  ‘Maybe I could go with you to the police station. Once they’ve heard what I have to say, I don’t think they’ll arrest you.’

  ‘You’ve been wrong before.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Harry forced a grin. ‘I’m relying on the law of averages.’

  Above ground again, he began to splash across the cobbles back to the wall he had climbed. To get out, he’d need something to stand on. He looked around the courtyard and his eyes fell on an old rusting water butt. He mauled it through the puddles and the undergrowth and was just turning it upside down to form a platform when he heard keys rattling in the padlock of the main gate. A dog began to bark. Harry clambered up on to the butt, but his foot went through it and he had to reach out and cling on to the wall to save himself. The bottom of the upturned butt was rotten and he’d cut his ankle. He swore. A bout of tetanus was all he needed.

  ‘Hey!’

  Eternal vigilance, he remembered, was the slogan of the security firm which looked after the Stable Yard. He swore again and pulled himself up the wall. He could hear the dog bounding across the cobbles. It sounded as if it hadn’t eaten for days. The guard had broken into a run. Harry could hear him panting with the effort.

  ‘Come back here!’

  His arms aching, Harry gave a final heave and hauled himself over the wall. A quick glance over his shoulder took in an Alsatian with bared teeth and a uniformed Schwarzenegger hot on his heels. He dropped over on to the other side. The grass was slippery because of the rain and he lost his footing, but he pulled himself back to his feet and hobbled to his car as fast as his injured legs would allow. Thank God the lad with the tattoos hadn’t nicked the MG. As he unlocked the door, Harry could still hear the dog’s howl of fury. He was sweating, yet somehow euphoric. At least he’d avoided becoming a late lunch for man’s best friend.

  He drove home and had a hasty wash and change before returning to his office. From the severity of Suzanne’s expression, he assumed he’d wafted in with a current of bad Chi. She was firing questions before he could draw breath. ‘Where have you been? What have you been up to? Your cheeks are bruised and you’ve a cut on your hand. It’s nothing to do with all these murders, is it? You’ve not been attacked?’

  ‘It’s a man’s life in the Liverpool magistrates,’ he said. ‘Get me the CPS, will you? I need to speak to Suki Anwar. Put her through to my room. And pass me the first aid box.’

  Suki’s voice came on to the line as he was unwrapping a bandage for his damaged ankle. She listened to his request in silence. When he’d finished explaining what he was after, he demanded, ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, but what’s this all about?’

  ‘I’ll explain later.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can track down the papers. Even if I could, I’d be taking a hell of a risk. If anyone found out…’

  ‘Listen, Suki, it won’t be the first time you’ve ever broken a rule. See what you can do. Please? I’ll meet you in the Dock Brief at six, is that okay? Bring the file with you.’

  He put the phone down feeling tired yet strangely exhilarated. His whole body was aching; his leg was stinging. He rolled up his trouser leg and inspected the damage: a nasty gash, but hardly life-threatening. It wouldn’t stop him, he thought, as he put on the bandage. Soon, he was sure, he would know the truth about the vampire killings.

  His next call was to Windaybanks. He asked for Irma Jackson. They had spoken once or twice in the past when he’d been on the other side of a case from Nerys Horlock; she sounded like a sergeant major on parade even when taking a call-back message. When he said he needed to see her urgently, he could almost hear her brows knitting together.

  ‘You’re not up to your old tricks? You have a reputation for poking your nose in when a murder’s been committed.’

  ‘And now three people have been killed. One of them Nerys.’

  A pause at the other end of the line. ‘It’s terrible. People here can’t talk about anything else.’

  ‘Can you blame them? Look, I’ve had an idea which may have a bearing on her death. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about one of her clients.’

  ‘What on earth do you think…?’

  Jim’s face appeared round the door. ‘I’ll explain later,’ Harry muttered. ‘Can you see me after work? We could have a drink, if you like.’

  ‘I’m teetotal,’ she barked.

  ‘Fine, I’ll buy you a lemonade. Will you come?’

  A pause. ‘It all sounds very peculiar to me. I mean, what about client confidentiality?’

  ‘Remember what happened to Nerys,’ he said grimly.

  She hesitated, then said, ‘I’ll give you five minutes. No more. I have a bus to catch at ten to six. I’ll meet you outside your office, just after half past. If you’re not there, I won’t be hanging around.’

  ‘I’ll be there. Thanks, Irma.’

  Jim groaned as Harry replaced the receiver. ‘Your first day back, and already it’s as if you’d never been away.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s not a compliment. You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. What the hell’s been going on? Carmel was getting a search party together to look for you. We thought you must have keeled over in the magistrates’ court.’

  ‘I’m often tempted. But as it happens, things cropped up. I had to change my plans. You know how it is.’

  ‘Not really. I thought it was only God who moves in mysterious ways. Are you going to let me in on your little secret, whatever it is?’

  ‘Soon, I promise.’

  ‘On second thoughts,’ Jim grunted, ‘perhaps I’d rather not know. Ignorance is bliss where your activities concerned.’

  ‘Something I have in common with Casper May.’

  Jim flushed. ‘Look, I don’t like May any more than you do. I know he has a dodgy reputation.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harry said with a shrug. ‘Give him six months and he’ll be advising his pals in high places on how to impleme
nt an ethical business policy.’

  ‘All right, you’ve made your point. But he’s offering us legitimate work and decent money. And we could do with some of that.’

  ‘Sure. I’m not complaining. You did well to win the contract. Besides, why shouldn’t we act for him if we’re happy to hire his wife?’

  ‘Yes, old son, I’ve been thinking about that.’ Jim cleared his throat. He shifted from foot to foot, not meeting Harry’s eye. ‘Maybe it’s time for us to call it a day with Juliet. Her fees are very reasonable. She’s even given us a hefty discount. Very good of her. But I think we’ve probably done as much as we can with her help. We need to stand on our own two feet.’

  An icy finger ran down Harry’s spine. Jim knows about Juliet and me. Or, at least, he suspects that something’s going on between us. And he wants me to drop her before Casper finds out.

  ‘Well,’ Harry said carefully, ‘you probably have a point. You’re going to let her know?’

  ‘Thought I’d drop her a line in the next couple of days. If you agree, that is.’

  ‘Fine. Fine. No problem. No problem at all.’

  ‘That’s settled, then.’ Jim hesitated. ‘She’s quite a lady. It was worth consulting her. But we must be the smallest firm she acts for, by a mile. We’re not really in her league.’

  The phone rang. ‘Juliet May,’ Suzanne announced.

  Harry covered the speaker with his palm. ‘Juliet’s on the line. Do you want to have a word?’

  ‘No, no,’ his partner said. ‘Uh, better do it in writing, don’t you think? More businesslike. I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’

  As the door closed behind him, Harry muttered into the phone, ‘Can we get together tonight?’

  ‘Well, well,’ she said, ‘you’re not usually so direct.’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘As it happens, darling, we can. Casper’s out at a dinner with a group of councillors. He won’t be back until after midnight.’

  Perfect. He clenched his fist in suppressed exultation. Trying to sound calm, he said, ‘Can we meet at your place?’

  ‘What’s come over you?’ she murmured. ‘You sound different. Forceful. Not that I’m complaining, mind. You’ve never wanted to pay me a visit before.’

  That was because he’d never been able to handle the thought of sleeping with another man’s wife in the matrimonial bed. But this was different.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t cook.’ She giggled. ‘To tell you the truth, I’ll have other things on my mind besides conversation.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Me too.’

  ‘She was all fur coat and no knickers,’ Irma Jackson grunted. ‘I never had much time for her. Not from the moment when she first rang up to make an appointment with Nerys. She said she was personal assistant to the head of Corporate Recovery at Boycott Duff. It didn’t cut much ice with me, I can tell you. I’ve always called myself a secretary and been proud of it. I had to laugh to myself when it turned out that she’d only been promoted from the typing pool a couple of months before. Once she started sleeping with him, needless to say.’

  ‘She and Rick Spendlove were definitely having an affair?’

  Irma sipped at her mineral water. They were perched on bar stools in a poky winebar in Water Street. Rain was drumming against the roof, almost drowning the Sinatra compilation playing in the background: Harry could barely make out ol’ Blue Eyes crooning about strangers in the night, exchanging glances.

  ‘Oh believe you me, she was as bold as brass about it. She was pleased with herself, thought she’d found herself a rich man to marry second time around. But it wasn’t exactly an achievement, going to bed with that creep. If I’d been daft enough to take a job with him, he’d probably have propositioned me, he was that randy.’

  One of the things Harry liked about Irma was that she was devoid of self-delusion. With her cropped brown hair, shapeless body and muscular legs she was never likely to set pulses racing and she knew it. It didn’t help that she had the clothes sense of a bag lady. Her Age Concern overcoat had a couple of buttons missing and when he’d met her ten minutes earlier, he’d noticed a hole in one of her mittens. She didn’t bother with make-up, presumably reasoning that it was wasteful to throw good money after bad. But Nerys Horlock had been shrewd enough to realise that Irma’s mind was as sharp as her tongue. He guessed that her judgment of Nerys’s client, however harsh, was seldom wide of the mark.

  ‘Yes, she’d fallen for his sales patter hook, line and sinker. She wasn’t bad-looking in a common sort of way, you know. Frizzy hair dyed blonde, though her roots needed doing. And a big bosom, of course. She made the most of her assets, believe you me. There were times when she came to the office and even in the depths of winter she was wearing a skimpy top and no tights.’

  ‘I don’t suppose that impressed Nerys.’

  ‘It most certainly didn’t. The thing was, dressing like a tart was second nature to someone like that. She wasn’t interested in what other women thought. She knew what men like. They don’t see beyond that sort of thing.’

  She glared at him, as if well aware that he was as susceptible to mindless lust as the rest of his sex. As Sinatra launched into a cautionary tale about the tender trap, Harry said hastily, ‘So she actually thought that Spendlove was going to do the decent thing?’

  Irma sniggered. ‘She wasn’t as smart as she thought, was she? She liked to make out that she was street-wise, but he was too fly for her. I gather she’d been brought up in Toxteth, though you’d never guess to hear her talk. She liked to come over all middle class. Anyone who didn’t know would have imagined she’d been to some snooty ladies’ college on the Wirral. She wasn’t going back to Toxteth, that was for sure. Her first marriage had obviously been a big disappointment. She wanted to live the life of Riley second time around.’

  ‘You said that Spendlove recommended her to consult Nerys?’

  ‘She’d told him that she wanted to dump her husband. He’d never matched up to her expectations. He wasn’t earning good money any longer, he was throwing everything away for the sake of a stupid obsession. Boycott Duff don’t handle divorce work, it doesn’t fit with their image. So Spendlove suggested she consult the toughest matrimonial lawyer in town. Someone who could get blood out of a stone. I suppose he was keen to make sure that Tuesday would never be dependent on him.’

  ‘And Nerys drove a hard bargain in the negotiations?’

  ‘Ruthless.’ Irma rolled the word off her tongue with relish. Nerys had been a heroine to her, Harry realised. Who knows, maybe she’d even been a little bit in love with the boss. ‘He didn’t like solicitors, he wouldn’t take advice until it was far too late. A big mistake. Nerys wrapped the judge round her little finger. Her ladyship came out of it with the house and a bit of cash as well, far more than she deserved if you ask me. Her husband was bitter and no wonder. But he only had himself to blame. If he’d checked early on in the proceedings, he would have found out that Nerys wasn’t someone you messed with. When he refused to settle out of court, she made up her mind to take him to the cleaners. It was a matter of professional pride for Nerys. Even if she didn’t care for her client, she never gave less than her best.’

  ‘What happened to the affair?’

  ‘Just what you’d expect. One evening she came back to the office unexpectedly. Left her handbag behind or some such excuse. If you asked me she wanted to see if she would catch Spendlove out. Well, she did. He was misbehaving with a trainee solicitor. Had the girl over the photocopying machine, would you believe? Her legs were wrapped round his neck, the way I heard it. And a Cambridge graduate too! Thank goodness I left school at sixteen, if that’s what a posh education does for you.’

  ‘So she broke it off with Spendlove?’

  ‘Rushed out in tears and never went back to work. She told Nerys she could never face him again. So he wriggled out of any kind of commitment, as per usual, which I suppose was exactly what he was angling
for. But she soon got over it. A fortnight later she met some footballer in a nightclub and moved in with him the next week. When he was transferred to Italy, she followed him and his fat pay packet over there. Oh yes, she was that sort. The kind who always fall on their feet in the end.’

  ‘And her husband?’

  ‘Utter pain in the backside,’ Irma snorted. ‘Even complained to the Law Society about the way Nerys had handled the case. It didn’t do him any good, needless to say. You can make a fuss about your own solicitor messing things up. It’s a bit rich to moan because your ex-wife’s lawyer has given you a hard time.’

  Harry finished his drink. He was on mineral water too. He hadn’t wanted to risk booze; something told him it was going to be a long night and that he’d need all his wits about him before it was over. ‘Thanks, Irma. I appreciate your help.’

  She thrust out her lower lip. ‘Go on, then. What’s this all about? Tell me why you’re asking all these questions. And be quick about it, my bus goes in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘I told you, it’s all to do with Nerys’s death.’

  ‘Come on. You’re not seriously telling me the divorce had something to do with Nerys being murdered?’ The sceptical look in her piggy eyes turned slowly to horror. ‘Are you? Are you?’

  ‘I couldn’t bring the file,’ Suki Anwar said as he handed her a Bacardi and coke fifteen minutes later. ‘Too risky. I’ve enough black marks against my name as it is. God, you’re wet through.’

  He was dripping all over the scuffed table that separated them. On the way here from the wine bar, his umbrella had collapsed and he’d hurled it into a litter basket in disgust. But for the moment he was oblivious to the damp and the cold. ‘Did you get a chance to take a look at the paperwork?’

  ‘Yes, but I still don’t understand…’

  For all the hubbub in the Dock Brief’s saloon bar, he lowered his voice as he leaned across the table. ‘Carl was the prosecutor in the case, am I right?’