First Cut is the Deepest (Harry Devlin)

by Edwards, Martin

  ‘Which was why,’ Harry said, ‘you were happy to let Juliet borrow your house on the night of the storm. It was a way of showing your gratitude. Besides, you could stay with Peter as you had so many times before. Did you want to keep an eye on him?’

  ‘We talked on the phone every day and I liked to get over there whenever I could. So it was no hardship to do Juliet a favour when she needed somewhere off the beaten track. Of course I should have rung Peter to let him know I was coming, but sometimes I went over on the spur of the moment anyway. He was always there, he said he loved to see me. I actually thought it would be a pleasant surprise for him.’

  ‘Instead of which, he was nowhere to be found when you arrived?’

  ‘I assumed he couldn’t have gone far, especially on such a shocking night. I had a key, so I let myself in and waited for him to turn up. And waited. And waited.’

  ‘When did he finally show up?’

  ‘Ten minutes before you rang. By that time, I was worried sick. All sorts of things were going through my mind. I even wondered about ringing round the hospitals. And then he walked through the door. At first I felt an almighty surge of relief, but then I saw his face. He looked as if he was in the middle of a waking nightmare. Which in a way, I suppose, he was.’

  ‘Did he tell you what he’d done?’

  ‘No!’ The veins were standing out on her temples. Harry felt sure she was telling the truth. Her eyes weren’t focused on him; it was as though she were talking to herself, trying in vain to make sense of it all. ‘The fact is, he could barely utter a word. It was as if he’d changed, seen something - terrible.’

  ‘And then,’ he said slowly, ‘I rang you up and your worst fears were realised.’

  Linda shook her head. ‘It wasn’t as simple as that. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he would actually kill someone, even though I’d already worked out that something ghastly had happened. Which was why I snatched up the receiver the moment I heard the phone ring.’

  ‘I remember,’ he said. ‘You sounded as if you’d been poleaxed. And yet - you came out to the cottage straight away and I never dreamed what was going through your mind.’

  ‘I’ve never known a night like it. I felt as though I was sleepwalking. Part of my house had been smashed, my boss was asking me to lie to the police - and none of it mattered. I hated myself even for wondering if Peter might be responsible. I was afraid I was jumping to conclusions, but I knew that if I could do that, so could the police. If he was falsely accused, he might finish up convicted of a crime he hadn’t committed. It’s happened many a time before. The law doesn’t protect the innocent. I decided that all I could do was to play the part you were suggesting, try to make sure that no-one suspected my son.’

  ‘You certainly managed that,’ Harry said. ‘You were bound to be in a state of shock, given the damage that the fallen tree had done. We were just grateful for your help. It never crossed my mind that either you or he had something to hide. And I realise something now. The police will have checked the calls from the mobile as a matter of routine. They’ll have seen that the phone was answered at Peter’s flat before I dialled 999. It’s almost as if I gave him an alibi.’ He shook his head. ‘One thing might have stuck in my mind. Peter had planned to become a surgeon. I guess he made use of his knowledge of anatomy when it came to killing Symons and decapitating him. That was the difference between the first two murders and the third. The heads were efficiently severed, the stave went right through the hearts.’

  Linda gulped in air. ‘After Peter died, I found a diary in his flat. Of course I shredded it once I’d read it all. Like I destroyed all the other evidence.’

  ‘The police never suspected a thing, did they?’

  She shook her head. ‘You could say he’d committed the perfect crimes.’

  ‘And the diary?’ Juliet asked.

  ‘It broke my heart to read it. He described how he’d been biding his time for months, waiting for an opportunity to kill that man. The weather forecast was so bad, he was convinced the man would be at home that evening and there was little or no danger that anyone would see him making his way to the Harbour Master’s Cottage. He parked on the top road that leads to West Kirby. There’s a short cut through the trees that not many people use. It isn’t a path, barely a track. The weapons were taken from Ron’s old shed in the garden. An axe, a mallet and a wooden stake which Peter had sharpened in readiness. He clambered over the wall in the darkness, unlocked the shed and picked up the bag he’d put them in.’

  ‘And then,’ Harry said, ‘he committed his murder. Forced his way in, knocked Symons out with a blow from the axe handle, so he was defenceless.’

  Linda trembled. There were tears in her eyes. ‘When you put it like that…’

  ‘Sounds pretty brutal? Well, that’s the way it was. A cruel sadistic killing.’

  ‘No-one mourned Symons,’ she blurted out. ‘He was a hateful man. So far as I can make out, everyone is glad he’s gone.’

  Harry grimaced. He cast his mind back to Suki Anwar, revelling in the demise of the man who had tormented her, relishing the prospect of taking over his job. ‘Even so…’

  ‘Ron wasn’t like that,’ she said. ‘People admired him. Peter and I worshipped him. He was irreplaceable.’

  ‘And you think he’d have been happy about being avenged through murder? The murder of a man who hadn’t done him any harm but do his job, a man who’d committed no crime.’ As he uttered the words, he remembered that Carl Symons had been a blackmailing rapist. But did that make any difference?

  ‘Peter felt he had to do it. The diary explained everything. It helped me to understand the pain he’d been going through.’

  ‘Didn’t you talk to him after the police had finished with you? I know you hadn’t read the diary, but you had your suspicions. Why not challenge him?’

  ‘How could I?’ she demanded. ‘How do you say to your son that you think he’s committed murder? I told myself I was mistaken, I was being a neurotic mother. It would have been terrible for him to be falsely accused, especially after he’d been through so much. I couldn’t bring myself to add to his suffering. I wanted to look after him, keep him safe.’

  ‘So you’re saying that you had no idea that he intended to kill Nerys Horlock?’ Harry asked coldly.

  ‘No!’ she shouted. ‘No, I did not! Do you think I’d have let him out of my sight, let alone gone back into work if I’d guessed what was going to happen? I’m not a mind reader. His diary said he felt he’d had no choice. He’d become fixated on this idea that lawyers were like vampires. They earned their living out of the misery of others. That was why he’d set fire to Horlock’s office once he’d murdered her. It’s a way of making sure that a vampire is dead. I think he wrote it for me to read, as well as some kind of therapy. But he couldn’t bring himself to confess to me, face to face.’

  ‘And the night Nerys died, what were you doing while he was killing her?’

  She reddened. ‘Sleeping. I don’t sleep well, the doctors had given me tablets. He persuaded me to turn in early, said I wasn’t looking too well and the rest would do me good. He waited till I was out of it and then he set off for Liverpool. It was all in his diary. Perhaps he thought one day I’d find it, perhaps he wanted to explain.’

  ‘And when you heard the news that Nerys Horlock was dead? You knew she’d acted for Tuesday. Didn’t you put two and two together?’

  ‘I was beside myself, if you want the truth. But I had no proof. He told me he’d been up late that night. Reading. Perhaps I didn’t believe him, but I had to protect him. Had to. Oh, neither of you would understand. You’re both childless, you can’t imagine how it feels when your own kid is threatened.’

  Harry sensed Juliet stiffening beside him. He’d come too far to give up now. Recklessly, he demanded, ‘So did you kill him, Linda? Did you push him down the stairs?’

  She stared at him. ‘You shit! I would never do that! Not to my son, my only child.’r />
  ‘Not even when he was a killer, a deranged double murderer who stabbed and beheaded his victims, did his best to incinerate the second?’

  ‘How dare you!’ She had risen to her feet, was standing over him, her small fist balled-up. ‘I would have stood by him, no matter what he was accused of, no matter what he’d done. That’s what mothers are for. He was troubled, yes, deeply troubled, but who wouldn’t be, after everything that he’d been through? His death was an accident, I tell you, a terrible accident.’

  ‘So tell us how it happened.’

  ‘He’d been drinking heavily. I think he must have realised I was afraid for him. There was this guilty secret that hung in the air between us, but neither he nor I could bring ourselves to talk about it. I had to leave his flat to pick up something for us to eat. By this time, I was living from hour to hour. When I got back, I found him sprawled across the floor at the foot of the stairs. I think he’d meant to go to the loo and opened the wrong door in his confusion. He fell down the staircase and broke his neck. I’d lost the only two men I’d ever loved. They were taken from me. How dare you say I killed my boy, you utter bastard!’

  All of a sudden she crumpled back into her chair and curled up into a foetal shape. She was weeping uncontrollably. Juliet went over and put an arm round her, held her tight. ‘I’m sorry, Linda, I’m so sorry.’

  There was no stopping the great gasping sobs. Juliet whispered softly to her friend whilst Harry slumped back in his chair, his eyes closed. He would need to ring Mitch Eggar, tell him that at last the mystery was solved. Before he did, though, there was one last question to put, so that the picture was complete. He waited miserably, wishing that the truth would sometimes cause less pain.

  When Linda had finally been calmed, she sat huddled up next to Juliet, who paused in murmuring words of comfort to address Harry. ‘I think enough’s been said, don’t you?’

  He could read the look on her face. Stop here, stop right here. You mustn’t torture her for a moment longer. He wasn’t unkind, he could scarcely imagine the agony Linda Blackwell was enduring, but he had to satisfy his curiosity, couldn’t bear simply to walk away and leave it all to Eggar and his team. And yet he guessed that if he pushed any further, he was finished with Juliet. She could forgive many things, she could go back time after time to the thug who beat her, but she would not tolerate him making her friend confess the worst.

  Even so, he had no choice. Just as Linda must have felt she had no option but to choose the course she had. He cleared his throat and said, ‘I’ve been asking myself why you murdered Rick Spendlove? Was it because you felt you owed it to your husband and your son?’

  ‘Harry!’ Juliet cried. ‘For God’s sake!’

  He brushed her protest aside with a sharp wave of the hand. ‘Peter’s diary made clear what he’d had in mind, didn’t it? Spendlove was to be his third victim, the revenge wouldn’t be complete without the destruction of the third vampire. You decided you had to finish the work he’d begun.’

  Linda turned her ravaged face to him. There was no sign of outrage, even as Juliet swore with fury at him. Probably it was a flight of fancy, but he told himself that he saw in her pale blue eyes a mute plea for understanding. Might she even be grateful that the truth was known, that the time for denial had passed?

  ‘That’s how it was, Linda,’ he said, ‘I’m sure of it. As far as you were concerned, Spendlove had to die. Partly because that way, you thought no-one would link the first two killings with your son - or the third with you. Partly because you felt you owed it to Peter to carry out his plan. And you were lucky. Brett Young had done a runner. When you visited me in hospital you were keen to persuade me he was guilty. I should have guessed what you were up to. Of course, he was the ideal scapegoat.’

  She bowed her head. He could see the mousy roots of her hair. Juliet’s face was wiped of expression, but he guessed that inside, she was beginning to despise him for the relentlessness of the case he was building for the prosecution. He was awash with a strange feeling of guilt, as if he were the one who was doing wrong, yet he could not help himself. His throat was parched, but he had to keep talking.

  ‘So you set out to seduce Spendlove, anyone could have worked out that was the way to catch him off guard. I suppose you learned a good deal about him from what Peter wrote?’ Linda flinched and Harry took it that his guess had been on the mark. ‘You’re an attractive woman, he was sex-mad, it wasn’t too difficult. Did you pretend to be a potential client or did you simply let him pick you up at a club?’

  She found her voice at last, although she spoke so faintly that it was hard to make out the words. ‘Peter knew where Spendlove lived. I followed him to a bar. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. It was like a waking dream.’

  ‘So the two of you arranged a tryst at the waterfront in Birkenhead. His idea was to make love to you in the back of his car, but when he was naked and defenceless you had him at your mercy.’

  He glanced at Juliet. Her face was still a mask. The clock chimed the hour. He waited until it had fallen silent.

  ‘And you didn’t let him escape, Linda. You’d taken Peter’s weapons, I suppose you’d found them hidden in the flat. The axe, the hammer and the wooden stave. You didn’t have the strength or expertise for a precise copycat killing. It didn’t matter. You knocked him out and dumped the car and his body in the river. He wasn’t dead when he hit the water, but so what? You’d carried out the plan.’

  In his mind he could hear Spendlove’s voice, extolling the virtues of older women. They don’t yell and they don’t tell.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said and suddenly she flung out her arms in a gesture of triumph. ‘I’d avenged the men I loved. They could rest in peace. Rest in peace for ever, once the last of the bloodsuckers were dead.’

  The Letter

  I read between the lines of your letter

  and have been in an agony.

  I am watching as you sleep. I feel your soft breath on my cheek. It would be so easy to end it by pulling a pillow over your face. I have come so close to destroying you, and in more ways than one.

  But I cannot do it. Must not do it. It would not be an end, but rather the beginning of the worst nightmare of all. And I have had my fill of nightmares. Already I hate myself too much. Hate what I am or have become. I have sucked the life out of you for far too long.

  I loved my mother and when she died, I felt the bitterness of betrayal. The passage of time dulls pain, but I can never quite forget. Then I see what I am doing to you, how I am draining the life from you, and I feel ashamed.

  I need to do what my mother failed to do and say goodbye. The guilt is burning my soul. If one of us must die, let it be me.

  I ask one thing, and one thing only. When you read these words, think of what I have done not as self-indulgence, nor even as desperate and cowardly. Think of it instead as an act of love.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A week after Linda’s arrest, he rang Juliet. They hadn’t spoken since that night at Parkgate. He’d half expected that he would never speak to her again. A few times he’d picked up the phone, once he’d even started to dial her number, but then he’d thought better of it. Perhaps they didn’t have much left to say to each other. But he couldn’t let her go without a word.

  ‘I visited Linda today,’ Juliet said. Her voice was unsteady. ‘She barely recognised me.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘A high security unit. They seem to think she won’t be fit to plead. Turns out there’s a family history of psychiatric illness. Her father died in what they used to call an “institution”. I didn’t have any idea. She never told me about it, she always seemed so calm and composed. Oh God, it’s so…’

  He coughed. ‘Look, I meant to call you sooner, but…’

  ‘It’s all right. I didn’t expect to hear from you again. Not after that terrible night.’ He thought he could hear a stifled sob. ‘I suppose you’re thinking what I’m thinking? That it’
s run its course, our - thing together.’

  The honest answer was yes, but he’d been a lawyer too long. Like most lawyers, he was cautious to the point of cowardice. ‘Well - don’t you?’

  ‘Perhaps we should cool things down for a while,’ she said after a pause. ‘Jesus, I said some stupid things that night, Harry.’

  She had, too, after Linda finally broke down. Bitter, wounding things. But you couldn’t judge someone by what they said when they were in the depths of despair. They weren’t uttering secret truths, just lashing out blindly as a way of easing the pain.

  ‘Forget about it. The two of you were very close. You were bound to be distraught when you heard the truth.’

  After a pause, she said, ‘You know something? Even though she kept things from me, she was the best woman friend I’ve ever had. I’ve always got on a lot better with men than my own sex.’

  ‘I didn’t set out to destroy her,’ Harry said. ‘Or hurt you. Does that matter?’

  ‘Of course it matters.’

  ‘I needed to be sure, you see. I’d already made one mistake. Earlier that day I’d accused Brett Young.’

  ‘I hear he’s back in circulation.’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘There was a paragraph in the paper saying that the police had interviewed him about his deception. I see you’re representing him, they printed a quote from you.’

  ‘Brett’s still got a heap of problems, even though he isn’t a killer. I got that badly wrong.’

  ‘But you were right about Peter and Linda.’

  ‘Shall I tell you something? I wish I’d fouled up again and they were innocent.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, this mess. None of it.’

  He kept quiet. She hadn’t been so understanding out in Parkgate.

  ‘It’s an obsession with you, isn’t it?’ she said eventually. ‘The need to discover the truth - whatever the cost. But sometimes the price is too high to be worth paying.’