He wandered into the kitchen, but didn’t have the appetite for a proper meal. Grabbing a jumbo sized bag of hand-cooked sea salt and crushed black pepper crisps from the cupboard, he poured himself a glass of Coke. Healthy living could start tomorrow. Though if he was to meet his end in a few days’ time, really, what was the point?
As he snacked, he took another look at the Borth inquest file. Aled Borth had come to him for advice following his mother’s death. The late Nesta Borth, widow of a long-deceased bus driver, had been seventy-nine years old and suffering from enough ailments to provide a warning against the downsides of extended life expectancy. Yet her death at the Indian Summer Care Home in Crosby came out of the blue, according to Aled. He’d visited her the evening before her death and said she seemed as fit as a flea. A flea on extensive medication, but not at death’s door. Aled’s suspicion that Nesta had not died of natural causes was fuelled by the discovery in her bedside table of a codicil to her will executed a month before her passing. She’d left ten thousand pounds to Dr. Malachy Needham, who owned the Home. Aled, her only child, was incandescent, especially as her little terraced house had been sold to fund the care fees. Once the legacy was paid, there would only be buttons left for him. But there was nothing unusual in people becoming embittered about inheritance. It was when the post-mortem revealed unexpectedly high doses of morphine in Nesta’s body, far in excess of therapeutic treatment levels, that Ceri Hussain insisted that the police started asking questions.
It didn’t look good for Needham. Yet it didn’t make much sense, either. He’d trained as a medic, and his wife was a nurse, but for years he’d focused on business ventures. Years ago he’d made a quick buck by retailing fake Beatles memorabilia, nowadays he had a finger in innumerable pies. He owned holiday homes in Tuscany and the Caribbean and drove a silver Rolls Royce, so he would scarcely risk life imprisonment for the sake of a measly ten thousand quid. Although hadn’t Dr. Shipman, having successfully murdered countless patients, come to grief through forging a will which sought to cheat a daughter of her proper inheritance? Foolish, given that the daughter was a solicitor. Harry presumed Shipman must have wanted to be caught.
Needham had spent a small fortune proving his innocence, Harry reflected, as he sifted through the papers. He’d hired a shit-hot firm of London lawyers and their first move had been to threaten Aled with an injunction if he said anything defamatory about their highly respectable client. Their master-stroke was to instruct an expert in pharmacokinetics to examine the toxicological evidence. Professor Afridi from Edinburgh, a man with more qualifications than you could shake a stick at, had established that Nesta Borth’s fondness for gin—testified to by everyone other than Aled—had turned her liver into a sodden, malfunctioning mess. As a result, her body had been incapable of excreting the opiates at the usual rate. The damage to her metabolism produced misleading toxicological results. She had indeed been given the right morphine doses and Needham was in the clear.
If Harry hoped Aled Borth would be glad to learn that his mother hadn’t ended her days at the hands of a rapacious poisoner, he was soon disabused. As far as Borth was concerned, there were lies, damned lies, and expert medical evidence. Needham was guilty and that was that. When the Crown Prosecution Service sat on the file for month after month, he persuaded himself that the net was closing in on Needham. Once the CPS announced that no charges were to be preferred, he reacted with fury.
An inquest could now be held and Aled made clear to Harry that he intended to accuse Needham of murder in open court. Not a good idea, and this afternoon Harry had meant to talk some sense into him. A lawyer’s job was to tell clients truths that they preferred not to hear.
Maybe one of those clients was behind the prank with the death notice. Surely it wasn’t Borth?
He closed the file and flicked on the TV. There wasn’t much on. He couldn’t face yet another concert by rock stars with big cars and even bigger fortunes protesting about climate change and poverty, but the countless channels he zapped through with the remote offered nothing better. Showbiz Darts, Amazing Traffic Cop Videos, Footballers’ Wives Makeover Tips, Zoo Vet, Extreme Cosmetic Dentistry, a repeat of Celebrities without Shame…no, no, too demoralising. He wasn’t in the mood to watch Wayne Saxelby’s girlfriend frolicking in the wet tee shirt that had made her reputation, and frankly hoped he never would be. Time to chill out with soft soul music. Drop down on the sofa and see what the shuffle came up with.
James Ingram. This is the Night.
But he couldn’t settle. His eyes strayed to the answering machine. It sat uneasily on a wonky table that proved there was no such thing as simple home-assembly. Its monotonous blinking was a silent reproach.
With a sigh, he ambled across the carpet and pressed play.
A couple of clicks, followed by silence. Christ, don’t say he’d been called up by a heavy breather…no, what was that?
Even though he strained his ears, he’d missed it. He turned the volume to maximum and played the tape again.
A distant, throaty whisper. Gender indistinguishable.
‘Midsummer’s Eve.’
The Second Day
Chapter Five
Sun streamed through the blinds as he awoke. Clothes lay scattered across the bedroom carpet. The previous evening had ended in a blur of canned beer and an old rock concert on TV. His throat was parched, but he felt much better than he deserved. It was summer, and the world wasn’t such a terrible place. No need to be spooked by this Midsummer’s Eve stuff. He luxuriated in a languorous stretch. New day, fresh start.
Someone was having a laugh at his expense. Nothing to fret about. When clients were sent to prison, some blamed their brief, even if their DNA was smeared all over the crime scene. If they walked out of court with not the faintest stain on their good name, police and prosecutors were equally pissed off. He turned on the shower and blinked water out of his eyes. Maybe he should have listened to Victor Creevey. All work and no play was a big mistake. Better get out more. If all else failed, he’d overcome a lifetime’s prejudice against exercise for the sake of it, and join a gym.
He shaved with infinite care and chose his smartest suit. Not a time-consuming process, since his wardrobe boasted only one smart suit. The tie challenge was trickier, but he settled for something silky in blue by a designer he’d never heard of. Juliet had given it to him years ago as a birthday present after wondering aloud if he’d signed up for a Hideous Tie Convention. She had exquisite taste; that she’d married Casper simply proved that nobody gets it right all the time. He kept the tie for special occasions, and appearing in Ceri Hussain’s court counted as a special occasion. He gave his shoes an extra shine.
Wandering into the kitchen, he trod on the crumpled mock-up of the death notice from the Echo. Last night it had spilled from his pocket and on to the tiled floor. He smoothed it out, shook his head, and tossed it into the waste disposal. Its destruction was accompanied by a satisfying roar.
Died suddenly? On this particular June morning he felt as if he’d been transported back to his student days, when he still believed he might live forever.
Drenching his muesli in milk, he half-listened to local radio. The headline item was the body found at Waterloo. A breathless reporter said that the police refused to discuss a possible link with the murder of Denise Onuoha. A dour DCI’s muttered insistence that the police weren’t ruling anything in or anything out, she took to mean that a madman was on the rampage.
He switched off and flipped down a TV screen mounted under the wall unit. A studio discussion about fear of crime. The guest was an expert on all matters criminal, a leather-clad woman with the bright eyes and body language of Squirrel Nutkin on speed. Professor Maeve Hopes, Victor Creevey’s heroine.
‘Should we be frightened? Of course not, Nemone. We need the maturity to dismiss these scare stories about social decline. The homicide figures speak for themselves.’
‘But there are far more murders than half a cen
tury ago?’
The professor gave a smile of triumph. If she’d had a bushy tail, she would surely have wagged it. She’d stock-piled enough statistics to reduce Nemone to a pouting silence.
‘We really must avoid clichés or knee-jerk response, Nemone. Let’s put the data into perspective. The Home Office estimates that our proportion of murder victims per hundred thousand people is only a tad over the European average. And for goodness sake, compared to Finland…’
So that was all right, then. Harry picked up the remote and vaporised Squirrel Nutkin with a swift ruthlessness of which Old Mr. Brown could only have dreamed. Time to venture out and witness poor old Nesta Borth’s name being scrubbed off the murder list.
***
‘Mr. Borth’s in reception.’
‘I’ll have ten minutes with him in meeting room one. Can you ask Grace to make a quick coffee for us, please?’
As he walked down the corridor, he clamped on an emollient smile, but the moment he reached reception, he saw it would take more than bonhomie to soothe Aled Borth. His client’s eyes swam like reproachful goldfish behind spectacles whose cracked frame was mended with tape. At the best of times, rosacea gave his skin an unhealthy flush, and today his nose and cheeks were so empurpled that Harry half-expected him to keel over with a coronary the moment he clambered to his feet.
Two heavy canvas bags squatted at Borth’s feet. A bad sign. Clients with their own bulging files of paperwork reckoned they knew more about the case than everyone else. Even if they did, it never helped. They researched the law with fundamentalist zeal, haunting dusty libraries until late at night, heedless that the books they studied were years out of date. Litigation became a passion, even if it afforded no pleasure. Aled Borth was single and worked irregular hours at the Waterloo Alhambra. He’d had too long to brood on his mother’s death, and on the man he held responsible for it.
‘Shall we be off, then?’ he asked, ignoring Harry’s proffered hand.
‘Let’s have a quick word before we leave for court.’
‘What’s the point? I cancelled the meeting yesterday because we’ve said all that needs to be said between us.’
Harry groaned inwardly. A solicitor and client engaged in a long-running court case that was coming unstuck resembled an aged couple in a loveless marriage. You’d stuck with each other for so long, it made no sense to part. Divorce was too much trouble, but it was a joyless journey as you struggled on together until the inevitable unhappy ending.
‘I’d like to make sure I’m clear about your precise instructions.’ Harry caught Suzanne raising her eyes to the heavens at his ersatz breeziness. She could spot a last throw of the dice when she saw one.
Before Borth could protest, he led the way into the first of the partitioned interview cubicles. He heard the Welshman’s heavy, reluctant footfalls behind him and enjoyed a rare moment of smugness. First part of the mission accomplished.
‘Fancy new offices you’ve got,’ Borth said, scowling at an abstract print on the wall. It was captioned, enigmatically, Synthesis. Harry had to accept that it deserved to be scowled at.
‘Thanks very much.’
‘It wasn’t a compliment!’
‘Ah.’
‘I mean, where does the money come from but law-abiding folk like me paying inflated fees? Daylight robbery, Mr. Devlin. What was wrong with your old gaff?’
‘They knocked it down.’
Borth snorted, as if the demolition of Fenwick Court proved incompetence on Harry’s part. He unzipped one of his bags and pulled out a ring binder. Settling down in his chair, he rested an elbow on the table as though about to start arm-wrestling. Instead, he flipped open the file. It was a confection of coloured tabs, careful highlighting and footnotes in a tiny hand. More artistic than Synthesis, Harry thought. How many hours had it taken him to put this stuff together, all in a lost cause?
‘You’re well prepared.’
Borth looked as though the words One of us needs to be trembled on the tip of his tongue. ‘I know what has to be said today, Mr. Devlin. By myself, if you’re not willing or able to speak for me.’
‘My role is to act on your behalf. We discussed this when we met the coroner’s officer and he talked you through all the statements.’
Borth hadn’t even had any right to see the statements, but Ceri Hussain didn’t want rabbits jumping out of hats at the inquest. She had authorised her officer, Ken Porterfield, to disclose to Borth the evidence obtained following the decision not to charge anyone in connection with his mother’s death. Ken was a good-natured former vice cop, whose career had ended when a pimp high on heroin stabbed him in the thigh. Nothing much fazed him, but even Ken’s affability was taxed when Borth insisted that any evidence that conflicted with Needham’s guilt was tainted by skulduggery.
Borth puffed out his red cheeks. ‘His mind was made up from the start, it was written all over his face.’
‘Ken was a detective for twenty five years, and it was a textbook investigation.’
‘The police were blinded by science.’
‘We can’t ignore the science,’ Harry said gently.
‘I’m not prepared to let this rest.’
‘The coroner won’t allow you to call Needham a murderer. That’s not what inquests are for.’
‘This is my Mum we’re talking about, Mr. Devlin. Needham was responsible for her death. Call himself a doctor? Half the staff in the place can barely speak a sentence of proper English. There’s been a cover-up, I’m telling you!’
‘The Coroner will only want to hear from you on matters that cast light on how and why your Mum died.’
‘I’ll say what I like.’
‘Please don’t,’ Harry said. ‘It won’t do you or your Mum any good.’
The door opened and Grace trotted in, bearing a tray of coffee. To his astonishment, Borth was transfixed by her appearance. As she bent to set the tray down on the table, she caught his eye and at once her cheeks, normally devoid of any trace of colour, turned as red as a Liverpool soccer strip.
She twittered something incoherent. It might have been an apology for the lack of biscuits, or something else entirely. And then she fled from the room.
***
Liverpool Coroner’s Court occupied part of the old Cotton Exchange. The building had once boasted a magnificent classic frontage, but after surviving the Blitz, it fell victim to an adversary deadlier than the Luftwaffe, the nameless planners who devastated the city in the sixties. They ripped off the façade and replaced it with a concrete carbuncle, in an act of vandalism that would have made Attila blush. A huge weathered statue that once sat upon a tower at the top of the building now squatted on a pavement outside a glass-fronted cafe, looking as lost as an old tramp.
Harry led the way into the inner courtyard. Borth hadn’t uttered a word during the short walk from John Newton House, through the church gardens where he’d confronted Tom Gunter, along Chapel Street and into Old Hall Street. Usually he found it a challenge to keep his mouth shut for more than five seconds. Harry had no doubt that he and Grace recognised each other, and that the encounter had proved an unpleasant shock for both of them. He couldn’t help indulging in wicked, fanciful speculation. Might they be former lovers, the fey woman and this frankly unpleasant middle-aged man? Strange bedfellows, for sure. Judging by their reactions, if there had been an affair, it hadn’t ended happily.
A question nagged him. If the pair did know each other, why had Grace failed to recognise the name from the client file? Merseyside surely wasn’t overflowing with Aled Borths.
‘So where do we go?’ Borth panted with the effort of lugging his two canvas bags through the streets. Serve him right. Twenty years of court work had taught Harry to travel light. The world was full of litigators with curvature of the spine.
‘Turn right, there’s a room where we can wait.’
‘You think the inquest is a foregone conclusion,’ his client said as they walked into the waiting room.
‘Well, you never know.’ Harry hoped this was kinder than a simple yes. ‘But…’
‘I tell you, the bastard’s getting away with murder,’ Aled hissed.
At that moment, his bête noir marched past the door, followed by a retinue of well-groomed young people who must be the team sent up by the shit-hot London firm of lawyers. They reminded Harry of Pod People from Invasion of the Body Snatchers: uncannily similar to human beings, but stripped of all passion. Malachy Needham glanced in and gave a brisk nod, the gesture of an important man, acknowledging his inferiors. Needham was tall, greying and slightly stooped, as though carrying an outsized ego through the years had angled his shoulders and bent his back. According to his statement, he was fifty seven years old; he would have started out in medical practice at a time when even a humble GP took deference as his due. And Harry would take a lot of persuading that Malachy Needham had ever been humble.
‘Mr. Borth, we’ve been through this. The decision has already been taken. Dr. Needham will not be prosecuted. The coroner has no power to contradict what the investigators have decided.’
‘My mother wasn’t a secret drinker!’
Borth’s face was so red, Harry was afraid he might burst. He put a restraining hand on the man’s arm.
‘No, Mr. Borth, that’s the whole point. I’m sorry, believe me. There was no secret about it.’
As a single tear slid down the baggy, disfigured cheeks, Harry couldn’t help it. His heart went out to the man.
Waterloo Sunset: A Lake District Mystery #4 (Lake District Mysteries) Page 5
