The Devil in Disguise

by Martin Edwards

  ‘What exactly can we hit them with?’ Tim asked.

  Harry shrugged. ‘For starters, we might say that she exercised undue influence over her employer when he was seriously ill. She was in the same room when Charles and the witnesses signed it.’

  ‘Is that legal?’

  ‘Sure. You can have the Household Cavalry present at the same time as you execute your will as long as you adhere to the proper formalities. But it’s unsatisfactory, all the same. My guess is that she was determined to make sure that there was no hitch. She didn’t trust Charles to get it right.’

  ‘Who can blame her?’ Roy said.

  ‘Let’s be realistic,’ Harry said. ‘Suppose we are right and Vera Blackhurst was a woman on the make. She didn’t invest too much time in cuddling up to Charles. I guess she will want to sort this out sooner rather than later. Her solicitor said she sympathised with the Trust’s predicament.’

  Matthew grunted. ‘As I said, she’s a lying bitch.’

  ‘Was any offer made?’ Tim asked.

  ‘Oh no,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t wish to raise your hopes. Geoffrey Willatt did say that at least the Trust would benefit from Charles’s collection of treasures.’

  ‘I hope his tongue was firmly in his cheek,’ Roy said.

  ‘Geoffrey has no sense of humour whatsoever. It’s part of the person specification for partners in Maher and Malcolm. All I can say is that there is a small chink of light. We must make something of it. So I have a proposal.’

  ‘Take out a contract on Vera Blackhurst?’ Roy suggested. He stretched his arms and emitted a comfortable belch. Harry reflected that it was just as well that Luke, that model of decorum, was not present.

  ‘A bit late for that. No, we need a few bargaining chips. It would help to have a little background about Vera. Anything that we might use to strike a deal that leaves the Trust with a share - however modest - of the Kavanaugh estate.’

  The trustees digested this in silence for a few moments. Harry watched them closely. Matthew’s face was dark with anger. Tim and Frances looked tired and miserable. Even Roy had lapsed into silence. Finally Frances spoke.

  ‘Didn’t Ambrose Bierce say a litigant is someone who gives up his flesh in the hope of saving his bones? I take it you don’t believe we should see her in court?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘Too risky. Too time-consuming. And above all, too expensive. Jim and I recommend the Trust to hire a private investigator to check her out. I can instruct a reliable local man if you wish.’

  Matthew frowned and opened his mouth again but Frances intervened before he could speak. ‘That seems like sound advice to me. I’m sure that Luke would be in favour. Are we all agreed? Very well, Harry, you have your go-ahead. Now, any other business? No? Excellent. I propose then that we all adjourn to the pub.’

  As the others drifted towards the door, Harry joined Roy Milburn, who was putting the finishing touches to his latest sketch on the back of the minutes of the last meeting. He looked up and grinned. ‘Well, well. Who would have thought it, the Kavanaugh Trust hiring a gumshoe?’

  Harry looked over his shoulder and studied the cartoon of a Humphrey Bogart look-alike in trilby and mackintosh. He pictured Jonah Deegan in his mind and shook his head. ‘Sorry, but you’re way off the mark. A flat cap and a duffel coat is more our man’s style.’

  ‘Must you shatter my illusions?’ Roy put his pencil back in his pocket. ‘By the way, what you said about the lawyers’ fees reminded me of something. Know why the Law Society prevents solicitors from having sex with their clients?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’

  Roy chortled. ‘Because it stops them charging twice for essentially the same service.’

  ***

  ‘It’s been a long evening.’

  Tim Aldred leaned back on the bar stool and gave an elaborate yawn. Harry had a curious sensation that Tim was waiting for him to react to something. He glanced at his wrist to check the time, then gasped.

  His watch had disappeared.

  Panic gripped him. He looked around frantically, uttering a silent prayer that he would find the watch. It was Swiss, a good make, but what mattered was that it had been a present to him from his wife Liz, in the days before their marriage had gone wrong, long before she had finished up on a mortuary slab, victim of a callous murderer. It kept good time, but even if one day it stopped for ever he would never give up wearing it. It was part of his life, a reminder of lost innocence as well as one of the few tangible things he had to remember her by.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Tim asked.

  Harry sucked air into his cheeks. Was it possible that for the very first time since Liz’s death he had forgotten to put the watch on? Or had he drunk more than he’d realised and taken it off in an absent-minded moment?

  Tim grinned, showing large uneven teeth. ‘Is this what you are looking for?

  Casually, he stretched an arm around Frances Silverwood, who was sitting between them, and fished the watch out of her jacket pocket, handing it to Harry with a little bow.

  ‘So I can answer my own question. It’s ten o’clock.’

  ‘Tim!’ Frances cried. ‘That’s amazing!’

  Fastening the watch back on to his wrist, Harry said ruefully, ‘Talk about the quickness of the hand deceiving the eye. I never even realised it was missing. How on earth did you manage that?’

  Tim opened his hands in an easy-when-you-know-how gesture. ‘Magic.’

  ‘Pity you never took up the law. I have plenty of clients who could do with a conjuror rather than a solicitor. I long ago ran out of rabbits to pull out of my hat.’

  ‘You’re extraordinarily clever, Tim,’ Frances said with an encouraging smile. ‘I’ve said it before. You’re too good an act to spend all your time performing at parties for children or old age pensioners.’

  Tim coloured. ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ His moment on centre stage having passed, he again became the awkward introvert familiar to Harry from the trustees’ meetings. He finished his pint of beer and mumbled, ‘Well, I suppose I really must be going.’

  ‘Thanks for the drink,’ Harry said. ‘As soon as there is any news from Jonah Deegan, I’ll let you know.’ Tim responded with a non-committal grunt and Frances gave him a penetrating look. ‘Look here. Am I right in thinking that you’re not entirely happy with the tactics we agreed tonight? Keep it between the three of us if you like.’

  Matthew Cullinan had declined to join them here, since he had to take his girlfriend home. Roy had consumed a swift pint at Harry’s expense and then disappeared before there was any danger that he might have to put his own hand in his pocket.

  ‘It’s just that I’m not sure I like the idea of disputing the will. No offence, Harry, but a charity like the Trust should be concentrating on its clients, not on legal argument. For God’s sake, tonight we spent five minutes discussing applications for funding and the rest of the time the possibility of going to law. We had no right to expect anything from Charles Kavanaugh. If he chose to leave his money elsewhere, that’s his prerogative. We should respect it.’

  ‘The Trust needs the money,’ Frances said quietly. ‘That’s Luke’s view, he told me so the last time we spoke. And you know he would never be a party to anything underhand. We should follow Harry’s advice.’

  Tim sighed. ‘Maybe you’re right. I suppose I’ve always had an old-fashioned outlook.’

  ‘I’d call it honourable,’ Frances said. ‘And I’ll go further. If I really believed that Charles had made a rational decision to disinherit the Trust and give everything to his lady friend, I’d defend to the death his right to do so. But I can’t accept her story at face value. It stinks, frankly, and we owe it to the Trust to test it out. If it survives close scrutiny, I’m inclined to say good luck to her. We might solicit a donation, but th
at’s all. Because what you say is right. And it does you credit.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He was mumbling again, plainly embarrassed. ‘I’ll be off then.’

  ‘Good night,’ Harry said. He watched the man go, bumbling through the crowded room in the vague direction of the exit and speculated whether, just as Frances was evidently attracted to Luke, so Tim might carry a torch for Frances.

  Harry’s route back to his flat took him through the city centre. As he walked, he wondered again about Frances’s claim that Luke was afraid. The Blackhurst problem alone could not, surely, account for it. Perhaps it was something to do with the supposed deception by one of the other trustees. Frances, Matthew, Tim or Roy? The meeting had offered no clues. He resolved to give Luke a ring the next morning, to see if he had returned home.

  Fifty yards ahead, he caught sight of a woman emerging from the Ensenada, a restaurant famed equally for cuisine and cost. As he watched, she stepped under a streetlamp and flagged down a taxi. He had only met her once before, but he would have recognised that shocking blonde hair anywhere. Talk of the devil. Vera Blackhurst was living it up already.

  He ducked into a doorway as a tall grey-haired man in an overcoat followed her out of the restaurant. His coat collar was turned up and, although his build and walk seemed familiar, it was impossible to identify him. As Harry peered through the darkness, the man held the cab door open for Vera and was rewarded for his courtesy by a peck on the cheek. He put his hand on her arm and it seemed to Harry that it lingered there before they said their goodbyes and the man waved her off.

  What was going on?

  The man strode across the road and disappeared down an alleyway on the other side. Harry hesitated, then remembered how his hackles had risen when Jim had scoffed at his habit of poking his nose into other people’s business. He took a deep breath, then hurried off in pursuit of Vera’s companion. The alley led to Lord Street but when he arrived there, his quarry had disappeared.

  ‘Shit!’ he exclaimed.

  A drunk who was leaning against a litter bin said, ‘You never spoke a truer word pal,’ and promptly threw up over the pavement.

  Harry groaned. Perhaps Jim was right after all. The man had probably parked in one of the multi-storeys - but which? He opted for the NCP in Paradise Street and raced to the main exit.

  After five minutes he realised he had chosen wrongly. None of the cars which emerged contained anyone who remotely resembled Vera Blackhurst’s companion. He sighed and told himself that probably it didn’t matter. It was a free country. She couldn’t be expected to mourn her late employer for ever. Let’s face it, there was no harm in going out for dinner with someone.

  And her companion couldn’t possibly have been Luke Dessaur - could it?

  Chapter 4

  Jonah Deegan had acquired an answering machine. It was akin to an Ancient Briton investing in a microwave oven. As Harry listened to the taped message the morning after the trustees’ meeting, he found it difficult to suppress a burst of laughter. At last he had come across someone less at ease with technological advance than himself.

  ‘There... uh, there’s no-one here at present. I mean to say, there won’t be at the time you hear this recording. I know it’s a real pain when you hear one of these things, anyhow, don’t hang up without letting me know who’s called. Start talking after you’ve heard the whatsit - yes, I know, the tone. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. All being well.’

  Jonah’s parents had named him wisely. In the unlikely event that he had ever had a shred of optimism in his make-up, a career in the CID followed by long years operating on his own account had served to rob him of it. What puzzled Harry was Jonah’s use of the royal we. The old man was usually as careful in his choice of phrase as a Chancery lawyer and since leaving the force he had operated as a one-man band. Surely at his time of life he was not about to turn over a new leaf?

  ‘This is Harry Devlin. I have new instructions for you. Can we meet at one o’clock for a bite of lunch on board the Queer Fish?’

  He felt pleased at having couched his request in terms that Jonah would find difficult to resist. Provided he picked up the message during the morning, the prospect of a paying job coupled with a free lunch and a trip to his beloved waterfront should ensure the old man’s presence at the appointed time.

  He still couldn’t make up his mind whether the man with Vera had been Luke Dessaur. He rang Luke’s home number but there was no reply. A metallic voice on Luke’s mobile number told him that the phone was switched off and please to try later. He put the receiver down and told himself that he’d run out of excuses to delay sifting through his correspondence. He was wondering why, whenever he received a particularly stupid letter from another solicitor, it came on letterhead festooned with quality assurance logos when his receptionist rang.

  ‘Kim Lawrence for you.’ Suzanne had an extraordinary gift for uttering the four words with the aural equivalent of a knowing wink and a nudge in the ribs. Harry’s involvement with the solicitor from Mersey Chambers was now widely known, although he still found difficulty himself in defining their relationship. He felt himself blushing even as he asked for her to be put through.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ Kim began before pausing. He was struck by her tentative tone. Outside the office she could be a mass of contradictions and uncertainties, but during working hours she adopted the persona of the cool, decisive lawyer with such skill that very few realised that it was no more than a disguise.

  ‘Glad you rang. I was wondering if you would be interested in seeing Vertigo again? It’s on at the Philharmonic Picture Palace.’

  ‘Thanks - but is there any chance I can see you before then? Tonight, for instance?’

  ‘Sure.’ He was surprised by the urgency of her tone, but gratified by it. ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘Tonight is the annual general meeting of the Liverpool Legal Group. I haven’t been for years, I thought I might show my face this time. Shall I perhaps see you there?’

  Harry knitted his brow. From anyone else, the suggestion would have been a patent leg-pull. He loathed the politics of their profession. For him, attending a lawyers’ talking shop held as much appeal as undergoing a colonic irrigation. Yet her question was not satiric, but rather anxious - almost pleading. Quite out of character. He would need to feel his way through this conversation. ‘I hadn’t planned...’ he began.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I should have realised. Silly idea. Forget it.’

  ‘No, no. Jim reckons I ought to take an interest in the future of the profession. I say the Legal Group has no more influence over it than a bunch of fortune tellers. But if you’re going, perhaps I should break the habit of a lifetime.’

  ‘Fine,’ she breathed. ‘And thanks.’

  ‘No problem. I can moan about diminishing profits with the best of them. And it’ll be good to see you again.’

  ‘You too,’ she said quietly.

  Suzanne rang to say that Jonah had called back to confirm their lunch meeting. Things were beginning to move. On his way out to court, he looked round Jim’s door. His partner looked up from the glossy brochure he was studying and said, ‘We need to sharpen up our corporate image.’

  Harry groaned. This was old ground. ‘Don’t tell me. Another public relations consultancy has got its claws into you. Remember the salesman who wanted us to sponsor a Formula One racing car? With our luck, it would have crashed at the first bend and incinerated the driver.’

  ‘You’re prejudiced. Old-fashioned. We need to move with the times, keep up with the competition. The woman who phoned me is full of ideas. We could hold a season of seminars for regular clients, mailshot them with news of changes in the law.’

  ‘Wonderful. Do you think the governor of Walton Jail might let us circulate our clients with details of how to lodge an appeal against convic
tion?’

  Jim scowled. ‘Your idea of practice development is buying a round for the villains who hang out at the Dock Brief.’

  ‘Don’t knock it. It works. And I’m quite willing to raise my blood-alcohol level in the line of duty.’

  ‘We need to be proactive.’ A thought evidently struck Jim and he tossed the brochure across the desk. ‘I’ve talked to her on the phone and she’s offered to come in for an hour to talk things through. Are you interested?’

  Harry glanced at the photograph on the front cover. ‘Juliet May Communications? And this is Juliet May, I presume?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  She was a striking redhead with large brown eyes. Harry gazed at the picture for a few seconds and said, ‘Obviously, it would be wrong for me to pre-judge matters. I suppose in fairness I ought to give her a hearing.’

  Jim grinned. ‘I thought that on reflection you’d be willing to reconsider. Leave it with me, I’ll fix something up. I warned her you’d be a challenge - to say the least - but she was quite relaxed about that, said a one-to-one session with you would suit her fine.’

  ‘She obviously has good taste.’

  ‘She’ll learn. So how was your meeting at the Piquet Club?’

  ‘I didn’t get to look at the naughty books. Must be slipping. The trustees spent most of their time bitching about Blackhurst. And guess what? She was out on the town herself last night.’

  He described his sighting of her outside the Ensenada. ‘I even wondered if the man with her was Luke. But quite apart from the fact he can’t stand the sight of her, he’s not as solidly built as the chap I saw. All the same, I’ll mention it to Jonah. The trustees were happy to instruct him and I’m seeing him for lunch. If anyone can dig the dirt on Vera, he can.’

  ‘You think there is dirt to be dug?’

  ‘Why not? How many people do you know without a skeleton in their cupboard?’

  Only as he left the office did Harry reflect on his partner’s pained expression and wonder if his careless final remark had been misinterpreted. Jim was an uxorious man, married with two children, but last year he had wandered from the straight and narrow with an attractive girl, a woman police officer much younger than his wife. Harry was the only other person who knew about the relationship: he’d once barged in on them at the most delicate moment imaginable. So far as he knew, Jim had now stopped seeing the other woman. He certainly hoped so; he cared for the Crusoes and did not want to see any of them hurt. But he sensed that even if Jim managed never to be found out, his conscience would continue to trouble him.