The Devil in Disguise

by Martin Edwards

  He headed through the city streets under a sky that threatened rain. Charles Kavanaugh had been buried on just such a day. Harry had been required to represent the firm at the funeral because Jim was involved in a heavy property deal; it had given him the opportunity to meet Vera Blackhurst for the one and only time. She had been dressed from head to toe in black and kept wiping away tears from her heavily made-up cheeks. Harry had taken an instant dislike to her. Perhaps it was unfair, perhaps she had worshipped the ground that the dead man had walked on. But somehow he could not believe it. When he had muttered a few words of condolence to her at the graveside, she had burst into uncontrollable weeping. Grief took different people in different ways, but when she put her handkerchief away, he noticed that her small dark eyes were as hard and unemotional as pieces of coal.

  Outside the magistrates’ court, the wild-eyed vagrant the local lawyers called Davey Damnation was in full cry. He was a cadaverous figure who had been hanging around the city for months and his knowledge of the Book of Revelation surpassed even Harry’s familiarity with The Big Sleep.

  ‘And the city had no need of the sun!’

  ‘Thought you were a prophet of doom, not a weather forecaster,’ Harry murmured. But out of a strange mixture of habit and superstition, he tossed a few coins into the battered hat which Davey kept at his feet. The response was less than euphoric.

  ‘He that is unjust, let him be unjust still!’

  Harry grinned. ‘That’s no way to talk about the chairman of the bench.’

  Davey glared. If he had ever possessed a sense of humour, it must have been worn away by years of living rough. His age was unguessable: perhaps early forties, but he had the weathered flesh of a man twenty years older. He drew in his breath, but before he could launch into another diatribe, Harry hurried into the building. When he emerged a couple of hours later, he had secured an acquittal for one client and a paltry fine with time to pay for another. The clouds had rolled away, too. Perhaps it was going to be his day.

  Davey thought otherwise. He jabbed his forefinger at Harry as if pointing out a bag thief on an identity parade.

  ‘And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night.’

  The prophet’s understanding of the difficulties faced by the local legal profession was remarkably acute, Harry decided. He strolled down Dale Street in the direction of the waterfront. The river was quiet, as usual these days. More freight was put through the Port of Liverpool now than at any time in its history, but the supertankers lacked the romance of the old days, when the world’s ships had sailed here. He sighed and turned into the Albert Dock complex. The Queer Fish was a small restaurant boat moored outside Gladstone Pavilion that offered snacks and meals to tourists and a wealth of gossip to locals. As Harry stepped on board, the proprietor hailed him like a returning prodigal.

  ‘If it isn’t Harry Devlin! How super to see you again. Where have you been hiding yourself?’

  What would be an effusive greeting from anyone else was par for the course with the rubicund matelot standing by the kitchen door. Harry knew that the warmth of his welcome was genuine. Dusty Rhodes loved people and good food in equal measure. He had once been a cook in the Royal Navy, but nowadays running the Queer Fish was as close as he came to a life on the ocean waves. His affectionate nature had led to an incident resulting in his dishonourable discharge, but in the safer waters of the Albert Dock he was able to indulge his passions to his heart’s content.

  ‘Yeah, long time no see. I’ve invited Jonah Deegan along.’ Dusty knew the detective, who was always happy to have lunch here if a client could be found to foot the bill. ‘Any chance of a quiet table for two?’

  ‘Your wish is my command. Follow me.’ Dusty looked back over his shoulder. ‘Old Jonah, eh? So is the game afoot, as Sherlock would say?’

  Harry took a seat. ‘Ask no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’

  Dusty pouted. ‘Spoilsport. Ah, here’s the man himself.’

  Harry glanced towards the door. Jonah Deegan was hobbling towards him. The old man suffered badly from arthritis and was in the queue for a hip replacement. But Jonah on one leg was still more effective than most inquiry agents on two: he had the priceless gift of being able to accept nothing at face value. In response to Dusty’s cheery greeting, he simply scowled. Old habits died hard and Jonah had never had any time for shirtlifters. But Dusty was a detective’s dream, a mine of information about goings-on in the city who simply loved to be quarried. With Jonah, the job mattered more than anything and he just about managed to keep his prejudices in check. Harry suspected that the old fellow might even entertain a sneaking regard for Dusty, but knew he would sooner die than admit to it.

  ‘Glad you got my message. Pull up a chair and after we’ve had a bite I’ll explain what I’m looking for.’

  ‘I’ve got company,’ the old man said with his habitual truculence.

  Harry had noticed a bespectacled young woman in dungarees threading her way through the tables behind Jonah, but he had not imagined they were together. She stepped forward and offered her hand. ‘Stephanie Hall. Pleased to meet you, Mr Devlin. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

  As they shook hands, Harry tried to weigh her up. She had a fresh face, a mop of unruly fair hair and a grip that would not have shamed a prison warder. There was something about her cast of features that reminded Harry of someone, but he could not place it. He was too busy wondering why Jonah had brought her along.

  ‘I never realised I was famous.’

  ‘Your detective exploits, of course. Jonah here has told me all about the cases you’ve been involved with. He doesn’t have much time for amateurs but I bet that, if pushed, he might make an exception for you.’

  Harry was bemused by the fond, almost proprietorial way in which she referred to the old man, who was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. ‘You work together?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Partners,’ Stephanie beamed.

  He gaped at her. Female private eyes were nothing new, but Jonah teaming up with a girl less than half his age? It was less likely than a joint venture between the Law Society and a troupe of morris dancers. ‘Oh. Right. And since when...?’

  ‘Well, I’m jumping the gun slightly. Officially the partnership commencement date is the first of next month. But I’m on board now and we’ve made a few small changes already.’

  ‘Ah. The answering machine?’

  ‘For example. Though I’m having some trouble persuading Jonah to switch it on. But as I’ve said to him, we have to move with the times. Clients’ expectations have changed since he first hung up his nameplate. We have to offer a quality service. Customer care. Value for money.’

  To judge by the crimsoning of his leathery cheeks, Jonah had experienced increasing difficulty in keeping quiet throughout these exchanges. Finally the old curmudgeon could bear it no more.

  ‘Stephanie’s my sister’s daughter, you see.’ Harry had never heard him sound so defensive. ‘She’s always been keen on the idea of coming into the business.’

  ‘And you’ve said no for the past two years, haven’t you?’ she said with an amused glint in her eye. ‘But in the end you saw it made sense.’

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?’ he said grumpily.

  Stephanie winked at Harry. ‘He’s expecting me to fall flat on my face. But the fact is, Mr Devlin, he isn’t getting any younger. He has all the experience and contacts, but he needs another pair of hands. I may not be an ex-copper, but I’m brimming with enthusiasm and I’m full of ideas.’

  Harry organised the food and as they ate he learned a little more about the odd couple’s plans. Stephanie was a geography graduate, but since her teens she had always had a yearning to follow in her uncle’s footsteps. It offered, she said, a perfect opportunity to satisfy her natural c
uriosity about people and to be paid for the privilege.

  By the time he was pouring out the tea, Harry decided that he liked Stephanie very much. She had the same square jaw as her uncle and he guessed that she would be as resolute in the pursuit of an inquiry, although she might not take such pains to make her clients aware that she was doing them a favour by taking on their case.

  As he told the story of Vera Blackhurst, Stephanie asked frequent questions. ‘What do we know about her?’

  ‘Very little. Until Charles’s death, I was scarcely aware of her existence. I met her once, at the funeral. She was about as inconspicuous as Sharon Stone in widow’s weeds. And her hat was the ugliest I’ve ever seen. Like a rejected exhibit from the Tate.’

  Stephanie grinned. ‘Can’t say anything about that. The Deegans are hardly famed for their sartorial elegance. Tell me - was there anything suspicious about his death?’

  Jonah had become a little restive and now he could contain himself no longer. ‘Stephanie has this idea that she’d like to help solve a murder mystery.’

  ‘It’s a weakness we have in common,’ Harry said.

  ‘One of the reasons I asked her along,’ Jonah said gloomily. ‘I thought you two would get on like a house on fire.’

  ‘Unfortunately, the answer to her question is no. Charles never enjoyed good health. Miriam, his mother, pampered him from infancy. He was always overweight and he suffered from diabetes as well as a variety of other ailments. During the last few years, he ate to excess and it put a heavy strain on his constitution. He had a heart attack a little while ago. But in the end the diabetes did for him. He had a couple of toes amputated, but it was too late to prevent gangrene setting in. Even if he hadn’t suffered a second and fatal coronary, he wasn’t likely to have survived. No possibility of foul play.’

  Stephanie rubbed her chin. ‘And the will was found amongst Charles’s effects at the nursing home after his death?’

  ‘Correct. Vera was present when he died. Holding his hand, by all accounts. Of course, his death was not unexpected. There is no doubt that it was a case of natural causes.’ Harry’s eyes narrowed. ‘Apparently the body had no sooner been wheeled away than Vera was asking the matron to look through Charles’s effects to make sure that his important papers were looked after. By which she meant, of course, the will. He’d kept it in his bedside cabinet during the last forty-eight hours of his life. Vera said that Charles would have wanted the trustees to be informed of his passing. Luke Dessaur had called in to see him several times and I gather that most, if not all, of the trustees had visited to pay their respects.’

  Jonah grunted. ‘Hypocrites.’

  ‘Vera said she was too upset to ring round herself, but she asked the matron to let Luke have the news. And it was the matron who told him about the new will. She said she’d caught sight of its contents. By accident, of course. She hadn’t meant to pry.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Jonah said. ‘I expect she was hoping for a mention.’

  ‘If so, she was disappointed. She told Luke that Charles had left the Trust his treasures - I suppose she assumed they were valuable - and that the rest was going to Vera. You can imagine Luke’s reaction. He was appalled and consulted Jim Crusoe right away. Jim advised the trustees to lodge a caveat. Which was duly done.’

  ‘And what’s the effect of that?’

  ‘I won’t bore you with all the legal technicalities,’ Harry said. In truth, he was far from sure that he could remember them. ‘But it prevents Vera from sealing a grant of probate for up to six months. So she can’t pay herself a large slice of Charles’s fortune and then skedaddle. Even if she wants to. It slows everything down.’

  ‘Sounds like every other legal process I ever heard of,’ Jonah grumbled.

  ‘Useful for the trustees, though. Charles was a wealthy man with a wide variety of assets. Stocks and shares, property and so on. Sorting out a complex estate always takes time. Even so, we won’t be able to hold off Geoffrey Willatt for ever.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Stephanie breathed. ‘Vera sounds like a mystery woman.’

  ‘Something else happened last night.’ He described seeing her leave the restaurant and his fruitless chase after her companion. ‘I did wonder if the man with her was the chairman of the Kavanaugh trustees. It seems unlikely, even though there was a resemblance. But it prompted me to looking through the file again and I’ve started wondering about the language used in the will. Geoffrey Willatt has given me a copy. It’s written out in shaky longhand but it’s simple and legally sound. In other words, very suspicious.’

  ‘Why?’

  Harry grinned. ‘Any lawyer will tell you, do-it-yourself wills are almost always badly drafted.’

  Jonah coughed. ‘You just want to drum up more business.’

  Stephanie shushed him. ‘Are you saying Charles was too stupid to draft a will properly?’

  ‘Not exactly. What I am saying is that I wouldn’t have expected him to use the briefest valid attestation clause. That is, the bit before the signatures. He used the phrase: signed by the testator in our presence and by us in his. Very neat. But it’s not a form of words that would spring naturally to the mind of a dying man.’

  She opened her eyes very wide. ‘Could he have copied it from his old will?’

  ‘No. His lawyer, Cyril Tweats, had many qualities, but brevity was never one of them. He always used a more verbose formula. It was part of his style. My guess is that Vera checked out the wording in a book and dictated the terms of the will to Charles.’

  ‘I agree,’ Stephanie said eagerly. ‘I’m sure you’re on to something.’

  Harry chuckled. Jonah was quite right: Stephanie was a woman after his own heart. ‘So it’s over to you two. If you can give the trustees any information which will help them to drive a suitable bargain with Vera, they will be delighted.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ she said, reaching for her bag. ‘Thanks for the instructions. We’ll report back as soon as possible. Just one more thing I ought to mention.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’ve had to increase our fees. Forced on us by the level of overheads. I’ve often told Jonah, he’s been selling himself short for years. Don’t think of it as a price rise so much as a long-overdue correction. See you.’

  Jonah winked at Harry, who mouthed at him, ‘Bloody answering machine.’ Whatever her qualities as an investigator, it looked as though Stephanie was intent on becoming the acceptable face of her uncle’s brand of capitalism.

  Ten minutes later he was walking back into Fenwick Court. As he stepped into reception Suzanne hailed him. The pleasurable alarm on her face filled him with foreboding: she loved nothing better than to be the breaker of bad news.

  ‘Mr Crusoe wanted to see you. Urgently.’

  ‘Any idea what it’s about?’

  She shook her blonde locks. ‘All he said was that he wanted me to make sure you got the message. At once. He doesn’t trust you to check your e-mail.’

  Harry made straight for his partner’s room. ‘A problem? Or is Suzanne simply enlivening her afternoon by turning on her best shock-horror manner?’

  Jim looked up from the pile of title deeds in front of him. ‘I think you would call it a problem. Luke Dessaur has been found dead.’

  Chapter 5

  He called Frances Silverwood right away. It was evident from her muffled tone that she was choking back tears as she gave him the brief details of which she was aware.

  ‘Luke had booked into the Hawthorne Hotel down on the Strand. God knows why. He had a single room on the third floor and he fell from the window about half past midnight. As far as I can gather, it’s not clear whether it was an accident - or suicide.’

  ‘Suicide?’ Harry’s head was spinning. ‘Surely that’s not possible?’

  ‘That - that’s what I would have
said. But apparently it is a strong possibility.’

  ‘Why? Did he leave a note?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s just unbelievable, Harry.’ He heard her taking a deep breath at the other end of the line. ‘Sorry. I’ll pull myself together soon, but this has come - as rather a shock, to say the least.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do.’

  ‘I - I don’t like to ask this,’ she said.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I realise you’re a busy man. I trespassed on your time yesterday and I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself. But I wonder - could we have a word about this, once I’ve had a chance to collect my thoughts? I’d like to talk to someone. If that doesn’t sound foolish in a grown woman.’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t. Are you free later this afternoon? I have a meeting at Empire Dock after work.’

  ‘I could be at your office for five thirty, is that all right?’

  After ringing off, he felt a twinge of conscience, aware that his motives were not purely altruistic. The news of Luke Dessaur’s death was not merely startling. It saddened him. They had never been close, but he had always respected the older man. The waste of a good human life always made him feel dismay. Yet he had the honesty to admit to himself that he was also intrigued. It was impossible to understand what had happened to Luke, to think of a reason why he should have left home for a hotel and then finished up dead. But he needed to make sense of the mystery. It was a feeling with which he was familiar, one that perhaps he should resist - but could not. Even if he did not give in straight away, it would continue to tease him like a seductive woman, nibbling away at him until he had no choice but to surrender to his instincts.