The Devil in Disguise

by Martin Edwards

  When Frances arrived, Harry was shocked by the change in her. Her shoulders were hunched and her voice croaky. He’d never seen her eyes so red and she kept blowing her nose. Although she gave the excuse that she was going down with a cold, he did not believe her. Luke’s death had left her desolate.

  Darkness had fallen and it was cold outside, but she suggested that they walk for a little while along the waterfront. Harry was quick to say yes. He loved the river and in times of trouble often sought to calm himself by watching the waves as they lapped against the shore. They paused in their stroll near the ferry terminal and stood by the rail, looking out towards the straggling lights of the Wirral peninsula. For a while neither of them spoke.

  ‘Thank you for sparing me your time,’ she said at last.

  ‘It’s the least I could do.’ After a pause he said gently, ‘Would you like to take me through what happened, as far as you know?’

  ‘Yes, I must have sounded pretty incoherent when we talked earlier. Sorry. There isn’t actually a great deal to tell. I tried ringing Luke’s home number one more time today and a policewoman answered. She was tight-lipped at first. Needless to say, I was bewildered. But I was able to put a few pieces together partly through talking to her and partly through having a word with Don Ragovoy, the manager at the Hawthorne Hotel. He’s been involved with the Museum as a sponsor and I know him slightly. I called there before coming round to your office.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Don said there was no record that Luke had ever stayed there before and he had no idea why he should suddenly have decided to do so yesterday.’ She frowned. ‘It makes no sense. Why should he pay good money for a room in a hotel when he lives only a few miles away?’

  ‘Had he been drinking?’

  ‘So Don says. After picking up his suitcase, he seems to have driven into the city and left his Rover in the hotel’s underground car park. If he was planning to meet someone in town and have a few drinks, why not simply take a taxi? He had an evening meal alone in the restaurant.’

  ‘Ah.’ So one mystery was solved. Luke had not been Vera’s dinner companion at the Ensenada.

  ‘Apparently the waitress who served him said he seemed tense and preoccupied. In his room they found an opened whisky bottle and an empty tumbler.’ She swallowed. ‘Nobody saw him fall. His room overlooked an inner courtyard, according to Don Ragovoy. A night porter whose cubby-hole is on the ground floor heard a thud outside and went to investigate. He found Luke’s body stretched across the gravel.’

  Harry flinched. More than once in his life he had seen the body of someone dead before their time. One corpse had belonged to his wife. The memory of his last sight of her always swamped him with nausea.

  ‘An accident, perhaps?’

  ‘Don Ragovoy claims it couldn’t have been. Although Luke’s room had a window opening out on to a tiny balcony, it would be very difficult for someone simply to slip to their death. The balcony isn’t for everyday use, it’s a design feature. Don showed me the corresponding room on the floor below. To get out, one would have to open the window to its fullest extent and then haul oneself over the railing. Not as difficult as Don made out, but far from easy.’

  ‘You have to take what he says with a pinch of salt. He has the reputation of his hotel to protect and his own job to think about. If it turned out that the place he is running is a deathtrap, he would be finished.’

  ‘Even so, he has a point. Why would Luke want to scramble out of his bedroom window in the early hours - unless he wanted to end it all?’

  ‘Strange that he left no message.’

  She sighed. ‘I agree. He is - sorry, was - so precise, so well organised. And so considerate. That’s why I refuse to believe that he can have meant to commit suicide. Mind you, he was only an occasional drinker. If he’d drunk more whisky than was good for him, perhaps he became confused. And there are other possibilities. I’ve even wondered if it was some form of - oh, I don’t know - some form of a cry for help.’

  ‘But think of the method he chose,’ Harry said. ‘Not an overdose. Not something where there was a chance someone might haul him back from the brink. You say his room was on the third floor. You don’t get a second chance if you fall from that height.’

  She gulped. ‘I suppose you’re right. It just seems so extraordinary. I can’t understand why he would want to do such a thing.’

  ‘One thing I’ve learned,’ he said, ‘is this. No matter how well you think you may know another person, you can never know everything about them. You can live with someone for years and yet they may have secrets you never begin to expect.’

  She inclined her head and said softly, ‘You know about sudden death, don’t you? Your wife was murdered.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There was once a time when I reckoned I knew Liz inside out. Of course, I was deceiving myself. At least as badly as she deceived me.’

  Still facing out across the river, she said, ‘I cared for him, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I’d known him slightly for years. He’d always been closely involved with the arts in Merseyside and at one time he was a non-executive director of the Museum. He knew about my singing and invited me on to the Trust board after he was appointed chairman. I don’t pretend he was always an easy colleague. He had such integrity. Most people were in awe of him. But he didn’t court popularity. Or ever compromise on his principles.’

  A silence followed and Harry remembered his last conversation with Luke Dessaur. Luke had believed that one of his fellow trustees was deceiving him, perhaps even committing a crime. Surely such knowledge would not cause him to take his own life?

  ‘The last time I saw him...’ he began.

  She turned towards him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘He did seem... to have something on his mind.’ Even as he uttered the words, he realised how lame they sounded. He had been about to confide in her, but under her penetrating gaze he’d found himself faltering. It was inconceivable that Frances was the person Luke thought had been deceiving him - wasn’t it? - but just as it had during their meeting at the Museum, something made him hold his tongue. Perhaps it was nothing more than a lawyer’s inbred caution.

  ‘I told you yesterday, he’s seemed afraid recently. But - why?’ There was a note of urgency in her voice, as if she sensed that he knew more than he was yet willing to reveal. He cursed himself for raising the subject on impulse.

  Having abandoned candour, he had no choice but to obfuscate. At least legal training came in handy sometimes. ‘I suppose none of us can tell what would drive a man to the depths of despair.’

  Yet the thought slid into his mind that perhaps it was not a question of despair at all. A man of integrity would make enemies - it was inevitable. And a man unwilling to compromise on personal standards might be a danger not only to himself, but also to others.

  ***

  After saying goodbye to Frances, he headed along the waterfront towards Empire Dock. The Liverpool Legal Group often hired a room there for its meetings. Harry lived in the same complex, in one of the apartments that had been carved out of the old warehouse. He sometimes had to take care not to be spotted by professional colleagues when he was on his way home; he had no intention of spending his evening talking with other solicitors and barristers about their tribulations as well as their trials.

  Thinking about Kim Lawrence distracted him from speculating about the death of Luke Dessaur. Why had she invited him to the Legal Group AGM, of all things? Kim was a sole practitioner, a lawyer with crusading zeal who specialised in family and criminal law. In Liverpool, there was no shortage of work in either discipline. She had little time for the establishment, which made her attendance at Empire Dock tonight all the more curious. He sighed. Compared to Kim, his wife Liz had been an open book. He knew he must be patient, but sometimes he despair
ed of ever being able to understand the way Kim thought, let alone to try to read her mind.

  As he walked along the riverside pathway, he became aware of an emptiness in his stomach. Surely he was not nervous? It made no sense: he had nothing to fear from the hacks of the Legal Group. And he should be looking forward to the chance to see Kim. The wind whipped against his cheeks as he mulled it over. There had been something strange in the way she had spoken on the telephone. Was it possible that she had met someone else?

  He was the last to arrive. Unpunctuality was one of his vices. It derived, he supposed, from a pathological fear of boredom, of arriving too early and having nothing to do. It seemed better to turn up just in time, but in practice he always left things to the last minute and found himself panicking about whether he would ever make his appointment. He always regretted it and kept vowing to mend his ways: one more resolution he never kept.

  The penalty on this occasion was that he had lost his chance to sit next to Kim. She was always prompt and he noticed her blonde head at the front, facing the raised dais on which the Group’s officers were arrayed. If she had tried to keep a seat free for him, there was no sign of it. He found a place in the back row, treading on a few toes and causing a bit of tutting as he did so. Geoffrey Willatt, sitting on the dais, caught his eye and frowned. Harry winked at him in the hope of provoking a scowl. The tease worked, as it always did. Then, as he craned his neck to see over the balding heads in front of him, he saw Kim deep in conversation with Quentin Pike, a partner in a firm called Windaybanks.

  Odd, but comforting. As the proceedings began, he reflected that at least there was no chance of Quentin becoming a rival for her affections. Quentin’s chubby exterior concealed - as callow police officers often discovered to their cost - an incisive defence lawyer’s mind as well as a sly wit. But he was a devout Catholic with a charming wife and an ever-increasing number of children. Harry could not imagine him embarking on an affair with a professional rival noted for her earnestness and campaigning zeal.

  Come to think of it, many people would have regarded Harry as an equally improbable partner for Kim. Although they shared an unswerving loyalty to the underdog as well as a passion for justice that even bitter experience of the real legal world could not dim, the ways in which they expressed their beliefs could scarcely have been more different. Kim favoured lobbying Parliament and candle-lit vigils. Harry preferred to search on his own for the truth in cases which fired his imagination. In contrast to her fierce sense of purpose, he had only a dogged unwillingness to leave any conundrum unresolved.

  He was, despite himself, impressed that the meeting was so well attended. The economic climate was troubling and lawyers were feeling the pinch. The Group was trying to retrieve lost ground. They knew they could never expect public sympathy. They lived in an age when Roy Milburn’s lawyer jokes always raised a laugh, a world in which audiences guffawed at the scene in Jurassic Park where a dinosaur eats a lawyer as he sits on the toilet. So to make up, they comforted each other. Litigators expressed dismay about the slump in income from conveyancing work. Property lawyers condemned the latest cuts in legal aid. Everyone united against those soulless accountants who were snatching so much of the work that should properly be handled by solicitors and barristers in private practice.

  ‘All we ask,’ one speaker insisted, ‘is to be paid properly for what we do.’

  This eminently reasonable sentiment received loud applause, but Harry kept his hands upon his knees. The man who was complaining possessed a Jaguar, a house on the Wirral and a mistress with a taste for designer clothes. Harry did not doubt that the fellow was strapped for cash, but reckoned that neither the Lord Chancellor nor the clients were likely to shed any tears for him.

  The plastic chair was hard, the discussion short of intentional humour and Harry was relieved when Geoffrey Willatt concluded the formalities. As people began to rise and move in the direction of the bar, Kim turned and looked over her shoulder. Harry caught her eye and she waved. Yet she then turned back to talk to Quentin Pike. What were they debating - surely not the scope for charging more for a house sale and purchase?

  Only one way to find out. He ambled over and perched on a chair in the row immediately behind them. Quentin was in the middle of a sentence when he glanced round and saw they had company. The words died on his lips and he gave Harry a nod of welcome whilst scanning his face, as if trying to discover something.

  ‘Evening, Quentin. Kim. So what’s your verdict - is there a future for the high street solicitor?’

  Quentin beamed, as he often did in court when trying to glide over a serious flaw in his case. ‘It’s very worrying. For once I agree with dear old Geoffrey. We shall all have to tighten our belts.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right.’ Harry couldn’t resist glancing at the other man’s ample girth. Quentin’s bathroom scales probably screamed for mercy every morning. ‘But I expect we’ll survive. I must admit I find the scare stories rather wearing, though I noticed you two found plenty to discuss.’

  Kim’s pale cheeks coloured. Quentin patted her on the shoulder. ‘As you well know, Ms Lawrence is always worth listening to. And now, I’m afraid, I must leave you both.’

  ‘Stay and have a drink.’ Harry would normally have felt that two was company, three a crowd. But something was up and he could not be sure that Kim would confide in him. Maybe after a couple of rounds Quentin might be ready to talk.

  ‘Sorry. I was on duty last night and it takes its toll.’ He paused and added, ‘Besides, I’m sure the two of you have enough to chat about together.’

  Harry noticed Kim blush again and as Quentin made his way towards the exit, he asked, ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘Any chance of that drink?’

  ‘My God, is it as bad as that?’

  She gave him a thin smile. ‘Not really.’

  A couple of minutes later they had found the quietest corner of the room and Harry was savouring a pint of best. In the background, he could hear people grumbling about court delays and the cost of professional indemnity insurance. He said, ‘This is the last place I expected you to suggest for an evening out.’

  ‘I needed to talk to Quentin. And besides, there’s something I want you to know.’

  She put her glass down on a small table and fiddled with the copper bracelet on her wrist. Her eyes had the downward cast of a bringer of bad news.

  It doesn’t matter, Harry told himself. How could she hurt him? As a boy he’d had to listen to the news that his parents were dead. Years later, two policemen had called at his flat early one morning to tell him that his wife had been murdered in a dismal back street. Not too long ago he had discovered that someone he liked was a killer. He had risked his life then and Kim had saved him. She owed him nothing. Besides, anticipation was always worse than the event. Whatever she had to say, it was better to get it over and done with.

  He touched her slender arm. ‘Go on.’

  She swallowed. Her hands were trembling slightly. It occurred to him that she had been dreading this moment, that she had rehearsed a little speech but now the right words were evading her.

  ‘You know how much my work with MOJO means to me.’

  Puzzled, he nodded. She was regional chair of the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation and she admitted herself that she devoted more time to it than was healthy for her own legal practice.

  ‘Ever since I was a law student,’ she continued hesitantly, ‘it’s seemed important to me to do everything possible to help people betrayed by the legal system.’

  ‘God knows,’ he said, ‘there are plenty of them.’

  She managed a faint smile. ‘You understand, Harry. It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you.’

  That sounded disturbingly like an epitaph. He ground his teeth, said nothing.

  ‘So I’m hoping you’ll a
lso understand what I’m about to say. You see, I’ve been offered a job.’

  He stared at her. ‘But you have your own firm.’

  ‘Yes.’ She waved a hand dismissively in the direction of their colleagues, chattering over canapés. ‘But I’ve never felt as though I truly belong to the profession. Filling in forms, charging by the hour. The more I think about it, the less it seems to have to do with justice.’

  He grunted. ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘And I’ve come to realise that my work for MOJO gives me much more satisfaction than anything else. We can make a difference, Harry. And if we can help to put right even a few of the travesties that the law inflicts, then I can’t think of a more worthwhile way of spending my time.’

  ‘So MOJO have offered to take you on the staff?’ A wave of relief swept over him. What was all the fuss about? ‘Wonderful news. Congratulations.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ she said. ‘As you know, the organisation runs on a shoestring. There’s no way that the North West branch could afford to take someone on to the payroll. The money simply isn’t there.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘The national headquarters is in London. The present chief executive has had a coronary and been offered ill-health retirement. They’ve asked me if I’d like to take the position in his place.’

  He caught his breath, trying to take it in. ‘So do you have to relocate?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve discussed it with the Board. I wanted to know if it was possible for me to keep a base in Liverpool. The answer was no. Whether we like it or not, London is the centre of influence. The chief executive has to be there full-time. And it’s not just a Monday to Friday job. If I want it, I have to move.’

  ‘And - you do want the job?’