The Devil in Disguise

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Very much.’ She paused. ‘I’ve wrestled with it night and day ever since they put the offer to me. But if I don’t seize the chance now, I’d always regret it. Even so, it’s a frightening prospect, making a fresh start in a strange city at the other end of the country. I’m settled here. Perhaps even in a rut. But I’m not like you, I’m not a native Scouser. All the same - it would be a wrench to leave Merseyside. And you.’

  She stroked his hand. Her fingers were cool. He was absurdly conscious of the sweatiness of his own palms and coughed to hide his dismay.

  ‘Thanks. But - what about your business?’

  ‘As you saw, I’ve been talking to Quentin. The reason is that, coincidentally, Windaybanks approached me a couple of months back. They wanted to know if I’d like to join forces with them. I said no and didn’t give it a second thought. I’ve no interest in being part of a big partnership. But when the MOJO job came up, I gave Quentin a ring, asked if he’d be interested in taking over my caseload without taking over me. They came straight back and made me an offer. He’s just been answering a few of the questions I asked. And he’s being very reasonable, he’s not insisting on an immediate response. One thing’s for sure. They are offering me the chance to walk away with cash in my pocket.’

  ‘And will you take it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Harry. That’s the truth. I simply don’t know.’ She paused. ‘What do you think I should do?’

  In another part of the room, someone guffawed. The mood of the legal luminaries had lightened. After a few gin and tonics, things never seemed so bad.

  He made up his mind. ‘You should have another drink, that’s what you should do.’ And draining his glass, he wandered over to the bar.

  ‘Let me get those,’ Geoffrey Willatt said as the barman rang up the price on the till. Harry turned and gaped at his old principal. It was rather as if Bumble had offered an extra helping of gruel to Oliver Twist.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure. Glad you could spare the time to join us. We must all stick together, Harry.’ Geoffrey absent-mindedly adjusted his old school tie. ‘There are simply far too many people coming into the profession. We need to restrict the numbers. I like the idea of making would-be solicitors undertake a personality test to see if they are suited to the work.’

  ‘Just as well that idea wasn’t around in my day,’ Harry said. ‘They would never have allowed me to qualify.’

  If Geoffrey Willatt privately agreed with him, he was too discreet to reveal it. He lifted his glass. ‘Cheers. Oh - and by the way.’

  ‘Yes?’ Of course, there must be an ulterior motive for this unwonted generosity.

  ‘This Kavanaugh business. The caveat the trustees have lodged. They surely aren’t going to contest the will, are they? There are no grounds.’

  So that was it. Harry pursed his lips and thought about having to fill in his income tax return. It was his foolproof method when he wanted to assume a sombre expression. ‘They’re not happy, Geoffrey. Not happy at all. There is a good deal of money at stake. Charles Kavanaugh had promised it all to them, then your client turns up and five minutes later she’s copped for the lot.’

  ‘I’m sure she would be happy to reach an accommodation with them,’ Geoffrey said, smoothing down an errant strand of grey hair. ‘I can assure you, she is a very reasonable person. Very reasonable indeed.’

  ‘Well, I’ll put it to my clients, but I can’t make any promises. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

  ‘Of course. I must let you get back to Ms Lawrence.’ Geoffrey coughed. ‘Perhaps I may expect to hear from you in early course?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Harry said with a sweet smile and returned to Kim’s side.

  ‘What are you looking so cheerful about all of a sudden?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, just solved a little puzzle, that’s all.’

  It was true. He did not yet know why Vera was so keen to do a deal when all the cards seemed to be stacked in her favour. But he had at least worked out the identity of the companion whom he had half-recognised following her out of the Ensenada. Of course, it hadn’t been Luke Dessaur, but another distinguished member of the Liverpool establishment, the famously respectable Geoffrey Willatt. And to add to his amusement, he’d also remembered Roy Milburn’s joke about lawyers who went around screwing their clients.

  Chapter 6

  The death of Luke Dessaur was a nine day wonder. For a while people in Harry’s circle talked of little else and although he now had other things on his mind he noticed how quickly shock gave way to speculation. Some argued that Luke had simply been the luckless victim of a tragic accident. He’d had too much to drink and not realised the risk he was taking when he opened his bedroom window and leaned right out to get a breath of air. Others reckoned it must have been suicide. Why else would he have booked into the Hawthorne Hotel? Presumably he could not face ending it all in the house he had once shared with his late wife. On a cold winter’s night, there would have been little reason for him to open the window, let alone lean out so far that he lost balance and fell to his death.

  Yet why should a pillar of the community have killed himself? As Jim Crusoe said, the explanation must lie in Luke’s own personality.

  ‘He often seemed remote, but that may date back to the time when he lost his wife.’

  ‘She died of leukaemia, didn’t she?’ Harry asked.

  ‘That’s right. It was years ago, but everyone agrees he was devoted to her. Nursed her all the way through a long final illness. After that, he threw himself into his work.’

  ‘You think he never stopped grieving?’

  ‘Sometimes it’s impossible to forget.’ Jim spoke in an uncharacteristically gentle tone and Harry realised that his partner was thinking of the scars left by Liz’s death.

  ‘If it was suicide, then he must have had a breakdown. Why else would he behave so oddly in the days leading up

  to his death and finally leave home and check into the Hawthorne?’

  ‘His mind must have been in turmoil.’ Jim’s face clouded. ‘Frances said he’d seemed afraid. We know why now, don’t we? He was summoning up the courage to kill himself.’

  ‘Doesn’t make sense to me.’

  ‘Still looking for mysteries?’ Jim considered him. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes, any reason why it shouldn’t be?’

  A deliberately casual shrug of the big shoulders. ‘It’s just that for the past couple of days you haven’t seemed yourself.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ Jim said mildly, ‘but you’ve been arriving early and leaving very late and not sparing anyone much more than a hello and a goodbye. Your secretary told me this morning she’d never known you be so up-to-date with your paperwork. There’s even a filthy rumour that behind closed doors you’re practising on the computer. Any minute now and you’ll be surfing on the Internet.’

  Despite himself, Harry smiled. ‘So - there must be a problem? I can’t win.’

  ‘Dead right.’

  It was difficult to keep a secret from a partner. Jim had found that out for himself the hard way. Why pretend? Harry sighed and explained that Kim might be about to leave Liverpool.

  Jim grunted. ‘Sorry to hear that. But you say she’s still in two minds?’

  ‘The job was made for her. She’d be crazy to turn it down.’

  ‘You could be long-distance lovers.’

  Jim’s easy assumption that the affair had been consummated deepened Harry’s melancholy. He could not bring himself to tell his partner why he and Kim had never slept together. The last time she had made love to a man, he had died in the act. She was still fighting to rid herself of the sense of guilt that she felt because of the death of someone who had been married to another woman.

&
nbsp; Jim took a deep breath. ‘You’re not going to thank me for this.’

  ‘Words of wisdom coming up,’ Harry said gloomily. ‘Go on.’

  ‘If she did go - it could be for the best in the long run.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Harry said in his curtest tone. ‘But right now, that feels unlikely.’

  Jim was trying to choose his words with care, to make a point without causing pain. The effect was clumsy: he was like a bear trying to hold an eggshell in its paw. ‘I mean, it has always seemed to me that the two of you are so - different.’

  ‘That’s why I like her,’ Harry said. ‘Because she is different.’

  Jonah turned up later that day to report progress on the Vera Blackhurst inquiry. He was wearing a thick scarf and walking even more stiffly than usual. The thought passed through Harry’s mind that the old man was himself a candidate for being carried off by the bad weather. And a hundred to one he hadn’t made a will.

  ‘She’s a lady with a past, that’s for sure,’ Jonah wheezed. ‘Only trouble is, it doesn’t look as though it’s the same past she told Charlie Kavanaugh about when she applied for the job with him.’

  ‘I wonder if she’s told Geoffrey Willatt that?’

  Jonah shook his head. ‘I’d have thought he’d have had more sense than to get involved with the likes of her.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s not so surprising. His wife left him eighteen months back. She ran off with a partner in Boycott Duff. I suppose that if Vera has turned on the charm...’

  ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ Jonah said. ‘Any road, I’ve had a scout round the house, rooted through a few of the old feller’s things.’

  Jonah was perhaps ten years older than both Geoffrey Willatt and the late Charles Kavanaugh, but Harry let it pass. ‘How did you manage that?’

  Jonah winked and tapped the side of his nose. ‘You ought to know better than that, lad. Ask no questions and you’ll get no lies. Let’s just say that I did a bit of sniffing around.’

  ‘Isn’t Vera still living there?’

  ‘Yeah, queening it for the time being. She’s a lady who likes the sound of her own voice, from what the neighbours tell me. It’s a posh area, the people there don’t have much time for servants with ideas above their station. Which is how they see Lady Muck. Apparently, she’s all set to take a long holiday abroad, calls it a pick-me-up. She’s bragged about going on a cruise, maybe round the world. Reckons it’s the only way to travel. Claims that she’s travelled on the QEII, flown in Concorde. I’m told she cracks on she’s some sort of distressed gentlewoman. You know, someone of good birth who fell on hard times and was forced to start working for a living. But one thing’s for sure. She didn’t work for the people she claimed to have done when she replied to old Charlie’s advertisement.’

  ‘You followed up her references?’

  ‘It’s more than Charlie ever did, stupid old bugger. They’re phoney, of course. The names and addresses she gave simply don’t exist.’ Jonah began to cough and his eyes started watering. Presently he recovered his composure sufficiently to be able to say, ‘Old age, Harry. That’s my problem. It’s a bastard. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.’

  Harry forbore to suggest that the cigarettes Jonah had spent a lifetime smoking might have had something to do with it. He’d given up smoking himself the day after Liz’s death: he’d felt driven by an obscure urge to escape from the past. Now he regarded the weed with the smug disapproval of a late convert to healthy - or, at least, less unhealthy - living.

  ‘Can I get you a drink? Coffee, tea?’

  Jonah’s gnarled hand waved in contemptuous dismissal. ‘I’ll have a pint of best later on and that’ll see me right. Any road, back to Blackhurst. The next thing is to find out what she’s really been up to all these years. Bear in mind, it may take some time. There isn’t much for me to go on yet.’

  Harry nodded. ‘With Charles dead, I can’t believe we could get enough evidence to make a criminal charge stick, even if she obtained the job by deception. She could come up with half a dozen stories to explain the references away. The CPS would never prosecute.’

  A ferocious snort conveyed Jonah’s opinion of the Crown Prosecution Service. ‘CPS? Couldn’t Prosecute Satan, more like. In my day, the police decided for themselves whether or not a charge could be made to stick. They weren’t forced to leave it up to a bunch of pen-pushers who wouldn’t recognise a criminal if he wore a mask and carried a swag-bag. I used to go by my nose. It never let me down.’

  Jonah’s nose, large and bulbous, was no thing of beauty, but it had served the old man well. Harry said, ‘I’ll get back to the trustees, warn them it may be a while before you turn up anything more.’

  ‘They have other things to worry about anyway, don’t they? I gather they’ve lost their chief. Sounds like a rum business.’

  ‘Too right. There are plenty of questions to be answered. Maybe the inquest will cast some light.’

  The old man grunted. ‘If you believe that’s what inquests are for,’ he said, ‘you’ll believe anything.’

  Jonah’s scepticism, borne of long years of compulsory kow-towing to coroners, proved all too justified. Harry decided to attend the inquest, telling himself that it was a mark of respect for Luke, but knowing in his heart that it was no more than a manifestation of his insatiable curiosity. His hopes were quickly dashed. As soon as he learned the identity of the coroner seised of the death, he realised that there was no chance of enlightenment.

  Seymour Cunis was a decent fellow who hated more than anything else the thought of hurting anyone’s feelings. What would be a strength in most people - and was, Harry had to admit, a rare quality in a litigation lawyer - was a fatal flaw when it came to discharging the duty of his historic office. Seymour was addicted to holding public appointments. In addition to being a deputy coroner, he was vice-president

  of the Liverpool Legal Group and an active member of innumerable committees devoted - at least according to their constitutions - to good works. Since even Seymour had never discovered how to expand the number of hours in a day beyond twenty-four, he found it necessary to spend as little time on each task as possible. His enthusiasm for prioritisation (a word he’d picked up at a seminar and subsequently used to justify his own brand of instant justice) coupled with his unwillingness to cause distress made the outcome of the proceedings a foregone conclusion.

  ‘Open verdict,’ Harry forecast in a whisper to Ashley Whitaker, who was sitting beside him at the back of the court.

  Luke Dessaur’s godson blinked, as he often did. He was an amiable fellow, but he always gave Harry the impression of living in a world of his own. Events in the here-and-now always seemed to catch him by surprise. ‘Really? I expected an adjournment.’

  ‘Forget it. Seymour won’t want to record a verdict of suicide if there’s even a smidgeon of doubt about Luke’s intentions. He hates to upset relatives of the bereaved. Even though Luke had no family, he’ll regard you as the next best thing. If it had been left to Seymour, he would have ruled that Roger Ackroyd was the victim of an unfortunate accident.’

  Ashley said sharply, ‘But what about searching out the truth?’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath for that. Seymour’s a lawyer. He knows the truth comes out in court much less often than most people would like to believe. He won’t want to prolong the agony.’

  Ashley knitted his brow, as if trying to come to a difficult decision. He was an old friend of Roy Milburn’s, but the two men could hardly have been more different. Ashley was always reluctant to give offence. If at times he seemed to be a dreamer, he could afford to be. He was married to a wealthy woman and their affluence had enabled him to turn his hobby into his work. He ran a second-hand mystery bookshop and enjoyed the rare good fortune of never needing to worry about the bottom line.

  ‘I see. I
n that case, there is very little I can do today.’

  ‘What did you want to do?’

  Ashley seemed about to say something, before changing his mind. ‘Never mind. It will keep.’

  Seymour Cunis ran true to form. He let everyone have a say, but made sure that as soon as they said it, the case moved on. No-one ever had a chance for second thoughts in his court. And besides, the evidence was wholly inconclusive. Seymour called Don Ragovoy, the manager of the Hawthorne Hotel, an American whose statement was as bland as a can of diet cola. The police and medical evidence was equally low-key. Yes, Luke had been drinking on that last night. No, he hadn’t been paralytic. Clearly, his judgment could not have been at its sharpest. There was nothing to suggest any breakdown in safety procedures. The police did not consider that further investigations were likely to be fruitful. The hotel was not at fault; Luke had just been unlucky.

  Ashley was asked whether Luke had ever shown any inclination to end his own life. He denied it with unaccustomed vigour and Seymour clicked his tongue in genuine sympathy. Although there was no suicide note, the records revealed that, just before midnight UK time, Luke had telephoned the hotel in Toronto where Ashley and his wife were staying. The Whitakers had been out and Luke had simply left a message that he had rung. He’d said a return call was not necessary.

  ‘According to the note the switchboard girl gave me, he simply said, “It doesn’t matter”,’ Ashley said bitterly. ‘I took that at face value and thought no more about it until I heard the news from home the next day. Fortunately, we had a flight booked for that very evening, but of course, we would have come straight back anyway - even though there was nothing we could do.’

  ‘You mustn’t reproach yourself,’ Seymour said. It was a phrase he often uttered and, although Harry found his approach frustrating, there was no doubt that he uttered it with the best of intentions.

  Seymour grasped the chance to sum up as soon as he could. ‘It is all quite tragic. The late Mr Dessaur was a man of considerable distinction. There are, it is true, a number of circumstances in this case that are difficult to understand. But that is by no means unusual. The conclusion I am forced to reach is perhaps unsatisfactory. But I must not shirk it simply for that reason. I find myself constrained to record an open verdict.’