Chapter 19
‘It’s a miracle that you’re still alive,’ Juliet May said over lunch a week later.
‘After I came round,’ Harry said, ‘the paramedic said exactly the same thing. I rather had the impression that he thought I didn’t deserve my good fortune. Not that I felt lucky for the next forty-eight hours. I ached all over. My head has never hurt so much in all my life. Not even when I was doing the Law Society exams.’
‘You actually fell down the fire escape, then?’
‘Seven or eight steps of it, to the first half-landing from the top. When I charged at the security man, I missed him but hit the rail, slipped and took a tumble.’
‘You could easily have tumbled over the edge rather than down the steps.’
‘Tell you the truth,’ he said, giving the shoulder that still hurt him a rub, ‘I’ve imagined it a thousand times since. Jim reckons that there’s a lot of competition in the list of the ten stupidest things I’ve ever done in my life, but panicking on a dark rooftop probably tops the lot.’
He gave her a sheepish grin. They were sitting at the back of the posh wine bar which had recently opened on Drury Lane. She had called him the previous morning, his first back in the office since his calamitous expedition to the studio flat, to ask how he was. When he’d asked if she could make lunch on Saturday, she had said yes right away.
‘At least you’re a man of action,’ she said with a teasing smile.
‘That’s not what the police said when they interviewed me at the hospital,’ Harry confessed.
‘Did the security man call them?’
Harry nodded. ‘He spotted me sneaking up the fire escape while he was doing his rounds in the building next door. He’s an ex-army bloke in his sixties and more of an action man than I’ll ever be. He called the police on his mobile but couldn’t resist nipping out and coming up himself to see what I was up to. He was sure I was up to no good, but I didn’t look as though I could handle a rough-house.’
Juliet shook her head. ‘How many burglars go about their business in a pinstripe suit?’
‘Mine isn’t a very smart suit,’ Harry said humbly. ‘And the coat I was wearing had seen better days. Besides, how many solicitors spend their time shinning up fire escapes in the rain? I could understand why the policemen took a bit of convincing that I wasn’t a rather incompetent villain. Or, even worse, a murderer. Thank God I didn’t have time to break into Roy’s flat. I’d have had even more explaining to do if they’d found me standing over the body of one of my own clients.’
‘You’ve never been tempted to kill a client, then?’ she asked lightly.
‘Tempted, yes. Many times. But I’ve always persuaded myself that it’s a mistake to bite the hand that feeds. Even if what it feeds is sometimes pretty unpalatable.’
Returning his smile, she refilled his glass and hers. He’d noticed that she liked a drink before, when they had dined with Inge Frontzeck and the make-believe Matthew Cullinan. Well, what was the harm? He liked a drink himself. But he was bothered by her appearance today. Not even her expertise with make-up could disguise the bruise on her left cheekbone. He was still looking the worse for wear himself, but she didn’t have the same excuse. He’d acted for too many battered wives not to be anxious about what the blemish might signify. But he hadn’t plucked up the courage to ask her about it. He’d need more than a couple of glasses of wine to start treading on such dangerous ground.
‘So Roy Milburn is dead,’ she said. ‘I heard a little about him from Inge. He sounded - quite a character.’
‘To say the least.’
‘Did you like him?’
Harry considered. ‘I suppose if you’d asked me a week ago, I’d have said I did. It would have been an automatic response. He could make me laugh. And yet I always realised he had his darker side. Roy was a mischief-maker, forever stirring trouble. He had no self-control. He never knew when to stop.’
She raised her eyebrows and said, ‘Which of us does?’
He found himself rubbing his leg against hers under the table. She giggled. Things are getting better, he told himself. Almost as an afterthought, he said, ‘Whatever he’s done, I’m sorry he’s dead.’
‘You said on the phone that he may have murdered Luke Dessaur.’
‘I know a few people in the police and one or two of them now believe it’s possible. But he can’t be brought to trial. So it looks as though the whole business may be buried quietly. Like Roy himself.’
‘And what do you believe?’
‘Big question.’
‘Come on! I’m not asking you to prove that God exists. You’re a mystery addict, just like me. You know the score. Did Roy kill Luke?’
‘I’m not trying to be evasive. I’m just finding it difficult to make sense of everything at present. Roy as a murderer, I can imagine. Roy the suicide I find more difficult to buy.’
‘It isn’t certain that it was suicide, though, is it?’
‘No. Same story as with Luke’s death. There’s more than one possibility, but suicide is the favourite. He’d been drinking heavily and then he took an overdose. They found the pills in his kitchen. Pain-killers. Maybe it wasn’t remorse, but just a spur of the moment thing. Perhaps his bad leg was playing him up. It gave him a lot of trouble - but it wasn’t exactly life-threatening.’
‘Paracetamol with codeine, wasn’t it?’
Harry nodded. ‘He’d taken enough to kill two or three men. A bit over the top if it was a cry for help. Besides, there was no-one for him to cry to. Maybe that was his real tragedy. He’d had hundreds of casual girlfriends over the years, by all accounts, but never anything really serious. I suppose I never regarded him as a serious character. Perhaps he had to kill himself to be taken seriously.’
The main course arrived: nouvelle cuisine, extortionately expensive and far from satisfying. Harry would have preferred steak with chips any day, but this place had been Juliet’s suggestion and a little financial and culinary hardship was a price worth paying for the pleasure of her company. He toyed with his food for a while before adding, ‘One way of looking at it is this. Luke’s death was murder dressed up to look like suicide. And then his murderer does commit suicide. Very neat.’
She laughed. ‘Why is it that I get the impression you’re not convinced?’
He mimicked the sombre tone of a detective in an old black-and-white film: ‘It’s too damned neat.’
‘Okay. Let’s take it in stages. He didn’t leave a suicide note?’
‘No, but the police did find something in his flat which may come close to it. A cartoon of himself hanging from a gallows. Why else would he draw such a picture if he hadn’t killed Luke?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘So the idea is that it had begun to prey on his mind that he’d ended someone else’s life?’
He nodded. ‘And there are parallels between the two deaths. Both men had been drinking before they died. In Luke’s case, he may have invited Roy over to the Hawthorne. Perhaps he had a drink with Roy before coming out with his suspicions. Knowing Luke, he would have wanted to do the decent thing. He might have suggested that if Roy paid back everything that had been stolen, it wouldn’t be necessary to call in the police. If Roy lost his temper, he might have started a brawl which finished up with him pushing Luke out of the window. The only snag is that Julio, the hotel porter, reckons the argument he heard took place an hour and a half before Luke died.’
The desserts were served and for a few minutes they concentrated on eating. ‘How’s the sorbet?’ Juliet asked.
‘I still prefer Death by Chocolate.’
‘One-track mind,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you say there were no signs of a struggle in Luke’s hotel room?’
‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘the idea that Roy killed him is only a theory. We’ll never know the full story
.’
‘What about Roy’s own death? Might someone else have been involved?’
‘There’s no sign of it.’
‘The lynx-eyed security man saw no-one, then?’
Harry laughed. ‘I gather he goes off duty at seven o’clock. The indications are that Roy may have died later than that. It was the evening he’d been meant to attend the first night of the show at the Pool Theatre. Possibly he had a change of heart and opted to stay at home and wallow in alcohol and remorse.’
‘He doesn’t sound to me like the sort of man who would be prey to conscience,’ Juliet objected. ‘Besides, he’d got away with it, hadn’t he? He would never have been locked up for killing Luke. Why not just do a flit?’
‘Perhaps he couldn’t think of anywhere worth flitting to. The police can’t be certain, but they think he was alone in the flat that evening and that I was the first person to turn up the day after. The fact that I found the door and gate locked suggests that.’
Juliet’s eyes began to gleam. ‘Don’t tell me we’re confronted by a locked studio flat mystery? A mystery buff’s dream!’
‘I hate to disappoint you, but round here the bad guys don’t bother with icicles kept in vacuum flasks or blowpipes containing a poison unknown to Western science. When they want to settle a little difference of opinion about drugs or women, they rely on a Stanley knife in the ribs or a few rounds from a submachine-gun. Subtlety isn’t their strong point.’
‘This could be the exception that proves the rule,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve told me yourself that half your clients are out of work and claiming benefit. But every once in a while you act for someone different like the Kavanaugh trustees.’
‘Yeah, and look what’s been happening to them.’
She sighed. ‘Inge is heartbroken about Matthew.’
‘You said on the phone that she stayed with you for a couple of nights after Gary Cullinan was exposed.’
‘Yes. It seemed sensible for her to keep out of the way of the Press until she’d had a chance to gather her thoughts. Then we heard the news that the police had picked up Gary Cullinan.’
‘In fact, I’ve been told he gave himself up. Apparently in his initial panic after learning that his cover had been blown, he decided to do a bunk. But then he changed his mind and contacted Reeve, the journalist, with a view to selling his story.’
‘He’s a shit,’ Juliet hissed. Her eyes were wide and he was almost tempted to say My God, you’re beautiful when you’re angry. ‘Poor Inge. In the end, she realised she couldn’t keep hiding. After all, she wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong. So she went back to her flat yesterday. I told her we would put her up for as long as she liked. There’s plenty of room in our house, one advantage of having no kids. But I’m sure she did the right thing. By all accounts, Gary Cullinan has committed a string of crimes, but in my book the worst is the way he’s betrayed Inge. He deserves to go inside.’
‘Don’t hold your breath for that. He’s instructed Ruby Fingall to act for him, so he’ll probably finish up with a public apology from the court for the trouble the legal system has put him to.’
‘Surely the case against him is watertight?’
Harry shrugged. ‘In the law, things are never so simple. Especially when two men who would be the key prosecution witnesses are dead.’
‘Luke and Roy?’
‘Yes. Gary’s scam sounds neat. He complained that the investments held by the Trust had gone down in value and should be sold, with the proceeds reinvested. He produced low, bogus valuations of the old shares on fake stockbrokers’ letterhead to back up his story and then creamed off the profit on the sales for himself. He put the money in a bank account he’d set up under his real name. All Roy saw was that money was leaking away. He was too lazy to check what he was being told. The Financial Times was never his preferred reading and he simply didn’t realise that the original shares purchased by the Trust were still blue-chip performers. Talk about private finance initiative.’
‘He’s not a Robin Hood, you know. He’s only ever been out for himself.’
‘Sure, but he’s back on the scene already. Frances Silverwood told me he phoned her yesterday and sounded full of the joys of spring. He was simply ringing to tender his resignation as a trustee.
‘So you think he may get away with it? I don’t believe his nerve.’
‘Frances says she chewed him out. But I doubt if it will have made any impression. Anyway, there are only two trustees left now. Shades of And Then There Were None.’
Juliet pushed a hand through her hair. It was a habitual gesture which Harry found appealing. ‘And what about Frances Silverwood herself? Didn’t she have a thing about Luke Dessaur? Suppose she discovered that Roy had... Good God, Harry, what’s the matter?’
His eyes had become fixed on the entrance to the wine bar. Outside, Kim and a middle-aged man he did not recognise were peering at the menu in the window. He felt his cheeks burning. Why should you feel embarrassed? he asked himself. You have nothing to hide. Yet he suddenly had an idea of how Geoffrey Willatt must have felt on being discovered with Vera that night at the Ensenada. He found himself uttering a silent prayer that Kim and her companion would decide not to give the place a try.
As usual, his wishes were confounded. Kim turned to the man; he gave an authoritative nod and then ushered her inside. Harry noticed that as she paused on the threshold, the man put his hand on her shoulder. A casual gesture, no doubt. It would be a mistake to read anything into it. Yet Harry’s stomach was tying itself in knots.
He started as Juliet repeated her question. ‘Sorry. I’ve just recognised someone, that’s all.’
‘A sworn enemy, to judge by the look on your face.’
‘Far from it,’ he mumbled. Oh shit, she’s seen me.
At the sight of him, Kim turned crimson. He watched as she hesitated and tried to guess what might be passing through her mind. Then she touched her companion on the arm and steered him over in the direction of their corner table. She moved clumsily between the other diners rather than with her usual lithe grace, as if she were struggling to compose herself before speaking to him.
She gave him a nervous smile of greeting. ‘I didn’t know this was one of your haunts, Harry.’
‘I thought I’d try something different.’
She gave Juliet an appraising glance. At the sight of the bruise, her eyebrows rose. ‘So I see. Well, how are you?’
‘Much better than when you last saw me.’
She smiled. ‘True, though it might not be saying much. You weren’t a pretty sight after you took your tumble.’
She’d visited him first at the hospital and then at his flat after he’d been discharged. For a few wild moments her concern about his accident had made him think that she might change her mind about leaving for London. But of course it had been a fantasy: he’d soon realised that.
‘Thanks again for coming to see me.’
‘The least I could do,’ she said. ‘The very least. So now you’re back at work? I meant to give you a call yesterday but - you know how it is.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded at her companion. The man was in his early forties, at a guess. Dark hair turning grey, smart casual clothes, expression so self-assured that it bordered on arrogance. ‘Sorry. I should have introduced myself. I’m Harry Devlin. This is Juliet May. Juliet, meet Kim Lawrence and...?’
The man stretched out his hand. He was exquisitely manicured. ‘Jethro Wood. I’m on the governing council of MOJO.’
‘Ah.’ Harry thought for a moment. ‘Based in London, I presume?’
‘That’s right. I’m just up here for twenty-four hours to talk over a bit of business with Kim. You know we’ve managed to persuade her to become our Chief Executive?’
Harry nodded. ‘You’re lucky. She’ll be a roaring su
ccess.’
‘I’m convinced of it.’ Wood patted Kim on the hand. It was the sort of gesture which would normally have made her flesh creep, but she gave no sign that she objected. ‘Liverpool’s loss is our gain. I’ve always admired her work up here. And at head office, she’ll have the chance to make a much greater impact than any honorary regional representative. I’m at the Bar myself, a civil liberties set, but I find I spend a good deal of time on MOJO business. I’m looking forward to working with her very much. I think we’ll make a good team. Which is important, because there isn’t anything more important to a lawyer than fighting miscarriage cases.’
Especially if it looks good in the newspapers, Harry could not help thinking. Of course it was unfair to suspect Jethro Wood’s motives. But come to think of it, the man’s name did ring a bell. In his mind, he associated it with the sort of high-profile campaigning in which the campaigner seemed to count for more than the campaign.
‘I’ve mentioned Harry to you, Jethro. He’s a fellow solicitor.’
‘That’s right, I remember. I gather you’re on the side of the angels, Harry.’
‘I’m not sure many of my clients fit that description.’
‘Come on now, you know what I mean. You’re not on the side of the big battalions. Just like me. You act for the weak, the ignorant. People who really need us.’
Kim coloured again and Harry could tell she was wondering if the conversation was such a good idea. She said quickly, ‘So are you a client of Harry’s, Juliet?’
Juliet smiled and shook her head. ‘I’m not sure if I can truthfully claim always to be on the side of the angels, but I’m in public relations, so I suppose I ought to.’
Kim pursed her lips. ‘That’s interesting. Don’t tell me you act for Crusoe and Devlin?’
‘Well, Harry and his partner are reviewing their firm’s image and perhaps its position in the marketplace.’
Wood guffawed. ‘Did I speak too soon? Hope you’re not going to start pitching for business from the multinationals.’
‘No danger of that,’ Harry said.
The Devil in Disguise Page 21
