He walked along King Street, past the Gaskell memorial tower which an amateur architect with a taste for Italian style and money to burn had erected in the centre of town. Every other building housed a prettified tea room or an expensive gift shop. An American tourist tapped him on the shoulder and asked the way to the heritage centre. The outside world had to beat a path to Knutsford, not the other way round.
Fifty yards ahead he could see woodland and a sign marking an entrance to Tatton Park. Harry turned into Swan Lane, to be confronted with another example of weirdly imaginative Italian architecture, a turreted fantasy which housed a firm of solicitors. He found it difficult to imagine an environment more different from Fenwick Court. Next door stood a smaller building, like a cottage with a shop front. Above the door was the sign in Gothic lettering Jonah had described.
Samples of patchwork hung in the window. Smaller pieces were laid out on a trestle table outside. Harry stopped to look at them. All shapes and sizes were there, in every design and colour he could think of. Cushions, framed work, quilts and wall hangings.
The shop was open. Inside two women were talking. One voice, that of a customer, he didn’t recognise. The other he did. It belonged to Alison Stirrup.
So it was true. He had not doubted Jonah’s account, yet he never found it easy to take things on trust. He preferred the evidence of his own eyes and ears.
Through the window he could see Alison, engrossed in conversation about a commission she was undertaking for the other woman. Her fair hair was shorter even than in the past; she seemed a little more relaxed than during her married life. Otherwise he could see no change; she might be using a false name, but she hadn’t been so crass as to resort to disguise. Her good looks were quiet, very English. He could recall once thinking Stirrup was a lucky man: How long ago was that?
The customer said something about calling in next week.
“I’ll have it ready then,” he heard Alison promise.
“Super, thanks so much.”
Harry waited for the woman to pass him and disappear in the direction of the main street before entering the shop. Alison was behind the counter, busying herself with invoices. She glanced up in welcome.
Her smile died the moment that she recognised him. Her heart-shaped face had more colour than in the old Caldy days, but all that drained away at the sight of his rumpled figure in the doorway. Incredulity spread over her face, as if she were seeing someone risen from the grave.
“Hello, Alison. Or should I call you Acton?”
“Harry.”
Her voice was barely audible. The way she clasped and unclasped her hands confirmed his first impression. This was a frightened woman.
“You remembered,” he said. “Not that I’ve changed my name lately. Unlike you.”
“Has Jack sent you?”
“Not directly. Of course I’m acting for him, but he doesn’t know I’ve traced you here. Not yet, that is.”
“How did you find me?”
“It’s a long story. Though not as long as the one I think you ought to be telling me. About how and why you set up here with Catherine Morgan.”
“So you know about Cathy too?”
“That the pair of you have a home and business here, yes. There’s plenty I don’t know or understand. I’ve come here in the hope you can fill in the gaps for me.”
“Why should I? You’re Jack’s solicitor, why should I confide in you?”
“Alison, you can’t hide forever. Okay, so you’ve chosen a different way of life. If you’re happier now, that’s fine. I can guess it wasn’t easy living with Jack. Specially if you found out you weren’t suited to a conventional marriage.”
“Under-statement of the decade,” she interrupted bitterly. “You’ve no idea.”
“Give me an idea, Alison. I’m not threatening you. Talk to me. Let’s see where we go from here.”
She considered him for a moment. He stood in silence, waiting for her to make up her mind, hoping his journey would not prove to have been wasted.
She passed a hand across her face for a moment, as if composing herself, then spoke more steadily than before.
“Cathy’s out. Looking at silks in Macclesfield. She won’t be back for another hour. We can’t talk in the shop. I’ll close early and we can go to the cottage. Behave yourself and I might even make you a cup of tea.”
“You’re on.”
He helped her lug the table inside, then stood back as she locked up and stuck a sign in the window apologising for the early closure. When it was done, she led him through a door at the rear of the shop and along a short corridor into the domestic part of the building, picking a way through mounds of brightly coloured fabric on the floor.
After she had directed him into the low-ceilinged sitting room and disappeared into the kitchen, he took stock of his surroundings. This was a warm place, expertly decorated in creams and golds. Patchwork quilts adorned every inch of wall space; they were yet more intricate than those for sale next door. The furniture, antique pine, suited the age of the property. Opposite him stood a six-foot tall bookcase. Fat volumes on interior design, art, patchwork and gardening set side by side with Penguin and Oxford classics from the Victorian age. Alison Stirrup hadn’t been slow to replenish her collection of the books she loved.
She came into the room again bearing a tray with tea things and biscuits.
“Very civilised,” said Harry. “I can tell I’m in Knutsford.”
“You gave me a shock when you walked through the door, obviously. But on a personal level, it’s nice to see you again. Considering you were so close to Jack, you always struck me as a reasonable human being. Funny, I sometimes wondered if you disliked him. Not because you sneered or fawned or gossiped about him behind his back. Quite the opposite. And thank God you never tried to chat me up or pat me on the backside when he wasn’t looking. Unlike some. Loathsome Trevor Morgan, for instance.”
“Jack’s my client. I don’t have to like him.”
“What I’m saying is, I’m willing to talk to you. No preconditions. You’ll do whatever you have to, I realise that. And perhaps you’re right. It may be better to speak to someone who knew us when we were together, you may find it easier to understand.”
He sipped the tea. Lapsang Souchong, smokily distinctive. Now he would keep quiet till she felt ready to unburden herself.
“Where do I start?”
She was, he felt, posing the question as much to herself as to him. For all he knew, this might be the very first time she had confronted the drastic changes she had wrought in her life. Better not to hurry her. Everything would come out, given time and patience.
“You know my mother, don’t you? She and I could hardly be more different. I’ve always been a disappointment to her. Not a temptress, not a voluptuous blonde. I took after my father. You never met him, he died when I was young. A heart attack. Only forty-eight. The kindest man you could wish to find. I blamed her. I still do in my heart, I suppose. She was always on at him for one reason or another. He had no peace. And after he was gone, she poured all her energies into me, wanted to recreate herself, re-live her youth through me. I rebelled, but not enough. I always kept things bottled up inside. I got involved with a sweet boy, he played guitar in a band. He died too. A sailing accident. It devastated me. I met Jack soon afterwards. He was fun, took my mind off things.”
She sighed. “And so eventually I did something right in Mother’s eyes by marrying a wealthy man. Only problem was, she took an instant dislike to him and to Claire. It wasn’t long before the gloves came off. If anything, that drew me closer to Jack, but soon it was clear we had nothing in common. Not age, not interests. Not even bed. Tell you the truth, I’d never been wild about that side of things, not even with Graeme - he was the guitarist I mentioned a moment ago. And with Jack it soon became a real turn-off. He used me for his pleasure, there was nothing more.”
While she paused for breath Harry finished his drink.
&nbs
p; “Would you like another cup? There. Well, as I was saying, I had little enough to share with Jack. And nothing at all with Claire. I wasn’t a good step-mother, I suppose. I’m not child-crazy. Jack fancied having another kid at one time, but I put my foot down. Claire was quite enough to handle. She never cared for me and the feeling was mutual. Probably the greater responsibility rested on me, but she was such a - a surly bitch. Oh, I know she’s dead now and I’m sorry about that. No one deserves such a fate. But I won’t be hypocritical, I won’t pretend it was sweetness and light between the two of us.”
Alison gazed at him for half a minute before continuing in a tone stripped bare of any semblance of emotion.
“So there I was. Unhappily married to a hot-tempered Philistine with a sullen lump of a daughter in tow. Tied to the home - after all, I’d never trained for anything worthwhile; when I left school I messed about for years, temping - and totally frustrated. And then one evening Cathy gave me a ring. We knew each other quite well, the men were bosom buddies. The four of us would have dinner together, occasionally go for outings when Jack wasn’t too busy making money. Cathy strikes people as a tough cookie. She gave Trevor a hard time, although he deserved it. We got on socially, but that was really about all. Then she called me and suggested we go to see a play together at The Empire. One of the later Ayckbourns. I said yes, we fixed for an evening when Jack and Trevor were away on business. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“You fell in love?”
“I like to leave that kind of talk to teenage magazines. Let’s say, we discovered each other. There’s much more to Cathy than meets the eye. She’s sensitive and generous, but she liked to shelter behind the image of the domineering wife. We went to the Chester Gateway the next time. Started planning other things together. One night, late on, we’d both had a bit to drink. The men were away again, the two of us were over at the Morgans’ place. She put her arms round me. It seemed natural and right. We spent the night together.”
There was a faraway look on her face when she spoke. Do I have a similar expression, thought Harry, whenever I think back to the early days with Liz?
“Have you ever come across the book by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden? For me, becoming Cathy’s lover was like discovering my own secret garden. The ordinary world might be as drab as ever, but when I was with her it suddenly became wonderful. She’d had some experience with another girl years ago. It didn’t work out, she’d thought it was an adolescent phase. I’d never dreamed of getting involved in a lesbian relationship. Sex never appealed to me so much. Now I had someone who would care for me as a person, someone I could care for too. It was a new feeling. And indescribably good.”
“When did you first decide to live together?”
“At first we didn’t know what to do or how to do it. Coming out and making the break was - such a final thing. We’re both quite conventional people, whatever you may think. And then Cathy came into money. A great deal of money.”
“Her father’s estate.”
“Oh, you know that as well. It gave us a chance to set up Patches, to build something worthwhile together without any contribution from the men. I’d known Knutsford since I was a child. I once had an aunt who lived down Ladies’ Mile. And I’d always meant to take my patchwork more seriously. Jack was only interested if I could make money out of it. Cathy’s attitude was different. If it will make you happy, let’s do it, she said. She’s always fancied running a little cottage industry anyway. So - here we are.”
“I can understand why you wanted to put the past behind you,” said Harry slowly. “Which of us hasn’t longed to do that? And yet, there is one thing I don’t follow. I can see that planning your getaway would have been exciting. But why did it have to be so secret? Surely you didn’t have to steal away in such a fashion, so that not even your own mother knew where you were, or whether you were alive or dead. Why the big mystery?”
“I tried to explain before. My relationship with my mother, however she might like to glamourise it, was as empty as a saucepan on a rack. The same was true of my marriage. Neither Jack nor my mother were losing anything they had not already lost years earlier.”
Harry shook his head.
“Alison, I hear what you’re saying, but it doesn’t add up. For God’s sake, Doreen has accused Jack of murdering you. You’re safe and sound, but neither of them know that and the police certainly don’t know it either. You didn’t even get in touch when Claire went missing or after her body was found. As you say, no one deserves to finish up the way she did. Especially not at fifteen. You’re not a brutal woman and I’m sure you’re not a coward either. However bad life was between Jack and yourself, surely you owe him a little consideration. He’s not an ogre. Won’t you contact him yourself?”
She coloured as he spoke. He could see traces of guilt on her face, red spots high on her cheek bones. She closed her eyes and said, “Harry, that’s impossible. I’m happy here. I want things to stay as they are. And I’m not just being selfish. There’s a very good reason why Jack mustn’t find out I’m alive.”
“You’re the one who’s asking the impossible.”
She said softly, “As I said, there’s a good reason why you shouldn’t tell Jack where I am. Are you listening? I’m terrified that if you do, he’ll come out here and kill me.”
“Christ, Alison, that’s ridiculous! We all know he’s got a temper, but…”
“Some of us know more than others,” she broke in.
“What do you mean?”
“If he finds me, he will murder me.”
One of the oldest lawyers’ rules is never to ask a question to which you don’t already know the answer. Harry had disobeyed the old saw often enough this afternoon. An obscure instinct urged belated caution. But he could not help himself.
“Why in God’s name do you say that?”
She gazed at him levelly, pausing for a moment before her reply.
“Because I know he’s committed murder before.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
As darkness fell Harry drove back towards Liverpool, wondering once again whether Jack Stirrup was a murderer.
After leaving Patches he had eaten in a Knutsford pub with low beams, an inglenook and a real fire. The locals were preparing for a quiz night, tossing trivial questions and obscure answers back and forth like Wimbledon stars knocking-up before a Centre Court final. Who wrote the music for Psycho? Where did Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria die? What was discovered by the brigantine Dei Gratia in 1872? The home team’s captain, a bespectacled youth who consumed bitter over mild as if there would be no tomorrow never seemed at a loss. Harry had half a mind to seek from him a second opinion on Alison’s story.
There was not a shadow of doubt that she was telling the truth. Yet that did not necessarily make Stirrup a killer. Hence his dilemma. There was no master of ceremonies with the answer already written down in a book, he would be unable to groan it-was-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue when the truth came out. If it ever did.
Alison’s account of her last weeks as a wife had been candid. She did not absolve herself of blame for the collapse of the marriage: it had been a union of two incompatible people. After deciding that her future lay with Catherine Morgan she had scarcely bothered to conceal her contempt for either Jack Stirrup or his daughter. Rows between the three of them became ever more frequent and bitter.
For her part, Cathy vowed not to tell Trevor, out of work and hitting the bottle, about her impending departure until a suitable opportunity arose for Alison to break the news to Stirrup. The two women were arranging to start up Patches in secret in the meantime. Alison’s fear of her husband’s tempers was rooted in experience. He had struck her once in a rage, a year or so earlier, and she was afraid that if he found out she was leaving him for another woman he would lose all control. So it was vital to pick the right moment; yet the right moment never seemed to come.
As things turned out, it never did. A quarrel about Clair
e’s rudeness escalated one night. The girl had gone to her room, weeping and saying she hated Alison. Stirrup, tense at a time of sticky negotiations with Grealish for the sale of his business, had bellowed with anger until he was hoarse.
“Do you want me to go?” Alison had asked. Perhaps the time had come, perhaps it was worth risking his fury. This endless fighting couldn’t continue.
“What do you mean?” Stirrup had spoken with a sudden softness. She recognised it as a danger sign, like the intensity of his stare.
“You’re not happy with me. And I’m not happy with you. It makes sense for me to move out.”
“Listen!”
He’d grabbed her wrist, hurting her, making her afraid that he was about to break it.
“You’re moving nowhere. No one walks out on me, do you understand? No one. I’d sooner kill you.”
She had squirmed in his grip, trying in vain to escape. It only made him tighten his hold and hurt her more.
“Don’t be stupid. I don’t belong to you. Marriages do go stale. Ours has. What else can I do?”
“You’re my wife, got that? My wife! And you don’t move out. You stay here and toe the line. I meant what I said.”
She’d summoned up her courage or maybe her folly and spat at him. As if he’d had an electric shock, he let go of her, but within a moment lifted his right arm and smashed it against the side of her head, sending her spinning to the floor. Luckily he’d aimed high and wide and her hair had taken some of the sting out of the blow. Two inches lower and a little straighter and he’d have broken her cheekbone for sure.
Suspicious Minds (Harry Devlin) Page 17
