Suspicious Minds (Harry Devlin)

by Edwards, Martin

  Standing over her, he spoke harshly. “I’d sooner kill you. Do you believe me? You ought to.”

  Looking up at him through pain-misted eyes, she’d said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Margaret… your bloody predecessor! You thought her car simply went out of control, didn’t you? That it was an accident?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “The brakes, Alison. I fixed them. Quite a coincidence, she was about to leave me. She’d gone head over heels for some other fool, so I made sure he’d never have her again. She should’ve realised I’m not a man to mess around. The truth was, she couldn’t care less about Claire or me. I tried to reason with her at first. Then I warned her. No good, her mind was made up. I’d told her I’d never let her humiliate me, but she took no notice. She brought it on herself.”

  So that was it. Jack Stirrup’s confession to murder. Listening to Alison describe the scene, Harry could visualize his client, breathing hard, speaking with a furious passion. Easy to imagine Alison full of horror as she heard her husband condemning her either to a life sentence of misery or to death. No wonder she’d chosen a clandestine escape route.

  She and Cathy resolved that nobody must guess their plans. At least Stirrup and Morgan were no longer in touch; they were unlikely to put their heads together, but even so it was important that the disappearances of their respective wives should seem unconnected. Cathy left Trevor at once; it was easier for her, she’d been dealing with the business arrangements and the cottage purchase in Knutsford. She put a curt note of farewell on the kitchen table so as to eliminate any suspicion that she’d been abducted or killed.

  They agreed that Alison should somehow hang on with Stirrup for a little longer and pretend to make an effort to heal the rift. The activities of The Beast gave her an idea. She was a blonde, a potential victim. He might be thought responsible when she vanished. The thought that Stirrup might be suspected of her murder had occurred to Alison; the idea held an ironic appeal, but since no one had ever suggested he was responsible for the death of Margaret, it seemed more like wishful thinking. She’d never anticipated that Doreen Capstick would point an accusing finger at her own son-in-law. Abandoning Doreen herself had been no hardship. On the contrary, she said, it ranked as a bonus.

  “I read about Claire, of course. It did cross my mind to get in touch. But what good would it have done? He would only have kept looking for me. The fact you’re here now shows how determined he is to track me down. I didn’t even realise I could have cleared him of suspicion of killing me. Though I must be honest, Harry. When I think of the misery I suffered when we were together, I can’t pretend I’m sorry he’s been through the mill lately. Jack’s used people all his life. It’s time he understood how it feels.”

  “I think he does.”

  “A sadder and wiser man? I’ll believe it when I see it. Only I don’t want to see it.”

  “You’re wrong, Alison. He wouldn’t follow you to ends of the earth to wreak revenge.”

  “Really? Then what are you doing here?”

  “Blame my insatiable curiosity.”

  As he explained the sequence of events since her disappearance - Bolus’s inquisition, Stirrup’s idea that tracing her might silence Doreen Capstick and put him in the clear, Jonah Deegan’s sleuthing - he juggled facts and impressions for his own benefit too. Facing the issue he’d dodged for so long. Trying to decide whether Stirrup’s behaviour smacked of guilt or innocence.

  And now, as he reached the end of the M62 and headed down Edge Lane towards the centre of Liverpool, certainty continued to elude him. The Stirrup he knew was capable of claiming in the heat of the moment to have committed a crime which had only taken place in his imagination. Harry had not known Stirrup in the days of Margaret; his knowledge of that marriage was confined to odd snippets of conversation over the years, filed away in his memory. Yet the man had spoken of his first wife with affection, not unmixed with grief at her death. She was, after all, the mother of his beloved Claire.

  Alison, however, was in no doubt.

  “I realise you’re bound to tell him I’m alive. I can’t expect you to do anything else. And of course the police must know. Can’t have them wasting any more time over me. But Harry, will you do one thing for me? For God’s sake, don’t say where I am. Lie to him, say I’ve gone abroad. Anything. But if you don’t want to have a crime on your conscience, I’m begging you not to give him any hint that Cathy and I are here.”

  Harry didn’t have to say a word. He and Alison had never been close. He owed her nothing. She was a fellow human being, though, and one look at the uncharacteristic, imploring expression on her face was enough to make up his mind.

  “All right, Alison. I promise.”

  As the words had left his mouth, he heard the rattle of a key in a lock. Catherine Morgan was back. Alison jumped to her feet and ran out into the hall to explain in frantic whispers about their visitor.

  “So,” said Cathy Morgan as she walked into the sitting room, “a face from the past.”

  Her own face was as grim as Harry remembered. It seemed to be composed entirely of straight lines. No curves, no compromises, no nonsense. Harry hadn’t expected her to be overjoyed to see him - their brief acquaintance had been polite, no more than that - but he would have preferred not to be examined with the kind of distaste most people reserve for the appearance of dogshit in the middle of their previously immaculate lawn.

  Nor did she disguise her distrust for his links with Jack Stirrup. Harry’s tentative suggestion that Stirrup might have made up the story about killing his first wife met with scorn.

  “You’re fooling yourself,” Cathy Morgan had said; she might have been chastising a child who claimed to have seen a ghost. “You wouldn’t waste your time with any such idea if you’d seen the state this poor girl was in even twenty hours after that bloody man made his threat.”

  This poor girl was now sharing the sofa with her lover, curled up in the crook of a comforting arm. She seemed to have shrunk the moment Cathy walked through the door. Harry had no trouble in guessing who wore the trousers in this particular household. Was it too cynical to think that Alison had merely exchanged one form of tyranny for another?

  No scope existed for further debate. Harry said thanks for the tea and it was time he was going and Alison did not persuade him to stay. Cathy followed him out into the narrow hallway.

  “Look,” she said as she opened the front door, “Alison means everything to me, do you hear? Everything. I won’t have her harmed. You may think you mean well, but your finding us is the most dangerous thing to have happened since we came out. How can we trust you to be discreet?”

  “I hate to sound pompous, Cathy, but I’m a man of my word.”

  “You’re a man. Full stop.”

  “Part of the dreaded freemasonry, is that what you mean? Shitty, deceitful, not to be depended on?”

  “Something like that.”

  Harry had sympathised with Alison, understood her motives and fears. Yet Doreen Capstick and Jack Stirrup, whatever their faults, had suffered through not knowing her fate. He suspected Cathy of stiffening Alison’s resolve not to get in touch and felt a surge of dislike for this large, powerful woman, with her cynical green eyes and her manipulative ways.

  “Then you’ll just have to wait in suspense wondering when my weak knees will finally give way.”

  With that, he had shambled down the street towards the nearest pub. Now in the dark warmth of the M.G. he asked himself for the first time whether he would indeed cave in when Jack Stirrup pressed, as he surely would, to be told where his wife was hiding?

  Speeding through a traffic light as amber turned to red, he decided that attack must be the best form of defence. Rather than fret about Stirrup’s demands for information, he must seize the initiative. A road sign loomed up: straight on for the Mersey Tunnel. He put his foot down. No time like the present. He would go to Prospect House tonight and find out for himse
lf whether Jack Stirrup was a killer or simply a crude hoaxer.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I asked you last week if you thought I’d done away with Alison.” Jack Stirrup didn’t want to be overheard by the woman in the adjoining room, but his voice was husky with suppressed anger. “On the way to the Majestic. Remember?”

  “I remember,” said Harry. So long ago it seemed, a time when Claire was alive and he’d thought that Alison was dead.

  “You dodged the issue. Typical bloody lawyer. You weren’t willing to take my word. Will you take it now? Once again: I-did-not-murder-Margaret.”

  He drilled home each word as if addressing a halfwit, then sat back in his armchair with folded arms, challenging Harry to disbelief.

  The clock chimed eleven. They were in the drawing room of Prospect House. Outside the builders’ skip had gone. Stirrup had abandoned the renovations as soon as he’d decided to put the place on the market. With no Alison and now no Claire, already it resembled a museum rather than somewhere people might live. Big wooden crates of belongings stood in the hall.

  Harry had come to confront Stirrup, to break the news that the guilty secret was out. To his dismay Rita Buxton answered the door. She had kindly offered to help with the packing, according to Stirrup, but the buttons undone on her creased mauve blouse told a different story. Now she sat on the sofa next door, watching a Burt Reynolds movie, waiting for Harry to leave.

  When he’d announced Alison was alive, Stirrup’s involuntary flinch betrayed dismay, not delight. His recovery had been swift, but not swift enough to dispel the memory of that first reaction of alarm. All the same, the instinct of self-preservation was strong. He interrupted with a fierce denial before Harry came to the end of Alison’s explanation for disappearing without trace.

  “Never. No way. I loved Margaret. Our marriage was all right. Okay, we had our ups and downs but so do all couples. You know that as well as anyone, after all.”

  Passing his tongue over dry lips, he’d continued talking, almost as if to convince himself.

  “It was an accident, what happened to her, a terrible accident. Nothing to do with me. The brakes were gone. I always blamed the garage, but nothing could be proved. Margaret took a bend too fast, it was over in a second. No one ever hinted at anything sinister. The police were satisfied - for once.”

  Listening, Harry drummed his fingers on the table at his side. Each time Stirrup opened his mouth, he gained in conviction. Even assuming he was guilty, he’d had plenty of time to prepare a plausible defence. And he wasn’t fool enough to deny that he had tried to frighten Alison when she threatened to walk out on him by claiming to have murdered Margaret.

  “Okay, it was stupid of me. I was desperate, willing to clutch at anything. Wouldn’t any man fight to keep the woman in his life?”

  Harry thought back to the dreadful night when Liz had confessed her love for another man. He hadn’t threatened or cajoled or begged. He’d simply stared at the floor and in the end surrendered to what seemed inevitable. If he had not - this was what tortured him whenever he was careless enough to let his mind stray towards what might have been - she might be alive today. Who could be sure of the right thing to do? Perhaps, despite its crudity and its ultimate failure, Stirrup’s response had been the more courageous. Perhaps he rather than his client should have handled things differently.

  Hard as he found it to accept that Alison would be terrified by a mere cock-and-bull story, his job was not to act as judge and jury. Guesswork and intuition fell far short of knowledge. In the absence of proof that Stirrup was lying, Harry knew he ought to accept what he was told.

  “Okay, Jack. So it’s all been a terrible misunderstanding. The fact remains, Alison doesn’t see it like that.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Like I said, I can’t tell you.”

  “Now look, you’re supposed to be my man, remember? What kind of lawyer are you?”

  “A tired, confused and probably incompetent one. That’s beside the point. I told her I had to let you know she was alive. Nothing more. As for Bolus, I’ll call him tomorrow morning.”

  Stirrup said through gritted teeth. “She’s my wife, Harry. Have you forgotten?”

  “No. But the marriage is over. Clearest case of irretrievable breakdown I’ve ever seen. And now you have Rita.”

  “I want to talk to Alison. Find out what the bloody hell she’s been playing at.”

  “Can’t be done. At least, not until she changes her mind. And for that, I don’t recommend you hold your breath.”

  Stirrup swore, but Harry gazed at him without blinking. He hadn’t mentioned anything about Cathy Morgan, had simply confirmed Alison’s determination to carve out a new life under an assumed name and in a different town.

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it, Jack. Sorry. She’s alive and well, that’s all you need to know. End of the pressure from Bolus - Doreen too, come to that. Alison’s no wish to see either you or her mother again. So the time’s come to get on with the rest of your life. For your own sake as much as hers.”

  “And that’s your best professional advice?”

  “For what it’s worth.”

  “Which is bugger all.” Stirrup lumbered to his feet. “All right, Harry, piss off. You’re not my solicitor as from this moment. Send me your bill for work up to date. I won’t quibble about the sums. I’m not the untrustworthy bastard you think I am.”

  Harry stood up. Far from coming as a surprise, the parting of their ways was unavoidable, had been from the moment he’d assured Alison he wouldn’t reveal her whereabouts. He extended his hand.

  “Okay, Jack. I’ll be off. I’m sorry it’s…”

  “Save it.” Stirrup ignored the outstretched hand and jerked his head in the direction of the door. “You know the way out.”

  Once outside the house Harry allowed himself the indulgence of a self-reproaching groan. He had achieved the worst of all worlds. Crusoe and Devlin had waved goodbye to their biggest client and any chance of cutting a slice off their overdraft in the foreseeable future. And for what? A promise given to a woman whom he did not know any more. An unnecessary promise, if Stirrup was telling the truth now and his claim to have killed Margaret was a lie invented to keep Alison.

  On the way home he wrestled with his dilemma. Had he been unfair to Stirrup? The man had lost his wife and daughter in quick succession. He might be to blame for the first misfortune; the second was quite outside his control.

  As Harry drove and turned his thoughts to Claire, her behaviour before her death started to bother him again. He had meant to ask someone - was it Gina Jean-Jacques? - a question and had failed to do so. Now he’d let it slip his mind, the more he strained for recollection, the more elusive it became.

  Back in Empire Dock, his flat seemed as barren of life as Prospect House. If only Valerie were waiting for him. What would she be doing now? If he had the guts to pick up the phone, he could ask her over. It was late, yet she might be willing to come.

  He dialled the number which he’d committed to memory weeks before. The tone kept ringing, insistent and repetitive.

  Come on, he muttered into the mouthpiece. Surely you’re not out on the town tonight?

  Finally he heard a click at the other end. A man spoke. Sounding weary, as though he’d just climbed out of bed.

  “Hello?”

  Harry froze, unable to utter a word.

  “Hello? Hello?” A note of irritation crept in. “Hello? Who’s that?”

  The man banged the receiver down in evident disgust. Harry maintained his grip on the handset for another minute before he slowly put it down.

  Of course he had recognised the voice. It belonged to Julian Hamer.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Through the keyhole he could see Valerie in her room at Balliol Chambers. The place was dark except for the glare of the desk lamp on her face. Her lips were open, as if she were trying to scream, but Harry couldn’t hear a s
ound. Her eyes were following the movement towards her of something out of his line of vision; her pupils dilated in terror even as he watched. Harry grasped the door knob, squeezing it so hard that it began to crack in his hand, but she had locked him out. And locked someone else in with her. An unseen hand switched on the overhead light and Harry saw that Valerie was powerless to defend herself. Her arms and ankles were tied by thick cord to the chair on which she sat. Into view came the stooped back of a man in waistcoat, white shirt and pinstripe trousers. He approached her slowly, as if relishing her fear. In his hands was a black silk cravat, knotted into a ligature. Valerie shut her eyes and bowed her head, surrendering to her fate. The man bent over her and at last Harry found the strength to cry out.

  “No!”

  The man turned round and Harry saw at last the face of The Beast. A wolf’s face, teeth bared in a savage grin. Then The Beast raised a gloved hand and peeled the rubber mask away. To leave Harry staring into the mocking eyes of Julian Hamer.

  Suddenly he woke. He was naked and in his restlessness he had cast off the duvet, yet his skin was sticky with sweat. His bedroom was as dark as Valerie’s chambers in his dream. A glance at the alarm clock told him it was ten to four. The sun had not yet risen. Even at this hour it was so hot that his limbs ached and the lack of air made it hard to breathe.

  For a while he lay motionless, angry that he had let his envy of Hamer turn sleep into a torment. Of course he had lost Valerie: he was too experienced at missing out on the good things of life not to recognise the stomach-turning awareness that something worthwhile had slipped out of reach, like a child’s beach ball borne away on the tide.

  The clock’s hands had crawled past the hour before he forced himself off the bed and into the living room. There he poured himself a generous measure of Johnnie Walker, downing it at a gulp. The sharp bite of the alcohol made him feel better and the flat somehow less empty. He poured another and settled down in an armchair. This time he did not drink so fast.