I Remember You (21 page)

‘Outside the Adelphi. He'd hired a car and he'd said he would take me out to some swish place in Crosby. Needless to say, we never made it.' She bowed her head and lapsed into silence. Harry said nothing. He sensed that, in her own good time, she would bring the story to its conclusion.

‘He parked up at Colonial Dock,' she said at last. ‘I didn't have much choice but to get in the back of the car with him - I'll spare you the details. Anyway, after a while he decided he needed a pee. He pulled himself off me and got out of the car. I saw him stagger thirty yards down the road, then start pissing into a grid. I thought how much I wished him dead. All the time he'd been on top of me, I'd been worrying, what if this isn't the end, but just the beginning? He had a hold over me. All right, most of the time he was harmless enough - but every now and then, when his girlfriend of the day let him down and walked out of the door, he'd remember me. The woman who never would dare to say no.' She sighed, a long low sound. ‘You can imagine the rest. I hauled myself into the front of the car. His key was in the ignition and I started the engine the moment he straightened up and turned back to rejoin me. Sweet Jesus, I don't think he even bothered to zip his fly!'

Her eyes were unfocused as she remembered. ‘I can still see his look as I accelerated towards him. Disbelief was written all over his face. He stood frozen in the road, he didn't even try to dive out of the way. So I hit him.'

‘Then drove over him again to make sure.'

She spread her arms, in defensive response to the bitterness in his tone. ‘So, Harry Devlin, what will you do? Tell the police? Turn me in?'

‘You have a case for claiming it was manslaughter. Find yourself a slick defence lawyer - this city's full of them, we get enough practice. You might only be looking at a couple of years' probation.'

‘That doesn't sound like justice. I killed a man.'

‘According to you, he as good as asked for it.'

She stepped towards him and a splash of light from the lamps outside fell across her face. He could see in her expression how she was haunted by the past, tormented by what she had done.

‘Don't you understand? When I was with Cato, I had enough of death and deceit to last a dozen lifetimes. I thought it hadn't corrupted me, but I was wrong. Killing's got into my blood and no Liverpool lawyer can suck it out.' She laughed, a sharp scornful sound. ‘Not even if he's another vampire.'

‘So you'll go to the police?' He swallowed, knowing he had to act. He couldn't let her walk free, like Debbie. After all, a man had died. ‘If you don't, I must.'

‘Of course you must. But right now, I need time to think - face up to things, if you like. Do you mind?'

‘I'm not one for making citizen's arrests. Do all the thinking you need.'

She touched his hand before walking towards a door which led out to the river. For a moment she paused with her hand on the metal bar, as if she meant to say something else. But then she stepped into the foggy night and he sensed he would never speak to her again.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

‘Did Penny do it deliberately?' asked Jim Crusoe, five days later.

‘Oh, she meant to kill Finbar, all right,' said Harry, ‘although I'm sure it was a spur of the moment - '

‘No, no,' his partner interrupted. ‘I was talking about her own death.'

The swollen body of Edna Doyle, also known as Penny Newland, had been washed up at Botanic Dock on the morning of All Saints' Day. A homeless teenager, sleeping rough in the ruins of a disused boatyard, had discovered the corpse. No one could tell how she had come to drown.

‘The post mortem confirmed she was alive when she went into the Mersey. There's no question of murder and it may be she lost her footing soon after leaving me. Conditions were treacherous on Hallowe'en. Quite apart from the fog, there were patches of ice on the ground and vandals had made a gap in the walkway railing.'

‘Do you seriously believe ... hey, look at that!'

Jim was distracted by the first flowering of the fireworks against the night sky. The slivers of silver shone in the dark with a brilliance that shamed the stars.

They were at a Guy Fawkes celebration in Sefton Park. Heather and the kids were a couple of yards away, munching treacle toffee and parkin. For the Crusoes this was a major event in the family calendar and Jim, back in the office again, had urged Harry to join them. Harry could see his partner was bursting with curiosity about the case and he felt talking about it might help him get the whole mess into perspective. Besides, he had reasons of his own to avoid being alone on November 5th.

‘You were asking if I thought she fell by chance? I doubt it, but I can't be sure and neither can Sladdin. Either way, nothing will ever be proved.'

‘You've talked with the police?'

‘At length. Any doubt they had about Penny's guilt evaporated when the witnesses from Colonial Dock turned up: a contract manager from a computer company and his secretary. He'd been hoping his hardware would be compatible with her software, but after seeing Penny drive back and forth over Finbar's body, they didn't feel in the mood for love any longer. Penny's fingerprints were on the car and the fact she didn't wear gloves or even wipe the vehicle tends to confirm she hadn't planned to kill him and panicked when she realised what she had done.'

‘Presumably she could have got off lightly with a good brief?'

‘People often do. Even some of my own clients.'

‘How has Baz reacted?'

‘How do you imagine? In the space of forty-eight hours he lost both his job and his girlfriend.'

The Bank That Cares had put Radio Liverpool into receivership, pulling the plug within hours of Nick Folley's arrest for suspected drugs offences. The station had been losing money hand over fist; only the bankers' belief that Folley had the acumen to turn the business around had kept it going so long. As soon as they learned the main source of his income, panic set in.

It seemed the Drugs Squad had been keeping an eye on Folley for months. But evidence had been lacking until the day after the party, when Harry had finally persuaded Melissa to seek long-term treatment for her habit and tell the police all she knew about her former boss's dealings in coke. The Graham-Browns, too, were now helping with enquiries.

Released on bail, Folley had called a press conference. You had to admire his nerve, if nothing else. Sophie Wilkins had been by his side; he'd introduced her to the media as his fiancée and next day the papers had been full of pictures of the glamorous woman willing to stand by her man through thin as well as thick. There could be no sterner test of true love, said Folley.

Questioned about the folding of his company, he had blamed the economic climate and the fickleness of financial institutions. He said he pleaded guilty to having faith in local radio and the good people of Liverpool. The drugs business he described as a stitch-up. He vowed to bounce back.

In closing, he'd paid a special tribute to a junior employee whose death had - he said with a catch in his voice - overshadowed his own personal misfortunes. He hinted that Penny Newland had slipped and fallen into the river while taking a breather from the Hallowe'en broadcast because her mind was distracted by anxiety for the station in which she, like her boss, believed with all her heart.

‘Does Baz know the truth?' asked Jim.

‘That she killed Finbar for the love of him? No, and the odds are he never will. The inquest is bound to be tricky, but most coroners are discreet. Besides, there's every chance of a verdict of accidental death.'

‘And how do you feel about your client, now you've discovered how he treated Penny Newland?'

‘I never pretended he was an angel. Dermot McCray put his finger on it when I spoke to him in the De Valera. He said Finbar had always been the same, playing with women like a small kid messing about with his toys. He kept forgetting people are flesh and blood. McCray was thinking of his daughter, but he might as well have meant Sinead or Sophie, Melissa or Penny. The day had to come when the toys grew tired of being flung out of the cot.'

A roar of approval from the crowd greeted the latest rockets to climb towards the moon and dissolve in a spectacular cloudburst of red, white and blue. Harry could not quell the memory of a Guy Fawkes Night in the past, when he'd gone to watch the display at Albert Dock and there met the dark-haired Polish girl who would later become his wife. On each anniversary of that first encounter he found himself replaying old moves, like a defeated chess master, trying to see precisely where the game had begun to slip out of his grasp. With each year that passed he saw more clearly that the outcome had been ordained long before the day he actually lost his queen. They had, from the first, been ill-matched.

Jim's wife and children squelched through the mud towards them; Harry noticed Heather clasping Jim's hand in a gesture of security and shared affection. It made him feel superfluous.

‘I'll take a look at the bonfire,' he said.

He walked towards the huge pile of rubbish which was already well ablaze. Young boys and girls jigged and shrieked in front of it: primitives celebrating an ancient rite. A middle-aged woman was collecting for charity and he thrust his hands in his pocket to find some change. As well as the coins he brought out a dog-eared piece of paper. As the woman stuck a badge on his lapel to record him as a giver, he re-read the note he had received that very afternoon.

Harry

I changed my mind and decided to go to Spain after all. I called Phil on the phone - reverse charge! - and he offered to pay my fare out. He's making a killing over there, he says. So, I thought, why not give it a try?

I'd still like to see you again, to say goodbye properly and thanks for everything. I'm leaving next Saturday. Give me a ring. My mum's number is in the book.

Debbie

The flames writhed before him like exotic dancers feigning ecstasy. The last fire he had seen had been in Williamson Lane; its vigour was still vivid in his mind. He could still hear Finbar gasping that the heat was a foretaste of hell. Where was the Irishman now?

He moved closer and gazed into the bonfire. Patterns formed and reformed in the blaze. For a second it seemed to him that he saw there the outlines of a familiar face. It belonged not to the girl who had passed herself off as Rosemary Graham-Brown, but to his murdered wife. He squeezed his eyes shut with so much force it hurt.

In this new darkness he could not escape images of violence and death. Before coming out tonight, he'd caught the six o'clock news: in Armagh a man, said to be an army informer, had been gunned down in his own front room, before the eyes of his wife and daughter. Meanwhile FAN! had claimed responsibility for an explosion at a cottage owned by a scientist known for performing experiments on live animals. In interview, a spokesperson for the group stroked a puppy and said he would decline to utter facile words of condemnation. It would not be principled to do so, he explained, when he could understand the frustrations of those who carried out the attack.

Harry thought too about Finbar Rogan. And about Eileen and Sinead and Penny. He'd started by searching for a culprit, but had found only victims.

Opening his eyes, he hurled the note from Debbie into the bonfire. Memories were as treacherous as passions. Maybe there was no escaping them, but he suddenly knew he must break with the past.

The blaze was dying. Its fury was spent and little remained but the dull glow of the embers. The piece of paper lodged on the spike of a scorched twig, where it curled, browned and crumpled, and he watched until nothing was left.

By that time, the face in the flames had disappeared.

Excerpt from
Yesterday's Papers

Chapter One

I killed her many years ago

‘Mr Devlin, I would like to talk to you about a murder.'

Harry Devlin stopped in his tracks on his way out of the law courts. For a fantastic moment he thought the man who had hurried to catch him up and lay a hand on his shoulder was an arresting officer.

Twisting his neck to see his assailant, Harry found himself staring not at one of Liverpool's finest but at a scrawny old man in a soup-stained bow tie and a shiny blue suit. Although he was wheezing with the exertion, his bony grip was surprisingly fierce, as if he feared Harry was about to take flight. The thick lenses of his spectacles magnified the shape and size of his eyes and made them seem not quite human.

Harry guessed the fellow was one of the city's courthouse cranks who sat in the public galleries each morning and afternoon, watching scenes from other people's lives distorted by the fairground mirrors of litigation. Most lawyers disdained the spectators as voyeurs, brushing by them in the corridors and on the stairs, but sometimes Harry would pause in passing to exchange a casual word. He could not resist feeling sympathy for anyone whose life was so barren that this place became a second home.

‘Want to make a confession?' he asked and gestured towards a man in an overcoat striding past them towards the exit. ‘The detective sergeant there specialises in them. Don't worry, he doesn't need much. Just give him your name and he'll invent the rest.'

The man released his hold and bared crooked teeth in a conspiratorial smile. His shoulders were stooped, his wrinkled skin the colour of parchment. In one claw-like hand he was carrying a battered black document case and his breath seemed to Harry to have the whiff of mildewed books.

‘It is your help I need, Mr Devlin. No-one else will do.'

He enunciated each syllable with pedantic care, as if English was not his native tongue. But it was the urgency of his tone that quickened Harry's interest.

‘Are you in some kind of trouble?'

‘No, no. You misunderstand. The murder I am speaking of occurred almost thirty years ago. Nonetheless, I believe you are able - if you will pardon the phrase - to assist me with my enquiries.'

‘Thirty years ago?' Harry shook his head. ‘I sometimes screamed blue murder as a babe in arms, but I never committed it. Sorry I can't help, Mr...'

‘Miller, my name is Ernest Miller. Let me explain. I am looking into one of this city's most notorious crimes. You will have heard of the case, I'm sure. The newspapers, in their melodramatic way, dubbed it the Sefton Park Strangling.'

‘It rings a bell.' Harry sifted through old memories. ‘Wasn't it a young girl who was killed, the daughter of a well-known man?'

‘Yes, the case attracted a great deal of publicity in its day. Carole Jeffries, the victim, was only sixteen years old. More importantly, to secure her lasting fame in death, she was a pretty girl with a good figure and a taste for short skirts.'

‘And I seem to remember the murderer was a neighbour of hers?'

‘A young man named Edwin Smith who lived nearby was arrested, it is true. Before long he confessed to having strangled Carole, but twenty-four hours before his trial was due to open, he tried to anticipate his fate by hanging himself. In that, as in so much else during his short life, he failed. A warder arrived in time to cut him down and save him for the gallows. Even so, the day of reckoning was postponed. Although the court proceedings were expected to be a formality, the authorities were reluctant to hang a man with an injured neck.'

‘The executioner preferred more of a challenge?'

‘I see you indulge in black humour, Mr Devlin. The best kind, I quite agree. But I think you miss the point. In those days - we are talking of 1964, you will recall - the campaign to abolish capital punishment was intensifying. The establishment dreaded a newsworthy incident.'

‘Such as?'

Miller's tongue appeared between his teeth. ‘They feared that a mistake might be made. If undue pressure were applied on the scaffold, there was a risk that the neck might snap and Smith would lose his head. Imagine, Mr Devlin, how the media would have feasted on that.'

Miller's eyes sparkled as he spoke, causing Harry to feel as cold as if he had stepped naked into the wintry streets outside, but something made him ask, ‘So what happened?'

‘The trial took place at the end of November and Smith was duly sentenced to death. However, as you will know, the law required three Sundays to pass before such a verdict could be carried out - and in the meantime the House of Commons voted to abolish capital punishment. As it happened, no hangings took place after the August of that year. Smith could certainly have expected a reprieve.'

‘A lucky man.'

‘Not so lucky as you may think,' said Ernest Miller. ‘Having escaped the noose, Smith finally managed to kill himself in jail. Once again the authorities were careless - as they so often seem to be. He slashed his own throat on a jag of glass one night and severed the jugular vein.'

Harry bit his lip. His imagination was vivid - he had never quite decided whether that was an asset in a solicitor, or a fatal flaw - and Miller's words made his skin prickle. He could not help seeing in his mind's eye the sickening scene: the blood-soaked remains of a human being stretched across the concrete floor of a silent and unforgiving prison cell.

Gritting his teeth, he said, ‘So where do I come in?'

‘Smith's solicitor was Cyril Tweats.'

No wonder he was found guilty
, Harry said to himself, the thought easing his tension. But all he said aloud was, ‘I see.'

‘You begin to appreciate my interest? I gather Mr Tweats retired recently and your firm took over his practice. Which is why I wanted to take a little of your time to talk about Carole's killing.'

‘I don't quite...'

‘I wonder,' said Miller. ‘Your case has been adjourned until tomorrow morning. Perhaps you might allow me to buy you a drink and give you an idea of the information I am seeking. And if, at the end of half an hour, you decide I am wasting your time, well, no hard feelings. What do you say?'

Harry hesitated. He knew how much work in the office awaited his return; if he missed the last post, the following morning the sight of a mound of unsigned correspondence would reproach him like the grubby face of a neglected child. Besides, he had been repelled by the impression of pleasure Miller had given in lingering over the phrase
He slashed his own throat on a jag of glass one night and severed the jugular vein
. It was easy to visualise him salivating as he waited for a judge to don the black cap.

He glanced back over his shoulder towards the ground-floor lobby. The judicial roulette wheel had stopped spinning for the day, leaving losers to sulk in their cells whilst winners walked free to celebrate in style. His clients, Kevin and Jeannie Walter, had already disappeared, whisked off to the city's priciest restaurant by minders from the newspaper which had spent so much money to buy their story. He had last seen their barrister, Patrick Vaulkhard, in the robing room, taunting his opposite number about cover-ups and corruption. One of the bent coppers in the case was hanging around at the bottom of the open-tread staircase, waiting for his colleagues. With his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the floor, he seemed deep in thought. If he had any sense, he was making plans for an early retirement.

Harry found himself recoiling from the prospect of ending the day back behind his desk. He was not by nature indolent, but a long afternoon in court had left him in a Philip Larkin mood: why should he let the toad of work squat on
his
life? The letters could wait: a drink would do him good. In any case, surely no harm could come from a brief conversation, however unappealing his companion?

He began to move towards the revolving door. ‘Why not?'

‘Splendid. I am most grateful for your co-operation.'

Outside a raw wind nipped at Harry's cheeks and knuckles. On the far side of Derby Square, harsh lights from the office blocks burned in the dirty darkness. Queuing commuters stamped their feet and tried to keep warm as they waited at bus stops for the procession of maroon double-deckers with bronchitic engines moving in sombre ritual along James Street. The snow of early morning had turned to slush, treacherous underfoot. Harry's shoes slid as he crossed the road at speed, trying to dodge the spray thrown up by a passing juggernaut.

At the corner of North John Street he waited for his companion to catch up. When at last he made it through the traffic to the safety of the pavement, Miller bent his head. ‘Not - not as young as I was,' he panted.

‘None of us are.'

Miller's breath was coming in shallow gasps and he seemed unsteady on his feet. The legacy, Harry guessed, of too many days, weeks and months spent in cramped surroundings, poring over faded type and living life at second hand.

He gave him a minute to recover before asking, ‘So what is your interest in the Sefton Park murder?'

‘I live on my own, Mr Devlin. My wife died ten years ago; I have no family and few outside interests. Since finishing work, I find I have a lot of time on my hands, and I need to occupy myself somehow. Crime has always fascinated me. Now I like to indulge my curiosity. The Sefton case is a superb example of its kind. It has all the classic ingredients.'

Miller lowered his voice, as if afraid that homeward bound shoppers might overhear, and ticked the items off on his fingers. ‘A good-looking girl, forward for her years. A famous father and a pop musician boyfriend. A sudden brutal slaying - and a mystery. Police investigations carried out under the remorseless spotlight of the press and television. A suspect hounded without pity and brusquely condemned. And, above all, a grave injustice.'

His eyes gleamed and Harry again felt a chill of distaste. But he could not resist putting the question for which, he had no doubt, Miller was waiting.

‘Who suffered the injustice?'

Miller studied Harry's expression before nodding, as if satisfied by what he found there.

‘I spent much of today listening to your case from the back of the court. You must be happy with the progress your counsel made. The judge made it plain he is unsympathetic to the police, and no wonder. Your client, Mr Walter, was convicted of a crime he did not commit. He must be hoping for massive compensation.'

‘We'll have to wait and see.'

‘From all I have heard, you care about justice, Mr Devlin.'

If there was a hint of irony in the words, Harry was content to ignore it. Life as a lawyer in Liverpool had taught him to grow a thick skin. ‘It's a rare commodity,' he agreed. ‘Worth seeking out.'

‘Forgive me for saying so, but I suspect most lawyers care more about their fees. However, let that pass. I would value your co-operation, since you have access to the files of Edwin Smith's solicitor. It is too late for Smith, but you may yet help me to prove he suffered a grievous wrong.'

‘Did he protest his innocence at the trial?'

‘On the contrary, he pleaded guilty.'

‘Yet you're suggesting the confession was false?'

Miller cleared his throat. The strange shining eyes belied his deliberate manner. He was like a small boy, Harry thought, brimming with private knowledge and unable to restrain his excitement at making a disclosure.

‘I am. And that is, for me, the fascination of the murder of Carole Jeffries. I do not pretend to have embarked on any moral crusade. I cannot even claim to share your devotion to seeing justice done. But I find murder irresistible - and perfect murder most of all.'

‘No-one ever described the Sefton Park Strangling as a perfect murder.'

‘You miss the point, Mr Devlin. If you accept that Smith was innocent, the conclusion is unavoidable.'

Miller showed his crooked teeth again.

‘The true culprit escaped scot-free.'