Maggie took his hand in hers and stepped back. “It’s been a long time.”
“Too long.” He returned the pressure of her hand. “You’re more attractive then ever.” It wasn’t an appropriate comment to make on this occasion, but he meant it and had never quite mastered the lawyer’s knack of not saying what came immediately into his head. Maggie had never matched Liz for glamour, nor had she attempted to, but her small, up-turned face had a natural charm that the dismay in her grey eyes could not diminish.
“Shall we go inside?”
The Traders’ might be only three-quarters of a mile distant from the Ferry Club, but it was a world apart. A uniformed porter whose name was Alfred and who had been there for upwards of twenty years, saluted and held a door open for them. He greeted Harry by name, as if his last visit had been the previous day rather than in the height of the summer. To walk through the hallway was to step back in time. Heavy, gilt-framed portraits of past presidents of the club lined the walls; stern, long-dead shipping magnates and cotton dealers, many of them, men who had prospered during Liverpool’s years of greatness. Extravagant crystal chandeliers hung above their heads and in an alcove a cabinet displayed ivory ware and exotic sailing ships in bottles, trophies of a bygone age. Harry signed his sister-in-law into the visitors’ book and they allowed a uniformed porter to take their coats.
“The Trafalgar Room, sir?” It was the politest reminder that the presence of ladies was not tolerated in the members’ private dining room.
“Please.” Harry allowed the man to shepherd them into the guest lounge. More oak panelling, more maritime artefacts, few people and none of them other than members of staff awake.
Harry whispered to his sister-in-law, “Do you know, even the cockroaches in the kitchen have to wear a jacket and tie?”
A trace of a smile eased the strain on Maggie’s face as they helped themselves from the salad bar. For a couple of minutes they picked at their food in silence before she put down her knife and fork and said in a voice that quavered slightly, “They asked me to identify the body. I had only been back in the house a few minutes when you called.”
Harry glanced at her sharply. “Me too.”
“God, why put both of us through it? Surely one identification is enough?”
Harry didn’t answer directly, but the explanation was obvious. Skinner was covering his back. It wouldn’t do to have to call for identification evidence at a murder trial from the man accused of the crime. He shivered. Merely for the thought to have crossed the policeman’s mind was disturbing.
“What did they tell you?”
“Not much.” She gave him a brief account of her visit from the police. No new facts, but they had questioned her closely about the men in Liz’s life. Coghlan. Harry. And the latest lover.
“Who is he, Maggie?”
Spreading out her arms, she said, “I honestly have no idea.”
“She must have told you something about him.”
“Less than you might imagine. Don’t forget, we’d gone our separate ways.”
True enough. Maggie had followed an orthodox path. Secretarial college as a prelude to five years working for a firm of accountants. Marriage to the boss six months before he became a partner and could point to his name on the notepaper. Two kids and a plush detached house overlooking the sea. An upwardly mobile existence with money no object. It lacked the glamour for which Liz yearned, but he found himself wondering whether all her scathing comments about Derek Edge and her sister’s dinner party lifestyle might in truth have been a cover for the envy that she felt.
“Didn’t she confide in you at all?”
Maggie shook her head. “Not where men were concerned. She was a tease, Harry, you know that better than anyone. She loved to hint and tantalise. Even as a kid sister, she always made a parade of keeping secrets. Anything to be a touch out of the ordinary or to convey an aura of mystery. She would have you believing her latest feller was a member of the aristocracy, but he’d always turn out to be an office boy with the gift of the gab.” She laid down her knife and fork. “Poor Liz. She thought she knew everything there was to know about men, when all the time she didn’t have a clue. You were the only worthwhile one of the lot. She had the sense to catch you and then she threw it away. Crazy.”
“So what did she say about her latest conquest?”
“He was rich and handsome, but of course. Then, so were you at one time of day - you might not have been aware. The money that you were going to make out of the law game . . . there was no end to it. You should have been Lord Chief Justice by now. Anyway, I asked if he was married and she said yes. She anticipated my disapproval. I think she liked to try to provoke me.”
“His name?”
“She never told me. We only spoke about him once and that conversation didn’t last long. I couldn’t hide what I thought about it.”
“When was this?”
“A couple of months ago, possibly longer.”
He was surprised. “Surely you’ve seen her since then?”
“No. Not even at Christmas.” She bowed her head. “The fact is, Liz and I have drifted miles apart since the two of you split up. I told her she was a fool and she didn’t care for that, reckoned I was jealous. The sun shone out of Mick Coghlan then. She worked him out eventually. Too late, as usual.”
“Did he beat her?”
“She wouldn’t have admitted it to me if he had. And, as I say, we saw less of each other. Of course, she used to mock Derek, as you know. After she left you, there was no reason for me to put up with that. We only met Mick Coghlan once and that was plenty for both Derek and me.”
Harry found that easy to understand. Strait-laced Derek Edge’s only acquaintance with crime would be on the fringe of his clients’ insider trading and elaborate tax dodges. For him to small-talk with Mick Coghlan would be like an archbishop’s wife asking a call girl round for tea.
“So Liz and I just met for a cuppa once in a while. Our lives ran on different tracks. I didn’t see any future in her being some kind of gangster’s moll and I dare say my prattling on about the kids bored her to tears.” Her face creased in recollection of lost opportunities. “And now there won’t be another chance to put things right between us.”
Harry waved to a waiter for coffee. “Did she seem frightened when you saw her last?”
Far from it. She kept saying how hard it was to be separated from the man you loved. I gave her a piece of my mind, told her this time she’d better make sure it was for keeps. Naturally, she made a few snide remarks about Derek. Poor man, he can’t help being an accountant.”
The coffee arrived. As they sipped from delicate china cups, Harry studied his sister-in-law. He had always been fond of Maggie. No fads or fantasies for her. Liz had poked fun at the Edges’ well-dusted home and their immaculate square of garden. Boring, boring, boring. But although Maggie could never equal Liz for looks or style, she had the gift of knowing her limitations. She had worked out exactly what she wanted from life and seemed to have acquired it. And yet - there was an indefinable difference in her from the Maggie that he remembered. A streak of ruthlessness, perhaps? Or possibly he’d expected her to seem a little more devastated by Liz’s death. But he reminded himself that he was trying not to let shock and despair take over. Maybe Maggie was simply doing the same.
They talked for a few more minutes, going back over their shared past. The Guy Fawkes party on the anniversary of his first meeting with Liz when the bonfire had been too wet to light. A cousin’s wedding when Liz had drunk too much and proposed to the bridegroom. The stripping-nun kissagram she had ordered for Derek’s thirtieth birthday celebrations in the discreet restaurant where he used to dine his clients.
After he had signed a chit in lieu of a bill - the Traders’ was not the sort of sordid place where members’ money changed hands in the sight of guests - Maggie said, “Why did you ask if she was frightened?”
He gave her a brief resume of Liz’s late
night visit to his flat. When he had finished, there was a long pause before Maggie took a deep breath and said, “You don’t think - there’s anything suspicious about her death?”
Harry winced and she said quickly, “Sorry, that was stupid of me. But I meant, do you believe it was any more than a street attack that went horribly wrong?”
“It’s possible. The police are being cagey but they certainly haven’t handled it as though they’re satisfied with the simple explanation.”
Shaking her head, Maggie said, “You can’t think that Mick . . .”
“I don’t know what to think. But there’s a great deal I want to find out.”
She placed her small, white hand on his. The fingers were cool, the pressure firmer then when they had greeted each other. “Keep out of it, Harry. This is a dreadful day, but for all her faults, I won’t accept that anyone would wish to do Liz harm. It’s sure to have been an ordinary street crime. If killing a person can ever be ordinary. And if it wasn’t . . . ”
“Yes?”
“Then you shouldn’t meddle.” She closed her eyes for a moment. When she spoke again there was a harsh urgency in her tone. “Let the police sort it out. That’s their job. Don’t get involved.”
He might have said: You don’t understand, I was her husband, I am already involved. But instead he remained quiet, wondering why Maggie, too, now appeared to be frightened.
Chapter Eight
Instead of returning to the office, Harry wandered about the city for an hour, struggling against the dull ache in his head and the weakness of his limbs in a vain effort to marshall his thoughts. He yearned to act, to take some positive step towards achieving vengeance for Liz’s death. It wasn’t enough to wait for the police investigation to take its course. Yet his sluggish brain refused to tell him what to do.
His shoes slid on pavements greasy after another fall of rain and when he looked around he saw Liverpool with a stranger’s eyes. Streets littered with discarded till receipts, rotten apple cores and polystyrene hamburger cartons. Illicit dealers flogging dustbin bags and cheap brooches from upturned crates. Teenage kids with green hair loafing at corners and men in leather jackets trying to sell socialist propaganda. Today everyone had a face as grey as the sky. Vandals had ripped up a row of saplings planted under the shadow of St. George’s Hall and sprayed shop walls with slogans about football, sex and anarchy. Normally he took the shoddiness of it all for granted, but this afternoon the sight of the place hurt him as much as would a scar across the face of a friend.
Harry quickened his pace as he approached each newspaper stand; the early evening editions were already on sale. Hoarse relish filled the vendors’ voices as they shouted their reminders that Liz was dead.
“Murder of City Girl!”
Harry flinched the first time he heard the cry, but soon it was commonplace, as much a part of the background as the smell of onions from the hot dog sellers’ carts and the intermittent screeching of the buses’ brakes.
“Murder of City Girl! Murder of City Girl!”
People were buying the papers; he could see one or two of them devouring Ken Cafferty’s prose. Liz had always wanted to be the centre of attention and in death her wish had come true. He remembered her once quoting Andy Warhol’s dictum that everyone should be famous for fifteen minutes and wondering aloud when her moment would come. Real life was never good enough for her; television and movies, the admen’s images of a better life just over the rainbow, had seen to that. She would have revelled in her name being on everyone’s lips. He could picture her grinning and with a careless toss of the black hair, saving only half in jest, “Maybe this makes it all worthwhile.”
In the end he bought a copy himself and took it back to the office. Slumped in his chair, he could scarcely believe that he was reading about his wife. The newspaper told him nothing he didn’t already know. The photo of Liz must have been taken years ago; probably some journalist had prised it out of Maggie. Liz had been looking straight at the camera, wearing the practised smile she had learned in her abbreviated modelling career. On the facing page was a smaller, smudged file photo of himself. It dated back to a much-publicised case when he had defended an enterprising Evertonian who earned a crust impersonating people summoned for jury service, but reluctant to perform their civic duty. Harry gazed at the rag for a minute or so, then threw it into the wastepaper bin.
Sighing, he contemplated the beer belly that bulged unmistakably beneath his shirt. A few years ago he had run in the Liverpool Marathon with the minimum of training; these days he used the lift in the Empire Dock rather than climbing the stairs. Cigarettes and booze were partly to blame, but so was the sense of futility that had dogged him since the marriage breakdown.
Thinking about keep-fit reminded him of gym-owning Michael Coghlan. There was no escaping the man; he muscled into any memory of Liz. Realistically, was it conceivable that Coghlan murdered her? The fingernails of Harry’s right hand dug into his left palm as he was seized by the impulse to find Coghlan and beat the truth out of him.
Of course, the logical thing was to go home and wait for the police to act, but he no longer cared about the logical thing. On the calendar, today’s saw was There are situations in life when it is wisdom not to be too wise. For once the message rang true. He pushed the remaining files to one side, said goodbye to Lucy and left.
Brunner Street was five minutes distant by car. He parked across the road from a Chinese moneylender’s and walked down to the old brush factory that had been converted into Coghlan’s Fitness Centre. A gaudy yellow signboard nailed across the building’s soot-blackened exterior promised high quality facilities and a family atmosphere. Harry walked in past a ground-floor display of jogging gear and sweatshirts and a gum-chewing assistant who was chatting up some girl on the telephone. The place was quiet. Too far from the city centre to appeal to health-conscious businessmen who fancied a lunch hour work-out, thought Harry, and too close to Toxteth to make an up-market image credible. He went through a door marked members only. It led to a flight of steep stairs which he took two at a time out of some vague gesture of solidarity with the keep-fit clan, but by the time he reached the top he was puffing for breath.
Upstairs a red-haired woman sat at a small table reading the fashion page of a glossy magazine. She wore a tight tee shirt emblazoned with the legend: My boss is a comedian - the wages he pays are a joke, and an expression as bored as the voice in which she asked for his membership card.
“I’m looking for Mick Coghlan.”
His eyes roamed around the gym. No evidence here of the family appeal of Coghlan’s, just a handful of squashy-nosed men in singlets and boxer shorts working out on the punch bags and dumb-bells or pressing their hairy, hard-muscled bodies up and down with practised ease on the green mats that covered half the pine block floor. Grunts and curses punctuated the sweaty silence. On the far side of the room, a burly and balding man in a faded tracksuit stood, arms folded, watching the activity. A navy blue towel was slung over his shoulder. He caught sight of Harry and stared at him in a menacing, sleepy-eyed way, as if he fancied himself a Liverpudlian Robert Mitchum.
The woman said, “Mr. Coghlan isn’t here.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want him, anyway?”
“I need to talk to him urgently.”
“Arthur.” She called to the burly man, who strode towards them.
“What’s the problem, Paula?”
“This feller wants to see Mick. Reckons it’s urgent.”
Arthur scowled at Harry. It was like sustaining the visual equivalent of grievous bodily harm.
“So who are you?”
“My name’s Devlin. Harry Devlin.”
The man looked puzzled for a moment, as if the name rang some far-off bell, then his brow cleared and he picked up a copy of the evening paper from the table, turning to the story about Liz’s murder.
“Harry Devlin, eh? Well, pal, Mr. Coghlan isn’t here and I don’t think he’d want to talk to you i
f he was.”
“Is he back at the house?”
“You deaf or summat? I said, he wouldn’t want to see you. Now scram before my patience breaks.”
Harry began, “Whatever you say, I’ll be sure to . . .” But he got no further because the man laid a couple of shovel-like hands on his shoulders, spun him around and frog-marched him towards the door.
“Arthur,” said the red-head in a warning tone.
“No problem,” came the reply. “Simply seeing Mr. Devlin out.” He released his grip and bent down to hiss in Harry’s ear. “My manners aren’t always so good. Now fuck off and don’t come back.” One push sent Harry tumbling down the first few steps and had him clawing at the rail to regain his balance.
Downstairs the youth was still busy on the phone. Harry left Coghlan’s Fitness Centre without regret but with no sense that it had been a wasted visit, either. He had the illusion of having done something positive and he’d seldom experienced that kind of feeling recently. The next move was to find out whether Coghlan had yet arrived home.
Liz had phoned him a couple of times after going to live with Coghlan, asking him to send on a few of the things she had left behind on the day she moved. Harry remembered that her new address had been in Woolton; he stopped off at a post office on the way to check the details in the phone book. It was five o’clock and darkness had fallen. He drove throughout the waste land of the inner city towards the more affluent suburbs, trying to work out what he would say if Coghlan was there. In truth, he had no real idea of how he would handle things but that, perversely, was part of the challenge.
Coghlan’s place was a modern detached in spacious grounds, worthy of a successful executive or a villain too smart for the police to catch. More than likely there was a swimming pool at the rear. That alone would have been enough to captivate Liz - she loved the water and used to say that as a kid she’d had a recurrent dream of being a mermaid. Harry pulled up outside, walked to the door and pressed the bell.
All the Lonely People Page 7