He grunted. “It seems you and I haven’t been able to convince the coppers that he was anything other than a figment of the imagination. Or, possibly, that Liz and I had got back together again, but she was too scared to tell friend Coghlan.”
“Oh God, Harry, what a mess.” Even at the other end of the telephone, her dismay was plain. “The police seem to be flailing around in the dark.”
“Simply doing their job. Not easy. There’s something else. I blotted my copybook by failing to tell them. Forgot to mention it to you, as well.”
He told her briefly about the marks on Liz’s wrists. She snorted with scorn.
“Suicide? That I will not believe. She simply wasn’t the type.”
“A week ago I’d have said the same, but the more I think all this over, the less sure I become about everything.”
“I’m sure, Harry.” He could hear the passion bubbling in Maggie’s voice. “She was my kid sister, remember. And it’s out of the question. Liz was in love with life, there’s no way she would want to kill herself.”
“A cry for help, perhaps?” Even as he made the suggestion, Harry realised how unlikely it was.
“Who was she crying to? No, Harry, face up to it. There’s something here we don’t understand.”
“I’m going to make it my business to understand, Maggie. I owe her that. The trouble is, neither of us was in her confidence. Any idea who might have been?”
A few seconds passed before Maggie said slowly, “I can think of a couple of names. Matt Barley, for one. Liz always cared for him. And Dame, of course. She was her oldest friend.”
“Right. I didn’t have an address to give the police where they could contact Dame. Is she still around? And if so, where?”
“God knows. Frankly, I shudder to think.”
Harry decided not to pursue that one. He was fond of both Maggie and Dame, but the two women had never hit it off: the one a paid-up member of the bourgeoisie, the other as cheerfully down-market as a fish and chip supper. “Anyhow,” he said pacifically. “I ought to get in touch with them.”
“Like I said yesterday, you shouldn’t interfere. Leave it to the police to sort the whole thing out.” Again anxiety caused her voice to tremble a little. “They’ll unravel it all if you give them time.”
With a vehemence that took even him by surprise, he said. “But they didn’t know Liz! Don’t you see? If this isn’t a commonplace street killing, then Liz was murdered because of who or what she was. I was her husband, I lived with her day and night. I can cut corners that the police painstakingly plod round. And what’s more, I won’t waste time and effort wondering if I’m the bastard who stuck a knife in her.”
His sister-in-law sighed. “You always were an obstinate devil. I suppose nothing I can say will change your mind. But if you really cared for her, you would remember Liz as she was, not trample over her grave.”
That stung him. Sharply, he said, “Sorry, Maggie. I simply can’t sit back waiting for something to happen when out there is a man who has stabbed my wife.”
After hanging up, Harry checked the number of the Freak Shop and dialled immediately. After what seemed like an age, Matt Barley answered.
“Matt, this is Harry.”
He heard a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line before the other man said, “Harry, what can I say? It’s unbelievable. I feel so sick that Liz should have died like that. I keep expecting her to walk through the door, late for work as usual. I phoned yesterday evening, but there was no answer. Just meaning to say - well, you know. I remember how much she meant to you.”
They talked for a minute before Harry said, “Can I come and see you, Matt? There are things about the murder that bother me. You saw her regularly, you may be able to help. I’m sure the police have grilled you, but would you mind?”
“Okay,” said Matt. Did Harry detect a shade of reluctance there? “If you think it’s necessary. That is - I’d be glad to see you, of course, but I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at. Some maniac killed her. Isn’t that the top and bottom of it?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Can I come over now?”
“Well . . . it’s difficult, Harry. I’m rushed off my feet. Short-staffed at the moment. Won’t tomorrow do?”
Harry kept pressing but ultimately had to agree to call at the shop the following morning. As a throw-away line, he asked if Matt knew where Dame could be found these days.
“She chucked her job in at the casino,” said Matt. “Liz did tell me what she was up to, but I can’t remember off-hand. Something barmy, as I recall. Let me think it over, it’ll probably come to mind before we meet.”
As he was saying goodbye, Harry heard the doorbell again. It seemed to him that the sound would forever be associated with the arrival of horrific tidings. He went to the door slowly, aware of an involuntary tensing of the muscles in his neck, arms and legs. This time, though, the visitor was innocuous. Brenda Rixton’s carefully made-up face smiled at him through the spyhole.
When he invited her in, she seemed for once to be tongue-tied, almost embarrassed, “I came to ask - how you were coping,” she said, after a couple of false, stammering starts.
He shrugged and said, “All right, I suppose, in the circumstances.”
“I wondered . . .” she began “. . . I mean, you must be feeling pretty low. Yet at a time like this, you really need to keep your strength up. So I thought you might like to share lunch next door.”
“I couldn’t possibly put you to all that trouble,” he said hastily. “Besides, I’m going out for a long walk. Clear my head.”
“No trouble,” she said quickly. “If you’re busy - perhaps dinner tonight?”
He was about to refuse again, but something in her expression made him have second thoughts. It was a look of yearning for company that he felt he could not ignore. So he simply said, “That’s very kind of you. What sort of time?”
“Shall we say seven?” She beamed. “Good. I’ll see you then.”
After she had left, Harry threw on a coat and scarf and went out to the waterfront. Walking along the path towards Otterspool, he mulled over the endless questions surrounding Liz’s death. Where was Coghlan and was he the father of the child that the murderer had also killed? Was there something odd about the attitude of people like Matt and even the policeman Macbeth, let alone Maggie and Jim? Or was he being misled by his own over-stretched imagination?
At least he ought to be capable of sorting out what had been going on in Liz’s life during the past two years. Learning of the loss of her unborn child had, if that were possible, strengthened his resolve to discover the man who had committed the crime. A night’s sleep had at least helped to bring matters into perspective. He still wanted to strike out, to take revenge. But more than that: making an effort to contribute towards the killer’s detection would help exorcise the guilt he felt for having ignored Liz’s fear of Michael Coghlan.
On the way back home, he passed families enjoying a Saturday afternoon stroll, kids gambolling around their parents’ feet. Might Liz and he have ended up like that, if he had handled things differently? No, he couldn’t deceive himself. Their relationship had been a helter-skelter ride, not a journey on a long-distance train.
In the entrance hall of the Empire Dock, a rosy-cheeked figure in a raincoat which had seen better days was chatting up the porter. With a journalist’s sixth sense, Ken Cafferty swung round, his face aglow with anticipation.
“The very man!”’
With a casual wave to the porter, Cafferty walked across the foyer. “I have a tit-bit which may interest you. The police have found Mick Coghlan. He’s down south, apparently, being questioned at length. They haven’t charged him yet, but they haven’t let him go, either. Interesting, yes?”
An overwhelming sense of relief swept over Harry. “How did you find that out?”
Cafferty tapped the side of his nose. “A good newspaperman never reveals his sources.”
But it did
not require Sherlockian powers of deduction to work out that Ken must have called in here on the off-chance, on his way from the police H.Q. at Canning Place across the road. Harry dodged a dozen questions and ignored a hint that an offer of coffee would be welcome. Glad as he was that Coghlan had been located, he knew days might pass now before a confession was dragged out of the man or before Skinner and his cohorts decided they had enough evidence to make the charge stick. If, he meditated with a defence lawyer’s instinctive search for the loophole, any link between Coghlan and the crime had the strength to survive critical scrutiny. Ten to one there was an alibi in the background; that would explain Coghlan’s sudden departure down south. And an alibi from a crooked crony might not be easy to break.
Escaping eventually to his flat, Harry switched on the box and yet again watched the video of Don’t Look Now. Roeg’s lush portayal of Venice retained its power to hypnotise and the moment when the psychopathic dwarf strikes that final, fatal blow had lost none of its horror. As the credits rolled, he thought of Matt Barley, the only person of restricted growth - Harry understood that that was the phrase to use these days - he knew. The little man was devoted to Liz. He’d lived next door to the Wieczarek family years ago; the same age as Maggie, he had more than reciprocated the girls’ affection for him. Harry had always enjoyed Mart’s sometimes savage humour and his refusal to allow the mere lack of size to interfere with a Scouser’s birthright of making a dodgy living, selling joke masks to kids and sex aids to middle-aged men.
He showered and changed and rang the bell next door. Brenda ushered him in, saying twice how glad she was that he had come. Her hair was pinned back elegantly and, for all his ignorance about women’s clothes, he guessed that the low-cut taffeta dress had come from the place in her wardrobe reserved for special occasion wear. Her flat was identical to his in design, but she had transformed the small box with subtle wall-lighting and so much greenery that a visitor almost needed a machete to cut a way through the hall. Her living-room walls were hung with oriental tapestries and a couple of icons of the kind advertised in charity gift catalogues.
They ate by candlelight. Brenda produced a bottle of Portuguese wine to complement a boeuf bourgignon which bore no resemblance to the packet version, stuffed with monosodium glutamate, hydrolysed protein and artificial colouring, which Harry often slung in the oven for half an hour and ate without noticing. During the meal, she chatted about her job as a sales negotiator for a firm of estate agents, spicing anecdotes about unscrupulous sellers and pernickety buyers with a touch of satire that he had not previously suspected in her. When the plates had been cleared, they settled down in opposite armchairs.
“I feel better for that,” he said.
“I’m glad,” she said. “If you don’t mind my saying so, for the last day or two you’ve looked like a man going through a living hell.”
He didn’t reply. The wine had relaxed him, but he wasn’t yet ready to chat about Liz’s death to inquisitive strangers.
“The police came to see me, enquiring about your wife. They seemed interested in your movements on Thursday night. I explained that I’d seen your wife and yourself at different stages of the evening. They wanted exact times so I did my best to be accurate.”
She studied him carefully, as though trying to gauge his reaction.
“Routine, Brenda,” he said firmly, “I don’t think I’m a serious suspect.”
“Oh good Lord, naturally! I mean, I hope you don’t think I was suggesting you were.” She tried to cover her confusion by changing the subject. “I read the reports in the local rag. You’ve had a hard time over the years, from what I can read between the lines. They described your wife as fun-loving, I saw. I imagine,” she swallowed hard but continued, “imagine that means she must have led you quite a dance.”
“You could say that.”
She looked straight at him. “I understand how it feels, Harry. You see, my own husband . . .”
The story spilled out with no encouragement from him. Nothing out of the ordinary. She had been married for fifteen years to a Lothario who flitted from job to job and business to business. Finally, he had set up a driving school and inside six months he’d sped off with one of his pupils. Brenda said that until then she had always regarded divorced women as failures; possibly that was right and she had failed with Les.
“One in three,” interrupted Harry. He’d finished the bottle whilst she had been talking. “A third of all marriages end up in the divorce court. Not counting all those where the couple soldier on against their better judgment, because of the kids or habit or both. You can’t apportion blame.”
“I’d be glad to think so. Sometimes late at night, though, when I sit here listening to the radio or squinting at the television, I can convince myself I’m the only woman in the world who’s on her own.”
Neither of them spoke for a while. Harry thought: Perhaps fear of loneliness is even worse than the thing itself. This woman’s attractive enough, she could find someone if she put her mind to it.
Brenda stood up and yawned. “Forgive me. I’m tired and yet I suffer from sleepless nights. Doesn’t add up, does it?”
He rose too. “Terrific meal, Brenda. Very kind. Suppose I ought to be making tracks now.”
She moved towards him. Her perfume was just perceptible, a discreet fragrance, different from the exotic muck which Liz used to daub on herself. “Stay longer if you can. Don’t feel you have to go on my account.” She smiled, showing even white teeth. “It’s good to have someone to talk to. Although I’m afraid I’ve done all of the talking.”
“I’ve enjoyed it as well.” He could feel her warm breath on his cheek. Stepping back, he said, “I must go. Thanks again.”
At the door, she said, “Thank you for coming. We must do this more often. Cooking for two is much more fun than for one.” She closed her eyes and inclined her face in his direction. But he didn’t want to kiss her; it would have seemed a betrayal, although of whom or of what he wasn’t sure.
“Goodnight,” he said softly.
As he locked his front door and settled down inside, he thought about the mixed emotions on her face as she had turned away and for a moment he experienced an unexpected pang of regret that he had rejected her invitation to stay.
Chapter Eleven
Next morning he rang police headquarters and asked to be put through to Skinner, meeting the switchboard girl’s prevarication with the persistence born of years in the legal profession. After a full five minutes’ delay, the Chief Inspector came on to the line. He sounded full of cold.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Devlin?”
“Found Coghlan yet?” Better not let him know that Ken Cafferty had already broken the news.
“Mr. Coghlan is in London at present. He is assisting our colleagues in the Met, yes.” Skinner sneezed. “Meanwhile, our enquiries are continuing.”
“When are you going to charge him?”
With an obvious effort at patience, Skinner said, “As you are well aware, Mr. Devlin, there’s a limit to what I can . . .”
“Christ, Chief Inspector, the man killed my wife! I want to know.”
Skinner said bleakly, “I’ve warned you before about these wild allegations, Mr. Devlin. You’re under stress, I appreciate that, but you know better than most about being innocent until proved guilty. People in your line of business make a few bob out of that old principle, don’t they? Well, for your information, we have no specific reason to believe that Mr. Coghlan was concerned in your wife’s death and it is highly likely he will be returning home in the course of the next few hours. A free man.”
“But . . .”
“And that, I’m afraid, is all that I can say at this juncture. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a great deal of work to do. Rest assured, I shall contact you when I have something to say.”
Skinner rang off, leaving Harry sick with dismay. What story had Coghlan been weaving? Why hadn’t he been brought back to the local force
for interrogation? By now, the questions that had arisen in respect of Liz’s murder should have been finding answers. Instead, they were multiplying. A thought sprang into his mind: in a case such as this, could there be any justification for taking the law into one’s own hands, if the system proved powerless to ensnare the man concerned? Harry had seen too many culprits go free - had participated sometimes in ensuring that they went free - to have too much faith that Coghlan would eventually be brought to book. Uneasily, he forced himself to think of other things.
He spent a tedious hour trying to restore order to his flat. Pulling an old tie into the back of a drawer, he chanced upon the album in which he and Liz had kept their wedding photographs. Souvenirs to look back on in years to come, they had agreed at the time. But there hadn’t been many years to come and Liz had not claimed the pictures when she had left to start another life. He flipped through the book and its collection of memories. At the altar, signing the register, in the doorway of the church With Jim, his best man, with Maggie and Derek and Matt too. That reminded him. Checking his watch, he found that it was time to go. He shoved the wedding album back in the drawer. Sometime he must have a clear-out. But not today.
Outside, the red bricks of the reclaimed dock warehouses basked in the brightness of a February sun. The city streets were quiet as he walked briskly to the Freak Shop, casting his mind back to his first encounter with the little man, a month or so before that wedding day. Mischievous Liz hadn’t revealed in advance that Matt was a dwarf, having taken care merely to describe him as a long-time friend of the family. Characteristically, she had relished Harry’s attempt to conceal his bewilderment when introductions were made. Matt Barley was perfectly proportioned, but only forty-five inches tall. He had a mop of fair hair and a vice-like handshake. There was no need to indulge in excessive tact about his height; Matt joked about it often - so often that Harry came to realise that for Matt, humour was a shield, used to help him compete on equal terms with a world of tall people.
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