They stopped in front of And When Did You Last See Your Father? Harry stared at the little boy and said to Dame, “Corny, I know, but after undergoing a grilling from the police on Friday and yesterday, I realise how the kid must have felt.”
“They gave you a tough time?”
“Only doing their job. Have they seen you yet?”
She shook her head. “I’m not easily tracked down.”
“Had you seen much of Liz lately?”
“We met now and then, not as often as I’d have liked. Different from the old days, eh?”
“How was she?”
A wan smile. “Always the same. Something good, someone good, was invariably around the corner. Like me, except I don’t really believe all the rubbish I talk.”
Harry pressed her for details. Dame didn’t try to disguise the depth of Liz’s infatuation with Coghlan; but eventually it had become clear even to her that the man would never change his ways. “Women are strange. You must have noticed, love. Men tread on us, drain us of every last penny and ounce of self-respect and still we beg for more. No sooner did Liz suss Mick out than she was spending nights on the town, hunting for someone new. That’s how she got involved with this other guy.”
“Did she talk much about him?”
“Hints and innuendoes mostly. You know how Liz liked to weave a web of mystery around her life. Being special, that’s what appealed to her. Reality was second best. So I wasn’t surprised when she told me he was rich and handsome and blessed with a neurotic bitch of a wife who didn’t understand him. Tony, his name was. For all I know, he was a fat forty year old called Percival who was on the dole with half a dozen kids but could shoot a smooth line of chat.”
“She was pregnant, Dame.”
Her face suddenly grim, she nodded. “She told me about ten days ago, the last time I saw her alive. Thrilled to bits, she was, and so was I for her. Careless to get lumbered, but it may have been deliberate. I wouldn’t be surprised. Help her bloke make up his mind to ditch the old lady . . . it’s the oldest trick in the book.”
“Coghlan wasn’t the father?”
“Liz said not. I got the feeling that he had his hands full with other women and that was beginning to suit her fine. No, the new boyfriend was the culprit, or so she led me to believe. But you know what Liz was like. A lovely lady, but she couldn’t always tell the difference between her dreams and real life.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” said Harry wryly.
“Don’t you speak ill of her,” she said fiercely. “Liz had her faults, we all knew that, but she was still my best friend. We had so many laughs together over the years. Even when she poked fun at someone, like that stuffy brother-in-law of hers, she never meant to be cruel. And she never once let me down.”
“Think yourself lucky.” Harry spoke lightly enough, but Dame still turned on him, flushed and angry.
“It’s the truth.” She lowered her voice, spoke with urgency. “Look, I’ve never told anyone this before. When I was fourteen, I was careless too. Understand? Things were difficult at home. My boyfriend was a soldier, I never saw him again. I had to have an abortion. Liz covered for me with my mum and dad, no one even guessed what had happened. And more than that - she never told anyone else. Not even you, am I right?”
Harry nodded, abashed.
“She kept my secret when it mattered,” said Dame softly. I’ll never forget that. Never.”
They were in the Impressionists Room now. Harry halted in front of a painting of two men, bending over a woman’s prostrate body. A sordid killing in a back street. The Murder by Paul Cezanne. The darkness of the artist’s vision mesmerised him and he did not move until Dame led him gently by the hand towards the sweep of stairs.
“Tea,” she said firmly.
When they were installed at a table, he rested his elbows on the formica and asked bluntly, “Did Liz tell you why she slit her wrists?”
Dame spilled some of her tea into the saucer. “What do you mean?”
Harry explained. There was no doubting the genuineness of her shocked reaction and he placed his hand over hers by way of comfort. “If she was so glad to be having the baby, I can only assume that she cut herself in a moment of desperation when she thought Coghlan wanted her dead. Or maybe this happened a while ago. I simply don’t know. And yet . . .”
“And yet that doesn’t sound like Liz? I agree, but how else can you account for it?”
He shook his head. “I dunno. All I’m sure about is that she was telling the truth when she confided her fears in me and that I should have listened.”
“You shouldn’t reproach yourself.”
“Don’t you start,” he said bitterly. “You above anyone else know what Liz meant to me. And you can’t imagine that I’ll let it rest there. No, Coghlan was responsible, must have been, there’s no other candidate. I owe it to her to make sure he doesn’t get away with murdering her.”
Dame leaned across the table. “Listen, speaking as one obstinate bugger who loved Liz to another, I wish you well. But don’t forget, this isn’t one of your courtroom games where you give the other guy hell then go off to the bar together afterwards, the best of friends. The only law Mick recognises belongs to the jungle. Watch out for man-traps.”
“I’ll take care.”
“Good.” Her strong fingers laced around his. “So how are you spending the rest of this cold Sunday? Out on the warpath or has the lunchtime entertainment sapped you so much that you need to recoup your strength?”
He pushed his cup to one side and said with a glimmer of a smile, “Late afternoon on a February Sunday in Liverpool? Not much more I can do till tomorrow morning, so I’m at a loose end. How about you?”
Dame laughed, a raucous sound coarsened by years of coping with crumpled dreams. “I’m all dressed up, with nowhere to go. This outfit cost the thick end of three hundred quid and that was in the January sales. But when I go back home tonight there’ll just be one ring working on the gas hob, one bar of the electric fire glowing. I rent a flat in Aigburth the size of a broom cupboard. I’m not exactly desperate to rush back. Why don’t we have dinner together? I won’t insult you by offering to pay. How about it?”
“Dame, that’s an offer no man could refuse.”
She laughed so loudly that an old lady at the adjoining table turned round and stared. “Oh, Harry, if only that were true. If only that were true.”
Chapter Thirteen
“My name is Fingall,” said Harry into the handset of his office telephone. “Reuben Fingall.”
The words rolled off his tongue as smoothly as if spoken by Ruby himself. The accuracy of the impersonation, the unexpectedly precise capture of that characteristic note of smugness, gave Harry a small surge of pleasure. In his schooldays he had amused himself and others with his amateur mimicry. Harold Wilson and Tony Hancock had been favourite targets, but he hadn’t been sure that he had retained the knack sufficiently to deceive Paula from the gym at the other end of the line.
“I’m afraid Mick isn’t expected in today, Mr. Fingall,” she said in a cloying tone evidently reserved for her employer’s close friends and professional advisers.
Harry already knew that from Ken Cafferty. This morning Ken had told him that Coghlan had been released by the Metropolitan Police uncharged and was supposed to have returned to Liverpool, although he could be found neither at the Woolton house nor at the gym. Meanwhile, Fingall was in the Crown Court attending on another case and remaining unusually tight-lipped about the whole affair, having declined to reveal his client’s whereabouts. Skinner was saying nothing either and Ken had given up the hunt, having decided to wait for his quarry to emerge in the fullness of time. Harry wasn’t so patient.
With the audible click of the tongue that conveyed Reuben’s disapproval of any response that didn’t suit, Harry said firmly, “I must contact him today, Paula - it is Paula, isn’t it? You will appreciate that my call concerns urgent legal business. Michael wou
ld be most anxious that I speak to him.”
“Hold on,” said the woman, “I’ll check with Arthur.” Harry waited. After a single early night, he felt fitter and more relaxed, ready to continue his quest for Coghlan. He had taken Dame to a bistro in Penny Lane, where they had relaxed and talked for three hours about good times shared in the past. After driving her home, he had declined her invitation of coffee, even when she had solemnly assured him that seduction wasn’t on her mind. He’d gone straight back to the flat, resisting also the temptation of a stop-off at the Dock Brief and an invitation from Brenda to come round for a drink. He suspected she had been awaiting his return and her downcast expression caused him a moment’s remorse, but the prospect of drifting into a cosy routine of evenings shared with his next-door neighbour failed to entice him and he had politely but firmly pleaded a splitting headache.
“Mr. Fingall, so sorry to keep you,” said Paula sweetly. “It seems Mick may be out playing golf.”
In this weather? Harry stared out at the rain teeming down upon Fenwick Court. Nearly forgetting to maintain Ruby’s exact elocution, he said abruptly, “And which club might he be playing at?”
“The West Liverpool.” A pause, during which mental cogs must have whirred. “Weren’t you actually the person who proposed him for membership, Mr. Fingall?”
Ring off, Harry instructed himself, before you make a mess of it. “Thank you very much indeed for your help,” he said in a Rubyesque purr and put the receiver down. The West Liverpool, no less. One of the most prestigious courses in the country, he believed, although in truth he scarcely knew the difference between an eagle and an albatross. Ruby had certainly introduced Coghlan into high society.
Picking up his coat, Harry spotted The Professional Conduct of Solicitors in a dusty corner of his bookcase and wondered whether passing oneself off as a fellow lawyer was a specific disciplinary offence. Better look it up sometime.
Driving through the city, Harry listened to a cassette of early Beatles hits. The young Scouse voices sounded fresh and alive: hard to believe that of Matt’s hero had been silenced by an assassin’s bullet. Somehow the energy of the rock ‘n’ roll music complemented Harry’s morning mood. Eight hours’ sleep was partly responsible, but so was the satisfaction of at last having the chance to confront the man who had changed his life. It was like embarking upon the first steps of recovery after a long, wasting illness.
The West Liverpool Golf Club occupied one hundred and fifty acres on the suburban fringe, five miles further up the coast than the most northerly dock. The links stretched out towards the sea from the end of a cul-de-sac lined with opulent Victorian villas. Nowadays the club was said to be the haunt of the nouveau riche, the marketing men and finance directors who ran what was left of the city’s industry.
Undeterred by a large signboard bearing the canard that all trespassers would be prosecuted, he parked outside the clubhouse, a sturdy Victorian edifice topped by a clock tower and disfigured by a low post-war extension apparently constructed out of the remnants of a giant Lego set. Even on this foul February morning, a dozen other cars were lined up again the grey brick wall: they included a Merc, an Alfa, three BMWs and, discreetly at the far end, a white Escort with a man inside who seemed more interested in Harry’s arrival than the newspaper ostentatiously propped up on his lap. Whilst manoeuvering, Harry had caught sight of a square face before it had disappeared behind the Daily Mirror. Harry thought he recognised the man as the pock-marked constable who had helped to carry out the search of his flat on Thursday.
The rain was easing as Harry marched in. When in doubt, display confidence. Observing a tweedy gentleman of retirement age in the lobby, he called out in an old-school-tie-voice, “I say, wouldn’t happen to have seen Michael Coghlan, would you?”
The elderly man didn’t seem impressed by the mention of Coghlan’s name. A twitch of his lips implied that he deplored the need to admit the uncouth to this noble place merely because they cultivated the right people and could afford the course fees. “Saw him going towards the show room,” he said grudgingly.
Harry decided to wait. An encounter with a naked Coghlan was more than he was ready for. Assuming a proprietorial air, he strolled into the cocktail bar and ordered a beer. Two walls of the long rectangular room were adorned with oak boards recording the names of past winners of a host of golfing competitions and a row of faintly ridiculous portraits of former captains, each of them wearing a red and yellow striped blazer with matching tasselled cap. On the far side, rain-blurred glass doors led on to a verandah from which one could view the eighteenth hole. A couple of hardy soul in waterproof gear were visible, putting out on the last green. Harry took his glass to a table near the door and was idly flicking through an ancient copy of The Field when Coghlan walked in.
Recognising Liz’s lover was easy. Coghlan wasn’t shy of seeking publicity for the gym and from time to time the local paper carried his photograph in connection with some sponsorship or other. He was built like a stevedore and dressed like a football star. An open-neck designer shirt revealed a hairy chest and a gold medallion. A Rolex glinted on his wrist. With his blond blow-waved hair and a pair of Italian sunglasses that probably cost more than Harry’s entire wardrobe, he was as out of place here as a Sumo wrestler in the Long Room at Lord’s. Bitchily, Harry decided that Coghlan’s nose was too beaky for him to qualify as handsome, but no imagination was needed to see why he had appealed to Liz. Subtlety had never been her strong point. Yet Harry also saw the strain-lines etched around Coghlan’s eyes and the tense hunching of shoulder blades beneath the fawn blouson. For all the glitzy exterior, the man was troubled.
A smaller, older man in an Aran sweater accompanied Coghlan. Bald and snub-nosed, his too was a familiar face. Harry searched in his mind for a name. Wasn’t he a jeweller, another local businessman who liked to see his name in the news? Yes, Raymond Killory, that was it. He had a chain of bottom-of-the-market shops throughout Merseyside. He too had a worried look and although their conversation was indistinguishable, his muttered remarks to Coghlan sounded squeaky and querulous. They kept talking as they moved to a table by the window, not looking as one of the golfers three-putted, to his evident disgust.
For an instant, doubt submerged Harry’s determination. What could he say? He had turned up here unrehearsed, with no more than a vague idea of how to challenge Coghlan or what to do if the man simply laughed in his face. It wasn’t too late to slip away undiscovered. But he choked back the thought and strode over to where his wife’s former lover was sitting.
“Coghlan.”
The blond head jerked in his direction. “Who are you?” The voice was gritty, the accent local.
“Harry Devlin. I want to talk to you.”
Coghlan surveyed him from head to toe. He might have been a cannibal, encountering a missionary. The uncertainty on his face slowly gave way to calculation. “I can spare you a couple of minutes,” he said. “Raymond, would you excuse me?”
The jeweller looked nervously from one man to the other. He coughed and said, I’ll be at the bar when you’re ready.” Neither Coghlan nor Harry spared him a glance as he sidled away; Harry sat down in his place.
“I heard you’d been to the Fitness Centre,” said Coghlan. “What do you want?”
“Don’t you think a conversation between us is long overdue? We have something in common, after all.”
“Get to the point. You may be a brief, but you’re not charging me by the hour.”
“Liz tired of us both, you as well as me. I know how it feels, Coghlan, the fury of losing what you thought you had forever.” Harry leaned forward. “There comes a moment, doesn’t there, when you want to scream? Or, perhaps, to take revenge?”
Coghlan bared strong, white teeth. “You’re not making sense. Don’t piss me about.”
“Liz betrayed you, Coghlan.” The unpractised words began to pour out. “You treated her like the rest of your common tarts. She stood it for a while, but you c
ouldn’t quench her. She met some other man. Hid it from you, for fear of what you’d do, but not well enough. You bullied her, terrified her. She slashed her wrists in a fit of despair. But then she learned she was going to have a kid and that changed everything. So she gathered up the courage to walk out.” Harry took a deep breath. The man he hated was gazing steadily at him now, brow furrowed, but giving nothing away. “You caught up with her, isn’t that right? I don’t know who killed her. You or one of your sidekicks, possibly, whilst you set up an alibi. The police haven’t been able to pin it on you yet, but they know that you’re their man. And I know too.”
Coghlan stretched out an arm across the table and grabbed Harry’s tie with a movement so smooth and economical that no one in the cocktail bar noticed it. “You’re crazy, Devlin. You’ve called at my house as well as the Fitness Centre. Oh yes, I’m well aware of what goes on in my absence. And now you interrupt me at a private club to pour out a load of garbage that I’d sue for if it wasn’t all so sick. You’re becoming a nuisance and that’s a risky thing to do.” He yanked the tie once, then let it go.
“You took Liz. There’s nothing else you can do so far as I’m concerned.”
“Don’t you believe it. I don’t take this crap from anyone, let alone a cheap brief from a back street without two pennies to rub together.”
“My wife is dead. And you’re responsible.”
With a snort of laughter, Coghlan said, “Wife in name only. Plenty of water under that bridge since she packed you in.” The contempt was unvarnished. “I’m not surprised you couldn’t handle her. You’re nothing much. You amused her, that’s all, like a child’s toy. When she wanted a man she had to try elsewhere.”
Harry’s beer glass stood on the table. He gripped the handle, tempted for an instant to grind it in Coghlan’s face, see the glass splinter and the jagged edges tear into the flesh, transforming the scorn to pain. But as he lifted up the pint pot, a hand was laid on his shoulder and a plummy tone enquired, “Michael, old chap. Long time no see. What’s your handicap these days?”
All the Lonely People Page 11