Blinking hard, Harry turned round. A tall man, gin and tonic in hand, was standing over them, smiling in an amiable, fellow-member’s way. Harry rose to his feet and said, “Guilt.” Then he walked out of the building without a second glance at either Coghlan or the interloper.
Outside, a thin drizzle had returned. The constable was still waiting patiently in the unmarked Escort. Harry got in at the passenger side of his car and sat down heavily. He could feel his heart pounding as violently as if he had completed a marathon. Against his expectations, the encounter with Coghlan had left him not so much angry as confused. Not because of anything that Coghlan had said, but as a result of realising, at the very moment of making out his case against the man as Liz’s murderer, that he did not wholly believe it himself.
Chapter Fourteen
“Harold, a word in your ear.”
Only one person in the world ever called Harry Harold. It wasn’t the name on his birth certificate, as Reuben Fingall was well aware, but for years the old rogue had kept pretending to forget. Like Lewis Carroll’s little boy, Ruby only did it to annoy, because he knew it teased. Adding insult to injury he put an arm round Harry’s shoulder and a smooth palm over the hairs on Harry’s hand.
They were in the hall outside the solicitors’ room in the Dale Street magistrates’ court. The corridor was airless and crammed with criminals and their defenders. A solitary, hard-backed chair was occupied by a stubbly drunk who was trying to contort his face into an expression of respectability deserving of one last chance. Harry had just said goodbye to the reckless driver whose licence he had somehow managed to save and was about to return to the office; he had come here from the West Liverpool via a sandwich shop in Fenwick Court which specialised in sardines and salmonella.
Detaching himself from Fingall’s clutch, Harry said, “What do we have to discuss?”
A smile looped around Ruby’s small mouth. He was in his early fifties, plump in a pinstripe, suit complemented by twinkling silver cuff-links and, on his index finger, a signet ring which bore his initals in curlicued lettering.
“A matter of mutual interest, shall we call it? Come now. I won’t detain you for long.” It was a remark with which he often prefaced lengthy closing speeches.
“Go ahead.”
“Really, Harold, I would prefer to speak with you in private. Perhaps I should add that this concerns my client Michael Coghlan.”
“Has he confessed yet?”
“Harold, please.” A hint of exasperation lay beneath the cajolery as he waved a hand in the direction of the exit. “May we?”
Harry shrugged. “Okay, where do you suggest?”
“My office is only a stone’s throw away.”
True enough. Ruby and his minions occupied three whole floors above a pizza parlour across the road from the court. For Fingall and Company, crime paid. The firm had been built up from nothing in the space of twenty years, its success attributable in equal measure to Ruby’s industry and his lack of professional scruples. Rumours about how in his early days he had paid a handful of crooked policemen to recommend newly arrested miscreants to use his services had hardened over the years into a thick crust of legend about legal aid fiddles and sharp practice inside and outside the courtroom. Ruby’s Porsche lifestyle fuelled plenty of saloon bar tittle-tattle, but most people were careful not to let him learn of it. He had sued for libel three times and slander twice in the past two decades and defamation damages had helped keep him in the style to which he had become accustomed. Meanwhile, his clients mostly survived to mug or steal another day and amongst the criminal fraternity it was a status symbol to boast that Reuben Fingall was your brief.
Ruby directed Harry towards a door at the rear of the building, unlocking it and clambering up the steep stairs two at a time. “This way,” he said breathlessly, “we avoid the hoi-polloi in reception, whining for their compensation and fretting over their latest summons.”
His office was on the third floor. Panelled in mahogany, it was sixteen feet square. Hockney prints hung on the walls and heavy blue velvet curtains lined the windows. Taking a seat behind a huge desk on which stood a notice saying SILENCE! LE PATRON TRAVAILLE!, Ruby waved Harry into a leather-upholstered chair, picked up the telephone and said, “A pot of Earl Grey for Mr. Devlin and myself, Veronica.”
Harry said, “You wanted to speak to me about Coghlan.”
“Michael, ah, yes.” The beam faded. “It does seem, Harold, that you have been making a nuisance of yourself so far as my client is concerned. Calling at his home, his place of business, even interrupting him during a snatched hour of recreation at the West Liverpool this morning, I gather.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to poach one of your clients.”
“I can assure you there’s no danger of that. You appear not to appreciate, however, that Michael is not some sort of street hoodlum. He’s a respected member of the local business community and your behaviour - I might almost say, your harassment of him - is naturally a source of considerable distress.”
Harry pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “My heart bleeds.”
Ruby gazed sadly at one of the Hockneys. With the heavy patience of a schoolmarm urging a recalcitrant pupil to mend his ways, he said: “Michael is not a man to trifle with.”
“I’m not trifling.”
“You’ve antagonised him, Harold, and that isn’t wise.”
A matronly woman brought in the tea on a tray. Fingall thanked her lavishly and said, “Shall I be mother?” Without waiting for a reply, he started to fill the delicate china cups and, when the secretary had closed the door again, he asked, “Can I take it, then, that you won’t be troubling my client again?”
“Surely you know me better than to imagine I can be warned off. Not like you to be naive, Ruby.”
Few people used the nick-name to Fingall’s face nowadays. His plump cheeks coloured and he said, “Don’t trespass on my goodwill, young man, or my client’s.” The careful elocution began to slip, the vowel sounds shortening with his temper. “You know about his background. Enough said on that score, I think. I’ve put in a word for you, explained that you’ve had a rough ride. But don’t push him any further.”
“Thanks for your kind support, but I can take care of myself.”
Fingall banged his cup down upon the desk, splashing a few drops of tea onto the polished surface. “You ought to snap out of this, Harold. Your wife’s dead and nothing you can do will bring her back again.”
“You think I’ve overlooked that? But I told Coghlan that I’d find the man who murdered Liz and nothing you can say is going to make me change my mind.”
Ruby contemplated Harry’s fixed expression for a full minute. When he spoke again, he had regained his composure, although there was a hard edge to his reproving tone. “You’re no detective, Harold, don’t let one or two past successes in that respect deceive you. You mustn’t let this tragedy take hold of you. The way I hear it, you’re behaving like a man obsessed. Take care not to interfere in things that are no concern of yours.”
“Liz’s death is my concern.”
“Michael Coghlan had nothing to do with it.”
“Where was he last Thursday night? Not down in Leeming Street, by any chance?”
Triumphant as a politician scoring a point in debate, Fingall said, “My client wasn’t even within one hundred miles of Merseyside.”
“So the alibi is standing up to scrutiny at present?” Harry rubbed his chin. “How much did it cost him?”
The older man puffed like a steam train. “That will do. I make allowances for you, Harold, you’ve suffered a grievous loss. But your credit’s running out fast, young man. I won’t have you hurling these slanderous accusations at a client of mine.”
“Coghlan killed my wife. Everything points that way.”
“You’re an experienced lawyer,” Ruby brayed. “Yet a novice would have more sense than to jump to ridiculous conclusions like that. Assumptions piled on
top of prejudice. Why don’t you act your age?”
Harry raised his eyebrows and after a moment Fingall said more gently, “There’s no proof of Michael’s guilt for the very good reason that he did not murder your wife. He hasn’t been charged in connection with the crime precisely because he did not commit it.”
Standing up, Harry said, “See you in court.”
Fingall wagged a well-manicured finger. “Harold, I’ve given you fair warning. If you persist with this absurd vendetta because Michael Coghlan once hurt your pride - I won’t answer for the consequences.”
“Thanks for the tea, Ruby.” And Harry walked out, leaving his host staring angrily after him.
He took the stairs to ground level two at a time. This latest attempt to dissuade him from pursuing his quest for Coghlan’s skin had achieved nothing but the hardening of his resolve. Harry could accept that, for what it was worth, Ruby Fingall might not believe that his client had stabbed Liz. Harry had, when accusing Coghlan, sensed - whether from professional experience or superstitious instinct, he was not sure - that there was something about the case which he did not himself yet understand, some missing link without which guilt could never be proved. But it was plain that Fingall was acting under instructions, presumably phoned through from the West Liverpool, to pressurise Harry into abandoning his campaign. And Harry’s reaction to pressure was always to resist it.
Arriving back at the office, he looked in on Jim Crusoe, who was poring over a bundle of title deeds, sheaves of heavy parchment scripted in copperplate and yellow with age. The craggy face glanced up and eased into a smile. “Rights of way, I hate them! Wish I did litigation, the easy life. Lucy tells me you were out in the Magistrates’ this afternoon. Successful?”
Harry shrugged. “The boy got off through lack of evidence. Whether that counts as a success, I’m not sure.”
“Course it does.”
“You reckon?” Harry perched on the edge of a desk half the size of Ruby’s. This room was no bigger than his own, though it was more orderly, with its neat piles of pre-contract enquiry and land registration forms and window sill array of law reports bound in blue buckram. Pensively, he said, “Ever think much about justice, Jim?”
“How do you mean?” Jim was too instinctive a lawyer to respond directly to a question as wide as that, even in casual conversation.
“Everyone knows my client was responsible for the crash with the motorcyclist. It was a miracle that no one was killed. Yet he walks out of the court without a care in the world. Is that just?”
“Keep talking like that and you’ll only be fit for prosecutions.”
“You disagree?”
Crusoe pushed the folded deeds to one side, using as a paperweight a mug bearing the legend Old Lawyers Never Die - They Just Lose Their Appeal. “Life isn’t so simple. You’re not paid to act as judge and jury. It’s the oldest rule in the solicitor’s book. You weren’t a witness to your client’s supposed crime. He denies responsibility. You’re hired to defend the lad and the Crown’s case falls apart. That’s justice, even if it does stick in your gullet. Nothing to trouble your conscience there.”
“Although the crime goes unpunished?”
“Face it, most crimes do.”
“And you’re satisfied with that?”
“No, but I’m not here to change the world. Besides, what did Blackstone say: ‘Better that ten guilty men go free rather than one innocent suffer’? That’s the system we have, pal, like it or not.”
Harry slammed his fist down on the desk top, scattering a wad of telephone notes. “I always agreed with that old idea, but now I’m not so sure. How can you allow a man who has killed in cold blood to go free?”
Jim Crusoe gathered the bits of paper together and said, “So we’re discussing Liz? Thought as much. Let me give it to you straight - stay out of this thing, Harry, you’re too close to it. You’re sure Coghlan murdered her. I don’t know . . . you may be right, or totally wrong. In either case, leave it to Skinner. I’ve asked around, Harry, he’s good. He’ll nail the bastard if he can.”
“You’re singing the same tune as Ruby Fingall, do you realise? It’s not so easy. I can’t let go.”
Jim’s eyes became disapproving slits. “Not thinking of private vengeance, are you? Because if you are, forget it. Down that road, madness lies.”
Getting to his feet, Harry said, “I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t bother. Go home, take a holiday. This place can run without you for a while.” Beneath the brusqueness of the words was an undertow of genuine concern.
At the door, Harry turned. “Maybe. But can I survive without it?”
Stepping into the corridor, he encountered Lucy, who was carrying a mound of letters she had typed for him. “Here you are,” she said. “I was hoping you’d be back. There’s something I have to tell you. I went to buy a loaf of bread from the delicatessen at lunch-time . . .”
He grinned at her earnestness. “Congratulations.”
“No, you don’t understand. I don’t know how you’ll react, but this is something I’m sure you’d want to know.”
Gently, he took her arm and guided her into his room. “Start again, love.”
“Like I was saying, I called at Beardshall’s. Gillian served me. You must know her? The girl with the carroty hair and the big brown eyes. Reminds me of a red squirrel.”
The accuracy of the comparison made him laugh. “Okay, so that’s Gillian.”
“She was talking about your wife. How terrible it was and everything. And she told me she knew one of her man friends.”
Harry tensed. “Mick Coghlan?”
“No. This chap was involved with her step-sister until recently, that’s how she came across him.”
He cast his mind back to what Dame had told him. “Was his name Tony?”
She said no, the man was called Joe Rourke. Gillian hadn’t said much about him, only that she was glad that Jane Brogan, her step-sister, had seen the last of him. He was a scally.
Harry was intrigued. Another boyfriend? No one had mentioned him before, not Maggie, not Matt. Not Dame. He wondered why. Perhaps Rourke had been a one-night stand, someone Liz had picked up before becoming involved with rich and handsome Tony? Jealousy flamed inside him for a moment, but almost at once it was doused by the urge to find out more, to put together a few more torn scraps from the picture of Liz’s life during the past two years.
“Thanks for telling me.” He pressed her hand.
Simply, she said, “It matters to you, doesn’t it, to understand what happened to her?”
At least Lucy realised what Jim, Maggie and the rest of them seemed unable to grasp. He signed the letters with an illegible scrawl whilst she waited and, when she had returned to her room, checked his watch. Five to four. The deli would still be open. Might as well see what Gillian had to say. He grabbed his coat and hurried out to Beardshall’s.
The food store served the city’s business community, but Fortnum and Mason’s it wasn’t. Busy during the lunch hour, it was quiet at other times and now deserted save for a couple of assistants in drab brown overalls. They were languidly shifting tins from one shelf to another. He walked up to them and touched the shorter girl on the arm. She spun round, her squirrel-features wrinkled in enquiry.
“Gillian?”
Evidently recognising him, she flushed. He was an occasional customer here and the printing of his photograph in Friday’s paper would have put his identity beyond doubt. Apprehensively, she said, “Yeah?”
Harry beckoned and, unwillingly, she approached. When he was satisfied that the other assistant was out of earshot, he said quietly, “Lucy told me you know a man who used to be involved with my wife.”
“Women’s gossip,” she said. “That’s all. She shouldn’t have said nothing.”
“Who is he, this Rourke?”
Lowering her voice to a whisper, she nevertheless managed to pack violence into her reply, “He’s a shit, that’s what he is.”
“Tell me more.”
“He was shacked up with our Jane for the best part of eighteen months. They had a kid, poor little mite, he treated it rotten.”
He stepped over an abandoned wire basket to get closer to her. “Where does your step-sister live?”
Vigorously, the girl shook her head. “I don’t want her messed about. She’s had a lousy time, she’s on her own now after that bugger left her. I shouldn’t have said anything to your secretary, should’ve kept me gob shut.”
Harry gripped her by the wrist. “Gillian, the man who stabbed my wife is still on the loose. I want to find him. Rourke’s a new name to me. I’m not saying he was involved, but he may be able to help, point me in the right direction.”
“You’ll be lucky,” she said, trying to wriggle free. “Anyway, Christ knows where he is.”
“Then it’s Jane I’ll have to see. Tell me where.”
“Let go,” she hissed, “you’re hurting.”
He glanced across to where the other assistant was sweeping the floor aimlessly, displaying no interest in either the job or her colleague’s conversation. Then he realised that the girl was tuned into a personal stereo; her eyes had a faraway look and her lips moved noiselessly to the words of some pop song. Suddenly releasing Gillian, he said, “Please, where do I go?”
The squirrel-faced woman sighed and came to a decision. On a discarded sell-by sticker she wrote in an unformed hand an address in South Liverpool. Harry knew the place as a notorious example of urban blight; these days architects held conferences to discuss how to avoid repeating the design mistakes which had created ghettoes like the Keir Hardie Estate. When he thanked her, Gillian said, “Jane has no idea where he’s slunk off to. Good riddance, I say. But don’t give her any hassle - okay? She’s suffered enough already.”
All the Lonely People Page 12