All the Lonely People

by Martin Edwards

  “Up to you, sir,” Griff shrugged. “Very well, Colin. Take over here for five minutes while I take -Mr. Devlin up.”

  Harry thanked the young guard. He would see him again later. Without his intervention, and the ferocious assistance of Sabre, Harry would have been a hospital case at the very least. Most probably, he would have been making a quick return visit to the mortuary.

  As the lift took them upwards, Griff talked away. “Lot of dangerous people about in this city, sir. But if you don’t mind my saying so, you need to watch your step. I don’t know what all that was about and I don’t want to know. You’ve had a rough time lately, but you want to be careful about who you get involved with. You’ll be aware from your profession, sir, some of these hooligans are none too fussy who they hurt. Or kill. You may not be so lucky next time.”

  They arrived at Harry’s flat. Griff took him into the lounge, helping him to ease off his jacket and shoes so as to rest on the sofa, before excusing himself and leaving the flat.

  Harry shut his eyes again. Straightening out his thoughts and feelings immediately was difficult, but still he raged against the thug who had beaten him and the man who, Harry was convinced, had sent him. So Mick Coghlan was intent upon seeing him off. Harry’s stubborn refusal to heed Ruby Fingall’s velvet glove warning must have caused Coghlan to resort to direct violence.

  Harry heard Griff talking to someone. A woman’s voice. Brenda Rixton. He looked up as the two of them walked into the flat together. Brenda exclaimed in dismay as she saw him, then walked over to the sofa and bent over him, as solicitous as a doctor inspecting a patient in intensive care. He felt her fair hair brush against his cheek.

  “Just look at you!” She winced. “What a mess. Wait a minute.”

  She fussed and bustled, ordering Griff to assist in handing her first aid supplies from the bathroom medicine cabinet as though he were a trainee nurse. Harry felt her cool hands checking his rib cage. A wet cloth was applied to his sore eye and cheeks. Painkillers were administered. He bit his lip and assured her that he would soon be all right, but she took no notice. Eventually Griff, satisfied that the recovery process was underway, returned downstairs.

  Brenda squatted beside the sofa and took Harry’s right hand in both of hers. “You don’t look after yourself,

  that’s your trouble. You need someone to hold your hand.”

  Harry was too weary to argue. Besides, she might be right. He closed his eyes again. As consciousness slipped away, his last thought was that if Coghlan wished to shake him off, the man could scarcely have made a worse misjudgment. Briefly that evening, Harry’s determination had started to crumble. But now he would never give up, no matter what the cost.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “How’s the invalid?”

  Brenda’s voice, reassuring as the dawn chorus, wafted in from the hall. Harry lifted his face from a pillow which she must have slipped beneath his head after he had fallen asleep on the sofa. The slight movement sent a flash of pain tearing down the side of his face with the sudden force of an electric shock. Unable to stifle a groan, he gritted his teeth and checked the clock. Ten to eight.

  She appeared in the doorway, slim and business-like in a grey suit. “I thought I would pop in before I went to work.”

  “Thanks.” Harry hated the grudging note that he heard in his voice, but at present he felt like an animal wanting to lick its wounds; he would rather have been left alone. Knowing her kindness and concern was genuine and that he ought to be experiencing gratitude simply burdened him with an extra weight of guilt.

  “Let’s have a look at you.” As she walked up to the sofa, Harry levered himself into a sitting position, moving as cautiously as a vertigo sufferer on a high wire. The effort was rewarded by a burning sensation that travelled from shoulder to waist and a renewed throbbing within his chest.

  “You’re still in pain,” she said.

  Confirmation was superfluous and heroic denials were not in his line, so he kept quiet and steeled himself to ignore the aching of his ribs. But his face must have betrayed him with a give-away grimace, for Brenda looked at him for a moment and then compressed her mouth in a determined manner.

  “I’m going to call the doctor.”

  “No!” The firmness of his reply surprised even him.

  “But you may have a fracture. There might be some internal damage.”

  “I played soccer for years, Brenda, I’m used to knocks. There’s bad bruising, a few cuts and bumps, but not much more.”

  “You look as though you’ve done fifteen rounds in a heavyweight bout.”

  “I’ll live.”

  She leaned over him, gazing down earnestly. “Aren’t you going to tell me what it was all about?”

  “Nothing to tell. A common or garden mugging. Happens every day. And night.”

  Exasperation flickered over her lightly powdered face. “Oh no, you don’t convince me like that. You really think I’m naive, Harry, don’t you? Griff said . . .”

  “Never mind what Griff said.”

  “That young guard, Colin, may have saved your life. Griff told me that you could have been killed if he hadn’t come upon the scene. You must call the police, Harry, don’t you understand?”

  “And tell them what? That I was jumped by a man in a balaclava, someone I couldn’t recognise again if he walked into my office and asked for help with his social security claim? No, Brenda, there’s nothing to be gained from involving the police. They’ll never catch him.”

  “Certainly not if you don’t give them a chance,” she said. For the first time in their acquaintance, he detected signs of temper in her. He found that oddly satisfying, as if at last he had broken through the surface layers of good neighbourliness and struck the real woman underneath. With new interest, he looked at her as she said, “There’s some other reason why you are so reluctant, isn’t there? Connected with the murder of your wife. Am I right?”

  She was more perceptive than he had guessed. He said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  A vexed sigh. “You don’t fool me. But you won’t let anyone help, will you? You’re obstinate, Harry Devlin, you’re one of the most pig-headed men I’ve ever met.”

  He had to smile. “I couldn’t disagree with that.”

  More gently, she said, “It’s not always a bad fault. I’m stubborn myself at times. When I make up my mind about something, I don’t let go without a battle.” Her gaze dwelt on him for a little while. Finally, she said, “I won’t nag you any more. At least, not yet. I have to go now. Duty calls. Is there anything I can get you? No? Well, think again about seeing a doctor. And the police.”

  “You’ve been very good to me.”

  Unexpectedly, she coloured. “That’s my pleasure,” she said.

  After she had gone, he dozed for a while. Later, he rang the office to break the news of his latest absence, carefully making sure that he spoke to Suzanne rather than to Lucy or Jim, who might have added their words of wisdom about medical attention and calling the police. One well-meant harangue was enough for this morning.

  Getting up, he inspected the damage in the mirror, reminding himself that ugliness was only skin deep. Anyway, he had never been a Jeremy Irons. The facial damage looked mostly superficial. His left eye had darkened, as Colin had predicted, and his cheeks were red and chafed. Yet it had almost been so much worse. Thanks to Sabre, the masked assailant had left the job half done.

  He saw no reason to shift from his instant decision of the previous night not to contact the police. Had his injuries been more serious, he would have had no choice but to seek medical help and, no doubt, to involve Skinner and company. But a doctor or policeman would want to make sure he took no active part in the pursuit of Liz’s murderer and he was not ready to give up the chase. Was he risking another, life-threatening attack? He couldn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand, yet he had no doubt that he was doing the right thing. The memory of Liz saying, “I’m frightened, Harry,” surfaced
in his mind and he told himself that he was doing the only thing.

  The telephone rang. Before he could speak, Maggie’s breathless voice asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Still in one piece, yes.”

  “I rang your office. They told me you’d been involved in an accident. What happened?”

  He gave her an edited account of the previous night’s events, not implying that the incident amounted to more than a street mugging, but she saw through his clumsy subterfuge at once.

  “Harry, I’m worried about you. Mick Coghlan killed Liz, he must have. Now he wants you dead.”

  Her vehemence took him aback. Before he could frame a reply, she added, “I wanted to see you, anyway. I called at the Dock Brief yesterday evening, and at your flat, but you weren’t there.”

  He remembered what the barmaid at the pub had said. Subsequent events had driven it out of his mind. “What is it, Maggie?”

  “Liz was being followed shortly before she was killed.”

  For the first time that morning, he became fully alert. “How do you know?”

  “I went to see Matt Barley. Talking to you the other day made me want to find out more. He told me you’d been to see him. He’d been mulling things over too. I could tell he was holding something back. That was it. Liz had confided in him, said she was worried sick.”

  And, Harry suddenly recalled, she had told him as well on that Wednesday night. All at once he could hear, as distinctly as if she were standing beside him, her breathless tone: “He’s even had me followed. I’m scared, Harry, I swear it. I believe - I believe he wants to kill me.” He was bitter with self-reproach, realising it hadn’t sunk in because he’d thought she was embroidering. Lying in bed in the early hours of Thursday morning, he had had a hazy recollection of the question he had meant to put to her: “Exactly who has been following you?” But again the thought had drifted from his mind.

  Maggie said, “Are you still there? Liz told Matt she’d seen the man follow her about the city centre. At first she reckoned nothing to it, but when he kept turning up she started to get worried. All she could think of was that Coghlan had discovered she was playing fast and loose and had set someone to check what she was up to. Don’t you agree the police ought to know this, could it . . .”

  Piercing as a banshee wail, the doorbell interrupted her.

  “Look, I must go,” said Harry. I’ll talk to Matt. Thanks for telling me.”

  “Harry - ” his sister-in-law’s voice was edged with emotion “ - it must have been Michael Coghlan, it must have been! If this wasn’t an ordinary street crime, there’s no other possible explanation, is there?”

  It was as if she were seeking reassurance, rather as though she did not actually believe it herself. There was a strange, desperate quality in her conversation that he couldn’t fathom.

  “I can’t imagine why anyone else . . .” he began. The bell persisted in its summons. “Sorry, Maggie, must answer the door. Talk to you again soon.”

  He hurried to the door. His visitor was Jim Crusoe. The grizzly bear’s face gaped at the sight of him. “Dragged you out of bed, have I? My God, look at you. Someone’s taken a dislike to you, old son, to inflict that kind of damage.”

  They sat down in the lounge and Harry told his partner what had happened. As he explained, Jim’s natural calm dissolved into concern. “I don’t like to say I told you so, but . . .”

  Harry made an impatient gesture with his hand. “All right, all right.”

  Crusoe threw a look of despair at the ailing cheese plant, as if in search or moral support. “This isn’t Boy’s Own. You’ll get more than your fingers burned if you keep playing with fire. Leave it while you have the chance.”

  Not for the first time during the past few days, Harry said simply, “She was my wife. I can’t leave it.”

  “Liz could never belong to any one man.”

  Goaded, Harry said, “What did you know about her?”

  “Plenty.”

  After a long pause Harry said, “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “She tried it on with me, old son, believe it or not. Even me, conventional-to-the-core Crusoe. The happily married man. I think she saw me as a challenge. She had that in common with you, Harry - she could never resist a skirmish, however long the odds against. That night the four of us went to the Philharmonic, remember? She tried to set up an assignation then, when she and I went up to the bar . . .”

  “I see,” said Harry.

  “Doubtful. Anyway, I turned her down. I won’t pretend it was the simplest decision I’ve ever made or had to carry out, but it wasn’t the hardest either. And I wasn’t only thinking about Heather and the kids. I may not be Robert Redford, and she was a gorgeous woman, but anyone could see Liz was trouble. And this happened eighteen months before she left you, mind, long before she got her hooks into Mick Coghlan. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to sound pious. Fact is, Liz couldn’t help herself any more than you could help idolising her. She was your blind spot, Harry, from start to finish.”

  Harry stared at his partner’s implacable expression. It was the longest speech he had ever heard Jim Crusoe make. A wave of fury swept through him, carrying with it a suspicion born of bitterness, not logic. He almost asked: Did you really go to that football game on Thursday night - or did you kill Liz in Leeming Street instead? But he choked the question back. No one in his senses would cast Jim as a murderer.

  Presently, he said, “I’ll be back in the office soon. Maybe tomorrow if I get the chance.”

  “Forget it. We can cope. I want you fit, not acting like a clapped-out Rumpole.”

  Harry’s ribs were beginning to hurt again. He said, “Thanks for coming over.”

  “No trouble. I’ll see myself out. You stay there. Do the crossword, get better. Everything else - put it out of your mind.”

  Alone again, Harry slumped back in his armchair. Dwelling on what Jim had said was pointless. Whatever her faults, Liz hadn’t deserved to die. At least now he understood Jim’s hostility towards her. It was easy to imagine his partner’s scorn for her unfaithfulness and his unease at being tempted. But Jim was no fool and he was the only incorruptible man Harry had ever met.

  Rubbing his eyes, he forced himself to concentrate on what Maggie had said. She, at least, had dropped her opposition to his own investigations into the murder, although he didn’t know why. Surely she was right in thinking that Coghlan must be responsible for the killing? The man who had pursued Liz might have been a hanger-on from the gym, perhaps Harry’s own balaclava-masked assailant from the previous night, or some other hired hand. And, as Harry pondered, the identity of another candidate occurred to him: the man with the bulging eyes, the man who had arrived late at the Ferry Club on Thursday night. Froggy Evison.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Shirelle, isn’t it?”

  The barmaid lifted her blonde head from bored scrutiny of the pump that was pouring out a pint of bitter. Tonight her earrings were magenta spheroids which danced at the sudden movement. Hostility flashed in her eyes as she said, “What’s it to you?”

  The Ferry Club was quiet as yet, with just a handful of women in short skirts and a couple of spotty youths perched on stools adjacent to the bar. The fair-haired keyboard player was slaughtering an old Coffin and King number while the drummer leafed through an old copy of Melody Maker and surreptitiously picked his nose. Harry said, “Where’s Froggy this evening?”

  She pushed the glass across the bar. “His night off, innit?”

  “Any idea where I can find him?”

  Suspicion gave way to unvarnished hostility. “You a busy?”

  “Not me. Just a paying customer. I was in here last Thursday night, remember? Froggy spilt beer over me. That isn’t why I’m looking for him, though. Our last conversation was interrupted. I’d like to finish it.”

  Weighing up his battered face, the barmaid said, “Someone wanted to finish you, by the look of things.”

  “Where�
�s he likely to be?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  Harry stifled a yawn. He’d spent most of the day either asleep or resting and still he felt kitten-weak. There was work to be done, though. In the past few hours he had convinced himself that the man called Froggy could lead him to Liz’s murderer. Passing the woman a ten-pound note, he said, “Keep the change. Where does he live?”

  Tucking the note under her sleeve, she glanced quickly to right and left. Nobody was watching; the prostitutes were arguing amongst themselves and the young men were pretending not to be listening. Nevertheless, Shirelle spoke out of the side of her mouth, a habit perhaps picked up from watching too many black and white thriller movies on late night television. “Baden Powell Street. By the Municipal Baths.” Unable to contain her curiosity, she murmured, “Why are you after Froggy if you’re not a busy? Most people are glad to steer clear of him.”

  Harry ignored the question. A second tenner materialised in the palm of his hand, peeping at her from between his fingers. “Tell me, Mick Coghlan - is he a customer here? Does Froggy do any work for him?”

  Shirelle considered the banknote. He could tell that she was torn between an instinctive desire to tell a stranger nothing and the timeless attraction of easy money. Even her earrings seemed to flutter with uncertainty. In the end, she opted for compromise. “Coghlan? The name rings a bell. But I don’t think he comes here.”

  The tenner inched towards her. “How does Froggy spend the rest of his time? Where might I bump into him?”

  The barmaid sniffed. “Haven’t the faintest. The less I have to do with that feller the better. He loiters in bed till dinner-time as far as I know. After that, you’re as likely to find him in the bookies’ as anywhere.”

  “What number Baden Powell Street?”

  “How would I know, sunshine? I’m not the rent collector or the bailiff.” A mascara-masked woman at the far end of the bar leaned over and muttered something unintelligible. “Look, I’ve got a job to do, okay?” Shirelle held out her hand and the moment Harry slipped the note into it she swept away to serve the thirsty tart.