He sipped his drink slowly, keeping the entrance in view. More customers drifted in, the usual mixture of navvies, sales reps, divorcees and teenage kids out to spend their dolemoney. Another girl arrived on duty behind the bar. The keyboard player began to mangle the hits of Stevie Wonder. The suave manager whom Harry had seen on Thursday night put in an appearance, marching around with an easy air of authority and self-regard, not neglecting to loop an arm around the barmaids’ shoulders when he exchanged a word with them.
Harry finished his beer. It was ten o’clock. His damaged arm and ribs were reminding him that without the timely intervention of the security guard’s Alsatian, he would have been in intensive care rather than back on the booze. There was nothing to detain him here. He had had enough for one day.
He wandered out of the club and back to the Empire Dock. The anti-climax of failing to pick up Froggy, coupled with the aching of his body, had wearied him. Tonight no masked thug barred the way to the brightly lit entrance hall of the old warehouse, although anxiety knotted his stomach as he crossed the Strand and he was glad to nod at Griff and say with casual affability, “Unscathed for once, see? Goodnight.”
Moving quietly along the thick-pile carpet of the third floor corridor, he tip-toed past Brenda Rixton’s room and was about to enter the sanctuary of his own home when he became aware of footsteps approaching from the far end of the passage. Looking up, he saw Brenda walking towards him.
She smiled readily at him, although he sensed at once that her mood was one of strained patience. “I spent the evening with Joyce Mahoney at three-oh-nine,” she said. The name meant nothing to Harry; he was unacquainted except by sight with the rest of his neighbours. “How are you feeling? Have you been to the hospital this evening?”
“Afraid not,” he said.
As she drew up by his side he could tell that she was smelling the alcohol on his breath. The lines of her face hardened, not so much with disapproval as with sadness. “I might have known.”
“I decided to go out for a meal,” he said. True enough as far as it went. He’d eaten a mixed grill in one of those dependable, boring steak restaurants with uniform decor and waitresses chosen for shapeliness rather than speed of service. After sinking a bladderful of coffee he’d strolled to the Ferry in search of the man with the bulging eyes.
Plaintively, Brenda said, “I brought something back for the two of us. I didn’t think you would be fit enough to go gadding around. Roast chicken and a salad. But even at half-seven you weren’t here.” No, he’d been in the mood for a couple of drinks before eating. “In the end I shared with Joyce instead.”
So Brenda possessed in abundance that female knack of imposing guilt, thought Harry. With some women, it seemed as natural as breathing. Conscious of the constricting pressure of unnecessary remorse, he said defensively, “Sorry, I didn’t realise. It was kind of you.”
“No, it doesn’t matter.” Thus neatly was the point scored.
In the ensuing lull in the conversation, he felt awkward as well as ungrateful, scratching around for something placatory to say. “I was just going to have a nightcap. I suppose you wouldn’t . . .”
“Thank you, I’d like that.”
Once inside his flat, she quizzed him about his injuries. He tried to be dismissive without conveying the impression of nobly suffering in silence. After pouring them each a glass of Grand Marnier, he settled back in his armchair. Brenda was on the sofa, her shoes kicked off, legs tucked beneath her. Good legs in sheer tights, he noticed. Her fine hair shimmered in the glow cast by the wall-lights.
Raising her glass, she said, “To a rapid recovery.”
The rich taste of the liqueur kept the two of them quiet for a minute or so. The central heating had been programmed to come on four hours earlier and the air in the room was warm and dry. The floods of pain that had washed through his body all day were beginning to subside.
“Tired?” Brenda asked.
“Mmm.”
“You shouldn’t have gone gallivanting,” she said, but not unkindly. “You really should take more care of yourself.”
He didn’t reply, but presently sensed a movement in front of him and looked out through narrowed eyelids. Brenda was kneeling in front of him. She eased off his shoes and socks and began to rub his feet. Smiling, she said, “You don’t have to wake up. Relax for once. That feels nice, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
How long she carried on, he didn’t know. His mind was emptying, like a jug tipped upon its side. All the grieving and the hating and the riddles of the past few days had started to drain away. The policemen’s questions, the squalor of the Nye, his brief, foolish yearning for Angie O’Hare - none were more than faint memories. For him, the world had shrunk to this warm room and the tender touch of Brenda’s fingers running rhythmically up and down his soles.
He heard her say, “It’s late.”
Unable to camouflage a yawn, he prised open his eyes. She was leaning over him now, her delicate perfume noticeable for the first time that evening. Her jersey-clad breasts rested against his chest.
“I’ve been left in the lurch too,” she said. “I think I can guess how you feel about losing your wife. I’ve imagined being with Les each day since he walked out. For long enough I dreamed he’d come back one day, though I’ve more or less learned not to delude myself any more. God only knows, it takes an age to adjust. I suppose something died in my life, too, that dreadful day.”
She was sliding her fingers through the tangle of his hair. “I don’t believe in moaning about bad luck. Perhaps it’s true that life is what you make it. I ought to grab what I can whilst there’s still time. I thought you . . .”
Her voice trailed away and he mumbled, “Go on.”
“No,” she said with a new briskness. “How stupid I am. I can tell the agony that you’ve been through these past few days and I mustn’t add to it. It’s time for me to go, before - well, never mind.”
She kissed him gently on the cheek. His eyes closed and he felt the tip of her tongue touch his skin, her body pressing against his. Then she withdrew.
“Goodnight, Harry.”
And as the door closed behind her, he was conscious of a sense of loss.
Chapter Twenty
He slept badly, the battered arm and rib-cage protesting each time he tried to turn over in his bed. Liz’s face kept appearing in his ruptured dreams. Not smiling, for once, but downcast with reproach.
It was a relief when early morning sun began to lighten the room through a chink in the curtains. His body was stiff and getting up was a slow and painful business, made no easier by the sense of guilt which hung around his neck like a weight.
He hated feeling that she was on his conscience. That if he had done more, she would not have died. And that he’d betrayed her by wanting to respond to the touch of Brenda’s lips. How bloody typical of Liz, he thought, at least she’s consistent. Unreasonable in death just as in life.
Stepping under the shower, he turned his thoughts to the woman from next door. What if he had asked her to stay? He didn’t doubt that she would have said yes. He didn’t love her, she could hardly love him, but did that matter? The jet of hot water stung him, but not as much as his anger with himself. Why shouldn’t he want a woman again?
Since Liz had left him, he had usually slept alone. His occasional affairs had offered no fulfilment. There had been a sociology student, doing a stint as a barmaid at the Dock Brief, who said she was in search of experience. A copper-haired solicitor called Sinead whom he had met at a seminar about developments in divorce law. A couple of drunken one-night stands with girls whose names he couldn’t even remember, picked up at parties thrown by people he hardly knew. None of them compared with Liz, none held for him more than a fleeting appeal.
Brenda Rixton was fifteen years older than any of them. A week ago the thought of her as a lover would never have crossed his mind. Yet Angie the singer, at much the same age, exuded sexuality. If h
e could fancy her, why not his neighbour? Brenda wasn’t a bad-looking woman.
As he dressed he gave his reflection in the mirror a grin. Perhaps that birthday last Wednesday had marked a change in his taste. He was getting on. Jim would say he was starting to grow up.
The doorbell summoned him. Brenda. He said hello, feeling faintly ridiculous. Minutes earlier he’d contemplated making love to this respectable lady. Now, seeing her neat, trim and middle-aged in her business suit, he was ready to let the fantasy fade.
“I thought I’d just see how you are before going in to work.”
“That’s kind of you, but I’m okay, thanks. A bit stiff, but nothing to make a fuss about. Er - won’t you come in for a moment?”
She stepped into the room. Was it his imagination, or did her hips swing more jauntily than he’d noticed in the past?
“At least it’s a fine start today. Though the forecast is bad.” She perched on the sofa’s arm, seemed to have difficulty in choosing her words. “Look, about last night, I hope you didn’t think . . .”
“Brenda, don’t worry. I was glad to see you. You’ve been very good to me. I’m an ungrateful-seeming sod, but I do appreciate it. Really.”
She smiled and shook her head. “No, you’re a kind man, though you try to pretend otherwise. I’m sorry about your wife. It takes time to get over something like that. But, remember, you can’t mourn forever. Eventually you need to make a fresh start.”
“Easier said than done.”
She stood up. “I won’t try to argue. Besides, I wouldn’t win. Look after yourself, though. Please.”
“I will,” he said. “Depend upon it.”
At the door she turned. “Harry, I am depending on it.” After her footsteps had died away down the corridor outside, he washed and dressed. Between mouthfuls of coffee, he dialled the Ensenada, his favourite restaurant in the city. Taking Brenda out for a meal tonight was the least he could do. Just a meal, though. Nothing else.
At such an early hour, he got straight through to Pino. The Ensenada’s proprietor was a voluble extrovert, one of the biggest gossips in town. As a source of hot news, he rivalled the Echo and he often said he loved good conversation (by which he meant talking to an appreciative audience) as much as haute cuisine. His florid condolences and exclamations about Liz’s death lasted for several minutes without a pause.
“And to think,” he announced in melodramatic style as Harry tried to speak, “that I was talking to her less than two - yes! - hours before the tragedy occurred.”
In the theatrical pause that followed, Harry demanded in a voice suddenly hoarse, “What do you mean?”
“Ah, you did not know?” Pino could scarcely conceal his pleasure at breaking an exclusive to the victim’s husband. “But she was dining with Mr. Edge. Your brother-in-law, is that not correct?”
Derek, of all people? Trying to conceal his amazement, Harry said, “When was this?”
Shorn of frills and flourishes, the answer was that Liz and Derek had been among Pino’s first customers on Thursday evening, arriving at half-six and leaving just before eight.
“And within hours - no, minutes even! - this terrible thing . . .” Pino’s shock-horror vocabulary temporarily failed him.
“Do the police know about this?”
It had somehow come to their attention, Pino admitted. Despite the fact that he had scarcely mentioned the matter, they had deemed it worthy of enquiry. But there was so little to tell. He had exchanged a few pleasantries with Mrs. Devlin. As always, she was in high spirits. Mr. Edge was perhaps a little more subdued, but then who would not be content to sit and listen to such a charming and delightful woman? It was an infamy, this crime, an outrage.
Harry eventually brought him down to earth and pressed for more information. But Pino had little more to tell. Amidst further expressions of sympathy, Harry booked a table for two for eight o’clock. Eventually, he managed to ring off and after a moment’s thought called the local office of Krikken and Company, the firm in which Derek was a partner.
“Mr. Edge is in a meeting, I’m afraid.” The switchboard operator chanted the phrase in ritual fashion. Harry recognised office code for “Piss off unless it’s an emergency” and persisted, hinting that a mega-buck deal hung on his being able to consult with Derek immediately. Money talked and after a flurry of resistance, he was put through to a secretary and finally the voice of the man himself came on to the line.
“Harry.” Derek Edge communicated in the two syllables a blend of obligatory sympathy for the recently bereaved and the tetchiness of an important professional man disturbed in the midst of complicated work.
“I need to see you straight away, Derek. It’s about Liz.”
His brother-in-law responded with a lot of dignified nonsense about having to consult his diary. Harry interrupted.
“I won’t waste your time, I promise. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
He rang off without waiting for a reply. He had always wanted to bully Derek, as a semi-civilised alternative to throttling the smugness out of him. But now he had to put aside petty dislikes and concentrate on learning why Maggie had never told him about her husband’s dinner with Liz.
He walked over to Krikken’s. The exercise might help ease the stiffness in his body that was a constant reminder of the brief ferocity of Monday night’s attack. The accountants occupied a building at the corner of Drury Lane which looked like an upturned egg box. In an entrance lobby big enough to hold a circus, a stainless steel plaque recorded that Krikken House was the registered office for a hundred or more companies. Most of the names included-words like “Investment”, “Offshore” and “Holdings”.
A uniformed commissionaire gave him a security pass flatteringly labelled authorised visitor and directed him tot he seventh floor. The lift whirred upwards without asound and when the doors opened, he was greeted by a sleek secretary whose startling resemblance to Kim Basinger would have guaranteed her a job even had she been unable to type her own name. She ushered him into Derek’s presence and then withdrew.
Immaculate in a dark grey three-piece, his brother-in-law came from behind his desk, right hand outstretched.
“My dear fellow. Take a seat.”
Harry sat. The chair was low and squelchy. Like all the furniture in the room it was black: some designer’s concept of chic, heedless of comfort. A picture window behind the desk commanded a view of the Liver Building and the Mersey. Harry saw the Seacombe ferry was chugging towards the Pier Head.
He brought the conversational preliminaries to an end. “I gather you dined with Liz on the night that she was murdered?”
Derek’s pallid face invariably yielded as many clues as a sheet of blank paper. Coolly, he said, “It’s rapidly becoming common knowledge.”
“I’ve talked to Maggie more than once. She’s never mentioned this to me. Haven’t you told her?”
“Yes, I have. There was no particular concealment on my part. The police came to see me, as a matter of fact. I made a statement. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do any more than sketch in Liz’s movements during a part of the day in question.”
Harry stared at him curiously. “And why exactly were you out on the town with my wife? I hadn’t realised you were such bosom buddies.”
Derek Edge shrugged. “Frankly, it was a spur of the moment thing. Liz was my sister-in-law, after all. I offered her a meal for old time’s sake.”
In common with most of the affluent people whom Harry knew, his brother-in-law was not noted for generosity. He said, “Was she more to you that just a sister-in-law, Derek? Did you fancy her?”
“For heaven’s sake!”
“Or ever sleep with her?”
That evoked a facial reaction. Derek pressed his thin lips so closely together that they almost vanished from sight. Harshly, he said, “I realise you’re upset, and I’m making allowances, but if you’re going to be gratuitously offensive, I shall have to ask you to leave.”
Harry banged his fist on the desk, scattering the assortment of pens and paper clips that lay beside Derek’s leather-trimmed blotter. “I want the truth, Derek. Don’t forget, I’m a lawyer. I’m familiar with prevarication. More so even than an accountant discussing a client’s tax return. The glib stuff won’t work with me.”
Edge toyed with his wedding ring. “Liz was right about you,” he said. “She said you’d never be more than a poor man’s brief. Too many “B” movies in youth, she suspected. They made you irredeemably second-rate.”
It was a rabbit’s punch: Liz had teased Harry to his face, saying much the same. Calmly, he said, “She was right about many things, Derek. Including her estimate of you. I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say I’m not convinced by this beloved sister-in-law crap, whether the police fell for it or not.”
The accountant hesitated. He was still playing with the wedding band; it was as near to a neurotic gesture as Harry had ever seen in him. “This doesn’t go beyond these four walls?”
“No promises, Derek, but you know I’m not a blabbermouth. You should concede that, however second-rate I am.”
Edge twisted in his chair. “I didn’t mean to - well . . .” He essayed a flickering smile. “I suppose all our nerves must be a little taut in the circumstances.”
“Go on.”
Taking in a gulp of air, Edge said, “If you must know the gory details, then you could say that I was besotted with Liz. Like a schoolboy, though you may find it hard to credit.”
Harry studied his brother-in-law. Derek gave the impression of having been born middle-aged. He still wasn’t forty, but with that neatly parted, thinning brown hair, uninflected voice, and fondness for bridge and the Financial Times, it was a feat of imagination to believe he had ever been young.
Harry would have though him no more susceptible to Liz’swiles than an inanimate piece of computer hardware.
“Maggie guessed, of course. My wife’s no fool. She kept Liz well away from me until we’d tied the knot. I gather she’d lost a string of boyfriends to her sister over the years and she wasn’t inclined to take any more chances. But Liz had a way of looking at you so that, whatever she said, however trivial or joking, you felt that she was longing to be alone with you.”
All the Lonely People Page 16