All the Lonely People

by Martin Edwards

  Five yards short of the man, Harry stopped, “I know you murdered my wife, Rourke. I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Yeah?” Joe Rourke stared at him defiantly. “Now you’ve found me. So what?”

  Harrv took a sten forward. He felt no uree to rave or

  rant. His own restraint surprised him; seemed strange and unnatural. He said, “How much were you paid, Rourke? How little was my wife’s life worth?”

  A scornful laugh. “Five grand.” The dark head tilted back; in the glow from the street light Harry could see the faint outlines of the scar tissue which Jane Brogan’s attack had left under Rourke’s right eye. “Two and a half up front. The rest after. It’s all spent. Soon goes.” He might have been talking about money won on a bet.

  “And Evison?”

  “Not a penny.” Rourke spat on to the ground. “Had to clear him out, didn’t I? He said he’d seen me follow her down Leeming Street while he was on his way to work at the club.”

  “And he put the squeeze on you?”

  “Yeah, the silly fucker. All the same, it was worth something, killing him. I came here to collect.”

  Harry had guessed as much. “And?”

  “And you’re trying to fuck me about. I should’ve finished you off while I had the chance the other night. That fucking dog.” Another laugh. “No Alsatians here, though. You won’t be lucky twice.”

  As he finished speaking, Rourke whipped his hand out of the inside pocket. Harry saw steel glinting through the stubby fingers. There was a dark smear on the blade. Harry almost gagged at the sight of it. The man had not even bothered to clean the weapon that had killed Liz. Rourke took a step forward. This was their second encounter on a dark night and Harry knew it would be their last.

  The Mauser. He remembered it just in time and with a single instinctive movement ripped the gun from its hiding place beside his chest. In his grasp it felt smooth and solid, it gave him courage. He pointed it straight at Rourke’s marked face. For the first time, he looked directly into the murderer’s eyes. Something shone in them - was it fear?

  Shoot him, said a voice inside his head. Shoot him while you have the chance. He would do the same to you. What mercy did he show to Liz or to the baby that she carried?

  “Put the knife down,” he said. Inwardly, he cursed his own weakness, the tremor that he heard in his voice.

  Rourke did not reply. He threw himself forward like an animal intent upon the kill, clutching the knife at waist height. Harry swayed to one side as the blade came arching up in a savage blow aimed at his heart. It missed by inches and as Rourke followed through, the hard bulk of his body caught Harry’s shoulder.

  As they both went sprawling, Harry kicked out in desperation at his attacker’s wrist. In the moment before the two men hit the ground less than a yard apart, Harry heard the knife fall too. As it clattered away just out of reach, Rourke let out a muffled cry. The impact of collapsing backwards on to the pavement knocked the breath from Harry’s body and the cracking of the side of his head against the concrete slabs filled his eyes with tears. Yet it seemed as if he were too numb to feel pain and somehow he managed to cling on to the gun and, with it, the hope of staying alive.

  Harry rolled over on to his side and saw Rourke stagger to his feet. The man seemed dazed; he took one look at the Mauser and stumbled on to the road, to the driver’s door of the Citroen. Harry hauled himself up off the ground, first to a half-crouching position, then back to the vertical. As he did so, the Citroen revved furiously. Harry flattened himself against the fence edging the pavement, still gripping the gun so tightly that the metal bit into the flesh of his fingers, and watched as, with a squeal of brakes, the French car swept away and out of sight.

  Harry hobbled back to the M.G. and started it up. Although Rourke had vanished, he had seen him turning at the end of the close. Back on the main road, he spotted the Citroen’s sleek lines a hundred yards ahead. Harry put his foot down, oblivious of the aching of his head and the forty-mile-an-hour limit. Rourke must have realised he was being followed. He accelerated through changing traffic lights and hurtled off into the night. Harry held his breath, and with barely a sweep of his eyes from left to right drove straight through on the red.

  Further on, the road narrowed into a single carriageway. Harry could, see Rourke manoeuvring the Citroen with dodgem skill around parked cars and slow movers, daring oncoming vehicles to bar his way. Harry kept on after him, spinning the steering wheel this way and that, offering a silent prayer of thanks for the lightness of the traffic. The M.G. might be rusty, but it responded like a racing horse to an Aintree jockey’s whip. Harry’s breath was coming in short gasps. He was closing on the killer’s car.

  I won’t let him get away, thought Harry. If it’s the last thing I do, he won’t escape me now.

  Twice at the last moment Rourke swerved off into side streets, but he couldn’t lose the M.G. They were in South Liverpool now. The streets were built up with rows of terraced houses and there was a small shop on every corner. Few people were about, just one or two taking their dogs for a walk and the usual knots of teenagers shouting and jostling. The gap between the cars was down to twenty yards. Brakes screaming again in protest, Rourke took another tight corner at fifty, with Harry only seconds behind.

  Down this way the buildings thinned and gave way to waste land. Harry recognised this place. They had chanced upon the road that circled the scrap heap of Pasture Moss. He glanced about him. Even under a starless sky he could make out the silhouette of the refuse tip. The scavengers had long gone home and the dark mound resembled a funeral pyre.

  Harry pressed his foot down further. He was almost on Rourke’s tail now. They were approaching another sharp curve in the road. Without warning, the Citroen veered crazily off course as it took the bend too fast. Skidding, it cut a swathe through a series of roadwork cones which cordoned off the sewer repairs which Harry had noticed on his visit here the previous day. A red warning sign went spinning into the darkness.

  Seeing the danger, Harry stamped on the stop pedal just in time. As he lost speed, his attention Was split between the frantic effort of keeping the M.G. on the road and the horrific fascination of watching Rourke’s desperate effort to regain control. The French car ploughed along the verge of grass and mud before slewing over the railway line that ran between the road and the tip. Finally the collision with the wire perimeter fence brought it to a shuddering halt.

  From the other side of the-’road, Harry, heard the train before he saw it. He listened to the howl of the train’s brakes as the driver realised what had happened and made a desperate attempt to achieve the impossible and avoid impact. Harry shut his eyes as the crash occurred and counted to twenty before opening them again. Over his shoulder, he could see that the train had at last pulled up. It had shoved the Citroen thirty yards down the track and the smooth lines of the front of the car were now mangled beyond recognition. As he watched, the engine of the wreck exploded and the first flames shot upwards, like orange fingers pointing to the sky.

  Jesus Christ.

  Only now did Harry become aware that his shirt was drenched with sweat. Panting, he gazed at the uniformed figures which dismounted from the train and hurried towards the burning car. The heat drove them back, but heroics were not called for in any case. Even if Rourke had withstood the neck-snapping jerk as the car flew off the road, he would have perished instantly in the blast that followed. The fire was merely destroying what was left of his lifeless carcase.

  His eyes fixed on the blazing tomb, Harry felt again the sickness in his stomach. After his close encounter with the pavement during the struggle with Rourke, his head was throbbing. The whole of his body felt sore. But someone from the train was pointing in his direction and he could hear the sound of cars approaching in the distance. Groggily, he reached for the gear-stick. Time to go. This latest death was not the end of the nightmare for him. In the frenzy of his pursuit of Rourke, he had forgotten the woman who held the
purse-strings. The woman who had priced his wife’s life at five thousand pounds.

  The woman who had paid Joe Rourke to murder Liz.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The front door of the house called Paradise Found was unlocked. It opened to his touch. The first-floor light was still on. Not bothering with the bell, Harry walked into the reception hall. Ahead of him, an open-tread staircase led to a galleried landing. From upstairs, he could hear the sound of running water. However many baths she takes, he thought, nothing will cleanse her of the guilt.

  He called out: “Angie!”

  No reply.

  “Angie, it’s me. Harry Devlin.”

  Up above, the water was switched off. He waited for a few seconds and then heard soft footfalls. Angie O’Hare appeared from round the bend in the staircase. She wore a short crimson gown with sleeves rolled up and seemed unsteady on her bare feet. The auburn hair was uncombed and strands of it drooped over her face. Her unmade-up cheeks seemed sunken and old. For a moment Harry wondered why he had ever thought her attractive. Then he looked into her deep blue eyes and remembered.

  As she reached the bottom step, he said, “It’s over. Rourke’s dead. He lost control of his car and came off the road on to the railway track. The Hunt’s Cross train did the rest.”

  “My God.” Her voice was hoarse. Then: “I’m glad.”

  Harry moistened his lips. “I know what happened.”

  “Yes.” Her ruined face managed a mirthless smile. “When we talked, I realised how dogged you were, that you’d never give up. In a way, I’m thankful. So much went wrong. I never thought it would end like this.” She motioned towards a door leading off from the hall. “Let’s sit down for a minute.”

  He followed her into a spacious lounge built in the shape of an L. Above the gas fire, on the stone chimney breast, hung a framed photograph, a wedding picture taken outside a register office. He moved over to look at it. Angie was dressed in lemon crepe-de-chine with white handbag, hat and matching gloves. She was holding a bouquet of roses and looking into the complacent eyes of Tony Gallimore. It was an adoring look, and strictly proprietorial.

  Harry thought of the man he had left in the Ferry Club, a man flimsy as tissue paper, and asked himself what the two women had seen in Tony Gallimore. Liz had died for him. Angie had killed for him. Neither woman was a fool. Why had they not been able to look beyond the sharp suits and glib chat?

  Talking to Gallimore earlier that evening, threads of past conversations had linked in his mind, forming an unexpected pattern. Liz’s casual mention of her lover’s neurotic wife. Brenda talking about her maiden name. But of course, he had thought, some women never adopt their husbands’ surnames because they are feminists, or perhaps for professional reasons. Like some women lawyers and - yes - entertainers.

  As soon as the possibility that Angie O’Hare might be married to Gallimore had occurred to him, finding corroborative clues was easy. On the night of the murder, when dedicating that old Burt Bacharach song to her man, she had been gazing towards the back of the concert room where Tony Gallimore stood. At that time he had no doubt been thinking, not of his wife, but of his mistress’s failure to keep their clandestine appointment. And, of course, there was Harry’s own visit to the Ferry last Monday evening. Why had it not occurred to him that it was strange that a club singer should be walking around long before the show was due to start, treating the place as her own? No doubt she had eavesdropped on his conversation with Froggy, fearful of what Evison might say, interrupting as soon as it seemed Harry might persuade him to talk.

  So, after putting down the Mauser, Harry had asked Gallimore the last question, trying to make it appear offhand. “Your wife is Angie O’Hare, isn’t she?”

  Gallimore had given the necessary confirmation. Baffled by Harry’s abrupt change of mood, he had stared as if sure he was in the company of a dangerous lunatic. The relief on his face as Harry brusquely got up and left had been as plain as a notice to quit.

  At different times, both Angie and her husband had said that their solicitors were Windaybanks. The phone call to Quentin Pike had filled in the background. And what the keyboard player had said to his boss at the door of the Ferry that evening implied that Angie O’Hare would not be performing at all that night. Harry had speculated that she might have arranged a crisis rendezvous with Rourke, something that could not be handled backstage. At last his guesses were getting nearer the mark.

  Still looking at the wedding photograph, not facing her, he said, “The Ferry Club belongs to you, I found that out this evening.” Windaybanks had handled the conveyancing, Quentin said. “Although that came as a surprise, it shouldn’t have done. After all, most singers dream of owning their own club, isn’t that right? You were never going to be a second Cilia Black, but you made a few bob in your day, all the same. When you finally gave up hope of hitting the charts again, you put the money into buying a place where you could always top the bill.”

  He turned round. “You were married to your manager in those days,” he said, “and when he ran off with a dolly bird you had a nervous breakdown.”

  A terrible tragedy, Quentin had sighed, losing out on her career and her marriage within such a short time: she simply couldn’t handle it.

  “The Ferry had a succession of managers while you tried to pick yourself up again. No wonder the place went downhill, turned into such a dive. Finally you hired a pretty boy called Tony Gallimore. No one would say he had the greatest business acumen in the world, he was simply an opportunist with a smooth smile. But you fell for him and that was that.” Harry’s tone roughened as he tried to provoke a response from the woman on the sofa. “I suppose he saw you as his meal ticket.”

  Tears glinted in the blue eyes, but she kept her voice under control as she answered, “You’re wrong. He loved me. Then, he loved me.”

  Deliberately cruel, Harry said, “You were besotted with him.”

  “All I ever needed,” she said, “was to be with Tony. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Wouldn’t I? I was married too, don’t forget.”

  “That woman.” The words reverberated with Angie’s contempt for his wife. “She wrecked everything for me. Tony and I, we were so right for each other. Our marriage worked. Oh, yes, I know he had other women. I wasn’t born yesterday. But none of them meant anything to him. He’d take what he wanted, then kiss them goodbye.”

  “And you could live with that?”

  She lifted her head in a gesture as defiant as that of a martyr going to the stake. “Yes, Mr. Devlin, I could live with that. But with your wife, it was different. She simply would not leave him be.”

  “Liz was certainly different,” he said, almost to himself. “When an idea became fixed in her head, there was no dislodging it. At least until she grew bored and started searching for something new. I’ll bet she swept him off his feet. So he spun her a line, told her he owned the club, gave the impression all the money was his. Relegated you to the status of a nagging nobody in the shadows and persuaded Liz to keep quiet so you wouldn’t discover the affair too soon.

  “She took a part-time job to be near at hand for their lunch-time adulteries. The two of them tried to be discreet, but it didn’t work. Obviously you realised Tony was playing away from home again and tried to reel him back in as usual. Trouble was, when he began to back off, Liz put him under pressure. She wasn’t some empty-headed bimbo who was happy to fade into the scenery.” Harry opened his eyes again and asked, “Did you know that she attempted suicide?”

  “Yes. He told me so.” She picked at the seam of her gown. “What you say is right. I soon cottoned on that he was seeing someone. He denied it at first, but he still made the silly mistake of leaving a photograph of her in his wallet. I found it, of course. Eventually, I forced the story out of him. Poor Tony isn’t strong. He admitted everything. I made him promise to get rid of her. He said he’d been intending to break it up anyway, but then she did that melodramatic thing. He said
he’d caught her only just in time, though I don’t believe for a minute that she meant to kill herself. It was just a ruse, and Tony fell for it.”

  Poor Tony? Harry’s heart did not bleed. The man had been forced to choose between his wife and his mistress, yet the idea that he might have seen murder as a solution to his dilemma had always been far-fetched. Angie had married an easy option man. He must have fancied screwing a worthwhile settlement out of a divorce. The risks of serious crime were not, Harry was sure, in Tony Gallimore’s line.

  “And shortly afterwards, your husband told you that Liz was pregnant by him. That he’d made up his mind to go to her and bring your marriage to an end. Did you decide then that she must die? That for you to stay together, you’d have to murder the woman he wanted?”

  The auburn head nodded, but Angie said nothing.

  Harry persisted, “You’d met Rourke at the Ferry, I expect. How did you settle on him to do your dirty work?”

  After a long pause, Angie said, “He used to hang around backstage. Full of big talk, you know the type. He said he was a dangerous man to cross. I think maybe he fancied me and that his idea of a chat-up line was to scare me with stories about how tough he was. So, you see, that was how it all began. It made me think - what if I could use him to put that woman out of the way? I’d have Tony again, we could get back to the way we were before.” She looked towards the photograph hanging on the chimney breast. “I’ve had plenty of men, Mr. Devlin, over the years. Of course I have. And Tony has his faults. I’m not naive. But even so, he’s the only man I’ve ever really needed. Do you understand?”

  “For me, it was much the same with Liz.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I won’t apologise, make excuses. Words are worthless. Only one thought drove me on: that if Liz Devlin died, I would keep my marriage alive. What I

  didn’t realise was how simple it would turn out to be. At first, that is. Joe Rourke didn’t take much persuading. He wasn’t shocked by the idea, far from it. I had the money, he didn’t negotiate too hard. He was a cheap killer. I couldn’t believe how easy it all was to set up. I even gave him the photograph that I’d taken from Tony. So that he could identify her.”