‘Such as?’
Miller’s tongue appeared between his teeth. ‘They feared that a mistake might be made. If undue pressure were applied on the scaffold, there was a risk that the neck might snap and Smith would lose his head. Imagine, Mr Devlin, how the media would have feasted on that.’
Miller’s eyes sparkled as he spoke, causing Harry to feel as cold as if he had stepped naked into the wintry streets outside, but something made him ask, ‘So what happened?’
‘The trial took place at the end of November and Smith was duly sentenced to death. However, as you will know, the law required three Sundays to pass before such a verdict could be carried out - and in the meantime the House of Commons voted to abolish capital punishment. As it happened, no hangings took place after the August of that year. Smith could certainly have expected a reprieve.’
‘A lucky man.’
‘Not so lucky as you may think,’ said Ernest Miller. ‘Having escaped the noose, Smith finally managed to kill himself in jail. Once again the authorities were careless - as they so often seem to be. He slashed his own throat on a jag of glass one night and severed the jugular vein.’
Harry bit his lip. His imagination was vivid - he had never quite decided whether that was an asset in a solicitor, or a fatal flaw - and Miller’s words made his skin prickle. He could not help seeing in his mind’s eye the sickening scene: the blood-soaked remains of a human being stretched across the concrete floor of a silent and unforgiving prison cell.
Gritting his teeth, he said, ‘So where do I come in?’
‘Smith’s solicitor was Cyril Tweats.’
No wonder he was found guilty, Harry said to himself, the thought easing his tension. But all he said aloud was, ‘I see.’
‘You begin to appreciate my interest? I gather Mr Tweats retired recently and your firm took over his practice. Which is why I wanted to take a little of your time to talk about Carole’s killing.’
‘I don’t quite...’
‘I wonder,’ said Miller. ‘Your case has been adjourned until tomorrow morning. Perhaps you might allow me to buy you a drink and give you an idea of the information I am seeking. And if, at the end of half an hour, you decide I am wasting your time, well, no hard feelings. What do you say?’
Harry hesitated. He knew how much work in the office awaited his return; if he missed the last post, the following morning the sight of a mound of unsigned correspondence would reproach him like the grubby face of a neglected child. Besides, he had been repelled by the impression of pleasure Miller had given in lingering over the phrase He slashed his own throat on a jag of glass one night and severed the jugular vein. It was easy to visualise him salivating as he waited for a judge to don the black cap.
He glanced back over his shoulder towards the ground-floor lobby. The judicial roulette wheel had stopped spinning for the day, leaving losers to sulk in their cells whilst winners walked free to celebrate in style. His clients, Kevin and Jeannie Walter, had already disappeared, whisked off to the city’s priciest restaurant by minders from the newspaper which had spent so much money to buy their story. He had last seen their barrister, Patrick Vaulkhard, in the robing room, taunting his opposite number about cover-ups and corruption. One of the bent coppers in the case was hanging around at the bottom of the open-tread staircase, waiting for his colleagues. With his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the floor, he seemed deep in thought. If he had any sense, he was making plans for an early retirement.
Harry found himself recoiling from the prospect of ending the day back behind his desk. He was not by nature indolent, but a long afternoon in court had left him in a Philip Larkin mood: why should he let the toad of work squat on his life? The letters could wait: a drink would do him good. In any case, surely no harm could come from a brief conversation, however unappealing his companion?
He began to move towards the revolving door. ‘Why not?’
‘Splendid. I am most grateful for your co-operation.’
Outside a raw wind nipped at Harry’s cheeks and knuckles. On the far side of Derby Square, harsh lights from the office blocks burned in the dirty darkness. Queuing commuters stamped their feet and tried to keep warm as they waited at bus stops for the procession of maroon double-deckers with bronchitic engines moving in sombre ritual along James Street. The snow of early morning had turned to slush, treacherous underfoot. Harry’s shoes slid as he crossed the road at speed, trying to dodge the spray thrown up by a passing juggernaut.
At the corner of North John Street he waited for his companion to catch up. When at last he made it through the traffic to the safety of the pavement, Miller bent his head. ‘Not - not as young as I was,’ he panted.
‘None of us are.’
Miller’s breath was coming in shallow gasps and he seemed unsteady on his feet. The legacy, Harry guessed, of too many days, weeks and months spent in cramped surroundings, poring over faded type and living life at second hand.
He gave him a minute to recover before asking, ‘So what is your interest in the Sefton Park murder?’
‘I live on my own, Mr Devlin. My wife died ten years ago; I have no family and few outside interests. Since finishing work, I find I have a lot of time on my hands, and I need to occupy myself somehow. Crime has always fascinated me. Now I like to indulge my curiosity. The Sefton case is a superb example of its kind. It has all the classic ingredients.’
Miller lowered his voice, as if afraid that homeward bound shoppers might overhear, and ticked the items off on his fingers. ‘A good-looking girl, forward for her years. A famous father and a pop musician boyfriend. A sudden brutal slaying - and a mystery. Police investigations carried out under the remorseless spotlight of the press and television. A suspect hounded without pity and brusquely condemned. And, above all, a grave injustice.’
His eyes gleamed and Harry again felt a chill of distaste. But he could not resist putting the question for which, he had no doubt, Miller was waiting.
‘Who suffered the injustice?’
Miller studied Harry’s expression before nodding, as if satisfied by what he found there.
‘I spent much of today listening to your case from the back of the court. You must be happy with the progress your counsel made. The judge made it plain he is unsympathetic to the police, and no wonder. Your client, Mr Walter, was convicted of a crime he did not commit. He must be hoping for massive compensation.’
‘We’ll have to wait and see.’
‘From all I have heard, you care about justice, Mr Devlin.’
If there was a hint of irony in the words, Harry was content to ignore it. Life as a lawyer in Liverpool had taught him to grow a thick skin. ‘It’s a rare commodity,’ he agreed. ‘Worth seeking out.’
‘Forgive me for saying so, but I suspect most lawyers care more about their fees. However, let that pass. I would value your co-operation, since you have access to the files of Edwin Smith’s solicitor. It is too late for Smith, but you may yet help me to prove he suffered a grievous wrong.’
‘Did he protest his innocence at the trial?’
‘On the contrary, he pleaded guilty.’
‘Yet you’re suggesting the confession was false?’
Miller cleared his throat. The strange shining eyes belied his deliberate manner. He was like a small boy, Harry thought, brimming with private knowledge and unable to restrain his excitement at making a disclosure.
‘I am. And that is, for me, the fascination of the murder of Carole Jeffries. I do not pretend to have embarked on any moral crusade. I cannot even claim to share your devotion to seeing justice done. But I find murder irresistible - and perfect murder most of all.’
‘No-one ever described the Sefton Park Strangling as a perfect murder.’
‘You miss the point, Mr Devlin. If you accept that Smith was innocent, the conclusion is un
avoidable.’
Miller showed his crooked teeth again.
‘The true culprit escaped scot-free.’
The Making of I Remember You
I Remember You was the third Harry Devlin book, following All the Lonely People and Suspicious Minds, but the first I started writing after becoming a published author. Confidence is a crucial ingredient in writing, and the fact that I had finally achieved publication emboldened me.
I decided that the new book would have a more elaborate storyline than its predecessors, combining a murder mystery with a significant subplot as a counterpoint to the main sequence of events. This was a way of adding value to the reader’s experience, something which always seems important to me. And creating a complex plot infrastructure gave me extra confidence, which helped when I came to develop the characters and their inter-relationships.
I was ready to develop my portrayal of Harry’s life, and his world beyond the scene-setting of the first two books. The starting point for this story was the idea that a crime of the present may be deeply rooted in the past. To what extent do our recollections of the past affect how we now behave? It’s a fruitful area for exploration in a crime novel, and one that has continued to fascinate me. The earlier books had titles taken from 1960s pop songs, and I didn’t have much trouble finding a title to reflect both theme and story. Who could forget Frank Ifield?
When my first novel was published, I was interviewed for local radio, and in those days I also had a business connection with a commercial radio station based not far from my office. So it occurred to me that a fictional radio station could provide an interesting and unusual backdrop for the story. Years earlier, I’d enjoyed the television series Shoestring, featuring Trevor Eve as a laid-back gumshoe who made regular appearances on a local radio show. Shoestring’s run was all too brief, but it showed the potential of the setting for detective fiction. A good local radio station has strong and enduring connections with the community it serves, giving rise to all manner of plot possibilities. I’m surprised it hasn’t been used more often.
At the time of writing the book, I’d never refused the morning newspapers on a radio show, although I did have that experience a year or two later. More recently, I did some newspaper reviewing for Legal TV, a television station whose eventual demise was not, I hope, due to my various appearances in their studios. Now that television channels, often aimed at specialised audiences, proliferate, it is surely only a question of time before a fictional channel becomes the setting of a series of crime novels - if it hasn’t happened already.
I Remember You was the first of my novels to require extensive research. I had a picture in my mind of a dramatic opening to the story, with a fire raging in the centre of Liverpool (more than 15 years later, I started another book, The Serpent Pool, with an even more destructive fire, but in a very different setting and with very different consequences.) One of the partners in my firm introduced me to a friend who was a firefighter, and he talked me through the process of dealing with an arson attack. The conversation left me but only with plenty of material, but a real admiration for the courage and commitment of firefighters.
Another of my partners introduced me to a family member who was a detective inspector in Merseyside Police, and I visited his station for a lengthy and enormously helpful briefing about how the police go about their work. His advice helped me, for instance, to make sure that the bombing of the car and its aftermath were presented with a degree of realism. The image of the wrecked car was powerful, and the dust jacket illustrator, Ken Leeder, used it for the artwork of the hardback edition of the book.
A third partner (there are advantages to working in a sizeable firm!) provided invaluable assistance with the legal aspects of the subplot involving the Graham-Browns. Many readers who know that I am a solicitor assume that I specialise in criminal law, but my experience since qualifying has been exclusively in the commercial and employment law sectors. Criminal, divorce and property law are all areas about which I know little more than any layperson. Paul Clarke, the partner who helped me, gave me a good deal of support and encouragement with later books in the series as well before (to my regret and his good fortune) he gave up life in the legal profession in order to live the dream in rural France. I was delighted to hear recently that he’s now written a book of his own.
I enjoyed creating the character of Finbar Rogan, and amused myself by giving him one or two jokey snippets of dialogue taken from the mouth of yet another colleague who, like Finbar, was seldom at a loss for a snappy one-line. I did some research into the art of tattooing, a practice that has always seemed to me rather strange and mysterious. One subject I did not feel I wanted to research in any detail was Irish terrorism; the book was written years before the Good Friday agreement was signed, at a time when, for people in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the possibility of becoming involved in a terrorist outrage could never be discounted; the achievement of peace in Northern Ireland has been one of the most positive developments to have occurred since this book was first published. In any event, I Remember You is a whodunit, adapting the conventions of classic detective fiction to a dark urban milieu, rather than a political thriller.
I enjoyed laying the clues to the solution, and the exercise of trying to distract the reader’s attention from them. And, not for the last time in the Harry Devlin series, the lyric of a favourite Bacharach and David song provided one of those clues. A book by Len Deighton, albeit a spy story rather than a whodunit, provided the inspiration for the murderer’s choice of a new name for a new identity.
Eventually, the manuscript was complete, and I sent it off to my publishers with high hopes. Although my debut novel, inevitably, had gone through numerous revisions after its first submission, the follow-up had needed only a limited amount of editing. However, I received a rude awakening when my editor, Kate Callaghan, responded with a detailed note setting out a significant number of editorial comments, dealing with which would require major surgery to the manuscript. My initial consternation gave way before long to realism: Kate’s suggestions were excellent, and adopting the majority of them was bound to improve the quality of the book. For, although authors need to have confidence in their work, they also need a mindset that welcomes constructive criticism - and criticism is much more welcome before a book is published, when one has the chance to address it, than afterwards! However accomplished and experienced an author may be, it is a mistake, in my opinion, not to be receptive to the possibility of improving a book, even one which has already been the subject of careful rewriting.
So I set to work. I decided that the revisions should be extensive. One minor character (who existed only to be killed in the bomb blast) was eliminated altogether. And, inevitably, making a change in one part of a book entails making a raft of consequential changes. It took longer than I would have wished to finish the rewriting, but with hindsight, I’m very glad that I spent the time. And when I talk about the importance of confidence on the part of a writer, that confidence includes having trust and confidence in one’s agent and editing, and their advice. I can’t claim that I accept that advice on every single occasion, but I always think very carefully before taking any decision to stick to my guns. If there is a collective will for the book to be as successful as possible, there is a much better chance of producing a novel that readers will enjoy. And there’s no doubt that I have benefited over the years from strong relationships both with my agent, Mandy Little, and a number of editors, certainly including Kate. She left the world of publishing to raise a family a good many years ago, but we’re still in contact, and I still appreciate the support she gave me - perhaps above all when helping me to revamp I Remember You.
Meet Martin Edwards
Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime writer whose fifth and most recent Lake District Mystery, featuring DCI Hannah Scarlett and Daniel Kind, is The Hanging Wood, published in 2011. Earlier books in the se
ries are The Coffin Trail (short-listed for the Theakston’s prize for best British crime novel of 2006), The Cipher Garden, The Arsenic Labyrinth (short-listed for the Lakeland Book of the Year award in 2008) and The Serpent Pool.
Martin has written eight novels about lawyer Harry Devlin, the first of which, All the Lonely People, was short-listed for the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger for the best first crime novel of the year. In addition he has published a stand-alone novel of psychological suspense, Take My Breath Away, and a much acclaimed novel featuring Dr Crippen, Dancing for the Hangman. The latest Devlin novel, Waterloo Sunset, appeared in 2008.
Martin completed Bill Knox’s last book, The Lazarus Widow, and has published a collection of short stories, Where Do You Find Your Ideas? and other stories; ‘Test Drive’ was short-listed for the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2006, while ‘The Bookbinder’s Apprentice’ won the same Dagger in 2008.
A well-known commentator on crime fiction, he has edited 20 anthologies and published eight non-fiction books, including a study of homicide investigation, Urge to Kill .In 2008 he was elected to membership of the prestigious Detection Club. He was subsequently appointed Archivist to the Detection Club, and is also Archivist to the Crime Writers’ Association. He received the Red Herring Award for services to the CWA in 2011.
In his spare time Martin is a partner in a national law firm, Weightmans LLP. His website is www.martinedwardsbooks.com and his blog www.doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com/
Bibliography
Harry Devlin Series
All the Lonely People (1991)
Suspicious Minds (1992)
I Remember You (1993)
Yesterday’s Papers (1994)
Eve of Destruction (1996)
The Devil in Disguise (1998)
First Cut Is the Deepest (1999)
I Remember You Page 22