Turning, he squinted at the harsh red digits of his bedside alarm. Five-twenty. Although he felt only half awake, he was sure he would never get back to sleep again. He swore at the memory of Ernest Miller’s farrago about murderous injustice. If only he hadn’t agreed to listen to the man and absorbed into his subconscious the nightmarish prospect of having his fate rest in the hands of Cyril Tweats.
Yet, looking at his hollow-eyed reflection in the bedroom mirror, he found himself unable to resist a smile. That incompetent old sod Cyril, who could give the kiss of death to the strongest case. How had he managed for so many years to escape professional disaster?
Then he reminded himself of the money Cyril had made out of the law and the comfortable life he now led in retirement. Perhaps he was not such a fool as he seemed. Even so, could Miller be right? Was it possible that if only - that phrase again! - Edwin Smith had chosen to be competently represented, he might not merely be alive today, but walking the city streets a free man?
As he made his way towards the bathroom, Harry reminded himself of the stern New Year’s resolution he had made a couple of weeks before: no more ‘if onlys’. The trouble was that he had a restless mind; he could never resist the temptation to speculate. And so his good intention had gone the way of so many other vows made during the dying hours of old years in an optimistic whisky haze.
The stinging heat of a shower began to revive him. Standing motionless under the sharp jet of water, he wondered whether to respond to Miller’s request for help. He had promised nothing, saying merely that he would check to see whether the old file remained in existence amongst the lorry load of dusty documents that Crusoe and Devlin had inherited on acquiring Cyril Tweats’ practice. Miller had not pressed him for a yes or no within a specified time, perhaps reckoning he would not be able to conquer the compulsive urge to involve himself with the Jeffries case.
And in that, he acknowledged with wry self-awareness, bloody Ernest Miller was spot on.
Within half an hour he was well wrapped against a cutting wind and walking the short distance to his office in Fenwick Court. The giant buildings on the waterfront towered above him in the early morning gloom and the Liver birds watched as the rest of the city began to stir. Milk floats and trucks full of groceries moved in stealth through the deserted streets and from time to time a police Rover slid past on its way back to headquarters at the end of the night shift.
At the last moment before unlocking the front door of New Commodities House he remembered to switch off the burglar alarm. A week before Christmas he had come here in the small hours to finish preparing an important case, only to risk a heart attack and permanent deafness on triggering the security system. Convincing the sceptical occupants of a passing panda car that he was not an opportunist thief had tested his persuasive skills to the limit. But as he had pointed out to a gum chewing constable, only a madman would bother to rob Crusoe and Devlin. Even the second-hand record shop in the basement offered richer pickings.
Once inside, he made rapid progress with the mound of papers on his desk. Lucy, his secretary, had left him a note complaining about his failure to sign his mail the previous evening. He tacked on a sentence authorising her to send the stuff first class and, cheekily virtuous, added the time of his arrival before taping it above her desk. Never mind the cost of the stamps, he thought, preparing himself for the heavenward glances of his cost-conscious partner. If Kevin Walter’s compensation claim succeeded, Crusoe and Devlin would be quids in.
Hunger started to grind at his stomach and he hurried off in search of a plate piled high with bacon, sausage and eggs. His destination was at the bottom end of a passageway linking Lord Street with Derby Square: a cafeteria called The Condemned Man.
Within seconds of his sitting down, the massive bulk of Muriel, the proprietress, loomed over him. Her complexion and figure bore testimony to a lifetime devoted to fat and greasy food and she was wielding a pencil and pad like truncheons.
‘In court this morning, Harry?’
He nodded. ‘My client’s Kevin Walter.’
Muriel’s bosom gave a seismic heave. Harry had often marvelled that nylon overalls were made in her size and he feared that now the garment would finally burst.
‘That’s your case, is it? Wrongful imprisonment, so called? A little bird tells me the plaintiffs have briefed Paddy Vaulkhard.’
Muriel’s business was geared to the morning trade and most of it was connected with the courts. Barristers, solicitors, ushers, transcript-takers, policemen, journalists - as well as the soon-to-be-convicted, stopping off here for their last hearty breakfast before sampling Walton Jail’s cuisine. What Muriel did not know about law and order in Liverpool was not worth knowing. According to rumour, she was the Chief Constable’s agony aunt.
‘He’s very good,’ said Harry, a shade reluctantly.
‘You don’t care for him, eh?’ demanded Muriel. ‘Can’t say as I blame you. All the same, if he gets his teeth into a witness anything like the way he tackles my fried bread, he’ll take some stopping. Though all I can say is, the Walter family have been customers here for years and if Kevin really was innocent, my name’s Myra Hindley.’
‘Now be fair,’ he said, though remonstrating with Muriel was like urging the merits of agnosticism on a hellfire preacher. ‘The man spent years inside for a crime he didn’t commit.’
She grunted. ‘I’m a plain woman...’
He gave a cautious smile, but honesty triumphed over good manners and he did not argue with her.
‘...and I speak plainly. But any road, I hear the busies are worried sick about the case. They wanted it settled out of court. Could be your lucky day.’
‘I’m not counting any chickens yet.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Muriel, whose willingness to express an unequivocal opinion on the basis of slender data would have made her a first-class expert witness. ‘Paddy Vaulkhard will love a case like that. And the fees you’ll make won’t do you any harm, either.’
She considered his ageing suit and loosely knotted tie; contrary as ever, he had resisted the temptation to dress to impress the television cameras he expected at court today. Her disfavour was suggestive of Judge Jeffreys presiding over the Bloody Assizes.
‘Time you smartened yourself up a bit and started acting for a better class of criminal.’
‘I’d love to, if only a few more drug-pushing peers of the realm or sleek insider traders beat a path to my door.’
She banged a mug of hot tea - good old English Breakfast, none of your Darjeeling muck for Muriel - on the fraying gingham tablecloth and lumbered off to exchange gossip about a kinky vicar case with a loose-tongued girl from the Crown Prosecution Service.
As he battled through the fried hillock on his plate, Harry wondered whether he should worry about having his appearance criticised by a woman for whom a duelling scar would have represented a cosmetic improvement. No point, he decided. There was always a core of truth at the heart of Muriel’s exaggerations. He consoled himself with the thought that his clients might feel ill at ease with a solicitor who was a model of sartorial elegance. Dress code in the Liverpool Bridewell was not quite the same as in the Old Bailey.
By the time he had drained the last drop from his chipped mug, it was close on half eight. If he moved fast, he might be able to pick up the old file on Edwin Smith before meeting Vaulkhard to discuss battle plans. He paid the bill and flirted briefly with the pretty young cashier before setting off in the direction of the Pierhead.
The icy blast coming in from the river slowed his progress as he crossed the Strand and headed for Mann Island. He half-closed his eyes and, although he knew he should be preparing mentally for his day in court, found himself scraping the barrel of his memory for scraps of information he might have picked up over the years when reading about the Sefton Park Strangling.
The mur
der had never been a mystery, but rather a pointless act of brutality which had brought nothing except disaster for everyone concerned. Two loving parents had lost their only child and seen their own lives blighted forever. The same was equally true of Edwin Smith’s mother. Smith had killed himself and so, fifteen years later, had his victim’s father - although to all intents and purposes, Guy’s life had ended on the day his daughter died. Harry knew that murder spreads its ripples wide. Close friends as well as family would never find things the same again.
Since the era of Merseybeat, for example Ray Brill’s reputation as a free-spending womaniser had overshadowed his musical achievements; it was impossible to think of one decent Ray Brill single since ’64. At least Clive Doxey and Benny Frederick had prospered; presumably Benny in particular had been less close to the girl. How would the three men react if confronted with the notion that Carole had not died at Edwin Smith’s hands? Would they pooh-pooh it as absurd - or resent an attempt by a stranger to rake up a past they might prefer to forget? Or was it possible that one or two skeletons might be ready to tumble out of cupboards?
First things first. He was building too much on a single conversation. He must look up the file and then speak to Miller again, with a view to pressing for more concrete information. The old man’s conviction that the case deserved further investigation had been strangely compelling, but Harry knew himself well enough to beware his own eagerness to find a puzzle where once there had been none.
Fighting for breath in the teeth of the gusts, at last he came in sight of his destination. A hundred yards from the ferry terminal stood a small and inconspicuous hut with a steel door. Thick mesh grilles sealed the windows of the building and no sign or nameplate gave a clue to its purpose. He fished a large key from his pocket.
As he locked the door behind him, he found his teeth chattering. The place seemed even colder than the windswept waterfront outside. He peered through the gloom to the other end of the small landing on which he stood, where a flight of steep stone steps disappeared down into the black unknown.
Flicking a switch, he swore when the light failed to come on. The air was damp and the surface of the steps greasy. He gripped the iron handrail and started counting as he put one cautious foot in front of another and edged his way downstairs.
With each step he took, the place smelled mustier. No matter how many times he came here, he could never acclimatise himself to its atmosphere. It always put him in mind of decline and decay. He found himself yearning for a quick return to daylight.
‘Twenty-four,’ he said to himself at last, uttering a silent prayer of thanks as his feet touched solid land.
Groping for the basement light, he found to his relief that it was working. The fierce glare from the naked bulb made him blink as he tried to adjust to his surroundings. He had arrived in a large square chamber cut into the sandstone. An opening led off into a narrow passageway and he walked towards it.
He was about to enter the Land of the Dead.
Chapter Five
We always bury our darkest secrets
On the right-hand side of the passage were two double glass-paned doors, in front of which he paused. Above them in faded paintwork he could barely distinguish the legend PIERHEAD BALLROOM. Through the dusty panes he could make out the dim shapes of chairs, desks and cupboards heaped on top of each other as if in anticipation of Bonfire Night. Not since Hitler marched into Poland and changed the world forever had the smart couples of Liverpudlian society taken the floor in there.
The open space in which he stood had once been the lobby. A fenced-off shaft occupying the far side now lacked the lift that had whisked people up to street level. During the war, the cavernous ballroom had become an air-raid shelter. It had survived the might of the Luftwaffe, but peacetime austerity had seen it utilised for storage and the main entrance hall above the ground had been demolished to make room for a car park.
Next to the shaft, a complex mass of sewage pipes climbed one wall, in macabre parody of wisteria festooning a country cottage. Walking on, he heard the echoing of his footsteps. Even in the middle of the day this was a place which belonged, he felt, to lost souls. He could almost believe he heard from behind the double doors the faint strains of a band playing Jerome Kern numbers and the delicate tread of ghostly figures in evening dress, dancing cheek to cheek.
Suddenly, a saxophone began to play, a frantic sound. Harry froze, thinking for an instant that his fantasy had been realized and the old sybarites had returned to haunt him. He did not dare to breathe.
Then he recognised the mangled tune. ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ had been written long after the Pierhead Ballroom closed to customers. And a professional musician would never have played so many false notes. He laughed and told himself not to be ridiculous. Passing through another doorway, he entered a long and wide corridor with white-washed walls disfigured by huge moist patches. Every few yards small metal trays had been placed on the ground. They contained poison, he knew. The intention was to kill the rats for whom this place was a natural home. Necessary, he supposed. Yet he always had a sense of nausea whenever he saw the trays.
The saxophone sounded louder here. Harry paused outside a door on his left, listened for a while, then threw it open. A slender fresh-faced young man wearing shirt, tie and pinstriped trousers was kneeling on a wooden crate and leaning backwards as he blew. His cheeks were puffed out like tennis balls.
Harry put his hands on his hips and grinned. ‘I know the devil has all the best tunes, but I didn’t expect to hear them subjected to torture in the Land of the Dead.’
The saxophone gave a maddened squeal as the lad lost his balance and toppled to the floor. He scrambled to his feet, flushing with embarrassment.
‘Sorry. I’m Adrian, I’m articled with Kim Lawrence. Her firm rents storage room here. What did you say about - about the Land of the Dead?’
‘It’s the name I give to this place. Where all the solicitors’ files are laid to rest. With all their secrets, all their memories. I’m Harry Devlin, by the way. Crusoe and Devlin, a two-man band from Fenwick Court.’
They shook hands and he added, ‘We keep our old papers here as well. Don’t tell Jock what I call his second home. He’d be mortally wounded - the cellar archives are his pride and joy.’
Adrian gave an eager nod. ‘He was happy for me to play here before work starts at nine and during my lunch break, said I wouldn’t be disturbing anybody. He’s a really good bloke. He told me he’s always loved music himself.’
‘Wouldn’t “Subterranean Homesick Blues” be more appropriate?’
‘Jock prefers ballads. He says nothing beats a decent melody.’
Harry resisted the temptation to make the obvious joke and said goodbye. As he moved away, Adrian started to do his worst with ‘The Long and Winding Road’.
Further down the passageway a heavy door was set into the wall. Next to it were two rows of numbered buttons. Harry entered a four-digit security code and pushed the door open.
Facing him was a large desk, on which stood a visual display unit and keyboard. Sitting behind them was a bald, neatly bearded man with half-moon spectacles perched on the end of his nose. The archivist who dwelt in the Land of the Dead, known to all who came here simply as Jock, was studying columns of figures with the avidity of a cricket buff devouring the first-class averages in Wisden.
‘Morning, Harry,’ he said in a Glaswegian accent which many years in Liverpool had done little to soften. ‘What brings you here so soon after opening time?’
‘Not the pleasure of listening to young Adrian down the corridor, that’s for sure.’
‘Ah, he’s only a wee lad, Harry. Needs somewhere to practise. I thought, he’s a decent kid, what’s the harm? You don’t object?’
‘’Course not. You’re doing a public service, Jock, keeping him out of sight and underground. I
never knew till now a saxophone was an instrument of cruelty. John Coltrane must be turning in his grave.’
‘To say nothing of John Lennon. Ah well, we all had to start somewhere. Were you looking for anything special, or just having a mooch?’
‘No offence, but I’d rather mooch around Smithdown Cemetery. As a matter of fact, I’m looking for an old file.’
‘You could have phoned,’ Jock pointed out. ‘Or sent someone over. I reckon I can lay my hand on most things inside five minutes if I’m given the correct index number.’ He gestured to the flickering screen in front of him. ‘The system enables me to...’
‘This isn’t an ordinary dead file request,’ said Harry, speaking quickly. The Scot was an amiable fellow, but once embarked on an exposition of the technical wonders at his command, he was not easily hushed.
‘Something out of the ordinary? Grand, gives a little spice to the day,’ said Jock, rubbing his hands. Not even the dank atmosphere of the Land of the Dead could quench his boyish enthusiasm.
‘It’s an old matter from the days of Tweats and Company.’
‘Ah.’ Jock tutted, cheerfully disapproving. ‘You may be asking for something there, Harry. No method, that was the trouble with the Tweats archive. No method whatsoever.’
‘I appreciate your problems. Knowing Cyril, I expect half the wills he drew finished up as sandwich wrappings. So I thought I’d best come down here myself and give you a hand.’
Yesterday's Papers Page 4