Yesterday's Papers

by Martin Edwards

  Harry sensed she was about to tell him something important. ‘And do you know what he saw?’

  ‘I got up and joined him.’ Renata’s voice was abstracted and he could tell she was reliving that Leap Year Day. ‘He was watching a young girl walking into the Park through the gates opposite his bedroom window.’

  He guessed what was coming next. The explanation to the conundrum that had been troubling him. ‘A blonde girl, wearing a brown sheepskin jacket, black boots and a green scarf?’

  ‘Got it in one. Carole Jeffries. At that time, I’d never heard the name, of course. Edwin told me she was a neighbour. I asked if he fancied her and he admitted he did, but said she had no time for him. I pulled him back on the bed, spread my legs wide and told him to make believe that I was her.’ She shook her head. ‘God, the things I’ve done for men in my time. But it was no good. His imagination - or something - simply wasn’t up to it.’

  ‘How long did you stay there?’

  ‘For another couple of hours. In the end, my patience snapped. I felt I’d been short-changed. I didn’t laugh at him, Mr Devlin, I’m not one of those women who mock a man who can’t perform. Christ, if I was, I’d have been murdered myself a dozen times over. But I’d had enough.’

  ‘What did Edwin do?’

  ‘Begged me to stay, didn’t he? I often wonder, you know, if things would have turned out differently if I had. But I’ve learned it’s no use fretting over what might have been.’

  It was a lesson of life Harry was still struggling to absorb. He signalled for more drinks and asked, ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘I was dressed again and out of the house by ten past six. I went out through the back gate, so as not to attract any attention. For once in my life, I wanted to be on my own. I felt bitter and frustrated, you have to remember that. The gate gave on to a path which took me to the main road and I caught a bus home. My mum was there, pissed out of her mind as per usual. I never had a father.’

  ‘And after you got home?’

  ‘Packed a bag and caught the last train to London, didn’t I? I thought maybe I’d make a fresh start. I didn’t leave a note, mum would only have used it to light the fire.’

  ‘How long did you stay down there?’

  ‘Until the winter. By then I’d realised the streets weren’t paved with gold. And after I get back here with my tail between my legs, what do I find? Only that Edwin Smith has just topped himself and everyone thinks it’s good riddance to a self-confessed strangler.’

  ‘Did the police ever approach you?’

  She took a sip from her replenished glass. ‘No, why should they? As far as I can make out, Edwin never put me forward as an alibi. Too ashamed of his lack of performance, I suppose. And I didn’t even hear about the murder in Sefton Park while I was down in London.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I didn’t have a telly in those days and I never bothered with the London papers. It was only when I got back that I read a few snippets in the Echo about the case. I worked out that this Carole was his neighbour, the girl he’d watched from the window. At first I thought that after I left he must have gone out himself, caught up with her and done her in. But then I realised it simply wasn’t possible.’

  ‘Why?’

  She banged her glass down on the bar and concentrated her attention on him. In a fierce voice she said, ‘Listen, I arrived at the house at half two. Looking forward to afternoon tea in the lap of luxury, bloody young idiot that I was. The earliest Edwin could have strangled the girl was a quarter past six.’ She drained her glass, as if in need of strength. ‘Yet the Echo said Carole Jeffries was murdered sometime between four o’clock and five at the latest. I couldn’t make sense of it, so I rang the reporter, telling him some cock-and-bull story. But he was definite: there was no mistake. They could fix the time because Carole only left her parents’ house at four and by five a courting couple had started canoodling on a bench only yards away from the bushes where her body was found. As the man said to me, the pair of them may have been engrossed with each other, but no murderer in his right mind was going to take the risk of dragging a corpse right under their noses whilst they were snogging.’

  ‘Did you discuss this with anyone?’

  ‘Who? Edwin had confessed, hadn’t he? If he’d wanted to take the blame, who was I to stand in his way? Besides, he was beyond my help by then. It wasn’t as though he was about to be hung - or even spend the rest of his days inside.’

  ‘And what about his mother? She had to live with the belief that her son was a murderer.’

  ‘I was seventeen,’ said Renata helplessly. ‘I’d never met her and besides, I didn’t want to be any more involved with the police than I had to. While I was down in London, you see, I’d picked up a conviction. Soliciting. So much for the bloody glamour and the bright lights.’ She finished the rest of her drink. ‘Any chance of another?’

  When it came, she tossed it all down in two or three gulps. ‘Look, when I saw Miller’s advert, I knew I had to give him a call. I’ve been married twice and had more men that you’ve had hot dinners, but until last week I’d kept my secret in silence. It’s been preying on my mind for so long. When I spoke to Miller, it was like a dam bursting.’ She shook her head. ‘All this time, I’ve been wanting someone to realise that, for all his faults, that pathetic little creep Edwin never murdered anybody in his life.’

  And as Harry watched, she cradled her head in her hands and, oblivious of the barmaid’s baffled stare, began to weep for the young man she had walked out on thirty years before.

  Chapter Sixteen

  the fatal outcome was inevitable

  Next morning Harry was back in the bargain basement of the legal system, down at the magistrates’ court appearing on behalf of a couple of careless drivers and a positively negligent car thief who had managed to leave a letter to him from the social security office tucked under the dashboard. When the last case had been heard, he paused on his way out to look at the news-stand adjacent to the courtroom entrance. The face of Jeannie Walter beamed out at him from under a banner headline saying JUSTICE IS DONE - BUT WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG?

  Edwin Smith and his mother might ask much the same question, he reflected. In the small hours, he had finally poured a sobbing Renata into the taxi he’d called to take her back home. By then she had become maudlin and was blaming herself for Edwin’s suicide. ‘If only I’d stayed with him,’ she kept saying, ‘he would still be alive today.’

  ‘You can’t rewrite the past,’ he’d told her, although he had himself often wanted to do exactly that.

  At least, he thought, in death both Edwin Smith and Ernest Miller had been vindicated. Edwin was no killer and the strange old man’s hunch about the case had been proved right. Harry could imagine Miller, following his retirement, recalling what his wife had once told him about Edwin’s short-lived attempt to withdraw his confession; perhaps she’d had more sense than Cyril Tweats and had realised that it rang true. But only once one understood how Edwin knew what Carole had been wearing did it become clear that the corroborative evidence so crucial to the assumption of his guilt really had no substance at all. When, following the humiliation with Renata, he had confessed to the crime, he must have guessed at the ligature used by the real killer, knowing already that Carole had been strangled and was wearing a scarf when she took her last stroll through the park. Harry thought the conversation with Carole was too vivid to have been a total fabrication. He guessed Edwin had tried to chat her up on a previous occasion and received the crushing rebuff he had described to the police. As for Miller, what had he learned from Ray Brill about the case - and who had called at the scruffy house in Everton on the evening of the fatal asthma attack?

  ‘Wondering how many copies to buy of Jeannie Walter’s exclusive interview?’ asked Kim Lawrence in his ear.

  He turned
to face her. ‘I don’t think I’ll bother.’

  ‘Why not? You’re bound to be mentioned.’

  ‘I don’t think my ego would stand the strain. Besides, I’ve already come to earth with a bump after yesterday’s excitements. Petty crime, fines and probation. No travesties of justice this time. How about you?’

  ‘A shoplifting single mother. She turned up with a bruise under her eye - her boyfriend’s been beating her black and blue.’ Kim sighed. ‘Any news about your Sefton Park case?’

  ‘Only that Edwin Smith could not have strangled Carole Jeffries.’

  He was rewarded by the widening of her eyes. ‘Tell me more.’

  As he did so, he found himself aware of how much he had begun to enjoy her company. She had a reputation in the city as an abrasive litigator famously quick to interrupt her opponents, but he was realising for the first time that she could also listen and he could not deny that he felt flattered by her interest in the case that so absorbed him. He could sense her mind working, testing Renata’s story for flaws and contradictions, worrying away at possibilities for lethal cross-examination.

  When he had finished, she opted for direct attack. ‘And what makes you believe that after thirty years of silence this superannuated belly dancer is telling the truth at last? Maybe she’s just spinning you a yarn for the sake of a little notoriety.’

  ‘If you’d seen her dancing, you’d realise she’s no need to tell tall stories to do that. But leaving that aside, I did believe her. Although she did nothing to save Edwin while he was alive, she didn’t have any inkling that he needed to be saved. She had problems enough of her own to contend with at the time, but I’m sure the whole business has nagged at her ever since. That’s why she was willing to spill the beans when she read Ernest Miller’s advertisement.’

  She gave a satisfied nod. ‘Okay, I’ll buy that. So - what next? Presumably it’s time for you to speak to the people closest to Carole. But do you think they will co-operate?’

  ‘Have you ever met a Liverpudlian who was unwilling to talk? Anyway, I’ve made a start. I called Shirley Titchard first thing and she agreed to see me this afternoon. But before that, I want to see if someone can give me an objective picture of them. So right now I’m going to call on the man who headed the murder enquiry.’

  ‘And I thought your conscience would make you head back to your desk as soon as court was over.’

  They exchanged grins, two advocates who regarded desks as designed for conveyancers and corporate lawyers. ‘It can do without me for a while. Let’s face it, I might still have been sitting behind Patrick Vaulkhard, watching him kebab the police authority’s witnesses.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said after a slight pause, ‘there is a meeting of MOJO tomorrow evening in one of the conference rooms at Empire Hall. Our speaker has cancelled at the last minute, so I’ve asked Patrick if he would be willing to talk about the Waltergate case. I wondered if you’d like to join us. That is, if you don’t have anything else planned.’

  He looked at her and said, ‘No, I don’t have anything else planned. I’d be delighted to come.’ An idea occurred to him. ‘And will your president, Sir Clive, be there?’

  She smiled. ‘I thought you might ask that and the answer is yes. But I hope you won’t look on the evening solely as an opportunity to pump him for more information about the Sefton Park Strangling.’

  ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I won’t.’

  ***

  Half an hour later, a pleasant middle-aged woman at the reception desk in Jasmine House nodded when Harry said he wanted to see Vincent Deysbrook.

  ‘That’s lovely. Vincent will be glad to see you. He doesn’t have too many visitors. His son lives in Norfolk and his daughter moved to Sydney and married an Australian. One or two of his old colleagues from the police drop by now and then, but that’s about all. Who shall I say it is?’

  ‘My name’s Harry Devlin, but that won’t mean anything to Mr Deysbrook. He and I have never met. Even so, I’d be glad of a word if he’s up to it.’

  ‘I’ll be right back.’

  While he waited, Harry glanced around. The long low building stood in an acre of undulating grounds and from here it was hard to believe that a dual carriageway ran past the other side of the spiky trees. The atmosphere was so tranquil that the city might have been a hundred miles away. From one of the shelves opposite the entrance, half a dozen teddy bears grinned at him. Above them were hand-carved wooden trains and fluffy cushions, each individually priced and marked MADE BY THE RESIDENTS. On a noticeboard, posters in pastel colours spoke about bereavement counselling and gave contact names and telephone numbers. They were the only clues to the purpose of this place. Jasmine House, so different from the dank atmosphere of the subterranean world he lightheartedly described as the Land of the Dead, actually was the last home of the dying.

  The woman returned, smiling. ‘He’s in better form this morning. Even though he doesn’t know who you are, he said he’d be happy to see you. Remember, though, he tires very easily. And if he asks you for a cigarette, really we’d rather you said no. We don’t have smoking here and it’s done him harm enough already.’

  ‘He’s suffering from lung cancer?’

  She nodded. ‘He’s been with us for three weeks. At first it was simply respite care, but he’s not well enough to go back to his flat. Day by day, we can see him losing strength, but he’s not short of willpower. He’s fighting it, Mr Devlin, he’s fighting it every inch of the way. Would you like to follow me and I’ll show you to the lounge?’

  She led him to an L-shaped room overlooking the rear of the building. Outside there was a patio, where a couple of old women were sitting on a bench, feeding the ducks in a small pond. A gaunt man in a dressing gown was in front of the television, flicking through the sports pages of the Daily Mail. When he heard the approaching footsteps, he rose to his feet, wincing with the pain of movement. Even after so many years and the ravages of disease, his features were still recognisable from the grainy photographs in Ken Cafferty’s cuttings captioned Chief Inspector Vincent Deysbrook: ‘Arrest Expected Soon’.

  Harry grasped the withered hand. ‘Thanks for seeing me. I won’t take up much of your morning.’

  ‘Take as much as you want. I’ve not much else to do with it.’ Deysbrook gave a short laugh which turned into a prolonged cough. He waved Harry into one of the armchairs. ‘Stupid, isn’t it? My time’s running out and yet I find myself feeling bloody bored.’

  ‘I’ve never been inside a hospice before. I didn’t know what to expect, but certainly not something so...’

  ‘Peaceful?’ Deysbrook nodded. ‘It’s a good place and the staff do a grand job. I just wish I wasn’t a bloody resident, that’s all. You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette, by any chance?’

  ‘I gave them up a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Wish I’d never started. Maybe if I’d broken the habit sooner, I wouldn’t be here. Ah well, no use fretting over what might have been. Besides, I’ve always liked my cigarettes. All right, then, Mr Harry Devlin, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m a solicitor in town and lately I’ve been looking into the murder of Carole Jeffries in Sefton Park.’

  The old man gave him a sharp look. ‘What in God’s name for? It was over and done with thirty years back.’

  ‘You remember the case?’

  ‘I’ll never forget it,’ said Deysbrook huskily. ‘Never. That poor young girl with everything ahead of her. Her life snuffed out by a pathetic worm.’

  ‘I believe Edwin Smith was innocent.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Anger brought spots of colour to Deysbrook’s chalky cheeks and his mouth hardened. He had to fight for breath before he continued. ‘Look, it was an open and shut case. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Last night I spoke to someon
e who gave Smith an alibi.’

  ‘They were having you on. The man confessed and pleaded guilty into the bargain.’

  ‘It isn’t unknown for innocent fools to confess to crimes.’

  ‘We didn’t kick that confession out of Smith, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘It certainly isn’t. I can understand why you didn’t look any further.’

  Deysbrook gave him a suspicious glare. He was a tall man, around the six-foot mark at least, but although his body frame was large, his clothes hung loosely over his wasted trunk and limbs. Harry guessed that the illness had shrunk him by as much as eighty pounds.

  ‘I never cared much for defence lawyers, Mr Devlin, I’ll tell you straight. In my experience, they’ll twist the truth any way they can to get their clients off the hook.’

  ‘Whatever I find out can’t help Smith. I’m not here to defend him, simply to learn a little more about the case.’

  ‘A do-gooder, eh?’ Deysbrook made a derisive noise. ‘The world’s full of them. People who like to say that black is white. Even if a bent brief can’t help a criminal to walk out of court with a smirk on his face, you always find some social worker or probation officer willing to blame society for his rapes and muggings.’

  ‘I’m no bleeding heart, Mr Deysbrook, and I’m not here to throw mud at the police investigation or at you personally. My only interest is to find out what really happened, not to make a fast buck.’

  ‘I thought you said you were a lawyer?’

  Harry grinned. ‘Ouch. I’d like to explain how I come to be involved.’

  ‘You’d better,’ said Deysbrook without a smile.

  The story did not take long to tell. Deysbrook listened carefully. In coming here, Harry had expected hostility. The retired detective was a sick man and no-one welcomes the news that they have been badly mistaken in a matter of life and death. Yet he sensed that Deysbrook’s instinct was to give him a fair hearing.