“I’m willing to slum it once in a while. What about you - deserting the Majestic for the Ensenada?”
Grealish flashed his teeth in a wolf’s grin as he and his girlfriend took their seats. Leaning over to continue the conversation he said, “Need to check out the culinary competition on this side of the river every once in a while. And how is Jack Stirrup, Mr. Devlin? Still short of a wife?”
“Not only a wife,” said Harry.
“Don’t follow.”
“His daughter went missing yesterday.”
“You mean Claire?”
The question was so unexpected that it took Harry a couple of seconds to realise that it had been uttered by the blonde girl. He switched his gaze to her. Beneath the heavy layers of mascara, worry had cast a shadow.
He said, “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“My fault,” said Grealish, oozing lazy charm. “Darling, meet Miss Valerie Kaiwar, barrister of this city. Her father and I do a little business together. And this is Harry Devlin, a local solicitor. Val, Harry, say hello to Stephanie Elwiss. A very good friend of mine.”
“You know Claire?” asked Harry.
The blonde fiddled with her napkin, a nervous gesture. Perhaps she regretted her intervention. “Well, yeah, actually I do.”
“How’s that, may I ask?”
She glanced at Grealish before replying. “Through - through school, actually.”
“You used to go to the same school?”
Grealish threw back his head and roared with laughter. “See, lover, you’re able to fool even a man-about-town like Mr. Devlin. Now do you believe you’re grown up?”
To Harry, he said, “Matter of fact, Steph’s still supposed to be at school. Christ knows why. Life’s got more to offer her than swotting for exams and wasting her time with a bunch of pimply students.”
When Harry thought about it, he could believe that she was no more than, say, sixteen. She looked sophisticated in an evening dress, but when she opened her mouth a child spoke.
“Are you a friend of Claire’s?”
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”
“What, then?”
“Well, we have friends in common. What’s happened to her?”
“Wish I knew.”
Harry explained the previous day’s events. No point hushing them up now that the police were involved. Any chance that he might be able to pick up some clue to Claire’s whereabouts was worth taking.
Stephanie’s eyes widened. “That’s terrible.”
“Is the girl with her step-mum?” suggested Grealish.
Harry stared at him and only narrowly avoided saying, “Now, why didn’t I think of that?” On reflection, the answer was clear and twofold. First, he suspected that Alison was dead. Second, Claire and Alison were supposed to be on frosty terms. And yet the first premise might prove false and the second an exaggeration. Claire was, after all, much nearer to Alison in age than her father. Was it possible that the two of them might have more in common than people had realised?
“Unlikely, I think. But even if you’re right, that still leaves the question - where is Alison?”
Grealish spread his arms. “Don’t ask me.”
Harry became aware of someone hovering above his elbow.
“Ready to order, sir?”
Harry dealt with the waiter and then turned back to the blonde girl. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Valerie shifting impatiently in her seat.
“Sorry, love,” he whispered. “Won’t be a minute.” To Stephanie he said, “The police are sure to be in touch with you soon. Any idea where Claire might be?”
“None. None at all. You don’t think…”
“What?”
“That she might have been murdered by - you know - The Beast?”
“For Chrissake,” said Grealish. “What sort of conversation is this for a Sunday evening? The girl’s done a runner, I expect. Lots of kids do. Who wouldn’t with old Jack as a father? Don’t worry yourself about this Beast, Steph. He hasn’t murdered anyone yet. That’s not how he gets his fun.”
Again he bared his teeth in a crafty grin. And for a moment Harry found himself comparing the face of Bryan Grealish to a vulpine mask, like something worn by The Beast himself.
Chapter Twelve
“Now will you accept he’s a murderer?”
Not even a fuzzy telephone line could disguise Doreen Capstick’s told-you-so triumph.
“Doreen, for God’s sake! The man’s daughter is missing.”
“Exactly. And why? I’ll tell you. Because she’s met the same terrible fate as Alison.”
Harry closed his eyes and reminded himself to be patient. “So you’re not letting us have the apology we asked for?”
“You must be joking! Your letter’s in the wastepaper basket. Sue and be damned, that’s what I say to your precious Mr. Stirrup.”
“In that case, to borrow your slogan, au revoir.”
At the same time that Harry put down the receiver, Jim stuck his head round the door.
“Fancy a chicken salad at the Traders’?”
After the Ensenada, club food had no more appeal than a school dinner, but Harry was glad to escape the phone. The morning’s many interruptions had not helped him forget the unsatisfactory finale to the previous evening. He and Valerie had dined well and not been troubled by further conversation with Grealish. Harry’s hopes had been high when he’d driven them to her flat in Crosby, but she hadn’t invited him in. The turn-down had been gentle: she’d said she had a busy day ahead and wanted an early night, and he believed her. He didn’t want to push his luck, so he had kissed her once then hurried away. But the sense of so-near-yet-so-far was impossible to shake off.
Waiting for Jim in reception, Harry felt a tap on his shoulder. He could somehow tell it was a gesture of reproach.
“On your way out? I’ve come specially to see you.” Jonah Deegan’s tone implied that he was the victim of a conspiracy.
Harry uttered a silent prayer for strength. “Any news?”
“Be reasonable. It’s early days yet.” Jonah wrinkled his brow. “And a difficult case. No two ways about it.”
“Heard about Claire?”
“Read about it in the paper. That’s why I’m here. What happened?”
Jim came into reception. “Hello, Jonah. Found the Maltese Falcon yet? Busy now, Harry?”
“I’ll catch you up at the club. Mine’s a pint of best.”
“Thought the chicken salad sounded too clean living to be true. See you around, Columbo.”
As the door closed behind the big man, Harry turned back to Jonah and gave him a brief account of the events of the past couple of days. “So step-mother and step-daughter are both nowhere to be found,” he concluded. “Coincidence? Hard to believe. But not impossible. Do you have any ideas?”
Deegan scratched his nose. “I saw them both on Friday. Stirrup at his office, the girl at the house. Spoiled little madam, I thought. She didn’t want to talk. But he seemed devoted enough. To her, not his old lady.”
“Could it be Stirrup murdered Alison - and Claire did a runner for some unconnected reason?”
“Possible.” Jonah contemplated the floor. His gloom was enough to wipe the smile off a Cheshire Cat. Perhaps he was remembering all the evil deeds he had encountered during his years with the police. Or perhaps his arthritis was troubling him. “He might have disposed of them both and spirited away the corpses. But how the hell he’d do it, I don’t know. The human body isn’t easy to hide.”
“So what next?”
“I keep looking for Mrs. Stirrup. I had a quick scout round her room at the house, it gave me one or two ideas. Long shots, mind. And I still need to talk to some friends of hers. Stirrup’s not paying me to search for the kid. The police can do that better anyway.”
“Do you think Alison’s dead?”
“Maybe. Not suicide. Accident’s possible. Amnesia too, come to that. But she might just have d
ecided to pack in her old life and start again.”
“Abandoning her mother and her claim to a slice of Stirrup’s worldly goods?”
“Hard to credit, I agree. Abandoning her mother’s easier to understand, by all I’ve been told. Matter of fact, I’m seeing the Capstick woman this afternoon.”
“Good luck.”
“I’ll need it, by the sound of things. I gather she’s a tartar. Any road, don’t let Stirrup confess to double murder till you’ve got some cash on account of my fees.”
“What happened to the poor but honest gumshoe, turning down the client’s tainted money?”
“He didn’t have Liverpool Corporation on his back, demanding a councillor’s ransom in bloody poll tax.”
After Jonah had shambled out, the rumbling of his stomach reminded Harry that he was hungry. He sprinted over to the Traders’, barely casting a glance at the bikini-clad girls sunning themselves in the Parish Church gardens. At the members’ bar, the pint of best awaited him together with Jim, who was already in conversation.
His companion was a snappily dressed young man in dark glasses, who had put his portable phone on the counter as if he expected an urgent call at any moment. The Thatcher era might have drawn to a close, but Oswald Fowler remained a yuppie to his fingertips.
“Harry, mate,” he drawled. “I’ve been meaning to give you a ring. You sent me a client. Trevor Morgan.”
“Don’t tell me, you needed air freshener to kill the booze fumes after he’d gone.”
A smile flitted across Fowler’s face. “Your client’s obviously driven mine to drink.”
“Between you and me, Jack may be willing to cough up a few quid if pushed. Without prejudice, of course.”
“I’d have to take instructions.” The tone was non-committal but Fowler could not quite hide the dollar signs in his eyes. A quick settlement was good for cash flow and he had long mastered the knack of matching the effective conduct of his clients’ litigation with his own self-interest.
“Jack always wanted to see Trevor right financially. Until now, the problem’s simply been one of pride. Neither of them wanted to make the first move. But Trevor needs the money.”
Fowler nodded. “I had to take the case on legal aid.” He made it sound like a donation to charity. “Morgan’s life is in a mess. No job, no cash, no wife.”
“Has Cathy walked out on him now?”
“Earlier this year. His dismissal was the last straw, by the sound of things. The main danger is that any compensation he gets will be eaten up in alimony if and when she starts proceedings.”
Harry kept a discreet silence. If anyone could advise Trevor on how best to keep a windfall from Stirrup Wines out of any matrimonial negotiations, it was Ossie Fowler.
“He’s at the end of his tether,” continued Fowler as he sipped the last of his G and T, his tone as indifferent as that of a Met Office man forecasting typhoons in the tropics. “Desperate. I did wonder if he might top himself. Though I imagine he’s never sober enough to knot a noose to swing in. However, we aren’t our clients’ keepers. Thank God! Anyway, I must dash. Got to arrest a ship this afternoon.”
“Hope it gives up without a struggle.”
“You recommended Morgan to see Ossie?” asked Jim as they found themselves a table. “Why exactly are we advising someone to sue our best client?”
“Trust me.”
“Last man I heard say that is serving three years in Walton for forging a security document.”
Over lunch Harry outlined the conversation he had had with Morgan in the magistrates’ court. The big man gave every appearance of concentrating on his food and, when the story was told, said simply, “Soft bugger.”
“Me or Trevor?”
“Both of you. Him for messing up his life, you for getting involved. Anyway, mine not to reason why. Question is, will Jack Stirrup settle?”
“I can persuade him. Trevor hasn’t much of a case, but it’s worth paying a few bob to avoid all the hassle. Deep down it’s what Jack wants to do.”
“Mind-reading now, are you? Take care. The thoughts of some of our clients would make Hannibal Lecter queasy. Anyway, how long will it take Trevor to drink the cash away?”
“That’s his business. But if Cathy’s left him he ought to be celebrating, not drowning his sorrows.”
“Never met her.”
“She used to give him a hard time, by all accounts. Jack couldn’t stand her and I gather the feeling was mutual.”
“Some people might say that was a point in her favour. And she’ll have had plenty to put up with.”
“Suppose you’re right. Perhaps fighting with Trevor made her feel better about his infidelities.”
Jim grunted. An undemonstrative but uxorious man, he had little patience with marriages that did not work. He called the waitress over to order desserts which undid the good of a healthy main course and turned the conversation to the forthcoming Test Match.
When they arrived back in the office only a couple of minutes after the end of the official staff lunch hour, Suzanne, cradling a telephone under her chin, waved to attract Harry’s attention. Her lips were pursed in disapproval and she glanced unsubtly at the clock on the wall opposite the switchboard.
“There you are at last. Detective Inspector Bolus from Merseyside Police is holding for you.”
“I’ll take it in my room.”
A call direct from the chief rather than an uniformed indian? Must be important. Harry broke into a run down the corridor. When he picked up the phone, Bolus’s voice sounded grim.
“Mr Devlin? I have some urgent news for you. Your client wants you here.”
“What’s the problem?”
“It’s about his daughter. She’s been found.”
Harry almost fooled himself into a reaction of relief. But a moment’s thought made him realise that good news would not be broken like this.
“Where?” he asked cautiously.
“In one of the caves at New Brighton.”
Bolus paused. Not for dramatic effect, Harry sensed, but from weariness. The weariness of a man, still young, who has seen too much violence, too much misery.
“We don’t have the post mortem results yet. But there’s no real doubt. She was raped first, then strangled.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you saying I killed my own daughter?”
Jack Stirrup sounded like a man in the midst of a combat course. Identifying Claire’s corpse had been a physical as well as emotional ordeal. Anger burned in his eyes as he jabbed his forefinger at Bolus, who stood on the other side of the table in the small room at the back of the police station.
For a moment no one spoke. In one corner a fan whirred, seeming unnaturally loud in its vain effort to dispel the heat of the day. Dark patches of sweat were visible on Stirrup’s once-white shirt, beginning to spread from underneath his arms down each side of his body.
With a slight movement of his shoulders to emphasise his disclaimer Bolus said, “We have to check everything.”
Harry said, “It’s okay, Jack. Tell the man what he wants to know.”
Stirrup scowled. For an instant Harry thought his client was about to make a futile lunge at his inquisitor. But then he bit his lip and started to describe again the sequence of events on Saturday morning and afternoon.
Harry knew further enquiries would be made about the times when the bus driver had dropped Claire off and when, later, Stirrup had searched West Kirby for sight or sound of her. Bolus needed to calculate whether it was possible for the father to have picked up the daughter in town - she would trust no one more, after all - taken her to New Brighton on a pretext, and there violated and murdered her. Detectives could afford neither to overlook anything nor to have any illusions about a human being’s capacity for evil.
All this Harry understood. Police routine did not make him fear for his client. Studying Stirrup, seeing the agony carved in the lines round his mouth and eyes, listening to him and heari
ng the harsh distress of every word he had uttered this afternoon, no one could believe him guilty of this crime.
“Thank you,” said Bolus. He thought for a moment and rubbed his chin. “I realise this is difficult for you, Mr. Stirrup, but I’d be grateful if you’d tell me more about your daughter. What sort of girl she was.”
“What do you mean?”
“It may help me to find the man who did this if I can understand her. What made her tick.”
“I don’t know what you’re on about. Fucking hell, there’s a killer out there!” Stirrup flailed an arm towards the narrow window at the rear of the room. “Why aren’t you out there too, hunting for him?”
“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Stirrup. That goes without saying. And many of my officers are engaged on the enquiry at this very moment. No time has been lost since the boys who found your daughter called us. All the same, we need to learn as much as possible about her. The way she behaved. Her friends, her interests. Anything at all.”
Stirrup glanced at Harry, who nodded.
“All right, have it your way.”
Leaning forward in the cheap orange plastic chair, Stirrup began to talk.
Harry watched Bolus listening. The policeman was young for his rank. Well-spoken, no doubt a graduate on a fast track for promotion. More than likely better educated than either Harry or his client. Today, enmeshed in a murder enquiry, he looked older, no longer like a boy doing a man’s work. Thin, with carefully combed hair and blue eyes glinting behind steel-rimmed spectacles, he had a habit of quirking his lips every now and then to indicate disbelief. How long before this joyless job soured him as it had soured Jonah Deegan years ago?
“Course I idolised her,” Stirrup was saying. “She was my only kid. And after her mother died we became closer than ever. Had to. As a way to survive. All right, maybe I spoiled her. But I was out seven days a week, building the business up so she would never go short. There were girls I had in. Live-in au pairs, that sort of thing. None of them much good. Things weren’t easy. I was glad when I met Ali. Thought it would give Claire a bit of home life. A bit of stability.”
“And did it?”
Belligerently, as if accused of child neglect, Stirrup said, “She had a step-mother at last, didn’t she? Another woman she could talk to. All right, the two of them weren’t cut of the same cloth. But Claire never lacked for anything, let me tell you. Any present she wanted she could have. Alison used to say I doted on her. Well, what if I did? She hadn’t had it easy. She deserved the best.”
Suspicious Minds (Harry Devlin) Page 9