All the Lonely People (12 page)

“Good.” Her strong fingers laced around his. “So how are you spending the rest of this cold Sunday? Out on the warpath or has the lunchtime entertainment sapped you so much that you need to recoup your strength?”

He pushed his cup to one side and said with a glimmer of a smile, “Late afternoon on a February Sunday in Liverpool? Not much more I can do till tomorrow morning, so I'm at a loose end. How about you?”

Dame laughed, a raucous sound coarsened by years of coping with crumpled dreams. “I'm all dressed up, with nowhere to go. This outfit cost the thick end of three hundred quid and that was in the January sales. But when I go back home tonight there'll just be one ring working on the gas hob, one bar of the electric fire glowing. I rent a flat in Aigburth the size of a broom cupboard. I'm not exactly desperate to rush back. Why don't we have dinner together? I won't insult you by offering to pay. How about it?”

“Dame, that's an offer no man could refuse.”

She laughed so loudly that an old lady at the adjoining table turned round and stared. “Oh, Harry, if only that were true. If only that were true.”

Chapter Thirteen

“My name is Fingall,” said Harry into the handset of his office telephone. “Reuben Fingall.”

The words rolled off his tongue as smoothly as if spoken by Ruby himself. The accuracy of the impersonation, the unexpectedly precise capture of that characteristic note of smugness, gave Harry a small surge of pleasure. In his schooldays he had amused himself and others with his amateur mimicry. Harold Wilson and Tony Hancock had been favourite targets, but he hadn't been sure that he had retained the knack sufficiently to deceive Paula from the gym at the other end of the line.

“I'm afraid Mick isn't expected in today, Mr. Fingall,” she said in a cloying tone evidently reserved for her employer's close friends and professional advisers.

Harry already knew that from Ken Cafferty. This morning Ken had told him that Coghlan had been released by the Metropolitan Police uncharged and was supposed to have returned to Liverpool, although he could be found neither at the Woolton house nor at the gym. Meanwhile, Fingall was in the Crown Court attending on another case and remaining unusually tight-lipped about the whole affair, having declined to reveal his client's whereabouts. Skinner was saying nothing either and Ken had given up the hunt, having decided to wait for his quarry to emerge in the fullness of time. Harry wasn't so patient.

With the audible click of the tongue that conveyed Reuben's disapproval of any response that didn't suit, Harry said firmly, “I must contact him today, Paula - it is Paula, isn't it? You will appreciate that my call concerns urgent legal business. Michael would be most anxious that I speak to him.”

“Hold on,” said the woman, “I'll check with Arthur.” Harry waited. After a single early night, he felt fitter and more relaxed, ready to continue his quest for Coghlan. He had taken Dame to a bistro in Penny Lane, where they had relaxed and talked for three hours about good times shared in the past. After driving her home, he had declined her invitation of coffee, even when she had solemnly assured him that seduction wasn't on her mind. He'd gone straight back to the flat, resisting also the temptation of a stop-off at the Dock Brief and an invitation from Brenda to come round for a drink. He suspected she had been awaiting his return and her downcast expression caused him a moment's remorse, but the prospect of drifting into a cosy routine of evenings shared with his next-door neighbour failed to entice him and he had politely but firmly pleaded a splitting headache.

“Mr. Fingall, so sorry to keep you,” said Paula sweetly. “It seems Mick may be out playing golf.”

In this weather? Harry stared out at the rain teeming down upon Fenwick Court. Nearly forgetting to maintain Ruby's exact elocution, he said abruptly, “And which club might he be playing at?”

“The West Liverpool.” A pause, during which mental cogs must have whirred. “Weren't you actually the person who proposed him for membership, Mr. Fingall?”

Ring off, Harry instructed himself, before you make a mess of it. “Thank you very much indeed for your help,” he said in a Rubyesque purr and put the receiver down. The West Liverpool, no less. One of the most prestigious courses in the country, he believed, although in truth he scarcely knew the difference between an eagle and an albatross. Ruby had certainly introduced Coghlan into high society.

Picking up his coat, Harry spotted
The Professional Conduct of Solicitors
in a dusty corner of his bookcase and wondered whether passing oneself off as a fellow lawyer was a specific disciplinary offence. Better look it up sometime.

Driving through the city, Harry listened to a cassette of early Beatles hits. The young Scouse voices sounded fresh and alive: hard to believe that of Matt's hero had been silenced by an assassin's bullet. Somehow the energy of the rock ‘n' roll music complemented Harry's morning mood. Eight hours' sleep was partly responsible, but so was the satisfaction of at last having the chance to confront the man who had changed his life. It was like embarking upon the first steps of recovery after a long, wasting illness.

The West Liverpool Golf Club occupied one hundred and fifty acres on the suburban fringe, five miles further up the coast than the most northerly dock. The links stretched out towards the sea from the end of a cul-de-sac lined with opulent Victorian villas. Nowadays the club was said to be the haunt of the nouveau riche, the marketing men and finance directors who ran what was left of the city's industry.

Undeterred by a large signboard bearing the canard that all trespassers would be prosecuted, he parked outside the clubhouse, a sturdy Victorian edifice topped by a clock tower and disfigured by a low post-war extension apparently constructed out of the remnants of a giant Lego set. Even on this foul February morning, a dozen other cars were lined up again the grey brick wall: they included a Merc, an Alfa, three BMWs and, discreetly at the far end, a white Escort with a man inside who seemed more interested in Harry's arrival than the newspaper ostentatiously propped up on his lap. Whilst manoeuvering, Harry had caught sight of a square face before it had disappeared behind the
Daily Mirror.
Harry thought he recognised the man as the pock-marked constable who had helped to carry out the search of his flat on Thursday.

The rain was easing as Harry marched in. When in doubt, display confidence. Observing a tweedy gentleman of retirement age in the lobby, he called out in an old-school-tie-voice, “I say, wouldn't happen to have seen Michael Coghlan, would you?”

The elderly man didn't seem impressed by the mention of Coghlan's name. A twitch of his lips implied that he deplored the need to admit the uncouth to this noble place merely because they cultivated the right people and could afford the course fees. “Saw him going towards the show room,” he
said grudgingly.

Harry decided to wait. An encounter with a naked Coghlan was more than he was ready for. Assuming a proprietorial air, he strolled into the cocktail bar and ordered a beer. Two walls of the long rectangular room were adorned with oak boards recording the names of past winners of a host of golfing competitions and a row of faintly ridiculous portraits of former captains, each of them wearing a red and yellow striped blazer with matching tasselled cap. On the far side, rain-blurred glass doors led on to a verandah from which one could view the eighteenth hole. A couple of hardy soul in waterproof gear were visible, putting out on the last green. Harry took his glass to a table near the door and was idly flicking through an ancient copy of
The Field
when Coghlan walked in.

Recognising Liz's lover was easy. Coghlan wasn't shy of seeking publicity for the gym and from time to time the local paper carried his photograph in connection with some sponsorship or other. He was built like a stevedore and dressed like a football star. An open-neck designer shirt revealed a hairy chest and a gold medallion. A Rolex glinted on his wrist. With his blond blow-waved hair and a pair of Italian sunglasses that probably cost more than Harry's entire wardrobe, he was as out of place here as a Sumo wrestler in the Long Room at Lord's. Bitchily, Harry decided that Coghlan's nose was too beaky for him to qualify as handsome, but no imagination was needed to see why he had appealed to Liz. Subtlety had never been her strong point. Yet Harry also saw the strain-lines etched around Coghlan's eyes and the tense hunching of shoulder blades beneath the fawn blouson. For all the glitzy exterior, the man was troubled.

A smaller, older man in an Aran sweater accompanied Coghlan. Bald and snub-nosed, his too was a familiar face. Harry searched in his mind for a name. Wasn't he a jeweller, another local businessman who liked to see his name in the news? Yes, Raymond Killory, that was it. He had a chain of bottom-of-the-market shops throughout Merseyside. He too had a worried look and although their conversation was indistinguishable, his muttered remarks to Coghlan sounded squeaky and querulous. They kept talking as they moved to a table by the window, not looking as one of the golfers three-putted, to his evident disgust.

For an instant, doubt submerged Harry's determination. What could he say? He had turned up here unrehearsed, with no more than a vague idea of how to challenge Coghlan or what to do if the man simply laughed in his face. It wasn't too late to slip away undiscovered. But he choked back the thought and strode over to where his wife's former lover was sitting.

“Coghlan.”

The blond head jerked in his direction. “Who are you?” The voice was gritty, the accent local.

“Harry Devlin. I want to talk to you.”

Coghlan surveyed him from head to toe. He might have been a cannibal, encountering a missionary. The uncertainty on his face slowly gave way to calculation. “I can spare you a couple of minutes,” he said. “Raymond, would you excuse me?”

The jeweller looked nervously from one man to the other. He coughed and said, I'll be at the bar when you're ready.” Neither Coghlan nor Harry spared him a glance as he sidled away; Harry sat down in his place.

“I heard you'd been to the Fitness Centre,” said Coghlan. “What do you want?”

“Don't you think a conversation between us is long overdue? We have something in common, after all.”

“Get to the point. You may be a brief, but you're not charging me by the hour.”

“Liz tired of us both, you as well as me. I know how it feels, Coghlan, the fury of losing what you thought you had forever.” Harry leaned forward. “There comes a moment, doesn't there, when you want to scream? Or, perhaps, to take revenge?”

Coghlan bared strong, white teeth. “You're not making sense. Don't piss me about.”

“Liz betrayed you, Coghlan.” The unpractised words began to pour out. “You treated her like the rest of your common tarts. She stood it for a while, but you couldn't quench her. She met some other man. Hid it from you, for fear of what you'd do, but not well enough. You bullied her, terrified her. She slashed her wrists in a fit of despair. But then she learned she was going to have a kid and that changed everything. So she gathered up the courage to walk out.” Harry took a deep breath. The man he hated was gazing steadily at him now, brow furrowed, but giving nothing away. “You caught up with her, isn't that right? I don't know who killed her. You or one of your sidekicks, possibly, whilst you set up an alibi. The police haven't been able to pin it on you yet, but they know that you're their man. And I know too.”

Coghlan stretched out an arm across the table and grabbed Harry's tie with a movement so smooth and economical that no one in the cocktail bar noticed it. “You're crazy, Devlin. You've called at my house as well as the Fitness Centre. Oh yes, I'm well aware of what goes on in my absence. And now you interrupt me at a private club to pour out a load of garbage that I'd sue for if it wasn't all so sick. You're becoming a nuisance and that's a risky thing to do.” He yanked the tie once, then let it go.

“You took Liz. There's nothing else you can do so far as I'm concerned.”

“Don't you believe it. I don't take this crap from anyone, let alone a cheap brief from a back street without two pennies to rub together.”

“My wife is dead. And you're responsible.”

With a snort of laughter, Coghlan said, “Wife in name only. Plenty of water under that bridge since she packed you in.” The contempt was unvarnished. “I'm not surprised you couldn't handle her. You're nothing much. You amused her, that's all, like a child's toy. When she wanted a man she had to try elsewhere.”

Harry's beer glass stood on the table. He gripped the handle, tempted for an instant to grind it in Coghlan's face, see the glass splinter and the jagged edges tear into the flesh, transforming the scorn to pain. But as he lifted up the pint pot, a hand was laid on his shoulder and a plummy tone enquired, “Michael, old chap. Long time no see. What's your handicap these days?”

Blinking hard, Harry turned round. A tall man, gin and tonic in hand, was standing over them, smiling in an amiable, fellow-member's way. Harry rose to his feet and said, “Guilt.” Then he walked out of the building without a second glance at either Coghlan or the interloper.

Outside, a thin drizzle had returned. The constable was still waiting patiently in the unmarked Escort. Harry got in at the passenger side of his car and sat down heavily. He could feel his heart pounding as violently as if he had completed a marathon. Against his expectations, the encounter with Coghlan had left him not so much angry as confused. Not because of anything that Coghlan had said, but as a result of realising, at the very moment of making out his case against the man as Liz's murderer, that he did not wholly believe it himself.

Chapter Fourteen

“Harold, a word in your ear.”

Only one person in the world ever called Harry Harold. It wasn't the name on his birth certificate, as Reuben Fingall was well aware, but for years the old rogue had kept pretending to forget. Like Lewis Carroll's little boy, Ruby only did it to annoy, because he knew it teased. Adding insult to injury he put an arm round Harry's shoulder and a smooth palm over the hairs on Harry's hand.

They were in the hall outside the solicitors' room in the Dale Street magistrates' court. The corridor was airless and crammed with criminals and their defenders. A solitary, hard-backed chair was occupied by a stubbly drunk who was trying to contort his face into an expression of respectability deserving of one last chance. Harry had just said goodbye to the reckless driver whose licence he had somehow managed to save and was about to return to the office; he had come here from the West Liverpool via a sandwich shop in Fenwick Court which specialised in sardines and salmonella.

Detaching himself from Fingall's clutch, Harry said, “What do we have to discuss?”

A smile looped around Ruby's small mouth. He was in his early fifties, plump in a pinstripe, suit complemented by twinkling silver cuff-links and, on his index finger, a signet ring which bore his initals in curlicued lettering.

“A matter of mutual interest, shall we call it? Come now. I won't detain you for long.” It was a remark with which he often prefaced lengthy closing speeches.

“Go ahead.”

“Really, Harold, I would prefer to speak with you in private. Perhaps I should add that this concerns my client Michael Coghlan.”

“Has he confessed yet?”

“Harold, please.” A hint of exasperation lay beneath the cajolery as he waved a hand in the direction of the exit. “May we?”

Harry shrugged. “Okay, where do you suggest?”

“My office is only a stone's throw away.”

True enough. Ruby and his minions occupied three whole floors above a pizza parlour across the road from the court. For Fingall and Company, crime paid. The firm had been built up from nothing in the space of twenty years, its success attributable in equal measure to Ruby's industry and his lack of professional scruples. Rumours about how in his early days he had paid a handful of crooked policemen to recommend newly arrested miscreants to use his services had hardened over the years into a thick crust of legend about legal aid fiddles and sharp practice inside and outside the courtroom. Ruby's Porsche lifestyle fuelled plenty of saloon bar tittle-tattle, but most people were careful not to let him learn of it. He had sued for libel three times and slander twice in the past two decades and defamation damages had helped keep him in the style to which he had become accustomed. Meanwhile, his clients mostly survived to mug or steal another day and amongst the criminal fraternity it was a status symbol to boast that Reuben Fingall was your brief.

Ruby directed Harry towards a door at the rear of the building, unlocking it and clambering up the steep stairs two at a time. “This way,” he said breathlessly, “we avoid the hoi-polloi in reception, whining for their compensation and fretting over their latest summons.”

His office was on the third floor. Panelled in mahogany, it was sixteen feet square. Hockney prints hung on the walls and heavy blue velvet curtains lined the windows. Taking a seat behind a huge desk on which stood a notice saying SILENCE! LE PATRON TRAVAILLE!, Ruby waved Harry into a leather-upholstered chair, picked up the telephone and said, “A pot of Earl Grey for Mr. Devlin and myself, Veronica.”

Harry said, “You wanted to speak to me about Coghlan.”

“Michael, ah, yes.” The beam faded. “It does seem, Harold, that you have been making a nuisance of yourself so far as my client is concerned. Calling at his home, his place of business, even interrupting him during a snatched hour of recreation at the West Liverpool this morning, I gather.”

“Don't worry, I'm not trying to poach one of your clients.”

“I can assure you there's no danger of that. You appear not to appreciate, however, that Michael is not some sort of street hoodlum. He's a respected member of the local business community and your behaviour - I might almost say, your harassment of him - is naturally a source of considerable distress.”

Harry pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “My heart bleeds.”

Ruby gazed sadly at one of the Hockneys. With the heavy patience of a schoolmarm urging a recalcitrant pupil to mend his ways, he said: “Michael is not a man to trifle with.”

“I'm not trifling.”

“You've antagonised him, Harold, and that isn't wise.”

A matronly woman brought in the tea on a tray. Fingall thanked her lavishly and said, “Shall I be mother?” Without waiting for a reply, he started to fill the delicate china cups and, when the secretary had closed the door again, he asked, “Can I take it, then, that you won't be troubling my client again?”

“Surely you know me better than to imagine I can be warned off. Not like you to be naive, Ruby.”

Few people used the nick-name to Fingall's face nowadays. His plump cheeks coloured and he said, “Don't trespass on my goodwill, young man, or my client's.” The careful elocution began to slip, the vowel sounds shortening with his temper. “You know about his background. Enough said on that score, I think. I've put in a word for you, explained that you've had a rough ride. But don't push him any further.”

“Thanks for your kind support, but I can take care of myself.”

Fingall banged his cup down upon the desk, splashing a few drops of tea onto the polished surface. “You ought to snap out of this, Harold. Your wife's dead and nothing you can do will bring her back again.”

“You think I've overlooked that? But I told Coghlan that I'd find the man who murdered Liz and nothing you can say is going to make me change my mind.”

Ruby contemplated Harry's fixed expression for a full minute. When he spoke again, he had regained his composure, although there was a hard edge to his reproving tone. “You're no detective, Harold, don't let one or two past successes in that respect deceive you. You mustn't let this tragedy take hold of you. The way I hear it, you're behaving like a man obsessed. Take care not to interfere in things that are no concern of yours.”

“Liz's death is my concern.”

“Michael Coghlan had nothing to do with it.”

“Where was he last Thursday night? Not down in Leeming Street, by any chance?”

Triumphant as a politician scoring a point in debate, Fingall said, “My client wasn't even within one hundred miles of Merseyside.”

“So the alibi is standing up to scrutiny at present?” Harry rubbed his chin. “How much did it cost him?”

The older man puffed like a steam train. “That will do. I make allowances for you, Harold, you've suffered a grievous loss. But your credit's running out fast, young man. I won't have you hurling these slanderous accusations at a client of mine.”

“Coghlan killed my wife. Everything points that way.”

“You're an experienced lawyer,” Ruby brayed. “Yet a novice would have more sense than to jump to ridiculous conclusions like that. Assumptions piled on top of prejudice. Why don't you act your age?”

Harry raised his eyebrows and after a moment Fingall said more gently, “There's no proof of Michael's guilt for the very good reason that he did not murder your wife. He hasn't been charged in connection with the crime precisely because he did not commit it.”

Standing up, Harry said, “See you in court.”

Fingall wagged a well-manicured finger. “Harold, I've given you fair warning. If you persist with this absurd vendetta because Michael Coghlan once hurt your pride - I won't answer for the consequences.”

“Thanks for the tea, Ruby.” And Harry walked out, leaving his host staring angrily after him.

He took the stairs to ground level two at a time. This latest attempt to dissuade him from pursuing his quest for Coghlan's skin had achieved nothing but the hardening of his resolve. Harry could accept that, for what it was worth, Ruby Fingall might not believe that his client had stabbed Liz. Harry had, when accusing Coghlan, sensed - whether from professional experience or superstitious instinct, he was not sure - that there was something about the case which he did not himself yet understand, some missing link without which guilt could never be proved. But it was plain that Fingall was acting under instructions, presumably phoned through from the West Liverpool, to pressurise Harry into abandoning his campaign. And Harry's reaction to pressure was always to resist it.

Arriving back at the office, he looked in on Jim Crusoe, who was poring over a bundle of title deeds, sheaves of heavy parchment scripted in copperplate and yellow with age. The craggy face glanced up and eased into a smile. “Rights of way, I hate them! Wish I did litigation, the easy life. Lucy tells me you were out in the Magistrates' this afternoon. Successful?”

Harry shrugged. “The boy got off through lack of evidence. Whether that counts as a success, I'm not sure.”

“Course it does.”

“You reckon?” Harry perched on the edge of a desk half the size of Ruby's. This room was no bigger than his own, though it was more orderly, with its neat piles of pre-contract enquiry and land registration forms and window sill array of law reports bound in blue buckram. Pensively, he said, “Ever think much about justice, Jim?”

“How do you mean?” Jim was too instinctive a lawyer to respond directly to a question as wide as that, even in casual conversation.

“Everyone knows my client was responsible for the crash with the motorcyclist. It was a miracle that no one was killed. Yet he walks out of the court without a care in the world. Is that just?”

“Keep talking like that and you'll only be fit for prosecutions.”

“You disagree?”

Crusoe pushed the folded deeds to one side, using as a paperweight a mug bearing the legend
Old Lawyers Never Die - They Just Lose Their Appeal.
“Life isn't so simple. You're not paid to act as judge and jury. It's the oldest rule in the solicitor's book. You weren't a witness to your client's supposed crime. He denies responsibility. You're hired to defend the lad and the Crown's case falls apart. That's justice, even if it does stick in your gullet. Nothing to trouble your conscience there.”

“Although the crime goes unpunished?”

“Face it, most crimes do.”

“And you're satisfied with that?”

“No, but I'm not here to change the world. Besides, what did Blackstone say: ‘Better that ten guilty men go free rather than one innocent suffer'? That's the system we have, pal, like it or not.”

Harry slammed his fist down on the desk top, scattering a wad of telephone notes. “I always agreed with that old idea, but now I'm not so sure. How can you allow a man who has killed in cold blood to go free?”

Jim Crusoe gathered the bits of paper together and said, “So we're discussing Liz? Thought as much. Let me give it to you straight - stay out of this thing, Harry, you're too close to it. You're sure Coghlan murdered her. I don't know . . . you may be right, or totally wrong. In either case, leave it to Skinner. I've asked around, Harry, he's good. He'll nail the bastard if he can.”

“You're singing the same tune as Ruby Fingall, do you realise? It's not so easy. I can't let go.”

Jim's eyes became disapproving slits. “Not thinking of private vengeance, are you? Because if you are, forget it. Down that road, madness lies.”

Getting to his feet, Harry said, “I'll see you later.”

“Don't bother. Go home, take a holiday. This place can run without you for a while.” Beneath the brusqueness of the words was an undertow of genuine concern.

At the door, Harry turned. “Maybe. But can I survive without it?”

Stepping into the corridor, he encountered Lucy, who was carrying a mound of letters she had typed for him. “Here you are,” she said. “I was hoping you'd be back. There's something I have to tell you. I went to buy a loaf of bread from the delicatessen at lunch-time . . .”

He grinned at her earnestness. “Congratulations.”

“No, you don't understand. I don't know how you'll react, but this is something I'm sure you'd want to know.”

Gently, he took her arm and guided her into his room. “Start again, love.”

“Like I was saying, I called at Beardshall's. Gillian served me. You must know her? The girl with the carroty hair and the big brown eyes. Reminds me of a red squirrel.”

The accuracy of the comparison made him laugh. “Okay, so that's Gillian.”

“She was talking about your wife. How terrible it was and everything. And she told me she knew one of her man friends.”

Harry tensed. “Mick Coghlan?”

“No. This chap was involved with her step-sister until recently, that's how she came across him.”

He cast his mind back to what Dame had told him. “Was his name Tony?”

She said no, the man was called Joe Rourke. Gillian hadn't said much about him, only that she was glad that Jane Brogan, her step-sister, had seen the last of him. He was a scally.

Harry was intrigued. Another boyfriend? No one had mentioned him before, not Maggie, not Matt. Not Dame. He wondered why. Perhaps Rourke had been a one-night stand, someone Liz had picked up before becoming involved with rich and handsome Tony? Jealousy flamed inside him for a moment, but almost at once it was doused by the urge to find out more, to put together a few more torn scraps from the picture of Liz's life during the past two years.

“Thanks for telling me.” He pressed her hand.

Simply, she said, “It matters to you, doesn't it, to understand what happened to her?”

At least Lucy realised what Jim, Maggie and the rest of them seemed unable to grasp. He signed the letters with an illegible scrawl whilst she waited and, when she had returned to her room, checked his watch. Five to four. The deli would still be open. Might as well see what Gillian had to say. He grabbed his coat and hurried out to Beardshall's.