Yesterday's Papers (11 page)

Chapter Twelve

In the aftermath of death
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After he had helped Gloria Hegg into the dining room, found a bottle of brandy in a wall unit and poured her a generous measure, he dialled 999 and summoned the police. His immediate duty done, he felt the numbing shock he had experienced at the discovery of Miller's corpse begin to give way to a dull ache of despair. Although he had not cared for Miller, the ending of a human life always left him with a feeling of emptiness. Whoever it was who died, how could anyone not mourn the extinction of a fellow human being? And more than that, in the presence of death, how could anyone fail to be reminded of their own mortality?

He decided to pour another brandy for himself. The sight of those sallow features, twisted in an agonised parody of the habitual crooked smile, had filled him with nausea. And yet, for all his anguish, his mind had not seized up. Miller's death was more than a mere source of misery. It presented him with a new puzzle to solve.

How had the old man died? There was a gash on his head and there were stains of blood on the corner of the stone hearth in the sitting room as well as the carpet. The position of the body seemed consistent with Miller's having fallen, possibly as a result of a dizzy spell, cracked his head open and died from the combined effects of shock and the injury. He had been in poor health and there were no signs of a break-in or of a struggle.

‘I can't believe it,' said Gloria Hegg indistinctly. Her head was in her hands and she was sobbing softly. ‘I simply can't take it in that we've found him dead.'

Harry knelt beside her chair and put an arm around her. ‘Have a good cry,' he said softly, ‘you'll feel better for it.'

He did not find it quite so difficult to believe that Miller was dead. Even before his arrival in Everton he had become apprehensive for the safety of the old man who was now lying next door, waiting for the officials of the state to take him on his final journey. His manner in Sefton Park had suggested that he had learned something new from his meeting with Ray Brill. Perhaps he had enjoyed the hoarding of information too much for his own good. Harry could not help wondering if Miller had at last come into possession of dangerous knowledge and if it was possible that the old man might have been given a helping hand into the next world.

Two and a half hours later, he was sitting in Gloria Hegg's own front room, drinking her tea and dispensing more sympathy.

‘It's a dreadful, dreadful thing,' Gloria said, for perhaps the twentieth time. She cradled her chin in her right palm and stared at the flying ducks on the opposite wall, as if hoping they might offer a solution to the mysteries of life and death.

‘Were you close to him?' he asked gently.

She looked up and gave him a sharp glance. ‘As close as anyone, I suppose, though that's not saying much. Like I said, he kept himself to himself, did Ernie. He was a very private man.'

But there was no privacy in death. The police officers and medics had been brisk and efficient, neither callous nor pretending false concern. To them, the discovery of an old man's body was all part of a day's work. Even a constable who did not look old enough to shave was experienced enough already to have learned detachment; without it, his job would have been unbearable. Gloria and Harry had given brief statements explaining how they had come to find the corpse. The constable's questioning had not been rigorous; from the outset, he gave no hint of suspecting foul play. Gloria mentioned early on that Miller was often severely affected by asthma attacks and all the preliminary indications were that he had fallen and cut his head while overcome by such an attack. The time of death was unclear and the precise cause of death would need to be ascertained at the post mortem, but at present everything seemed straightforward.

Harry had said nothing about the Carole Jeffries case; he had shown the constable the will and the young man had been naive enough not to express surprise that a solicitor should call on a Sunday to discuss a routine matter. He had treated Gloria with barely concealed condescension and she had responded to each patronising question with monosyllables. Yet Harry sensed that something was on her mind. Once or twice she had started to speak, but each time the constable interrupted with another question and the moment passed.

With little fuss and even less ceremony, the body had been taken off to the mortuary. Naturally, the police wanted to know about Ernest Miller's family, but Gloria was adamant that he had none. His wife had died a decade ago, so she understood, and he had spoken of being alone in the world. When popping in over the Christmas period, she had never noticed any cards that might have come from relatives. When Harry confirmed that was also his understanding, the young constable frowned and remarked that the house needed to be made safe. Gloria had been quick to take her cue and offer to look after the key, which she knew Miller kept in a pewter mug above the fireplace.

‘How long had you known him?' Harry asked when they were alone again.

‘Nigh on eight years. I bought this place after my husband left me. We'd lived in Walton, but I wanted to get away and start again.'

‘And his wife?'

‘She died a year or two before I came here. He never spoke about her much, but I think he must have missed her.' She pushed a hand through the bizarre auburn curls. ‘Certainly he never seemed interested in any other woman.'

‘Did you see much of him?'

‘I like to be a good neighbour,' she said, a trace of colour rising in her cheeks, ‘and after he retired, obviously I saw more of him about the place. These houses only have small yards at the back, but he used to potter around. I'd often invite him in for a cup of tea, but mostly he said no.'

‘He didn't know what he was missing,' said Harry, pouring for each of them from a fat chocolate-coloured pot.

‘Thank you, Harry - may I call you that? - you're a gentleman. I make a good cup of tea, though I say it myself. But I can tell you, poor Ernie wasn't much interested in a drink and a natter. I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but he did have a sarky way with him at times. He could be sharp and that used to upset me. I never meant to be a nosey parker, I was only trying to be friendly.'

Harry could hear the hurt in her voice and he wondered if Gloria had ever set her cap at Miller and been rebuffed. He found it easy to imagine both her curiosity about her odd neighbour and, equally, Miller's irritable reaction. It seemed unlikely that she could cast any light on the Sefton Park case, but there was no harm in asking.

‘Tell me, Gloria, as a matter of interest, did you know Ernie was an amateur criminologist?'

She shook her head, puzzled.

‘So he never mentioned to you his researches into a murder case from years back, the killing of a young girl named Carole Jeffries?'

‘No, though I'm not surprised he would get mixed up in that sort of thing. He was morbid, was Ernie. Do you know, he used to read nothing but books about famous murders! As if there isn't enough misery in the world without people adding to it in books! It doesn't do for me, I'm afraid. I'm in the local library and I reckon to read three Mills and Boons every week.'

‘Did he have many friends?'

‘None, as far as I could tell. He wasn't popular in this street, you've probably gathered that.'

Harry had. After the arrival of police and ambulance, a knot of local people had gathered in the street. Women in curlers had whispered behind their hands and scruffy young children had pointed and jigged about with excitement. Everyone had been fascinated by the activity, but even though word soon got around that Miller had died, no-one gave any appearance of sorrow. For the people of Mole Street, it seemed that their neighbour's demise was a source of entertainment to match anything on the telly rather than a cause of dismay.

Yet that was not true of Gloria Hegg. Whether or not she had ever fancied Ernest Miller, at least she mourned his passing. Her eyes were still brimming with tears and the puffiness of her skin made her look even older than her years.

‘Did he have any regular visitors?'

‘No, I hardly ever heard his doorbell ring. People collecting for charities only called once on Ernie, I'm afraid. He always sent them off with a flea in their ear.'

‘Yet he instructed me that he meant to leave his money to charity.'

She dabbed at her cheeks with a small handkerchief. ‘Just goes to show, doesn't it? He wasn't the mean old sod that people said.'

‘And no-one called yesterday, for instance, or earlier today?'

She hesitated before replying. Again he had the feeling that she was about to unburden herself.

‘Yes, Gloria?'

‘It's probably nothing,' she said slowly.

‘Tell me anyway.'

She gave him a grateful glance. ‘At least you don't speak to me as though I'm a stupid old woman, like that young whippersnapper from the police. Whatever you may think inside.'

‘Of course I don't think you're stupid. Come on, Gloria, you've had a grim experience and I can see that something's preying on your mind. Why don't you share it?'

‘All right. As a matter of fact, someone did bang on Ernie's door last night. I remember, because it was so unusual.'

‘A sales rep or someone rattling a collector's tin?' Harry was sure that Gloria would have had her face pressed to the window at the sound of activity next door. An inquisitive man himself, he recognised Gloria as a woman capable of turning nosiness into an art form.

‘I've no idea,' she said with evident regret. ‘I heard the knocking, but as it happens, I was on the phone to my sister in St Helens and I could hardly ring off. But no-one called on me, so when I thought it over afterwards, I felt sure it hadn't been anyone selling or collecting.' She gave him a fierce look and added defensively, ‘I like to know what's going on in my street. When you're a woman living alone, you never feel safe.'

‘Do you know if Ernie invited his visitor inside?'

‘I suppose so. I didn't hear anyone leave later, but there's no reason why I should have done. I was talking to Myrtle for over an hour. She lives alone and she likes a good natter once in a while.' She hesitated and said, ‘It doesn't matter, does it, that I didn't mention it to the policeman?'

‘Don't worry about it, Gloria, don't fret yourself any more.'

Yet as he finished his tea, he mulled over the implications of what she had told him. Suppose Miller's visitor had been someone connected with the Sefton Park case. Ray Brill, for instance. What if the old man had some reason for suggesting that Brill's alibi for the killing of Carole Jeffries would not stand up to scrutiny? Might his visitor have struck him down and then, realising the old man was dead, have panicked and fled, leaving the door to the house open? Guesswork, guesswork, guesswork. He needed to know what Miller had learned and the answer, he felt sure, lay in the old man's file on the case.

‘I think,' he said carefully, ‘I ought to have a quick look round the house before I go.'

‘Yes, yes of course. As his solicitor, you need to make sure everything is secure.'

He gave her a smile on his way out, thanking his lucky stars that she did not know that his own office had been burgled less than forty-eight hours earlier. Letting himself back into Miller's house, he thought the place had the atmosphere of a graveyard. The dust irritated his sinuses and the musty smell was as strong as before. He knew he was trespassing in the secretive old man's castle and he felt uneasy, as if from somewhere Miller was watching his every move.

He padded up the stairs and took a look around. As well as a bathroom there were two bedrooms of reasonable size together with a third scarcely big enough to accommodate a pygmy. He glanced into each room. Miller slept at the front of the house in the double bed he had presumably once shared with his late wife. The second room he evidently used as his study and the third was filled with junk accumulated over the years: an old mattress, bundles of old suits and a radiogram from the days of 78 rpm records and the BBC Light, Third and Home programmes. No prizes for guessing that he had never listened to the Brill Brothers here.

Harry concentrated his attention on the study. It was the only neat room he had seen in the entire house. This, he felt sure, was the place Ernest Miller loved to be. On a large mahogany desk stood an anglepoise lamp and a plastic tidy full of paper clips and drawing pins. A bookcase was full of cheap true crime paperbacks: turgidly written accounts of murder from Whitechapel to Wisconsin, books stuffed with theories about the Ripper's identity and gory details of how each of his victims had died. There were grisly studies of sadism and murder, chock-full of pictures of sociopaths who mostly looked like the man on the Clapham omnibus and psychobabble which pandered to readers who like to cloak their voyeurism with a pseudo-academic fig leaf.

A two-drawer filing cabinet stood next to the desk. Its key was in the lock. Harry opened it and rummaged through the suspensions, each of which held a red file of the kind Miller favoured. Every file and suspension was neatly marked: bank statements, building society correspondence, savings certificates, long-term investment, bills and all the rest. Nothing of interest there, he thought. The real question was: where was the one marked CAROLE JEFFRIES?

He checked through the cabinet a second time and looked to see if anything might have slipped to the bottom, but again he drew a blank. There was, however, at the back of the lower drawer, one suspension that bore no name tag and contained no file. He scratched his head. It was impossible to believe that a well-organised man like Ernest Miller would have used one more suspension than was absolutely necessary.

And all too easy to believe that last night's intruder had searched here for the file on the Sefton Park Strangling and stolen it to conceal facts which revealed that he, rather than Edwin Smith, had murdered Carole Jeffries.