listened instead of thinking it was all an act.”
The policeman said nothing. He led the way into the raw air outside and directed Harry to his unmarked Montego. Macbeth was a good driver, swift and certain, and within ten minutes they were back at Empire Dock. Two squad cars were parked by the entrance and Harry had to walk past the morning porter and relief security guard, who had stared with naked curiosity when he got out of the car, but averted their eyes in embarrassment as he approached, finding themselves unable even to offer a good morning. He could imagine their fascination at the police activity and their ghoulish speculation about whether he was implicated in the death of his wife.
Inside, the police were taking the flat apart. Not a book remained in place, nor probably a speck of dust. The cheese plant had collapsed on to its side and no one had troubled to restore it to the vertical. Strangers tramped backwards and forwards through his home as if on the concourse at Lime Street Station. What were they searching for? Something to pin him to the murder scene, Harry presumed. A photographer was carefully gathering together his gear and an acned constable who seemed anxious to please was flourishing two large polythene bags for Skinner’s inspection. The packages were sealed and bore blue-inked labels stating their contents and the date. Inside were the jacket and trousers Harry had worn the previous night.
In his West Riding monotone, the chief inspector said, “We’ll need to remove one or two personal items for forensic tests, Mr. Devlin. You’ll appreciate, in a case of this kind we have to take a number of routine steps of this sort. I’m afraid I also have to press you for some further information about her background, sir.”
At Skinner’s prompting, Harry sketched a picture of the past. Family details. Liz’s parents had died years ago. Her father was a Pole, who had settled here after the Second World War and found himself an English girl who worked in a bakery in Bootle. There were two children. The older sister, Maggie, nowadays lived in the best part of Blundellsands. Her husband was a partner in the local branch of a country-wide firm of accountants, a dust-dry character with a flair for figures and as much sense of humour as a computer system. Liz had loved to poke fun at him.
Job details. Liz had left school at sixteen, hoping to make it as a model, but her looks weren’t fashionable that year. After a few photo sessions with sweet talkers who may not have had film in their cameras, she’d hauled herself off the slippery slope and settled for shop work and finding a man. She’d graduated from one-night-stands with fumbling teenagers and married men whose wives didn’t understand them to an on-off affair with a boutique owner who made her his assistant manageress. But after a couple of years of dithering, he’d decided he preferred the company of his own sex. Yet Liz hadn’t let the experience sour her. She’d taken a job with Matt Barley, and when Harry met her as fireworks lit the sky at Albert Dock, had betrayed no hint of past disappointments, confident as ever that good times were around the corner.
Marriage details. At first, life together had been full of promise. Liz had always wanted to squeeze the maximum pleasure from life, and for a time he could deny her nothing. Not swish clothes, not holidays in the sun, not all night parties, not clubbing it till the early hours. But the time came when a summons to the Bridewell interrupted a romantic dinner that she had slaved over for hours, and when the free flow of money had to slow down. Slowly, slowly, the cracks began to show. He was content simply to be with her, but she had grown frustrated, impatient for something more than he could give. Harry realised she could never change, and for all the rows that had torn them apart, secretly he had never wanted her to.
“Finished in the bedroom, sir.” A uniformed flunkey attracted Skinner’s attention. They conversed in low voices over by the entrance hall, whilst behind them a walkie-talkie crackled.
Harry absorbed the scene. The unhurried comings and goings were grimly compelling to watch as the team of men approached the end of their task. The frustration he had felt when seeing them pore over his clothes and furniture was submerged by curiosity as they made vague efforts to restore a semblance of order in their wake, stuffing books back onto shelves and righting the wretched cheese plant at last. Only doing their job, he told himself, it’s a necessary evil. And yet he already understood that this place — no, more than that, his whole life — would never be the same again.
Skinner returned to his side. “Nearly ready, sir.”
“Found anything of interest?”
When the chief inspector failed to reply, Harry pressed him about the murder. Skinner let a few more droplets of information trickle out. There had been, he said, half a dozen separate wounds in the body. Harry felt his gorge rise in his throat as he tried to visualise what had happened in that darkened alley, but he kept his voice calm as he asked if that meant that the murderer was certainly a man. Impossible to be definite yet, said Skinner, but undoubtedly someone possessing very considerable physical strength. How much had the Press been told? A statement had already been made, the detective told him, but it would be sensible to prepare for their questioning.
“I can handle them,” said Harry, as much to himself as to Skinner. He clenched his fist, as if glad of an outlet for his anger at having lost Liz. “No way am I having a bunch of journalists camping on my doorstep day and night, trying to grab a story.” He glanced at the clock. “I must ring the office, let them know why I haven’t arrived.”
He got through to Jim Crusoe at the first attempt and in two or three clipped sentences explained that Liz was dead. At the other end of the line, his partner’s shock was almost tangible.
“It’s — my God, I heard on Radio City that a woman’s body had been found, but I never… ” Jim’s voice trailed off into nothingness.
“Tell Lucy I’ll be in later.”
After a pause, Jim said in amazement, “You’re not coming in to work?”
“What else should I do? The police are all but through with me. I just have to talk to Maggie about all the arrangements, but the inquest’s bound to be adjourned. There’s nothing else for me to do but sit and mope. The way I feel at present, I’ll be better off in the office than sitting here with my head in my hands.”
“Look, I–I want you to know… Christ, this is terrible.”
Harry could picture his partner going back over the past and all his gibes about Liz, her greed and unfaithfulness. Too late now to apologise, he thought savagely, but all he said was a brusque “See you later” before ringing off.
Skinner was back. “I think we can leave you in peace for the time being, sir.”
Harry gazed at the room. It still bore the indelible marks of unwanted intrusion.
“Where do you go from here?”
“We have plenty of inquiries to make in a case like this, sir.”
“Your sergeant told me Coghlan’s still out of town.” He hesitated for a moment, then added impulsively, “Make sure the bastard doesn’t slip through your fingers. I don’t want him to get away with this.”
“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions if I were you, sir. As a solicitor, you don’t want to find yourself on the receiving end of a libel writ.”
“For saying that he killed her? That’s slander, not libel, Chief Inspector, and anyway there’s a defence of truth.”
“I’m keeping an open mind, Mr. Devlin, and I’d advise you to do the same. You’ll be available if I need to speak to you again, sir?”
“I’m not thinking of doing a moonlight, if that’s what you have in mind. But I’ve told you everything I know and that isn’t much. Liz and I had become strangers. So until you have some news for me, you don’t need to call round again. Having half the police force here all morning is bad for business when my job is to keep clients out of trouble. The neighbours must have had their eyes out on stalks since your lads turned up with their fancy cameras and their two-way radios.”
Getting that off his chest made him feel a little better. Concentrate on the trivia, he told himself, like what the woman next door might think and how to cram a day’s work into four or five hours. Bury your darker imaginings, that’s the way to stay sane when the world seems full of madness.
The detective scratched his chin and said, “I can’t guarantee that I won’t have to trouble you once more, sir, as the inquiry develops. We have to do our job, you understand.”
Surely they couldn’t now regard him as suspect? They had turned the flat upside down and found nothing; Harry was certain of that, for there was nothing to find. Even so, Skinner’s attitude bothered him as the invaders finally left, abandoning him to the flat’s solitude.
He slumped on the sofa whilst the events of this dreadful morning swirled around in his head, defying his attempts to impose the discipline of rational thought. Eventually he made himself a black coffee. Too bitter. Pushing the cup to one side, he forced himself up and into the stinging chill of the outside world.