commiserated with him. For a short while they exchanged words inadequate to express their shared sense of shock, before Harry said, “I must see you soon, there are things we ought to discuss.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. When would suit you?”
“I was hoping, right away. Can you manage that?”
“Where, Harry?”
“You know the Traders’ Club in Old Hall Street? We have a firm’s membership there. At least we’ll be able to talk without being disturbed. Meet me there in forty minutes and I’ll sign you in for lunch.”
Someone rapped at the door as he put the receiver down. Jim came in and sat on the edge of the desk. His rugged features were darkened by dismay.
“Nothing I say will be right,” he began, his manner diffident for once. “But I am sorry. I understand what she meant to you.”
“Thanks.”
“Have the police said anything much about what happened? Do they have any ideas?”
“They spent most of the morning turning my flat upside down because Liz stayed overnight with me. They give the impression I’m suspect number one.”
“Only routine. You know that better than me.”
“I suppose so. As to the rest, it’s early days yet. At least they don’t think it was intended as a rape. A mugging, maybe, but it’s far from clear. I have my own views on the subject, for what they’re worth.”
“Which are?”
Harry told him about Liz’s fear of Coghlan. Each time he recalled their conversation, Liz’s anxiety seemed no more justified than before. But for the fact that now she was dead. The bitterness of self-reproach darkened his voice as he said, “I was so sure she was fantasising. But now I look back, I realise that she was telling the truth about the way she felt. And I didn’t lift a finger to help! Christ, I was married to her. I should have been able to tell the difference between her ideas of fact and fiction.”
“I doubt it,” said Jim. “Liz didn’t know the difference herself.”
Harry felt stung. “Easy for you to say that.”
“True, though.”
“Coghlan’s a vicious bastard. If she walked out on him…”
“He’s a robber and a thug, by all accounts. Not necessarily a murderer.”
“Not until now.”
His partner jabbed his midriff with a gentle punch. “Look, old son, I know you hate Coghlan. Don’t blame you for that, you have good reason. But don’t let hatred get a hold of you. It’s a cancer, it’ll do you harm. And don’t start convincing yourself that anything you could have done might have saved Liz’s life. Odds are, she was just unlucky. This is a dangerous city, the same could happen to anyone. Sickening, I know, but you mustn’t let yourself become smothered by what might have been.”
Examining the worn areas of the office carpet, Harry said quietly, “Of course, you’re right.”
“Yes.” Jim climbed to his feet. “You ready for a late spot of something to eat?”
“I’m meeting Maggie at the Traders’. There are things we have to talk about.”
Jim nodded. “Understood. When’s the funeral?”
“Not for a while, I gather. Skinner will want the inquest over first.”
On his way out, Jim stopped at the door. “Look, anything I can do
…”
“Yes. Thanks.”
“Why don’t you come over, spend the night at our place? Longer if you like. Heather would be glad if you did; in fact, she’ll give me hell if you don’t. Help the boys with their homework — they reckon the two of us are as thick as planks.”
Harry shook his head. “I appreciate it, really do. But at present I think I’d feel better on my own, making an effort to sort some sense out of this mess.”
“Up to you, old son. The offer remains open. Anytime you’d like to take advantage, shout.”
Left alone, Harry shuffled rapidly through the papers on his desk. Jim and Lucy had already organised his work so that Ronald Sou and the articled clerk, Sylvia, were handling the more urgent matters. A couple of court cases had been briefed out for barristers to deal with and there wasn’t any pressing reason for him to come back to the office in the afternoon. Except that he wanted to. The run-of-the-mill workload at least offered the reassurance of familiar territory: arguments between neighbours and shoplifting from department stores, far removed from the finality of death in a bleak back alley.
The Traders’ Club was five minutes’ walk away, tucked in the shadow of the huge ochre-faced insurance building that Scousers called the Sand Castle. As he reached Old Hall Street, he caught sight of his sister-in-law, standing by the steps that led up to the double oak doors. Her slim figure was wrapped in a huge white fur coat, her elfin features scarcely visible beneath an engulfing scarf of hand-painted silk. She moved forward and clasped him to her in a gesture that was as sudden as it was welcome. He felt the warmth of her breath on his cheek and for the first time since Skinner and Macbeth had rung at his front door he was able to lose himself in the hug, clinging to her, reluctant to let go.
Maggie took his hand in hers and stepped back. “It’s been a long time.”
“Too long.” He returned the pressure of her hand. “You’re more attractive then ever.” It wasn’t an appropriate comment to make on this occasion, but he meant it and had never quite mastered the lawyer’s knack of not saying what came immediately into his head. Maggie had never matched Liz for glamour, nor had she attempted to, but her small, up-turned face had a natural charm that the dismay in her grey eyes could not diminish.
“Shall we go inside?”
The Traders’ might be only three-quarters of a mile distant from the Ferry Club, but it was a world apart. A uniformed porter whose name was Alfred and who had been there for upwards of twenty years, saluted and held a door open for them. He greeted Harry by name, as if his last visit had been the previous day rather than in the height of the summer. To walk through the hallway was to step back in time. Heavy, gilt-framed portraits of past presidents of the club lined the walls; stern, long-dead shipping magnates and cotton dealers, many of them, men who had prospered during Liverpool’s years of greatness. Extravagant crystal chandeliers hung above their heads and in an alcove a cabinet displayed ivory ware and exotic sailing ships in bottles, trophies of a bygone age. Harry signed his sister-in-law into the visitors’ book and they allowed a uniformed porter to take their coats.
“The Trafalgar Room, sir?” It was the politest reminder that the presence of ladies was not tolerated in the members’ private dining room.
“Please.” Harry allowed the man to shepherd them into the guest lounge. More oak panelling, more maritime artefacts, few people and none of them other than members of staff awake.
Harry whispered to his sister-in-law, “Do you know, even the cockroaches in the kitchen have to wear a jacket and tie?”
A trace of a smile eased the strain on Maggie’s face as they helped themselves from the salad bar. For a couple of minutes they picked at their food in silence before she put down her knife and fork and said in a voice that quavered slightly, “They asked me to identify the body. I had only been back in the house a few minutes when you called.”
Harry glanced at her sharply. “Me too.”
“God, why put both of us through it? Surely one identification is enough?”
Harry didn’t answer directly, but the explanation was obvious. Skinner was covering his back. It wouldn’t do to have to call for identification evidence at a murder trial from the man accused of the crime. He shivered. Merely for the thought to have crossed the policeman’s mind was disturbing.
“What did they tell you?”
“Not much.” She gave him a brief account of her visit from the police. No new facts, but they had questioned her closely about the men in Liz’s life. Coghlan. Harry. And the latest lover.
“Who is he, Maggie?”
Spreading out her arms, she said, “I honestly have no idea.”
“She must have told you something about him.”
“Less than you might imagine. Don’t forget, we’d gone our separate ways.”
True enough. Maggie had followed an orthodox path. Secretarial college as a prelude to five years working for
