As if in shared recollection of that quarrel, the child next door began to cry. The girl swore. “You’ll have to go,” she said. “Me hands are full here.”
“All right,” he said. “But tell me this — where does Rourke work?”
“You kidding? Joe’s never had a job.”
“So where did he get his cash?”
She looked at him as if he wanted to know if babies were made in heaven. “Never asked, did I? You don’t ask too many questions if you want to sleep at nights, do you?”
“Listen, did Joe know a man by the name of Mick Coghlan?”
The wailing of her son increased in intensity. “Okay!” she yelled. “I’m coming!” Turning her attention back to Harry, she said, “No idea. He didn’t tell me what he used to get up to. All the same, Joe was real bad news but I did care for him. Still do, in a funny sort of way. I know he was a shit, but it wasn’t always like that.” She grinned artfully. “Even this last time, he let me keep the money.”
“Did he tell you anything about my wife?”
Jane shrugged. The baby was still howling, distracting her all the while. Harry hoped it was well wrapped up. She said, “He wouldn’t admit to nothing. Typical man.”
“How can you be sure the photo was of my wife? Did you hang onto it?”
“No, the bastard kept it, didn’t he? Snatched it back off me. Fond of his fancy piece, y’see. But it was her, all right. Gill came over on Friday, she brought the paper with her. That’s where I read about your wife being murdered and that. I told Gill. I said, “She got what was coming, the… ” The sentence trailed off as she saw a spasm of pain convulse Harry’s face. “Sorry,” she said brusquely, “I know you was married to her.”
When he didn’t say anything, she asked, “Have they got the bloke what did it?”
“Not yet.”
“Some nutcase, that’s what it’ll be.”
“Perhaps. All the same, I’d like to have a word with Rourke. Where can I find him?”
“Forget it. You don’t know the sort of man he is. He’s an animal, sometimes. I could handle him, just about.” She surveyed Harry sceptically. “He’d eat you alive.”
Her unseen child began to cough. She edged towards the door and he noticed that her shoulders were prematurely sloped, as if two heavy hands were pressing down on her.
“Jane, my wife was murdered. Stabbed to death. There’s a lot that I don’t understand about the way she lived after she and I split up. And I need to understand it. Joe Rourke can fill in some of the gaps, I’m sure of it. I have to see him. Do you have an address?”
She shook her head. “He could be anywhere.”
“Where should I start looking? What about his family, his friends?”
“His parents are dead. Joe didn’t have many mates, with his temper. Them he had are mostly in the nick.”
“There must be some address you can give me, a place where I can go and look.”
Next door the baby was spluttering. “I’ve got to go,” she said, but something in Harry’s face made her pause. “You could try the place we used to go every Friday and Saturday. Before Wayne came along, that is. Joe always liked it. Yeah, try the Ferry Club.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Froggy!”
The man with the bulging eyes had been opening the side door to the Ferry Club when Harry hissed his name. Instinctively, he pivoted, right arm raised to ward off an assault. Scowling into the unlit gloom of the alleyway, he called out, “Who’s that?” He sounded nervous.
Harry moved out of the shadows. After a fifty-minute wait in the freezing night with only two dustbins full of decaying debris for company, his mind was as numb as his hands and feet. Since speaking to Jane Brogan, he had been fired only by the belief that answers to some of his questions might be found here. If Rourke was a regular, the people from the Ferry might know how to trace him.
“We crossed paths last Thursday evening. You spilled beer over me.”
Froggy stared at him with, Harry thought, relief rather than fear. Had he been expecting to be waylaid by someone else?
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“I don’t know you,” said Froggy belligerently.
“We’ve never been introduced, that’s true. My name is Devlin.”
Froggy screwed his face into a frown. He hesitated for a moment before making a defiant gesture with his left hand and saying, “So what?”
“Can we go inside?”
“I’ve got work to do.”
The man was enveloped in a navy blue anorak a couple of sizes too big for him. Harry seized the anorak’s loosely flapping belt and hauled Froggy’s face up to his. At close quarters he was again conscious of the unpleasant smell he had noticed during their last encounter.
“I won’t keep you long. Now let’s have a chat in the warm.”
If Froggy had contemplated further protest, a second glance at the set of Harry’s jaw caused him to think better of it. “Five minutes, that’s all I can manage,” he said, striving for dignity. “The boss — ”
Harry shoved him in the direction of the door. “Lead the way.”
Once inside, Froggy pressed an internal light switch and pulled open a door marked staff only. Harry followed him into a tiny room containing two ancient wooden stools, cleaning materials and the wherewithal for making tea and coffee. A few dried-up biscuits were scattered over a dusty formica worktop. In the harsh light given out by a shadeless bulb, Harry noticed an earwig sliding away into a crack by the skirting board. Froggy tossed the anorak over the biscuits and waved him towards one of the stools.
“Take the weight off your feet.”
“I’m not stopping.” Harry took a photograph out of his jacket pocket. “Recognise her?”
He had taken the snap of Liz on holiday in Malta four years ago. She was sitting on a stone wall overlooking the Grand Harbour at Valletta. Her skin had a Mediterranean tan and she was wearing a skimpy tee-shirt, very short shorts and sandals. He hadn’t been able to find a picture that gave a better likeness when rummaging through his flat after returning from Aneurin Bevan Heights.
Froggy’s nostrils twitched as he calculated pros and cons. “Nice-looking chick,” he temporised.
“You know who she is?”
A throaty, man-of-the-world chuckle. “Don’t reckon I’d forget her in a hurry. Customer here, is she?”
“Was, Froggy. She’s dead.”
As the man went through a pantomime of non-comprehension, Harry said steadily, “She was stabbed last Thursday, the night you jostled me at the bar here. You’ll have read about it in the papers. Her name was Liz Devlin.”
“So you’re the solicitor,” said Froggy slowly. He tried to convey the image of a man upon whom realisation is beginning to dawn, but Harry didn’t doubt that he had recognised the photograph straight away.
“You’ve got it. Now, do you know her?”
A gleam of cunning appeared in the protuberant eyes, belying the innocent uncertainty of his words. “I don’t get it. She was mugged, wasn’t she? Why are you asking all these questions?”
Harry laid a hand on Froggy’s shoulder. “She used to meet someone here, isn’t that right?”
Froggy made as if to resist but, catching sight of Harry’s expression, again changed his mind. “Okay, I may have seen the lady here once or twice,” he admitted, “but I never spotted her with anyone special. ‘Course, I’m rushed off my feet most nights.”
“Do me a favour,” Harry said. “You know Mick Coghlan?”
Froggy gave this as much consideration as a judge called upon to deliver a verdict, but all he said was,
