‘You have made good time, Mr Devlin. Thank you for coming.’ The muscles around his mouth twitched in a smile as he waved a hand towards a neatly tended shrubbery. ‘So this is where it happened, all those years ago. Carole’s body was found over there, look. She was attacked on the path you see to your right and her killer then pulled her as far as a clump of bushes which used to grow where I am pointing.’
Harry contemplated the scene. It seemed so quiet and empty that a man with less imagination would have found it impossible to picture the crime. But the words from Edwin Smith’s confession statement echoed in Harry’s head. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I really fancy you. Could this conversation with Carole on that fateful day have been fiction? Or was Miller mistaken and everyone else right all along?
He sat beside the old man and placed his folder of papers on his lap. ‘Here is the file. I can’t let you take it away. But feel free to look through it.’
‘I do appreciate your assistance,’ said Miller, yet although he stretched out a hand for the folder, he did not fall upon it with the greedy relish that Harry had anticipated. Instead he leafed through the documents as casually as a guest glancing at a dull host’s holiday snaps.
‘Look at Edwin’s confession. You’ll see why the police thought it had the ring of truth.’
Miller turned to the statement and raised his eyebrows after reading it. ‘I take your point, but where is the retraction?’
Harry turned to the pages which recorded Cyril’s meeting with his client. ‘His solicitor didn’t pay it much heed.’
After studying the notes, Miller gave a brief nod. ‘Thank you.’
‘Intriguing, isn’t it?’
‘The notes and correspondence are immaculately typed, don’t you agree?’ said Miller, evading the question with an enigmatic smile. ‘And remember, this was in the days when people took a pride in secretarial work, long before word processors robbed us of yet another skill.’
‘I thought you would be more concerned with Edwin Smith’s attempt to claim innocence.’
‘Yes, yes, it bears out what I have been arguing, does it not? And I think his denial is entirely plausible, even though your predecessor poured cold water on it.’
‘Cyril Tweats was hardly infallible.’
‘And yet a man’s life rested on his advice.’ Miller shook his head. ‘The power that lawyers exert… it is remarkable.’
‘I never noticed it myself.’
‘Come now. When careers end, reputations are ruined, marriages crumble or death comes, you and your professional colleagues are consulted. People dare not move a muscle without your say-so. Oh yes, if I had my time again, I would be a lawyer. As it is, I would be grateful if you could assist me with my little bit of legal business. If you remember, I have decided that I really ought at last to make a will.’
‘You need to speak to my partner, Jim Crusoe. I know as much about the law of inheritance as I do about the second law of thermodynamics.’
‘I doubt whether an appointment will be necessary. My wishes are straightforward and I have written them down.’ He opened the document case but as he did so, a couple of red files slipped out together and fell to the ground, with several sheets fluttering out of them. Miller bent down to pick them up, wheezing and cursing himself for his own clumsiness as he stuffed them back into place.
‘I am not a fit man, Mr Devlin, as you can tell. It is right that I should put my affairs in order.’
He replaced one file in the case. It was marked CAROLE JEFFRIES and Harry recognised it as the one he had seen in the Wallace. From the other, marked PERSONAL, Miller drew out a sheet of lined paper bearing a list of figures and instructions scripted in immaculate calligraphy which he handed to Harry. ‘I trust you and your partner will not object to acting as my executors?’
Probates were where the money lay. Harry nodded his agreement, his interest rising as he took in the details of assets and savings, personal effects and shareholdings.
‘You were too modest on the telephone. I see that your estate is quite sizeable.’
Miller shrugged. ‘I had a reasonably well-paid job for many years and neither my late wife nor I were extravagant with money, quite the reverse. Even so, I recognise the truth of the old saying. I can’t take it with me.’
He had set out, in clear if pedantic prose, the intended destination of his wordly goods and Harry opened his eyes wide as he read the instructions.
‘You propose to leave everything to the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation?’
‘They are a worthy charity, are they not? And short of funds, too, I should guess, like so many other deserving causes.’
‘Of course,’ said Harry. If anything could make Kim Lawrence whoop with delight, he suspected it would be the news of Miller’s gift. He had not imagined the old man as an altruistic benefactor. ‘But…’
‘You are plainly startled by my largesse. Let me try to explain. I said to you when we first met that I find the question of justice fascinating. People sometimes say that justice delayed is justice denied, do they not? I suspect the reality is that justice is invariably delayed and often denied altogether. Well, if the relatively modest sum I have to give will be of value, that is enough for me.’
‘Don’t you have any family at all?’ Harry did not feel he was being disloyal to Kim Lawrence in putting the question. The last thing she would want would be for some long-lost relative to turn up out of the blue and contest the will. Now was the time to discover if there were any likely claimants.
‘I am a widower, as you will have gathered. My wife died ten years ago and we had no children, nor any other family ties. I left Germany as a young man after the death of my parents and I had no brothers, sisters or cousins. If you and Mr Crusoe do agree to act as my executors, I think you will find the task straightforward.’ Miller gave him a stern look. ‘No excuse for over-charging.’
Harry grinned. ‘I’d say “trust me”, but I don’t expect you’re the kind of chap who trusts anyone and I can’t blame you for that.’
‘Mr Devlin, you strike me as tolerably honest, if that is not damning you with too much faint praise.’ Miller passed him the file. ‘Here you will find a few odds and ends that your partner might need in preparing the document. No doubt you will return them to me when the will is ready for signature.’
‘It won’t take long. I’ll ask him to let you have it as soon as possible.’ He glanced inside the folder and picked out a small booklet and a clip of yellowing papers. ‘I see you have a pension and some insurance. What did you do when you were working?’
‘I was personnel manager with a small firm of printers in the city. I spent years doing battle with the trade unions, but in the end it was computerisation which hit us hardest. I made half the workforce redundant and then found myself out of a job as well.’
Harry nodded. So much for Jim’s belief that technology was the answer to everything, he thought. Along with its benefits, it brought cuts in employment: not all the changes it made to people’s lives were for the better.
‘I’ve seen it happen before.’
‘Perhaps it was for the best,’ said Miller. ‘I had always suffered badly from asthma and I found the pressures of business life were becoming intolerable. Besides, I realised in the end that I was not ideally suited to the work I was doing and in particular my role as welfare officer.’ He smiled his discomfiting smile. ‘People have always intrigued me, you see. Yet eventually I discovered I like very few of them.’
‘Misanthropy isn’t the ideal qualification if you’re planning to reincarnate as a solicitor.’
‘But you do not have primarily a welfare role. You delve for facts, organise them, then present your case. It does not matter if you loathe your client. You certainly need not love him.’
‘Maybe it’s as well,’ said Harry, thinking of the thieves, rapists and murderers for whom he had acted over the years.
‘As for Mr Tweats, my impression is that his main concern was to wash his hands of young Smith. He never seems for a second to have doubted his guilt.’
‘But you must agree that the evidence was damning. How could Smith have known about the scarf, for instance, unless he actually committed the murder?’
‘Could it be that he saw Carole Jeffries wearing the scarf that day and, knowing she had been strangled, made a fortunate guess at the murderer’s means?’
‘But why?’
