He might have panicked, not realised what he was doing…’
‘You may have something.’
‘The worst of it is,’ said Jock, ‘you’ll never prove whether I’m right or wrong. Not after all these years. Let’s face it, there’s no forensic evidence and a man like Doxey is hardly likely to confess. It will be so easy to say that Renata must be mistaken — or that, even if Smith is now in the clear, some passing maniac must have murdered Carole. We’ll never know for sure.’
Again he was right, Harry thought: the theory of Doxey’s guilt was appealing, but it amounted to little more than elementary guesswork. But he could not let matters rest there — not yet awhile. ‘I reckon Miller believed he might be able to learn the truth,’ he said mulishly, ‘and don’t forget his unknown visitor. Assume for a moment it was Doxey — why would he have called for an odd old German if he felt he had nothing to hide or fear?’
‘That visit could be a coincidence. And in any case, it seems clear from what the police told you that Miller died of natural causes. He wasn’t silenced because he’d stumbled on the truth.’
‘But he might still have had the same idea as you,’ insisted Harry. ‘One thing’s for sure. I need to speak to Ray Brill, find out what he had to say when Miller came to call.’
‘So you’re carrying on with the investigation?’
‘Of course. To me, it’s more than just a game. I’ll give Ray’s number a try now to see if I can arrange a meeting.’
He turned to the photocopy of Miller’s list which he now kept in his drawer and dialled the Southport code while Jock, tense with excitement, watched on. But the phone kept ringing out and eventually he had to admit defeat and hang up.
‘I’ll try again tomorrow or even go up there on the off-chance if I don’t have any joy on the phone. Kathleen Jeffries doesn’t live far away from him.’
Jock sighed and said, ‘Killing two birds with one stone, eh?’
‘Something like that. But now I have an even more important call to make.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I need to tell an old lady that her son was never a murderer.’
The home in Woolton where, according to Miller’s notes, Vera Smith lived, was a double-fronted building set behind a tall sandstone wall. As he walked up to the front door, Harry took in the neatly tended grounds and recently painted signboards which proclaimed the place as a superior residential home for the elderly, approved by all the right organisations. So the family money had lasted long enough to keep the old woman in comfortable surroundings, even if it had not been enough to achieve an acquittal from the court in the face of her son’s persistent death wish.
Harry imagined that Edwin must always have been conscious of being a disappointment to his parents. All that money and still he’d had nothing to show for his life but a storeman’s job and a couple of minor convictions. The debacle of his attempted seduction of Renata must have snapped the last thin thread of his self-esteem. No wonder he had been sufficiently mixed up to confess to murder.
So what would Mrs Smith make of the news?
He pressed the bell at the entrance porch and a young dark-haired girl opened the door.
‘You have a resident here, a Mrs Smith.’
‘Do you mean Vera?’ she asked, studying him with care.
‘Yes, that’s right. A Mrs Vera Smith.’
‘Are you — are you a relative? I’m sorry, we weren’t aware of anyone apart from the people down in Shrewsbury.’ She shifted from one foot to the other and there was an embarrassed note in her voice.
‘No, I’m not a member of her family. But I would like to have a word with her if possible. It is important, I can promise you. My name is Devlin and I’m a solicitor.’
The girl flushed and said, ‘You’d better come in for a moment.’
He followed her into a large hall with walls adorned by summary landscapes. He had visited old people’s homes before and found several of them as dark and depressing as something from the pages of Sheridan Le Fanu, but this place was bright and airy. Yet the girl’s manner made him uneasy.
A woman in a matron’s uniform approached them. ‘What is it, Lynsey?’
‘A Mr Devlin to see Vera, Matron,’ said the girl in a low tone, ‘He’s a solicitor.’
The matron turned to Harry and to his astonishment clasped his hands. ‘I am sorry you have had to call here in such circumstances, Mr Devlin. I suppose you came over here as soon as you heard the news. Is it about the will?’
‘The will?’
The woman paused and took in Harry’s baffled expression. ‘Oh, I am sorry. I thought Lynsey must have told you. I have some bad news, I am afraid. Vera passed away at half past two this afternoon.’
Chapter Eighteen
No more ‘if onlys’. The old resolution echoing in his head sounded hollower than ever to Harry as he drove away from Woolton. If only he had thought of Vera Smith first and called at the home in Woolton in the morning, she would at least have known the truth about her son before her death. According to matron, the old woman had complained of chest pains shortly before lunchtime and collapsed and died a few minutes later. Her heart had simply given out. There was no point in self-reproach, he knew, but he could not help it. If only he had thought first of the innocent rather than of those who might be guilty. If only.
By way of penance, he returned to Fenwick Court and picked up a dictating machine and an armful of files that Lucy had told him were screaming for attention. Challenging stuff like a row about a second-hand car and a couple of disputes between neighbours. Once at home, he made himself a boil-in-the-bag meal and weakened to the extent of dialling Ray Brill’s home number. No answer came and he had no excuse for not devoting the rest of the night to catching up on the backlog.
He fell into bed at one o’clock and awoke the next morning with his determination to keep looking into the Sefton Park case renewed. More than likely, Jock was right and there was no prospect of his ever being able to identify the strangler. But the least he could do for Vera Smith now was to see if it was possible to discover the man for whom her son had died in vain.
He was at the office by eight. The news vendor round the corner was flogging the latest instalment of Jeannie Walter’s heart-warming story of her triumph over the system and again he hurried by. Jim, a tediously virtuous early riser, was already at his desk. He seemed distracted when Harry wandered in to say hello.
‘Benny Frederick’s due here to talk about the marketing video this afternoon, right?’
‘What?’ Jim asked. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right. Four o’clock, I think we agreed.’ He paused and added, ‘And no cracks about Cinerama, please.’
After seeing clients during the morning, Harry set off up the coast to Southport, the resort where both Kathleen Jeffries and Ray Brill lived. It was inevitably a speculative trip. He had tried phoning Ray again without success and had decided against calling the dead girl’s mother to make an appointment. Everything he had learned about her convinced him that she would be reluctant to assist a stranger to revisit the past. He had the impression of a strong but private woman: only a direct personal approach would be likely to succeed.
Kathleen Jeffries lived in a part of the town populated mainly by the elderly affluent, a place of bridge parties and golf dinners, of immaculate lawns and Sunday-washed cars. It did not take him long to find her home in a small block of purpose-built flats set at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. He pressed the buzzer on the entryphone and a woman’s voice demanded, ‘Who is it?’ It was a stern voice, the voice of someone who thought that no news was likely to be good news.
‘Mrs Jeffries, my name’s Harry Devlin. I’m a solicitor from Liverpool and I would very much like to talk to you about your daughter.’
‘I have no daughter.’
Immediately he was on the wrong foot. ‘I mean — your late daughter Carole.’
