‘Was he jealous enough to kill?’
‘Come on!’ Benny seemed genuinely shocked by the suggestion. ‘Ray wasn’t delighted to be dumped, but it was no catastrophe. He’s always been able to pick and choose.’
‘Okay — so can you tell me who had caught Carole’s eye?’ He paused for a moment, watching Benny’s face for a reaction. ‘Was it you?’
‘What in God’s name makes you suggest that?’
‘Am I right?’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I thought my tastes were well enough known in Liverpool.’
‘You wouldn’t be the first person to swing both ways. You were her boss, the person giving her the chance to meet all the right people. She owed you a lot. And she was lovely to look at, even if there was a splinter of ice in her heart. I can imagine that, being with her day after day, you might have been attracted against your — shall we say, better judgement?’
The mass of curls shook vigorously. ‘You’re right, I did find her attractive. I’d have had to be neuter not to sense her appeal, but it went no further than that.’
‘Then who?’
Benny sighed. ‘I’ve never discussed this with anyone before.’
‘There’s always a first time.’
‘Are we speaking in confidence?’
‘I can’t force you to tell me anything,’ said Harry. He thought it a good politician’s reply.
‘You give me the impression that you won’t take no for an answer.’
‘Too many people have died not knowing how this whole sorry mess would end,’ said Harry. ‘Edwin Smith, in ’64. Ernest Miller, the man who put me on to the case originally. Smith’s mum, only yesterday. To say nothing of Carole herself, and Guy, who couldn’t face continuing to live without her. I think they all deserve to have someone who’s willing to work to bring the truth to light.’
‘Okay, I’m convinced,’ said Benny. ‘So I’ll let you into the secret. Carole had fallen head over heels for Clive Doxey.’
Chapter Nineteen
After Benny had left, Harry returned to his own room and asked himself whether it mattered a light that Carole had claimed to have been in love with her father’s best friend.
‘How do you know this?’ he had asked Benny.
‘Because she told me on the day she died.’
After her quarrel in the shop with Ray Brill, Benny explained, he had asked her to come into the back room and have a coffee and a chat with him. When he’d chided her about her treatment of Ray, she had tossed her head like a blonde Scarlett O’Hara and said that she did not care if she never saw the singer again: she wanted to spend her life with someone who was twice the man that Ray was. She was a girl who always loved to shock, said Benny, and she had not been able to resist the temptation to tell him the news she had been hugging to herself.
‘Listen, no-one knows this but you. Clive is coming round to our house in an hour’s time. Mum and Dad will both be out. And I’m going to ask him to marry me.’
He could not believe it. ‘What did you say?’
‘It’s Leap Year Day, silly, didn’t you realise? The one chance I have to pop the question.’
‘You’re pulling my leg.’
‘Believe me, Ben, I’m deadly serious.’
‘But you’re only sixteen.’
‘Old enough.’
‘Not if your parents object. For God’s sake, you’re not planning to elope to Gretna Green, are you?’
‘It’s a lovely romantic idea, Ben, but it won’t be necessary.’
She had been supremely confident, he recalled. There would be no problem, she insisted, she would tell her father what she wanted and that would be that. He would not refuse her, could not refuse her. Benny had not attempted to argue further, even though he still found it all incredible. He was well aware of Doxey’s relationship with Guy, but despite being himself an incurable nosey parker — as he made the admission, he smiled sweetly at Harry — he had never had a clue that there was anything between Doxey and Carole. Yet the way she giggled with delight at his disbelief did more than anything to persuade him that she was telling the truth. She had no need to lie: she was certain that Clive was captive to her charm and that when she put her question, his answer would be yes.
And that, said Benny, was the last time he’d ever seen her. Carole had gone home to meet Clive and, later, her terrible fate. He had left Shirley in charge of the shop while he went to Anfield to watch the big match. An FA Cup tie which Liverpool had lost to Swansea: a day to remember for every Welshman, and one of the most famous matches in the history of both clubs. Harry had heard his own father talk about that game and shake his head at the recollection of the Swansea goalkeeper’s heroics and the missed penalty kick that cost the home side the match, but he knew that Benny was telling him about it for a reason: to give himself an alibi. When he said that, at the full-time whistle, no-one present could credit that Liverpool had been knocked out of the Cup, he was also saying that no-one in their right mind could credit that he had had either the time or the inclination to go straight from the ground to Sefton Park and strangle Carole Jeffries.
‘You seem to have good recall of the events of thirty years ago,’ Harry had suggested.
‘It isn’t every day someone you know well and like is brutally murdered,’ was the soft reply. ‘These things are apt to stick in your mind.’
‘Carole wasn’t the only such person, of course, was she? You knew Warren Hull as well, for instance. The man who was killed a few weeks earlier.’
Benny seemed to choose his words with more than usual care. ‘Yes, I knew Warren. People said he was murdered by a kid he picked up but nothing was ever proved. Why do you mention him?’
‘He was Ray Brill’s manager.’
‘What are you getting at? Surely you’re not suggesting Ray murdered him?’
Harry let it pass; the coincidence of Hull’s death bothered him, but he could not explain why, even to himself. Instead he asked why Benny had said nothing until now about Carole’s avowed intention to propose to Clive Doxey. He received a simple answer. The murder had come as a shocking blow, Benny said, and there had never been any reason to believe that her apparent involvement with Clive had any bearing upon it. It was obvious from the start that a sicko must be responsible. By the time the police spoke to him, Edwin Smith was already under arrest and there seemed to be no need to embarrass Doxey or hurt the Jeffries by breaking the dead girl’s confidence. Besides, it was just possible that she had been talking out a fantasy. The next time Doxey came into his studio, Benny had spoken to him about the killing but received no hint that he had regarded her as anything other than the daughter of dear friends. They had both agreed it was a terrible tragedy — and left it at that.
Finally, Benny had given Harry a wry glance and said, ‘So if you’re right and Smith didn’t strangle Carole, who do you think was responsible?’
The question had been put amiably, but Harry had felt sure that Benny was watching closely for his response. He had simply spread his arms and said he wished he knew.
Now, sitting alone in his office, he admitted to himself that he would never be able to prove the identity of the culprit. Jock had pinpointed the problem: there was no chance at this late date of finding evidence to convict that would satisfy a court beyond reasonable doubt. Yet, after all the parents of Edwin Smith and Carole Jeffries had suffered, he told himself, he must make one last effort at least to satisfy himself that Carole’s killer would not go to the grave with his guilt unknown to anyone.
Ernest Miller had talked at their first meeting about the perfect murder. The old man had been shrewd: was it possible that he had managed to identify the culprit — and perhaps had even asked him round to Mole Street last Saturday? Tantalised by the thought, Harry found himself wishing that, if Miller had had to die, he had been killed by
