Sir Clive turning up at Mole Street to confront Ernest Miller, but I simply can’t see him breaking into my office to steal the file you have in your hand — even if he’d previously spoken to Miller and was afraid there was something in the old papers that might incriminate him.’
‘Perhaps he hired someone to commit the burglary.’
‘A hell of a risk.’
‘Not necessarily. His work must have brought him into contact with the criminal classes over the years. I’ll bet he must know suitable people.’
‘The other possibility, of course, is that the burglary had nothing whatever to do with my asking around about the Sefton Park case.’ He began to leaf through the file, but when Jock asked if he was looking for anything in particular, he shook his head. ‘I simply wanted to reread some of the statements. What Guy had to say about Doxey, for example. I wondered if there might be a clue there.’
Jock read the statements over his shoulder and eventually said, ‘One thing that comes out loud and clear to me is a father’s terrible distress at the loss of his daughter. You know, Harry, this is all fascinating, but I wonder if we’re ever going to get any further. After all, how are we ever going to be able to prove that Doxey killed the girl? He’s no fool, he’ll never admit it.’
‘Come on,’ said Harry. ‘I thought you at least understood why I want to learn the truth. You’re not suggesting that I give up now?’
‘Think about it for a moment. If you’re right, you’re dealing with someone who has killed at least once before. A rich man who could afford to have anyone who came too close to him taken care of.’
Harry laughed and in the vast underground chamber the sound bounced back at him like an eerie warning. ‘Sir Clive Doxey, tribune of the ordinary working man, pay someone to rough me up or worse? You must be joking.’
But when he looked into the other man’s eyes he saw apprehension rather than the customary good humour, and he realised that right now Jock was not joking.
Walking back to the office, he swung his arms to keep warm as the first flecks of snow began to fall and wondered if he would be wise to heed Jock’s words of caution. He knew he must take care, for the ideas he now had about the case were so shocking that he had explained them to neither Ken nor Jock. But there was no question of his giving up his search for the truth about the death of Carole Jeffries. He had come to believe that he owed it to her as well as to Vera Smith and her son to keep going to the bitter end. The dead deserved justice as much as the living.
Once at Fenwick Court, he briefed Ronald Sou about the latest twist in the Waltergate saga. The news of Kevin’s misdeeds prompted even the inscrutable clerk to shake his head, the equivalent of a fainting fit in many another man.
‘I don’t expect rapid developments today, but keep an eye on things. I’m driving up to Southport shortly and I may not be back for a while.’
The phone buzzed and he snatched it up in irritation. ‘Suzanne, I don’t have anything on in court this morning and I’m likely to be out until lunchtime.’
‘There’s someone to see you,’ came the smug reply. ‘Reckons it’s important.’
‘I told you that I would… who is it?’
‘Name of Doxey,’ said the girl. ‘ Sir Clive Doxey, so he says.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘I came to see you,’ said Clive Doxey, ‘because last night your questions startled me and provoked me into an unwise lie.’
‘And now you propose to make amends?’ asked Harry. He gazed sceptically at the most distinguished visitor ever to fill the client’s chair. ‘Why the sudden change of heart?’
‘Because on reflection I decided you were a man unlikely to take no for an answer, Mr Devlin. Very late last night I telephoned Patrick Vaulkhard at his home and he confirmed my impression. So here I am. Good of you to see me without an appointment.’
Doxey rested his palms on the battered old desk and gave a glimmer of the self-assured smile so familiar from a hundred current affairs programmes. But Harry’s instinctive reaction had always been to switch to the soccer highlights on another channel, and now he sensed that Doxey’s lines were as carefully rehearsed as the we’re- both-men-of-the-world manner. He must be worried, he thought.
‘So you’ve come to tell me that you were involved with Carole Jeffries, after all?’
‘I wonder who gave you that idea?’
‘Someone in whom Carole confided her plan to propose to you on Leap Year Day.’
Doxey closed his eyes for a second before replying. ‘Well I suppose it was foolish for me to deny it. Carole and I did fall for each other. She was only sweet sixteen and I was close on thirty, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t a dirty old man bent on adultery. I’d been living with a girl who lectured at the Polytechnic, but we’d split up around the Christmas of 1963. I was unattached and ready for a new relationship.’ He gave Harry a direct look. ‘It was nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘Did Guy or Kathleen know you were smitten?’
A shake of the head. ‘They had no idea that we were seeing each other, far less that marriage was a possibility.’
‘And was it?’
‘Yes, your informant was quite correct. On the day Carole died, she did propose to me.’
‘Did you accept?’
Doxey seemed for a moment to measure pros and cons, as if wondering whether a lie would serve him better than the truth. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘I was glad to do so.’
‘So you were keen to marry the girl?’ Harry frowned, uncertain whether to believe what he was being told.
‘I was crazy about her,’ was the calm reply. ‘She had that effect on people, you know. Intoxicating.’
‘And dangerous.’
A brief pause. ‘I suppose you’re right. But on the day of the murder, I told her I felt the time wasn’t right to explain to her parents that we were in love. As it proved, in the end there was never a right time.’
‘Even after her death you said nothing?’
‘It hardly seemed relevant.’ Doxey began to shift around in his chair. He seemed uncomfortable with the admission. ‘They had suffered a dreadful blow. I didn’t think it would help them to learn that their girl had become involved with a friend closer to their age than hers.’
‘And they never guessed?’
‘I did wonder,’ said Doxey, ‘if they might have gained an inkling. After the murder, I sensed that something had died in our relationship also, though nothing was ever put into words.’
‘As if in some way you were to blame for what had happened to Carole?’
‘A ridiculous idea. How could I have been?’
We’ll come back to that, thought Harry. Aloud, he said, ‘I’d like to know more about Carole. Would you mind telling me how the two of you got together?’
Doxey licked his lips. ‘I’d always been fond of her, through all the years I’d been spending time with Guy and planning on how we could change the world. She was a pretty child who soon grew into a gorgeous teenager — and she was a terrible flirt. I’d never thought of her in a sexual way, you’ll have to take my word for that, but after I’d finished with my own girlfriend, I suddenly saw Carole through new eyes. She was more than an attractive little thing who happened to be the daughter of a man I liked and admired. I realised she was a desirable young woman. And all at once — I desired her.’
‘Did she respond?’
‘Oh yes. I started turning up at the house on the flimsiest pretexts. And one day, I found my luck was in. I called unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon, and she told me that both her parents were out but that it was a
