The black starless sky merged with the river. From his vantage point in the Empire Dock development he peered towards the lights of Wirral. Birkenhead itself was invisible. So were the dying yards where once so many ships had been built — Ark Royal, Achilles and Prince of Wales — and their incongruous neighbour, the ruined twelfth-century priory. On the water itself, nothing moved. Harry had heard talk lately of plans to bring new life to the river. The old days of colonial trade had gone, never to return, but the country’s jails were overflowing and some bright spark in Whitehall had dreamed up the idea of putting a prison ship on the Mersey. Harry suspected that if some of his clients went on board, it would make the mutiny on the Bounty seem like a squabble on Southport’s boating lake.
Turning, he squinted at the harsh red digits of his bedside alarm. Five-twenty. Although he felt only half awake, he was sure he would never get back to sleep again. He swore at the memory of Ernest Miller’s farrago about murderous injustice. If only he hadn’t agreed to listen to the man and absorbed into his subconscious the nightmarish prospect of having his fate rest in the hands of Cyril Tweats.
Yet, looking at his hollow-eyed reflection in the bedroom mirror, he found himself unable to resist a smile. That incompetent old sod Cyril, who could give the kiss of death to the strongest case. How had he managed for so many years to escape professional disaster?
Then he reminded himself of the money Cyril had made out of the law and the comfortable life he now led in retirement. Perhaps he was not such a fool as he seemed. Even so, could Miller be right? Was it possible that if only — that phrase again! — Edwin Smith had chosen to be competently represented, he might not merely be alive today, but walking the city streets a free man?
As he made his way towards the bathroom, Harry reminded himself of the stern New Year’s resolution he had made a couple of weeks before: no more ‘if onlys’. The trouble was that he had a restless mind; he could never resist the temptation to speculate. And so his good intention had gone the way of so many other vows made during the dying hours of old years in an optimistic whisky haze.
The stinging heat of a shower began to revive him. Standing motionless under the sharp jet of water, he wondered whether to respond to Miller’s request for help. He had promised nothing, saying merely that he would check to see whether the old file remained in existence amongst the lorry load of dusty documents that Crusoe and Devlin had inherited on acquiring Cyril Tweats’ practice. Miller had not pressed him for a yes or no within a specified time, perhaps reckoning he would not be able to conquer the compulsive urge to involve himself with the Jeffries case.
And in that, he acknowledged with wry self-awareness, bloody Ernest Miller was spot on.
Within half an hour he was well wrapped against a cutting wind and walking the short distance to his office in Fenwick Court. The giant buildings on the waterfront towered above him in the early morning gloom and the Liver birds watched as the rest of the city began to stir. Milk floats and trucks full of groceries moved in stealth through the deserted streets and from time to time a police Rover slid past on its way back to headquarters at the end of the night shift.
At the last moment before unlocking the front door of New Commodities House he remembered to switch off the burglar alarm. A week before Christmas he had come here in the small hours to finish preparing an important case, only to risk a heart attack and permanent deafness on triggering the security system. Convincing the sceptical occupants of a passing panda car that he was not an opportunist thief had tested his persuasive skills to the limit. But as he had pointed out to a gum chewing constable, only a madman would bother to rob Crusoe and Devlin. Even the second-hand record shop in the basement offered richer pickings.
Once inside, he made rapid progress with the mound of papers on his desk. Lucy, his secretary, had left him a note complaining about his failure to sign his mail the previous evening. He tacked on a sentence authorising her to send the stuff first class and, cheekily virtuous, added the time of his arrival before taping it above her desk. Never mind the cost of the stamps, he thought, preparing himself for the heavenward glances of his cost-conscious partner. If Kevin Walter’s compensation claim succeeded, Crusoe and Devlin would be quids in.
Hunger started to grind at his stomach and he hurried off in search of a plate piled high with bacon, sausage and eggs. His destination was at the bottom end of a passageway linking Lord Street with Derby Square: a cafeteria called The Condemned Man.
Within seconds of his sitting down, the massive bulk of Muriel, the proprietress, loomed over him. Her complexion and figure bore testimony to a lifetime devoted to fat and greasy food and she was wielding a pencil and pad like truncheons.
‘In court this morning, Harry?’
He nodded. ‘My client’s Kevin Walter.’
Muriel’s bosom gave a seismic heave. Harry had often marvelled that nylon overalls were made in her size and he feared that now the garment would finally burst.
‘That’s your case, is it? Wrongful imprisonment, so called? A little bird tells me the plaintiffs have briefed Paddy Vaulkhard.’
Muriel’s business was geared to the morning trade and most of it was connected with the courts. Barristers, solicitors, ushers, transcript-takers, policemen, journalists — as well as the soon-to-be-convicted, stopping off here for their last hearty breakfast before sampling Walton Jail’s cuisine. What Muriel did not know about law and order in Liverpool was not worth knowing. According to rumour, she was the Chief Constable’s agony aunt.
‘He’s very good,’ said Harry, a shade reluctantly.
‘You don’t care for him, eh?’ demanded Muriel. ‘Can’t say as I blame you. All the same, if he gets his teeth into a witness anything like the way he tackles my fried bread, he’ll take some stopping. Though all I can say is, the Walter family have been customers here for years and if Kevin really was innocent, my name’s Myra Hindley.’
‘Now be fair,’ he said, though remonstrating with Muriel was like urging the merits of agnosticism on a hellfire preacher. ‘The man spent years inside for a crime he didn’t commit.’
She grunted. ‘I’m a plain woman…’
He gave a cautious smile, but honesty triumphed over good manners and he did not argue with her.
‘…and I speak plainly. But any road, I hear the busies are worried sick about the case. They wanted it settled out of court. Could be your lucky day.’
‘I’m not counting any chickens yet.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Muriel, whose willingness to express an unequivocal opinion on the basis of slender data would have made her a first-class expert witness. ‘Paddy Vaulkhard will love a case like that. And the fees you’ll make won’t do you any harm, either.’
She considered his ageing suit and loosely knotted tie; contrary as ever, he had resisted the temptation to dress to impress the television cameras he expected at court today. Her disfavour was suggestive of Judge Jeffreys presiding over the Bloody Assizes.
‘Time you smartened yourself up a bit and started acting for a better class of criminal.’
‘I’d love to, if only a few more drug-pushing peers of the realm or sleek insider traders beat a path to my door.’
She banged a mug of hot tea — good old English Breakfast, none of your Darjeeling muck for Muriel — on the fraying gingham tablecloth and lumbered off to exchange gossip about a kinky vicar case with a loose-tongued girl from the Crown Prosecution Service.
As he battled through the fried hillock on his plate, Harry wondered whether he should worry about having his appearance criticised by a woman for whom a duelling scar would have represented a cosmetic improvement. No point, he decided. There was always a core of truth at the heart of Muriel’s exaggerations. He consoled himself with the thought that his clients might feel ill at ease with a solicitor who was a model of sartorial elegance. Dress code in the Liverpool Bridewell was not quite the same as in the Old Bailey.
By the time he had drained the last drop from his chipped mug, it was close on half eight. If he moved fast, he might be able to pick up the old file on Edwin Smith before meeting Vaulkhard to discuss battle plans. He paid the bill and flirted briefly with the pretty young cashier before setting off in the direction of the Pierhead.
The icy blast coming in from the river slowed his progress as he crossed the Strand and headed for Mann Island. He half-closed his eyes and, although he knew he should be preparing mentally for his day in court, found himself scraping the barrel of his memory for scraps of information he might have picked up over the years when reading about the Sefton Park Strangling.
The murder had never been a mystery, but rather a pointless act of brutality which had brought nothing except disaster for everyone concerned. Two loving parents had lost their only child and seen their own lives
