Martin Edwards - I Remember You

‘I had plenty to keep me occupied yesterday. You know the station’s in trouble — I’m working all the hours God sends at present.’

‘When did you leave?’

She hesitated and he guessed she was wondering whether he would check on her.

‘Five o’clock. Late enough, after my usual dawn start.’

Over the years, he’d encountered many witnesses like Sophie: uncertain how far to spin their stories, more concerned to put themselves in the right than to stick to the truth. He kept quiet, watching her lick her lips.

‘And in case you’re wondering,’ she said, ‘after that, Nick and I went to his place. When Finbar Rogan was killed, the two of us were tucked up in bed together. Does that satisfy your curiosity?’ She gave him a defiant look, then strode away.

Harry did not attempt to follow; he was satisfied with what he had achieved so far. He’d provoked her into saying too much and into a panicky attempt to allay any suspicion that she had been involved in Finbar’s death.

As for the alibi, he was sure she was lying.

Harry re-entered reception, wanting another word with the girl on the desk. She was on the phone; as he waited for attention, a seductive voice from the speakers asked him whether he needed any extra money.

‘What about that new car you long for, an extension on your house or the holiday of a lifetime in exotic parts?’

Harry, who would never part company with his MG, lived in a flat and seldom travelled further than the Lake District for a long weekend, had no interest in the soft sell. Even so, his attention was caught by a song performed by a Scouse reincarnation of the Beverley Sisters.

‘Whatever you choose,

We’ll help you get it,

You really can’t lose

With Merseycredit.’

The promise of an instant no-strings fortune faded as the persuasive man whispered, with a lover’s tenderness, that borrowers’ homes were at risk if they didn’t keep up the repayments, before quoting an APR figure high enough to terrify any listener with a grasp of simple arithmetic.

Harry was no longer paying attention, although he managed to curb his impatience while the receptionist wound up her conversation. She struck him as someone who would not easily be bullied into imparting information, but she might be susceptible to a little flattery.

‘Sorry to bother you, I can see you’re busy. But I wondered … do Merseycredit often advertise with you?’

She pursed her lips. For a few seconds Harry had a glimpse of her in thirty years’ time: a hard-bitten housewife, intent on making her husband’s life a misery.

‘I dunno. I mean, I never listen to the ads. Does anyone?’

‘Come on,’ he said, choking back irritation, trying to reorganise his features into an inviting smile, ‘this is a commercial radio station. You’re at the heart of things, you have the speakers on full blast all day, every day. You must have some idea of whether you do much business with the company.’

‘Well,’ she said grudgingly, ‘I suppose we do. As a matter of fact…’

She paused. Harry guessed her natural disinclination to be helpful was warring with an acute urge to appear in the know.

‘Yes?’

‘Nick Folley — the boss, that is — was supposed to be meeting Merseycredit today. They’re putting on a big Hallowe’en party for their clients and we’re broadcasting a special show from the concert room at Empire Hall tonight.’

Harry choked back an exclamation. So Baz and Penny had been setting off to entertain, of all people, Stuart Graham-Brown!

‘I thought Nick,’ he said, carefully making it clear he was on first name terms with the great man, ‘was down in London?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. Wish I was there, too, that’s where all the action is, not in this poxy dump. I’m thinking of looking for a job down there, as a matter of fact. You’d never believe the money they pay! The world would be at my feet.’

She rolled the final phrase off her tongue with relish. Harry guessed she had picked it out of a magazine that fed its readers on unattainable dreams and was tempted to tell her that the streets of the capital were paved not with gold but with cardboard boxes. But he stifled his instinct to defend his home town and simply asked, ‘When is he due back?’

She glanced at her watch. ‘He told me he’d be back at Lime Street before two, so I could send out a car for him.’

Harry decided to push his luck.

‘Any idea when he left last night?’

She gave him a resentful glare. ‘Don’t ask me! This isn’t the British Rail information desk, you know.’

‘Sorry. You’ve been very helpful. One more thing — a man called Finbar Rogan…’

‘The Irishman?’ The girl’s eyes gleamed with the pleasure of knowledge. ‘He’s dead. Killed last night over at Colonial Dock.’

‘Do you remember him phoning yesterday? Might he have spoken to Sophie Wilkins?’

‘He didn’t phone ,’ smirked the girl. ‘He did better than that.’

‘You mean he actually came here?’

‘Insisted on seeing her,’ she confirmed. No doubt about it, she loved being at the centre of events.

‘And did Sophie agree to talk to him?’

‘Not at first. She had a cob on. In fact she’s been a pain in the arse ever since she had a row with Nick the other day.’

‘But Sophie and Finbar did meet?’

‘When I rang and said he wasn’t going to go until he’d spoken to her, she threw a wobbler. But in the end she took him in, same as she did with you. Except this time the raised voices could have been heard in the Liver Building.’

‘They quarrelled?’

‘I’ll say! It was mostly on her side, though. She can be a real cow. Mind you, he smelled like a brewery and had plenty to say for himself.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing, in the end,’ said the girl with regret. ‘He popped in for a word with the marketing manager’s secretary, gave me a wink and was gone.’ A claim to fame occurred to her. ‘Hey, maybe I was the last person to see him alive!’

‘Except for the person who ran him over.’

‘Well — yeah.’

He could tell she was entranced by the idea of close contact with sudden death: something to boast about to her friends. Muttering thanks, he hurried out into North John Street, where a taxi driver heading towards the Town Hall caught his windmilling wave.

‘Where to, pal?’

‘Lime Street.’ He hoped to catch Folley on arrival, before Sophie had any chance to forewarn him of her claim that they had spent the previous evening together. The story was surely a spur of the moment invention, a piece of wishful thinking. It also occurred to him that if Sophie lacked an alibi for Finbar’s killing — then so might Nick Folley.

Settling down in the back of the cab, Harry wondered if Finbar’s abortive one-afternoon stand with Sophie provided her boss with a motive for murder. Folley was not a man to suffer public humiliation in silence, as witness his rush of blood to the head at Empire Hall. Harry recalled Folley’s frenzied lunge and the strength of his grip on Finbar’s neck. Suppose some unknown chance — or design — had brought the two men together at Colonial Dock the previous evening. Harry could imagine Folley at the wheel of the hire car, seeing Finbar ahead of him in the lamplight, forcing his foot down on the accelerator with the same fury that had moved him to an absurd attempt at a public strangulation.

And yet — what would have taken Finbar to a rendezvous with Nick Folley at Colonial Dock on a cold October night? It was a bleak stretch of water surrounded by disused warehouses, a ghostly relic of Merseyside’s maritime past. A place omitted from the tourist guides and described as ripe for development only by those with the most vivid imaginations.