Martin Edwards - Suspicious Minds

Even from his brief acquaintance with Alison, Harry doubted whether she would have been eager to take refuge with her loud and tiresome mother except as a last resort.

“Anything else?”

“It’s a genuine mystery.” Jonah didn’t give the impression of being intrigued. “No evidence to pin anything on your bloke. And no explanation of the woman’s disappearance. The betting is, she had another man on the quiet. But if so, it was very, very quiet.”

“Thanks, Jonah. Send me your bill.”

“I posted it five minutes ago.”

While Harry mulled over the news, Francesca came in and left her day’s work for him to check, together with a handful of phone messages. He rifled through the papers, cringing at the ragged margins and mistakes in the correspondence, signing all the letters which were not so ineptly presented as to make re-typing essential. This week’s investment in correction fluid alone could send the firm into the red.

Two of the telephone calls made him pause. Valerie had rung — it must be her from the return call number, though Francesca’s spelling of Kaiwar was imaginative and wildly inaccurate. sorry can’t make it tonight call tomorrow and fix something up was the message, printed out in a child-like, unformed hand. Harry swore, crumpled the piece of paper into a ball and hurled it into the litter basket.

And Stirrup had been on as well. The message was stark. ring back asap. Such a command from a blue-chip client was not to be ignored, but Harry allowed himself a few moments of speculation before picking up the phone. Were the police pressing harder? He found himself hoping desperately that there was good news at last, that the woman had by some miracle reappeared.

As soon as Stirrup’s voice came on to the other end of the line, Harry realised the social mood of the previous evening had evaporated.

“I want you to do something for me and do it fast.”

Words to make any solicitor quail. Harry said cautiously, “What’s the problem, Jack?”

“That bitch! That bloody bitch!” The disembodied voice was choking with anger. “Capstick, I mean. Would you believe it? She’s written to Claire — Claire of all people — suggesting that I killed the kid’s step-mother.”

Harry gazed heavenwards in despair. “I think,” he said carefully, “that I’d better take a look at that letter.”

“You’ll do more than bloody look at it. I’ve been libelled. In a letter to my own bloody daughter, I’ve been called a murderer. The bitch, how dare she? I want you to issue a writ at once. Take her for every penny she’s got.” Stirrup took a deep breath. “I want to destroy her.”

Acting for Stirrup in a libel action against Doreen Capstick held as much appeal for Harry as backing one pit bull terrier to savage another. True, the case would be a money-spinner for Crusoe and Devlin. But whatever Jack Stirrup and Doreen Capstick might think, the last thing they needed was to become embroiled in acrimonious litigation. Instead of spoiling for a fight with each other, they should be making common cause in the search for Alison.

Starting an argument about it would simply cause Stirrup to become more entrenched. When he managed to get a word in, Harry opted for an oblique approach.

“Leave it with me. Let me fix up a conference with a barrister.”

“Why do we need to see a bloody barrister?”

“This is a High Court case you’re talking about,” Harry explained. “Not like applying to the magistrates for a liquor licence. The professional rules don’t allow a solicitor to handle the case even if he has the specialist knowledge. Which I don’t. So if you have to use Counsel, you might as well take his advice sooner rather than later.” He thought of an argument which might appeal to a businessman suspicious of lawyers’ excuses. “Don’t give him the chance to say in twelve months’ time he would have handled the case differently if he’d been brought in on day one.”

Grumbling, Stirrup agreed. “Where do we go from here, then?”

“I’ll organise a conference as soon as I can. Do you want a local man or someone from London?”

“I don’t want to hang around. Find the smartest man in the city who can see us fast.”

As he put down the receiver, Harry wondered whom to instruct on Stirrup’s behalf. Only a handful of Liverpool barristers had a sizeable libel practice. And of them perhaps the most experienced was someone whom he felt instinctively reluctant to brief. Julian Hamer.

Forget the pride and the prejudice, he told himself. Any work which he had sent Hamer in the past had been handled efficiently and with speed. Julian was good in conference, and that was important: Stirrup would want to satisfy himself from the outset that he had the best counsel whom money could buy. And with any luck Hamer’s advice would be to keep the case out of court. That way, both Stirrup and his foolish motherin-law might still be saved from themselves.

Nevertheless, Harry could not help experiencing a surge of irritation when he spoke to David Base on the phone. The clerk assured him that, by good fortune, a trial of Julian’s had collapsed only a couple of hours earlier. So an urgent conference would be possible the following day. Never mind the law of libel, thought Harry, sod’s law invariably prevailed. Had he been desperate to have Hamer act, and no one else, the barrister would have been fully booked for months ahead.

“Four o’clock?” he suggested gloomily.

“Ideal,” said David Base, his glad-to-please tone simply rubbing salt in the wound. “I’ll mark it in the diary. You’ll have the papers sent round tomorrow morning?”

“Will do.”

A few minutes later came a knock at his door. Francesca appeared, bearing a slim brown envelope.

“Just arrived. Special delivery, by motorbike courier,” she announced. The faraway look in her eyes suggested the courier had taken her fancy.

“Re-typed those letters yet?” asked Harry. The girl was a convenient target for his ill humour.

Her eyes widened. “You didn’t say you wanted them all done for tonight’s post.”

He gave up. “Doesn’t matter.”

“They’ll be ready in the morning.” She spoke tolerantly, like a mother promising an importunate child jam tomorrow.

He managed a wan smile and opened the envelope as she left the room. The sender was Stirrup; the dashing courier had made good time in bringing the allegedly libellous letter over from Wirral.

Six sheets of paper were covered in green ink. Doreen Capstick wrote in a flowing hand which lent itself to much use of italics and underlinings. Ostensibly, she was writing to invite Claire to spend the summer holidays with her. It was important, Doreen said, for Claire to feel that she had a bolt-hole. After her step-mother’s tragic disappearance, a young girl would scarcely be human if she did not feel a little frightened, particularly when her father was such a hot-tempered individual. Doreen did not omit to mention that Alison had in the past referred to a violent streak in her husband’s personality. It would be terrible, and Doreen could never forgive herself if brave Claire were to fall victim to her father’s wrath. It was heart-breaking to lose one’s only child — for Doreen confessed she had no doubt that Alison was now dead and buried somewhere; she would never be seen again — but it would be horrific if another life were to be sacrificed as well.

And so on. No outright accusation of murder, but an innuendo as plain as blood upon snow. Harry had little doubt that the letter was defamatory in law. What puzzled him was Doreen Capstick’s motive for writing it. There was no reason to think that she and Claire were close. After all, they only had Alison in common; Doreen doted on her and the girl disliked her. Nor was there any trace of genuine affection beneath the prolix expressions of concern. The invitation to stay was an excuse for making a string of hints about Stirrup’s guilt, hints so thinly veiled as to be indecently exposed.