Martin Edwards - Suspicious Minds

But easy affairs hadn’t been enough. From time to time Trevor Morgan’s fancy was taken by a new assistant or manageress who remained immune to his charms. Stories reached Stirrup that if cajolery failed, Trevor would threaten the lady with the consequences if she did not come across. Stock deficits might be discovered, disciplinary warning notices issued. The company lost three or four female members of staff suddenly and inexplicably. Before long Stirrup had been forced to admit to Harry that there was no smoke without fire.

Stirrup’s solution was to take Trevor on one side and tell him to reserve his attentions for those who welcomed a fling with the boss’s right hand man. For a time all was quiet until an incident in the stock room of a branch in West Wirral. What actually happened, no one would ever know. A young assistant claimed that Trevor had tried to rape her. He said she’d welcomed his advances. The police were called, although in the end charges weren’t pressed. The Equal Opportunities Commission started breathing fire and brimstone and the girl claimed a small fortune in compensation from the company. For once Stirrup accepted Harry’s advice that discretion in the law was the better part of valour and settled out of court. The only outlet for his temper was to sack Trevor Morgan.

Morgan said now, “He didn’t have to take that little bitch’s word rather than mine.”

“Christ, Trevor! Let’s not go over old ground. After all, he was willing to pay you off.”

Realising how hard Morgan would find it to get another job, Harry had persuaded his client to offer six months’ pay in a severance deal. But Trevor had prepared for his dismissal interview with the aid of a bottle of whisky and when Stirrup had told him of the loss of his job, he’d grabbed his boss by the tie. Within seconds they were wrestling. A couple of Stirrup’s teeth had been loosened; Morgan finished up with a smashed cheekbone. After that the opportunity for constructive industrial relations had been lost. The money hadn’t been paid and as far as Harry knew the men had not been in contact since.

Trevor Morgan was about to respond fiercely, but something restrained him. He looked first at Harry, then at the floor.

After a moment he said, “Wish I’d taken the money now.”

“Things must be difficult for you.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“How’s Cathy taken it?”

Morgan avoided Harry’s gaze. “You know what bloody women are like.”

Harry wasn’t sure he did. More particularly, he didn’t know what Cathy Morgan was like. He’d only met her once, at a dinner party thrown by the Stirrups before their move to Prospect House. Strong, steely-eyed and sarcastic, she delighted in cutting her husband down to size in front of others. Harry had assumed it was her revenge for numberless infidelities, a kind of marital quid pro quo.

“Want me to have a word with Jack?”

“No point.”

“Take a look in the mirror, Trevor. You can’t carry on this. You’ll kill yourself.”

“No great loss, Harry.”

“For God’s sake, you need to pull yourself together. Give Ossie Fowler a ring. He’s a solicitor in the Albert Dock, if anyone can squeeze blood out of a stone, he can. Get him to write to Jack. I’d have to advise on the whys and wherefores, maybe some deal could be struck. It’s what Jack really wants, as well as you. But once he’s taken a decision, he’ll not change it without a little pressure.”

Trevor Morgan rubbed his stubbly chin. “I won’t go to him cap in hand. I’ll have to think about it. You…”

“Mr Devlin, you’re wanted.”

The voice was low and insistent. Harry felt a bony hand grip his shoulder. He turned to look into the eyes of Ronald Sou, his court clerk.

“Your case is on. The bench is ready.”

“Okay, Ronald. Thanks.” Harry nodded at Morgan. “Must go. Accept the advice, won’t you? Free, gratis and for nothing — and I haven’t even asked you to sign a legal aid form.”

He hurried into court and atoned for his lateness with a plea in mitigation (a sick wife and a brood of young kids, always handy) which probably shaved his larcenous client’s fine in half. When it was over he dropped his briefcase back at the office before dodging through the traffic on the Strand on his way towards the river.

He felt a rare sense of self-satisfaction as he approached the front of the dock complex. Making his way from the Pump House to the waterfront, pint of beer in hand, was a stooped but sturdy figure. Even from a rear view, the cardigan was unmistakable.

“Wondered if I might find you here,” Harry said as he caught the man up.

Jonah Deegan didn’t reveal any surprise at being thus accosted. He sipped his beer and looked at the ships moored at the quayside.

“Brought my cheque?”

“Not even received your bill yet. Teach you to rely on second class post.”

Jonah contrived a grumbling noise while sipping at his pint. “I don’t come here every day, you know.”

“Never said you did, Jonah. But I know how you like looking at the old ships.”

Jonah nodded and jerked a thumb towards a brigantine on the Canning Half Tide Dock. A horde of small boys was swarming over it, whooping with glee.

“Don’t make ‘em like that any more. Though it’s a sad end. Proud vessel that sailed the seas. Become a bloody tourist attraction for kids who’ve never seen anything rougher than the Mersey from the side of a ferryboat.”

“Did you prefer this place when it was derelict for all those years?”

Jonah did not reply. After a while he said, “So you fancy yourself as a detective, eh? Tracking me down here. What d’you want?”

Harry explained about the disappearance of Alison Stirrup. Jonah showed not a semblance of interest. Most of the time he kept his eyes on the ships.

“Not my usual kind of thing,” he said when Harry had run out of breath.

“Don’t play hard to get. The money’s good.”

“So you’re not my client?”

“Very witty. Of course, you’re acting for Stirrup. I’m just the messenger.”

Jonah drained his glass. “Needed that. Get us another, will you? Have one yourself if you want.”

He made no offer to pay but Harry went to The Pump House anyway. When he returned with two full glasses, Jonah wandered over to the walkway leading to the riverside.

“Used to come here as a kid, you know. To watch the ships. More of ‘em in those days, of course. I used to think they were all off to America. Reckoned the States were just the other side of the horizon.”

He took his beer without comment. “Did he kill her, d’you think?”

“Stirrup?”

“Who else? Does he want to look like an anxious husband? Hiring me when the trail’s gone cold?”

“What more can he do? You work on the assumption he’s innocent till proven guilty.”

“Said like a true lawyer.” A lifetime’s cynicism packed into five words.

“So you’re turning the job down?”

“Never said that. I’ll look for her.” The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Besides, you said yourself, Stirrup is loaded, don’t mind taking a few quid off him.”

“Now who’s talking like a lawyer?”

Harry arrived at Balliol Chambers on the stroke of four to find Stirrup and Claire already in the waiting room. His client sprang to his feet, breezy and confident, a typical litigant at square one, as yet unconcerned by the law’s uncertainties and delays. The girl looked preoccupied and didn’t respond to Harry’s hello.

“All set, Harry? Ready when you are. The — what d’you call him? — clerk was here a minute ago. He said this Mr. Hamer would like a word with you first.”