Martin Edwards - Suspicious Minds

“Sure. Talk to you soon. Goodbye, Claire.”

The girl muttered something unintelligible and followed her father out of the room. She avoided looking at anyone. As the door closed behind them, Stirrup could be heard chastising her for her lack of manners.

Harry winked at the barrister. “Well done.”

Julian Hamer sighed. His voice returned to its natural, low pitch. “Thank you. Forget about ninety-nine percent perspiration, one percent inspiration. I sometimes think legal genius is all about understanding people, not rules in books. I did rather hope that our friend might be susceptible to a little ham acting.”

“Doreen won’t rush to apologise. I met her last night. There’s no doubt she’s got it in for Jack.”

“Quite. Even so, a suitably worded letter will probably do the trick. Firm, but not too heavy. Allow both the combatants to feel that they have made their point, that’s the secret. I’ll draw something up this evening and have it delivered to your office tomorrow.”

“Fine.”

“As a matter of interest,” said Hamer, “what’s your own view of this whole sorry episode? Did Mr. Stirrup murder his wife?”

“He’s not been charged. The police have no evidence to link him with her disappearance.”

“Tactfully put,” said the barrister. “So you think he’s guilty?”

“Did I say that?”

“Well, let’s agree that if he is a killer, he’s either lucky or clever.”

“Marks a change for any client of mine to qualify for either description. Thanks again, Julian. I’ll see myself out.”

He went back to David Base’s desk. The clerk was sucking a peppermint as usual and pensively doodling hangmen on the back of a county court summons. Harry coughed to attract his attention, making him jump.

“Is Valerie about?”

“Oh — I think she’s in her room. Is the con over?”

“Yes, the client and his daughter left a couple of minutes ago.”

“So when are we off to the High Court?”

“Never, I hope.”

He wandered into Valerie’s poky little room. It was knee deep in learned treatises on the law relating to boundary disputes. She was studying a plan of a housing estate, her brow furrowed.

“Sorry you couldn’t make it last night.”

“Me too. Something came up at the last minute.”

He could not ask her straight out: Were you with Hamer? He wanted to get a better idea of how she thought about her colleague, but she would never give away in conversation anything more than she wished.

“Jack Stirrup and I have been seeing Julian.”

“Yes, David told me Stirrup’s motherin-law is accusing him of murder. Did it go well?”

“Fine. Julian’s excellent in conference.”

Harry scanned her face for a reaction, but she simply nodded and said, “Yes. He is.”

In the short silence that followed he caught her glancing at the papers on her desk. “I won’t keep you any longer. Would you…”

“Yes?”

“I just wondered if you were free… say on Saturday?”

He’d never been good at this sort of thing. Now was the time for her to say that she was involved with Julian Hamer and thanks all the same, but she really didn’t think that…

To his surprise, she smiled.

“Long time no see.”

Brenda Rixton beamed as Harry walked down the corridor towards his flat. She lived next door and she was standing in front of the outside store cupboard, putting away her vacuum cleaner.

Harry said hi and rifled through his limited stock of neighbourly small talk for a follow-up remark. Something pleasant so she would not feel hurt, something bland so there was no risk that either of them would be embarrassed. Their affair hadn’t lasted long, but he’d never felt comfortable about ending it and although she had accepted rejection without making a scene, the very decency of her behaviour added to his sense of guilt.

She saved him the trouble by saying amiably, “Busy as ever, I suppose. Been into the office this morning?”

“At least the telephone doesn’t keep ringing on a Saturday.” He gestured at the cupboard. “Having a last tidy round? When do you move out?”

“Monday, God willing. Though how all the packing will get done in time, I simply don’t know.”

“I hope Colin’s going to give you a hand.”

She smiled. “Yes, he’s very good about things like that. Extremely methodical.”

Harry could believe it. Colin Redpath was a pleasant enough man but he had an accountant’s fondness for order and his conversation was crammed with sentiments like “a place for everything and everything in its place.” How would Brenda take to married life with someone like that?

Very well, he realised as he murmured some platitude in reply. She would be well looked after. No money worries, no creeping doubts. Protected by the safety blanket of a shared faith from the casual cruelties of the everyday world. A little boredom was a small price to pay. He ought to envy her. And perhaps, at times, he did.

“And the new house?”

“It’s fine. Lots to be done naturally, but Colin’s getting various tradesmen round in the next few weeks. And he’ll be coming over for a couple of hours himself each evening. He’s keen on do-it-yourself.”

Although Harry found the appeal of D-I-Y unfathomable, he could well believe that Colin would dutifully return each night to his own semi in Sefton until the wedding night gave him the right to enter Brenda’s bedroom. Rather than pursue that line of conversation, he considered Brenda herself. The hairdresser’s art concealed the grey in her blonde hair. For a woman who had celebrated her forty-fifth birthday only a few weeks before, she had kept her figure well. He knew her body to be soft and warm. Colin might be dull, but he was luckier than he yet realised.

“I’ll miss you, Brenda.”

“I doubt it.”

Another smile. Gentle, but not easily deceived. She didn’t speak with bitterness, but with realism. For the hundred thtime he wondered why she had got involved with the Fellowship of Believers, an evangelical crowd who specialised in poster slogans saying things like: seven days without prayer makes one weak. Colin led a Bible class in a meeting room above a burger bar in Sir Thomas Street; that was where she had met him. During the weeks when she and Harry had been sleeping together, she had never mentioned religion once. Not long after their low-key parting, however, he’d met her in the lift and she’d told him about becoming a born-again Christian. Something had been absent from her life and faith, she had found, could fill the void. Harry hadn’t understood, but he saw that she was brighter than before, more confident. Having something — and, before long, someone — to believe in had strengthened her.

He tried without success to imagine having the assurance of salvation. A few years ago he’d have mocked the smugness of a Colin Redpath. Still today he could not bring himself to envy it. It was escapism, like identifying with a story about James Bond. All the same, every now and then, he wondered what it would be like to share such a faith.

“I think a friend of yours is here.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Harry saw Valerie walking down the corridor. No dreary barrister’s garb today, but a blue mini dress which displayed more brown skin than it concealed. With a slight sense of shame Harry realised that he wouldn’t find it difficult to put Brenda out of his mind.

“Found you at last! Quite a warren, this place.”

“Brenda Rixton, this is Valerie Kaiwar. Valerie’s a barrister.”

Harry watched the two women weigh each other up under cover of exchanging inanities about the hot weather and how long it would be before the heavens opened up. Harry was glad when Brenda said that she would have to tear herself away, as she was going to watch Colin umpire in a cricket match this afternoon. She made it sound like a treat rather than a chore.