Martin Edwards - Suspicious Minds

Only on a close, lawyer’s re-reading of the story could Harry tell that the police were not officially connecting Claire’s death with the earlier attacks of The Beast. They were simply declining to rule The Beast out as a possible culprit. Cafferty made no mention of The Beast’s supposed predilection for blondes: it didn’t fit with the story. Nor did the red roses, of which he must be unaware. Bolus had made it clear to both Harry and Stirrup that no one else should be told about the strange garland which the killer had left on the girl’s corpse.

What did the roses signify? Nothing Harry knew about Claire suggested that anyone had a rational motive for murdering her. No grudge against her father, however bitterly held, could explain the savagery of her death. If Kuiper was innocent of the crime, as Harry still believed, the only credible alternative theory was that she had fallen prey to a maniac.

But there remained the question of the library books. Why had she lied about them?

He tucked the paper under his arm and strode to The Dock Brief. The pub was crowded but the hum of conversation disturbed him less than the knowledge that he was impotent to make good Jack Stirrup’s loss. Midway through his fourth pint, his reasoning was fuzzier than before and his dismay at Claire’s death had still not been submerged by the booze. As he gazed into the cloudy depths of the drink, he felt a hand grasp his arm.

“We meet again.”

Trevor Morgan. Glancing over his shoulder, Harry found Morgan’s second-hand grin and unfocussed eyes as depressing as the beer fumes which enveloped him like poison gas.

“Pull up a stool.” At least Trevor was probably too far gone to spot the lack of enthusiasm in his words. “How are you doing?”

“Never better, Harry. Never better. A pint glass in my hand and no one to hassle me. What more could any man ask me, tell me that?”

“Sorry to hear about Catherine.”

In his present state, Morgan was unlikely to recall that their last meeting he had pretended his wife was still living with him. Having a word now might minimise future embarrassment if they met again. Nothing unusual in a spouse’s desertion these days. But the one left behind still often felt a sense of shame and of failure as well as the pain of isolation. Harry knew that from personal experience.

“What? Ah!” Morgan’s free hand made a lavish easy-come, easy-go gesture. “Women. You’re better off without them. Don’t you think so, boy?”

Harry thought about Liz, about Brenda, about Valerie.

“Maybe.”

“No maybes about it.” Morgan poked Harry in the ribs with his forefinger. “They’re bad news. Only good for one thing, if you ask me, and most of ‘em aren’t so bloody keen on that. A feller can only put up with so much. Some things he shouldn’t have to take.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Morgan’s voice was beginning to rise and Harry wanted to pacify him, not debate the numberless shortcomings of the other sex.

“Anyway, let’s not talk about the bitches. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“‘Nother pint? I owe you one after you sent me to that feller Fowler. Good man, that. Good man.”

The prospect of a night-long drinking session with Trevor Morgan was sobering Harry fast. He checked his watch, then pushed his glass to one side.

“No more, thanks. I’ll have to be on my way now. But let me buy you one before I go.”

Morgan’s face darkened. Mention of Fowler had led his rambling thoughts down a new track. “No way. You’d be paying with that bastard Stirrup’s money. I know you’re in hock to him up to your eyeballs.”

“He’s only a client, Trevor.”

“Only a bastard.” Morgan stared moodily at his glass. “Ought to be taught a lesson.”

There was no arguing with him. Harry prepared to mutter an apology and make his getaway.

“A lesson,” repeated Morgan stubbornly. “Bloody murderer. I say, bloody murderer.”

His voice was rising again. Harry saw that, even in The Dock Brief’s early evening hubbub, one or two people were turning round. Not in a spirit of censure. The regulars enjoyed watching a good fight every now and then.

“Cut it out, Trevor.”

He laid a restraining hand on Morgan’s upper arm. With a bellow of rage the Welshman threw it off.

“Let go of me! You’re no better than he is. The bloody murderer!”

“Take it easy. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Oh, don’t I? And who do you think you are to tell me that, Mister Smart-Arse Solicitor? Who do you think you are? Sucking up to that bloody murderer. All right. This is what I think of you!”

Harry saw the swing of the arm holding the empty glass at the last possible moment. He ducked instinctively and the wild flailing movement swept over the top of his head. Someone screamed as the glass caught a man passing by on the side of the head. The man staggered and yelled at the same time. Harry lost his balance and felt, rather than saw, an answering blow shave his chin as one of the victim’s friends aimed wildly at Trevor.

Within seconds the place was in pandemonium. Women were screeching, men were shouting, glass was breaking. Harry rolled over and saw Trevor hit the ground with a skull-cracking thud. His assailant, a young man in a leather jacket, was on him at once, firing indiscriminate punches to head and chest before a shirt-sleeved barman managed to pull him off. The man whom Trevor had hit was sitting in a pool of beer and debris, rubbing his temple and blinking back tears of pain. Trevor lay still. He certainly wasn’t dead, but it would be a while before he rhapsodised again on the joys of single life. Blood oozed from a diagonal cut on the side of his forehead.

“Get the police,” someone said.

“And an ambulance, by the looks of things.”

Harry rubbed his eyes. The decent thing to do was to hang on, to see that the incident was explained to the police’s satisfaction and that Trevor was shipped off to Casualty with minimum delay. But Harry’s capacity for doing the decent thing was finite and he had been involved with enough police questioning for one day.

Time to go. In the confusion no one seemed to notice him clamber to his feet and totter towards the door. Outside the evening was still bright and warm. People wandered up and down the street, oblivious of the shenanigans inside the pub. He sucked in a lungful of the warm evening air before heading back to Empire Dock.

And as he walked, Trevor Morgan’s drunken words kept reverberating in his mind.

Bloody murderer. Bloody murderer .

All the way home, Harry strove to dismiss Morgan’s words as the babbling of an alcoholic who couldn’t tell fact from fantasy. Whether Morgan was making a stupid, drunken accusation that Jack Stirrup had killed his own daughter or simply guessing that Jack had done away with Alison, it was inconceivable that he had evidence to back up either claim.

Yet as he took a TV dinner out of the microwave, Harry recalled Stirrup’s evasiveness during their conversation the previous afternoon at New Brighton and all his old anxieties about his client surfaced again. Chewing a pizza, he sifted in his mind through the debris of Stirrup’s life, hoping in vain to turn up something that would put an end to doubt.

Could Kuiper help? Whilst he ate, Harry wondered at the young man’s telephone call. Possibly Claire had told the boyfriend something about either her father or her step-mother that would help to solve the mystery.

He glanced at his watch. Half-eight. Kuiper had suggested a rendezvous in New Brighton. According to Stirrup, Claire had first met her boyfriend at The Wreckers, a pub-disco on a promontory overlooking the Mersey. Might he be there tonight?