Martin Edwards: Suspicious Minds

“Really?” Her manner was withering. “Let’s test that bold assertion, shall we? For instance — when do you think The Beast hid Claire Stirrup’s body in the cave?”

“The police can’t be sure. Even if she was killed around mid-day, they reckon her body was kept somewhere — a carboot presumably — until darkness fell and he had the chance to lift it into the cave unobserved.”

“Right. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Are we?”

“Yes, Sherlock, we are. You want to know why? Listen — all the time when you think he was over on Wirral burying that little girl, he was at home in Liverpool. And I can prove it. Shall I explain? Because I was there too. Yes, you can wipe that look off your face. It’s true. I was with him all evening.”

“You’re lying,” said Harry. “Lying to protect him.”

Valerie exclaimed in anger. Hamer still had his head in his hands. She glanced at him before beckoning grimly to Harry to follow her as she stepped backwards into the corridor.

As soon as they were outside the robing room she banged the door shut and hissed in his ear.

“You utter bastard! How could you do that to him? How could you? And how could you accuse me of — of — God, you’re an idiot! How is it I’ve only just realised?”

Her storm of anger had shipwrecked him.

“Valerie, we need to talk.”

“Too right. Come with me.”

She led him past a couple of doors before pausing outside the entrance to the library.

“We may as well try this place; God knows, there’s seldom anyone here.”

They went inside, squinting along the tall stacks of books. No one was mugging up on the last minute point of law. Valerie walked past the shelf marked crime and sat on one of two high stools next to blasphemy and obscenity. She motioned him to do likewise.

Quietly, as if the books might eavesdrop, she said, “You’ve made a complete and utter fool of yourself.”

“If you’re right,” said Harry, “it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Nor the last, I expect.” She sighed, pushing a small hand through the thicket of her hair. “Why did you have to do it? To Julian, of all people?”

“Everything fits, Valerie.”

“Nothing fits. For a start, Julian would never terrorise a woman. I’m not guessing. I know him well.”

“So it seems.”

“You can cut out the sarky comments for a start.”

“What would you say if you were me? You’ve already given him your alibi. And I rang your flat last night. Very late. He answered the phone.”

She stared at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You actually think Julian and I are lovers?”

“Do you deny it?”

“For Christ’s sake!” Her anger had returned and, with it, her voice rose. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“What do you expect me to say?”

Wincing, she said, “I can see I’m going to have to satisfy your bloody curiosity, even though it does mean breaking a promise.”

“Maybe you owe me an explanation.”

“Don’t be stuffy, Harry, it doesn’t suit you. And remember this — I don’t owe you anything.”

“Okay, okay, okay. Are you going to tell me or not?”

A warning light shone in her eyes, making him feel like an ant about to be crushed by a sledgehammer.

“Julian has MS.”

“What?”

“Multiple sclerosis, you know?”

Now it was Harry’s turn to stare.

“He’s had the symptoms for months, but he’s said nothing to anyone until recently. Things got worse, he eventually went to see the doctor and the diagnosis was confirmed.”

“Christ.”

“Before I came in and heard you haranguing him I was having a word with the solicitor in the case Julian’s handling today. I gather things went badly. People thought he was pissed.”

“That’s right. At least — I did.”

“After a night of lust with me, I suppose you thought?”

“Something like that,” he muttered.

“Harry, you prick.” Her voice trembled with contempt. “Certainly he was with me. As he has been on several occasions when you’ve wanted me to spend time with you.”

“I see.”

“I doubt it. He swore me to secrecy. I’m still the only person he’s confided in apart from the doctors. He daren’t tell anyone. Not everyone with MS continues to degenerate. He’s been praying that the symptoms are only transient. I try to persuade him he’ll be one of the lucky ones, but he doesn’t believe it and frankly neither do I. All I can do is offer my time, company, whatever comfort I can. Not sex, if that’s what you’re bothered about, but friendship. We talk long into the night. Why do you think I’ve fobbed you off so many times when you wanted us to spend an evening together? He needs support more than any man I know. More than you, for a start. At least you have your life to lead, your business. Julian knows this bloody disease will destroy his career. What solicitor is going to brief a mouthpiece who can’t even guarantee to get the words out straight?”

She folded her arms and looked at him. It was a mannerism she had picked up in the courts, a let’s-see-what-you-make-of-that look, more effective than any advocate’s rhetoric.

Harry kept quiet for a long time, thinking of small clues he had misunderstood. Like the way Julian had dropped his cup that afternoon in Balliol Chambers when he first saw Claire. A sign not of guilty recognition, but of the bit-by-bit deterioration of his body.

Hoarse with self-reproach, he said, “You’re right. I have made a fool of myself. What can I say?”

“Not a lot. What’s done can’t be easily undone. All I’ll say is — you’re not the man I thought you were. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back and see Julian.”

She turned on her heel and left Harry to his thoughts. He took a step forward and knocked his head, not gently, several times against the shelf labelled contracts and OBLIGATIONS. Out of the corner of his eye the title of an old, calfskin-bound tome caught his eye.

Mistake of Fact.

“Shit!” he said. “Shit, shit, shit!”

As he spoke a young woman, dressed so severely and looking so thirsty for legal knowledge that she could only be an articled clerk working for Maher and Malcolm, walked into the room. She took one look at him, crimsoned and then disappeared out of sight again.

Time to go, Harry said to himself. You’ve done enough damage in the last twenty-four hours to last a professional lifetime.

He loosened his tie, put his jacket over his shoulder and shambled out of the library, down the stairs and into the sweltering heat of Derby Square. There, he spotted a familiar figure limping towards him. Jonah Deegan. Uncertainty flitted across the old detective’s face and he cleared his throat noisily before addressing Harry with less than his usual truculence.

“I was looking for you. Just been to your office. To have a word about Stirrup.”

“He’s given me the sack.”

“He did say he’d had a barney with you.”

“About Alison. I refused to give him her address. Did he try to pump you?”

Jonah looked uncomfortable. “As it happens, he did.”

Harry could already guess the answer to his question, but he asked it anyway.

“And?”

For the first time in their acquaintance, Jonah Deegan showed traces of embarrassment. His leathery cheeks went pink and he started fiddling irritably with the hairs that grew from his nostrils.

“He’s a client. I owe him a duty. As a professional man, you know the score.”

“I know you’ll be wanting your bill paid.”

“It’s not a question of money. He hired me to find her. He had a right to know.”