Martin Edwards: Suspicious Minds

“What’s the latest on Trevor?” asked Harry, pouring the last of the wine.

“Morgan? Christ knows. No one’s asked me for a reference. Last time I asked around, he was drinking more than ever. The man’s a fool to himself.”

Harry put the wine bottle down guiltily. “Pity,” he said. “You and he were close at one time.”

“Close?” Stirrup leaned over the table and snapped his fingers. “We were like that, Trevor Morgan and me, ever since the days when I had one off-licence and a scratty little wine bar in Wrexham called The Stirrup Cup. Claire was just a toddler then, it was in the days when Margaret was still alive. He and I have been together ever since. If he could have kept his hands off the female staff, he’d be with me now. But he went too far.”

“How did Cathy take his sacking?”

“No idea. Never seen her from that day to this. Tell you the truth, I could never stick the woman. Hard-nosed bitch. She gave Trev a hard time, no wonder he played away from home. Ali got on with her all right, reckoned she was cultured. But once I’d given Cathy’s old man the push, that was the end of it. The girls could scarcely keep on socialising.”

Claire came in, bearing mints and cups of coffee. Harry congratulated her on the meal and received a shrug in response. Stirrup said genially, “She still fancies going to catering college. Sometimes I worry I’ve bred a female Bryan Grealish, God help us. I keep telling her to go to university, take a degree in law. Make yourself a fortune like that feller Devlin, I keep on saying.”

As he bellowed with laughter, his daughter looked briefly at the heavens and went out again.

“I didn’t go to university,” said Harry mildly. The Polytechnic had been good enough for him. Studying in his spare time while he took a succession of casual jobs to keep his head above water. After the death of his parents, money had always been tight.

“What? Well, you know what I mean. No way will a solicitor ever starve. Not while…”

He was interrupted by the roar of a motorbike engine coming close to the house before cutting out. A look of anger darkened his face for a moment, then was gone. Harry heard footsteps: Claire hurrying to the back door.

Lowering his voice, Stirrup said, “That’ll be lover boy. Sly little creep.”

“Claire’s young man?”

Stirrup made a noise, part belch, part expression of disgust. “Not so young. Twenty years old, would you believe? Claire’s only a kid yet. Oh, yes, I know she’s got a figure. And she can cope with any lad who tries to go too far. She’s got a yellow belt in karate, would you believe. All right, things are different from when you and me were young. All the same, I don’t like it. A cradle snatcher, that’s what he is.”

Harry didn’t think a five-year age gap put the lad in Bryan Grealish’s class as a cradle snatcher. Nor was he thrilled to be bracketed with Stirrup in age.

“Don’t get me wrong, Harry boy. I’m no Mister Bloody Barrett of Wimpole Street. I know a thing or two about the younger generation, how they behave. Forbidden fruit and all that. My girl’s no angel, she’s flesh and blood. I haven’t asked her not to keep seeing him. That’s the mistake my first wife’s old man made with me. Margaret and me, we simply ran off and got married. No, matter of fact, I encourage her to bring him into the house. Let her see him in surroundings she knows, not some back street pub or disco. That way she’ll realise soonest he isn’t for her.”

“What does the lad do?”

“Not a bloody hand’s turn! That is, he’s a student. Studying law, would you believe? At the Poly though, not a proper university.”

Words failed Harry this time, but his host was unaware of it. Stirrup wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up, gazing through the dining room window. After a moment he strode from the room. Harry could hear him shouting to Claire, urging her to invite her friend inside. The reply sounded mutinous, but within a couple of minutes Stirrup was back, wearing the complacent expression of a man who has scored a point.

Claire followed, her face red with embarrassment or rage or both. A pace behind came a young man in leather biking gear. Thick black hair fell forward over his pallid face. He had a sullen mouth which might have been purpose-made for registering a sneer. A gold earring glinted from one lobe.

“You want to be a lawyer, don’t you…” — Stirrup ostentatiously reached into his memory for the young man’s first name — “… Peter? Well, this is my company’s solicitor. Mr. Harry Devlin — meet Peter Kipper.”

“Kuiper,” snapped Claire. She pronounced it “caper.”

Stirrup smiled and Harry guessed the mistake had been deliberate. Stretching out a hand, he said, “Pleased to meet you.”

Peter Kuiper curled his lip as if an attempt were being made to contaminate him with a social disease.

“I don’t intend to practise law.” He had a faint South African accent. “There’s too much routine in legal work to satisfy me. It’s just a qualification, a mental discipline, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You’ll change your tune when the taxpayer stops paying your board and lodging,” said Stirrup with breezy confidence.

Kuiper bestowed a look of pity upon the girl. Her face crimsoned again and she said, “Peter’s got too much imagination to be a wage slave.”

Harry decided to mediate. “I can do without the competition anyway,” he said affably. “So what are your plans, Peter?”

Permitting himself a smile of superiority, Kuiper said, “To make money. In an interesting way.”

“Do me a favour, then. When you discover the secret, let me in on it.”

Claire didn’t bother to hide her boredom with the conversation. “Peter can’t stay long.” She shot a resentful glance at her father and waved a hand towards the dining room table. “And I suppose I’ll have all the meal to clear up. So if you don’t mind…”

“You can use the living room,” said Stirrup, exuding magnanimity.

“It’s okay, I’m going soon,” said Kuiper. “Just called to say hello. Got plenty of things to do.”

Distress blotched the girl’s face. “But you said…”

“Only a flying visit, I told you. I’ll give you a call.”

As the young man left the room, Stirrup said with a glance at his watch, “Nice to see you again, er — Peter. Better look sharp, though. You’ve only a couple of hours or so left today to make any headway towards your first million.”

Kuiper responded with a just-you-wait scowl and was gone, Claire hard on his heels. Harry and Stirrup could hear the two of them talking in the hallway. Their voices were low, urgent.

Stirrup broke the silence as soon as he realised that he could not hear what was being said without overt eavesdropping. “See what I mean? The surly young bastard’s not fit to lick her boots.”

Harry was not convinced that Claire and Kuiper were unsuited to each other, so he simply shook his head in a gesture that might have meant anything.

Stirrup sighed. “It’s not easy for the girl, you know. I can’t be mother as well as father to her. I work long hours, you know that. There ought to be an older woman about the place.”

The front door banged. They could hear Claire going into the kitchen; her footfalls had a defeated sound. Harry seized the opportunity to turn the conversation in the direction which interested him most.

“Maybe Alison will be back home soon.”

“You think so? I don’t know, Harry boy, I just don’t know.”

“A woman doesn’t walk out on all this” — Harry’s wave of the hand encompassed the magnificence of the room — “without a good reason. Any idea what it might be?”