Martin Edwards: All the Lonely People

“Didn’t I tell you?”

Unsubtle, thought Harry. “No, Chief Inspector.”

“One of our patrolmen discovered the body on his rounds. In Leeming Street, at the bottom of an alleyway running down by the tyre centre, Albiston’s.”

A mean place for anyone to die. A liver-rotted wino would be ashamed to finish up there. For an instant Harry thought he was going to vomit. Only with a heart-straining effort of will was he able to conquer the feeling of nausea.

“When was she killed?” he asked.

Skinner shook his head. “Too soon for us to say, sir.”

And even if you could, you’d keep that card up your sleeve, thought Harry. He noticed Macbeth push open the bedroom door and step inside, but made no objection. Instead, he pressed for more information and the chief inspector painted in a few background details.

There was, said Skinner sombrely, no indication of a sexual motive for the attack, although pending the post mortem it was too early to draw a firm conclusion. The murder weapon had been a Stanley knife, of the kind sold in hardware shops on every street corner. So far it had not been found. Liz’s handbag had been stolen, but picked up two streets away. No money or credit cards — just the empty wallet — but the driving licence had identified her. Ironic, as she never cared to drive; being chauffeured was much more in her line.

Slowly, Harry said, “Presumably it was some kind of street crime? A mugging gone wrong.”

“We can’t rule out any possibility at this stage.” Skinner’s melancholic face offered no hint as to whether he considered it likely or not. Yet Harry’s years in the law had taught him anything could happen in this city. A kid desperate for money to feed his taste for heroin perhaps, setting on a woman alone, messing up a bag snatch, then grabbing for his knife in a spasm of panic.

“As I mentioned, sir,” continued Skinner, “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to accompany my sergeant to the mortuary.”

Before Harry could speak, Macbeth strode out of the bedroom, barely able to contain a savage smirk of triumph. To his superior he said, “A couple of suitcases in there, sir. Also a shopping bag full of women’s things. The luggage is marked with Mrs. Devlin’s name.”

“You failed to tell me about that, Mr. Devlin.”

Harry shrugged. “I forgot, that’s all.”

“Really, sir?” The corners of Skinner’s mouth seemed to turn even further down than before.

It took Harry’s last reserves of self-discipline for him to respond evenly. “Liz dumped them there yesterday when I was out. I think I told you, my neighbour exchanged a word with her in the early evening.”

“If you don’t object, sir, we’ll have to carry out a search of your flat. A routine precaution, I’m sure a man with your background will understand.”

Harry nodded, as for the first time this morning his mind began to work. From the moment they’d learned Liz had spent Wednesday night here, he’d been in the frame. Skinner’s attitude made it clear that his time at the Ferry, his speaking to Trisha, gave him no alibi. Liz must have been killed earlier in the evening. If it was much later, the police wouldn’t have arrived so quickly. And if he objected to their making a full search, a warrant would materialise like an ace from a conjuror’s palm.

“Go ahead, Chief Inspector.” He hoped he sounded more relaxed than he felt.

Skinner nodded and Macbeth walked over to the door. As he got up to leave, Harry had to choke a bitter laugh in his throat as a thought sprang into his mind. Never mind about a mugging — hadn’t Liz in this very room, not forty-eight hours earlier, expressed her dread of meeting her death at Mick Coghlan’s hands? And he had dismissed it as an absurd flight of fancy. Perhaps to be suspected of murder was the start of his punishment for having disbelieved her.

“Yes, that’s my wife.”

The sweet, sickly stench of the mortuary was everywhere. Instinctively, Harry knew that he would never escape it. No matter if it faded from his nostrils or was cleaned from his clothes. At any moment in the years to come, he would recall this grey morning and again be haunted by the odour of the place of death.

He stood with D.S. Macbeth as the attendant, a silent white-coated man, pulled the sheet up to cover Liz’s face. Seeing her again in this tiled, windowless room seemed unreal. Yet there was no denying that the cold corpse was hers; the last self-deluding prayer, that the police had blundered over identification, had gone unanswered. The dark hair curled as crisply as ever over closed eyes and for all their bluish tinge, the lips had a twist of self-satisfaction. As if to say, “I told you so.” The mortician’s skill almost fooled Harry; it looked as though she were only sleeping. But a second glance at the pale waxy cheeks that he had so often kissed made him realise the spirit had gone. All that was left of Liz on earth was an empty, lifeless shell.

He felt dazed. For a second he thought his legs were going to buckle beneath him, but he summoned up the last of his strength and managed to straighten up. He dare not let himself sink into a quicksand of despair. He must reach for solid ground, try to make sense of the cruel absurdity of what had happened to his wife.

The attendant wheeled her away on a squeaking trolley. Harry did not watch her go. Instead he demanded, “Have you interviewed Coghlan yet?”

His expression unreadable, Macbeth said, “I understand he’s out of town.”

“Liz was terrified of him,” said Harry. He could not help brooding about Wednesday night. “I should have listened instead of thinking it was all an act.”

The policeman said nothing. He led the way into the raw air outside and directed Harry to his unmarked Montego. Macbeth was a good driver, swift and certain, and within ten minutes they were back at Empire Dock. Two squad cars were parked by the entrance and Harry had to walk past the morning porter and relief security guard, who had stared with naked curiosity when he got out of the car, but averted their eyes in embarrassment as he approached, finding themselves unable even to offer a good morning. He could imagine their fascination at the police activity and their ghoulish speculation about whether he was implicated in the death of his wife.

Inside, the police were taking the flat apart. Not a book remained in place, nor probably a speck of dust. The cheese plant had collapsed on to its side and no one had troubled to restore it to the vertical. Strangers tramped backwards and forwards through his home as if on the concourse at Lime Street Station. What were they searching for? Something to pin him to the murder scene, Harry presumed. A photographer was carefully gathering together his gear and an acned constable who seemed anxious to please was flourishing two large polythene bags for Skinner’s inspection. The packages were sealed and bore blue-inked labels stating their contents and the date. Inside were the jacket and trousers Harry had worn the previous night.

In his West Riding monotone, the chief inspector said, “We’ll need to remove one or two personal items for forensic tests, Mr. Devlin. You’ll appreciate, in a case of this kind we have to take a number of routine steps of this sort. I’m afraid I also have to press you for some further information about her background, sir.”

At Skinner’s prompting, Harry sketched a picture of the past. Family details. Liz’s parents had died years ago. Her father was a Pole, who had settled here after the Second World War and found himself an English girl who worked in a bakery in Bootle. There were two children. The older sister, Maggie, nowadays lived in the best part of Blundellsands. Her husband was a partner in the local branch of a country-wide firm of accountants, a dust-dry character with a flair for figures and as much sense of humour as a computer system. Liz had loved to poke fun at him.