Martin Edwards: All the Lonely People

Liz was dead. And a primitive rage started to burn within him. Someone in this city owned the hands that had crushed out so much life. Perhaps a mugger or a maniac, but possibly the man of whom she had expressed so much fear: Mick Coghlan. Might her murder so soon after she had begged for shelter from her lover’s wrath be nothing more than a macabre coincidence? Harry’s mind rebelled against the idea. It was not simply that he didn’t believe in such quirks of fate, but more that nailing Coghlan with the guilt had about it a rightness and classical inevitability. That the man who had wrecked his marriage should be responsible too for the final act of brutal destruction seemed as logical to Harry as his own rapidly rising hunger for revenge.

The wind from the Mersey chewed at the bare flesh of his face. The riverside walkway was deserted save for a couple of elderly dog-walkers kitted out in anoraks and fur-lined boots who glanced at him nervously before scurrying on. The noiseless moving of his lips might have disturbed them, or it may have been his wild appearance. Lacking a jersey or coat to guard against the bitter cold, with his patched jeans and thin shirt he must have looked like a ravaged scarecrow, but he didn’t care.

Harry kicked a pebble over the side and heard it splash into the waves that slapped against the breakwater. They used to call this the Cast-Iron Shore, where granite warehouses towered above iron quays and the world traded through the port of Liverpool. Jesse Hartley, the no-nonsense architect who had built the Albert and Empire Docks, was said to have had a contempt for beauty, but the austere grandeur of his monuments remained now that the buildings had out-lived their original usefulness to become traps for tourists and the leisure cult. Times had changed. Gone were the days when the Mersey was crowded with big square riggers arriving on every tide, bringing cargoes of cotton from the New World. The only vessels to be seen this morning were the two river ferries, chugging back and forth from the Pierhead to the landing stages at Seacombe and Woodchurch.

After passing the Tate Gallery, he stopped as he always did at the sight of the Liverpool waterfront, with the Cunard, Dock Company and Liver Buildings towering above the stick men and women who strolled around. Why, he wondered, did he love Liverpool when behind the Victorian splendour of the Pierhead there was so much about the place to hate — the dirt and the poverty and the crime? It occured to him that, as with his ceaseless yearning for Liz, his affection for his birthplace remained strong enough to survive the worst: it could not simply fade away. The city and the woman, they would always be part of him.

In the pocket of his jeans he had thrust, out of habit, a box of matches and a handful of cigarettes. He was about to light up when, for no reason that he could understand, he changed his mind. All at once, he wanted never to smoke again. A ridiculous time for such a decision. But it was a small token of the need he had to commit himself to one objective in life, at least, that might be attainable. He hurled the matches and fags in a single movement out into the river. They bobbled on the surface for a second or two, then disappeared from view. A woman passing by tutted in disgust at this latest pollution of the Mersey.

Increasing his pace, he walked towards Water Street. As he passed the equestrian statue of Edward VII, a pigeon, Scouse-irreverent, defecated on the monarch’s head. Harry grinned for a moment, but then his jaw set again and he made a silent vow. Of course it would be harder than denying himself a smoke. But Liz had trusted him to keep her safe and he had failed her. Now he would not rest, could not rest, until he had found her murderer.

“I can forgive a man anything,” said Ken Cafferty, waving a chunky hand magnanimously, “provided he has a sense of humour. But Ned Skinner, now — typical bloody Yorkshireman! Miserable as a Monday morning in Middles-borough.”

He lifted a chipped mug to his lips, oblivious to the ring it had left on the surface of Harry’s office desk, and beamed with pleasure at his own phrase-making. Then he sucked in his cheeks and added, “But he gets results. By God, Harry, he gets results.”

Ten minutes earlier Cafferty had put his notebook away and they had started speaking off the record. Chief crime reporter on one of the city’s local rags, with Harry he had a you-scratch-my-back relationship of the kind that went back years and suited them both. Like most journalists and lawyers, they remained wary of each other, conscious of the conflict between the public’s right to know and the client’s craving for confidentiality. Yet within the constraints of their irreconcilable objectives, Harry was willing to feed Cafferty with as much information about a case as common sense permitted and trusted the man not to print more than was needed to make a story that didn’t sink like a stone.

This time Harry was cashing in a few old favours. He wanted the minimum hassle from the Press and as much inside information as Cafferty could provide. The reporter was willing to oblige; after probing for half an hour, he seemed satisfied that he wasn’t interviewing a credible murder suspect. Positive leads, though were in short supply and he’d been able to tell Harry no more than Skinner had already divulged. The Coghlan angle, as Cafferty persisted in calling it, held his interest, but as Harry had kept quiet about Liz’s fear for her life — he knew better than to show all his cards at the outset, even when seeking help — there wasn’t much meat on the bones of an exclusive yet.

“It comes down to this…” said Cafferty, furrowing his brow. Harry knew the cherubic face and cheerfully mundane small talk masked a shrewd intelligence. “… was your wife simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or did she know her killer?” He paused, as if hoping to provoke a response, but when none was forthcoming, said, “Did Skinner drop any hints to you about the way he sees things? Without prejudice, as you legal bods would say?”

“Not a thing,” said Harry slowly. “I can’t make out what the man is thinking.”

“Sniffing round for a motive, isn’t he? What can it be if not sex or money? There are no stray lunatics out on the loose to take all the blame. At least, no more than usual. By keeping you guessing, he’s taking no risks. After all, you wouldn’t be the first lawyer in the past few years to have flipped and turned to murder. And remember, my friend, most killings are domestics. That can’t surprise you, you handle divorce work.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Harry stood up. “Thanks for coming in, anyway.” He tried to make it sound like a dismissal. Cafferty had not responded to an invitation to chat; he had simply been hanging round outside New Commodities House waiting for the chance to catch Harry for a one-to-one talk about Liz’s death. But he took the hint and got to his feet.

Offering his hand, Cafferty said, “Appreciate your time. “Specially on a day like this. It’s rough for you, it won’t have sunk in properly yet. Doesn’t matter how long the two of you have been split up, she was still your wife.” For an instant his face clouded. “Believe me, marriages have deeper roots than people realise. Jenny, my first, she buggered off fifteen years ago with some snotty-nosed kid on an assignment from the Mirror and I dream about her to this very day.”

Harry showed him out and agreed to call if there was any further news. Suzanne on the switchboard, shiny-eyed at being involved — if only at one remove — in a case of violent crime, attracted his attention. “Message for you, Mr. Devlin.” She had abandoned her surliness, no doubt as a mark of respect for the bereaved. “Your sister-in-law, Mrs. Edge.”