Martin Edwards - All the Lonely People

His shoes slid on pavements greasy after another fall of rain and when he looked around he saw Liverpool with a stranger’s eyes. Streets littered with discarded till receipts, rotten apple cores and polystyrene hamburger cartons. Illicit dealers flogging dustbin bags and cheap brooches from upturned crates. Teenage kids with green hair loafing at corners and men in leather jackets trying to sell socialist propaganda. Today everyone had a face as grey as the sky. Vandals had ripped up a row of saplings planted under the shadow of St. George’s Hall and sprayed shop walls with slogans about football, sex and anarchy. Normally he took the shoddiness of it all for granted, but this afternoon the sight of the place hurt him as much as would a scar across the face of a friend.

Harry quickened his pace as he approached each newspaper stand; the early evening editions were already on sale. Hoarse relish filled the vendors’ voices as they shouted their reminders that Liz was dead.

“Murder of City Girl!”

Harry flinched the first time he heard the cry, but soon it was commonplace, as much a part of the background as the smell of onions from the hot dog sellers’ carts and the intermittent screeching of the buses’ brakes.

“Murder of City Girl! Murder of City Girl!”

People were buying the papers; he could see one or two of them devouring Ken Cafferty’s prose. Liz had always wanted to be the centre of attention and in death her wish had come true. He remembered her once quoting Andy Warhol’s dictum that everyone should be famous for fifteen minutes and wondering aloud when her moment would come. Real life was never good enough for her; television and movies, the admen’s images of a better life just over the rainbow, had seen to that. She would have revelled in her name being on everyone’s lips. He could picture her grinning and with a careless toss of the black hair, saving only half in jest, “Maybe this makes it all worthwhile.”

In the end he bought a copy himself and took it back to the office. Slumped in his chair, he could scarcely believe that he was reading about his wife. The newspaper told him nothing he didn’t already know. The photo of Liz must have been taken years ago; probably some journalist had prised it out of Maggie. Liz had been looking straight at the camera, wearing the practised smile she had learned in her abbreviated modelling career. On the facing page was a smaller, smudged file photo of himself. It dated back to a much-publicised case when he had defended an enterprising Evertonian who earned a crust impersonating people summoned for jury service, but reluctant to perform their civic duty. Harry gazed at the rag for a minute or so, then threw it into the wastepaper bin.

Sighing, he contemplated the beer belly that bulged unmistakably beneath his shirt. A few years ago he had run in the Liverpool Marathon with the minimum of training; these days he used the lift in the Empire Dock rather than climbing the stairs. Cigarettes and booze were partly to blame, but so was the sense of futility that had dogged him since the marriage breakdown.

Thinking about keep-fit reminded him of gym-owning Michael Coghlan. There was no escaping the man; he muscled into any memory of Liz. Realistically, was it conceivable that Coghlan murdered her? The fingernails of Harry’s right hand dug into his left palm as he was seized by the impulse to find Coghlan and beat the truth out of him.

Of course, the logical thing was to go home and wait for the police to act, but he no longer cared about the logical thing. On the calendar, today’s saw was There are situations in life when it is wisdom not to be too wise. For once the message rang true. He pushed the remaining files to one side, said goodbye to Lucy and left.

Brunner Street was five minutes distant by car. He parked across the road from a Chinese moneylender’s and walked down to the old brush factory that had been converted into Coghlan’s Fitness Centre. A gaudy yellow signboard nailed across the building’s soot-blackened exterior promised high quality facilities and a family atmosphere. Harry walked in past a ground-floor display of jogging gear and sweatshirts and a gum-chewing assistant who was chatting up some girl on the telephone. The place was quiet. Too far from the city centre to appeal to health-conscious businessmen who fancied a lunch hour work-out, thought Harry, and too close to Toxteth to make an up-market image credible. He went through a door marked members only. It led to a flight of steep stairs which he took two at a time out of some vague gesture of solidarity with the keep-fit clan, but by the time he reached the top he was puffing for breath.

Upstairs a red-haired woman sat at a small table reading the fashion page of a glossy magazine. She wore a tight tee shirt emblazoned with the legend: My boss is a comedian — the wages he pays are a joke, and an expression as bored as the voice in which she asked for his membership card.

“I’m looking for Mick Coghlan.”

His eyes roamed around the gym. No evidence here of the family appeal of Coghlan’s, just a handful of squashy-nosed men in singlets and boxer shorts working out on the punch bags and dumb-bells or pressing their hairy, hard-muscled bodies up and down with practised ease on the green mats that covered half the pine block floor. Grunts and curses punctuated the sweaty silence. On the far side of the room, a burly and balding man in a faded tracksuit stood, arms folded, watching the activity. A navy blue towel was slung over his shoulder. He caught sight of Harry and stared at him in a menacing, sleepy-eyed way, as if he fancied himself a Liverpudlian Robert Mitchum.

The woman said, “Mr. Coghlan isn’t here.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want him, anyway?”

“I need to talk to him urgently.”

“Arthur.” She called to the burly man, who strode towards them.

“What’s the problem, Paula?”

“This feller wants to see Mick. Reckons it’s urgent.”

Arthur scowled at Harry. It was like sustaining the visual equivalent of grievous bodily harm.

“So who are you?”

“My name’s Devlin. Harry Devlin.”

The man looked puzzled for a moment, as if the name rang some far-off bell, then his brow cleared and he picked up a copy of the evening paper from the table, turning to the story about Liz’s murder.

“Harry Devlin, eh? Well, pal, Mr. Coghlan isn’t here and I don’t think he’d want to talk to you if he was.”

“Is he back at the house?”

“You deaf or summat? I said, he wouldn’t want to see you. Now scram before my patience breaks.”

Harry began, “Whatever you say, I’ll be sure to…” But he got no further because the man laid a couple of shovel-like hands on his shoulders, spun him around and frog-marched him towards the door.

“Arthur,” said the red-head in a warning tone.

“No problem,” came the reply. “Simply seeing Mr. Devlin out.” He released his grip and bent down to hiss in Harry’s ear. “My manners aren’t always so good. Now fuck off and don’t come back.” One push sent Harry tumbling down the first few steps and had him clawing at the rail to regain his balance.

Downstairs the youth was still busy on the phone. Harry left Coghlan’s Fitness Centre without regret but with no sense that it had been a wasted visit, either. He had the illusion of having done something positive and he’d seldom experienced that kind of feeling recently. The next move was to find out whether Coghlan had yet arrived home.

Liz had phoned him a couple of times after going to live with Coghlan, asking him to send on a few of the things she had left behind on the day she moved. Harry remembered that her new address had been in Woolton; he stopped off at a post office on the way to check the details in the phone book. It was five o’clock and darkness had fallen. He drove throughout the waste land of the inner city towards the more affluent suburbs, trying to work out what he would say if Coghlan was there. In truth, he had no real idea of how he would handle things but that, perversely, was part of the challenge.