Martin Edwards - All the Lonely People

Coghlan’s place was a modern detached in spacious grounds, worthy of a successful executive or a villain too smart for the police to catch. More than likely there was a swimming pool at the rear. That alone would have been enough to captivate Liz — she loved the water and used to say that as a kid she’d had a recurrent dream of being a mermaid. Harry pulled up outside, walked to the door and pressed the bell.

Behind him, someone boomed, “Harry Devlin — what the hell are you doing?”

The unexpected familiarity of the voice was bewildering. Harry whirled round and snapped, “Who’s there?”

“You shouldn’t be here, you daft sod.” A man with a chest as broad as a coal barge emerged from the gloom. The gravel rasped beneath his feet; there was nothing subtle about his heavy tread. For all his anonymous plain clothes, the man would never be mistaken for anything but a policeman.

“Dave.”

Detective Constable David Moulden nodded. “Long time no see.”

“Why are you…?”

“I asked first. This is the last place I thought I’d run into you, Harry.”

“Last place I would have intended to come if…”

With a gentleness surprising in a big clumsy man, Moulden interrupted again to say, “Sorry about your missus, Harry.”

Harry looked at the detective. They hadn’t met since one night the previous summer when a client of Harry’s had taken it into his head to crash a stolen taxi cab into a police car. “Am I right in assuming Coghlan hasn’t turned up yet?”

“Correct.”

“Significant, don’t you think?”

“You know me, Harry, I’m not paid to think.” The good-humoured expression was as effective a mask as any.

“Any idea where the man is?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that we’d like to talk with him when he does show up. Result is, two of us have been sent to keep an eye on this place. My mate’s in the car down the road. But you’ve no business here, you’re well aware of that.”

Harry said grimly, “I’d dearly love to speak to Coghlan myself.”

“Forget it. This is a murder inquiry, Harry, not some piddling burglary. You’re personally involved. Do yourself a favour and keep out of it.”

Harry fished for more information, but landed nothing. Moulden might not have been told much about the case by his superior officers and in any event was too good a policeman to let anything slip.

On his way back to the city centre, Harry asked himself what the journey had achieved. Coghlan’s continuing absence was hard to understand. Had he done a flit? The first signs were that Skinner was right in implying that Liz’s death had not been a straightforward case of a mugging or rape that had gone murderously wrong. More than ever, Harry wanted to find out for himself exactly what had happened to her. But how could he do that?

Tonight of all nights he couldn’t go to the Dock Brief. Too many people who knew him frequented the place and he wasn’t in the mood for repeated condolences. Instead he chose the Lear, a free house in Lime Street which took its name not from the Shakespearean king but from the Victorian rhymester who under Lord Derby’s patronage had written many of his poems over at Knowsley Hall. Pictures of luminous-nosed Dongs and toeless Pobbles decorated the walls, strange companions for the seamen and tarts who packed the bar.

Harry sat at a table by himself for hours, drinking slowly and turning the day’s dreadful news over and over in his mind. Quite apart from the traumatic news of Liz’s death itself, the way in which Jim, and especially Maggie, had reacted to the crime was somehow unsettling. And where was Coghlan? Was the nagging thought that the man might have murdered Liz prompted by logic, loathing or merely his own reluctance to accept that she might have met her end at the hands of a teenager doped out of his senses by smack?

In the corner of the snug, a couple of prostitutes were conducting a drunken dispute about a customer beneath a framed print which depicted the Owl and the Pussycat in their beautiful pea-green boat. And as the evening wore on and alcohol, fatigue and consciousness of what he had lost fuzzed his mind, the murder of Liz began to seem more ludicrous by far than a simple piece of nonsense verse.

At eight the next morning, the alarm’s buzz woke him. The coldness of the day made him shiver; his restlessness during the night had thrown the duvet onto the floor. Already the memory of staggering home from the Lear was as hazy as a scene observed through a smeared windowpane. He had an idea that he’d taken the phone off the hook and ignored a tapping at the door accompanied by a voice that sounded like Brenda Rixton’s asking if he was all right.

Nothing could be seen when he pulled the bedroom curtains apart. Fog had rolled over the Mersey, covering the water with its grey quilt. No hint of human life anywhere outside; he might have been marooned on an urban island.

He was drinking black coffee when the doorbell rang. Brenda again? No: when he put his eye to the spyhole, the sad face of Chief Inspector Skinner gazed back at him. It was a gut-wrenching repeat of the start to the previous day and for a moment he thought that he must still be dreaming. When he opened the door, he saw Macbeth was there as well.

“Sorry to disturb you again, Mr. Devlin,” said Skinner. There was a faint snuffle in his voice, as if he had picked up a February cold. “We have a number of additional questions for you, I’m afraid.”

Harry stood aside and they walked into the lounge. His grudging offer of coffee was accepted and as he poured two more cups from the jug, he sensed they were appraising his words and movements, on the look-out for evasions and inconsistencies that might suggest he intended to tell them less than he knew. Macbeth didn’t take a seat. Sleek and immaculate in a leather jacket and slacks, he prowled the room like a panther about to pounce.

Skinner said, “We’d appreciate it if you could take us through your movements again on the day that your wife was killed.”

Harry repeated his account of the events of Thursday. Already it seemed a lifetime away. Neither policeman took notes. Skinner listened intently; his sergeant radiated cynicism.

“Is there anything you would wish to add to your statement?” asked the Chief Inspector. “Or change?”

Harry shook his head. “Why should I?”

Macbeth spoke at last. “Why did you call at Coghlan’s house yesterday?” He glared at Harry, daring him to deny the visit.

“I wanted to talk to the man. Simple as that.”

“Why?”

How to reply when there was no safe, sensible answer? “Liz left me to live with him. I’ve never met Mick Coghlan, but he’s still one of the most important people in my life. When she was dead, I thought I should at least speak to him.”

“Mourning together?” The sergeant shovelled on the sarcasm.

When Harry said nothing, Skinner asked, “How did you react when your marriage broke up?”

“I celebrated with champagne, what do you imagine?” Even as he spoke, Harry regretted being provoked into a bitter, childish response. No good would come of it. He had counselled clients a thousand times about keeping cool under interrogation or in the witness box. Easier said than done.

“You must have felt wild.”

Why deny it? “Of course, but at least I had enough nous to realise there was no way I could change her mind for her. If she ever wished to come back, it had to be her decision, taken in her own time. She-”

“Yes?”

“She was a strong-willed woman, Chief Inspector. Threats or pleading, neither would have achieved anything. They would only have made her more determined.”