Martin Edwards - All the Lonely People

“I’d be glad to think so. Sometimes late at night, though, when I sit here listening to the radio or squinting at the television, I can convince myself I’m the only woman in the world who’s on her own.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. Harry thought: Perhaps fear of loneliness is even worse than the thing itself. This woman’s attractive enough, she could find someone if she put her mind to it.

Brenda stood up and yawned. “Forgive me. I’m tired and yet I suffer from sleepless nights. Doesn’t add up, does it?”

He rose too. “Terrific meal, Brenda. Very kind. Suppose I ought to be making tracks now.”

She moved towards him. Her perfume was just perceptible, a discreet fragrance, different from the exotic muck which Liz used to daub on herself. “Stay longer if you can. Don’t feel you have to go on my account.” She smiled, showing even white teeth. “It’s good to have someone to talk to. Although I’m afraid I’ve done all of the talking.”

“I’ve enjoyed it as well.” He could feel her warm breath on his cheek. Stepping back, he said, “I must go. Thanks again.”

At the door, she said, “Thank you for coming. We must do this more often. Cooking for two is much more fun than for one.” She closed her eyes and inclined her face in his direction. But he didn’t want to kiss her; it would have seemed a betrayal, although of whom or of what he wasn’t sure.

“Goodnight,” he said softly.

As he locked his front door and settled down inside, he thought about the mixed emotions on her face as she had turned away and for a moment he experienced an unexpected pang of regret that he had rejected her invitation to stay.

Next morning he rang police headquarters and asked to be put through to Skinner, meeting the switchboard girl’s prevarication with the persistence born of years in the legal profession. After a full five minutes’ delay, the Chief Inspector came on to the line. He sounded full of cold.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Devlin?”

“Found Coghlan yet?” Better not let him know that Ken Cafferty had already broken the news.

“Mr. Coghlan is in London at present. He is assisting our colleagues in the Met, yes.” Skinner sneezed. “Meanwhile, our enquiries are continuing.”

“When are you going to charge him?”

With an obvious effort at patience, Skinner said, “As you are well aware, Mr. Devlin, there’s a limit to what I can…”

“Christ, Chief Inspector, the man killed my wife! I want to know.”

Skinner said bleakly, “I’ve warned you before about these wild allegations, Mr. Devlin. You’re under stress, I appreciate that, but you know better than most about being innocent until proved guilty. People in your line of business make a few bob out of that old principle, don’t they? Well, for your information, we have no specific reason to believe that Mr. Coghlan was concerned in your wife’s death and it is highly likely he will be returning home in the course of the next few hours. A free man.”

“But…”

“And that, I’m afraid, is all that I can say at this juncture. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a great deal of work to do. Rest assured, I shall contact you when I have something to say.”

Skinner rang off, leaving Harry sick with dismay. What story had Coghlan been weaving? Why hadn’t he been brought back to the local force for interrogation? By now, the questions that had arisen in respect of Liz’s murder should have been finding answers. Instead, they were multiplying. A thought sprang into his mind: in a case such as this, could there be any justification for taking the law into one’s own hands, if the system proved powerless to ensnare the man concerned? Harry had seen too many culprits go free — had participated sometimes in ensuring that they went free — to have too much faith that Coghlan would eventually be brought to book. Uneasily, he forced himself to think of other things.

He spent a tedious hour trying to restore order to his flat. Pulling an old tie into the back of a drawer, he chanced upon the album in which he and Liz had kept their wedding photographs. Souvenirs to look back on in years to come, they had agreed at the time. But there hadn’t been many years to come and Liz had not claimed the pictures when she had left to start another life. He flipped through the book and its collection of memories. At the altar, signing the register, in the doorway of the church With Jim, his best man, with Maggie and Derek and Matt too. That reminded him. Checking his watch, he found that it was time to go. He shoved the wedding album back in the drawer. Sometime he must have a clear-out. But not today.

Outside, the red bricks of the reclaimed dock warehouses basked in the brightness of a February sun. The city streets were quiet as he walked briskly to the Freak Shop, casting his mind back to his first encounter with the little man, a month or so before that wedding day. Mischievous Liz hadn’t revealed in advance that Matt was a dwarf, having taken care merely to describe him as a long-time friend of the family. Characteristically, she had relished Harry’s attempt to conceal his bewilderment when introductions were made. Matt Barley was perfectly proportioned, but only forty-five inches tall. He had a mop of fair hair and a vice-like handshake. There was no need to indulge in excessive tact about his height; Matt joked about it often — so often that Harry came to realise that for Matt, humour was a shield, used to help him compete on equal terms with a world of tall people.

Yet Matt had no need to feel inadequate. He had a sharp brain and a flair for making a fool out of anyone crass enough to equate a lack of size with a lack of nous. From his father, an equally diminutive sales manager in the motor trade, he had inherited an entrepreneurial zest that had enabled him to start a market stall flogging Beatles memorabilia of doubtful provenance before setting up the Freak Shop. There was more than a trace of self-mockery in the name he gave to the shop which he had transformed into a cross between a fancy dress hire business and a pornographer’s discount store. Liz had enjoyed working there. It suited her unshockable style.

The shop was protected by steel shutters and conspicuous burglar alarms. Harry rang the bell and heard bolts being slammed back before Matt’s head appeared round door.

“Come in.”

The silent, unlit shop seemed as eerie as a waxworks in a Hammer horror movie. To one side was a counter covered with tricks, toys and masks which caricatured people in the public eye, along the other ran a rail from which were suspended clowns’ suits, Elizabethan dress and a score more examples of the costumier’s art. Matt led the way past a sign which said private — NO RIFF-RAFF, through a bamboo curtain and into a sparsely furnished back room. On a table in the corner was a tattered paperback of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance together with an opened bottle of Lambrusco and a paper cup. In one corner was a battered old Rock-Ola jukebox that Matt had been tinkering with for as long as Harry could remember. The walls were adorned with a dozen posters showing Matt’s hero, John Lennon, at different stages of his career from the Cavern Club days to the self-indulgence of the seventies.

Mall swept a pile of Swedish magazines off a rattan chair and waved Harry into it.

“Tea, coffee? Beer, wine? Tequila, Bloody Mary? Cannabis, cocaine?”

Harry grinned. “Coffee’s fine.”

As Matt bustled, they talked of days gone by. Friday night at the Dock Brief or the Drum, Saturday afternoons spent watching soccer at Anfield or Goodison, whilst Liz went round to see Maggie or Dame. When the coffee was made, Matt perched on another chair opposite Harry. His face was suddenly screwed up with pain.