Martin Edwards: All the Lonely People

Down this way the buildings thinned and gave way to waste land. Harry recognised this place. They had chanced upon the road that circled the scrap heap of Pasture Moss. He glanced about him. Even under a starless sky he could make out the silhouette of the refuse tip. The scavengers had long gone home and the dark mound resembled a funeral pyre.

Harry pressed his foot down further. He was almost on Rourke’s tail now. They were approaching another sharp curve in the road. Without warning, the Citroen veered crazily off course as it took the bend too fast. Skidding, it cut a swathe through a series of roadwork cones which cordoned off the sewer repairs which Harry had noticed on his visit here the previous day. A red warning sign went spinning into the darkness.

Seeing the danger, Harry stamped on the stop pedal just in time. As he lost speed, his attention Was split between the frantic effort of keeping the M.G. on the road and the horrific fascination of watching Rourke’s desperate effort to regain control. The French car ploughed along the verge of grass and mud before slewing over the railway line that ran between the road and the tip. Finally the collision with the wire perimeter fence brought it to a shuddering halt.

From the other side of the-’road, Harry, heard the train before he saw it. He listened to the howl of the train’s brakes as the driver realised what had happened and made a desperate attempt to achieve the impossible and avoid impact. Harry shut his eyes as the crash occurred and counted to twenty before opening them again. Over his shoulder, he could see that the train had at last pulled up. It had shoved the Citroen thirty yards down the track and the smooth lines of the front of the car were now mangled beyond recognition. As he watched, the engine of the wreck exploded and the first flames shot upwards, like orange fingers pointing to the sky.

Jesus Christ.

Only now did Harry become aware that his shirt was drenched with sweat. Panting, he gazed at the uniformed figures which dismounted from the train and hurried towards the burning car. The heat drove them back, but heroics were not called for in any case. Even if Rourke had withstood the neck-snapping jerk as the car flew off the road, he would have perished instantly in the blast that followed. The fire was merely destroying what was left of his lifeless carcase.

His eyes fixed on the blazing tomb, Harry felt again the sickness in his stomach. After his close encounter with the pavement during the struggle with Rourke, his head was throbbing. The whole of his body felt sore. But someone from the train was pointing in his direction and he could hear the sound of cars approaching in the distance. Groggily, he reached for the gear-stick. Time to go. This latest death was not the end of the nightmare for him. In the frenzy of his pursuit of Rourke, he had forgotten the woman who held the purse-strings. The woman who had priced his wife’s life at five thousand pounds.

The woman who had paid Joe Rourke to murder Liz.

The front door of the house called Paradise Found was unlocked. It opened to his touch. The first-floor light was still on. Not bothering with the bell, Harry walked into the reception hall. Ahead of him, an open-tread staircase led to a galleried landing. From upstairs, he could hear the sound of running water. However many baths she takes, he thought, nothing will cleanse her of the guilt.

He called out: “Angie!”

No reply.

“Angie, it’s me. Harry Devlin.”

Up above, the water was switched off. He waited for a few seconds and then heard soft footfalls. Angie O’Hare appeared from round the bend in the staircase. She wore a short crimson gown with sleeves rolled up and seemed unsteady on her bare feet. The auburn hair was uncombed and strands of it drooped over her face. Her unmade-up cheeks seemed sunken and old. For a moment Harry wondered why he had ever thought her attractive. Then he looked into her deep blue eyes and remembered.

As she reached the bottom step, he said, “It’s over. Rourke’s dead. He lost control of his car and came off the road on to the railway track. The Hunt’s Cross train did the rest.”

“My God.” Her voice was hoarse. Then: “I’m glad.”

Harry moistened his lips. “I know what happened.”

“Yes.” Her ruined face managed a mirthless smile. “When we talked, I realised how dogged you were, that you’d never give up. In a way, I’m thankful. So much went wrong. I never thought it would end like this.” She motioned towards a door leading off from the hall. “Let’s sit down for a minute.”

He followed her into a spacious lounge built in the shape of an L. Above the gas fire, on the stone chimney breast, hung a framed photograph, a wedding picture taken outside a register office. He moved over to look at it. Angie was dressed in lemon crepe-de-chine with white handbag, hat and matching gloves. She was holding a bouquet of roses and looking into the complacent eyes of Tony Gallimore. It was an adoring look, and strictly proprietorial.

Harry thought of the man he had left in the Ferry Club, a man flimsy as tissue paper, and asked himself what the two women had seen in Tony Gallimore. Liz had died for him. Angie had killed for him. Neither woman was a fool. Why had they not been able to look beyond the sharp suits and glib chat?

Talking to Gallimore earlier that evening, threads of past conversations had linked in his mind, forming an unexpected pattern. Liz’s casual mention of her lover’s neurotic wife. Brenda talking about her maiden name. But of course, he had thought, some women never adopt their husbands’ surnames because they are feminists, or perhaps for professional reasons. Like some women lawyers and — yes — entertainers.

As soon as the possibility that Angie O’Hare might be married to Gallimore had occurred to him, finding corroborative clues was easy. On the night of the murder, when dedicating that old Burt Bacharach song to her man, she had been gazing towards the back of the concert room where Tony Gallimore stood. At that time he had no doubt been thinking, not of his wife, but of his mistress’s failure to keep their clandestine appointment. And, of course, there was Harry’s own visit to the Ferry last Monday evening. Why had it not occurred to him that it was strange that a club singer should be walking around long before the show was due to start, treating the place as her own? No doubt she had eavesdropped on his conversation with Froggy, fearful of what Evison might say, interrupting as soon as it seemed Harry might persuade him to talk.

So, after putting down the Mauser, Harry had asked Gallimore the last question, trying to make it appear offhand. “Your wife is Angie O’Hare, isn’t she?”

Gallimore had given the necessary confirmation. Baffled by Harry’s abrupt change of mood, he had stared as if sure he was in the company of a dangerous lunatic. The relief on his face as Harry brusquely got up and left had been as plain as a notice to quit.

At different times, both Angie and her husband had said that their solicitors were Windaybanks. The phone call to Quentin Pike had filled in the background. And what the keyboard player had said to his boss at the door of the Ferry that evening implied that Angie O’Hare would not be performing at all that night. Harry had speculated that she might have arranged a crisis rendezvous with Rourke, something that could not be handled backstage. At last his guesses were getting nearer the mark.

Still looking at the wedding photograph, not facing her, he said, “The Ferry Club belongs to you, I found that out this evening.” Windaybanks had handled the conveyancing, Quentin said. “Although that came as a surprise, it shouldn’t have done. After all, most singers dream of owning their own club, isn’t that right? You were never going to be a second Cilia Black, but you made a few bob in your day, all the same. When you finally gave up hope of hitting the charts again, you put the money into buying a place where you could always top the bill.”