Martin Edwards: All the Lonely People

The flat seemed quieter than ever. Liz wasn’t there, nor had he expected her to be this time. Pulling his clothes off sleepily, he noticed the suitcases and plastic bag which she had abandoned in his bedroom. Then he remembered that scarred wrist, the stupid tale about Coghlan wanting to kill her and how sold she seemed to be on her latest lover. Since they had split up, her life had changed in a way that he did not understand. And through an alcoholic blur, he realised that tonight the two of them were further apart than ever.

The insistent wail of the doorbell woke him. Harry opened his eyes a little. Everything was dark. The throbbing inside his head seemed always to have been there, though he tried to tell himself it was only an early morning hangover. Ignore the racket, he told himself. Wait for it to go away.

Again the bell rang, for a full minute without a break. Impossible to sleep through that. Swearing, he peered at the luminous digits of the radio alarm. Five-fifty. There must be some mistake. But after a brief pause came another ear-piercing summons to the door.

“All right.” He admitted defeat with a dehydrated croak. Climbing out of bed wasn’t as easy as usual; his legs might have been those of a rheumaticky pensioner. Struggling into a dressing gown, he padded into the hall. The noise ceased as he put a filmy eye to the spyhole. A man’s face, bleak as a mountain range, filled his line of vision.

In a hoarse whisper, Harry said, “You realise what time it is? What’s this all about?”

“Mr. Devlin.” A statement of fact, rather than a question, uttered with glum authority.

“Correct. And who are you?”

“Police. Will you let us in, please?”

Harry unlatched the door, but didn’t release the chain. Outside stood two men in suits. The man who had spoken was heavily built and aged about forty. He had sandy hair, thinning on top and going grey. The corners of his mouth turned down to give him a lugubrious look. Harry recognised his accent as West Yorkshire. His companion was a generation younger, lean, lithe and wary as a soldier scanning a street in the Bogside. But what struck Harry most was the colour of his skin. In Liverpool, a black cop with a sergeant’s stripes was still unexpected, like a mermaid rising from the murky depths of the Mersey.

“Detective Chief Inspector Skinner,” said the first man. His melancholic tone matched his appearance. He indicated his colleague. “This is D.S. Macbeth.”

“I don’t care if he’s Banquo’s bloody ghost. What’s the big idea?”

Skinner ignored the question. “You’d like to see our I.D., I imagine.”

He flipped open a card and his colleague did likewise. Harry tried to focus on the documents.

“Okay. So why… ”

“May we talk inside, please, sir?”

Skinner’s manner precluded contradiction and Harry was unable to think of a reason for not doing as the policeman asked. He couldn’t think of much at all. Leading the intruders into the lounge, he motioned them towards armchairs, more than glad to sit down himself. He saw their quick professional glances around the room, taking in the mess of books and papers, the crumpled jacket draped over the arm of a chair and the leaves of the unwatered cheese plant just beginning to yellow.

“I gather that you’re a local solicitor,” said Skinner. He spoke as if diagnosing an illness.

Harry nodded. He wasn’t acquainted with either of this pair; nothing odd about that in a large city, but why the black sergeant was glowering at him with scarcely concealed hostility was impossible to understand. Crusoe and Devlin didn’t have a bad name down at the Bridewell; they weren’t thought of as bent. Nevertheless, it wasn’t customary for the local force to pop into the homes of defence lawyers in the early hours to chat about their current caseload.

Skinner leaned forward. “I believe you are married to a Mrs. Elizabeth Devlin?”

Harry scarcely recognised the name. It must have been years since he last heard it. Anyway, it didn’t fit Liz. She had always been her own woman, never a possessed spouse. But he grunted assent.

“I am afraid I have some bad news for you, Mr. Devlin.”

Harry sensed that he was expected to respond, but the ache in his head blotted out rational thought. He glanced at Macbeth, but the dark face was now stripped of expression. Both men were studying him intently. After a short pause, Skinner coughed and spoke again.

“Mr. Devlin, I have to tell you that your wife died last night.”

Harry stared, first at one man, then at the other. Their features betrayed nothing. They were two detectives, watching him watching them. And waiting. Time passed. Seconds, minutes, hours? Harry neither knew nor cared. The silence made his head hurt more and his stomach began to churn.

Skinner cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry.”

Harry’s shoulders twitched. “But isn’t… I mean…” He couldn’t frame what he wanted to say. He had no idea what he wanted to say.

Softly and with no emphasis, the chief inspector said, “Your wife’s body was found last night. We are treating it as a suspicious death, Mr. Devlin.”

Harry was conscious of the detectives’ unwavering gaze. Vaguely aware that there were questions which he should be asking — though if Liz was dead, how could any answers matter? — he clutched like a shipwreck victim at the first which entered his head.

“How did she die?”

Skinner said in the same flat tone, “She was stabbed, Mr. Devlin.”

Stabbed. The word twisted in Harry’s guts like the blade of a knife. He shut his eyes. A hundred memories surged into his mind, like unwelcome intruders breaking down the door.

Liz on the night of their first meeting, at a fireworks display within a stone’s throw of here at the Albert Dock. She’d told him then how much she loved to see the river lit up by the exploding showers of colour, had laughed and introduced herself: Liz Wieczarek. He couldn’t pronounce her Polish surname and she had teased him about his ineptitude.

Their wedding day when she’d promised to honour and obey, while a trace of humour had sparkled in her eyes and he’d tried not to grin at the provocative touch of her fingernails running along the back of his hand while the vicar droned on about the nature of their sacrament.

The evening when his cross-examination skills had drawn out the admission that she was sleeping with Michael Coghlan. When Harry asked if she loved the man, she had spread her arms and simply said, “I think so. But even if I don’t, I do know that I want him.”

Eventually he again became aware of the unblinking scrutiny of the policemen. Their watchfulness as they assessed his reaction to their news made him think of physicists noting the outcome of a laboratory experiment.

“I realise that this must come as a shock to you,” said Skinner. He coughed once more. “Even so, I wonder if you could help us by answering a few questions.”

Harry felt as if every muscle in his body had melted. This is the same room, he told himself, in which you talked to her thirty hours ago. That’s where she sat. Through the door is the bed in which she slept. Yesterday morning she was alive and said thank you, for making her feel safe.

“Perhaps I could start, sir, by asking when you last saw your wife.”

Harry’s lips were dry. “Yesterday. Yesterday morning.”

The policemen exchanged glances. They had not expected that reply. Macbeth seemed to be breathing harder, although he continued to hold his tongue. His superior kept the next question casual.

“At what time?”

“Shortly after eight in the morning.”

“And where was that?”

“Here, in this flat.”