Martin Edwards - Yesterday's papers

‘Wait a moment, will yer?’ the girl asked. ‘The horse is still sweating! Besides, they haven’t completed the weigh-in yet.’

Shirley Titchard turned to Harry and said, ‘No patience, you see. Just like Carole. She wanted to have everything and to have it right away. Whoever she hurt in the process.’ She folded her brawny arms again and gave him a direct look. ‘And look what it got her — her own tombstone before she was seventeen.’

Conscience prompted him to call in at the office to see if there were any messages before his next trip. At the door of New Commodities House he bumped into Jock from the Land of the Dead. The archivist had a batch of old files under his arm and gave him an eager welcome.

‘Harry! Just the man! Kim Lawrence has been telling me that now it’s absolutely certain that Edwin Smith wasn’t the Sefton Park Strangler. I wondered if you had any more ideas about how to discover who really killed the girl.’

‘One or two, but nothing definite yet. I’m still asking myself whether the burglary here had anything to do with the case. The alarm system is sophisticated, as you well know. It certainly cost us enough. I can’t fathom why anyone would go to the lengths of disabling it and rifling through my room but then take nothing.’

‘Perhaps he or they were disturbed.’

‘Who by? No, I can’t help believing the burglar was after the old Tweats file, mistakenly thinking it contained incriminating evidence. I hope no-one’s disturbed you down in the Land of the Dead?’

Jock put a hand on his shoulder. ‘No need to worry. It’s as safe as Fort Knox.’

‘Even so, I still reckon Miller told Ray Brill that I’d found the file.’

‘You don’t believe Ray was the burglar?’

‘I don’t know what to believe. The likeliest explanation to me still seems to be that Ray knows much more about the death of his girlfriend than anyone realised at the time. Besides, I’ve now learned that he might have had a motive for killing her.’

Jock’s eyebrows rose. ‘Such as?’

‘According to her friend Shirley, Carole had become involved with another man. She’d given Ray the old heave-ho.’

‘I dunno. What about Ray’s alibi? Surely the police must have checked it out at the time.’

‘So they claim. Come inside and I’ll fill you in on the latest.’ He led the little Scot to his room and, pushing a sheaf of telephone messages off his chair, recounted what he had learned. Jock listened carefully and, when Harry had finished, plucked at his beard for a few moments before speaking.

‘Suppose it was the other way round?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Suppose instead of Ray killing Carole because of jealousy, the new boyfriend murdered her because she’d become too possessive. Doesn’t that solve the problem with the alibi?’

‘You’re thinking of Benny Frederick?’

Jock shook his head decisively. ‘I can’t imagine he would have fallen for her. Surely Clive Doxey is a better bet? He was an up-and-coming lawyer and politico. Carole was a child — and the child of a close friend, to make matters worse.’

Harry thought about it. ‘No-one knows what was said between them when he called round at the house that day,’ he said slowly. ‘They might have arranged an assignation in the park.’

‘Exactly! And then they might have had an argument. God knows what she might have threatened to tell Guy. He might have panicked, not realised what he was doing…’

‘You may have something.’

‘The worst of it is,’ said Jock, ‘you’ll never prove whether I’m right or wrong. Not after all these years. Let’s face it, there’s no forensic evidence and a man like Doxey is hardly likely to confess. It will be so easy to say that Renata must be mistaken — or that, even if Smith is now in the clear, some passing maniac must have murdered Carole. We’ll never know for sure.’

Again he was right, Harry thought: the theory of Doxey’s guilt was appealing, but it amounted to little more than elementary guesswork. But he could not let matters rest there — not yet awhile. ‘I reckon Miller believed he might be able to learn the truth,’ he said mulishly, ‘and don’t forget his unknown visitor. Assume for a moment it was Doxey — why would he have called for an odd old German if he felt he had nothing to hide or fear?’

‘That visit could be a coincidence. And in any case, it seems clear from what the police told you that Miller died of natural causes. He wasn’t silenced because he’d stumbled on the truth.’

‘But he might still have had the same idea as you,’ insisted Harry. ‘One thing’s for sure. I need to speak to Ray Brill, find out what he had to say when Miller came to call.’

‘So you’re carrying on with the investigation?’

‘Of course. To me, it’s more than just a game. I’ll give Ray’s number a try now to see if I can arrange a meeting.’

He turned to the photocopy of Miller’s list which he now kept in his drawer and dialled the Southport code while Jock, tense with excitement, watched on. But the phone kept ringing out and eventually he had to admit defeat and hang up.

‘I’ll try again tomorrow or even go up there on the off-chance if I don’t have any joy on the phone. Kathleen Jeffries doesn’t live far away from him.’

Jock sighed and said, ‘Killing two birds with one stone, eh?’

‘Something like that. But now I have an even more important call to make.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I need to tell an old lady that her son was never a murderer.’

The home in Woolton where, according to Miller’s notes, Vera Smith lived, was a double-fronted building set behind a tall sandstone wall. As he walked up to the front door, Harry took in the neatly tended grounds and recently painted signboards which proclaimed the place as a superior residential home for the elderly, approved by all the right organisations. So the family money had lasted long enough to keep the old woman in comfortable surroundings, even if it had not been enough to achieve an acquittal from the court in the face of her son’s persistent death wish.

Harry imagined that Edwin must always have been conscious of being a disappointment to his parents. All that money and still he’d had nothing to show for his life but a storeman’s job and a couple of minor convictions. The debacle of his attempted seduction of Renata must have snapped the last thin thread of his self-esteem. No wonder he had been sufficiently mixed up to confess to murder.

So what would Mrs Smith make of the news?

He pressed the bell at the entrance porch and a young dark-haired girl opened the door.

‘You have a resident here, a Mrs Smith.’

‘Do you mean Vera?’ she asked, studying him with care.

‘Yes, that’s right. A Mrs Vera Smith.’

‘Are you — are you a relative? I’m sorry, we weren’t aware of anyone apart from the people down in Shrewsbury.’ She shifted from one foot to the other and there was an embarrassed note in her voice.

‘No, I’m not a member of her family. But I would like to have a word with her if possible. It is important, I can promise you. My name is Devlin and I’m a solicitor.’

The girl flushed and said, ‘You’d better come in for a moment.’

He followed her into a large hall with walls adorned by summary landscapes. He had visited old people’s homes before and found several of them as dark and depressing as something from the pages of Sheridan Le Fanu, but this place was bright and airy. Yet the girl’s manner made him uneasy.

A woman in a matron’s uniform approached them. ‘What is it, Lynsey?’

‘A Mr Devlin to see Vera, Matron,’ said the girl in a low tone, ‘He’s a solicitor.’