“That bitch! That bloody bitch!” The disembodied voice was choking with anger. “Capstick, I mean. Would you believe it? She’s written to Claire — Claire of all people — suggesting that I killed the kid’s step-mother.”
Harry gazed heavenwards in despair. “I think,” he said carefully, “that I’d better take a look at that letter.”
“You’ll do more than bloody look at it. I’ve been libelled. In a letter to my own bloody daughter, I’ve been called a murderer. The bitch, how dare she? I want you to issue a writ at once. Take her for every penny she’s got.” Stirrup took a deep breath. “I want to destroy her.”
Chapter Six
Acting for Stirrup in a libel action against Doreen Capstick held as much appeal for Harry as backing one pit bull terrier to savage another. True, the case would be a money-spinner for Crusoe and Devlin. But whatever Jack Stirrup and Doreen Capstick might think, the last thing they needed was to become embroiled in acrimonious litigation. Instead of spoiling for a fight with each other, they should be making common cause in the search for Alison.
Starting an argument about it would simply cause Stirrup to become more entrenched. When he managed to get a word in, Harry opted for an oblique approach.
“Leave it with me. Let me fix up a conference with a barrister.”
“Why do we need to see a bloody barrister?”
“This is a High Court case you’re talking about,” Harry explained. “Not like applying to the magistrates for a liquor licence. The professional rules don’t allow a solicitor to handle the case even if he has the specialist knowledge. Which I don’t. So if you have to use Counsel, you might as well take his advice sooner rather than later.” He thought of an argument which might appeal to a businessman suspicious of lawyers’ excuses. “Don’t give him the chance to say in twelve months’ time he would have handled the case differently if he’d been brought in on day one.”
Grumbling, Stirrup agreed. “Where do we go from here, then?”
“I’ll organise a conference as soon as I can. Do you want a local man or someone from London?”
“I don’t want to hang around. Find the smartest man in the city who can see us fast.”
As he put down the receiver, Harry wondered whom to instruct on Stirrup’s behalf. Only a handful of Liverpool barristers had a sizeable libel practice. And of them perhaps the most experienced was someone whom he felt instinctively reluctant to brief. Julian Hamer.
Forget the pride and the prejudice, he told himself. Any work which he had sent Hamer in the past had been handled efficiently and with speed. Julian was good in conference, and that was important: Stirrup would want to satisfy himself from the outset that he had the best counsel whom money could buy. And with any luck Hamer’s advice would be to keep the case out of court. That way, both Stirrup and his foolish motherin-law might still be saved from themselves.
Nevertheless, Harry could not help experiencing a surge of irritation when he spoke to David Base on the phone. The clerk assured him that, by good fortune, a trial of Julian’s had collapsed only a couple of hours earlier. So an urgent conference would be possible the following day. Never mind the law of libel, thought Harry, sod’s law invariably prevailed. Had he been desperate to have Hamer act, and no one else, the barrister would have been fully booked for months ahead.
“Four o’clock?” he suggested gloomily.
“Ideal,” said David Base, his glad-to-please tone simply rubbing salt in the wound. “I’ll mark it in the diary. You’ll have the papers sent round tomorrow morning?”
“Will do.”
A few minutes later came a knock at his door. Francesca appeared, bearing a slim brown envelope.
“Just arrived. Special delivery, by motorbike courier,” she announced. The faraway look in her eyes suggested the courier had taken her fancy.
“Re-typed those letters yet?” asked Harry. The girl was a convenient target for his ill humour.
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t say you wanted them all done for tonight’s post.”
He gave up. “Doesn’t matter.”
“They’ll be ready in the morning.” She spoke tolerantly, like a mother promising an importunate child jam tomorrow.
He managed a wan smile and opened the envelope as she left the room. The sender was Stirrup; the dashing courier had made good time in bringing the allegedly libellous letter over from Wirral.
Six sheets of paper were covered in green ink. Doreen Capstick wrote in a flowing hand which lent itself to much use of italics and underlinings. Ostensibly, she was writing to invite Claire to spend the summer holidays with her. It was important, Doreen said, for Claire to feel that she had a bolt-hole. After her step-mother’s tragic disappearance, a young girl would scarcely be human if she did not feel a little frightened, particularly when her father was such a hot-tempered individual. Doreen did not omit to mention that Alison had in the past referred to a violent streak in her husband’s personality. It would be terrible, and Doreen could never forgive herself if brave Claire were to fall victim to her father’s wrath. It was heart-breaking to lose one’s only child — for Doreen confessed she had no doubt that Alison was now dead and buried somewhere; she would never be seen again — but it would be horrific if another life were to be sacrificed as well.
And so on. No outright accusation of murder, but an innuendo as plain as blood upon snow. Harry had little doubt that the letter was defamatory in law. What puzzled him was Doreen Capstick’s motive for writing it. There was no reason to think that she and Claire were close. After all, they only had Alison in common; Doreen doted on her and the girl disliked her. Nor was there any trace of genuine affection beneath the prolix expressions of concern. The invitation to stay was an excuse for making a string of hints about Stirrup’s guilt, hints so thinly veiled as to be indecently exposed.
Francesca came in without knocking. “Mind signing my time sheet, Harry?”
She thrust into his hand a pre-printed form headed the au revoir employment agency. Harry winced at the number of hours recorded for so little end result, but signed all the same.
“Thanks. Going to the party tonight?”
“What party?”
Francesca raised her eyebrows in a parody of astonishment. “How could you forget? The agency’s cocktail party, of course. Don’t tell me you weren’t invited, ‘cause I saw the card on your window sill only the other day.”
Harry glanced involuntarily at the ledge behind him. It was bare. Vaguely, he remembered chucking the invitation into the wastepaper basket. Golf days, luncheon seminars and cocktail parties… all were part and parcel of a solicitor’s life and all left him cold. As a means of drumming up business, he rated them on a par with chasing ambulances. But perhaps this shindig should be an exception to his rule of non-attendance, in view of what he had learned today. For the proprietor of the Au Revoir was Mrs. Doreen Capstick.
“Slipped my mind for a moment. Six o’clock, isn’t it?”
“Half-past.”
“Will you be there?”
Francesca made a face. “Yeah, handing out the drinks and sausages on sticks, worse luck. Doreen made me and some of the other girls on her books an offer we couldn’t refuse. A publicity gimmick, that’s what it is.” A thoughtful look passed over her face. Harry could see her mind working; she was wondering if there was any personal motive behind his question, if he was looking for an opportunity to chat her up outside work.
“I have to be away by ten,” she said in the end. “My boyfriend’s coming to pick me up.”
Thus did she administer the brush-off. Harry, whose enthusiasm for false eyelashes and dirty fingernails was limited, could restrain his disappointment.
Amiably, he said, “See you later at the Traders’, then.”