Nothing but the ringing tone. He hung on for five full minutes until the impatient coughing of an elderly man whose frown would have intimidated Churchill forced him to admit defeat. Where was Valerie? He told himself not to speculate. All he could hope was that, like himself, she would be spending the night alone.
Chapter Seven
“Julian Hamer?” At the other end of the telephone line, Stirrup spoke the barrister’s name slowly. Measuring it, testing it for weight. “Good, is he?”
“Recommended,” said Harry tightly. As the sun streamed in through the small window of his office, his mind was clouded by a sudden vision of a well-manicured white hand caressing a honey-coloured cheek. He’d not been able to smother his fear that Hamer had spent last night with Valerie.
“Fine. I’m bringing Claire along this afternoon. She can tell the barrister how the letter upset her.”
“No need for that, Jack.”
“Who’s paying for this meeting, this — what d’you call it? — conference? She’s coming and that’s final. The experience will do her good. Give her an idea of life in the legal profession. She’d make a first-rate lawyer, Harry boy. God knows, she can be argumentative enough.”
“Sure you want to go through with this? Suing Doreen isn’t going to get Alison back.”
“What else can I do? ‘Specially now you’ve told me she’s the one telling the police I’ve done away with her precious only daughter. Strikes me, everyone’s so busy calling me a murderer, nobody’s bothering to find where Alison’s run off to.”
You didn’t seem so bothered yourself, at first, Harry thought. Aloud, he said, “Easier said than done.”
“I’ve been thinking. What if I hired someone to try and track her down?”
“You mean a private detective?”
“Right. The police are no use. They wouldn’t be bloody bothered if Doreen hadn’t made herself such a pain in the arse. Now they’re more interested in harassing me than finding Ali.”
“The Salvation Army sometimes…”
“No, I want my own man. Someone who only answers to me. Any ideas?”
“There’s a feller I use sometimes. Ex-police. He’s the one who found out Doreen was stirring it with the police. Miserable as sin, mind you.”
“I want a private eye, not a bloody court jester. Get him to call me.”
After putting the phone down, Harry considered Jack’s initiative. Even now he seemed more concerned to get Bolus and Doreen off his back than to re-build his marriage. Hiring someone to trace Alison looked like the act of an innocent man. Or might it be a double bluff, a calculated gamble taken on the assumption that the detective would not chance upon the truth?
He had a case before the Dale Street bench that morning. A plea of guilty to handling a dodgy video recorder. Harry was in the corridor outside the courtrooms, half-listening to his client’s implausible story about buying the VCR in a pub from a man whom he had never met before or since, when he spotted in the crowd a familiar head of tousled black hair, bobbing towards the exit.
“Back in a minute.”
Harry was lost in the crush of people before his receiver of stolen goods could reply. Battling his way through, he managed to stretch out an arm and tap his quarry on the shoulder.
Trevor Morgan turned and stared. His eyes seemed to take a minute to focus. Even in his prime, he’d been no Adonis. He had a rugby player’s solid build and his years in the Aberavon front row had left him with a nose so misshapen it was a wonder he could breathe. He used to claim he’d broken it as often as the Seventh Commandment. But by any standards, this morning he was looking rough. On his left cheek a scratch was barely covered by a cheap sticking plaster that had traces of dirt around its edges. The whiff of stale beer on his breath was enough to make anyone take the pledge.
“Harry. All right?” The words were slurred. No stranger himself to hangovers, Harry realised he was in the presence of a classic of its kind.
“Okay. I won’t ask if you are.”
“Thanks, pal.” Morgan pushed a hand through his hair, screwing up his eyes as if in pain. “Jesus, I need sleep. Not this bloody farce.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Bit of trouble with the law. Disorderly conduct on Lime Street station last night, so they tell me. Argument with a porter. Can’t remember the details, think I got into this drinking contest in The Legs of Man and simply wanted to sleep it off on one of his bloody platforms. Not much to ask, wouldn’t you think?”
“Are you working yet?”
“That a joke? Who wants to employ a guy of forty-five who’s been turfed on to the street without even a reference? I wouldn’t be here now if not for Jack Stirrup.”
“You didn’t give him any choice.”
Trevor Morgan’s career as Operations Director for Stirrup Wines had been punctuated by episodes of sexual misconduct with members of staff. In better times his macho manner and Welshman’s way with words had been a passport to endless affairs with women who worked in the branches. Stories were legion of off-licences throughout the North West displaying the CLOSED EARLY DUE TO STAFF SHORTAGES sign when Trevor and the manageress could be found in bed together in her flat upstairs. If only he’d been content with that, Stirrup would have kept turning a blind eye.
But easy affairs hadn’t been enough. From time to time Trevor Morgan’s fancy was taken by a new assistant or manageress who remained immune to his charms. Stories reached Stirrup that if cajolery failed, Trevor would threaten the lady with the consequences if she did not come across. Stock deficits might be discovered, disciplinary warning notices issued. The company lost three or four female members of staff suddenly and inexplicably. Before long Stirrup had been forced to admit to Harry that there was no smoke without fire.
Stirrup’s solution was to take Trevor on one side and tell him to reserve his attentions for those who welcomed a fling with the boss’s right hand man. For a time all was quiet until an incident in the stock room of a branch in West Wirral. What actually happened, no one would ever know. A young assistant claimed that Trevor had tried to rape her. He said she’d welcomed his advances. The police were called, although in the end charges weren’t pressed. The Equal Opportunities Commission started breathing fire and brimstone and the girl claimed a small fortune in compensation from the company. For once Stirrup accepted Harry’s advice that discretion in the law was the better part of valour and settled out of court. The only outlet for his temper was to sack Trevor Morgan.
Morgan said now, “He didn’t have to take that little bitch’s word rather than mine.”
“Christ, Trevor! Let’s not go over old ground. After all, he was willing to pay you off.”
Realising how hard Morgan would find it to get another job, Harry had persuaded his client to offer six months’ pay in a severance deal. But Trevor had prepared for his dismissal interview with the aid of a bottle of whisky and when Stirrup had told him of the loss of his job, he’d grabbed his boss by the tie. Within seconds they were wrestling. A couple of Stirrup’s teeth had been loosened; Morgan finished up with a smashed cheekbone. After that the opportunity for constructive industrial relations had been lost. The money hadn’t been paid and as far as Harry knew the men had not been in contact since.
Trevor Morgan was about to respond fiercely, but something restrained him. He looked first at Harry, then at the floor.
After a moment he said, “Wish I’d taken the money now.”
“Things must be difficult for you.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“How’s Cathy taken it?”
Morgan avoided Harry’s gaze. “You know what bloody women are like.”
Harry wasn’t sure he did. More particularly, he didn’t know what Cathy Morgan was like. He’d only met her once, at a dinner party thrown by the Stirrups before their move to Prospect House. Strong, steely-eyed and sarcastic, she delighted in cutting her husband down to size in front of others. Harry had assumed it was her revenge for numberless infidelities, a kind of marital quid pro quo.