“So where do you reckon she is, then?”
Stirrup screwed up his eyes as if to keep out the sun. “Wish I knew.”
“Won’t you hazard a guess?”
Stirrup spread his arms. “What’s the point? She might be anywhere. Women aren’t logical, Harry, they’re unpredictable. Surely by now you’ve learned that?”
The hard way, Harry thought. He said nothing.
“I could never read Ali’s mind. Never tried. In her way, she was deep. Course, she’d been to college, not like me. I’m a university of life man myself, as you well know. School of hard knocks.”
“Even so…”
“Even so my arse.” Stirrup wagged a thick finger under Harry’s nose. “For God’s sake, you know her. Have you ever managed to figure her out?”
You know her. Again that false assumption. Harry had met Alison Stirrup several times. On each occasion she had been in the company of her husband — and in his shadow. She had seemed a slight, insubstantial figure, wraith-like in comparison. Harry pictured her in his mind. She was fifteen years Jack’s junior and attractive enough, but somehow unremarkable. Harry struggled for more than a vague impression of short blonde hair and a quiet way of speaking. Out of the blue, he recollected once catching sight of her smothering a yawn as Stirrup recounted an anecdote which she must have heard a dozen times. An understandable reaction; Harry had attached no importance to it at the time. He had found her pleasant but reserved and had simply taken it for granted that she must enjoy the moneyed lifestyle which marriage had brought. With hindsight he wondered if her appearance of calm masked a deep discontent.
“She’s your wife. You must have some idea about why she left so suddenly.”
Saying that prompted memories of his own. When Liz had left him, he had known precisely to whose arms she was running. And knowledge, however painful, was surely preferable to the prickling of uncertainty. For the first time that day it occurred to him to feel sorry for Stirrup.
“Can’t fathom it. Didn’t I tell the bobbies that till I was sick of the sound of my own voice?”
“Has Claire any ideas?”
“She’s as baffled as me.” Invariably Stirrup’s tone softened when his daughter came into the conversation. “Alison and her were never close, of course. Couldn’t expect it, after all. They didn’t have much in common. Only me.”
“They quarrelled?”
“Don’t get me wrong. Ali’s no wicked step-mother. And Claire can be a she-devil — but she knew better than to try to throw her weight around too much, I wouldn’t have stood for it. No, they never had much to say to each other, but there were no rows, no slinging matches. Perhaps it would’ve been better if there had been.”
“Was Claire upset when Alison went?”
“She hasn’t said much. You know what teenage kids are. And she’s been seeing this lad, not been at home as much lately. He’s older than her, I don’t approve. But when did young girls take any notice of their dads when they first start up with a boyfriend?”
They began walking. Past the Floral Pavilion and the ten-pin bowling alley, past hot dog stands and a place which sold bags of broken pink and white rock. Madame Rosika, the clairvoyant, was open for business. Harry wondered if she would dare predict if and when Jack Stirrup would be reunited with his missing wife.
“And you?” he asked gently. “How are you coping without her?”
“All right.” Stirrup scratched his nose. “Look, I won’t pretend it was the ideal marriage. I never said otherwise to that bloody police inspector, did I? Ali and me, we had our differences. You think, going into it the second time around, you’re older and wiser, you won’t make the same mistakes again. But you do. You do.”
“So you still say you can’t understand why she walked out without a word?”
The bonhomie faded again. “Yes, I do say that. Whose side are you on?”
Harry didn’t respond. It was his job to be on Stirrup’s side and he had no grounds for believing his client guilty of murder. The case against him was flimsy and circumstantial. Yet Stirrup was telling less than the whole truth, of that Harry was certain. Instinct and experience insisted that something was being withheld. There was more to be known about the disappearance of Alison Stirrup.
And against his better professional judgment, Harry wanted to know it.
Chapter Two
The Majestic had been built in New Brighton’s hey-day at the turn of the century, when packed ferries brought trippers over from Liverpool by the thousands. Minstrels had played on the beach, bathing machines and oyster stalls were everywhere. In Harry’s lifetime, the hotel had been in visible decline, under-occupied and in need of more than a lick of paint. When you sat on the famous old verandah gazing out at the hot dog sellers on the promenade, you felt like a representative of the Raj watching a civilisation on the brink of collapse.
Bryan Grealish had changed all that with the help of the fortune he’d made out of office catering, feeding the faces of middle-aged executives whose idea of a calorie-controlled diet was steak and french fries without the trimmings. The Majestic was still not the Savoy, but even on this weekday lunchtime, the place was packed.
After they had ordered, Stirrup fiddled absent-mindedly with his napkin.
“Business doesn’t get easier, Harry boy. The company’s grown, it’s not like the old days. I’m ruled by cash flow and licensing laws. By accountants and solicitors. No offence — but life’s too short. Sometimes I think about jacking the lot in and getting away from it all. The Caribbean, maybe. Or the States.”
He tore the napkin into small strips, screwing the paper into tight little balls. “This thing with Ali, it’s hit me harder than you think. I’m not saying we had the perfect marriage, but I wish to hell she hadn’t just pissed off like that, without even saying goodbye.”
Stirrup had not talked like this earlier in the morning. At first, he’d parried Bolus’s questions, bland as any politician. When the repetition began to irritate, his brow had darkened and his replies had become curt whilst Harry chewed his nails, afraid of a self-incriminating explosion. In the end Stirrup had survived; he would not break easily. Yet none of his denials had convinced Harry as much as the simple lament he had just uttered.
“Two scampis.” The waiter’s Scouse accent contrasted with his Gallic air.
Stirrup smacked his lips and wielded his knife and fork like cudgels, his humour restored.
“Bon appetit, as they say in Bootle.”
As they ate, Harry summed up in his mind all that he knew about Alison Stirrup’s disappearance. She had last been seen on a Friday in May. Stirrup had left her in bed at their home in Caldy; he had been due to attend a meeting with his legal and financial advisers to discuss the offer which Bryan Grealish had made to take over his business. Harry had been present at that meeting, together with his partner Jim Crusoe. At the time all their thoughts had concentrated on the subject for discussion. The auditors sealed the fate of the bid by describing it as one which Stirrup could not refuse. For a self-made man proudly independent of thought and deed, the urge to prove an accountant wrong was irresistible. Thumping his fist on the table, he had declared his intention to tell Grealish what he could do with his money.
No hint of anything wrong at home, nor of any inner preoccupation. That did not in itself count for much. Harry realised that most successful businessmen had the ability to divorce any domestic traumas from their company lives. But surely even someone more phlegmatic than Jack Stirrup would have been twitchy if he had spent the previous night burying his wife in a wood or under concrete?
Alison had been alive and kicking the previous evening; so much was certain, for her mother had called round unexpectedly. Harry knew Doreen Capstick slightly and had not been surprised to learn that the visit was unannounced. Unless she was a particularly close and loving daughter, then Alison would have found that a little of Doreen went a long way. She might have made an excuse if given prior warning of an impending call. Mrs. Capstick had been at the house between eight and nine. Her departure had been hastened by Stirrup’s late arrival home; he left her in no doubt that after a long day closeted with his business advisers, he was more interested in a hot meal than in small talk with a woman whom he detested.