“Trust me.”
“Last man I heard say that is serving three years in Walton for forging a security document.”
Over lunch Harry outlined the conversation he had had with Morgan in the magistrates’ court. The big man gave every appearance of concentrating on his food and, when the story was told, said simply, “Soft bugger.”
“Me or Trevor?”
“Both of you. Him for messing up his life, you for getting involved. Anyway, mine not to reason why. Question is, will Jack Stirrup settle?”
“I can persuade him. Trevor hasn’t much of a case, but it’s worth paying a few bob to avoid all the hassle. Deep down it’s what Jack wants to do.”
“Mind-reading now, are you? Take care. The thoughts of some of our clients would make Hannibal Lecter queasy. Anyway, how long will it take Trevor to drink the cash away?”
“That’s his business. But if Cathy’s left him he ought to be celebrating, not drowning his sorrows.”
“Never met her.”
“She used to give him a hard time, by all accounts. Jack couldn’t stand her and I gather the feeling was mutual.”
“Some people might say that was a point in her favour. And she’ll have had plenty to put up with.”
“Suppose you’re right. Perhaps fighting with Trevor made her feel better about his infidelities.”
Jim grunted. An undemonstrative but uxorious man, he had little patience with marriages that did not work. He called the waitress over to order desserts which undid the good of a healthy main course and turned the conversation to the forthcoming Test Match.
When they arrived back in the office only a couple of minutes after the end of the official staff lunch hour, Suzanne, cradling a telephone under her chin, waved to attract Harry’s attention. Her lips were pursed in disapproval and she glanced unsubtly at the clock on the wall opposite the switchboard.
“There you are at last. Detective Inspector Bolus from Merseyside Police is holding for you.”
“I’ll take it in my room.”
A call direct from the chief rather than an uniformed indian? Must be important. Harry broke into a run down the corridor. When he picked up the phone, Bolus’s voice sounded grim.
“Mr Devlin? I have some urgent news for you. Your client wants you here.”
“What’s the problem?”
“It’s about his daughter. She’s been found.”
Harry almost fooled himself into a reaction of relief. But a moment’s thought made him realise that good news would not be broken like this.
“Where?” he asked cautiously.
“In one of the caves at New Brighton.”
Bolus paused. Not for dramatic effect, Harry sensed, but from weariness. The weariness of a man, still young, who has seen too much violence, too much misery.
“We don’t have the post mortem results yet. But there’s no real doubt. She was raped first, then strangled.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you saying I killed my own daughter?”
Jack Stirrup sounded like a man in the midst of a combat course. Identifying Claire’s corpse had been a physical as well as emotional ordeal. Anger burned in his eyes as he jabbed his forefinger at Bolus, who stood on the other side of the table in the small room at the back of the police station.
For a moment no one spoke. In one corner a fan whirred, seeming unnaturally loud in its vain effort to dispel the heat of the day. Dark patches of sweat were visible on Stirrup’s once-white shirt, beginning to spread from underneath his arms down each side of his body.
With a slight movement of his shoulders to emphasise his disclaimer Bolus said, “We have to check everything.”
Harry said, “It’s okay, Jack. Tell the man what he wants to know.”
Stirrup scowled. For an instant Harry thought his client was about to make a futile lunge at his inquisitor. But then he bit his lip and started to describe again the sequence of events on Saturday morning and afternoon.
Harry knew further enquiries would be made about the times when the bus driver had dropped Claire off and when, later, Stirrup had searched West Kirby for sight or sound of her. Bolus needed to calculate whether it was possible for the father to have picked up the daughter in town — she would trust no one more, after all — taken her to New Brighton on a pretext, and there violated and murdered her. Detectives could afford neither to overlook anything nor to have any illusions about a human being’s capacity for evil.
All this Harry understood. Police routine did not make him fear for his client. Studying Stirrup, seeing the agony carved in the lines round his mouth and eyes, listening to him and hearing the harsh distress of every word he had uttered this afternoon, no one could believe him guilty of this crime.
“Thank you,” said Bolus. He thought for a moment and rubbed his chin. “I realise this is difficult for you, Mr. Stirrup, but I’d be grateful if you’d tell me more about your daughter. What sort of girl she was.”
“What do you mean?”
“It may help me to find the man who did this if I can understand her. What made her tick.”
“I don’t know what you’re on about. Fucking hell, there’s a killer out there!” Stirrup flailed an arm towards the narrow window at the rear of the room. “Why aren’t you out there too, hunting for him?”
“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Stirrup. That goes without saying. And many of my officers are engaged on the enquiry at this very moment. No time has been lost since the boys who found your daughter called us. All the same, we need to learn as much as possible about her. The way she behaved. Her friends, her interests. Anything at all.”
Stirrup glanced at Harry, who nodded.
“All right, have it your way.”
Leaning forward in the cheap orange plastic chair, Stirrup began to talk.
Harry watched Bolus listening. The policeman was young for his rank. Well-spoken, no doubt a graduate on a fast track for promotion. More than likely better educated than either Harry or his client. Today, enmeshed in a murder enquiry, he looked older, no longer like a boy doing a man’s work. Thin, with carefully combed hair and blue eyes glinting behind steel-rimmed spectacles, he had a habit of quirking his lips every now and then to indicate disbelief. How long before this joyless job soured him as it had soured Jonah Deegan years ago?
“Course I idolised her,” Stirrup was saying. “She was my only kid. And after her mother died we became closer than ever. Had to. As a way to survive. All right, maybe I spoiled her. But I was out seven days a week, building the business up so she would never go short. There were girls I had in. Live-in au pairs, that sort of thing. None of them much good. Things weren’t easy. I was glad when I met Ali. Thought it would give Claire a bit of home life. A bit of stability.”
“And did it?”
Belligerently, as if accused of child neglect, Stirrup said, “She had a step-mother at last, didn’t she? Another woman she could talk to. All right, the two of them weren’t cut of the same cloth. But Claire never lacked for anything, let me tell you. Any present she wanted she could have. Alison used to say I doted on her. Well, what if I did? She hadn’t had it easy. She deserved the best.”
And expected it too, thought Harry.
“What about boyfriends?”
“There weren’t any. Not until lover boy showed up. Kuiper.”
“How did they meet?”
“At a place in New Brighton. The Wreckers, I think.”
“That’s no youth club, Mr. Stirrup. Your daughter was only fifteen. Why did you let her go to such a dive?”
Guilt slid across Stirrup’s face, making his cheeks glisten. He rubbed them with the flat of his hand.
“Didn’t know, did I? She said she was going out ten-pin bowling with some of the girls from school. When she came in I gave her down the banks and she promised never to do it again. Too late. She’d met the bugger by then.”