“You were never a serious suspect.”
“Are you kidding? There’s nothing those bleeding idiots wouldn’t accuse me of. Look at the way they’ve hounded me over Ali.”
Harry said gently. “It’s time you told me the truth. What happened the last time you saw Alison?”
Stirrup chewed his lip, evidently thinking hard. Harry felt a spurt of excitement. The man was checking off pros and cons, asking himself whether to reveal whatever he had been hiding from everyone for the past few weeks. For a second, Harry realised that he had now put the question he had long disciplined himself not to ask. What if the answer compromised him? What if Stirrup finally unburdened himself and confessed to committing murder?
The dilemma was stillborn. Stirrup stood up, lifting his chin and rocking back on his heels before he spoke again.
“Nothing happened, I told you. We had a few words, about nothing in particular. The mess in the house, I think. The builders’ lack of progress. That’s all.”
“So you don’t know why she left?”
Stirrup looked straight at him and shook his head. “And I don’t know where she is, either.”
Harry was first to break eye contact. He inclined his head and looked back towards the knot of sensation-seekers. A haze of despondency blurred his vision. Stirrup had opted to keep his own counsel. From their long acquaintance, Harry was sure of it. Like most battle-scarred businessmen, Stirrup could lie without shame. And instinctively Harry sensed that he was lying now.
“I want the full story, Jack.”
“I’ve told you the full story.”
“I don’t think so.”
Stirrup reddened. “Prove it. Lawyers always go on about proof, don’t they? Well, prove that I’m not telling the truth.”
For a long time neither of them said anything. Harry contemplated the scorched grass beneath his feet; the drought had led to a hosepipe ban in Merseyside, and lawns and parks were suffering because of it. Bare patches were showing through too in Harry’s relationship with his client.
“Another thing,” he said. “When Bolus asked if you know of anyone who bore you a grudge, why did you say no?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Come on, Jack. Let’s not kid ourselves. You have enemies.”
“Like who?”
“Trevor Morgan, for one.”
“Trev? Do me a favour. He knew I had no choice but to give him the elbow.”
“And Grealish, too.”
Stirrup snorted with contempt. “He’s nothing.”
“You aren’t popular with either of them.”
“For fuck’s sake, Harry, will you listen to yourself? Business is tough, or haven’t you noticed? You get knocks all the time. Trevor Morgan and Bryan Grealish have nothing to do with — with what happened to Claire. Even Bolus could tell you that.”
“You didn’t give him the chance, because you never mentioned them.”
“Listen,” Stirrup leaned towards Harry so that their foreheads almost touched. “All I want is for that lad to be found. Nothing else matters. I don’t want Bolus fishing after any more red bloody herrings. He’s wasted enough time accusing me of doing away with Ali.”
“The lad? You mean Kuiper?”
“Who else?”
“What makes you so sure he killed Claire?”
Stirrup glanced briefly skywards. “Come on, Harry boy. Use your nut. At first, when they told me the news, I was like you. I thought it might be the madman. The Beast. But the roses now…” He made a choking sound, perhaps picturing the scene in the dark cave almost below their feet. “The roses… they must mean something.”
“What?”
“She knew the man who killed her, of course. It wasn’t the fucking Beast after all. Not Morgan, or Grealish either. They might be pricks, but they wouldn’t kill Claire just to settle a score with me. I don’t believe it. So who’s left? It must Kuiper.”
“Or what about some other boyfriend, someone you know nothing about?”
“No chance. You saw the way she behaved when that lad was around. She idolised him, she…”
Again he was on the verge of tears. After bowing his head for a moment while composing himself, he lifted it again and looked Harry straight in the eye.
“She must have had a purpose,” he said, “going out to catch that bus into West Kirby without her library books.”
“Unless she simply forgot them. It has been known for kids to forget things.”
“I don’t believe it,” Stirrup said doggedly. “She’d fixed to meet Kuiper and he’d promised to bring her some roses. He brought her here on his bike. They had a row. I can guess what about, can’t you? The randy little shit. And — well, you know the rest.”
Harry said nothing. The idea was plausible, he had to admit. And yet, if Stirrup was right, why had the student returned to Prospect House on the Saturday afternoon?
“All I want is five minutes with him,” Stirrup said. “Five minutes, that’s all I ask. I’ll get the truth, even if it kills me.”
Chapter Fifteen
“He says it’s a matter of life and death.” Suzanne yawned as she spoke. Crusoe and Devlin’s clientele had an infinite capacity for exaggeration. The switchboard girl never disguised her resentment of callers who interrupted her enjoyment of sex-and-shopping fiction with their petty worries about moving house or breaking parole.
Earlier in the afternoon Harry had instructed her to divert all calls to Francesca while he tried to make inroads on the work which he had abandoned the previous day after receiving Bolus’s summons. Yet, like a gambler unable to resist one last bet, he reminded himself of the one-in-a-hundred chance that the caller’s crisis might be genuine.
“Who is it?”
“Name of Peter Kuiper. He’s ringing from a phone box.”
During the twenty-four hours since the discovery of Claire Stirrup’s body, Harry had kept asking himself where the student was hiding. And why. Now his mouth went dry. A long-locked door might at last be about to open. What would it reveal?
“Put him through… Peter?”
“Mr. Devlin, I need to talk to you urgently.”
The student’s voice was barely recognisable. Gone were the sneer and the hint of swaggering smart-alec remarks to come. What remained was the sound of a young man, frightened and vulnerable.
“Where are you, Peter?”
“Never mind that.” Vulnerable, but nonetheless wary. “I want your advice. Can you help me?”
“Is it about Claire?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? She’s dead, murdered. I read the story in the paper last night. I couldn’t believe it. Went out and got myself pissed to take my mind off things. She was so — so… Shit! I don’t know how to tell you what’s going through my mind.”
“Calm down, Peter. Take it slowly. One thing at a time. Why do you need me?”
“I might be in trouble with the police. It hasn’t happened yet. May not happen at all.”
“Connected with Claire?”
“In a way.”
Was he worrying about an underage sex charge? When that had been an unspoken possibility, he had seemed supremely unconcerned. Now his girlfriend had been killed and so had the chance of any prosecution. So what was he afraid of?
“Tell me.”
“We — no, you don’t need to know that. Besides, you still haven’t answered your question. Will you act for me?”
“I must know more before I can give you a straight answer, Peter. Surely you realise that? Advising you could put me in a conflict of loyalties — between you and Jack Stirrup.”
“I don’t know any other solicitors,” said Kuiper. “That’s a laugh, isn’t it, for someone studying law? True, though. Besides, you know the background. And I think I can trust you not to tell anyone where I am or what I’ve been doing. There’s a place I go to in New Brighton. Will you meet me there tonight?”
“Let’s get one thing clear before we go any further. Unless you’re completely up front with me, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
To Harry’s anguish, the pips started to go.