“So it seems.”
“You can cut out the sarky comments for a start.”
“What would you say if you were me? You’ve already given him your alibi. And I rang your flat last night. Very late. He answered the phone.”
She stared at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You actually think Julian and I are lovers?”
“Do you deny it?”
“For Christ’s sake!” Her anger had returned and, with it, her voice rose. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“What do you expect me to say?”
Wincing, she said, “I can see I’m going to have to satisfy your bloody curiosity, even though it does mean breaking a promise.”
“Maybe you owe me an explanation.”
“Don’t be stuffy, Harry, it doesn’t suit you. And remember this — I don’t owe you anything.”
“Okay, okay, okay. Are you going to tell me or not?”
A warning light shone in her eyes, making him feel like an ant about to be crushed by a sledgehammer.
“Julian has MS.”
“What?”
“Multiple sclerosis, you know?”
Now it was Harry’s turn to stare.
“He’s had the symptoms for months, but he’s said nothing to anyone until recently. Things got worse, he eventually went to see the doctor and the diagnosis was confirmed.”
“Christ.”
“Before I came in and heard you haranguing him I was having a word with the solicitor in the case Julian’s handling today. I gather things went badly. People thought he was pissed.”
“That’s right. At least — I did.”
“After a night of lust with me, I suppose you thought?”
“Something like that,” he muttered.
“Harry, you prick.” Her voice trembled with contempt. “Certainly he was with me. As he has been on several occasions when you’ve wanted me to spend time with you.”
“I see.”
“I doubt it. He swore me to secrecy. I’m still the only person he’s confided in apart from the doctors. He daren’t tell anyone. Not everyone with MS continues to degenerate. He’s been praying that the symptoms are only transient. I try to persuade him he’ll be one of the lucky ones, but he doesn’t believe it and frankly neither do I. All I can do is offer my time, company, whatever comfort I can. Not sex, if that’s what you’re bothered about, but friendship. We talk long into the night. Why do you think I’ve fobbed you off so many times when you wanted us to spend an evening together? He needs support more than any man I know. More than you, for a start. At least you have your life to lead, your business. Julian knows this bloody disease will destroy his career. What solicitor is going to brief a mouthpiece who can’t even guarantee to get the words out straight?”
She folded her arms and looked at him. It was a mannerism she had picked up in the courts, a let’s-see-what-you-make-of-that look, more effective than any advocate’s rhetoric.
Harry kept quiet for a long time, thinking of small clues he had misunderstood. Like the way Julian had dropped his cup that afternoon in Balliol Chambers when he first saw Claire. A sign not of guilty recognition, but of the bit-by-bit deterioration of his body.
Hoarse with self-reproach, he said, “You’re right. I have made a fool of myself. What can I say?”
“Not a lot. What’s done can’t be easily undone. All I’ll say is — you’re not the man I thought you were. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back and see Julian.”
She turned on her heel and left Harry to his thoughts. He took a step forward and knocked his head, not gently, several times against the shelf labelled contracts and OBLIGATIONS. Out of the corner of his eye the title of an old, calfskin-bound tome caught his eye.
Mistake of Fact.
“Shit!” he said. “Shit, shit, shit!”
As he spoke a young woman, dressed so severely and looking so thirsty for legal knowledge that she could only be an articled clerk working for Maher and Malcolm, walked into the room. She took one look at him, crimsoned and then disappeared out of sight again.
Time to go, Harry said to himself. You’ve done enough damage in the last twenty-four hours to last a professional lifetime.
He loosened his tie, put his jacket over his shoulder and shambled out of the library, down the stairs and into the sweltering heat of Derby Square. There, he spotted a familiar figure limping towards him. Jonah Deegan. Uncertainty flitted across the old detective’s face and he cleared his throat noisily before addressing Harry with less than his usual truculence.
“I was looking for you. Just been to your office. To have a word about Stirrup.”
“He’s given me the sack.”
“He did say he’d had a barney with you.”
“About Alison. I refused to give him her address. Did he try to pump you?”
Jonah looked uncomfortable. “As it happens, he did.”
Harry could already guess the answer to his question, but he asked it anyway.
“And?”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Jonah Deegan showed traces of embarrassment. His leathery cheeks went pink and he started fiddling irritably with the hairs that grew from his nostrils.
“He’s a client. I owe him a duty. As a professional man, you know the score.”
“I know you’ll be wanting your bill paid.”
“It’s not a question of money. He hired me to find her. He had a right to know.”
“He told Alison he’d killed his first wife. That’s why she hid herself away.”
“Doesn’t make him a murderer.”
“Let’s hope you’re right. I’d best be off. I ought to phone Alison, put her on her guard.”
“I can save you the trouble. After Stirrup told me the background, I phoned her myself. Thought it best. She made a bit of a fuss. Seemed to blame you. Scared of some rough stuff, I reckon. I told her not to fret, that I’d heard more false confessions than fog warnings on the Mersey. Stirrup simply can’t keep his mouth shut, that’s all.”
Harry eyed the old man. Neither of them could be sure whether Stirrup had killed his first wife. Both of them knew he would never be punished.
“Stirrup’s not the only one.”
A couple of minutes later he was back in the office. Clients weren’t beating a path to the door. The reception area was deserted and Suzanne on switchboard was immersed in the problem page of a woman’s magazine. As he headed for his own room, Jim Crusoe stepped out of the typists’ room and hailed him.
“Hey, there’s a stranger in town. All right?”
“All right? In the last twenty-four hours I’ve lost a girlfriend and the firm its biggest client. Give me a week and I’ll have us both in Parkhurst.”
Jim Crusoe’s solid features didn’t flicker. “Sorry to hear about Valerie. Want to talk about it?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Stirrup, then. Have the police pulled him in? Has he opted for Ruby Fingall’s tender mercies?”
“No. Alison’s alive and well.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
Glad of the chance to unburden himself, Harry described Jonah’s detective work and his own visits to Knutsford and Prospect House.
Jim rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “So you reckon he did kill whatshername — Margaret?”
“I could be wrong. I haven’t been guessing well lately.”
“Think he’ll try to harm Alison?”
“Maybe not. At least Deegan’s tip-off should give her time to clear out. But in any case, Claire’s murder has hit him hard. And he must realise the marriage is dead. The main reason he wanted to know where she lives was wounded pride, I suppose. But the police will lose interest now and with Rita Buxton to offer home comforts, maybe Jack will lose interest in any sort of confrontation with Alison. Looking back on last night, perhaps I should have given him the address. Then we’d still have him as a client.”
Jim shrugged. “Win a few, lose a few. You did the right thing.”
It wasn’t as simple or as obvious as that, and both of them knew it.
“Thanks.”
“And what about his daughter’s murder? Have you heard anything?”
“From the police and from Stirrup, nothing. As you’d expect, that hasn’t stopped my imagination working overtime. With the result that I’ve done my best to get us blacklisted by Balliol Chambers.”