‘Another dodgy prosecution?’
‘Too soon to say — even though the case in question dates back thirty years.’
‘Thirty years? You’re going back in time, aren’t you? How come you’re involved?’
Harry described his meeting with Ernest Miller and outlined what he knew about the Sefton Park Strangling. She listened with care and he enjoyed the feeling that she was concentrating her attention upon him, even if only to hear the story he had to tell. He knew that, as he spoke, she was weighing up the facts, assessing the strength of the case against the convicted man. As soon as he had finished, she slipped into the role of devil’s advocate.
‘So — if Smith was innocent, did he plead not guilty?’
He hesitated before replying. ‘Apparently not. His confession stood and the jury took it at face value. Don’t forget, those were the days when most people thought the British bobby could do no wrong and it was inconceivable that someone might untruthfully admit to having committed murder.’
‘Okay, but what makes you think there’s anything in Miller’s story? The world is full of oddballs who like to spin strange yarns.’
‘Don’t I know it? Half of them seem to wind up on the other side of my desk. But sometimes those oddballs turn out to be telling the truth.’
She nodded and he knew that she understood. The people for whom she took up the cudgels were also apt to be social misfits and committing herself to their cause often meant a long and lonely struggle against judicial hostility and public indifference. Harry knew her prime concern was always to do her best for her clients, however unlovely they might be, rather than for Kim Lawrence.
‘True enough. Most of MOJO’s campaigns begin with one person who refuses to accept the received wisdom.’
‘Miller might be such a man. He makes my flesh creep, but he’s no fool. I’m sure he knows more about the Sefton case than he’s let on so far, enough to convince him Smith may well have been innocent. But at the same time he’s still gathering evidence. I simply wondered whether MOJO would be willing to become involved if I did find proof of an injustice.’
‘Sorry, we have enough on our plate at present with contemporary disasters. But if it would help, I’d be glad to look at anything you turn up myself. If Smith didn’t kill the girl, he deserves to have his name cleared.’
‘Thanks. I’ll let you know if I find anything of note in old Cyril’s file.’
She gave him a sceptical look. ‘If I know Cyril Tweats, you’re most likely to find a trail of paper which exists solely to prove that he strove mightily but to no avail. Did you ever hear of that eighteenth-century breach of contract claim where the plaintiff turned out to be a highwayman? Not only did he lose the action, but he was hanged into the bargain. I often suspect he was represented by Tyburn’s answer to Cyril Tweats.’
Harry laughed. ‘Good old Cyril. Yet his clients loved him. When they phone up now and find he’s retired, they’re desolated by the thought they now have to depend on Crusoe and Devlin. Cyril made them feel good. It’s a rare skill for a lawyer — and it earned him a few bob over the years.’
‘Another miscarriage of justice.’
Jim Crusoe was in reception when Harry stepped over the threshold of New Commodities House. He was a big, bearded man whose mane of hair was turning grey prematurely — something he always attributed to the strain of being in partnership with Harry Devlin.
‘I gather the police case collapsed this morning.’
‘In more ways than one.’
‘So Ronald Sou told me. He reckons the odds are that the police authority will make a much-improved offer.’
Harry groaned. ‘From the gleam in your eye, you’ve already spent the fees.’
‘I wasn’t thinking only of the money. But of course, we ought to invest sensibly. New technology, that’s what we need. A bar-code system for recording the time we spend, visual display units for every typist, an upgraded accounts package. There’s a new debt-collection program on the market which…’
‘Christ, the office will look like the Starship Enterprise by the time you’ve finished with it. Didn’t we leave Maher and Malcolm to escape the tyranny of computers? Talk about looking over your shoulder. That place made Big Brother look like someone who was happy to keep himself to himself. I don’t want Crusoe and Devlin to turn into a law factory.’
Jim’s brow darkened. ‘Look, old son. The law’s no place for Luddites. We’re in business, remember? We need to compete, to provide a decent service.’
‘I haven’t heard Kevin or Jeannie Walters complaining.’
‘You’ve done a superb job, I’m the first to say so. But we must move with the times. We can’t keep living in the Dark Ages.’
Harry shrugged and ambled back to his room. He knew his partner’s arguments were unanswerable and that in time he would have to surrender. His reluctance to agree to change was not born of stubborn stupidity, but rather of an unwillingness to acknowledge that he was first and foremost a businessman, that simply seeing justice done would never in itself pay the mortgage. He resented, not his partner, but the failure of the world to match his more romantic notions of what was right and what was wrong.
A heap of messages awaited him, but the excitement in court had quenched any thirst he might have had for desk work. What he wanted was to take a look at the file he had retrieved from the Land of the Dead. He slipped off a couple of clips that held the old bundle of documents together and the papers spilled on to his desk. Statements of witnesses, correspondence, typed notes of evidence from the committal proceedings, instructions to counsel tied up with pink string, together with a couple of handwritten sheets in a young person’s unformed hand.
He looked at those last two pages. They comprised a record of the trial at the old Liverpool Assizes. Cyril Tweats’ clerk had faithfully taken down every word uttered when Edwin Smith was tried for the murder of Carole Jeffries. Yet not much had needed to be said, in view of Edwin’s guilty plea.
Once more Harry asked himself the question that had been nagging away at the back of his mind ever since Miller had first accosted him. Why was the man so sure Edwin Smith was innocent?
He turned to the correspondence. Cyril had written the usual letters to his client and to the police. A reference in one letter made Harry pause for thought. He turned to the separate set of notes on the meetings between Cyril Tweats and Edwin Smith. Soon he found what he was looking for.
One day in April, not long after his arrest, Edwin had asked to see his solicitor. When the two men were alone together, Edwin had insisted that he had not killed Carole Jeffries. His confession to the crime had been false.
Harry caught his breath as he read the neatly typed notes. At last — an indication that Miller might be on the right track and that Carole could have been murdered by someone else. Yet Edwin had not denied the crime in court. Following his change of heart, what had gone wrong?
The answer was: Cyril Tweats. He had simply not believed Edwin’s retraction. It was clear from the papers that he felt sure that his client had simply panicked at the thought of what lay ahead. Stronger men than Edwin Smith had been terrified by the prospect of the rope. So Cyril had laid down a challenge to the young man: how do you explain your knowledge of facts of which only the murderer could be aware? No answer had been forthcoming. Harry could imagine the young man trembling as his solicitor pointed out that a not guilty plea in a case such as this would mean that he must give evidence on his own behalf and face up to rigorous interrogation from a prosecuting counsel who held all the cards.
Edwin’s nerve soon broke; within twenty-four hours he withdrew his claim to innocence. By changing his tune again, he kept things simple for everyone: his defence team, the police, the courts and himself. He said he was willing to stand by his confession after all, plead guilty and allow the law to take its course.