‘So what can I do for you?’ he asked when Dolly had served tea in china cups and a plateful of biscuits.
‘Cast your mind back thirty years. Do you remember a client by the name of Edwin Smith?’
‘Remember him? As if it was yesterday, my dear boy, how could I ever forget? The press were buzzing round like wasps over a rotten apple. The city hadn’t seen a bigger murder trial since the Cameo Cinema case.’
‘I happened to look at the old file the other day. I have it here.’ Harry slid the folder across the table. ‘I hadn’t known that he actually retracted his confession.’
Cyril frowned. ‘Well, yes, I recall that he did. Of course, they often do.’
‘Who?’
‘Criminals, of course. For all manner of reasons, but mainly because they hope to get off. And quite frankly, given the state of justice in this country nowadays, they are usually in with a good chance of that.’
‘So it never crossed your mind that the retraction might be genuine and his confession to the police false?’
‘Good heavens, no.’
‘But with the benefit of hindsight, might you think differently?’
‘Whatever for? The chap was as guilty as a monk’s thoughts in a nunnery.’
Harry bit his tongue. ‘Tell me about him. What sort of man was he?’
Cyril dipped a biscuit into his drink and took a bite out of it as he collected his thoughts. ‘Unprepossessing lad. Freckles, no chin, too much neck. In a word, shifty. No backbone. Far too much of a mummy’s boy.’
‘I see from the papers that mummy paid your fees.’
‘Quite correct. Young Edwin could never keep a job down, never made two pennies of his own to rub together. All the same, there was money in the family. The father had died years before, a stroke, I think, but he was in cotton in the days when there was still something to be made from textiles and he left his widow a few pennies, as well as an enormous house on Sefton Park. She was a forceful character too, but the boy was a sore disappointment. Her own fault, I suppose, all that mollycoddling. Unhealthy. Of course, a heavy price was paid. Poor young Carole Jeffries wasn’t the first person he’d molested.’
‘He was hardly a major criminal. I gather from the file that he had a history of exposing himself and stealing knickers from a washing line.’
Cyril clicked his tongue. ‘You know as well as I do that with such a pathetic specimen, one thing invariably leads to another. As it did with young Smith. One day, he simply went too far.’
‘He had had a girlfriend of his own, though.’
‘Yes, I believe there was someone, but that only made things worse. He admitted she’d finished with him around the time he strangled the girl, if memory serves. Obviously, the rejection tipped him over the edge.’
‘Name of Renata Yates, according to his statement. Did you ever see her?’
‘Lord, no. She’d made herself scarce and besides, I could tell she was going to be bad news. I mean, from the little he said about her she was no better than a street-walker.’
‘So you never heard any suggestions that her evidence might have exonerated Edwin?’
‘Good gracious me, certainly not. Wherever did you get such an idea?’
‘From the same person who tells me that Edwin was an attention-seeker, the sort who might admit guilt simply to claim his fifteen minutes of fame.’
‘Look, Harry,’ said Cyril in his most fatherly manner, ‘don’t you believe all that you hear in those saloon bars of yours.’
‘Okay, okay, so tell me about the victim, Carole. What was she like?’
‘Pretty girl. Headstrong, by all accounts, possibly rather spoiled. Her mum was a bit of a tartar, I remember, but Carole was the apple of her father’s eye, he thought she could do no wrong. Her death finished him, you know. He’d been a powerful figure in the Labour movement, but after his daughter’s death, he was never the same man again. Of course, you might say that’s the inevitable fate of people who devote themselves to the Labour movement. Even so, I often thought that he was Edwin Smith’s second victim.’
‘Although he survived Edwin by — what? — nearly fifteen years?’
‘Yes, killed himself on the day Margaret Thatcher came to power, would you believe? Ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. You don’t need me to tell you she was the finest Prime Minister this country ever had. And how did her own party reward her?’
Keener even than usual to avoid a discussion about the Iron Lady, Harry said hastily, ‘Smith cut his throat in prison. It was careless of the authorities to let him have the opportunity. Wasn’t he marked down as a suicide risk?’
‘You know how these things occur,’ said Cyril in his man-to-man tone. ‘I’m afraid my client was an unpopular fellow. I suspect a warder turned a blind eye to the possibility of felo de se. It happens, as you know.’
Looking at the amiable, contented face, Harry marvelled. Cyril was a man who had always been at ease with himself, no matter what disasters befell those for whom he had acted.
‘What about the people close to the Jeffries family? Clive Doxey was one of them, wasn’t he?’
‘Ah yes,’ said Cyril with a chuckle, ‘he experienced quite a crisis of conscience, as I recall. He’d been an outspoken advocate of abolishing capital punishment, but when his best friend’s daughter was murdered, he seemed to have second thoughts for a while. I remember it well.’
‘I suppose there was never any suggestion that the police should have cast their net more widely in searching for suspects?’
‘Lord, no. Everyone regarded it as an open-and-shut case.’
‘Carole’s boyfriend, the pop musician — was he ever a suspect?’
Cyril smiled a superior smile. ‘Ah, Harry, you never change, do you? Constantly seeking a complex explanation where a perfectly simple one exists all the time. I’m surprised you have time for all this nonsense, with such a busy practice to attend to. When I was your age…’
‘The musician,’ prompted Harry.
‘Oh yes, I remember the chap you’re referring to, though I forget his name, but I’m quite certain he had an alibi for the killing. As you will appreciate, it was one of the first things the police had to check.’
‘And the strength of the alibi?’
A dismissive shrug. ‘I don’t believe there was ever the slightest indication that he might have committed the crime.’
Succumbing to frustration, Harry said, ‘All right, Carole worked for Benny Frederick, didn’t she? Did anyone consider whether he might have had a motive for killing her?’
‘My dear fellow, I don’t think I’m talking out of turn when I say that Frederick was well known for being rather more interested in young men than young girls.’
Harry decided to fly a kite. ‘Homosexuality was illegal in 1964. She might have been blackmailing him.’
Distaste spread across Cyril’s placid features like a stain. ‘A lurid suggestion, Harry, and frankly a slanderous one. I do urge you to think carefully before you make some of your more outrageous statements. Yes, I really do advise that you look before you leap.’
Harry felt it was a sound principle to do the opposite of whatever Cyril advised, but he simply nodded and said, ‘Would you like to look at your old file? It may trigger one or two memories.’
Cyril picked up the folder and started to glance through it. Every now and then he gave a small grunt of pleasurable reminiscence, rather like a minor celebrity leafing through an old album of press cuttings.
‘A well-organised file, though I say so myself. Quite immaculately presented. Say what you like about her, Mrs Miller was certainly a good secretary.’
The name struck Harry like a slap across the cheek.
‘Mrs Miller?’
‘Yes, yes. Marlene was her first name, although we were never on such familiar terms. Let me see, she must have worked for me for the best part of twenty years. An immaculate typist, precise and well organised, the best I ever had.’
‘She wasn’t by any chance married to a man called Ernest?’