‘I’m not a policeman, I’m not asking you to admit a thing. I’d just like a word, that’s all. Today, if it’s convenient. If not, maybe tomorrow.’
‘What’s the hurry after thirty years? And why all the sudden interest after such a long time?’
‘You’ve already talked to a man called Miller about Edwin, haven’t you? He told me you had responded to his advertisement, claiming Edwin could not have strangled Carole Jeffries.’
‘Are you a friend of this Miller?’
‘I’m his solicitor. Or should I say, I was.’
‘Sacked you, has he?’
‘He’s dead.’
After a shocked pause, Renata Grierson said, ‘Dead? He can’t be. I only rang him on Thursday. He said he wanted to fix up a meeting with me.’
‘Don’t hold your breath waiting for his call. I almost fell over his body when I called at his house. He’d collapsed in his own front room and now he’s dead, I feel I owe it to him to find out more about the Sefton Park case.’
She snorted down the line. ‘What’s your real interest, Mr Devlin?’
‘Miller persuaded me that Edwin Smith was done a grave injustice. If that’s true, it ought to be put right.’
‘Edwin died a long time ago, Mr Devlin.’
‘Justice doesn’t have a sell-by date,’ said Harry, thinking as he spoke that it was worryingly easy to become the self-important lawyer of a thousand tired caricatures. If he didn’t watch out, he’d start spewing out soundbites like a poor man’s Clive Doxey. Less grandly, he added, ‘Will you spare me half an hour?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I was just getting ready to go out to work this evening, as it happens. I work in an Egyptian restaurant in the city centre, a place called Farouk’s. You can see me afterwards, if you like.’
‘What time do you finish?’
‘No fixed time, but usually late. Come over and have a meal first, if you like. The food’s one of Liverpool’s best-kept secrets, you’ll thank me for tipping you the wink.’
His next task was to chase up the result of Miller’s post mortem. He always found contacting the police by phone a tedious business and was frequently tempted to make every message a 999 call, but eventually he collected the information he wanted.
The pathologist was sure that Miller had died following and as a consequence of a severe asthma attack. Time of death was never easy to fix, but early evening of Saturday was probably favourite. Although he had cut his head when he had fallen, the gash had not been serious. There was no clear indication as to the trigger for the attack; it could have had any one of a score of causes. It was a straightforward matter, Harry was assured. No suspicious circumstances at all.
‘Then let me mention one or two. Mrs Hegg, my client’s neighbour, heard someone call next door on Saturday evening… No, she doesn’t know who it was, she heard knocking whilst she was on the phone and thinks she heard the visitor being let in. And some important papers appear to be missing from my client’s study… No, nothing else, no money has gone. But the papers relate to a crime my client was interested in… thirty years ago, although…’
The best he could do was extract a promise that a statement would be taken from Gloria Hegg. He had no illusions: there was enough crime in present-day Merseyside to occupy the forces of law and order, and the assumed loss of one file of documents about a case dating back to 1964 was hardly likely to call for all police leave to be stopped and the drafting-in of reinforcements specially trained in investigating miscarriages of justice.
As he put the receiver down, he reflected that Jock’s guess as to what had occurred at Miller’s house on Saturday was probably not far from the truth. Miller had not been murdered and the burglary of the office could be unconnected. Unless Ray Brill was the one who had feared that Cyril Tweats’ file might reveal a secret he was desperate to hide.
Back in the flat that evening, Harry switched on the television whilst he changed in readiness for his trip to Farouk’s, hoping to catch the regional news. It was being read by a plump redhead whose Mancunian vowels rolled as if she were auditioning for a part in Hobson’s Choice.
‘…who had been the head of the South West Lancashire Major Enquiries Squad for the past nine years resigned today after a record compensation payment for wrongful arrest was agreed in the case of Liverpool man Kevin Walter.’
As she summarised the main points of the case, the picture showed Kevin and Jeannie outside the Law Courts, grinning at a forest of microphones. At their side was Patrick Vaulkhard, permitting himself a sly smile of self-congratulation. Harry, no expert in media relations, had managed to find a place just out of camera shot.
‘No money can ever make up for what my Kevin has suffered,’ Jeannie announced to the camera, ‘but all we want to do now is to get away for a quiet holiday and start to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives.’
It was a quote, Harry supposed, from the serialisation of her life story which would begin in one of the tabloids the next day. He did not expect to be buying a copy.
‘Is this a good day for English justice?’ a reporter asked Vaulkhard.
‘Justice?’ demanded the barrister. A caption across the bottom of the screen identified him for the viewers’ benefit. ‘A man loses his liberty and the people responsible have to be taken to court before they offer compensation even remotely sufficient to recognise the wrong they have done? Where is the justice in that?’
‘You can’t put a price on freedom,’ said Jeannie.
The redhead reappeared and said, ‘Tonight Sir Clive Doxey, the President of MOJO, the Miscarriages Of Justice Organisation, added his weight to calls for tighter regulation of police interrogation methods.’
A silver-haired man sitting in front of a bookcase full of imposing leather-bound volumes started speaking about unscrupulous police methods and how the case illustrated the need to preserve a suspect’s right of silence.
‘…national disgrace… insist upon an urgent review… courage of Mrs Walter…’
Harry paid scant attention. He was reflecting that it was a small world. What would Sir Clive say if it were suggested to him that Edwin Smith might have been a victim of a miscarriage of justice even graver than the one that had befallen Kevin Walter? Would he use his muscle to press for some form of enquiry into the old case? Or was this one time when he might be content to let bygones be bygones?
Farouk’s was tucked away down an alley that led off Victoria Street. The fascia of the building was as inconspicuous as its location; there were no menus in its curtained window and only the tiniest of signs outside to proclaim its existence. Harry stepped inside and, climbing the steep and narrow staircase to the first floor, reflected that the owners seemed to have done their utmost to discourage passing trade. They must have the confidence to rely on word of mouth. Whether Renata worked as a waitress or in the kitchens, he was impressed that she had recommended the cuisine at the place where she worked. In his experience, people on the inside of most kitchens preferred to eat elsewhere: ignorance was bliss. When he opened the door at the top and peered inside, however, he saw that the place was almost full. The light was low and the air thick with smoke; in the background a swarthy man with a drooping moustache was playing a bouzouki.
‘The name’s Devlin. I rang earlier and booked a table for one,’ he told the waiter who came to greet him.
As he was led to his seat, he saw that in the opposite corner of the room a large woman was dancing to the music. Her exotically tasselled green brassiere, chiffon hip scarves and see-through harem skirt revealed far more of her ample form than it concealed. A fringe of coins dangled over her forehead; she wore tiny cymbals on her fingers and a pair of gold anklets. As Harry watched, she shimmied towards a couple of men in business suits who were sitting in a small alcove. Their eyes gleamed in anticipation as, with a wicked smile and flutter of improbably long black eyelashes, she thrust her pelvis forward and dipped her breasts towards them before shimmying out of reach and on to the next table.