Walking back to the office, he swung his arms to keep warm as the first flecks of snow began to fall and wondered if he would be wise to heed Jock’s words of caution. He knew he must take care, for the ideas he now had about the case were so shocking that he had explained them to neither Ken nor Jock. But there was no question of his giving up his search for the truth about the death of Carole Jeffries. He had come to believe that he owed it to her as well as to Vera Smith and her son to keep going to the bitter end. The dead deserved justice as much as the living.
Once at Fenwick Court, he briefed Ronald Sou about the latest twist in the Waltergate saga. The news of Kevin’s misdeeds prompted even the inscrutable clerk to shake his head, the equivalent of a fainting fit in many another man.
‘I don’t expect rapid developments today, but keep an eye on things. I’m driving up to Southport shortly and I may not be back for a while.’
The phone buzzed and he snatched it up in irritation. ‘Suzanne, I don’t have anything on in court this morning and I’m likely to be out until lunchtime.’
‘There’s someone to see you,’ came the smug reply. ‘Reckons it’s important.’
‘I told you that I would… who is it?’
‘Name of Doxey,’ said the girl. ‘ Sir Clive Doxey, so he says.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘I came to see you,’ said Clive Doxey, ‘because last night your questions startled me and provoked me into an unwise lie.’
‘And now you propose to make amends?’ asked Harry. He gazed sceptically at the most distinguished visitor ever to fill the client’s chair. ‘Why the sudden change of heart?’
‘Because on reflection I decided you were a man unlikely to take no for an answer, Mr Devlin. Very late last night I telephoned Patrick Vaulkhard at his home and he confirmed my impression. So here I am. Good of you to see me without an appointment.’
Doxey rested his palms on the battered old desk and gave a glimmer of the self-assured smile so familiar from a hundred current affairs programmes. But Harry’s instinctive reaction had always been to switch to the soccer highlights on another channel, and now he sensed that Doxey’s lines were as carefully rehearsed as the we’re-both-men-of-the-world manner. He must be worried, he thought.
‘So you’ve come to tell me that you were involved with Carole Jeffries, after all?’
‘I wonder who gave you that idea?’
‘Someone in whom Carole confided her plan to propose to you on Leap Year Day.’
Doxey closed his eyes for a second before replying. ‘Well I suppose it was foolish for me to deny it. Carole and I did fall for each other. She was only sweet sixteen and I was close on thirty, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t a dirty old man bent on adultery. I’d been living with a girl who lectured at the Polytechnic, but we’d split up around the Christmas of 1963. I was unattached and ready for a new relationship.’ He gave Harry a direct look. ‘It was nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘Did Guy or Kathleen know you were smitten?’
A shake of the head. ‘They had no idea that we were seeing each other, far less that marriage was a possibility.’
‘And was it?’
‘Yes, your informant was quite correct. On the day Carole died, she did propose to me.’
‘Did you accept?’
Doxey seemed for a moment to measure pros and cons, as if wondering whether a lie would serve him better than the truth. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘I was glad to do so.’
‘So you were keen to marry the girl?’ Harry frowned, uncertain whether to believe what he was being told.
‘I was crazy about her,’ was the calm reply. ‘She had that effect on people, you know. Intoxicating.’
‘And dangerous.’
A brief pause. ‘I suppose you’re right. But on the day of the murder, I told her I felt the time wasn’t right to explain to her parents that we were in love. As it proved, in the end there was never a right time.’
‘Even after her death you said nothing?’
‘It hardly seemed relevant.’ Doxey began to shift around in his chair. He seemed uncomfortable with the admission. ‘They had suffered a dreadful blow. I didn’t think it would help them to learn that their girl had become involved with a friend closer to their age than hers.’
‘And they never guessed?’
‘I did wonder,’ said Doxey, ‘if they might have gained an inkling. After the murder, I sensed that something had died in our relationship also, though nothing was ever put into words.’
‘As if in some way you were to blame for what had happened to Carole?’
‘A ridiculous idea. How could I have been?’
We’ll come back to that, thought Harry. Aloud, he said, ‘I’d like to know more about Carole. Would you mind telling me how the two of you got together?’
Doxey licked his lips. ‘I’d always been fond of her, through all the years I’d been spending time with Guy and planning on how we could change the world. She was a pretty child who soon grew into a gorgeous teenager — and she was a terrible flirt. I’d never thought of her in a sexual way, you’ll have to take my word for that, but after I’d finished with my own girlfriend, I suddenly saw Carole through new eyes. She was more than an attractive little thing who happened to be the daughter of a man I liked and admired. I realised she was a desirable young woman. And all at once — I desired her.’
‘Did she respond?’
‘Oh yes. I started turning up at the house on the flimsiest pretexts. And one day, I found my luck was in. I called unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon, and she told me that both her parents were out but that it was a shame for me to have made a wasted journey and would I like to come in for a cup of coffee? I hardly need go into the details. Suffice it to say that we finished up in bed and I overstayed my welcome so long that I’d barely got my trousers back on by the time Guy and Kathleen returned.’
‘And after that?’
‘We made love at every possible opportunity,’ Doxey said. His tone was defiant, perhaps even, Harry thought, a touch boastful. ‘I will be candid with you — I realised I must be when I decided to talk to you again this morning. She was insatiable: we both were. I didn’t feel as though I was exploiting her. No, I am sure I never exploited her. She was young, I can’t deny it, but she had an old head on her shoulders and she knew what she wanted. I was only glad it was me.’
‘And what about Ray Brill?’
Doxey flapped his hand in a dismissive gesture which sent Harry’s desk tidy spinning to the floor and scattering paperclips all around. ‘He was a passing phase in her life, no more. She’d been bowled over by the idea of going out with a pop singer, she admitted as much to me. He was a charmer, even though he was never going to be a second Paul McCartney. But Carole was no fool. She was much brighter than Brill and she knew that he wasn’t a long-term bet.’
‘Did she realise he might not take the same view?’
‘She didn’t worry about giving him the push. Why should she? For a man like that, there are always plenty of girls around.’
‘I’m told Carole had a secretive streak. Did she relish the intrigue and hiding your love from her parents?’
‘Yes, she did love to be mysterious. It was part of her appeal. But she disagreed with me about keeping our engagement quiet for a while. She was adamant that her parents should be told. We would have needed their consent for a wedding, of course, but I felt it was a question of tackling them sensibly, waiting for an opportune moment. Carole at least agreed with me that, provided he was in the right mood when I tackled him, Guy might be more sympathetic than Kathleen.’
‘Despite his own devotion to his daughter?’
‘If he loved her — as I am sure he did — he must have wanted her happiness most of all.’
‘But you decided not to stay around and broach the subject with him yourself that afternoon?’