Suspicious Minds

Chapter Sixteen

All the way home, Harry strove to dismiss Morgan’s words as the babbling of an alcoholic who couldn’t tell fact from fantasy. Whether Morgan was making a stupid, drunken accusation that Jack Stirrup had killed his own daughter or simply guessing that Jack had done away with Alison, it was inconceivable that he had evidence to back up either claim.

Yet as he took a TV dinner out of the microwave, Harry recalled Stirrup’s evasiveness during their conversation the previous afternoon at New Brighton and all his old anxieties about his client surfaced again. Chewing a pizza, he sifted in his mind through the debris of Stirrup’s life, hoping in vain to turn up something that would put an end to doubt.

Could Kuiper help? Whilst he ate, Harry wondered at the young man’s telephone call. Possibly Claire had told the boyfriend something about either her father or her step-mother that would help to solve the mystery.

He glanced at his watch. Half-eight. Kuiper had suggested a rendezvous in New Brighton. According to Stirrup, Claire had first met her boyfriend at The Wreckers, a pub-disco on a promontory overlooking the Mersey. Might he be there tonight?

A long shot, but tonight Harry felt that any shot was better than none. Pushing aside his half-finished pizza, he decided he would go to The Wreckers and see if he could find the young man. At least so doing would give him an illusion of doing something positive, not only on his client’s behalf, but also to identify the murderer of that spoilt fifteen-year-old girl. Unlikeable she may have been, but she had not deserved to die.

The drive through the Queensway Tunnel was swift. Up above, unseen and unheard, the river flowed, dividing Liverpool and Wirral. Harry let his mind roam again around the events of the past few days, trying to find a pattern to them. Trouble was, he couldn’t be sure there even was a pattern. Perhaps he was wrong in trying to make all the hints and allegations add up when all the time they might be random elements, like bits of a brain-teaser in a magazine spattered with printer’s errors.

The Wreckers, a concrete and glass excrescence which might have been named after the architects responsible for its design, made the average amusement arcade look like St. George’s Hall. Outside the main door a group of leather-jacketed youths congregated, laughing and swearing. Every time a girl walked past them on her way into that place they treated her to a serenade of whistles and cat-calls. The girls pretended not to notice but the giggling remarks they exchanged with each other suggested this was all part of a ritual they would be lost without.

A dozen motorbikes were parked round the corner. Harry did not know either the registration number or make of Kuiper’s bike, but he spotted one which looked familiar and which had a thin layer of mud smeared over its number plate. He decided to take a look inside.

Stepping into The Wreckers, he felt like a maiden aunt blundering into a wife-swapping party. The room heaved with bodies pressed close together. No one looked over twenty. Rap music droned from overhead speakers. If this was the pub, Harry wondered, why bother with the disco? He pushed past cuddling couples half his age and finally made it to the bar.

Drawing breath, he glanced round. Almost immediately he caught sight of his quarry. Kuiper was standing with his back to the bar, talking to a small fair-haired girl in a red and white striped tee-shirt. He was wearing his James Dean face and seemed to have his listener spellbound. Harry inched forward to get a better view of her and saw the smooth features of a girl no older than Claire. Kuiper obviously liked them young.

With difficulty and many apologies, Harry moved through the scrum of lads at the bar until he was close enough to touch Peter Kuiper. The student had slipped his hand inside the back of the girl’s tee-shirt and didn’t appear to be meeting any resistance. It hadn’t taken him long to get over the loss of one girlfriend and find another, Harry thought.

“Peter,” he shouted. “I made it after all.”

Alarm brought a strange light to the young man’s eyes as he turned round. His cheeks were flushed; the lager he was drinking was not his first of the night. He glanced over Harry’s shoulder, as if he expected a posse of policemen to be fetching up the rear.

“What do you want?”

“To talk. You want that too. Well, here I am.”

Kuiper jammed his eyelids shut, as if to help him think. Then he made up his mind. He bent down to the girl and spoke into her ear. Dismay drained the colour from her face. He patted her head as if she were a pet spaniel and nodded at Harry.

“Okay. Let’s talk.”

“Not here,” Harry bellowed. “Outside. Where we can hear ourselves think.”

“I don’t want to be conspicuous. The filth are looking for me.”

“Come on.”

Harry seized the collar of the student’s jacket and frog-marched him to the door. Once they were standing outside and Harry had released his grip, Kuiper ostentatiously dusted himself down. The exertion seemed to have sobered him.

“That’s a common assault, you ought to know that.”

“Peter, don’t provoke me any more. You rang me this afternoon wanting my advice. The first piece of it is — stop acting like a child. This isn’t a game. Claire’s dead. If you didn’t kill her, you’re behaving like a fool. As well as distracting the police from tracking down the real murderer.”

“What makes you so sure I didn’t strangle her?” Impossible for Kuiper to keep a sneer off his lips for more than a few minutes at a time.

“Did you?”

The intensity of Harry’s tone and expression seemed to register. Kuiper shifted from one foot to the other.

“No. Believe me, I’d never have harmed her.”

“For what it’s worth, I do believe you. Thousands wouldn’t. Certainly not Jack Stirrup. He’s baying for your hide.”

“The stupid old sod.”

“His daughter’s dead — he wants a scapegoat. So grow up, and answer a few questions. Where have you been since Saturday afternoon?”

“Here and there. Out in the open, mostly. No problem in this weather. Last night I was out of my head after hearing about Claire on the tranny. Slept it off on Moreton shore.”

“Why do a flit?”

“I didn’t want to get involved with the filth. Simple as that.”

“Why not?”

“I just didn’t, okay? Anyway, it’s not for you to cross-examine me. You could do with minding your own business.”

“Peter,” said Harry softly, “that’s not possible. What you do is my business, so far as it affects my client. Jack Stirrup’s daughter has been raped and strangled, don’t forget that.”

“Am I likely to? She was my girlfriend.”

Harry pointed to the door of The Wreckers. “In there you weren’t exactly wearing sackcloth and ashes.”

“What do you want, blood?”

“Unfortunate choice of phrase in the circumstances.”

“Yeah, well. Anyway, old man Stirrup’s got nothing to feel holier than thou about. He didn’t understand Claire, couldn’t give her what she wanted most. Couldn’t even keep his old lady happy, come to that, could he? Never mind a fifteen-year-old kid who thought there was more to life than doing up a musty old dump of a house that should have been condemned long ago.”

“So what did Claire want most?”

The sneer returned. “You wouldn’t understand either.”

“Try me.”

“Okay.” The student gave a triumphant look. “She wanted to take risks. She wanted to be rich. And most of all she wanted to make an impact.”

“She wasn’t exactly destitute,” said Harry. “And what sort of impact did she have in mind?”

“To capture people’s attention,” he said slowly. “To dare to be different. It’s easy to be one more face in the crowd. We wanted to make people sit up and think.”

“And how did you plan to do that?”

Kuiper shrugged. Harry had spent most of his professional and married lives being lied to; he recognised the gesture as a prelude to evasion.

“She’s managed it now, hasn’t she? She’s a household name. The girl The Beast murdered.”

“How do you know she was killed by The Beast?”

“I read the papers.”

“Don’t give me that. How do you know?”

“I don’t.” Kuiper looked at the ground. “Honestly. But what other explanation can there be?”

“Were you with her last Friday night?”

“No. She was seeing another girl she knew from school, I think. I don’t know who.”

“When were you last in touch with her?”

“That evening. She rang me at my flat, around half-five. She used to do that, before her father got home. He was mean about the phone bill.”

“What did she say?”

“She’d met some old prat her father had hired to find her step-mother. Claire reckoned he was so decrepit he’d be lucky to find his way back to Liverpool. That didn’t bother her, she was glad to see the back of Alison.”

“And her manner?”

Kuiper considered. “Fine. Giggly, even. Said something about giving me a surprise when I came round on Saturday afternoon. She was a bit of a pain, to be honest. Teasing. Said she liked to dangle men on a string, make them do as she wished.”

“Men? Did she have any other boyfriends?”

Kuiper was cocksure. “No way. I promise you that. She just liked to pretend she was irresistible.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all I can tell you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Kuiper stared at him insolently. His bravado was returning.

“Really? Well, to be frank, Mr. Devlin, I don’t give a fuck. Now if you don’t mind I’ll be on my way.”

He had chosen his moment well. As he turned away, a group of young men emerged from The Wreckers, shouting drunkenly. A pair of massive bouncers looked out from the doorway, following the gang’s progress. Harry hesitated, realising that if he tried to detain Kuiper, the odds were on a free-for-all as the prospect of a fight attracted young men with fire as well as booze in their bellies.

Kuiper sat astride the saddle of his bike. He had donned helmet and gauntlets and as Harry began to move towards him he gave an ironic wave of the hand before revving loudly and disappearing into the night.

Where was he going? Only one way to find out. Harry broke into a run, heading for his car. One of the gang members jeered after him, yelling some unintelligible obscenity, before the emergence from The Wreckers of two girls in mini-skirts diverted the yob’s attention. Harry took no notice. Within seconds he had reversed out of the car park and was racing down the road in pursuit of the vanished motorbike.

Dusk was beginning to fall. Away from The Wreckers, the New Brighton streets were quiet. Harry had no idea of Kuiper’s destination and when turns and junctions came up, he chose his route as randomly as if competing in a fairground game. For once in his life he won the lucky dip: on taking the long, straight road out of the town he caught sight of a dark figure on a speeding motorbike perhaps two hundred yards ahead. Peter Kuiper.

The gathering gloom gave the drive down Leasowe Road an eerie quality. To the left were houses, roads and streetlights, all the signs of suburban life. To the right was emptiness: market gardens, golf links and common land stretching towards the sand dunes by the shore of the Irish Sea. Harry kept his distance from the motor-cyclist, following him past the lights and turrets of the old Mockbeggar Hall, curving inland with the road away from the ruin of Leasowe’s landlocked lighthouse.

At the roundabout Kuiper took the road to the west of the peninsula. His course was unwavering; it was plain that he had a specific destination in mind. Afraid to lose his quarry, Harry closed in on him a little. They passed fields, shops, houses. Moreton, Meols, Hoylake. And, as he climbed the bridge over the railway which had its terminus at West Kirby, Harry realised where they were going.

Kuiper was returning to Prospect House. As soon as the thought occurred to him, Harry became unshakably convinced that he knew where the journey would end. There was something about the house on the hill which lured the boy, even though he would never see Claire there again. That was why he had turned up on Saturday afternoon. His claim that he had come to see her had sounded like an excuse, although at the time it had seemed the only explanation for his arrival. What had he wanted, what did he intend to do now? Surely a bruising encounter with Jack Stirrup was even less attractive than an evening in the company of the Merseyside Police?

First the motorbike, then the M.G. went by the library which Claire had been supposed to visit on her last day alive. Could there be an unsuspected connection between Kuiper and his girlfriend’s father? Or was that idea absurd?

Harry dropped back. There was no sign that Kuiper knew he had been pursued thus far; to blow the chase now would be folly. The motorbike sped ahead and out of sight. Taking his time as he climbed the hill that led to Prospect House, Harry concentrated on finding a discreet place in which to park.

Fifty yards from Stirrup’s driveway, a path led off the road into a small copse. Harry crawled past and saw the motorbike. It had been dragged off the main road, but with no special effort at concealment. By now it was dark. Harry thought he saw a figure disappearing into the drive. He pulled over on to the grassy verge, locked the car and hurried in pursuit.

At the gateway to Stirrup’s house he hesitated. That was a mistake. Everything was still and silent. No lights shone at any of the windows. The undergrowth of the garden remained thick and forbidding. The place was like a cemetery. What dead secrets might it be hiding? Suddenly Harry felt as cold as if he had stepped under a shower of icy water. He was on his own and didn’t know what he was about to encounter.

For a moment he contemplated retreat. No shame in it. He could contact the police from the town. Leave to them the investigation of whatever was happening in this isolated spot. That would be the cautious, lawyerly thing to do.

Ahead of him something moved. Harry crouched under the spreading branches of an oak. He could sense, rather than see, that someone was making his way stealthily towards the house. It must be Kuiper. Harry inched forward, peering through the night in a vain attempt to sight the student.

Every twig cracking beneath his tread sounded to him like the 1812 Overture. Yet it was better to skirt the drive than risk crunching over the gravel: Kuiper would certainly hear that and choose flight — or, perhaps, violent confrontation. Harry had never considered himself brave. And he did not know if the student had a weapon.

At the bend in the drive, he looked through the trees and at last saw Kuiper’s outline distinctly. The young man was picking his way round the side of the house. The care with which he was moving suggested that he too was absorbed in keeping as quiet as possible: there was no hint that he was conscious of Harry’s presence.

Emboldened, Harry crept after him. The dark silhouette of the stable block loomed up in front of them both. A dozen yards away from it, Kuiper stooped down. He remained bent over something for half a minute. Finally, Harry realised that he was struggling to shift something heavy without making any noise. In a moment of empathy, Harry understood that Peter Kuiper’s tension matched his own.

A low grunt reached Harry’s ears across the night air with remarkable clarity. A grunt partly of satisfaction, mostly of relief. Kuiper straightened for a second or two before bending down again. This time he disappeared from view.

Harry waited for a minute to see what would happen next. Nothing. He approached the place where Kuiper had been. It was on the edge of the clearing in which the stable block stood. Harry remembered the scene in daylight from his previous visit. Even in the dark, he knew at once that something was very different.

A large rock which had looked immovable had been pushed aside. Below there was an opening into blackness. Scarcely daring to breathe, Harry drew nearer. He looked down. So far as he could make out, there were a few rough-hewn steps which led to some subterranean chamber.

Kuiper was beginning to climb back up the steps. He was carrying something in his arms. As his head was just about to reach ground level, Harry coughed. There was a clatter as the student dropped whatever he had been carrying. A white face turned up to look at him.

“Devlin?”

“Evening, Peter. Do you come here often?”

In the moonlight he could see panic spreading over the student’s face and that was answer enough. For a few seconds Kuiper hesitated. The tip of his tongue appeared between lips no longer sneeringly curved. Harry heard the drawing-in of breath before the student lowered his head, and he was ready for the bull-like upward charge.

Blundering up the stone steps, eyes on the ground rather than on his intended victim, Kuiper never had a chance catching Harry off-balance, of butting him in the chest or knocking him to the floor. With all the time in the world Harry took a step to one side, then brought both hands down together in a single blow. Kuiper staggered backwards down the steps, hitting his head against the back wall of the passage. As he fell awkwardly to the floor, Harry heard a loud crack as bone splintered.

Harry reached into the hole in the ground and, putting hands under the boy’s arms, began to yank him back to the surface. Kuiper moaned in protest as Harry dragged the rest of his inert body back up to ground level.

“That hurts.”

“Pity.”

Harry shoved the boy to one side and peered down the hole. In the light cast by the moon he could see the oddments which Kuiper had dropped lying on the ground at the bottom. Items so everyday that the effect was surreal. A tin of baked beans. A small tub of biscuits. A boil-in-the-bag packet meal. Rations for a hermit? For a wild moment he thought he had uncovered a hiding place where Alison Stirrup might at last be found. Had she been the victim of some bizarre kidnap plot, imprisoned beneath the grounds of her own matrimonial home? Even as his mind played with the possibility, he caught sight of the retailer’s labels on the bits and pieces where Kuiper had let fall. They all bore the name and logo of the Saviour Money supermarket chain. At last the truth dawned.

Peter Kuiper had led him to a poisoner’s den.