Suspicious Minds

Chapter Twenty-Two

Atlantic waves were crashing against the sea wall at Miranda Beach. Through the night air drifted the sound of a band playing “That Old Feeling.” Ned Racine had that old feeling, too. He flirted with the blonde in the white dress who caught his eye as she walked out of the concert.

“You’re not too smart, are you?” she asked.

Harry was spending the evening at his flat with a bottle of Johnnie Walker for company. For the twentieth time he was running his old tape of Body Heat, although he knew the dialogue so well he hardly needed to glance at the images on the screen. Racine, the gullible small town lawyer and second rate Romeo. Sometimes Harry worried that he might have more in common with Ned than he would like to admit.

He wasn’t being too smart about Valerie, that was clear. She hadn’t been in touch all day and he didn’t think ringing her was the right thing to do. Was he being childish, letting pride elbow aside his need to be with her? To press too much now might destroy their relationship. And yet, while he stayed here she might be spending her time with Julian Hamer, drawing nearer to him, forgetting that she didn’t yet want to be imprisoned by commitment.

Come to think of it, he’d not been too smart over Brenda Rixton or Sally Jean-Jacques either. Two older women, with either of whom he might still be involved had he played his cards differently. Now they were fixed up elsewhere. As the evening wore on and the whisky warmed him and blurred his memory of the past, he recalled Brenda’s soft flesh and the interest he had once seen in Sally’s eyes and he realised that he had no idea what he wanted from women, or whether he would ever find it.

At least Racine knew. Racine, who had sniggered when Matty Walker said, “I’m a married woman,” not realising how easy it was to walk into a snare. Racine, who suspected nothing until it was too late. Easy to identify with him.

The pictures moved. Now Oscar, the black detective, was sitting in the snack bar, hat tipped on the back of his balding head.

“When it gets hot, people start to kill each other,” he was telling Racine.

Violence. There was no escaping it. It had found Gina, had killed Claire. And possibly Alison too. Might her body, like that of her step-daughter, be lying undiscovered somewhere beneath the ground? She must be dead, surely. The victim, if not of her husband, or of the man who had murdered Claire, of another sex killer who had seized and violated her. What else could explain her sudden disappearance, her failure to make any contact with either her husband or her mother?

In the film, things were starting to fall apart for Racine. His lover’s husband was dead, the money seemed to be there for the taking. But there was that funny business over the will and his friends, the policeman and the prosecutor, could tell that he was heading for disaster.

“She’s trouble, Ned. Big time, major league trouble.”

Might Alison have been trouble, as well? The notion swam around in Harry’s mind like a solitary fish in a pool. If she had contrived her disappearance, what could be the reason? To set her husband up — for what? If she was alive, it seemed extraordinary that she had claimed nothing from Stirrup when up to fifty percent was hers for the taking. And she could claim nothing unless she re-emerged from the shadows.

If she was alive, he was overlooking something, making a false assumption somewhere. He toyed with possibilities. They all seemed ludicrous. Might Alison and Doreen Capstick, for instance, be conspiring to keep a deadly secret? A secret connected with Claire, perhaps? Doreen had no love for either her son-in-law or his daughter from his first marriage. She wouldn’t scruple to tell the lie direct. Yet Harry could not credit that she was so good an actress. And it was impossible to see how Alison could gain from such an elaborate charade. She was in no position to cash in on the police interest in Jack which Doreen had inspired. No, he was letting his imagination run riot.

Ned Racine had been equally slow on the uptake. Even as the evidence mounted, still he was unwilling to accept he’d been betrayed. Bitterness edged his voice as he confronted the woman who had contrived his downfall.

“Experience shows I can be convinced of anything.”

Ned’s just like me, thought Harry wearily. It’s so easy to believe what you want to believe. How to strike the right balance between trust and naivete? As for the mess with Stirrup and his missing wife, a clue must exist to help make sense of all that had happened. Earlier, driving back after talking to Sally, he had felt on the edge of something that would lead him to the truth, but then he had arrived home, poured himself one drink, then another, and the answers to his questions had slipped further out of reach.

“It was so — perfect,” said Racine at last.

And for a moment Harry thought he caught a glimpse in his mind’s eye of what had happened. But he was on the point of sleeping and soon he was absorbed in a dream about Liz. She was alive again and had come home for good.

He woke late the next morning, still lying cramped on the sofa. His back ached and he felt dirty and dishevelled. The red light on the video recorder blinked at him as if in reproach. In his dream he had talked to his wife, they had put things right with their marriage. He had stroked her black hair and felt her tongue on his lips, her teeth rubbing at his neck. To be awake and alone seemed much less like real life.

A cold shower couldn’t wash away the anti-climax of returning to the quiet morning world of the Empire Dock. At least the sun was glinting down on the water’s surface and he recalled his father’s favourite cliche as he walked the short distance to Fenwick Court.

“Every day’s a bonus,” the old man had liked to say. “Every day’s a bonus.” Poor old bugger, he hadn’t earned enough bonus days.

Harry’s first client, an angry young man accused of kerb crawling in Falkner Square who claimed merely to have been practising for his advanced driving test (but for forty minutes round the same block?), had just been dispatched when Suzanne put Jack Stirrup through.

“I’m getting out,” he said without preamble.

“Out of what?”

“Of everything. The house. Merseyside. The business.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Never more so.”

“Jack, I don’t think this is a good time to be making hasty decisions.”

“Name me a better time. My oldest mate’s suing me for sacking him. My wife’s pissed off God knows where and the police think I’ve done her in. My daughter’s been butchered by a fucking nutcase and her bloody boyfriend’s been using my cellars as a terrorist base. No thanks, Harry boy, I’ve had enough. There’s nothing down for me round here. You can tell that slob Morgan I’ll pay him a year’s money in full and final settlement, by the way. Though he’ll drink it away in no time if I’m any judge.”

To reason with Stirrup in this mood was, Harry knew, like trying to halt a damburst with a sieve. All the same, he had to try.

“Jack, things couldn’t have been tougher for you lately. No one knows that better than me. If you only…”

“Listen. I thought you’d have understood. I can’t take any more. Got that? I’ve bloody had it up to here. But if you’re not the man I thought you were and pounds, shillings and pence are all that count where you’re concerned, the sums add up, don’t you worry. Grealish has come up with an extra five hundred grand for my shares in the company. No strings.”

If the news hadn’t taken his breath away, Harry would have whistled. Half a million more, unconditionally. The price they had put on Stirrup Wines as a try-on, an opening shot in those abortive negotiations earlier in the year. Grealish had rubbished the offer then, claiming neither his accountants nor the bank would support an acquisition at such an over-value. So, at last he had yielded.

“It’s a good price,” Harry said reluctantly.

“It’s what the business is worth. Anyway, I’ve said yes. Grealish is telling his lawyer to draw up the agreement. I’ve told him you’d probably get Crusoe to handle my side. All right?”

“Sure.”

Advising on takeover arguments was more in Jim’s line than Harry’s. The big man could argue over the whereases and the hereinbefores, check wordy warranties and blue-pencil indemnity clauses with the best of them. It would be the biggest deal Crusoe and Devlin had ever handled. And the most lucrative. The fees would pay for a new computer system. The whole technological shooting match. Harry knew he ought to be punching the air with a footballer’s roar of delight, but instead he felt like non-swimmer on the shore, watching someone about to drown.

“Selling up doesn’t mean you have to pack your bags and leave the area. What would you do?”

“I’ll think of something. With that much money, I won’t be short of places to go. Or people to help me spend it.”

“And Rita Buxton? Is she part of your plans?”

A snort of disgust came down the line. “Might have known you’d drag her into it. No smoke without fire, is that what’s going through your mind? Well, it’s like I told you the other day. Rita and me only got together since Ali disappeared. When my wife was around, I never looked at another woman. Maybe that was my mistake. Should have made her jealous, want to fight to keep me.”

“You realise how the police will react?”

“So bloody what? They can’t pin anything on me. I’d have more time for them if they concentrated on lifting whoever killed my little girl instead of twittering about why a woman who should have known better could walk out of a good life like Ali did.”

“And Doreen Capstick?”

Stirrup’s scorn sounded in his laugh. “Do me a favour. That old hag’s the least of my problems. Listen, I’m still in my prime. I want to live a little before I get too old. What are you worried about? Crusoe can sell that house while he’s at it. It’s never been the home I wanted it to be. You two will be quids in.”

“Why not wait a while before you make any moves? Take a holiday, a long break. It’ll do you good. When you get back, you’ll be more relaxed. Then decide what to do next.”

“Look, I’m not calling to ask your opinion, simply to tell you what I’m going to do. Right? My mind’s made up. There’s nothing more to discuss. I’ll be in touch.”

Stirrup hung up without pausing to hear a reply. Harry replaced the receiver slowly, shaking his head.

Did this sudden turn of events signify anything more than a release of pent-up frustration? Was Stirrup running away not only from the sequence of disasters that had befallen him but also from the guilt of having killed his wife?

Even Jim Crusoe, when told the news, allowed himself the rare luxury of speculation.

“He’s settling with Trevor, did you say? Generous pay-off by the sound of it. Too generous, do you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“Hush money? Does Trev know something Jack would rather keep quiet? Another reason why he might want to make himself scarce, perhaps?”

Harry remembered the drunken words Morgan had uttered the other night. Bloody murderer. Bloody murderer.

“It might make sense,” he admitted. “Let’s say Trevor had some inkling about what happened to Alison. Even if he’s bought off, Jack was right. Odds are, the money would be in the brewers’ pockets before long. And then Trevor might come asking for more. Not so easy if Jack is overseas.”

They looked at each other, toying with the idea that they were acting for a wife killer.

The phone trilled. Jim picked up the receiver and listened for a short while.

“For you.”

“I’ll call back.”

“Not so fast. It’s Jonah Deegan. Let’s hope he’s not ringing to tell us he’s found Alison Stirrup buried under the floor at Prospect House.”

Harry winced. “Put him through.”

Jonah’s voice sounded different from usual. It took Harry a few moments to identify the change. The habitual note of complaint was gone. The old detective sounded smug. “What is it, Jonah?”

“No need to be sharp, Harry. This call box is costing me money.”

“Put it on your bill and spit out what you have to say.”

“We need to meet. There’s plenty to tell you and I hate the bloody phone anyway. Not in your office, it’ll be like a furnace on a day like today. Somewhere out of doors, get a breath of air.”

“I’m due in court in ten minutes. I should be free by twelve. I’ll see you in the garden at the back of the Bluecoat if you like. And Jonah, the last I saw of you, you were coming out of the Probate Registry, for God’s sake. What’s your news?”

“Well, it’s a long story.”

Watching his partner’s frustration grow with Jonah’s every prevarication, Jim winked. He was enjoying the build-up as much as the old man.

Harry controlled himself with an effort. “Jonah, you’re obviously dying to tell me something. If you want me to rush out to the Bluecoat, you’d better give me some idea of why.”

“It’s about Mrs. Alison Stirrup, you see.”

Harry felt his stomach muscles tighten.

“Yes, yes, what about her?”

At the other end of the line Jonah Deegan paused like an old ham actor before speaking again.

“She’s alive and well and living in sin with a Mrs. Catherine Morgan.”