Suspicious Minds

Chapter Two

The Majestic had been built in New Brighton’s hey-day at the turn of the century, when packed ferries brought trippers over from Liverpool by the thousands. Minstrels had played on the beach, bathing machines and oyster stalls were everywhere. In Harry’s lifetime, the hotel had been in visible decline, under-occupied and in need of more than a lick of paint. When you sat on the famous old verandah gazing out at the hot dog sellers on the promenade, you felt like a representative of the Raj watching a civilisation on the brink of collapse.

Bryan Grealish had changed all that with the help of the fortune he’d made out of office catering, feeding the faces of middle-aged executives whose idea of a calorie-controlled diet was steak and french fries without the trimmings. The Majestic was still not the Savoy, but even on this weekday lunchtime, the place was packed.

After they had ordered, Stirrup fiddled absent-mindedly with his napkin.

“Business doesn’t get easier, Harry boy. The company’s grown, it’s not like the old days. I’m ruled by cash flow and licensing laws. By accountants and solicitors. No offence — but life’s too short. Sometimes I think about jacking the lot in and getting away from it all. The Caribbean, maybe. Or the States.”

He tore the napkin into small strips, screwing the paper into tight little balls. “This thing with Ali, it’s hit me harder than you think. I’m not saying we had the perfect marriage, but I wish to hell she hadn’t just pissed off like that, without even saying goodbye.”

Stirrup had not talked like this earlier in the morning. At first, he’d parried Bolus’s questions, bland as any politician. When the repetition began to irritate, his brow had darkened and his replies had become curt whilst Harry chewed his nails, afraid of a self-incriminating explosion. In the end Stirrup had survived; he would not break easily. Yet none of his denials had convinced Harry as much as the simple lament he had just uttered.

“Two scampis.” The waiter’s Scouse accent contrasted with his Gallic air.

Stirrup smacked his lips and wielded his knife and fork like cudgels, his humour restored.

“Bon appetit, as they say in Bootle.”

As they ate, Harry summed up in his mind all that he knew about Alison Stirrup’s disappearance. She had last been seen on a Friday in May. Stirrup had left her in bed at their home in Caldy; he had been due to attend a meeting with his legal and financial advisers to discuss the offer which Bryan Grealish had made to take over his business. Harry had been present at that meeting, together with his partner Jim Crusoe. At the time all their thoughts had concentrated on the subject for discussion. The auditors sealed the fate of the bid by describing it as one which Stirrup could not refuse. For a self-made man proudly independent of thought and deed, the urge to prove an accountant wrong was irresistible. Thumping his fist on the table, he had declared his intention to tell Grealish what he could do with his money.

No hint of anything wrong at home, nor of any inner preoccupation. That did not in itself count for much. Harry realised that most successful businessmen had the ability to divorce any domestic traumas from their company lives. But surely even someone more phlegmatic than Jack Stirrup would have been twitchy if he had spent the previous night burying his wife in a wood or under concrete?

Alison had been alive and kicking the previous evening; so much was certain, for her mother had called round unexpectedly. Harry knew Doreen Capstick slightly and had not been surprised to learn that the visit was unannounced. Unless she was a particularly close and loving daughter, then Alison would have found that a little of Doreen went a long way. She might have made an excuse if given prior warning of an impending call. Mrs. Capstick had been at the house between eight and nine. Her departure had been hastened by Stirrup’s late arrival home; he left her in no doubt that after a long day closeted with his business advisers, he was more interested in a hot meal than in small talk with a woman whom he detested.

Stirrup had again been late back the following day. After deciding not to sell to Grealish, he had devoted the afternoon and early evening to desk work before being the last to leave the office at — he said — about half-past seven. Alison was not at home and had not left a note for him. He told the police he was surprised, because this was unusual, but not at first alarmed. Only when she had not returned home by midnight, Stirrup said, did he realise that something untoward might have happened. That was when he dialled 999.

The police were faced with a mystery. Stirrup was not the kind of man to take a close interest in his wife’s wardrobe, but he did not think that Alison had taken any spare clothes with her. No significant withdrawals had been made from their joint bank account. Her Toyota two-seater was locked in the garage. And from that day to this, a six-week span, he had heard nothing from her. Nor had anyone else, so far as he or his motherin-law were aware.

“I could murder a slab of that cake on the trolley.”

Stirrup’s expression didn’t suggest that he regarded his choice of words as unfortunate. Harry was still working his way through the pile of vegetables on his plate. He was saved from the need to reply by a mocking voice from over his shoulder.

“Well, look who we have here. The Majestic is honoured. The North’s premier viticulturist and his tame Perry Mason.”

Bryan Grealish bore as much resemblance to the seaside hotelier of old as a Miami Vice cop to Father Brown. Today he wore a purple vest, white slacks and sandals. Tattooed snakes slithered down the thick muscular arms and his hair was tied back in a pony tail. He was breathing hard, as though fresh from a work-out in the Majestic’s new gym.

Stirrup smiled back, as if paid a compliment. His business relied upon wines imported from the Continent’s less prestigious vineyards; its success had been founded on keen pricing rather than wine snobbery. Over the years he had coped with endless gibes about the quality of his products.

“Bryan, good to see you. Decent meal and not a single bit of glass to be seen.”

The previous week guests attending a wedding reception at the Majestic had discovered small shards of crushed glass in their salad dressing. The bride’s father had rung the Press in a fit of fury. Health scares sell newspapers and the resultant publicity had embarrassed Grealish into lavishing compensation upon the distressed and sacking two of the kitchen staff for good measure. But Egon Ronay was unlikely to recommend the Majestic this year.

Grealish flushed, his jaw lifting in annoyance. But his features quickly regrouped into their usual self-satisfied formation. False modesty was not one of his vices.

“To what do we owe this welcome visit, Jack? Changed your mind about selling out? Or were you simply after a filling lunch? I hear you’re short of home cooking at the moment.”

Stirrup’s tongue flicked at his lips. “Word gets around.”

“Right. Sorry to hear Alison’s moved to new pastures. I always felt she and I ought to get to know each other better.”

“Funny, I’d have thought she was too old for you. It’s years since she wore a gymslip.”

Winking at Harry, Grealish said, “Must keep a broad mind, don’t you think, Mr. Devlin? Good to see Jack’s sense of humour is intact. Rumour has it, he’s keeping you busy these days. Despite those slanderous stories doing the rounds.”

“You’d have made a good lawyer yourself,” said Harry easily. “Shame to waste all that bullshit.”

“What stories?” demanded Stirrup.

“I dunno.” Grealish’s innocent expression was as phoney as a pimp’s tax return. “People say you’ve been going in for midnight gardening, though Christ knows what you’d be digging up so late at night. Or burying.”

“Are you calling me a murderer?”

With an economy of effort surprising in a man so big, Stirrup reached for the sweet trolley, picked off a slice of Black Forest Gateau and shoved it, circus-clown fashion, into Grealish’s face with a force which sent the hotelier staggering backwards onto the floor. A woman at an adjoining table screamed. Two waiters came running up to help their boss back to his feet. A gallows grin had spread across Stirrup’s face. He took a fifty-pound note from his wallet and tossed it at Grealish.

“That should cover any damage to your vanity as well as the nosh. And next time, take more care who you fart around with.”

A fair-haired girl in a halter-neck bikini came on to the verandah. Her tanned body was a woman’s but her spoiled pout belonged in a kindergarten. Catching sight of Grealish wiping the creamy mess off his face, she put her hands on her hips, not saying a word. In twenty years, Harry wondered, would she be a nagging wife with a husband harbouring secret thoughts of murder?

Grealish mustered a humourless grin. “Pleasure calls, gentlemen. No hard feelings, Jack, but you need to watch that temper of yours. It’ll put you inside one of these fine days.”

He slipped his arm around the girl’s bare brown shoulders as they walked away. It was less a gesture of affection than of ownership.

In the M.G. five minutes later Stirrup said, “Makes your flesh creep, doesn’t he? Feller of his age shouldn’t be messing around with kids like that. She can’t be any older than Claire.”

Harry wasn’t sure his client was well equipped to make moral judgments. Better change the subject.

“So do you think he’s the one stirring it with the police?”

Stirrup grinned with a child’s delight. “Not really, he was just trying to take the piss out of me. That’ll learn him. See his face covered in cake?”

Trying to conceal his impatience Harry said, “Who else might have a grudge against you?”

Stirrup laughed: a raucous noise, like bricks falling off a wagon. “You kidding? The list’s a mile long. My bloody motherin-law’s always hated me. And how about Trevor Morgan?”

“Heard anything of him lately?”

“Far as I know, he’s still on the dole. Like most of the people I’ve fired over the years.”

“I’ll ask around if you want, see if I can find out who’s been making waves.”

“Thanks,” Stirrup grunted. “And since you’re too delicate to enquire, I’ll tell you. No, I didn’t murder Alison.”

Harry didn’t find it hard to restrain his delight at the unsolicited denial; he had the lawyer’s dread of a client who answers questions which have not been asked.

He switched on the radio for the local news. A council row about over-spending. A strike on the docks. Harry yawned: political peace and industrial harmony would have been more of a scoop. Then came an item which seized Stirrup’s attention, had him straining his seat belt, trying to follow the story through fuzzy reception.

Police are searching for a man who raped a fourteen-year-old girl at Eastham Country Park yesterday evening. Detectives have declined to give further information but it’s believed they are linking the incident with a rape committed by a masked man last month on the Wirral Way and several other recent attacks on teenage girls with fair hair. The man has been dubbed “The Beast” because the masks he wears have animals’ faces. The police have warned of the need for extra vigilance until he is caught.

“That bastard,” said Stirrup. “When they get hold of him they ought to cut his balls off. Then lock him up and throw away the key.”

“He’ll be some pathetic sod. Most sex offenders are.”

Stirrup’s snort expressed disgust for namby-pamby tolerance. “Easy for you to say, I’ve got a teenage girl to think about. One of her mates from school was raped by that pervert only a few weeks ago.”

Harry could understand a father’s angry apprehension, although The Beast’s victims were all supposed to have had blonde hair whereas Claire was dark. But to expect Stirrup to take comfort from the past consistency of a sick mind was asking too much. On the radio, news gave way to sports and talk of nothing more criminal than England’s batting in the last Test Match.

They reached the sprawling outskirts of Birkenhead, passing the strange oasis of Port Sunlight, a garden village in the midst of a slough of urban despond, built by a soap millionaire to house his workers. On the opposite side of the dual carriageway the head office of Stirrup Wines stood in functional, flat-roofed contrast to Lord Leverhulme’s prettified estate. Jack Stirrup’s major contribution to the local landscape had been to put up a flagpole in the visitors’ car park.

“Ta for the lift. And the help this morning. You must come over to my place. Never mind the Majestic, sample Claire’s cooking. Tell you the truth, I’d eat her stuff rather than Ali’s any day. But don’t tell that bloody Bolus. He’ll be thinking I did away with her ‘cause I couldn’t stomach her grub.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

They shook hands. “How about dinner tonight? You’d be very welcome. My girl can rustle something up, no problem. What do you say?”

Harry had other plans for the evening. But Stirrup was insistent and made him promise to phone later once he had checked whether he could unscramble a previous, unspecified commitment.

“Half-eight do you? I’ll call Claire soon as you let me know. I won’t be away from here much before seven. With no right hand man and half a day wasted in the nick, there’s plenty to do.”

Harry nodded a farewell, his mind already turning to what lay ahead for him that night. He did not intend it to be a meal with a suspected murderer.