Yesterday's papers

Chapter Twenty

Tears had streaked the mascara on Jeannie Walter’s ravaged face and the damp marks glistened under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital waiting room. She was pacing back and forth across the linoleum floor and chewing her fingernails with a desperate savagery. The police had called her away from a party and underneath the fur jacket she had bought on the day of the courtroom settlement she was wearing a tight black cocktail dress and little else. In this place of draughty echoing corridors her presence was as incongruous as that of a fan-dancer at a funeral.

‘He’s got less brain than a fucking sparrow,’ she said. ‘He had no need to do it, no need at all.’

She had been saying the same thing since Harry’s arrival. He had forborne to suggest that Kevin could not help it, that crime was in his blood, that he could no more give up wrongdoing than a junkie could forsake his needle. A few minutes earlier he had spoken to the policemen who were waiting for news of Kevin’s injuries. They were in confident mood: the operation to catch the warehouse thieves in the act had been a complete success. That one of those involved had sustained serious injuries while scurrying across a rooftop in a vain attempt to escape was scarcely cause for concern — especially once he had been identified as Kevin Walter, so recently the scourge of the South West Lancashire Major Enquiry Squad.

Apparently the police had received a tip-off: the job had been planned for months and presumably Kevin had not regarded the outcome of his court case as any reason for pulling out at a late stage. They even wondered if their informant had been jealous of Kevin’s success in the legal lucky dip. It didn’t matter — as well as him, they had six more of the city’s toughest career criminals under lock and key.

A doctor approached them. His manner was grave and he spoke in a sympathetic murmur. ‘Mrs Walter? My name’s Iqbal. I have just come down from the theatre. Can I speak to you in private for a moment?’

‘What’s the matter? Where’s Kev? What state is he in?’ Jeannie was on the point of seizing him by the lapels of his white coat.

The doctor put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Mrs Walter, this is a difficult time for you, I realise. Please, let us find a room where we can talk together.’

She turned to Harry. ‘For Christ’s sake, why won’t they tell me anything?’

Seldom had he felt so helpless. Gently, he said, ‘Talk to the doctor, Jeannie, he’ll tell you as much as he knows.’

She bit her lower lip and said, ‘All right. But don’t go, will you? Promise you’ll be here when I get back.’

‘I promise,’ he said, although at that moment he would rather have been anywhere else in the world.

Leaning on Iqbal’s shoulder for support, she tottered down the corridor and out of sight. Harry sat down on a hard black plastic chair and took a last sip from his polystyrene cup of vending machine coffee. The silence was broken only by the occasional trudge of weary night staff and the squeaking trolley wheels that set his teeth on edge. He closed his eyes, not daring to imagine how badly hurt Kevin might be. Come what may, it would be a long time before his next robbery. The stupidity of so many of his clients kept Harry in work, but he cursed Kevin’s greed, all the same. Why were people never satisfied, why did they always want more, why did the rich man take pleasure in dodging a little income tax?

‘Having a rough night?’ asked a voice he recognised.

He glanced up and saw a tall blond-haired man whose hands were sunk deep in the pockets of his raincoat. ‘Hello, Pete, I didn’t expect to see you here. And to answer your question, yes, I have had better evenings.’

Detective Sergeant Peter Olson gave him a grim but not unsympathetic smile. ‘I don’t like to kick a man when he’s down, but you may find things soon get worse.’

‘I doubt it. My client’s seriously injured and likely to go down for years when he finally recovers. His wife’s hysterical and I’m sitting here unable to do anything to offer her consolation. How can things get worse?’

‘You acted for Kevin Walter in his compensation claim, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, and I don’t suppose the people from the old Major Enquiries Squad will be heartbroken by tonight’s events.’

‘Not just tonight’s events, Harry,’ said Olson softly.

‘What else?’

Olson sat down next to him. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this yet awhile, perhaps, but I don’t see that forewarning you will change anything. Fact is, a woman has come forward. Her name is Gaynor and she used to be a prostitute on the Falkner Square beat. She’s accused your client of raping her.’

‘Wonderful,’ said Harry through gritted teeth. ‘When is he supposed to have done that? During his period of wrongful imprisonment?’

Olson smirked like a gameshow host about to reveal the night’s star prize. ‘Five years ago, on the ninth of March to be precise.’

Harry stared at him. ‘Are you kidding? That was…’

A complacent nod. ‘The same date as the robbery of the jeweller in Southport, yes?’

‘It’s impossible!’

‘All too possible, Harry, I can assure you. She tells us he picked her up that night, but didn’t want to pay for what she had to offer. There was a struggle and he finished up beating the shit out of her as well as raping her against an alley wall.’

‘Come on now. This is the first anyone’s heard of it.’

‘She never reported it at the time, of course. Prostitutes often don’t, as you well know. They seem to regard an occasional battering as all part of the job and, rightly or wrongly, they don’t expect to receive much sympathy from us. Besides, she saw in the newspaper that Kevin had been picked up for the Southport job. She knew he was innocent of that, but it seemed to her that he’d got his just deserts.’

‘And is there any evidence to support her story?’

‘Several people can vouch for it. We’ve done our homework, we have to in a case like this. Wouldn’t want to be accused of harassing an innocent man, acting out of spite as a result of his court case, would we? We’ve spoken to other girls who were out that night, including one who can remember seeing Kev pick up her mate. They operate their own mutual security system, jotting down the numbers of punters’ cars, just in case anything nasty might happen. And there’s more.’

Harry groaned. ‘Break it to me gently.’

‘This afternoon we traced the cleric who found her lying a few yards away from the Cathedral and helped wipe the blood and tears away. He’d urged her to report the attack to us, but respected her right to keep silent. Short of serving a subpoena on God, I’d say he’s as close to a perfect witness as I’ll ever meet.’

Olson had an answer for everything. ‘So why has Gaynor suddenly decided to speak up?’ Harry asked heavily.

‘Because of all the fuss on the telly about bloody Waltergate, of course. The sight of Jeannie portraying Kev as the innocent victim got right up Gaynor’s nose. And I suppose she thought the media might be interested in her story too. She’s a reformed character, you know. Married one of her punters who runs an estate agency — from one kind of exploitation to another, eh?’

‘Holy shit.’ Harry shook his head in dismay. ‘No wonder Walter had trouble providing the South Lancs boys with an alibi for the crime he didn’t commit.’

‘Funny the way things turn out, innit?’ said Olson happily.

‘Hilarious.’

‘Don’t look so glum. I’m sure you were well paid for the case you brought against the Squad. And you ought to be rubbing your hands at the prospect of all the extra business. Though even a lad with your imagination may find it hard to persuade the court that Kev took part in the robbery while the balance of his bank account was disturbed.’

‘I suppose I ought to say thanks for tipping me the wink,’ said Harry, ‘but frankly, I preferred blissful ignorance.’

‘Ah well,’ said Peter Olson, ‘you can’t win ’em all. Be seeing you.’

Even before the detective’s revelations had sunk in, Harry heard the click-click-click of Jeannie’s heels coming back down the corridor. He had thought himself proof against any further shocks that night, but the expression on her face caused his stomach to lurch. Never had he seen such naked despair.

He stood up and as he took her hand, another single tear rolled down the ruin of her cheek. ‘Have the police spoken to you?’ he asked.

‘Police, police?’ she answered vaguely. ‘No, I’ve been with the doctor. He’s been explaining the situation to me.’

He felt a sick certainty that he knew what was coming. Yet he had to ask. ‘And — what is the situation?’

‘Kevin’s broken both his neck and his spine. He’ll be lucky to survive the night, but if he does, one thing’s for sure. He’ll never walk again. He’ll be a bloody cripple for the rest of his days. My Kev — confined to a fucking wheelchair!’

Harry tightened his grip on her hand but said nothing. There was nothing to say.

The blotches on her skin darkened and when she spoke again her tone was as hard as an asphalt road. ‘That bloody warehouse, it was criminal what they’d done! The window frames around that skylight were rotten through and through. No wonder Kevin fell. I tell you one thing — we’re going to sue them for every penny they’ve got!’

As dawn approached, he unlocked the door to his flat. His limbs were aching and he felt exhausted, but knew he would never be able to sleep after such a night. Stumbling into the shower, he let the jet of hot water burn his skin and wash fatigue away. He had left Jeannie Walter talking to Iqbal about her husband’s condition: the only sure thing was that it would be some time before he was fit enough to be questioned by the police. Harry had said nothing to Jeannie about Gaynor’s allegations: she had enough on her plate. Phrases from Vaulkhard’s talk about the unending quest for justice kept surfacing in his brain and he wondered grimly whether the tabloid which had serialised the Waltergate story had put a clause in the deal to claim its money back if the truth about Kevin proved to be worse than the fiction dreamed up by the crooked cops of the Major Enquiry Squad.

Forget it, he thought as he towelled himself dry, what about Carole Jeffries? Who should have taken Edwin Smith’s place in the condemned cell? During the long chilly hours in the hospital, ideas about the Sefton Park Strangling had jostled around in his head like schoolkids in a bus queue. He simply did not believe Clive Doxey’s denial of involvement with the girl. Yet what could he prove? And would even the existence of a relationship establish a credible motive for murder? So many things still bothered him: the lurking suspicion that Ray Brill had told him something significant was one thing, the old pieces of paper Ken Cafferty had shown him another. He believed he was coming within a touch of the truth, yet still the curtain of time divided him from the murder and made it impossible for him to see precisely what had happened thirty years ago.

By half past five he was at his desk in Fenwick Court, battling through the backlog of paperwork that had accumulated over the past few days. It was a bitterly cold morning, but free from interruptions of clients and staff, he tried to concentrate on the mundane trivia of court correspondence and instructions to counsel. Yet hard though he tried, he could not drag his thoughts away from Carole’s death.

On the stroke of seven he rang Ken Cafferty’s paper in the hope that the reporter was on the early shift. ‘You’re in luck,’ the girl at the other end said. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Are you a mind-reader?’ demanded Ken when he came on the line. ‘How did you know I wanted to speak to you? Is this rumour about Kevin Walter being under arrest true?’

‘So you’ve heard?’

‘I take your answer to mean that it’s gospel truth. Fine, you don’t need to say another word.’

‘Listen, I wasn’t calling about Waltergate. It’s the murder of Carole Jeffries that is really bugging me. Can you spare me a few minutes? We could have breakfast together at The Condemned Man. Would you meet me there in half an hour?’

‘I can make it sooner if you’re so keen.’

‘I was allowing you time to dig out the old cuttings on the Sefton Park case again. I’d like to take another look at them.’

‘You never give up, do you? Okay, let me just have a word with the newsdesk and I’ll see you at Muriel’s.’

‘What’s so interesting about the blacks?’ asked Ken in between mouthfuls of Cumberland sausage.

Harry was bemused. ‘The blacks?’

Ken gestured to the flimsy sheet of yellowing typescript in Harry’s left hand. ‘That’s what we used to call it. After carbon black, you know. Until the new technology came in, all the files would contain their share of blacks. Of course, they contained a lot of stuff that never saw the light of day.’

‘Yes, I can see discrepancies between this and the cutting that is evidently based on the same report.’ Harry traced a finger along one line from the black, where Guy Jeffries was quoted as saying I could never have let her go. ‘But I don’t understand the reason for them.’

‘What you have there is the story the journalist wrote. The sub-editor would have marked the top copy, cut it down to size and crossed out all the split infinitives as well as striking a line through everything libellous. And that bowdlerised version is the one Joe Public would read.’ He took the paper from Harry and glanced at it. ‘This is the first report for the Monday edition after the story broke. Compare it to the clipping that actually appeared. See how the sub has toned down the quotes. In the original you can almost hear that poor bastard Guy Jeffries sobbing in despair; in the final story, he is simply described as distraught and uttering a few platitudes about what a wonderful girl his daughter was.’

Harry took back the sheet. ‘I see he never actually uttered precisely those sentiments.’

Ken tutted. ‘Yes, a bit of sympathetic imagination there, I reckon. I suppose the sub thought that was what Guy would have wanted to say if he was thinking straight.’

‘As a matter of fact, if you look down the page, you’ll notice that the quote extolling Carole’s virtues came from Clive Doxey — described here as a close friend of the family.’

Craning his neck, Ken said, ‘Well, there you are then. Spot of journalistic licence, that’s all.’

A heavy hand clamped down on Harry’s shoulder. ‘What’s this I hear about Kevin Walter?’

‘Been a bad lad, hasn’t he, Muriel?’

‘I hear he’s in a shocking state.’

‘He won’t be raiding any more warehouses for the foreseeable future, that’s true.’

‘And what’s this about some trollop crying rape?’

Harry stared at the huge woman in fascination. ‘How do you know about that?’

She tapped her nose with a finger as thick as one of her own sausages. ‘A little bird told me.’

‘Rape?’ asked Ken, his nose twitching. ‘What’s the crack?’

Harry groaned and pushed his knife and fork to one side. ‘It’s a long story and I haven’t got time to tell you right now. Soon, though, I promise.’

‘Listen,’ said the journalist, ‘you owe me.’

‘More than you think,’ said Harry. ‘I forgot my wallet. Can you settle up with Muriel?’

His next stop was at the Land of the Dead. Officially, the place only opened at nine, but as always, Jock was in early. The little Scot was gulping down a cup of black coffee as Harry walked through the door and huddling up to a twin-bar electric fire which made little impact on the freezing chill of the underground lair. His eyelids were heavy and he looked as though he had not slept.

‘Heavy night?’ asked Harry. ‘You look as bad as I feel.’

‘You know how it is,’ said the archivist with a tired movement of the shoulders. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m on the same mission as before. Can I have another look at Cyril’s file on Edwin Smith?’

‘Surely.’ He led Harry through the maze of relics and rubbish to the place where the old folder was stored. ‘What’s the latest?’

‘You’ll make a gumshoe yet. You were right about Clive Doxey. I’m sure he knows more about this particular miscarriage of justice case than he’s willing to admit.’

‘You’ve spoken to him?’

‘Last night. And what’s more, I’ve been told that on the day of her death, Carole told Benny Frederick that Doxey was the man she wanted to marry.’

‘You’re kidding!’ Jock looked startled, but then a faint grin began to slide across his face.

‘Doxey denies it, but I don’t believe him. However, some pieces don’t fit. With an effort, I can picture elegant Sir Clive turning up at Mole Street to confront Ernest Miller, but I simply can’t see him breaking into my office to steal the file you have in your hand — even if he’d previously spoken to Miller and was afraid there was something in the old papers that might incriminate him.’

‘Perhaps he hired someone to commit the burglary.’

‘A hell of a risk.’

‘Not necessarily. His work must have brought him into contact with the criminal classes over the years. I’ll bet he must know suitable people.’

‘The other possibility, of course, is that the burglary had nothing whatever to do with my asking around about the Sefton Park case.’ He began to leaf through the file, but when Jock asked if he was looking for anything in particular, he shook his head. ‘I simply wanted to reread some of the statements. What Guy had to say about Doxey, for example. I wondered if there might be a clue there.’

Jock read the statements over his shoulder and eventually said, ‘One thing that comes out loud and clear to me is a father’s terrible distress at the loss of his daughter. You know, Harry, this is all fascinating, but I wonder if we’re ever going to get any further. After all, how are we ever going to be able to prove that Doxey killed the girl? He’s no fool, he’ll never admit it.’

‘Come on,’ said Harry. ‘I thought you at least understood why I want to learn the truth. You’re not suggesting that I give up now?’

‘Think about it for a moment. If you’re right, you’re dealing with someone who has killed at least once before. A rich man who could afford to have anyone who came too close to him taken care of.’

Harry laughed and in the vast underground chamber the sound bounced back at him like an eerie warning. ‘Sir Clive Doxey, tribune of the ordinary working man, pay someone to rough me up or worse? You must be joking.’

But when he looked into the other man’s eyes he saw apprehension rather than the customary good humour, and he realised that right now Jock was not joking.

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.’