The Devil in Disguise (9 page)

of the Liverpool Legal Group and an active member of innumerable committees devoted - at least according to their constitutions - to good works. Since even Seymour had never discovered how to expand the number of hours in a day beyond twenty-four, he found it necessary to spend as little time on each task as possible. His enthusiasm for prioritisation (a word he'd picked up at a seminar and subsequently used to justify his own brand of instant justice) coupled with his unwillingness to cause distress made the outcome of the proceedings a foregone conclusion.

‘Open verdict,' Harry forecast in a whisper to Ashley Whitaker, who was sitting beside him at the back of the court.

Luke Dessaur's godson blinked, as he often did. He was an amiable fellow, but he always gave Harry the impression of living in a world of his own. Events in the here-and-now always seemed to catch him by surprise. ‘Really? I expected an adjournment.'

‘Forget it. Seymour won't want to record a verdict of suicide if there's even a smidgeon of doubt about Luke's intentions. He hates to upset relatives of the bereaved. Even though Luke had no family, he'll regard you as the next best thing. If it had been left to Seymour, he would have ruled that Roger Ackroyd was the victim of an unfortunate accident.'

Ashley said sharply, ‘But what about searching out the truth?'

‘Don't hold your breath for that. Seymour's a lawyer. He knows the truth comes out in court much less often than most people would like to believe. He won't want to prolong the agony.'

Ashley knitted his brow, as if trying to come to a difficult decision. He was an old friend of Roy Milburn's, but the two men could hardly have been more different. Ashley was always reluctant to give offence. If at times he seemed to be a dreamer, he could afford to be. He was married to a wealthy woman and their affluence had enabled him to turn his hobby into his work. He ran a second-hand mystery bookshop and enjoyed the rare good fortune of never needing to worry about the bottom line.

‘I see. In that case, there is very little I can do today.'

‘What did you want to do?'

Ashley seemed about to say something, before changing his mind. ‘Never mind. It will keep.'

Seymour Cunis ran true to form. He let everyone have a say, but made sure that as soon as they said it, the case moved on. No-one ever had a chance for second thoughts in his court. And besides, the evidence was wholly inconclusive. Seymour called Don Ragovoy, the manager of the Hawthorne Hotel, an American whose statement was as bland as a can of diet cola. The police and medical evidence was equally low-key. Yes, Luke had been drinking on that last night. No, he hadn't been paralytic. Clearly, his judgment could not have been at its sharpest. There was nothing to suggest any breakdown in safety procedures. The police did not consider that further investigations were likely to be fruitful. The hotel was not at fault; Luke had just been unlucky.

Ashley was asked whether Luke had ever shown any inclination to end his own life. He denied it with unaccustomed vigour and Seymour clicked his tongue in genuine sympathy. Although there was no suicide note, the records revealed that, just before midnight UK time, Luke had telephoned the hotel in Toronto where Ashley and his wife were staying. The Whitakers had been out and Luke had simply left a message that he had rung. He'd said a return call was not necessary.

‘According to the note the switchboard girl gave me, he simply said, “It doesn't matter”,' Ashley said bitterly. ‘I took that at face value and thought no more about it until I heard the news from home the next day. Fortunately, we had a flight booked for that very evening, but of course, we would have come straight back anyway - even though there was nothing we could do.'

‘You mustn't reproach yourself,' Seymour said. It was a phrase he often uttered and, although Harry found his approach frustrating, there was no doubt that he uttered it with the best of intentions.

Seymour grasped the chance to sum up as soon as he could. ‘It is all quite tragic. The late Mr Dessaur was a man of considerable distinction. There are, it is true, a number of circumstances in this case that are difficult to understand. But that is by no means unusual. The conclusion I am forced to reach is perhaps unsatisfactory. But I must not shirk it simply for that reason. I find myself constrained to record an open verdict.'

‘Seymour's verdict was like his surname,' Harry said wryly that afternoon. ‘Neither one thing nor the other.'

Jim grinned. ‘Ah well. Not every mystery has a solution. Though I think I can guess why you're wearing your smartest suit today. And is that tie made of real silk?'

‘It was a Christmas present,' Harry said defensively. ‘I simply never got round to unwrapping it until now.'

‘You're turning into a bit of a Beau Brummel. I never thought I'd see the day.' The phone buzzed. ‘Yes, Suzanne? Fine, I'll tell Harry she's arrived.'

He turned to Harry and winked. ‘She's all yours.'

Within a couple of minutes of the start of their meeting, Harry had decided that even the photograph in the brochure had not done Juliet May justice. He put her age somewhere in the late thirties and she had laughter lines around the eyes and the corners of her mouth, but that simply added to her appeal. Her perfume was discreet and, he guessed, very expensive. She was dressed simply in jacket, blouse and skirt but years of marriage to a woman who believed money was made to be spent had taught him a little about the cost of
haute couture
. He guessed that Juliet May spent as much in a week on clothes as Liz might have managed in a year. She didn't bother with jewellery except for a gold band on the third finger of her left hand. Mr May, he reflected, was a lucky fellow.

Suddenly he became aware that she had asked him a question. ‘Sorry, I didn't quite catch that.'

She smiled. ‘I hope I'm not boring you.'

‘Oh no. Certainly not.'

‘But I had the impression your mind was wandering.' Her tone was playful. No question: she was teasing him. ‘I simply asked who you regarded as your key target clients.'

Harry pondered. ‘Adulterous burglars who get injured at work, I suppose. Provided they qualify for legal aid.'

She laughed. ‘At least you're honest.'

‘I realise it's a disadvantage when it comes to marketing legal services. Or anything else, come to that.'

She pretended to wince. ‘Your partner did warn me that you wouldn't be easily convinced of the benefits of engaging a consultant. So I didn't come here expecting an easy ride. But don't you think it's worth making more of an effort to sell your problem-solving skills?'

‘Problem solving? I have enough trouble with the quick crossword in the morning paper.'

‘That's not what I hear. You have quite a reputation for searching out the truth.'

‘Believe me, most of my clients would regard that as a supreme disadvantage in any solicitor.'

‘You don't do yourself justice,' she urged.

He gave her a sad smile. ‘One thing I've learned in the law is this. Justice isn't as easily come by as most of us would like to believe.'

‘You've unravelled one or two mysteries,' she persisted. ‘And when it comes to achieving justice, I know that you've put right at least one notable miscarriage. The Edwin Smith case - the so-called Sefton Park Strangling.'

He was genuinely startled. ‘How do you know about that? I once promised someone - closely involved - that I wouldn't spread the truth around, go shouting my mouth off from the rooftops.'

‘I do my homework, Harry. I always advise my clients to research their potential targets and I practise what I preach. But what you say is right. You never seem to court publicity. Perhaps you ought to try it for a change.'

‘I didn't get involved with the Sefton Park murder in order to get my name in the paper,' he said sharply.

‘I appreciate that. And of course your attitude does you credit, I'm not seeking to persuade you otherwise. I'm simply saying that you obviously have skills that are marketable, perhaps in very different circumstances.'

He grunted. ‘Cases like that don't crop up every day. Most of the people I act for are as guilty as Crippen.'

‘Who says Crippen was guilty?' she asked, her eyes shining. ‘My theory is that he was innocent. Where was the proof that the bones they found in Hilldrop Crescent were his wife's? She could have zipped off to America with a lover. The pathologist made too many assumptions, he was desperate to make a name for himself. If Crippen hadn't fled with Ethel Le Neve, the police might never have made the charge stick.'

He gaped at her. ‘Don't tell me you're a true crime buff?'

‘All mysteries fascinate me,' she said simply. ‘In real life or in fiction. When I asked around about Crusoe and Devlin, I was intrigued by what I heard. It seems you're a man after my own heart. So when your partner offered me the chance of this meeting with you, I jumped at it.'

‘I suppose I should be flattered.'

She smiled at him. ‘I suppose you should.'

After she had departed, Jim wandered into his room and said, ‘Well?'

‘She was quite plausible,' Harry said carefully.

‘She was in here for an hour and a half, for God's sake.' Jim grinned. ‘I was beginning to wonder what the two of you were getting up to in here with the door closed. Just as well you were talking business. You do realise who she's married to, don't you?'

‘No.'

‘Casper May.'

Shit
, Harry said to himself. And then -
How could she?
He'd had a narrow escape. For a few minutes he'd toyed

with the idea of inviting Juliet out for a drink one evening.

He wasn't being disloyal to Kim; he had no intention of propositioning a married woman. He would simply have liked to spend more time with someone he found appealing. Just as well he had resisted temptation. If Casper May got the wrong idea about you, you were dead meat.

Chapter 7

Harry hated funerals. He would never forget the first that he had attended, after the death of his parents whilst he was in his early teens. It had been a typical Liverpool day, cloudy and with spits of rain, the kind of day he had seen a thousand times before and even more often since. And yet it had been a day when a sick and empty feeling in his guts told him that life had changed for ever. Until then, like any boy, he'd believed that bad things happened to other people. Suddenly he knew better and nothing would be the same again.

Yet now he was attending his second funeral inside a month. Harry sat at the back of the church, sharing a pew with a couple of Americans, the manager of the Hawthorne and a tall young man who was evidently a colleague. He had attended the service for Charles Kavanaugh out of a sense of duty; this time, he was driven by a nagging sense of unfinished business. He needed to understand what had happened to Luke. That mattered to him: he'd lost his mother, father and wife for no good reason. He had to keep believing that life was not always so cruel, or so meaningless.

But the service offered little reassurance. There were no clues, no credible explanations. Much was said, by the vicar, by Frances Silverwood and by Ashley Whitaker about Luke's good works and his sense of duty to others. The hymns were sensitively chosen. For all that, the one word in everyone's mind was never spoken.
Why?

He reflected that one of the terrible things about suicide was that it imbued everyone who had known the deceased with a desolate sense of failure. It was a feeling that was unavoidable, yet infinitely depressing:
we knew each other, we were friends, yet that wasn't enough to make him want to keep living
.

When the service was over, he joined Matthew Cullinan, Roy Milburn and Tim Aldred outside. The grey of the sky matched the trustees' mood; even Roy was subdued and from his grimace Harry guessed that his damaged leg must be hurting. They were waiting to say a few words of comfort to Frances when she emerged from the church and filling their time with the inevitable topic of conversation.

‘Of course it's a tragic loss,' Matthew was saying. He was wearing a three-piece suit and had his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat. ‘I have to say that, with hindsight, one or two things do become clear.'

‘What do you mean?' Tim asked.

‘Well, he was a born worrier. The way he used to fuss over the vetting of grant applications. Attention to detail is all very well, but it can get out of hand.'

Roy stretched his arms and Harry noticed a gold watch glinting from his wrist. ‘Let's face it. The Dinosaur was always a bit of an old woman.'

Tim said angrily, ‘You'd never have dared say that whilst he was alive.'

‘I freely admit it. He liked to have his own way. He always had to be right. But I suppose even he had his Achilles' heel, or we wouldn't be here today.'

‘So you believe he killed himself?' Harry asked.

‘Don't you? The idea of an accident is just too far-fetched.'

‘I agree,' Matthew said. ‘The coroner wanted to spare people's feelings, that's all very commendable. But between ourselves, it's obvious, isn't it? Luke did away with himself.'

‘I couldn't take it in when I first heard,' Tim said. ‘Luke, of all people. He's the last person I would have expected to...'

‘I've heard that said a good many times today,' a new voice said. It belonged to Ashley Whitaker. He was accompanied by his wife, a pale blonde with downcast eyes.

‘I heard that Luke tried to telephone you on - the last night,' Tim said after condolences had been expressed.

Ashley blinked at the pebbles on the path, still glistening after overnight rain. ‘Yes. I keep wondering what he wanted to say.'

Frances Silverwood joined them as he spoke. Under her overcoat, her shoulders were stooped and Harry sensed she had been struggling to hold back tears.