Shirley Titchard had agreed to meet him in one of the shops she owned. After he had explained his interest in the Sefton Park case, her manner on the telephone had been crisp and businesslike.
‘I can’t imagine why you think I can tell you anything, but I don’t mind giving you half an hour. I suppose it will make a change from keeping an eye on the girls. The manageress at Caesar Street is on holiday for the week, so I’m having to run the branch myself, but you can have half an hour, all right?’
The shop was tucked between a tobacconist’s and a derelict snooker hall; the street was a dead end and noisy ten-year-olds were playing soccer alongside the burnt-out wreck of a stolen car. Jasmine House was no more than five miles away, but it might have been in a different country. Harry pushed open the door and stepped inside. At once the hubbub of voices died down and he was conscious of the scrutiny of a dozen scowling faces. The light was dim and the extractor fan did not seem to work: the smoke made his eyes smart and he couldn’t help thinking to himself that a few of Shirley Titchard’s customers would one day end their lives in the same despair as Vincent Deysbrook.
His only acquaintance with horse racing was through the novels of Dick Francis and they had not prepared him for the scruffy reality of this place. The walls were covered with cuttings from the sporting press and the racing pages of the national newspapers. Opposite the entrance, a washable white board was covered with offers of odds scrawled in every colour imaginable. In the middle of the room, a television stood on a pillar: a man in the kind of trilby Harry had never seen worn except in old movies was talking rapidly about runners and riders. Through thick mesh grilles he could glimpse two women cashiers, their attention caught by a loudspeaker voice announcing that a horse had withdrawn from the three o’clock at Sandown and that the latest prices would be coming through shortly. The punters were perched on stools or sitting round small tables. Most had cans of beer in their hands, but they had paused in their drinking and study of the form to examine Harry, but even as he looked around and absorbed the scene, one by one they turned back to the papers or the TV. Some started to scribble out bets on slips of paper. Gambling was a serious business and not even the sight of a stranger in a suit could distract them for long.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Mr Devlin?’
He turned to face a stocky woman with tightly permed blonde hair. Her short-sleeved blouse revealed muscular forearms and the cut of her jaw made it clear that she stood for no messing. She was weighing him up as though she’d been asked to give odds on how long he would survive in a fight with one of her regulars.
‘That’s me. And you are Shirley Titchard?’
A brisk nod. ‘Come through.’
As she led him towards the security door which led from the public area, her path was blocked by a man with beery breath who had seized a teenage lad in denim by the throat. Without hesitating, she gripped the man’s wrist and forced him to face her.
‘Not here. If you’ve got a score to settle, do it somewhere else.’
The man gave her a baleful glance but did not argue. Instead he shook his fist at the youth and said, ‘Next time, pal, next time…’
As she unlocked the door to the back part of the shop, she said to Harry, ‘You need to show people who’s in charge. Otherwise they take liberties.’
‘You have much trouble?’
‘Nothing I can’t handle. An hour ago, a kid collapsed in the toilet. He’d been sniffing glue in there, the little bastard. His mates were doped up to the eyeballs and pissing themselves with laughter. I had to get things sorted sharpish. He could easily have died.’
‘Jesus.’
She gave him a look of Thatcheresque severity. ‘It would have been no loss, but I can’t afford an interruption to business. My late husband built this chain up. I reckon I owe it to him to keep it going.’
They were standing behind a counter girl who was arguing with a punter who had not filled out his slip in the approved manner. Shirley Titchard shook her head and said, ‘Let’s talk in the kitchen. It’s the only spot in here where we’ll be able to make ourselves heard once the next race starts.’
She took him into a cubbyhole which, although equipped with a grimy sink and the wherewithal for making tea and coffee, was flattered by the name of kitchen. When she shut the door, the noise from outside was muffled but still audible. He wedged himself between the draining board and the fire exit at the rear while she stood with her back to the way in.
‘Well now, Mr Devlin. What is it you want to know about my old friend Carole Jeffries?’
There was a derisive note in her voice that he found difficult to interpret. He said, ‘As I said on the phone, a question has come up about whether the man who was jailed for killing her really did it.’
‘Sounds a long shot to me. He confessed, didn’t he?’
‘Not everyone who confesses is guilty. Anyway, thanks for talking to me. I realise it’s hard to look back so far in time.’
The blonde perm shook decisively. ‘It’s as if it was yesterday. I tell you, Mr Devlin, I remember Carole better than the first feller I married.’
He grinned. ‘You were very close with her?’
‘She fascinated me,’ said Shirley Titchard simply. ‘All the people I’d ever known before were ordinary, not glamorous like Carole’s folk. My dad had a newsagent’s just off Aigburth Road, my mum helped behind the counter and we lived over the shop. Carole’s father was a celebrity, his name kept appearing in the press and on TV. Her mother was a formidable lady, just as clever as Guy, and strong-minded with it. I met them a couple of times when they came to the shop to see how she was settling in. They lived in a mansion opposite the Park.’
‘Did you feel they looked down on you?’
‘No, they weren’t snobs, quite the opposite. Guy was crazy about Carole but he would never have sent her to a private school. She went to the same place as me and give her credit, she was always one of us, as often in trouble as anyone else. More often, if the truth be told.’
‘You both left school at the same time?’
‘That’s right. For me, it was the obvious thing to do. I wanted to make my own way in the world and besides, I never passed an exam in my life. Carole was different, she was much brighter than me, even if she often didn’t show it. The teachers said she was lazy and I suppose they were right. When I found a job at Benny Frederick’s, Carole decided she would do the same. I remember our headmistress trying to talk her out of it, saying how disappointed her parents would be. Carole put her right on that score. “All my dad wants is for me to be happy,” she said — and she was right. Even though her mother was livid, he didn’t make a fuss at all. She could twist him round her little finger.’
‘You enjoyed the work?’
‘Took to it like a duck to water. I’d been brought up in a shop, and although I didn’t want to stay at the beck and call of my mum and dad, I thought Benny’s was great. Carole did too. She was crazy about the atmosphere and loved spotting the big names who used to come and go. Liverpool in the sixties was the place to be, Mr Devlin. So much kept happening.’
‘Benny was a good boss?’
‘Lovely feller, one of the few really sweet men I’ve ever met and I’ve met a lot of men in my time. He was always decent to me.’
‘You knew he was gay?’
‘I had eyes,’ she said drily. ‘He was always so pally with the young lads who used to hang around his shop. Though he had to be careful. Gay sex was a crime in those days, you know. And anyway, he wasn’t above taking a fancy to us girls, as well.’
‘Is that so?’
‘He used to flirt with me all the time, though we never took it any further. But every now and then he’d introduce us to a woman visitor and say she was his girlfriend. He’s always had an eye for a pretty face and a neat bum, has Benny, boy or girl, it’s never seemed to matter to him. And he certainly took a shine to Carole once she arrived.’
‘And how did she take to him?’
‘Oh, she played up to him. She loved being in that shop, having the chance to meet the local celebrities.’
‘Was that how she met Ray Brill?’
Her face darkened. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact it was. But what you won’t know is that I met him first. I’d already come across Ian, the quiet one, he was an old pal of Benny’s and often called at the shop. A nice enough lad, but not really my type. The minute I saw Ray, I fell for him. I thought he made James Dean seem like the boy next door. He was good-looking, successful, and he seemed to fancy me.’
As Harry tried to regroup his thoughts, a ragged cheer came up from the shop. ‘The favourite’s won,’ she said with a grim smile.
‘Look, I didn’t know this. You say you started going out with Ray Brill yourself?’
Shirley Titchard folded her arms, as if challenging him to disbelieve her. ‘I knew he had other girls, but that didn’t bother me. Ray had appeared on Top of The Pops and Ready, Steady, Go! He was a star and I was happy just to be with him.’
‘Until you found out that he was seeing Carole?’
Pursing her lips at the recollection, she said, ‘Yes, it hurt me badly, though I should have realised what would happen. I was so much in love with him that of course I wanted him to meet my best friend. I introduced them one night at the Cavern. I was so sodding naive in those days. Carole was the prettiest girl in the place and she knew it. Ray took a shine to her from the first and I was glad, because I wanted the two of them to like each other. And they did, worse luck, they did. Ray started coming to the shop and I was flattered. I didn’t twig that he was keener to see Carole than me.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘One of the other girls who worked at Benny’s told me she’d seen the two of them kissing and cuddling down in Mathew Street the previous evening. She was a spiteful cow and I didn’t want to believe her, but she was so jubilant I knew she was sure of her facts — and in my heart of hearts, I realised it made sense. I’d been off sick the previous day with a stomach bug. Ray and Carole had had the chance to get together and knowing them both as I did, I couldn’t imagine either of them resisting temptation. They were well suited, that pair — they took their pleasures whenever they could.’
‘What did you do about it?’
‘I confronted her. I couldn’t face Ray, he was too special to me. And besides, I knew he would deny it. He was like that, he would swear black was white rather than admit being in the wrong. Carole was secretive, always had been, but she was no fool. I knew that if I forced the issue, she’d tell me the truth.’
‘And did she?’
‘Yes, I can still picture the scene now. I spoke to her after work and she said straight away that she realised she’d done something very wrong, but she’d not been able to help herself. Apparently, Ray had called in the previous day, when I’d been down with the bug. He and Ian had a gig at the Cavern and he’d asked her to go with him. She said she’d done it simply to keep him company, but even I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. One thing had led to another and they’d finished up in bed together.’
‘And how did you take that?’
Her strong features yielded a glimmer of an ironic smile. ‘Oh, I wanted to scream and scratch her eyes out, but I never did any such thing. Carole could always charm the birds off the trees. She said she thought she was in love with him, but she swore she would give him up if I said she must. I didn’t say a word, just went home and wept all night. Ray didn’t call me and I stayed in all weekend. When I went back to work on the Monday, I knew Ray wouldn’t phone me again. There was no point in fighting fate. I let her have him. We didn’t talk about it: she could always read my mind, she knew I’d lost all hope. So she got her own way — as usual.’
‘You must have hated her,’ said Harry softly.
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps I did, deep down. The pair of them had betrayed me — but there was nothing I could do, so I accepted it. Carole wasn’t a fool, she didn’t rub it in. She was kind to me in many ways. I sulked for a while but before long I began telling myself there were plenty more fish in the sea.’
‘And did Carole talk about her relationship with Ray?’
‘She did her best to make me think life with him was no bed of roses. He was sex mad, though she wasn’t exactly prim and proper herself. But soon she was saying he certainly wasn’t the love of her life. I wondered if she was trying to make me feel better about it all, but I guess the great romance was cooling off. If she hadn’t been murdered, I doubt they would have stayed together much longer.’
‘What about the day she died? She came to see you in the shop, didn’t she?’
She closed her eyes. ‘Yes, it was the last time I saw her. Ray came in and the two of them had a blazing row, then he headed off to London with Ian. She’d worked herself up into a state but then she had a private chat with Benny and that seemed to calm her down.’
‘What did they talk about?’
‘No idea. You’d have to ask Benny, he was always good with Carole. As I say, he liked her a lot.’
‘And how did you feel when you heard the news about her death?’
She bowed her head. ‘Strange. I felt strange, that’s the honest answer. Yes, I was shocked, of course, but I couldn’t help feeling other things.’
He waited, willing to take his time while she dug deep into her memory and tried to recapture her inner thoughts of thirty years before. Finally she lifted her chin and looked him in the eye.
‘It sounds terrible to say, but it was the most exciting time I’d ever had. I became the centre of attention. I made out that I was heartbroken and everyone offered comfort and support.’ She paused and added, ‘The truth is, I felt she’d got her just deserts. She’d always lived dangerously and now Ray Brill had lost forever the girl he left me for.’
Harry said nothing and after another momentary pause she bit her lip and told him, ‘I’ve never said that before to another living soul, but it’s true. She fascinated me when she was alive and after all this time she still fascinates me. She hurt me badly, but I’ve never been able to get her out of my mind. So what do you make of my true confession, Mr Harry Devlin? I suppose you think I was depraved to feel that revenge was sweet when my friend had been so brutally strangled?’
‘I don’t think you’d be human if you’d experienced nothing but grief.’
She grunted and gave him a hard glance. ‘You talk as if you know about these things.’
‘My own wife was killed,’ he heard himself saying. ‘She’d left me two years earlier but I still loved her, I mourn her to this day. All the same, I can’t pretend I’ve forgotten the way she behaved.’
With a nod of understanding, she said quietly, ‘I suppose I’d kept telling myself that it wouldn’t last, the relationship Carole had with Ray.’
‘Did you think Carole would finish with him?’
‘Maybe I did.’ Her dark eyes glinted. ‘After all, she was seeing another man, you know.’
Startled, he said, ‘No, I didn’t have any idea of that.’
‘Oh, it had been going on for a while. Though she kept very quiet about him — like I said before, she was secretive. I had the impression he was an older man. Married, I assumed, though she never said as much.’
‘Could you guess who it was?’
‘Ah, she was too cagey to give the game away, although she liked hinting that she’d been taught as much as she’d ever need to know by this other fellow.’
‘Could it have been Benny?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You said he liked girls as well as boys — and he was fond of Carole.’
She spread her arms. ‘If it was him, they both deserve Oscars for their acting day after day in the shop.’
‘Any other candidates?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘What about Clive Doxey?’
‘Sir Clive? What about him?’
‘He was a friend of Guy Jeffries, handsome and sophisticated. Any young girl might have found him attractive. And he was an up-and-coming man with a reputation to protect.’
‘God alone knows. In those days, I wasn’t much interested in politics or writers. Can’t say I’ve changed even now. Guy Jeffries I liked. He thought the sun shone out of Carole’s arse and he was always giving her treats. Mrs Jeffries didn’t approve at all, but she didn’t get much chance to lay down the law. But although I can remember meeting Doxey once at the Jeffries’ house, he never meant much to me. I could see he was smooth and successful, but he was over thirty. To me, he might as well have been eligible for a bus pass. I only had eyes for younger men. Like Ray.’
‘Do you ever see Ray Brill these days?’
‘God, no. The last time we spoke was a mumbled hello at Carole’s funeral. After that, the Brill Brothers started finding it harder to make the charts. Ian gave up pop music and Ray was never much use on his own. He’d lost his way and I can’t say I shed any tears for him.’
‘What about Benny? Do your paths ever cross?’
‘Now and then. I worked for him for another couple of years after Carole died, but then I got married and found a job that paid better in an advertising agency. That was where I met Bob, years later. He was a bookie in a small way of business then, but by the time he died he had this whole chain of shops and was worth the thick end of two million.’ She gave him a grim smile. ‘So maybe it all turned out for the best as far as I was concerned.’
‘Though not for Carole.’
‘No, not for Carole.’ She looked at the linoleum floor for a few seconds, then said, ‘Well, Mr Devlin, I think you’ve had more than the half hour I promised, though I can’t believe what I’ve said has been of any use.’
‘Don’t you believe it. I’m grateful for your time.’
She led him back into the public area. A punter was complaining to one of the girls at the counter that he hadn’t yet been paid out on the last race.
‘Wait a moment, will yer?’ the girl asked. ‘The horse is still sweating! Besides, they haven’t completed the weigh-in yet.’
Shirley Titchard turned to Harry and said, ‘No patience, you see. Just like Carole. She wanted to have everything and to have it right away. Whoever she hurt in the process.’ She folded her brawny arms again and gave him a direct look. ‘And look what it got her — her own tombstone before she was seventeen.’
Conscience prompted him to call in at the office to see if there were any messages before his next trip. At the door of New Commodities House he bumped into Jock from the Land of the Dead. The archivist had a batch of old files under his arm and gave him an eager welcome.
‘Harry! Just the man! Kim Lawrence has been telling me that now it’s absolutely certain that Edwin Smith wasn’t the Sefton Park Strangler. I wondered if you had any more ideas about how to discover who really killed the girl.’
‘One or two, but nothing definite yet. I’m still asking myself whether the burglary here had anything to do with the case. The alarm system is sophisticated, as you well know. It certainly cost us enough. I can’t fathom why anyone would go to the lengths of disabling it and rifling through my room but then take nothing.’
‘Perhaps he or they were disturbed.’
‘Who by? No, I can’t help believing the burglar was after the old Tweats file, mistakenly thinking it contained incriminating evidence. I hope no-one’s disturbed you down in the Land of the Dead?’
Jock put a hand on his shoulder. ‘No need to worry. It’s as safe as Fort Knox.’
‘Even so, I still reckon Miller told Ray Brill that I’d found the file.’
‘You don’t believe Ray was the burglar?’
‘I don’t know what to believe. The likeliest explanation to me still seems to be that Ray knows much more about the death of his girlfriend than anyone realised at the time. Besides, I’ve now learned that he might have had a motive for killing her.’
Jock’s eyebrows rose. ‘Such as?’
‘According to her friend Shirley, Carole had become involved with another man. She’d given Ray the old heave-ho.’
‘I dunno. What about Ray’s alibi? Surely the police must have checked it out at the time.’
‘So they claim. Come inside and I’ll fill you in on the latest.’ He led the little Scot to his room and, pushing a sheaf of telephone messages off his chair, recounted what he had learned. Jock listened carefully and, when Harry had finished, plucked at his beard for a few moments before speaking.
‘Suppose it was the other way round?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Suppose instead of Ray killing Carole because of jealousy, the new boyfriend murdered her because she’d become too possessive. Doesn’t that solve the problem with the alibi?’
‘You’re thinking of Benny Frederick?’
Jock shook his head decisively. ‘I can’t imagine he would have fallen for her. Surely Clive Doxey is a better bet? He was an up-and-coming lawyer and politico. Carole was a child — and the child of a close friend, to make matters worse.’
Harry thought about it. ‘No-one knows what was said between them when he called round at the house that day,’ he said slowly. ‘They might have arranged an assignation in the park.’
‘Exactly! And then they might have had an argument. God knows what she might have threatened to tell Guy. He might have panicked, not realised what he was doing…’
‘You may have something.’
‘The worst of it is,’ said Jock, ‘you’ll never prove whether I’m right or wrong. Not after all these years. Let’s face it, there’s no forensic evidence and a man like Doxey is hardly likely to confess. It will be so easy to say that Renata must be mistaken — or that, even if Smith is now in the clear, some passing maniac must have murdered Carole. We’ll never know for sure.’
Again he was right, Harry thought: the theory of Doxey’s guilt was appealing, but it amounted to little more than elementary guesswork. But he could not let matters rest there — not yet awhile. ‘I reckon Miller believed he might be able to learn the truth,’ he said mulishly, ‘and don’t forget his unknown visitor. Assume for a moment it was Doxey — why would he have called for an odd old German if he felt he had nothing to hide or fear?’
‘That visit could be a coincidence. And in any case, it seems clear from what the police told you that Miller died of natural causes. He wasn’t silenced because he’d stumbled on the truth.’
‘But he might still have had the same idea as you,’ insisted Harry. ‘One thing’s for sure. I need to speak to Ray Brill, find out what he had to say when Miller came to call.’
‘So you’re carrying on with the investigation?’
‘Of course. To me, it’s more than just a game. I’ll give Ray’s number a try now to see if I can arrange a meeting.’
He turned to the photocopy of Miller’s list which he now kept in his drawer and dialled the Southport code while Jock, tense with excitement, watched on. But the phone kept ringing out and eventually he had to admit defeat and hang up.
‘I’ll try again tomorrow or even go up there on the off-chance if I don’t have any joy on the phone. Kathleen Jeffries doesn’t live far away from him.’
Jock sighed and said, ‘Killing two birds with one stone, eh?’
‘Something like that. But now I have an even more important call to make.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I need to tell an old lady that her son was never a murderer.’
The home in Woolton where, according to Miller’s notes, Vera Smith lived, was a double-fronted building set behind a tall sandstone wall. As he walked up to the front door, Harry took in the neatly tended grounds and recently painted signboards which proclaimed the place as a superior residential home for the elderly, approved by all the right organisations. So the family money had lasted long enough to keep the old woman in comfortable surroundings, even if it had not been enough to achieve an acquittal from the court in the face of her son’s persistent death wish.
Harry imagined that Edwin must always have been conscious of being a disappointment to his parents. All that money and still he’d had nothing to show for his life but a storeman’s job and a couple of minor convictions. The debacle of his attempted seduction of Renata must have snapped the last thin thread of his self-esteem. No wonder he had been sufficiently mixed up to confess to murder.
So what would Mrs Smith make of the news?
He pressed the bell at the entrance porch and a young dark-haired girl opened the door.
‘You have a resident here, a Mrs Smith.’
‘Do you mean Vera?’ she asked, studying him with care.
‘Yes, that’s right. A Mrs Vera Smith.’
‘Are you — are you a relative? I’m sorry, we weren’t aware of anyone apart from the people down in Shrewsbury.’ She shifted from one foot to the other and there was an embarrassed note in her voice.
‘No, I’m not a member of her family. But I would like to have a word with her if possible. It is important, I can promise you. My name is Devlin and I’m a solicitor.’
The girl flushed and said, ‘You’d better come in for a moment.’
He followed her into a large hall with walls adorned by summary landscapes. He had visited old people’s homes before and found several of them as dark and depressing as something from the pages of Sheridan Le Fanu, but this place was bright and airy. Yet the girl’s manner made him uneasy.
A woman in a matron’s uniform approached them. ‘What is it, Lynsey?’
‘A Mr Devlin to see Vera, Matron,’ said the girl in a low tone, ‘He’s a solicitor.’
The matron turned to Harry and to his astonishment clasped his hands. ‘I am sorry you have had to call here in such circumstances, Mr Devlin. I suppose you came over here as soon as you heard the news. Is it about the will?’
‘The will?’
The woman paused and took in Harry’s baffled expression. ‘Oh, I am sorry. I thought Lynsey must have told you. I have some bad news, I am afraid. Vera passed away at half past two this afternoon.’