Suspicious Minds
3.5/5
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About this ebook
This special eBook edition contains a range of extras, including:
- An Introduction by Val McDermid
- The Making of Suspicious Minds
- Meet Martin Edwards
- Martin Edwards: An Appreciation
- Preview Chapter of 'I Remember You'
Martin Edwards
Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime novelist whose Lake District Mysteries have been optioned by ITV. Elected to the Detection Club in 2008, he became the first Archivist of the Club, and is also Archivist of the Crime Writers’ Association. Renowned as the leading expert on the history of Golden Age detective fiction, he won the Crimefest Mastermind Quiz three times, and possesses one of Britain’s finest collections of Golden Age novels.
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Reviews for Suspicious Minds
10 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Originally written some time ago but barely dated as Val McDermid says in her introduction. The main clue is the complete almost complete absence of mobile phones and a reliance on land lines and phone boxes! Harry Devlin is an inquisitive Liverpool solicitor and one of his larger than life clients' wife going missing, casting suspicion that he might have bumped her off. Meanwhile a serial rapist, nicknamed The Beast, is roaming around Liverpool and may perhaps been involved in the wife's disappearance. Clever plotting, a likeable central character and real life Liverpool/Wirral locations make this a good read with a clever twist in the plot which I didn't spot.
Book preview
Suspicious Minds - Martin Edwards
McDermid
Chapter One
Do you think I murdered Alison?
asked Stirrup.
Harry Devlin shaded his eyes against the glare of the midday sun. They had stepped out of the police station into a wall of heat and he needed a moment to catch his breath. As well as to judge how to answer a question better left unasked.
What if I say yes?
Stirrup stopped in his tracks.
Remember, it’s easier to get rid of a solicitor than a wife.
Tiredness had rubbed the varnish off Stirrup’s good humour, leaving his Brummie accent ugly and bare. Small wonder: the interrogation had stretched through four long hours into a test of patience and nerve.
Stirrup had phoned at seven that morning with the news that the police had called at his home again; they wanted to re-interview him about his wife’s disappearance.
Said I was willing as long as you could make it too. All right?
I’ll meet you there. And remember, you haven’t been arrested. You’re not forced to say any more. They’ll try to get under your skin, that’s what they’re paid for. So keep your temper under control.
No problem. They’ve nothing against me, Harry boy. Nothing at all.
DI Bolus evidently thought otherwise. Fresh-faced and bespectacled, he resembled an inquisitive schoolboy more closely than Tomas de Torquemada. Yet his ingenuous manner camouflaged the persistence of a Toxteth kerb-crawler.
People like your wife simply don’t vanish into thin air,
he kept saying. Lines of puzzlement creased his brow. There must be an explanation. Don’t you agree?
Harry watched his client straining to keep himself under control. To his relief, Stirrup stuck to the straight denial they had agreed on when first it became clear the police suspected that Alison was dead.
I’ve no idea where she is.
Do you care?
Bolus sounded genuine in his anxiety to be reassured.
I want her home again. And the sooner you get off my back and find her, the better.
And so it continued, with Bolus determined not to let go without a struggle and Stirrup intent on giving nothing away. Eventually the time came for Harry to stand and say that his client, a free and respectable man with a business to run, had helped enough with inquiries for one day and that now they would be going. The moment of decision. And Bolus had dismissed them with a courteous nod of thanks. Stirrup wasn’t to be charged today.
***
Want a lift?
asked Harry as they reached his rust-scarred M.G.
Puffing and grunting, Stirrup squeezed into the passenger seat.
What do you say, then, Harry boy? Do I look to you like a wife killer?
Sweat shone on Stirrup’s bald head and well-fed jowls. Harry wondered if it was a clue to fear lurking beneath the customary bravado. But the sun was harsh and they had spent half a day in a tiny airless room which had it been a cell would probably have been in breach of some convention on human rights.
Harry slung his jacket and tie in the back of the car. Inside, the shabby upholstery burned his palm. The steering wheel felt too hot to hold.
Jack, take my advice. Guilt and innocence are for a jury to decide.
Are you saying it’ll come to that?
Look, if Bolus had enough to pin something on you, you’d be changing your suit for something made of paper by now. So relax. Or worry about something constructive, like staff pilfering or last month’s sales figures.
Stirrup gripped Harry’s shoulder. Listen, you know me well enough. I didn’t kill her, all right? She’s as alive as you or me, take my word for it.
Unless I learn something to make me do otherwise, my job is exactly that. To take your word for it.
Stirrup fell silent as the car moved off. Out of the corner of his eye Harry glanced at his client. On that bulky frame the Armani suit had no more elegance than a vacuum cleaner bag.
You know me well enough. Was that true? Harry had once been let into the secret that his client’s full name was John Aloysius Kendrick Stirrup, but more meaningful confidences had been few and far between. His firm had handled Stirrup Wines’ legal work for three or four years, buying sites for off-licences throughout Liverpool and here on the Wirral peninsula, appearing regularly in the magistrates’ court to secure the right for each branch to sell alcohol to the public. So many of Crusoe and Devlin’s other clients were rogues or traders (or both) in a small way of business. Representing a boom company was a lawyer’s dream. Harry had wined and dined Stirrup, had in turn accepted the man’s hospitality; it was as close as he ever came to attempting to market his practice. Yet they did not have enough in common to call themselves friends and for all their frequent contact Harry realised that he could not say he knew Jack Stirrup well.
Straight on.
The sea front?
Why not, Harry boy?
Joviality again. Terrific day. Where better to spend it than at the seaside? The weather forecasters reckon it might touch ninety today.
If you’d told me earlier, I’d have brought my raincoat.
Stirrup laughed. Know your trouble? You’re a sceptic, Harry. You ought to have more faith.
For that, I’d need a change of job.
Not a bad idea. Earning a living out of legal loopholes is enough to turn any bugger sour. But save me from Strange-ways first, all right?
Soon they were driving along Mockbeggar Drive, looking out from Wirral’s tip to Liverpool Bay and the Irish Sea. At this distance, the cloudless sky and blue sea came straight out of a tourist’s idyll. If you could forget about global warming and gaps within the ozone layer, they were sights to lift the heart and soothe the mind.
Yet Harry always had a feeling of melancholy when he returned to New Brighton. He couldn’t help casting his mind back to Sunday afternoons he had spent here with Liz, his wife. Afternoons which now seemed to belong to another life. But more than that, the resort itself reeked of days beyond recall. Like a senile, smelly old woman who still believes herself to be sweet and sixteen.
Round every corner lurked a reminder of the past: in the theatres converted into bingo halls, in the shops boarded up because they could no longer pay their way. So much had gone over so many years. The Tower; the old pleasure grounds; the pier demolished to save it from sinking into the sea.
Here and there, signboards promised building work and regeneration. New litter bins had been put out and lampposts painted, but it would take much more to tempt the sun-seekers away from Torremolinos.
Pull up over there. We’ll call in at the Majestic. Never know your luck, we might bump into Bryan Grealish.
Isn’t that something we’d both prefer to avoid?
After parking, they stood together on the broad promenade. In front of them squatted the red sandstone mass of Fort Perch Rock Battery, built to guard the Port of Liverpool from seaborne invaders who had never even bothered to arrive.
Listen, Harry boy, someone’s setting me up with the police. Someone with a grudge against me, yes? Grealish fits the bill.
So what are you after? Do you seriously expect him to break down in tears and confess?
Stirrup pursed fleshy lips. I’ll be honest with you - he’s not my number one suspect. But seeing as we’re here...
Okay, okay. But don’t start World War Three over it, Jack. You’ve got enough problems as it is.
Don’t I know it? But after that session with Bolus, I need a bit of sustenance. Talk about the third degree. Anybody would think I was a murderer.
He bellowed with merriment, but Harry could still recall the earlier apprehension, understandable even in an entirely innocent man, yet out of character in Jack Stirrup.
Curiosity began to stir inside him. He recognised it as a weakness, like hunger pangs in a glutton. But Alison Stirrup’s vanishing trick intrigued him, tempted him into wanting to understand.
So where do you reckon she is, then?
Stirrup screwed up his eyes as if to keep out the sun. Wish I knew.
Won’t you hazard a guess?
Stirrup spread his arms. What’s the point? She might be anywhere. Women aren’t logical, Harry, they’re unpredictable. Surely by now you’ve learned that?
The hard way, Harry thought. He said nothing.
I could never read Ali’s mind. Never tried. In her way, she was deep. Course, she’d been to college, not like me. I’m a university of life man myself, as you well know. School of hard knocks.
Even so...
Even so my arse.
Stirrup wagged a thick finger under Harry’s nose. For God’s sake, you know her. Have you ever managed to figure her out?
You know her. Again that false assumption. Harry had met Alison Stirrup several times. On each occasion she had been in the company of her husband - and in his shadow. She had seemed a slight, insubstantial figure, wraith-like in comparison. Harry pictured her in his mind. She was fifteen years Jack’s junior and attractive enough, but somehow unremarkable. Harry struggled for more than a vague impression of short blonde hair and a quiet way of speaking. Out of the blue, he recollected once catching sight of her smothering a yawn as Stirrup recounted an anecdote which she must have heard a dozen times. An understandable reaction; Harry had attached no importance to it at the time. He had found her pleasant but reserved and had simply taken it for granted that she must enjoy the moneyed lifestyle which marriage had brought. With hindsight he wondered if her appearance of calm masked a deep discontent.
She’s your wife. You must have some idea about why she left so suddenly.
Saying that prompted memories of his own. When Liz had left him, he had known precisely to whose arms she was running. And knowledge, however painful, was surely preferable to the prickling of uncertainty. For the first time that day it occurred to him to feel sorry for Stirrup.
Can’t fathom it. Didn’t I tell the bobbies that till I was sick of the sound of my own voice?
Has Claire any ideas?
She’s as baffled as me.
Invariably Stirrup’s tone softened when his daughter came into the conversation. Alison and her were never close, of course. Couldn’t expect it, after all. They didn’t have much in common. Only me.
They quarrelled?
Don’t get me wrong. Ali’s no wicked step-mother. And Claire can be a she-devil - but she knew better than to try to throw her weight around too much, I wouldn’t have stood for it. No, they never had much to say to each other, but there were no rows, no slinging matches. Perhaps it would’ve been better if there had been.
Was Claire upset when Alison went?
She hasn’t said much. You know what teenage kids are. And she’s been seeing this lad, not been at home as much lately. He’s older than her, I don’t approve. But when did young girls take any notice of their dads when they first start up with a boyfriend?
They began walking. Past the Floral Pavilion and the ten-pin bowling alley, past hot dog stands and a place which sold bags of broken pink and white rock. Madame Rosika, the clairvoyant, was open for business. Harry wondered if she would dare predict if and when Jack Stirrup would be reunited with his missing wife.
And you?
he asked gently. How are you coping without her?
All right.
Stirrup scratched his nose. Look, I won’t pretend it was the ideal marriage. I never said otherwise to that bloody police inspector, did I? Ali and me, we had our differences. You think, going into it the second time around, you’re older and wiser, you won’t make the same mistakes again. But you do. You do.
So you still say you can’t understand why she walked out without a word?
The bonhomie faded again. Yes, I do say that. Whose side are you on?
Harry didn’t respond. It was his job to be on Stirrup’s side and he had no grounds for believing his client guilty of murder. The case against him was flimsy and circumstantial. Yet Stirrup was telling less than the whole truth, of that Harry was certain. Instinct and experience insisted that something was being withheld. There was more to be known about the disappearance of Alison Stirrup.
And against his better professional judgment, Harry wanted to know it.
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 week-day 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 mother-in-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