The Devil in Disguise (18 page)

‘Vera told Charles's next-door neighbour that she used to live in a mansion just up the road from the Welsh Mountain Zoo. Look, there's a sign to it.'

They climbed the hill that overlooked the resort and the bay and soon found a group of large houses which might, allowing for a little poetic licence, have fitted the account that Vera had given of her time here. Stephanie started knocking on doors, with Harry at her side, spinning a yarn about a long-lost aunt whom they were looking up on the off-chance. It had enough of a ring of truth to prevent the doors being slammed in their faces.

‘You lie admirably,' he said after they had drawn a blank for the third or fourth time.

‘I'll take that as a compliment,' she said. ‘Put it down to a vacation job I had before I went to uni. I worked in telesales.'

‘Ever considered employment in a legal aid office? Anyway, one thing is beginning to bother me. Suppose Vera lied too? She may simply have come here once on holiday.'

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘That's the life of a private detective. Come on, let's try this place before we start down the mean streets of Mochdre.'

This time they struck lucky. Their call was answered by a sweet little grey-haired lady who proved to have both time on her hands and an axe to grind. Harry was impressed by the way in which Stephanie sensed at once the need to demonise the missing aunt and adjust her story accordingly. Her talent for telling a tall story would have been envied by any of his criminal clients.

Within a few minutes they were ensconced in Amy Lewis's sitting-room, taking tea and listening to the story of how, almost five years earlier, her path had crossed with that of Vera Blackhurst.

‘I used to play bridge with a man called Ieuwan Croft, see? He and his wife Blodwen had retired to that huge place you may have seen on the other side of the road. Tara, they called it.'

Stephanie and Harry nodded. It was a miniature Versailles with a spectacular outlook; they had seen a Bentley and a sports car parked outside. Ieuwan Croft, they were told, had run one of the largest haulage firms in Wales until a mild stroke had prompted his retirement. He and his wife had become friendly with Amy Lewis and her husband and when Mrs Croft had died, Ieuwan had needed to advertise for a housekeeper.

‘And guess who answered?' Amy Lewis demanded.

‘Not Auntie Vera?' Stephanie cried, clapping a hand to her mouth. ‘My dear old mum always used to say that

she would come to a bad end! She'd never have guessed

that Auntie would have wound up keeping house for a millionaire.'

‘And not just keeping house either, if you ask me,' Amy Lewis said darkly. Her own husband had died a matter of days before Mrs Croft, and Harry deduced that she had fancied herself as a suitable second wife for the wealthy Ieuwan. But Vera had been more than a match for her.

‘A brassy tart, if you ask me,' Amy Lewis said. ‘Sorry, dear, I know she's your auntie, but I have to speak as I find.'

‘No, no,' Stephanie said. ‘My mum used to say exactly the same. Those very words, even. She had no time for Auntie Vera, that's why I never tried to look her up whilst Mum was alive.' She gave their hostess a trusting smile. ‘You know, it's funny, you remind me a lot of dear old mum. Something about the eyes.'

‘That's sweet of you, dear. Another fairy cake? Well, where was I? Oh yes, within a matter of weeks Ieuwan had given up playing bridge and was spending all his time out on the seafront, sitting arm in arm with her ladyship. I knew her game, all right. But there was nothing I could do.'

Six months after Vera's arrival in his life, Ieuwan Croft suffered another stroke and died. Natural causes, nothing suspicious about it, Amy Lewis grudgingly admitted. ‘And no prizes for guessing who he left most of his money to?'

‘Surely not Auntie Vera?' Stephanie cried. She was living the part. Harry was in serious danger of collapsing into hysterics. ‘No wonder she never got in touch again!'

‘Was there no other family?' he asked, trying to suppress his amusement.

‘No children, but plenty of cousins, nephews and nieces who had no liking for that Vera Blackhurst. Ieuwan had made the will only a couple of months before he died. They tried to challenge it, but their solicitors advised them their case wasn't strong enough to take to court.'

In the end, a deal had been done. Vera had not hung out for every last penny; indeed, she had offered a compromise which seemed so generous that the family had bitten her hand off. But she'd still walked away with a small fortune.

Amy Lewis's little blue eyes gleamed with bitterness. ‘Not a bad investment for six months of her life, I'd say.'

Harry nodded. He was trying hard to contain his good humour. He could not wait until he got the chance to tell Geoffrey Willatt all about his lady love's profitable past.

Chapter 14

Vertigo
was a film in which he found something new each time he saw it. It often troubled him that he was so fascinated by a film about infatuation with a dead woman: it was dangerous to see parallels between life and art. Liz, like Hitchcock's Madeleine, was dead and beyond recall. He would never forget his wife or the passion he had for her, but he knew that she belonged to the past. Melissa Whitaker was right: life must go on. And yet, he realised, as he parked near the Philharmonic Picture Palace, he had failed to find anyone who had begun to make him feel the way he had about Liz. There had been a brief affair with an older woman who lived at the Empire Dock, a local barrister and then the uncertainties of his relationship with Kim. He cared for Kim, cared for her a good deal, but it was not the same. Perhaps he'd needed to spend time with a woman quite different from his dead wife. But the truth, he was beginning to recognise, was that caring a good deal was not enough. He needed to experience again the hot desire he had only ever known with one woman. If it was possible to experience it again.

So why had he fixed up a date with a married woman? It didn't make sense. Adultery had wrecked his own marriage and he told himself that he had no intention of wrecking anyone else's. He had seen too many clients make that mistake. Besides, Casper May was not a man to cross. So he must behave himself and make the most of her company while he had it. Talk about murder mysteries past and present. And perhaps try to guess the answer to the trickiest riddle of all: what was a woman like Juliet doing married to Casper May?

He could see her waiting for him on the steps that led to the cinema. Her auburn hair was in a shaggy perm that spilled on to the shoulders of her black jacket. She was leaning back against the wall with her arms folded and smiling as if she owned the place. At once he cast all other thoughts aside and remembered his reason for inviting her out tonight. She made him feel good: it was as simple as that.

‘Am I late?' he asked guiltily.

‘No. I'm early. I've been looking forward to this, even though I've seen the film once before. How about you?'

‘I must have watched it half a dozen times. It fascinates me.'

She looked at him intently. ‘I have the impression you don't do things by halves.'

‘Jim reckons that's one of my weaknesses.'

‘He's wrong. If you care about something, you should give it all you've got. No holding back.'

With a grin, he took her arm and led her inside. The Picture Palace had been open only a couple of years, but the owner had faithfully recreated the ambience of an old-time cinema, with faded plush seats and even an organ that rose from beneath the floor to play a few tunes before giving way to the dark rhythms of Bernard Herrmann once the main show began. He always found the film engrossing, could not help becoming absorbed in James Stewart's obsession with the mysterious blonde. But tonight for once he found his attention wandering. When at last he succumbed to temptation and moved his leg experimentally against hers, he was rewarded by an answering pressure. Later, she leaned her head on his shoulder and when, an hour into the picture, he dared to stretch an arm around her shoulder, she did not try to edge away. He felt her permed curls brush lightly against his cheek and closed his eyes, inhaling her perfume, wondering what it would be like to take her home for the night.

It was over too soon and as they emerged into the chilly night air she smiled at him and said, ‘Thank you. I enjoyed that.'

‘Can I offer you a drink?'

She shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I ought to be getting back.'

‘Surely you have time for...'

‘No, I'd love to. But it wouldn't be a good idea. I need to be up early tomorrow morning. I have to drive to Manchester Airport to meet my husband.'

The brush-off? He scanned her face, desperate to find a clue to her thoughts. ‘Perhaps some other time?'

‘I do hope so, Harry.' She bent towards him and kissed him chastely on the cheek. ‘Thank you so much for asking me to come with you. I've had a lovely evening. And I do hope we'll see each other again before too long.'

‘I'm bound to need your help with my first press release.'

‘If you do, give me a call.' She thought for a moment. ‘But even if you don't, perhaps you'll give me a call anyway?'

And then she was gone. He watched her thread through the crowd, raising an arm to hail a passing taxi. Not until the taxi had disappeared did he move. By then he knew that he needed to see her again. Like a junkie craves the needle, he already yearned for another fix of her company.

When Kim rang him the next morning, he could tell straight away that she had made her decision. The careful tone of her suggestion that he come round for a meal that evening told him that the news was bad.

‘I thought - we could talk,' she said.

‘Sure.'

‘Would seven o'clock suit you?'

‘I'll be there.'

He put the receiver down wishing that he could share the win-a-few-lose-a-few outlook of a man like Roy Milburn. At least he'd been given a little time to become accustomed to the idea of her departure for London. And at least he'd met Juliet May.

But Juliet's out of bounds
, he told himself.
Stop thinking of her
.

The phone rang again. Stephanie, this time. She sounded exasperated. ‘You'll never guess. Jonah discharged himself from hospital last night. He refused to stay there a moment longer, the cussed old thing. I said he ought to listen to the doctors, that it would serve him right if he dropped down dead the moment he got home, but he wouldn't be told. I'm over at his flat now. Of course, as soon as he arrived back here, he found out he was still very weak. He's spending his time watching telly and complaining about the programmes.'

‘So you won't be free this afternoon?'

Driving back from North Wales, they had agreed to follow up another lead that Stephanie had picked up from Charles Kavanaugh's neighbours. Vera had mentioned that she came originally from Warrington and the plan was to try to check out her past and see how far it varied from the story she had been telling.

‘Not a bit of it. Jonah's insisting we pursue the inquiry. I think he's afraid of me using his illness as an excuse for slacking off. Can you pick me up here in half an hour?'

On his way through a downpour to Jonah's flat, Harry reflected that perhaps he had more in common with the old battleaxe than he would like to think. Since the death of their wives, they had both tried to lose themselves in their work, in solving other people's puzzles. It wasn't simply a way of killing time: it made it easier to forget the past.

The last time Harry had visited the flat, it had been as chaotically disordered as his own, with dishes piled high on the draining board and a layer of dust on every surface. It was a single man's home, somewhere to doss down for a chap who contended that life was too short for housework. But things had changed. As Stephanie showed him in to the living-room, he almost had to shield his eyes from the shine on the brasses adorning the opposite wall. It was as if they were expecting to host a photo-shoot for
Ideal Home
.

Only Jonah made the place look untidy. He was hunched up in an armchair, wearing a mutinous scowl and a cardigan that looked as though it dated back to the days of clothes rationing. He looked up from the
Radio Times
and said, ‘Load of bloody rubbish. That licence fee is daylight robbery.'

‘Do I gather you're on the mend?'

Jonah grunted and jerked a thumb in his niece's direction. ‘To hear some people talk, you'd think I was at death's bloody door.'

‘If you don't keep your promise to the doctor about no more roll-your-own cigarettes, you'll be slamming the door behind you,' Stephanie said.

‘The sooner I get back to normal, the better.' Jonah indicated their surroundings with a melancholic wave. ‘She's even tried to do a bit of tidying. Didn't ask first, of course. I used to know where everything was. Now I can't find a bloody thing.'

Harry grinned. ‘Better be careful. If you don't keep your eyes open, she'll be making you redundant.'

Jonah snorted. ‘Oh aye, I've heard all about yesterday. The two of you got a lucky break, fair enough. But believe me, the case is only over when the money from the client is safely in the bank.'

Stephanie raised her eyebrows to the heavens and said, ‘We'd better go, Harry, before the temptation to strangle him overwhelms me. Lucky break? Huh!'

‘So what do we know about Vera's connection with Cheshire?' Harry asked as they drove along the M62.

‘She actually mentioned growing up in a black-and-white manor house just outside the town. She became all nostalgic and complained about the government taking part of the family estate when a viaduct was being built for the motorway. I know the area quite well.' She coloured. ‘As a matter of fact, I used to go out with a boy from Stockton Heath. I spent quite a bit of time there before he ditched me, the bastard. One thing I'm sure of. There's only one motorway viaduct, on the M6 at Thelwall. That should make life easier for us.'