Eve of Destruction: A Harry Devlin Mystery Read online

  Harry said carefully, ‘So after we met in my office yesterday, you never even had the chance to confront your wife and talk about the terms of divorce?’

  ‘As I explained, she’d called the garden centre whilst I was visiting you and left a message that she would be out all evening.’

  ‘You went back to work after leaving Fenwick Court?’

  ‘No. I was in no mood for work. So I came back here and kept playing the tapes back endlessly whilst I waited for her to return from the Ditton Motel. You remember, she’d arranged to meet Jeremy there. When I rang the garden centre to check if anything had happened in my absence, the switchboard girl told me that Becky had called. She’d been expecting to speak to me direct, I suppose, but in the end she left a message that she was going out with Michelle and was not likely to be back much before midnight. Of course I realised she was intent upon another assignation.’

  ‘Did you speak to Michelle?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I did. Naturally, I anticipated a tissue of lies and that is exactly what I got. Becky had primed her carefully. So I didn’t beat around the bush. I told her that I was aware she was covering up for Becky and that I’d discovered all about the affair.’

  ‘And how did Michelle react?’

  ‘She – she panicked, rather as I’d expected. Eventually she told me I didn’t understand and that although Becky did have a gentleman friend, the relationship was purely platonic’ A mirthless smile played on Whyatt’s lips. ‘I almost told her that I’d discovered that Becky was intending to hire her husband to bump me off. Perhaps in the circumstances it’s as well I kept my mouth shut about that.’

  ‘What about Jeremy? Did you manage to talk to him at all?’

  ‘No. As I told you before, I couldn’t believe that he would take Becky seriously.’

  ‘How did you spend last evening?’

  Whyatt settled back in his chair. ‘You sound like the police. They don’t believe me, either.’

  The old thatched house was, he had told Harry, a listed building; from the road outside it seemed scarcely to have been touched in the past couple of hundred years. At the rear, the building had been extended at both ground-and first-floor level and the conservatory was more opulent than anything on display at the garden centre. The air conditioning must have cost a fortune, yet Harry was sweating. Was he talking to a man who less than twenty-four hours earlier had embarked on a killing spree?

  ‘I don’t want to subject you to the third degree, but you’ve asked me round because you feel in need of advice. I’m glad to help, but it’s vital for you to be frank with me.’

  ‘If you must know, after I’d made myself a meal, I decided on a walk. It seemed sensible to clear my head. I still found it difficult to absorb everything I’d heard on the last tape.’

  ‘Where did you walk?’

  ‘Out to the lighthouse at Hale and then along the foreshore. There’s a rough track which leads across the fields and winds up near Dungeon Lane. I followed it back and then made my way home.’

  ‘A long stretch.’

  ‘I had plenty to think about.’

  I don’t suppose you stopped off on the way? At a pub, for instance?’

  Whyatt moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘I didn’t slow down anywhere or speak to a soul. I must have passed people, but I can’t remember any faces. My mind was in such turmoil.’

  ‘Did the walk help to straighten out your thoughts?’

  ‘No. The air was heavy and I came back with a headache. By this time it must have been getting on for ten. After that, I switched on the television, but I didn’t take anything in. The police did ask what programmes I watched, but I wasn’t able to help. Eventually, I went to bed – alone. No witnesses at all, I’m afraid.’ He blinked hard. ‘I – I’m hoping you will tell me that is the strongest point in my defence, that any murderer with an inventive turn of mind would have taken pains to supply himself with a cast-iron alibi. More coffee? No? Would you care to take a walk around the garden while we talk? I’m so wound up, I’m finding it difficult to keep still.’

  Whyatt put on a pair of dark glasses and Harry limped out after him through the sliding glass doors and on to a patio of York stone. Beyond the vivid hues of the flowerbeds, the gardens extended for another acre and on the other side of the copper beeches that marked the boundary were farm fields that sloped gently down to the unseen river. An overnight shower of rain had freshened the atmosphere, but there was no breeze to rustle the leaves. Already the temperature was in the high seventies and the grass bore barely a trace of damp.

  ‘Perhaps now you can understand,’ Whyatt said, ‘why I dreaded the prospect of having to sell up here if we divorced. I regard this place as my own personal paradise.’

  Harry coughed uncomfortably. He could not help thinking about sin and Eden. To change the subject, he gestured towards an elaborate sequence of paths in pink brick which had been laid in the turf. ‘I see you bring your work home with you.’

  ‘The design’s inspired by the plan of the city of Troy. You shouldn’t look so surprised. The urge to solve a puzzle is universal.’

  ‘I’ve always been keen on detective stories myself.’

  Whyatt reddened. ‘Then perhaps you will have your own ideas about who killed my wife.’

  ‘That’s a job for the police,’ Harry said, crossing his fingers behind his back.

  ‘They believe I’m guilty.’

  ‘You told them about the insurance?’

  ‘Yes, I did mention it. They were bound to discover the truth in any event. As if my wife’s infidelity were not motive enough, eh?’

  As they entered the maze, Harry said, ‘One thing I don’t understand. Dominic Revill and your wife had arranged to meet at St Alwyn’s yesterday evening. What was the nanny doing there?’

  Whyatt shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. The impression I gained from the police is that she came back earlier than expected and disturbed the killer at his work. Don’t forget she lived in. Revill told Becky that. She must simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Have you admitted to the police that you knew about the affair?’

  ‘I could hardly deny it. Michelle would be bound to tell them if I did not.’

  ‘So you handed over the tapes?’

  ‘Turn right here and we have reached our goal,’ Whyatt said. They arrived at the heart of the maze, marked by an armillary sundial, before he answered the question. ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t.’

  Harry thrust his hands deep in his pockets. ‘You’ll gain nothing by delaying the inevitable. My advice is that you should give the tapes to the police.’

  ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Whyatt turned and pointed back in the direction they had come, towards a large steel container which stood behind the garage block. ‘I threw them into the incinerator as soon as the police finished with me.’

  Before Harry could say another word, he heard voices coming from the direction of the house, followed by a woman’s anxious cry. ‘Steve! Steve! Are you there?’

  Whyatt frowned. ‘Michelle?’

  Two figures stepped out of the conservatory. Michelle Whyatt caught sight of her brother-in-law and broke into a run. Her husband followed, but his strides seemed uncharacteristically hesitant. ‘Thank God!’ Michelle said as she reached them. ‘The front door was open and when you didn’t answer, we didn’t know what to think. Oh Steve, what a terrible thing!’

  Her face was horror-stricken and Harry could tell she had been weeping. Instinctively, she stretched out an arm, as though to offer comfort, but Steven Whyatt ignored it. He said tersely, ‘What brings you two here?’

  Michelle said, ‘We wanted to see how you were. We’d already heard about – the murders on the radio this morning. It still hasn’t sunk in with either of us. To think that Becky …’ She began to cry and her husband put an arm around her.

  ‘I told y
ou this was a mistake,’ Jeremy said grimly.

  ‘We had to come, it was the least we could do,’ his wife said through the sobs.

  Jeremy gave Harry a curt nod. ‘I thought this feller was simply a prospective customer?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, he’s my solicitor.’

  ‘Your what? What’s wrong with the family firm?’

  ‘I’d lost faith in Rosencrantz long before he died. His advice never did me any good. So I decided to hire my own man.’

  Jeremy curled his lip. ‘You were jealous over father’s will.’

  ‘Darling, this isn’t the time or the place for a row,’ Michelle hissed. She turned to her brother-in-law. ‘Steve, what have the police said? Do they know who – who did this dreadful thing? I can’t understand what went on last night. This man Becky was – seeing, I gather he lived in a big house in a rough area. Surely it must have been a robbery gone wrong?’

  ‘The police said there were no signs of breakin,’ Steven said. ‘In any case, your average Liverpudlian housebreaker doesn’t gun down three people when he’s caught helping himself to the TV and video recorder. Whoever killed them must have gone berserk.’

  ‘Roger Phelan!’ Michelle said. ‘Oh my God! Of course! She told me that he’d been let out of the loony bin – and we all know why he was put there in the first place. I gather she bumped into him in the street and he’d been pestering her for several days. Poor girl, she was terrified. I felt so sorry for her.’

  ‘Perhaps you felt too sorry for her,’ Steven said.

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘Come on, Michelle. Remember the lies you told on Becky’s behalf. All that guff about image consultants, giving her alibis so that she could spend more time with her fancy man. What good did it do her? Answer me that?’

  Michelle blushed, but her instinct was to retaliate. ‘Listen, Steve, we came here to offer our condolences, to see if there was anything we could do. I wasn’t expecting you to be bloody offensive. Perhaps I was naive.’

  ‘I can look after myself, thanks all the same.’

  Jeremy glared at him. ‘Why so hostile? Worried that the police will be taking a very close look at you, as well as the first husband?’

  ‘I’m not the only one they’ll be interested in.’

  ‘And what do you mean by that?’

  ‘That creep Roger isn’t the only violent man she knew.’

  Jeremy took a step towards his brother. ‘What are you implying, you bastard?’

  Steven lifted his chin. ‘All I’m saying is that other people might have wanted Becky dead.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Michelle said. ‘I’m not saying Becky was a saint, but who would want to kill her? If it wasn’t a burglar, Roger is the only possibility.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Steven said, staring at his brother. ‘As a matter of interest, Jeremy, what were you up to yesterday afternoon and evening?’

  ‘Mind your own fucking business.’

  ‘Becky had been in touch with you, hadn’t she, to put a proposition to your mutual advantage? Did your discussions come to an angry end?’

  ‘What is he talking about, darling?’ Michelle demanded.

  Jeremy clenched his fists; he seemed to Harry to be battling to control himself, as if he feared that to succumb to temptation would do more harm than good. Through gritted teeth he said, ‘We’ll discuss this later. We’re wasting our breath here.’

  He began to stride away. His wife hesitated for a moment and then followed. Steven watched them go, a smile of grim satisfaction twisting his lips. ‘By the way, Jeremy,’ he called. His brother paused for a split second, but did not look back. ‘How much did she offer to pay you for murdering me?’

  ‘So where do I go from here?’ Steven Whyatt asked ten minutes later. They were back in the conservatory again. With the departure of Jeremy and Michelle, the place had regained its peaceful atmosphere. The only sounds were the low gurgle of the coffee machine and the faint hum from an aeroplane heading in to land at Speke airport. The sun was high and even inside Whyatt kept on his glasses for protection against the glare.

  ‘You must tell the police about the conversations you bugged.’

  ‘How can I? What will they think?’

  ‘What will they think when they find out you’ve been holding back on them?’

  ‘They already suspect me. I’m not a fool, I could see the scepticism in their eyes. They were watching me carefully to see how I reacted when they told me Becky was dead. I’m not a man who shows his emotions. The woman constable broke the news to me gently, but the sergeant with her kept firing questions at me. They call that the good-cop-bad-cop routine, don’t they?’

  ‘What were their names? I may have come across them.’

  Whyatt pondered. ‘The sergeant was called Pardoe. I can’t remember her name. She was mid-twenties, tall and slim, dark hair, dusky skin. Half-caste, I’d say. Attractive.’

  ‘There’s someone called Lynn DeFreitas,’ Harry said slowly, ‘who fits that description.’

  ‘That’s it. DeFreitas. You know her?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Harry was not surprised to learn of Lynn’s involvement. Her patch was in the city: that was how she had come to deal with the breakin at Fenwick Court. With three people dead at St Alwyn’s, a huge enquiry team would be needed and officers would have been seconded to it from all divisions in the city. A high-flying young charmer would be an obvious choice for the task of gaining the bereaved husband’s confidence as the detectives tried to discover whether he had played a part in the slaughter.

  ‘As I say, she left all the probing to Pardoe. She told me they would probably want me to appear at a press conference later today, to make an appeal for more information. She even said that the television people would be there too.’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘I said I would have to think it over. I was badly shocked, the last thing I wanted was to bare my soul before the vultures of the media. But she was very persistent. Said that in a case like this, it was vital to involve members of the public.’

  Harry nodded. He could understand the police tactics. There was more to their insistence than they would be willing to admit. If Steven Whyatt had something to hide, trying to act the innocent in the spotlight would put him under intense pressure. It would take an Oscar-winning performance for a guilty man to give nothing away. Even the most cold-blooded killers were apt, in time, to crack.

  ‘Are you prepared to co-operate?’

  Whyatt shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘They can’t make me.’

  ‘No, but if you refuse, they are bound to wonder why. If they learn that you haven’t told them about the tapes, you can expect the next round of questioning to be much more ruthless. They are also going to wonder why you didn’t report the fact that you were aware Becky was talking to Revill about murdering you.’

  ‘I – I told you my reasons.’

  Harry exhaled. ‘I didn’t find them convincing yesterday and the police won’t find them convincing today, but a cover-up will only make your plight worse. Besides, you’re not the only person who has heard the tapes.’

  ‘But you’re my solicitor. You listened to them in confidence.’

  ‘They would have been important evidence. You shouldn’t have destroyed them.’

  ‘I was in a dreadful state when I got home this morning. My wife had been murdered and the police seemed to think I had something to do with it. I felt I had no choice. The police like easy solutions. They would regard the tapes as incriminating me.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Harry said, ‘but knowing what I do, I can’t sit back and allow you to deceive the detectives investigating the murders.’

  ‘But they will leap to the obvious conclusion. That I seized the chance to save myself and earn a hefty insurance pay-out at the same time.’

  ‘They have no evidence. You never went near St Alwyn’s.’

  Whyatt’s face made clear his opinion of the police’s method of overcoming suc
h minor snags. ‘Please. I do read the papers. I am aware of what goes on.’

  ‘Miscarriages of justice aren’t as common as you think.’ He was glad Kim could not hear him say that: any chance of reviving their relationship would have flown out of the window if she had. ‘I would argue that the tapes suggest that other people had a motive to kill Becky. Her ex-husband, for a start. In any event, I’ve listened to the tapes and I must advise you to come clean.’

  Sweat had begun to stain Whyatt’s white shirt. ‘And if I find that unacceptable? What if I tell them my marriage was all sweetness and light? Why make such a fuss? I wouldn’t have thought a solicitor from a firm like yours would be so punctilious about an abstract thing like ethics.’

  The temperature was rising and so was Harry’s temper, but he bit his tongue. ‘I’m no saint, but there’s no way I’ll sit back and watch you lie. If you won’t change your mind, I can no longer act for you.’

  ‘There are plenty of other lawyers around.’

  ‘Don’t I know it? But if you think things look bad now, they will look a great deal worse if the police discover you have been lying through your teeth. So far, no real harm has been done. You were shocked when they first spoke to you, you wouldn’t have been thinking straight. It will be easy enough to explain why you didn’t mention the tapes and maybe also why you incinerated them. The longer you keep up the deception, the harder you’ll find it to justify your actions.’

  ‘You’ll be advising me to confess in a minute.’

  Harry wished he could see the eyes behind the dark glasses and have a chance to fathom exactly what was in his client’s mind. ‘Why should you confess?’ he asked slowly. ‘You’re innocent. Aren’t you?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘So who killed them?’ Ken Cafferty asked over a pint in the Dock Brief a couple of hours later. He put his elbows on the ancient three-legged table that divided them, his snub nose wrinkling as if he were trying to sniff out a suspect.