Eve of Destruction: A Harry Devlin Mystery Read online

  ‘I understand now why you asked me about Becky.’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid I wasn’t altogether frank with you.’

  ‘I hardly think I can complain about that.’ Theo Jelf gave a sharp bark of joyless laughter. ‘But how were you able to connect Eve with me? I’d tried to be so very careful.’

  ‘I knew she was a patient of yours. Becky had mentioned that and even told Dominic you’d kept her in your surgery for a long time. When I first saw her, I didn’t know she was visiting you, but I remembered earlier this evening that she did get out of the lift on the second floor, which made it a strong possibility. Griff downstairs told me that half a dozen of the flats along this corridor are empty at present.’

  ‘She could have been paying an entirely innocent social call.’

  ‘A GP making a housecall to an attractive woman patient I might understand, but I wouldn’t expect her to make a return visit. Especially not in the evening and when the GP in question is in the habit of spending nights in his convenient bachelor flat rather than back at home in Cheshire in the bosom of his family.’

  ‘My wife and I,’ Theo Jelf began uncertainly, ‘for a long time we haven’t …’

  Harry put his glass down and said, ‘I think it’s a little late for excuses, don’t you?’

  The other man closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Shaun Quade, the boy who found the bodies, saw a white Mercedes speeding away from St Alwyn’s. Griff tells me you drive a white Merc. And I knew Dominic was not only a friend of yours but also someone who used to go shooting with his pals. So am I right in assuming you can handle a gun?’ When Theo Jelf nodded, Harry added, ‘And finally, Evelyn herself betrayed you in a way you can’t even guess at. Her dying message was that you had killed her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This hasn’t been in the newspapers. Shaun told me that when he found her, she was still alive, although she died even as he watched. She was pointing to a teddy bear that belonged to the Revills’ young son. A teddy. Shaun thought she mumbled, “Dead”, but my guess is that she was trying to say “Ted”.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘The significance of it only dawned on me when I remembered a casual remark at the medical centre the day you helped me out with my ankle sprain. Your partner Parvez Mir made a passing reference to Dr Barlow and yourself. He called you Ted. It didn’t strike me at the time, but of course Theodore has more than one abbreviation, doesn’t it?’

  Theo Jelf put his head in his hands. In a muffled voice, he said, ‘None of my real friends ever call me Theo. That was just a name which seemed to appeal to the television people. Everyone who knows me well calls me Ted. As Eve did.’

  ‘How did it start?’

  His host looked up at him. Tears glistened in his eyes. ‘I’d been smitten from the moment I first saw her. When I flirted with her, she was obviously flattered. I’ve resisted temptation a good many times over the years, but this time it was simply too much to resist. I’ve had great good fortune in my life, Harry, but we always want more, don’t we? I relished the sense of danger. Didn’t Oscar Wilde once say something about the deadly fascination of feasting with panthers?’

  ‘He was someone else who kept the lawyers working overtime.’

  ‘Of course I knew it was wrong. But I was human, that’s all. Haven’t you ever made a mistake?’

  ‘Plenty,’ Harry said softly, but he thought Theo Jelf was talking mainly to himself.

  ‘I was a married man, something of a celebrity with so much to lose. And even more than that, I was her doctor. I was breaking every rule in the book. Yet that made it all the more exciting.’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘She wanted more than I could give. One night we were here and she started asking how much longer it would be before I left my wife and she could move in with me. When I realised the hole I’d made for myself, I decided that the only option I had was to stop digging. I told her it was all over between us.’

  ‘How did she react?’

  ‘She accused me of using her. She was very bitter.’

  ‘Can you blame her?’

  Theo Jelf wriggled in his armchair. ‘Worse was to come. She told me she thought she was pregnant. I’d prescribed the pill, but she admitted she hadn’t taken it. The next day she came to the surgery and when I examined her, I discovered she was right.’

  As the music came to an end, Harry said, ‘And so you decided to kill her?’

  ‘No!’ Theo shouted. For the first time in the conversation he had lost control. He clambered clumsily to his feet. ‘What sort of person do you think I am? I did care for her. I said I’d do anything to help, I’d book her into a private abortion clinic, very discreet with the best possible care. But she became hysterical. I told her we’d talk again after surgery finished and I drove her out to Sefton Park. But she was in a dreadful state, said she wanted the baby, wanted me to marry her. She said she wouldn’t be treated like a slut. Then when I tried to make her see reason, she started threatening me and saying she’d expose me for the hypocrite I really was. I was desperate, I’d have done anything to keep her quiet. So I offered her money, a very generous sum. But she turned me down flat.’ He took a deep breath and resumed his seat. ‘For another half hour I kept struggling to talk her round. I offered her even more and finally managed to persuade her to go away to think it over. I even fooled myself into believing that everything would be all right.’

  ‘Was her visit here on Monday the last time you saw her before …’

  ‘Yes, she came round and said she intended to decline my offer. She was going to the press, to sell her story. She said she’d already spoken to Paul Disney and he was willing to pay handsomely for a scoop that would dish the dirt on the host of “Telemedics”. But it wasn’t so much the money that mattered to her as the prospect of revenge. I was frantic. I saw everything I had worked so hard for crumbling around me.’

  Harry could picture it. As a police siren wailed in the distance, he said softly, ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I thought it over and decided I must somehow make her see that destroying my marriage, my reputation and my career would solve nothing. As you can imagine, my mind was in turmoil. It’s a wonder I managed to bandage your ankle that morning, let alone diagnose any illnesses.’

  ‘I would never have guessed that …’

  ‘Thank you,’ Theo Jelf said, then added with a note of satisfaction. ‘I have always prided myself on my professionalism.’

  Harry heard the siren again. It was close at hand now. ‘So you called Eve and arranged to meet at St Alwyn’s?’

  ‘At first I suggested she should come here. I still hoped that reason would prevail. I said I was prepared to make her an offer not even she could refuse. She said she was willing to hear me out – but that nothing I could say would change her mind. As the day wore on, I became more and more afraid that she would cause such a scene here that my good name would be in tatters even before Disney exposed me. In the end I rang her at the end of the afternoon and asked if we could meet somewhere else. She said I might as well come to St Alwyn’s. Emma Revill had already set off with her son for Southport and Dominic was going to be out on business. I agreed. I wanted to see her somewhere quiet and private.’

  ‘Which is why you took your gun with you?’

  Theo Jelf gave a helpless shrug. ‘Insane, I know. But I was hardly capable of rational thought. Perhaps I believed I could frighten her into silence.’

  ‘I expect that’s the line your defence counsel will run.’

  ‘You’re a cynic, Harry. Lawyers are like doctors in that regard. But you’re right, I suppose, though I don’t expect to admit it in court. At the time, it seemed to me that anything was better than exposure.’

  ‘Even murder?’ Harry did not try to hide his contempt.

  ‘Do you think I haven’t prayed for forgiveness?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She wasn’t pr
epared to play ball. She even said she was beginning to look forward to her fifteen minutes of fame. I pleaded with her, but it was no good. I’d left the gun in the porch, but even when I threatened her with it, she didn’t change her tune. She said she hated me for ruining her life, I could no do more harm to her even if I pulled the trigger. So I did.’

  As tears began to fill Theo Jelf’s eyes, Harry said, ‘In all the excitement, I suppose you didn’t hear another car pull up outside. Dominic had brought Becky Whyatt back with him. My guess is that she’d persuaded him to take her back to his place. She’d always had a fantasy about making love in a church.’ He paused. ‘Did they see you raise the gun and fire at the girl, I wonder?’

  ‘You can picture it,’ the doctor said thickly. ‘After I shot Eve, I froze with the horror of it all. I think Dominic and Becky must have done the same. Then Becky began to scream and I suddenly realised what I had done. And there were witnesses to my crime. I turned and saw the two of them staring at me. I swear I did not give the situation a moment’s thought. I simply shot Becky to stop her screaming. And then I killed Dominic, to wipe the stupid look off his face. After that, I turned on my heel, ran to the back gate where I’d parked my car and drove back blindly to this flat. All I could think of was how to save my skin. I told myself to act as if nothing had happened.’ He sighed and shook his head as he repeated, ‘Act as if nothing had happened.’

  Harry thought about the people for whom nothing would ever happen again. The romantic fantasist and her suave, spineless lover. The spaniel-eyed busker and the pregnant teenage girl. Poor Becky: like her husband, she had spun a tangled web, but in the end she had become caught in someone else’s crime of passion. He said quietly, ‘That very night I was upstairs, thinking about murder. I never dreamed it had come so close to home.’

  Theo Jelf said nothing. And while Harry gazed out at the river and thought about love and death, his host began to sob. He did not stop until the doorbell rang.

  First published 1996 by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd

  Copyright © 1996 by Martin Edwards

  First American edition 1998

  First published 1998 by Foul Play Press, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, New York

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

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  eISBN: 978-1-581-57717-4

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