Next morning Kate stood by her brother’s hospital bed with a sense of relief, though struggling to overcome the fierce anger that had flared when she saw the battered state of him again. His head was heavily bandaged and as far as she could see every inch not covered by the hospital smock was black-and-blue. But at least he was conscious, his eyes half-open, and he struggled to smile when he saw her, and the uniformed police officers who had been kicking their heels by his bedside seemed to have disappeared, at least for the time being.
‘Sorry, sis,’ he whispered as he took her hand.
‘What on earth was that all about? It’s not you who should be sorry.’
‘Strachan’s a throwback,’ he said. ‘He hates queers, hates Catholics, hates what he calls Fenians.’
‘Surely that was all over years ago?’ Kate objected. ‘The IRA’s long dead and buried.’
‘Of course it is, but men like Strachan never forgive and never forget.’ Kate ran a hand through her hair in fury. She pulled out her camera and took a couple of flash photographs of the battered figure in the bed.
‘I’m taking these in case we ever get the chance to hold Strachan to account. He nearly killed you,’ she said.
‘There were no witnesses,’ Tom said dully. ‘They can do what they like in that place. I’ve known that for a long time. What I don’t understand is why me.’
‘Kevin said you’d moved out of the city to get away from this sort of thing. He said you kept a low profile, kept out of trouble.’ Tom nodded cautiously and Kate could see he was still in pain.
‘Kevin was beside himself,’ she said. ‘I like Kevin, by the way, though mam can hardly bear to look at him.’
‘Yes, well, you can’t say it’s only Strachan who’s a dyed-in-the-wool bigot, can you? It cuts every which way.’ Tom turned his head away and winced again, and Kate could see he was not nearly as resilient as he was pretending to be.
‘Mam wants me to come back to live in Liverpool,’ Kate said. ‘There’s fat chance of that!’ Tom struggled to find another smile.
‘I should stay well away if I were you,’ he said. ‘If she finds out you’re living with Harry Barnard, she’ll set the inquisition on you.’ He looked beyond her and found another smile, and Kate turned to find her sister Annie and Tom’s boyfriend Kevin making their way into the ward, followed by a slightly flustered-looking nurse. Kevin glanced around nervously to see who was watching before giving Tom a hug.
‘The bizzies said no visitors,’ the nurse said.
‘Then the bizzies will have to chase us away – if they dare,’ Kate said and the nurse withdrew looking even more flustered.
‘They think he’s on the mend, I hear,’ Annie said to Kate and she nodded.
‘I bumped into one of the doctors on the way in,’ Kate told her, ‘and he said Tom should be fit to go home in a week or so. But I suppose that will depend on the police. Perhaps they won’t want to take him to court in the state he’s in. It wouldn’t look good.’
‘Mam wants him to stay with her,’ Annie said and Kate caught the look of horror Tom and Kevin exchanged.
‘No way!’ Kevin said flatly. ‘He’s coming home with me. I’m the one who should look after him.’
‘She doesn’t really mean it,’ Tom said. ‘She’d be mortified if what I am and what’s happened to me was common knowledge around the parish. And da couldn’t put up with it for a moment.’
‘I wish I knew where da was,’ Kate said. ‘I’ve been running round in circles trying to find him. I’ll call in the police station later to see if he turned up this morning for his interview about the accident.’
‘You need to watch yourself there,’ Tom said, his bitterness suddenly on show.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Annie said, grabbing Kate’s arm. ‘It doesn’t sound safe for you to go on your own.
‘We’ll be careful,’ Kate said. ‘I have to go home tonight too. I’ve a few more pictures to take this morning and then I must get the train. My boss will be expecting me back.’ She looked at the three of them in turn. ‘I’m so sorry it turned out like this,’ she said. She kissed Tom gently with tears in her eyes before turning away feeling torn in two.
Kate and her sister felt nervous as they went into the police station, but the young constable on the desk didn’t appear too intimidating and agreed readily enough to check if Frank O’Donnell was due in to make a statement concerning the death of the young builder and whether he had turned up. But after disappearing into the bowels of the building for a short time he came back looking worried.
‘He was due to come in at nine this morning with a solicitor from Macdonald-Jordan Construction, but he hasn’t turned up or let anyone know why not,’ he said. ‘Who did you say you were? His daughters?’
‘He’s not been home all weekend,’ Kate said.
‘Is that unusual?’ the constable asked.
Annie shrugged.
‘He goes on a bender sometimes. He doesn’t always tell our mam where he is. But after someone got killed … We thought he’d be here.’
‘If it’s that important, I should think we’ll start looking for him. He must be a crucial witness. The coroner will want him traced to give evidence. Give me your details and if we track him down I’ll let you know.’ Kate and Annie trailed out into the street again.
‘I have to get on now,’ Kate said. ‘I want to be on my way by teatime, but I’ll need to collect my luggage from the hotel so you can leave a message there if you need me.’
‘I’m sorry this has turned into such a mess, la,’ Annie said. ‘Mam was really hoping that da had turned over a new leaf with a steadier job, but it looks as if that idea’s blown sky high.’
‘Keep me in touch,’ Kate said. ‘You’ve got the phone numbers in London, haven’t you? Both my flat and Harry’s? Don’t hesitate to call if you need me. Promise?’
‘Of course,’ Annie said, turning away. Kate watched her walk slowly away towards the buses at the Pier Head, her shoulders slumped, and wondered how her family could have disintegrated so violently and completely in such a short time. She felt very much alone.
She spent the next couple of hours taking pictures of new buildings in fitful sunshine and then, as she was passing the Liverpool Echo building, wondered if Liam Minogue was free for a coffee or even a sandwich. She felt like talking to someone who was not part of her private life. He would talk music and city gossip and might provide a welcome antidote for her troubles.
The young man on the reception desk made a phone call and told her that Minogue would be down in five minutes. While she waited, she passed the time reading the first edition of the Echo, where Liam was still speculating about the success or otherwise of the Beatles’ return home and whether or not they could be expected to come back to Merseyside to live. Local opinion seemed to be divided, with some locals arguing that the Fab Four had already sold out to the south and even to America, while others were keen to see them returning to the roots where they belonged. The perspective was parochial and the tone a bit snarky. Kate would have put a Grand National-size bet on the four of them never coming back.
Liam Minogue caught her smiling over the front page.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I thought you had probably gone home by now,’ he said. ‘Have you finished your assignment?’
‘Just about,’ she said. ‘I’m getting a train at teatime. I have to be in the office tomorrow morning. But I thought we might have a coffee before I go. There’s been some stuff going on which you might like to know about here at the Echo.’
‘Come on then,’ Minogue said and led the way to the café across the street that they’d been to before. ‘Tea, coffee? A toasted teacake or a sandwich maybe?’
‘Just coffee,’ Kate said and when it came she gave Minogue a hard look.
‘I know you’re the Beatles correspondent,’ she said cautiously. ‘But maybe your crime correspondent would like to know about what happened at the Bridewell over the weekend. My brother’s still in hospital as a result of it.’ Minogue’s face darkened and he took a sip of coffee.
‘Your brother?’ he said when Kate didn’t immediately continue.
‘He was arrested on Saturday night and by Sunday morning he was in hospital after what looks to have been a severe beating. They had to operate to relieve pressure on his brain. He could have died, Liam, and we can’t get a word of sense out of the police. My boyfriend is a detective with the Met and he couldn’t get a word of explanation for what happened from the DCI – what’s his name, Strachan?’
‘Hang on, hang on!’ Minogue said. ‘How did he come to be arrested? Was he in a street fight or what? Liverpool can be a bit rough on a Saturday night. Especially after all the excitement there’s been with the film premiere.’
‘They went to Tom’s home and pulled him out of bed,’ Kate said.
‘On what charge?’
‘Nobody has bothered to tell us that. We assume it’s because he’s a homosexual. He was in bed with his boyfriend when they came calling in the middle of the night.’
Minogue took a deep breath and glanced away, refusing to meet her eyes for a minute in obvious embarrassment.
‘They do that, the bizzies,’ he said. ‘Sometimes when the mood takes them, they go out and round up a few queers. Poofs aren’t much liked around here by either the Prods or the Catholics. Or anyone else for that matter.’
‘So it’s OK to beat someone half to death when you arrest them, is it, because you don’t like who they’re sleeping with?’
‘It’s still illegal, Kate,’ Minogue said defensively. ‘And there’re plenty of people who think it should stay that way. I guess DCI Strachan is one of them. A lot of coppers are.’
‘And what about you?’ Kate snapped. ‘I know only too well what the Catholic Church thinks. And I dare say you do too. I’ve heard all that since I was old enough to understand what was going on with Tom. But I don’t imagine even the Pope thinks people like Tom should be killed for their sins. And that’s what nearly happened. He was almost killed and I want to know why. I thought it was a scandal the Echo would be glad to expose.’
‘It’s a stone my editor won’t turn over in a million years – neither side of it, and there are two sides, believe me,’ Liam said. ‘I went to a very respectable Catholic boys’ school where the discipline was strict. It wasn’t until I’d long left that I understood that the practice of making little boys bare their buttocks to be beaten with a butter pat by the Brothers for various misdemeanours was anything other than acceptable punishment. But attempting to expose that, or DCI Strachan’s little games, is a waste of time. My career would be over before it’s hardly even started. I’m not that brave, or that stupid.’
Kate looked at the reporter sombrely as he glanced away.
‘Attitudes are different in London,’ she said. ‘A bit different, anyway. I think most people know the law is going to change and they’re beginning to act as if it already has.’
‘Well, good for them. But this is Liverpool,’ Liam said. ‘It’s not quite Belfast or Glasgow but prejudice lingers in the cracks here, bubbles up when you least expect it, and no one is brave enough to complain. The Churches have fingers in every pie, believe me. We had some sort of a graduate trainee in the newsroom a while ago from some private school and he started going on about it. He was a Quaker or something like that. He didn’t last long, and went back down south. I’m sorry, Kate, but I’m not going to be the one to put my head above the parapet. I know it would get blown off.’ And with that she had to be content.
Harry Barnard had slept badly and, although he’d resisted the temptation to finish the whisky sitting alluringly in his cocktail cabinet, he felt even more fragile the next morning than when he left Liverpool. And DCI Tom Buxton seemed to go out of his way to make his interview in Pimlico as threatening as it could be.
‘Do you want a Federation rep with you? Or a solicitor?’ he barked across the interview room table where he was sitting with a DS at his side.
‘No sir,’ Barnard said. ‘I’m happy to tell you anything you want to know. I’ve nothing to hide. I was following a slightly obscure lead in a murder case, not really strong enough to make a fuss about. I’ve done nothing wrong except not mentioning it to you in the first place.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Buxton said. ‘So let’s start at the beginning. Who gave you Alicia Guest’s name and address?’
‘A contact in Soho. A tart I’ve known for years. I mentioned to her that we thought the woman found in Soho Square was on the game and she asked around to see if anyone knew who she might be. They didn’t, but she picked up a rumour about Alicia Guest and got me her address.’
‘And this tart’s name is?’ Barnard hesitated, but the two men on the other side of the table waited stony-faced and he knew he would do himself no favours and Evie little harm if he told them.
‘Are you sleeping with her, this Evie?’ the sergeant asked with a sly grin.
‘No,’ Barnard said. ‘A long time ago occasionally, but not now.’
Buxton nodded. ‘This is because you have this girlfriend? The photographer girl? Sounds an odd job for a woman,’ he said.
‘She’s very good at it,’ Barnard said.
‘So how did Evie find out about Alicia Guest?’ Buxton went on.
‘She said a friend told her,’ Barnard said uneasily, knowing that they would not be satisfied with that as an answer and that he had landed Evie with an unwanted visit from the Pimlico murder team if nothing worse.
‘So tell us exactly everything that happened during your visit to Miss Guest – the times, anyone else you saw or spoke to, anyone who might have seen you, and exactly what you talked about. Dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’, Sergeant. I’ve already got you marked down for a disciplinary hearing but it could be worse, much worse, if you leave anything out and I find out about it.’
Barnard went over the details of his trip to Pimlico again, slowly and carefully. The sergeant across the desk took notes, but as the interview went on he got the distinct impression that there were specific facts they were interested in which did not necessarily fit with their inquiries into a murder.
‘Are you sure that she gave no indication she knew where she was being taken when she was hired for these trips?’ Buxton pressed.
‘She said not,’ Barnard said. ‘She said it was different places. But she did say some of them were not far away from where she was living. A short drive, she said.’
‘And she didn’t recognize anyone when she got there?’
‘It would appear that the men took good care not to be recognized,’ Barnard said. ‘But she was being asked to do things and witness things she didn’t like, so she decided to pack it in. Beyond that she wasn’t prepared to go. They were sufficiently worried about her to pay her off, so she took the money and left.’
‘So there are two possibilities, Sergeant. Either these people found out that she had talked to you and decided to silence her, which sounds unlikely. Or she was killed by some random intruder looking for quick pickings who panicked when she found him in the flat.’
‘How was she killed?’ Barnard asked, aware that Buxton had told him no details about the crime and if he was serious about counting him as one of his suspects he would be watching closely to see how much he knew about what had gone on in Alicia Guest’s flat.
‘Stabbed,’ Buxton said. ‘Very messy. A lot of blood. We may need to take a look at the clothes you were wearing that afternoon. Purely for purposes of elimination, of course. And your fingerprints.’
‘Oh come on, sir!’ Barnard said, finally losing patience. ‘You know that’s ridiculous. I’m sorry I trespassed on your territory and no way could I guess that I might have put this woman in danger. It was a routine inquiry which I had no great hopes of. But if you seriously think she was killed to keep her quiet about the nasty sex conspiracy she got herself involved in, surely that’s where you should be looking for her killer?’
‘That’s for me to decide, Sergeant, not you. And if I find you interfering in my investigations again, I’ll throw the book at you. Understood?’
Barnard sighed.
‘Understood,’ he said.
Kate O’Donnell got back to her hotel about four to collect her luggage and was surprised to see her mother sitting in an uncomfortable chair close to the reception desk in what looked like her best black coat, buttoned up to the neck in spite of the sticky summer heat. She stood up when Kate came in and the expression in her eyes was angry.
‘Were you going to leave without saying goodbye to me?’ she snapped.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said. ‘I thought you would come to the hospital this morning with Annie. It was important to make sure Tom was all right before I left. Then I had some work stuff to do before catching the train.’
‘I’ve just been up there, la,’ Bridie said, but her face did not soften. ‘I want him to come home to stay with me when they let him out. That other young man is a bad influence.’
‘Mam, you can’t run our lives for us now. We’re all grown up. We make our own decisions.’
‘And that’s why you’ve decided not to go to Mass any more, is it? You’re too grown up for all that? Holy Mother of God, who do you modern children think you are! Do you really think you’re more important than the Church?’ Bridie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Or is it because you’re living in sin with that man you brought round to my house? Is that what it is? Has he brought this on? Has London turned you into a little whore? On top of having Tom the way he is!’
Kate reddened and got to her feet, aware that the receptionist was casting interested eyes in the direction of their hissed conversation.
‘Come outside,’ she snapped at her mother and they went into the street where their voices were muffled by the traffic on Brownlow Hill. ‘Who told you that anyway?’ Kate asked.
‘Never you mind,’ Bridie said. ‘As if I don’t have enough to cope with now your father’s missing and Tom’s in hospital and may end up in prison. Couldn’t you behave yourself, at least?’
‘I suppose it was Father Reilly, was it? That man thinks he owns his parishioners and evidently his former parishioners too. Well, you can tell him to mind his own business. And you do that as well, mam. I gave up on your precious Church a long time ago. I had good reason. And I’ll make my own friends, come to that. It’s nothing to do with you. And now I have to hurry to catch my train. I’m going back to London, and where I live and who I live with is nothing at all to do with you or anyone else up here – especially the priests, who are the biggest hypocrites of all.’
Kate arrived back at the flat she shared with Tess late, tired and hungry. Her friend looked at her in alarm as she dumped her suitcase in her room and slumped down on the sofa and closed her eyes.
‘You look shattered,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Starving,’ Kate said. ‘There was no food on the train. Have you got anything in the fridge?’ Together they rustled up an omelette and some toast, and as Kate wolfed it down she told Tess roughly what had happened in Liverpool. Tess looked completely stunned by the time she had finished. She put an arm round Kate’s shoulders.
‘We all know the bizzies used to be complete bastards,’ she said quietly. ‘But I thought all that was over. I thought all that prejudice had gone away. I thought you went up to get pictures of a shiny new modern city with all that marvellous music going on, a fun place to be …’
‘Oh, all that’s going on all right, la,’ Kate said. ‘But the old guard is hanging in there when they think they can get away with it. And with Tom the police obviously thought they could get away with it. Tom and his friends are no safer than they ever were. He could have died, Tess.’ And for the first time Kate let the tears flow and she sobbed on her friend’s shoulder.
‘Are you staying here tonight or going back to Harry’s place?’ Tess asked when Kate eventually calmed down. Kate shrugged dispiritedly.
‘I’ll stay here, I think,’ she said. ‘My mother found out about Harry, so that was a bone of contention too. She’s furious of course. He came back earlier for some urgent reason, so I’m not even sure where he is today. I’ll ring him later maybe and then go to bed.’
She carried her suitcase into her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. It was a nondescript room and she started unpacking until she suddenly became aware that nothing in the room looked quite right. It had not been ransacked like her hotel room in Liverpool, but she was quite sure it had been interfered with. Books had been moved, her underwear was not quite as she usually left it in its drawers, her clothes in the wardrobe had been arranged with a mathematical precision on their hangers, and the place somehow failed to feel like home. One incursion into her private space had been enough to upset her, two felt very threatening. The first, at the hotel, could have been a petty thief, a random trawl looking for something to steal, but this was careful and cautious and felt very different, professional almost.
She was so tired that she felt like dropping straight into bed but before she began to undress she heard the doorbell. Hoping that maybe Harry Barnard had called round unexpectedly, she went back into the living room and to her surprise found that Tess had opened the door to a priest in a dark suit and clerical collar, rather than a cassock, who looked more like a wolfish stony-faced business man than a man of the cloth. There was certainly no human kindness in his face that Kate could see, and his eyes were a chilly grey.
‘Father Granville came before,’ Tess explained. ‘He said he would come back to see you.’
‘I’ve only just come back from Liverpool, Father,’ Kate said, not disguising her anger. ‘I’m about to go to bed.’
‘I wanted to catch you, my dear,’ Granville said. ‘From what your friend Teresa told me, I felt you were in urgent need of help before your life runs completely out of control.’ She heard echoes of what her mother had said to her before she left Liverpool and wondered whether Bridie herself, or more likely Father Reilly, was responsible for this evident panic over her immortal soul.
‘I am told you no longer go to Mass or confession regularly, my dear. The Church is bound to be concerned about that.’
‘You’ve no need to be concerned about me,’ Kate said, feeling a fury building inside her that she did not think she could control for long. ‘I no longer regard myself as a Catholic, and haven’t done for a very long time.’
‘I have a very good colleague at St Aloysius, a colleague who is a sympathetic adviser to people struggling with doubt,’ Granville persisted. ‘I can introduce you to him if you would like that.’
‘I would not like that,’ Kate said firmly. ‘I would like to be left alone to live my life in peace. I had enough of the Church when I was a child. You did my brother no favours.’
Granville changed tack abruptly, his expression harder. ‘I hear that you have been gathering information about the career of Terry Jordan in Liverpool. Now there is an example of a man who is a great benefactor to the Church despite a difficult start in life. He has been more than generous to the cathedral, and I think we can look forward to a lot more help if his current negotiations are successful. The Church is very much involved in a lot of his current plans. We wouldn’t like to think that your own project would in any way hinder his efforts for such a very important cause.’
‘My project is about the rebuilding of Liverpool. And I can’t see any way that would affect Mr Jordan and his plans.’
‘Which are at a very crucial stage, both for him and for the Church. We would not like to think that anything you’ve been doing would interfere with that.’ There was no overt threat in what Granville said, but the menace was there in his eyes.
‘I have no idea why anything I’ve been doing should lead you to think that,’ Kate said, turning away from her visitor. ‘Now I am very tired and I’m going to bed.’
But she lay in bed for a long time before exhaustion took over, and she fell into a sleep tormented by dreams.