I Remember You by Martin Edwards

Author:Martin Edwards [Edwards, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: detective, noire, petrocelli, Hard-Boiled, suspense, marple, Crime, whodunnit, death, Lawyers, morse, taggart, christie, legal, Fiction, shoestring, poirot, law, murder, killer, holmes, ironside, columbo, police, clue, hoskins, Thriller, solicitor, hitchcock, cluedo, Mystery & Detective, cracker, diagnosis, Devlin; Harry (Fictitious Character)
ISBN: 9781781662793
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 1993-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ said Sladdin.

Sitting next to Harry on the sofa in the lounge of her flat in Mossley Hill, Melissa began to shake. She buried her head in her hands and made muffled sobs.

For his part, Harry felt groggy, as if he’d taken a punch full in the face. Finbar’s life had always seemed charmed; it was impossible to believe it was suddenly over. The Irishman had survived so much, he’d come to seem indestructible, and his death had shocked Harry profoundly; it gave him a chill reminder of every man’s mortality. Despite his daze, he had been trying to listen to Melissa’s disjointed answers as intently as the detective, in an effort to chart the course of Finbar’s last day of life. But he was hazily aware that, for the girl’s sake, the time had come for him to intervene.

‘Look, Inspector, Miss Keating has told you all she knows. She’s made it clear that Finbar Rogan was alive and well when he left here this afternoon. And from what you say, I gather he was killed after darkness fell but no later than six.’

‘That is broadly correct,’ said Sladdin in a guarded tone.

Harry sensed the detective was far from certain whether he was interviewing a lover tragically bereaved or a callous murderess; he certainly wasn’t giving more away than was necessary. And the timing was critical. For if Finbar had been dead by six o’clock, Dermot McCray could not have killed him, on the evidence of Harry’s own eyes. It must have been twenty past six when the builder had stormed out of the wine lodge and into the night. Harry could remember checking his watch against the Town Hall clock when he passed the demonstrators five minutes later.

The alarm had, according to Sladdin, been raised by a teenage courting couple, who had come across Finbar lying in the middle of a road running alongside the derelict site of Colonial Dock, a place long abandoned by shipping and nowadays frequented by lovers rather than stevedores. They had walked down the road an hour earlier, on their way to the disused hut where they used to make love each evening after school, and the body had not been there then. The sight of it as they headed back for home was one they would never forget.

A car had run over Finbar. Not once, but several times. Even described in Sladdin’s clipped tone, the picture that formed in Harry’s mind was dark with horror. But he knew he must banish the image of the crushed corpse from his thoughts; it was the stuff of nightmares. With a huge effort, he dragged himself back to the here and now.

‘I still don’t see why you’re not treating Finbar’s death as a straightforward accident.’

‘We’re not ruling any possibility out as yet. Nonetheless, the circumstances are suspicious.’

Harry bit his lip. He desperately wanted to hear that Finbar had not been killed on purpose. For if the death was not mischance, and McCray was not responsible, he scarcely dared contemplate an alternative explanation.

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