Yesterday's Papers Read Online Free PDF

barely made the stop press. Of course, by then his time had gone. He was sitting on the sidelines of public life.’
    â€˜I gather he lost his way after the death of his daughter. Not like his pal, Clive Doxey.’
    â€˜Oh yes, Sir Clive’s done well for himself. Trust a lawyer. Do you know him?’
    â€˜Hardly. We move in different circles.’
    â€˜You mean you act for the criminal classes, he simply talks about them?’
    Harry grinned. Although Clive Doxey had qualified as a barrister many years ago, he had never practised, preferring a career in academe. In his early days as an angry young don, he had courted controversy by railing in lectures and in print against the cosy assumptions of the legal establishment. His ceaseless campaigning for justice for all had made him a household name and earned him a knighthood when his friend Harold Wilson left Downing Street for the last time. Nowadays, he had a weekly column in The Guardian and was married to a blonde less than half his age whose main claim to fame was a spell as a TV weather girl. Inevitably, his success had encouraged sniping and his detractors claimed that, amongst political turncoats, he made the Vicar of Bray look like a model of constancy. Commie Clive, the romantically hotheaded student from the London School of Economics, had matured into a man faithful for twenty years to the Labour Party before flirting with social democracy in the eighties and ultimately finishing up in bed with the Liberals. But he took all the criticism in his stride and continued to fight for what he believed in. Nowadays, no national debate - whether over the wearing of wigs in court or the need to tackle the causes of crime - was complete without a soundbite from Sir Clive.
    â€˜Did you know he called at the Jeffries’ house on the day young Carole died?’
    â€˜No?’ Ken’s eyebrows rose. ‘I must say, he’s managed to keep that quiet over the years.’
    â€˜I might,’ said Harry on impulse, ‘like to talk to him about his memories of the case. See if he thinks Smith was innocent.’
    â€˜Why not? He seems to reckon most convicted killers are. A miscarriage story would be right up his street.’
    â€˜Maybe I’ll get in touch with him. Not that he is the only well-known character connected with the case. Benny Frederick is another. Carole worked for him and she was a good-looking young girl, after all. He’s bound to have taken an interest in her.’
    â€˜Don’t let your imagination roam too far. One thing’s for sure, if anyone would have been immune to the charms of a Liverpudlian Lolita, Benny’s the man. Now if you’d been talking about a pretty schoolboy, things would have been different.’
    â€˜I didn’t know Benny Frederick was gay.’
    â€˜For God’s sake, I thought you fancied yourself as a detective, a student of your fellow human beings. Benny’s preferences are common knowledge. Mind, he’s a decent enough chap. I had a few words with him only the other day at the Bluecoat Gallery. They’re exhibiting photographs he took in the sixties.’
    â€˜You think he’d be happy to talk to me?’
    Benny Frederick had been among the first to see the marketing potential of the pop promotion video and later he had turned his hand to producing business tapes intended to aid the development of management skills. Harry’s partner, Jim Crusoe, had even talked about investing in Frederick’s best-selling Guide to Client Care and Public Relations . Hitherto, Harry had resisted the idea but now, he thought, the time might have come to climb aboard the PR bandwagon.
    â€˜I’m sure he wouldn’t mind giving you a bit of back-ground.’
    â€˜What about Ray Brill?’
    Chewing hard, Ken said in a muffled tone, ‘The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.’
    â€˜He was Carole’s boyfriend. Surely you