CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rafferty had kept away from the hospital all the next day so he wouldn't be tempted to interview Melville-Briggs again. Not that he had anything new to tackle him with, anyway. He didn't even have any solid proof that the, so far, untraced Miranda and the girl in the pub were one and the same. Even if the girl in the pub proved to be this Miranda, it added nothing to the investigation, rather it confused matters. Given Dr Melville-Briggs's womanising, there might be any number of unexplained females, however tenuously connected with the case, still to come out of the woodwork.
But even if a couple of battalions of women appeared, none of them would be Linda Wilks. Dr. Melville-Briggs hadn't murdered her and he'd better accept it if he was ever to solve the case.
It wasn't as though he was short of other candidates for the crime; if anything, he had an over-abundance of them, and would have been happier if their numbers were less and the pointers to someone's—anyone's, guilt more conclusive. But as wishful thinking wasn't going to solve the murder, he decided to ring through to the station to see if, by some miracle, the killer had decided to come in to confess. His radio was on the blink, he’d left his mobile in his dank little office at the hospital, and when he finally found a phone that worked, it was to find a message from his mother awaited him rather than a murderer's confession. She had been trying to contact him for several hours, apparently.
'You're sure she didn't say what she wanted?' he asked the desk sergeant.
'She said it was a private matter. You want to get round there, Sir. She sounded a bit breathless to me— agitated like. Didn't she have those heart palpitations last year? Anyway, she said you were to go as soon as you got the message.'
The heart palpitations had turned out to be nothing more than indigestion. Rafferty wondered briefly why she hadn't phoned one of his sisters and then shrugged. He'd find out soon enough. He hoped it wasn't a ruse and that he wouldn't discover Maureen concealed in the cupboard under the stairs when he got there. She could be as crafty as any double-dealing diplomat, his ma.
Still, she wasn't getting any younger and she'd never summoned him off a job before. Perhaps this time she really was ill. He'd left Llewellyn holding the fort in the office so he instructed, 'Tell my sergeant I'll ring him if it looks as though I'm going to be a while.'
Rafferty left the call-box and put his foot down all the way to his mother's house, but when he got there he found her sitting in her favourite chair by the window, watching the world go by and looking a damn sight more hale and hearty than he felt himself. His eyes flickered suspiciously when he saw she was in her best navy-blue Crimplene dress and his ear cocked for the sound of footsteps emerging from the cupboard under the stairs. 'What's going on, Ma?' he demanded. He felt hot and cross and not in the mood for any romantic games.
She stood up, arms akimbo and he didn't need his policeman's nose to sniff trouble.
'What's going on?' she repeated caustically. 'Little enough from what I hear,' she went on. 'Where've you been? I've been ringing that station all morning.'
'My radio's on the blink so they couldn't get hold of me. Anyway, I'm here now. What's the problem?'
'The same one,' she told him flatly. 'Jack.'
Jailhouse Jack! He'd forgotten all about him. He must have been charged by now, Rafferty realised guiltily He’d probably be in the remand cells at the Harcombe nick – their local prisons being full to the brim with other ne’er-do-wells – awaiting trial about the stolen whisky.
'You said you'd see to it, Joseph, but you haven't. According to Deirdre you haven't been near nor by. I was that ashamed when she told me. So much for my son, The Inspector,' she mocked. 'And to think I promised Deirdre she could rely on you. Do you want the poor thing left standing at the altar?'
'It won't come to that, Ma,' he muttered feebly.
'No?' Her voice was sharp with annoyance. 'It seems it will if you've got anything to do with it. I was going to go to the station myself and wait for you if you didn't turn up.'
'I'll see to it, Ma,' he vowed desperately. 'I'll see to it this afternoon, I promise.'
'Yes, well,' she sniffed. 'See that you do. I promised the poor girl,' she repeated. 'Would you make me go back on my word?'
His mother had always had the knack of making him feel like a guilty schoolboy, he reflected. Perhaps all mothers were the same, but his was expert at cutting him down to size. At the moment, he felt about twelve years old and he scowled, but that, of course, only encouraged her to rub salt into the wounds.
'Why couldn't you have been a builder like the rest of the family?’ she demanded plaintively, 'then at least I might have been able to get hold of you when I wanted you. But oh no, you were set on becoming a policeman, wouldn't listen to your mother.'
She made it sound as though he had joined the police solely from a perverse desire to annoy her, yet having a son in the police force had been almost entirely her idea. The free boots for his expensively large feet had held a strong appeal for a widow with five younger children to feed and clothe.
'Now look at you.' His mother was in full spate and unstoppable. 'Not only have you no time to ring your mother, but you're in charge of trying to catch a dangerous murderer at that loony bin. I don't like it, Joseph. I don't like it at all.'
He was getting progressively less keen on it himself as the case went on, but he wasn't prepared to admit it to his mother. 'There's more than me standing between chaos and the forces of law and order, Ma,' he remarked soothingly.
'That's as may be, Joseph’ – Rafferty didn’t fail to notice the second use of his full first moniker – ‘but I'd feel much easier in my mind. If you must be a policeman, if you had a wife to look after you. A nice sensible girl. Like your Uncle Pat's girl, Maureen, for instance.’
Here we go again, Rafferty thought with a sigh. However, to his relief, having put across her feelings in her usual forceful fashion, she relented and for once, didn't pursue the point.
'I don't suppose you've eaten?' Another guilty flush crossed his features. 'I thought not. The kettle's on.' She looked closely at him. 'How's your murder going, anyway? Any nearer to catching the wicked creature?'
'No,' he admitted flatly.
'Well, it's early days yet. Look at some of the cases you read about, drag on for weeks they do.'
Rafferty managed a weak smile. 'Thanks, Ma. You're a real Job's comforter. That's sure to keep the Superintendent sweet when next he wants a report on my progress.'
'Well, if he thinks he can do any better, let him try,'
That was the trouble, Rafferty reflected grimly. He just might. 'I ought to be going, Ma.'
'A few more minutes aren't going to make any difference.' she insisted. 'Let that Superintendent cool his heels for a bit. You might as well take your wedding present while you're here.' She pointed to a beautifully wrapped parcel sitting on an occasional table by the kitchen door.
'What is it?'
'A slow cooker.'
'How much do I owe you?'
'Ten pounds.'
'That's cheap, isn't it?' he asked suspiciously. 'It's not knocked-off, is it? Because, if it is—'
'Of course it's not,' exclaimed his mother vehemently. 'It's bankrupt stock. With so many businesses going to the wall these days, there's a lot of bargains about.'
Bargains—the very word made him uneasy. His ma's love of "bargains" didn't stop at the January sales unfortunately and, although, like most of the rest of the family, she was honest enough after her own lights, she saw nothing wrong in buying the occasional questionable item.
Everybody did it, she defended herself when he tried to remonstrate with her. But of course, with so many relatives working on building sites – which seemed to positively breed illicit items – she had more opportunities than most. Little had changed it seemed. Why should she pay over the odds, she had often demanded, just because her son was in the Police Force? And her on a widow's pension.
She knew how to turn the
knife, his ma. No wonder he'd been glad to leave home early and move into the section house. He could hardly have arrested his own mother for receiving, yet neither could he pretend to uphold the forces of law and order when his dinner was heated in a "hot" infra-red grill. He sighed. A policeman's lot in the Rafferty family was not a happy one.
An hour later he was finally able to escape, after finishing his tea and picking up his present and promising, once more, that he would see to Jack straightaway. At least, by doing as he was bid in this it would give his mother one less excuse to persuade him into her parlour for matchmaking purposes and he might be able to get on with solving the murder in relative peace.
Dead Before Morning Page 33