'It was for those acting roles she kept going for,' he told them in a flat voice. 'She thought she'd stand more chance if her hair was the same colour as the character she was trying for.' He reached out a shaking hand, picked up one of the most recent photographs and rubbed his thumb over the glass. 'That was my little girl,' he told them bleakly. 'My pretty, innocent little girl.'
He took out a large white handkerchief, and after blowing his nose, put it carefully back in his pocket. For a moment, he looked bewildered, as though he hadn't quite grasped what a cataclysm had wrecked his orderly little world. Then, without any warning, his face contorted and he smashed the glass of the frame against the corner of the mantelpiece, yanked out the photo, and threw it at Rafferty. 'Take it. Take them all. We don't want them back. Wearing those short skirts of hers, flaunting herself, the bitch asked for it. She deserved all she got. Deserved all she got,' he repeated, as though trying to convince himself of it.
Silently, they stood up and Rafferty picked up the photograph. Mrs. Wilks was still in a world of her own and took no further interest in the proceedings. 'I'd like to look at Linda's bedroom, Mr Wilks, if that's all right?' Sidney Wilks just nodded. He'd washed his hands of his daughter, his expression said. They could do what they liked. 'Em. Perhaps, while I'm doing that, you could let my sergeant here have a description of what Linda was wearing that night?' he suggested.
Llewellyn shot him a reproachful look and sat down again. Slowly, he pulled his notebook back out and began to write as Sidney Wilks' voice, drained now of emotion, described what his daughter had been wearing.
Rafferty went upstairs. It was evident which room had been Linda’s. A riot of clothes in a tawdry kaleidoscope of colours littered the room as if in defiance of the order in the rest of the house. He saw a worn teddy on a shelf, tattered film scripts of old television series, make up scattered across the top of the dressing table. His search was brief, but thorough.
He found the case that Mrs. Wilks had referred to, but it was empty, all the usual erotic items of a prostitute's art removed. Sidney Wilks had obviously been here before him. He must be cursing himself that he hadn't been quite thorough enough.
Rafferty returned to the living room to collect the stiffly-perched Llewellyn. And after drawing Sidney Wilks back from whichever hell he had retreated to, they said their goodbyes and speedily left.
Chapter Seven
LLEWELLYN EXPELLED a long held-in sigh as the door closed behind them. His eyes curtained by the fall of thick black lashes, he gave himself a little shake, and the controlled expression was back in place, the deep emotions that had flickered across his features safely stowed away once more. 'An unhappy man,' was his taut comment. 'He loved her very much, in his own way, you could see that.'
Rafferty was about to disagree, then he realised his sergeant was right. Love came in all shapes and sizes, he, of all people should know that. His expression bleak, he began to flick through the diary once more as they made for the car.
Back to normal, Llewellyn found a mournful quote to enrich the experience still further. '"Love is a sickness full of woes",' he began. But Rafferty's involuntary groan caused him to break off mid-flow. 'Samuel Daniel, 1562—1619,' he muttered under his breath.
'Miserable git. Bet his family held one hell of a coffin-dancing Wake when he popped his clogs.’
‘Curious that Wilks didn't come straight back when he didn't find his daughter,' Llewellyn remarked after a brief silence. 'It would be more usual for parents to share the shock of such a discovery together.'
'You saw them. There was precious little attempt at comforting one another. They live only half a mile from the hospital,' Rafferty went on thoughtfully. 'Discovering that his daughter's on the game would be enough to make any man mad with rage.' At least he assumed so. Not having ever experienced the dubious joys of fatherhood, he had only his imagination on which to draw. It was certainly a strong motive for murder. 'He could have followed her—he'd been tinkering with the car when his wife found the diary and called him into the house. Perhaps, when Linda ran out, he picked up a spanner without thinking and followed her.'
'He couldn't have done it, of course.' Back in his stride with a vengeance, Llewellyn threw cold water over the idea with the ease of long practise. 'Linda was found inside the hospital grounds, not outside. Where would he get a key to that gate?'
'Perhaps he didn't need one.' Rafferty’s head rose from his perusal of the diary, pleased he'd succeeded in coming up with a theory that Llewellyn wouldn't find so easy to fault. 'Maybe the person she was meeting let her in and left the door unlocked by mistake?'
He tapped the slim book with a forefinger. 'Or perhaps, if she had a regular customer at the hospital, he might have given her a key. Her father did say she was going to see a medical man that night, and there's no reason why she shouldn't occasionally earn some money locally.'
Llewellyn nodded thoughtfully. 'And her father pushed through after her once she’d unlocked the gate? You could have something there, Sir. Wilks is the type to have a complete brainstorm. All that determined respectability is unnatural.' He gave Rafferty an inscrutable glance. 'As Freud said—'
'Never mind what Freud said,' Rafferty broke in before Llewellyn had a chance to start on all that psychological mumbo-jumbo. 'We'd do better finding out what her prospective flatmates have to say. Now that we've got her name and photograph I'll get on to the media. I shouldn't think we'll have long to wait before her girlfriends contact us.' He sent up a silent prayer for forgiveness after his comforting lies to Mrs. Wilks. 'I agree the father's a possible suspect, but at this stage, we can't afford to concentrate our investigations too much on one person.'
Llewellyn looked down his nose at this as Rafferty conveniently forgot his previous enthusiastic concentration on Melville-Briggs. Rafferty ignored him.
'Her girlfriends might know if Linda did have a regular customer at the Elmhurst Sanatorium, particularly if they were on the game themselves.' He opened the driver's side door of the car and was about to get in, when he saw Llewellyn's unhappy expression and relented. 'All right, you drive,' he said, handing the keys over and walking around.
Rafferty opened the passenger side door and climbed in, chivvying Llewellyn as he fumbled with the ignition key. 'Hurry up man,' he grumbled. 'Let's get back to the station. We've got a lot to do.' He brandished the photograph of Linda. 'I want you to get copies made of this and give them to the house-to-house team. They'll have to start over again now. And I'll want posters of her put up at bus and train stations. I want everyone within a twenty-mile radius to know her face. Get the photo off to the Met. She presumably found most of her johns there and it’s possible there's someone in town who knew her in both identities.' Certainly better than her parents seemed to, he added silently to himself.
Llewellyn was still applying his logical mind to Rafferty's previous idea. 'If her father did do it, why would he strip her?'
Rafferty glanced back at the house as Llewellyn started up the car. Someone had been watching them. As he turned his head, he just caught a quick movement as the nets were twitched back into place.
'He said she dressed like a tart. Perhaps he thought, naked, she looked more respectable, more innocent than she ever could in her working gear. If it was him, I wonder what he did with them. He wouldn't have been able to burn them easily with no open fires in the house. Perhaps he buried them or threw them in the sea? It's only about a fifteen-minute walk from their house. I want you to notify the search teams to be on the lookout for anything washed up by the tide.'
Llewellyn slipped in a little philosophical comment as he slid the gear stick into first. 'He'll blame his wife for the girl going to the bad, of course. That type always does.'
'Well, he's got to blame someone. I bet your friend, Freud, would agree it's human nature. Especially if he did do for the girl. And who else is there to blame?'
Perhaps, he mused, if Linda's mother had been a different sort of woman, her fath
er would have been a different sort of man and Linda would still be alive. But of course, he reminded himself, you could say that about anyone.
RAFFERTY WAS GRATIFIED to find he was in the right for once. They'd passed Linda’s photograph to the media in time to catch the Monday papers, and Linda's girlfriends had seen the item and the request for information. He and Llewellyn were soon en route to south London to see them.
'Let me do the talking,' he warned Llewellyn. If, like Linda, they were part-time hookers, he didn't want Llewellyn going all moral on him and putting the girls’ backs up before they shared what they knew.
Despite making good time, it was nearly noon when they reached Streatham, and then Rafferty spent twenty minutes circling round before he could park. Finally, ignoring Llewellyn's stern exhortations about policemen not being above the law, he left the car on a double yellow line. He gave Llewellyn a smug smile as he dug in his back pocket, and slapped a ‘Police’ sticker on the windscreen, a la ‘Del Boy’ Trotter with his ‘Doctor on call’ homemade effort. ‘"Be prepared”, is my watchword, Daff.’ The Welshman wasn’t the only one who could come out with quotations, even if his own weren’t of his sergeant’s preferred highbrow sort. ‘"Dib, dib, dib, dob, dob, dob.”’
Llewellyn’s aquiline nostrils quivered a fraction at this, but he said nothing, beyond the accurate observation, ‘You were never a Boy Scout.’
‘True. I didn’t fancy sewing on all the badges I’d have won. Bet you were, though.’
Llewellyn didn’t deny it.
Rafferty cursed when he saw the flat. It formed part of a large house, with a tarmac front garden that provided ample space for parking and would have saved them the half-mile trudge back to the car. He should have guessed. Many of the large, formerly family homes around this area had been converted into flats.
Ignoring the sombre-suited Llewellyn's wince of pain, Rafferty straightened his dazzling orange and magenta tie and studied the array of cards and bells by the front door. He pulled a face when he realised they wanted the top floor. 'I hope they've got a lift,' he muttered as he rang the bell.
The grill spluttered into life, he shouted his business and the door was released. Rafferty cursed again as he saw the 'lift out of order' sign.
By the time he reached the top floor, his breathing was phone-pervert heavy, and he had to hang on to the banisters for a minute, with nothing but a helpless grin to ward off the wary looks of the two young women at the door. While he clung there, Rafferty had time to reflect that he had probably stopped smoking none too soon. His lip curled as he noted Llewellyn's breath was perfectly measured. The Welshman’s body was as disciplined as everything else in his life, and he worked out twice a week in the police gym; something which earned a few ribald comments from the canteen cowboy beer guts at the station.
The girls looked nervously first at each other and then at him. 'Inspector Rafferty?'
Still gasping, he could only nod. Did they really think any self-respecting rapist likely to knacker himself by climbing all those stairs?
As the girls still regarded him with suspicion, he pulled his identity card from his wallet; wordlessly, he thrust it at them.
Reassured, they now became concerned at his speechless condition and one of the girls asked, 'Are you all right?'
'Really, I'm fine,' he gasped, when he was finally able to get a word out.
'The stairs are tough on older people,' she sympathised artlessly, while behind him, he heard a muffled snort from Llewellyn, who was still – just – the right side of thirty.
Her comment did nothing to boost Rafferty's ego. Dammit all, he was only thirty-seven, not seventy-seven. He supposed along with giving up smoking, he ought to start taking more exercise, watch his diet, cut down on alcohol; in short, make himself as big a misery as Llewellyn.
Apparently, the three girls all made a somewhat precarious living on the fringes of show business, and although Linda had not only been a friend, but had also been about to move in, they could tell them little about her. It seemed that none of them enquired too closely into the affairs of the others. 'Please try to remember,' he pressed. 'It's very important. Did Linda say anything, anything at all, about any regular men she might see at Elmhurst or where they might meet?'
They looked at one another and shook their heads. The blonde girl, Patsy, said, 'We knew she must have some men friends down there, of course, because sometimes, when she came up to town, she had quite a bit of money with her, money she wouldn't have been able to earn otherwise. But who they might have been, I've no idea. Perhaps Tina would know more, she's known Linda a lot longer than either of us two.'
Rafferty looked about him hopefully.
'She's not here. She had a very early flight to the States last Saturday morning. Tina's a dancer,' Patsy explained apologetically, 'and her agent managed to get her a tour booking as a replacement at the last minute.'
'Would you have a number where I could contact her?'
'She forgot her mobile. You could try her agent.' Patsy picked up the phone book and read out his name and number as Rafferty jotted the information down.
'You don't happen to know the names of any of her men friends here in London?'
Patsy shook her head. 'She rarely mentioned anyone. Men were just – men – to Linda, unless she met someone who could help her career.'
'It was that important to her?'
Patsy smiled at him. 'Oh, yes. In fact, you might say she spent her whole life playing a part.' She handed him a photograph from the sideboard. 'That's Linda, in the middle.'
The Wilks's family photographs hadn't really captured the dead girl. This photo gave far more of an idea of the real Linda. As Patsy had said, she was pretty enough, in a pale, unhealthy sort of way. Her hair hung over her face in the expected provocative manner, and though her mouth held a matching pout for the camera, there was a hint of desperation in her eyes.
'When was this photo taken?' asked Llewellyn, obviously determined to get in on the act, despite Rafferty's warning.
'Last year. She had a small part in a film and we went to see her on set. She was so excited about breaking into films, was sure her big chance would come from it. But it was never released. They ran out of money.'
'Did Linda ever mention the Elmhurst Sanatorium?' Rafferty queried. He didn't have much hope anything would come of it, but he had to ask. They shook their heads. 'What about Dr. Anthony Melville-Briggs or Dr. Simon Smythe?' No, they'd never heard of them either. He ran a few more names past them, but they, too, were unknown to them.
Still, that proved nothing, Rafferty reassured himself. Linda had not been forthcoming about her men friends. He held up the photograph. 'Is it all right if I take this?'
Patsy nodded.
'I'll let you have it back as soon as possible.' He fished in his pocket for his number and handed it over. 'If you think of anything, please phone me.'
Patsy showed him out. 'Poor Linda. All she wanted was the big break. She never talked about anything else.' She shook her head. 'It's funny, but the last part she played was that of an angel. Another flop.' Her eyes flickered upwards. 'Strange to think that if she's managed to get up there she'll be auditioning for the same part right now. You will get the man who did this to her, won't you, Inspector?'
Rafferty did his best to reassure her on that point. He wished he felt half as confident as he sounded.
He was thoughtful as he and Llewellyn walked back to the car. They had learned little and the thought depressed him, but he cheered up a bit when he discovered they hadn't been given a parking ticket. He even let Llewellyn drive and as they left the quiet residential street behind he sat staring restlessly out of the side window. The traffic lights changed to green and they rounded the corner. His ears pricked up as he heard the familiar sound of a concrete mixer. Hadn't his Uncle Pat said he was working on a building site around this way?
Rafferty looked at his watch and grinned. Five to one. Couldn't have timed it better if he'd tried.
'Pull up here,' he instructed.
'But it's a double yellow line, Sir,' Llewellyn protested for the second time. ‘I really can't just—'
Rafferty sighed, unwilling to go through that all over again. 'Never mind that,' he ordered. 'I'm only asking you to pull up for a minute, not take up squatter's rights.'
Llewellyn muttered under his breath, but did as he was told.
In spite of feeling he was beginning to know and understand his sergeant better, Rafferty still found his unrelenting company something of a strain and he needed a break, however short. The craving for a bit of light relief made him feel guilty and the sharp edge had gone from his voice as he added, 'Get some lunch and come back for me in an hour. You'll find there's a decent pub near the common. They serve hot food and they've got a car park, with no double yellows in sight.'
He got out of the car and slammed the door with the enthusiastic vigour of a convict out on day-release. He crossed the pavement and skirted the barriers guarding the building site. A pleased smile settled on his face as he took in the beginnings of a block of rather superior apartments rising from the dust and rubble of some previous building. He stood and watched for a little while, taking pleasure in the almost symphonic movements of the foreman and his men as they laid their bricks. Then, as though obeying the commands of some invisible conductor, they all laid down their trowels at virtually the same moment and with a purposeful air, they followed one another down the ladder secured to the scaffolding. Lunch-time.
Rafferty strolled over. Already he could feel his spirits lifting. Building sites always had that effect on him. He had done some of his best thinking whilst surrounded by the roar of machinery and the good-natured cussing of a building crew.
'Hello, Uncle Pat.' It was a courtesy title as Pat was really a first cousin; his oldest and favourite cousin, in spite of the fact that he was always ready to take a rise out of him. At least he didn't hold his job against him.
RAFFERTY & LLEWELLYN BOXED SET: BOOKS 1 - 4 Page 8