'I'd locked it behind me, of course, as a precaution, and put the key in my pocket, but the cleaners had a key, as they kept some of their cleaning stuff in there.' His head hung dejectedly between his coat-hanger thin shoulders. 'Anyway, when my mother was called to the school, I had to go on lying. How could I tell her the truth? Only, after it all happened, the court case and everything, I felt differently. I wanted to hurt her. So I started to thieve.
'Afterwards, I felt sorry for him. I wanted time to go backwards, as if it had never happened. Only it didn't. The case had been in all the papers, and even though my name hadn't been published, enough people knew I had been involved for word to get round. And then, of course, my mother attacked him after the court case.' That was the first Rafferty had heard about it. He presumed it had been kept quiet. That would be something else that might be worth looking into. 'How could I have said it was all untrue after that?
'The headmaster was all for hushing it up. It only came to court because mum over-reacted. She had hysterics when the headmaster seemed to believe that Jasper might be telling the truth when he said he had done nothing; that I was the one who... I think mum wanted to punish someone for the way my father had treated her, for all those years of humiliation. Any man would have done.'
'It doesn't explain why Moon agreed to give you tuition in art,' Rafferty objected. 'It doesn't explain it at all.'
Hadleigh seemed surprised at Rafferty's comment. 'Surely, you can see that when I bumped into him in Elmhurst and discovered he lived here, enough years had gone by for him to forgive me. He even understood my feelings, why I'd done what I did. He told me he'd found his homosexuality difficult to come to terms with when he was young; had even tried to deny it by having one or two affairs with women, but it was no good. Anyway, by the time I met him again, he was rich, successful. And he felt everyone deserved a second chance to make good. He decided to give me that chance.'
Hadleigh smiled, adopting again the cocky pose he had assumed when first interviewed, but now, his breast-beating over, with far more success. His smile revealed small, neat teeth, their prettiness spoiled by the marks of decay between them. 'You could say I'd done him a favour. If it hadn't been for me, he'd have still been teaching in some crummy school, and would probably have been heading for his first nervous breakdown.'
As Hadleigh seemed to have forgotten the little matter of Moon's murder in his bout of self-justification, Rafferty bluntly reminded him of it. 'Instead of which, he's dead. Some favour. He must be grateful.'
'It's not my fault he's dead,' Hadleigh snapped. The bright blue eyes were resentful. 'I didn't kill him. Why should I? I had no reason to.'
'So you say. Still, it's convenient, isn't it, that you're willing to "confess" to telling lies now about Moon's supposed assault? Why should I believe you?'
Hadleigh stared at him. 'Christ, do you think this is easy for me? Can't you see that I wouldn't be telling you macho bastards all this now if there was any other way to convince you I had nothing to do with his death?'
Rafferty stared back, unwilling to believe him. But Hadleigh's indignant aggression had the ring of truth. 'Your mother said you found his body about 8.30 p m. Is that true?'
Hadleigh nodded.
'How many people knew about these art lessons?'
'Only Jasper and me. He preferred it like that. His lover was inclined to be jealous and would only cause a scene if he knew. The last thing I wanted was to give him more problems.'
'Did Moon ever tell you why he opened his consultancy so close to his old haunts? After the court case, I'd have thought he would have wanted to stay as far away as possible.'
Hadleigh nodded. 'Jasper used to have his business in London, but when Astell became a partner, and worked longer hours, his wife started complaining—she's a sickly sort,' he quickly explained, 'and too attached to her old home to move. She didn't like Astell commuting and returning home late in the evening, so when Jasper learned of her complaints, he told Astell to look for premises in Elmhurst. The court case had happened years ago. He'd altered a lot physically, put on weight, dyed his hair, grown a beard. He'd even changed his name, so he thought he'd be safe. And he was. Apart from you, no-one ever connected Jasper Moon and Peter Hedges.' He paused. 'Unless you count whoever sent Astell's wife those cuttings about the case.'
'Cuttings?' Rafferty repeated. 'What cuttings?'
'The ones my mother found lying around their house. If it hadn't been for them and Sarah Astell, she might never have realised that Peter Hedges and Jasper Moon were one and the same.' He frowned. 'Funny that.'
Rafferty was sorry to discover that Ellen Hadleigh had told them more lies. 'You're saying that your mother knew who Moon was before he was killed?'
'Yes. Why?' Hadleigh's mouth twisted. 'Did she say something different?'
'Never mind. When did she see these cuttings? Was it recently?'
'I've no idea. I hadn't seen her for weeks before I turned up at her place Thursday night, and she started on me like a crazy woman. It was only when I told her that Moon was dead, and I looked like being in the frame for his murder, that she stopped.' He grinned. 'That shut her up right enough.'
'Did you ever tell your mother the truth about the assault?'
'Of course not.' A note of self-pity was evident in Hadleigh's voice as he went on. 'She wouldn't have believed me, anyway. Don't you know I'm mother's blue-eyed boy who can do no wrong?' He gave another humourless laugh. 'There was no point. I knew that well enough.'
Lilley popped his head round the door. Rafferty halted the interview and went into the corridor. 'Well?'
'As far as I can tell, the signatures on the paintings and that slip of paper are the same. Do you want me to get them checked out further?'
Rafferty shook his head. 'No. Leave it. For once in Hadleigh's life, I think he's telling the truth.' He dismissed Lilley and returned to the interview room.
'I don't suppose you have any idea who might have sent these cuttings to Mrs Astell? And why?'
Hadleigh shook his head. He seemed genuinely bewildered that an attempt had been made to rake up a scandal that was nearly thirty years old. What on earth was the point of it? And why send them to Mrs Astell of all people? Surely, Ellen Hadleigh was a more obvious recipient? On a sudden impulse, as he walked to the door, he asked, 'By the way, I suppose you know who Moon used to buy his bent gewgaws from?'
Without pausing to think, Hadleigh nodded. 'It was Danny Lewis.'
It seemed his soul-bearing had given him a taste for telling the truth. Rafferty didn't expect it to last.
'Jasper told me he always bought from Danny.' Hadleigh gave a taut grin. 'Said us fags should stick together.'
Rafferty supposed he should be grateful that the news ended one line of inquiry. Because Danny Lewis had been residing at Her Majesty's pleasure in Elmhurst Station cells from Thursday afternoon till the following morning. On a charge of receiving. A doubly apt charge it now appeared. Danny Lewis had kept his homosexuality very quiet, as it was the first Rafferty had heard of it. But even his earthy humour failed to find much cause for amusement in the double-entendre.
Llewellyn had remained pretty much a silent observer during the interview. He sometimes preferred that, and Rafferty had thought little of it. But as they closed the door and walked away, he discovered that his sergeant had been occupied in working up yet another theory.
'Did you know, that there's a body of opinion amongst psychologists, that a boy who is brought up by a mother embittered against men, may try to compensate by fostering the more feminine side of his character?'
Rafferty, after a few moments absorbing this and translating it into plain English, asked, 'Are you saying he may turn out bent?'
Llewellyn's lips thinned. 'I wouldn't put it quite so bluntly, but yes, that's what it amounts to. I wondered if, deep down, Ellen Hadleigh suspected her attitude influenced her son's developing sexual identity. By continually telling the boy what rotters men were, she could have
caused him to reject his own masculinity.'
'Freud would love you,' Rafferty scoffed. 'Are you trying, in that long-winded, intellectual way of yours to say you think Ellen Hadleigh blames herself as much as Moon for the way her son turned out?'
Llewellyn drew in an irritated breath. 'Maybe she did, at one time. But I think it's more likely that, as time went by, she managed to transfer any guilty feelings on to Hedges/Moon. That would be one way to blot out her own feelings of guilt. Hadleigh implied as much. She couldn't face up to her own guilty feelings, so she put a double load on Moon. It could be that, as the years went by, she succeeded in convincing herself that Moon bore sole responsibility for her son's degenerate lifestyle.'
'Am I to take it from your convoluted arguments that you now think Ellen Hadleigh murdered Moon? I know she lied to us about knowing who he was, but—'
'I'm merely examining the psychological angles,' Llewellyn retorted. 'And Ellen Hadleigh is a strong possibility from the psychological standpoint.'
In the interests of investigative harmony, Rafferty made no further digs. For himself, though, he wasn't sure that Llewellyn was on the right track. His own mother had had plenty of derogatory things to say about men in general, and his father in particular, during his formative years, and he hadn't yet turned to wearing his trousers back to front.
No, he thought, if Ellen Hadleigh had killed Moon, he didn't believe suppressed feelings of guilt had pushed her into it. Unlike her son, she still felt she had every reason to hate Moon. Hadleigh had admitted he'd never told her the truth about the attack. She had years of anger and bitterness stored up. And when the initial shock had worn off after she had discovered Moon's real identity, she would have been likely to think of little else but what Moon had done to her son, to both of them. That anger would have been increased by the thought that she had been skivvying for her son's molester, the man who had, she believed, ruined both their lives. She must have thought he had been laughing at her, laughing at her and her son, because she would know that when Astell told Moon her name, he would have recognised it immediately.
Hadleigh surely realised that he had incriminated his own mother? But perhaps that was what he wanted? Ellen Hadleigh had forced him to give evidence against Moon. He had had to lie and lie again when all he must have wanted was go off into a corner and hide his shame. Instead of being able to put the matter quickly behind him with little damage to anyone, by her insistence on the prosecution, she had ensured that shame had lasted years, had made it impossible for him ever to hope that Moon would return his love. Because of all that had gone before, when they finally met up again, he had felt unable to meet Moon on equal, adult, terms.
'I want a look at those cuttings,' Rafferty decided. 'I also want to find out exactly when Ellen Hadleigh saw them. But first, I want to put someone on to finding out if Ellen Hadleigh really did attack Moon after the court case. I'll get Hanks onto it. Give me five minutes, then, we'll go and see Sarah Astell.'
Chapter Twelve
WHEN ELLEN HADLEIGH opened the Astells’ front door her eyes widened apprehensively as she saw them, but she stood back, gesturing for them to enter the hall, when Rafferty told her they had come to see Mrs Astell.
'Mrs Astell didn't say she was expecting you.'
'Probably because she isn't,' Rafferty replied. 'We couldn't get an answer on the phone.'
'She unplugs it when she's resting.'
Rafferty nodded. He often felt like doing the same; raucous demanding things, telephones, usually with something or someone unpleasant on the other end of them. Rafferty remembered he'd made her a promise. 'We found your son,' he told her. 'He's at the police station now.'
'And?' Ellen Hadleigh's eyes searched his face. 'Do you believe he didn't do it?'
'Let's just say that what he's told us checks out.'
Ellen Hadleigh let out a sigh of relief. Rafferty wondered if she'd be quite so pleased if she knew her precious son had dropped her in it. Still, now that she had heard some good news on the son front, she appeared happier. She must be confident that her lies wouldn't be discovered. For now, Rafferty didn't attempt to question her on the subject. He wanted corroboration from Sarah Astell first.
As usual, Sarah Astell was in her sitting room. She looked as though she'd been crying, as there were hastily-wiped marks of recent tears on her face. Astell was there too, going over some figures. Rafferty explained why they had come.
Sarah Astell frowned. 'How did you find out about those cuttings? Surely Mrs Hadleigh didn't—?'
'She didn't mention them.' Rafferty paused, but didn't tell her who had. 'You know you should have told us about them yourself?'
She nodded. 'I would have, of course, but I felt I owed it to Mrs Hadleigh to keep her confidence. Besides, I hardly think they could have any bearing on his murder. The assault on Mrs Hadleigh’s son happened many years ago.' Her face twisted. 'I felt it likely that, if the burglar didn't kill Moon, one of his perverted friends must have done it.'
Rafferty merely nodded. 'If I could see those cuttings?'
She threw off the rug and, getting up, walked with a slow, unsteady gait, to a little side table, and pulled open a drawer. She handed him a batch of clippings.
Rafferty quickly scanned them. The stories added nothing they didn't already know. The clippings contained various shots of Hedges, as he then was. But if he hadn't already known Moon and Hedges to be one and the same, he would have been hard-pushed to recognise him. The scar on his face was the only real giveaway. 'I'm surprised you recognised him from these,' he remarked. 'He's changed a great deal.'
'He used to work for my father ten years before these pictures were taken.'
'But surely,' Llewellyn interjected. 'You could have been no more than a toddler when Moon worked for your father. How did you even remember him at all?'
'I wasn't even a toddler, Sergeant,' she told him. 'I wasn't born till the autumn, months after he left, so, of course, you're right. I had no personal memory of him, but only the morning the cuttings arrived, my daughter had been asking me for some dressing up clothes—she's getting to that age, and I immediately thought of the evening dresses my mother used to wear when she was young. They're too good a quality to throw away and are stored in a trunk in my parents' old room. That's where I found the albums featuring Moon. I'd never seen them before. I had no idea who he was until that day.
‘I rang my mother and asked her a few questions. She remembered that time very clearly. She told me that Moon, or Hedges as she knew him, left my father's employ in the February or March of that year. My mother didn't actually say so, she seemed unwilling to say much about that time, but I got the impression that my parents had put the albums away out of disgust when they heard about the court case. Quite understandable, of course. Mother told me they'd been very fond of him. Treated him like one of the family, almost.'
'Strange they kept them at all,' Rafferty remarked. 'If they felt so badly about him.'
'I never asked my mother that. I imagine they just wanted them out of sight and out of mind, and then forgot about them. They led very busy lives. My father was often away, and although my mother rarely went with him, she spent a lot of time entertaining his wide circle of friends and business colleagues.'
Rafferty nodded. He'd meant to ask her to confirm what Henry at The Troubadour had already told them, and had forgotten. Now she'd saved him the trouble. 'Moon seems to have had a variety of jobs,' he commented. 'I understand he originally trained as an artist.'
'So I gather. But earning a living as an artist has never been easy. According to my mother, when he was offered a job with my father, he jumped at it.' Scornfully, she added, 'I suppose he hoped the association would help him make his name as an artist. But he was only some kind of jumped-up office boy for my father; he held the fort for him when he was abroad, and helped arrange his social and business diary. Of course, as you say, he's changed a great deal in the intervening years, and if it hadn't been for the small sca
r under his eye, I mightn't have known him. That was what made me make the connection.'
She pulled several worn albums from where they had been placed on the shelf. As she did so, she dislodged some other books. 'My father's old journals,' she commented, as reverently, she tidied them back. 'He used to keep a record of all his travels.' Handing the albums to Llewellyn, she told them, 'that's Moon; the one between my parents.'
Llewellyn studied the picture for some moments before he handed it to Rafferty.
Moon would have been about twenty, he guessed. Apart from the scar, he bore so little resemblance to the older Moon, that he could have been a different person. Moon had an arm flung round each of the Carstairs' shoulders in a manner over-familiar for an employee of those times. Rafferty wasn't altogether surprised that the young Moon should be so presumptuous. He had been an extraordinarily good-looking youth. He handed the albums back, and picked up the cuttings again. 'I'll hang onto these, if I may.' She nodded. 'The cuttings say nothing here about the name of the boy. How did you know it was Mrs Hadleigh's son?'
'I didn't. I left the cuttings lying on the table in here. Mrs Hadleigh found them.' She bit her lip. 'It was most unfortunate. When I returned shortly afterwards, she was in tears, and it all came out how it had been her boy whom Hedges had assaulted. Unthinkingly, I blurted out his current identity, assuming she must have recognised him, too, but, of course, it immediately became obvious that she hadn't. Until I told her, she had no idea Hedges and Moon were one and the same. Naturally, she was terribly upset. Of course, she has only been working at the offices for a few weeks, and Moon had been in America for nearly all that time. It was my husband who employed her, my husband who dealt with the administration side of the business, wages and so on. Even if he'd been there the whole time, owing to his television commitments, Moon rarely arrived before 10.00 a m, a good hour after poor Mrs Hadleigh would have finished her cleaning. So she had little or no chance to recognise him.
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