Dead Before Morning (Rafferty & Llewellyn humorous crime series #1 in series)

by Geraldine Evans

  'Sorry, Inspector.' The landlord was apologetic. 'It was a bit of a wild night, I'm afraid. We were all a bit sozzled. It's a good ten years since we won the trophy.' He glanced up at the silver cup proudly displayed above the bar.

  Rafferty sighed. 'This other girl - the one who was in the pub, the one in the private bar. Perhaps you can describe her?'

  He nodded. 'Reminded me of the sister-in-law a bit. She was a real classy looking piece, and she had long dark hair, whereas Linda tended to fade into the wallpaper a bit. Now, let me see.' He glanced again at the darts trophy as though seeking inspiration. 'She was about twenty or thereabouts, I reckon. Stylishly dressed. Nicely-spoken, too. She stood out, see? Not our usual sort of customer at all.'

  Although, as the girl hadn't been Linda Wilks, he didn't think it would be relevant to the case, Rafferty's curiosity was piqued. 'Anything else you remember about her?'

  'I could tell from her accent she wasn't from around these parts,' the landlord went on conversationally. 'I remember thinking it a bit odd that she should come into my pub as it's so out of the way.' The landlord fingered his chin. 'I seem to remember seeing her in here a week or two ago, as well, now I think about it. I began to hope we were going to be taken over by some yuppy types. I'd have been able to put my prices up.'

  Rafferty wasn't interested in the landlord's lost hopes. 'Those are the only times you'd seen the girl?'

  'Reckon so.'

  'The second time she came in, I understand she wasn't alone?' Llewellyn put in.

  The man's eyes were bright with gossip. 'That's right. She was at first, but later, near closing time, she was drinking with a chap called Smythe from the hospital. Know him?'

  Rafferty nodded. 'They didn't leave together?'

  The landlord shrugged. 'Don't know. When I came round for the glasses, they'd both gone.' He grinned. 'I was pretty gone myself by that time.'

  Rafferty nodded his thanks and they left. So much for Gilbert's confidences, he thought. The porter had been careful not to positively identify the girl as Linda, he remembered, and Rafferty suspected that he had known damn well that Smythe had been with another girl altogether that night. After all, it would seem, from what he'd said, that his single glance had been one long, riveted stare. Although Gilbert had merely told him about the incident and encouraged him to put two and two together and make five, he intended to have a few words with Gilbert when next he saw him. It wouldn't do any harm to talk to Smythe. He'd already lied to them about being at the hospital the entire night. It was possible he'd told other lies as well. Linda Wilks could easily have been in the pub that night. Why shouldn't Smythe know her, even if not by her real name? He could have used her services. He could even have been the medical type who had rung her up that evening. Perhaps he had booked her services for when he returned to the hospital from the pub and had tipped her the wink as he'd left.

  Rafferty brightened. 'Come on,' he said to Llewellyn. 'Let's go back to the station and call Dally. He might have some results at last.' There there was no point in going off half-cocked, he told himself. He wanted more substantial proof against Smythe than the fact that he had been in the pub, drinking when he should have been on duty and had lied about his whereabouts at the time of the murder.

  Back at the station, Rafferty put his feet up on his office desk and took the telephone receiver from Llewellyn. 'What happened to you, Sam?' he asked. 'I expected the results of the p.m. before now.'

  'We don't always get what we expect in this life, Rafferty,' Sam Dally replied laconically. 'Surely your mammy told you that?'

  'My mammy told me a lot of things, Sam - not all of them very wise. But then, a woman who regards all doctors as gods can't be entirely relied upon.' Sam snorted disgustedly at the other end, but Rafferty carried on. 'Have you got any answers for me? Something that'll hold up in court preferably.'

  'Beggars can't be choosers,' he was told. 'You'll have to make do with what I have got and that's precious little - a few answers but more questions. What would you like first?'

  Rafferty sighed. 'Just give it to me as it comes.'

  'Right. She died between 10.45 and midnight. From the blow to the back of the head, as I told you.'

  According to Gilbert, Smythe had left the pub about 11.30 p.m. Ample time for him to meet Linda Wilks and take her back to the hospital. Ample time for murder. The timing was surely too coincidental for any other answer? Rafferty felt the excitement begin to build again. 'And had she had sex before she died?' Whatever other questions might remain unanswered from Sam's findings, Rafferty was confident that this wouldn't be one of them and Sam's firm 'no', muted some of his excitement. He had been relying on obtaining forensic evidence to confront Smythe with the murder. Uneasily, he wondered if it was possible he had been wrong about him? But he brightened again as he remembered that the coincidences connecting him to the girl's murder were pretty strong. The man had probably just lost his head. With a character like Smythe, the slightest suspicion of a sneer on the girl's part could be enough to push him over the brink. No doubt when he saw what his drunken frustration had done to her, his sexual desire had cooled quicker than the corpse.

  'No sign of a struggle either,' Sam went on, happy to provide the rest of the questions he had promised earlier. 'Her body was untouched, there was no skin trapped under her nails. Someone just bopped her on the head, laddie, and then turned her over and set about removing her face. Odd sort of weapon, too. Not the usual blunt instrument. Could be some sort of garden tool. There were small traces of rust in the wounds. Obviously matey-boy didn't go to the expense of buying a new tool to bash her head in with.'

  'Must have Scottish blood in him,' Rafferty murmured. But he wasn't really in the mood for their usual banter and Dally was, anyway, impervious to insults.

  'I've ordered further analysis. You'll get the results all in good time.

  In his good time he meant, Rafferty reflected glumly. Talk about Dally by name and dally by blooming nature. Sam's evidence reminded Rafferty of something. Hadn't Mrs. Galvin mentioned that the patients were encouraged to help with the gardening? Perhaps they might have been allowed to carelessly leave their tools lying around? 'You mentioned that this weapon could be a garden tool. Can't you be more specific?'

  'Could be a fork or a rake, something like that. But don't quote me on it, Rafferty. I'm not sure what it is.'

  Rafferty frowned into the receiver. At least Dally had finally admitted it. So far, he was getting more questions than answers, as Sam had promised, and he didn't like it.

  'Looks like you've got yourself an oddball, Rafferty. Someone who murders just for the fun of it.'

  'You needn't sound so pleased about it.'

  'Keeps me in employment,' observed the caring doctor, complacently. 'What do you reckon the motive could be?'

  'The usual,' he replied, still thinking of Simon Smythe. 'He must have hit her harder than he thought and panicked. Still, it's strange that the girl didn't either put up some sort of a struggle or accommodate her attacker's sexual requirements. I mean, a need for violent sex is hardly likely to come as a surprise to a prostitute. Yet, according to you, she did neither. I don't know what to make of it, but I intend to find out.'

  'And the best of British to you. Oh, and another thing,' Sam tutted to himself. 'You nearly made me forget, the way you go wittering on. She was pregnant. About two months gone.'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It seemed Smythe had had second thoughts about his lies, for when they got back to the hospital, they found a note pushed under the outside door to their office. But arresting Smythe, even if he was the murderer, wasn't a prospect likely to fill Rafferty with triumph. If he had been a hunting man, Smythe was the kind of catch he'd have left for the dogs. Still, he reflected, as he picked up the internal phone and dialled Smythe's number, it would be a relief to get his first murder case wrapped up. But there was no reply. 'Probably sitting up there in his office wetting himself,' Rafferty said. 'Let's go and see.'<
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  Smythe's first floor office was small and rather cramped. The walls housed a pathetic show of achievements; his medical qualifications, and pictures of him at various stages of his school career, prep-school, university and in a white coat outside some unknown teaching hospital. Each time, he was flanked by a man and woman - his parents presumably.

  'You wanted to see us, Dr. Smythe?'

  After passing his tongue over dry lips, Smythe nodded miserably. 'I suppose Gilbert's spoken to you?'

  'You suppose right. You shouldn't have told us lies, Doctor. Did you really think we wouldn't find out the truth?'

  'I meant to tell you, I'd gone into your office fully intending to, but I lost my nerve.' He licked his lips. 'I thought you might be glad to pin it on me, especially as Dr. Melville-Briggs had offered you a bribe.'

  'I didn't take the bribe,' Rafferty was quick to point out, annoyed that his morals should be questioned by Simon Smythe.

  Smythe looked relieved at this. 'But I didn't know that,' he explained. 'I was called away just then. I'd been watching from my office window and all I saw was his hand go in the pocket where he keeps his wallet and the confident expression he usually wears when he gets his own way. I was a gift, I thought. I was sure you wouldn't believe me if I told the truth. Once I'd told you the first lie, I had to go on. I didn't know what else to do. I found the body you see and I suppose I just panicked.' His face looked bloodless and his mouth opened and closed spasmodically, but no words came out. Indeed, he seemed to have trouble breathing and appeared on the verge of collapse.

  As Rafferty waited for Smythe to go on, he became aware of the steady tick of the clock on the wall. It was a sturdy looking thing, perhaps a survivor from the days when the house had been used as a private school. It had a paternalistic air; its large, round face reminiscent of a jolly schoolmaster. Smythe didn't seem to find the deep, paternal voice of the clock any comfort. He sat staring down at the hands clenched in his lap, as though a thorough study of them would provide him with the answers he needed to convince them of his innocence. With difficulty, Rafferty kept his features as rigid as Llewellyn's. Sitting either end of the desk as they were, he imagined they must look like a pair of particularly malevolent bookends.

  The clock on the wall ticked away another thirty seconds, then, suddenly, Smythe slumped pitiably in his chair as though the weight of their suspicions was too much for him. 'I suppose you think I killed her?' Desperately, he searched their faces for signs of denial, seeing none, he slumped even lower and his hands gripped the arms of his chair as though they were the only things that stood between him and disaster. 'I knew it. I knew everyone would think I did it. That's why I kept quiet. I've been such a fool. I didn't do it, you know.' He began to wring his bony hands. 'You must believe that I didn't do it. You must,' he repeated in a voice hoarse with fear and desperation.

  He looked more like a frightened rabbit than a suspected brutal murderer and Rafferty almost reached out a comforting hand, but then a picture of Linda Wilks's destroyed face flashed into his mind. For all that she had been a part-time hooker, she was the innocent victim in this, she the one deserving of sympathy. He would do well to remember it. 'You were the duty doctor that night. You told us yourself you were expected to stay on the premises. Why didn't you?' He leaned forward until his face was on a level with Smythe's. 'What happened when you brought her back here? Did she laugh at you? Is that why...?'

  Smythe shook his head violently. 'No, no, you've got it all wrong. I didn't bring anyone back here. Not the dead girl nor anyone else.'

  'You abandoned your responsibilities to go to the pub. Why? Did you have an appointment with Linda Wilks for later?'

  Smythe shook his head again. 'I only went out for a drink. I didn't expect to meet anyone.'

  'Don't take me for a fool, Dr. Smythe. I know enough medical men to know that they are always careful to keep a ready supply of drink to hand. Where did you keep your Dutch courage? In your desk or the filing cabinet?'

  'In the desk.' He raised his shoulders and then let them fall again. 'I'd run out. That's why I went to the pub. You don't understand,' he told Rafferty. 'You don't know what it's like.' He looked down at his clenched fists, loosening and tightening them spasmodically, as though unaware of their movement. 'I hate it here.'

  'Then why don't you leave?' But even as he asked the question, Rafferty realised that for a man like Smythe, it wasn't that easy. He was hardly the type to impress a selection panel.

  'Don't you think I've tried?' The nervous aggression returned briefly, but as though he realised it would gain him no sympathy, he sank back in his chair and his voice quietened. 'It's not that easy. I wanted to be a vet, you know?' He grimaced. 'I've never been very good with people, but my parents had set their hearts on my becoming a doctor. I didn't have the guts to disappoint them. They'd sacrificed so much to give me a decent education. I went into psychiatry because I felt the patients would be less threatening, I hoped I might be able to help them. I was wrong, of course. They've no confidence in me.' He shrugged despairingly. 'I've no confidence in myself, so why should they have any? Not that Melville-Briggs's open contempt does me any favours, either.'

  'If he thinks so little of you, why does he keep you on?' asked Llewellyn, coolly logical as usual.

  Smythe laughed bitterly. 'Because he gets me cheap, Sergeant. He doesn't let me near his private patients, of course, but I'm good enough for the NHS patients the Health Authority can't accommodate.' His eyes watered self-pityingly. 'Sometimes I think I'm destined to remain here forever as his whipping-boy. That's why, sometimes, I need to escape, so I go up to the pub. It's not far. It's warm, friendly and unlikely to appeal to Melville-Briggs. And, for a time, I'm able to forget what a mess I've made of my life. I don't do it often,' he defended himself. 'Only - only, when...'

  Only when you've booked a tart and her services, Rafferty added silently to himself, and needed something more than thin blood in your veins. Smythe's attempt at self-justification collapsed and he became abusive.

  'Just because I was unlucky enough to find the body, doesn't make me a murderer. There's one or two others who could have done it. Dr. Whittaker at The Holbrook Clinic, for instance. From what I heard, Melville-Briggs made Whittaker as mad as blazes last Friday night. And he left the dinner early, looking murderous by all accounts. Whittaker would have done anything to get back at him. Then there's Allward the Charge Nurse. He gets up to a few tricks at night, I can tell you. Have you checked their alibis?'

  'But they weren't in the pub with a dark-haired girl that night,' Rafferty reminded him, deliberately ignoring the fact that Smythe had been with another girl, a stranger. 'You were.'

  ‘But I bet none of them in the pub claimed that the girl I'd been with was the one who'd been murdered,' Smythe retorted.

  'No,' Rafferty conceded. 'But neither did they confirm that Linda hadn't been in the bar that night.' He fully intended to have the other drinkers in the bar questioned, but from what the landlord had said, their testimonies wouldn't be any more reliable and, for the moment, he discounted the witnesses' inability to tie Smythe in with the victim. Linda Wilks might or might not have been in the pub that night, but she was certainly dead, the likely time of death tied in with the time Smythe had left the pub, which was just a few hundred yards down the road from the hospital.

  'The girl was murdered in the hospital grounds, not the pub,' Smythe defended himself. 'Anyone could have killed her.'

  'Hardly. Not everyone has a key to that side-gate,' Rafferty reminded him quickly, though Gilbert had done his best in that direction.

  'Charge Nurse Allward has. He could have brought the girl into the grounds. He's done it before.'

  'Why didn't you report him, then?' Rafferty demanded bluntly. Had Staff Nurse Estoce suspected something similar? he wondered.

  Smythe shrugged. 'Why should I? I don't feel I owe Melville-Briggs any loyalty. But neither do I feel my contract includes being a patsy for his convenience,
which is why I'm telling you these things now. It would suit him just fine if I was charged with the murder. I'm only on a short-term contract. He'd make out that I was some sort of locum doctor and not actually one of his staff. He'd manage to wriggle out of any possible contamination somehow.' His mouth turned down petulantly. 'He's good at that.'

  'If what you say is true, how often did Allward invite girls into the hospital at night?'

  'Often enough. Who's to say that he didn't do it last Friday night? There's plenty of empty rooms at the moment with so many of the patients away. It would be an ideal time for him to get up to mischief, especially with Melville-Briggs absent for the night. What could be easier than for him to set up a little rendezvous and sneak away for half an hour during a meal break?'

  'Like you, you mean?' Smythe scowled unhappily at the reminder. 'Do you know for a fact that Allward invited a girl here that night?' Rafferty persisted.