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

by Geraldine Evans

  Rafferty took a deep breath and began to question Mary Galvin again. 'How long have you known your husband could walk?'

  'Since just - after the murder. I came home unexpectedly and found him in the shed. His chair was in here.'

  'Did you suspect he might have killed the girl?'

  Pain-filled eyes met his. 'I didn't know what to think. I only knew how much torment I'd caused him. How bitter he had become and...' Her voice trailed off before beginning again more firmly. 'I couldn't let him be suspected of murder as well. I owed him that much. It was bad enough that I'd caused the accident which paralysed him, but when he discovered about Sir Anthony and me...' Her throat muscles worked up and down spasmodically and she gave a particularly joyless little laugh. 'I really thought he loved me, you know. I was - dazzled, I suppose. He showed me a lifestyle I'd never experienced before. Andrew and I were going through a rocky patch and it was as if the scales had fallen from my eyes and that life didn't need to be so dull, so dreary. For the first time in my life, I began to have fun. I was stupid not to realise that all fun has to be paid for and not by the Sir Anthony's of this world. You could say that, after Andrew's accident, the devil called in his debt. I knew then that he didn't love me at all, or if he did, it was only as a very poor second to his upper crust life style.'

  She was being brutally honest, stripping herself of pride in a way that was embarrassing to watch. Up to now, her husband had sat silently listening to her outpourings, but now he looked at his wife's tear-wet cheeks with a shocked expression on his face.

  'Did you really think the police would suspect I killed the girl in some fit of blind rage?' he asked.

  She nodded once, her features taut with emotion.

  'God!' He put his head in his hands and tugged at his hair as though he would wrench it out by the roots. 'How can you not have realised that if I'd wanted to kill anybody it would have been him?' He wheeled himself over to her and took her hands in his. 'Oh, I told myself I hated you, perhaps I did for a little while, but that was nothing beside all the grief I felt for what we had lost. I couldn't hate you.'

  She looked at him as if not quite certain she had heard aright. 'What are you saying, Andrew?' she whispered.

  He gazed at her pleadingly. 'That I still love you.' His voice hoarse with the intensity of his emotions, he added, 'That I don't want you to leave me, now or ever.'

  'Oh Andrew. My love.' With a sob, Mary Galvin flung herself into her husband's arms and they clung together with a kind of fierce desperation.

  Quietly, Rafferty signalled to Llewellyn and they let themselves out of the cottage. Cynically, he wondered if it was possible that they had staged that touching little scene for his benefit? They'd certainly had plenty of time to plan it and he thought Mary Galvin's mind was sufficiently cool for the job. But even if their emotional display had been genuine and not merely intended to divert suspicion from Andrew Galvin, it still didn't bring him any closer to making an arrest. Sourly, he reflected that the case would have caused him a damn sight less trouble if Melville-Briggs had been the one to be found murdered.

  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 confessed. His radio was on the blink 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 was 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 a cupboard 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? he asks,' she demanded caustically of the living room ceiling. '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.'

  Jack! He'd forgotten all about him. He must have been charged, he realised guiltily and would probably be in the remand cells at the Harcombe nick awaiting trial about the stolen whisky.

  'You said you'd see to it, 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. 'Not only ha
ve 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 her. '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, 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, he thought and sighed. 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 closer 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 gave his mother 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 the 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 crock-pot.'

  'How much do I owe you?'

  'Ten pounds.'

  'That's cheap, isn't it?' he asked suspiciously. 'It's not knocked-off, is it? 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 mother'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, she had more opportunities than most. Little had changed it seemed. Why should she pay over the odds just because her son was in the force? she often demanded. 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 and he might be able to get on with solving the murder in relative peace.

  Rafferty popped his head round the door of his office. 'I've got to go out again. Some checking up to do,' he explained quickly, shutting the door behind him before Llewellyn could offer to come with him. This was one task he wanted to see to by himself.

  He turned into the car park at the Harcombe police station, ready, if not wholly willing, to do his familial duty. But as he knew he'd never hear the end of it if he didn't at least make the attempt, he gritted his teeth and put a good face on it.

  'Morning, Tom,' he greeted the desk sergeant with false bonhomie in an attempt to cover his awkwardness. 'I rang earlier about a fellow called Jack Delaney. The constable who answered the phone told me he'd been charged and was back in the cells on remand. I'd like a word with him.'

  'Oh yes?' The sergeant eased his bulk off the counter and looked at Rafferty with interest. 'I didn't know you were involved in this case, Inspector. You know Brown's back from that case up north and has taken over the investigation?'

  Rafferty hadn't and now he swore silently. The desk sergeant whistled and obtained the services of the nearest constable to escort Rafferty down to the cells. 'Brown's in his office,' the sergeant told him slyly. 'You'll want to see him, of course. Out of courtesy, like.'

  'Of course,' Rafferty muttered, trying to stop himself from glaring at his persecutor. In his late forties, the desk sergeant was only hanging on for his pension. He knew all about the little feud between Rafferty and Rick Brown, and, having long since given up on getting beyond the rank of sergeant, it amused him to pass the years till retirement fomenting trouble amongst his superiors, the "clever young buggers", as he called them. He wasn't partisan, he despised them all without particularity.

  Affecting an air of unconcern, Rafferty said, 'I'll see chummy first,' and followed the constable down to the cells. Before he'd learned that Brown was in charge of the case, he'd still had a faint hope of emerging from the station with his pure policeman image virgo intacta. But once he discovered their distant family ties, Brown would plunder his most secret cranny with all the finesse of a mad rapist. Rafferty knew well enough that Rick Brown was still looking for an opportunity to get his own back and here he was with no choice but to present it to him, gift-wrapped.

  The constable unlocked the door of the cell and let Rafferty in, banging the door shut behind him. Luckily, Jack waited till then to express his joy at their reunion, leaping to his feet as relief chasing the worry from his face. 'Long time no see. Sure an' you're a sight for sore eyes. Are they lettin' me go then?'

  'No. Not yet.'

  The expression on Jack's face was that of one whose trust had been irretrievably shattered. 'But Deirdre said...I thought you'd come to get me out,' he reproached. 'What's goin' on?'

  If it hadn't been for Jack's fiancee, Deirdre, a sensible girl who didn't deserve such a husband, he wouldn't have bothered his head about his gormless relative. But he consoled himself with the thought that Jack was taking his bride back to Dublin with him after the wedding. It could be worse. 'Why don't you tell me all about it,' he encouraged.

  With a face as deceptively blameless as a choirboy's, Jack chorused in his peculiar high-pitched voice, 'They're fitting me up, Jar, I didn't do it, as God's me witness.'

  'Let's save God for the real witness-box, shall we?' Rafferty suggested tightly, annoyed by Jack's use of his old childhood nickname. 'I'm sure he's got enough on his plate at the moment worrying about your nuptials. Right. Where and when is the crime of the century supposed to have taken place and what were you doing at the time?'

  'It was last Friday night, way over near Colchester. But I wasn't anywhere near there.'

  Rafferty's drooping head jerked up at this. 'You mean the night of the murder?'

  'Was that the same night?' Jack grinned, his troubles evidently forgotten. 'Well, well, you were kept busy then, one way and another. Poor old Jar. Still,' he added airily, 'if you will join the pigs you've only yourself to blame.'

  Rafferty looked pityingly at him. The eejit didn't even have the nous to keep his usual insults to himself. Now he said flatly, 'If you want this particular pig to squeak in your defence, you'd better remember your manners.'

  The tactlessness of his remark must even have penetrated Jack's thick skull, for he murmured, 'Sorry, Joseph,' in a suitably chastened manner. 'Slip of the tongue.'

  'Try not to have any more,' Rafferty advised, 'or there's a good chance I might have a slip of the foot and slide right back out that door, leaving you this side of it. Wedding or no wedding. Now,' he sat down on the thin mattress, 'why don't we make ourselves comfortable and you can tell me the rest.'

  'I didn't do it, Joe, honest, I didn't. Admittedly, the money
would have come in useful for the honeymoon, but I was casin' a joint out at Elmhurst that night.'

  'And that's your defence, is it?' Rafferty sighed. 'It won't do. It won't do at all. Let's start again. You were out for a walk on a particularly fine spring night...'

  Surprisingly, Jack had caught his drift. 'Right. I was out for this walk, like, me and Deirdre and...'

  'Hold on, hold on. Let's get this straight. Do you usually take your fiancee out with you when you look over a likely prospect?' It seemed a strange thing to do, but then, with Jack, anything was possible, the dafter the better.

  'It was only a general once-over,' Jack defended himself from the slur of unchivalrous behaviour. 'We'd been to the pub by the loony-bin. Deirdre knows the landlord and I fancied me chances of gettin' afters.'

  Rafferty's instincts went into overdrive at this. 'What time was this?' he demanded. 'What time did you leave, I mean?'