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

by Geraldine Evans

  Llewellyn popped his head round the door. 'I've got Allward in the interview room. Are you ready to speak to him?'

  Rafferty slammed the phone receiver back on its rest and shook his head. 'He'll have to wait. Him and Sidney Wilks both. That was Simon Smythe. Lady Evelyn must have got him temporarily reinstated. It was all a bit garbled, but it seems someone's attacked Gilbert, the lodge-porter.'

  'Who?'

  Rafferty shrugged. 'God knows. Smythe hung up before I got an answer to that one.' With a worried frown, he asked, 'You don't think Gilbert saw something on the night of the murder, do you and tried another spot of blackmail?'

  'What could he have seen?' Llewellyn asked reasonably. 'He was in the pub when the murder happened. I hardly think the murderer would hang around after killing the girl.' Neither did Rafferty. 'I imagine the answer's simple enough. Personally, I've been expecting something like this for several days.'

  'Oh?' Rafferty picked him up sharply. This was the first he'd heard of Llewellyn's suspicions. 'Being wise after the event are we?' he gibed.

  Llewellyn shook his head. 'Not at all. I imagine one of the patients attacked him. Murder unsettles the mind,' he explained. 'And it unsettles the troubled mind even more.'

  'I bet it unsettled Gilbert's,' Rafferty remarked grimly. 'He's all right, though. At least, Smythe didn't seem too bothered about him. Of course, that's not altogether surprising and knowing Gilbert, he's probably got all the pretty nurses giving him tea and sympathy right now.' Picking up his emerald-green jacket, he led the way out to the station car park reflecting that Llewellyn was probably right. Again. One of the patient's had probably taken a dislike to Gilbert's face. Understandable really.

  The hospital was in uproar when they arrived. They'd barely got through the gates before the car was surrounded by a throng of shouting, gesticulating staff, Simon Smythe at its centre. Smythe was trying to establish order, without any noticeable success. He emerged from the scrum surrounding him and a look of relief appeared on his face when he saw Rafferty. 'Thank God you've come, Inspector. It's one of the patients, Brian. He...'

  'Where is he?'

  'In the lodge. He's locked himself in and refuses to come out.'

  'I take it you've got a hefty injection of sedative handy?' Smythe nodded. That was something. 'Come along then, Doctor.' Rafferty headed purposefully for the lodge, feeling like the Pied Piper of Hamelin as Llewellyn, Smythe and most of the still-depleted hospital staff fell in behind.

  At least Constable Hanks, left on duty at the gate, had shown some presence of mind. Armed with a dustbin lid, he'd stationed himself outside the lodge, while, from inside came the sound of crashes and bangs. It seemed the patient was intent on demolishing everything within reach.

  'Has he tried to come out?' he asked Hanks.

  'Not so far, Sir. More interested in wrecking the place.'

  'Damn near wrecked me 'ead,' complained Gilbert.

  Up till now, Gilbert had kept quiet and Rafferty hadn't noticed him in the crowd. But as the shock began to wear off he became increasingly voluble. 'Gave me the fright of me life when I saw that religious nut, Brian, with that great lump of wood in 'is 'ands. Murder 'e 'ad in 'is eyes. Murder!'

  'I was just about to try to establish what steps Gilbert took, Inspector,' Smythe interjected, in an obvious attempt to justify his less than professional panic.

  'I'll tell you what steps I took,' exclaimed Gilbert vociferously. 'Bloody great big ones, of course. What do you expect me to have done?' he demanded. 'Reasoned wiv him? Aint my job to reason wiv em, mate. I just let the b...... in and out. Reasoning's your job. 'ere,' Gilbert shot a worried look at Rafferty. 'You reckon 'e's the one as done fer the girl?' He went quite pale and ran his hand over his face as though to make sure he still had all the bits that belonged there.

  For a moment, Gilbert's suspicions revived Rafferty's own earlier one that the mad, misogynistic Brian had somehow escaped the vigilance of Staff Nurse Estoce and committed the murder after all. Then commonsense reasserted itself. He'd already checked and discarded that possibility. Besides, since when had such an easy and obvious solution fallen into his lap?

  'No.' Gilbert answered his own question. 'It must 'ave been old smarmy-pants. Why else would 'e top 'imself?'

  'Is that what everyone's saying?' Rafferty asked curiously.

  'Stands to reason, dunnit? He certainly looked as sick as a parrot when I last saw 'im, just before 'e made a concertina out of 'imself in the Carlton. Looked, I dunno - glazed, I s'pose. Almost as though 'e was drugged or something.'

  Sir Anthony had prescribed himself some tranquillisers, the officer called to the scene had found them in his pocket when he'd looked for some identification, but the label said they were mild, only 2 mm, certainly not enough to bring a glazed look to his eyes, not unless he'd taken a handful of them. Yet, according to the p.m. he must have done. Perhaps, afraid that his many sins were soon to be revealed to a censorious world, he'd dosed himself up to deaden the pain of the impact when his car wrapped itself around the tree. 'Didn't you try to stop him?' he asked Gilbert.

  'Me? And remind 'im that 'e 'adn't sacked me yet? Not bloody likely!'

  'So he just got in his car and drove away?'

  Gilbert nodded. 'Pretty fast too, considering the patients were milling about the place.'

  'Powerful car a Carlton,' commented Llewellyn, the car buff.

  'Still, it was rather out of character,' commented Rafferty. 'I understand he was usually very careful of his patients.'

  'Not one to risk endangering 'is investments,' agreed Gilbert. 'Not Sir Anthony.'

  By now, the sound of destruction from inside the lodge had slowly petered out. 'Sounds like he's exhausted himself,' said Rafferty. 'Right, Gilbert. I'm sure you've got another key for that door. Let me have it please.'

  Gilbert released a key-ring from his belt. Selecting one, he handed it over to Rafferty, with the comment, 'Mind you let me 'ave it back, now. I'm responsible fer it.'

  Given his less than zealous guardianship of the other keys under his protection, Rafferty was sorely tempted to make a sharp retort. Instead, he wordlessly took the proffered key and crept up to the broken window and peered in. Brian was taking a well-earned rest and was calmly sipping a piping hot brew from Gilbert's personal mug, which had somehow escaped the ravages suffered by the rest of the equipment. To Rafferty's relief, the patient's destructive storm seemed to have blown itself out. Unlocking the door, he stepped inside the lodge. Brian continued to sip his tea and Rafferty remarked quietly, 'I like the mug.'

  Brian raised his eyes suspiciously. 'It's mine.'

  'Oh? I wouldn't have thought the wording on it would appeal to you.'

  'Why? Work is a four-letter word. The Lord's work. Why was that blasphemer Gilbert using it?' As Rafferty shrugged noncommittally, Brian finished his tea and, with the help of a couple of the nurses, Smythe managed to sedate him. He went off between them as quietly as a lamb, still clutching Gilbert's mug, much to the porter's vexation and Rafferty and Llewellyn were left alone to survey the ruins of Gilbert's little castle.

  Brian had made a thorough job of wrecking the place with the amazing strength of the deranged. The table was overturned, lists and rosters were torn to shreds, even the key-cabinet had been wrenched off the wall and the keys scattered all over the floor, some of them large and rather cumbersome. They reminded Rafferty of something, and as he struggled to remember, suddenly, into his head popped a conversation he'd had some time ago and all at once he knew who the killer was; a double murderer, for he was now convinced that Sir Anthony's death hadn't been suicide. He knew who and how - he even knew why. The means, motive and opportunity were all there. All that remained was to carry out the arrest.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The nursery was quiet; it was 6.00 p.m. and the toddlers had long since gone home. Rafferty had had a word with the elderly caretaker who lived in the flat above and he had gone off, quietly grumbling to himself. They wait
ed in the ground-floor play-room. Large and airy, it was decorated with a jolly Disney cartoon mural, its colourful characters seemed mocking and, for once, Rafferty managed to look even more long-faced than his sergeant.

  In the silence, they heard footsteps approaching down the linoleum-covered hall, but instead of the door to the nursery opening, the suddenly increased roar of the traffic told them that the front door had been opened. Seconds later the roar slackened off again as the door shut with a soft click. Rafferty and Llewellyn exchanged a questioning look that turned to alarm as the unmistakable whish-wishaw of air-brakes hurriedly applied was followed by a deathly silence. They rushed to the street door.

  The body lay mangled under the front wheel of a huge Juggernaut. The driver was in his fifties. White-faced and shaking uncontrollably, he clutched the small silver crucifix around his neck as he told them in a dazed voice, 'Done it deliberately. Looked straight at me and made the sign of the cross before stepping off the pavement.' He brought his sleeve across his suddenly wet eyes. 'I couldn't do nothing.' Shock was clearly taking a hold for he kept repeating, over and over, like a stuck gramophone record, 'I couldn't do nothing.'

  Rafferty checked the pulse, but had guessed before he tried that he would find none. Telling Llewellyn to ring for an ambulance, he left the distraught driver to the tender mercies of the caretaker. Walking over to the car, he took out the car rug from the back seat. Normally used to protect the covers from the destructive tendencies of his myriad nephews and nieces, he now had a more urgent use for it.

  'Noblesse oblige', he murmured softly as he laid the red tartan over Lady Evelyn. Its bright colours made the pooled blood seem less gory. In an odd contrast to Linda Wilks's death, although Lady Evelyn's body was a mess, her face hadn't been touched and it looked as composed in death as it had in life. He thought she'd have been glad about that. Unlike her husband, Lady Evelyn accepted that all privilege had its penalties. She had tried to protect her family - the honour of its glorious past and her hopes for its future. But she had failed and had realised that her continued existence would be a liability to her line. Predictably, she had done the honourable thing.

  Llewellyn returned. 'The ambulance is on its way.' Rafferty nodded and settled the rug more cosily around the body, tucking it in so no draught could touch her.

  'Messy method to choose,' Llewellyn remarked mournfully.

  Rafferty didn't look up from his study of the tartan-shrouded figure on the ground. 'For her it was the cleanest way, the best way. She must have guessed why we had come and didn't want a verdict of double murder and suicide - might blot the family escutcheon - whatever that is.'

  'It's a shield for a coat of arms,' Llewellyn told him, dispensing information a little more solemnly than usual.

  Rafferty nodded. 'It'll be labelled accidental death, of course, she knew that.'

  'Here on earth, perhaps,' stated Llewellyn sombrely. 'But she was a Catholic. Whatever label is applied won't alter the fact that her God would know the truth of it.' With a shake of his head, he started to turn away. But then he turned back and said, 'Did you ever hear of Bloody Mary, Inspector?'

  Bemused, Rafferty stared at his sergeant. 'The drink?'

  'No. The queen.'

  Rafferty's face cleared. 'Henry VIII's elder daughter, you mean?' He had heard of the lady. Llewellyn wasn't the only one with an interest in the past, he reflected grimly as he guessed what his sergeant was about to say.

  Llewellyn nodded. 'If you remember your history, duty ruled her life, much as it must have ruled Lady Evelyn's. She was a Catholic, too, and she felt it was her duty to rid the country of heretics. Hundreds died in the Smithfield fires. Their deaths were no less repugnant because they died from one woman's dutiful desire to glorify God. He would have condoned their deaths no more than he would condone the ones Lady Evelyn was guilty of. Murder is murder, however high-principled the murderer may be.'

  Llewellyn was right, as usual. Lady Evelyn had murdered two people, but Rafferty still felt more pity than anger. Even if he couldn't condone her actions any more than God would, he felt he could understand why she had done it. Poor, sad, disillusioned lady, the burden of her duty was, to her, equally heavy and equally strong - the upholding of the family honour. After all, God had looked after the Melvilles for five hundred years and countless deaths, insurrections and wars. But, even with God's help, no-one held onto their property during the dangerous years after Henry VII's death and the religious turmoil that was to come without getting plenty of blood on their hands. In comparison two murders must seem a trifling matter.

  'Didn't you tell me that the Latin of her family motto translated as "Honour above all"?' he asked his sergeant. Llewellyn nodded slowly. 'She must have thought God would understand and approve,' said Rafferty softly. 'She sacrificed herself for the dynasty. The next link in the chain was her son, but from what Gilbert said, he was a weak link. Unless he married a strong woman who shared Lady Evelyn's ideals all that she had worked for risked being broken up. I imagine she pushed him into the engagement with the Huntingdon girl. She held the family purse-strings, of course, she probably used that to persuade him to agree.' Rafferty still gazed at Lady Evelyn's shrouded form. 'You'll see, first he'll postpone the wedding - out of filial respect naturally - but somehow I doubt if another date will ever be fixed. Next, he'll put the Hall on the market. Now he's got the money he can start indulging his own dreams instead of his mother's. I imagine he'll find that mechanic of his, Harry, far less demanding than all that rich blue Huntingdon blood.'

  As Llewellyn nodded agreement, Rafferty realised how dreadfully lonely Lady Evelyn must have been. Perhaps it might have been different if her husband had loved her, for who would give all their love to a building - however magnificent - if they had a human being worthy of their cherishing? In the end her obsession had taken over her life, wrecking it, as well as the lives of several others. Such was the nature of obsessions, of course. Ultimately, they were always destructive. That was why they were so dangerous. Rafferty knew the servants all slept in a separate annexe over the old stables of the Hall and now he pictured Lady Evelyn in her echoing and empty home, carefully drawing up a tapestry of murder, stitch by stitch until she had made her own shroud. With a sigh, he stood up. Now he could hear the sirens in the distance. A few minutes later, the ambulance had drawn up and the attendants gathered Lady Evelyn's body in the back. Rafferty found his shoulders straightening and his hands making the sign of the cross automatically, as he had been taught to do as a boy in the presence of death.

  With a start, he realised that, with the case over, he no longer had a valid excuse for avoiding his mother and Maureen, the good catch. His shoulders slumped. Feeling as he did, that was the last thing he needed right now. Families, he shook his head sorrowfully, they really could be bloody murder.

  What he needed was to cleanse his mind and refresh his spirit in the best way he knew. Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would visit a building site, the new one at Colchester. The gaffer of the masons laid his bricks with a deft rhythm that soothed the soul and Rafferty felt sorely in need of such balm.

  EPILOGUE

  'It was something that my mother said that made me realise the truth,' Rafferty remarked to Llewellyn several days later as he gestured to his sergeant to move into the passenger seat and got behind the wheel. Jack's wedding was over, thank God and he only had the reception to get through. He'd arranged for Llewellyn to pick him up around the corner from the church. Luckily, he'd been able to sneak away before the photographer was able to record the relationship for posterity, discarding his button-hole on the way. 'She mentioned a mother's pride in her first-born son. How much greater, do you think, would that pride be for an only son?'

  Had he suspected all along and not let the suspicion rise above his subconscious? He hadn't wanted to believe Lady Evelyn was the murderer, neither had Llewellyn. It was only the second time he had felt himself in sympathy with the man since he had met him. That embryonic
empathy was the only good thing to come out of the case. Neither of them had thought her capable of what looked like a particularly vicious crime, but of course, she hadn't killed the girl that way from choice. It had been essential. It must have sickened her as much as it had them.

  Llewellyn returned to Rafferty's last comment. 'But the son wasn't even threatened. It was Sir Anthony who was being blackmailed and faced with exposure.'