Deadly Reunion

by Geraldine Evans

  ‘He was a bully, you mean?’

  Rafferty lowered his head in acquiescence.

  ‘Several of the boys complained to their parents about his manner to them. He could be very sarcastic, particularly to the students who didn’t come up to his sporting ideal. It was a verbal bullying only. We wouldn’t have tolerated any other sort. In fact, we weren’t prepared to tolerate the verbal sort either. Stainforth’s ethos is one of encouragement and support. Adam’s services were dispensed with at the end of the summer term.’

  ‘Really?’ That was something that hadn’t been mentioned by any of the Griffin reunees. Rafferty could only suppose Ainsley had kept quiet about his sacking. For a man whose entire working life had been one of success and achievement, it must have been a dent to his pride that he wouldn’t want his old schoolmates to know about. It explained why he had been putting feelers out re another job.

  It was something else to think about, something to weigh in the suicide versus murder debate. A lot of men killed themselves after losing their jobs; employment was said to be a stabilising factor in a man’s life. It gave him standing and pride and income. And with the income came a certain lifestyle. Had Ainsley’s lifestyle lowered drastically after the end of his professional career? Had he any savings from his high-earning days to tide him through unemployment? Or had he lived high on the hog and spent his income as he earned it? In view of this latest information, Rafferty began to wonder if he hadn’t plumped on the side of murder way too soon.

  They had yet to pay a visit to Ainsley’s home and Rafferty decided they’d return to the station, collect the keys and see if the place yielded up any clues to his death. His bank statements would at least tell him something about his financial health even if they yielded up no clues about his emotional wellbeing.

  Ainsley had lived in Elmhurst; he’d had a flat around the corner from the Norman castle. It was a quiet neighbourhood and while he searched through the late Adam Ainsley’s possessions, Rafferty deputed Llewellyn to learn what he could from the neighbours.

  It was a small, two-room flat, with a shower room and galley kitchen, not at all the style of home that Rafferty had imagined and it indicated that Ainsley’s finances hadn’t been of the healthiest. It was furnished in a modern style, with blonde wood and white walls against which were arrayed Ainsley’s sporting cups and medals. Grouped around these were blown-up portraits of his sporting triumphs. Some of the medals were showing signs of tarnish as if the gloss of success had worn off them. Of course it must be three, four years since he’d played professionally. Maybe depression at his current life had caused Ainsley to neglect the trophies. Or maybe he’d never been one for spit and polish. But this isn’t getting the job done, Rafferty reminded himself.

  He began in the bedroom. There was a desk in the corner with the usual computer and its assorted accessories. He’d leave that to Llewellyn to investigate if he could. Rafferty concentrated on the desk drawers. He found a heap of fan letters just thrown in a couple of box files with no indication that they had been answered. He found sporting contracts and letters from his agent. He even found the email from Griffin School inviting Ainsley to the reunion. It had been a fulsome epistle, with plenty of admiring superlatives about his sporting career. No wonder Ainsley had taken the trouble to print it out. Rafferty thought Paxton had laid it on a bit thick. It wasn’t as if Ainsley had really hit the heights and made it into the England rugby team that won the World Cup. Or any England team, for that matter. No wonder Ainsley had decided to attend the reunion. He must have hoped for further compliments. It would be the balm his poor, sacked soul would crave.

  Llewellyn returned as he was reading Paxton’s email and Rafferty handed it to him after the Welshman reported that the neighbours had been no help as Ainsley had only been in the flat for a few months and hadn’t socialized with them. Stifling a sigh, Rafferty made a start on the bank statements. He didn’t have to go far through them to discover that Ainsley had lived up to his star income until relatively recently, but now, his account hovered dangerously near the red every month. Perhaps he had savings? Rafferty searched the desk some more, expecting to unearth evidence of ISAs, stocks and shares and other marks of a wealthy man, but there was nothing and he sat back.

  ‘I’ve got more money than Ainsley seems to have had. What the hell did he do with it all? If the papers are to be believed, he earned fabulous sums. All right, he wouldn’t have earned the sponsorship money of the top rugby men, but he’d have got some.’

  ‘He had two ex-wives, remember. And perhaps, as you suggested before, he was a gambler? Have you found evidence of any bookmaker’s accounts?’

  ‘Not so far. Perhaps he preferred to do his betting, if any, in person and went to the races to bet on the Tote, rather than using a bookie. But get the team to trawl the local turf accountants and find out if Ainsley was a regular customer. Get them to check out the local racecourse as well. And friends. He must have friends, even if they were just the hangers on that every successful sportsman attracts. They’ll be likely to know more of his habits than we’ve so far found here.’

  Llewellyn nodded and pulled out his notebook. ‘Maybe we also ought to check his old home? The neighbours said he used to live in Chelsea.’

  ‘Good idea. He didn’t confide in any of his old schoolmates; perhaps we’ll find someone there to whom he let his hair down.’

  Rafferty went through to make a start on the living room while Llewellyn got busy on the computer. But there were few places of concealment there; there wasn’t even a bookcase wherein might have been hidden something incriminating to link Ainsley to blackmail.

  Disgruntled, Rafferty tried the kitchen; maybe Ainsley kept any evidence in a biscuit tin? But there were no biscuit tins and no biscuits, which was a shame as he was starting to feel peckish. The one thing he did find was plenty of booze as evidence that Ainsley had started down the slippery slope that led to physical imperfection.

  The bathroom was a last resort. But again he found nothing of interest. This room was blonde, like the rest of the flat. It was a larger bathroom than was usual with a flat of this size and was equipped with a small gym. There were dumb bells and a rowing machine and a treadmill. There was a thin coating of dust on all of them as if they hadn’t been used recently. There were the usual assortment of unguents and a large selection of expensive aftershaves. He tried the bathroom cabinet, but beyond learning that Ainsley had suffered from piles, there was nothing else of interest. More in hope than expectation, he went back to the bedroom to see how Llewellyn was getting on with the computer.

  ‘Anything of interest, Daff?’

  ‘Not so far. He seems to have used his computer more for surfing the net than anything else. There’s precious little in the way of personal correspondence; perhaps his agent dealt with it?’

  ‘Someone else we should speak to.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve made a note of his details.’ Llewellyn paused. ‘I wonder if Ainsley answered his own fan mail as I found a standard form letter in reply to his fan mail. He must have sent the same letter to each of them, printing them out as necessary.’

  ‘Saves time, I suppose. No incriminating photos of one or more of the other Griffin reunees to support my blackmail theory?’

  ‘No. I’ve checked the picture file and they’re all of Mr Ainsley competing in sporting events. There’s nothing here of his school years.’

  ‘What about Facebook? Is he on there?’

  Llewellyn nodded, ‘I think so. He had it on Favourites and when I clicked it brought the site up, though I haven’t been able to get beyond the login screen without his password.’

  ‘Leave it to the boffins. It’ll be something obvious, most likely.’ He sighed. ‘Looks like we’ve drawn a blank. Finish up checking the computer, then we’ll head back.’ Though back to what, Rafferty didn’t know. He was running out of options. Unless he found something incriminating soon he’d have no reason to stop any of the reunees from returning home
at the end of the reunion week. And wouldn’t that please Bradley as he thought about his precious budget and the expense involved in motoring up and down the country in search of answers from the scattered reunees.

  Disappointed that Ainsley’s flat had revealed so little, Rafferty locked up behind him and handed the keys to Llewellyn for safekeeping. He could only hope that his agent was able to tell them more.

  SIX

  There was no one in the Senior Common Room when they returned to Griffin School, not even the lager-drinking Sebastian Kennedy. Rafferty concluded that the reunees were probably packing in anticipation of their return home tomorrow at the end of their week. He’d give anything to come up with the answer to the murder before they went, but he had nothing, nothing but intangible this and intangible that. None of it would be enough for the Crown Prosecution Service, who liked their proof of the conclusive sort.

  He crossed the corridor to the office and he and Llewellyn started packing up, too, in anticipation of their own move back to the police station. There was no point in keeping on their temporary office with their suspects decamped. Once the packing was done, he went in search of the headmaster to return the key and tell him he could have the room back.

  Paxton was in a canary yellow waistcoat this time, and with the prospective departure of both police and reunees, he seemed to have an end of term air about him, which the waistcoat only served to emphasize.

  ‘I’m off on holiday as soon as I’ve shut this place up,’ he told Rafferty. ‘We own a villa in Portugal so we can go there whenever suits as we didn’t let it out this year. There are no boarders on site as they’ve all managed either to return home or to snag a holiday with friends. I put my break off when the Board of Governors appointed me last year and asked me to step into the breech when the previous incumbent’s health deteriorated and he retired early. So I organized this reunion. Now that that’s over, I can return to my own plans. This time tomorrow, I’ll be sunning myself on a Portuguese beach anticipating my next rum punch.’

  ‘Lucky man.’ This time tomorrow, Rafferty thought, he’d be anticipating nothing more than a bawling out from the super first thing Monday morning over his failure to solve the case before the reunion came to an end.

  The thought of his holiday seemed to have a soothing effect on Paxton because the arm waving had almost ceased. His desk was clear, ready for an early start once the reunees had left in the morning, the sun was shining through the window and Jeremy was broadly smiling. This cheery atmosphere depressed Rafferty and he went in search of Mrs Benton to see if she would provide a cup of the beverage that helped the British through all their ills. Tea, hot and strong and three sugars sweet, was what he needed. He needed it even more when he thought of the morrow. Because Abra had decreed that, murder or no murder, it being Sunday, he would not slink off to the office to get away from Cyrus. She’d done her bit had been her refrain before they went to sleep last night. It was time he did his.

  He wondered if Mrs Benton could be persuaded to put a drop of the hard stuff in his tea.

  Dinner was over in the dining hall and there were only a few scattered diners left. Rafferty and Llewellyn had joined the last stragglers amongst the suspects in the hope that any conversational exchange, made more incautious through alcohol, would bring a slip of the tongue. But nothing that Rafferty recognized as evidence was revealed. Disgruntled, he finished the last of the wine that Sebastian had so generously donated to him from the bottles taken from the school’s cellars. He’d never been much of a one for wine, preferring beer and spirits, but this red was bursting with a fruity flavour and certainly went down smoothly. He made a mental note of the name so he could buy a bottle or two for Abra, who was partial to the occasional glass.

  Sophie Diaz got up from the dining table and said she was tired and was going to bed. Her slender, boyish body swayed slightly and she clutched the back of her chair and laughed. ‘Ooh. I’m dizzy.’

  ‘Had a few two many glasses of vino Sophie?’ asked Sebastian Kennedy.

  ‘You’d recognize the symptoms,’ Sophie retorted as she walked off, with an unsteady gait.

  Rafferty said it was time he and Llewellyn went home. He said good night to Sebastian Kennedy and they walked out into the fresh evening air and, after bidding each other goodbye, they got into their separate cars and drove home.

  Dinner was long over and after saying hello to Abra and his four guests, Rafferty went out to the kitchen to make himself something to eat. He was surprised to find that Cyrus seemed to have lost his verbosity. He’d merely nodded a greeting and hadn’t displayed any of his God-botherer rhetoric, for which Rafferty was thankful.

  He put the kettle on. He’d had a big meal at lunchtime, so he only wanted a snack. He made a sandwich while he waited for the kettle to boil. Abra came into the kitchen and Rafferty asked her what sort of day she’d had.

  ‘OK.’ She laughed. ‘More than OK, actually. You’ll never guess, but Cyrus has lost his voice.’

  ‘No? Really?’ Rafferty grinned. ‘And I didn’t even have to pray for it as you suggested. But Glory be to God all the same. The Almighty must have got as sick of listening to it as we have.’

  ‘Mmm. I could almost feel sorry for him. He doesn’t know what to do with himself when he can’t go in for his ever-lasting God-monologues.’

  ‘Why don’t you have an early night and a pampering bath?’ Rafferty suggested as he made the tea. ‘You’ve earned a bit of self-indulgence.’

  ‘Good of you to suggest it on the only night that hasn’t echoed to the glories of God.’

  Rafferty took a bite of his sandwich and through the bread and ham, he said, ‘I only thought it about time I sat up with the guests.’ None of their houseguests were early to bed. Cyrus combined those two worst traits in a visitor, being both a late bird and an early one, so there was no peace either end of the day.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll take you up on your kind offer. Say good night to them for me.’

  After kissing Abra and handing over her tea, Rafferty went into the living room. His guests were watching a film and it didn’t take long for Cyrus, who had control of the TV remote, to make disgusted noises and switch over. But he could find nothing to his liking, so he switched off.

  In a rasping whisper, which Rafferty had to strain to catch, Cyrus said, ‘Ah think Ah’ve been overdoing it, Joe. Ah’ve lost ma voice.’

  Trying to keep a straight face, Rafferty said he was sorry to hear it.

  ‘It’s happened to me before,’ Cyrus rasped. ‘But Ah know how to treat it. Ah’ve been gargling with some of your whiskey.’

  Rafferty glanced at what had been a full bottle of Jamesons’s. It was two-thirds empty. Cyrus must have had some gargling session. And he didn’t suppose he’d spat it out after the gargling. Truth to tell, he looked a bit glassy-eyed.

  ‘Ah’ll do some more before ah go to bed. But don’t worry. I’ll replace the bottle tomorrow as I know how partial you are to your nightly glass. The Lord God will have me right as a shiny silver dollar by morning.’

  ‘Will he?’ Cyrus sounded confident that the Almighty would devote His overnight energies solely for his benefit. Rafferty wondered if he might have got answers on his various investigations a bit quicker down the years if he’d been a God-botherer like his guest. Maybe he’d surprise Father Kelly on Sunday and go to church. Praying seemed to be a powerful weapon in Cyrus’s armoury; perhaps it could be in his. As a lapsed Catholic, he hadn’t prayed for years, apart from the attendance at church for his wedding and just prior to it. Perhaps he’d been missing a trick?

  Rafferty murmured what he remembered of the ‘Our Father’ when he went to bed, thankful that Abra was asleep and unable to tease.

  Rafferty had prayed for a break in the case, but he hadn’t expected his prayers to be answered so promptly. He hadn’t even opened his eyelids the next morning when the phone rang beside the bed. It was Bill Beard, the duty officer at the station.

  ‘Sorry to distu
rb your beauty sleep, my duck,’ said Beard, ‘but there’s been a development in your murder case.’

  ‘A development?’ Rafferty questioned sleepily as he sat up and glanced at the clock with half-open eyes. He took no notice of Beard’s endearment – the middle-aged constable had a habit of addressing everyone the same, even senior officers. He was something of an institution at the station, being the longest-serving officer there – and he was able to get away with things not permitted younger colleagues.

  ‘A euphemism, my dear. I just thought I’d wake you gently as sudden shocks can be bad for a person of the older persuasion.’

  Rafferty had turned forty the previous year. Sometimes he felt considerably older. ‘Thanks for that, Beardy. So go on then, what’s happened?’

  ‘Another murder most likely.’

  ‘Most likely? Don’t you know?’

  ‘No signs of injury. but there’s reason to be suspicious, I think, when a young woman of previous good health dies in her sleep.’

  ‘True. So who’s died?’

  ‘A Mrs Sophie Diaz. One of those reunees.’

  ‘Yes. I know who she is. So what happened?’

  ‘I’ve just told you, haven’t I? She was found dead this morning by her room mate by the name of Alice Douglas, apparently pegged out in the night. I suppose you want me to wake Dr Dally also?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Rafferty. ‘I prefer not to be the only one whose beauty sleep is disturbed.’

  After he’d put the phone down, Rafferty was thoughtful. So they had another death. Why? He was shocked by this latest one. Who had reason to want to get rid of Sophie Diaz? Even more to the point was it murder or some previously unsuspected weakness in the heart? But he couldn’t buy the latter. It was too much of a coincidence for her to die so soon after Adam Ainsley. This second death, for him, also removed the last possibility that Ainsley’s death had been suicide.

  He flung back the covers and got out of bed. He wasn’t going to find the answers lolling here. Abra, still half-asleep, asked him who’d been on the phone.