Deadly Reunion

by Geraldine Evans

  ‘Bill Beard,’ he told her. ‘There’s been another death at Griffin School.’

  ‘Huh. See what your praying’s achieved. I bet you didn’t expect that.’

  ‘No.’ Rafferty hadn’t realized that Abra had heard his prayers the previous night. He felt a bit shame-faced that she had witnessed it. Given his lapsed status, it was, he supposed, a bit hypocritical. ‘I’ll be a bit more careful what I pray for next time I plead with the Almighty.’

  ‘Mmm. What time is it, anyway? Have you got time to make me tea?’

  ‘It’s seven o’clock. And yes. I’ll make tea, unless Cyrus has beaten me to it. The woman’s dead, so what’s the rush? My speedy arrival’s going to make no difference.’

  Abra, not involved in the murder case, ignored his reference to the latest death and homed in on the reference to Cyrus, which did concern her.

  ‘I woke and heard Cyrus go downstairs ten minutes ago. It’s about time you tackled him and asked him to stay out of the kitchen first thing. It’s not as if you’ve managed to teach him how to make a decent cup of tea.’

  ‘I’ve tried, my sweet. I think it’s just that he’s past the age for learning new things.’ Rafferty felt he couldn’t blame Cyrus for that. Hadn’t he one or two areas where he had failed to learn? Technology, for instance. God knew what he’d do if – when – Llewellyn passed his inspector’s exams and applied for a post elsewhere. He didn’t feel like revealing his ignorance to anyone else. He supposed he’d have to take a course for idiots. There must be one. His ma had been on a course for would-be silver surfers at the local Adult Education Institute and look at her now – able to ferret out family members on the other side of the globe. God knew what she’d be up to this time next year.

  ‘And you needn’t think this latest death absolves you from spending the day with Cyrus and Co,’ Abra called after him as he made for the door. ‘Dafyd’s more than capable of taking charge for one day. I’ll expect you back here at ten thirty sharp.’

  ‘But Abra, how am I supposed to get away? You know how much work a second murder brings.’

  ‘Yes. Work for forensics and fingerprints and the members of your team. You, I bet, give orders in a lordly manner and sit back to await results. And while you wait you’ll spend your time coming up with a monkey-puzzle of theories. It’s not as if you’ll have any suspects on tap to question as you said they’re all going home this morning and that you’ve got no evidence to hold any of them.’

  Abra had unerringly put her finger on the crux of the matter. And she was right in that Dafyd was more than capable of taking charge. He’d probably do a better, more thorough, job than he would. No, Abra had him by the short and curlies and he had no excuse not to be back halfway through the morning, murder or no murder.

  He tried one last throw of the dice. ‘But what’ll Bradley say?’

  ‘Who cares? At this moment, I’m more concerned with what Cyrus will say if he gets his voice back this morning to find you’ve cried off this outing. He’s been looking forward to it all week. He certainly gargled enough of your whiskey to cure any number of sore throats last night.’

  With a muttered, ‘See you later,’ Rafferty made his escape.

  When Rafferty got to Griffin School, he found the place in uproar. Most of the reunees had clustered around the headmaster’s office to await the arrival of the police, all seemingly talking at once, such was the bedlam of noise that met him. There was panic after this death in the way that there hadn’t been over Adam Ainsley’s. Jeremy Paxton was hovering, clearly waiting for him.

  ‘Inspector. You got my message, then?’

  ‘Yes. The station rang me. Which room is Mrs Diaz in?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  Paxton turned and led the way upstairs and along a corridor. He tapped on a door. It was opened by a red-eyed Alice Douglas. ‘Inspector. Thank God you’re here.’

  Rafferty didn’t know where else she expected him to be. ‘May I come in?’

  ‘Of course. I know I should probably be downstairs with the others, but I – I didn’t like to leave her. It seemed wrong, somehow.’

  ‘I understand. It’s good that she had someone to sit with her, but I’ll have to ask you to leave now.’ If she’d wanted to interfere with the scene of death in any way she’d had plenty of time to do so. ‘Perhaps you can wait in Mr Paxton’s office? I’ll need to ask you a few questions.’

  Paxton nodded. ‘Of course. Come along, Alice. I’ll get Mrs Benton to make you something warming.’

  Alice turned to Rafferty. ‘What about my things? I’m supposed to be leaving today.’

  ‘I’ll get one of my female officers to pack your clothes and bring them along to Mr Paxton’s office.’

  They both nodded and walked away down the corridor, leaving Rafferty in possession of the room of the dead. He approached the bed. Sophie Diaz looked peaceful. She could have been asleep, but a quick touch to the carotid artery in her neck where a pulse should have been steadily beating proved she wasn’t merely deeply asleep. He hadn’t thought she had been. He looked down at her and asked, ‘So what did you do, Sophie, to bring about your own death? Have you left me any clues?’

  But a quick look around the room revealed nothing obvious. Llewellyn arrived five minutes later, with Sam Dally hard on his heels and, for the present, Rafferty abandoned his hunt. He should put some protective gear on before he got down to more serious searching, anyway.

  Sam was able to add little to Rafferty’s own findings.

  ‘Reckon it’s the same as killed Ainsley?’

  ‘And how am I supposed to know?’ Sam demanded. ‘Can you see anything obvious? Because I can’t.’

  Rafferty had to admit that he couldn’t.

  ‘You’ve got your answer then. I’m a medical doctor not a witch doctor. I’ve no twigs to rattle or stones to throw.’

  ‘All right, Sam. I only asked.’

  ‘And I’m only telling you. Now.’ Sam edged him away from the bed. ‘If I could get on.’

  Rafferty left him to it and went downstairs to the headmaster’s study to question Alice Douglas. Paxton was with her, but he left at a gesture from Rafferty and he and Llewellyn sat down.

  ‘What alerted you to the fact that Mrs Diaz was dead?’ he asked.

  ‘It was nothing specific. No loud scream in the night, if that’s what you mean. It’s just that I’ve learned that Sophie’s woken early every morning and gone down to the kitchen to make toast, but this morning she didn’t stir. It was so unusual that I called her name. Nothing. So then I shook her. Still nothing. Next, I really shook her. It was then that I knew she was dead.’

  ‘Had she woken in the night complaining of feeling unwell?’

  ‘No. Not as far as I know. But I’m a deep sleeper, Inspector. Though, having said that, I don’t think she woke up. The bedclothes weren’t disturbed at all. She just – fell asleep and didn’t wake up.’

  ‘Oh, I think it’s rather more than that, Ms Douglas.’

  ‘So do I,’ she admitted, ‘especially after what happened to Adam. It’s very scary. It could have been me.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You should be perfectly safe. I imagine Sophie Diaz did something to bring her death on herself.’ I just have to find out what it is, Rafferty thought.

  By the time he got back to Sophie Diaz’s bedside, the place was a confusion of activity. Adrian Appleby and his Scenes of Crime officers – or whatever the powers that be had decreed they were to be called this week – had arrived and were busy dusting and sweeping as many surfaces as the room contained. The photographer had also arrived and was busy taking wide shots from the door. Uniform were bustling about, keen to get a look-see. Not that Rafferty imagined all this activity would do any good. It seemed likely, whether Sam agreed or not, that Sophie Diaz had met her end from the same pernicious substance that had killed Ainsley; and that was likely not to have been administered here, but in the dining room, again just like Ainsley.

  Alice
Douglas had reluctantly admitted that she had sat at Sophie’s table at dinner the previous evening. Rafferty already knew that Sebastian had and Alice had confirmed that the other occupants of the table were also the same as the day Ainsley died, so at least he didn’t have another set of diners to add to the suspect list.

  He still had no evidence to detain anyone. There was no reason why the reunees couldn’t return home as planned, once they were questioned as to whether they had seen anything untoward the previous evening. He designated some of the uniforms that were milling about to get on with this task, while he and Llewellyn asked Sophie Diaz’s tablemates to come upstairs.

  He spoke to them all together in the Senior Common Room.

  ‘Sophie Diaz has been confirmed dead,’ he told them. ‘And I suspect she may have died from the same cause as Adam Ainsley. That being the case, I have to ask you if any of you noticed anything suspicious at dinner.’

  They all shook their heads and Sebastian said, ‘To think I teased her about being tipsy when the hemlock must have already begun to take effect. Poor Sophie. I feel awful now.’ He met Rafferty’s gaze. ‘So what now, Inspector? Are we to be allowed to go home?’

  As Abra had already reminded him, he had no reason to detain any of them, as he explained. ‘But before you leave Griffin I must ask some more questions. Did Mrs Diaz confide in any of you last night?’

  The response was another lot of head shaking.

  Rafferty turned to Alice. ‘Ms Douglas. You shared a room with her. You must have had some late night conversations.’

  Alice shrugged. ‘Not many. Sophie and I were never close and, as Seb’s just said, she’d drunk rather a lot of wine and pretty well crashed out. I read for a while, but she didn’t stir. Terrible to think that the poison was doing its worst while she slept and I just lay there. If only I’d known, I might have been able to do something. Call an ambulance. I could have saved her.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Rafferty assured her. ‘Unless gastric lavage is started immediately after the poison is ingested, the victim invariably dies.’ He had this from San Dally so he knew it was gospel. ‘As a poison, on a list from one to six, hemlock is a six. The most deadly.’

  ‘Who would want to do these dreadful things?’ Alice burst out. ‘It’s like a nightmare from which one doesn’t wake up.’

  Rafferty nodded, thinking that it was rather more his nightmare than theirs, given that he had to find the answer to the question of who was the killer. And even if he managed that it could never be fast enough to satisfy Superintendent Bradley.

  After questioning them closely for some minutes, Rafferty accepted that none of them were able to provide any more information. Or, if they were, they were most probably the killer and not about to share their knowledge with him. He said they could finish their packing and travel home. He had their home addresses so as soon as he thought up a few more questions to ask, he could get in touch.

  He left them to a sombre silence that even the usual spokesman and organizer, Giles Harmsworth, didn’t attempt to break.

  The minutes were ticking away towards ten thirty, the time appointed for his return home, but it was only ten past when Rafferty told the team he’d see them later and made for his car. He couldn’t concentrate and the interviews he’d had with the reunees were just a reiteration of what had gone before: they’d seen nothing; heard nothing, had no idea who had killed Sophie Diaz. But at least the suspect list hadn’t increased as the same people as before were in the frame. He’d already fixed his time off with Llewellyn, so he made for home, wondering what the rest of the day held. At least – unless Abra was goaded beyond bearing – it should be free of murders.

  Cyrus, unsurprisingly, had organized the day out for them all. The City, of all places not to be on a steaming hot day, their destination. To escape the kerfuffle as his houseful got ready for their outing, Rafferty headed upstairs to get changed out of his suit. At least he could wear something cool, he thought. He had another quick shower and dressed in t-shirt and shorts. He lingered for longer than strictly necessary in the bedroom and was hurried up by a loud shout from Cyrus, whose voice had returned with a vengeance. Rafferty had never thought he’d find himself cursing a bottle of whiskey.

  ‘You ready, Joe? We’re all set.’

  ‘Coming,’ Rafferty shouted back. With a heavy sigh, he opened the bedroom door and headed for whatever the fates had decreed for the day.

  Cyrus, it seemed, had done his homework. As they made for the train station, he patted the large shoulder bag he had decided it was necessary to lug with him, and said, ‘Ah checked up on the internet, Joe, before Ah ever left the States and Ah know exactly where to go when we get to the City of London. Ah want to see St Paul’s Cath-ee-dral and Westminster Abbey. And then Ah want to see St Giles-Without-Cripplegate – what a great name – the medieval church where Nathanial Eaton, the first schoolmaster of Harvard College, was christened in 1610. Then there’s Robert Crawley, the social gospeller and Protestant polemicist. He was buried in the church in 1588 and John Foxe, author of the Book of Martyrs, who was buried there the previous year. Ah can’t wait.’

  Cyrus’s enthusiasm was almost catching. But not quite. Rafferty had spent too much of his life in churches and around cadavers to voluntarily revisit either. He pushed his hair off his damp forehead, shut the front door behind them and plodded up the path after Cyrus, muttering under his breath as he went.

  When they reached the station, Cyrus led them all straight to the platform. Rafferty volunteered to get the tickets but Cyrus told him he’d already got them.

  ‘Ah bought them on Abra’s laptop last week. Ma treat.’

  It didn’t take long to reach Liverpool Street, where they switched to the underground. They all filed out at St Paul’s, again with Cyrus confidently in the vanguard.

  ‘You seem to know your way about,’ Rafferty commented. ‘Have you visited London before?’

  ‘No. But Ah’ve studied your London A – Z, which Ah bought on the internet and Ah’ve pored over the maps and Ah have all the streets up here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘What say we start at St Paul’s Cath-ee-dral?’

  ‘OK. Whatever you say.’ Cyrus seemed to know not only where he was going, but what he was doing, so Rafferty left him to it.

  They reached St Paul’s just in time for a service and Rafferty said, ‘We can come back later, so we can see over the church.’

  ‘Hell, no,’ said Cyrus. ‘Ah’ve done ma homework and Ah came here at this tahm deliberately to attend a service. Hush, now, Joe. Let’s grab a seat. The service is about to begin. We’ll see over the church after.’

  Cyrus marched up to the front as if he owned the place, slotted his portly body into the pew and stared expectantly at the priest. The rest of them sat where they could find a place. Rafferty, two pews behind him, could hear Cyrus intoning the priest’s part as well as the congregation’s responses and he smiled to himself. At least Cyrus seemed to be enjoying himself. Wendy, Angel and Louis were gazing around taking it all in. Then the choir started up and even Rafferty found himself joining in, much to Abra’s amusement.

  The priest droned on a bit in his sermon. He seemed to be on Cyrus’s wavelength, for he pontificated about the youth of today and their myriad faults and Cyrus nodded his agreement with every point. But eventually, it was over. Rafferty let the others wander round to check out tombs and statues and the rest, while he took his ease in his pew. Finally even Cyrus accepted that he’d thoroughly ‘done’ St Paul’s and they all filed out.

  ‘Right. Westminster Abbey is next on ma list. Follow me.’

  Obediently, they all fell in behind and Cyrus, without referring to a map once, led them unerringly to the required church.

  Abra and Rafferty lingered outside. They found a shady spot and took root. Abra took the opportunity to light up and Rafferty, who had given up smoking some time ago, appreciatively sniffed the smoke and yearned for a few drags. He sighed. It was hot and he was getting thirsty.
He studied his watch. Surely even Cyrus must be getting hungry by now. He knew one or two good pubs in or around the City: There was the Prospect of Whitby at Wapping Wall or Dirty Dick’s in EC2. Either would do for lunch.

  Rafferty could almost taste the cool bitter and by the time Cyrus and the rest trailed out of the Abbey, an hour and a half later, his tongue was hanging out.

  Before Cyrus could stride out towards another centre of religion, Rafferty said decisively, ‘Lunch. I’m sure you’re all getting hungry by now.’

  The others, all but Cyrus, nodded agreement, but Wendy persuaded her husband to fall in with the majority.

  It was time for Rafferty to take the lead. ‘Follow me. I know a few good pubs around here.’

  ‘Pubs? We don’t need no pubs, Joseph,’ Cyrus told him. ‘Ah’ve got lunch raht here.’ He patted the heavy shoulder bag and opened it to reveal packed lunches. ‘Ah made the sandwiches maself. Ah went to the supamarket specially.’

  So that was what Cyrus had lugged around all morning. He’d wondered what was in the bag. Now he knew. ‘But surely you all want a drink?’ Rafferty was getting desperate as he saw the prospect of a cool bitter slipping away. ‘I know I do.’

  ‘We can bah drinks on the way. It’s too nahce a day to be cooped up inside. I thought we’d get the subway to St James’s Park. Ah have it on good authority that you can see Buckingham Palace from there. Is that right, Joe?’

  Rafferty confirmed that it was. But at least, as Cyrus surged in the direction of his latest tourist destination, Rafferty had some commiseration because Wendy nudged him and said, ‘Don’t worry, Joe. Ah’ve got a coupla beers in ma bag. They’ve got your name on them.’

  At the prospect of an alcoholic drink, Rafferty brightened. And when they got to the park, he even helped to spread the tablecloth on the grass and hand out the plastic picnic plates. That done, he took a swig of the can that Wendy handed him and took the opportunity to ring Llewellyn.

  ‘Anything?’ he asked.