Deadly Reunion

by Geraldine Evans

  ‘No. Nothing new. The reunees have all packed up and gone, as has the headmaster. He’s given me the spare keys and told me he’d collect them from the station on his return from holiday.’

  ‘OK. See you later.’ Rafferty snapped his mobile shut. It soon became clear that Cyrus was a dedicated tourist, for he urged them all on to eat and when they had finished, he packed everything back in his bag and got to his feet. ‘Right, y’all. Let’s go and do St Giles-Without-Cripplegate.’

  Rafferty, with no pub in the offing, would have happily remained in the park for the afternoon, but there was no gainsaying Cyrus once he was set on something, so, once again, they all trooped behind him till they reached St Giles.

  Rafferty hadn’t been in this church before and when he was foolish enough to admit as much, Cyrus took it as his job to make sure he missed nothing. He dragged him round the church, from memorial to memorial, from tomb to tomb, till Rafferty felt he knew the church as well as he knew his own living room. Cyrus wanted to do the Palace next, but thankfully, Wendy, who seemed to be drooping, vetoed this latest idea and insisted that Cyrus call a halt, with the words, ‘tomorrow’s another day, honey. Ah’m pooped.’

  Rafferty breathed a sigh of relief. He certainly didn’t fancy trudging around Buck House. And tomorrow he’d be back at work.

  It was still hot and the tube back to Liverpool Street was an airless Hell. Rafferty just shut his eyes and endured till they got on the train to Elmhurst.

  As the others piled into a taxi at their destination, Rafferty said he’d walk the short distance into town and get a takeaway Chinese for their evening meal. He ordered a good variety of food, paid up and headed home. He rang Llewellyn again on the way. But, like Wendy, Rafferty was pooped and he hadn’t sufficient energy left to take anything in, so he cut the call short.

  Cyrus, for all that he was a similar age to Rafferty’s ma, seemed to have bundles of stamina, for he had already transferred the photos from his camera to the computer and copied them to a CD by the time Rafferty got home. It seemed they were all to get a second taste of the day’s doings. Rafferty, hot and tired, grabbed the Jameson bottle and a couple of glasses and prepared to sedate himself and his bride as Cyrus began the narration to the pictures on the TV.

  SEVEN

  Monday dawned with the steamy heat still hovering over Elmhurst. Rafferty peeled himself away from his sticky sheet and, hoping he had beaten the early rising Cyrus to the bathroom, went in search of a cool shower. Luckily, the bathroom was free, which probably meant that Cyrus was in the kitchen again, making tea. He’d tried to teach the American the finer points of tea making, but Cyrus seemed to have a blind spot where this particular beverage was concerned. Leastways, he still produced undrinkable cat’s piss every morning, much to Abra’s disgust.

  Rafferty lingered in the shower, partly from a reluctance to leave its cool embrace and partly from a desire to let the Cyrus-made tea go cold and give him an excuse to make his own. But eventually he had to turn it off and step out of the stall. He felt sweaty again five minutes after leaving the shower, so he put on a double dose of his Pavanne’s ‘Cool Man’ and went to get dressed.

  Abra was awake and gasping for tea. So Rafferty threw on his clothes and went down to the kitchen. Thankfully, it was a Cyrus-free zone. Rafferty quickly made tea for six, gave his four guests their mugs, hoping that, this time, Cyrus would remember what a cup of tea should taste like, and went back to his bedroom. A sight to gladden the eye met him on his return, for Abra had thrown the sheet off and was wearing the flimsiest of baby doll nighties.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I could always come back in for a cuddle. I’ve got time and with Cyrus and the others here we haven’t done much cuddling, for fear they’ll hear.’

  ‘It’s too hot, so don’t even think about it. Sticky skin against sticky skin and I haven’t even had a shower yet. I just want to drink my tea and then get in the bathroom before Cyrus.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’ He hunted in his wardrobe for his lightest jacket, finished his tea and said, ‘right. I’m off.’ He kissed Abra. ‘See you later, sweetheart.’

  He went downstairs and stuck his head round the living room door. Cyrus was up and insisted on telling him, at length, about his and Wendy’s plans for the day, which recitation resulted in Rafferty being late for work. He could only hope the heat had made Long-Pockets Bradley sluggish or he’d be waiting for him to give his report with steam coming out of his ears.

  Bradley’s Lexus wasn’t in its usual spot in the car park, he noticed as he pulled up and he gave a relieved smile. It might give him a chance to further discuss the latest murder with Llewellyn after their too-brief and lethargic conversation late on the steamy Sunday.

  Llewellyn, not discombobulated by the heat or any other weather a variable climate might throw at him, was at his desk, looking cool in a pale green linen jacket.

  Rafferty’s second tea of the day was on his desk and he drank it gratefully, parched from the heat of the car whose air-conditioning hardly had a chance to get started between home and his arrival at work. ‘Right,’ he said, his immediate wants met, ‘let’s be having your report again. I had a thumping headache yesterday evening and could hardly take it in.’

  Llewellyn duly obliged, repeating the few things he’d learned during his day of sole responsibility for the case.

  Rafferty quickly cut to the chase. ‘It’s not much, is it?’ he complained. ‘I can just hear the super pulling his usual holes with it and this heat’s likely to make him fractious.’

  ‘It’s about as much as we got during the past week,’ said Llewellyn, in a blithe reminder that they were in this together.

  ‘Hmph. I suppose so. You certainly managed to make it sound more than it is. I suppose that’s the benefits of a university education.’ He got up and gave the air-conditioning unit a thump. ‘Bloody thing.’ He walked back to his desk and slumped in his seat. ‘I suppose, once I’ve got Bradley off my back, we ought to think about doing something, though what, with the suspects flown on the four winds, I don’t know. Did you get Ainsley’s computer over to the boffins?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about the phone company? Have they let us have a list of his calls in the last month or two?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got the team checking them out. I’ve also taken the liberty of asking them for those of Sophie Diaz as well.’

  ‘On the “just in case” principle? Good man.’ His mobile went. ‘Rafferty.’

  ‘Oh. Hello, Mr Rafferty.’ It was a young girl’s voice. ‘I’m Karen. I’m ringing about the room. Is it still available?’

  He’d forgotten all about his advert and now he sat up expectantly. ‘Oh yes. The room’s still available. Both of them are, actually. I only put the card up a few days ago.’

  ‘I know. I saw it this morning. I’ve been looking for lodgings for ages, so I pop in a couple of times a week in case Miss Cartwright had added anything to the board. How much is it a month?’

  Rafferty told her.

  ‘That’s good. And it’s inclusive of an evening meal, phone and utilities?’

  Rafferty confirmed that it was.

  ‘Could I come and see it?’

  ‘Of course.’ He told her the address and they arranged a mutually convenient date and Rafferty had no sooner said goodbye and shut his mobile than it went again. ‘Rafferty.’

  It was another enquirer about the rooms, a young man this time. Rafferty arranged to show him the rooms at the same time as Karen. He had a key to his ma’s so could show them both round without having recourse to sleight of hand with a credit card. With a bit of luck Ma’s American cousins would be out at the time he’d arranged for the viewing with the two youngsters. He grinned. Divine retribution wasn’t in it. This was the Rafferty version.

  ‘So you’ve done what you threatened?’ Llewellyn’s voice was disapproving and Rafferty frowned.

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘I hope you’ve told your mother.’<
br />
  ‘Not yet. I will. Eventually. By the way, I wanted to ask if you can help me download a short-term tenancy agreement off the internet later.’

  Llewellyn turned huffy. ‘I want nothing to do with it. I don’t think it’s a nice trick to play on your mother. She’s not a young woman. You should have asked her permission before arranging these viewings.’

  ‘Get away. She’s tougher than you and me put together. Besides, I want to teach her a lesson. She’s way too fond of organizing my life.’

  Just then the landline rang. It was the expected summons from Superintendent Bradley and Rafferty slunk off, expecting the usual critical reception of his efforts. But he was pleasantly surprised. Because, once he’d given his report, Bradley, instead of the expected bawling out after a second murder with no suspect in view, was quite complimentary.

  ‘Heard from that headmaster at Griffin School. He rang up this morning from his holiday villa, specially to thank me for all your efforts this past week.’ Of course he had to add his usual twopenn’orth. ‘Though I’d have thought you might have come up with more than you gave me in your report.’ Unfortunately, Bradley, too, was adept at sorting the wheat from the chaff. ‘So what are you doing now?’

  ‘I’ve got the boffins checking out Ainsley’s computer and the team going through the phone calls made and received by him in the last few months.’

  ‘That’s them. I want to know what you’re doing.’

  The correct answer to this question was ‘nothing much’. But that wasn’t politically advisable, not with Bradley, who had always been far better at office politics than he was at police work. So instead, Rafferty waffled on for a while about their remaining lines of inquiry.

  It was Bradley’s turn to go ‘Hmph,’ and complain that they didn’t amount to much. ‘This is a high-profile case, Rafferty, with plenty of high-ranking interested parties such as Simon Fairweather, the Home Office man. Did he have anything else to say when you last saw him?’

  ‘No, though he didn’t strike me as being ready to fire off letters of complaint in all directions.’

  Bradley simply went ‘Hmph,’ again, then said, ‘Well, you’d better get on with the pitifully few lines of inquiry that you do have. I shall want a report last thing this afternoon and I’ll speak to you again in the morning.’

  Rafferty didn’t wait for a second invitation. Back in his own office, he said to Llewellyn, ‘Organize a couple of the team to go to Chelsea to speak to Ainsley’s old neighbours. As for you and me, I think we should go and see Alice Douglas. I’ve got a niggle where that young woman’s concerned. She seemed a bit evasive to me. You’ve got her address to hand?’

  Of course he had. Llewellyn was a man for the minutiae of a case.

  ‘We’ll go to see her this afternoon. Catch her just as she comes home from work. The post mortem on Sophie Diaz is scheduled for two o’clock so that gives us time to see the victims’ old headmaster, Cedric Barmforth, and Ainsley’s bank manager this morning. Might learn something about old hatreds and where Adam Ainsley’s money’s gone.’

  Jeremy Paxton had told them that Cedric Barmforth had retired early owing to ill health, but when Rafferty and Llewellyn went to see him, he seemed bursting with vitality. Mr Barmforth was in his early sixties, with a great bush of grey hair. He was well over six feet and was firmly built. He certainly had a physical presence, and Rafferty could well imagine that he had kept his former pupils in line with ease and a disregard for pettifogging rules. Rafferty took to him immediately.

  He told them he lived alone, having never married. Certainly his ramshackle bungalow was untidy, with half-read books scattered on the furniture and a Cromwellian army in the process of being painted, laid out on the dining table.

  ‘Great man, Oliver Cromwell. Pity his son was so useless. “Falling down, Dick”, they used to call him. But come out to the greenhouse. I’m having a bit of a tidy.’

  They followed him outside to a garden whose grass needed cutting and whose borders needed weeding, but for all that, it was a pretty garden, a bit wild, but full of plants and colour. He led them into a large greenhouse, which had borders populated with more weeds, but with trestles filled with plants and shrubs, which were being grown on.

  ‘Potted these up last year. I’m a bit late getting them planted out.’

  Rafferty wondered where he was going to put them, given that the borders already looked overfull, but perhaps, like his ma, he’d find somewhere to cram them.

  ‘Your man said on the phone that you wanted to talk about young Ainsley. Terrible thing. Fine athlete, but a bit of a bully. Too much of a golden youth. Given too much, too soon. Only child. Parents too soft. Not a good combination, do you see?’ All this was interspersed with vigorous attacks on the weed-strewn border, accompanied by plenty of huffing and puffing. Personally, Rafferty would have waited till the cooler weather returned. The borders looked as if they’d waited a while already so a bit longer wouldn’t hurt.

  Cedric Barmforth had just given Rafferty a potted history of Adam Ainsley’s life and family background and saved him the usual painstaking questions and answers most witnesses forced him to go through.

  ‘I gather he had something of a colourful love life?’

  ‘You could say that. Matron had a stream of weeping girls in her room for tea and sympathy. Myself, I always thought Ainsley had a fine contempt for the fair sex. Flitted from one to another and never settled, breaking hearts left and right.’

  ‘What about enemies? A sporty boy who was a hit with the girls must have created some resentment.’

  ‘Lord, yes. But he was always a big lad, do you see? Few boys cared to take him on.’

  ‘That indicates that some did.’

  ‘Ha! Yes. One or two. Young Kennedy fancied his chances. Got a gang of boys together and beat the stuffing out of him. Gave him a good thrashing, of course. Wouldn’t stand for private gangs.’

  ‘Sebastian Kennedy, you mean?’

  ‘That’s the one. Rebellious youth. Always in my study. Clever, mind. Shame he didn’t go to university. Lazy. Hardly worked. Passed his A Levels with ease. Did no studying. Took drugs. Thought I didn’t know. Wasted life.’

  ‘You’ve heard that Sophie Diaz, Sophie Chator, that was, has also been found dead?’

  ‘Yes. Another lazy one. Married young. Invited me to the wedding. I went, too. Flashy show. Marquee on the lawn. Posh frocks. Morning suits. Looked the poor relation. Ha. Good spread. Give her that. Husband a banker. Filthy rich.’

  ‘I understand Mrs Diaz was another one of Adam Ainsley’s girlfriends?’

  ‘Lasted longer than most. More weeping against matron’s ample bosom. Often wished Griffin was still just a boys’ school. Not my decision to let girls in. Board of Governors. Mistake. Claimed she was pregnant. Wanted to get Ainsley in trouble. Give him a fright. And it did. False alarm. More tears.’

  His particular form of verbal shorthand conveyed more information than any amount of normal conversation and Rafferty was grateful for it. He hadn’t known that Sophie Diaz had had a false alarm. He wondered if Ainsley had denied paternity and asked Mr Barmforth.

  ‘Tried. Said she’d been with plenty of other boys. And she had. Little strumpet. There’s always one. Bit of a hoo-ha before she found out her mistake. Took the wind out of Ainsley’s sails for a bit. Stupid boy. Gave him some condoms and told him to use them. Catholic or no Catholic. Too many people in the world already.’

  ‘Did any of his discarded girlfriends threaten revenge?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. A tad Romeo and Juliet, and though Romeo didn’t threaten suicide some of the girls did. Few angry fathers. Nothing serious. Tears and tantrums, but no lasting effects. Youngsters resilient.’

  Maybe not all of them, was Rafferty’s thought. He named the females amongst the seven reunees that had shared Ainsley’s table and asked if any of them had been amongst those to threaten suicide.

  ‘No. Not as I remember.’

  Raffe
rty asked him about the other reunees, but Barmforth was able to give him little pertinent information. ‘It’s the bad ones that stick in the mind, do you see? Have more to do with them, of course. But only Sebastian Kennedy amongst your lot could be so described. Young Adam wasn’t a lover of rules and regulations either, mind, but he didn’t end up in my study as often. My Head Boy, Giles Harmsworth, used to deal with him mostly.’

  By now the borders were weed-free. Barmforth was sweating profusely and he cast his shirt aside and, in his vest, he started to rake the weeds into a pile.

  There was nothing else Rafferty could think to ask him, so they made their goodbyes.

  ‘You know your way out? Must get on. Lot to do.’

  They made their way through the untidy bungalow and back out into the sunshine. Rafferty was sweating. It had been like a sauna in the greenhouse. Just watching the energetic Barmforth had been enough to make him perspire. Not so Llewellyn, of course. Cool as a lime ice-lolly he looked in his pale green jacket. It made Rafferty want to spit. Once back in the car, he mopped his face with a wad of tissues from a box he kept in the glove compartment. The car was another steam bath and he began sweating again. He took a sniff of his armpit. His ‘Cool Man’ didn’t seem able to cope with the current temperatures. He hoped he didn’t offend the bank manager.

  Mr Jarvis was a punctilious little man. He was bald and round and bore a striking resemblance to an egg. His office was in complete contrast to Cedric Barmforth’s home. Fussy wasn’t the word. After greeting them, he sat down and immediately straightened his already straight blotter, aligning his pen just so.

  ‘Mr Adam Ainsley. You wanted to know about his finances? Not a prudent man with his money. He was sent the usual savings information, of course, but he never filled in the forms. A professional sportsman. They’re not always very wise. A tad Lester Piggotish in their financial affairs.’ Mr Jarvis smiled at his little joke.

  ‘Are you saying he owed money to the taxman?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I shouldn’t wonder. Certainly no payment to the Revenue and Customs came out of his account. Not since he moved it to this bank a year before he retired from playing professional rugby.’