Deadly Reunion

by Geraldine Evans

  ‘Maybe not. But what a lot of unwelcome pressure that would put on you. You told me last time we spoke that Adam had agreed to attend your daughter’s eighteenth birthday party, but, from what you say now, it seems you lied to me. Again.’

  She didn’t answer. Rafferty knew, from the way her face had closed up tight, that he would get no more out of her. He’d have charged her there and then, but for the fact that everything was still only circumstantial. He wanted more.

  By the time they’d had more tea at the local working men’s café and driven back to Elmhurst, it was gone seven. At least the nine-to-five Bradley should have long since gone home.

  And so it proved, as they turned into the Bacon Lane car park, Rafferty saw that Bradley’s Lexus wasn’t in its bay. He felt quite light-hearted as he got out of the car and climbed the stairs to their second floor office.

  ‘Let’s see if you can’t beat your own record in getting these interviews typed up,’ Rafferty said. ‘Then we can go home. It seems to have been a long day. While you do that, I’ll get the tea.’

  Rafferty sauntered along to the canteen and ordered up two brews, which he brought back to the office, even managing to retain most of the hot liquid rather than slopping it over the beige carpet in the corridor.

  ‘Here we are, Daff. Mother’s helper rather than Mother’s ruin.’ He put Llewellyn’s mug down beside the industrious Welshman and sat down behind his desk to sip his own tea. He returned to his latest theory.

  ‘Alice Douglas has already lied to us twice: once about having an abortion and again, when she denied that Ainsley was the father. Lying would seem to be something of a habit for her. It strikes me as only too likely that she’d have lied to us a third time, especially given her response when we questioned her about what was Adam’s reaction when he discovered for the first time that he was a daddy.

  ‘Maybe what actually happened, was that he’d told her she could take her birthday invitation and shove it. This second rejection, something she must have already suspected would happen even before she attended the reunion, would answer the premeditation question,’ he added quickly before Llewellyn could interrupt with more theory-quashing, ‘could well give Alice Douglas a motive for killing him. A planned killing for an expected second rebuff of her much-loved child.’

  Rafferty, satisfied he’d successfully resolved his clever Welsh sergeant’s previous objections to his theory, sat back and sipped his tea thoughtfully, well pleased with himself. ‘It’ll be something to tell Bradley in the morning. He wanted a breakthrough. This could be it.’

  ELEVEN

  Rafferty, well chuffed, not only with his latest theory, but also the fact that Llewellyn had been unable to come up with any more arguments against it, was even able to welcome Cyrus’s religious benediction when he got home. In fact he was overcome with benevolence and hail-fellow-well-metitis and he found himself saying:

  ‘And God bless you, too, Cy. What say you, me, and Louis take a stroll to the corner and the nearest pub? It’s about time we had a boys’ night out and gave the girls a break. They can download a slushy DVD and enjoy it without us yobboes criticising from the stalls. They serve bar meals in the evening.’ He hadn’t actually been in this particular pub before as they’d only moved house a month or so ago, but he’d seen the sign about all-day meals outside and had kept it in mind.

  Cyrus broke into jowly beams at this invitation. ‘Why, Joe, that’s a mighty fine idea.’

  Whether it was the thought of a cold pint on a hot day or a whole new audience for his proselytizing, that brought the beaming smile, Rafferty didn’t know. Nor did he care. If it was the beer, at least Cyrus would have something else other than words to occupy his gob and if it was the latter, Rafferty’s ears would get a well-deserved rest. It promised to be a perfect evening.

  After Rafferty had had a quick shower to remove the day’s accumulated grime, they strolled the couple of hundred yards to the pub, the Horse and Groom. It was another sticky evening and they were all three in shirtsleeves, but apart from the heat, it was a pleasant stroll, through tree-lined streets with a preponderance of flower pots and hanging baskets. They’d moved a bit up-market now he and Abra had been able to pool their financial resources after the sale of their respective flats and Rafferty smiled to see the streets were free of the youths who had assembled outside his old flat. It was a much nicer area, with teenage sons who didn’t get involved in gangs and teenage daughters who didn’t fall pregnant as career alternatives. Still, whatever its advantages, he missed the close location to the centre of town that his old flat had had and its ease of access to the shops and other facilities. Now, unless he fancied a longish walk, he had to get the car out every time he needed to visit the centre.

  There weren’t many customers in the pub and Rafferty hoped that wasn’t an indication that the landlord didn’t pay his beer the attention it deserved. But then he spotted the Adnams sign on a beer pump and immediately brightened as he recognized a connoisseur. It was good to know that the only pub within easy walking distance sold his favourite beer. He turned to Cyrus and asked him what he’d like to drink.

  ‘I’ll trust to your judgement, Joe and have what you’re having.’

  Louis said the same.

  ‘OK. That’s three pints of Adnam’s Bitter, please Miss,’ Rafferty said to the barmaid. ‘Let’s sit down,’ he said when the barmaid had pulled three pints.

  He took a long pull of his bitter, let out an even longer breath and sat back.

  Louis wandered off to play the one-armed bandit. Cyrus watched him for a little while as if checking that he was settled there for a bit, then he said, ‘Ah’m glad to have this opportunity to talk to you, Joe.’

  ‘Oh?’ Rafferty thought Cyrus had done way too much talking to him already.

  ‘Yes. Ah’ve been meaning to speak to you, but the raht tahm never seemed to present itself.’

  ‘It’s here now. Say what’s on your mind.’ Rafferty thought he had half an idea already – Cyrus couldn’t be said to be backward in coming forward – and so it proved.

  Cyrus placed his bitter neatly on its beer mat and sat back against the upholstered bench. ‘Ah thought you and Abra didn’t want me – us – in your home. And Ah’m sorry about that. Ah’ve heard that the British are reserved.’

  Cyrus was being tactful. Unwelcoming, he meant and Rafferty knew he had a point. Guiltily, he asked, ‘what made you think that?’

  ‘The way Abra goes to bed most nights with a sick headache. The way you work till all hours or if you get home early, disappear upstairs to your room. Are we in the way, Joe? Would you like us to leave?’ Before Rafferty could say anything or come up with a bunch of words that hung together as an explanation, Cyrus went on. ‘Ah can see that your mother probably foisted us on you.’ He smiled. ‘Ah’ve known Kitty for many more years than you have, Joe – we keep in touch with regular letters – so Ah know how determined she can be. And she was dead set on this family reunion. Dead set on saving us money.

  ‘Most of us are seniors, without big bucks, so she said she’d arrange to put us up for nothing. It was mighty good of her. Mighty good of you and Abra. But we’ll understand if you’d prefer to be on your own.’

  Cyrus was speaking from the heart and Rafferty thought he deserved nothing less in return. ‘You’re right. Ma did foist you on us. But you must remember that Abra and I are just back from our honeymoon. We’re trying for a baby.’ It was only a little white lie as they probably would be trying for a baby in the not too distant future. ‘That’s why we keep disappearing.’

  ‘A baby! My, that’s neat.’ Cyrus’s beam reappeared. It threatened to split his dentures. ‘Another generation of Raffertys? So that’s why. And I thought we were unwelcome.’

  ‘Not at all, Cyrus. Tell you what, we’ll put the trying for a baby on the back burner for the rest of your stay. How does that suit you?’

  ‘You don’t have to do that, Joe. Not now Ah know. You can make as many babi
es as you like.’

  ‘One’s enough. For now, anyway.’

  ‘Ah’m glad we’ve had this little chat. Wendy’ll be relieved when Ah tell her.’

  Still feeling guilty that he hadn’t been more gracious about their unwanted lodgers, Rafferty changed the subject.‘How do you like the beer?’

  ‘It’s different.’ Cyrus tried another sip. ‘But it’s growing on me.’

  ‘Adnams Brewery is an old-fashioned firm. Their beers are still handcrafted, not like the gassy stuff the big chains produce. They do a number of different seasonal beers you can try while you’re here.’

  Rafferty was amazed, but relieved, when Cyrus kept off the subject of religion for the rest of the evening – perhaps Wendy’s promise to ‘have a word with him’ had finally borne fruit? – and he just chatted about the sports teams he supported, which gave Rafferty the opportunity to speak about the recent football World Cup and how their two teams had fared. The United States and England had been paired for their first match and the States had got a lucky equalizer when the England goalkeeper had fluffed a catch. But although Cyrus listened patiently, it soon became clear that he didn’t really follow football – or soccer, as he referred to it. It wasn’t that big a sport in America. Cyrus followed baseball and was a keen fan of the Atlanta Braves and the team’s pitchers Tommy Hanson and Dontrelle Willis.

  ‘Dontrelle’s a black guy –’ Rafferty caught a whiff of Southern prejudice – ‘but he’s not bad, though Hanson’s my favourite.’

  Rafferty, who knew nothing about baseball and cared less, said, ‘Drink up, Cyrus and I’ll get us another.’

  ‘It’s ma turn. Put your cash back in your pocket.’ Cyrus picked up the glasses. ‘What was that beer called again?’

  Rafferty told him and watched as Cyrus walked up to the bar and attracted the barmaid’s eye. For all his preaching, Rafferty guessed that Cyrus was something of a barfly; he certainly seemed to feel at home in the pub and with its rituals. Rafferty noticed he must have even told the barmaid to ‘have one yourself’, because a radiant smile appeared on her rather sullen face.

  Maybe he’d try getting Cyrus on a pub-crawl next. A few drinks out of the house seemed to make him more human, more of a normal bloke or ‘regular guy’ as he supposed Cyrus would phrase it.

  By the next day, Rafferty’s confidence in his latest theory had suffered the usual overnight trauma and doubts – after all they still had no evidence against Alice Douglas other than the circumstantial – and he decreed that he and Llewellyn would have another chat to Adam Ainsley’s ex-wives. ‘I reckon there’s more they could tell us if properly prompted. A lot more.’

  Llewellyn nodded. ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘Though, this time, I think we’ll go together as I’m not too confident in your technique with embittered exes.’

  ‘I learned more from my ex-Mrs Ainsley than you did from yours,’ Llewellyn pointed out.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Though, if you did, that might be down to Mary Carmody’s mother hen approach. But there was something the first ex said that stuck in my mind. She said that Ainsley “wasn’t the marrying kind”. I want to find out – given that he was enthusiastic enough about the state of matrimony to get hitched twice – what she meant by that.’

  ‘It could be just that he wasn’t faithful.’

  ‘True. But maybe there was something else as well.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Just . . . something. Trust me. I’m a policeman. There’s something else there. I’m sure of it. I just didn’t pick up on it at the time.’

  The first ex-Mrs Ainsley was surprised to see them again, but she welcomed them into her home and made them tea.

  Once she’d sat down and served the tea, Rafferty explained the reason for their second visit. ‘You said last time I spoke to you that your ex-husband “wasn’t the marrying kind”. What did you mean by that?’

  Stella Ainsley didn’t reply immediately. Instead she sipped her tea and gave Rafferty an assessing glance. Then, as if coming to a decision, she set her tea down on the glass coffee table and sat back, her slender figure holding the posture of the ex-model that he guessed she might have been; a trophy wife for the sporting star.

  ‘I’ve no proof of what I’m about to say. I just feel it here.’ She placed a hand on her stomach. ‘It’s a gut thing.’

  Rafferty nodded. He knew all about gut feelings; he’d had plenty of them in his career and most of them had turned out to be right. ‘Go on, please.’

  She told them that she had, for much of their marriage, suspected that her husband was gay. ‘As I said, I’ve no proof but a wife’s natural instincts. He was never that keen on sex and used sporting tiredness or minor injuries as excuses. I think he was in denial,’ she said, ‘which was one reason why he went in for all the sports, all the women. I got the impression that he thought he could alter his inclinations if he tried hard enough.’

  ‘It must have been difficult for you,’ Rafferty said as he thought to himself, ‘Gay?’ and wondered what other areas of investigation this might point up.

  ‘Yes. Though, for much of our marriage, I was in denial as well. And when he left me for another woman, I was more astonished than upset. It was rather a relief to put an end to the charade, actually. For all his courage on the rugby field he didn’t have the balls to come out, any more than I had the courage to challenge him and even after his second marriage, I often read about him in the gossip columns squiring other women. In the end I thought it was all rather sad.’

  They left the first ex-Mrs Ainsley and headed for the home of the second, Annabel. She was another model-girl type, with slender hips and a flat chest that cried out for surgical enhancement. He should certainly have wondered a bit about Ainsley’s seeming preference for the boyish figure, the first ex-Mrs Ainsley’s ample bosom notwithstanding. Rafferty thought it more than likely that she had had her cup size increased after her divorce as a confidence booster. What the second Mrs Ainsley had to tell them was even more revelatory than her boyish figure.

  After they were settled in another good-sized house with more superior furnishings – Rafferty couldn’t help wondering how much his two divorces had cost the dead man – and more tea, he got straight to the point.

  ‘Why did you and Adam split up?’

  She didn’t even pause to give him an assessing glance, but just told him bluntly, ‘I told you before that I found him in bed with a neighbour. What I didn’t say was that that neighbour was a young lad.’

  Rafferty nodded. Here was confirmation of what Stella Ainsley had told them. It seemed her natural instincts had been spot on. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this before? Surely you could see that it might be relevant to your ex-husband’s murder?’

  ‘I suppose so. But how would you like to admit that your wife preferred other women?’

  Rafferty, while flattered that she had clearly put him down as the macho sort, had to admit that she had a point. God, what would he do if he’d found Abra in bed with another woman? He’d go spare. He’d be mortified, humiliated, shamed. It would be bad enough having to suffer the family’s concern, but once it did the rounds of the cop shop . . . He felt his insides shrivel at the mere thought, so he said, ‘I can understand why you preferred not to mention it. But, now you have, why do you think he did it? In your bed, I mean. Do you think he wanted you to find him? Do you think he had decided to use it as a shock method of bringing your marriage to an end?’

  ‘No. I don’t think that. I don’t think he’d have ever done that for fear of what I’d do and say and who I’d say it to. I was supposed to be away for the weekend, so he must have felt perfectly safe. But on the way to my parents’ house, I felt ill and drove home. That’s when I caught them. Adam was terrified I’d go to the papers.’

  ‘You said this boy was a neighbour. Can you give us his name?’

  ‘I can, as it happens. His name was David Paxton. As I said, he and his family used t
o be our neighbours.’

  ‘Paxton?’ Llewellyn chimed in. ‘Any relation to Jeremy Paxton, the headmaster of Griffin School?’

  ‘Yes. David was his nephew. Or rather his half nephew, the son of Jeremy’s half brother – or maybe that should be a quarter-nephew? If there is such a thing. Anyway, I don’t think they knew one another well. Jeremy wasn’t a regular visitor. He didn’t get on that well with his half brother. Neither did young David. I got the impression that he often felt like a changeling in his own family. I know his mother was worried about him.’

  Rafferty had picked up on the past tense and now he asked, ‘Was Jeremy’s half nephew?’

  ‘David’s dead. He killed himself. Just after Christmas last year. After Adam dumped him. Poor boy, he didn’t realize that Adam wasn’t worth killing himself over. Adam only ever really loved Adam.’

  Rafferty needed to think. It looked like they now had evidence to suspect Jeremy Paxton. Though surely the suicide of a half or quarter, nephew, barely a blood relative at all, was a bit tenuous? And another thing – how could Jeremy Paxton have introduced the poison into Ainsley’s food? Even if he’d wanted to, was another question altogether. He had sat several tables away, at the High Table and wouldn’t have had easy access to Ainsley’s food.

  Although it seemed that his new evidence was sliding away even more quickly than it had been gathered in, he still needed to speak to Paxton. Only trouble was he was in Portugal. And he didn’t know where. But for now, he could interview the dead boy’s parents. They must be able to tell him something. He got the address from Annabel Ainsley and Llewellyn noted it down. Once that was done, Rafferty couldn’t get out of the second ex-Mrs Ainsley’s home quickly enough, keen as a hound after the scent of a fox to get on this latest trail.