Dying For You

by Evans, Geraldine

  But Harry cut him off. ‘Don't bother. I can't spare the energy required to hear how you managed to get yourself into this ridiculous situation. Just be glad I believe you didn't kill those girls.’ As an afterthought, he added, ‘And be even gladder that I feel reluctant to make our revered Superintendent's week by supplying the evidence that would enable him to get both of us out of his hair.’ He jerked his head at the tape. ‘That's the only copy. Yours are the only messages on it. Take it away and destroy it.’

  Rafferty nodded, began to thank him. But he wasn't sure whether Harry had heard him before the sick man's eyes closed and he dropped into an uneasy doze. Rafferty tip-toed to the door, the evidence clutched tightly to his chest, and let himself out.

  After Llewellyn and Maureen's wedding, Rafferty, full of good cheer and Jameson's whiskey, had persuaded them to meet up with him on their return from honeymoon. After all, as he had jovially reminded them, he had a vested interest in their marriage. Without him there might never have been a wedding.

  Now, with so much on his mind, Rafferty wished he had kept his mouth shut. He wasn't feeling too sociable just now – in fact, he had turned into more of a shrinking violet than he had been for a large chunk of the dating agency's first party, scared, every time he ventured beyond the station that he would attract the pointing finger and the accusation, ‘but that's him. That's Nigel Blythe.’

  But Llewellyn, punctilious about such tentative arrangements as he was about everything else, rang him on the Sunday morning to confirm it was still on. And Rafferty, aware it would look odd if he tried to get out of the arrangement he had proposed with such enthusiasm, had no choice but to agree.

  He practised happy smiles in front of the mirror before he set off. Every one looked strained and unnatural. With a fatalistic shrug, he turned away. At least he would get Llewellyn's reaction to his new look now rather than when he returned to work the next day. The last thing he wanted was for the Welshman's comments to start his other colleagues off again with more uncomplimentary remarks about his new look and someone began to wonder what had really prompted it. Fortunately, thanks to Harry Simpson, none of them had had the opportunity to see the police artist's best effort at capturing the face of the supposed ‘Nigel Blythe’. Even more fortunately, the artist was new and had never met Rafferty. Rafferty did his best to keep it that way.

  He and Llewellyn arranged to meet at The Black Swan. It was near to Rafferty's flat so he could walk there. Neither Llewellyn nor Maureen drank alcohol so they didn't mind driving. He wondered what they would have to say about his altered appearance.

  He didn't have to wait long to find out. From behind his recently-acquired spectacles, Rafferty squinted round the saloon bar. With difficulty, he located the tanned and happy pair at a corner table. He joined them, being extra careful to avoid tripping over the furniture on his approach.

  He forced out a jaunty, ‘How do?’ by way of greeting. ‘So how was the honeymoon?’

  They both glanced up at him and did a double-take.

  ‘New look,’ he explained in as airy a fashion as he could manage as he sat down. They had got him a drink in while they awaited his arrival and now Rafferty picked up the pint of Adnams bitter and swigged a third of it back. ‘Was getting stuck in a rut,’ he enlarged. ‘So what do you think?’

  Maureen was the first to recover. ‘Did somebody turn your head upside-down?’ she asked.

  Rafferty managed a wry smile and waggled his spectacles at her. ‘These are at the top end, so I'm definitely the right way up.’

  Llewellyn took a contemplative sip of his orange juice before he ventured a comment. ‘Glasses? They're new.’

  ‘Mm. Been getting headaches. Optician said I was suffering from eye strain. Not getting any younger, I suppose.’

  Llewellyn looked surprised. As well he might. He'd only been away for two weeks and Rafferty had never before mentioned headaches or eye strain.

  ‘What can you possibly have been doing since we went on honeymoon to damage your eyesight so much you need spectacles?’

  ‘Probably been trying to read his own handwriting,’ Maureen tartly remarked.

  ‘You have rather come to rely on my notes during an investigation, Llewellyn commented. ‘But even so–’

  ‘Does it matter what caused it?’ Rafferty demanded irritably. He repeated in a Bradley-brusque tone. ‘As I said, I've been getting headaches.’

  ‘You do drink rather a lot. In fact, I–’

  ‘In fact – nothing. It's nothing to do with drink,’ Rafferty insisted. ‘I told you what the optician said.’

  ‘Which one did you go to? Only I can recommend an excellent optician if you want a second opinion.’

  Trust Llewellyn to be ready with advice. He didn't even wear glasses.

  ‘He has a large range of attractive designer frames.’ The stylish Llewellyn eyed Rafferty's horn-rimmed spectacle frames with a moue of distaste.

  Rafferty couldn't altogether blame him. They were an old pair of his late father's that he'd helped himself to when he'd taken his Ma home from their recent shopping cum burglary expedition. Considering how warped they made his vision it was a wonder he didn't have headaches. Judging by the style – or lack of it – the frames were first generation National Health Service. But time had been pressing and choice not an option. ‘I like them,’ he lied. ‘I think they do something for me.’

  ‘Yes, but what?’ Maureen asked with saccharine sweetness. ‘Were you trying for the intellectual look?’ Her tone suggested he'd fallen short.

  Llewellyn at least had no acerbic comment to make, beyond the plaintive, ‘You don't look like yourself. It's disconcerting.’

  Relieved to hear the first of Llewellyn's observations, Rafferty had to agree with the second. His appearance disconcerted Rafferty as well, each time he looked in the mirror. Stranger still, now, instead of shaving his face every day he had to keep going to the barber to keep the No 1 in prime Premier style.

  Although Rafferty had insisted after their wedding that since he and Llewellyn had become family Llewellyn should give over ‘siring’ him, now he drew rank. ‘My round, I think. Same again, sergeant?’ he pointedly asked as he picked up the glasses. ‘Are we all having the roast beef? If so, I'll get it ordered before they run out.’

  At least his drawing of rank had the desired effect. Because Llewellyn's brown eyes simply looked sharply at him, he nodded a yes to each of Rafferty's questions and said no more.

  As he stood at the bar waiting to be served, Rafferty could see Llewellyn and Maureen reflected in the mirror behind the bar. They were whispering together and giggling. Llewellyn giggling? What next? Drinking pints of Adnams with whisky chasers? Rafferty scowled. Then he caught sight of himself in the mirror and was disconcerted all over again. Maureen's arch comment hadn't been entirely undeserved. Between his heavy horn-rimmed glasses, his new-grown and somewhat rusty-looking beard and his No1 haircut, he looked a cross between a mad Polytechnic lecturer and a football hooligan. His own mother had trouble recognising him. But at least, when he was finally forced to face them, his new look made it less likely that any of the dating agency's clients or staff would look at him and see Nigel Blythe. It was a comforting thought.

  By the time he was finally served in the lunch-time crush and returned with fresh drinks, it became clear that Llewellyn and Maureen had concluded their wisest course was to ignore his altered appearance. Because as soon as he sat down they began a determined description of what they had seen on their honeymoon tour of the sites of Ancient Greece, which continued as they ate their meal and didn't stop till an hour later when Rafferty, overdosed on Ancient wonders, said he had to go.

  ‘But you haven't told me anything about this latest case,’ Llewellyn protested. ‘The one the media is calling the Lonely Hearts murders. Don't–?’

  ‘Time enough for that tomorrow, Dafyd,’ Rafferty told him gruffly. ‘You're just back from honeymoon, man. Can't you leave it till then before you start neglec
ting your new wife?’

  Scared in case Llewellyn persisted and pushed him into revealing the name of the chief suspect, Rafferty made a swift exit before he got the chance. He was relieved to get out of the pub and not just to avoid discussing the case with Llewellyn after downing a few relaxing beers. It was his cousin Maureen's presence which was the inhibiting factor. Because Rafferty knew if he were to start discussing the case with Llewellyn and Nigel Blythe's name should slip out, Maureen would be on to it in a flash. Well, Nigel was her cousin, too. She would immediately reveal the Rafferty family connection. And anyone making a connection between himself and Nigel Blythe was the last thing he wanted.

  He was thankful to reach the sanctuary of his flat without seeing anyone who knew him. Once safely inside, he yanked off his glasses and slumped down in an armchair. Thanks to the prescription lenses of his father's spectacles, his head was now throbbing in earnest and he swallowed a couple of aspirin to deaden the pain. He might, so far, have managed to avoid being questioned about the murders, but he was still being punished for his deception in other ways. In his haste to adopt a disguise it had never occurred to him that his father's prescription lenses might be a disguise too far.

  But it was too late now. He would have to continue to wear them until the case was solved. He only hoped he didn't end up half blind.

  The next morning, Llewellyn was in the police station bright and early. Rafferty found him hovering like an alert greyhound when he reached his office. And as he studied the witness’ statements, Dr Sam Dally's post-mortem findings and the grisly photographs of the two dead girls, Llewellyn commented, ‘Looks to me as if we might have a misogynist on our hands.’

  ‘A whatonist?’ Rafferty asked with a frown that blurred his already blurred vision even more. His headache was back with a vengeance. It made concentration difficult.

  ‘A woman-hater. A man with a pathological loathing of women. According to Harry Simpson's reports and Dr Dally's post-mortem findings, both victims were killed in a frenzied blood-letting. There was hatred there. Although it seems likely they died quickly both women must have experienced some moments of pure terror.’ Llewellyn paused before he added bleakly ‘And now another young woman seems to have gone missing.”

  Rafferty's head jerked up. The pain was but a moment behind and he winced when it caught up. ‘What did you say?’

  Llewellyn waved one of the reports at him. ‘Have you not yet seen this?’

  ‘No.’ Rafferty leaned forward in his chair and snatched the paper from the startled Llewellyn. Too hasty, he told himself. His eyes flew over the report, but he couldn't focus on it. Impatiently, he snatched the glasses from his nose and while he pretended to clean them he hurriedly read through the latest report, appalled to learn that Isobel Goddard hadn't turned up for work. Nor was she at her flat. Dear God, he pleaded, not another one.

  Don't panic, he warned himself. Then he remembered Lancelot Bliss had said her parents owned a decaying pile somewhere in Suffolk. ‘Maybe she's gone home to her family? It's what I'd do, if I were Isobel Goddard, after the murder of two young women so close to home. Give the agency a ring, Dafyd. They should have a number for her next-of-kin.’

  Rafferty let out a silent, relieved sigh when after a couple of phone calls Llewellyn established that Isobel was safe and well in Suffolk. But his relief was short-lived, as next Llewellyn turned his attention to Rafferty's cousin.

  ‘This Nigel Blythe,’ he began.

  Rafferty looked up and asked warily, ‘What about him?’

  ‘According to the files, he seems to have disappeared. He's not at home. At least, he's not at the address he gave the agency, though as there seems to have been a delay in checking there he must have had ample time to make his escape.’

  Rafferty, who had failed to update the reports, sat back and told him, ‘Actually, Mr Blythe's back now.’ He didn't need to add that he was still chasing the paperwork as Llewellyn knew him of old. ‘He was away from home for a while, in York, or so I understand.’ Rafferty forced himself to act naturally, and to ask, ‘But do you think it's suspicious that Blythe was absent from home at the very time he's suspected of involvement in the deaths of two young women?’

  Llewellyn gave the tiniest shrug. ‘It's just that April's an odd time of year to holiday in England, if that's the reason he was in York’

  ‘You've just come back from an April holiday yourself.’

  ‘Honeymoon,’ Llewellyn corrected. ‘Hardly the same thing, especially since we went to Greece, our decision to get married was sudden and we had to take the date the Registrar could give us.’

  Their decision to get married had been all too sudden from Rafferty's point of view. He would, he suspected, never forget the panic the news had brought. ‘Anyway, April's perhaps not such a strange month to holiday if you're an estate agent, like this Nigel Blythe. I presume they have to take their holidays in the quiet times, before the house buying and selling market hots up. Besides, he wasn't on holiday. I spoke to him on the phone.’ He had, too, officially. He had felt he had to try to follow his normal routine during the investigation. To do otherwise would look odd. He'd got another ear-bashing for his pains when he'd broken the news that Nigel was now in the frame for two murders, not one. ‘He said he was at some estate agents’ jamboree.’

  Rafferty could feel Llewellyn studying him and wondered what he'd said to give himself away this time. Feverishly, he checked over what he'd said. Relieved to discover he'd said nothing to give himself way as a Nigel impersonator. So why was Llewellyn staring at him as if he couldn't believe his eyes?

  Rafferty ran his hand over his head and realized his hair needed its No 1 scalping redone. And as he looked down and saw his father's spectacles sitting on his desk, he felt a moment of horror. He'd taken them off to clean them and in his shock about Isobel Goddard seemingly going missing, he'd forgotten to replace them. Now, without the glasses and with his hair growing again, had Llewellyn connected him with one of the less accurate photo-fits of ‘Nigel’ that hung on the white board in the Incident Room? For a few, fleeting, heart stopping seconds, Rafferty held his breath.

  Then Llewellyn, his mood strangely playful, remarked, apropos of nothing at all as far as Rafferty could see. ‘The cure seems to have taken.’

  It was Rafferty's turn to stare. ‘Cure?’ he asked. ‘What cure? ‘What are you talking about?’

  Llewellyn's lips turned slightly upwards. Whatever it was, it was obviously a good joke by the Welshman's dry standards.

  ‘Don't you remember? At my wedding, you swore on some holy water your mother brought to the Register Office to sprinkle over us after our nuptials, that you'd give up producing outlandish theories on all future investigations.’

  Llewellyn's thinly handsome face twitched into a smile. ‘Your Catholicism must be less lapsed than you thought for such a holy water swearing to be honoured. I've never known you to be so lacking in ready theories. Normally, you'd have seized on a suspect such as this Nigel Blythe and come up with all sorts of wild theories. Especially as the man's an estate agent.’

  Llewellyn had learned that estate agents were not Rafferty's favourite people. The one through whom he had bought his flat had played fast and loose with him, getting him to raise his offer price several times by telling him he had another prospect keen to buy. It was only after his purchase had gone through that Rafferty had discovered the estate agent's deceit. There had been no other prospect as the seller had gleefully informed him.

  Rafferty, who had no recollection of any holy water swearing, managed a wry grin. But he had been so relieved everything had gone off smoothly that he had got out of his head at the reception. The ceremony and pretty well everything else was just a blur in his memory. Still, his forgotten vow served a useful purpose. How else could he explain his uncharacteristic behaviour?

  He managed a bright, ‘I can do solemn swearings, Dafyd. Bloody brought up on the things, wasn't I? What with baptism and weekly confessions, confir
mation and that Soldier of Christ malarkey, solemn swearings are like mother's milk to a good little lapsed Catholic lad like me.’

  Rafferty now decided that the best approach to the inevitable ‘Nigel Blythe’ questions from Llewellyn was the bold one. Taking the tentative, careful route had never been his style and Llewellyn had spotted it immediately. Just as well he had made such an uncharacteristic statement about ending wild theorising at the wedding reception. But Llewellyn knew him well enough not to expect such a vow to last.

  After checking his memory to remind himself whether or not he had actually learned officially about the burglary, he mentioned it to Llewellyn.

  ‘A burglary?’ Llewellyn repeated. ‘Staged by an obliging friend after the first murder, do you think?’

  Rafferty was non-committal on this. But it really was sod's law, he thought. Here he was, doing his damndest to foreswear wild theorising in the absence of any proven facts to back his theories, only to have the normally irritatingly logical Llewellyn take up the slack. But then Nigel Blythe had featured strongly thus far and between Harry Simpson's ill-health and Rafferty's taking over and official familiarisation with the case, his alibis had yet to be checked.

  ‘This burglary is certainly a convenient excuse for the even more conveniently absent Mr Blythe,’ Llewellyn went on. ‘When is this burglary supposed to have taken place?’

  ‘Nobody knows. The neighbours could tell us nothing.’ Thankfully. ‘A Mr Tierney reported the break-in. Says he's some sort of cousin of this Nigel Blythe and that Blythe had asked him to keep an eye on his apartment while he was way. Tierney said Blythe had told him he was attending this estate agents’ do in York and the hotel confirmed he arrived before the first victim, Jenny Warburton must have died.’

  Rafferty felt a fleeting pang of loss as he spoke Jenny's name. Why hadn't he escorted her to her car? he asked himself again. If he had, she would still be alive.