A Thrust to the Vitals

by Evans, Geraldine

  Rafferty’s lips tightened to prevent the escape of an unwise response. He glanced briefly at Llewellyn, but his sergeant was wearing his poker face, so he couldn’t hazard a guess as to his colleague’s thoughts.

  ‘Sir Rufus was interested in backing me in some property deals I had previously spoken to him about,’ Nigel elaborated as he removed his hand from his mouth and studied his beautifully manicured fingernails. ‘Very smart businessman, Sir Rufus. He’s a sad loss. A sad loss.’ Nigel’s smoothly handsome face, beneath its equally smooth and sleekly-styled hair, fell into suitably mournful lines at this.

  A sad loss, certainly, to Nigel’s ambitious aspirations, Rafferty guessed — if such they were, rather than the usual pack of ready lies that his cousin was so adept at pouring forth when cornered in an awkward spot.

  ‘You’re an observant fellow,’ Rafferty remarked tonelessly. ‘I imagine. it must go with the profession.’ He put such a lip-curling spin on the last word that he made it sound like he was talking about the oldest profession rather than merely one of the slickest and most treacherous for the innocent to negotiate.

  Nigel’s top lip did some curling of its own at this, but he volunteered no rancorous observations in response and Rafferty was forced to prompt him.

  ‘So, tell me, Mr Blythe — Nigel — did you see anyone enter Seward’s bedroom late on the evening of the party?’ Rafferty found himself praying that Nigel hadn’t spotted Mickey and was gratified at Nigel’s reply.

  ‘Me? No, certainly not. I didn’t see anyone — me included, before you ask — enter Sir Rufus’s bedroom, Inspector.’

  Briefly pausing to wonder whether Nigel might actually be lying in order to gain some future financial advantage from keeping quiet about Mickey’s presence, Rafferty was put on the back foot by this correction. Nigel, always looking for an edge over an adversary, hadn’t failed to put him in the wrong by drawing attention to his failure to use Seward’s recently-acquired title. Of course his cousin adored such outmoded and mostly undeserved trappings of rank. Doubtless, he aspired to a similar or even superior prefix to his own name one day. Such things were important to Nigel. He felt a title added a certain – what was the word Nigel invariably used? — cachet, that was it.

  Tonight, or rather this morning, Rafferty found himself even more irritated than usual by his cousin’s cringe-worthy and snobbish airs and graces.

  ‘You said you didn’t go into his bedroom yourself? Not even to talk about your proposed property deal with him?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Nigel put on an air of affront at this suggestion and for once in his life he was remarkably frank. ‘I was busy networking for all I was worth, dear boy. Such occasions don’t come along so often, even for me, that I wasn’t going to make the most of it.

  ‘As I said, Sir Rufus disappeared into his bedroom during the latter part of the evening, I presume to make a private phone call. If he had wanted a discreet word or two, he would have let me know. I can only assume he was still considering my business proposition. But good manners required that I wait until I was invited into such an intimate domain.’ Effortlessly, for the second time in the course of a few seconds, Nigel managed to make Rafferty feel at a disadvantage, as he added, ‘One doesn’t simply barge into a fellow’s private bedchamber, my dear Inspector.’

  Oh doesn’t one? Rafferty felt like saying. He restrained himself. Besides, beyond being made to feel as if he, rather than Nigel, was the investigatory prey, this baiting of Nigel was getting him nowhere. It wasn’t as if his wretched cousin was likely to fall to his knees and confess even if he had murdered Seward. So, after, posing a few more searching questions that brought similarly unsatisfying responses, and with a reminder that he knew where Nigel lived, Rafferty let him go.

  And as he watched his cousin saunter out of the ballroom with an even more aggravating nonchalance than he had entered it, Rafferty reflected that it wasn’t as if he didn’t have other pressing things to do with the rest of the morning. Like sorting out somewhere to stash Mickey.

  The early part of the investigation was grinding along at the usual slow pace. By now, of course, if it hadn’t been for the fact it was midwinter, it would have been approaching dawn. Everyone was tired and frustrated. The team hadn’t been able to contact many of the big-wig party attendees, most of whom were far-flung and had hours since flung themselves and their partners back from whence they had come. And even when they were big-wigs of more local flavour, their business interests were often wide-spread, global and twenty-four-hour. Not for men such as they the luxury of falling into bed in a drunken stupor after a party. As Rafferty and his team had discovered during the hours after their arrival at the hotel, on telephoning the guests’ homes, a large number of these guests had quickly inserted their weary bodies into chauffeured limos and been whisked off to the airport for flights abroad, so they could attend yet more business meetings and drunken receptions.

  So, for whatever reason, Rafferty and his team had, thus far, been unable to interview the vast majority of Seward’s party guests.

  But at least, the single virtue shared by all those who had left the party early when it was known the victim had still been alive, was that they could be removed from the originally large and unwieldy list of suspects, though they still needed to be traced and questioned of course. It was possible one or more had seen something that might yet provide a lead in the case.

  As Rafferty had already discovered, Seward had made use of the security team supplied by the Elmhurst Hotel. These two men, Jake Arthur and Andy Watling, had both confirmed that, apart from the mayor, Idris Khan, and his wife, Mandy, whom they already knew about, none of the guests who had left the party while Seward’s back was minus its chisel - had returned to the suite.

  The guest list had contained one hundred names; quite a small number, fortunately, by what Rafferty judged were the usual extravagant standards of such affairs. But the local council who had funded the event with their usual wanton extravagance with other people’s money, and who had been more than willing to push the boat out in terms of quality and quantity in the food and alcohol departments, had, according to Marcus Canthorpe, been more wary in terms of numbers. The local elections were coming up, of course, and they wouldn’t have been keen for the electorate, who paid for their largesse, to have reason to express their anger at the ballot box by putting their voter’s cross in the opposition’s square — especially as they would be aware that the details of this reception would be written up in the Elmhurst Echo for all to read and splutter about over their cornflakes.

  In the end, as Rafferty had learned from Canthorpe and Ivor Bignall, to both of whom Seward had grumbled about this restriction, he had been forced to accept the limited numbers — not least because a fair proportion of the invitees had, according to Canthorpe, apparently taken the trouble to write RSVP replies in vehement and purple-penned prose, in which they made all too plain the reasons for their refusal.

  Which just went to show how many people had cause to dislike Seward intensely, and which, Rafferty realised with a droop, meant that his job was likely to be even more difficult than was usually the case — especially given the lack of security over the more than plentiful blank invitations, which Marcus Canthorpe had reluctantly told him about.

  Sir Rufus had, he had discovered, insisted that the invitations were printed in a quantity sufficient to meet his original guest number specifications, confident that the council committee charged with liaising with Canthorpe would give way to his demands. Rafferty was surprised at the revelation that this confidence had been misplaced, as it seemed likely that Seward was a man used to getting his own way.

  As was Superintendent Bradley, of course, he reminded himself — not that he needed such a reminder. After Mary Carmody’s discovery of Bradley’s late attendance at the event, Rafferty had realised he would have the unalloyed pleasure of questioning the super himself. And while he was aware that such questioning wouldn’t be well received, he
was hopeful that he might be able to wring some much-needed amusement from this, though he doubted it would make Bradley love him any better.

  Clearly, the prominent write-up that the local newspaper had produced to proclaim the prodigal’s return, in his pomp, to his home town, hadn’t gone down too well in a number of quarters. But then, Sir Rufus Seward had been one of the Essex town’s more celebrated and successful prodigal sons. And prodigals such as Seward invariably earned resentment, envy and spite, particularly as the local boy had made it good — more than good.

  The local paper hadn’t stinted on the newsprint. Seward’s return to Elmhurst had made a tremendous splash. It made good copy for the Echo and sold a lot of papers. But then, yet another recent discovery for Rafferty, Seward had owned Elmhurst’s local rag, along with countless others, up and down the country, and would be certain to ensure it gave him plentiful laudatory coverage.

  But even this early in the inquiry, it was clear that not all of those newspaper purchasers had bought the paper and read the story with unalloyed pleasure at the thought that one of their own had done well and was now gaining his hard-earned glory.

  If, along with the purple-penned RSVP party refuseniks, the ensuing letters sent to the paper’s editor — spiked after orders from on high — and retrieved by one of the team after an anonymous tip-off — were anything to go by, a number of these readers had learned of Seward’s return with emotions stronger than mere resentment and envy.

  Given Seward’s violent death, it would seem that at least one of the paper’s readers had harboured painful memories and had brooded over the pages with a party invitation in hand and murder in mind.

  The reception must have struck one invitee, official or otherwise, as an opportunity not to be missed. Seward hadn’t shown his face in Elmhurst once during the years after his involuntary and hurried departure from it. The civic reception in his honour might have been their murderer’s only chance. He hadn’t wasted it.

  Certainly, someone had brought that sharpened chisel to the celebratory party, indicating more than a degree of premeditation, and had determinedly plunged it deeply between Seward’s shoulder blades. And as Rafferty believed his younger brother was innocent of the crime, it was down to him to discover who else among those still at the party when Seward died could have done it or could have had reason to do it.

  Rafferty, some hours later at last back at the police station after organising the various strands at the start of yet another murder inquiry, stuck his head out of his office and looked left and right. Thankfully, the corridor was deserted. Most of the team had gone home for a well-earned rest and the uniforms’ shift replacements were at morning prayers. But not for him the draw of bed and sleep; he would have to wait for both.

  Gently, anxious not to make any noise and attract unwanted attention, he closed his office door behind him. Careful not to bump into any of the team who had yet to remember they had homes to go to, or to encourage unwelcome questions from any other stray, passing pig or piglet late in their attendance at duty allocation, he slipped down the rear stairs and out the back way. Even at such an ungodly hour, he was lucky enough to hail a passing taxi. It was a good omen, Rafferty told himself before he realised his fate-tempting faux pas, and hurriedly crossed his fingers to ward off trouble.

  He sat back in the cab and as the car moved swiftly through the practically empty streets, he found his mind racing equally quickly through the options of what he could do with Mickey.

  He’d have stashed him at Ma’s, but although the fact she lived alone might have indicated her place would be ideal for his purposes, she really wasn’t as alone as ‘living alone’ implied. Her home provided too much of an open house to all and sundry — an unguarded cough or sneeze would be enough to betray Mickey’s presence. Besides, he thought harbouring Mickey might prove too much of a strain for her. She would be upset enough when she learned the news without him making her an accessory after the event.

  Rafferty took a brief glance at his wristwatch as the cab passed under a streetlight. He must try not to be gone too long. With his car back in the car park, he hoped, should anyone came to his office and discover he wasn’t there, that they would assume he was still somewhere in the station, though it was possible that Llewellyn, with his bloodhound tendencies, might prove less easily put off the trail.

  He must just hope that Llewellyn had already taken himself off home to Maureen as Rafferty had instructed. If, for a change, the fingers of fate were crossed in his favour and the ever-dutiful Llewellyn had done as he was told, he should manage to pass off his absence without raising any awkward questions.

  Chapter Five

  As he paid off the taxi in the road where his brother lived and glanced around the dark street, empty but for the tail end of a milk float disappearing around the corner, Rafferty pulled his collar up to shield his face and tucked his chin into his chest. The last thing he needed was a neighbour with a crying child peering out of a bedroom window and spotting him. He was a frequent visitor to his brother’s flat and his face was well known, so the fewer people able to identify him or reveal his presence here this morning, the better.

  The early December day was, at just after six o’clock, still pitch black, with a chill wind that brought with it a feeling of foreboding. It had Rafferty shivering in his thin suit jacket. He had been forced, just in case he had met anyone in the station precincts, to leave his warm overcoat on its hook. If anyone had entered his office and noticed it was missing, it would be a sure pointer that he wasn’t somewhere in the building at all, but had left the station.

  Mickey must have been watching for him because as soon as Rafferty crossed the pavement and hurried down the path to the door of the terraced house that had long since been converted to flats, the door to the ground floor flat was quickly opened. Rafferty’s no-longer-slender body was somehow, involuntarily and not without a degree of pain, roughly pulled and squeezed through the barely nine-inch opening that was all that his brother, in the circumstances, thought prudent.

  Rafferty swallowed his protests along with the suspicion that such strange behaviour was more likely to draw the attention of any lurking watchers than a more bold approach. ‘Discretion is us,’ he murmured under his breath. With a sigh, he followed his brother down the narrow hall to the small untidy living room at the rear, feeling, with each step, the sinister breath of the Stazi chilling his shoulders through the inadequate jacket.

  But, as he had previously suspected and could now see and smell for himself, Mickey was clearly beyond sober precaution; and as he caught sight of the nearly empty bottle and the amber liquid in the glass beside it on the small side table, his suspicions were confirmed. Clearly, his brother had been consoling himself with some calming alcohol while he awaited Rafferty’s long-delayed arrival.

  Rafferty breathed out on an even heavier sigh and he was hit with the realisation that Mickey was again the kid brother with more mouth than nous. And it was up to Rafferty to look out for him. He was still unsure how he was to do this. Although he had taken the precautionary delaying tactic of locking the preliminary photo-fit picture of his brother in his desk drawer instead of immediately sending it out to the media, he had yet to come up with somewhere to hide Mickey. He needed someone discreet who owed him a favour and who would be willing to take Mickey in at such short notice without asking too many questions. Such people were not in plentiful supply, so, for the moment, he let his subconscious worry away at this problem while he addressed himself to questioning Mickey.

  It didn’t take long for Rafferty to coax his brother’s sorry story from him. The clumsy lies, too, were soon penetrated.

  Mickey had gone to see Sir Rufus late, around eleven thirty on the Friday night and, as Rafferty had suspected, his visit had not been for the reasons of business that his brother had earlier claimed — not, as a trained detective or big brother, that he had ever been likely to believe that hastily constructed tale.

  No, Mickey had
gone to have a showdown with Seward, and to tell him what he thought of him. Presumably, like the murderer, he had thought it might be the only chance he would get.

  The party had been virtually over by the time Mickey had arrived, though, and once his invitation had got him past the bored security on the door, Mickey had felt at a loss. Intimidated by the suite’s expensive grandeur, he had lingered in the entrance passageway for a minute. Until, that was, a guest leaving the bathroom had pointed him in the direction of Seward’s bedroom where, he was informed, his host was currently ensconced. This guest, they now knew, was Ivor Bignall, the local councillor. Just before this guest appeared, Mickey said he had heard loud voices coming from a partly open door down the hall directly in front of him.

  ‘Did anyone else see you?’ Rafferty asked.

  Mickey shook his head.

  ‘Not even cousin Nigel?’

  Again Mickey shook his head.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Rafferty persisted, wanting desperately to be certain.

  ‘I told you – no,’ Mickey sharply replied.

  Relieved on this point, Rafferty continued to probe. ‘So, what did Seward say when you tackled him?’ he asked once he sat wearily down on his brother’s sagging settee. He rubbed a hand across his face in an attempt to force himself to stay awake and get some answers; it would be useful if he could reduce the current approximate time of Seward’s death. ‘According to the security men on the door, you had an invitation. I gather they didn’t trouble to tick you off on their guest list?’

  Mickey shook his head.

  Which was just as well as Mickey wasn’t on it.

  ‘Tell me about that. How did you get the invite?’