A Thrust to the Vitals (26 page)

Chapter Eighteen

‘You and Maureen all sorted for Christmas?’ Rafferty asked Llewellyn as they prepared to go home at the end of another frustrating day

‘Yes. All the preparations are in place. All the presents either under the tree or long since posted.’

It was far more than Rafferty had achieved, but he kept a grip on his envy to ask, ‘Your mother coming for the festivities?’

Llewellyn shook his head. ‘No. She wanted Maureen and me to have our first Christmas since our marriage on our own. I couldn’t dissuade her from the decision.’

With his own not so distant memories of playing gooseberry when the pair were courting, Rafferty murmured with feeling, ‘Not always easy, I suppose, to make a third with two love birds. Maybe next year?’

‘Maybe. I don’t like to think of her on her own. Christmas should be a time for families to be together.’

Rafferty, unwilling to consider what action his brother might take should he still be incarcerated, alone, in the caravan over the festive season, changed the subject. ‘So, what have you bought Maureen for Christmas? Something nice, I hope?’

‘We thought so. A joint present. We chose it together. We’ve booked a cruise up the Nile for the end of January with stops at all the ancient sites.’

It sounded a typical Dafyd Llewellyn holiday; both he and his new wife, Maureen, were keen on foot-slogging around ancient sites of historical significance — hadn’t they spent their honeymoon trudging around Greece’s ancient wonders?. Rafferty, by contrast, while having an interest in history closer to home, was more keen on sun loungers by the pool than tiring tramps.

‘Always supposing we’ve solved the case by the time your cruise comes round,‘ Rafferty reminded him.

‘Of course. Maureen understands that we may have to cancel if this investigation hasn’t been concluded by then.’

‘You’ve got her something to open on the day, I take it? You can’t open a holiday cruise.’

‘Token gifts only. We’re not children.’

Rafferty pulled a face. A ‘token’ gift didn’t sound much fun to him. And while he wouldn’t say no to a cruise, Christmas without piles of presents to open held no allure. You’re just a big kid at heart, he told himself.

‘And what about you and Abra?’ Llewellyn asked as they retrieved their coats and headed down the corridor. ‘Is your Christmas all arranged?’

‘I wish. I don’t know how Abra’s Christmas list is progressing, but I haven’t even written mine, never mind bought anything for Abra.’ Or anyone else. Conscious that he was leaving it late, Rafferty added brightly, ‘Still, her engagement ring cost me a packet. Maybe she’ll take it as engagement and Christmas present both?’

Beyond raising an eyebrow at this unlikely scenario, Llewellyn made no comment.

But he didn’t need to say anything, Rafferty reflected, as they reached the door to reception. Rafferty didn’t actually believe such a reaction from Abra was likely either.

Llewellyn said goodnight and vanished through the outer doors. Rafferty, just about to follow him, was delayed by Bill Beard behind the reception counter.

‘Mind the shop for me?’ he asked Rafferty. ‘I’m bursting and need to go to the bog, only Smales disappeared twenty minutes ago and left me on my own. I haven’t seen the idler since. But when I do—’ Beard broke off and headed for the door, leaving his threatened retribution against Timothy Smales hanging in the air.

Rafferty shouted after Bill’s retreating back, ‘Don’t be too long. I want to get away.’

‘Give me five, ten minutes,’ the now disembodied voice replied. Bill popped his head back round the door. ‘Only the waterworks don’t get up the head of steam they once did, so every visit takes a lot longer.’

Once Bill had disappeared on his urgent mission, Rafferty reached his hand under the reception counter and helped himself to Bill’s
Daily Mirror
to while away the time, suspecting from previous experience that Bill’s “five or ten minutes” would stretch to half an hour. Rafferty had completed the crossword for the middle-aged constable before Bill returned.

‘I was saving that to finish later,’ Bill complained as soon as he saw the completed puzzle.

‘Well, now I’ve saved you the trouble,’ Rafferty told him. ‘You’ve never managed to finish the thing yet. Anyway, I’m off. See you tomorrow.’ Before Bill could voice any further complaints, Rafferty went out into the night.

As Rafferty made his way across the car park to his car, yet another bitter wind met him. The wind trailed a number of sharp hailstones, which flew straight at his face as if the wind, in playful mood, was indulging in a vicious, one-sided, snowball fight, but using clumps of ice for the balls.

‘You play too rough for me,’ Rafferty grumbled into the wind as more of the icy missiles landed direct hits. And as the size and number of these missiles increased, he put his arms over his bare head and ran for the car.

He slithered his way out on to the road on a carpet of the white stones, only too aware that the drop in temperature wouldn’t have warmed Mickey’s cockles one iota.

The next day was another long one. It was after nine o’clock by the time Rafferty drove away from the station and headed for the coast, stopping to pick up bread, milk and a takeaway for his brother on the way.

The caravan park was as gloomy as ever. And, as Rafferty discovered after he had fought his way through the vicious hail onslaught, so was Mickey. Each time Rafferty saw his brother he appeared more depressed and morose. He wondered how much longer he could persuade Mickey to remain hidden. He wasn’t hopeful as a fatalistic acceptance of the inevitable seemed to have taken hold of his brother

In the hope that it would cheer Mickey up, for the first time Rafferty risked a light. He had seen no one on his journey through the park so how risky could it be? Even so, he placed the low light on the floor in order to limit the possibility of its rays being noticed from outside and, in the hope that his words would encourage him, told his morose sibling, ‘We’ve a number of strong possibilities on the case. We’ve discovered that several of the suspects had reason to hate Seward.’

The news didn’t noticeably improve Mickey’s defeated demeanour. He just grunted as if he was past caring.

Rafferty tried again. ‘Yes, as I said, several of the guests at the party had a very strong motive to want Seward dead. Even better, one of them only found out what damage Seward had done to him on the day of the reception.’ He thought better of mentioning the names in case Mickey took it into his head to find them and drag a confession out of them. ‘That’s why, until I can nail down some proof, it’s essential you remain here. If I get taken off the case it will all be out of my hands.’

He stared at his brother’s bent head. ‘Mickey? Did you hear what I said?’

All Mickey could manage in response was a disinterested shrug.

Seeing his attempts to provide good cheer come to nothing, Rafferty abandoned the effort and dished up the meal. He had hoped some hot food in his brother’s stomach would help warm his body and his spirit and make him more receptive, but Mickey just picked at his food, pushing it around his plate till it got cold .

Rafferty, needing food to give him the stamina necessary to address all his current problems, cleared the plate, wiping it clean with naan bread. He finished his meal, only then did he realise that his brother had stirred sufficiently from his listlessness to have come to a conclusion of his own.

He sat opposite Rafferty at the rickety table, his expression set. Rafferty asked, ‘What’s on your mind?’ He feared he already knew the answer.

Mickey’s next words told him he was right.

‘I’ve been thinking, JAR. Maybe I should give myself up, or perhaps it would look better if you were to take me in? The longer I skulk in this rat trap of a caravan, the more guilty I look — the more guilty we both look. Could I be any more miserable in a cell than I am here?’

‘You could, believe me,’ Rafferty told him vehemently. ‘Take my word for it. Maybe if you’d reported Seward’s death when you found him, things would be different, but since you didn’t—’

Guilt made him break off at this point. Would his brother have come forward even after he had left the scene of the murder if Rafferty hadn’t hustled him away from his flat? Rafferty wished he could be sure of the reason why he had persuaded Mickey to allow himself to be stashed in this grim caravan. Had it been for his brother’s sake, or his own? A brother as the main suspect in a murder investigation was, as he silently admitted, likely to do little to enhance his career.

At least Mickey didn’t start throwing accusations about, which was just as well, as Rafferty’s conscience was doing a good enough job on its own.

In a final throw of the dice of good cheer, he tempted Mickey’s curiosity. ‘Know what strikes me about this case?’

Mickey barely managed another half-hearted shrug in response, but Rafferty told him anyway.

‘What strikes me is that you’ve been set up.’ Now he had Mickey’s attention. ‘The more I’ve thought about this case, and the unlikelihood of your receiving an invitation to his civic shindig from Rufus Seward, the more I’ve come to believe it. Let’s face it, you’ve been as well-framed as the Mona Lisa. Think about it,’ he invited Mickey. ‘You get an invite to a swanky do from a bloke you hate, one who wouldn’t have given you the time of day when he was alive; you arrive to find the host skewered like a lamb kebab. Then you leg it, leaving your prints behind and three people conveniently able to provide us with your description. The whole thing stinks worse than a week-old corpse.’

At least his observations seemed to have stirred Mickey from his lethargy. Now he was actually sitting up and paying attention.

‘You said you received a note with the invitation.’ Rafferty, suspecting that Mickey hadn’t told the complete — or indeed any — of the truth about this conveniently burned note, questioned him further. ‘Tell me what it said again?’

Mickey reddened and his lips thinned to a stubborn line of reluctance.

But Rafferty wasn’t about to let it go. ‘Never mind being coy. If your ID’s discovered, you’re well-placed to get charged with murder. It’s not as if you’ll be able to hide out here indefinitely.’ Not at the extortionate price of two hundred and fifty smackers a week that Algy Edwards was charging, he wouldn’t. ‘You’ve got a motive. You had the opportunity. Who’s to say you didn’t also bring the means to kill him with you? You’re placed at the scene, bro, or it’s likely you soon will be when someone comes out of the woodwork and identifies you, so come on, out with it. What did that note say? And never mind that “let’s be friends” crap you told me before.’

Mickey’s entire face seemed screwed up tighter than a pig’s tail. But then he suddenly burst out, ‘OK, if you must know, it said, “Maybe you” — meaning me— “could do your party piece for the ladies”.’

‘Party piece?’

‘Drop my trousers like that bastard Seward used to do to me. Do I need to spell it out? He said some of those posh bints liked to get down and dirty with a bit of rough. And he did mean dirty. He said I’d already had the number two treatment. Maybe it was time I tried the number one, one, too, and have some posh bird piss on me.’

Rafferty’s eyebrows rose, then as quickly lowered as Mickey was wearing his belligerent face again. But no wonder his brother had decided to take Seward up on his invite. The note would have brought back all the humiliations he’d suffered as a youth. Only now he was a man, and a fit and muscular one at that. And with all his own wood-working tools…

‘You didn’t—?’ he began as doubt about Mickey’s innocence came back to worry him.

‘No, I didn’t,’ Mickey spat out, ‘but, by Christ, I might have done if someone hadn’t beaten me to it.’

Rafferty nodded and said no more. But if Mickey was telling the truth and Rafferty believed he was, then someone
had
set him up. And he didn’t think that someone was Rufus Seward.

No, Mickey had been set up as a patsy to cover up someone else’s loathing and murder. And his brother had taken the proffered bait and plunged into the trap as obligingly as the town bike dropped her drawers for the boys and gave them a ride. Rafferty sat back thoughtfully. ‘The three people who provided your description were Ivor Bignall and the two security men, Jake Arthur and Andy Watling. You’re sure you don’t know any of them?’

‘No. Don’t you think if I’d recognised them I’d have mentioned it before now?’

‘OK. Perhaps it’s that one or more of them knows you. It’s got to be someone who knows what Seward did to you when you were young.’

Mickey sneered at his great detective big brother. ‘Well done, Sherlock. Even I can work that much out. But let’s face it, it could be anyone. You don’t think Seward just carried out his ritual humiliations on his victims? He liked everyone to know about them, too. My humiliations were well-broadcast, make no mistake about that.’ Mickey leaned his head back against the orange banquette and closed his eyes. His face was drawn, despair deeply etched, as he muttered, ‘It could be anyone, I tell you.’

‘Actually, that’s not strictly true. It had to be someone who attended the party, for one thing. For another, it had to be someone in a position to help themselves to a blank invitation and know what to write that would anger you sufficiently to attend Seward’s party looking for a fight. Not quite anyone could do all those things. Presumably, this self-same person killed Seward.’

Rafferty picked up the one remaining piece of naan bread, wiped it round the now congealed vindaloo sauce and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing with every indication of enjoyment while his more fastidious brother made a face.

‘You’ve reason to hope, Mickey. Things are looking brighter than they were at the beginning of the case. We’re getting the suspects whittled down nicely and—’

‘Whittle a bit faster, can’t you? Mickey interrupted without troubling to open his dark-shadowed eyes, ‘or whoever it is might just get away with setting me up.’

Just then, Rafferty thought he heard a noise outside. His ears pricked up  and he shushed the already silent Mickey so he’d remain that way, got up from the hard banquette and edged the thin curtains aside a fraction.