A Thrust to the Vitals (29 page)

Chapter Twenty

It was the night before Christmas. Rafferty had received an early gift. For Marcus Canthorpe had begun to sing. Fortunately, his chosen airs weren’t Christmas carols, but the truth about Seward’s murder.

Rafferty was pleased he had been right in his expectation that Canthorpe would tell all sooner rather than later. They had proof enough of his guilt over the twins’ deaths, so why should he continue to deprive himself of the satisfaction of explaining just how clever he’d been over the murder of Sir Rufus Seward? He was going to jail whatever happened. Why should he care if it was for three murders rather than two?

Rafferty and Llewellyn, recalled to Norwich Police Station by DI Apsley for another session with Canthorpe, had hardly entered the interview room before Canthorpe launched into his torrent.

‘Shame that old bastard, Seward, never mentioned that Mickey Rafferty had a police inspector for a brother,’ he observed bitterly before he paused and admitted, ‘But, perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt on that. After all, I don’t suppose he troubled to keep in contact with his carpenter classmate. It was his wealthy, influential peers he was keen to impress and network with. Over the years of working for him, I discovered most of the tales about what Seward had done to people in his youth. He used to boast about them. The humiliations, the bullying, the lies. I looked up some of these people when I knew this civic reception in Seward’s home town was in the offing. I thought I might be able to entice one or two of the more gullible amongst his earlier victims along to the reception.’

‘So, what made you pick on Mickey to take the rap for Seward’s murder?’ Rafferty asked.

Canthorpe shrugged. ‘Sheer fluke, really. Your brother was the only one of the unimportant, under-achieving nobodies to reply to the invitation and actually turn up. The others of his ilk to whom I had sent invitations contented themselves with sending back rude RSVP responses. Apart from Sir Rufus’s local charity cases who all left early, the other invitees who accepted were way too rich and powerful for me to even consider trying to use one of them as a patsy for murder.’

‘How did you even know my brother had arrived?’ Rafferty questioned. ‘He told me he never saw anyone but the security guards and Ivor Bignall.’

‘Simple enough, Inspector. All the guests had been requested to report to reception when they arrived. I instructed the duty receptionists to ring through to the suite to advise of each guest’s arrival so I could be at the door to welcome them. I was warned when he was on his way up.’

‘And Mickey gave his name at reception?’ Dumbfounded, Rafferty stared at Canthorpe. If that was the case, how on earth had Mickey’s identity remained undiscovered? They had questioned the reception staff closely. None had mentioned a Mickey Rafferty amongst the party guests, so how—?

‘Come now, Inspector. Surely you’ve worked that one out by now? You’ve done so well with the rest, after all.’

Rafferty felt his blood pressure rising at Canthorpe’s patronising tone. He did his best not to show his irritation. Instead, he frowned, glanced at Llewellyn for inspiration, changed his mind about that and was finally forced to shake his head.

Canthorpe breathed out on a sigh as if Rafferty had disappointed him. ‘Let’s just say your brother’s invitation was couched a little differently to the others. But over the years, even though we’ve never actually met, I’ve felt I’ve come to know him rather well. I thought an invitation inscribed with the name Michael “Browncock” Rafferty likely to stir the memory sufficiently that he would be sure to provide merely a brief flash of his invitation at reception and a garbled name. Few indeed of the other guests that night were of a retiring disposition or given to garbling either their names or their syntax. It wasn’t hard to guess that the “Mickey Orr” that the receptionist reported as the latest arrival was the man I was waiting for. You’ll understand why I didn’t tarry at the door to greet him as I had with the other guests. I had another, more pressing task to perform.

‘I had instructed reception to simply text their messages to my mobile. Continually ringing phones can be so annoying, don’t you find? And, of course, I took the trouble to get chatty with the hotel staff before Sir Rufus’s big night so I could discover who were the laziest amongst the security staff. Easily enough accomplished. I soon learned that both Arthur and Watling were well-known for their idleness and inattention to duty, so I specifically asked for them to do door duty that night.’

‘But why should you want inattentive security guards for the door? You deliberately set Mickey up and must surely—’

‘True, but I felt it would look a little too set-up if his name was immediately known. Besides, I thought a mystery man would add a certain piquancy to your investigation.’

‘You could have added another suspect to the mix. Why didn’t you draw our attention to the fact that Nigel Blythe had turned up at your boss’s Norfolk home? You must have recognised him when he arrived at the reception as he sat in your office for an hour before Seward sent him off with a flea in his ear, but I had to find out his presence there for myself when I viewed your security tape.’

‘Let’s just say Mr Blythe wasn’t convenient for my plans. I already had one patsy, I didn’t need another to confuse the issue. It was a mistake, I see that now. I suppose that’s what first made you suspect me.’

‘You were always a suspect, Mr Canthorpe, so let’s just say your failure to mention the interesting Mr Blythe made you even more interesting to cynical policemen than he was, especially when it was you who found your boss’s body. It was the second time you came to my attention during the investigation. And when I began to think more clearly about who had the best opportunity to send my brother an invitation, the best opportunity, too, to learn all about the history between him and Seward and who was physically present the night he was murdered, you stood out from the crowd.

‘Your failure to reveal you recognised Mr Blythe was curious enough on its own. You now say you didn’t need a second patsy in Mr Blythe, so why did you try to point the finger at Ivor Bignall?’

‘I didn’t feel I had any choice about that. I assumed I hadn’t been the only one to notice that Ivor Bignall was decidedly cool towards my boss that night. Better, I thought, to mention it than not. I didn’t feel I had a choice, as I said. But Mr Blythe was, I thought, my little secret. The only other person who knew of his presence at the Norfolk estate that day was Sir Rufus. And I knew he wouldn’t be saying anything to the police. Why draw your eye from the ball I’d put so neatly in place? Nigel Blythe was a wild card I didn’t want or need. I’d already decided on my patsy. I saw no reason to confuse matters.’

By now, Marcus Canthorpe seemed to have accepted his fate. He was certainly being obligingly chatty about what he had done. Even so, his voice held a certain rueful resentment as he added, ‘But if I’d known my patsy had a police inspector for a brother, I’d have done without the piquancy. Imagine how I felt when I learned an Inspector Rafferty was to lead the investigation and enquiries revealed that you were one of the three brothers that Sir Rufus had been at school with?’

Canthorpe gave an arrogant, self-congratulatory smile. ‘In the circumstances, I think I showed a quite remarkable sang-froid.’

For once, Rafferty’s lack of languages didn’t let him down. He recalled Llewellyn using the expression once and he’d looked it up. ‘You’re right,’ he told Canthorpe. ‘Your blood is cold. A good match for your heart, I imagine.’

Canthorpe simply stared at him for several seconds before he demanded, ‘Do you want to hear the rest?’ When Rafferty gave a brief, curt nod, he continued. ‘Anyway, your brother was perfect for my plans. And the sharpened carpenter’s wood chisel really was a particularly pleasing touch. And what a stroke of luck for me that it should be the carpenter Rafferty brother who took the invitation bait rather than one of the other possible patsies. It was a case of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing personal.’

Nothing personal? Rafferty thought. By Christ, it had felt personal!

To restrain his urge to beat Canthorpe to a bloody pulp, he demanded, ‘So what would you have done if Mickey hadn’t turned up that night?’

‘Bided my time, of course, till the next occasion. Seward had a party planned for New Year’s Eve at his Norwich estate. I managed to hook another couple of grudge-bearing losers into accepting invitations for that, much as I did your brother for this reception. All it took was to enclose the celebrity guest list with the invitation. Some people will eat any amount of humble pie when the chance to peer down Jordan’s cleavage is dangled in front of them.’

Canthorpe, expecting Mickey’s imminent arrival after having arranged with reception to text his mobile when each guest arrived at the hotel, now revealed he had concealed himself in the large walk-in closet down the short hallway leading to Seward’s bedroom till he could be sure Mickey had actually reached the penthouse suite. From there, he had been able to see the door to the suite reflected in the large mirror on the wall opposite.

Rafferty could only presume it had been this same mirror via which one of the Farraday twins had spotted Canthorpe’s strange behaviour in concealing himself in one of the floor-to-ceiling cupboards lining the passage to Seward’s bedroom.

Once sure of his patsy’s arrival, and after recognising the hesitant Mickey from an earlier surveillance at his address, Canthorpe had covered his suit with the long raincoat for added protection from blood splashes and hurried down the short hallway leading to Seward’s en suite bedroom. It was just then that Superintendent Bradley had spotted him and mistaken him for a young woman.

Mickey had clearly not been sober, Canthorpe told them. His less than steady gait and pugnacious expression meant that Ivor Bignall took more note of his appearance than he might otherwise have done. It was probably with a certain satisfaction that Bignall had directed the clearly spoiling-for-a-fight Mickey to Seward’s bedroom. This encounter had only improved Canthorpe’s ability to use Mickey as a scapegoat and chief suspect.

Once Canthorpe knew his patsy had arrived, he crept into Seward’s bedroom, the sharpened chisel stolen from hotel maintenance ready in his pocket.

Canthorpe explained that he knew he couldn’t waste any time with his patsy’s entrance imminent. ‘I approached Seward, who was writing at his desk. As usual, Seward didn’t trouble to look up. He was a rude man and invariably ignored underlings and made them wait if they wanted his attention.

‘However, I had no intention of waiting this time. Instead, after having helped myself to a large bath towel from Seward’s en-suite for additional stain protection, I immediately plunged the chisel into Seward’s back, having taken the added precaution of keeping the chisel in a plastic bag in my pocket and sliding on a pair of cotton gloves from a plastic bag in my other pocket before I touched the chisel’s wooden hilt. I’d already given the chisel a good scouring to remove any traces of the maintenance man, as I didn’t want it revealed exactly where it had come from in case you started asking questions of the staff.

‘I’d already put on thin rubber gloves so none of my DNA traces would come into direct contact with the cotton gloves. The large towel and charity shop raincoat I’d previously purchased protected my clothing from any blood spurts.’

Having murdered his hated boss, and hearing Mickey question Ivor Bignall about Seward’s whereabouts, Canthorpe told them he had quickly concealed himself in Seward’s en suite bathroom. With the door ajar a fraction, he witnessed Mickey’s horror as he took in Seward’s clearly dead body and watched as he left the bedroom and did what he had been sure he would do — leave the scene of the crime without telling anyone what he had seen.

Satisfied, Canthorpe had waited in the en suite till the main hallway was deserted, rehung the raincoat in one of the closets and discarded the protective towel in the suite’s main bedroom. He had then re-joined the party, confident, given the inebriated state of the remaining guests, that he wouldn’t have been missed. For, between Mickey’s arrival, Seward’s murder and Mickey’s hasty departure, no more than five minutes had elapsed.

Of course, he hadn’t taken the snooping twins into consideration. One or both of them must have seen him, in the mirror reflection, conceal himself in the closet. It would be enough to spark curiosity in anyone, but in people as eternally nosey as the Farraday twins, it was a curiosity that was to prove fatal all round. The twins had brought their own downfall as well as Canthorpe’s, as he bitterly commented.

The twins were spying little gits — always had been in Rafferty’s fading recollection of their shared schooldays. He had suspected that one day their activities would be the death of them. And so it had proved.

With their predilection for spying on people, their concealed paperwork collection had revealed that they had found Seward’s many parties and functions an especially fruitful ground for discovering sordid secrets that they could use to their advantage. Doubtless it was the reason they had taken employment with Seward in the first place; they had probably both thought becoming Seward’s employees might be a big help in their little hobby

They’d only been on the staff for a matter of months, so Canthorpe, so much younger than the twins and without the advantage of having gone to school with them, had failed to notice in time their habit of spying on others.

Once they had revealed what they had seen and demanded money for their silence, their fate was sealed. With so much at stake, Canthorpe had made use of their greedy love of drugs to help the pair to their own deaths.

Rafferty stood up and, for the tape, said, ‘Interview terminated at 3.15 p.m.’ As he took the twin tapes from the machine he stared at Canthorpe, was about to add something not for the tape, then changed his mind. Marcus Canthorpe had already put him, Mickey and the rest of their family through hell. Mickey had come close to being charged with murder, he’d come lose to losing his career and being banged up. In view of all that, he refused to lose his dignity also.