A Thrust to the Vitals (30 page)
Canthorpe wasn’t worth wasting any more of his energy over. He needed every ounce of it to get his Christmas shopping sorted. All of it. And if he chose his shops with care, maybe they’d even wrap the gifts for him? And in a far more attractive manner that his ham-fisted efforts were likely to achieve. He could even co-opt Llewellyn as arbiter of taste for the job. After all, with the investigation concluded, that only left the paperwork to be done. And even Bradley wouldn’t demand they complete that chore on Christmas Eve.
As Rafferty told Llewellyn on the drive back to Elmhurst, the shopping successfully and speedily accomplished in the nearest department store which offered beautiful gift-wrapping, in his own way, Marcus Canthorpe had become every bit as callous and ruthless as his boss. ‘I suppose he’d spent the last five years watching and studying, in Rufus Seward, a ruthless professional at work. Something was bound to rub off.’
‘Rather like your poor spelling has an adverse effect on my own,’ Llewellyn murmured.
Rafferty chose not to hear this. ‘Even so, imagine deliberately setting up an entirely innocent man, a complete stranger, to take the rap for murder. I’m still having trouble getting my head around that.’
Llewellyn shrugged and commented, ‘As you said, he didn’t lack an excellent tutor in the ways of evil. He’d spent years watching how his boss operated. It was only too likely some of that behaviour would rub off.’
Rafferty nodded. Poor Mickey, as he had discovered, had merely been a randomly-selected patsy for Seward’s murder. Canthorpe had sent out a number of invitations to people whom, as he had learned during his long employment with Seward, had reason to bear his boss a grudge. Mickey had been the only lowly such invitee to accept the party invitation. Canthorpe hadn’t been quite daring enough to target the not-so-lowly, like Ivor Bignall or Idris Khan. Talk about it’s the rich wot gets the pleasure and it’s the poor wot gets the blame…
As Canthorpe had told Rafferty, it had been: ‘Nothing personal’.
But, he reflected again, it had sure felt personal to Rafferty, Mickey and the rest of their family.
‘By the way,’ Llewellyn interrupted Rafferty’s musings, ‘you never told me what the superintendent said when you rang and told him he was in the clear.’
‘Didn’t I?’
‘I hope he thanked you, at least.’
‘Not a bit of it. He bawled me out for even daring to consider him a suspect in the first place. I’d be off his Christmas card list for sure — if, that is, I’d ever been on it.’
Llewellyn gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘Bosses. They were ever thus.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Rafferty replied, before it occurred to him that he was Llewellyn’s boss. He frowned. Was Llewellyn having a sly dig? But I’m nothing like Bradley, he felt like protesting. He wanted to ask his sergeant if he did consider him on a par with Bradley, but then he thought better of it. He wasn’t altogether convinced he would like Llewellyn’s reply.
He wasn’t too keen on what Llewellyn said next, either.
‘So are you going to tell me now where it was you hid your brother? I finally remembered a couple of days ago where I’d met him before,’ he revealed. ‘Or are you going to deny his disappearance was your doing?’
Shocked that Llewellyn had correctly deduced his involvement without once betraying a hint of it, Rafferty was happy to take guidance from his sergeant’s remark. I’m going to deny it, damn right I am, he said to himself. Deny, deny, deny. It’s much the best way. And he proceeded to do just that.
Chapter Twenty-One
With Mickey absolved from all suspicion — not to mention a similar absolution for Superintendent Bradley and the others who had made the suspects’ list — that evening, Rafferty and his family prepared to celebrate the festive season and Mickey’s own absolution in style.
They all felt they had earned it, Rafferty not least. And even the God that Rafferty considered so vengeful wouldn’t, this time, he felt sure, dare to stick His Almighty nose in and try to cause Rafferty grief as he so often did.
‘Because if you do,’ Rafferty warned the many stars twinkling innocently in the night sky before he got in the car and drove off to release his brother from his caravan cell preparatory to joining Ma, Abra and all down the pub — even Llewellyn had condescended to join them with his wife Maureen, ‘I really will consider giving into the many temptations your oppo puts in my path and sign up for his army.
‘Who knows, if he ever has another go at starting a heavenly coup, he might be on to a winner, his army of sinners being surely much bigger than your saintly bunch. So think on, Big Boy.’
CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR
Geraldine Evans is the author of twenty published novels, including fifteen in the Rafferty and Llewellyn procedural series, two in the Casey & Catt procedural series, one historical novel (Reluctant Queen), one medical suspense (The Egg Factory) as well as a romance (Land of Dreams), a collection of short stories and a short guide to epublishing with Amazon’s Kindle (How eFormat Your Novel For Amazon’s Kindle: A short But Comprehensive A-Z Guide). Her previous publishers include Macmillan, Severn House, Hale, St Martin’s Press and Worldwide (US).
She started writing in her twenties, but never finished anything. It was only when she hit the milestone age of thirty that she managed to complete a book. For the next six years she completed a book a year, only the last of which was published. That was her romance, Land of Dreams (out of print).
When her follow-up romance was rejected, she felt like murdering someone. So she did. She turned to crime. Dead Before Morning, her first mystery novel and the first book in her now 15-strong Rafferty and Llewellyn procedural series, was taken from Macmillan’s slush pile and published, both in the UK and the US. It was the beginning of a long and successful career as a mystery author.
In late August 2010, she made the decision to part with her publisher and turn indie. She has now published most of her backlist as ebooks, as well as epublishing two new novels (Kill and Kill and The Egg Factory) independently.
Geraldine Evans is a Londoner, but moved to Norfolk in East Anglia, in 2000.
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Other Books By Geraldine Evans
Rafferty & Llewellyn procedural series
Kith and Kill #15 (Self-Published)
Deadly Reunion #14 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Death Dance #13 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
All the Lonely People #12 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Death Dues #11 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
A Thrust to the Vitals #10 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Blood on the Bones #9 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Love Lies Bleeding #8 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Bad Blood #7 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Dying For You #6 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Absolute Poison #5 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
The Hanging Tree #4 (Orig Pub: Macmillan)
Death Line #3 (Orig Pub: Macmillan)
Down Among the Dead Men #2 (Orig Pub: Macmillan)
Dead Before Morning #1 (Orig Pub: Macmillan)
Casey & Catt procedural series
A Killing Karma #2 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Up in Flames #1 (Orig Pub: Severn House)
Standalones
The Egg Factory: International Medical Suspense Novel (Self-Published)
Reluctant Queen: Historical Novel About the Little Sister of Henry VIII (Orig Pub: Hale)
Land of Dreams: Romantic Novel (Orig Pub: Hale)
Short Stories
A Mix of Six
Non-Fiction
How To eFormat Your Novel For Amazon’s Kindle: A Short but Comprehensive A-Z Guide
WHERE TO FIND GERALDINE EVANS
About The Rafferty & Llewellyn cozy procedural series
DI Joe Rafferty, working-class lapsed Catholic, is cursed by coming from a family who think — if he must be a copper — he might at least have the decency to be a bent one. When you add the middle-class, more moral than the Pope, liberal intellectual DS Dafyd Llewellyn to the brew the result is a procedural murder mystery with plenty of laughs for the reader and more than enough angst for Rafferty.
‘Solid, straightforward detection mingled with family mayhem.’
KIRKUS REVIEWS ON A THRUST TO THE VITALS
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