Death Dues (2 page)

Superintendent Bradley interrupted him almost immediately. 'It won't do, Rafferty. It won't do at all. I've had the Deputy Chief Constable on my back about these cases. He’s a golfing buddy of one of the moneylenders whose collector was assaulted. Man by the name of Forbes. That’s the wrong side of the brass to be on, Rafferty. Which makes it the wrong side of me. Do I make myself clear?'

As crystal.

Rafferty nodded glumly and made his escape.

He'd barely got back to his office when the phone went again.

It was Abra. 'Hiya. Missing you already.’

‘Ditto, darlin’. The Super is really not up to the job of standing in for you, more’s the pity.’

‘He’s dragged you into his lair already, has he? Poor Joe.’ Abra paused tellingly, then said, ‘I've been ringing round a few of the venues, and I simply can't get them to drop their prices. I wondered—' A more delicate pause this time.‘ How much might I spend?’ She named a figure that made Rafferty's eyes water.

'For a measly chicken salad and a few olives thrown in?’ He didn’t even like bloody olives. ‘What do they do in their spare time? Rob graves?'

'It's a normal quote, Joe. What did you have served at your first wedding? Sausage butties all round at the corner chippie?'

'Abra, sweetheart. You know I’d rather nip up to Gretna Green and forget this whole thing.'

'I suppose Gretna Green is good enough for a man who’s been married once already. But this is my first—my only—wedding.’ The note of tears in Abra’s voice worked its magic. In truth, they’d never been far away once she set sail aboard HMS Romance. ‘I want to do it properly with all our family and friends there to wish us well.’

That was two people Rafferty had upset, and it wasn't even ten o'clock in the morning. ‘All right, sweetheart. But can we talk about it tonight? I'm up to my eyes here.’

‘Tonight, then. Promise, Joe?’

‘Cross my heart. Love you, Abra. I’ll see you tonight.’

Rafferty glanced at the clock. It was gone five. He was just about to congratulate himself on having got through the day without a rain-soaked call out when the phone rang. He braced himself for the inevitable as he picked up.

‘Inspector Rafferty? This is Constable Smales. There seems to have been a murder, sir. Just called in.’

'Where?' Rafferty sat up straight, knocking his tea over.

'An alleyway adjacent to Primrose Avenue.'

‘What happened?'

'Constable Green, who’s on the scene, reports it as blows to the back of the victim’s head. Quite a mess, she said, sir.'

'Any idea of the victim's identity?'

'Lizzie Green thinks he's a man called John "Jaws" Harrison, but his wallet and mobile are both missing so his ID can’t be immediately confirmed. Lizzie says Harrison works as a collector for Malcolm Forbes, one of the local loan sharks.'

Oh great, thought Rafferty. Now he really would have to take action.

‘All right, Smales. I’ll be out there right away.’

Rafferty righted his tea and mopped up the damage with a few tissues “borrowed” from Llewellyn’s ever-ready box. Muggings were one thing. But now they’d escalated to murder he knew he’d have to do more than a ‘little something’ As his empty stomach growled in reproach, he wished he hadn’t ignored lunch but worked through. A few sustaining carbohydrates would have been welcome during what promised to be a busy few hours.

Chapter Two

Primrose Avenue was a misnomer. The road backing on to the alley where the body was found contained nothing more decorative than weeds, of which there was a fine collection. They sprouted between the paving slabs as well as in most of the gardens, their vigour well-watered by torrential rain which the wind turned horizontal.

Rafferty’s umbrella was almost torn from his grasp. Primrose Avenue was in a run-down area of Elmhurst on the southern outskirts of the town, the houses mostly rented from the Council or from Housing Associations or Buy-to-Let private landlords, with unofficial lodgers taken in to help pay the bills. Here lived Elmhurst’s low-end population: the single mothers, the unemployed and unemployable, people in their fifties unable to find work, pensioners, the chronically sick and so on. The ‘deserving poor’, he supposed was how Llewellyn would describe them, if asked. But Rafferty, after being on the receiving end of one lecture already, had no intention of inviting another from Llewellyn.

The dead man had been attacked in the alleyway that ran behind the left-hand-side row of terraced houses. Both the alley and the houses ended in a high brick wall belonging to a canning factory so were effectively cul-de-sacs.

Their cadaver had clearly been robbed as Smales had confirmed there was no wallet or mobile phone on his body nor any other means of easy identification. He lay, partially on his side. His face, from what Rafferty could see of it, bore a surprised look. He had been struck from behind and then his attacker had continued to rain down blows on his head, though fortunately, they had mostly been to the back of his skull so there should be no delay in confirming his identity.

Rafferty huddled into his thin raincoat and prayed for summer to arrive as he stared at the dead man. He couldn’t but help think that this new investigation was somehow Llewellyn’s fault. If he hadn’t said that today looked likely to be quiet maybe they wouldn’t be standing out in a howling gale with him doing a poor man’s rendition of Singing in the Rain. But without the singing. Or the dancing, unless the jig of his raincoat counted. ‘You know,’ he said to Llewellyn, a smidgeon of blame in his voice that he knew was unfair, ‘Lizzie Green thought the victim was a John Harrison who works for Malcolm Forbes. I think she's right.’ It was the confirmation he had feared ever since Smales’ phone call.

Llewellyn nodded. ‘I thought I recognised him, too.'

Malcolm “The Enforcer” Forbes, was one of the local loan sharks, a business he ran from the back room of his pawnbroker’s shop. ‘The victim's nicknamed “Jaws”, if I remember rightly. And not only on account of his gnashers.’ A familiar face in the neighbourhood, the large, protruding teeth should have provided him with the dead man’s ID immediately. With such a face, he looked particularly suited to the job of loan shark’s gofer. John “Jaws” Harrison was something of a poacher turned gamekeeper. A man who had got deeply in debt to Malcolm Forbes and who had offered his services to Forbes as a collector in order to pay them off. And as he was built like the proverbial brick outhouse with a face to match, his offer to demand money with menaces had been taken up.

‘Should have stayed in debt, mate,’ Rafferty advised the corpse. ‘You might have lived longer. There’s nothing worse than shitting on your own doorstep for breeding hatreds, especially when you work for someone like Forbes.’

He was so deep in thought that his lack of attention to the wind direction forced his umbrella inside-out, nearly poking Llewellyn’s eye out and he didn’t notice. Instead, he let the umbrella have its head and stared at the corpse. Whoever had murdered Harrison had done a thorough job; the skull was visibly dented with crusted blood congealed in the light brown hair. The victim was wearing thick black brogues and green corduroy trousers. His raincoat, a pale fawn, was rucked up under the body. It had absorbed water from the muddy puddles decorating the alley. Altogether, he looked a sorry corpse.

Llewellyn, after a brief glance behind him, suggested, ‘Perhaps we should let the Scene of Crime Team and the photographer in to do their work?’

It seemed like a good idea to Rafferty as he became aware of what a logjam had built up behind them: Lance Edwards, the photographer, Fraser, the fingerprints king, Adrian Appleby and his Scene of Crime team, were kicking their heels at the alley’s entrance, awaiting their turn at the cadaver and its environs. Before they knew it the usually tardy Dr Sam “Dilly” Dally would arrive and would expect proprietorship of the corpse and all its works. He’d seen enough anyway and there was little, in all truth, for him to do at the scene. His job was with the witnesses and potential suspects.

They made their way back to the alley’s entrance and stripped off their protective gear. ‘He’s all yours,’ Rafferty told Lance Edwards as he folded up the broken umbrella, having lost the battle with the wind. He hefted the brolly, for a forgetful moment was almost tempted to dump the useless thing with the rest of the rubbish lining the alleyway, but then he caught Llewellyn’s gaze and thought better of it. A big no-no at the scene, Rafferty, he told himself. Shame on you. A big no-no
anywhere
these days. And quite right, too. Keep Britain Tidy and all that. Instead, he found one of the newer members of the uniformed team, handed him the broken umbrella with the stern instruction, ‘Look after that.’ He caught Llewellyn’s eye on him again and grinned. ‘Well, it’s no use to me. I thought he had a resourceful look. Might be able to fix it.’

‘Better than discarding it at the scene, anyway.’

‘As if.’

‘Want me to get the house-to-house organised?’ Llewellyn asked, clearly deciding that one of them ought to get the show on the road.

Rafferty nodded. He glanced up the street to where a gaggle of shaven-headed youths stood on the corner trying to look cool and pretending to be impervious to the chilly weather in their bum freezer leather jackets and threadbare jeans. Rafferty wasn’t interested in being ‘cool’. Neither was he ashamed of showing weakness by shivering. It was bloody cold, after all. The youths had been there when he and Llewellyn had arrived. Perhaps they’d been there earlier when Jaws Harrison had turned up? If so, they must now be so ‘cool’ as to be frozen to the marrow, though he supposed the first one to admit it would be chicken. ‘Once you've organised the house-to-house, get one of the spare uniformed bodies to put a crime tape around the end of the alley and the top of the Avenue before we have day trippers gawping at our efforts. And put someone on to question those youths. Get their details. I don’t suppose we’ll get much else at this stage.’

After Llewellyn had gone off to do his bidding, Rafferty stood, taking in the scene. Now that he’d arrived to put a sting in uniform’s tail the cordons were going across and the erection of a tent over the corpse had begun. The scene of crime team had now started a fingertip search of the alley. Someone had found a hedge trimmer a few yards up the alley from the body. Briefly, Rafferty wondered what it was doing there and whether it had had anything to do with the murder. Along the short terraced cul-de-sac of fourteen houses, women were standing in little huddles, arms folded against the cold, taking everything in. Doubtless some had already had a good look at the body before the arrival of uniform. He hoped not too many of them had tramped all over his crime scene and contaminated it.

‘Who found the body?’ Rafferty asked PC Timothy Smales who was hovering at his elbow as if expecting some kind of pat on the head. Young Smales pointed to the area car where a man could be seen in the back seat, before he consulted his notebook. ‘Over there, Sir. Name of Eric Lewis. Lives at number four. There’s a bit of a discrepancy. He says he found the body between three and three-thirty, but it wasn’t rung in till five o’clock.’

Rafferty nodded, impressed. Young Smales was coming along just fine. One time, he wouldn’t have been able to supply such information so readily, let alone make a deduction from it. Now, the lad seemed a veritable Sherlock. ‘Well done, Tim. We’ll make a copper of you yet.’ Tim Smales’ youthful complexion still sported its bum-fluff. It still blushed red as a girl. Something else he’ll have to grow out of, Rafferty thought to himself. Still, he’s got plenty of time. ‘I’ll have a word.’

Rafferty, glad of an excuse to get out of the wind and rain that had yet to trouble Llewellyn’s neat coiffeur, walked over to the car and dropped into the back seat. ‘Mr Lewis? I’m Inspector Rafferty. I understand you found the body?’

Eric Lewis nodded, but added no further explanation. He was a stocky man of around the mid-forties, with heavy jowls and hardly any hair. Just an ordinary little man experiencing the extraordinary.

‘And this was around three to half past?’

This brought another nod.

‘I gather from one of my officers that it wasn’t rung in till five o’clock. Why the delay?’

Lewis said nothing for several moments, then: ‘I was in shock, wasn’t I? I wasn’t thinking straight. I could barely get my head around it.’

Rafferty doubted the man had been so shocked that he’d been incapable of punching out three numbers on his phone. He made a mental note to probe further after this initial interview. Lewis was hiding something. ‘Was he dead when you found him?’

‘I didn’t stop to look. But he must have been to judge from the state of the back of his head. Caved in it was.’

Still is, thought Rafferty. Not a pretty sight. Perhaps it was as well he didn’t have a canteen lunch sitting heavily. ‘Did you recognise him?’

‘Who? Me? No. Never saw him before in my life.’

That sounded unlikely to Rafferty, seeing as Eric Lewis lived in the street from where, according to Ma’s gossip, Jaws Harrison regularly collected. However, for the moment, he didn’t press the point. His Ma only lived around the corner and knew all the neighbours’ business better than they knew it themselves. He’d have a word with her later and see what she could tell him about their current crop of neighbourhood suspects.

‘You live at number four, Mr Lewis, on the opposite side of the street, I understand?’ Lewis nodded. ‘I wondered what you were doing in that alleyway, seeing as it’s a dead end and doesn’t lead anywhere apart from the back entrances to the houses on the other side of the Avenue.’

‘I borrowed a hedge trimmer from Jim Jenkins at number eleven and was returning it. He’s a bit deaf and I knew he wouldn’t hear me if I knocked at the front. Spends most of his time in the back garden or the back room. He’s of the generation that keep the front room for “best’’,’ he added as an afterthought.

‘My officers found a hedge trimmer close to the body. How did it get there?'