Death Line (21 page)

“Inspector Rafferty?” He was older than Rafferty had thought. In his mid-thirties at least, but with skin so smooth he looked as if he had just come out of the trouser press. “I'm Jocelyn Eckersley, Nathaniel Kingston's secretary.” He spoke Kingston's name with reverence, as if, to him, the writer had the status of a god.

Rafferty nodded. “Mr Eckersley. I explained on the phone that I need to speak to Mr Kingston in connection with the death of Jasper Moon and-”

“You explained that, certainly.” Eckersley's smoothness was of the steely variety, as his voice attested. “But you didn't really explain why. I told you that my employer rarely leaves the house. He certainly hasn't been visiting and murdering prominent astrologers. It's too bad that he should be disturbed like this, especially as I really can't believe he can help you with your investigation.”

Another of Rafferty's collection of prejudices – this time against smooth types – gave an edge to his voice. “Perhaps you'll allow me to be the judge of that, Mr Eckersley. Could we see Mr Kingston now, please?”

Eckersley stared at him for several seconds, his expression hostile, before acknowledging by an inclination of his head that Rafferty had the upper hand. He turned without another word. They followed, and as they rounded the corner of the building, Rafferty could see the great man himself. He was sitting alone on the terrace, gazing out over the grey North Sea.

“Mr Kingston spends a great deal of time there when the weather's fine,” Eckersley murmured distantly. “It's one of the few pleasures he has left.”

As Rafferty drew closer, he began to understand why Eckersley had been so protective of his boss. Kingston's body was shrunken as if he had some wasting disease – if so, it explained why he rarely left his home. His face was in profile, his fleshless cheeks fell away sharply, leaving his high-bridged nose prominent, like that of an emaciated eagle. He turned at their approaching footsteps. His eyes were a piercing cornflower blue, and looked astonishingly youthful in a face owning more skull than flesh. Rafferty's earlier suspicions fell away as it became apparent that, even with the walking stick that rested against his chair, Kingston would have enough trouble hobbling around his own home, never mind climbing the long flight of stairs to Moon's consulting rooms and murdering him.

“Inspector?” In spite of his physical degeneration, Kingston's voice was surprisingly strong and rich, each syllable given its full weight in a voice that could have been made for the stage. “My secretary told me you would be calling. Come, sit down by me and keep an old man company for a while.”

Rafferty sat. “I didn't think you liked company much, Mr Kingston.”

“It depends on the company, Inspector. But I think I'll risk it.” He might be old, sick – dying even, but Kingston had a definite presence. Rafferty glanced at Llewellyn. The Welshman's pale face had a slight flush at the cheekbones, his eyes drank Kingston in as though he was determined to commit every detail of the meeting to memory. “I hear a tiny hint of blarney in your voice,” Kingston continued. “And the Irish generally have a refreshing candour and lack of pomposity. As one gets older, one finds most people wearisome. Now I have neither the stamina nor the time for clacking tongues that say little and minds that peck over the banal as if it were Holy Writ.” He paused and gave them a gentle, self-mocking smile. “I'm being tiresome. A self-indulgence of the aged that I've always deplored. You wanted to speak to me about Jasper Moon's murder?”

“Yes.” The secretary hovered protectively over his employer, as if he suspected Rafferty would lurch across the table and drag a confession out of him and Rafferty felt increasingly conscious that they were here on a fool's errand. “I believe you were one of Jasper Moon's clients?”

“Hardly a client,” Eckersley broke in. “Mr Kingston consulted Moon just once, some months ago. I really don't see...”

“Thank you, Jocelyn.” Kingston turned his head the barest fraction as if the least exertion tired him. “Perhaps you would be good enough to bring some refreshments for our guests?”

“But...”

“Is coffee all right?” Kingston glanced at the two policemen, who nodded. “Good coffee is one of the pleasures forbidden to me, but I think, just this once... Oh, and Jocelyn,” he added, as the secretary still hovered, “I think our guests might enjoy some of that fruit-cake Teddy sent.” Though he spoke softly, his voice was firm, and Jocelyn retreated.

“I must apologise for my young friend.” Kingston's gentle smile embraced them both. “He means well, but he can be a little over zealous. Still, what he said is correct. I consulted Jasper once, about three months ago. Perhaps I should explain that I had already met Moon several times at literary functions – we have the same publisher. He impressed me, even more so as a good friend of mine had consulted him and Moon warned him he should consult a doctor as his hands showed the beginnings of a health problem. Moon was right, as my friend's doctor confirmed. My friend suggested I see Moon when I complained of feeling unwell; he even made the appointment for me. Anyway, I kept the appointment.”

“You didn't think of consulting a doctor?” Rafferty asked.

Kingston smiled ruefully. “Even so-called literary lions can be squeamish kittens when it comes to their health – ignorance is bliss and all that. You know how one puts these things off. My own doctor had retired, I didn't find his successor very congenial, and I simply hadn't got around to making alternative arrangements. So, as a compromise, I saw Jasper Moon.”

“Did Moon come here for the consultation?”

“No. I went to his office. I was stronger then. My secretary drove me. Anyway, at first Moon would say little more about my health than that I should consult a doctor as soon as possible. I insisted that he tell me more. I imagine he thought he was breaching some code of ethics to which he adhered, but finally he did me the courtesy of accepting that I knew my own mind and admitted that my hands showed all the signs of an extremely serious disease. He was right, I'm afraid, as the doctors confirmed when I finally saw them. I haven't long to live. That was the only occasion I saw him.”

“I see.” After glancing at Llewellyn's stunned face, Rafferty shuffled in his seat, uncomfortable with Kingston's serene acceptance of his own imminent death.

“Please don't be embarrassed.” Kingston's death's head smile embraced them both. “I have had a good life, a rich life, more than most people have. I am not afraid to die. Ask whatever questions you feel necessary.” Still Rafferty hesitated and Kingston's eyes crinkled as if Rafferty's discomfiture provided him with a secret amusement. “Come now, Inspector. I'm sure you haven't come down here just to admire the view. Ask away. Before Jocelyn returns. Preferably before I die.”

Rafferty smiled. He liked this old man. On the way down, he had imagined himself being squashed by the writer's superior brain, but he wasn't the intellectual ogre he had assumed. He was beginning to enjoy Nat Kingston's company and he fell in with his suggestion, forgetting that he had told Llewellyn to ask the questions. Anyway, Llewellyn still looked stunned at the news of his idol's imminent death. “Moon's appointments diary had your name entered several times – the first three months ago as you said, and the last on the day he died. Can you explain that?”

“I'm afraid I was humouring him, Inspector. He seemed to think I would need counselling once I had the doctors investigate his warning. So he made further appointments which I had no intention of keeping. It seemed kinder to let him do so. I didn't meet him again. I read that he died last Thursday, but I can assure you I didn't kill him. I was here all that day, as I am every day. Violence is anathema to me. It always has been. Words have always been my strength, my sword.” The eyes were gently mocking. “Seeing me now, the physical wreck I have become, you probably won't believe me when I say I can be a veritable terror for the truth. But Moon believed it and so he told me what I needed to know.”

He held out his hands. They were as pale, as wasted as the rest of him, the lines on his palms were broken up, all but the head line were weak, islanded as they crossed the palm. “I was still fairly robust when I saw him, but Moon knew. Although he urged me to see a doctor, I think we both knew it was too late for that; my health worsened swiftly soon after I had seen him. I could see the pity in his eyes. That's what made me so insistent.”

He put his hands back in his lap. “I've always believed a man has the right to make decisions about his own life and to do that he needs to know if his death is imminent. The doctors told me I would die without treatment, but I would also die with treatment. There seemed little point in putting my poor body through tortuous regimes to gain a few more weeks of life, so I came home. I wanted to arrange my affairs.” His gaze returned to the ocean, and he smiled his gentle smile, as if he saw something out there that more earth-bound mortals couldn't see. “I have now done so and I can die in peace.”

They
sat in a curiously companionable silence after that, broken only when Jocelyn Eckersley brought deliciously fragrant coffee in giant cups. He had forgotten the fruit cake. Llewellyn, his face even more mournful than usual, chatted quietly to Kingston about his life and work. The old man answered him politely enough, but Rafferty got the impression the subject bored him. That part of his life was past, done with, his manner implied. All that remained to Kingston was eternity and whatever place in the annals of the great the literati decided to award him. They left soon after, Llewellyn so subdued, he didn't even point out that he had been supposed to ask the questions.

“That's one suspect out of the running,” Rafferty ventured to comment, when they were halfway back to the station.

Llewellyn turned his head. “You didn't seriously suspect him, did you? A man like that wouldn't descend to murder. Only the highest, most honourable motives would prompt a man like that to kill.”

“I liked the old man myself,” Rafferty told him. “But he still had to be questioned. You know that. It's called police-work, Dafyd,” Rafferty gently reminded him. “Remember that quaint old word?”

They had now worked their way through all of Moon's client list with no result. They had all checked out. Astell would be pleased, Rafferty thought. He's been itching to get them all off my suspect list. His thoughts were interrupted as a call came through on the radio. The elusive Terry Hadleigh had finally turned up; the need for food and money having brought him out of hiding. Harry McGrath, one of Rafferty's contacts in the Met, had spotted him draped on the euphemistically named "meat rack" in Piccadilly Circus, among the rest of the bodies for sale. He was expected back at Elmhurst at any time.

Rafferty put down the radio mike. Sitting back in the passenger seat, he instructed Llewellyn to put his foot down; a pointless request with Llewellyn, of course, who was caution itself behind the wheel. However, Rafferty made no comment. He merely sat, running over in his head the best way to conduct the coming interview. At the least, he hoped they would get to the bottom of the business of the art lessons.

“So, the
Prodigal Son has returned,” was Rafferty's comment, as he stepped into the interview room. Hadleigh was slouched in his chair and, apart from scowling in Rafferty's general direction, he didn't look up. “I'm afraid the canteen's right out of fatted calves. But we've plenty of juicy questions. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what about.”

The only response this brought from Hadleigh was a sneer and an even lower slouching. His thin face looked gaunt beneath his bleached blonde hair. He seemed to suffer from an acute case of arrested development. Not only was he short – he could be no more than 5′5″ – at first glance he could easily be mistaken for a teenager, an anorexic teenager dressed in the universal youth uniform of skin-tight blue jeans and sleeveless black tee shirt. The tee shirt was too big for him and looked as if it had been borrowed from a larger friend. The armholes were designed for more muscular limbs, and Hadleigh's thin, white goose-bump-blemished arms, hanging from the depths of the black cotton, gave him a curiously defenceless, childlike air which was not only disconcerting, but at odds with his attempted hard man of the streets, couldn't care less manner.

Rafferty reminded himself that Hadleigh was forty-one, long past the age of innocence, and notwithstanding the early homosexual assault, would appear to have embarked on his later dissolute lifestyle with enthusiasm. At any rate, he'd never made any strenuous efforts to break away and find a legal way of earning a living. He'd rarely held down any job for more than a few weeks, never shown any inclination to self-improvement. Yet now, if his mother was to be believed, he had developed artistic aspirations.

Rafferty's lip curled and he sat down on the other side of the table, picked up Hadleigh's bum freezer leather jacket and threw it at him. “You look cold. Better put this on.” He didn't want any crusading brief making accusations of ill-treatment.

Rafferty signalled to Llewellyn to turn on the tape recorder, cautioned Hadleigh and fed the relevant details into the microphone. “Right, Mr Hadleigh, as I'm sure you're aware, Jasper Moon, the well-known astrologer, was found murdered in his consulting rooms on Friday the 9th of October. I want to know what you can tell me about it.”

Hadleigh ignored the thrown jacket, which had fallen to the floor. He denied any knowledge of Moon's death and tried to assume a cocky pose. But whether guilt and fear had damaged his acting skills, his heart didn't seem to be altogether in it.