Kith and Kill (26 page)

Mr Selby tut-tutted at this. ‘My client felt she had a responsibility to her sister. Miss Pickford was her
baby
sister. She might be eighty-seven, but I believe, in Mrs Egerton's mind, she was still the baby sister that needed to be looked after. Understandable, I suppose, when you consider their unfortunate start in life.’

‘So Sophia just put up with her? Because she was family and the only connection she had to her own past?’

‘Yes. I believe that to be so.’

Rafferty stood up and thanked the solicitor.

Mr Selby stood up also and showed Rafferty to the door. Just as Rafferty was about to descend the circular staircase, Selby said, ‘Dear me. I do hope you won't broadcast the contents of our discussion to the media. I wouldn't like my client to be seen in a bad light over this bequest. I believe it to have been simply a reminder from beyond the grave of something they had had a running discussion about for years. I understand that Miss Pickford had thought Thomas Egerton not good enough for their family.’

This bemused Rafferty. ‘But they were a couple of Barnardo's brats. Abandoned by their parents. Hardly part of the aristocracy.’

‘Ah. But it is my belief from many conversations with my client, that Miss Pickford indulged a belief that they were the bast–illegitimate children of some local aristocratic line.’

‘Really? What made her think that?’

‘Their mother, I suppose it would be, left a rather valuable brooch with them when she abandoned them. It was attached to the shawl the baby Alice was wearing. I suppose the mother had thought this brooch would help pay for their upkeep.’

‘And were they? Descended on the wrong side of the blanket from some local aristocrat?’

‘I don't know. Miss Pickford has never been able to get very far in her investigations. You know she spent all her money on her quest? Her sister indulged her because she thought Miss Pickford had so little else in her life. No husband, no children, no grandchildren, no home of her own. No achievements of any sort. Her employment, such as it was, had been of the lowly sort. Both girls were only educated to the age of fourteen and not very well educated at that. She wasn't equipped for anything better than lowly work. Whereas my client had her beauty and her drive to help her improve her life. Perhaps, too, my client was a little curious about her origins also. It would be only natural.’

An unproven connection to some local toff, Rafferty mused as he made his careful way down the curving staircase. He could understand that the valuable brooch could lead an abandoned child, like Alice, who had so little else in her life, to dream up an aristocratic connection. It was rather sad and gave a wholly different perspective on the personality of the embittered old woman that Rafferty knew. But did it have anything to do with Sophia Egerton's murder? And what about that of Dahlia Sullivan? Perhaps the bequest of the rings could be construed as imparting a motive of sorts for the first murder, but it didn't explain that of Dahlia. This other business, this aristocratic roots nonsense was just a will o’ the wisp of a plain and lonely woman who longed to feel special in some way.

Rafferty sighed, made his way along the street and got into his car. He wondered what Llewellyn would make of his discoveries, but thought he could guess.

As
Rafferty had suspected, Llewellyn was inclined to pooh-pooh both Rafferty's theories about the rings and Alice Pickford's romantic aristocratic fancies.

‘I think we should be concentrating on those who benefitted in a material way from Mrs Egerton's death. A couple of rings, even if they did represent a spiteful taunt from beyond the grave at Miss Pickford's unmarried state, hardly constitute much of a motive for murder. As for this other business.’ With a wave of his hand, Llewellyn dismissed Alice Pickford's girlish dreams. ‘A lot of abandoned children dream of wealthy backgrounds and the arrival of a fond and monied father overjoyed to meet them at last. It seldom happens except between the pages of women's fiction.’

‘’You think I'm being a tad Mills and Boonish?’

‘Just a tad, perhaps. It hardly behoves you as a Detective Inspector to give credence to such things. As I said, there are other people with greater motives in the Egerton house.’

‘Adam, for instance?’

‘Adam, certainly’

‘We never seem to get far from him.’

‘And maybe Mrs Egerton's put-upon daughter, Mrs Chambers, who, from my earlier conversation with Miss Pickford, let herself become something of an unpaid skivvy, doing the jobs that Mrs Sullivan wouldn't do. For all that she seems to have felt grateful to Mrs Egerton for putting a roof over her head even if Miss Pickford didn't, she's still one of the main suspects. You can feel grateful yet still murder the person to whom you feel that gratitude. You only have to look at the examples from history. For instance, there's – ’

‘Yes,
yes, I'm sure there are examples,’ Rafferty said hurriedly, keen to divert what he sensed was the coming lecture. ‘We were talking about Alice Pickford. Did she have anything interesting to say for herself before Father Kelly arrived and took on the role of mouthpiece?’

‘No. She was more into denial than Bill Clinton over ‘that woman’. She denied knowing about the bequest. Denied also that her sister had been making some unkind taunt over the bequest of the rings. Indeed, she was most indignant that she was expected to leave them, in turn, to Mrs Egerton's daughter rather than to someone of her own choice. I got the impression she was considering selling them and using the money for something personal. Something like this ancestor quest you mentioned.’

‘Did she show these rings to you?’

‘No. I did ask her. She told me they were in the jeweller's being cleaned.’

Rafferty grinned. ‘What do you bet that, even now, they're reposing in some pawnbroker's window, having been sold to finance this search for her family?’

‘You'll have to make the wager with someone else, sir. You know I don't gamble.’

‘It's all right. I wasn't inviting you to put your money where your mouth is. It was a metaphorical request.’

‘So what now?’

Rafferty glanced at the clock. It was midday and he hadn't stopped all morning. ‘Now, we're going to copy Mr Selby's excellent example and have a tea-break and are going to try to assimilate what we've got.’ He smiled at Llewellyn. ‘Your turn to pay for the teas, I believe?’

The
afternoon was one of frustration as they worked their way through all the evidence thus far accumulated. But for all their studied concentration, they still lacked firm evidence to put one person in the frame.

And Rafferty found he had another niggle. It was something to do with the two murders committed on Sophia Egerton, as, in spite of Sam Dally's teasing, he still tended to think of them. Whatever aspect of this that was causing the niggle would, he felt, reveal itself eventually, after mind-cudgelling failed to encourage it to surface. It would come. Probably when he had given up on it.

But his mind-cudgelling had given something else up. A remembrance that he had promised his sister that he would try to sort his nephew out. No sooner the thought than the deed and it would make him feel he was achieving
something,
even if it was a something that didn't impinge on the case.

He told Llewellyn he had to go out and drove to Elmhurst Comprehensive, his nephew's school. He checked the headmaster was in and sat down to wait till he was free. The school day had just ended. While he waited to see Mr Stilson, he noticed a group of boys through the window. They were fifteen, sixteen and had that ‘school's finished for the day’, loosened tie, air. They had a concentrated manner for all the school's out air, a concentration that Rafferty bet they didn't wear in lessons. They seemed to be engaging in some sort of barter. Curious, he stared harder. A pair of eyes met his. The eyes stared hard back, then, they were quickly lowered and Rafferty saw the flash of a laptop, hastily shoved into a school bag. It looks decidedly iffy to Rafferty. Had he just happened upon the school's fence engaged in his business? A few moment's further thought had him wondering if
this
could be what was troubling Sean. He was a policeman's nephew after all. Maybe he felt he was piggy in the middle, unable to join in the trade and unable to grass the thieves up.

Rafferty got up and went and told the secretary that he didn't need to see the headmaster after all. Of course, by the time he reached the playground the boys had long gone. He got in his car and drove to his sister, Maggie's house. Now that he knew the questions to ask, he soon got the truth out of his nephew.

‘Why didn't you come to me?’ Rafferty asked.

‘How could I? You're part of the problem. I knew that some boys at school have been selling stolen goods on to the other kids, but what was I to do? Grass them up? I knew it was my duty, but then I'd be a leper at school once they all knew what I'd done.’

‘How could you be a leper when none of them know that I'm a), your uncle or b), a copper? Anyway, I know now and can nip it in the bud. Reckon if I put the fear of God into your classmates they'll call a halt to their thieving?’

‘Reckon. Even if they don't they'll know the police are watching them.’

Rafferty stood up. ‘That's what I'll do then. No need to involve you at all.’

Rafferty went downstairs and explained the situation to his sister. Before he left, Maggie said, ‘I've been meaning to tell you, Joe. I hear that Patrick Sean's been asking around for Fred Grimes, his hookey jewellery man. Seems he has no intention of not getting it cheap, after all, never mind what he said.’

‘There's a surprise.’ Rafferty kissed his sister and said goodbye. Leaving a relieved Maggie behind him, Rafferty walked out to the car. In spite of his sister's revelation that Patrick Sean had fibbed about not intending to buy ‘hot’ jewellery – which he had more than half-suspected anyway – he couldn't help grinning to himself. What a turn-up that Patrick Sean's half-namesake, should turn out to be that rare creature, a totally honest Rafferty. One not interested in being involved in any kind of hookey goods ducking and diving doings at all. Now there was a thing.

The thought put him in mind of the other side of the Rafferty coin: his brother Patrick Sean and he decided to try to sort out the question of the man in the pub and the hookey jewellery once and for all, while he was on a roll.

He glanced at his watch. It was gone half past four. The building trade had an early start and an early finish so he was in with a good chance of finding his brother at home.

Patrick
Sean
was
at home and inclined to be belligerent at Rafferty's aspersions. Although Rafferty noticed that he no longer claimed to be planning a legitimate jewellery purchase. ‘There's no need to get your knickers in a twist. It's not as if it'll be you who's buying it.’

‘It'll still be my money doing the buying.’

‘Only one-sixth of it. Hardly anything, really. And it's not as if we're going to be paying by cheque. No. It's cash all the way. No names, no pack drill.’

‘Doesn't that prove the gear's dodgy?’

‘Joe. Of course it's bloody dodgy. I'm buying it from a man in the pub not De Beers. For half its shop price. It's a bargain. What more do you want?’

Rafferty wanted them to buy jewellery that wasn't hookey. That was what he wanted. He brought the conversation round to the other thing that he wanted. ‘I don't see why we can't buy ma the present of a dating agency membership.’

‘I'll tell you why. It's ‘cos the jewellery's a set price. We don't know where the cost of a dating agency membership might escalate if ma decides to play the field. She might want to carry on getting more introductions till we nail her in her box.’

‘Ma wouldn't do that. She's not an unreasonable woman.’

This caused Patrick Sean to laugh so much it brought on his smoker's cough. Reminded of his own non-smoking status, Rafferty pulled a face and almost begged a cigarette from his brother. It was only the fact that his hacking sibling wouldn't hear him above his paroxysms that stopped him.

Rafferty decided this was a situation that called for a bit of criminality from himself. Even after his failure with Mickey, a bit of bribery and corruption was surely worth a second try? He waited until his brother's coughing spasm had reduced to an annoying chin cough, then he said, ‘You know you were looking for a new car?’

Patrick Sean nodded. ‘What of it? You got one with one careful lady owner?’

‘Might have,’ he lied. ‘Mary Carmody, one of my colleagues, is selling hers. Drives like Llewellyn.’ This was a strong recommendation. Slow and careful was Llewellyn's motto. ‘She's had a win on the Lottery and wants rid of her present car. And seeing as it's me that's interested, she's willing to do a generous price. You'll get it for a couple of grand lower that the Glass's guide price.’ Rafferty winced at his own offer. But if that was what it took to keep his brother on the straight and narrow and safeguard his own career, he was willing to pay the price.

‘What sort of price is she asking? And what sort of set of wheels?’

Rafferty named the figure and seeing that he had his brother's interest he quickly outlined the mileage, the excellent bodywork, history and registration year of this non-existent car. ‘I reckon, if I have reason to push it, I could get her down maybe two and a half grand.’