Kith and Kill (29 page)

They went through the statements with a new vigour, putting to one side those that supported Rafferty's theory. An hour later they had a little pile of these, with important aspects of statements underlined and separated from the rest by Llewellyn and put into the computer.

‘See this,’ said Rafferty excitedly as he pointed. ‘And this. And this. And this. I think we've got enough for an arrest this time.’

‘And what about the other crime? The attempted murder of the already dead Sophia Egerton? Do you feel ready to make an arrest there, too?’

‘Why not? Let's make a clean sweep.’ He glanced at Llewellyn. ‘Are you ready?’ Llewellyn nodded. ‘Then let's go and get ‘em.’

The
offices of
L’oiseau
were quiet. Rafferty could hear the drum of rain against the glass in reception as they waited. The weather was still awful, with driving wind and rain. It had had them doubled over once they had got out of the car and turned Rafferty's umbrella inside out. He handed it to the receptionist and asked her to dispose of it..

Given the nod by the receptionist, they walked up to the office where they knew they'd find their quarry and made the arrest, all without the even tenor of the building being disturbed. They heard no one, met no one apart from the receptionist, and battered only by the ferocious wind, escorted their suspect out to the car.

‘We
know what you've been up to, you see,’ Rafferty said quietly when they had their quarry back in the interview room. ‘We finally worked it out. You've been very clever. Very wily. Very subtle.’ Nearly – but not quite – too subtle for him.

Eric Chambers said little, only, ‘You have no more proof against me than you had against my brother.’

‘The brother that you did your best to make look guilty with your half-hearted denials of his guilt, and before that, making sure we knew of his debt problems and his homosexuality. I came very close to charging him.’

‘So I believe.’ Eric sat back and stared boldly at him, no longer the grey accountant, but, he believed, the perpetrator of a successful murder. ‘Why didn't you? Was it only the threat of Ballantyne's wiles in court that prevented you arresting him?’

Rafferty said nothing. What could he say? He didn't want to admit that Eric was right. That it had only been the fear of finding himself foxed and looking non PC in court that had persuaded him to hesitate about the original arrest he had been determined on. Glumly, he said, ‘I suppose, like your brother, you'll want Ballantyne?’

To his surprise, Eric shook his head. ‘Why would I need the services of Mr Ballantyne? I'm not guilty. I repeat again. I didn't kill my grandmother. That's all I'm going to say. If you think you have some non-existent proof, I suggest you bring it out.’

So that was the line he was going to take, was it? Rafferty stared across the table. He wanted to upset the calm accountant countenance. ‘Of course you realize you'll lose your inheritance? You knew, with Adam convicted of murder, that you'd automatically take the helm at
L’oiseau.’.
Who else was there? His uninterested mother? His unambitious sister? ‘For you it would have been the same as being bequeathed it in your grannie's will. But now you'll never take over the family business as you must have expected to do. Adam didn't do it. We're sure of that now. Whereas you – everything you've said and done points to guilt and–’

‘I would say that's debatable, Inspector. I've yet to see anything but circumstantial evidence, which is no more than you had against my brother. Do you really think you can use unsubstantiated gossip and things that I've said to prove your case? Things that can easily be explained by shock after my grandmother's death.’

‘The grandmother you murdered.’

‘So you say. I didn't murder my grandmother. I loved her.’

‘But did she love you? Or did she save all her love for Adam? Were you jealous, especially when she told you that she was leaving her controlling share of the family firm to your brother?’

‘I felt it – unwise of her. Adam is not a suitable person to lead the business.’

‘And you thought you were?’

‘Why not? I'm aware that I have no flair for design. My talents all lie in a different direction. But I'd keep on Andre Unwin, our chief designer. He wouldn't resign if he knew I had control.’ Eric smiled. ‘But all this is rather beside the point as Adam has inherited. What I would or wouldn't do, is beside the point.’

‘But with Adam arrested, then it would be different, wouldn't it? Convicted of murder, by law he couldn't benefit from his crime, so control of your grandmother's business would fall to whoever could take it. Your sister Caroline, as I said, isn't ambitious. Your mother's not interested in the business except insofar as it can help her broke boyfriend. I don't think you'd have faced any opposition when you assumed control.’

Infuriatingly, Eric smiled again. It was a curiously arrogant smile. Strange, Rafferty thought, but he'd never noticed the arrogance that lay beneath that camouflaging grey exterior.

‘This is all pointless conjecture, Inspector – unless you decide, after all, to arrest Adam.’

‘Oh, no, Mr Chambers. I won't be doing that. All your efforts to direct mine and the family's suspicions on to your brother have failed. You see, I know you did it. And, with a bit of luck, I'll prove it.’

Eric
Chambers was back in the cells and Rafferty and Llewellyn were back in their office. Rafferty, his tea, once again gone cold beside him, was drumming his fingers on the desk. ‘There must be something more. Criminals generally make one mistake. We'll find it.’

But the hours ticked slowly by and still they hadn't managed to pinpoint any mistake other than the ones they had already discovered. Eric was still denying the charge of murder. It seemed like he'd be denying it all the way to court and when he stood in the dock to make his plea. Maybe, by then, he'd have changed his mind and appointed Ballantyne to represent him and the same scenario as before would unfold, just lacking the supposed homophobic element. Rafferty had all but resigned himself to it. But then he thought he'd try something.

Thirty
minutes of interviewing as forceful as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act would allow, later, and Eric Chambers hadn't given an inch. Rafferty had tried every gambit he could think of to wrong-foot him into giving them something – anything, but to no avail. He gritted his teeth, sat forward and tried again.

‘How do you get on with your brother, Mr Chambers?’

‘Adam?’ He shrugged. ‘We get along perfectly well. Outside work we don't see a lot of each other.’

‘Even though you're twins?’

‘We might be identical in looks, but our characters are very different.’

‘Ah yes. Your characters. Did it upset you that your grandmother preferred your twin?’

‘No.’

‘It would have upset me. It's always upsetting for a child not to be the favoured one. You must have resented your grandmother's preference for Adam. Resentment can so easily grow to hate. Is that what happened? Did you come to hate your grandmother? ‘Is that why you knifed her?’

‘I didn't knife her. I used a cush–‘ Eric broke off abruptly and stared at him.

Got you. Rafferty smiled. ‘No. We know you didn't use a knife, sir. You smothered your grandmother. Held a cushion over her face till she died. Pretty coldblooded.’

They'd never released the real means of murder. For some reason – call it intuition, whatever – Rafferty had felt it important to keep this information to themselves. ‘Murdered in her bed,’ had been all they or Superintendent Bradley had told the media, and had stuck to this line in the face of their increasingly demanding voices about the right of the public to know. In face of their comments about other old ladies being murdered in their beds.

After another five minutes, during which Eric Chambers had refused to say another word, Rafferty had stopped the tapes and stood up. ‘I imagine you'll want Mr Ballantyne now,’ he said.’

All Chambers did was nod, as though scared to incriminate himself even further.

‘Come along, Sergeant,’ said Rafferty as he removed the tapes from the machine. ‘We've a priest we need to question urgently if we're to get this case sewn up.’

Father
Kelly played shtum with the aplomb of an habitual criminal. ‘I told you, young Rafferty. The secrets of the confessional are inviolate.’

‘Can't you just nod if I'm right? You don't have to say anything.’

As Father Kelly still said nothing, Rafferty took the lack of response as agreement and said, ‘Alice Pickford had you visit the house just after her sister's murder. Was it unusual for you to do so?’

After a few moments consideration, Father Kelly nodded.

‘And it was to hear her confession?’

Another nod.

‘Did she want to confess that she'd stuck a knife in her sister?’

No nod this time. But no denial either.

‘I suppose Dahlia saw her?’ God knew how as she had been in her own flat at the time.

This time the priest shook his head.

‘She didn't see her?’ No.

‘What then?’ Rafferty frowned, then light dawned. ‘I know. She overheard Alice's confession and tackled her about it.’

Nod.

‘Dangerous when she was dealing with a women she thought had already committed one murder. She hadn't, by the way,’ Rafferty told Father Kelly.

‘Hadn't what?’ His self-imposed
Omerta
silence had proved too unnatural for Father Kelly. ‘What are you saying, young Rafferty? Out with it.’

‘I'm saying that Alice Pickford
hadn't
murdered Sophia. Whatever her intentions, someone had beaten her to it. Eric. He smothered his grandmother some minutes before Alice went in with the knife. So you see you don't have to protect Alice at all. She didn't kill her sister. Her confession is null and void.’

He didn't add that he was hoping to charge her with another offence. Or two. The murder of Dahlia being one of them. They'd found both weapons: the knife and the club hammer and Rafferty confidently expected to find Alice Pickford's prints all over both of them. Doubtless she'd killed Dahlia to silence her. He could only suppose that, after tackling Alice about Sophia's murder that she'd hesitated about exposing her. Perhaps Alice had pleaded for time. Perhaps she was undecided whether Sophia would have wanted the family name blackened with accusations of murder. Freddie Sullivan had said Dahlia had seemed distracted about something. It seemed that before she could make up her mind what to do Alice had killed her.

As he'd guessed, the usually voluble priest couldn't resist remarking on what Rafferty had said.

‘You mean I've been lambasting my conscience all this time over nothing? When I didn't need to? When that awful woman didn't kill her sister after all? Why the Devil didn't you tip me the wink sooner?’ he demanded. ‘I baptised you, confirmed you, married you. Sure and I think I deserve better treatment from you.’

‘I could say the same, Father. Why didn't
you
tip me the wink in private and save me days of trying to puzzle out the existence of Sophia's ’second murderer’ as I thought of it?’ Not to mention the puzzle of Dahlia's murder.

‘I wrestled with my conscience over that, you can be sure. But the onus on the priesthood is clear and unambiguous. Besides, you've got your answer now. Got your result. Sure and this calls for a celebratory drink.’ Father Kelly thrust his thickening body out of his chair, fought his way past piled up papers strewn over floor, tables and chairs, to the sideboard. ’You've not only caught your two murderers,’ he told Rafferty, ‘but you've rid me of a very demanding parishioner in Alice Pickford. What'll you have? I've got Irish. Or Irish.’

After a wrestle with the part of him that still felt aggrieved, Rafferty gave in and said, ‘I'll have Irish.’

‘There's no
need for you all to have been arguing at all,’ Ma told them on the Tuesday after Eric Chambers and Alice Pickford were charged.’ I've bought myself a present.’

Aghast, Rafferty stared at his ma. His heart sprang upwards in his chest and then did a triple salco on its way down. They were gathered on the eve of his father's birth and death day for a celebratory meal at Ma's home. There had been drink taken and under its influence, Katy had confided that they had clubbed together to buy her a present. Now his ma said she had bought her own present. Not another purchase of the questionably legal kind? An even pricier one this time. A gold bar? Fifty gold bars? Acting as the fence on a heist on Fort Knox?

But before his imagination could fly off to the stratosphere and beyond, his ma said, ‘I've bought myself a little holiday. And if you're that set on buying me a decent present for this anniversary, I thought the six of you could club together to pay for it.’

Rafferty's relief was palpable. It exploded into generosity. ‘That's a great idea, Ma. Where do you want to go? Somewhere exotic? What about the Bahamas? Isn't it supposed to be nice at this time of year?’

‘Don't talk daft, Joseph. What would I be wanting to go there for? Full of snobs, I don't doubt, “up themselves” as I've heard you youngsters say. No. I'm going to Italy. To the Vatican City. I want to see the Pope and the Vatican and its treasures before I die. I'm going with Renee.’