A Thrust to the Vitals (15 page)

Chapter Ten

By Tuesday afternoon, the list of suspects had been whittled down to ten. Not bad, was Rafferty’s thought, as the guest list had numbered one hundred and the murder hadn’t been discovered until after midnight on Friday, the weekend had intervened and his mind, body and spirit had been otherwise engaged for chunks of it. But then, Rafferty, with a fiancée to keep sweet and with a brother in the worst sort of trouble, had ridden the team hard.

It was fortunate that Sir Rufus Seward himself had proved a great help to them in this suspect whittling. His boorish behaviour caused the bulk of his guests to depart earlier than they must have planned, handily removing them from the equation.

All the guests whom Rafferty and the team spoke to said much the same: that Seward had troughed-it-up at the council-provided bar and buffet like a pig at a truffle party. He had, in fact, so heartily snorted down the liquid refreshment that his truculent personality hadn’t, on this occasion, been reserved merely for his social inferiors and the help, as was apparently usually the case. Seward had himself dishonoured the honour the town had bestowed on him, much to the mortification of those council members present.

Even Idris Khan, the half-Welsh, half-Asian current incumbent of the post of town mayor, and Mandy, his blonde, possibly cocaine-snorting wife, had retreated in the face of Seward’s increasingly truculent behaviour as the evening progressed.

They had already discovered from the security men on the door that Khan, with his wife in tow, had returned much later in the evening after their hasty departure, to collect something that Mandy had left behind, though whether this was the small, cocaine-filled box that Constable Hanks had found in the main bathroom, or the white cotton gloves discovered discarded amongst the buffet leavings, they had yet to ascertain. Khan himself had said nothing to them about his late return when first questioned and neither had his wife. Which, Rafferty reflected, might mean something or nothing.

But before Rafferty questioned Idris and Mandy Khan again or attempted to broach the benefits of mutually convenient discretion about Mandy Khan’s suspected drug habit or Superintendent Bradley’s presence that night with the mayor himself, there was something else that he needed to organise.

Time, he realised, was something he was desperately short of if he was to be in with a chance of finding the real murderer and freeing Mickey from his chilly, temporary bolt-hole before Santa started making his deliveries. Time was also essential if he was to stave off any complaints from his new fiancée. To this end, Rafferty had, since Abra’s return from Dublin, decided he would have to mobilise the help of his family. It wasn’t something he had been particularly keen on doing as it was often the case that the more people who knew a thing, the greater the chance of something getting out, but needs must, as they say.

Besides, Ma confirmed she had broken the news of Mickey’s plight to the family, so, as that particular cat was out of the bag, he might as well make use of it. He got on the phone and organised a rota for visits and provisioning. Although there were dangers in the increased numbers, their help would take some of the pressure off him.

His other brother, Patrick Sean, and his sisters, Maggie, Katy and Neeve — her name Anglicised from the Gaelic Niamh — were all sworn to silence. Each promised to take time out from their own demanding lives, which a fast-approaching festive season made even more demanding, to spend time with an increasingly depressed Mickey, and take turns keeping him company in his frigid metal cell.

One by one, by Thursday, they had all reported back that Mickey was becoming increasingly despondent and was thinking of giving himself up. ‘At least, in a police cell, I’d be warm,’ was, apparently a recurring comment.

Yes, bro, Rafferty thought on learning this unwelcome news. But, banged up, your arse is likely to be even warmer. And mine’ll be for the high jump. It would do his career no favours at all if it got out — as it was bound to if Mickey followed through on his threat — what part he had played in his brother’s disappearance.

As the senior sibling, Rafferty felt duty-bound to find time to go along and administer a kick up Mickey’s skinny backside. Better that his brother’s rear end received attention from his boot than attentions of another sort. Mickey would thank him for it later when all this was over and he had time to reflect on something other than his current misery.

But Rafferty found, when he arrived at the run down and desolate caravan site, nose numbed by a wind that roared across the North Sea straight from the Siberian steppes, that Mickey was far from being in a kick-receiving mood. Not altogether surprising, because, as Rafferty looked round the caravan’s ever seedier interior, that his brother’s careless habits had not improved, he discovered that one or several of the family visitors had brought bottles of seasonal cheer as consolation for his stint in solitary The place stank like a distillery. Not, in other circumstances, an altogether unpleasing smell to Rafferty, but with Mickey in his current unpredictable mood, it was the last kind of aroma Rafferty wished to smell.

Spirits had always made Mickey belligerent. And Rafferty, belatedly appreciating that his little brother was no longer quite as little as he had always thought, came close to getting a kicking himself, almost upsetting and breaking the bottles in the process, which, given the solace they were clearly providing, really would have ensured a fraternal fracas.

Maybe he should have emptied the blasted things down the sink, only his Irish soul hadn’t quite been able to do it. But at least he had managed to persuade Mickey to go easy on the booze. As it was, he had arrived to hear the portable radio that must have been another family gift, blaring forth with more than enough volume to attract any stray nosy- parkers who happened to be within a hundred yards of the van. It was fortunate that there had apparently been no creatures more naturally inquisitive than the whirling, argumentative seagulls to hear the racket of Mickey singing discordantly along with the music as alcohol eased all pain.

Rafferty sighed as he realised that the rest of his family would have to be warned off providing Mickey with bottles of the hard stuff. As well as making him aggressive, alcohol had always loosened Mickey’s tongue.

Rafferty had tried for years, without success, to find out what exactly Rufus Seward had done to his brother in their youth. The only thing he did know was that the lies Seward had spread had caused Mickey to lose his childhood sweetheart.

After Rafferty’s stern lecture at his noisy lack of discretion, Mickey had become morose. But suddenly galvanised by self-pity and resentment, Mickey’s anger at his predicament finally found voice once more.

‘Bloody Rufus Seward!’ he shouted, his promise to keep the noise down evidently forgotten. He ignored Rafferty’s desperate ‘shushing’s’ and ranted even louder. 'This is all his fault. If he hadn’t been such a bastard when we were kids, I’d have had no reason to go to see him that night-’ Mickey’s lips pinched tight – ‘no reason, if it wasn’t for him, to be incarcerated in this miserable hole, either.’

Rafferty, by now more than a little fed-up himself and with his own store of resentment at the situation steadily growing, sat down opposite his brother and bluntly observed, ‘It’s a bit late for might-have-beens.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Mickey ground out between teeth that didn’t look to have come in contact with a toothbrush since his hasty incarceration.

Couldn’t even manage to pack himself a toothbrush, Rafferty sighed to himself. I suppose that’s something else to add to the list. As he stared at the increasingly dishevelled Mickey, Rafferty felt his resentment grow a notch, then, another, as his brother stared back at him with an unmistakable belligerence.

'And it’s a pity you weren’t there with your trite comments when Seward and his gang were sticking my head down the bog,’ Mickey retorted.

‘Is that what he did to you?’ Rafferty’s brassed-off feelings lost some of their indignant glow at this revelation.

Mickey nodded, his expression now a strange mix of fury and shame. ‘One of the things, only he made sure he’d deposited some turds in the bowl before my head went in.’

Rafferty’s lips pursed tightly in involuntary protection from the turds. The association of ideas had him wondering what turds would taste like. He gagged on the thought.

‘The bastard even had his latest little tart and her cronies watch as he took my pants off and had one of his mates smear his shit all over my face and todger. Then he made me eat it — the shit that is, not my todger.’ Mickey looked as if he was about to be sick at the memory. Or perhaps it was just from all the alcohol he had drunk.

Rafferty could find no words of comfort, instead, to his shame, he found himself tempted to satisfy his earlier curiosity and ask Mickey about the taste of turds. He stopped himself just in time, confident that such a question would not be well received. He’d heard of people drinking their own urine when in dire straits, but eating someone else’s shit…

Rafferty almost gagged again. But at least Mickey’s alcoholic revelations had killed any remaining resentment. He even reached out a hand to pour Mickey another drink but wisdom prevailed and he stayed his hand.

After what his brother had told him, Rafferty couldn’t be sorry that Rufus Seward was dead. He wished the sadistic swine had suffered rather more than one thrust of a sharpened chisel for his sins. But his death had been a quick one — too quick. To have Seward endure some of the suffering he’d happily doled out would have given Mickey some measure of consolation. Instead, even after his death, Seward was still managing to make his brother’s life a misery. Bloody Rufus Seward indeed.

There wasn’t a lot more to say after Mickey’s revelations. It was apparent from his withdrawn demeanour that Mickey regretted the confidences

Rafferty thought the best thing he could do was to remove himself from the sight of his brother’s shame. He prepared to make his goodbyes and leave, but Mickey, clearly exhausted by the heavy combination of alcohol and confession, promptly fell into a drunken stupor before he could say anything. But at least, with his brother slumped, snoring on the grimy orange banquette, Rafferty had the opportunity to look around him. His gaze alighted on Mickey’s old mobile perched on the tiny, folding table between the twin banquettes and just visible beneath the pile of junk Mickey had managed to acquire from his various family visitors during his short time in the caravan. He’d forgotten to retrieve this during his previous visits, and now he slipped it in his pocket while he had the chance. No way did he want to risk a drunken Mickey using the wrong phone. It could prove to be a very costly mistake for both of them.

After Mickey’s revelations, Rafferty had reason to wonder what Seward and his loutish friends might have inflicted on others in his brother’s year at school. What had he done to Randy Rawlins, for instance? He doubted Rawlins would tell him — certainly not if it was anything as humiliating as what Mickey had suffered, though he thought it likely the weedy no-mates Rawlins would have been subjected to even worse treatment. And as Seward couldn’t tell him and Randy Rawlins probably wouldn’t, Rafferty decided the only way he’d find out was to put the squeeze on one of Seward’s old gang.

‘Look, I’m not proud of what we did, but it was years ago, all over and forgotten. Most teenage boys go through a stage of being appalling thugs. We were no different.’ Nick Marshall – a party guest who had been early exonerated – didn’t seem to find it too hard to forgive himself his youthful excesses. His self-justifying bluster wasn’t attractive.

‘No different?’ Rafferty managed to inject his comment with sufficient contempt to help conceal the fact that he had no idea what Seward, Marshall and their pals had done to the weedy Randolph Rawlins. It certainly seemed to convince Nick Marshall that he knew more than he claimed, because, in his attempts at self-justification, Marshall immediately blurted it all out.

‘Rufus Seward always swung both ways, even then, and little Randy Rawlins was clearly effeminate. He was asking for it, or so Rufus claimed. OK, Rufus and a couple of the others took turns to bugger Rawlins, but I never did.’

Rafferty had already half-suspected that the young Rawlins had been subjected to gang rape, but, like his brother’s turd encounter, it still didn’t make Marshall’s admission any easier to stomach. His voice flat with contempt, Rafferty asked, ‘So how many times did it happen?’

Marshall shrugged as if it had been nothing to do with him. ‘I’m not sure. I’d guess every week for a year till Rufus left to go to his posh school.’

Rafferty turned away quickly before anger made him do something even more unwise as far as his career was concerned than the cover-up in which he was currently engaged. He let himself out of Marshall’s comfortable Elmhurst home without another word, but part of him hoped that Randy Rawlins had killed Seward. Part of him hoped, too, that he proved smart enough to get away with it. Though the trouble with that, of course, was that if Rawlins had murdered the tormentor from his schooldays and proved sufficiently canny to avoid leaving any trace of himself in the bedroom at the scene, it meant his brother would remain in the frame.

Idris Khan had elected to see Rafferty in his mayoral parlour in Elmhurst’s Town Hall. This building was, like the Elmhurst Hotel, another large, imposing Edwardian structure. Designed by the same architect, the Town Hall was in the heart of the town, on the corner of Market Street and the High Street.

The market town’s mayors did rather well for themselves; from reading the local paper, Rafferty was aware that no expense had been spared in equipping the mayor to play host in considerable style, although, as he looked around the mayor’s parlour, he decided that the councillors tasked with commissioning the building’s embellishment were the sort of people who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing.