Deadly Reunion (2 page)

Rafferty thanked him. ‘You've been very thorough. If you could show us to the Senior Common Room, we'll get started.'

‘Of course.' Paxton stood up. ‘Please come with me.'

Rafferty and Llewellyn followed him along several dark, art-strewn corridors and up a flight of massive stairs to the first floor. Paxton opened the door of the Senior Common Room. It was large and surprisingly airy with an array of well-worn mismatched settees, a large plasma TV and the usual technological gizmos deemed essential by today's youth. The occupants of the room were as ill assorted as the settees; all seven looked to be in their early thirties, but that was where any similarity ended. They wore anything from ripped jeans to City suits and everything in between.

Paxton introduced them to the group and vice versa, then left them to it, saying he'd have coffee sent up to their new office across the way. The group comprised four men and three women, and while their hairstyles and clothing might be widely dissimilar, they all had a wary look in their eyes. Jeremy Paxton had told them that he had explained the situation to the reunees, who had all received the best education money could provide, so would be under no illusion that – if, as seemed likely, given the dreadful symptoms the poison produced, the dead man
had
been murdered – they were all suspects.

That being the case, Rafferty had expected the group to call up their briefs, pronto, but there was no sign of any legal types in the room protesting their clients' innocence and demanding they be allowed to leave immediately. One man seemed to have appointed himself spokesman of the group. He was one of the City ‘suits' and, happily for Rafferty's memory, repeated his name. Giles Harmsworth.

Everything about the man was just so, from his well-groomed brown hair to his well-polished black shoes. He had an extremely self-confident manner that Rafferty put down to a mix of an excellent education, plenty of money and possibly the cocaine that was endemic in the City. Sharp intelligence flashed in his eyes as soon as he spoke.

‘You'll want to interview us all individually, Inspector. Has Jeremy suggested that the room across the corridor should meet your needs perfectly?'

Rafferty nodded. Clearly, Harmsworth was an organizing type and Rafferty was happy to let him get on with it. It saved him the trouble.

The torn-jeaned one who sported a shock of fair hair à la Boris Johnson, London's mayor, that looked, to Rafferty to have had assistance from the peroxide bottle, drawled from one of the settees from where he lay sprawled. ‘Still doing your Head Boy routine Harmsworth? Can't you lay off and let the police organize themselves?' Sebastian Kennedy cast a sneering glance in their direction and added, ‘I'm sure even the pigs are capable of doing that.'

‘Shut up, Kennedy. And if we're all suspects as I assume, it might be a good idea to dispense with the rebellious teen routine for the duration. It's about time you acted your age. I'd have thought the ripped jeans could have been left behind with the student demos when you reached thirty.'

Sebastian Kennedy's only response to this was another sneer.

Harmsworth turned to Rafferty, who was pleased to note that, as he'd hoped, the reunion seemed to be fraying at the edges. It might just help his inquiries. ‘You must excuse Kennedy, Inspector. He's the resident ‘bad boy' and has always liked to cock a snook at authority. He doesn't have the brains to realize that at his age, the rebellious youth act is extremely tiresome and had worn thin some years ago.'

‘Authority?' Kennedy drawled. ‘Who deputed you to be boss man, I'd like to know.'

‘Oh, put a sock in it, you two. You seem to have forgotten that poor Adam is dead, probably murdered. Can't you stop your bickering for a moment?' This was from a bespectacled young woman in a baggy grey jumper and faded jeans. Victoria Something, Rafferty thought.

‘Brains is quite right, Kennedy,' said Harmsworth. ‘Can't you behave yourself for once and lay off being the naughty boy? I don't imagine the inspector's impressed.'

Sebastian Kennedy's full upper lip curled, but he said nothing more and simply resumed gulping the lager that he had been drinking since Rafferty and Llewellyn had entered the room. Rafferty took the intermission in skirmishes to get the ball rolling.

‘As you said, Mr Harmsworth, we'd like to interview you all individually. Perhaps we can start with you? If you'd like to accompany us across the way.'

Harmsworth nodded. He cast one last, ‘behave yourself' look at the thirty-something naughty boy before he followed the two policemen out of the room.

Rafferty paused long enough to station Lizzie Green just inside the door. Lizzie was one of his more intelligent officers. She knew what was required and would report on any unwise disclosures the reunees happened to make. He paused to inhale the scent of the old-fashioned lily of the valley talcum power she favoured, briefly closing his eyes before shutting the door.

Sebastian Kennedy's final riposte floated after them through the cracks in the warped oak door. ‘You'd better not go grassing anyone up, Harmsworth. We'll all know it was you if you do. Old habits die hard.'

Harmsworth acted as if he hadn't heard and merely opened the door across the landing and gestured them inside, with a smile as if he was a host encouraging guests of the shy and retiring sort. Rafferty, playing up to his allotted role in the hope it would loosen any guard Harmsworth had on his tongue, hesitated for a few seconds, like a wallflower who couldn't believe her luck at finally being chosen, before he, too, crossed the threshold.

‘Now, Mr Harmsworth,' Rafferty began once they were settled in the small office that Jeremy Paxton had let them use. He was glad to see that the headmaster had already organized a pot of coffee. By the time he'd finished questioning the seven reunees who'd lunched with Adam Ainsley before he'd gone off on the run from which he had never returned, he'd be parched. ‘Perhaps you can begin by describing what happened on the day Mr Ainsley went missing? Start at your arrival at the school and go on till after lunch, when I believe Mr Ainsley set off alone for a run.'

‘It was a day much like the reunions have been in previous years. I come every year,' he added. ‘I noticed Adam was quiet at lunch, as though he had something on his mind. But he's always tended to be a bit moody, so I didn't take any notice. He set off on his run straight after lunch and the rest of us just lounged around the common room getting reacquainted until lunch had been digested. I'd brought my laptop with me, so I was able to get on with some work. I think Victoria and Alice had a game of tennis around three and Gary – Asgar – Sadiq went swimming in the school's pool. Kennedy seemed to be happy to just lounge around, listening to music and drinking that never-ending supply of lager he brought with him.'

‘Was there a lot of milling around during lunch?'

‘Not during lunch, no.' He smiled, showing perfect teeth. ‘It was the rule, when we were at school, that once we were seated, we stayed put, apart from the servers. And we all seemed to continue the tradition even though there's no Mr Barmforth any more to glower and yell out, ‘You, boy!' The gleaming smile faded. ‘I imagine that means that the only suspects for this crime are the seven of us that were seated at Adam's table.'

‘If what you say is correct, yes, it would seem so. And nothing out of the ordinary happened? No arguments, for instance?'

Harmsworth smiled again. ‘I don't know as I'd call arguments unusual, Inspector. I've had spats with Kennedy off and on since we got here. He always did like winding people up. But other than that, no, I can't think of anything.'

‘Can you tell me who used to be particular friends with the dead man and whether they're still friends?'

‘Adam had his own clique – the other sporty types. And they all attracted the girls. None of them have attended this year, though usually two or three come to the reunion. I suppose I could be called the school swot, along with Victoria and Alice, so we weren't as popular with the opposite sex. I always thought Adam was very obvious, with his muscles and so on, but it seemed to appeal to the girls. I recall that both Sophie and Alice had a crush on him at one time.'

Rafferty nodded. ‘And what about enemies? Did Mr Ainsley have any that you know of?'

Harmsworth frowned, then shrugged. ‘No one that I can recall. Certainly nothing serious. There were the usual spats at school and Adam had his share, but that's all.'

And so it went on. The other six reunees said much the same as the late afternoon wore into evening and the remaining coffee went cold.

The call from Sam Dally had been the second unwelcome phone call of the afternoon for Rafferty. His ma had been on earlier and had told him to get one of his spare bedrooms ready.

Rafferty had been expecting this. It had only been a matter of time, he told himself. His ma still liked to poke her nose into his life and since his June marriage to Abra, she must be consumed with curiosity to see for herself how wedded bliss was going; staying with them over several days was the only way to indulge this curiosity that would fully satisfy Ma. Rafferty, facing what couldn't be avoided, had given a tiny sigh and said, ‘That's all right, Ma. When do you want to come and stay?'

But it seemed he'd misjudged his woman. His ma wasn't requisitioning one of his bedrooms for herself after all, as she was quick to tell him.

‘Don't be stupid, Joseph. Sure and why would I want to come and stay with you when I've got a perfectly good house of my own not half-a-mile away from you?'

‘What do you want it for then, Ma?' he had asked in his innocence. ‘Do you want to store a pile of Bring and Buy stuff for Father Kelly?' As long as it wasn't his ma's illicit ‘bargains' she wanted him to give houseroom to. He'd draw the line at that.

‘No.' She paused and Rafferty wondered what was coming.

For once, Ma seemed a trifle diffident. It was unlike her. His ma was nothing if not forthright.

‘The thing is son, you know I've got some long-lost cousins coming to stay?'

‘Yes.' His ma had first mentioned this a month ago. But he couldn't see that it would affect him. Beyond a courtesy meal out with them, it was unlikely, between his new wife and this new case, that he'd see much of them. But now, as his ma explained, he learned that this family reunion had snowballed. His ma had been on the internet – not so much a ‘silver surfer' as a dyed brown one – and it turned out that she'd unearthed not only the known-about Irish and American cousins and their wives or husbands, but also Canadian, Antipodean and South African ones. The Aussies, no doubt, being Raffertys, would have descended from family who had got there via an ‘assisted' passage courtesy of the Crown.

Rafferty was dismayed as he guessed, rightly, what was coming. He hated having people to stay. He never felt his home was his own with others in the house. And the couple his ma wanted to foist on him – for all that they were family – were total strangers to him. The thought of sharing a bathroom with people whose habits were an unknown quantity was unnerving.

‘Sure and most of them are pensioners like meself,' she told him in wheedling tones. ‘Can't afford fancy hotels.'

‘They don't have to be fancy, do they? Bed and breakfast would do, surely? Or the YMCA these days has nice rooms as cheap as you'll find anywhere.'

‘And haven't I told you,' a faintly cross tone entered his ma's voice, ‘they haven't the money for hotels of any description. The air fare's enough for most of them. And then, they'll need spending money. And they're family, Joseph. Family I've not seen for a long time.'

‘Can't one of the girls put them up?' This was a rearguard action and not one he expected to hold the tide. But he had a plentiful supply of siblings and he thought that, between them, his two brothers and three sisters should be able to accommodate several cousins, especially if they farmed their kids out at their friends' houses.

‘The girls have no room, you know that. Besides, even if they were able to foist the kids on someone for the duration, Maggie and Neeve are in the middle of decorating.'

His sisters could be as crafty as all their sex. Rafferty wished he was up to his eyelashes in magnolia emulsion. It would give him the excuse he needed. But once back from their honeymoon after their move to the semi from Rafferty's flat, he'd delayed making a start on doing the place up and had made excuse after excuse to Abra when she suggested he pulled his finger out and got on with it. But he'd never suspected that his ma's invitation to her American cousins would snowball to the extent of the fifty guests that she casually mentioned she was now expecting over for the family reunion party that had been born out of the small get-together originally planned. How could he have anticipated that the casually stated and half-heard idea that his ma was expecting four guests would expand to fit his two spare rooms and more? Because he doubted that Ma would stop at liberating just one of his spare bedrooms, even though there was only a bed in one of them. She'd find a bed for the other from somewhere and would then expect him and Mickey and Patrick Sean to lug it around to his house and up the stairs.

‘It's only for two weeks, son,' she said, wheedlingly. ‘You'll hardly know they're there.'

Two weeks! To Rafferty, it seemed like eternity stretching before him. He hadn't inherited his ma's sociable gene and while he enjoyed a good craic as much as the rest of the family, he preferred to keep his home to himself. So he hadn't said ‘yes'. But then, he hadn't said ‘no', either and that was all the encouragement Ma needed. Still, he had consoled himself as he prepared to set off for Griffin School, this murder would keep him busy and out of the way and these cousins that his ma had saddled him with were likely to be out doing the sights for most of the time. Between his work and their sightseeing, it was unlikely their paths would cross much.