Death Dance (21 page)

Once the kettle had boiled and the tea made, he sat at the kitchen table nursing his warming mug and listened to the rain spattering against the window. The weathermen had promised a dry and bright day so it seemed likely that the rain would be in for the duration.

He sipped his tea and felt an almost overwhelming urge to ring Llewellyn and get his take on the latest turn of events. But he resisted. Wise to the fates’ tricks, he knew who it was who would answer the phone — Maureen, his own blue-stocking cousin and Llewellyn’s wife. She’d probably tear him off a strip in that effortlessly superior way she had, before she disconnected or more probably pulled the jack from the wall in case he was foolhardy enough to try his luck a second time.

He had drunk three mugs of tea by the time the first rosy fingers of the new day showed over the horizon. At least the rain had stopped, so perhaps he had been unfair to the weathermen. It was still early; too early to take Abra up her tea. Instead, he decided to make himself a fry up: it would set him up for the day and enable him to make an early start once the morning was properly begun.

By half-past-six he couldn’t wait any longer. He made more tea and brought Abra in a cup. She was very sleepy and he had to shake her to get her to wake up.

She finally opened her eyes. But it was only to glare at him. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she demanded. ‘Is the flat on fire’?’

‘No.
I
am.’

A tiny smile persuaded the glare to do a vanishing act. The smile turned into a ‘come hither’ look, and she said, persuasively, ‘Come back to bed then.’

‘I wish. No, something about the case struck me in the middle of the night.’

Abra immediately abandoned any remaining lustful thoughts and sat up. ‘What? Do you know who did it?’

‘Not exactly,’ he said, sorry to disappoint her. ‘It’s just that I’ve found out that the Staveleys had their house up for sale, so Mrs Staveley might have had any number of strangers turning up on her doorstep when she was alone in the house. Perhaps the opportunity was just too much for some sick individual. It throws the possibilities – and the potential suspects – wide open.’

‘Oh God, no.’ Abra sat back against her pillows and gave them a thump. ‘That’ll make you even further from finding a solution.’

‘Not necessarily. The house has no ‘For Sale’ sign on the gate so they wouldn’t have had just anyone popping in off the street on the off-chance. Not that that would be likely in any case as the house is in a short cul-de-sac. No. The estate agent would have sent any prospective buyers along and would have got their details.’

‘Surely no one would be stupid enough to commit murder when any such possible suspects must be severely limited and would soon be discovered?’

Rafferty felt an uneasy stirring at her words. This had, of course, occurred to him, too. But he had brushed the thought aside with the explanation that a person would have to be mentally unstable to commit such a murder when their name and address could be quickly discovered. There again, there were plenty of mentally unstable individuals wandering the streets. The Care in the Community programme had seen to that, sending vast swathes of the vulnerable and possibly dangerous out from the old mental hospitals, many of which had been tarted up and sold as expensive apartments. One of these probably homeless and wandering souls could have seen the house advert in the estate agent’s window and recognised the place. Who knew what had been going through their mind when – if – such an individual had knocked on Adrienne’s door? The thought was a worrying one, bringing with it, as it did, the possibility of an attack by a stranger unknown even to the agent responsible for selling the place.

But Rafferty didn’t want to think about that. It was easier to seize on the supposition that the estate agent had sent Adrienne’s murderer to her house. He had waited for so long for answers in the case and now he had one. Or at least the possibility of one. He wasn’t willing to easily lose hold of it.

It was still only 8.00 a m when Rafferty presented himself at John Staveley’s door. It was early, yes, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He might already have waited too long. Even now the maniac that Rafferty had conjured up in his mind and hadn’t been able to forget about might have attacked another woman.

Staveley had clearly still been in bed when Rafferty knocked as he opened the door in his dressing gown with his hair standing on end and sleep in his eyes.

‘Inspector. What do you want? It’s barely eight o’clock.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry about disturbing you so early, sir, but something your mother said yesterday suddenly struck me.’

‘Who is it John?’ Edith Staveley’s newly quavery voice floated down the stairs.

‘It’s all right, Mother. It’s Inspector Rafferty. Go back to bed.’

‘What does he want at this time of the morning?’

The voice and its owner descended the stairs, audibly muttering about the thoughtlessness of early morning visitors as she did so.

‘I don’t know, Mother. I was just about to ask him.’ Staveley turned back to Rafferty. ‘Inspector?’

‘It’s just something your mother said when I questioned her after she was assaulted. It didn’t hit me until later. I understand you have your house up for sale?’

‘Yes. What of it?’

‘It’s just that I wondered if someone might have come to the door purporting to be interested in buying the place when your wife was murdered.’

‘It’s unlikely. As you’ll have seen, we don’t have an estate agent’s sign up. Adrienne wouldn’t have one as she didn’t want our neighbours to know we were selling the place and downsizing until they saw the removals van. ‘

‘I see. I wanted to ask you for the name of your estate agent. It’s a possibility that they sent your wife’s killer along to see the house.’ Though the more he thought about it, the more Rafferty became reluctantly convinced that it had been an opportunist and not an appointee sent along by the estate agents who had done the deed.

‘Well, come in, Inspector. Come in,’ said Edith Staveley as she descended the bend in the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s too chilly at this time of the morning to stand around on the doorstep. I’ll put the kettle on while John looks for the estate agents’ particulars. I’ve forgotten their name for the moment.’

‘And me.’ John Staveley went into the kitchen, closely followed by Edith Staveley, with Rafferty bringing up the rear. It was a generously-sized kitchen, with granite worktops and a dark green Aga sitting squarely in what had clearly been the farmhouse’s original fireplace.

Mrs Staveley seized the kettle from under her son’s nose and told him again that he should go find the agent’s particulars. Staveley, as though, like Rafferty, he was used to obeying orders, obediently turned and went out.

‘Sit down, Inspector,’ she told him as she got the mugs out and put them by the teapot on top of the Aga. ‘I don’t suppose my son will be long. He’s pretty organised when it comes to paperwork.’

She was right and Staveley was back in five minutes. He sat down at the kitchen table beside Rafferty and handed him the sheet of paper that had the house details and estate agent’s particulars on it.

Rafferty froze as he took in the name of the estate agent. Blythe’s. Why hadn’t Nigel mentioned that he was the agent dealing with the sale of a house where a woman had been murdered? The death had had wall-to-wall coverage in the local press and television.

This was Abra all over again, he thought, only this time, it was his cousin’s fingerprints that lay heavy at the scene. This murder was turning out to be too close to home for comfort.

Furious with Nigel and his failure to communicate this latest information, Rafferty yanked his mobile from his pocket, excused himself, walked into the hall for privacy and shut the kitchen door, before he dialled his cousin’s home number. Nigel was due to have a few questions put to him and Rafferty intended to get some straight answers from him as soon as possible. He didn’t care if he woke him from his beauty sleep. Becoming a bit plainer would be good for his peacock’s soul.

Chapter Fifteen

‘What the bloody hell do you want?’ Nigel demanded as soon as he had buzzed Rafferty up to his swanky apartment and opened the door. ‘It’s my day off. I had a late night and was sleeping it off. If it’s about your honeymoon—’

‘It’s not. I’m investigating the murder of Adrienne Staveley, as I told you days ago. And what do I find? That you’re the agent acting for her and her husband in their house sale. Why didn’t you tell me that you’re the agent? I had to find it out for myself. It’s made me feel a right plonker.’

‘So what’s new? And so what if I am the agent? That woman’s murder is nothing to do with me.’ Nigel drew together the sides of his regal purple dressing gown with a kingly disdain.

He didn’t invite Rafferty to sit, so he issued the invitation himself and plonked himself plumb in the middle of one of his cousin’s vast – and vastly expensive – sofas.

‘You needn’t bother making yourself comfortable. You’re not stopping.’

‘I’m staying as long as I need to to get some answers,’ Rafferty told him. ‘Tea would be nice.’

Nigel suggested he find himself a tea plantation and do unnatural things with it. In its entirety. He flung himself on the opposite sofa and glared.

‘The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner you can get back to bed. I wouldn’t want whatever lady friend you’ve got stowed in your Casanova lair to go cold on you.’ Tiring of his cousin’s bullshit,’ Rafferty demanded, ‘So how well did you know the murdered woman?’

‘Hardly at all. I only met her the once. I mostly dealt with her husband.’

‘Even so, you should have told me about it. For all I know you made Adrienne Staveley an appointment with death.’ Rafferty would have threatened to charge him with impeding an investigation if he’d thought the threat would have any effect.

But he’d already threatened Nigel once during this case, over the misappropriated honeymoon payment and it had had no effect. His cousin knew the situation vis-à-vis the station and how unwilling Rafferty was to have one of his family pop up there as a suspect or a witness in case it rebounded on him. Nigel also knew that Rafferty wasn’t flavour of the month or even the decade with Superintendent Bradley, who would be delighted to have a reason to suspend him. ‘Tell me about Mrs Staveley. What did you think of her?’

‘She was an attractive woman. Flirtatious, too. I could have got in there if I had the time. But I’m over-burdened with women in my life at the moment. There’s only so much one man can do to satisfy the fair sex.’

Nigel’s words sounded as if he was boasting, but Rafferty didn’t doubt his popularity with the female of the species. His cousin always had a girlfriend or three on the go. He didn’t know how Nigel found the energy. ‘Go on. What else?’

‘She dressed like she wanted to attract a man. You know, low-slung top and tight trousers. I got the impression she wasn’t keen on selling the farmhouse. Well, it was more than an impression, actually. She told me as much. Seemed it was her old man who was driving the sale.’

‘Do you remember anything else?’

‘No. That’s about it. Will you have to call me as a witness, coz? Only I’ll be happy to make myself available.’

‘I bet you would. But I doubt it will be necessary.’ Nigel preening from the witness box as he toyed with the possibility of mentioning his relationship to the Senior Investigating Officer was the stuff of nightmares. ‘Thanks for the info. You’d better get yourself along to your office sharpish, as I want a list of all the people you sent to view the house. Sorry and all that about your bed warmer.’

Nigel’s jaw dropped. Calculating eyes fastened on Rafferty and he said urgently, ‘None of my clients would have killed her.’ His nose rose as he told Rafferty in superior tones, ‘I only deal with respectable people in the upper income bracket, not thugs. That’s more your department.’

‘Go on, Nigel. We both know you’d deal with Jack the Ripper if you thought there was a profit in it. Anyway, you’d better get some clothes on. And don’t bother pondering which of your fifty suits to put on. Any old rag will do. I want that information in the next fifteen minutes.’

With some difficulty, he levered himself from the sofa’s embrace. ‘I’ll be on my mobile. Ring me.’ Rafferty turned back as something very welcome occurred to him. It was as if a bright light flickered on in his brain. He could have told Nigel there and then, but he decided against it. He had his cousin’s unwilling co-operation for now. He didn’t want to antagonise him any more than necessary.

He let himself out. He cursed as he realised that learning Nigel was acting as agent for the Staveleys had made him forget to ask them something crucial.

He returned to their home. They were still in the kitchen, having a desultory breakfast. He hovered in the doorway. and said, ‘Tell me, Mr Staveley, did you by any chance have a young woman by the name of Miss Kearney view the house? Young, late twenties, attractive and with long, chestnut hair, probably worn in a plait?’

Staveley shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I only dealt with the agent. Adrienne saw most of those who came to view. As I told you, I was out of the house all day. I mostly only saw them if they arrived for an evening viewing when she brought them into my study to see the room. But I don’t remember a young woman. All the people I saw were middle-aged couples. Why are you particularly interested in this young woman, anyway? Do you think she—?

‘No reason,’ Rafferty interrupted hastily. ‘Just something I heard,’ he said non-committedly. ‘Never mind. I’m sure Mr Blythe at the estate agents will be able to tell me what I want to know. Thanks for your help. I’ll leave you to your breakfast.’

Rafferty got on to Nigel as soon as he had closed the door behind him. He found he couldn’t wait, seeing as Staveley had been unable to help him. He needed the information and he needed it now. And to hell with antagonising Nigel.

At first, just to be awkward, his cousin said he couldn’t recall the name of every person that asked for house details, but Rafferty pressed him and his memory soon improved. It turned out that Nigel did remember Abra requesting details of the Staveley’s house and making an appointment to view.