Kith and Kill (11 page)

‘No. Though we might be able to make some other charge stick.’

‘Good. The second murderer deserves something as we have to assume he didn't know someone had beaten him to it. Murder was the intent, if not the result. Anyway, you get off and instigate the search for the knife. Me, I've got the unheralded joy of updating the super.’

Rafferty
returned to the police station. But before he went along to Superintendent Bradley's office, he went up to his own. He wanted to check what else had come in in the interim. But there was nothing of any interest yet, apart from a plain white envelope addressed to him personally. It hadn't come in the internal mail and it hadn't come through the post. It had his name, typed in capitals in the centre of the envelope. It was an unusual item of mail for him to receive. Someone must have dropped it off at the front desk. He opened it and wasn't altogether surprised to find a poison pen letter.

“You might like to know that Penny Chambers’ boyfriend has got cash-flow problems in his business and can't get a loan from the bank. Penny's besotted with him. She'd do anything for him. Even murder her own mother to get her hands on her inheritance. Just thought you'd like to know.” It was signed “A Friend of Justice”.

Maybe Bill Beard on reception noticed who left it. Rafferty put the letter and envelope in two separate evidence bags and brought them down to reception.

‘Afternoon, Bill. How's the crossword coming along?’

Between customers, Bill occupied himself most days with completing the Daily Mirror crossword at quiet times. Or trying to complete it. He tended to get stuck a lot.

‘Crossword? Too busy for crosswords. I've had a steady stream of punters in here today.’

Rafferty laid the poison pen letter on the desk and placed the envelope beside it. ‘You didn't happen to see who left this for me?’

‘Yes.’

‘You did?’ Rafferty began to get excited.

‘No. Yes, I didn't see. Could have been anybody. I never noticed.’

‘Must get the super to send you on an observational skills workshop.’

‘Don't bother. He's not going to waste money sending an old fart like me on courses. Besides, I'm observant enough. I just don't always remember what I see. Memory's going the same way as the eyesight.’ He adjusted the glasses he'd lately taken to wearing. They were heavy horn-rims and gave him the look of an intellectual. Unfortunately for his crossword puzzling, his brains didn't make a matching pair with the glasses, which explained why he was still a constable.

‘You're a great help.’

‘So this is about your latest murder, is it?’

‘Yeah. Sophia Egerton.’

‘Read about her in the local free-sheet. Businesswoman of the year last year, if I remember rightly. Her fourth such award, I think the paper said. Handsome woman. Shame someone killed her. Family have a falling out, did they, me duck?’

Rafferty sighed at this latest evidence of Bill's lack of respect for his superiors. Everyone, with Bill, got ‘me duck'd or ‘me dear’ d, even Superintendent Bradley, who was unlikely to have attracted such endearments even from his own wife. ‘Not any fallings-out that they're telling us about. And don't call me ‘duck’. I'm a swan.’

‘Paddling furiously, hey?’

‘You betcha. Is Bradley in?’

‘Yes. His Highness deigned to join us at eleven o'clock. Had the full rig on. Reckon he must have been hobnobbing with the mayor again. It's a hard life.’

‘I wouldn't mind doing a bit of hobnobbing myself, for the money he gets paid.’

‘Me an’ all. Anyway, you'd better go up. He's already rung through twice to see if you're back.’

Rafferty nodded an acknowledgement of this, picked up the evidence bags, and headed back up the stairs.

Superintendent Bradley was looking particularly benign today, which was always a worrying sign. Like a snake basking in the sunshine, attack was always sudden, though in the case of this particular basking snake, not entirely unexpected.

‘So, Rafferty. What have you got for me?’ Bradley straightened his tie and pulled his jacket down. ‘You've got the Sophia Egerton case. Tell me about it.’

Rafferty outlined what he'd done so far.

‘Had she any enemies? What was the access like to the house?’

‘Locked, front and back. We haven't discovered any enemies so far. Though she was a wealthy woman who seemed unwilling to die and convenience her family. There are a couple of them who are in need of an injection of cash. Or at least the promise of it.’

‘And they are?’

‘One of the three grandchildren. Adam Chambers. The other is his mother, Mrs Penelope Chambers, the victim's daughter. According to this poison pen letter I found when I got back here,’ he hefted the two evidence bags, ‘she has a boyfriend she's besotted with and who's in need of an injection of cash for his business. Though that's yet to be checked out.’

Bradley stretched out a hand for the letter. He read it, grunted, and handed it back with no comment other than, ‘So you think money's at the heart of it?’

‘Seems likely. Though we also have another avenue to explore concerning the housekeeper, Dahlia Sullivan. She and her husband, Freddie, who works as the gardener, both wanted to retire, but were unable to do so.’

‘Why's that?’

‘Because the dead woman wanted to retain their services. And she had them down in the will for fifty grand. But only if they were in her service when she died. Sounds like she held their expected inheritance over them to make them stay.’

‘No work, no inheritance, that it?’

‘As I said, it sounds like it. May be nothing in it. Perhaps they were happy to work till they dropped. We'll see.’

‘She was suffocated, I understand?’

‘Yes. That's what killed her. Though Dr Dally told me at the post mortem that she'd also been stabbed through the heart after death.’

‘Unusual.’

‘Yes.’ Rafferty didn't add that he'd wondered what the second murderer, as he persisted in calling him, could be charged with. Bradley would only tell him he should know without any wondering. He was like that, Bradley. Always ready to pick a man up on something. He had antennae that quivered at every misstep by his officers, always scared such a misstep would reflect on him and his promotion prospects.

‘And what are you doing about this poison pen? I suppose you'll want a graphologist to take a look at it? Waste of money. You'll have to do without unless you run into dead ends with your other suspects. Think on, Rafferty. We're having our budget pared to the bone with these new government cuts. Want no unnecessary expense, but.’

Bradley was a born and bred Yorkshireman and cautious to the point of parsimony where his budget was concerned. He wanted everything done on the cheap. He was into the look of the thing rather than the result. All fur coat and no knickers, as Bill Beard put it. And with very long pockets in that fur coat. These government cuts had given him the perfect excuse for cheeseparing.

Bradley let him go. Rafferty had just gained the door when he called him back. ‘Very high-profile victim, Sophia Egerton. Friends in high places, so I don't want any complaints about how you go on, do you hear me?’

‘Yes, sir. I hear you.’

‘See you obey, then. You'd best get off. I want to be able to show the press that we've got some results before the end of the day, so I'll need you for a press briefing. Make sure you're back here well before the television's six o'clock news as I'll want to be briefed on the latest before we go on.’

Bradley must have been badly badgered to insist on a press briefing so early in the investigation. What did the superintendent think he'd have to tell them? Rafferty didn't doubt Bradley's ability to bullshit his way through the briefing for the benefit of the Third Estate. He prided himself on putting on a good show for the media. Rafferty knew he'd be required to say little but that the investigation was continuing. It was a wonder the old man hadn't thought about what his inspector's man hours were costing through him sitting dumb as a broken bell at the briefing when he could be out in the field doing his real job. But his not to reason why. His just to ride the storm of Bradley's always wavering support and the demand of the media for results.

The press
briefing eventually finished and Rafferty could escape, Though the escape was from one shouting frenzy to the expectation of another. For when he got home that evening, it was to discover that they were expected round at his sister, Maggie's home. It seemed that Abra, reluctant to have Rafferty foist the selecting of ma's present on to her shoulders, had rung round and organized a family pow-wow.

He barely had time to eat his dinner before he was hustled out of the door. ‘What's the rush, woman? It's only the family. And nothing will be decided tonight, anyway.’

‘You'd be late for your own funeral. It's rude.’

‘Sure and amn't I just an ignorant Oirish oik. Begorrah.’

‘Don't you start that Irish stuff with me. I've got an Irish gran myself, but I don't use that as an excuse for turning up late.’

‘Perhaps it needs two Irish grannies for the tendency to manifest itself?’

‘No. All it needs is laziness and a lack of consideration.’

‘Ouch. That's me told. Come on, then. Who's driving?’

‘You are. It must be my turn by now to reduce your sister's supply of booze.’

‘Ouch again. It's gonna be a fun evening.’

‘Ah. But it's not meant to be fun. It's for your mother, Joe. You might show a bit more enthusiasm.’

Rafferty opened the car door for her, ushered her in with a flourish of his arm, walked round to the driver's side and got behind the wheel. ‘I'm enthused. Just as long as we make a decision instead of going all round the houses as I anticipate.’

‘So, it takes a time or two to decide on what we're going to buy her. It's not asking much.’

‘Personally, I don't see why we can't just buy her our own present and leave the others to get theirs.’

‘No. You wouldn't. It's because we know who, out of the two of us, will get elected to do the choosing. And if I choose it it's sure to be wrong.’

‘Okay. Okay. Keep your plait furled.’ Rafferty turned the car out of the drive and headed for his sister's house.

The
present-choosing discussion was in full swing when they reached Maggie's home. Her living room was crammed beyond capacity. All four seats on the settee were taken, the armchairs were taken, even the six dining room chairs had somehow borrowed a square of carpet and juggled occupants. The floor still had a few spaces that hadn't been claimed. Stepping over legs and manoeuvring around chairs, Rafferty and Abra found seats on the floor in the crowded living room and waited to gauge what was happening.

‘What about if we sign ma up for a dating agency?’ said Neeve, lost in the depths of the big settee. ‘It's about time ma found a man. It's been thirty years since dad died.’

Rafferty, with his own too vivid memories of signing-up with a dating agency
(Dying For You),
shuddered and vetoed the idea. Peering round his brother Mickey's backside, he said, ‘Don't you think it a bit naff to present her with an appointment at a dating agency on her dead husband's seventieth birthday?’

‘No, I don't, actually. I think it's the best time, when she's got the married state on her mind.’

‘Married state is right. Their marriage was a right state. Have you forgotten all the rows? Anyway, I reckon ma's sworn off marriage. She likes her freedom too much.’

Neeve tossed her dark curls. ‘Shows all you know, Joe. Why do you think she was happy to take in the lodgers you foisted on her? Besides, it doesn't have to be marriage. You're such a reactionary. Give her a chance. She hasn't had her first date yet.’

Rafferty wasn't altogether sure what reactionary meant. But he sensed it probably wasn't good. ‘I still don't think a dating agency's a good idea.’

‘What's the matter, Joe?’ Maggie teased. ‘Afraid you'll be supplanted in ma's affections by another man?’

This was a bit below the belt, even for their family. Rafferty had always been his ma's favourite child, her blue-eyed boy. It had caused resentment and jealousy amongst his five siblings in their youth. But he'd thought they'd grown out of it. Apparently not. ‘It's nothing to do with that,’ he insisted. ‘Course I'd like ma to be happy, to have a companion, if that's what she wants. But I don't think she does. She's already got several male friends to go to the pub and the cinema with, so it's not as if she's without male company when she wants it. And I think “when she wants it” is just how ma likes it. No,’ he said firmly. ‘I think Maggie's idea of jewellery is best. Something she can keep. You in charge of buying it, Maggie?’

‘No. We were chatting before you got here and Patrick Sean knows a man who can get jewellery wholesale.’

Rafferty didn't like the sound of that. He found Patrick Sean amidst the throng and said, ‘Wholesale? What do you mean, exactly?’

‘I know this bloke in the pub,’ said Patrick Sean. ‘Said he works in Hatton Garden.’ Hatton Garden was
the
London jewellery centre.

‘Steals there, more like, if I know you. No way are we going down the hookey gear route.’