The Hanging Tree (12 page)

Llewellyn was gone for more than an hour. When he returned, Rafferty
pushed aside the paperwork with a frustrated sigh and asked, 'How did you get
on?'

'Smith knew several weeks beforehand that Mrs Penny would be going out
that night.'

'Time enough for him to confide the information to his loving family,
then,' Rafferty concluded. 'Go on.'

'Apart from the local shopkeepers, Mrs Penny was certain she told no one
else. She told me there was no one else for her to tell.'

'Mmm. Gives us a lead to Jes Bullock, if nothing else. What about the
neighbours? Did any of them notice a strange car on Mrs Penny's hard-standing?'

'Unfortunately, that alleyway leads not only to the back gardens of the
houses, but also to a row of rented Council garages. One of the men who rents a
garage there works as a mechanic in his spare time and uses it for his
workshop, so there are often strange cars parked there; I gather he tends to
park the overflow where he can fit them, though, for what it's worth, none of
Mrs Penny's neighbours could remember seeing a strange car parked on her
hard-standing that night. If there was one it wasn't there long.'

Rafferty was just digesting this when Liz Green and Lilley reported
back. He was gratified to learn that one, at least, of his ideas had borne
fruit.

Miss Primrose Partington hadn't been the only one of Smith's neighbours
to notice the strange car parked on the street. With the single exception of
the baker's, it was a residential road, the nearest parade of shops was half a
mile away. So apart from the residents and their visitors few strangers would
have reason to park there, certainly not for longer than the time it would take
to make their purchases at the baker's.

Lilley and Liz Green found several of Smith's neighbours who had noticed
the strange car, and one, a man who worked as a commercial traveller, had even
taken down the number as a prelude to ringing the police, but his wife had
persuaded him against it. Only trouble was, he was back on the road and could
be anywhere as he followed no particular schedule. But his wife said he rang in
several times while he was away.

Lilley said she expected a phone call from him this evening and had
promised she would ask him about the car. Rafferty, not one to rely on such
promises, told Lilley to go back early that evening and wait for the husband to
call, adding, that if the man didn't have the number on him, he could at least
tell them what he had done with it. He prayed it hadn't been lost or thrown
away in the meantime.

More reports came in and Rafferty dismissed Lilley. The forensic teams
that Rafferty had sent to Smith's flat and Dedman Wood had finished their
on-site investigations. They had turned up little enough at the Wood; the
ground had been too hard for tyre tracks. And, so far, all they had been able
to find out about the rope used in the second hanging and the few fibres left
behind from the first were not encouraging. Whoever had strung Smith up had
used rope commonly available from marine stores supplying the yachties up and
down the Essex coast and beyond. It sold in huge quantities in all coastal
areas and it was doubtful if further investigations would turn up anything
more.

Rafferty and Llewellyn had debated on the difficulty of suspending a
body and whether one could do it alone or would need assistance. Forensic had
confirmed that, although the task would be made no easier by being done at
night, it was not impossible to do it singlehandedly, particularly as Smith had
been slight, weighing only eight and a half stone.

Of course determination would provide extra strength if any were needed,
Rafferty knew. And whoever had killed Smith and carted his body to Dedman Wood
for his ritualistic hanging had been very determined. Pity they'd chosen the dead
of winter for the deed. Pity too, that the body had vanished after its first
suspension. It meant they couldn't be sure that the rope used the second time
had been the original. It could have been removed, like the wrist bindings and
hood, and another substituted. Consequently they couldn't afford to let the
type of knots used encourage them to jump to conclusions about the killer's
identity; the professional-looking noose could easily be a deliberate red
herring intended to lead them astray.

Of course, as Rafferty now remarked, whoever had strung him up the
second time was unlikely to know that the police had already learned of the
first hanging. They must have hoped to conceal the ritualistic aspect of his
killing, maybe even the cause of death. If so, as Sam Dally had commented, it
had been a forlorn hope. Were they blind, stupid or just panic-stricken?

Perplexed, he shook his head. But if the body-snatchers had merely hoped
to sow doubt and uncertainty they had succeeded very well with him at least.

Obfuscation, Llewellyn had called it. Rafferty had merely nodded his
head when Llewellyn had made this pronouncement and had taken the first
opportunity to surreptitiously check up in the office dictionary. To obfuscate,
he had read: to obscure or darken; to perplex or bewilder. That sounded about
right, he agreed, though he wished Llewellyn would give up using long words
when a short one would do. It was an irritating habit.

While Llewellyn had been with Mrs Penny, Rafferty had checked on local
Zephyrs. There were only twelve within a twenty-mile radius and a check had
revealed that nothing was on file against their owners. Of course, as Rafferty
commented, that didn't mean another family member hadn't taken the keys and
"borrowed" it. That was the trouble, he mused. Every time you found a
worthwhile area to investigate, it meant checking out all a person's friends
and relations, which meant a reduced team to check out everything else. It was
important that they pin down the Zephyr parked outside Smith's flat. If they
could at least get as far as a probable on Sinead Fay's car, they'd have a
little more to go on.

Trouble was, of course, it still wouldn't be proof and he decided to
leave further checks on the Zephyr owners till Lilley had been able to speak to
Smith's other neighbour.

The work of the forensic team had proved more fruitful at Smith's flat. Although
the only fingerprints found in the room were those of Smith and his landlady,
forensic had confirmed that the small patches of blood on the armchair and the
fire escape stairs were Smith's. They had also confirmed that the threads found
on the stairs had definitely belonged to the tracksuit in which Smith had been
found.

Rafferty had discussed the matter with forensic and had been told that
this knife must be at least 10" long, as it had gone through the thin
padding of the cheap armchair in which Smith had been sitting, before
penetrating the flesh and piercing the heart.

A fluke? Rafferty wondered. Or a knowing thrust? They were aware of no
one with any reason to kill Smith who had sufficient medical knowledge to
pierce the correct spot knowingly; certainly not from behind and through a
padded chair. Rafferty stared at the report with anxious eyes as the face of
Stubbs danced before them. A policeman would have more opportunity than most to
learn.

Archie-Archibald Stubbs; unhappily, Rafferty rolled the name around on
his tongue. Although he was much older, grey, taciturn and given to cryptic
observations, Rafferty felt that beneath the superficial differences, he and
Stubbs weren't so dissimilar. They even had unfortunate names in common, though
at least Ma hadn't saddled him with Aloysius as a first name.

Stubbs had been a good copper, a straight copper, everyone he had spoken
to about him had agreed on that, though he had the unfortunate knack of rubbing
his superiors up the wrong way; another similarity. Rafferty found himself
smiling ruefully.

Before his premature retirement from the force, Archie Stubbs had been
generally regarded as an honest, plain-speaking man, the sort who called a
spade a bloody shovel. Again like me, was Rafferty's immediate response. But
when it came to devious behaviour, he'd been no match for the politicos
upstairs. No match at all.

Thompson, too, had paid the price for embarrassing the brass. Like
Stubbs, he had decades of genuine service and successes under his belt, had
passed his inspector's exams, and should have received promotion. Instead,
because of one failed case – in which the decision to prosecute hadn't even
rested with the police – he had been shunted sideways, back into uniform and
his career had advanced no further.

 Who could blame either of them, Rafferty thought, if their resentment
had simmered over the years; Stubbs, in his arid, lonely bungalow, and
Thompson, denied the rank he must feel he deserved as less experienced men were
promoted over him. Smith had been the catalyst of their misfortunes. But, he
wondered again, would they act ten years later?

Yes, he realised, they just might. If, as he and Llewellyn had
discussed, another more recent occurrence could be traced back to Smith. Some
tragedy or trauma that could be connected with him. Aware he had been putting
off any further investigation into the police suspects, scared of what he might
find, he knew he couldn't delay checking them out much longer.

But for the moment, he was able to thrust the thought aside as more
reports came in.

The Australian police had got back to them. According to Hanks, the
Walker family had checked out and were in the clear. None of them had made a
surreptitious trip back to the old country. They had all been seen about their
business in the normal way around the time Smith had died. So, that was one lot
of suspects out of the running. Which – apart from the police suspects – left
them with the Masseys, the Figgs and the Dennington families, plus Sinead Fay
and her friends.

The Dennington boys’ regiment had cleared them. They had both been on
duty during the relevant time, the fact verified by senior officers. And, with
the father dead, that left only the victim herself and her mother.

 Hanks also reported on his other assignment and Rafferty's forehead
began to resemble a ploughed field as he learned that Ellen Kemp was either
entirely innocent or had the luck of the devil. It turned out she had a double
garage, a sizable old-fashioned affair that was built to house the larger cars
of an earlier era; the Bentleys, Daimlers and Rolls and had more than enough
space to accommodate two cars as well as providing ample space to work on them.

Sinead Fay's neighbours had proved no help either. Hanks had checked and
the neighbours on the other side of RSG woman had been out on the evening of
Maurice Smith's murder. They had left home by cab around seven that evening and
hadn't returned till the early hours.

The elderly couple on the other side were no more helpful, even though
Hanks said they seemed desperately eager to be so. His visit was, Hanks told
Rafferty, obviously the most exciting thing that had happened to them in years.
Rafferty sighed. As he had guessed, the television had been on all evening and
had drowned any sound from next door. What Ellen Kemp had told them about her
daughter had also checked out.

Rafferty perked up when Lilley returned to the station and reported that
he had spoken to Smith's other neighbour, but he deflated again when he learned
that the wretched man was unable to remember what he'd done with the piece of
paper on which he had scribbled the registration number. Worse, his wife now
thought that she'd thrown it away after persuading her husband not to ring the
police and report it.

'Isn't it just great?' he complained to Llewellyn after dismissing
Lilley with the instruction to keep pushing the couple to find the elusive
paper. 'Why did they have to be so damn reasonable that night of all nights? Any
other time and half the street would have been behind the net curtains with
their biros and scraps of paper, noting down strange men, strange cars and
windscreens lacking the Road Fund Licence, left, right and centre.'

Rafferty had hoped for a definite confirmation that the Zephyr had been
Sinead Fay's. Now, he was still in Limbo-land and didn't know whether to accept
that the piece of paper would never turn up and start, instead, to further check
out the other Zephyr-owners, their friends and relations, in order to eliminate
them or whether he should delay such checks in the now faint hope that the
piece of paper would still turn up. In the end, he decided to wait and see.

By the next morning they had received no more helpful news in the case
and Rafferty knew he could no longer delay checking Stubbs and Thompson out. He
turned to Llewellyn and opened his mouth to issue instructions, but his
sergeant was far away in a world of his own, gazing out the window with an
anxious frown.

Rafferty could guess why. Llewellyn's mother had arrived already – and Ma
had never been one to put off till tomorrow what could be done yesterday – Rafferty
guessed such a tendency came from having had six kids to get up and out every
morning. So, the extension of the invitation, the railroading of any excuses
and arrival of guest had all occurred in little more than twenty-four hours.

Rafferty had given Llewellyn a few hours off to drive to London and
collect his mother from the train. He was about to ask how she was settling in,
and if she and Maureen had taken to one another, when Llewellyn's pensive
expression caused him to think better of it. He wasn't sure he wanted to know
the answer. Besides, he excused his moral cowardice, I've got enough on my
plate at the moment without going out of my way to find other things to plague
me.

He interrupted Llewellyn's doleful wool-gathering to say, 'I'm going to
have to drive up to London tomorrow to check out Frank Massey and his ex-wife
and daughter. They'll all have learned of Smith's death by now, so I imagine
they'll be expecting to hear from us. Not,' he added quietly, 'that I imagine
that will make it any easier. I want you to go and see the Dennington, and Figg
families. Ring first and warn them you're coming. They all still live in
Burleigh. Take Liz Green with you. Lilley can keep pressing Smith's neighbour
to find that registration number.' He paused, then added, 'Could you look into
Stubbs' and Thompson's movements as well? If you have time, that is.'

 Thankfully, Llewellyn came out of his reverie on being asked to carry
out the delicate task of questioning the police officers. Of course, he knew,
who better? that Rafferty felt more than a sneaking sympathy for Stubbs and
Thompson.

They were busy the rest of that day keeping on top of the reports. It
was late when Rafferty finally stretched, yawned and checked his watch. It had
been another long day with little to show for it; the sort of day Rafferty
found most tiring – nothing happening to give him an adrenalin rush, but masses
of paperwork to be read and absorbed. Still, he decided, it wasn't too late for
them to see the Bullocks again that evening and reluctantly, he heaved himself
from his comfortable chair. The office was warm and it was freezing outside;
the window sporting icicles.

'It'll be interesting to find out what Bullock claims he was doing last
Thursday evening that was important enough to make him late for his pint,' he
remarked to Llewellyn on the way out. 'Spot of light dusting, perhaps. Though
from the look of their flat, I doubt it.'