The Hanging Tree (18 page)

'Only a smattering of schoolboy French, according to his wife.'

'What about family or friends? Any contacts abroad?'

'None. Unless Elizabeth Probyn knows of any. There are the Walkers, of
course – the family who emigrated to Australia after their daughter killed
herself. Might be worth getting in touch with them, or at least with their
local police. Their daughter was another of Smith's victims; an even more
tragic victim than the rest. It could create a bond.'

'I'd rather not trouble the Walkers at this stage. They've been through
enough. For the moment just let their local police know the situation. Send
them a description of Massey and ask them to keep an eye out for any sudden
visitors to the house. It's a long shot. I doubt that Massey would be able to
find the money to get to the other side of the world, especially at Christmas, when
it's high summer and the most expensive time of the year to get there.'

'Unless Elizabeth Probyn helped him.'

Rafferty's eyes narrowed. 'You've changed your tune. Just a few days ago
you thought the sun shone out of her—'

'No,' Llewellyn corrected. 'I merely pointed out that she's not the ogre
you seem to think her. It's called being impartial.'

'You can call it what you like,' Rafferty butted in. 'I've got another
name for it altogether.'

Llewellyn's thin lips became thinner and Rafferty, regretting his taunt,
didn't clarify his statement. Instead, he muttered, 'If you'll stop putting the
temptation to be otherwise in my path, I'll try to be impartial.'

I'll even try to keep my cool when I question her, he added silently to
himself. Though, considering the delicacy of the questions he had to put to her
and her likely reaction, he didn't hold out much hope of succeeding.

After flicking through his desk diary and checking Elizabeth Probyn's
office number, he dialled and spoke to her secretary. The secretary told him
her boss had taken a few days' leave. He shared the news with Llewellyn,
adding, 'The secretary suggested I try her at home. She even gave me the
number. Funny, I'd have sworn I was on the black list.'

But Elizabeth Probyn wasn't at home, either. Rafferty cocked a hopeful
eyebrow at Llewellyn. 'Maybe she's done a bunk with Massey.'

 Llewellyn didn't need to bother to point out that Rafferty's
impartiality had died a quick death; his expression said it for him. However,
he did say he thought it unlikely.

So did Rafferty, but, try as he might, he found it impossible to
entirely abandon the fantasy that the ever so correct Elizabeth Probyn had
finally blotted her copybook and eloped with one of the criminals she seemed so
fond of.

'Didn't her cleaning lady say her daughter's in hospital? She'd hardly
take off, if so.'

'I'd forgotten that.' With a regretful sigh, Rafferty put the tattered
rags of his fantasy behind him. 'I bet she's at the hospital now.'

He picked up the telephone directory and flicked though till he got St
Saviour's, Elmhurst's general hospital. After fighting his way past the
switchboard, he got through to Admissions. But they had no record of a Miss
Probyn as a patient.

'Probably at some fancy private clinic,' he muttered, as he replaced the
receiver. 'I suppose it will wait till she returns home.' Anyway, he realised,
the likelihood of her having any involvement in Massey's disappearance was slim
at best, and huge quantities of wishful thinking were unlikely to fatten it.

Putting Elizabeth Probyn to the back of his mind, he busied himself with
overseeing their enquiries into Massey's whereabouts, checking out the usual
mistaken identifications of car and man that such a search always brought.

 It was after eight before he gave Elizabeth Probyn another thought. But
when he tried her number again, there was still no answer. 'Maybe, she's run
off with Massey, after all,' he muttered to himself.

But, true to form, Llewellyn immediately robbed him of such a
self-indulgent thought. 'I've just remembered,' he said. 'She's appearing in
the Scottish play at the church hall. If you recall she gave me two tickets. I
imagine you'll find her there.'

Rafferty nodded. He'd forgotten. Llewellyn had tossed the tickets to
him, evidently of the opinion that Rafferty was in greater need of exposure to
culture than himself. What had he done with them? He rummaged in his pockets,
finally finding them in the lining where they had fallen through a hole and
been idly screwed into a ball by fidgety fingers. He smoothed them out. 'Bingo.
It's the last night. I'll get along there, then.'

He glanced at the clock. With any luck, he'd catch her in the interval. He
hoped so, anyway. He didn't relish having to sit through a great dollop of
Shakespeare in order to question her.

Llewellyn, ever keen to encourage Rafferty's limited interest in the
arts, suggested he did just that. 'Although they're only an amateur group,
they're very good. I saw them last year in their production of
A Midsummer
Night's Dream
. Why not stay and watch the play to the end? It is only for a
few hours and if Massey turns up you can be back here in a matter of minutes. It's
not as if anything else is breaking.'

'You know I'd like nothing better, Daff,' Rafferty hastily assured him. 'But,
as Ma says, life shouldn't be given over entirely to the pursuit of pleasure. Duty
must come first.'

To forestall any acerbic comment from Llewellyn concerning this
previously unsuspected rectitude, Rafferty picked up the mobile phone from his
desk, stuffed it in his torn pocket and headed for the door. 'You can contact
me on this if anything comes up.'

As Rafferty drove off, he thought about Frank Massey. Things looked black
for him, all right. The man was a fool to do a bunk; but was he a
guilty
fool? The question occupied him all the way to the church hall, which took some
time as he hit every red light on the way.

To his annoyance, he arrived too late for the interval and the doorman, a
self-important Jobsworth, refused to let him wait backstage.

'Can't do that,' he was told, as, with arms folded over the brown
overall, Jobsworth's tiny, piggy-pink eyes subjected him to a top-to-toe
examination. Rafferty realised he'd failed the test when Jobsworth told him
tartly, 'Get too many so-called theatre lovers back here already. Light-fingered
the lot of them. Now I don't let nobody back here unless they're vouched for. More
than my job's worth. You got anybody to vouch for you?'

Rafferty rallied and whipped out his warrant card. 'Only the Essex Police
Service.'

 Jobsworth nodded sagely, as if he'd suspected as much. It soon became
clear he had no higher opinion of police honesty than he did of the theatre
lovers’.

'Had some of your lot in here last week,' he informed Rafferty. He
sniffed and looked down his nose. 'Unruly bunch. Discovered my spare uniform
cap was missing after they’d left. You can be sure I'll do my best to make
certain they can never hire this hall again.'

Rafferty gave up and conceded victory to Jobsworth. Resigned to either
waiting in the car or sitting to watch the play, he realised that if he didn't
want to risk missing Elizabeth Probyn altogether, he'd have to do the latter.

The hall was packed. He spotted one empty seat halfway down a row on the
right-hand side. Accompanied by tuts from the theatre-lovers, he crept towards
his seat, throwing apologies left and right as he stumbled over feet. Subsiding
into his chair with a sigh of relief, he squinted at his neighbour's programme.

As Llewellyn had reminded him, they were doing Macbeth, the play that
dare not speak its name and he stifled another sigh. For although he had never
seen the play, he'd heard enough about it to know that it contained plenty of
blood and gore; just what he needed in the middle of a murder inquiry.

He gazed up at the stage, but under the actors' wigs, costumes and stage
make up, he couldn't pick out Elizabeth Probyn. Eventually, after another
sideways sneak at his neighbour's programme, he twigged that she was playing
Lady Macbeth, whose character had already committed suicide. Thank God for
that, anyway, Rafferty thought. Steeling himself for further tuts and muttered,
'Well, really’s!' of the usual British theatre audience, he got up and made for
the door, dispensing more apologies as he went.

Luckily, Jobsworth had taken himself off to be obnoxious elsewhere and
Rafferty had no trouble finding the dressing room of the female members of the
cast. He knocked on the door and Elizabeth Probyn opened it. Surprisingly, she
was alone. Unsurprisingly, she didn't seem pleased to see him.

'I didn't have you down as a theatre lover, Inspector,' she coolly
commented as she turned back to the mirror and sat down. 'Did Sergeant
Llewellyn bring you?'

'No.' Irritated by the implication, especially as it was true, that he'd
have to be brought to culture like a horse to water, he instantly bridled and
then checked himself. 'He gave me the tickets though.’ He forced an unwilling
grin. He knows I'm a sucker for culture.'

'Really?'

Too late, he realised he had laid himself open to an enquiry as to why
such a self-proclaimed culture-vulture would voluntarily abandon the last part
of the play. Fortunately, if she had the impulse to ask such an awkward
question she managed to control it and simply resumed collecting various tubes
and jars and packing them away in a bag.

'You're here on an autograph hunt, perhaps?' she dryly suggested. 'Or
did you just want to congratulate me on my performance?'

'What?' Rafferty stared at her. 'Oh. Yes. Sorry.' Not having actually
witnessed her performance, he judged it tactful to lie and hope she wouldn't
question him. 'You were very good. Actually,' he began, 'I wanted to speak to
you about another matter.' He paused, unsure how to go on, and only too aware
of her prickly personality. He had always seemed to have the knack of rubbing
her up the wrong way and, given the subject matter, this meeting was even more
likely to follow the usual wrong-rubbing course than most of their previous
ones.

'Another matter?' she encouraged.

'Er, yes.' Maybe I should have let Llewellyn tackle this one after all,
he thought, and be blowed to professional courtesy. But it was too late now,
so, taking a deep breath, he blundered on. 'We've just heard that Frank Massey,
one of the suspects in the Smith murder case, has done a runner.'

In the mirror, her eyebrows rose and Rafferty deduced from her
expression that she had guessed why he was here and wasn't going to make it
easy for him. 'So? What has that to do with me?'

‘His ex-wife told us you and Massey had been quite close at one time and
had recently become reacquainted. I wondered–'

She didn't give him time to finish. 'You wondered whether I might know
where he had gone? Really, Inspector, the implication of that leaves me quite
breathless. Let me assure you that I remember my position and the
responsibilities it carries even if you do not.'

'I'm sorry. But you must see that I had to ask?'

She dropped the make-up bag and turned to face him. 'Why? In case I
still carried a torch for my first love, you mean?' The idea seemed to amuse
her, for she gave a twisted smile. 'What a romantic heart you must have,
Inspector Rafferty. I'd never have guessed. I wish I could help you, but I have
no idea where Frank Massey is. He didn't confide in me. He certainly didn't ask
for my help.' She turned back to the mirror and consulted the watch sitting on
the table. 'Now, is that all? Because I'm due to go and take the curtain call
with the rest of the cast.'

He had little choice but to accept his dismissal. Anyway, he was
inclined to believe she was telling the truth. What would a woman like
Elizabeth Probyn want with a wreck like Massey? She would, he told himself,
probably despise him even more than she does me.

Still, he had a feeling she was keeping something back, something that
perhaps she didn't consider important enough or sufficiently relevant to
mention. The trouble was, he doubted she would be co-operative if he were to
question her further now. Pausing at the door, he nevertheless made a tentative
attempt to encourage her confidences.

'If you should happen to think of anything, anything at all that might
help us, I'd be grateful. Whether it concerns Frank Massey's long-forgotten
haunts, any long-lost friends he might have in foreign places, or anything
else.'

She inclined her head imperiously, as though she were still in the role
of Lady Macbeth. 'As I said before, Inspector, I wish I could help you. I
really do. Naturally, if anything occurs to me, I'll contact you.'

She adjusted her queenly headdress and softly added, 'What a pity the
police didn't do their job properly all those years ago. I know that,
inexperienced as I was, ex-Inspector Stubbs thought he could lay all the blame
at my door for the failure to secure a conviction. He certainly tried his best
to do so.

'But if he hadn't botched Smith's interview in the first place, he'd
wouldn't have had to look round for a scapegoat in an attempt to salvage his
career and he'd have saved everyone a lot of grief into the bargain; the
victims who came forward as well as the one who didn't; Frank Massey, who
wouldn't now be on the run; you, who would avoid the embarrassment of asking me
insulting questions; and me, who'd be saved the indignity of answering them.'

Touché, thought Rafferty. Thankfully, the ringing of his mobile phone
saved him from ignominious dismissal and gave him the excuse he was looking for
to make a more dignified escape. Waving the ringing phone at her stiff,
mirrored face, he decamped into the corridor only to find Jobsworth bearing
down on him.

It was Llewellyn on the phone. They'd found Massey's car. It had been
abandoned in the port town of Harwich.

'Harwich,' Rafferty muttered. He scowled as he strained to hear Llewellyn
over Jobsworth's loud reproaches. 'Whose ferries operate from there?'

'I've checked,' Llewellyn told him. 'Sealink and Scandinavian Ferries
both run services from there; Sealink to the Hook of Holland and the
Scandinavian line to Esbjerg and Gothenburg.'

'Could be he's headed somewhere else altogether. Left the car at Harwich
to fool us and took a train to Portsmouth, Dover, New Haven, Felixstowe or some
other sea or airport. He could still be just about anywhere.'

'I gather Ms Probyn wasn't able to help you then?'

Rafferty grimaced. His answer was brief and to the point. 'I'll be back
there in five minutes. You've spoken to the ferry staff?'

Llewellyn confirmed it. 'None of those we've so far been able to
question noticed a single man fitting Massey's description. Of course, they're
busy at this time of the year and I don't imagine they had time to notice
individuals, anyway.'

'All we can do is keep plugging.' He paused and tried to wave Jobsworth
away. Apart from the oddness of Smith letting Massey into his flat at all,
there was still another question he remembered that had yet to be answered. Hopefully,
he asked it. 'I don't suppose that neighbour of Smith's has found the note with
the registration number of that Zephyr yet?'

 He supposed right.

'No. I rang him earlier. A Christmas party was obviously in full swing
though, so I doubt either he or his wife have tried too hard.'

Rafferty swore. 'What's the matter with the bloody man? Surely he realises
how important that piece of paper could be? Get onto him again, Dafyd. Put the
fear of God into him if you have to, but make him promise to have a thorough
look for it first thing tomorrow morning.'

Llewellyn said he'd try and with that Rafferty had to be content, though
putting the fear of God into anyone wasn't exactly the Welshman's strong suit.

He broke the connection, put his face close up against the still
expostulating Jobsworth and muttered a few choice Anglo-Saxon expletives before
he strode out to the car park and got in his car, his only satisfaction the
fact that he'd managed to miss the bulk of the wretched play.