Love Lies Bleeding

by Evans, Geraldine

  The fourth door Rafferty tried led down a short passage to the kitchen. Another door off to the left led into the breakfast room, he saw as he poked his head through.

  He glanced round the kitchen. Instantly, his gaze lit on the knife block. It was sitting on one of the expensive-looking solid-oak kitchen units that lined the walls. There was one knife missing, he noted; the rest of the set matched the largest one that was currently protruding from Raymond Raine's chest. The decorative brass-work on the kitchen knives was visible above the wooden block and was the same pattern as on the murder weapon.

  Rafferty called out to Adrian Appleby, the head of the Scene of Crime team, and told him to get the knife block and its contents photographed in situ and then bagged up.

  Appleby nodded and shouted through to Lance Edwards, the police photographer.

  While Lance began to take some shots of the knives Rafferty gazed out of the kitchen window. Beyond the large, plant-filled and obviously modern addition of the Victorian-style conservatory that led off the kitchen and breakfast room, he could see the well-stocked garden, its end lapped by the waters of the River Tiffey.

  Apart from the hushed conversations of his colleagues in the kitchen and living room, all he could hear was the sound of birdsong through the open window. And as he absorbed the glories of nature to counterbalance the pictures in his head, a grey heron, with a beguiling grace given its long legs, landed on the opposite bank of the river. Rafferty held his breath for a moment's delight in the midst of horror, before marvelling that murder — and such a murder — had occurred at this tranquil spot; the setting looked like a veritable Garden of Eden. But clearly it was an Eden no longer. The snake had done its work well.

  Across the river, the heron raised its slender head. It stood motionless for some moments as if taking stock. Perhaps it had caught the taint of blood and death wafted towards it on the light breeze, for it immediately took wing, flapping its way into flight in a leisurely manner as it uttered a deep, harsh krau. Airborne, it tucked its legs behind it as elegantly as a ballerina before vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared.

  Rafferty, reminded by the bird's sudden flight that he too ought to get moving, touched Llewellyn's arm and said, ‘Let's make a start getting the team organised. If Mrs Raine does retract her confession, we'll need letters, bank statements, et cetera, anything that might provide evidence as to the state of the Raines’ marriage. Oh, and see if you can find an address book with the family and friends listed. But you know the drill.’

  Llewellyn nodded and made for the kitchen door.

  Rafferty called after him before he disappeared. “I'll be with Sam’ — no doubt, he groaned to himself, given the state of the body, he would be regaled with a selection of Sam Dally's more black-humoured observations. ‘I'll see you out front when we've both done here.’ He paused. ‘By the way, I meant to ask if you noticed that cottage we passed, twenty yards closer to the main road?

  Llewellyn nodded.

  ‘I shall want to have a word with the occupants as a matter of urgency. They may be able to tell us something useful. With the two houses isolated together in the lane, maybe the close proximity encouraged a greater intimacy than most modern-day neighbours manage.’

  Llewellyn nodded again and disappeared.

  Rafferty strolled slowly back through the house before thrusting his head through the doorway into the living room, where Sam Dally had just finished his examination of Mr Raine's body.

  ‘Don't be shy, Rafferty.’ Sam, although he had his back towards the door, seemed to have a sixth sense where teasing Rafferty was concerned. ‘Come away in. There's no need to hover in the doorway like some green probationer.’

  Rafferty grimaced at Sam's sly comment and came further into the room. To outface the team's concealed grins at Dally's comment, he asked, ‘So what do you reckon as to the time of death? Does the approximate time tally with what Felicity Raine said?’

  Sam's chins gave a turkey-wobble as he nodded. ‘He's certainly been dead over seventy-two hours.’ Dally sat back on his heels and glanced over his shoulder at Rafferty, who, in spite of Sam's invitation, still hovered in the doorway. ‘Rigor's come and gone and bacterial action's given the trunk the usual greenish tint, but it has yet to reach the extremities.’

  Too much information, Rafferty thought, but he knew better than to speak his thought out loud. He often wished Sam would just give him the approximate time of death without going into all the gory details. But that, of course, wasn't Sam's style.

  ‘The skin hasn't started to get that characteristic marbling effect which comes any time between four and seven days after death.’ Sam intoned further macabre details that made Rafferty's stomach churn. ‘So, yes, we're in the right time frame.’

  ‘Glad we've got that so comprehensively established,’ Rafferty commented in a dry little aside for the benefit of the listening scene-of-crime officers.

  ‘You know me, Rafferty. I like to be thorough.’ Sam's plump, pink face split in a smile that made him look even more like a mischievous cherub than usual.

  ‘What about the knife wound? Just the one thrust, was it?’

  Dally nodded. ‘One thrust, straight through the heart. His killer was either lucky or skillful, as the knife missed the ribs and breastbone. Practically like plunging it through butter.’

  Rafferty shuddered at Sam's description. A description rendered even more vivid by the way he rolled his 'r's in a determined Scottish burr. To Rafferty, the words brought an unwanted clarity to the knowledge of how easy it was for a man to pass from this life to the next …

  Dally heaved himself to his feet. ‘I'm done,’ he said. ‘Doubtless I'll see you at the post-mortem.’

  ‘Doubtless.’ Rafferty's lips thinned at this. He braced himself as he wondered with what stomach-turning forensic nitty-gritty Sam would insist on regaling him with at this later corpse-cutting.

  Sam left, followed shortly after — once the coroner's officer had sanctioned its removal — by the body of Raymond Raine. Rafferty followed both of them out and stood in the front garden. Thankful to be away from the abattoir stench inside, he filled his nostrils with the fresh, rose-fragrant air, taking in lungful after lungful in an attempt to rid them of the other aromas.

  Llewellyn was hard on his heels. He confirmed the troops had received their orders.

  ‘OK. Let's get along to the neighbours and see what they can tell us.’

  Summer had that morning elected to return, and in place of the chill rain that had heralded the beginning of the case, today the sun was warm on their backs as they walked the short distance down the pretty lane with its sweet, wild-flower edging to the cottage belonging to the Raines’ only neighbour.

  This cottage, detached like the Raines’ house, was much smaller and plainer in design. It was on the opposite side of the lane to the one they had just left and lacked the lapping music of the river at its garden edge. Which was probably just as well, Rafferty thought, as he heard the piping voices of young children from the back garden; youngsters and rivers were never a happy mix.

  The woman who answered the door to their knock appeared flushed and breathless. She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties and was dressed in clothes suitable for garden romps with the grandchildren, in practical, worn, dark green slacks and a light green T-shirt which was well daubed with what looked like the drips from red ice-lollies. It was thin and had the well-washed look of a top that had encountered similar stains many times.

  ‘What's happened?’ she asked as soon as Rafferty had introduced himself and Llewellyn. ‘I heard all the police cars, but I couldn't come out as I've got my grandchildren staying. I've kept them in the back garden as I didn't want them frightened, much less asking questions that I suspect — from all the police activity in the lane — that I'd rather not answer. When I saw all the cars go past I knew it had to be the Raines’ house you were going to. The lane's a dead-end,’ she explained. There's only the two houses in it
.’

  She studied them carefully for several seconds before, in a half-whisper, as if reluctant to voice the question and hear the answer, she said, ‘Please don't tell me he's killed her this time.’

  Rafferty and Llewellyn exchanged glances at this.

  ‘A violent man, Mr Raine?’ Rafferty queried. Felicity had made no such claim either before her confession or since.

  Mrs Elaine Enderby, as she now introduced herself, nodded. ‘But surely you've discovered that for yourselves by now,’ she commented. 'I always suspected he knocked her about, though Felicity denied it even when she sported a black eye. I did warn her that hiring that good-looking young chap to do her garden and odd jobs would be like a red rag to Raymond. Though that's probably the worst thing I could have said to her.

  ‘After that, in order to keep up the pretence that Raymond didn't knock her about, I think she felt she had no choice but to take him on.’

  ‘I see. Can you tell us this gardener's name?’ If he spent much time at the house he might have witnessed the Raines’ marriage at first hand.

  ‘It's Nick Miller. And way too handsome for his own or anyone else's good. He has a string of female clients. And for some of them, the rumour is he does more than look after their requirements in the gardening department, if you get my drift. Yes, Nick Miller could be said to keep very busy.’

  Very much getting her drift, Rafferty was quick to ask, ‘Spend much time at the Raines’ house, did he?’

  ‘Every Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon. Though God knows what he spends his time doing while he's there — the garden's mostly lawn.’ Elaine Enderby smiled and pulled a face. ‘Sorry. My tongue's run away with me. I don't want you to get the impression that Felicity is one of the customers who require the “extras” he provides. It's more a case that with all the attention he receives for his gigolo antics, he's beginning to think gardening's beneath him, so he spreads it out in a leisurely fashion while he sits admiring his muscles in the potting shed.

  ‘But anyway, never mind him. You were telling me about Felicity — how you do sidetrack a person, young man. I hope she's not badly injured?’

  Amused to be addressed as ‘young man’, when October would see him hit forty, Rafferty shook his head. His mind moved on to consider the implications of what Mrs Enderby had told them. If Raymond Raine had been violent towards his wife, it could mean mitigation; maybe the murder charge would be reduced to manslaughter if that could be proved.

  ‘But come away in and we can talk,’ Mrs Enderby invited.‘We'll have to sit in the kitchen so I can keep an eye on the children.’

  Loud, childish laughter flew on a light breeze through the open back door and window and she told them, ‘I filled the paddling pool as an inducement to them to stay in the back garden. But where water's concerned, I always like to keep an eye and ear cocked for mischief.’

  Mrs Enderby's kitchen was as different to that of the Raines as it was possible to be. Here there were no expensive solid wooden units nor dangerous sharp knives on show. Instead, there were large pine dressers — old family pieces, perhaps, as they were mellow with age — cluttered with practical, unbreakable, childproof jugs in sturdy blue and white enamel, side-by-side with pretty but mismatched plates and mugs.

  There was a good-sized rectangular pine table with six chairs just under the window. Most of the table was covered by pictures, presumably painted earlier by the children.

  Fondly, Mrs Enderby pointed to a picture of a green, stick-like figure with what looked like antennae rising from its head and said with a smile, ‘That's me. Martian lady.’

  Rafferty smiled back. He glanced briefly out of the kitchen window. It seemed Mrs Enderby's practicality extended to the garden, for it was filled with vegetables: runner beans lush with leaf growth and bean pods climbed up wigwams of bamboo canes, their bright orange flowers swaying gently in the light breeze. The children's play area was safely fenced off so they couldn't damage the vegetables which filled most of the plot.

  As they settled at the table, Rafferty commented, ‘You said you thought Mr Raine was violent towards his wife. What else can you tell us about them?’

  ‘But you haven't told me what's happened yet,’ Mrs Enderby pointed out. ‘I asked you if Felicity was all right, but you barely answered me. So what's happened to her?’

  Rafferty didn't see any reason not to tell her. Apart from the fact that news of the murder would soon filter out via the media, who had no doubt already been tipped off by one of their regular sources at the police station, Elaine Enderby seemed the kind of gossipy witness who could provide him with further valuable information. ‘I'm afraid there's been murder done,’ he began. ‘Mrs Raine—’

  Both her hands flew to her mouth. Above it, her eyes rounded with horror and she exclaimed, ‘There, what did I say? I always worried he'd kill her in the end.’

  ‘It's not Mrs Raine who's dead,’ Rafferty quickly corrected her assumption. ‘The body we found in their living room was that of Mr Raine.’

  Elaine Enderby took her hands away from her mouth, which had rounded in an ‘o’ that matched that of her eyes. ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘I don't believe it.’ She gazed at him from troubled blue eyes before curiosity got the better of her and she asked, ‘What did she do? Poison him?’

  Rafferty said, ‘No. Mr Raine wasn't poisoned.’ He didn't say any more and Mrs Enderby didn't question him further.

  After some seconds' silence, she told them firmly, ‘If Felicity killed him, he must have driven her to it.’ She paused, as if suddenly remembering something she thought could be important. ‘Unless — unless that man I've seen hanging about the lane did it. He appeared furtive enough. Maybe he's someone with a grudge against Raymond. Felicity let slip once that he could turn on a sixpence if he didn't get his own way. But when she realised what she'd said, she immediately clammed up and changed the subject. I couldn't get any more out of her.’ This failure clearly still rankled.

  Although interested to learn of Raine's less than placid temperament, for now Rafferty was more interested in the other thing that Elaine Enderby told him and he asked, with an unintended sharpness, ‘What man was this?’

  Mrs Enderby shrugged. ‘I don't know who he was. But my husband and I saw him on several occasions last week, just sitting in a car parked behind the trees opposite Fliss's house. You know, where the lane widens?’

  Rafferty nodded. As Mrs Enderby had said, the lane was a lot wider at that point and there was room behind the trees for someone to park up and conceal themselves behind their lush summer growth, if they were intent on being inconspicuous.

  ‘You know, it's strange, given what you've just told me, but my husband and I haven't seen the man at all this week.’ She glanced questioningly at Rafferty and asked, ‘Do you think—?’ before she broke off and said matter-of-factly, ‘But I don't suppose you're interested in my speculations.’ She gave a brief, strained smile. ‘I'll stick to what I do know. And that is that Jim — my husband — went out on Friday evening and asked the man what he was doing there, but he didn't get any coherent answer. The man just muttered something Jim couldn't catch and drove off. Jim said this man looked the worse for wear and smelled strongly of drink. But although he drove off when my husband challenged him, he was back again on both the Saturday and Sunday. He was still there when it got dark. Whatever he was up to, he was certainly a determined sort to sit there for hours on end.’

  And to sit there on the night prior to the murder, Rafferty added silently, before Mrs Enderby continued:

  ‘As I said, my husband noticed him again when he drove home from his club night on Sunday evening. He was going to tackle him again once he put the car away, but I persuaded him against it. I was worried the man might turn violent if he was challenged a second time, particularly if he'd been drinking. I went round to Fliss's house several times to mention it and ask her if she'd seen him as I couldn't be sure that she had and I wanted to warn her. But the house was empty each
time I called. My husband and I only noticed this man because the approach from our house up the lane gives a different angle to that from Fliss's house. Anyway, as I failed to catch Felicity, I ended up shoving a note under her door.’

  Mrs Enderby's face shadowed. ‘Maybe we should have called the police then? I did think about it, but …’ Her voice trailed away. ‘I had made my mind up to ring you this morning, but then, all the police cars and activity put the thought from my mind. Well, that and the necessity of keeping my grandchildren distracted from all the upset. Perhaps if I'd rung you this morning, as I'd intended, Raymond wouldn't be dead.’

  Given that Felicity Raine's confession was now over three days old, Elaine Enderby's failure to ring them this morning made no difference, as Rafferty reassured her before he asked, ‘This man — what else can you tell us about him? He could be a vital witness so I need to trace him. Could you give me a description?’

  Mrs Enderby hesitated. ‘Let me see … He wasn't old, no more than mid-late thirties. He had thinning, dark hair. As I said, he seemed rather disheveled: unshaven and with a creased white shirt that looked as if he'd worn it for days.’

  ‘What about the car?’ Llewellyn put in.

  ‘That's easy. It's the same make as mine. A blue Renault Clio. I've even remembered part of the registration number. It was FLS. It stuck in my mind because it reminded me of Fliss's name.’

  Rafferty thanked her while Llewellyn jotted all this in his notebook. Given the information Mrs Enderby had supplied, he didn't think this man should be too difficult to trace.

  ‘Did you know Mr and Mrs Raine well?’ he asked. ‘Only, anything you are able to tell us about them and their relationship could be helpful.’