Love Lies Bleeding

by Evans, Geraldine

  ‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ Rafferty complained to Llewellyn as they left the cramped flat and walked down the stairs to the car. ‘No wonder Felicity chooses to pretend she has no family. If I had a father who made clear he preferred his horse racing to his daughter, I reckon I'd have done the same.’

  ‘I wouldn't say it was entirely a waste of time,’ Llewellyn contradicted him.

  Rafferty, suspecting that Llewellyn was just continuing his earlier contrariness, refused to give him the satisfaction of seeking further enlightenment about what — if anything -Llewellyn thought he had learned. Trying to play the Great Detective again to my Dr Watson, he suspected, and decided not to take up his allotted role.

  Besides, later, when he had had time to think about things, he felt he was finally beginning to get an inkling of who had killed Raymond Raine and why, which surely entitled him to the superior role?

  But until this inkling grew to something approaching proof, he decided to keep his thoughts to himself. As he glanced at his watch and saw that it was already getting on for midday, he suggested they grab some sandwiches.

  ‘We can eat them in the car.’ Rafferty hesitated, then burst out, ‘By the way, I've been meaning to tell you. I have to go away on a family matter. Only overnight tonight and a chunk of tomorrow.’

  ‘Going away? But what about the case? We haven't yet re-interviewed Mike Raine. Surely you can stay around for long enough for us to question him as to why he lied to us? After all, he is the one who stands to inherit the bulk of the Raine family business. I would have thought that would be more pressing than some family problem. To my mind, the only family business more pressing when we're in the middle of a murder investigation would be a life-and-death matter.’ Quietly, Llewellyn asked, ‘Is one of your family seriously ill?’

  Rafferty, annoyed at being cross-questioned, said shortly, ‘No. It's another matter entirely. Anyway,’ he said, ‘I'd have thought you'd be glad to be in charge of the case. You've seemed keen enough to be the main man before.’

  ‘Maybe. But there's no satisfaction in being in charge for so short a time. All it means is that one would have to carry on running the investigation in the way the temporarily absent officer has organised it.’

  Llewellyn's voice and expression made it clear that, given the choice, following Rafferty's way of organising things was the last thing he would do.

  ‘Well, I can't do anything about it now,’ Rafferty insisted. He felt riled that Llewellyn should choose to have a go at him when it was his mother who was the cause of his being called away; although, of course, his own had, as usual, managed to put her two-penn'orth in. ‘I told you. I'll only be away overnight and a chunk of tomorrow. We'll fit Mike Raine in tomorrow afternoon. I should be back around mid-afternoon, if not sooner. Ring Raine later and make an appointment for around four o'clock.’

  Thankfully, before Llewellyn could voice any further protests, Rafferty's mobile went off. He snatched it from his pocket, half expecting it to be Abra again. But it was Jonathon Lilley. He listened for a little, then excitedly asked, ‘You have? Good man. Where are you? OK, we'll see you at the station in an hour or so.’

  ‘That was Jonathon Lilley,’ he told Llewellyn. ‘And although his poking about in the innards of computers has yet to bring any results on the Mogadon front, he's found out something else that's sure to please you.’

  From Llewellyn's downturned mouth, Rafferty got the distinct impression that nothing he said at the moment was likely to please his sergeant. For a second he felt tempted to tell Llewellyn why he was really going to Wales. But then he thought of what Abra would say if she found out he'd spilled the beans and decided against it.

  ‘Come on,’ he said as he reached the car and climbed in. ‘I told him we'd meet him back at the station. The sandwiches will have to wait.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Llewellyn got into the passenger seat and asked, ‘So what has Lilley found out?’

  ‘I gather it's something that could possibly implicate Felicity Raine. Though, before you get too excited, it's only fair to tell you it could just as easily implicate Mike or Stephanie, especially, in her case, if she's been playing a more subtle game all along than we might have given her credit for.’

  Rafferty put his foot down and drove to Elmhurst in record time, much to the disapproval of Llewellyn, who prided himself on being a cautious driver.

  Lilley was waiting for them in reception and all three walked up to Rafferty's office.

  ‘So let's have the rest, Jon,’ Rafferty invited when they had all sat down.

  Strangely, given her stated aversion to her daughter-in-law, Stephanie Raine had not only forgotten to mention that Raymond had been her stepson rather than her natural child, she had also managed to forget her conversation during a rather drunken dinner party she had held several weeks before Raymond's murder, at which she had carelessly revealed the password to her computer's email account.

  This information, Lilley told them, was supplied by a Mr Gerald Huntley, a friend of Stephanie who had been present at the dinner party. He had told Lilley that the subject of computer passwords had come up during the meal and Stephanie had boasted that she had no trouble remembering her password because she used the same one for every one of her internet accounts. She had even apparently blurted her password out for all her guests to hear.

  ‘Mr Huntley said he warned Mrs Raine Senior that using the same password for everything was very unwise, as was revealing it to others. He commented that it was fortunate she was amongst friends and family rather than in a restaurant with maybe a few of the listening ears belonging to the criminal fraternity. He said that he told her that if someone got into her system and knew or was able to discover what should be secure information, they would be able to clear out her bank and savings accounts as well as access other sites, the contents of which she would presumably prefer to remain confidential. She didn't take his warning seriously, apparently, and just laughed it off.

  ‘Mr Huntley said he's been worried about it ever since, especially in view of Felicity Raine's presence that evening and the subsequent publicity regarding her confession and its later retraction. He learned about the drug that was in Raymond's system from Stephanie and that we have yet to trace its source. He wondered if Felicity might have used her mother-in-law's computer to buy it.’

  Lilley's normally serious grey eyes were shining with excitement at the thought that his discoveries might prove vital. ‘He was sufficiently worried that such might be the case that he decided the information might prove significant to the investigation.’

  ‘Good for Gerald Huntley,’ said Rafferty. He supposed Stephanie Raine had wasted no time in poisoning Huntley's mind against Felicity. Still, if the information was true and not something Huntley and Stephanie had dreamed up between them, it might help move the investigation forward.

  While Mr Huntley's computer, as the fair-haired Lilley now confirmed, had proved innocent of orders for the drug found in Raymond's and Felicity's bodies, the question that remained — now that they knew that Stephanie was not Raymond's natural mother — was whether Stephanie's so far unchecked computer might contain the drug order they had so far sought in vain.

  Gerald Huntley had given Lilley the names of the other party attendees: both Felicity and Mike Raine had been present that night. Either of them could have made a mental note of the password for future reference.

  ‘Certainly, Felicity Raine must have had easy access to her mother-in-law's computer,’ Llewellyn observed.

  ‘So must her mother-in-law,’ was Rafferty's tart comment. ‘Seeing as it was her machine. And it seems likely that Mike Raine could have accessed it as well without much difficulty. Let's have the guest list,’ Rafferty said to Lilley: ‘we might as well find out if Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all had access.’

  Lilley handed the list over.

  Rafferty quickly scrutinised it. Beside the names of the guests as yet unknown to them, Lilley had no
ted what relationship they had to the Raines. As well as Stephanie herself, Raymond and Felicity, the dinner guests had included this Gerald Huntley, whom Lilley had delicately described as Stephanie's sometime gentleman friend, Mike Raine and Sandrine Agnew; the latter had presumably been invited to make up the numbers and make sure the male/female ratio round the table was the same.

  Rafferty found himself wondering if the dinner party had been staged solely for Stephanie to have an independent witness to the fact that Felicity would be able to access her internet account with no difficulty. But for her to do this, she would have to know that Raymond was to be murdered, as well as know he was to be rendered unconscious before he was killed.

  Strangely, in her eagerness to incriminate Felicity, Stephanie Raine seemed blind to the fact that she herself had even more opportunity than Felicity to use her own computer to order the drug.

  Though, why would she? Rafferty asked himself. No one they had questioned had said other than that she doted on Raymond. And no one, other than Elaine Enderby, the Raines’ close neighbour, had commented that Stephanie's behaviour towards Raymond had been ‘inappropriate’. But then, in passing their home as she must often do, she would have the opportunity others lacked to hear unguarded conversations during the bright summer evenings.

  Unless Raymond had spurned some far from maternal advances from Stephanie, he really couldn't see that Stephanie would have a good enough motive for wishing him dead. There again, while Elaine Enderby hadn't said Raymond had dismissed her affection, she had said that he seemed amused by it.

  But if rejected lust hadn't been a factor, he thought it unlikely that, for Stephanie, the cash on its own would be a sufficient spur for murder. She clearly didn't lack for money and, equally clearly, her love for Raymond seemed sincere, even if it was inappropriate.

  But then Felicity, like Stephanie, also claimed to love the dead man. The killing of a spouse was a far more regular occurrence that the killing of one's grown-up stepchild, but even so …

  Of course, as he remarked to Llewellyn after he had thanked and dismissed DC Jonathon Lilley, the sooner they accessed Stephanie Raine's computer, the sooner they might be able to discover if in fact the drug had been ordered from it. To this end, he suggested they get themselves over to Stephanie Raine's home immediately.

  Somehow, in spite of their previous, less than friendly encounter, Rafferty had a feeling, whether or not his suspicions about the dinner-party conversation were proved correct, that Stephanie Raine would welcome this visit.

  ‘Tell me, Mrs Raine,' Rafferty asked Stephanie. ‘Do you own a computer?’

  Unsurprisingly, she nodded, clearly happy to confirm it.

  ‘We'd like to check it, if we may. We have yet to find the source of the Mogadon in your stepson's body and as my officer has now checked every other computer owned by any known friend of your stepson and his wife, I wondered whether anyone might have had access to your machine and used it to order the drug from the internet.’

  ‘Felicity, you mean?’ she murmured with an air of innocence while she directed a wide-eyed stare at him.

  Rafferty, unwilling to gratify the woman's spite, said nothing. He didn't need to, for Stephanie Raine was racing ahead all on her own.

  With an eagerness in her voice that she clearly found difficult to suppress, she told them, ‘Felicity certainly had access to my computer. She and Raymond were often here for lunch and so on, so she would have had plenty of opportunity to order anything she liked on my machine.’

  ‘Where do you keep it?’ he asked.

  ‘It's upstairs.’ Stephanie hurried towards the door and said, ‘Come along. I'll show you.’

  After gaining Stephanie Raine's permission, Llewellyn turned the computer on.

  Rafferty noted that the password was not conveniently stored on the hard drive, but had to be typed in each time the internet was accessed via the internet service provider -which, in Stephanie's case, was AOL. Given Stephanie's declared carelessness, this struck him as an odd thing for her to do.

  ‘Could you let me have your password, please, Mrs Raine?’ Llewellyn asked, careful to follow Rafferty's instruction that he not give Stephanie Raine the satisfaction of discovering from them what she might — or might not — have forgotten during what sounded to have been an evening of drunken pleasure.

  ‘Of course. It's “rayray”. All lower-case. Perfectly easy for Felicity to guess, particularly as it was my pet name for him.’

  Fortunately, Stephanie didn't seem to have an addiction to sending emails or signing herself up for regular bulletins from various sites, so Llewellyn's check through her emails didn't take long ‘Here it is,’ he said, after another ten minutes. He printed out the confirmation of the order for the Mogadon.

  It was, Rafferty noted, ordered in Felicity's name and with her credit-card details. Would this turn out to be another nail in her coffin? Rafferty wondered. Another prison door slamming on her future?

  But, as Stephanie had been happy enough to point out when she had been doing her best to convince them that Felicity would have ready access to her computer, the same surely applied to Stephanie when it came to having ready access to Felicity's handbag and credit card. It was unlikely that Felicity would feel the need to take her bag with her when they went into the dining room to eat.

  ‘So when was this order sent?’ he asked Llewellyn as he peered over his shoulder.

  ‘The order was sent at one p.m. on Saturday the twenty-third of July,’ Llewellyn told them.

  That was just over two weeks before Raymond's murder and three weeks after the dinner party, Rafferty worked out. He again peered over Llewellyn's shoulder. ‘And what about the delivery address? Was it the same?’

  Llewellyn shook his head. ‘No. The drugs were delivered to Mr Nicholas Miller at his home here in Elmhurst. Felicity's handyman/gardener,’ Llewellyn reminded him.

  ‘How could I forget?’ How could he forget, either, that Miller was also Stephanie ‘s handyman/gardener? And possibly, given Elaine Enderby's comments about the ‘extras’ Miller provided his lady customers, he fulfilled a role that was something more than either.

  ‘’Can you remember who visited the house that day?’ he asked Stephanie. ‘And who could have had access to your computer at the time the order was made?’

  As if aware that she had already betrayed an unattractive eagerness to tie Felicity's name to any wrongdoing, she hesitated, then said, ‘I'll have to check my diary. It's in my bag downstairs. I'll just go and get it.’

  She was back in less than a minute. ‘Yes, here it is. I threw a barbecue that day. Everyone was here. I remember the weather was gorgeous.’

  ‘When you say “everyone”, would that include all the guests at your dinner party?’

  ‘Of course.’ After a slight pause, she couldn't resist adding, ‘Including Felicity.’

  Rafferty, unwilling to gratify her desire that he share her eagerness to condemn, said quietly, ‘Perhaps you could let me have a list of their names?’

  ‘Certainly. The guest list is downstairs.’

  They trailed after her down the stairs to the living room where she opened a small desk, rummaged through a wallet file with pockets labeled INSURANCE, INVESTMENTS, UTILITY BILLS and so on, then rummaged through further, as-yet-unfiled piles of chaotic paperwork that were promptly consigned to the floor in front of the filing cabinet, before she finally managed to produce the list.

  There were thirty names on it, Rafferty noted. All would have to be questioned.

  ‘And did Felicity — or anyone else — spend any time alone upstairs?’

  Before Stephanie had a chance to reply and further damn her daughter-in-law, Michelle burst into the room. She shot Stephanie a look of dislike and before Stephanie had the chance to say anything, told them that Felicity had certainly not gone upstairs that day; she had used the downstairs bathroom and that once only.

  ‘You're sure about that, Mademoiselle Ginôt?’ Rafferty asked. ‘You
must have been busy with so many guests.’

  ‘Non. Madame, she hire the caterers. I do nothing but relax.’

  ‘Even so, I presume everyone would be mingling. You could not have watched Felicity Raine all afternoon,’ Llewellyn objected.

  ‘What is this minglingT

  ‘It means mêler, Michelle,’ Stephanie told her, adding triumphantly, ‘And you're right, sergeant, Michelle could not possibly have watched Felicity all the time.

  Michelle opened her mouth, but Stephanie forestalled her.

  ‘You spent most of the barbecue flirting outrageously with my guests,’ she told Michelle. ‘I remember because I had to speak to you about it. You were an embarrassment.’

  Michelle pouted, but said nothing further.

  ‘Let's get over to Nick Miller's home,’ Rafferty said after they had left Stephanie Raine and Michelle Ginôt to indulge their simmering hostility. Tm keen to find out about this delivery he took in and whether he noticed Peter Dunbar watching the Raines’ home. One of them must have done, and with Felicity denying that either she or Raymond noticed him, we might have better luck with her handyman.’

  ‘Surely he'll be at work,’ Llewellyn protested.

  ‘Well, I know that,’ Rafferty retorted. ‘But I need to find out where he's working, don't I? With a bit of luck his wife will be at home. It's worth a try, anyway.’ He paused, then said, ‘Remind me. Where is it he lives again?’

  Llewellyn told him.

  ‘OK. But put your foot down, Dafyd. And that's an order. I'm starved. We'll get some lunch as soon as we've spoken to Mr Miller.’

  Nick Miller's home and garden were far from being good adverts for his business, Rafferty noted as he walked up the weed-littered path and knocked on the wooden front door with its worn varnish. His own father had been the same, he remembered; if it hadn't been for his ma, who could turn her hand to most things, the Rafferty family home would have looked sorely run-down.

  Mrs Miller looked as neglected as her home and garden. She was very thin, with straggly bleached blond hair as much in need of a colour job as the front door. Her clothes looked threadbare and seemingly as worn down by life as the rest of her.