Deadly Reunion

by Geraldine Evans

  Starving, Rafferty was glad to get outside of a portion of cottage pie and chips. Replete, he sat back and basked in the sunshine streaming into the pub’s garden. The weather was a little warmer, but still not oppressive and he soaked it up. ‘This is the life, hey, Dafyd. Roll on retirement.’

  ‘We’ve both got a way to go before then,’ said Llewellyn. ‘And a lot more cases to solve.’

  ‘Don’t remind me. And the way the government keeps upping the retirement age, I’ll be getting my telegram from Prince William before I qualify for a state pension. The only retirement that would give me greater pleasure than my own is Bradley’s. Do you think he’ll go early?’

  ‘I doubt it. He likes his position too much.’

  ‘Mmm. All that hobnobbing he goes in for; Mr Mayor this, and Lord and Lady that. You’re right. I can’t see him being willing to give that up in a hurry.’ He swallowed the rest of his Adnam’s bitter and got up for replenishments. ‘We don’t want to go in mob-handed. Gently, gently, catchee monkey, and all that. I’ll ask the landlord if any long-resident locals are in the bar. If so, I’ll have a little chat with them so don’t expect me back for a while. What can I fetch you?’

  But Llewellyn still had half a glass of his mineral water and he said he was all right.

  Back in the bar, Rafferty ordered another half pint of Adnam’s and buttonholed the landlord. ‘I’m investigating the death of Mr Adam Ainsley, the rugby player, who lived in the village as a boy. I wondered was there anything you could tell me about him.’

  The landlord, a large, red-faced man, who, to judge from his beer belly, was over-fond of his own ale, clutched his chin thoughtfully. After a few seconds of pondering, he told Rafferty, ‘I can’t tell you anything about his youth. I’ve only been here two years. But he used to come in with his parents very occasionally. On Mother’s Day and Christmas and the like. He wasn’t ever what you’d call a regular.’

  ‘What did you think of him?’

  The landlord pulled a face. ‘Bit of a loudmouth. Seemed to take over the entire bar when he was here, talking loudly and boasting about his triumphs when he played professional rugby. Never made it to the England team, though, I always thought. I said it to him one day when I’d got out of bed the wrong side. He didn’t take it too well. Thought he was going to thump me. No. I didn’t like him. If you want to know what he was like when he was young, you want to speak to Harold over there in the corner.’ The landlord nodded to an old boy who looked to be around eighty and whose chin and cheeks sported the stubbly look favoured by footballers and actors, though Rafferty thought it likely that Harold had favoured the look long before either of them. ‘Lived in the village all his life. He’ll be able to tell you a lot more than me.’

  ‘Thanks. What does he drink?’

  ‘When he’s paying, he has half a mild. But if you’re buying, he’ll have a large scotch.’

  Drink duly bought, Rafferty approached Harold and introduced himself. ‘The landlord told me you used to know Adam Ainsley and his parents,’ he began as he placed the whisky down on the beer mat.

  ‘Oh. You’re here about that, are you? Copper, you said?’

  Rafferty nodded.

  ‘I’ve had some dos with coppers in my time,’ Harold complained. ‘Why should I help you now?’

  ‘There’s another drink in it.’

  ‘Never was one to hold a grudge, me.’ Harold picked up his scotch glass and drained it in one go, smacking his lips afterwards to be sure he didn’t miss any. ‘I’m ready for that next one you promised me.’

  Rafferty picked up the glass and made for the bar. But he didn’t even have to order as the landlord clearly knew his customers and had anticipated Harold’s demand. Another large one was on the bar and the landlord took Rafferty’s money and retreated, laughing into his double chin.

  ‘So, what can you tell me?’ Rafferty asked as he placed the glass in front of Harold.

  ‘Not a nice lad that Adam. Parents spoiled him. The missus used to wait on him hand and foot. When I complained to them about his blasted cricket ball coming over the hedge again and landing in my vegetable patch all they said was that their boy had to play. Said they were sorry and all that, but they never stopped him playing cricket. Used to give me a mouthful, he did, the boy, when I told him off. Not a nice kid. Got Mandy Dobbs in the family way. Pretty girl, but a bit simple. Denied it was his, of course. So did his parents. Loves that kid, she do, Mandy. But he never came near nor by to see his son, even after he admitted he was the father. Selfish to the core, that lad. The way he treated people, I’m not surprised that someone’s done for him.’

  Rafferty gave a slow nod. ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’

  Harold said nothing, but gave his once more empty glass a significant glance.

  Rafferty grinned, walked to the bar and told the landlord to give Harold another drink. He handed over a note and went back into the garden to collect Llewellyn.

  ‘I suppose we’d better get back,’ he told him, after he’d given Llewellyn the gist of what Harold had confided. ‘We’ve a lot to do.’

  Rafferty’s pile of statements from witnesses who required a second interview had been added to by Llewellyn before they’d left for Suffolk. He gave them a quick glance when they got back, noted down the names, handed the rest to Llewellyn to distribute amongst the team and headed out to the car park. He also wanted to question the two ex-Mrs Ainsleys to see what revelations they might come up with, though that might have to wait till tomorrow. Llewellyn appeared, so Rafferty turned the key in the ignition.

  Lunch was clearly over by the time they got back to Griffin School. The dining hall was deserted and so were all the corridors. From an open window Rafferty heard the thud, thud, thud of a tennis ball on the hard court. The scent of newly cut grass wafted in and reminded Rafferty of his own schooldays. They hadn’t had the facilities that the Griffin pupils enjoyed, but they’d all been trooped along to the town green and allowed to waft a yellow buttercup under the chin of Mary Ellis, the prettiest girl in the class, and tell her that she liked butter. When that palled, there was always kiss and chase and when Mary hadn’t wanted to play ball, it had been the perfect place to bunk off from. Many an afternoon he’d spent in the town’s one arcade.

  Rafferty, with Llewellyn in tow, went in search of their prey. As expected, they found the usual suspects in the Senior Common Room. Sophie Diaz was curled up in the corner of one of the settees painting her nails and waved her fingers at the two policemen. On the far side of the room, Sebastian Kennedy lounged on the same settee as before as if he’d never left it. The warm day had clearly brought on a thirst for a little pile of lager cans nestled on the floor beside him, dribbling on to the varnished wooden floor. For once Kennedy didn’t have a lot to say for himself and seemed far more inclined to shut his eyes and take a snooze rather than answer their questions. But Rafferty persisted. He sat in an armchair beside him and gestured for Llewellyn to do the same.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Kennedy,’ he said quietly, determined not to be ignored and happy to needle the insolent rent-a-mouth. ‘How did you get on with Adam? I gather you were never very sporty so you must have been in awe of him.’

  This made Kennedy open his eyes. ‘You’ve got to be joking. In awe of that muscle-bound moron?’

  ‘You sound as if you didn’t like him very much.’

  Kennedy shrugged, not to be drawn.

  ‘I hear he was something of a girl-magnet. That must have caused a bit of jealousy amongst the other boys.’

  Kennedy swung his legs around and sat up. ‘He wasn’t the only one that was a girl-magnet. Some of the girls were more discerning and went for something other than over-developed pecs.’

  ‘Oh? Liked the rebel without a cause, did they?’

  ‘I had my causes, Inspector, don’t think I didn’t. At least I had more in my head than Popeye, who was only interested in seeing how far the school spinach would enable him to flex his muscles for the g
irls. You should have seen him when we had double maths. He wasn’t such a hero then.’

  ‘And you were . . .?’

  ‘Always good at maths, me. But then I have a brain.’

  ‘I understand you don’t work. Have no career. It seems a shame.’ It was a roundabout way of voicing the opinion that it was a shame he hadn’t done anything with his brain, without actually coming out and saying it.

  Kennedy gave a lazy smile. ‘Jealous, Inspector?’

  ‘No. I’d far rather be occupied.’ Especially with Cyrus and his other visitors at home. ‘What do you do with your days? I must say, I didn’t think a school reunion would be your thing.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be, normally. But I was at a loose end this week and decided to come along at the last minute, sure Paxton would be able to find a room for me. Besides, I’ve reached the age where I’m curious to see how some of the others have turned out. And I wanted to see if some of the babes still merited babe status.’ He pulled a face and spared a glance at Sophie, who was absorbed in her nail painting and clearly oblivious to them. ‘Only none of them has come. Just Brains and little Alice and the been-around-the block school bike, Sophie Diaz. Even Ainsley dumped her after a while, when it dawned on him that she wasn’t the catch he thought. Dropped her knickers for most of the sixth form. The hero came at the end of a very long list. I was surprised she bothered, as his parents aren’t wealthy and she always liked a boy to be able to get his hands on a nice bundle of money. She married a banker, after all.’

  ‘Did you like any of your school-friends? Or did you despise them all?’

  This brought a genuine laugh from Kennedy. ‘One or two were all right. Even Simon Fairweather’s OK once you get beyond his quietness.’

  This surprised Rafferty. He wouldn’t have thought that the Home Office man, Simon Fairweather, was Kennedy’s type. He changed the subject. ‘Where is everybody? Not gone home, I hope?’

  ‘No. I think most of them have gone into town. You’ll find our resident book-worm in the library.’

  ‘Alice, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah. Could never drag her out of the place when we were in school. No wonder she got in to Cambridge. The rest are sunning themselves in the grounds – they’ll have Harrison the harpy after them, if they’re not careful.’

  ‘Where did you go to university, sir?’

  ‘Me? I didn’t go to university. I couldn’t see the point. I didn’t want to be levered into a career and do the whole middle-class bit. Nice little semi, two point four children and the rest. I bummed around Europe for a year or two. Did the Grand Tour. Picked up a few things I never picked up at Griffin.’

  ‘Oh yes? Like what?

  ‘Never mind, Inspector. Probably better you don’t know.’

  Rafferty just stopped himself from snorting. Besides, he thought he could guess. Drugs – what else did dropouts like Kennedy go in for? Drugs and an easy life, which he thought would be just about Sebastian Kennedy’s mark, though he’d have thought his trust fund would keep him in beer, skittles and cocaine without the need to turn to drug running.

  Rafferty and Llewellyn turned left out of the Senior Common Room. Rafferty consulted the map of the school that Paxton had given him and made confidently for the library.

  Sebastian Kennedy had been right. Alice was there, books spread on the table in front of her and her head bent in the pose of the perennial student. She didn’t seem to have heard them come in as she didn’t raise her head.

  As was only fitting in a school as prestigious as Griffin, the library was a large, well-stocked room and took up a fair percentage of the first floor. There were a dozen large tables spread out in neat lines and bookshelves from floor to ceiling as well as jutting out into the room at right angles. There was an oil portrait of a man whom Rafferty took to be the founder of the school. He walked up to it and peered closely. Josiah Griffin, he read, 1882 – 1940. He’d lived long enough to see scores of old boys join up for the killing fields of the First World War as well as the Second. Rafferty had seen the names of old Griffinites killed in action etched on the walls either side of the Griffin emblem outside the headmaster’s study. He’d counted them; there were ninety-two – young men who were destined never to fulfil the promise that their education at Griffin had bestowed. But, Rafferty thought, at least they were honoured, which was more than had happened to those from his old school who had entered the services and died in action.

  Rafferty sat himself down at the table opposite Alice Douglas and cleared his throat. She looked up with a frown. ‘I thought you’d be outside getting some air on such a lovely day, Miss Douglas.’

  ‘No. I prefer the library. I always did. It’s quiet and I knew I’d have the place to myself. Or I thought I would.’

  He smiled. ‘Sorry to disturb your peace, but like you, I have work to do. Tell me what you remember about Adam.’

  ‘Adam? I really never had much to do with him. I wasn’t his type.’

  ‘Was he yours? I gather he was popular with the school’s ladies.’

  She sat up straight. ‘No. Of course not. We were far apart in our outlook, interests, everything. Adam spent all his time on the sports field or in the gym, places that held little appeal for me.’

  ‘Always the last to be picked, were you? I was the same,’ he fibbed. But his attempt at stirring a fellow feeling could have fallen on Vincent van Gogh’s shell like as she copped a deaf ’un. A silence descended. Alice Douglas seemed as disinclined to talk as Sebastian Kennedy had at first been, and Rafferty couldn’t help wondering whether she was just reserved, like a lot of bookish people, or whether she had something to hide.

  THREE

  Rafferty, although he felt a heel for doing it and leaving Abra to cope with their guests on her own, felt he had no choice but to wait for the other reunees to return for their evening meal. He had a list of those he needed to question again. He wanted to catch them before the dinner gong sounded or he’d be here half the night.

  Fortunately, the reunees who had gone into town returned two by two in plenty of time for dinner and Rafferty stationed Timothy Smales at the school’s main door to catch the rest as they returned and point them in his direction. Young Timmy looked dissatisfied at being given the job. Where had that wet-behind-the-ears innocent gone? Rafferty wondered. Little Timmy Smales was getting as hard-bitten as a ten-year man.

  ‘Into each life a little rain must fall, Timothy. It could be worse. You could work in Traffic and have a multiple pile-up to disentangle.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Timothy intoned sullenly.

  Rafferty grinned to himself and left him to it.

  Trudy Teller proved the most informative of the reunees worth a second interview. She was as gushing in real life as she was in her statement. She was a chubby girl and unlikely to be one of Adam Ainsley’s chosen conquests if she had been the same way when she was younger. This seemed to rankle a little.

  ‘Tell me about Adam,’ Rafferty invited. ‘What was he like?’

  ‘God I don’t know what he was like. I never had much to do with him. He was only interested in the pretty ones. Why don’t you ask Sophie? She was with him all the time during that last summer.’

  ‘Yes, so I gather. But you must have got some impression of him. Was he studious?’

  ‘God no. If he could escape from the classroom he did. And he had plenty of opportunity, unlike the rest of us, being in just about every sports team the school had. Most of us had to sit of a summer’s afternoon and listen to Mr Brown droning on during double bloody maths. I ask you, what’s the point of algebra or geometry? I’ve never used either of them from that day to this.’

  Neither had Rafferty. ‘Oh? And what do you do?’

  ‘As little as possible.’ Trudy’s chubby face split in a smile that revealed two rather fetching dimples. ‘I’m that rare breed, a housewife who doesn’t work. I was never academic, never terribly ambitious. I left that to Alice and Vicky.’

  ‘Did you like Adam?
As a classmate?’

  ‘He was all right. Could act a bit superior. Apart from that, I’ve nothing against him. We never palled around together. He had his own friends and I had mine.’

  ‘Were there any antagonisms at school?’

  ‘Gosh, yes. Both Giles and Sebastian, for all that they’d now protest that it wasn’t true, were jealous of Adam in their own ways. Sebastian was always on the scrawny side, though the beer has helped him to fill out now he’s got older, and Giles always felt he should be the most popular boy in the school. God knows why. He was always such a swot and nobody likes a swot, least of all Adam.’

  ‘And what about his girlfriends? Did any of them take being dumped very badly?’

  Trudy nodded and leaned forward eagerly. ‘Sophie Diaz didn’t take it too well. She started bad-mouthing him. Said he was a piss poor lay – and she should know, the way she put it about! Mind, he was always so full of himself, I thought she was probably right. No one as full of self-love as Adam was is likely to take the trouble to make sure the woman enjoys herself during lovemaking. From what Sophie said he was all show and nothing special between the sheets. Or the sports pavilion, which, I gather, was his preferred trysting place.’

  ‘What about other girl friends? Did anyone else take being dumped badly?’

  ‘One or two. But they’re not at the reunion. Sophie’s the only one of his old lays that troubled to attend.’

  ‘Is there anything else that you can tell us?’

  ‘Not that I can think of. I’ll let you know if I remember anything.’

  He let Trudy go. The rest were waiting in a straggly line outside the door, tutting and looking pointedly at their watches. The dinner hour was fast approaching. Rafferty let the rest go and just kept back the first four. He’d have to speak to the others after dinner.