Deadly Reunion

by Geraldine Evans

  ‘So he lived up to his income?’

  ‘Lived beyond it, Inspector. Lived beyond it. Very foolish. He made no provision for the future. I tried to advise him, but he was a headstrong man. Seemed to think his stardom would guarantee him an income. It didn’t, to judge from the state of his current account. I think he regretted his lack of prudence. Too late of course. Like a lot of my clients.’

  Thinking of blackmail, whether as victim or otherwise, Rafferty asked, ‘did he have any unusual or unexpected sums of money going into or coming out of his account?’

  Jarvis gave him a sharp glance, straightened his pen and blotter again and then said, ‘Funny you should ask, but yes. Several sums of money went into his account.’

  ‘Who were they from?’

  ‘I don’t know. They were just paid in over the counter.’

  ‘When was the last payment made?’

  Jarvis checked his computer screen. ‘A month ago. These sums were pretty regular.’

  ‘Every month?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A thousand pounds each time. Came to a tidy sum as it had been going on for the past twelve months.’

  ‘How long do you keep your CCTV images for?’

  ‘I thought of that, but I was too late, I’m afraid. The tapes from the day of the last payment have already been wiped and reused.’

  So, apart from learning that Ainsley was a thousand pounds to the good every month from a mysterious source, they were no further forward. Who could have paid him the money and why? It was going to niggle at him until he found the answer.

  He thanked Mr Jarvis, gave him one of his cards and led the way out down to the car and the post mortem.

  Sam Dally was in good form. ‘Someone take a photo. This once-only event needs to be recorded for posterity. Inspector Rafferty is on time for the post mortem.’

  ‘Oh, ha ha,’ went Rafferty. ‘You’re so droll. I just hope you’re a better pathologist than you are a comedian.’

  ‘Of course I am. I’m the sine qua non of pathologists. But enough of this badinage. I’ve got a lot on this afternoon, so I suggest we make a start.’

  Sam fairly raced through the post mortem. Rafferty had never seen ‘Dilly’ Dally’s knife slice so quickly. Rafferty concluded he must be on a promise. When it was over, he said, ‘I’ll want the toxicology report tagged as urgent.’

  ‘Of course you will. So does every other detective.’

  ‘Ah, but I’m the only one in the parish with a fresh murder case. That gets me priority.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘So, what’s on now, then, Sam? Got a date with your Mary for a bit of love in the afternoon?’

  ‘At my age? I should be so lucky. My days of love in the afternoon are long gone. I’m hard pressed to fulfil the expected conjugals at night, never mind in the day as well.’

  ‘You want to reply to some of those Viagra ad emails.’

  ‘So do you with your child bride. How do you keep up with her?’

  ‘I’m not that much older than Abra. Only twelve years.’

  ‘Yes, but when she’s forty-eight, you’ll be sixty and reaching for your pipe and slippers. Anyway,’ said Sam, breaking up this latest idle chitchat having had the last word, as usual. ‘This lady was a healthy young woman. Her heart was in good nick as were her liver and lights. Altogether she should have lived to her three score years and ten and beyond.’

  ‘So you don’t know what killed her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you a sine qua non. Slipping, or what?’

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s “or what”. But as you requested, my beautiful assistant will put a priority tag on for toxicology. Satisfied?’

  ‘It’ll do me.’

  ‘We aim to please. So what have you got on? Some flitting around the country using up your superintendent’s budget?’

  ‘You bet. See you later, Sam.’

  Alice Douglas lived in Norwich. It was a straight run once they got on the A11 and, even with the traffic, it took no more than an hour and a half to reach the city’s ring road. ‘Where now?’ Rafferty asked. The heat had made the satnav go all cranky and Llewellyn consulted the notes he had taken from the A-Z of the city before giving him directions. The Welshman was as efficient in this as he was in everything else and, shortly after, Rafferty pulled up outside a neat terraced house in a suburban street.

  The front garden was paved over to accommodate a car, but pots were dotted around the edges and sprouted red geraniums and poppies and tall, creamy lilies.

  A young woman in her late teens answered the door and when Rafferty stated the nature of their business, she said, ‘Mum’s at work. I suppose this is about the murders at Griffin?’

  Rafferty agreed that it was. ‘What time do you expect your mother back?’

  ‘Any time. She said she wouldn’t be late.’

  ‘Is it possible for us to come in and wait?’

  The young woman looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know. Mum said not to let anyone in the house when I’m here alone.’

  ‘We are police officers, Miss,’ Llewellyn reminded her.

  ‘Oh well, I suppose it will be all right.’

  She led them to an untidy living room, in which, like Cedric Barmforth, books were a prominent feature. They overflowed from well-stuffed bookcases on to the floor and the top of the corner television cupboard.

  ‘I’m Joanna.’ Clearly feeling she had to fulfil the duties of a hostess, the teenager offered them tea, but seemed relieved when Rafferty declined. In spite of his parched throat, he was more keen on questioning the girl before her mother returned than he was in slurping tea.

  ‘Are you enjoying the summer holidays, Joanna?’ Rafferty asked in a polite pursuit of small talk, just to get the conversation started.

  ‘Gosh, yes. I’m heading for uni in the autumn, so it’s good to enjoy a few weeks of freedom before I have to settle down to more swotting.’

  Llewellyn asked what she intended to study.

  ‘History of Art. But sorry, won’t you sit down?’

  They did so and Rafferty decided to ask Joanna a few more questions about herself and her mother while he had the chance. ‘Did you have some nice presents for your eighteenth birthday?’

  ‘I’m not eighteen yet. My birthday’s in April. Mum’s throwing a party for me. She said I could invite all my school friends.’

  ‘Ouch. That’ll cost a bit,’ said the ever-practical Rafferty. ‘I bet your dad’s wallet is wincing.’

  Joanna’s animation died. ‘My father’s not in our lives.’

  ‘You must be a bright girl to be going to university early,’ Llewellyn said.

  Joanna brightened again, blushed and told him, ‘I’ve been a year ahead of my peers since the second year of school.’ She smiled. ‘I’m hoping to get to spend some time with my dad next year. I managed to get Mum to promise she’d ask him to my birthday party, which surprised me as she never wants to talk about him.’

  From the sound of it Rafferty guessed there was a less than amicable estrangement between Alice Douglas and Joanna’s father. He was curious as to what had caused it and casually asked, ‘Are your parents divorced, Joanna? Mine divorced when I was about your age,’ he lied, hoping a bit of fellow feeling would encourage her into confidences. ‘I remember how much it upset me.’

  ‘No. They’re not divorced. They never married.’

  Her answer was abrupt. She didn’t elaborate or look likely to, so Rafferty, having got what he was after, changed the subject to one she should find more to her taste. ‘So, why did you decide on History of Art?’

  ‘I love art, but I’m hopeless at painting, so this seemed the next best thing. I hope to get a job in one of the big London galleries when I graduate. Mum’s paid for me to spend the last two summers in Italy –’ no mention of Dad’s contribution, Rafferty noted. Maybe the estrangement had been very bitter – ‘so I’ve had the opportunity to
learn the language, which will be a great asset in my career.’

  They all seemed to run out of things to talk about then and Joanna excused herself and said she’d see if her mother was coming. It gave Rafferty and Llewellyn the opportunity to discuss what they’d learned from the girl.

  ‘I was interested to discover that Joanne’s birthday is in April,’ said Llewellyn.

  ‘And me. I’ve done the sums,’ he boasted, albeit he didn’t mention that he’d had to use his fingers for the arithmetic and that it had taken him a while before he’d twigged. ‘I counted back the appropriate time. And judging from that, her mother would have fallen pregnant with Joanna during her last summer term at Griffin. So much for the abortion she claimed to have had. Wonder who the father was? Studious little Alice. Who’d have thought it? Reckon the daddy was another swot?’

  ‘Possibly. They must have exercised discretion, as, apart from the late Mrs Diaz, no one mentioned her having a boyfriend.’

  ‘Mmm. Bet it was Giles Harmsworth. He was the only other swot in the group, though when he found the time for fornication, if you believe Sebastian Kennedy, he spent his leisure hours as a youth being the school sneak.’

  Joanna came back then to tell them her mother was just parking the car and wouldn’t be long.

  ‘I wonder, Joanna,’ said Rafferty, testing the water, ‘if you can let me have your father’s address.’

  ‘I don’t know it. I told you. I don’t know who he is. Why do you want it?’

  ‘Your mother became pregnant with you during her last summer term at Griffin School. You said she intended to ask your father to attend your eighteenth birthday party and I wondered if he might not be amongst the reunees. I’d like the opportunity to question him more deeply.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  Rafferty, who’d launched into his request for her father’s address without thinking through his reasons for wanting it, was relieved when Llewellyn spoke up.

  ‘Your father’s likely to have a double connection to the school: through his own attendance there and then through your mother. Once we know his identity, he might be able to give us more background than we thought to ask him for at the time.’

  ‘As I said, I don’t know his address. You’ll have to ask Mum for it. If she has it.’

  ‘Ask Mum for what?’ Alice Douglas stood in the doorway and gazed quizzically from her daughter to the two policemen. ‘Inspector Rafferty. You should have rung and let me know you were coming and I could have taken a few hours off.’

  ‘I didn’t want to put you to any trouble. Besides, your daughter’s made us more than welcome.’

  ‘Has she?’

  The idea didn’t seem to please her too well. But then, Rafferty supposed she hadn’t expected them to just turn up on her doorstep and discover a teenage daughter in residence, one moreover who was the right age to be starting university. He waited until Joanna had gone off and then he said to Alice, ‘You said you’d had an abortion, Ms Douglas. Why did you lie to us?’

  She sat down in an armchair and said carefully, ‘I suppose you could say it seemed a good idea at the time. It seemed an unnecessary complication to admit I’d had the baby. For one thing, I didn’t think it was any of your business. And for another, it’s not as if it’s anything to do with Adam or Sophie’s deaths.’

  ‘But if Adam isn’t your daughter’s father, as you told me before, who is? Is it Giles Harmsworth?’

  She didn’t answer ‘yes’ and she didn’t answer ‘no’. Instead, she said, ‘I still don’t think the identity of the father’s any of your business. Besides, I thought you had one, no, two, murder cases to solve, rather than paternity ones.’

  But Rafferty thought that it was very much his business. He determined to find the answer to his question somehow when Alice Douglas stubbornly refused to tell them the man’s identity. It just might take a while.

  EIGHT

  ‘Wonder why she kept it a secret that she had the child after all? Do you think it possible that Joanna is Adam Ainsley’s child? It would explain why she lied to us.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely given that Ainsley had no interest in her at school beyond taunting her about being a charity case. It might pay us to get hold of a copy of Joanna’s birth certificate, though, and see if Ms Douglas added the father’s name.’

  ‘Good idea. I wonder how many of our other suspects have deliberately misled us?’ Rafferty said once they were in the car and making their way back to Elmhurst. He loosened his tie and undid the top two buttons of his shirt, but gained little relief from the heat. He’d already taken off his jacket and slung it on the back seat. ‘Maybe we ought to check them out on their home turf, too. See what else we learn. It’s certainly been illuminating in Alice Douglas’s case.’

  Llewellyn nodded. ‘Who do you want to try first?’

  ‘Let’s try Giles Harmsworth. If Ainsley’s not the father of Alice Douglas’s daughter, then he strikes me as a possible. After that, I think Sophie Diaz’s widower might be the most fruitful. It was her that Alice Douglas confided in about her unwanted pregnancy all those years ago. Maybe others confided their secrets there too, and more recently, and then regretted it. She might have shared any such secrets with her husband. Depending on where he lives, we could check it out this evening.’

  Llewellyn flipped through his notebook. ‘Mr Diaz lives in London. Notting Hill.’

  ‘With the loveys, hey?’ He wiped his brow. He’d had enough of London yesterday when Cyrus had trailed them round the tourist sites in the heat. ‘I don’t think I feel like venturing to Notting Hill as well as the City in this weather. The stop-start traffic. The fumes. The crowds. No, the morning will have to do for Mr Diaz. Perhaps a storm will have broken by then and cooled the air.’

  Giles Harmsworth, when he met them for a coffee from his job in the City, was fidgety and ill at ease. Rafferty couldn’t help but wonder why. He hadn’t displayed any nervousness when they interviewed him at Griffin School, so why now?

  ‘Tell me about Alice Douglas,’ Rafferty invited once the coffee was served in the high-priced eatery in which Harmsworth had elected to meet them. Rafferty had briefly glanced at the menu and was stunned at the prices. Five pounds for a cup of coffee. He ought to do them for daylight robbery.

  Giles frowned. ‘Alice Douglas? What do you want to know?’

  ‘Were you the father of her baby?’

  ‘What baby?’

  ‘You didn’t know about it?’

  ‘First I’ve heard of it.’

  Either Giles Harmsworth was a very good actor or he was telling the truth.

  ‘So when are we talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘That last summer term at Griffin. That’s when Ms Douglas fell pregnant.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘So you don’t know who was the father?’

  ‘No. I only know it wasn’t me.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I really ought to get back. The bosses have got another purge on and I don’t want to be one of the victims.’

  Rafferty nodded and let him go. And that was his nervousness explained. It seemed Harmsworth was worried about losing his job. All in all, there seemed to be a few whose standard of living was either in danger of falling or had already done so for he’d heard rumours that Sophie Diaz hadn’t presented as quite the up-to-the-minute fashionista as she had in previous years. The only one who seemed flush with cash was the trust fund boy, Sebastian Kennedy. But somehow, Rafferty couldn’t see him lending his old school friend, Giles, a few quid should he get the sack. There must have been a few undercurrents at this Griffin school reunion between those who were doing well in life and the rest. He wondered whether, rather than being a blackmailer, Adam Ainsley had been a boaster and had boasted once too often about his successful sporting career and had prompted revenge from one of his jealous peers? It would certainly explain the choice of the muscle-paralyzing hemlock as the poison of preference. Ironic, if s
o, given his sacking and that his bank account was weighted only with the still unexplained grand a month. Really, the down-on-his-luck Ainsley had had little to boast about.

  And as his own internet hunt had proved, the killer would not necessarily have to be knowledgeable about plants and poisons. Even his ma had managed to trawl the Internet for family for her reunion. It would be the simplest thing in the world for a killer of the computer generation to check out poisons on the World Wide Web. He wouldn’t need to have scientific or plant biology qualifications to find an appropriate method of murder. Though, of course, the killer might have found it more difficult to identify the plant, so many plants looked similar, so maybe a bit of expertise would be called for there.

  It was now six thirty and the traffic was building up. Rafferty had had second thoughts and had considered trying to fit Edward Diaz in today. But by the time they’d fought through the London traffic to get to Notting Hill it would be beyond time to turn back and head for home if Abra wasn’t to have set up a lynching party to welcome him. It would have to wait till tomorrow.

  Rafferty had sent two of the team to speak with Ainsley’s old neighbours in Chelsea. They came back to the station shortly after Rafferty and Llewellyn with tales of nightclubs and sponsorship money and the good life.

  But, as Gerry Hanks told him, all that had began to peter out about six months after his professional rugby career ended.

  ‘One old girl I spoke to told me Mr Ainsley used to throw lavish parties at his house. He’d invite all the neighbours. These parties used to get quite rowdy, apparently. But there hadn’t been any parties for the last two years of his tenancy.’

  ‘He was only a tenant? He didn’t own the Chelsea house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So he didn’t even spend his money on property. What the hell did he do with it all?’ Of course, he’d had two ex-wives batten on him and that would have taken a fair lump of his income, but even so, there should still be more. Surely no judge in a divorce case would leave a man without an income sufficient to live on.