Deadly Reunion

by Geraldine Evans

  ‘Doesn’t seem likely, does it? Seeing as she got herself murdered.’

  ‘I can’t believe anyone, even a woman obsessed with clothes, could be so foolhardy as to embark on blackmail without taking care to safeguard themselves.’

  Rafferty, glad as he was to have another possible theory to play with, had to agree. ‘Perhaps she thought there was safety in numbers and that the killer wouldn’t go after her, surrounded as she was by all the other reunees.’

  ‘I would have thought that the murder of Mr Ainsley himself would have folded away that particular comfort blanket. Besides, the reunion was only for a week. Could she really have thought the killer wouldn’t target her once she got home?’

  Rafferty tutted, as the Welshman dissected his theory and found it wanting. ‘So what’s your theory?’ he challenged. ‘You do have one, I take it?’

  ‘Not as yet, no.’ It was Llewellyn’s turn to look peeved. ‘Maybe we’ll find some proof, one way or the other, when we speak to Mrs Diaz’s girlfriends?’

  Rafferty grinned as he was reminded that even though Llewellyn had just demolished his latest theory, life had its compensations. ‘Take a look in her address book, Daff. See how well spaced out they are around the country. With a bit of luck they live all over and it will cost plenty to get there and back. This case might be giving me the pip, but it’ll be nice to think that Bradley’s going to break his dentures on a few himself before we’re done.’

  With a pained expression, Llewellyn opened Sophie Diaz’s address book and, after leafing through it, confirmed Rafferty’s hopes.

  ‘You want the pleasure of telling Bradley that his budget’s about to go through the roof? Oh, I don’t know, though, what’s the point of having the rank if you don’t get the rewards that go with it? I’ll do it. I like to watch him turn purple.’

  Alice Douglas hadn’t put the name of the father on her daughter’s birth certificate, as Llewellyn discovered the next day, though whether that was her choice or whether the father – whoever he was – had refused to allow his name to be put on the document was anyone’s guess. At any rate, Ms Douglas was still refusing to reveal the identity of the father. Her refusal irritated Rafferty. What was she hiding? It might be worth having another word with the daughter. Even if she didn’t know her father’s name, she might still, unbeknownst to herself, be able to provide them with a clue to his ID.

  So while Llewellyn was hunting down Sophie’s girlfriends with Mary Carmody to discover if there was anything worth following up, he would drive over to Norwich and see if he couldn’t catch the daughter on her own.

  Joanna Douglas, Alice’s daughter, was home alone, which was a bit of luck. Rafferty got himself invited in without any trouble this time and accepted the cup of tea that was offered, confident that he could spin the drinking of it out to twenty, thirty minutes. In his experience, there was nothing like tea and sympathy for encouraging confidences.

  After they had spoken for a little while about the degree course that Joanna would start in the autumn, Rafferty got on to what he really wanted to talk about. ‘You said, last time I spoke to you, that you hoped to see your father at your birthday party in April. When did your mother promise to ask him?’

  ‘Just before she went for that silly old reunion. I don’t know why she went. She never has before though she gets an invitation every year.’

  ‘Perhaps that was the only way she could contact your father? Working backwards from your birthday, your mother would have fallen pregnant with you during the July of her last term at Griffin, so it seems logical to suppose that one of her fellow students was your father. If she had lost his address and phone number, his attendance there would tell her that she would be able to speak to him then. I know a list of attendees is circulated among the old boys and girls, so your mother would know he would be there.’

  ‘You know, I never thought of that. But you’re right. She did speak of asking my father to my birthday party just after she’d received this year’s invite from the school. The post hadn’t come by the time she went to work and I remember she was late home that day. She had several large glasses of wine as soon as she came in and only then opened her post. She said she’d had a hard day. I think she only agreed to ask my father to my eighteenth party because she was tipsy. She became quite cross about it when I reminded her the next morning. But, as I said, she’d promised. She couldn’t unpromise.’ Joanna stared at him excitedly. ‘So do you think my father must be an Old Griffinian?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it sounds possible. She didn’t say anything else about him at the time?’

  ‘No. Not a thing. At least that gives me something to go on; I don’t want to wait till April to meet him. It would be so much nicer to have become acquainted before then.’

  Rafferty was disappointed that his attempt at further digging had got him nowhere. That Joanna’s father was probably an old Griffinian was hardly news. But he wasn’t done yet. He had an idea how he could find out who the father was. Or, rather, who he wasn’t. It just required the girl’s cooperation. He was thankful that Llewellyn hadn’t come with him as he would be sure to disapprove of what Rafferty hoped to have the opportunity to do next.

  NINE

  ‘Are you sure my mother didn’t say anything more about my father last time you spoke to her?’ Joanna asked as he sipped his tea. ‘I so want to know him. How can I wait all the months till April? It’s light years away.’ Breathlessly, she demanded, ‘Are you sure mum didn’t tell you who my father is? You’re not keeping it from me, are you?’

  ‘No, Joanna. Your mother didn’t tell us. I’m sorry.’

  Joanna’s eyes filled with tears and Rafferty, under the attempt to comfort her, saw the answer to his dilemma and took it. It was unethical, of course, but cousin Nigel, the smooth-talking estate agent, wasn’t the only one in the family who could ignore the ethics of a situation when it suited. He embraced the crying girl, patted her back and went, ‘there, there.’ Then, with some difficulty, he managed to hook the buttons on his jacket’s sleeve around Joanne’s long hair and in his apparent efforts to disengage them, he tugged several strands of hair, with their roots, from her head. He clutched them in his fist and hid his hand behind his back until he could put them in an evidence bag. ‘Sorry, Miss,’ he said. ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you?’

  ‘No.’ she said as she took the surprisingly clean tissue that Rafferty offered and wiped her eyes. ‘I don’t know why mum has to keep him such a secret. It’s not as if I won’t find out. Just wait till I’m eighteen. I’ll be able to apply for a copy of my birth certificate then and she won’t be able to keep it a secret any longer. I want to know something about him before my party, even if it’s only his name.’

  Aware that Joanna, destined to find a blank space where her father’s name should be, was heading for another disappointment, he asked, ‘Have you considered that your mother might have kept your father’s identity a secret to save you from hurt?’

  ‘No. Though maybe she’s done it to save herself from embarrassment. Who knows? I might be the result of a tacky one-night stand, with a man whose name she didn’t even remember. Maybe, in spite of her drunken promise to ask him to my party, she hasn’t because she can’t. Because she knows nothing about him.’

  Rafferty, the not-so-innocent partner in a few tacky one-night stands of his own in his younger days, sprang to Alice Douglas’s defence. ‘I doubt that’s true, or why would she, drunk or sober, feel able to make that promise? It’s not as if your mother was promiscuous in her younger days, no one we’ve spoken to has said that. They’ve all said she was a studious girl and that they couldn’t remember her dating anyone.’

  ‘All the more reason then, I would have thought, for me to be the result of a one-night stand.’

  Rafferty could no more argue with her logic than he was ever able to argue with Llewellyn’s, so he just said, ‘However you were conceived, your mother’s brought you up, looked after you all these years. Surely tha
t counts for something?’

  Joanna didn’t answer, but simply rose up from the settee in one swift movement and ran out of the room. He could hear her feet thumping on the stairs, leaving him in possession of the living room. Allowing himself a few indulgent seconds to feel pity for the girl, he carefully placed the hairs in an evidence bag and put it in his pocket. This was an opportunity to snoop that was too good to pass up.

  But twenty minutes later, he had to admit defeat. He had found nothing of interest, nothing that might tell him the identity of Joanna’s father. Doubtless Alice Douglas would keep such sensitive stuff in her bedroom, carefully locked away from her daughter’s eyes. And even he didn’t feel able to sneak up the stairs to find Alice’s bedroom. He might just happen on Joanna’s instead and then he’d have some explaining to do.

  His attempt at playing a Dutch uncle clearly as much of a miserable failure as his hope of immediately discovering the identity of Joanna’s father, Rafferty consoled himself that at least, with Joanna’s hair and attached roots in an evidence bag, he was in with a chance of finding out who he wasn’t. And even if it was later rather than sooner and the answer unofficial and inadmissible, the results might be far more revealing than that. Superintendent Bradley wouldn’t like it, of course, but then he’d make sure he never found out. Rafferty, keen to get ahead in the case somehow, was sure that if he could find out the identity of Joanna’s father for his own purposes, he would be able to get her mother to admit the truth without too much difficulty. A confident air and a knowing smile could work wonders.

  Rafferty had arranged a time to meet the two student lodgers when he knew his ma wouldn’t be in. She had her regular bingo and she went every week as if someone had wound her up and set her down in the right direction.

  Luckily, her visiting cousins were out and the rooms they were using reasonably tidy. Unlikely as it seemed for students, Karen and Martin were on time and he hurriedly showed them round, urging them on in case the cousins returned before they’d finished. Young Karen’s face seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place her and when he asked her if they were acquainted, she opened her eyes wide and said, ‘Oh no, Mr Rafferty. I don’t think so.’

  They loved Ma’s two spare rooms and said they’d take them. He’d got copies of short-term tenancies on the internet after a lot of trouble and he’d cursed Llewellyn and Abra as he struggled. They’d both refused to have anything to do with his little plot. But he’d managed and eventually was able to print the agreements off.

  He quickly filled in the youngsters’ details. Money and rent books changed hands – he’d already asked for and received references. They were all set. He gave them keys and told them they could move in the day after Ma’s American cousins were due to go home.

  Rafferty, aware that the get-his-own-back joke on his ma had come full circle, rang her mobile once the two students had gone and he was back in his car, to let her know what he’d arranged, but all he got was voice mail. He’d try her later; he had plenty of time and he didn’t want to leave a message.

  To Rafferty’s disappointment, Gary Sadiq was still in England, staying with relatives in Birmingham. He’d rather fancied a free trip to India – apart from anything else, the necessity of making the expensive journey would upset Superintendent Bradley, not to mention giving him a couple of days’ break from Cyrus and his religious fervour. But it wasn’t to be, so they battled their way up to Birmingham through the morning’s rush hour and a stop-start journey under a still-blazing sun to discover precisely nothing. Though, of course, the semi in Birmingham wasn’t Sadiq’s home. Maybe, if he could persuade Bradley to fund the trip he might yet find out something to his advantage on the sub-continent. But Gary Sadiq, when they saw him, was very circumspect and answered Rafferty’s questions as if his words were rationed. In any event, they got nothing useful out of him.

  So far, none of the other reunees they’d spoken to had revealed as much as a morsel of new evidence to raise them up the suspects’ list, so it was a reluctant Rafferty, on their return from Birmingham, that slouched his way along the corridor to report his failure to Bradley. He then slunk home to Abra and Cyrus, who was in even fuller voice than Bradley had been.

  ‘Joe. Hi. How’s your case going?’ He didn’t wait for Rafferty to answer, but continued blithely on. ‘Ah was saying to Wendy, although Ah’ve bin praying for you. Of course Ah have, Ah thought a bit of intense praying would be mighty helpful. So this evening, Ah’m going to retire early to ma room and spend some hours on ma knees. Me and God are on good terms, and Ah’m confident Ah’ll get a positive response. Ah’ll start now, if you don’t mind. It seems rude to deprive you of ma company when Ah’m a guest in your home, but Ah know how much good it will do.’

  Bemused, but grateful to have an evening free of Cyrusisms, Rafferty thanked his guest solemnly, kissed Abra and helped himself to a large Jameson’s.

  It was a few days later. Rafferty had rushed off Joanna Douglas’s hair to the forensic laboratory requesting it be prioritised and he was pleased when Llewellyn told him they had some results in. Then Llewellyn frowned and looked at him from narrowed brown eyes. ‘That’s funny, they’re from Joanna Douglas’s hair. When did you obtain strands of her hair? You never mentioned you were doing so?’

  ‘Didn’t I? Must have slipped my mind.’ He learned forward expectantly. ‘And?’

  ‘Adam Ainsley, not Giles Harmsworth, was the father of Ms Douglas’s daughter.’

  ‘Bingo! No wonder she fought shy of telling us the father’s identity. We need to have another word with her.’ Rafferty glanced at his watch. ‘She’ll still be at work. Why don’t we beard her at the British Library? After first telling us she’d had an abortion, then denying Joanna was Ainsley’s child and then outright refusing to supply us with the identity of who was the father, I don’t think she’s entitled to our consideration.’

  Llewellyn was looking pensive. ‘You know, you haven’t said how you got that lock of Joanna Douglas’s hair.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’

  ‘She’s a minor, so I hope you asked her mother’s permission.’

  ‘I got the hair, didn’t I?’

  ‘As long as it wasn’t obtained in such a way as to render it inadmissible.’

  ‘As if. You know me, Dafyd.’

  ‘Yes. I do, don’t I? That’s the problem.’

  ‘You want to trust more and suspect less, Dafyd. All that tense suspicion can make a person constipated.’ He paused, then added airily, ‘though it might be a good idea not to mention it to Alice Douglas. No point in complicating matters. I shouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t forgotten giving her permission. You know how absentminded these academics can be.’

  Llewellyn stared at him, sighed and shook his head, but he said nothing further, much to Rafferty’s relief. He’d never been able to persuade the by-the-book Welshman that, sometimes, it was necessary to use a bit of unofficial sleight-of-hand to get answers.

  Thankfully, the weather had broken and the day was cool with a threat of rain. Perhaps as well as successfully praying for a break in the case, Cyrus had also prayed for a break in the weather. Rafferty, after getting confirmation that Adam Ainsley was indeed the father of Alice’s daughter, wasn’t about to look the second gift horse in the mouth, so was duly grateful. He just hoped Cyrus wasn’t too unbearably triumphant when he told him that his prayers had been answered.

  The run to London was far more comfortable than it had been when they’d made the journey to Notting Hill to see Edward Diaz.

  Leaving Llewellyn to find a place to park, Rafferty entered the British Library and went in search of Alice Douglas. He tracked her down to one of the offices.

  She was surprised to see him and even more surprised when she discovered the purpose of his visit.

  ‘How did you find out that Adam was Joanna’s father? His name’s not on her birth certificate.’

  Her question put Rafferty in something of a quandary, given that he had obt
ained a sample of her daughter’s hair illicitly – Bradley would go spare if he heard – so he temporised. ‘Let’s just say that, given your reticence about identifying the father, I put two and two together.’ Airily, he added, ‘I can, of course, obtain DNA evidence if you wish.’

  She grimaced. ‘What’s the point? It would only delay things for a short while. Yes. All right, Adam was Joanna’s father. Or rather, his was the seed that helped to create her. He certainly had no interest in being a father to her or in supporting me, as I soon discovered. He made quite clear that he didn’t want to be burdened with a “brat”, as he called our child. He was going places and he didn’t want either me or his little bastard tagging along behind him.’

  ‘You must have hated him for it.’

  ‘I did for a time. But life moves on, Inspector. And I moved on with it. The stardust dropped from my eyes pretty quickly and I realized that he had only ever taken up with me because his pride was wounded when he found out that Sophie had cut a swathe through most of the class.’

  ‘Surely he knew that all along? Wouldn’t the other lads boast of it?’

  ‘Perhaps, if it had been another boy. But Adam was the school’s sporting hero as well as having the reputation as something of a bully; the combination encouraged Sophie’s conquests to keep their bedpost notches to themselves.’

  ‘One of them must have let it slip.’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t know which one. Adam never said. He refused to talk about it at all.’ She cast a sudden, sharp look at Rafferty. ‘And if you think I killed him because of something that happened when I was a foolish girl, you’re mistaken.’

  Poor off for suspects that had a really strong motive for wanting Ainsley dead, Rafferty was reluctant to let Alice Douglas go quite so easily. She was the only passable suspect he had. Unwanted pregnancies caused high feelings and blighted lives. Perhaps that was the case here. Unfortunately, Ms Douglas was quick to disabuse him of that theory.