Death Line

by Geraldine Evans

  A likely story, thought Rafferty. And if they needed further convincing, no doubt she bashed them over the head with the biggest stone in the shop. The threat of physical violence was the greatest persuader of all, as most of the world's religions had discovered centuries ago.

  She glanced down. “This is Sugalite. It aids in the development of the Third Eye seeing or inner vision. It unclogs the mind and enables it to get to the heart of things. You will find it beneficial, of this I am certain.” She closed Rafferty's fist over the stone and moved his hand close to his head. After a few moments, she asked, “Do you get any sensation from it?”

  Rafferty was about to deny it, but then he became aware that his heart had begun to flutter and that the hairs on his arms were standing on end. The stone seemed to generate a warmth on his palm and now he realised that the headache that had been nagging at him earlier had faded. Irritated, and feeling slightly foolish at the admission, he told her what he felt.

  Half expecting a triumphant 'Hallelujah', Rafferty was surprised that she restricted herself to a more restrained response.

  “That is good,” she told him. “It indicates there is a rapport between you.” He went to give the stone back to her, but she closed his hand over it and told him. “Keep it. Carry it with you always. Call it my contribution to your investigation.”

  Rafferty simply nodded. Apart from any other consideration, he sensed it would be foolhardy to offend the intense South American woman. She reminded him of an iceberg, nine-tenths hidden, and he wondered what lay concealed beneath that cool white exterior?

  “Actually we came to see Mrs Campbell,” he told her. The forensic team had finished their work now and the offices as well as the shop were again in use. “I imagine she's upstairs working?” Mrs Moreno's face tightened and Rafferty realised just how little love there was between the two women.

  “Yes. She has just returned from seeing a client. A very important man who was one of Jaspair's regulars. She hopes that if she retains his custom she will keep her job.” She smiled again, but this time her smile was one of cool gratification. “Once she had hopes for a partnership, now she just hopes to stay in employment. Is sad, no?”

  Rafferty pretended innocence. “Is Mr Astell thinking of winding up the business?”

  “No.” Her forehead creased as she considered his remark. “At least, I do not think so. What I meant was that her services may no longer be required here. Edwin never took to her, though Jaspair liked her a lot. I think this was because he found her outrageous, like himself. But I think even he was beginning to find her tiresome. She was too like him and made him aware of traits in his character that he preferred to ignore. She was also very impetuous and demanding. She wanted to prove to him that she could be good with the clients, but she got little more chance to do that than I. Edwin told me he had wanted to look into her background before Jaspair took her on, but Jaspair said he already knew as much about her as he needed. Besides, he felt fate had decided it for him. He wanted help with the natal charts; she wanted a job – fate he felt had decreed that the two should come together. It was the same with me. Six months ago I have no home, no job, no money. Then, from nowhere I meet Jaspair and before you know it, I have all these things. It was fate, you see, Inspector. Fate, Kismet, Nemesis. Call it what you will. You cannot deny its power.”

  She was right there, at any rate, thought Rafferty. But he wished his experience of fate had been as kind as Mercedes Moreno's had apparently been. When he had once complained to Llewellyn on this very subject, solemn-faced, the Welshman had told him that by his rise to Inspector, he had put himself under the sway of Nemesis, the Greek goddess of retribution and vengeance.

  Uneasily, Rafferty remembered what Llewellyn had told him – that Nemesis illustrated a basic concept in Greek thought: that people who rise above their condition expose themselves to reprisals from the gods. At the time he had assumed that Llewellyn's tongue had been firmly in his cheek. But now, as Llewellyn's dark eyes met his, their very expressionlessness made him uneasy. Did Llewellyn know something he didn't? Had Nemesis, or Superintendent Bradley, her current earthly form, discovered his little PIMP joke? Worse – was he about to issue reprisals?

  Seemingly unaware of this by-play going on under her nose, Mercedes Moreno confided, “La Senora Campbell has much ambition. She wanted to impress Jaspair with her skills, and she felt that Edwin was deliberately thwarting her. She accused him of sabotaging her hopes for a partnership. Was not true. She knew that her work would be on the postal side before she started here.” Her narrow shoulders executed a tiny shrug. “She is foolish woman. Is it likely that Jaspair would allow such a one near the more valued clients? She has no subtlety, no discretion. The postal clients were generally, how you say? – one-offs, or at the most, they would want a twelve month, once a year forecast. She could do little damage there. But the personal clients were repeat business. Some came every week.” She paused to light several joss sticks and a delicious fragrance wafted under Rafferty's nostrils.

  “Is sandalwood.” She threw the remark over her shoulder as she placed the sticks in jars dotted around the shop before returning behind the counter. “Senora Campbell could not become a partner in any case,” she told him. “She has no money. I believe she is in much debt and is being pressed for payment.”

  Mrs Moreno presumably had no money either, Rafferty reflected. Yet, she too, seemed to harbour ambitions beyond her ability to pay for them. If it wasn't for the fact that her alibi checked out, he would think she was trying to cast suspicion on Ginnie Campbell in order to remove any suspicion from herself. Yet her alibi had stood up to scrutiny. She had told them she had gone straight onto the Astells' home that evening. Originally leaving at 8.00 p m, she had returned just before 8.10 p m to collect her forgotten gloves and had stayed chatting with Astell in the kitchen till getting on for 9.00 p m. If Sam Dally and Ellen Hadleigh were to be believed, Moon had certainly been dead by then.

  On the other hand, they already knew that Ginnie Campbell had an erratic personality, sufficiently thwarted, she would be capable of violence. She only had her "friend's" evidence to back her up; yet, if the friend's neighbours were to be believed, it was hardly a solid alibi. She could have returned to the office that night to speak privately with Moon. If Moon had brought one of her eruptions on himself by denying her hopes for a partnership, she might easily have physically attacked him. Rafferty doubted that Moon would have agreed to such a tempestuous person having a share in the business. He had an emotional partner at home; he surely wouldn't want one at work as well. From what Mrs Moreno said he had begun to regret taking her on at all. Yet he hadn't got rid of her. Why?

  Rafferty recalled what the landlord of The Troubadour had said. Moon had guaranteed her a job as long as she didn't contravene his esoteric moral code. Was it possible he had caught her with her hand in the till? If he had, she would find not only her over-optimistic hopes for a partnership crushed, but her job would be likely to go, too. He looked up to catch Mercedes Moreno's smoky gaze fixed intently on him. It made him uneasy and he headed for the stairs at the back of the shop. “Thanks for your help,” he said. Remembering his manners, he hefted the stone. “And for this. I hope it does the trick.”

  “There are no tricks involved,” she coolly reproved. “I am not a conjurer, Inspector. But I do have a certain professional pride. If you carry the stone with you always, you will discover its properties for yourself.”

  “Right. Well, thanks again.” Perhaps, he mused, while he was here, he should take the precaution of obtaining a stone to charm away Bradley's wrath? It would be no use, though he realised. Nothing could be that potent. Besides, the woman gave him the creeps. He wanted to get out of reach of her mesmeric eyes. He had a superstitious suspicion she would set some hex on him if he turned his back on her.

  As they climbed the stairs to the offices, he wondered if she was hoping that Edwin Astell would offer her a partnership? He would certainly need some
one and she was there, on the spot. Maybe she was hoping that Astell would be so desperate for someone reliable to help get the business back on its feet that he wouldn't expect her to put any money in? He shook his head. Too many maybes, Rafferty, he told himself. He found he was still clutching the Sugalite that Mercedes Moreno had forced on him and, with a scowl, he thrust it in his pocket and promptly forgot about it.

  Ginnie Campbell didn't appear to be working very hard. Her computer screen was blank and the pile of post on her desk had yet to be opened. If she was set on keeping her job, it was hardly the way to impress Astell, thought Rafferty.

  “Inspector.” Her violet eyes were watchful. “What is it this time?”

  “Just one or two little queries. You told us you were at your friend's house the entire night when Jasper Moon was murdered. Trouble is, none of your neighbours saw your car outside. Perhaps you can explain why?”

  Her hasty temper flared. “Are you saying you don't believe me?”

  “No. What I'm saying is we have to check such statements, which is what I'm doing. I suggest you calm down and answer the question.”

  Her violet eyes deepened to a stormy purple. Rafferty felt waves of barely controlled rage. It shook him and briefly he wondered if she was quite sane. He felt relieved that Llewellyn was there and that there were no blunt instruments handy.

  “My boyfriend's neighbours are as unfriendly as mine,” she finally told them. “They enjoy causing trouble. I don't suppose any of them mentioned that the people across the way held a party that evening? My boyfriend and I had been out for the day, as I told you. When we returned we had to park in the next street because the neighbours' guests had taken the nearer spaces.”

  “I see. Thank you. We'll check it out.”

  “Do that,” she told him, with a toss of her bright hair. Her rage had passed as quickly as it had come, now she was merely sullen. “You can check as much as you like. Maybe this time the neighbours will tell you the truth.”

  He nodded. But, as he told the still aloof Llewellyn as they made their way back to the station, she could still have slipped out the back way. There was an alley running along the back of those houses, and it would be dark well before 8.00 p m.

  It could be no more than a five minute drive to Moon's office from St Mark's Road; time enough to argue with Moon, kill him and return without the neighbours being any the wiser.

  From what the neighbours had told them, the boyfriend was a drinker who had a habit of passing out for hours. If it had suited her plans, Rafferty doubted it would have taken much effort on her part to render him totally insensible. He was still convinced she was hiding something. But whether it was her own guilt, or information concerning one of the other suspects, they had yet to discover.

  Terry Hadleigh still hadn't turned up. They'd already been searching for him for several days; he'd obviously gone to ground. But he would have to surface sometime, Rafferty reminded himself. And when he did, they'd nab him. Hadleigh could be the key to this case, he realised. But until he had heard his story from his own lips, he wouldn't know whether to believe it or not. But – until they did find him – the investigation had to continue.

  There were still several avenues they had yet to check. The squad had already worked their way through the greater part of Moon's client list. Most of the names on it lived very public lives and – to Rafferty's chagrin, as he still had faint hopes in that direction, even the Geminis amongst them were easily eliminated. So much for his ma's bright idea. It seemed now that his first thoughts had been right after all, and that Moon, like those on hallucogenic drugs convinced they had found and lost the very secret of the Universe, had felt he was scrawling something important when all he had written had been meaningless gibberish. He was already dying, would have been confused and disorientated. How likely was it, Rafferty now asked himself, that in such a state, Moon had been able to write a lucid message?

  To add to his other disappointments, Rafferty discovered that Sian Silk, the film actress and one of Moon's more luscious star clients, had been in America at the time of the murder. In spite of his suddenly discovered desire for a partner in life, he could still appreciate the film star's charms and he had been looking forward to interviewing her. Thoughts of her sultry attractions would have warmed the long winter nights...

  Llewellyn was luckier, as another of Moon's clients, and – as Rafferty discovered – one of the Welshman's idols, Nat Kingston, the prominent local writer and critic – had not only had an appointment with Moon on the day of his murder, but had been unable to produce a solid alibi. When he had mentioned Kingston's name, Llewellyn's standoffish air had faded to wistful, and Rafferty, grateful to find a way to render Llewellyn as close to sweetness and light as he ever got, had decided there was no need for both of them to be disappointed. They were on their way to see Kingston now.

  Nat Kingston had written only four books, each one taking about five years in the writing, but, according to a now almost chatty Llewellyn, they were much admired by the literati amongst whom he had a reputation not far short of genius. Reclusive almost to a Howard Hughes degree, Kingston was nowadays reputed to rarely leave his home. He lived alone – apart from a male secretary-companion – Jocelyn Eckersley, to whom Rafferty had spoken – in a detached house that overlooked the sea a little further along the coast from Elmhurst. His literary-buff sergeant told him that Kingston had never married, never been known to have any involvement with women and – given Moon's homosexuality, Rafferty's brain immediately leapt into suspicion mode.

  They approached the closed wooden gates of Kingston's isolated house, and Rafferty pressed the bell set into the wall. A few seconds later a voice squawked from the grill beside the gate post. Rafferty explained their business and the gates swung silently apart. For once, the morning was balmy, and they had driven down with the windows open. Now, as the gates slid as smoothly shut behind them, Rafferty could hear the sound of the ocean beyond the house. Kingston's home, a gaunt, grey-stoned mansion, was perched near the cliff edge.

  As they got out of the car, the front door opened and a youngish man came down the steps to greet them. “He must be the secretary,” Rafferty murmured. “When we get to see Kingston himself, you can do the talking. Soften him up by praising his books – lie if you have to. All writers are supposed to be vain.”

  “I won't need to lie,” Llewellyn replied softly. “Kingston's a great man. It's a rare privilege to meet him.”

  Rafferty thought of other so-called "great" men, whose towering reputations time and truth had tumbled, and he muttered warningly under his breath, “Just remember, you're here as a policeman, interviewing a possible suspect in a murder case, not as some sort of literary groupie looking to mark another notch on your bookcase.” Luckily before Llewellyn's reproachful expression found utterance, the secretary had reached them.

  “Inspector Rafferty?” He was older than Rafferty had thought. In his mid-thirties at least, but with skin so smooth he looked as if he had just come out of the trouser press. “I'm Jocelyn Eckersley, Nathaniel Kingston's secretary.” He spoke Kingston's name with reverence, as if, to him, the writer had the status of a god.

  Rafferty nodded. “Mr Eckersley. I explained on the phone that I need to speak to Mr Kingston in connection with the death of Jasper Moon and-”

  “You explained that, certainly.” Eckersley's smoothness was of the steely variety, as his voice attested. “But you didn't really explain why. I told you that my employer rarely leaves the house. He certainly hasn't been visiting and murdering prominent astrologers. It's too bad that he should be disturbed like this, especially as I really can't believe he can help you with your investigation.”

  Another of Rafferty's collection of prejudices – this time against smooth types – gave an edge to his voice. “Perhaps you'll allow me to be the judge of that, Mr Eckersley. Could we see Mr Kingston now, please?”

  Eckersley stared at him for several seconds, his expression hostile, before
acknowledging by an inclination of his head that Rafferty had the upper hand. He turned without another word. They followed, and as they rounded the corner of the building, Rafferty could see the great man himself. He was sitting alone on the terrace, gazing out over the grey North Sea.

  “Mr Kingston spends a great deal of time there when the weather's fine,” Eckersley murmured distantly. “It's one of the few pleasures he has left.”

  As Rafferty drew closer, he began to understand why Eckersley had been so protective of his boss. Kingston's body was shrunken as if he had some wasting disease – if so, it explained why he rarely left his home. His face was in profile, his fleshless cheeks fell away sharply, leaving his high-bridged nose prominent, like that of an emaciated eagle. He turned at their approaching footsteps. His eyes were a piercing cornflower blue, and looked astonishingly youthful in a face owning more skull than flesh. Rafferty's earlier suspicions fell away as it became apparent that, even with the walking stick that rested against his chair, Kingston would have enough trouble hobbling around his own home, never mind climbing the long flight of stairs to Moon's consulting rooms and murdering him.

  “Inspector?” In spite of his physical degeneration, Kingston's voice was surprisingly strong and rich, each syllable given its full weight in a voice that could have been made for the stage. “My secretary told me you would be calling. Come, sit down by me and keep an old man company for a while.”

  Rafferty sat. “I didn't think you liked company much, Mr Kingston.”

  “It depends on the company, Inspector. But I think I'll risk it.” He might be old, sick – dying even, but Kingston had a definite presence. Rafferty glanced at Llewellyn. The Welshman's pale face had a slight flush at the cheekbones, his eyes drank Kingston in as though he was determined to commit every detail of the meeting to memory. “I hear a tiny hint of blarney in your voice,” Kingston continued. “And the Irish generally have a refreshing candour and lack of pomposity. As one gets older, one finds most people wearisome. Now I have neither the stamina nor the time for clacking tongues that say little and minds that peck over the banal as if it were Holy Writ.” He paused and gave them a gentle, self-mocking smile. “I'm being tiresome. A self-indulgence of the aged that I've always deplored. You wanted to speak to me about Jasper Moon's murder?”