Death Line

by Geraldine Evans

  Llewellyn's lips thinned. “I wouldn't put it quite so bluntly, but yes, that's what it amounts to. I wondered if, deep down, Ellen Hadleigh suspected her attitude influenced her son's developing sexual identity? By continually telling the boy what rotters men were, she could have caused him to reject his own masculinity.”

  “Freud would love you,” Rafferty scoffed. “Are you trying, in that long-winded, intellectual way of yours to say you think Ellen Hadleigh blames herself as much as Moon for the way her son turned out?”

  Llewellyn drew in an irritated breath. “Maybe she did, at one time. But I think it's more likely that, as time went by, she managed to transfer any guilty feelings onto Hedges/Moon. That would be one way to blot out her own feelings of guilt. Hadleigh implied as much. She couldn't face up to her own guilty feelings, so she put a double load on Moon. It could be that, as the years went by, she succeeded in convincing herself that Moon bore sole responsibility for her son's degenerate lifestyle.”

  “Am I to take it from your convoluted arguments that you now think Ellen Hadleigh murdered Moon? I know she lied to us about knowing who he was, but...”

  “I'm merely examining the psychological angles,” Llewellyn retorted. “And Ellen Hadleigh is a strong possibility from the psychological standpoint.”

  In the interests of investigative harmony, Rafferty made no further digs. For himself, though, he wasn't sure that Llewellyn was on the right track. His own mother had had plenty of derogatory things to say about men in general, and his father in particular, during his formative years, and he hadn't yet turned to wearing his trousers back to front.

  No, he thought, if Ellen Hadleigh had killed Moon, he didn't believe suppressed feelings of guilt had pushed her into it. Unlike her son, she still felt she had every reason to hate Moon. Hadleigh had admitted he'd never told her the truth about the attack. She had years of anger and bitterness stored up. And when the initial shock had worn off after she had discovered Moon's real identity, she would have been likely to think of little else but what Moon had done to her son, to both of them. That anger would have been increased by the thought that she had been skivvying for her son's molester, the man who had, she believed, ruined both their lives. She must have thought he had been laughing at her, laughing at her and her son, because she would know that when Astell told Moon her name, he would have recognised it immediately.

  Hadleigh surely realised that he had incriminated his own mother? But perhaps that was what he wanted? Rafferty reasoned. By forcing him to give evidence against Moon, he had had to lie and lie again when all he must have wanted was go off into a corner and hide his shame. Instead of being able to put the matter quickly behind him with little damage to anyone, by her insistence on the prosecution, she had ensured that shame had lasted years, had made it impossible for him ever to hope that Moon would return his love. Because of all that had gone before, when they finally met up again, he had felt unable to meet Moon on equal, adult, terms.

  “I want a look at those cuttings,” Rafferty decided. “I also want to find out exactly when Ellen Hadleigh saw them. But first, I want to put someone on to finding out if Ellen Hadleigh really did attack Moon after the court case. I'll get Hanks onto it. Give me five minutes, then, we'll go and see Sarah Astell.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ellen Hadleigh opened the door. Her eyes widened apprehensively when she saw them, but she stood back, gesturing for them to enter the hall, when Rafferty told her they had come to see Mrs Astell.

  “Mrs Astell didn't say she was expecting you.”

  “Probably because she isn't,” Rafferty replied. “We couldn't get an answer on the phone.”

  “She unplugs it when she's resting.”

  Rafferty nodded. He often felt like doing the same; raucous demanding things, telephones, usually with something or someone unpleasant on the other end of them. Rafferty remembered he'd made her a promise. “We found your son,” he told her. “He's at the police station now.”

  “And?” Ellen Hadleigh's eyes searched his face. “Do you believe he didn't do it?”

  “Let's just say that what he's told us checks out.”

  Ellen Hadleigh let out a sigh of relief. Rafferty wondered if she'd be quite so pleased if she knew her precious son had dropped her in it? Still, now that she had heard some good news on the son front, she appeared happier. She must be confident that her lies wouldn't be discovered. For now, Rafferty didn't attempt to question her on the subject. He wanted corroboration from Sarah Astell first.

  As usual, Sarah Astell was in her sitting room. She looked as though she'd been crying, as there were hastily-wiped marks of recent tears on her face. Astell was there too, going over some figures. Rafferty explained why they had come.

  Sarah Astell frowned. “How did you find out about those cuttings? Surely Mrs Hadleigh didn't-?”

  “She didn't mention them.” Rafferty paused, but didn't tell her who had. “You know you should have told us about them yourself?”

  She nodded. “I would have, of course, but I felt I owed it to Mrs Hadleigh to keep her confidence. Besides, I hardly think they could have any bearing on his murder. It was all many years ago.” Her face twisted. “I felt it likely that, if the burglar didn't kill him, one of his perverted friends must have done it.”

  Rafferty merely nodded. “If I could see those cuttings?”

  She threw off the rug and, getting up, walked with a slow, unsteady gait, to a little side table and pulled open a drawer. She handed him a batch of clippings.

  Rafferty quickly scanned them. The stories added nothing they didn't already know. The clippings contained various shots of Hedges, as he then was. But if he hadn't already known Moon and Hedges to be one and the same, he would have been hard-pushed to recognise him. The scar on his face was the only real giveaway. “I'm surprised you recognised him from these,” he remarked. “He's changed a great deal.”

  “He used to work for my father ten years before these pictures were taken.”

  “But surely,” Llewellyn interjected. “You could have been no more than a toddler when Moon worked for your father. How did you even remember him at all?”

  “I wasn't even a toddler, Sergeant,” she told him. “I wasn't born till the Autumn, months after he left, so, of course, you're right. I had no personal memory of him, but only the morning the cuttings arrived, my daughter had been asking me for some dressing up clothes – she's getting to that age, and I immediately thought of the evening dresses my mother used to wear when she was young. They're too good a quality to throw away and are stored in a trunk in my parents' old room. That's where I found the albums featuring Moon. I'd never seen them before. I had no idea who he was until that day. I rang my mother and asked her a few questions. She remembered that time very clearly. She told me that Moon, or Hedges as she knew him, left my father's employ in the February or March of that year. My mother didn't actually say so, she seemed unwilling to say much about that time, but I got the impression that my parents had put the albums away out of disgust when they heard about the court case. Quite understandable, of course. Mother told me they'd been very fond of him. Treated him like one of the family, almost.”

  “Strange they kept them at all,” Rafferty remarked. “If they felt so badly about him.”

  “I never asked my mother that. I imagine they just wanted them out of sight and out of mind, then forgot about them. They led very busy lives. My father was often away, and although my mother rarely went with him, she spent a lot of time entertaining his wide circle of friends and business colleagues.”

  Rafferty nodded. He'd meant to ask her to confirm what Henry at The Troubadour had already told them and had forgotten. Now she'd saved him the trouble. “Moon seems to have had a variety of jobs,” he commented. “I understand he originally trained as an artist.”

  “So I gather. But earning a living as an artist has never been easy. According to my mother, when he was offered a job with my father he jumped at it.” Scornful
ly, she added, “I suppose he hoped the association would help him make his name as an artist. But he was only some kind of jumped-up office boy for my father, held the fort for him when he was abroad and helped arrange his social and business diary. Of course, as you say, he's changed a great deal in the intervening years, and if it hadn't been for the small scar under his eye, I mightn't have known him. That was what made me make the connection.”

  She pulled several worn albums from where they had been placed on the shelf. As she did so, she dislodged some other books. “My father's old journals,” she commented, as reverently, she tidied them back. “He used to keep a record of all his travels.” Handing the albums to Llewellyn, she told them, “That's Moon, the one between my parents.”

  Llewellyn studied the picture for some moments before he handed it to Rafferty.

  Moon would have been about twenty, he guessed. Apart from the scar, he bore so little resemblance to the older Moon that it could have been a different person. Moon had an arm flung round each of the Carstairs' shoulders in a manner over-familiar for an employee of those times. Rafferty wasn't altogether surprised that the young Moon should be so presumptuous. He had been an extraordinarily good-looking youth. He handed the albums back and picked up the cuttings again. “I'll hang onto these, if I may.” She nodded. “The cuttings say nothing here about the name of the boy. How did you know it was Mrs Hadleigh's son?”

  “I didn't. I left the cuttings lying on the table in here. Mrs Hadleigh found them.” She bit her lip. 'It was most unfortunate. When I returned shortly afterwards, she was in tears and it all came out how it had been her boy whom Hedges had assaulted. Unthinkingly, I blurted out his current identity, assuming she must have recognised him, too, but, of course, it immediately became obvious that she hadn't. Until I told her, she had no idea Hedges and Moon were one and the same. Naturally, she was terribly upset. Of course, she has only been working at the offices for a few weeks and Moon had been in America for nearly all that time. It was my husband who employed her, my husband who dealt with the administration side of the business, wages and so on. Even if he'd been there the whole time, owing to his television commitments, Moon rarely arrived before 10.00 a m, a good hour after poor Mrs Hadleigh would have finished her cleaning. So she had little or no chance to recognise him.

  “I felt awful to be the one to tell her she had been working for the very man who had assaulted her son. But, once the words were out, there was little I could do to soften the blow. I was angry, too, that, even now, his wickedness should cause them more pain.” She sighed. “Old sins tend to have long shadows, Inspector.”

  Rafferty nodded. He didn't tell her that the sins hadn't been Moon's. It was up to Terry Hadleigh, not him, to put the record straight. The trouble was, by doing so, he was likely to cause even more pain than he had already. Long shadows indeed. He felt a stab of pity for Moon. As far as he could see, Moon had – apart from his little idiosyncrasy for bent merchandise – led a blameless life; had even forgiven the man who had caused him to be branded a pervert. He might now be dead, but he deserved to have that brand removed from his memory, at least among the people who had known him, and he resolved to have another little word with Terry Hadleigh when the case was over, to see if something couldn't be quietly salvaged from the mess caused by that long ago deceit.

  Rafferty turned to Edwin Astell, who had been quiet all this time. “Did you mention to Mr Moon that your wife had received these cuttings, sir?” Rafferty asked him.

  Astell shook his head. “I saw little point in upsetting him. Besides, although I know my wife believed what was in the cuttings, I wasn't convinced. And, even if he did assault that boy, it was all years ago. People change.”

  “Have you any idea who sent you these clippings?” Rafferty asked Mrs Astell.

  She shook her head. “None. They simply arrived in the post last week, with nothing to indicate who had sent them.”

  “What day last week? Do you remember?”

  Her mouth turned down. “It's not something I'm likely to forget, Inspector. It was last Wednesday. In the morning post.”

  “And when did Mrs Hadleigh find them?”

  “That same morning.”

  The day before Moon's murder. Was it coincidence? he wondered. Or cause and effect?

  They made their goodbyes and left shortly after. Ellen Hadleigh had, apparently, finished at the Astells' for the day, as when Rafferty asked to question her, they discovered she had gone. They would have to catch up with her at home.

  As their car approached the gate, a middle-aged woman and a young child turned into the drive. “That must be the Astells' little girl,” said Rafferty, as he stopped the car and wound the window down to say hello. The child's manners were as old-fashioned as her father's. When Rafferty introduced himself and Llewellyn, she held out her hand and shook his as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a five-year old to behave like a deal-overdosed tycoon. Rafferty just managed to restrain a chuckle as her solemn little face gazed earnestly back at him. With a struggle, he recalled the child's name. Not surprisingly, it was as old-fashioned as the rest of her.

  “We've just been to see your mummy and daddy, Victoria,” he told her. As he remembered the signs of recent tears on Sarah Astell's face, he added, “Your mummy looked a bit down in the dumps. I think she'd be glad if you went and cheered her up.”

  Victoria nodded. “Mummy is often sad. Sometimes she cries.” She shook her head and tutted, just like an over-anxious parent, before adding, “She says she has no friends, that nobody really likes her.” Rafferty reflected that her words could have found their echo in any home in the country, even if their subject was usually a teenager rather than a parent. “I tell her I like her, that the foreign lady at Daddy's office likes her. But she still cries.” Her thin little chest heaved an enormous sigh. “Does your Mummy get sad like that?” she asked Rafferty.

  Rafferty smiled. “No. Not often. When she does she either goes to the bingo or round one of my sisters' houses. She soon cheers up playing with her grandchildren.”

  “I'd like a brother or sister to play with,” Victoria confided, in the wistful voice of the only child. Out of the corner of his eye, Rafferty saw Llewellyn, another only child, nod his involuntary agreement. “But when I ask Mummy if I can have one, she goes all sad again.” She pulled back the sleeve of her coat, and stared hard at her watch. Suddenly, she was a child again as, with her tongue curled firmly around her upper lip, and the fingers of her right hand slowly counting off the hours, she worked out what the little hand was doing. “It's getting late,” she told them. “I'd better go now, or else Mummy will worry. Goodbye. Perhaps I'll see you again?”

  Rafferty watched as she toddled up the drive. The nanny or whatever she was got up from the bench where she had been waiting and joined her. What a serious little girl, he thought. But that was hardly surprising, he realised. With a mother permanently ailing, she wouldn't have a lot of amusing company, and, perhaps, with the self-sufficient Astell for a father, she didn't need it. There certainly seemed to be a lot of him in her; she even shared his eczema. Rafferty had noticed just a little bit on her hands.

  “Right.” He opened the car door. “The next priority, now we've had the business of the cuttings confirmed, is to see Ellen Hadleigh again. See if she's prepared to tell us the whole truth now.”

  “What is it this time?” Ellen Hadleigh sank into her worn armchair after she had let them in.

  “We know that you lied to us, Mrs Hadleigh,” said Rafferty. “You might as well admit it. You knew who Moon was the day before he was murdered.” He took the borrowed clippings out of his pocket and laid them in her lap. “I believe you've already seen these. Do you want to tell me about it?”

  She drew in a ragged, breath and stared at the yellowing clippings as if she had never seen them before, but she didn't attempt to deny the truth of what Rafferty had told her. “I thought...” she began and then stopped.

  “You th
ought Mrs Astell wouldn't say anything?”

  She nodded. “I'd been up in the attic that morning, sorting out a load of old films that had belonged to her father. They were that dusty, so I came down to her sitting room where I'd left my rags and polish. That's when I found those cuttings. I was so shocked, I cried out and Mrs Astell came running in. She was almost as upset as me when she realised the cuttings were about my boy. She made me a cup of tea. Even gave me one of her fancy embroidered handkerchiefs.” A faint smile momentarily lightened her heavy features. “Mind, it was a silly little thing. About as much use as a tissue to a hippo with a head cold. Still, she was very kind. That's what made me think...” The smile faded. “Silly of me to have just assumed it would be our secret, that she wouldn't tell anyone.”

  “I don't think she would have done,” Rafferty said gently. “Only I found out about them from someone else and asked her.” He noted that she didn't ask who had told them. Perhaps she guessed? “I'm surprised Mr Moon didn't speak to you about the court case,” he said. “He must have recognised your name.”

  She shook her head. “I doubt he ever knew it. I doubt he even knew I was working there, as the previous cleaner left while he was in America. It wouldn't have occurred to Mr Astell to mention it and introduce us. He can be a bit of a snob, you know. I don't think Moon even saw me that evening, as he went out right after the Moreno woman left and I was in the kitchen when I heard him return. I left a few minutes later.” Rafferty nodded, but resolved to check the point with Astell.

  Ellen Hadleigh stared, bleak-eyed at the cuttings, her expression puzzled. “You know, it's odd, but under her sympathy, I got the impression she was pleased to discover something really bad about Moon, yet, since his death, she seems to have gone to pieces. Mr Astell's had to call the doctor out to her several times.” She raised her head, her forehead puckered. Then she looked down at the cuttings again and her expression hardened, her voice filled with a surprising vigour, as she added, “Sarah Astell doesn't know her own mind. But I won't be wailing over his coffin. I'm glad he's dead. Very glad.” The strength of her emotion seemed to sap her remaining strength. For, seconds later, she was struggling for breath. Alarmed by her colour, Rafferty told Llewellyn to fetch her a glass of water.