If there were, they were also veritable Houdinis at concealment. Rafferty, who had spent some twenty minutes in the library while he waited for Charles Goddard to appear, guessed if there had been valuable first editions, Eve Goddard would have long since realized their worth. As far as he could see, this ‘valuable’ library consisted mostly of snore-worthy collections of old sermons, dusty tomes by authors with unrecognizable names, piles of torn paperbacks and several teetering yellow towers of The Times.
Goddard, clearly intent on making the most of his captive audience, explained the ‘marvellous idea’. To Rafferty it sounded like a classic scam. He began to give Goddard his opinion, but Goddard waved his doubts away.
‘I'm sure you mean well,’ he said, ‘but you're quite wrong, my dear chap. You're a policeman, don't you see? You haven't the entrepreneurial flair required to get such a scheme off the ground. You would need the contacts, too, of course.’
Goddard's voice petered out as he realized he'd implied that Rafferty couldn't possibly have the contacts required. But although his voice trailed away, the light of the born enthusiast still burned in his eyes. After seeing Eve Goddard's reaction to this latest wheeze and hearing the exasperation in her voice, Rafferty realized Goddard was the type of man who would always see yet another new Jerusalem on the horizon. Hadn't Lancelot Bliss and Ralph Dryden made some acerbic comment about this tendency? It seemed clear that no matter how many false dawns lighting the way he'd already seen, Goddard would still be marching purposefully towards Jerusalem when they took him away either to jail or a rest home for the serially deluded.
Rafferty – whose family had always been poor – had the novel experience of feeling sorry for a man who had once had everything life could offer, but who had thrown it all away chasing rainbow-gold. He began to understand something of Eve Goddard's frustration.
For how many years had Isobel witnessed this same scene and her mother's contemptuous treatment of her father? When had it begun? She was 27 now and he recalled Lance Bliss saying she had been around 12 when her father had made his disastrous investment. So, from an impressionable age and through fifteen long years after, she had seen the man who should have been the most important male in her young life abused and derided. Was that what had made her view all men as empty vessels worthy only of exploitation?
Charles Goddard appeared ineffectual and unlikely to restore the family fortunes, but he was still able to delude himself that one or another hare-brained scheme would provide the answer to the family's money problems. Rafferty was surprised a realist like Eve Goddard had stayed around long enough to witness yet another grand plan unfold.
Though he questioned them further, it was clear Charles Goddard could tell him nothing more. As for Mrs Goddard, Rafferty thought it was probably more a case of wouldn't than couldn't. Even if she didn't strike Rafferty as the most caring mother in the world, she seemed determined to reveal nothing more than what she had already told him.
It was as Charles Goddard escorted him to the door that Rafferty’ eye alighted on the woodworm raddled oak staircase. It was lined with portraits; most, to judge by the costumes, of long-dead people.
Goddard noticed Rafferty's study of this dark and dusty collection and told him proudly, ‘My ancestors, Serg– Inspector. There have been Goddards living here since 1565, when my namesake, another Charles Goddard, built the house. ’He's that rather villainous-looking character at the bottom.’
Goddard pointed to the portrait of a swarthy-skinned individual at the lower turn of the staircase. Dressed in scarlet velvet and lace, he reminded Rafferty of Charles II, but without the charm.
‘Bit of a Casanova where the ladies were concerned,’ Goddard confided. ‘Ruthless too, if the family stories that have been passed down are to be believed.
‘The man couldn't stand rivals at any price. He had a particularly effective way of seeing them off by arranging to have them attacked by footpads and run through with a sword. Rumour had it that old Charles wielded the sword himself.’
‘Handy to have your very own gang of cut-throats,’ Rafferty observed. ‘Must iron out life's little problems a treat.’
Goddard shrugged. ‘I suppose so. But the rumours did for him in the end, especially when he ran through one of Queen Elizabeth's favourites. He ended up on the gallows.’
Rafferty shuddered. ‘Direct ancestor of yours, is he?’
‘Yes. He's my great, great… What is it now?’ Goddard looked bemusedly along the row of portraits as if he expected one of them to come up with the answer. ’Is it ten or eleven greats? I can never seem to get it right. Anyway, he‘s my however-many-greats grandfather. It's funny how every generation seems to produce someone in his mould.’ Goddard attempted a little joke. ‘Thank God they've done away with hanging.’
Amen to that, thought Rafferty as, a minute later, the massive front door closed behind him. But even as his neck was gratefully shrugging off the rough noose imagination had dropped around it, he couldn't help but wonder whether, concealed beneath the make-up, the designer clothing and the décolletage Isobel might not be the current generation's chip off cut-throat Charlie Goddard's block.
He started up the engine and bounced back up the drive to the road. How had she felt when the burden of saving the family had been thrust on to her shoulders? Desperate and frustrated, like her mother? Or determined, like her father's namesake? And if delusion was another family inheritance, like ruthlessness in ridding oneself of love rivals, was it possible that Isobel had thought if she removed Caroline then Guy would marry her?
Of course, the difficulty there was that it hadn't been Caroline Cranston who had been murdered. But if he was putting Isobel in the frame there was an answer to that little difficulty. Not only was Isobel extremely short sighted, she was also very vain and refused to wear spectacles. And– as he had overheard at the first agency party – since she had tried and failed to get used to contact lenses, she was reduced to a half-world of vaguely-formed faces and red rhododendrons that closer inspection turned into tractors. No doubt, even now, she was saving madly for one of those laser treatments that would remedy the problem.
The fact that she was more than half-blind wouldn't have assisted her in correctly identifying her victim. Both murder scenes – the Cranstons’ car park and the grounds of The Elmhurst's annexe – had been dimly lit. Easy enough to mistake identities when the two victims had been dressed in similar clothes to Caroline Cranston and shared a superficial likeness to her.
Of course, the fact that both murder scenes had been poorly lit meant that others, too, would have found it difficult to correctly identify the chosen victim. Maybe, if Isobel had a guilty secret that gave her a valid reason for suspecting she had been the intended victim both times, she had been right to flee for her life.
It had been a long day. Rafferty was tired by the time he got back to the station. He had anticipated some peace and quiet while he studied the latest reports and had to bite back the irritation when he saw Llewellyn hovering by his office. He had hoped to avoid Llewellyn's questions for a while longer, but as that hope vanished he led the way into his office.
‘I was just about to make a start on the reports,’ he told Llewellyn as they both sat down and before Llewellyn had a chance to question him about his trips to York and Suffolk. ‘But seeing as you're here you might as well tell me if you've found out anything new.’
‘Depends what you call new. A number of other witnesses have also now stated that there was something odd about this Nigel Blythe.’
‘The supposed Nigel Blythe, you mean.’ Keeping it as brief as possible, Rafferty told him that the real Nigel Blythe's alibis had both held up. ‘What do you mean by ‘odd’, anyway?’ he asked.
‘The agency clients I've spoken to all said they thought he seemed to be pretending to be something he wasn't. From your discoveries in York it would appear they were correct. For one thing, he wore an extremely expensive suit but it didn't fit him properly.’
‘Presumably, if he's the man who burgled the real Nigel Blythe's flat, he helped himself to the suit at the same time as he took Blythe's personal documents. Mr Blythe told me when I spoke to him on the phone that he was missing an expensive designer suit from his wardrobe.’
Llewellyn nodded. ‘And then there was his accent. It kept changing, apparently. Not that he said much; not to the men anyway. One witness, a Mr Ralph Dryden, actually called the man furtive. He said he seemed reluctant to reveal anything about himself, though several of the other witnesses I spoke to were of the opinion that he seemed keen to get the two victims on their own. They told me he seemed to have plenty to say to them.’
‘Mm. What do you make of it?’
‘If it wasn't for the facts of the two murders I would have thought him simply someone intent on a bit of social climbing, hoping to find a woman of means to support him. Most of the members of that agency, male and female, hold down high-powered careers with commensurate salaries; highly attractive to a certain kind of man intent on battening on some lonely woman for an easy life.’
Not the most flattering description of himself Rafferty had ever heard. He forced out another question, ‘And with the facts of the murders?’
‘I think we must assume he burgled Nigel Blythe's apartment with the intention of setting himself up with an identity that would enable him to meet and murder women of the professional classes. We must assume that means premeditation; premeditation from a determined and extremely dangerous psychopath. We know from the security arrangements at both venues that – unless we're dealing with a deranged partnership of an agency member with an outsider as you earliest suggested was a possibility – it's unlikely any outsider could have gained access. It leaves us no alternative if we're to launch a manhunt but to check out the tiniest fact about this man. And as he seems to have deliberately targeted Nigel Blythe in his identity theft, Mr Blythe merits further questioning. It seems likely the murderer must have known him in some capacity – maybe he bought a house from Mr Blythe's estate agency? But of one thing I'm certain— there's a connection of some sort. There has to be.’
Rafferty forced down the bile that had risen from his stomach. This was the conclusion he had most feared Llewellyn would reach. Because if they investigated each of his cousin's known contacts, how could they possibly miss him, or the fact that he had inexplicably failed to mention the relationship at all?
CHAPTER NINE
Thankfully, by the time Llewellyn returned to the station it was too late in the evening for him to begin checking out Nigel's contacts. At home, Rafferty spent the intervening hours considering what time-consuming task he could give Llewellyn that would leave him unable to make a start on the check. The answer came to him as he mentally reviewed the statements the team had collected during the day. Guy Cranston had said a cabbie had rung through on the intercom some ten minutes after he had seen Nigel leaving the first party with Jenny Warburton, to get him to open the gate. As the supposed Blythe was the only person Cranston recalled leaving around that time, he had presumed Blythe had ordered the cab.
Rafferty seized on this information with relief. Checking round the local cab firms would keep Llewellyn's sharp mind engaged in a harmless pursuit that would have no chance of leading back to Rafferty's ‘Nigel’.
The next morning, Rafferty paid a flying visit to the station. He read the latest reports, instructed the team on the tasks he expected them to complete and then, before Llewellyn or anyone else could complain or remind him of the need to check out Nigel Blythe's friends, family and acquaintances, he took off with Mary Carmody for the interviews with Jenny and Estelle's friends and families.
Rafferty decided he would speak first to Jenny's flat-mate. The flat they had shared was conveniently-situated above a corner tobacconist in Elmhurst's High Street. Being on the corner, it had a double aspect onto the High Street and Penance Way and was both bright and spacious. The furniture was mostly modern, but there was an attractive old roll-top desk and several other older pieces. And as Rafferty guessed from what he had learned about her that these must have been Jenny's choice, he felt the loss of her all over again.
Grace Thurlow, Jenny Warburton's flat-mate, was a plain girl with a beaky nose and limp, sandy hair that was in need of a wash. Dressed in faded Indian cotton that was as limp as her hair, she seemed an unlikely flat-mate for the beautiful Jenny. Grace's thin lips were down-turned and Rafferty thought it likely the girl's natural expression was a sullen one, but for some reason she exhibited an almost Uriah Heep-like eagerness to please which brought some much-needed colour to her face. At first this puzzled him. But then it struck him that the ungracious Grace, with her oh-so-helpful air, was trying, insidiously, to paint a picture of her late flat-mate as being a young woman of few morals. One who was ‘always out,’ and ‘had lots of different men ringing her up and buying her expensive presents’.
Jenny hadn't struck Rafferty that way, far from it. He suspected Grace Thurlow had been jealous of pretty Jenny, Jenny with the neat nose, creamy skin and glorious fall of blonde hair, whom men had undoubtedly found far more attractive than they would the Grace Thurlows of this world. The girl would have annoyed him more had it not been for his recognition that like him, Grace Thurlow was alone and lonely and likely to remain so unless she adopted a more positive attitude to life's difficulties. Though when he recalled where adopting a positive attitude had landed him, he wasn't sure he could recommend it.
‘That was why I was surprised when you said she had joined this dating agency,’ Grace told them. ‘As I said, she wasn't short of men friends. But then Jenny could be very secretive.’
Sly, was the undoubted implication inferred. Rafferty hadn't noticed any slyness about Jenny either.
‘Maybe she was dating a married man,’ Mary Carmody suggested.
Grace shook her head. ‘That couldn't be it. Though Jenny dated a lot, she always steered clear of them.’
Rafferty was surprised that Grace should be honest enough to admit that the immoral Jenny she had painted had some standards. He wondered again how two such dissimilar young women should have become flat-mates and he questioned her about it.
‘Jenny's previous flat-mate went off to Australia with a boyfriend for a gap year between leaving university and getting settled in a career,’ Grace explained. ‘And Jenny hadn't got around to organising a replacement. This flat's expensive, so I think she must have begun to find it difficult to pay all the rent herself, so when a mutual acquaintance introduced us and Jenny learned I was looking for a place to live, she asked me to move in. That was six months ago.’
‘Can you think of anything in Jenny's life that could make her the target for a murderer?’
Grace shook her head.
‘Did Jenny never mention whether she'd met someone recently, someone who might be stalking her, say?’ He knew he was clutching at shadows, but until he could find the real reason – insane serial killers aside – for Jenny and Estelle's murders, shadows and shadowy theories were all he had.
And although Grace shook her head, he felt a dart of pure adrenalin when she frowned and added, ‘though, now I think of it, I wonder if she had met someone special because she became rather moony-eyed during the last few weeks before she died and would sit just staring into space with a smile on her face. I asked her if she'd met Mr Right, but she didn't answer me.’
Harry Simpson had already ascertained that Jenny hadn't confided her secrets to a diary. So who had she shared them with? ‘Did Jenny have any close girlfriends? Someone with whom she might exchange secrets?’
‘I told you, Jenny tended to be secretive, not much given to confiding. She told me she hadn't been close to her family since her parents’ divorce five years ago. If she told anyone her secrets, it would be her previous flat-mate.’
Rafferty obtained the Australian phone number of Alison Curtis, Jenny's ex-flat-mate from Grace before they left. Harry Simpson had already searched Jenny's bedroom and desk
for any clues to her murder, but he had found nothing. Rafferty managed to contact Alison Curtis later that day after trying fruitlessly all morning; no doubt, student-like, she had been out enjoying Sydney's night-life. But while her desire to help was sincere, apart from confirming Grace's belief that Jenny had been seeing someone special she was able to tell them little more and could supply no details.
Like Grace Thurlow, Rafferty found it puzzling that Jenny should have joined a dating agency if she had already found a ‘special’ man. He could only suppose he hadn't turned out to be so special after all. Poor Jenny, he thought. But whether or not the relationship had still been on-going at the time of her death, Rafferty needed to discover the man's identity. And as he and Mary Carmody continued on their busy interview round, he wondered how to achieve this. The man hadn't come forward. He was probably keeping his head down just as Rafferty was; not because he was necessarily guilty of anything, but because he had no desire to get caught up in a murder inquiry. Such natural reticence had Rafferty's sympathy. It was a shame it frequently made the job more difficult.
It was late by the time Rafferty and Mary Carmody got back to the station. Llewellyn still hadn't returned. Checking out all the local taxi firms had been a longer job than he'd dared hope. But while Rafferty was happy to keep Llewellyn busy on routine enquiries so as to delay his question and answer session with Nigel, he wasn't pleased that his own day had proved fruitless. For all the hours they had put in with the dead girls’ friends and families they had learned little of value. It made Rafferty rather heartsick to think they were getting no further forward in finding the real killer. How much longer could he go on telling lie after lie to protect his cousin and himself?
Two young women had been brutally slain. Was he being totally selfish, callous even, in concentrating much of his energy in getting himself and his cousin out of their predicament?
Dying For You Page 10
