His friend made encouraging noises of sympathy.
‘Anyway, I was so worried at the thought of Blythe being free to kill again that I knew I had to do something about it.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I went to see Sergeant Llewellyn last night,’ Smales confided sotto voce, ‘and told him all about it.’
‘And what did Llewellyn say?’
Before Rafferty could discover the answer, he heard the door to the corridor open and other voices and machine noises filtered in. The door slammed shut behind Smales, his friend and whatever response Smales was about to make. In his cubicle, Rafferty put his head in his hands and groaned.
He had hoped his little chat with Smales about the need to keep things confidential in order to protect a possibly innocent Nigel would have kept Smales's tongue still. But even though discretion and Timothy Smales were not close acquaintances, he'd managed pretty well till now as nothing had filtered back to Rafferty. Not unreasonably, the young officer hadn't thought himself to be breaking any confidence when he told Llewellyn all about it.
Rafferty, supposed such an action was inevitable. On its own, Smales's puzzlement as to why Nigel still hadn't been arrested would have encouraged him to seek enlightenment. Rafferty admitted he hadn't been the most approachable of senior officers for some days.
Even if his guilty secret hadn't been about to be exposed, Rafferty had known in his heart that, despite his Ma's staunch determination to provide him with an alibi, once either Nigel or Timothy Smales started singing, her alibi wouldn't fool anyone. And sing Nigel would because it couldn't be long now before he discovered his alibis were non-starters.
Once questions were begun Rafferty knew his hastily-donned new look would be exposed to dissecting scrutiny with the inevitable outcome. But at least he could go to see Llewellyn and try to make him understand; maybe, brain-box as he was, he might come up with a way of pulling his nuts out of the fire; though Rafferty didn't think even Llewellyn's brains equal to the task.
In a way, he was relieved it was all over. He supposed what he really wanted was for Llewellyn to say he believed him when he said he wasn't a murderer. But even that was an unreasonable expectation. How could Llewellyn truly believe in his innocence when Rafferty still wasn't convinced of it himself? Especially as he had contacted his sister earlier and learned her version of that long-ago game of stretch.
‘Kill me?’ Maggie had said when asked about it. ‘You bet your life you meant to kill me. We hated one another in those days, don't you remember? I'd done something on you, can't remember what now and you swore to get me.’ She laughed. ‘Damn nearly did too. You were a murderous little bugger in those days.’
His sister might now laugh about the incident, but her words had chilled Rafferty to the bone. His ma had said that at the time it had been passed off as an accident. But had it been an accident? he wondered now, or had the ‘accident’ been truly murderous in intent and the dangerous game used as the means to an end? A knife, he repeated to himself as he returned to his office and sat at his desk with his head in his hands. A knife had been one of the weapons used in both murders.
When his Ma had brought their nightcap up the previous evening after he had confided about waking with the shakes from his nightmares, she had suggested he lay off the booze. Concerned about him, she had confided that near the end of his life, his father had suffered episodes of the DTs, during which he had seen things that weren't there. Perhaps, she suggested, he was following a similar path to his father.
But, Rafferty thought, people had the DTs when they were awake. His delusions, if delusions they were, occurred when he was asleep.
But he knew he couldn't sit nursing his fears any longer. It was past time he confronted some of them. He had made up his mind to go to see Llewellyn privately. He had come to think of Llewellyn as being a good man to have at your side in a crisis. And if Llewellyn could somehow be made to believe him he wouldn't feel quite so bad about all the rest. This was as far as his reasoning had reached – if such a straw-clutching exercise could be termed reasoning.
Though Rafferty had resolved to confess all to Llewellyn, he didn't want to confess with Maureen present. So after going through the motions of working to get through the rest of the day, that evening he sat in the car and waited till he saw her come out of their flat and disappear up the road. But even then he didn't move. He wasn't relishing confessing to Llewellyn, with or without Maureen present. Only he was aware he couldn't carry on as he was, so he dragged himself from the car and made for Llewellyn's front door.
As he made his slow way up the path and raised his finger to the bell, Rafferty reminded himself that Llewellyn had mellowed since his marriage. But had he mellowed sufficiently to lessen the stiff-necked insistence that all law-breakers – whoever they might be – should face the full rigors of the criminal justice system? He guessed he was about to find out.
After Rafferty had confessed, he sat, hardly daring to breathe, while he waited for Llewellyn to speak.
But for once Llewellyn seemed to have nothing to say. Instead, he developed a serious case of the fidgets. He rose from his seat, walked to the opposite wall and began to fiddle with one of the pictures, a dreary portrait of a middle-aged man coloured in dull shades who looked almost as worried as Rafferty. Just to break the silence, Rafferty asked him what it was.
‘It's a print of one of Rembrandt's later self-portraits.’
Rafferty nodded. Secretly, he thought the painter would have been better advised to supply posterity with just the younger version of his face, but he wasn't really interested in Llewellyn's dreary picture selection. Tense from waiting for Llewellyn's reaction to his confession, he said, ‘Never mind the bloody picture, Dafyd. Let the bugger stay crooked. Come and sit down and talk to me. I didn't put myself through the torment of confessing just for you to ignore me. With all your fancy education you've surely got some advice as to what's best for me to do?’
Pleased when Llewellyn abandoned his picture-straightening and sat down again, Rafferty was less pleased when his sergeant quietly observed, ‘I imagine you already know what you should do. You don't need my advice. You joined the dating agency under false pretences, using a false identity and with borrowed documentation. An agency, moreover, which had two of its members murdered shortly after you were seen with them. I don't think you have any choice but to go to see Superintendent Bradley, do you?’
Although he hadn't really expected any other response, Rafferty felt unaccountably disappointed. ‘Be fair, Daff,’ he said. ‘I admit I did all that you say, but I did it in all innocence. You know what Ma can be like. Can you blame me for trying to keep from her the fact that I was joining a dating agency?’ Somehow, he forced out the next words, ‘It's not as if I murdered those girls. So help me out, man. How the hell do I prove I didn't kill them?’
Llewellyn's slim body folded itself over on the minimalist settee. ‘I have no idea. How do you prove a negative? Everything points to you.’ Llewellyn gazed steadily at Rafferty. ‘You didn't kill them, did you?’
‘Of course I bloody well didn't.’ Rafferty was so outraged he even managed to put his own doubts behind him. ‘I'm cut to the quick that you can even ask.’ If even Llewellyn believed him capable of murder…
‘I had to ask,’ Llewellyn said. ‘I needed to see your face when you denied it. Not that I really thought you guilty. Not even after I heard what Blythe said to you when I went to fetch a glass of water for your cough.’
He should have guessed that Nigel's great barn of a living room would act like a whispering gallery. ‘So, you've known my secret almost as long as I have. Why didn't you say anything?’
‘What would you suggest I said?’ Llewellyn asked. ‘I was in something of a quandary.’
That makes two of us, Rafferty thought.
‘You might have behaved like a fool, but you were still my superior officer.’
‘Are still your superior officer,’ Rafferty ame
nded. Though he wasn't prepared to guess how much longer that would apply. ‘At least now I understand why you didn't complain about doing most of the work on the case.’ This had puzzled him. But as Llewellyn explained, he had been working so hard to help him.
Rafferty managed a smile and the comment, ‘I'm glad to know you believe me. Why is that? Because I'm such a trustworthy kind of a guy?’
‘No,’ was Llewellyn's blunt reply. ‘It's because you always look so uncomfortable when you lie.’
‘Another hang-up I can blame on the Catholic church. Anyway, how were you so sure I didn't kill those women?’ Rafferty asked.
‘I did study psychology at university,’ Llewellyn reminded him. ‘I've worked with you for some time now. I think I might have noticed if you'd suddenly developed psychotic tendencies. You don't possess a poker face, my dear cousin-in-law. If you'd killed two girls in such a frenzied manner you wouldn't be able to conceal it for a moment. Besides, those murders were hate-filled. In your Nigel persona you had just met those young women. What possible reason could you have to hate them? You might be many things, but a psychopath you're not. Besides, your stern Catholic conscience wouldn't let you rest if you were guilty.’
That was true, Rafferty acknowledged. Why hadn't it occurred to him that his conscience would have given him no peace till he had given himself up? Llewellyn's words were a great comfort after all the self-torture and doubts. Relieved, Rafferty slumped back in his seat. ‘Anyway, now you know I'm innocent-’
‘I didn't say you were innocent,’ Llewellyn broke in. ‘Far from it, from what you've just told me. I only meant you're innocent of murder at least.’
‘Whatever.’ Rafferty wasn't interested in swapping pedantic semantics with Llewellyn. He knew he'd lose. ‘So I can take it, that being the case, that you won't shop me?’
Llewellyn raised perfectly arched eyebrows. ‘Is that what you think of me?’
Rafferty didn't answer. What could he say? That, yes, he did believe the high-minded, high moral-ground Llewellyn capable of shopping him to Superintendent Bradley? Now was not the time for games of truth or dare. He was just relieved Llewellyn was going to keep his secret. At least, that was what he'd thought Llewellyn had said. But Llewellyn's next words made clear he'd got hold of the wrong idea entirely.
‘No. I won't shop you, as you call it. Because you're going to go to Superintendent Bradley yourself and tell him what you've told me.’
Rafferty's jaw dropped. ‘Am I hell as like. No way,’ he insisted when he'd got over the shock. ‘Confess all that to Bradley? I'd rather be arrested, tried and banged-up.’
‘It might yet come to that, of course. But you're going to have to come off the Lonely Hearts case in any event.’
‘I'm buggered if I will! I'm committed to this case. And now that I've finally got some leads-‘
‘Leads? What leads?’
Rafferty, intent on arguing his case, waved aside Llewellyn's question. ’We both know what would happen if I do as you suggest. Bradley'll suspend me. After he's thrown the book at me, that is. Or he would, if I told him. Which I'm not going to do.’
Llewellyn's dark eyes regarded him steadily till Rafferty sighed and he asked plaintively, ‘Am I?’
By a rare piece of luck, when Rafferty did go to see Bradley, his secretary told him the superintendent had that morning gone off to attend a management conference to learn advanced techniques in covering his own arse. Only she had used the official title: Management And The Art of Intelligent Delegation.
Briefly, he flirted with the idea of forgetting all about reporting his misdeeds, but as he'd primed himself up to ‘tell all’, he had to tell somebody.So Rafferty gladly by-passed Bradley and went above his head to the Deputy Assistant Chief Constable, Jack Mulcahy.
Mulcahy had a well-earned reputation for being a bit of a bad lad in his younger days. He certainly wasn't one of the politically-correct brigade for which Rafferty was thankful. He was thankful also that Jack Mulcahy had risen so high in spite of blotting his copy-book a few times. It would, Rafferty believed as he was shown into Mulcahy's plush office, make him more understanding of the follies of others. Or so he hoped.
‘You're a bloody idiot, Rafferty,’ Mulcahy told him, when he'd stumbled his way to the end. ‘What are you?’
‘A bloody idiot, sir,’ Rafferty repeated obediently.
‘You're a grown man or supposed to be. Why didn't you just tell your mother to keep her nose out of your business?’
Mulcahy was a man reputed to never let anyone get the upper hand; certainly not his mother. From the iron-grey filings of his hair, to his pugnacious jaw-line, he had the kind of face that terrified ne'er-do-wells and made the police PR team despair.
Rafferty hated to think he was being marked down in Mulcahy's eyes. He protested as vehemently as he dared, ‘I do tell her, sir. She just doesn't take any notice.’
‘Get yourself another wife, Rafferty, one capable of keeping your mother in line. Or put in for a transfer to another part of the country.’
‘Getting another wife was why I joined the dating agency in the first place, sir,’ Rafferty quietly reminded him. ‘Look where that's landed me. And as for moving away, knowing Ma, she'd up sticks and follow me.’
Mulcahy raised bristling eyebrows. ‘Stalker, is she, your mother?’
Rafferty smiled. ‘No, not really. It just feels like it sometimes.’
Mulcahy stared pityingly at him before he said briskly, ‘Right, here's what we're going to do about all this.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rafferty pulled the door of Mulcahy's office to behind him with a gentle click. He wanted to whoop out loud, but restrained himself. Mulcahy had decided to do very little. Keen to hush up Rafferty's folly, he had even opted to keep him in charge of the Lonely Hearts investigation.
‘It gives you an advantage,’ the pragmatic Mulcahy had told him. ‘It's seldom we get one of those. Use it.’ He had even come down firmly against telling Bradley about their conversation.
Rafferty could scarcely believe his luck. He raised his eyes ceiling-ward and said a heartfelt, ‘Thank you, God.’
Things at last seemed to be going his way. Because when Rafferty returned to his office and tried Lancelot Bliss again, the doctor answered on the first ring. And after Rafferty had explained what he wanted to know, Bliss proved as generous as ever with information.
‘Got a flat in the town centre. Why do you ask?’
‘Let's just say your comment set me thinking. Well, that and a little bird.’
‘What little bird's that, Inspector? Not a nice little uniformed one? I'm partial to a uniform myself. If she's got a friend-‘
‘Not that kind of bird,’ Rafferty told him before he said goodbye and put the phone down.
He finally believed he was getting to the crux of the case. After all the lies, complications and evasions he was convinced he was almost there and that the difficulties were behind him. He had the dots. It was just a matter of joining the last of them to the rest. For the first time since the case had begun, he was feeling confident, in control, on top of things. That was why the second phone call was such a shock. It came out of the blue. The first one, of course, he'd been expecting – and dreading - for days.
Nigel had rung Kylie Smith and discovered his alibis were now useless. When Rafferty had finally managed to get him to stop ranting and raving, Nigel had admitted he hadn't been with either woman at the relevant times. He'd actually been sleeping with his boss's wife – something he'd been understandably keen to keep quiet, which was why Kylie and Kayleigh had obliged him with alibis. They had at first thought it a bit of a laugh, but that attitude hadn't outlived Smale's letting of the cat and her entire litter out of the bag. Unfortunately, Nigel confided, from an alibi point of view, his boss's wife was proving obstinate.
‘Selfish bitch won't say a word to get me out from under,’ Nigel had bitterly complained. ‘I wouldn't mind so much, but she admitted she'd never had su
ch a good time between the sheets. I won't be supplying her with multiple orgasms again in a hurry, I can tell you.’
It was a pity about the alibi. Rafferty suspected Nigel thought so, too, especially since it meant his prowess between the sheets wouldn't get the airing he seemed to think it deserved. But he had managed to put Nigel off from going to see the brass till the following morning. He still had hopes of appeasing him.
No, it was the second phone call that had really worried him. He had been in his office, quietly thinking through his next move on the Nigel front, when in a few words, all his plans, all his expectations, had been destroyed. He knew he had to face what he had feared all along - exposure. Having to prove he wasn't a murderer. Unfortunately, that was the one thing he couldn't prove. As Llewellyn had said - how could one prove a negative?
‘Inspector. How strange you should answer Nigel Blythe's mobile.’
Briefly, Rafferty had been so taken-aback that he could find nothing to say. His quick glance at the back of the mobile had confirmed his error. Sure enough, there was the mobile number that Nigel had stuck on it. His hoarding instinct hadn't allowed him to dispose of it. He'd kept it at home, but somehow,between all the sleepless nights, the worry, the drinking, he'd rushed out that morning, late as usual, and managed to snatch up the wrong mobile.
As he put the phone back to his ear he was in time to hear Caroline Cranston say, ‘Though now I think about it, it makes sense. I certainly wondered at the coincidence when two young women died shortly after you joined the agency. In fact, there are several things about you that I find rather worrying. Perhaps we should meet and you can set my mind at rest? I'm sure there must be simple explanations to the things that have been puzzling me. But if not, I suppose I can always go to see your Superintendent.’
Rafferty wanted to avoid that at all costs because even though he had been to see Mulcahy, confessed all, and been told to forget it, Mulcahy had also bluntly told him that if his involvement was revealed from another source there was no way he could expect similar protection. That – and Nigel's threat, had proved sufficient spur for him to agree to meet Caroline. Not to mention the hope he still nurtured that he might yet salvage something from the mess.
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