A Thrust to the Vitals

by Evans, Geraldine

  Bored with this unprofitable speculation, Rafferty decided to bring them both back to the real world. ‘That’s how Seward liked to keep his puppets,’ he reminded Llewellyn. ‘In ignorance, dancing to his tune, under his control. He teased them, sent them calendars and photos as reminders of where they were going wrong and what they stood to lose if they failed to remain in his good books.’

  Rafferty picked his tea up from the desk, leaned his expensive executive chair back as far as it would go and balanced his mug on his chest. He stared into the liquid’s dark depths. ‘Me, I’d have told him to take his money and stick it up his arse, much like Rawlins should have done with that chisel.’

  It was Llewellyn’s turn to raise his eyebrows, though, in his case, as in everything else, it was a less extravagant, one-eyebrow gesture.

  But Rafferty still got the message. ‘I would,’ he insisted. Then he grinned. ‘I mean, can you see me mixing with the beautiful people, the international jet set?’ Before Llewellyn had a chance to try to picture such an unlikely scenario, Rafferty dismissed the idea with a, ‘No, nor me. Mind, it was the sort of “up yours, sunshine” gesture that would cost me nothing; it’s not as if Rufus bloody Seward had me down to inherit anything.’

  His tea slopped over the side of his mug. He frowned and watched as the tea spread over his white shirt and stuck it to his chest. It was an unwelcome reminder of how they had found Seward’s body, with the crimson tide spread across his white dress shirt, though the image was of course reversed, as Seward’s stain had spread across his back rather than his chest.

  Rafferty stared again at the stain and his spirits plummeted. ‘All he left me, the bastard, was the job of finding his murderer.’

  Not to mention that other, even more onerous task, of getting his brother, maybe even ‘dear’ Nigel, out from under, he reminded himself. And safeguarding himself, also, not to mention his career. And he still hadn’t managed to put to Idris Khan the mutual benefits of a little collusion. With Khan continuing to deny that the tin of coke was his wife’s, that idea was a non-starter. Without that, he lost the one thing he had had going for him — the possibility of being able to play the super like Seward had played his much larger collection of puppets.

  He had, of course, questioned Superintendent Bradley again. He had previously obtained Llewellyn and Mary Carmody’s promises to say nothing about Superintendent Bradley’s presence at the reception. Llewellyn, for one, had been astonished that Rafferty should seem keen to protect his boss. He even congratulated him for showing the superintendent such sensitive consideration, which made Rafferty feel like the hypocrite he was.

  Llewellyn had gone on to caution, ‘But you need to be even-handed. And much as I can applaud you for trying to keep the superintendent’s presence low-key to protect him, it’s important that you don’t shy away from questioning him just as you’ve questioned the other guests.’

  Rafferty had nodded and added in as humble a manner as he could manage, ‘I know that, Daff. Don’t worry. In fact, that’s where I’m going now. No stone unturned and all that.’

  True to his word, Rafferty had headed up the corridor, conscious that, for once, he had the full-hearted approval of his moral-high-ground sergeant. Shame he didn’t deserve it.

  Superintendent Bradley, unlike on their previous encounter, had clearly been expecting Rafferty. To Rafferty’s dismay, it seemed that, like the mysterious blonde and her Houdini tendencies, the super, too, had come up with an explanation for his error that made his allusion to the blonde in his previous statement, disappear.

  ‘I thought I explained, Rafferty,’ Bradley began complacently. ‘I caught merely the briefest glimpse of this woman out of the corner of my eye. Maybe I was mistaken.’ There’s the get-out clause, Rafferty acknowledged despondently. ‘And from what you say about this woman not showing up on the security footage, it seems that I was. We all make mistakes, Rafferty. Even me. Even you.’

  An admission from Bradley that he was capable of making a mistake was an event in itself. Rafferty rather wished he’d arranged witnesses.

  The underlying message was, of course, that if Rafferty pursued the mystery of the disappearing blonde and Bradley’s ‘mistake’, it was a mistake he was likely to regret. And now that Rafferty knew the tale about how Bradley had been almost forced out of the police service at the dead man’s instigation and with the help of Seward’s friends amongst the brass, he surmised that Bradley had learned a valuable lesson from the experience. Certainly, now he was the one with the power, Rafferty had no reason to doubt Bradley wouldn’t attempt to concoct some false case against him should he feel the need. Bradley could stitch him up till he was as well cocooned as a shrouded corpse if he felt threatened. And, if the super discovered the identity of Seward’s mystery late-night male visitor and Rafferty’s part in his disappearance, Bradley wouldn’t even need to use his limited imagination to accomplish the task.

  And as Bradley had failed to make an official statement— Rafferty had questioned him alone and also failed in the statement-taking front, thinking it prudent to take no notes — there was nothing to prevent the super altering his story. And nothing for him to use as a bargaining counter to help him safeguard Mickey.

  Doubtless, Bradley had now taken the precaution of writing a statement to cover himself and would produce it should it prove necessary, having ‘forgotten’ all about his previous, verbal, statement in the meantime.

  But even that wouldn’t be necessary, Rafferty knew. The super claimed he had merely been ‘mistaken’ about what he had seen and he was sorry, etc, but blah, blah, blah…

  Feeling frustrated and cranky, Rafferty had asked him to write another statement anyway, an official one, just for the records.

  Bradley had smiled his large, white-dentured smile. It made him look like a particularly malevolent vulture. ‘Leaving out the blonde who never was?’

  ‘Leaving out the blonde who never was, if you wish,’ Rafferty tonelessly agreed.

  Bradley picked up his glasses and perched them on the end of his nose. It was his signal that the interview was over.

  But before Rafferty had reached the door, Bradley raised his head and commented, ‘Though, you know, Rafferty, even though this woman doesn’t appear on the security camera, I could have sworn I saw her.’ He shook his head. ‘It must have been a trick of the light. I know my eyes felt dazzled by those enormous chandeliers.’

  He sounded put out that his faculties might be failing him to the extent that they caused him to make such an error. And as he left, Rafferty began to wonder if vanity at failing eyesight had made the super reluctant to admit that he had been wrong about seeing the blonde.

  Word in the station had it that Bradley had recently been diagnosed with short sight; he could see things close up and was able to read without his glasses, but he needed them to see across a room or to drive. Had he, again for reasons of vanity, decided against wearing the glasses to such a prestigious event as Sir Rufus Seward’s reception?

  It was certainly a possibility. Another possibility was that he would rather say he had made a mistake about the blonde on the official report than have questions asked about his eyesight and the vanity that caused him to try to see without his glasses.

  Bradley, in arriving late at Seward’s civic reception, had missed the photographer from the local newspaper who had captured the event, so Rafferty couldn’t trawl newsprint to see if the super had been minus his spectacles. Still, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find out from another source. Someone must remember. He could ask Randy Rawlins or the waitress Samantha Harman if the ‘pompous fat man’ they had described had been wearing glasses.

  As Rafferty had suspected, Superintendent Bradley’s vanity had encouraged him to leave his glasses off during the reception. Both Randy Rawlins and Samantha Harman confirmed it. Rafferty had been able to quell their curiosity about his questions by telling them it was a minor matter and of no significance as far as Seward’s murder was con
cerned.

  But the question of whether Bradley had actually seen someone enter Seward’s bedroom that night continued to niggle him. Clearly, whoever the super thought he had seen had not been the non-existent mystery blonde, but someone else entirely.

  But when Rafferty dared the bull’s pen for a third time, the super was inclined to be hazy in his recollection, whether deliberately or not, and Rafferty was unable to get him to state with any firmness whether he really had seen someone and now, with doubts cast on what he had said before, the super proved reluctant to have further doubts cast on what he said now.

  But with the super showing this inclination to be unnaturally indecisive on the matter, Rafferty, unable to force Bradley to plump more firmly for one or the other, had to let it go and concentrate on other aspects of the investigation. With these troublesome memories at the forefront of his mind, he sighed, threw what remained of his tea down his throat, and stood up. ‘There’s nothing doing on the case, Daff. Let’s call it a night.’

  His new fiancée deserved some quality time and so did he. He needed to get back home in time to be in with a chance of a mellow, sulk-free evening with Abra and a few glasses of Jameson’s. Abra would help him to stop thinking and pause the spinning brain, which was the best way he had ever found of loosening up the thought processes so they operated at maximum efficiency. Or as efficiently, at any rate, as his ever managed. Then the whiskey would come into its own in helping his rested brain to think clearly. At least, that was the theory…

  Strangely, what he had considered his wasted experiment of teasing some possibilities out of Llewellyn had given Rafferty an idea or two of his own. If they were any good, he needed to put them aside so they could mature without any interference from him.

  He almost stopped off at the garage on his way home, then he thought better of it. Arriving home with flowers was a sure way to persuade Abra that he had done something he shouldn’t. OK, in concealing Mickey in the caravan he had done something he shouldn’t, but Abra, being a woman, would think he had a guilty conscience over some other misdemeanour and was trying to ease both her suspicions and his conscience with the gift of a bouquet of cheap, garage-bought, destined soon-to-wilt, blooms. There was no surer way to start the evening with a row and more recriminations, so he abandoned the idea of currying Abra’s favour with carnations.

  Instead, he settled on a non-self-incriminatory Indian takeaway. He parked on double yellow lines outside the restaurant — confident the inclement weather would keep him safe from prowling traffic wardens. He ran across the pavement to the door of the restaurant through the continuing downpour and ordered his takeaway.

  It was unfortunate that his wise non-purchase of the bouquet seemed to make no difference to his reception on the home front. For he sensed as soon as he was through the door of the flat and had shaken himself free of chilling raindrops, that Abra had built herself up for a row and was determined to have one.

  ‘I’m glad you’re home early,’ she told him as soon as the meal was dished up and they had sat down. The ‘for a change’ at the end was clearly understood by both of them and needed no vocalisation. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  Rafferty, his mouth full of chicken vindaloo and naan bread, made no response other than to place his head at an encouragingly enquiring angle. For some reason this seemed to rub Abra up the wrong way, for she burst out,

  ‘It’s not fair, Joe. You seem to think that getting your ring on my finger gives you the right to neglect me. You don’t come home till all hours and when you do you’re still somewhere else, in your head. You hardly talk to me any more.’

  Abra’s gaze flashed fire and water; angry and tearful in about equal measures, though perhaps the anger had the edge. ‘Are you beginning to regret asking me to marry you already?’

  Hastily, Rafferty swallowed his hot curry and bread. He managed not to choke, although his throat felt aflame. He grabbed a glass of water and cooled the flames before he was able to voice a protest. ‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘It’s not that at all.’

  ‘Then what is it? Don’t you think I have a right to know?’

  That was just it — she did. Trouble was that it wasn’t his secret to tell. It was Mickey’s. But it was on a need to know basis and Abra didn’t need to know. Certainly, neither Rafferty nor his brother wanted Mickey’s unfortunate connection to the victim to be bandied about any more than absolutely necessary. But he had to tell her something, he realised.

  Stumblingly, he compromised on part of the truth. She was entitled to that much. ‘It’s my brother, Mickey. He’s in a bit of bother.’ If getting yourself suspected of murder could be called ‘a bit of bother’. Talk about famous British understatement.

  ‘So what’s he done?’

  ‘That’s just it: I can’t tell you. It’s Mickey’s business, not mine.’ He wished. But now he— and his career— were a very big part of it.

  Of course Abra, like all women, having learned a little, wanted to know the rest. And when Rafferty failed to come up with the goods, she retired to bed in a huff. He was in the doghouse. Again.

  How did other police officers manage to keep their relationships intact? he wondered as he listened to Abra banging and clattering in the bedroom. Perhaps, alongside all the political-correctness and racial-awareness courses the police were forced to attend nowadays, there ought to be one on how to keep your partner content? Though, if they were run by the same thought-police who ran the other courses…

  This was a special time in his life and Abra’s. He wished he could attend solely to their own concerns and their future happiness for a while.

  But then it was a pretty special time in Mickey’s life, too. And Ma’s and the rest of the family. Sometime, it was difficult to split himself in so many directions. But he would have to continue to do so until he’d caught his murderer. He just wished he felt able to come clean and explain all the ramifications to Abra.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next morning was clear and cold. Thankfully, the chill rain had stopped during the night. Rafferty, in order to avoid any more questions or sulks from Abra, was up while it was still as dark as the midnight hour. He didn’t even stop for a hot drink in case his clattering about in the kitchen should waken her.

  As he had left the warmth of his small block of flats and hurried across the car park, the stiff, North Sea breeze assaulted him, making his ears ache and his cheeks tingle. Even the eternally argumentative seagulls seemed to have had their fill of the chill wind. Their cries echoed like a mournful plaint over the water as they swooped and circled like so many aerial ballerinas in a tragedy.

  Fanciful, Rafferty, he smiled to himself. The sea’s champion crappers as aerial ballerinas was surely a fancy too far even for him.

  And even though, once at work, he was still weighed down with the problem of Mickey, the sulks of Abra and a murder —- the solution to which continued to elude him — he was aware of an inexplicable feeling of well-being.

  Nothing was any different from the day before, not really. Yet he felt different. Unreasonable optimism had him in its grasp and he could only hope it kept a good hold. Perhaps he should make an early start more often? He was so early that he had beaten the ever early Llewellyn to work. He had even beaten the dawn, though that wasn’t difficult since the December sun was a lie-abed. In fact, he had been at the station for over an hour before either Llewellyn, or the dawn, showed up.

  The latter heralded a promising sky, weather-wise, of duck egg blue. It put new heart into Rafferty. He could bear the cold. He could even bear the wind: it was grey skies, day after day that brought his mood spiralling downwards.

  But today looked set fair to be one of those glorious days that occurred far more often during the autumn and winter than his previous grey-sky humours would admit to.

  Llewellyn, when he arrived, was, by contrast, in a pensive mood. Before he had even greeted Rafferty, or got the tea in, he made purposefully for one of the many photo-fi
t pictures of Mickey that Ivor Bignall and the security guards had put together with the computer artist, and gazed intently at it.

  Immediately, Rafferty’s joy in the morning died away, sure that Llewellyn had at last made the connection between the photo-fit and Mickey himself, even though their only previous meeting had been a brief one. He awaited retribution.

  Llewellyn glanced across at him and said firmly, ‘I know this man. I’ve met him. We both have, I’m sure of it.’

  Rafferty, dismayed at this revelation, sat, corpse-like in his chair, not daring to risk a wrong word and awaiting the inevitable upset of his own dark conniving. His relief when Llewellyn frowned and told him, ‘But I just can’t place him,’ was so profound that his entire body slumped. Thankfully, Llewellyn, still intent on the picture, didn’t notice his chief’s reaction and he brightened a fraction. Perhaps all his joy in the day wasn’t about to drain away entirely.

  Llewellyn thrust the photo-fit under his nose. ‘Look at it again. Does anyone spring to mind?’

  Rafferty forced himself to look at the picture for a good thirty seconds, as if he was studying it as intently as Llewellyn had. Then he shrugged. ‘Sorry, Daff. As you say, this man looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him either. In our line of work we meet so many people that sometimes the faces become jumbled.’ Rafferty hoped such a comment would provide some sort of defence, should the worst-case scenario unfold. ‘The trouble with these computer pictures is that they are often so generalized and rely on witnesses being observant enough to take note of the shape and size of a person’s nose, eyes and the rest and most don’t, or not accurately enough. But if I do know him, it’ll come to me sooner or later, I’m sure, especially,’ he added determinedly, ‘if neither of us keeps worrying and staring at the picture.’ You in particular, he added in a silent rejoinder to Llewellyn.