Rafferty did a quick check of his memory banks. Neither of the women lived on Primrose Avenue. ‘So nobody from Primrose Avenue threatened him?’
‘Not to my knowledge. If they did, he didn’t see fit to mention it to me.’ Forbes rose from his chair, his bulk seemed to fill a good half of the cramped office. ‘If that’s all?’
Rafferty nodded, glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of intimidation from such a man. It was clear there was little else to be gained by prolonging the conversation. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’
‘All right?’ the assistant asked as they came through the door.
Rafferty nodded and thanked him.
The assistant let them out through the grille. And once they were back on the street, Rafferty said, ‘Mr Forbes wasn’t too chatty, was he, seeing as it’s one of his staff who’s dead. Reckon he intends to find out who killed Harrison himself and mete out his own punishment?’
‘It would certainly fit his profile.’
‘Or maybe he’s hiding something else?’
‘What? Do you think he might have had something to do with Mr Harrison’s death?’
‘I don’t know. Why would he? The only reason I can think of is if Harrison was helping himself to some of the money he collected and Forbes found out about it.’
Although the rain had stopped, it was another chilly day. Rafferty said, ‘Come on, let’s step on it and get back to the car. My feet are like blocks of ice.’
They increased their pace, rounded the corner, and made for the car.
‘But would he murder Harrison if so?’ Llewellyn mused out loud on Rafferty’s previous point. ‘Rather a drastic way of teaching someone a lesson.’
‘Mmm. Admittedly, it would be difficult to learn that or any other lesson when you’re dead. But maybe Forbes would be more concerned with keeping up his reputation as a man not to be crossed. Collectors like Harrison are probably ten a penny. Nothing like throwing your weight about and getting paid for it. It must be a nice little number for a certain type of man.’
Rafferty opened the car door and got in, glad to get out of the wind. He started the engine and turned the heater up to its maximum setting, willing it to kick in quickly. ‘Though if Forbes had anything to do with Harrison’s murder, I reckon we’ll be the last to hear. Like the mafia’s code of Ōmerta, that sort of information is unlikely to be for our ears.’ He checked the mirror and pulled out. ‘Let’s get back. Maybe something new has come in.’
But once back at the station, there was no revelatory news awaiting them; just more of the labour intensive paperwork that was so familiar. And Superintendent Bradley demanding a progress report. He ordered Rafferty along to his office and he was told to shut the door and sit down.
'So what's doing on the murder front? You must have some suspects, but,' he said as he sat behind his massive desk.
'We have a number of suspects,' Rafferty told him as he studied the array of photographs of Bradley cosying up to the great and good on the wall behind his desk. 'Half the residents of Primrose Avenue had the opportunity to kill Harrison and all of them had good reasons to murder him.'
'Anyone specific in mind?'
'Not yet. It's early days. But there are several youths who'll bear closer scrutiny.'
Bradley nodded. 'I shall want a report by the end of the day. And not one of your usual scrimped efforts. And no getting Llewellyn to do it for you. You're the investigating officer. Remember it.'
If only I could forget, thought Rafferty as the super let him go. With a succession of long days I'm not going to be flavour of the month with Abra. Worse, the evenings spent alone would give her even more opportunities to come up with novel ways of over spending.
‘I think we should take a thorough look through Harrison’s home,’ Rafferty said when he returned to his office. He sat down and leaned back in his chair away from the incessant paperwork. Annie Pulman had earlier been persuaded to identify the body; they’d dropped her back home on their way to interview Malcolm Forbes. ‘If he was helping himself to some of the cash from his collections that’s where we’d find it. It’s not as if he’d be likely to put it in a bank or building society.’ He glanced down at the high-piled paperwork the house-to-house had produced and sighed. Then his emotions rose at the realisation that the visit to Jaws Harrison’s place would enable him to put off fighting his way through it for a while. And if they found a stash of cash or anything else of interest there, the paperwork could be put off for even longer as they chased evidence against Forbes in the role of murderer.
‘It’s still possible we’re on the wrong scent and that someone had reason other than debt to want him dead.’
‘We’ve no evidence for that,’ Llewellyn pointed out. ‘The facts point the other way. Few enough could have had the opportunity to kill him down that alleyway. The killer would surely have been seen either going in or coming out, no matter what motive they might have had.’
‘Maybe, but we’ve only the word of Tony Moran for that. The other three yobbos in their little gang are sticking pretty much to their “no comment” stance, though at least Jake Sterling backed up Moran about the identities of the three women who left the Avenue that afternoon and seemed to take a delight in doing so. No one else has so far come forward with any evidence.’
In spite of what Llewellyn said, it was certainly a possibility that someone other than one of the Primrose Avenue residents had killed Harrison, especially when the late Harrison’s personality was taken into the equation. He spent his life throwing his weight about and threatening those in no position to retaliate; maybe he’d met his match, and his murderer had been someone whose visit to the Avenue Moran had preferred not to mention. Like Malcolm Forbes, for instance.
Annie Pulman answered the door. She looked surprised to see them again so soon. Given her so recent bereavement, her tears seemed to have dried up remarkably quickly after identifying John Harrison’s body. She’d obviously re-done her make-up and was quite the painter’s palette of primary colours. Clearly not cut out to play the grieving widow for long.
Rafferty explained the reason for their visit. Annie Pulman stared at him, hostility writ large, for several seconds, but then she stood aside to let them pass.
‘Isn’t it enough that my John’s dead?’ her plaintive voice followed after them up the stairs and down the hallway, ‘without going through his things? You’re just in time anyway. I was getting his clothes and stuff packed to sell on ebay.’
It had been one day since Harrison’s murder; clearly she hadn’t let grief come between herself and the prospect of making some money from his possessions.
As he and Llewellyn went through the bags of Harrison’s clothes, Rafferty questioned the woman.
‘Were you happy together?’ he asked. Though, to judge from a bruise around her eye that had just started to come out, the pair couldn’t have been love’s young dream or anything like it.
‘We did all right.’
The bruise contradicted her claim. So here was another who had reason to harbour resentment, hatred even, of Jaws Harrison. He supposed it was too much to expect Harrison to have left his bullying tendencies the other side of his front door.
Rafferty, still considering the possibility that someone other than their current crop of suspects had killed him, questioned her about her whereabouts on the day of the murder and received evasive replies.
'What are you asking me for?’ she demanded, eyes flashing. ‘I didn't kill him. I told you, we did all right. I had no reason to wish him dead. I won't even be able to stay here in the flat as I can't afford the rent on my own. Do you think I want the trouble of moving so soon after I've lost John?'
Not that he thought it likely she’d trailed Harrison all the way to Primrose Avenue — he asked about transport, but she claimed not to have a car or anyone close from whom she could borrow one. He’d have to check with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre and amongst the neighbours.
'You must kno
w some of his friends and acquaintances. If you could let me have their names and addresses?'
'He didn't have many friends. Apart from me, he was pretty much a loner. He had a few acquaintances, but I don't know much about them. Only their first names. I've no idea where they live.'
He managed to get this small stock of information from her. Then they left her alone and went into the bedroom she'd shared with Harrison.
To Rafferty’s surprise, they found a notebook hidden at the back of one of the drawers in the bedroom chest of drawers. To his frustration, the notes seemed to have been written in some sort of code. He couldn’t make head nor tail of it anyway. They also found a stack of cash. It came to a thousand pounds. Had the money come from thieving from Forbes? Or had Harrison made some money on the side from blackmail? He was certainly in the right job for ferreting out secrets, lurking around back alleys as he did. He showed the notebook to Annie Pulman and asked if she knew anything about it. She denied it.
‘What’s in it, then?’ she wanted to know. ‘If it was John’s then that means it’s mine now. I was his common law wife.’
There’s no such thing in law, Rafferty felt like telling her, not liking her eager grasp of the so recently deceased Harrison’s possessions. But he restrained the urge. There was little point in telling her that unless Harrison had made a will, which seemed doubtful, then she was unlikely to receive any of his belongings.
Not, he suspected, that the finer points of the Intestacy Law would trouble her. She had already sorted through her lover’s clothes to sell them. Anything of value may well have already been pawned or sold. He doubted, looking round the cheaply furnished flat, that there could have been much of any value. She was welcome to it as far as he was concerned.
But he was taking Jaws’ notebook, as he told her. And the money. As was to be expected, she made far more of a protest about this when he told her of its existence. But as she was unable to tell him how Harrison had come by such a sum of money, he insisted on taking it as evidence. Silently, he wrote her out a receipt.
Not realising it could hold some value for her, she had no interest in the notebook. He doubted it would have meant more to her than it did to him. If the notebook did indeed contain the names of those Harrison could have been blackmailing it was unlikely the dead man would have shared any information about them with Annie Pulman. He’d have kept that and the money he prised out of his victims strictly to himself.
There was nothing else of interest in the flat. Before they left, Rafferty asked her again where she had been on the afternoon of the murder. Clearly, she’d thought better of her earlier hasty and evasive replies and said, ‘I was at my mum’s, wasn’t I? It was my day off and I thought I’d go round and see her. I stayed for lunch and tea. I got back around six.’
They obtained her mother’s name and address after a little effort and told her they’d check with Mrs Pulman. They’d check with her mother’s neighbours also, Rafferty decided, seeing as he didn’t think it beyond the realms of possibility that Annie Pulman wasn’t a stranger to lies when it suited her and would prime her mother with them by phone as soon as they had left.
‘This notebook adds an extra dimension to the case,’ Rafferty confided to Llewellyn as they left Annie Pulman’s flat. ‘Looks like our late lamented could have been a blackmailer. Shame the blasted thing’s written in some weird schoolboy code.’
‘May I have a look?’
Rafferty nodded and handed the notebook over. But even though he needed to understand the mystery of its coded contents he couldn’t help a little leap of pleasure when Llewellyn also proved incapable of making anything of it.
Llewellyn went to hand it back, but Rafferty told him to hang on to it. ‘Work on it,’ he told him. ‘I’m no great shakes at word puzzles. I’m sure your great brain will have better luck than mine in figuring out what it says.’
Chapter Six
The answer to the question of the identity of their ‘suited and booked’ smartly dressed mystery man whom Tony Moran saw enter Tracey Stubbs’s house on Primrose Avenue on the afternoon of Jaws Harrison’s murder was answered later that day when they resumed the questioning of the residents. The mystery man turned out to be a collector for a rival firm of loan sharks, as they discovered when they questioned Tracey Stubbs.
Ms Stubbs was a young woman in her mid-twenties with a nose stud and an assortment of tattoos decorating her bare shoulders and midriff. Her hair was worn in a longer version of the spikes of Jake Sterling and his cohorts. In spite of her rather aggressive looking style, she proved helpful.
‘You say you didn’t obtain your loan from Malcolm Forbes?’ Strangely, she had been on the list Forbes had supplied. Though perhaps the business took less trouble in keeping their paperwork straight than they did in keeping the money coming in.
Tracey Stubbs shook her head. ‘I did apply, but then I read a small ad in the local paper and got a loan from them instead.’
Rafferty strained to hear above the children shouting in the other room; it seemed as if Ms Stubbs had half the neighbourhood children in the house. They were running up and downstairs, whooping and yelling, but Tracey Stubbs didn’t bat an eyelid or even admonish them. The house was as untidy as only a houseful of kids could make it, with skateboards and footballs and bikes left where they’d been dropped. Tracey had made a half-hearted attempt to tidy after their arrival, but it had made little difference to the mess and she’d quickly abandoned her labours, clearly seeing her efforts as being insufficient to create order out of chaos.
‘Do you still have the ad?’ he asked. If she had got a loan out from another firm it was possible that this other collector and Jaws Harrison had run into one another. If they were in direct competition they might learn something useful from the other firm.
‘I think so.’ She looked vaguely around, then headed over to an overflowing brass magazine rack. After hunting through various local free sheets, TV listings and celebrity magazines, she found the paper she was looking for and handed it over. ‘I ringed the ad.’
Rafferty studied it. It was the usual cajoling come on of such things, with “Debt Problems?” at the top of the ad in a bold heading and a sympathetic portrayal of how helpful they could be to those at the end of their tether. Like Forbes, this false-sympathy would be in short supply if one of their customers failed on the paying front. There was a mobile phone number as well as a post office box number for replies, but no address, which would have immediately put Rafferty on the alert if he was looking for a loan – which, with the wedding, he well might be in the near future. ‘All right if I take this?’ he asked.
Tracey nodded. ‘Though I don’t know what use it can be to you as it’s a different firm of money lenders to the one the dead bloke collected for. I know Malcolm Forbes operates out of his shop on the High Street. After I’d applied, but before I signed up for a loan with him, I heard bad things about him and how he operates from some of the neighbours, so I changed my mind about going to him for a loan.’
Rafferty thought it likely the firm she’d opted for instead carried out its business in a similar way to Forbes with exorbitant interest rates and threats topping the agenda. Didn’t they always? Loan sharks seldom altered their repertoire. ‘Do you recall the name of the people who gave you a loan?’
‘Not off the top of my head. I can probably find the paperwork.’ Again, she gazed vaguely round the untidy living room. In a clearly random choice, she pulled out the middle drawer in the bike-scuffed sideboard and began to go through its mountainous contents. They mostly seemed to consist of takeaway menus.
Her search didn’t look promising, so Rafferty said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure we can find the details for ourselves. Tell me, do you go to the offices of the people who gave you the loan to make the payments or do they come and collect?’
‘They call every week on a Friday.’
‘So what time did they call this week?’
‘Around three fifteen. They gene
rally call in the afternoon after I’ve collected the younger kids from play school.’
Rafferty waved the newspaper she had given him in the air. ‘Can I keep this?’
Tracey nodded.
Once back outside on the pavement, Rafferty gave Llewellyn the newspaper. He jabbed his finger at the circled ad and said, ‘Check these people out. It’s possible their collector saw something. Got to be pretty sharp to do their job. Unlike the residents of Primrose Avenue, we can hope he has no axe to grind, so we may get something approaching the truth if he knows anything.’
Llewellyn looked strangely pleased with himself when he returned to the station and Rafferty’s office.
‘Don’t tell me Lizzie Green goosed you?’ Rafferty teased as he glanced up. ‘Lucky man.’
‘No. I hope she knows better than to goose a sergeant. It’s something much better. It might amuse you, too. Or maybe not. As you asked, I’ve been checking out the firm of loan sharks from whom Tracey Stubbs took out a loan. I found out their details from the local sorting office. Their offices are here in Elmhurst and are housed in Blythe’s Estate Agents.’
‘No.’ Rafferty groaned. ‘Don’t tell me–’
‘I’m afraid so. It seems your cousin Nigel Blythe has branched out from that estate agency of his.’
Rafferty scowled. What was Nigel doing getting involved in money lending? Most of the time he was hard-pressed to keep himself in the style to which he had become accustomed, never mind lending cash to perfect strangers. Had he come into money? Rafferty doubted it. He would surely have heard via the family grapevine if so.
Death Dues Page 28
