Diana Rexton had little to say. She seemed very subdued. Perhaps, finally, the shock of Oldfield’s betrayal was starting to sink in. But Rafferty didn’t allow that to influence him. She had lied for Oldfield’s sake about him being at home all afternoon and evening of the murder and he wanted to hear her explain why.
Rafferty could have sworn Diana Rexford had told him the truth when she’d said that Oldfield hadn’t left the flat after he had come home at four o’clock. He’d been convinced of her honesty about this vital matter, yet the course of their investigation had revealed that she must have lied. How could he have been so wrong about her? She must be a better liar than he would have given her credit for and – to lie for him in a murder investigation – she must also love Oldfield to the point of obsession.
Annoyed – more with himself that Diana Rexton – that he’d been taken in by what he had regarded as her shining honesty, he knew in his heart that his anger was for himself and his own failure to pick up on the falsehood. Well, now he had her seated in a chair opposite him. He’d make her explain her lies.
‘So, just to get to the point of this interview. I’d like to know why you lied about Gary being at home around five o’clock. You also didn’t tell the truth about his second outing late that evening did you, Miss Rexton?’
‘As to the latter, I don’t see that it matters, except to me, where he went and who he saw.’ She repeated Oldfield’s insistence that it had no bearing on the murder. ‘Besides, I was in bed nursing a sick headache. I went to sleep early and didn’t hear him go out.’
‘And what about the earlier time? Your boyfriend has admitted he went out around five o’clock. Yet you said he was in with you for the entire evening.’
Diana Rexton blushed at this. ‘I didn’t lie,’ she insisted, pink spots staining her cheeks after the blush had faded. ‘I didn’t know he’d gone out.’
‘He said he went out for a Chinese takeaway and that he went to one close to the Staveleys’ home.’
‘I knew he was ordering a Chinese. I just assumed he’d ordered a home delivery meal from our local takeaway. I was in the bath,’ she added hastily, ‘so didn’t realise he’d gone out.’
‘And he didn’t stick his head around the door to let you know he was popping out? Most people would, I think.’
‘Well, he didn’t. I’d taken a fall on Benjy while I was exercising him and felt a bit stiff. I had a nice long soak. Thankfully, it eased my muscles. I live in fear of injury,’ she told them. ‘I need to stay fit to be considered by the Olympic selectors.’
Rafferty was surprised that the horse riding he had thought of as just a hobby turned out to be deadly serious. ‘I’d give up riding Benjy, in that case, if I were you. He looks a bit too wayward to me to risk injury by riding him. Not that I know anything about horses.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind. But Benjy likes to get out. And as no one else will ride him it falls to me to exercise him.’
‘You could always sell him and save your bones.’
‘Sell him? I couldn’t do that. As I told you before, I’ve had him from a foal. He’s not used to anyone else. He’d hate to live with strangers.’
Rafferty shrugged. ‘It’s your neck. Okay, Ms Rexton, that’ll be all for now. But keep yourself ready for any possible further questions that we might have.’
She gave an anxious smile and followed the uniformed officer who led her back downstairs.
Rafferty lolled back in the chair. ‘So what do you think, Dafyd? Me I’ve always felt this had to be a man’s crime, committed on the spur of the moment, which is indicated by the fact that the killer didn’t use a weapon. Which, apart from Oldfield, seems to indicate John Staveley or Kyle as they both had strong reasons for wanting her dead? Either one of them could have been pushed too far by Adrienne and grabbed her around the throat in an attempt to shut her up — she seems to have been a provoking sort of woman. All it might have taken for her to die was a matter of seconds. It could have happened before her killer realised what they were doing. A tragic accident, when all is said and done. But murder none the less for that. Or manslaughter at least.’
‘The boy, do you think more likely than the father? All those raging teenage hormones could tip the balance and make him lose control and attack her.’
‘Perhaps. But I can’t see Kyle managing to keep it a secret. I think he’s the sort of kid who would have to blurt it out to someone and sooner rather than later.
‘No, John Staveley seems the more likely of the two, given the marriage situation and her assorted lovers. He must surely have known about at least one of them. It would easily be enough to tip a man over the edge, particularly a man like John Staveley who strikes me as the brooding sort and who’s already lost so much.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Llewellyn ‘It sounds like it would be a good idea to pin Mr Staveley down as to exactly where his wanderings took him that afternoon. He must have some idea of the times and the places he found himself. Surely he saw someone who knows him? He was wandering round for hours. He can’t have walked around town all afternoon and part of the evening without seeing someone who knows him by sight. If, that is, he was in town rather than rowing with and killing his wife.’
As it happened, one of his acquaintances
had
seen John Staveley in town. This fact was discovered by Gerry Hanks during routine questioning. Hanks returned to the station and brought it to Rafferty’s attention just after Diana Rexton and Gary Oldfield had left. Staveley had been seen around three-thirty, so it didn’t put him out of the running for the murder, but at least it went partway to establishing his story.
Several of their suspects seemed to be slithering away from them. They’d think they’d got something firm on one of them when it vanished like a prop in a magician’s box of tricks.
Why couldn’t they find a timeframe of more than fifteen minutes when Oldfield could have committed the crime? Why had John Staveley been seen, wandering in the town when they should have been able to place him at the scene murdering his wife? Why had neither David nor Helen Ayling’s cars shown up on CCTV near the Staveleys’ around the right time?
This case was almost as much of a bitch as the victim. It was too bad and Bradley wasn’t helping: he was being as bitchy as the case. The shining halo at Region that he was at such pains to cultivate must be getting seriously tarnished.
Rafferty was glad. He felt sour and not inclined to be charitable. He also had the worry of Abra, the wedding and honeymoon to contend with, not to mention the Third Estate which had started to write vociferous editorials criticising the police in general and him in particular, which didn’t help. Whichever way he looked, he had people on his back, badgering him, others responding to his questions with evasions. He was getting fed up with it.
At least interest in their two flats was continuing apace and, on the strength of this, they felt able to make an offer on the semi-detached that Abra had set her heart on. It was the only area where things were progressing satisfactorily and Rafferty was grateful for it. He touched wood and crossed his fingers to ensure this happy state of affairs continued.
As for the wedding – it was less than a week away and they were no nearer to knowing what to do – whether to cancel it or go through with the ceremony.
Rafferty was determined it would go ahead. He wanted no postponement; he had a fear that if he let Abra slip through his fingers this time there wouldn’t be another opportunity. She’d now had more than a taste of what disruption a policeman’s job could cause to a private life and she didn’t like it. Just as Sam Dally had said at the PM, Rafferty was sure she would easily find another partner without the baggage he brought to their relationship. The thought had plagued him ever since Sam had made the comment. Now, added to that worry, was the suspicion that she was having an affair with John Staveley. What does she see in him that I can’t supply? was Rafferty’s thought. I make her laugh. I can’t imagine that the morose man that Gary Oldfield described does that. He wondered, in typical male fashion, if Staveley had a bigger dick. But whatever he had, Abra must like it and had selected the man as her lover.
Maybe she would want to replace him as a permanent fixture in her life? It would explain why she had said she wanted to postpone the wedding. Maybe she was working herself up to cancelling it altogether?
Rafferty thought of himself as a sad, forty-year-old git who worked unsocial hours — what chance did he have to find another partner? Besides, he didn’t want anyone else. Abra was the only girl he wanted to marry, and he’d played the field enough in his younger days to know the difference between real love and lust for a ripe body or infatuation for a pretty face. Or at least, he’d played the field until his then girlfriend, Angie, fell pregnant only to miscarry shortly after their hasty marriage. They’d certainly repented at leisure and it was a merciful release for both of them when death rather than divorce had ended their union. Divorce would have been out of the question – at least as far as his ma was concerned – as they were both Catholics. Not that the very lapsed Rafferty would have objected. He’d have welcomed divorce, but he was reluctant to upset his mother, especially as he was the favourite of her six children and would have been the first in the immediate family to permanently split from his partner.
But all that was over and now he had new problems to tackle. Not least of which, was yet another marital situation. Abra thought they should postpone as she didn’t want him disappearing halfway through the reception, leaving her abandoned. Or so she said. She had told him that would be mortifying and he had told her it wouldn’t happen. He could take the evening off from the case — so could Llewellyn for that matter. Even Superintendent Bradley couldn’t deny him that, whatever else he might begrudge.
No, it wasn’t the wedding or Bradley that was causing him most angst, it was the investigation, not to mention Abra’s possible part in it. If only he could get a handle on one of the suspects, but there was nothing to single any of them out. Any one of them could have done it. That was the problem.
Bradley seemed of the opinion that he should just select the most likely, charge them, and wait for the evidence to catch up. But Rafferty didn’t want to do that. He’d done so in his last investigation and it had ended in tears all round, not least Bradley’s, as his ‘dead cert’ had proved to be anything but.
At least things seemed to be going well on the house front. Their offer on the semi in town had been accepted this afternoon — Abra had rung to tell him. Now it was just a matter of the sale of their two flats progressing apace. It complicated matters that they had two flats to sell as it involved them in two separate chains with all that that entailed. But he refused to look on the black side where that was concerned. The property market was doing much better business than it had for some time: didn’t even that property guru Nigel admit as much? Hopefully, it would continue to do so. No. What he needed was something new on the murder front.
To Rafferty’s surprise, he got ‘something new on the murder front’ the very next day. Mrs Staveley Senior was attacked in her own home. Someone had tried to strangle her, just like her daughter in law.
Chapter Fourteen
When Rafferty went to see Edith Staveley at her son’s home, where she had gone after the assault on her, she tried to appear her usual strong-minded self, but it was clear that it was an effort of will alone and didn’t quite succeed. Although her spine still didn’t rest against the back of her son’s more comfortable armchair, it sagged a little from her former straight stance. Unsurprisingly, the attack had shaken her. Rafferty asked her how she was feeling,
Her voice was croaky and difficult to understand as her throat had been badly bruised. But she insisted she was okay and could talk.
‘Have you seen a doctor?’ he asked.
‘My mother’s GP has been to see her,’ John Staveley told him. ‘He’s given her sleeping tablets and some tranquillizers as a short-term measure.’
‘I won’t take them, so he was wasting his time. I’ve no patience with people who are reliant on pills. It’s different if one is in extreme pain. Otherwise, I see little reason to medicate.’
‘Even so, Mother,’ said Staveley, ‘he must think you need them. Please try them, at least.’
Edith Staveley’s lips firmed and her back regained a little more of her previous upright posture as she said, ‘No. I told you I won’t take them and I meant it. I’ll get through any sleepless nights with that old standby, cocoa. You know how much I dislike taking tablets.’
‘My mother rarely takes even a painkiller for a headache,’ Staveley told Rafferty. ‘I tell her it doesn’t mean she’s being weak, but she thinks otherwise.’
Rafferty, as one who had regularly to have recourse to painkillers for ‘morning after’ headaches, nodded as if he was in total agreement with this stoical spirit, and said, ‘Can you tell me what happened, Mrs Staveley?’
‘Certainly. I’ve lost my confidence, not my memory. Someone rang the front door bell and when I answered the door there was a man in a balaclava standing there. He forced me backwards into the hall, slammed the door shut, and demanded to know where I kept my valuables. I wasn’t going to tell him, I can assure you of that. Anyway, I managed to get away from him and ran into the kitchen. I’d been rolling pastry for a steak and kidney pie, which I was making for John and Kyle, when he rang the bell. So, when he put his hands round my throat I picked up the rolling pin and hit him with it. I managed to hit him several times even though he was trying to choke me. I almost blacked out, but thankfully, he let go and ran off, back out the front door. I ran after him and banged it shut behind him. That’s when I called the police and John.’
‘Thank you. Your description is very clear. Can you tell me any more about this man? For instance, was he tall or short? Fat or thin?’
‘He was tall and well-built. About John’s height. I was lucky to fight him off.’