The only aspects that softened the room were the sprawled figures of John and Kyle Staveley; they made the army-neat room seem untidy. The two looked very alike as they sat side by side: same wiry frames, black hair, clear brown eyes and pale skin. Rafferty surmised that they must take after Staveley’s father. Mrs Staveley Senior invited them to sit down and did so herself.
‘Mr Staveley, Kyle, I’ve come to ask a few more questions.’ Rafferty was conscious of Mrs Staveley watching him as she sat as bolt upright as her chair. Rafferty did his best to ignore her intimidating stare as he sat down. ‘Kyle, I didn’t ask you before, but can you tell me where you were yesterday between four and six o’clock?’
‘I was at the library, studying.’ Kyle’s large, bony hands clutched one another as if seeking reassurance.
Rafferty tried to put the clearly uncomfortable youth at his ease. ‘At the library? I thought all youngsters nowadays did their studying on the internet. I presume you’ve got your own computer?’
‘Of course. But not all of us go in for the slavish copying that the Comprehensive students think good enough. I like to do original work.’ There was the contempt of the scholar in his voice as he dismissed the study habits of his peers.
‘Very commendable.’ Rafferty doubted that such an attitude made him popular at school and he wondered if Kyle was bullied. He turned to John Staveley. ‘I gather that your wife was in the habit of regularly entertaining a male visitor while you were out. Were you aware of this?’
‘No.’ Staveley sounded defensive, which, in the circumstances, wasn’t altogether surprising. ‘Why would I be? I never saw him.’
‘His name’s Gary Oldfield. Did you know him at all? Have you heard of him?’
‘No. I know nothing about him.’ John Staveley’s lips formed a thin line. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’
‘Your wife’s been murdered, sir, that’s why. Are you sure you didn’t know Oldfield?’
‘My son has told you he knows nothing about this man, Inspector,’ Mrs Staveley interrupted. ‘Why must you continue to badger him?’ The iron-grey hair seemed to bristle as she sat forward and challenged him.
‘Because his wife is dead, Mrs Staveley. Murdered, as I said. I need to get to the bottom of it.’ Rafferty met her gaze. He refused to be intimidated by her.
‘My son had nothing to do with it. Neither did my grandson. They were both out during the times you mention, when presumably Adrienne was killed. My son only got back home at six o’clock, which is when he found her.’
‘Yet I understand he and his wife hadn’t been getting on. It’s natural to ask him about any male friends his wife had and whether he knew about them.’
‘He’s already told you he didn’t. He spends very little time at home. Even in the evenings, when he is there, he tends to shut himself up in his study with his computer, looking for work. If dedication to a task meant anything he’d have found a worthwhile job by now. It’s been a very difficult time for him. If that wife of his had been any good, she’d have looked for a job herself and helped to pay the bills.’
‘I take it you didn’t like your son’s wife?’
‘I neither liked her nor disliked her. She was my son’s wife and as such I accepted her.’ As though determined not to betray any anxiety at this line of questioning, her hands rested lightly on either side of her chair. She looked the very epitome of a woman taking her ease.
It seemed none of her husband’s family had liked Adrienne. ‘Did Mrs Staveley Junior have any close relatives? Parents or siblings? I should have asked you this yesterday,’ Rafferty confessed as he turned back to John Staveley.
‘No .Her parents are dead and she was an only child,’ Staveley told them.
That was something, thought Rafferty. No bad news to break. Llewellyn would be relieved, as he had, since his Methodist minister father had made him accompany him to break news of a death, always ever since fought shy of such deeds.
‘Have you any other family I can ask about your wife’s friends – someone she might have confided in?’
‘There’s my sister and her husband. Helen and David Ayling,’ Staveley told him. ‘Though I can’t see Adrienne confiding in either of them. They weren’t close.’
Rafferty asked them for the Aylings’ address and Llewellyn noted it down.
‘What about women friends?’
Mrs Staveley gave an unladylike snort. ‘She wasn’t one for women friends. I can’t think of one. What about you, John?’
Her son shook his head. ‘I can’t think of anyone either, though she did sometimes chat with Sarah Jones, the wife of our nearest neighbour. I don’t think their conversation went much beyond trivial things like the weather, but she did sometimes come over for coffee on a Sunday morning.’
‘I see. Well that’s all for now.’ Rafferty got up from the unyielding settee, glad to relieve his backside: it had been getting numb. ‘Thank you for your time. We’ll see ourselves out.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Mrs Staveley. ‘
I’ll
see you out.’ She got up from her chair with a determined air.
Rafferty stifled a grin. Clearly she wanted to make sure they left rather than lingered in the hall to eavesdrop.
‘She’s a bit of a tarter,’ he said to Llewellyn when they were back in the car. He gazed through the windscreen as rain lashed it. The weather was changeable. It had been dry when they had entered Mrs Staveley’s home. He prayed it didn’t rain on his and Abra’s wedding day.
‘I suppose she sees that you suspect her son,’ Llewellyn commented. ‘She was certainly very protective of him. Natural enough in the circumstances.’
‘I suppose so. I’m surprised Staveley didn’t ask when he and his son could go back home. His mother’s doesn’t look the most comfortable of places. I bet the beds are as rigid as the settee.’
‘I don’t imagine they relish the prospect of returning home after what happened there.’ Llewellyn did up his seatbelt and put the key in the ignition preparatory to driving off.
‘No. I don’t suppose they do,’ said Rafferty as he did up his own seatbelt. ‘Let’s get over and see Staveley’s sister. Though as she and the victim weren’t close I don’t hold out much hope of learning anything useful.’
Helen and David Ayling lived in the small and ancient hamlet of St Botolphe to the south of Elmhurst. It didn’t take long to drive there from Mrs Staveley’s. It was a house somewhat smaller than Mrs Staveley Senior’s home, but it was still substantial. It was thatched and picture-postcard pretty – Rafferty could imagine Americans lining up to photograph it when the summer tourist season got into full swing.
David Ayling was at work, but his wife was at home. Although a large woman, of around forty, Helen Ayling looked stylish in a smart pair of black trousers and a thin, tan, cowl-neck jumper. She had a look of Staveley, sharing her brother’s black hair, dark eyes and pale skin, though her hair looked as if it had a bit of assistance from the dye bottle. She seemed very much the protective older sister. She invited them into her home and when they were all seated around the inglenook fireplace in a living room as large and stylish as its owner, with two cream settees and an oak dresser that, with its silvery-grey wood, looked as old as the house, she asked them how the case was going.
‘Slowly as yet,’ Rafferty replied. ‘But it’s earIy days as your sister-in-law was only killed yesterday. I wonder what you can tell me about her. Do you know any of her friends, for instance? Anyone who could shed some light on her character.’
Helen Ayling gave a short laugh. ‘I can do that all right. Although I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, Adrienne was a woman who liked a good time. She was happy enough when the money was coming in, but once my brother was made redundant and the money dried up, she became very dissatisfied. I suggested she get a job, but she just laughed at me as if she thought the idea was ludicrous. You’d think she’d want to help, but not a bit of it. She wasn’t the sort of wife who was a helpmeet.’
Clearly, Helen Ayling hadn’t approved of her sister-in-law any more than had her mother.
‘What about her friends? Did you know any of them?’
‘I know she had men friends, several of them. I occasionally saw her with one or the other in town, having lunch. I don’t know of any women friends.’
‘Do you know the names and addresses of these men friends?’
‘As it happens, I do – not their addresses, but their names. One’s called Gary Oldfield. The other’s called Michael Peacock.’
‘Do you think there was more between them and Adrienne than just friendship?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. Adrienne was a terrible flirt. It used to upset my brother, which made her do it all the more. I sometimes think she did it just to spite him. She could be a difficult, headstrong woman.’ She paused, and then asked, ‘Do you think one of these men killed her?’
‘As to that, we don’t know.’ He didn’t add that, as the husband of the victim, John Staveley was inevitably a suspect. But Helen Ayling seemed to be an intelligent woman and even if she chose not to bring it up, she must be aware of the possibility of her brother’s guilt, particularly as, by his own admission, he and his wife hadn’t been getting along. As the protective older sister, she would surely have known of the situation as regards their marriage.
‘Tell me, Mrs Ayling, were you at home between four and six yesterday evening?’
‘Why? Am I a suspect?’
‘We’re just trying to eliminate as many people as possible.’
‘As it happens, I was. My husband didn’t get back from work till around 6.30.’
‘I see. Thank you. Were you alone?’
She gave a brief nod.
‘That’s all for now, but we may need to question you again.’ He told her they would need to take her fingerprints and if she could come into the station for this procedure it would be helpful. Rafferty thanked her again and they left, got in the car and returned to the station.
Superintendent Bradley had left a message with Bill Beard on reception that he wanted to see Rafferty as soon as he returned.
‘What sort of mood is he in?’ he questioned Bill. ‘Am I going to get my head bitten off?’
‘It’s a bit early in the case even for him to go off on one,’ said Bill placidly. ‘But he said he wanted to see you as soon as you got back, so I’d get along there smartish, young Rafferty, if you don’t want your head bitten off.’
Beard, the oldest officer in the station, had seemingly been there when Noah was a boy, and felt such longevity had earned him privileges denied to others. Familiarity in addressing ranking senior officers was one of them. Rafferty was often addressed as ‘me duck,’ by him. Such familiarity didn’t bother him as it did some of his colleagues, but then, he was far from being a rule-book copper.
Rafferty pulled a face and headed for Superintendent Bradley’s first floor office.
Bradley didn’t beat about the bush. ‘So what’s happening?’ he asked as soon as Rafferty had knocked and entered.
‘We’ve interviewed nearly everyone with a family connection to the dead woman. She almost certainly had a lover, if not more than one. One is probably a Gary Oldfield. And as she hadn’t been getting on with her husband, he’s also got to be a strong suspect.’
‘Any evidence against the husband?’
‘Not yet. But he doesn’t have an alibi. He told us he was out just wandering the streets when his wife was murdered.’
‘Sounds an unlikely alibi. I understand there’s a stepson as well?’
‘Yes. Kyle. He’s sixteen and he didn’t get on with the dead woman either. In fact none of her husband’s family seems to have liked her very much, including her mother and sister-in-law.’
‘So she was an unpopular woman with the females in the family. Strangulation though. That’s generally a man’s crime. Anyway, get your report written up and let me have it as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Rafferty exited the super’s office smartly. The old man had been in a benign mood for a change. It was a welcome relief from the usual sarcasm. He went back to his office and wrote up his report as the super had instructed; he didn’t relish getting in the old man’s bad books this early in the investigation.
That job done, he sat back and stared into space before he said to Llewellyn, ‘So what do you think, Daff? Did the husband do it?’
‘It sounds as if he had cause.’
‘Mmm. The way she entertained that Gary Oldfield regularly in her home doesn’t suggest innocence to me. I can’t believe John Staveley wasn’t aware of it.’
‘He doesn’t have a credible alibi, either.’
‘What about the mother-in-law? She seemed formidable enough to be prepared to commit murder, especially for her precious son’s sake.’
‘Yes, but strangulation. It’s not a woman’s crime.’
‘That’s what the super said.’
‘And he’s right.’
‘Still, it’s possible. We don’t want to make too easy assumptions. And that mother-in-law looks capable of it. But I’m keeping an open mind.’ Rafferty was determined on it. It wasn’t his usual practise. No wonder Llewellyn’s normally Sphinx-like expression relaxed a little in surprise.
The post mortem was scheduled for after lunch, so Rafferty and Llewellyn drove over to Elmhurst General Hospital where the mortuary was situated. They were the last to arrive. They joined the Coroner’s Officer, the Scene-of-Crime officer and the photographer and video operator round the steel table.
Dr Sam Dally greeted them and asked acerbically, ‘So, it’s all right if I make a start now, is it Inspector Rafferty?’
‘No need to be sarcastic, Sam. We’re not late — or not much. We’re ready when you are.’
‘Right.’ Sam turned to the microphone suspended over the table and gave the cadaver’s details: name, age and special characteristics. He described the body, commenting on any abnormality. His assistant took Adrienne Staveley’s fingerprints after taking scrapings from under her nails in case she’d managed to claw her attacker during the assault on her. After he had taken various bodily samples, Sam Dally opened her up in the classic ‘Y’ formation. Once he had removed and had his assistant weigh the internal organs, he gave his attention to the neck, taking a sample of the bruised flesh.
‘The larynx and hyoid bone are fractured,’ he intoned into the microphone, ‘so the victim was definitely strangled. By the position of the bruises, the assault was a frontal one and manual rather than by means of a ligature.’