Disappointed, he returned to the car, certain it was unlikely, after such unequivocal evidence, given by a woman with honesty shining from her, that he was in with a chance of seeing over the rest of the house.
Llewellyn’s voice dragged him back to the case.
‘Did you believe the alibi she gave Mr Oldfield?’ he asked, once they were back in the car.
‘Oh yes,’ said Rafferty. ‘She struck me as transparently honest. I don’t for a moment believe she was lying out of love for him, though, equally, I don’t doubt she’d be willing enough to do so should it be necessary.’
Beside him, Llewellyn nodded. ‘That was the impression I got, too. It sounds as if Mr Oldfield’s out of the equation.’
‘Yes.’ Rafferty was a bit miffed at this, even though it meant he had one less suspect to investigate. There was undoubtedly something shifty and untrustworthy about Oldfield. Beneath his oh-so-smart suits and ties, he believed Oldfield to be a chancer. Witness how he’d hooked up with that poor unfortunate little rich girl. Rafferty could imagine that Oldfield would prefer flashy bleached blondes who believed in wearing clothes that showed off their bodies. And although Adrienne Staveley didn’t fit into this category, from the photo Staveley had supplied and the comments of her lovers, she had been a vivacious woman, out for a good time and probably complimentary about Oldfield’s prowess as a lover.
‘It’s clear Diana Rexton’s head over heels in love with Oldfield. But she seems too much of an honest soul to be lying.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Llewellyn pointed out. ‘You really don’t know anything about her.’
‘Agreed. But some things you don’t need proved or laid out like so many facts. Some things are self-evident. And her honesty is one of them.’
Llewellyn abandoned his latest attempt at persuading Rafferty from his impulsive convictions. Besides, it was plain that Llewellyn shared this conviction. Hadn’t he already said so?
It was getting late. ‘Home, James,’ Rafferty said. ‘And don’t spare the horses.’ He didn’t really expect Llewellyn not to spare the horses. He always did. Not for him the thrashed engine and squealing tyres so beloved of film and TV cops. Llewellyn was a lover of cars and treated them with respect. Besides, he was a cautious soul both behind the wheel and elsewhere, so usually kept a good five miles below the speed limit.
Back at the station, Rafferty immediately went to update Superintendent Bradley on this latest development, keen to get it out of the way. He had expected to find the super had long since gone home. And was going through the motions just in case Bradley had decided to stick around instead of keeping office hours.
Much to his surprise, Bradley was still behind his desk: he’d evidently been waiting for him. Rafferty quickly related that one of their main suspects had an excellent alibi and to ward off any criticism of how speedily or otherwise the case was progressing, he added that it was good they’d made a start on whittling down the suspects.
At least Bradley agreed with this. But apart from suggesting he concentrate on whittling down a few more, he had little to say and quickly let him go.
When he came back to the office Llewellyn was industriously typing up his report of their interview with Diana Rexton.
Rafferty threw himself into his chair, still put out that he had no excuse to slap the cuffs on Oldfield. ‘I suppose it’s now down to John Staveley, his son and his mother, with the sister, Helen Ayling coming up at the post.’ He sighed. Perhaps, after all, he shouldn’t have listened to his Ma when she’d pushed the police force as a career and would have done better to go into the building trade, like so many of the rest of his family. He glanced at the round-faced clock on the wall. It was ten past nine and he said, ‘It’s late, Dafyd. You get off home.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m going to stay here for a bit and wrestle with my wedding speech.’
‘Still not finished it?’
Llewellyn was his best man and had had his speech written weeks ago, much to Rafferty’s annoyance.
‘I’ve started it half a dozen times, but finished it — no.’
Once Llewellyn had left, Rafferty pulled out his notepad and picked up a pen.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he wrote. ‘Unaccustomed as I am—‘ No, he thought, that’s no good. He scored through his first effort, chewed on his pen and, after some considerable time, began again. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. What a lucky man I am to wake up this morning knowing I was going to marry Abra.’ Better, he thought. But what to write next? He chewed the end of his pen again and sighed. Then he brightened and began once more. ‘She’s a beautiful girl, my Abra and I want to thank her for agreeing to become my wife. I’m still surprised she decided to take me on, but she’s done it now and there’s no going back. Hard luck, my gorgeous Mrs Rafferty’
After what Sam Dally had said, he hoped he wasn’t tempting fate by referring to Abra as his wife. They’d already had two major fallings out and she’d left him once — it had taken weeks for her to agree to go back to him.
Rafferty stared into space. I should say something about the bridesmaids next, he thought. But what? It wasn’t as if he knew them well; they were Abra’s friends, not his. He threw down his pen and leaned back heavily in his chair. God, he thought, between all the churchgoing and speechifying I’ll be glad when this wedding’s over. Why does getting married have to be such an ordeal?
But thirty minutes later, he’d roughed out the rest of his speech, rang Abra to let her know her was on his way and went home.
Chapter Five
When he finally got home it was after ten. He found that Abra had prepared one of her mixed salads with jacket potato, hardboiled egg, cheese, garlic mushrooms, sardines and the rest. It was one of his favourite meals, combining as it did so many varied flavours and although he was really too tired to eat, once he’d started he found himself eating it with his usual relish.
‘I was ready for that,’ he said as he cleared his plate and sat back. ‘I didn’t have time for any lunch today.’ Not wanting Abra to think him as much of a wuss as Sam Dally clearly did, he cited lack of time as an excuse rather than a squeamish stomach. Once he’d got back to the station, he’d found he’d got past lunch.
‘You should make time, Joe. It isn’t good for you to go so many hours between meals.’
‘I would normally, it’s just that there’s always so much to do at the beginning of a case. And then, this evening, I spent time on my wedding speech.’
‘I hope you said some nice things about me.’
‘You bet. Trouble is, it left me precious little to say about the bridesmaids.’
‘Never mind about the bridesmaids,’ Abra joked. ‘Concentrate on your wife-to-be and you won’t go far wrong.’
They stacked the dishwasher, and then settled down on the settee with a glass of Jameson’s whiskey each.
‘So, how are you getting on with your latest murder?’ Abra asked as she curled up on the settee beside him and sipped her drink. ‘You’d better get it solved before the wedding. I don’t want to arrive at the church to discover there’s no groom waiting for me. I’ll do murder myself if that happens.’
Rafferty had rung her that afternoon to tell her he’d be late home. He’d given her brief details of the murder then. ‘It’s early days,’ he told her. ‘Though it’s clear Adrienne Staveley’s killer was known to her as there were no signs of a break in and the spy-hole in the front door allowed her to check who was knocking.’
‘Strangulation. What a horrible way to die. Imagine staring into the face of your killer while they choked the life out of you.’
‘Yes, it’s pretty gruesome.’ Rafferty took a sip of his own whiskey. ‘It was fortunate that her teenage stepson didn’t find her. It would have been a horrible experience for an impressionable lad.’
‘As long as he didn’t kill her. Perhaps it was a case of the Wicked Stepmother syndrome.’
‘There’s always that. But let’s talk about something else. I have enough to do with violent death all day; I’d rather not have it all night as well.’
‘Okay. Oh, I forgot to tell you, the caterers rang. They wanted final confirmation of numbers. Nobody’s cancelled, so I gave them the confirmation. The wedding seems to have crept up on us. Imagine, only three weeks to go till the big day when I’ll be Mrs Rafferty. Mrs Joseph Aloysius Rafferty.’
‘I wish you’d forget the Aloysius bit. I do my best to.’
‘How can I? It’s too delicious for words and gives me something permanent that I can tease you about.’
‘I see. I’m not going to hear the end of it then?’
Abra grinned. ‘Not likely. I may even take to calling you Ally for short. Just don’t get on my wrong side.’
The next morning Rafferty was up bright and early. He brought Abra a cup of tea and a couple of rounds of toast and made himself some cereal and toast before he set off for work.
It was a lovely, sunny day. It made him feel quite jaunty. Traffic was light and he reached the station in no time. Whistling, ‘
I’m Getting Married in the Morning’
, he parked up and headed for his office.
Llewellyn wasn’t behind his desk when he got there and Rafferty guessed he was in the canteen getting their usual morning tea. He shuffled through the reports that Llewellyn had stacked neatly on his desk, leaving them in a disorderly pile. Today, he wanted to check out Kyle Staveley’s claim that he had been studying at the library during the time his stepmother was killed. He also wanted to talk to the Staveleys’ neighbours. Mrs Jones had already been helpful in providing the information about Gary Oldfield’s regular visits to the victim. Maybe, if he asked the right questions, there were other things she would be able to tell them.
Llewellyn pushed the office door open then, bearing two steaming cups of tea. His gaze automatically went to Rafferty’s desk as he entered.
This was turning into something of a ritual between them. Sometimes, Rafferty untidied his desk deliberately just to amuse himself, so he could put his detecting skills to the test. It wasn’t something he indulged often; he was naturally untidy, so it wasn’t as if he had to go out of his way to create chaos out of Llewellyn’s carefully ordered piles. But today, he could detect not the slightest flicker of quickly controlled irritation on his sergeant’s usually inscrutable face. Losing your touch, Rafferty told himself.
‘Ah. The cup that cheers. You’re a welcome sight,’ Rafferty told him as he picked up his cup. ‘We’ll get outside of this then head off to the library to check out Kyle Staveley’s alibi.’
Tea finished, they set off. Rafferty was unsurprised to see that the sunny day had turned grey, with dark clouds threatening rain and a chill wind that had him doing up his jacket. Four seasons in one day: British weather, he thought. It’ll probably snow later.
The library staff knew Kyle well as he was there most days according to the assistant they spoke to. Mrs Johnson was a middle-aged woman with a kindly demeanour who clearly took an interest in her customers. She had, she told them, been on duty on the day of Adrienne Staveley’s murder and was positive that Kyle had left the library before 4.30.
‘He always sits there.’ She pointed to a table near the window. ‘And I noticed he’d gone while I was shelving books.’
So Kyle’s alibi had fallen at the first hurdle. Why had he lied? And where had he gone when he’d left the library? Had he returned home and killed his hated stepmother? If he had, did his father know? Or had the boy done the deed without his father’s knowledge, either before or after? Either way, they would need to speak to Kyle again and find out why he had lied. But before they did that, Rafferty wanted to speak to the Staveleys’ neighbour.
The threatened rain duly arrived as they approached the car; they ran for it and reached it without getting too wet and drove out to Lavender Avenue.
Sarah Jones, the Staveleys’ neighbour, was at home. Her kitchen was a welcoming room, a sunny blue and yellow with pictures in similar hues on the walls. She invited them to sit down and offered tea.
Rafferty brightened and said, ‘Yes, please.’ Tea, for him, was like another man’s cocaine, and he got through copious quantities every day, so another cup was always welcome.
Mrs Jones was a vivacious redhead. Luckily, she clearly liked people and took an interest in them. She was a similar age to the dead woman and told them she had been quite friendly with her.
‘Did you like Adrienne Staveley?’ Rafferty asked. Apart from Gary Oldfield, he’d yet to speak to anyone who had.
‘I like most people,’ she replied, with a smile as sunny as her kitchen. She poured boiling water into the teapot and stirred the teabags before she brought it to the table and took mugs out of the nearest cupboard. ‘And yes, I liked Adrienne. She could be difficult and she didn’t like it that her husband was out of work. Poor man, he felt obliged to walk the streets to get out from under her feet. I often saw him in town, pounding the pavement. I always thought it was a marriage made for the good times, not the bad.’
‘You told my officers that a man called Gary Oldfield was a regular visitor to the house. Did you ever meet him?’
‘Yes. He was there a couple of times when I popped in to see Adrienne and she introduced us.’ She poured the tea and added milk before pushing the sugar bowl towards them. Rafferty added three spoons.
‘And what impression did you get of their relationship?’
‘More than friends, was my opinion. You could tell from the way they looked at each other. I got the impression they could barely keep their hands off one another. It made me feel uncomfortable, so I didn’t stay long. Definitely more than friendship.’
‘What did you think of Oldfield?’
‘As I said, I only met him a couple of times, and for no more than a few minutes on each occasion. But I must say I thought him in love with himself rather than Adrienne. I thought he was just using her and I told her so.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That they were probably using each other, though I definitely got the impression that Adrienne cared more for him than he did for her.’
‘Thank you.’ Rafferty finished his tea, got up and fished a card out of his pocket. ‘If you think of anything else, perhaps you’ll ring me?’