Deadly Reunion (19 page)

Rafferty had arranged a time to meet the two student lodgers when he knew his ma wouldn't be in. She had her regular bingo and she went every week as if someone had wound her up and set her down in the right direction.

Luckily, her visiting cousins were out and the rooms they were using reasonably tidy. Unlikely as it seemed for students, Karen and Martin were on time and he hurriedly showed them round, urging them on in case the cousins returned before they'd finished. Young Karen's face seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place her and when he asked her if they were acquainted, she opened her eyes wide and said, ‘Oh no, Mr Rafferty. I don't think so.'

They loved Ma's two spare rooms and said they'd take them. He'd got copies of short-term tenancies on the internet after a lot of trouble and he'd cursed Llewellyn and Abra as he struggled. They'd both refused to have anything to do with his little plot. But he'd managed and eventually was able to print the agreements off.

He quickly filled in the youngsters' details. Money and rent books changed hands – he'd already asked for and received references. They were all set. He gave them keys and told them they could move in the day after Ma's American cousins were due to go home.

Rafferty, aware that the get-his-own-back joke on his ma had come full circle, rang her mobile once the two students had gone and he was back in his car, to let her know what he'd arranged, but all he got was voice mail. He'd try her later; he had plenty of time and he didn't want to leave a message.

To Rafferty's disappointment, Gary Sadiq was still in England, staying with relatives in Birmingham. He'd rather fancied a free trip to India – apart from anything else, the necessity of making the expensive journey would upset Superintendent Bradley, not to mention giving him a couple of days' break from Cyrus and his religious fervour. But it wasn't to be, so they battled their way up to Birmingham through the morning's rush hour and a stop-start journey under a still-blazing sun to discover precisely nothing. Though, of course, the semi in Birmingham wasn't Sadiq's home. Maybe, if he could persuade Bradley to fund the trip he might yet find out something to his advantage on the sub-continent. But Gary Sadiq, when they saw him, was very circumspect and answered Rafferty's questions as if his words were rationed. In any event, they got nothing useful out of him.

So far, none of the other reunees they'd spoken to had revealed as much as a morsel of new evidence to raise them up the suspects' list, so it was a reluctant Rafferty, on their return from Birmingham, that slouched his way along the corridor to report his failure to Bradley. He then slunk home to Abra and Cyrus, who was in even fuller voice than Bradley had been.

‘Joe. Hi. How's your case going?' He didn't wait for Rafferty to answer, but continued blithely on. ‘Ah was saying to Wendy, although Ah've bin praying for you. Of course Ah have, Ah thought a bit of
in
tense praying would be mighty helpful. So this evening, Ah'm going to retire early to ma room and spend some hours on ma knees. Me and God are on good terms, and Ah'm confident Ah'll get a positive response. Ah'll start now, if you don't mind. It seems rude to deprive you of ma company when Ah'm a guest in your home, but Ah know how much good it will do.'

Bemused, but grateful to have an evening free of Cyrusisms, Rafferty thanked his guest solemnly, kissed Abra and helped himself to a large Jameson's.

It was a few days later. Rafferty had rushed off Joanna Douglas's hair to the forensic laboratory requesting it be prioritised and he was pleased when Llewellyn told him they had some results in. Then Llewellyn frowned and looked at him from narrowed brown eyes. ‘That's funny, they're from Joanna Douglas's hair. When did you obtain strands of her hair? You never mentioned you were doing so?'

‘Didn't I? Must have slipped my mind.' He learned forward expectantly. ‘And?'

‘Adam Ainsley, not Giles Harmsworth, was the father of Ms Douglas's daughter.'

‘Bingo! No wonder she fought shy of telling us the father's identity. We need to have another word with her.' Rafferty glanced at his watch. ‘She'll still be at work. Why don't we beard her at the British Library? After first telling us she'd had an abortion, then denying Joanna was Ainsley's child and then outright refusing to supply us with the identity of who was the father, I don't think she's entitled to our consideration.'

Llewellyn was looking pensive. ‘You know, you haven't said how you got that lock of Joanna Douglas's hair.'

‘Haven't I?'

‘She's a minor, so I hope you asked her mother's permission.'

‘I got the hair, didn't I?'

‘As long as it wasn't obtained in such a way as to render it inadmissible.'

‘As if. You know me, Dafyd.'

‘Yes. I do, don't I? That's the problem.'

‘You want to trust more and suspect less, Dafyd. All that tense suspicion can make a person constipated.' He paused, then added airily, ‘though it might be a good idea not to mention it to Alice Douglas. No point in complicating matters. I shouldn't be surprised if she hasn't forgotten giving her permission. You know how absentminded these academics can be.'

Llewellyn stared at him, sighed and shook his head, but he said nothing further, much to Rafferty's relief. He'd never been able to persuade the by-the-book Welshman that, sometimes, it was necessary to use a bit of unofficial sleight-of-hand to get answers.

Thankfully, the weather had broken and the day was cool with a threat of rain. Perhaps as well as successfully praying for a break in the case, Cyrus had also prayed for a break in the weather. Rafferty, after getting confirmation that Adam Ainsley was indeed the father of Alice's daughter, wasn't about to look the second gift horse in the mouth, so was duly grateful. He just hoped Cyrus wasn't too unbearably triumphant when he told him that his prayers had been answered.

The run to London was far more comfortable than it had been when they'd made the journey to Notting Hill to see Edward Diaz.

Leaving Llewellyn to find a place to park, Rafferty entered the British Library and went in search of Alice Douglas. He tracked her down to one of the offices.

She was surprised to see him and even more surprised when she discovered the purpose of his visit.

‘How did you find out that Adam was Joanna's father? His name's not on her birth certificate.'

Her question put Rafferty in something of a quandary, given that he had obtained a sample of her daughter's hair illicitly – Bradley would go spare if he heard – so he temporised. ‘Let's just say that, given your reticence about identifying the father, I put two and two together.' Airily, he added, ‘I can, of course, obtain DNA evidence if you wish.'

She grimaced. ‘What's the point? It would only delay things for a short while. Yes. All right, Adam was Joanna's father. Or rather, his was the seed that helped to create her. He certainly had no interest in being a father to her or in supporting me, as I soon discovered. He made quite clear that he didn't want to be burdened with a “brat”, as he called our child. He was going places and he didn't want either me or his little bastard tagging along behind him.'

‘You must have hated him for it.'

‘I did for a time. But life moves on, Inspector. And I moved on with it. The stardust dropped from my eyes pretty quickly and I realized that he had only ever taken up with me because his pride was wounded when he found out that Sophie had cut a swathe through most of the class.'

‘Surely he knew that all along? Wouldn't the other lads boast of it?'

‘Perhaps, if it had been another boy. But Adam was the school's sporting hero as well as having the reputation as something of a bully; the combination encouraged Sophie's conquests to keep their bedpost notches to themselves.'

‘One of them must have let it slip.'

‘Yes. But I don't know which one. Adam never said. He refused to talk about it at all.' She cast a sudden, sharp look at Rafferty. ‘And if you think I killed him because of something that happened when I was a foolish girl, you're mistaken.'

Poor off for suspects that had a really strong motive for wanting Ainsley dead, Rafferty was reluctant to let Alice Douglas go quite so easily. She was the only passable suspect he had. Unwanted pregnancies caused high feelings and blighted lives. Perhaps that was the case here. Unfortunately, Ms Douglas was quick to disabuse him of that theory.

‘My pregnancy didn't ruin my hopes of a career, Inspector, as you can see. Nor did it breed resentment if that is what you were hoping.'

‘I just like to check, Miss. It's called being thorough. A man has been murdered. He might not have been a very nice man, but he was entitled to enjoy his life.'

‘Unlike the child I was expecting? The one he gave me money to abort?' When Rafferty didn't answer, she questioned his silence. ‘I suppose, like Adam, you'd have wanted me to get rid of the child?'

Rafferty thought for a moment of his dead first wife, Angie, and the probably fake pregnancy that had forced him to the altar, then he said, ‘No. I'm a Catholic, too, Ms Douglas. Disposing of a life as if it was so much rubbish is not something I could ever feel comfortable with.'

‘Then you'll understand why I decided to keep my baby. Luckily, I had an inheritance from my grandmother and was able to employ a nanny to look after Joanna while I was at university.'

‘Wouldn't your parents help?'

‘No.'

The answer was abrupt and Rafferty was intrigued by it. ‘Why not?'

With a marked degree of reluctance, after a few moments, she admitted, ‘They were ashamed of me. They were always very strict churchgoers and thought I had let the family down. They refused to help. I learned to manage without them. You'd think they'd have given me some credit for not having the abortion that Sophie advised. They'd have been even more appalled if I'd done that.'

‘Even with your grandmother's inheritance, it can't have been easy.'

‘No. It wasn't. But now I have a lovely daughter who's about to go to university herself. She's bright and should do well. I'm very proud of her. Her existence is a great comfort to me. And I have Adam to thank for that. I had no reason to want to kill him, Inspector. None at all.'

‘Not for your own sake, perhaps, but maybe you did for that of your daughter.'

She turned wary eyes on him. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I went to see Joanna the other day. She told me that you'd agreed to invite her father to her birthday party.'

Alice's lips tightened and she said faintly, ‘She told you that?'

Rafferty nodded.

Alice sighed and stared down at her desk. ‘You can't know how bitterly I regretted those few glasses of wine and that stupid promise.'

‘But a promise is a promise.'

‘Yes.

‘So, did he say he'd go to the party?'

Alice raised her head and smiled at him. ‘Yes. He might not have shown any interest in the baby in my womb, but a daughter all grown up and about to go to uni intrigued him. He said he'd be there.'

‘Your daughter would have been pleased. Shame he's dead.'

‘Yes.'

He bid her good day then and went in search of Llewellyn.

Llewellyn must have had trouble parking the car because he only entered the building just as Rafferty was leaving it. He told the Welshman what Alice Douglas had said.

‘And do you believe her that Mr Ainsley agreed to attend his daughter's party?'

Rafferty shrugged. ‘Why not? Ainsley was no longer a callow youth, but a grown man. He has no other children that we know of, so why wouldn't seeing his only child intrigue him?'

Showing an unlikely reluctance to let go of Rafferty's theory, Llewellyn said, ‘To kill a man because he had rejected her child was about the best motive we had.'

‘I know.' At least he didn't say the
only
motive, thought Rafferty.

‘Though, I suppose, as you said before, she'd had seventeen years to pay him back if that had been her inclination. And it's not as if Ainsley wasn't high profile and easily found if she wanted to find him. She didn't need to wait for him to attend a reunion in order to kill him.'

‘No.' Rafferty sighed. ‘It would seem our best motive is smashed into smithereens.'

‘Maybe something had happened more recently to bring a resurgence of any hatred she might have felt then?'

‘Yes, but what?

For once, the intellectual Welshman had no answer.

Between one thing and another, Rafferty forgot all about ringing his ma again and advising her of the situation
via-a-vis
her new lodgers. He was only reminded of it when she got him on the phone several days later. He was in his office, wrestling with what remained of his assorted theories and trying to decide whether he should plump for one of them and pursue it for all he was worth when he was forced to acknowledge that wrestling with theories was easy as opposed to jousting words with his ma.

‘Thanks for organizing my new lodgers, son. And thanks for telling me about it. It was good of you.'

Rafferty's mouth fell open in astonishment. How had she found out? Who could possibly have told her? The only ones who knew were Abra and Llewellyn. Had one of them . . .?

‘Have you got nothing to say for yourself?'

Rafferty felt like a naughty schoolboy dragged in front of the headmaster. ‘Sorry, Ma. I did try to ring you, but you didn't answer your mobile and I didn't want to leave a message.'