Deadly Reunion (23 page)

Maybe he'd try getting Cyrus on a pub-crawl next. A few drinks out of the house seemed to make him more human, more of a normal bloke or ‘regular guy' as he supposed Cyrus would phrase it.

By the next day, Rafferty's confidence in his latest theory had suffered the usual overnight trauma and doubts – after all they still had no evidence against Alice Douglas other than the circumstantial – and he decreed that he and Llewellyn would have another chat to Adam Ainsley's ex-wives. ‘I reckon there's more they could tell us if properly prompted. A lot more.'

Llewellyn nodded. ‘You're probably right.'

‘Though, this time, I think we'll go together as I'm not too confident in your technique with embittered exes.'

‘I learned more from my ex-Mrs Ainsley than you did from yours,' Llewellyn pointed out.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. Though, if you did, that might be down to Mary Carmody's mother hen approach. But there was something the first ex said that stuck in my mind. She said that Ainsley “wasn't the marrying kind”. I want to find out – given that he was enthusiastic enough about the state of matrimony to get hitched twice – what she meant by that.'

‘It could be just that he wasn't faithful.'

‘True. But maybe there was something else as well.'

‘Like what?'

‘I don't know, do I? Just . . . something. Trust me. I'm a policeman. There's something else there. I'm sure of it. I just didn't pick up on it at the time.'

The first ex-Mrs Ainsley was surprised to see them again, but she welcomed them into her home and made them tea.

Once she'd sat down and served the tea, Rafferty explained the reason for their second visit. ‘You said last time I spoke to you that your ex-husband “wasn't the marrying kind”. What did you mean by that?'

Stella Ainsley didn't reply immediately. Instead she sipped her tea and gave Rafferty an assessing glance. Then, as if coming to a decision, she set her tea down on the glass coffee table and sat back, her slender figure holding the posture of the ex-model that he guessed she might have been; a trophy wife for the sporting star.

‘I've no proof of what I'm about to say. I just feel it here.' She placed a hand on her stomach. ‘It's a gut thing.'

Rafferty nodded. He knew all about gut feelings; he'd had plenty of them in his career and most of them had turned out to be right. ‘Go on, please.'

She told them that she had, for much of their marriage, suspected that her husband was gay. ‘As I said, I've no proof but a wife's natural instincts. He was never that keen on sex and used sporting tiredness or minor injuries as excuses. I think he was in denial,' she said, ‘which was one reason why he went in for all the sports, all the women. I got the impression that he thought he could alter his inclinations if he tried hard enough.'

‘It must have been difficult for you,' Rafferty said as he thought to himself, ‘Gay?' and wondered what other areas of investigation this might point up.

‘Yes. Though, for much of our marriage, I was in denial as well. And when he left me for another
woman
, I was more astonished than upset. It was rather a relief to put an end to the charade, actually. For all his courage on the rugby field he didn't have the balls to come out, any more than I had the courage to challenge him and even after his second marriage, I often read about him in the gossip columns squiring other women. In the end I thought it was all rather sad.'

They left the first ex-Mrs Ainsley and headed for the home of the second, Annabel. She was another model-girl type, with slender hips and a flat chest that cried out for surgical enhancement. He should certainly have wondered a bit about Ainsley's seeming preference for the boyish figure, the first ex-Mrs Ainsley's ample bosom notwithstanding. Rafferty thought it more than likely that she had had her cup size increased after her divorce as a confidence booster. What the second Mrs Ainsley had to tell them was even more revelatory than her boyish figure.

After they were settled in another good-sized house with more superior furnishings – Rafferty couldn't help wondering how much his two divorces had cost the dead man – and more tea, he got straight to the point.

‘Why did you and Adam split up?'

She didn't even pause to give him an assessing glance, but just told him bluntly, ‘I told you before that I found him in bed with a neighbour. What I didn't say was that that neighbour was a young lad.'

Rafferty nodded. Here was confirmation of what Stella Ainsley had told them. It seemed her natural instincts had been spot on. ‘Why didn't you tell us this before? Surely you could see that it might be relevant to your ex-husband's murder?'

‘I suppose so. But how would
you
like to admit that your wife preferred other women?'

Rafferty, while flattered that she had clearly put him down as the macho sort, had to admit that she had a point. God, what
would
he do if he'd found Abra in bed with another woman? He'd go spare. He'd be mortified, humiliated, shamed. It would be bad enough having to suffer the family's concern, but once it did the rounds of the cop shop . . . He felt his insides shrivel at the mere thought, so he said, ‘I can understand why you preferred not to mention it. But, now you have, why do you think he did it? In your bed, I mean. Do you think he wanted you to find him? Do you think he had decided to use it as a shock method of bringing your marriage to an end?'

‘No. I don't think that. I don't think he'd have ever done that for fear of what I'd do and say and who I'd say it to. I was supposed to be away for the weekend, so he must have felt perfectly safe. But on the way to my parents' house, I felt ill and drove home. That's when I caught them. Adam was terrified I'd go to the papers.'

‘You said this boy was a neighbour. Can you give us his name?'

‘I can, as it happens. His name was David Paxton. As I said, he and his family used to be our neighbours.'

‘Paxton?' Llewellyn chimed in. ‘Any relation to Jeremy Paxton, the headmaster of Griffin School?'

‘Yes. David was his nephew. Or rather his half nephew, the son of Jeremy's half brother – or maybe that should be a quarter-nephew? If there is such a thing. Anyway, I don't think they knew one another well. Jeremy wasn't a regular visitor. He didn't get on that well with his half brother. Neither did young David. I got the impression that he often felt like a changeling in his own family. I know his mother was worried about him.'

Rafferty had picked up on the past tense and now he asked, ‘
Was
Jeremy's half nephew?'

‘David's dead. He killed himself. Just after Christmas last year. After Adam dumped him. Poor boy, he didn't realize that Adam wasn't worth killing himself over. Adam only ever really loved Adam.'

Rafferty needed to think. It looked like they now had evidence to suspect Jeremy Paxton. Though surely the suicide of a half or quarter, nephew, barely a blood relative at all, was a bit tenuous? And another thing – how could Jeremy Paxton have introduced the poison into Ainsley's food? Even if he'd wanted to, was another question altogether. He had sat several tables away, at the High Table and wouldn't have had easy access to Ainsley's food.

Although it seemed that his new evidence was sliding away even more quickly than it had been gathered in, he still needed to speak to Paxton. Only trouble was he was in Portugal. And he didn't know where. But for now, he could interview the dead boy's parents. They must be able to tell him something. He got the address from Annabel Ainsley and Llewellyn noted it down. Once that was done, Rafferty couldn't get out of the second ex-Mrs Ainsley's home quickly enough, keen as a hound after the scent of a fox to get on this latest trail.

Once in the car, Llewellyn glanced at him and said, ‘It is intriguing, isn't it? Given his own well-kept and potentially career-damaging secret, I really can't imagine Adam Ainsley attempting to blackmail someone else about their guilty secret.'

‘No. I think you're right. That would be a bit too close to home for comfort. He would have thought, there but for the grace of God . . .'

Llewellyn nodded.

For once they were in agreement. Rafferty grinned to himself at the realization. Though he'd still like to know where that grand a month came from.

On the way to the Paxtons' home, Rafferty borrowed Llewellyn's notebook, found the telephone number of Ainsley's agent and rang it.

Gottlieb's secretary quickly put him through and after reintroducing himself and reminding him of the reason he was calling, Rafferty asked, ‘Did you know Ainsley was gay?'

Gottlieb said yes. ‘Give him his due, he told me when we first signed the contract. It wasn't a problem. He was never a painted queen. He dressed conservatively and did his best to project a macho image. He was tall and broad shouldered, which helped. I've often wondered if his inability to give more of himself when he did appearances wasn't partly down to the fact that he was gay. He was always scared someone would out him and choose one of his public appearances at which to do it. You remember there was a spate of outings of celebrities some years ago?'

‘Why didn't he come out and save himself the worry?'

‘Because he hadn't come out to himself. He hated that side of his nature and did his best to sublimate it in the image that all his photos proclaimed: that of a manly professional, who'd made his name in the most physical of sports.'

It was much the same as what Ainsley's first wife had told them. All in all, Ainsley's homosexuality seemed to have been a very well kept secret. Had someone outside the charmed circle of his agent and his ex-wives found out about it? But that wouldn't explain the thousand pounds that had found its way into Ainsley's bank account every month. The money would be going
out
of the account, not into it if Ainsley was a victim of blackmail. And if he was why was he also a murder victim? Blackmailers didn't often kill their victims. Why lose a nice little earner? It was a puzzle and he didn't like puzzles. Not ones that he seemed unable to solve, anyway. It was some consolation that his clever sergeant seemed unable to solve it, either.

Mr and Mrs Paxton were a middle-class couple in their forties and lived in some splendour in an Edwardian mansion in Chichester. Although they were perfectly polite, Rafferty sensed a reserve in the couple, as if they would prefer not to talk about their dead son and he set his secret weapon, the ever so diplomatic Llewellyn on them. Dafyd Llewellyn, unlike Rafferty, tended to think before he spoke. He chose his words with care and wouldn't offend anyone's sensibilities. But then, with his Methodist minister father's insistence on his young son accompanying him to break news of death, he'd had plenty of practice. And even though he fought shy of such situations, the Welshman had a delicate way of handling potentially awkward encounters.

Rafferty watched in admiration as the Welshman sidled up to the subject of their son's suicide and the reason for it.

‘The loss of a child is one of the worst forms of bereavement. I can't imagine how you must have felt. Still feel.'

Mrs Paxton thawed at this show of sensitivity. ‘Yes. What made it worse, was that David was an only child. I could only have the one,' she told them. ‘I was too upset to delve too deeply into the reasons for my son's suicide for some time. I didn't even read the note David left. It was still too raw, too painful. I suppose, also, that I was scared he'd blame me. I just handed it to the first policeman who showed up and left it at that. It was only later, when the worst of my grief had passed, that I started wanting to know more. To know
why
. David had everything to live for. Or so I thought. My son was bright, attractive, popular. He excelled at sports and loved his rugby. What possible reason could he have for killing himself?'

Rafferty, beyond curious, wanting some quick answers, forgot his resolve to leave the questioning to Llewellyn and interrupted to ask, ‘You mentioned his rugby. Was that how he met Adam Ainsley?'

Mrs Paxton looked sharply at him, then she admitted, ‘Yes. Yes, it was. If only he hadn't, my son would still be alive.' She cast a single, tight-lipped glance in her husband's direction, then looked down at her tautly clenched hands.

Rafferty forbore from suggesting that their gay son, in denial and vulnerable, could have suffered just as much from an association with another mature and predatory gay male. Professional sport had its share of such men – and women – as any other walk of life.

‘David hero-worshipped him. He'd followed the local rugby team from the time he was a young boy. He went to every home game. He joined the supporters' group and played for the youth team.' Mrs Paxton's lips tightened some more and her next words, when they came, were bitter. ‘He was easy prey. My son had always been a too sensitive boy. That was why my husband suggested he take up rugby again after he left school.'

‘I thought it would toughen him up,' Mr Paxton said and although he was a no-nonsense Northerner, the defensive note in his voice was evident. Rafferty guessed the question had been gone over more than once between the couple. He could imagine that Paxton would have little time for his son's sensitivity. Between his doomed first gay love affair and someone of his father's character, David Paxton must have felt he had no one to turn to. No wonder Mrs Paxton seemed to blame her husband for the boy's death.

‘Did he confide in you at all?' Llewellyn picked up the questioning again. ‘I know teenagers often find it impossible to talk to their parents about sex. It's such a difficult age. Such a difficult subject.'