That was true, Rafferty acknowledged. Why hadn't it occurred to him that his conscience would have given him no peace till he had given himself up? Llewellyn's words were a great comfort after all the self-torture and doubts. Relieved, Rafferty slumped back in his seat. ‘Anyway, now you know I'm innocent-’
‘I didn't say you were innocent,’ Llewellyn broke in. ‘Far from it, from what you've just told me. I only meant you're innocent of murder at least.’
‘Whatever.’ Rafferty wasn't interested in swapping pedantic semantics with Llewellyn. He knew he'd lose. ‘So I can take it, that being the case, that you won't shop me?’
Llewellyn raised perfectly arched eyebrows. ‘Is that what you think of me?’
Rafferty didn't answer. What could he say? That, yes, he did believe the high-minded, high moral-ground Llewellyn capable of shopping him to Superintendent Bradley? Now was not the time for games of truth or dare. He was just relieved Llewellyn was going to keep his secret. At least, that was what he'd thought Llewellyn had said. But Llewellyn's next words made clear he'd got hold of the wrong idea entirely.
‘No. I won't shop you, as you call it. Because you're going to go to Superintendent Bradley yourself and tell him what you've told me.’
Rafferty's jaw dropped. ‘Am I hell as like. No way,’ he insisted when he'd got over the shock. ‘Confess all that to Bradley? I'd rather be arrested, tried and banged-up.’
‘It might yet come to that, of course. But you're going to have to come off the Lonely Hearts case in any event.’
‘I'm buggered if I will! I'm committed to this case. And now that I've finally got some leads-‘
‘Leads? What leads?’
Rafferty, intent on arguing his case, waved aside Llewellyn's question. ’We both know what would happen if I do as you suggest. Bradley'll suspend me. After he's thrown the book at me, that is. Or he would, if I told him. Which I'm not going to do.’
Llewellyn's dark eyes regarded him steadily till Rafferty sighed and he asked plaintively, ‘Am I?’
By
a rare piece of luck, when Rafferty did go to see Bradley, his secretary told him the superintendent had that morning gone off to attend a management conference to learn advanced techniques in covering his own arse. Only she had used the official title: Management And The Art of Intelligent Delegation.
Briefly, he flirted with the idea of forgetting all about reporting his misdeeds, but as he'd primed himself up to ‘tell all’, he had to tell somebody.So Rafferty gladly by-passed Bradley and went above his head to the Deputy Assistant Chief Constable, Jack Mulcahy.
Mulcahy had a well-earned reputation for being a bit of a bad lad in his younger days. He certainly wasn't one of the politically-correct brigade for which Rafferty was thankful. He was thankful also that Jack Mulcahy had risen so high in spite of blotting his copy-book a few times. It would, Rafferty believed as he was shown into Mulcahy's plush office, make him more understanding of the follies of others. Or so he hoped.
‘You're
a bloody idiot, Rafferty,’ Mulcahy told him, when he'd stumbled his way to the end. ‘What are you?’
‘A bloody idiot, sir,’ Rafferty repeated obediently.
‘You're a grown man or supposed to be. Why didn't you just tell your mother to keep her nose out of your business?’
Mulcahy was a man reputed to never let anyone get the upper hand; certainly not his mother. From the iron-grey filings of his hair, to his pugnacious jaw-line, he had the kind of face that terrified ne'er-do-wells and made the police PR team despair.
Rafferty hated to think he was being marked down in Mulcahy's eyes. He protested as vehemently as he dared, ‘I do tell her, sir. She just doesn't take any notice.’
‘Get yourself another wife, Rafferty, one capable of keeping your mother in line. Or put in for a transfer to another part of the country.’
‘Getting another wife was why I joined the dating agency in the first place, sir,’ Rafferty quietly reminded him. ‘Look where that's landed me. And as for moving away, knowing Ma, she'd up sticks and follow me.’
Mulcahy raised bristling eyebrows. ‘Stalker, is she, your mother?’
Rafferty smiled. ‘No, not really. It just feels like it sometimes.’
Mulcahy stared pityingly at him before he said briskly, ‘Right, here's what we're going to do about all this.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rafferty pulled
the door of Mulcahy's office to behind him with a gentle click. He wanted to whoop out loud, but restrained himself. Mulcahy had decided to do very little. Keen to hush up Rafferty's folly, he had even opted to keep him in charge of the Lonely Hearts investigation.
‘It gives you an advantage,’ the pragmatic Mulcahy had told him. ‘It's seldom we get one of those. Use it.’ He had even come down firmly against telling Bradley about their conversation.
Rafferty could scarcely believe his luck. He raised his eyes ceiling-ward and said a heartfelt, ‘Thank you, God.’
Things
at last seemed to be going his way. Because when Rafferty returned to his office and tried Lancelot Bliss again, the doctor answered on the first ring. And after Rafferty had explained what he wanted to know, Bliss proved as generous as ever with information.
‘Got a flat in the town centre. Why do you ask?’
‘Let's just say your comment set me thinking. Well, that and a little bird.’
‘What little bird's that, Inspector? Not a nice little uniformed one? I'm partial to a uniform myself. If she's got a friend-‘
‘Not that kind of bird,’ Rafferty told him before he said goodbye and put the phone down.
He finally believed he was getting to the crux of the case. After all the lies, complications and evasions he was convinced he was almost there and that the difficulties were behind him. He had the dots. It was just a matter of joining the last of them to the rest. For the first time since the case had begun, he was feeling confident, in control, on top of things. That was why the second phone call was such a shock. It came out of the blue. The first one, of course, he'd been expecting – and dreading - for days.
Nigel had rung Kylie Smith and discovered his alibis were now useless. When Rafferty had finally managed to get him to stop ranting and raving, Nigel had admitted he hadn't been with either woman at the relevant times. He'd actually been sleeping with his boss's wife – something he'd been understandably keen to keep quiet, which was why Kylie and Kayleigh had obliged him with alibis. They had at first thought it a bit of a laugh, but that attitude hadn't outlived Smale's letting of the cat and her entire litter out of the bag. Unfortunately, Nigel confided, from an alibi point of view, his boss's wife was proving obstinate.
‘Selfish bitch won't say a word to get me out from under,’ Nigel had bitterly complained. ‘I wouldn't mind so much, but she admitted she'd never had such a good time between the sheets. I won't be supplying her with multiple orgasms again in a hurry, I can tell you.’
It was a pity about the alibi. Rafferty suspected Nigel thought so, too, especially since it meant his prowess between the sheets wouldn't get the airing he seemed to think it deserved. But he had managed to put Nigel off from going to see the brass till the following morning. He still had hopes of appeasing him.
No, it was the second phone call that had really worried him. He had been in his office, quietly thinking through his next move on the Nigel front, when in a few words, all his plans, all his expectations, had been destroyed. He knew he had to face what he had feared all along - exposure. Having to prove he wasn't a murderer. Unfortunately, that was the one thing he couldn't prove. As Llewellyn had said - how could one prove a negative?
‘Inspector.
How strange you should answer Nigel Blythe's mobile.’
Briefly, Rafferty had been so taken-aback that he could find nothing to say. His quick glance at the back of the mobile had confirmed his error. Sure enough, there was the mobile number that Nigel had stuck on it. His hoarding instinct hadn't allowed him to dispose of it. He'd kept it at home, but somehow,between all the sleepless nights, the worry, the drinking, he'd rushed out that morning, late as usual, and managed to snatch up the wrong mobile.
As he put the phone back to his ear he was in time to hear Caroline Cranston say, ‘Though now I think about it, it makes sense. I certainly wondered at the coincidence when two young women died shortly after you joined the agency. In fact, there are several things about you that I find rather worrying. Perhaps we should meet and you can set my mind at rest? I'm sure there must be simple explanations to the things that have been puzzling me. But if not, I suppose I can always go to see your Superintendent.’
Rafferty wanted to avoid that at all costs because even though he had been to see Mulcahy, confessed all, and been told to forget it, Mulcahy had also bluntly told him that if his involvement was revealed from another source there was no way he could expect similar protection. That – and Nigel's threat, had proved sufficient spur for him to agree to meet Caroline. Not to mention the hope he still nurtured that he might yet salvage something from the mess.
Maybe, now she had learned his secret, Caroline would be persuaded to reveal a few of her own. He hoped – well, he wasn't sure exactly what he was hoping for, but he tooled himself up with a mike and recorder just the same. Rafferty didn't know how he'd persuade her to talk – he has no clear proof. All he had was a series of coincidences, some odd facts and his old friend, gut instinct, but he had a strong feeling that this meeting might be his one chance to save himself, completely exonerate his cousin and trap the murderer of two beautiful young women. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Conscious that he was five minutes’ too late in so doing, he switched off Nigel's mobile. Then, slowly, he rose and went out to meet Caroline Cranston.
Rafferty
drew up at the Cranston's gates, got out and pressed the intercom to identity himself. The gates swept back with barely a sound.
Caroline came out through the front door before he had a chance to drive his vehicle through the hedge to the side car park. She waved him down and told him, ‘Leave your car here, Inspector. Guy's away in London, so he can't object.’
Rafferty did as instructed and was about to head for the still open front door when Caroline again stopped him.
‘Let's go for a walk in the grounds. I've always liked walking at night.’
Rafferty fell in beside her. The grounds were extensive. Soon, they had breasted a small rise and left the house and its welcoming lights behind.
The April night was black as Satan's soul, the moon and stars hidden behind a deep bank of rain-clouds. Caroline didn't stumble once. Sure-footedly, she led Rafferty to a small glade behind the trees and stopped.
Dead autumn leaves were still on the ground. Rafferty kicked at a pile and uncovered a dead animal. It was small and too far gone in decay to tell what kind of creature it had once been. He shuddered, and moved away.
Suddenly, he felt the cold clammy hand of fear clutch his heart. Was this how Estelle had felt? He wondered, when she realized all her hopes and dreams were about to end? Jenny too, had met death all unready for it.
Rafferty told himself he was being foolish; the clutch of the clammy hand was probably no more than a throwback to his childhood when he'd had a fear of the dark. He'd forgotten how densely black a moonless country night could be; easy to understand why he and countless superstitious generations before him shared such an atavistic emotion. God knew he had plenty of things to fear tonight; like the loss of his career and his freedom. He didn't think losing his life was likely to be numbered amongst them.
That was why it came as such a shock when he saw the gun appear in Caroline's hand. Noticed how steadily she held it. Now he understood why some primitive bodily instinct had warned him he had reason to be afraid. It wasn't much consolation to know he had been right in his conviction that Caroline Cranston was the double murderer.
‘So,
Inspector – or should I call you Mr Blythe?’
Her words brought back clearly to Rafferty his early conviction that Caroline Cranston was the one most likely to see through his disguise. But in true Libran style he'd chosen to bury the anxiety. Now, too late, he realized she had known from the start that he wasn't Nigel Blythe. Unfortunately, he thought he understood her motives for keeping his secret. He wished he didn't. It was a suspicion she confirmed when he asked her if she had known.
‘I have a very good eye for faces,’ she told him. ‘It was clear to me when I looked at the photograph on your driving license that you weren't the real Nigel Blythe. Whoever he is, he has a certain style that you lack.’ Mockingly, she added, ‘I imagine his suits fit him rather better, too.’
‘So why-?’
‘Why didn't I say so at once and put an end to your foolish charade? Surely you've worked that out by now?’
Rafferty suspected he had, but he let her explain anyway.
‘You suited my requirements perfectly. I knew immediately I would be able to make use of you. I'd been planning it all for some time, you see. And when I discovered you were a policeman it fitted my plans even better. It gave you so much more to lose. You really have told an awful lot of lies, haven't you, Inspector? Do you think anyone will believe you didn't commit suicide when you knew you were about to be exposed as a double murderer?’