Kith and Kill (2 page)

‘It's much the same when you're my age.’

‘Oh, sixty-six is nothing these days. By now it's probably the new thirty, as those ridiculous women's magazines have it.’

‘I wish my body felt like it was thirty.’

‘Wait till you get to ninety, then you'll know all about bodies. Now, what's for lunch?’

Detective
Inspector Joseph Rafferty stretched languorously before the living room fire, looked through the upmarket gift catalogue that his sister Maggie had given him and tried to put his mind to coming up with some ideas as to what they could buy his ma for the triple celebration: it would have been his late and favourite gran's ninetieth birthday and was the thirtieth anniversary of his father's death as well as what would have been his seventieth birthday. Strange to die on your birthday. His father had died because he'd celebrated too well the night before his birthday and had got careless on the scaffolding on the actual day. But at least he was in good company. Wasn't it Shakespeare who had died on his birthday? Llewellyn would know.

He lifted his glass and took a contemplative sip of his Jameson's whiskey. He still wasn't sure they should even be buying Ma anything for this triple whammy occasion. He thought it morbid. It seemed strange to be celebrating their long-dead father's birth and death day and even stranger to be buying
Ma
a present for it. It was his sisters’ idea of course, and one he'd been reluctantly talked into. Rafferty's father had died when he was twelve. At least he'd thought he was twelve when his Da had died, but his sister, Maggie had gainsaid him.

‘It can't be the thirtieth anniversary of Dad's death,’ he'd protested. ‘Because I was twelve when he died.’

‘No you weren't. You were eleven. Just turned eleven, at that. I remember,’ said Maggie, ‘you had this desire to be twelve when you'd just turned eleven. You thought twelve was the golden age to be. Ma encouraged you, always saying you were in your twelfth year. Do you not remember?’

‘All I remember is wanting to be older. Old enough to be the man of the house after Dad died and twelve had a nice ring to it.’

‘Well, you weren't twelve, you were eleven. And Dad's been dead thirty years this November.’

Rafferty sighed and his gaze returned to the catalogue. He couldn't recall noting the anniversary in the past; not the tenth one or the twentieth. What was so special about the thirtieth one, anyway? It struck him as an odd thing to celebrate. And he wasn't exactly one for doing the ‘done’ thing, but he secretly rather wondered if this wasn't a bit
infra-dig
, as his sergeant, Dafyd Llewellyn, might say.

And what the hell were they supposed to give her? A fishing rod? A silver beer tankard? Part shares in a fancy woman? Was he supposed to buy her gold jewellery for herself? Or perhaps a gold bricklayer's trowel? God knew she had everything else she wanted. Was there even a precedent for this sort of thing that they could follow?

Rafferty leaned back against the settee and stared into the fire for inspiration. Not finding any, he turned to his wife, Abra, beside him on the still good-looking leather settee that they'd bought shortly before their June wedding, and mentioned his difficulty.

‘A gold trowel? Are you mad?’ Abra looked at him in astonishment. ‘What on earth would your mother want with a gold trowel? Never mind the likely cost, with gold being the price it is.’ She stretched out a hand and said, ‘let me have a look at that catalogue.’

Rafferty handed it to her with the hope that she would soon be taking charge of the present-buying in its entirety. The family had decided to club together to get ma's present; that way, they could buy her something decent. His sister, Maggie, had passed the upmarket catalogue to him, presumably in the hope that he would take over the gift choosing. If Abra didn't take it up, the baton would be passed back to his sister with expedition.

Soon the room echoed to squeals of, ‘Ooh. I like that,’ and, ‘that would suit me’ and ‘Wow, that is so me.’ that Rafferty, keen to preserve his financial probity, snatched the book back.

‘This isn't supposed to be about you, my sweet.’

‘I know. More's the pity.’ Abra had turned down the corners of several pages and she drew his attention to them. ‘You might bear these in mind for my Christmas presents.’

‘What? All of them?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Get your hand off my wallet, woman and take another look through. For ma this time.’

Abra sighed and reached for the catalogue. She riffled swiftly through the pages and stabbed various articles with her nail. ‘Your ma would like this,’ a chunky gold necklace with a matching, chunky price tag. Another chunky ditto and a diamond ring the equal of anything Burton had given Elizabeth Taylor. ‘She likes her jewellery heavy.’

‘She does?’

‘God, Joe, for a policeman, you're terribly unobservant. I don't know how you managed to get to the rank of inspector.’

Neither did Rafferty. He lacked the academic intelligence that seemed to be all the rage in the modern police service. Luckily, he seemed to have other talents just as useful to a cop – like actually being able to nick villains. But mad extravagance wasn't one of his attributes. ‘I'm sure ma would be just as happy with something less ostentatious. I thought you women were supposed to dress more discreetly as you got older.’

‘Huh. And I bet it was a man who said it. Sod discretion. Grow old disgracefully, that's what I say and I'm sure your mother would agree with me. Besides, think of the swanking she can do to the neighbours. You only have a seventieth birthday once and seeing as he died on his birthday, it's a double celebration of his life. And even if your Dad's not here to celebrate it, if we're doing it, we should do it in style.’

Rafferty sighed once more, drained his whiskey and leaned over. ‘How much was that necklace again?’

‘She's dead.
My lady's dead.’ Dahlia Sullivan, Sophia Egerton's aged housekeeper, stumbled into the kitchen, where the rest of the family sat around the table eating breakfast.

Eric Chambers carefully replaced his coffee cup in its saucer before he stood up. ‘Dead? You're sure?’

‘Of course I'm sure,’ the housekeeper snapped, her tone sharp and only just this side of what was permissible in an old family retainer. Dahlia had been with Sophia for years, and gradually, over the years, the friendship had strengthened.. Both women were failed actresses. Dahlia had come to work for Sophia as a temporary measure between acting jobs. That had been half a century ago. There had been no more acting jobs. Not for Dahlia, anyway, though Sophia's rich and indulgent husband had been happy to provide the financial backing necessary for vehicles for his wife until she had chosen to turn her energetic attentions to his failing fashion business.

Adam Chambers, Eric's twin, also stood up. ‘I must go to her.’

‘No, you mustn't’ Dahlia contradicted. ‘Besides, I've locked her bedroom door.’ Pensively, she added. ‘I think someone should call the police.’

They all stared at her: the twins, their elder sister, Caroline Templeton, Sophia's sister, Alice Pickford and Sophia's daughter, Penelope Heath.

Alice piped up in her querulous voice, it's tone a little higher than usual. ‘Call the police? And get all our names in the newspaper? Surely not?’

Eventually, Penelope regained her voice and said what they were all thinking. ‘Mother's clearly just died in her sleep. She
was
ninety. A wonderful age. It's the most natural thing in the world that she should die now that the excitement of her birthday is over.’ Penelope pulled out her mobile. ‘I'll ring mother's GP and then I'll go up and see her. After that, I suppose I ought to ring one of the local funeral homes. I wonder if mother had a preference. She never said.’

‘You're not listening,’ Dahlia said, her voice strained. ‘I said someone should call the police and the police is what I meant. Your mother didn't die a natural death.’

Alice let out a shaky laugh. ‘Don't be absurd, Dahlia. I thought your days of being a drama queen were behind you. When you say to call the police you really can't have given any thought to what a catastrophe you'll be bringing down on the family's heads. Do you want us all with our faces in the newspapers?’

‘Auntie's right,’ said Penelope. ‘Of course mother died a natural death. You're being melodramatic. Please stop. You're upsetting the boys. You know how fond they were of their grandmother.’

The ‘boys’ were all of thirty and neither looked about to burst into tears at the news. In fact, they seemed to be staring into the distance, perhaps already seeing pound signs and wondering how much the old woman had left them.

‘If you won't ring the police, I will.’ Dahlia, turned about and marched into the back hall. A few moments later they heard her voice demanding to be put through to the police.

The family just sat and looked at one another, Alice's fingers occupied in crumbling her toast. The twins no longer seemed to be calculating pound signs. Instead, they stared round the table, as if calculating probable alibis.

Dahlia Sullivan returned some minutes later. ‘They're coming,’ she said.

Strangely, no one questioned her as to why she was so insistent that Sophia Egerton had been murdered. But then, she knew them all so well…

Detective
Inspector Joseph Rafferty, dragged from a sound sleep to take over the investigation on a day he had elected to give himself a late start, had decided to use the study of the Egerton's late patriarch, Thomas Egerton, for the interviews. Dahlia Sullivan, the housekeeper, had told them it was a room that was seldom used any more, so they could call it theirs for as long as necessary.

Rafferty sat in the high-backed maroon leather chair behind the imposing mahogany desk and surveyed his temporary domain with satisfaction. ‘The family's clearly not short of a bob or two,’ he said to Sergeant Dafyd Llewellyn. ‘According to the housekeeper, this house belonged to the victim. Reckon one of them bumped the old lady off for her money?’

‘We don't know yet that she was “bumped off”, as you so delicately put it,’ Llewellyn, always keen on working from the basis of fact, reminded him. ‘She might just have died in her sleep as her family seem to think.’

‘Nah.’ Rafferty liked facts well enough, but he liked his theories, too. And this situation seemed ripe for another one. ‘Look at the facts we do know: rich old lady, in apparent good health, dies suddenly in her bed. Rapacious family all in the house eager for some ill-gotten gains and–’

‘Another little problem with your facts in that we know nothing about the family yet. What makes you say that they're rapacious?’

‘Come on, Dafyd. Loosen up a bit and let your imagination flow. Not that it needs much of it here. As I said, Sophia Egerton was a rich old lady, with a beautiful Georgian house that must be worth a packet and a successful business that must be worth ditto. A business moreover,’ Rafferty was proud of that moreover, ‘of which she still had a firm hold. Made the family toe the line and all that. She was ripe for plucking, I reckon.’

‘Maybe Dr Dally will disagree with you.’

‘When he gets here. He's taking his own sweet time, as usual. By God, his name's not a misnomer. To think he's even got his own song. What was it? I know.’ Rafferty broke into song. ‘“My old man said follow the van and don't dilly dally on the way”.’

Llewellyn's ear cocked and not to better enjoy his boss's dulcet baritone. ‘I think I hear Dr Dally arriving now.’ He got up. ‘I'll go and escort him upstairs.’

‘You sound like his jailer.’ Reluctantly, Rafferty rose from his throne. ‘Come on, then. Let's get Dally's facts and then I can really go to town on theorizing.’

Dr
Sam Dally rubbed his fleshy chin and observed, ‘Suffocation, I believe.’ He lifted up one of Sophia Egerton's eyelids. ‘See the petechiae in the eyes? That's tiny ruptured blood vessels, to you, Rafferty.’

Rafferty nodded. ‘I know what petechiae are, even if I can't spell ‘em. I can even recognize a stiff when I see one. Gold star called for. Someone was intent on making sure the old lady didn't get to celebrate her 91
st
birthday, that's for sure Sad. Aint family love a wonderful thing?’

‘Definitely one of the family?’ asked Dally.

‘Apart from the housekeeper and her husband, they were the only ones in the house.’

‘What? No friends? For a ninetieth birthday?’

‘Seems not. Apparently the old lady didn't want a fuss. Didn't even want a party until her grandsons just went ahead and organized it. Said she'd had too many birthdays. Seems one of her relatives agreed with her. Awful to outlive the love.’

Sam packed the tools of his trade away. ‘Got any theories yet?’

Rafferty smiled. ‘Well, now that you mention it. As you say, death by chocolate, it aint. One of her ever-loving did it. The only question is which of them? You got any theories on that score, Sam?’

The rotund Scot shook his head. ‘Not me. I steer well clear of theories. And the weeping and wailing. Just give me a nice, cold, corpse and I'm happy.’

‘You're all heart.’

‘I'd rather have it than your job, Rafferty.’ Sam walked to the door, stripping off his protective clothing as he went. He handed the white gear to Rafferty, said, ‘Get rid of that,’ and snapped his bag shut. ‘Grieving relatives –well, some of them, anyway –and Superintendent Bradley. Unhappy combination.’