Absolute Poison (20 page)

“I was bumming around the continent at the time, France, Italy, places like that, and met Robert Aimhurst there. He was doing some kind of grand tour and his car had broken down. I fixed it for him. I've always been handy that way.” He paused. “I guess he took a kinda shine to me. Told me to look him up if I was ever in this neck of the woods. Well, I was down on my luck—this was before I made my pile—so I did. That would be back in ‘67, or thereabouts. Anyway, I've been here ever since. At first, I used to chauffeur him around in that fancy Roller of his and then I guess I graduated to other jobs.” He grinned. “As Robert Aimhurst's son, Gareth was more interested in spending the firm's money than in earning it, I ended up running the office.” His grin abruptly faded. “Till the takeover, anyway.”

Rafferty nodded. He had decided to keep up his sleeve the fact that Amy Glossop had told them exactly what Barstaple had said—that he knew something about Gallagher that the American didn't want to get out. Time enough to face him with it if, when once he'd finally got around to contacting them, the FBI came back to him with something definite.

As he and Llewellyn made their goodbyes and walked out to the car, he remarked reluctantly, “I want Hal Gallagher checked out. I should have done it before, I know, but what with one thing and another…” He trailed off before he found himself confiding the iffy suit problem to Llewellyn.

When he spoke again, his voice was firmer. “That story of his about bumming round the continent struck a false note. He doesn't seem the type for doing such a thing. And as for that chauffering job, even when he was younger, I'd have thought Gallagher would have had enough get-up-and-go to fix himself up with something more challenging. Makes you wonder why he didn't.”

He cocked an eyebrow at the Welshman as the lights of the police station appeared ahead of them. “Maybe there was some reason he didn't want to return to the States. Perhaps he got into some kind of trouble over there that made it too hot for him to return and he charmed old man Aimhurst into giving him a job. From that it wouldn't be too difficult to talk himself into an office job. It's not as if Robert Aimhurst's son sounds like management material. It might be worth investigating if Gallagher had a criminal record in the States.”

Rafferty paused, then went on brightly, in an attempt to take his mind off other aspects of Llewellyn's wedding. “You know, we haven't sorted out where we're going on your stag night yet. Got any ideas?”

“I have no intention of having a stag night,” Llewellyn told him firmly. “I know what goes on at these events. They always seem to end with the poor bridegroom tied naked to a lamp-post with a bright ribbon tied to a certain part of his anatomy.”

“Not always. Anyway, I'll be there-”

Llewellyn blinked. “Is that meant to reassure me? Anyway,” he went on. “If we fail to bring this case to a conclusion in time, Maureen and I may have to postpone the wedding.”

For one blissful moment, Rafferty felt a surge of hope. That could be the answer to his prayers. Maybe all he needed was more time to come up with a workable scheme to get rid of the suit.

Unfortunately, the surging hope died a quick death as blunt reality hit it over the head. Any delay was unlikely to be for more than a few weeks; and the way his mind was struggling with the iffy suit problem, two years would be insufficient for him to come up with a solution. And if the wedding was delayed, ma would be sure to blame him for not solving the murder in time. Delay would give him more problems, not less, he realized.

Rafferty bit back another sigh and checked his watch as Llewellyn went through the pernickety toing and froing he called his parking manoeuvres. “Well, if you're not going to let me get drunk at your expense, I'll be glad if you'd at least let me get out of the car. I'd like to get home before daybreak.”

Llewellyn braked as requested and Rafferty got out. He stuck his head back in the open door and said, “And if you ever get this car and the white lines aligned to your satisfaction, once you've got that request for information off to the States, you can call it a day as well.”

He slammed the door and decided to leave the latest reports till the next morning. He didn't feel up to them now. What he was looking forward to was a long, hot soak in an attempt to get the aches out of his bones. He hoped, too, that a large, hot toddy would provide his throbbing head with the wit to come up with answers to all his current problems. He wasn't optimistic. He had more chance of changing Llewellyn's mind about a stag do.

As
it happened, he wasn't destined to enjoy either hot bath or hot toddy. He'd just closed his front door behind him and was loosening his tie preparatory to enjoying both when the phone rang. Now what? he thought, as reluctantly he answered it.

Five minutes later, shocked, he replaced the receiver. Then immediately snatched it up again and dialled the station. As he had expected, Llewellyn was still there.

“Dafyd? I've just had Gerry Nunn on the phone.” Gerry Nunn was a sergeant on the uniformed side. “Amy Glossop's dead. Murdered, Gerry reckons. We'd better get round there.”

“I warned
her to be careful,” Rafferty bit out. As he stood outside Amy Glossop's tiny lavatory and stared down at her body, he was eaten up by the guilty conviction that his warning could have been—should have been—more forceful.

Even to his own ears he sounded defensive. Although nobody had accused him of anything, they didn't need to; his overworked, lapsed Catholic conscience provided recrimination enough. Perhaps, if he'd liked Amy Glossop better, he'd have taken more trouble to make her see that secrets could be dangerous.

But he hadn't liked her. And although part of him had pitied her, it hadn't been enough. And now she was dead. Her death a carbon copy of Clive Barstaple's in its ugliness and degradation. And whatever secrets she had were now out of his reach forever. He supposed it served him right.

He withdrew into the hall, not entirely sure whether the movement was prompted by the overpowering stink of vomit and worse in the enclosed space, or whether, subconsciously, by putting a distance between himself and the corpse, he hoped he would also be able to distance himself from the guilt.

It didn't work, of course. Because this was one death he might have prevented; one death he could have prevented if only he'd taken the trouble. The thought was as bitter as wormwood. Heavyfooted, he walked into the living room. Gerry Nunn followed him.

“You said a worried work colleague of the dead woman rang the station?” Rafferty questioned when he had his emotions and his nausea both under some semblance of control.

Nunn nodded. “She tried to contact Ms Glossop earlier apparently, but her phone was permanently engaged—off the hook, the operator confirmed. Such behaviour was out of character and her workmate decided to investigate further.”

Rafferty interrupted. “What's the name of this workmate?”

Gerry Nunn riffled through his notebook. “A Mrs Steadman. A Mrs Marian Steadman.”

Rafferty nodded. Marian Steadman was the sort of woman to concern herself with life's waifs and strays even when the waif was as unpopular as Amy Glossop. Briefly, he wondered why she hadn't mentioned her concern when he'd seen her earlier. But it didn't take much figuring out. Marian Steadman had already made it clear that Amy Glossop must have known her chances of continuing employment at Aimhurst were slim. Maybe she'd concluded that Amy had murdered Barstaple and had done a bunk. Knowing Marian Steadman, she'd have thought Amy Glossop deserved a chance to get away before the hounds were set on her.

“Mrs Steadman came round half-an-hour ago,” Nunn continued, “and found the milk still on the doorstep. She knocked, but could get no reply. She looked through the letterbox and Ms Glossop's usual coat was hanging in the hall. The neighbours could tell her nothing. That's when she called the station. We sent a couple of our uniformed blokes round and they broke in. You saw what they found.”

Rafferty nodded again. He remembered that Marian Steadman had been the only one of Aimhurst's staff to make any attempt to understand why Amy Glossop had behaved as she did. Certainly, no one else had a good word to say for her, himself included. Now it seemed likely that she had been killed by one of her colleagues.

But, as he recalled the bleak future that had undoubtedly awaited her, he couldn't entirely discount the possibility that she had killed herself. If she had discovered that Barstaple had deceived her about her job security and that she would have to have her awful mother back home to live with her, it might be enough to drive her to take her own life. Now he asked, “What do you think to the possibility it was suicide?”

Gerry Nunn shook his head. “No way. For one thing there was no note. I know that means nothing,” he added, “but I can't believe anyone in their right mind would choose to die like that. Would you?”

Rafferty shook his head. “Not me. Far too squeamish. I'd want something painless to see me off.” Gerry was right, he acknowledged. No one in their right mind would choose to die in such an appalling manner. And whatever Barstaple's and Amy Glossop's individual faults, no one had cast doubt on their sanity. If Amy Glossop felt she had reason to kill herself she'd surely have chosen a gentler method.

Sensing someone behind him, Rafferty turned. Llewellyn had arrived and Sam Dally was hard on his heels.

Sam didn't take long to reveal his conclusions; they were the same as Rafferty's. “I hate to say it, but this death reminds me too strongly of the Barstaple murder for it not to have the same cause—though I'll thank you not to quote me on that till I've done the post-mortem,” he told Rafferty.

Rafferty realized with a shock of horror that they had started back at one again on the corpse tally. He stifled a groan and muttered under his breath, “Hope this tally doesn't climb to three, too.” Louder, he said again, “I warned her,” as if he hoped the repetition would help purge his guilt. He appealed to Llewellyn. “You heard me. You heard me warn her to tell us if she knew anything more.”

Llewellyn's serious brown eyes stared pityingly at him for a few moments, then he said, “You're convinced she was murdered, then?”

“I reckon so. Don't you?”

Llewellyn raised his shoulders and let them drop before repeating the murder and suicide possibility that Rafferty had already considered and rejected.

Rafferty shook his head. “I don't buy it for two reasons. One, why would she choose this method of killing herself? Especially when she was aware of what
carbohydrate andromedotoxin
does to the human body. If what you say was true, she'd have already discovered that she and Barstaple weren't the soul mates she had thought, so would hardly seek to share his pain in death. And two—I can't believe she would be able to hide her guilt over something like murder. You met her. Amy Glossop's face was too revealing of her feelings for her to be able to hide something like that.”

Llewellyn still didn't appear wholly convinced that Amy Glossop had been murdered, but he dropped the subject. “It's a pity we haven't been able to find that report Barstaple was working on. It would help if we could confirm who was in line for rationalization.”

“I don't think we need the report to figure that one out, do you? The whole lot of them, apart from the Luscious Linda, would have been for the high jump. Stands to reason.”

Still, Rafferty would have liked sight of the report just to confirm it. The rationalization report wasn't in Barstaple's home, it wasn't in his office. It seemed to have vanished along with his lap-top. If Barstaple had been working on it on his lap-top in his office on the evening he died, the only people who would have had the opportunity to take the computer and any print-out would have been Ada Collins, Eric Penn, Mrs Chakraburty or Albert Smith. Yet why would any of them bother? None of them had any reason to fear the rationalization report or its contents.

Rafferty rubbed his throbbing forehead. None of it made sense. If only he could think straight. But his mind just seemed to bounce around between its assortment of worries and guilty feelings—the iffy suit…Bradley…Amy Glossop.

He sighed and took several calming breaths in an attempt to slow the whirligig of thoughts. Snatching one of them at random, he said, “I'll need to speak to Marian Steadman. Where is she?”

“I let her go home,” Nunn told him. “But she said she'd be there the rest of the evening. You've got her address?”

Rafferty started to nod and then realized he hadn't. He'd never been to her home. He realized also that he had got too used to relying on Llewellyn's efficient paperwork to have troubled his head with such details.

Fortunately, Llewellyn broke in and saved him the trouble of admitting it. “She doesn't live far. We might as well leave the car here, sir.”

Rafferty nodded agreement and they set off, leaving Gerry Nunn and the just-arrived scene of crime team to deal with the grisly aftermath of death. Rafferty lagged one careful half-step behind Llewellyn all the way to Marian Steadman's home, so the Welshman would unknowingly guide him. Leading from behind, he believed it was called. Maybe Clive Barstaple should have tried it.

Understandably,
Marian Steadman looked pale and shaky, but she managed a brief smile of welcome and led them into a living room attractively decorated in warm rusts and yellows. As they settled on the plumply-cushioned sofas, she shook her head. “Poor Amy. An unhappy life and a miserable death. Strange how some people seemed peculiarly cursed by the fates.”