Deadly Reunion (6 page)

Rafferty sat himself down at the table opposite Alice Douglas and cleared his throat. She looked up with a frown. ‘I thought you'd be outside getting some air on such a lovely day, Miss Douglas.'

‘No. I prefer the library. I always did. It's quiet and I knew I'd have the place to myself. Or I thought I would.'

He smiled. ‘Sorry to disturb your peace, but like you, I have work to do. Tell me what you remember about Adam.'

‘Adam? I really never had much to do with him. I wasn't his type.'

‘Was he yours? I gather he was popular with the school's ladies.'

She sat up straight. ‘No. Of course not. We were far apart in our outlook, interests, everything. Adam spent all his time on the sports field or in the gym, places that held little appeal for me.'

‘Always the last to be picked, were you? I was the same,' he fibbed. But his attempt at stirring a fellow feeling could have fallen on Vincent van Gogh's shell like as she copped a deaf 'un. A silence descended. Alice Douglas seemed as disinclined to talk as Sebastian Kennedy had at first been, and Rafferty couldn't help wondering whether she was just reserved, like a lot of bookish people, or whether she had something to hide.

THREE

R
afferty, although he felt a heel for doing it and leaving Abra to cope with their guests on her own, felt he had no choice but to wait for the other reunees to return for their evening meal. He had a list of those he needed to question again. He wanted to catch them before the dinner gong sounded or he'd be here half the night.

Fortunately, the reunees who had gone into town returned two by two in plenty of time for dinner and Rafferty stationed Timothy Smales at the school's main door to catch the rest as they returned and point them in his direction. Young Timmy looked dissatisfied at being given the job. Where had that wet-behind-the-ears innocent gone? Rafferty wondered. Little Timmy Smales was getting as hard-bitten as a ten-year man.

‘Into each life a little rain must fall, Timothy. It could be worse. You could work in Traffic and have a multiple pile-up to disentangle.'

‘Yes, sir,' Timothy intoned sullenly.

Rafferty grinned to himself and left him to it.

Trudy Teller proved the most informative of the reunees worth a second interview. She was as gushing in real life as she was in her statement. She was a chubby girl and unlikely to be one of Adam Ainsley's chosen conquests if she had been the same way when she was younger. This seemed to rankle a little.

‘Tell me about Adam,' Rafferty invited. ‘What was he like?'

‘God I don't know what he was like. I never had much to do with him. He was only interested in the pretty ones. Why don't you ask Sophie? She was with him all the time during that last summer.'

‘Yes, so I gather. But you must have got some impression of him. Was he studious?'

‘God no. If he could escape from the classroom he did. And he had plenty of opportunity, unlike the rest of us, being in just about every sports team the school had. Most of us had to sit of a summer's afternoon and listen to Mr Brown droning on during double bloody maths. I ask you, what's the point of algebra or geometry? I've never used either of them from that day to this.'

Neither had Rafferty. ‘Oh? And what do you do?'

‘As little as possible.' Trudy's chubby face split in a smile that revealed two rather fetching dimples. ‘I'm that rare breed, a housewife who doesn't work. I was never academic, never terribly ambitious. I left that to Alice and Vicky.'

‘Did you like Adam? As a classmate?'

‘He was all right. Could act a bit superior. Apart from that, I've nothing against him. We never palled around together. He had his own friends and I had mine.'

‘Were there any antagonisms at school?'

‘Gosh, yes. Both Giles and Sebastian, for all that they'd now protest that it wasn't true, were jealous of Adam in their own ways. Sebastian was always on the scrawny side, though the beer has helped him to fill out now he's got older, and Giles always felt he should be the most popular boy in the school. God knows why. He was always such a swot and nobody likes a swot, least of all Adam.'

‘And what about his girlfriends? Did any of them take being dumped very badly?'

Trudy nodded and leaned forward eagerly. ‘Sophie Diaz didn't take it too well. She started bad-mouthing him. Said he was a piss poor lay – and she should know, the way she put it about! Mind, he was always so full of himself, I thought she was probably right. No one as full of self-love as Adam was is likely to take the trouble to make sure the woman enjoys herself during lovemaking. From what Sophie said he was all show and nothing special between the sheets. Or the sports pavilion, which, I gather, was his preferred trysting place.'

‘What about other girl friends? Did anyone else take being dumped badly?'

‘One or two. But they're not at the reunion. Sophie's the only one of his old lays that troubled to attend.'

‘Is there anything else that you can tell us?'

‘Not that I can think of. I'll let you know if I remember anything.'

He let Trudy go. The rest were waiting in a straggly line outside the door, tutting and looking pointedly at their watches. The dinner hour was fast approaching. Rafferty let the rest go and just kept back the first four. He'd have to speak to the others after dinner.

But although their statements had looked promising of further revelations, none of the four were able to add anything significant. Or so they claimed. When the last one had gone, Rafferty turned to Llewellyn. ‘We'll find Sophie Diaz after dinner. See if she won't do a bit of bad-mouthing about Adam to us.'

‘Unlikely, I would have thought. Not now he's been murdered. It'll be how fond she was of him and how good it had been to see him again.'

‘A bit of optimism wouldn't go amiss.'

‘
Ad astra per aspera
. To the stars through difficulties. It's the Griffin School motto. It could have been written for you.'

‘I don't want to reach the stars. Only the solution to this case. But I'll try to look on the bright side, if you will.'

‘I've always found optimism an over-rated concept. Why set yourself up for a disappointment? Logic and realism have always been the precepts by which I've abided.'

‘Don't I know it. Come on. Let's go down to the dining hall. We might just be in time to beg a glass of wine.'

But it seemed that Llewellyn's stance against optimism had been right as Rafferty not only got no wine, but he got no Sophie Diaz to talk to, either. When he asked where she was, no one knew and he learned she hadn't been present at dinner.

Perhaps she'd been renewing acquaintances in the village and had received an invitation to dine. Tomorrow would have to suffice. But, for now, he wanted to get the rest of the second interviews out of the way. He was curious to discover if any of the other people on his short list would expand on what they had already said.

Of the ten witnesses left, to save them waiting in line like schoolchildren, Rafferty asked them to come up to see him at ten minute intervals. Two hours should see the job done.

It wasn't till the last witness that Rafferty learned something useful. Artemis Willoughby was rather a louche character, who sashayed into the room with the gait of a fashion model. Strangely, from the school gossip that he had already heard, Artemis wasn't gay, though he certainly gave a good impression of being so, to Rafferty's eyes. He wasn't surprised to learn that Artemis was an actor.

‘Resting.' Artemis tossed fetching golden curls. ‘Though I have hopes for the autumn. Piece of Noel Coward's.'

Artemis Willoughby was a good-looking, if fey, young man with the aforementioned curls and a stubble as fashionable as old Harold's from the pub. ‘You hinted in your previous statement about some sort of secret society at the school. Perhaps you can tell us more about it?'

‘Oh that.' Artemis shrugged. ‘Piece of nonsense. It was started by the girls as some sort of tribute to Reynold Ericson, one of our former classmates, who died during the summer holidays after the fifth form in a ghastly car accident. Funnily enough, the girls ended up being shut out of it as it became exclusively male.'

‘Were you a member?'

‘Not me. Never asked, darling. Not that I'd have joined. Reynold was a pompous prick who took on mythical status after his death. As far as I was concerned, the only difference was that he was a dead prick instead of a live one.' Artemis glanced at his watch and Rafferty took a surreptitious glance at his own. It was gone ten o'clock. Abra wouldn't invite him over to her side of the bed tonight, for sure.

‘Called themselves the Sons of Satan or some daft name like that.' Artemis went on. ‘Thought they'd be able to call back Reynold's soul. Why anyone would want to is beyond me.'

‘Who was a member of this society?'

Artemis swept his carefully styled hair off his forehead; it slid back in the perfect disarray it had been in before. ‘A select little band: Adam Ainsley, Sebastian Kennedy, Giles Harmsworth, Gary Sadiq, Noel Hayles, Freddy Jones and Charles Spence.'

Rafferty smiled. ‘What did they do? Sacrifice virgins to the Devil in return for Reynold's soul?'

Artemis shrugged. ‘Could be. I know it involved the use of the number of the Beast. Six-six-six and all that. Even managed to get the key to the chapel for their devilish ceremonies. Though they can't have been very successful, as I never saw an apparition of Reynold around the school.'

‘When would this have been? During the last summer before you left?'

‘Yes. But it started right at the beginning of term, in September. Reynold died during the summer holidays after the fifth year. I think during the six weeks' break everyone must have forgotten what an idiot he was. One of the girls painted a portrait of him and turned a corner of her bedroom into a shrine.'

‘Which girl?'

‘A girl called Annette Manners. She hasn't come to the reunion. I remember she had her nose put out of joint when the boys decided the club was to be an all-male affair and turfed her and the other girls out.'

‘Why didn't they want the girls as members?'

‘Oh, I think it was one of those macho things. Went in for ‘my dick's bigger than your dick' games. At first, that is. They only got more Devilish during that last summer term.'

‘I'm surprised at the members. Several of them don't get on any better now than they apparently did then.'

‘You mean Adam and Giles and Seb, I suppose?'

‘Mmm. I wouldn't have thought any of them would be keen to belong to a club that the others were members of.'

‘They were always in competition. I suppose they thought they might as well compete in the land of the dick and the Devil as about anything else. I'll tell you who would have won the former contest every time. Adam. He wasn't a girl magnet just because of his muscles.'

Artemis sashayed his way out a few minutes later, leaving Rafferty bemused.

‘Did you ever belong to a society dedicated to calling up the Devil?' he asked Llewellyn, who had also gone to a fee-paying school, though one lower down the social and educational pecking order than Griffin.

‘No.'

‘Nor me. Must be an upper class thing. All those classics lessons and myths about snake-headed monsters and the like must have turned their pubescent brains.' He stood up and stretched. ‘Time we turned
our
brains for home. Not to mention the rest of us. Abra'll be spitting fire. I bet Cyrus has been holding forth again about modern youth and how much they need religion. Abra's inclined to take it personally.'

‘What about writing up the reports? We should do it tonight.'

‘Don't be my conscience, Daff. I've a perfectly good one of my own. Tomorrow morning will do. As long as we beat Long Pockets in by an hour, he won't be any the wiser about our backsliding. And at the speed you type, you'll get them done in no time.'

‘Even so—' Llewellyn began.

‘Even so, nothing. At the moment, I'm more concerned with placating my lovely bride than I am in placating Bradley. At least he's not likely to withhold his favours as I never had them in the first place.'

When Rafferty got home Cyrus told him that Abra had gone to bed with a headache. ‘I took her a cup of tea up. That should help.'

Rafferty just managed a taut smile and a ‘thank you'. Poor Abra. Not only had she to deal with their four visitors alone, but Cyrus had forced more tea on her. You're going to cop it, Rafferty told himself as he said good night and headed upstairs.

But thankfully, whether or not her sick headache was real, Abra had gone to sleep. He crept about the bedroom, fearful of waking her. He'd have to get up extra early in the morning in order to beat Cyrus to the kitchen. It was too much to expect Abra to put up with Cyrus's morning tea two days running.

The next day was even busier as their interviewees were further afield. They had yet to interview Ainsley's ex-wives. They lived on different sides of the country and Rafferty had already decided to split his forces. He sent Llewellyn and Mary Carmody to see the first wife and he took the second, on the principle that the more recent wife would be likely to bring forth more of a bitter tirade and Llewellyn could be a delicate flower about such things.

Ainsley's second ex-wife, Stella, lived in Somerset. He set off at nine, once Llewellyn had finished typing up the previous evening's interviews and he had seen Bradley to give him his report on the investigation thus far.