Death Dance (23 page)

Nigel lost interest in the subject, lounged back on Rafferty’s settee, turned to Llewellyn and asked, ‘So where are the dancing girls, then, Dafyd?’

‘Dancing girls?’ Llewellyn’s Puritan lips pursed. ‘There are no dancing girls.’

‘I thought there wouldn’t be.’ Nigel grinned, revealing his expensively capped American teeth — image was all with Nigel.

Rafferty shuddered at the thought of how much they must have cost. Because Nigel despised British dentists. He’d taken himself off on a trip to California and got them done there, bemoaning the drop off in trade in the property business and his profit even as he booked the flights and the four star accommodation at the Beverly Wilshire.

‘Just as well I ordered some entertainment. Should be here soon.’

Rafferty brightened, even as he wondered if his cousin had a previously unknown skill as a seer to know to tell the girl to come to
his
flat. Or if he’d’ just used his usual mist and mirrors manipulation to get Rafferty to fall into line. ‘What did you order?’ he asked.

‘A stripper, of course. I might not be one for tradition, but this is one tradition it would be a shame to let slide. She said she’d come around four.’

At his words, as if on cue, there was a ring at the door.

‘That’ll be her,’ said Nigel as he gracefully eased himself out of Rafferty’s low-slung settee. ‘I’ll let her in.’

He was soon back, accompanied by a pretty girl in an all-enclosing, ankle-length mackintosh. She asked who was the groom. Nigel told her. She whipped off her mac to reveal a policewoman’s uniform. She came and sat on Rafferty’s knee and invited him to undo her jacket. He duly obliged and soon she was revealed to be wearing a bustier and suspenders. She turned their music off and put her own on from a CD player she’d brought with her. It played a raunchy tune that Rafferty didn’t recognise.

She came to sit on his knee again and invited him to remove her stockings, which she then proceeded to drape around his neck. With a kiss, she jumped up and began the rest of her routine, bumping and grinding away to the raunchy music.

Rafferty risked a glance at Llewellyn, and was amused to see his sergeant sitting bolt upright and looking tight-faced. Llewellyn didn’t approve, it was clear. Well, it was too late now, he thought, as Mickey finally got the bustier undone. Rafferty sat back and enjoyed the show.

Rafferty woke and sat up, dry-mouthed and even more bleary-eyed than he’d been earlier in the evening, to find his wrists encased in bracelets of the policeman variety. Old-fashioned ones. The stripper had gone. Everyone else was lounging on the furniture looking in an equally sorry state, most of them snoring. Apart from Dafyd, who still sat bolt upright.

When he saw that Rafferty was awake, he said, ‘We ought to think about getting your brothers home and organising taxis for the rest.’

Never mind about that.’ He held up his wrists. ‘Can you get me out of these?’

Llewellyn shook his head. ‘They must have done that when I went to the bathroom. It’s fortunate that I suspected such tomfoolery likely to occur and took appropriate measures.’ He reached in his jacket for his wallet. Rafferty wondered if he’d secreted a file in there. But thankfully, all Llewellyn produced was a key. He soon had Rafferty free and rubbing his wrists.

‘Can you ring for the cabs?’ Rafferty wasn’t sure he’d be able to see the numbers on the phone if he tried.

Llewellyn pulled out a sleek mobile and summoned the cabs. When he’d done that, he started rousing everybody. This was a difficult task, but eventually, he managed to get everyone awake, if not totally compos mentis.

‘I hope the cabs will take them in this condition,’ said Llewellyn. ‘I wouldn’t, if I was the driver.’

‘It’s nearly five o’clock in the morning. The drivers won’t be expecting entirely sober citizens. If they turn up they’re likely prepared to take this lot. Anyway, they’re not fighting drunks. I’ll make some coffee. It should help.’

Still under the influence of alcohol, Rafferty staggered into the kitchen. It took him five minutes to fill the kettle as it kept wavering away from the tap, but eventually, he managed to fill it. With difficulty, when the kettle boiled, he poured the water into the mugs. And all over the worktop. He found a tray and slopped the mugs on to it. He handed round the coffee he hadn’t spilled on his way back from the kitchen.

It had been a good night, but he was shattered now and wanted to go to bed. He hoped the cabs didn’t take long.

But the cabs arrived within another ten minutes and Nigel and the rest wove their uncertain way out into the night with loud goodbyes fit to wake the neighbours. Rafferty tried to shush them, but it was no good. They were beyond restraining.

At least they had soon stumbled their way to the taxies, which quickly drove off.

‘I’ll get your brothers home now,’ said Llewellyn.

Mickey had gone back to sleep and Rafferty woke him up. ‘Come on, bro,’ he said. ‘Let’s be having you. I’m sure Dafyd wants to get home himself. Maureen will give me what for if he’s not back soon.’ Maureen, Llewellyn’s wife, wasn’t a drinker. She didn’t really approve of stag nights, though she had raised surprisingly few objections when Rafferty had arranged one for Llewellyn before his big day. He couldn’t help but wonder what she’d think of this one, though he doubted Llewellyn would be so stupid as to mention the stripper. But Mo wasn’t daft and being his cousin, knew him, Nigel and the other two Rafferty brothers as well as she knew her own.

Llewellyn quickly ushered Mickey and Patrick Sean out of the flat. Rafferty said relieved goodbyes and shut the door. He went immediately to the kitchen and drank a pint of cold water, then visited the bathroom and fell into bed. He was soon asleep. Even sooner, it seemed, it was morning and time to get up.

He groaned and sat on the side of the bed. But he didn’t feel as bad as he should have. The water had helped. He got out of bed and made for the kitchen. He was soon outside of two large mugs of tea and four aspirin. Ten minutes later, he started to feel a bit better.

He went for a shower and got dressed. He wasn’t hungry, but he forced himself to eat some toast, then he made for the station. He was still hung-over and suspected he would show up as being over the limit if he was breathalyzed, so he drove with wary circumspection.

Llewellyn, of course, was there before him, once again looking clear-eyed and ready for the day.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked Rafferty.

‘Could be worse. Could be better. Let’s not talk about it. I’ll survive. What’s come in? Anything?’

‘No.’

Rafferty sighed. ‘Oh, well. It’s early yet. Maybe something interesting will arrive later.’

They settled down and Rafferty drank the tea Llewellyn provided every morning. He didn’t do a lot of work; given the heavy night, he felt it was enough that he’d turned up. Thankfully, Superintendent Bradley didn’t disturb the hung-over morning.

The day passed slowly. Rafferty rang Abra and asked her how her night had gone.

‘Great,’ said Abra. ‘I didn’t get home till five o’clock.’

‘Worse than me, you dirty stop out.’ But then she was twelve years younger than him and more able to take such late nights.

‘How about you? Was your night good?’

‘Yes. It was terrific. What I remember of it anyway. Though I was glad to get to bed.’

‘Can’t take it, old man. The bed was your own, I hope.’

‘Of course, my own. Dafyd saw to that. Not that I fancied a one-night-stand, anyway. Those days are long gone.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper and told him, ‘I have to go, Joe, the boss is lurking. I’ll see you tonight.’

‘Okay, sweetheart. Love you. Bye.’

‘Love you.’

Rafferty put the phone down and smiled, thankful, once more, that he’d been able to remove Abra from the list of suspects and adulterers. It wasn’t long till the wedding. And now, with all suspicion cast aside, he’d be able to enjoy it. ‘Got your glad rags sorted out for Saturday?’ he asked Llewellyn.

‘Yes. We’re all prepared.’

Of course they were. Dafyd and Mo were an organised pair.

‘What about you? Got your suit ready?’

‘Yep. It’s in the wardrobe waiting for the big day. I’ll out bobby-dazzle even you on Saturday.’

‘Just as it should be. But don’t out-dazzle the bride — not a good start to a marriage.’

‘No chance of that, I shouldn’t think. Abra will outshine everyone, that’s for sure.’ He sighed and opened a file. ‘We’d better try to solve this case before Saturday or there’ll be a delayed honeymoon. That wouldn’t be a good start to the marriage, either.’

The checking of the people Nigel had sent to the Staveleys’ for a viewing was continuing apace. There were a surprising number of them, given the lingering effects of the recession and the cost of the house.

So far, it had revealed nothing any more concrete than the rest of the investigation. Most of the viewers were able to provide an alibi for their whereabouts at the estimated time of the murder. But there were several whom Rafferty felt he needed to question himself. Two of these were couples, one of whom lived in Elmhurst and the other in London.

Both couples had viewed the Staveleys’ house on the afternoon of the murder, as had the third viewer, a young man named Harry Bentley who also lived in Elmhurst. Or so he had said. He was the first on the list and the address he had given – 35 Dennis Street – didn’t check out. There was no such address. Rafferty had thought when Nigel supplied it that the address was unfamiliar and presumed it was on one of the new estates that had sprung up in the town’s surrounds.

He tackled Nigel again to find out what else he knew of the man. He went to the office rather than ring him, as Nigel seemed able to be far wilier on the phone than he managed in person. Rafferty, who had attended compulsory classes in understanding body language, had retained sufficient knowledge to put some of it to the benefit of inquiries and Nigel’s body often betrayed him and told Rafferty that he wasn’t getting the whole truth over some given matter.

He had thought his cousin would be in a friendly frame of mind after the camaraderie of the stag night, but not a bit of it. His Jerry Kelly personality had again been subsumed beneath that of his slick estate agent alter ego, and at first, he was very abrupt and did no more than answer Rafferty’s questions as briefly as he could get away with.

‘Did this Bentley guy come into your office or phone asking for the house details?’ Rafferty persisted.

‘He came into the office. As far as I remember.’

‘And you’re sure you gave us the right address?’

Nigel gave a careless shrug. ‘I gave you the one he gave me. Not my fault if it doesn’t check out.’ His nose went up in the air and Rafferty noticed that his normally excessively well-groomed cousin had neglected to rid his nostrils of stray hairs. ‘It’s necessary to have a certain level of trust in this business, dear boy.’

Rafferty’s lips thinned at Nigel’s use of the ‘dear’ epithet. It was Nigel at his most patronising. However, he bit back his annoyance and asked, ‘How did he seem, this Bentley?’

‘How did he seem? Do you mean did he have a mad glint in his eye? Because he didn’t. He looked a perfectly normal, perfectly respectable, sane young man around twenty-eight or thirty. As I recall, his eyes were a rather attractive brown.’

‘There’s no need to be facetious. So how did you arrange the viewing? By ringing Bentley’s land line or his mobile?’

‘His mobile.’ At last, Nigel became more expansive. ‘He told me he currently lived with his mother, but that he had come into an inheritance from his grandmother. He didn’t want his mother to know he was considering buying his own place, hence the use of a mobile rather than a landline. I don’t suppose he wanted me to ring and leave messages with mummy. I had no reason to disbelieve him. People tell me all sorts. Some of it’s even true.’

‘I’ll want the number.’

Nigel nodded and summoned one of his staff with a lordly click of his fingers. It was clear he didn’t treat his staff in as polite a manner as he did his clients. Not for his staff the obsequious, Uriah Heep approach.

Rafferty smothered a grin. It was clear Nigel wanted to reassert his authority. Even a technophobe like him knew that such information could be stored on a computer and quickly called up. But he didn’t care if he got the information from Nigel’s computer or that of one of his staff as long as he got it.

It looked a distinct possibility that this man, this Bentley, could be the killer. Why else give false details? Rafferty doubted the man was called Bentley, either. With a bit of luck, if he was careless, they’d be able to trace him via his mobile.

Nigel had been able to give them a pretty good description. To Rafferty’s excitement, Nigel’s description tallied with the one that Edith Staveley had supplied of her attacker, at least insofar as bodily description went, though of course the man who had attacked Mrs Staveley had worn a balaclava.

Rafferty went back to the station and had the description circulated. He hoped that something came from it. He also got Llewellyn to check out Bentley’s mobile.

He updated Bradley on the case and, after his very belated confession, was torn off a strip for not finding out earlier that the Staveley house was for sale.

‘Even if they didn’t have an estate agent’s board outside the property it’s an easy surmise that a man who was made redundant six months earlier might be getting short of funds to pay the mortgage. Did you ask him?’

Given the late hour in the murder investigation in which he had made the discovery that the Staveleys’ house was for sale, Rafferty was forced to say, ‘No.’

‘I thought as much. Call yourself a detective! Anyway, you’ve at least managed to match him with the man who attacked the victim’s mother-in-law. I suppose that’s something.’

It was clear that Bradley had forgotten Edith Staveley’s name. Not to mention that of the victim. During a previous case, he had instigated the latest in his public relations scams. Called ‘Politeness in Interaction with Members of the Public,’ he had insisted his officers behave with scrupulous politeness. For the lower orders, it involved remembering a myriad of names on first hearing them during an investigation. It hadn’t applied to Bradley, of course, who continued calling them ‘victims’. It was so much less trouble.