Death Line (15 page)

Rafferty turned to find himself face to face with a slender youth in pale blue, blonde hair curled becomingly around his collar. The landlord excused himself to serve a customer at the other end of the bar, and the youth enlarged on his previous comment.

“Farley has upset most of the people in this bar at one time or another. Used to come in here wearing that showy black cape of Jasper's, the little hair he's got swept back, just like he was Count Dracula or something. He could certainly bite. Draw blood, too, sometimes. We're all sorry that Jasper's gone, but you won't find many in here offering Christian Farley a shoulder to cry on.” He leant forward conspiratorially. “Actually, I got the impression that Jasper was tiring of him. Not surprising, of course, because as Jasper became more well known, started appearing on television and so on, Farley became even more jealous. He's thrown a few tantrums in here, I can tell you. All over nothing. Jasper wasn't into playing around. At least, if he was, he'd been reasonably discreet about it. Until these recent rumours that is.”

Rafferty got the impression the youth had hoped to step into Farley's shoes.

“I did wonder if he'd met up again with someone from his past, the great love of his life. He only talked about it when he had one over the eight and got maudlin' and then he let slip that there was one ruined relationship he would always regret.” The blonde sighed. “That was some torch he was carrying. No wonder Farley was prone to jealousy. There's nothing as difficult to compete with as the ghost of a past love.” His expression as blue as the dregs of his cocktail, he brightened when Rafferty offered to buy him another.

As soon as it was served, he resumed his story. “Jazz was popular, always willing to do a reading for nothing. He liked to flirt, but it was no more than that. He put up with a lot from Farley. I'm amazed Jasper hadn't thrown him out months ago.”

Rafferty concluded from this that Moon had received more than enough encouragement to do so. He wondered if Moon had been carrying on a secret affair? But whether he had or not, Rafferty felt he'd certainly learned sufficient to turn Farley into one of the chief suspects, and he trawled his net a little wider to see what else he could pick up. “I hear Terry Hadleigh comes in here, too, sometimes. Do you know him? Is he a friend of yours?”

The blond looked piqued. “Do you mind? Me, friends with that little tart? There's no need to be insulting.”

Rafferty sighed. Telling himself he should have got the tactful Llewellyn to do the questioning, he tried again. “Do you know if he was a particular friend of Jasper Moon?”

“I'm sure I couldn't say. I'm not a dating agency, dear. I don't keep tabs on every little sexuel divertissement that goes on around here. And it's not as if Jasper came in here that often. He was always flying off somewhere.”

Rafferty had another word with the landlord. But as he told him that no-one else in the pub had known Terry Hadleigh well, or would be likely to know where to find him, they finished their drinks and left.

“Interesting that Moon had worked for Alan Carstairs at one time,” Llewellyn commented.

“It would be more interesting if it hadn't been so long ago,” Rafferty replied. “Sarah Astell didn't mention it, though I doubt she knew. Alan Carstairs seems the type to have got through employees at a great rate of knots. I imagine Moon was one in a very long line. Remind me to ask her about it, though. Just to clear the matter up.” They got in the car and Rafferty started the engine. “Next stop Ellen Hadleigh. Let's hope she has some idea where Terry might be and that she's willing to tell us.” He jerked his head back towards the pub. 'Even though Carstairs doesn't appear to have been one of his successes, it seems Moon was a past master at winning friends and influencing people.

“When you're successful, everyone wants to be your friend,” Llewellyn commented succinctly.

Smiling sourly, Rafferty asked, “Where'd you get that little homily from? Another of your know-all Greek chums, I suppose?”

Llewellyn nodded. “Ovid, as it happens. From his Tris-”

“I've got another one for you – a murder victim becomes everyone's best buddy even quicker – that's from Rafferty's Ruminations. And even if Moon's turned into some kind of plaster saint now he's dead, the boyfriend hasn't. And he's the jealous type. I wonder if he suspected that Moon was seeing someone else? Perhaps, when we've seen Ellen Hadleigh, we ought to go and visit Farley again? As far as possible suspects go, he seems to be fast coming up on Terry Hadleigh's heels. It might be worth checking out his alibi again.”

Ellen Hadleigh
lived near the railway station, in a flat on a Council estate. Rafferty knew from the frequent police call-outs that this was where the Council housed their more troublesome tenants, though he doubted Mrs Hadleigh came into that category. Her respectability would be used as a barrier against her neighbours; having heard what Beard had said about her son, he realised why she should need that barrier. They would know all about Terry's arrests for soliciting; he had featured in the local paper on several occasions, even if, as Beard had said, it had been some time ago. She'd lived alone since her son had moved out.

The Council seemed to have spared every expense in maintaining the estate. Most of the shed doors had been pulled off their hinges, the bricks enclosing the weed and litter-filled flowerbeds were tumbling down, and, from the roof, a steady cascade of rainwater splashed noisily on the cracked paving.

Rafferty checked his notebook as another train clattered past. Ellen Hadleigh lived at number thirty nine, on the third floor. Glad to get out of the relentless downpour, which had continued with barely a break for the best part of a week, they walked through to the lift. Predictably, it smelled of stale urine. Rafferty wrinkled his nose and while Llewellyn tried to get the lift to work, he studied the graffiti adorning its walls.

"Sharon loves Tracey", confided one epistle. Another declared, "Tracey loves Shane". A third said, "Get out of this lift, you ugly bastards". The rest, mercifully, were in an unreadable, semi-illiterate scrawl. Rafferty's spirits drooped. He was glad to get out of the stinking little grey box when Llewellyn told him the lift seemed to be out of order.

They trudged up stairs littered with discarded contraceptives and dried pools of vomit. A young girl of about eighteen passed them as they reached the third flight of stairs. She was pale-faced and dull eyed, as though robbed of her spirit by her soulless environment. She carried a fat, grizzling toddler under one arm and a fold-up pushchair under the other. Llewellyn, ever the gentleman, offered to carry the heavy child down for her and was rewarded with a suspicious look from under spiky blonde hair. Clutching the baby more tightly, she hurried past them. The little boy, presumably frightened by the sudden acceleration of their descent, screamed and his cries echoed and re-echoed painfully round the concrete stairwell.

“That'll teach you to accost strange young women,” Rafferty remarked. “Surely your mother told you it wasn't a good idea?”

Llewellyn's long face grew morose, his expression that of a misunderstood Victorian gentleman whose hobby of saving fallen women was being wilfully misinterpreted. “I only wanted to help her. Surely she didn't think I was...?”

“For God's sake, Dafyd, of course she did.” It was a constant source of amused amazement to Rafferty that, for all Llewellyn's superior university education, he could still be surprisingly naive about some things. Of course, he had spent a large part of his youth living the unworldly country life of a Welsh minister's dutiful son. Showed what too much religion could do to a man, thought Rafferty. Thank God he'd never taken to it. “Listen Einstein. Her fellow tenants don't live in your particular intellectual ivory tower, unfortunately for her – more like Sodom and Gomorrah. For all she knew, we could have been rapists operating in tandem. Wouldn't you be scared to meet two "ugly bastards" like us if you were on your own? The poor bitch probably gets accosted on these stairs several times a week.” He punched Llewellyn lightly on the arm. “Never mind, I know your intentions were strictly honourable. Come on. It's up here.”

Number thirty nine was at the end of the balcony. As Llewellyn knocked on the door, Rafferty studied the exterior of the flat. Although the door, in common with the rest of the block, needed a coat of paint, the knocker gleamed from a regular and vigorous application of polish.

The door opened a mere four inches, restricted by the cheap security chain, and Ellen Hadleigh's face peered suspiciously out at them. “Oh.” Her expression stiffened as she recognised them. “It's you. What do you want? I've told you all I know.”

Llewellyn, presumably still put out by the incident on the stairs, and unwilling to conduct the interview on the landing, had lost some of the shine from his usually impeccable manners. “So, you're saying you had no idea that Jasper Moon used to be known as Peter Hedges and that he assaulted your son as a boy?”

She quickly denied it. “Of course I didn't.” As usual, with unpractised liars, she tried too hard to justify her lies and forgot to voice shock, dismay horror at what was supposedly unwelcome news. “How could I know such a thing when I never saw the man but the once? He was away in America when I started there and even when he returned shortly before his death, he never arrived till after I'd finished my work and gone. It was only the night of his death that I set eyes on him and that was for a matter of seconds.”

Far from satisfied with her answers, Rafferty persuaded her to let them in. Her face withdrew and the door closed. It opened again a moment later, with a noisy rattle as the chain was released. About to remove his coat when she invited them to sit down, Rafferty kept it on instead, as he realised the room was like an ice box. He wondered how she managed? Presumably, the only income she had was a small State pension and whatever she could pick up through various cleaning jobs. How often did she sit alone and in pain, unable to afford to heat the freezing room adequately? He guessed that her poverty was of that proud variety that would spurn any offers of charity, though he rather doubted any would be likely to be offered, anyway. With charity, as with everything else in life, those who shouted loudest got the most.

As though she had read his mind, she leaned forward in her chair and turned the gas fire on. Her manner defensive, she explained, “I'm sorry it's so cold in here. I've been doing my housework, so I didn't bother to put it on.”

Rafferty nodded, happy to collude in the lie that the chill of the room was from choice rather than necessity. But how likely was it, he asked himself, that she would do her housework in what looked like her best dress? A long-sleeved, high-necked navy affair that gave the appearance of semi-mourning. “You were saying you had seen Jasper Moon once only, for a period of seconds, and had no idea that he was Peter Hedges,” he began, taking over where Llewellyn had left off. “Yet Jasper Moon was well known. He was the astrologer on several glossy women's magazines, with his photograph prominent at the top of the page. He appeared on morning television. You had many opportunities to see his face and recognise him. Surely-”

“I can't afford to buy glossy magazines,” she told him scornfully. “A pound and more most of them are. Do you think my pension stretches to such extravagances? I buy essentials and that's all. And when I get up I prefer to listen to the radio. It's easy to see you don't suffer from arthritis, Inspector. If I sat slumped in front of the television first thing, my legs would just stiffen up and I'd never be able to get to my work.”

What she said seemed reasonable. He had already noted that money must be tight. And what she said about watching morning television seemed eminently logical, too. Yet from what Beard had said, it sounded as if Terry made a habit of running home to mum when he was in trouble. It was improbable, after the biggest trouble of his life, that he wouldn't follow his usual practise. And even if Ellen Hadleigh hadn't realised Moon's true identity before his murder, her son would be sure to blurt it out along with the news of his death. “Do you know where your son is, Mrs Hadleigh?” he asked.

“No. I've no idea.”

“It's very important we find him. Jasper Moon was murdered, and your son's fingerprints have been found in his office. Seems likely he could be in serious trouble. Very serious. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this matter goes way beyond his usual petty offences. Now, perhaps we can try again? Can you tell me what possible reason he could have for going to Moon's office?”

After staring assessingly at him for some seconds, she must have realised that, if she was to help her son, she had to tell them the truth, for she said, “All right, I'll tell you what I know. I don't want you thinking the worst of him. But,” she fixed him with a firm gaze, “my son didn't go there to murder him, as you seem to think. Unlikely as it seems, they'd become friendly.” She frowned and looked down at her red, work-worn hands where they gripped each other in her lap. “I had no idea who Moon was, no idea of what had been going on till my son told me he was dead. 'Terence was in a terrible state when he got here that night. I thought at first he must have been attacked. But then it all came out. He'd found Moon lying dead in his office – murdered. He said Moon would have been expecting him, that he used to go there the same day every week. It was a regular thing, and I gather it had been going on for a month or two.” She sounded bitter at the deceit.

“Why did he go there?” asked Llewellyn. “Were they – having an affair?”