Death Line (22 page)

“Come on, Hadleigh. You left your fingerprints behind; bloody prints. We know you broke into Moon's consulting rooms on the night of his murder, so you needn't bother to deny it. Looking for something to steal were you?” Rafferty made no mention of what Mrs Hadleigh had told them about that night. If Terry wanted to tell them the same tale he had the chance.

Sullenly, he told them, “I don't know what you mean. I didn't steal anything.”

“Oh, I see. It's a coincidence that a thousand quid went missing that night, I suppose?”

Hadleigh stared at him. “A thousand quid? But-” He broke off, and resumed his sullen expression. “All right,” he admitted bluntly. “So I was there that night. But I didn't steal anything,” he insisted, then more quietly, he added, “Jasper was my friend.”

“You must have a forgiving nature, seeing as Moon or Hedges as he was then, assaulted you as a boy.” Hadleigh flushed and shuffled on his chair, as if the hard surface hurt his thin buttocks. “Now that we've managed to establish that you were there, perhaps you'd like to tell me why? Into reminiscences, were you? Or was it something else you were after? Like money to keep your mouth shut?”

Hadleigh's lips tightened as if to stop himself responding to Rafferty's taunt. “If you must know,” he said thinly, “Jasper was giving me art lessons.”

Rafferty smiled. “What a coincidence. That's what your mother told us. And when did this interest in art develop? At Pentonville, was it?”

“No. At school.” Hadleigh had apparently decided to open up a little, for now he went on. “I've always been interested in art. And I was good at it, too. Jasper knew that. I want to go to art college and that's why he offered to give me some training. He said he'd finance it, too.” His lips pouted like those of a spoilt child. “He was my last hope. Now he's dead and I'll never get there.”

“Your mother mentioned something about building up your portfolio. Where are these alleged masterpieces of yours? I'd love to see them.”

Hadleigh's openness hadn't lasted long. Now his voice was sullen again. “They're in a lock-up garage belonging to a friend of mine.”

“I'll have this friend's address, if I may.”

Half expecting there to be no friend, Rafferty was taken aback when Hadleigh supplied the address with no difficulty. “Now perhaps you'll believe me.”

“As to that, we'll wait till we've checked with this friend of yours.” Rafferty got up. “That shouldn't take long. We'll be back before you know it. In the meantime, I suggest you remember exactly what happened that night. Because I shall want to hear all of it.”

Rafferty glanced at his watch as the interview room door closed behind them. “We'd better get a move on,” he said to Llewellyn, “or we'll be late for the inquest. But first I'll get Lilley to look into this portfolio business. Before I speak to Hadleigh again I want to know, one way or the other, if he's telling the truth about these art lessons. If he is, I reckon it could throw this case wide open.”

As
expected, the inquest was adjourned. Sam Dally caught up with them as they headed for the exit.

“Can't stop, Sam,” Rafferty told him. “Got urgent business.”

“So had I, with a woman,” Sam told them, as by a neat sleight-of-foot, he manoeuvred himself in front of them and succeeded in slowing them down. “But I missed her. Tall red-head in peacock blue. Did you notice her at the inquest?”

“You could hardly miss her, Sam.” Rafferty lengthened his stride, skirted Dally and lunged ahead. Dally was forced to break into a trot. “That's Ginnie Campbell, one of the suspects in our murder case. Why?” Rafferty threw a grin over his shoulder. “I must say you look a bit gobsmacked. Case of lust at first sight, is it?”

“Lust be blowed,” the practical Scot panted his reply. “That woman's cost me money, which is far more important.” He grabbed Rafferty's arm and forced him to stop. “For God's sake, man, can't you stand still when I'm talking to you?” With a sigh, Rafferty obliged. “That's the feckless female who caused my accident. Turns out she hasn't got any insurance. Means I'm going to lose my no-claims bonus,” he grumbled. “She must have recognised me, too, as she made herself scarce pretty damn quick.”

Rafferty's earlier eagerness to get back to the car vanished. He turned and stared at Sam's indignant face. “Wait a minute, let me get this clear. Are you saying that Ginnie Campbell was in the vicinity of Moon's consulting rooms early on the morning that his body was discovered?”

“Haven't I just said so? She bashed into me round the corner from the High Street. Got her number, too, though fat lot of good it did me. And if the way yon woman drives is any indication of character, which to me, it is, you won't have far to look for your murderer. She fair murders the Queen's highway, at least and its poor, unsuspecting, law-abiding users.”

Rafferty and Llewellyn exchanged glances. Ginnie Campbell had told them she had gone straight home from her boyfriend's house on Friday morning. Yet now they discovered she had made a detour via the High Street, which was a rather circuitous route for her to have taken. On its own, the lie seemed insignificant. But taken with the fact that she had ample opportunity to return to the office on the evening of Moon's murder, it became much more interesting. If she had killed Moon on the spur of the moment and rushed from the scene in panic, she couldn't be certain she hadn't left some incriminating evidence behind. Hence the necessity for an early visit the next morning.

Rafferty sighed. If Hadleigh turned out to be telling the truth, this latest discovery meant the case was so wide open, he hardly knew which of the crop of suspects to interview first. So far, the only one amongst Moon's close associates who had no possible motive or opportunity was Mercedes Moreno. But there was still time for something to turn up, he reflected. Moon's death had so far unearthed several juicy titbits. He couldn't help but wonder if there would be more.

Rafferty
didn't have long to wait to find out. For when they returned to the station, it was to find that the bank notes stolen from Moon's office had turned up; or rather most of them had. They had been paid into the bank account of Robb and Trim, a local firm of money-lenders. When Rafferty and Llewellyn had questioned them as to how they had come by the money, they hadn't been able to pass the buck fast enough. One of their customers had used a wad of new notes to settle her debts, they told Rafferty. A Mrs Campbell. A Mrs Virginia Campbell. Rafferty, who had intended to speak to her very soon, was forced to put her name at the top of a growing list.

“Damn.”
Ginnie Campbell flung herself into her chair. “Thought you'd be round when I saw you with that fat doctor. Knew he'd recognised me. I suppose you want to know why I lied when I said I'd not been near the consulting rooms on Friday morning?”

“That's the general idea,” said Rafferty mildly, as he looked round for somewhere to sit. The living room was as untidy as it had been on their previous visit. Rafferty even thought he recognised the same clothes scattered on the furniture. “You might also explain how you came by the money stolen from Moon's cashbox.”

Her eyes first widened, then narrowed. Rafferty could imagine the furious thought going on behind her Technicolor eye-shadow. He wasn't altogether surprised when she immediately went on the attack.

“I hope you don't think you're going to pin this murder on me. And for your information, I didn't steal it. Jasper lent it to me. I was desperate for money – you know that already thanks to that old bag next door and Jasper promised to lend me a grand. He knew I had planned to spend Thursday with my boyfriend. He gave me the Friday off as well, so I could get my financial problems sorted. He knew Del – Derek, my boyfriend's very jealous – he was very sympathetic about that – and that I wouldn't be able to get away on the Thursday without a lot of explanations – my boyfriend doesn't know about my debts,” she added.

“Ok,” Rafferty said. “For the moment I'll forget that your boyfriend has the convenient habit of drinking himself unconscious, and accept that you couldn't get away.” Forget it, but not believe it, Rafferty muttered to himself. “So tell us about Friday,” he invited. “I assume the boyfriend wasn't a problem that day, too?”

“No. He had to go back to work on Friday, so I was able to leave early. Jasper had promised that the money would be there for me as early as I liked on Friday morning. He said he'd leave it in the cash box and I was to help myself when I was passing. Just to make sure that I locked the box up afterwards, otherwise Edwin would only nag him. I knew where in his desk he kept the key, of course. Only trouble was, he got himself murdered before I could collect. Just my luck.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, I got to the office early, just after 7.00 a m.” Rafferty nodded. Although it didn't prove anything, it at least fitted with what they already knew. Astell hadn't arrived till 7.30 a m. “I found the place turned upside down, Jasper dead and the window in his office broken. As you can imagine, I was horrified. But, as the debt collectors would be even more horrifyingly unpleasant if I didn't pay them as I'd promised, I looked to see if my money was still there. To my astonishment it was. I took it and left. After that, it just seemed easier all round to pretend I'd never been there at all.”

It had all come out very pat, thought Rafferty. But then she'd had plenty of time to concoct her story. He stared at her. She stared back, bold as you please, and without a hint of shame at her callous actions. God, he thought, in unwilling admiration, the wretched woman had more front than Brighton. She had lied about her whereabouts on the morning Moon's body was found, lied again about the money, yet still she seemed to think they should believe her now.

According to Mercedes Moreno, Moon had begun to regret employing Ginnie Campbell. If that was true, how likely was it that he would be willing to lend her a thousand pounds? It seemed far more likely that she'd asked, been refused and vented her frustration in the time-honoured way before helping herself to the cash. From what they knew of the boyfriend, his alibi wasn't worth the oxygen he had used up talking about it. How could it be, when the betting was that he had spent half the evening passed out on the settee?

Ginnie Campbell was in debt up to her ears and beyond, being pressed by loan sharks; in such a situation that grand would have been very tempting. Rafferty debated what to charge her with; interfering with the course of justice; leaving the scene of a crime; robbery; brass-faced cheek or just plain murder? However, he confined himself to warning her not to even think of attempting a flit and then they left.

“It'll be interesting to find out if Lilley's turned up Hadleigh's portfolio,” said Rafferty as they walked back up the path to the car, “especially now we know he didn't take the money. I also think a little digging into his friendship with Jasper Moon might prove rewarding. Art lessons or no, there's something there that doesn't jell. Hadleigh's hiding something, and I don't think it's murder. He seems – I don't know – ashamed, and I doubt turning the screws on Moon would cause such an emotion. I want to find out what has.”

Rafferty
opened the cell door. “Come along, Mr Hadleigh. We'd like another little chat.”

This time, he proceeded more cautiously. Part of Hadleigh's story checked out, and, although that didn't mean that Hadleigh couldn't still have murdered Moon, it made his story that bit more believable.

“You'll be glad to know that we've found your portfolio,” he told him. “Including several paintings of Jasper Moon. They were even signed.” Rafferty produced paper and pen. “Maybe you'd like to reproduce the signature for me?” Hadleigh snatched the pen and signed, as requested. Rafferty got Llewellyn to take them to Lilley to check against those on the paintings. But Hadleigh's eagerness to give his signature indicated they would match, Rafferty realised gloomily, as he felt the last hopes of his open-and-shut case sliding away. “You've got quite a collection,” he remarked. “Some of it's pretty good, not that I'm an expert, of course.”

He expected a sneer from Hadleigh at that. Instead, Hadleigh said simply, “Jasper was a good teacher. He always was. I didn't kill him. I had no reason to. You don't understand. I...”

“Suppose you help me to understand? From where I'm sitting you still had a very good reason for killing him – that assault on you when you were a boy.”

“I didn't kill him, I tell you.” His glance evasive, Hadleigh mumbled, “And that business happened a long time ago. If I'd wanted to kill him I could have done it before now. I've known who he was for ages.”

“Okay, so if you didn't kill him, why did you run away? If you were such great friends, why didn't you phone the police when you found his body?”

Hadleigh began to twist an initialled signet ring round and round on his little finger. “I needed time to think. Can't you imagine what a shock it was to me to find him like that? I could see he was dead, and I just panicked, I suppose. I knew my prints must be all over the place. I thought it was only a matter of time before you found out about the court case years ago and put two and two together to make five. I didn't kill him,” he repeated. “That's the last thing I'd be likely to do. Especially as...”

There was definitely something odd here, Rafferty decided. It was as if Hadleigh was trying to convince them that he had no grudge against Moon-Hedges. Yet how could that be? “Especially as?” Rafferty repeated. “Especially as he was making it worth your while to keep quiet and throwing art lessons in as a bonus? Is that what you were going to say? It must...” He paused as Terry Hadleigh broke into a harsh laugh that held no trace of humour. “Perhaps you'd like to share the joke?” Rafferty invited.