Love Lies Bleeding (11 page)

Tonight, more than anything, he felt the best thing he could do for the investigation was to relax and let his brain and thought processes mellow during a long-booked and long-looked-forward-to evening with Abra.

‘We'll sit down tomorrow morning and digest what we've learned so far and then decide on our priorities.’

After they had said good-night and Rafferty had popped into the Incident Room to check on anything else that had come in, he followed Llewellyn out to the car park. Gradually, he became aware of what a beautiful evening it was. The sky was a deep, vibrant blue where it wasn't already washed with the yellow, pink and orange of a fabulous sunset.

He smiled as he pulled out his car keys. The weather was certainly an improvement on the lashing rain that had heralded Raymond Raine's murder and Felicity's confession.

In spite of the increasing questions about the case and his early but anticipated loss of Felicity Raine's confession, he felt surprisingly upbeat. Not, of course, that his happiness had anything at all to do with the case — how could it when they now faced the long haul of a murder investigation rather than the easier confession-and-guilty-as-charged route?

But for tonight at least, he mused as he climbed in the car, he intended to enjoy himself. It might be the last chance he had for some time.

He was taking Abra out for a late meal, a special meal. He had booked a table for two for nine o'clock in the romantically softly lit courtyard area of one of the town's most upmarket restaurants, hoping to encourage Abra to finally forgive him for his less than chivalric showing in June.

He was looking forward to it. And since even the weather had decided to come out on his side, he felt he had reason to be optimistic. A balmy night, soft lights, sweet music, wine and an excellent meal would, he was convinced, encourage Abra to accept that to err is human, but to forgive is divine. It wasn't as if he had meant to be obtuse and hurtful. His hopes were high that tonight would see them back to how they had been but a few months earlier, and he was determined to spare no expense on the evening.

That was why the call on his mobile just before he inserted the key in the ignition came as such a blow.

Rafferty felt a
curious reluctance to answer the demanding ringtone. He always turned his mobile off prior to interviews and had only just turned it back on.

He felt an even greater reluctance when he pulled the phone from his pocket and saw that it was Abra calling. Why was she calling now? he wondered. He had told her he would be home in good time for their restaurant date and he would be. He'd promised her that morning as he'd given her a quick goodbye kiss.

It was only just after half-eight now, so he was in plenty of time. His uneasiness increased and he found himself wishing he hadn't turned the damn thing back on because some sixth sense told him he wouldn't like what she had to say.

Squashing down his uneasy thoughts, he forced out a cheerful greeting. ‘Hello, my little Abracadabra. I hope you're looking forward to this evening as much as I am. It's going to be magical, I know it. Promise me you'll dress up in that houri's outfit that Dafyd told me you threatened to wear to his wedding.’

Rafferty still couldn't understand how he had failed to spot Abra at Llewellyn's wedding or the reception afterwards. He could only put it down to the fact that, without a partner and painfully conscious of the fact, he had made sure the night was clouded by an anaesthetizing alcoholic haze.

To his dismay, Abra's reply confirmed his fear that he wouldn't like what she had to say.

‘Oh God, Joe. You're making me feel guilty now. Sorry, love, but you'll have to cancel the restaurant booking. I can't come. I've been trying to reach you for the last hour to tell you, but all I got each time was your voicemail.’

‘Can't come?’ Rafferty became aware of the little-boy anguish in his voice and he did his best to eliminate it. ‘But—’

‘Please, Joe. Don't go all pathetic on me. You know I can't stand it when you do that. And it's not my fault that I have to cry off tonight, so don't think I'm doing it deliberately.’

Rafferty, about to but another but, buttoned his lip instead. When he spoke again, he tried to recapture his former breeziness. ‘So, what's the matter? Why can't you come?’

‘It's nothing for you to worry about — just some stupid family problem of Gloria's that I need to sort out.’

‘Family problem? Dafyd said nothing about a family problem.’ Llewellyn was Abra's cousin on his mother's side. ‘So what is it? Don't tell me his mother's got tired of pretending to be a prim Methodist widow and has put on her dancing shoes again to star at some seedy pensioners’ nightclub?’

Gloria, Llewellyn's mother, had been a dancer before becoming the unexpected bride of Dafyd's Methodist minister father, more than proving the adage that opposites attract. Since discovering this glorious news about the mother of his sergeant, who could be a tad holier-than-thou at times, Rafferty had often wondered which of the two was the more astonished at their choice of partner.

‘Dafyd doesn't know,’ Abra told him. ‘And you're not to mention anything about this to him. I don't want you teasing him about it.’

‘What?’ Rafferty gasped. ‘You mean his mother really has—?’

‘Don't be stupid, Joe. Of course she hasn't. It's nothing like that.’

‘So what is it, then?’

‘I can't tell you. I promised to keep it to myself. Look, I can't talk now. I have to go. The train's in. Besides, the signal's not good—’

Abruptly, Rafferty's mobile cut off. He stared at it in frustrated bewilderment. The sudden cut-off and the unsatisfactory and mysterious conversation that had preceded it filled him with anxiety. He rang the restaurant and cancelled the booking, wondering, as he started the car and drove home, whether he would get a black mark against his name for cancelling so late.

He shrugged heroically. What did it matter? There were plenty more restaurants in town. Besides, he had more important things to worry about; one was the gnawing conviction that the family problem Abra had mentioned was pure invention and that he would find she had emptied the flat of her possessions and left him, having finally decided she couldn't forgive him for his lack of support earlier in the year.

Abra's
clothes were still there at least — most of them anyway, Rafferty discovered as he flung open the wardrobe doors.

He sank on to the double bed and stared into space. What family emergency could Gloria have that required her niece, Abra's, presence, rather than that of Dafyd, her only son? And one that it was clear Llewellyn knew nothing about? What could be so urgent that it required her to cancel their special meal and go haring off into the night?

He had thought — felt — that Abra had finally started to come round. She'd been much more loving towards him lately. His belly grew warm at the memory. But now, inexplicably, she seemed to be drawing away from him again. Surely she couldn't have taken
that
much offence at his thoughtless remarks about Felicity Raine's attractions? Or had that just tipped the balance away from him?

Although he'd rung her mobile twice since the abrupt ending to their conversation, it had been switched off each time and all he had been able to do was leave messages, messages that even to his own ears sounded that note of pathos that she disliked so much. She hadn't returned either of them.

What had he done this time? he wondered miserably as -instead of the anticipated romantic meal with all the trimmings — he contemplated a lonely evening and an even lonelier night. He had always thought Abra a reasonable woman -well, he amended, as reasonable as a man with Kitty Rafferty for a mother could think any woman. He wouldn't have thought her capable of deliberately punishing him for one unguarded remark. But he was beginning to think that was what she had done.

He found himself clutching Abra's pillow and he pressed his nose against it, breathing in her scent. It was a way to feel close to her as he stared, hollow-eyed, through the window into a night from which all hint of the earlier warm sunset had vanished.

By
the next day, Felicity Raine had been declared fit for further questioning and, in spite of having retracted her confession, she had been charged and remanded in custody.

During the interview, she was asked whether she or her late husband had noticed the man in the car opposite their home. She denied it; denied also receiving the note that Elaine Enderby had said she had pushed under the Raines’ door.

This last claim certainly seemed likely to be true because after he had dispatched PC Timothy Smales to their house, he'd found this note lodged under the Raines’ front doormat.

By
Saturday, having still heard nothing from Abra, but having heard plenty from Sam Dally during the endurance test of the post-mortem and Sam's macabre and long-drawn-out descriptions of the processes of death, Rafferty was feeling increasingly desperate. So when he heard the phone insistently ringing in his office, he raced along the second-floor corridor to answer it.

But his hope that it was Abra calling, the Abra he hadn't heard from since she'd boarded the train for Wales, was dashed as, to his disappointment, he heard Sam Dally's Highland burr at the other end.

He covered his disappointment as well as he could by putting on a cheerful voice, unwilling to have Sam sense it and bait him. ‘Hi, Sam,’ he said. ‘I hope you've rung to tell me you've got the toxicology reports.’

‘They're all present and correct. Including the results of the tests on the milk in the two bottles delivered to the Raines’ on the day of the murder,’ Sam confirmed. ‘Unusually prescient of you, Rafferty, that you ordered tests on the food and drink the Raines consumed that day. Both bottles of milk had Mogadon in them.’

‘Mogadon,’ Rafferty repeated as he tried to quell the little burst of excitement that filled him — almost, but not quite, quelling the disappointment at Abra's failure to contact him. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I'm sure,’ Sam Dally replied testily. ‘I've got the lab results in front of me and unlike you, my dear inspector, I
am
capable of understanding forensic reports. And while the quantity in neither bottle was sufficient to kill the average-sized person it could certainly render them unconscious, especially if, like Mr Raine, you drank an entire pint in one go. Surprisingly, given that they're both what used to be called Young and Upwardly Mobile, neither of them tested positive for illegal drugs — or other
legal
drugs, either, for that matter. Tests on the blood sample taken from Mrs Raine when she was admitted reveal a quantity of the same drug was present in her system.

‘You might be interested to know,’ Sam added, ‘that Mogadon is a proprietary, prescription-only preparation of the Benzodiazepin drug nitrazepam used to treat insomnia -in other words, it's a powerful sleeping tablet.

‘Anyway, its presence in her system could explain her earlier amnesia as that's one of the potential side-effects of the drug, though I suppose it's possible that shock could also have had an effect on her memory.’

Even as Dally mentioned the possibility, Rafferty noted the element of doubt in his voice.

‘It might be an idea to check with their GP if he prescribed sleeping tablets for either of them,’ Sam suggested.

Rafferty sighed inwardly as he recognised that ‘helpful’ note he knew so well. He could practically hear Sam salivating as he added another little job to Rafferty's growing list of things to do, which, in a murder inquiry, amounted to a veritable Everest of checks and double-checks.

At least they now had the answer to one question, and the answer had been in Felicity's favour. For when Llewellyn had contacted the Probate Office, they had told him they had received no request for copies of the wills of the deceased Raine brothers from Felicity or, for that matter, from any other family member.

They were still waiting for the Australian police to get back to them on whether Andrew Armstrong, the third Raine-family cousin, had left the country recently.

Llewellyn had been allocated the job of tracking down the man Elaine and Jim Enderby had said had sat in his car watching the Raines’ house; that task was still on-going.

Although Sam's suggestion that he check with the Raines’ GP sounded a simple enough task, in reality of course, as Sam well knew, it could turn out to be extremely time-consuming. Because if the Raines’ GP replied in the negative to the question of whether he had supplied either of the couple with the drug, they would have to ask the same question of the GPs of all Felicity and Raymond Raine's friends, relations and casual acquaintances. No wonder the sly old dog was gloating …

‘No prescription drugs were found in the Raines’ house,’ Rafferty told Sam. He had specifically asked the team to check. Though, now I think of it, that's unusual. Most people have the remnants of prescription medication littering their bathroom cabinets for months, if not years.’

‘True. But maybe the Raines were just healthier than you, Rafferty. Not to mention neater, younger and, like yours truly, better-looking.’

‘We can't all have your rich endowment of life's bounties, Sam.’

‘Also true. But the late Mr Raine could certainly have given me a run for my money in the health and beauty stakes. He was one of the finest physical specimens I've had on my table for a long while. Makes you realise how many people let themselves go.

This from the plump Dally, Rafferty marvelled. ‘Tell me, Sam, were the quantities of the drug found in Mrs Raine's blood roughly the same as found in her husband?’

‘Well no. Obviously not. If you ever listened, Rafferty, you might have heard me tell you that the husband downed a pint of milk. Mrs Raine had nothing like as much in her system, but of course she's half his weight and size so a smaller quantity would be all that was needed to render her comatose. I presume she watched her weight like most young women and wouldn't dream of drinking a pint of milk all at once like her husband.’

Dally went on, in his ever-helpful fashion, ‘It seems to me that — if neither of the Raines was prescribed the drug by their doctor — if you trace which of their friends, relations or casual acquaintances took the drug, you could be well on your way to finding out whether Mrs Raine — or any of your other suspects for that matter — had access to it.’