Love Lies Bleeding (12 page)

‘Yeah. Thanks, Sam.’ Why didn't I think of that? Rafferty asked himself in silent response to Sam Dally's statement of the bleeding obvious. He was thoughtful as he thanked Sam for his earlier information and hung up.

From Felicity's now retracted confession, to the earlier -as he had supposed — open-and-shut nature of the case, to the previous dearth of other potential suspects, everything was now the opposite of what it had first seemed.

Raymond Raine's death had been convenient for both Mike Raine and Stephanie, yet, as he'd already noted, the only member of the Raine family who had clearly been mconvenienced (and worse) was Felicity.

And if someone else had administered the drug to both the Raines, the question why arose. So they could murder Raymond Raine and make it look as if Felicity had killed him? Certainly, the only fingerprints found on the knife that had killed Raymond were Felicity's. Her prints — and those of Raymond and the milkman — were the only ones on the milk bottles delivered on the morning of Raine's murder and subsequently laced with Mogadon.

Of course that didn't preclude the possibility that some third party had gained access to the house after drugging the milk and had then worn gloves to stab the drug-comatose Raymond and position an unconscious Felicity so incriminatingly on top of her husband's corpse with her hand — even more incriminatingly — wrapped around the handle of the knife.

Rafferty didn't know whether his conjecture was correct. Still, he thought, taken with what Jonas Singleton had told them was her lack of a financial inducement to commit murder, it brought another element of doubt in the case against her.

It would certainly be a curious thing for Felicity to deliberately take a sleeping pill before murdering her much stronger husband. Why would she take something liable to render her drowsy at a time when she would need all her wits about her? But this was one question to which he felt confident Llewellyn would be able to provide the answer. He thought he could probably guess what it would be, too.

As
by now Felicity Raine had appeared before the magistrates and been remanded in custody — and with Llewellyn still busy on the Renault Clio front — Rafferty was accompanied on the prison visit by DS Mary Carmody, who had finally been freed from her support of Stephanie Raine and Michelle, the
au pair,
by the arrival of one of Stephanie's cousins.

‘So what did you find out?’ Rafferty asked her after she had reported to his office to tell him of her discoveries.

‘Michelle Ginôt shares Mrs Enderby's belief that Raymond Raine beat his wife, although she said that when she suggested this to Stephanie, she ridiculed the idea. Actually,Stephanie Raine called me up to her bedroom and told me that because Michelle and Felicity had become very friendly, what the
au pair
said in her support of Felicity couldn't be relied upon.’

‘And what Stephanie Raine says in detraction
can’
Rafferty murmured to himself.

‘Sir?’

‘Nothing. Go on.’

‘Michelle didn't deny that she and Felicity had become friends. Certainly, while I was there, Michelle admitted they had shared a few girls’ nights in her flat over the garage. Michelle told me she liked to cook and that she and Felicity had shared several dinners there.’

‘And what do you think? Do you think it likely Michelle would lie about Raymond being abusive, for Felicity's sake?’

Mary Carmody hesitated before she admitted, ‘I don't know. It's difficult to know who to believe as they both seem to have their own axes to grind — Stephanie out of hatred of Felicity and Michelle out of friendship for a woman she believes has been grievously wronged.’

Rafferty nodded. There again, in Michelle's support, they had the same tale from Elaine Enderby and Sandrine Agnew. But while the information Mary Carmody had provided was interesting, it did little to provide a useful pointer to the identity of the murderer.

He rose from his seat and said, ‘You can go home and get a few hours’ rest afterwards, but first, as Llewellyn's still tied up on another strand of the investigation, I'll need you to accompany me to the prison for another chat with Felicity Raine.’

Rafferty was keen to ask Felicity if she had any recollection of taking the drug Sam Dally had told him about.

But when they arrived at the prison and Felicity was brought to them, it immediately became apparent that she was as unable to answer that question as she was unable to recall the physical act of killing her husband.

‘I don't
know
where I got the sleeping tablets from,’ she told him in a voice made wretched by unhappiness and frustration. ‘I don't even remember taking them, but I suppose I must have done as you say that the blood test revealed the drug's presence in my body.’

She frowned before she slowly revealed, ‘My mother-in-law takes sleeping tablets, but I can't remember what sort. Maybe I helped myself to some from her bathroom cabinet?’

She gave a helpless shrug. ‘I must have done so, mustn't I? I just wish I could remember that and the … the … well, you know.’ With a catch in her voice, she said, ‘I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going mad. How can I not remember killing Raymond? It doesn't make any kind of sense. Poor Ray.’

She sighed as her eyes filled with tears. She immediately apologised for them. ‘You must think them veritable crocodile tears. It's stupid, I know, but I don't even know whether I'm crying for myself or Raymond.’ She gave a rueful, watery smile. ‘Perhaps my tears are for both of us; that our marriage should end like this, with Raymond dead and me as chief suspect. My solicitor told me I was foolish to make a confession given the circumstances.’

A confession she had since retracted, thanks to the good offices of that same solicitor.

Having managed no logical progression on why
Felicity
should have taken sleeping tablets, Rafferty decided, when he got back to his office, to approach the question of the sleeping tablets from the opposing viewpoint: why would someone choose to give the drug to both the Raines? So they could murder Mr Raine and arrange things so that it looked like Felicity Raine had killed him, as he had earlier thought a possibility? Unless he was to ignore his growing doubts and return to the belief that Felicity was guilty as charged, he could think of no logical alternative.

But as Llewellyn often implied — more than implied — that his logic was mostly of the illogical sort, he was keen to put the question to Llewellyn and see what he could come up with. Fortunately, by the time Rafferty got back, Llewellyn had returned to the station between his various Renault Clio pursuits. And he, of course, had no difficulty in coming up with an eminently logical explanation.

‘I presume you've considered the possibility that Mrs Raine administered the drugs to her husband and
subse
quently
swallowed a small quantity herself in an attempt to fool us into believing her to be no more than an innocent dupe of some third party?’

‘Of course,’ Rafferty was quick to agree. What his clever sergeant was implying, Rafferty told himself, was that Mrs Raine was attempting to encourage
him,
beguiled by her beauty as was Llewellyn's implicit implication, to leap to the wrong conclusions.

He hoped he wasn't that gullible. He also hoped — believed — that he wasn't yet ready to dismiss any possibility, as he waspishly informed Llewellyn.

Llewellyn's brown eyes regarded him steadily for several seconds without comment, before he continued on his analytical way. ‘She could have acquired the drug from some casual acquaintance or via the internet as you yourself suggested, where prescription drugs are readily obtainable. She could have slipped previously crushed drugs into the milk herself, knowing her husband's daily ritual of drinking an entire pint at breakfast, waited for the drugs to take effect, killed him and only then drunk a quantity of the drug-laced milk herself, knowing traces of its presence would show up in any test. I imagine Dr Dally would have mentioned if he had been able to discern from the toxicology results whether there had been any major time difference in their separate consumption?’

Rafferty nodded and told him that, no, Dally hadn't mentioned anything of the sort.

‘Anyway, as, if my scenario proves correct, there would probably have been no greater than half an hour's delay before Mrs Raine took her own draught, it seems unlikely,’ Llewellyn added.

Rafferty again found himself agreeing. The logical mind was, he was sure, a thing of wonder. But it seemed, to him, to contain precious little humanity. No wonder — whatever trouble she had managed to get herself into — that Gloria Llewellyn was unwilling to have Dafyd find out about it.

However, for Llewellyn, the consideration of his humanity or otherwise clearly held no deterrent to his relentless logical pursuit of the evidence. He was currently — with his wife Maureen's encouragement — studying for his upward progression on the police promotion ladder; Rafferty had little doubt that the Welshman would soon leave him trailing. It was unlikely that Maureen would be satisfied until Llewellyn reached the rank of chief constable . . ‘So,’ Llewellyn continued, ‘as that particular avenue of investigation is unrewarding, another might prove more fruitful — tracing the source of the Mogadon. Admittedly, if Mrs Raine obtained the drugs from some casual acquaintance who has since moved out of her life, we may never discover the identity of the supplier, but, on the other hand, if she obtained them on the internet …’

Llewellyn left the sentence unfinished, glanced at the still-technophobic Rafferty and asked, ‘Would you like me to check out the computers and mobiles of the Raines and their family and friends for such possible purchases?’

‘I was just about to suggest somebody did so,’ Rafferty agreed. ‘But it doesn't necessarily have to be you. I'd rather have you carry on with checking out the rest of the Renault Clio owners — it's important that we trace this scruffy type and find out just
why
he was watching the Raines’ home. Even if he had nothing to do with the killing itself he might have valuable information about it.

‘Jonathon Lilley has proved himself a bit of a techno-buff, so he can check out the computer angle — and not just the computers and other net-connected gadgets belonging to the Raines and their various acquaintances. We've already considered the possibility that — if she
is
guilty — Felicity Raine could have obtained the drug from someone else; the same thing applies when it comes to if she — or anyone else used a computer in order to obtain them. And even though that check should be simple enough, perhaps you can give Lilley a hand when you've traced the man watching the Raines’ home — is that likely to take much longer, by the way?’

‘I shouldn't think so. The list of possibles has reduced considerably. There's only two left to check. I should have an answer later today.’

‘OK. Well, finish that job first. It's too important to leave on one side. As I said, you can help Lilley with the computer checks when you've finished on the Clio angle. And that will, of course, mean Stephanie Raine, other family members or work colleagues with a possible grudge against Raymond Raine, and anyone else you can think of who might have some connection to the family. Tell Lilley to make a start on that line of enquiry before you set out again.’

Llewellyn nodded and headed off. He left Rafferty to his thoughts, thoughts which were an unsettling mix of wondering whether the still-silent Abra might decide not to return at all from her mission of mercy — if mission of mercy it was, rather than an excuse to disguise the fact that she had decided to leave him — and the worrying possibility that maybe Llewellyn was right and Felicity Raine
had
beguiled him.

Not only beguiled him, but by virtue of his reaction to her beguilement, somehow induced Abra to suspect it also. She had made several waspish comments since he had told her about the case. Certainly, before she had vanished off to Wales, she left him in no doubt that she felt he was too taken with the beautiful Felicity for her liking.

He sighed at this unhappy mix of thoughts and turned to ones less troubling. If Felicity Raine had obtained the Mogadon with the deliberate intention of murdering her husband it was unlikely she would have either obtained the drug from her GP or kept the pills once they had served their purpose. She could have thrown any tablets not used in any one of the rubbish bins
en route
from her home to the police station, having first made sure there was nothing on the bottle to identify her.

But whether she had or not, since in the interval said bins had been emptied by the private refuse firm contracted by the local council, they would now have no chance of finding them, though he would still check with her doctor. People who committed murder could make the most idiotic and basic blunders so it was always possible she
had
obtained them from her GP.

Armed with the toxicological evidence, Rafferty instructed the team to procure the general-practitioner details of every single one of the people even slightly connected to the case, as a priority. As he had remarked to Llewellyn, it should be a relatively simple matter to trace where the Mogadon had come from.

Meanwhile, anxious to get one of the pressing questions in the case answered, he picked up the phone and rang Dr Henderson, the Raines’ GP, who had been out on his home visits when he had rung earlier. Fortunately, Dr Henderson had returned to the surgery.

Rafferty was thoughtful as he put the phone down. As he had expected, neither Felicity nor Raymond Raine had been prescribed the drug by their GP.

Dr Henderson had just confirmed what the painstaking search of the Raines’ home had already indicated: namely that neither of the Raines had ever been prescribed any sleeping tablet and, as for other drugs, their medical records indicated it was long since either one of them had been prescribed anything at all.

So where had the drug come from? And more to the point,
why
was it in their bodies?

Rafferty hoped Jonathon Lilley would soon find the answer to the first of those questions. And when he did, it just might help them find the answer to the second.