Love Lies Bleeding (20 page)

Rafferty sighed. He hoped Llewellyn was taking note of this latest example of the perversity of human nature and would alter his outlook accordingly.

He explained the sequence of events that had contrived to delay the start of the case. ‘So when your daughter promptly collapsed after making this confession, she was hospitalised and comatose for three days. We were unable to interview her, so we've had less time than you think.’

‘So why are you wasting time with me? I'm sure my daughter's already told you we haven't had any contact for several years. I can tell you nothing. So what, exactly, is it that you want from me?’

‘For myself, nothing,’ Rafferty told him bluntly. ‘But I thought, as her father, you might offer Felicity some comfort. I can organise a visit to the prison where she's being held on remand—’

Mr Franklin interrupted him. ‘Has she asked to see me?’

Rafferty was forced to confess that she hadn't.

‘I didn't think so. She made clear to her mother and me that she intended to make her own way in the world. I thought she was ashamed of us. Certainly, I've barely set eyes on her since the day she married Peter Dunbar.’ He shook his head. The Lord knows where my wife and I got Felicity from. I'm a plain man, as you can see, and my wife, if anything, was plainer. Felicity was always a changeling from the day she was born, though she was a determined one, always straining to be off somewhere we knew not where, off on her own, without having her old parents dragging after her. Eventually, she got her way and we let her go.’

‘She must have been quite young when she and Mr Dunbar married,’ Llewellyn remarked.

‘Aye, she was that. Barely twenty. But she had always been a magnet for the boys from the time she was thirteen or fourteen. She thought, I suppose, that she'd had enough boyfriends to recognise the one she wanted when he appeared. Her mother tried to tell her no good would come of it, that her character hadn't finished forming yet, all the usual stuff you churn out to youngsters determined on going their own way. For all her efforts, Felicity went ahead and married him anyway. And now you tell me she divorced that one and married another fellow who's now dead?’ He shook his head. ‘It's a rum do and no mistake.’

Strangely, Frederick Franklin didn't seem particularly surprised by these events.

‘She was always a secretive little thing,’ he now revealed. ‘Even as a small girl. But reserved with it. That's why I was astonished when she said she wanted to train for work in the theatre. I thought she meant she wanted to be an actress, but no, she wanted to train as one of the backstage staff, powdering people's shiny noses or some such. It didn't seem much of a job to me, but she said it would give her the chance to travel and to work in the West End, and it would provide her with far more regular work than being an actress. I suppose me and the wife were relieved at that, as actresses have such rackety lives. But then, I suppose she started to find that line of work not as exciting as she'd hoped because she threw it all up a few months before she gained her certificate and decided she wanted to marry Peter Dunbar. Older than her, he was, too. Me and the wife didn't approve, but, as I told you, that didn't stop her.’

He glanced again at the still silently flickering TV screen and sighed heavily over all the exciting horse races their intrusion was making him miss.

Quickly, before his attention strayed again, Rafferty said, ‘I realise now that, as you were unaware your daughter had divorced Peter Dunbar and taken Raymond Raine as her second husband, you can't tell me anything about
that
marriage. But in a murder investigation, every piece of information, no matter how seemingly irrelevant to the case, can be helpful. So if you can tell us anything — anything at all — about her marriage to Peter Dunbar?’

‘I'm not sure that I can, to be frank.’ He snorted. ‘Saw little enough of them once they married. But what little I
did
see made me think they were an ill-matched pair. Never understood what she saw in him. I said to the wife that she must have married the fellow for his money, though the wife wouldn't have it. She told me Felicity had confided the business had been in trouble for longer than she'd let on, yet Felicity had stood by him even when the money started dribbling away. But I still think she married him for his money. She must have done, to my way of thinking,’ he insisted. ‘I was damned if I could see why else she would have wanted to marry him. Man had no drive, no backbone either. No backbone at all. Hardly surprising both Dunbar and his business collapsed. Nothing holding them up, d'you see?’

The words ‘pot', ‘kettle’ and ‘black’ entered Rafferty's head. Although he had no idea what line of work Mr Franklin had been in before his retirement, to judge by his less than luxurious home it didn't seem likely that he had been noticeably successful at it, whereas Peter Dunbar
had
achieved something substantial, even if he had lost it all, whether through misfortune or mismanagement

Rafferty saw little point in remaining any longer. After asking for and obtaining Mr Franklin's telephone number and telling him he would keep him apprised of developments regarding his daughter, he and Llewellyn left. He heard the volume turned up on the TV before they reached the front door.

‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ Rafferty complained to Llewellyn as they left the cramped flat and walked down the stairs to the car. ‘No wonder Felicity chooses to pretend she has no family. If I had a father who made clear he preferred his horse racing to his daughter, I reckon I'd have done the same.’

‘I wouldn't say it was entirely a waste of time,’ Llewellyn contradicted him.

Rafferty, suspecting that Llewellyn was just continuing his earlier contrariness, refused to give him the satisfaction of seeking further enlightenment about what — if anything -Llewellyn thought he had learned. Trying to play the Great Detective again to my Dr Watson, he suspected, and decided not to take up his allotted role.

Besides, later, when he had had time to think about things, he felt he was finally beginning to get an inkling of who had killed Raymond Raine and why, which surely entitled
him
to the superior role?

But until this inkling grew to something approaching proof, he decided to keep his thoughts to himself. As he glanced at his watch and saw that it was already getting on for midday, he suggested they grab some sandwiches.

‘We can eat them in the car.’ Rafferty hesitated, then burst out, ‘By the way, I've been meaning to tell you. I have to go away on a family matter. Only overnight tonight and a chunk of tomorrow.’

‘Going away? But what about the case? We haven't yet re-interviewed Mike Raine. Surely you can stay around for long enough for us to question him as to why he lied to us? After all, he is the one who stands to inherit the bulk of the Raine family business. I would have thought that would be more pressing than some family problem. To my mind, the only family business more pressing when we're in the middle of a murder investigation would be a life-and-death matter.’ Quietly, Llewellyn asked, ‘Is one of your family seriously ill?’

Rafferty, annoyed at being cross-questioned, said shortly, ‘No. It's another matter entirely. Anyway,’ he said, ‘I'd have thought you'd be glad to be in charge of the case. You've seemed keen enough to be the main man before.’

‘Maybe. But there's no satisfaction in being in charge for so short a time. All it means is that one would have to carry on running the investigation in the way the temporarily absent officer has organised it.’

Llewellyn's voice and expression made it clear that, given the choice, following Rafferty's way of organising things was the last thing he would do.

‘Well, I can't do anything about it
now,’
Rafferty insisted. He felt riled that Llewellyn should choose to have a go at him when it was
his
mother who was the cause of his being called away; although, of course, his own had, as usual, managed to put her two-penn'orth in. ‘I told you. I'll only be away overnight and a chunk of tomorrow. We'll fit Mike Raine in tomorrow afternoon. I should be back around mid-afternoon, if not sooner. Ring Raine later and make an appointment for around four o'clock.’

Thankfully, before Llewellyn could voice any further protests, Rafferty's mobile went off. He snatched it from his pocket, half expecting it to be Abra again. But it was Jonathon Lilley. He listened for a little, then excitedly asked, ‘You have? Good man. Where are you? OK, we'll see you at the station in an hour or so.’

‘That was Jonathon Lilley,’ he told Llewellyn. ‘And although his poking about in the innards of computers has yet to bring any results on the Mogadon front, he's found out something else that's sure to please you.’

From Llewellyn's downturned mouth, Rafferty got the distinct impression that nothing he said at the moment was likely to please his sergeant. For a second he felt tempted to tell Llewellyn why he was
really
going to Wales. But then he thought of what Abra would say if she found out he'd spilled the beans and decided against it.

‘Come on,’ he said as he reached the car and climbed in. ‘I told him we'd meet him back at the station. The sandwiches will have to wait.’

Llewellyn got into
the passenger seat and asked, ‘So what has Lilley found out?’

‘I gather it's something that could possibly implicate Felicity Raine. Though, before you get
too
excited, it's only fair to tell you it could just as easily implicate Mike or Stephanie, especially, in her case, if she's been playing a more subtle game all along than we might have given her credit for.’

Rafferty put his foot down and drove to Elmhurst in record time, much to the disapproval of Llewellyn, who prided himself on being a cautious driver.

Lilley was waiting for them in reception and all three walked up to Rafferty's office.

‘So let's have the rest, Jon,’ Rafferty invited when they had all sat down.

Strangely, given her stated aversion to her daughter-in-law, Stephanie Raine had not only forgotten to mention that Raymond had been her stepson rather than her natural child, she had also managed to forget her conversation during a rather drunken dinner party she had held several weeks before Raymond's murder, at which she had carelessly revealed the password to her computer's email account.

This information, Lilley told them, was supplied by a Mr Gerald Huntley, a friend of Stephanie who had been present at the dinner party. He had told Lilley that the subject of computer passwords had come up during the meal and Stephanie had boasted that she had no trouble remembering her password because she used the same one for every one of her internet accounts. She had even apparently blurted her password out for all her guests to hear.

‘Mr Huntley said he warned Mrs Raine Senior that using the same password for everything was very unwise, as was revealing it to others. He commented that it was fortunate she was amongst friends and family rather than in a restaurant with maybe a few of the listening ears belonging to the criminal fraternity. He said that he told her that if someone got into her system and knew or was able to discover what should be secure information, they would be able to clear out her bank and savings accounts as well as access other sites, the contents of which she would presumably prefer to remain confidential. She didn't take his warning seriously, apparently, and just laughed it off.

‘Mr Huntley said he's been worried about it ever since, especially in view of Felicity Raine's presence that evening and the subsequent publicity regarding her confession and its later retraction. He learned about the drug that was in Raymond's system from Stephanie and that we have yet to trace its source. He wondered if Felicity might have used her mother-in-law's computer to buy it.’

Lilley's normally serious grey eyes were shining with excitement at the thought that his discoveries might prove vital. ‘He was sufficiently worried that such might be the case that he decided the information might prove significant to the investigation.’

‘Good for Gerald Huntley,’ said Rafferty. He supposed Stephanie Raine had wasted no time in poisoning Huntley's mind against Felicity. Still, if the information was true and not something Huntley and Stephanie had dreamed up between them, it might help move the investigation forward.

While Mr Huntley's computer, as the fair-haired Lilley now confirmed, had proved innocent of orders for the drug found in Raymond's and Felicity's bodies, the question that remained — now that they knew that Stephanie was not Raymond's natural mother — was whether Stephanie's so far unchecked computer might contain the drug order they had so far sought in vain.

Gerald Huntley had given Lilley the names of the other party attendees: both Felicity and Mike Raine had been present that night. Either of them could have made a mental note of the password for future reference.

‘Certainly, Felicity Raine must have had easy access to her mother-in-law's computer,’ Llewellyn observed.

‘So must her mother-in-law,’ was Rafferty's tart comment. ‘Seeing as it was her machine. And it seems likely that Mike Raine could have accessed it as well without much difficulty. Let's have the guest list,’ Rafferty said to Lilley: ‘we might as well find out if Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all had access.’

Lilley handed the list over.

Rafferty quickly scrutinised it. Beside the names of the guests as yet unknown to them, Lilley had noted what relationship they had to the Raines. As well as Stephanie herself, Raymond and Felicity, the dinner guests had included this Gerald Huntley, whom Lilley had delicately described as Stephanie's sometime gentleman friend, Mike Raine and Sandrine Agnew; the latter had presumably been invited to make up the numbers and make sure the male/female ratio round the table was the same.

Rafferty found himself wondering if the dinner party had been staged solely for Stephanie to have an independent witness to the fact that Felicity would be able to access her internet account with no difficulty. But for her to do this, she would have to know that Raymond was to be murdered, as well as know he was to be rendered unconscious before he was killed.