Love Lies Bleeding (7 page)

Llewellyn nodded and took out his mobile.

Five minutes later, with the appointment with the solicitor arranged for that evening, Llewellyn said, ‘Wonder why the late Mr Raine felt it necessary to keep such information hidden so discreetly? It's not as though his solicitors would have revealed confidential information to anyone, much less potentially interested parties.’

Rafferty too was intrigued as to why Raine should have felt it necessary to hide such information. But whatever Raine's reasons, Rafferty was pleased they would now be able to speak promptly with his solicitor. It was a relief they wouldn't have to waste precious time canvassing every firm of solicitors in Elmhurst and its immediate environs. Solicitors could be a testy, stuffy lot, who made endless complaints about the workload required whenever Rafferty or one of his colleagues made a simple enquiry. As Rafferty had felt like saying on more than one occasion, if the legal eagles were to apply as much time and energy to their filing arrangements as they did to their billing systems they would have no need to complain that assisting the police was demandingly labour-intensive.

Rafferty was surprised to discover that a young man of thirty-two, as Llewellyn told him was Raymond Raine's age, should have used one of Elmhurst's more long-established firms of solicitor. He would have thought he would have preferred one of the younger, more thrusting practices which had sprung up in the town. But, as yet, he reminded himself, he knew very little about Raymond Raine — apart from the so far unproven suspicion that he abused his wife and that he was secretive. Clearly, delving into Raine's character and background was a priority. Rafferty hoped that between them the solicitor and Raine's cousin would be able to enlighten them on both counts.

Eager to move on in a case that had started with such a bang but which had then limped for lack of information, Rafferty walked across the study to where Llewellyn, industrious as ever, sat further exploring Raine's desk, and tapped him on the arm.

‘Come on, Dafyd,’ he said. ‘We've found what we were looking for. We haven't got time for you to do your
Antiques Roadshow
impression. I want to speak to Raine's cousin before we see his solicitor.’

Llewellyn had just finished locking the desks and filing cabinet when Rafferty became aware of a disturbance coming from the front of the house. He heard Timothy Smales's voice raised in protest and hurried back out to the open front door.

‘What the hell?’ he muttered as he saw Smales attempting to restrain a young man of muscular physique and determined countenance. As he took in the mud-spattered blue van abandoned in the drive and the macho, heavy-duty workman's toolkit strapped at a rakish angle to his waist, Rafferty recalled Elaine Enderby's description and guessed the young man must be Nicholas Miller, the gardener/handyman.

‘What's going on?’ Miller demanded of Rafferty as he wrenched his right arm from Smales's grasp, almost sending the younger and slighter-built Smales flying in the process.

‘Perhaps you could tell me who you are, sir?’ Rafferty enquired.

‘I'm Nick. Nick Miller. Mrs Raine's gardener. I don't know who your officer thought I was when he grabbed hold of me.’ Miller directed an unfriendly stare at the red-faced Smales.

Given the macho, tight-T-shirted physique and the leather tool-belt that held the accoutrements of his trade and which he wore with more than a hint of swagger, Rafferty suspected that Timothy Smales had thought him someone got up for an audition for the gay band The Village People. However, he kept this suspicion to himself; somehow he thought it unlikely the macho Miller would appreciate the allusion -the gardener looked as if he took himself and his masculinity seriously and expected others to do the same.

‘I'm sorry about that, sir,’ Rafferty said. ‘But my officer has orders to stop anyone approaching the house. As you might have noticed from the police tape across the gate, this
is
a crime scene.’

Miller hitched the belt of his low-slung toolkit higher and replied belligerently, ‘I came in the back way. I didn't see any police tape.’

Rafferty frowned. His eye alighted on Smales's tomato-red countenance. Annoyed that his team had failed to discover and secure the second access point, Rafferty said to Smales, ‘I'm sure Sergeant Llewellyn here must have told you to check the boundaries for other access points.’

Beside him, Llewellyn quietly confirmed it.

After tartly commenting, ‘Better late than never, I suppose,’ Rafferty brusquely ordered, ‘Get off and put some tape up at the rear, before anyone else gains access to the scene. And while you're at it, find a spare body to guard it.’

Smales scurried off, as if grateful to have escaped a worse scolding for his carelessness.

Miller, obviously pleased to have his intrusion on a crime scene so easily vindicated, waved at the heavy police presence in the form of bodies and vehicles still littering the property, and demanded, ‘So, are you going to tell me what's happened? Is Felicity — Mrs Raine — OK?’

That was a moot point, Rafferty mused, seeing as she was currently in the hospital nursing a fever and a guilty conscience and was shortly expected to be transferred from the hospital to Elmhurst's police cells.

Rafferty, thinking it the speediest course if he wanted the gardener's co-operation, gave Miller a brief explanation of events.

The young gardener's tanned and handsome face tightened at the news of Raine's death and Felicity's confession, but beyond that he betrayed little emotion. He didn't even ask any further questions, which might have been expected in the circumstances. And when asked to supply his address Miller gave it to them curtly, as if he resented having to reveal even that much about himself. Certainly, some of his swagger had fallen away.

‘Today's Thursday,’ Rafferty commented. ‘I gather this is one of your normal days for doing the Raines’ garden?’

Miller's eyebrows rose at this. ‘I see someone's been talking about me.’ His lips parted in a rueful grin as though this was something he had expected. And although no one likes having their name bandied about during a murder inquiry, Rafferty got the feeling that Miller wasn't particularly put out that someone had thought to mention him. Clearly he was of the school who believed it was better to be mentioned — in whatever connection — than to be ignored.

‘Obviously you won't be doing any work here today, or for the foreseeable future,’ Rafferty told him.

‘Yes. I
have
managed to work that out for myself,’ Miller told him sharply, as though suspecting and resenting that his trade should brand him as being earthy and dim. ‘But I—’ He broke off, and when he resumed Rafferty got the distinct impression that Miller's ‘I have a living to earn’ and ‘Have you any idea when Mrs Raine's likely to come home?’ were not what he originally intended to say.

‘Come home? You don't seem to have understood me. Mrs Raine has confessed to killing her husband. She won't be coming home.’

‘Not coming home?’ Miller shook his head in amazement. ‘Come on. You surely can't think she really killed him? The idea's insane.’

Rafferty shrugged. ‘Insane or not, the facts are that Raymond Raine is
dead,
Mr Miller. Murdered.
Somebody
killed him and Mrs Raine says it was her.

‘But I really don't have the time to discuss the whys and wherefores now,’ Rafferty told him firmly. ‘We have your name and address and will be in contact shortly. Now, I must ask you to leave.’ Rafferty fixed Miller with a determined eye and added, ‘Unless there is something you can tell us that could help with the investigation?’

‘No.’ The gardener was quick to deny it. ‘Why would I know anything about it? I don't,’ Miller insisted.

‘You're sure?’

Miller clearly believed his previous vehemence should be diluted. ‘No. Of course I'm not sure. How can I be? Only all this’ — again he waved an arm to encompass the scene -‘has knocked my thought processes askew.’

Rafferty nodded. Maybe later when he'd had time to think he would be able to tell them something helpful. Or maybe not, Rafferty thought as he caught Miller sweep an assessing glance over the house and grounds.Did the handsome young Miller of the tanned and taut torso fancy his chances of sharing Felicity Raine's inheritance, he wondered? And if so, had he thought it prudent to keep quiet about whatever he might know about the Raines’ marriage and Raymond's death, in the hope of stepping into Raymond's empty shoes as far as the beautiful Felicity was concerned? Or was he simply hoping for some easy money in the form of blackmail for his continued silence, assuming Felicity did retract her confession and force them to put together a case against her? Certainly, Miller's determinedly low profile and failure to ask the usual rash of questions was curious.

Rafferty watched with narrowed eyes as Nick Miller climbed into his dirty van with the easy grace of his enviable physique, backed in the turning circle and motored slowly up the drive. He didn't look back until he had put what he presumably deemed sufficient distance between himself and the police. Then, as he waited for the police tape to be removed to allow his exit, he permitted himself one more slow sweeping glance of the Raines’ extensive home before he held up one hand in what Rafferty felt was a mocking salute and drove off.

The business premises
of the Raines’ family fashion firm looked sleek and decidedly upmarket, their jaunty yellow umbrella logo prominent on the facade.

Rafferty parked in the small forecourt and he and Llewellyn entered the understated but undoubtedly expensive reception area.

Of course, the family business was fashion design so they would require premises that reflected the appropriate image: mahogany and other old-fashioned Victoriana would have no more place here than stuffed eagles or tiger-skin rugs. With its decor of black, grey and silver, with accents of white and rich scarlet, and seating in black leather and chrome; it looked coolly elegant, as did the young woman seated behind the high, curved reception desk, who was clothed in similar hues to the reception area itself.

Rafferty wondered if it was a uniform or if, as the very visible front to the family fashion business, she was required to model their latest lines as part of her duties. Her trim figure and erect posture showed off the Raines’ fashion wares to advantage. It was a shame that her welcome, smiling and warm at first, should become a cool match for her surroundings as soon as Rafferty flipped open his warrant card, introduced himself and Llewellyn, and revealed the reason for their visit and that they had an appointment with Michael Raine.

‘Please take a seat,’ she requested as her smile turned from cool to distinctly frosty, ‘and I'll tell Mr Raine you're here.’

From Rafferty's point of view, this rumour-mongering and side-taking often proved, if not always helpful, at least illuminating as to the state of relationships. The receptionist's blatant hostility struck him as potentially mirroring that of Mike Raine, Raymond's cousin, the man they had come to see.

But he mustn't prejudge a man he had yet to meet, he warned himself. And it was true that a murder in the family made people react warily when the police came calling. He was dragged from his thoughts by the still-cool voice of the receptionist.

‘Mr Raine is free now,’ she told them. ‘You may go up and he will meet you at the lift on the sixth floor.’

Rafferty smiled his thanks. It brought no answering smile from the receptionist.

The lift was as sleek and elegant as the reception area and its female attendant; it even had a little black padded seat running round the three walled sides, with matching, but presumably thinner, black, grey and white marble slabs like those that floored the reception on the floor and the walls of the lift under the seat. Above it, some of the most flattering mirrors Rafferty had ever seen rose on three sides to the ceiling. He took the opportunity to smooth his untidy hair and straighten his tie.

The lift was subtly perfumed, soft music issued from invisible speakers — soulful jazz of some sort, Rafferty thought, though not being a jazz fan he didn't recognise the tune. Altogether it was such a comfortable mode of upward locomotion that he was rather sorry when the lift's engineering revealed itself as being at least as expensive as the lift's interior and the doors opened, seemingly just seconds after they had closed, to reveal a man who could only be Mike Raine.

It was possible to trace the features of Raymond in those of his cousin. But although the cousins shared a finely chiseled nose and full lips, where Raymond had been well built, with a powerful physique and firmly chiseled jaw, Mike must have felt destined while Raymond was alive to remain in his cousin's shadow.

Slim to an extent that looked unhealthy, Michael Raine was still a good-looking man, though compared to his cousin his good looks would, in a previous generation, have been the wanly handsome looks of the consumptive; a pale shadow indeed.

As they shook hands, Rafferty was surprised to find how firm — challenging even — was Mike Raine's handshake. It was as if he was determined to show by the force of his grip that although conscious of the ‘pale-imitation’ tag, he was determined to kill it — as he had killed his cousin? Rafferty pondered the thought that entered his mind as it struck him again just how much wealth was at stake here.

But time would tell if it had been Mike Raine, rather than Felicity, who was guilty of murder. For the moment, as behind his back he surreptitiously flexed his squashed fingers, he resolved to avoid any more such painful encounters.

Mike Raine led them into his office. The room was defiantly at odds with the decor in what Rafferty had seen of the rest of the building, where presumably the late Raymond Raine's taste had held sway.

Here, there was colour in plenty. And although the floor matched the scheme of the building in its black, white and grey marbling, the rest of the room's exuberant embrace of rainbow colours seemed designed to cock a snook at such knowingly superior sophistication. Strangely, the mad colour mix didn't jar the senses. The sheer exuberance of the room seemed more to encourage a childish joy at such richness, though Rafferty, who was partial to bright colours himself, wondered if that wasn't just him.