Down Among the Dead Men Page 14

  He tapped his teeth thoughtfully. 'It's possible that once news of the murder broke - if there was such a man - he'd have been too frightened to come forward. He'd have been scared we might suspect him of killing her. Of course, the problem with her is that unless she persuaded some man or other to drive her down to Essex and back, she'd still have to stay sober long enough to get here from London. If she had murder on her mind, she would surely not be reckless enough to risk being breathalysed so close to the scene of the crime.'

  He swung his chair decisively round to the front. 'We're returning to London, Llewellyn. I want to see if Anne Longman's memory has returned. But, before we see her, we'll have a word with her neighbours and question them about any possible boyfriends and what cars they drive. It's a long shot, but worth checking. Mrs Griffiths may be able to help there, too. Pump her a little more next time you see her. We know Anne Longman hated the victim and, with her out of the running, she might think she had a good chance of getting custody of her son.

  'But before we go.' Rafferty silently admitted defeat and thrust Dally's pathology report at him. 'Have another read of that. I don't suppose it's significant, but you probably noticed when you saw him earlier, that Thomson's face was scratched. If it's irrelevant, I want to get it cleared out of the way. You know how I hate a muddle.' At this, Llewellyn's gaze rested sardonically on the untidy desk. Impervious to such subtle criticism, Rafferty added, 'All I want to know is if the victim had skin trapped under her nails and I'm expected to wade through all that bloody mumbo-jumbo.'

  'But Dally already told us there was nothing,' said Llewellyn. 'Don't you remember?'

  Rafferty had been too occupied with keeping his lunch down at the post-mortem to have much attention to spare for Dally's colourful blow-by-blow account of his findings, but he wasn't going to admit that to Llewellyn and brusquely, he ordered him, 'Just read it, there's a good lad.'

  Five minutes later, Llewellyn confirmed what he'd already said. 'No. No skin trapped.'

  'Are you sure?' Rafferty frowned suspiciously at the speed of Llewellyn's perusal. It had taken him that long just to read the first page. And then he'd had to go back and read it again because he'd hardly taken in a word of it.

  'It says so here, sir,' said Llewellyn, pointing to a particularly lengthy paragraph.

  Rafferty skimmed the first few lines and decided to take his sergeant's word for it. 'Not that that lets Thomson out. Even if his mother does confirm his story, she's old and could have let her eyes droop for five minutes. The victim was only a little slip of a thing. He could have overpowered her quickly enough, and returned to the other side of the farm without his mother even noticing he'd gone.'

  'You think he might have lost his temper and killed her accidently?'

  'Maybe.' Rafferty sighed and then admitted. 'But it doesn't seem likely. He's had a running battle with that Society for several years now, without killing any of them.'

  His hunt for Dally's report had turned his desk upside-down and, as his gaze came to rest on the old photographs of Maximillian Shore that he'd had Llewellyn dig out of the files, he frowned, and remarked, with a somewhat bashful smile. 'You know, Dafyd, this old man's face seems to haunt me. It's as if some sixth sense is telling me he has something to do with the murder.' He shrugged ruefullly, as Llewellyn opened his mouth. 'Don't ask me how or why. I know, it's illogical, but, after reading his autobiography, I feel even more convinced that there's something there, something that connects with this case. He was a despot, with family and business rivals both. His overpowering, destructive, personality still hangs over the family fifteen years later. For all his success, Charles strikes me as a deeply unhappy man, Anne is a bitter drunk, he ruined whatever chances Henry might have had as an artist by pushing him to become a businessman. His evil influence has lingered even unto the second generation, as the children seem as incapable of happiness as the adults. They were a family waiting for further tragedy and now it's happened. Look at that face, man. Just look at it, then tell me you don't feel it, too.'

  Obediently, Llewellyn came to stand beside him and studied the now faded photographs.

  'Even though these photographs are old and grainy, you have to admit the man's personality still comes out of the picture and grabs you by the throat. He's the key that will unlock the door to this case, I know it.'

  'I can see that, in his day, he must have wielded great influence,' Llewellyn admitted. 'But he's been dead for years. All right, I agree, they're not a happy family, but I'd have thought any tragedy waiting to happen would have occurred at the time he died - when that divisive will was read - not years later. Charles is the patriarch now. I just can't see what possible connection a man, dead for fifteen years, can have with this murder.'

  Neither could Rafferty. All he knew for certain was that, far more even than these photographs, Maximillian's portrait seemed to act as a magnet for him. Each time he went to the Shores' house, he would find himself drawn to it, more and more convinced that the old man's formidable gaze held a message. However, if it did, he had yet to discover what it was. But, he realised, it might help his understanding if he found out more about what had made the dead patriarch tick. 'Didn't Charles mention something about his father's papers?' he asked, a few seconds later. 'Those theoretical papers he was working on. It might be worth digging into them.'

  'He said they'd been thrown out, as I remember,' Llewellyn replied, his expression implying he had no interest in being led down this particular blind alley.

  'He said they'd probably been thrown out,' Rafferty quickly corrected. Llewellyn's lack of enthusiasm for his idea made him all the more eager to pursue it, especially as, even though they had managed to turn up a few interesting items, they didn't seem to be getting very far with any of them. 'Ring Mrs Griffiths and ask her about those papers. I bet if anyone knows where they are it'll be the housekeeper. Lucky for us that, with your Welsh charm, you've got her wound round your finger already. I'll see you out by the car.'

  However, according to the housekeeper, she was as sure as she could be that the papers would have gone on the gardener's bonfire years ago, which information somewhat hindered Rafferty's desire to learn more of the old man. Disgruntled, he slammed the driver's door and, putting his foot down, headed for London.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Anne Longman opened the door after their third ring. She seemed ill at ease today, the previous strained vivacity was missing, as was the bright hit or miss make-up. Something else was missing, as well, Rafferty realised. The smell of whisky. He assumed she was out of booze, and wondered if that alone explained her nervous state.

  They followed her down the short hallway to the untidy living room, but when Rafferty attempted to question her, she flared up at him.

  'For God's sake, can't you wait till I find a cigarette? Or is this country turning into another police state?'

  Rafferty and Llewellyn exchanged glances. Ignoring them, she prowled from one end of the room to the other, like a caged tiger, her expression increasingly desperate as, one by one, jacket pockets and discarded cigarette packets were investigated and found to be empty.

  'Damn.' The lid slammed on a cheap redwood box - presumably the last hope.

  Rafferty, until recently a thirty a day man, tried to help. 'If you want to dash out to the tobacconist on the corner, we can wait five minutes.'

  'Don't you think I would if I had any money?' she snapped. 'I'm broke. My allowance isn't due till tomorrow and, knowing that bastard brother of mine, it'll be late.'

  Suddenly, as though recognising she might be alienating possible rescuers, her demeanour changed. She laid a hand on Rafferty's arm and gave him a devastating smile. 'With all that red hair, you must have your share of bad habits,' she murmured. 'For pity's sake, tell me smoking's one of them.'

  Rafferty smiled ruefully. 'Sorry. I gave them up.'

  Instantly dismissing him, she directed her smile at Llewellyn, but one look at the Welshman evidently sufficed to
convince her that he was a paragon of clean-living virtues. She scowled, slumped in one of the worn armchairs and eyed them with dislike. 'Pity you didn't send the Vice Squad. Isn't it just my luck to get two policemen with not a decent human weakness between them?'

  Rafferty, unwilling to be lumped together with Llewellyn as a Percy Prim, felt the urge to defend himself. But, as he watched her nicotine stained fingers beat an erratic tattoo on the arm of the chair, he realised he might as well save his breath. Anne Longman was more concerned with her own deprivation than his manly pride. He realised something else as well. Deprived of her twin crutches of whisky and cigarettes, she might just let something useful slip.

  'What do you want, anyway?' she snapped. 'If it's about my whereabouts when Henry's little bride was murdered, I still can't be any more definite than I was before. How many more times must I tell ...?'

  'Until you remember, Mrs Longman,' Llewellyn asserted.

  Their chats to the neighbours had elicited the information that Anne Longman had broken up with her last boyfriend some three weeks earlier. Apparently the split had been so acrimonious - with raucous arguments and smashed crockery - that she had declared herself off men. There certainly hadn't been any male friends visiting recently, according to the old lady next door. She had told them that all Anne's relationships tended to break up in a similar manner.

  The neighbour hadn't been able to tell them whether Anne had been at home on the day of Barbara's murder. But the rest of what she had said certainly lessened the possibility that one of her past boyfriends would have been willing to either make phone calls for her or offer to chauffeur her all the way to Essex. As, in Rafferty's estimation, this information dropped her a little further down the list of suspects, he broke in before Llewellyn's officious manner put her back up. 'We'll leave that for the moment, though there is something else you might be able to help us with,' he told her.

  She gave him a sulky look. 'Oh?'

  'It's nothing to worry about. It's just that Charles told me your father had written a large number of theoretical papers which he'd hoped to publish.' He sensed, rather than heard Llewellyn's sigh, but went doggedly on, anyway. 'The manuscript was kept in the library, but it seems to have disappeared.' He didn't mention Mrs Griffiths's conviction that the manuscript had been destroyed, but went on, 'I wondered if you might know what happened to it?'

  'Me? Why should I know what happened to it?' Her eyes narrowed. 'Who told you I did?' Rafferty's hopes rose as it became obvious that she was lying, and, as though she realised that her denial had been less than convincing, she immediately tried frankness. 'All right, so I did take it. What of it?'

  She flopped back on the armchair and gazed at him with defiant eyes. 'I've as much right to it as my dear little brother. I thought I might be able to get Daddy's opus published. But there was no hope of that. From the parts of it I was able to read, most of it was case history stuff, the sort any practising psychiatrist would have reams of.' She laughed suddenly. 'A lot of it was in some kind of code - father liked his little secrets. I couldn't figure the code out, but it must have been used for the more juicy bits or else why would father put himself to so much trouble? Anyway, I knew that no publisher would be interested in publishing an amateur's little theories, juicy or not, especially as the coded sections were probably libellous.' She pulled a face. 'Pity, as I could have done with the money.'

  Excited to discover that old Max Shore had felt the need to encode his work, and certain he was onto something definite at last, Rafferty asked eagerly, 'Do you still have the manuscript?'

  She looked at him assessingly as if weighing all the angles, then she shook her head. 'No. I put it back in the library. But it had vanished last time I looked for it. God knows where it's gone.' With a half-teasing smile at Rafferty, she commented, 'You know, you've intrigued me, Inspector. Do tell me what possible use you think my father's old theories might be to you.'

  After Llewellyn's criticism, Rafferty was defensive of his reasons. 'It was just an idea I had. Nothing of great importance. Anything that might help me solve this crime interests me, that's all.'

  'What possible connection could my father have with Barbara's death?'

  Feeling foolish, in face of so reasonable a question, he was forced to confess that he didn't know.

  She gave a malicious smile. 'Sounds to me as if you're clutching at straws, Inspector. Barbara and my father never even met. Surely you know he died all of fifteen years ago?'

  Rafferty nodded. He'd told her why he was interested in her father's papers, but he was damned if he was going to let her interrogate him, and he got up to go. He paused halfway to the door. 'Talking of your father, have you any idea who might have murdered him? I gather there were several theories at the time.'

  'Obviously, you've read the police reports, Inspector. I don't imagine I can tell you any more than they can. There was certainly no shortage of suspects. My father's portrait might give the impression that he was more upright than Moses, but you shouldn't let it fool you. He made enemies with the greatest of ease. You don't get to be as wealthy and successful as quickly as he did, without taking the trouble to discover where someone was most vulnerable. Of course, that Old Testament face of his made it easier to get under people's guard and cheat them. My father had no scruples, Inspector. He would stop at nothing to increase his empire. I called it his Attila complex.'

  She returned to her armchair and with a lazy grace, swung her legs over one of the arms, displaying plenty of shapely thigh. She had a certain wanton charm about her, a reckless youthful bravado that was beguiling and Rafferty couldn't help but stare as she stretched her body languorously, just like the cat he had likened her to earlier. Surprisingly, considering her drinking habits, she had kept her figure and it seemed to be giving Llewellyn the fidgets. But the Welshman wasn't the only one affected by her, Rafferty admitted to himself. He got the impression she was fully aware of the effect she had on them and was amusing herself. No wonder she'd managed to persuade Henry up the aisle so easily, he thought. Henry, poor fool, wouldn't have stood a chance, wouldn't have realised that she was more suited to being a mistress than a wife.

  Anne Longman still wore the look of the cat who had been at the cream as she showed them out. She stood at the door and watched them walk away and, as Rafferty glanced back, he got the impression that, like a teenager, from her early marriage to her conveniently poor memory, she got a kick out of cocking a snook at authority. Unfortunately, it was an attitude he felt a sneaking empathy with. Wasn't he a bit that way inclined himself?

  Llewellyn didn't waste any time in reminding him that she still hadn't given them a satisfactory explanation of her whereabouts on the day of Barbara's murder. And as her neighbours had been unable to tell them anything incriminating, as a defence it was pretty effective. As with the other suspects in the case, it put the onus to prove otherwise squarely on them.

  Dwarfed by the red double decker London buses and hemmed in by black taxis, tourist coaches, and the gathering gloom of a threatening thunder storm, Rafferty blocked out the trapped feeling by forcing his mind to pick over what Anne Longman had said. If nothing else, the visit had given him more of an insight into Maximillian Shore, but he still wished he understood why the man preoccupied him so much. What could he have to do with this case? What possible connection could there be with current events?

  There was his autobiography, of course, but he'd read that and couldn't see that there was anything in it likely to bring on a murder now, fifteen years after publication, especially as it had been Barbara Longman, rather than one of the Shores, who had died. He was more interested in Shore's theoretical papers, as their disappearance inclined him to the conviction that they must hold some significance. At least if he'd read them, he might be able to discount and forget them. And it was certainly intriguing that he had felt it necessary to write part of them in code.

  Broodingly, Rafferty cast his mind back, and as he reviewed Anne Longman's comme
nts and Charles Shore's half-forgotten and somewhat disparaging remarks about them, a possible connection came to him, a connection so obvious, so exciting and potentially explosive, that he wondered he hadn't thought of it before. Rafferty glanced at Llewellyn and decided against confiding in him yet. He was discovering that it saved an ego bruising if he tried to think his ideas through before having them threshed by the Welshman's combine-harvester intellect.

  Was it possible, that in his younger days, Maximillian Shore had been a blackmailer? His daughter had said he always seemed to know where a man was most vulnerable. She had also said that he had no scruples and had become wealthy surprisingly quickly. How else could he have done it? He'd been a poor immigrant, just escaped from the Nazi blood bath in Europe, young and alone in a strange land, not speaking the language too well, if at all. How had he not only survived, but thrived?

  After reading his autobiography, Rafferty felt he had learned something of what influences had contributed to Shore's success. He had seen and experienced all manner of evils; probably his own life had hardened him to the suffering of others. After all, had there been anyone to care a jot about what he'd been through? Experiences such as his often put a canker in a man's soul. Would he be likely to worry about the morality of it if blackmail could help transform him from a storm-tossed orphan, at the mercy of every jagged rock, to a king in an impregnable castle of wealth? Rafferty thought that, after such experiences, a man would be prepared to do whatever was necessary to safeguard himself from similar persecution in the future.

  Shore's autobiography revealed that, as a youth, he had worked in a newspaper office. What better place for a lad with ambitions? In those distant days, with their obligingly discreet newspaper barons, there would be secrets in plenty, secrets that the general public never learned, secrets that could ruin a person. An observant young man, clever enough to keep his ears and eyes open and his mouth shut, could learn a lot. Had Shore achieved his ambition by stumbling fortuitously on the shameful secret of some wealthy man? Had he mined such a secret with the ruthlessness he would have observed daily in the camps? Mined it till it was played out and then gone onto the next, more wily now, more adept at winkling out the dark vices and secret susceptibilities that made powerful men vulnerable to little men like himself?