A Thrust to the Vitals Read online

  One by one, by Thursday, they had all reported back that Mickey was becoming increasingly despondent and was thinking of giving himself up. ‘At least, in a police cell, I’d be warm,’ was, apparently a recurring comment.

  Yes, bro, Rafferty thought on learning this unwelcome news. But, banged up, your arse is likely to be even warmer. And mine’ll be for the high jump. It would do his career no favours at all if it got out — as it was bound to if Mickey followed through on his threat — what part he had played in his brother’s disappearance.

  As the senior sibling, Rafferty felt duty-bound to find time to go along and administer a kick up Mickey’s skinny backside. Better that his brother’s rear end received attention from his boot than attentions of another sort. Mickey would thank him for it later when all this was over and he had time to reflect on something other than his current misery.

  But Rafferty found, when he arrived at the run down and desolate caravan site, nose numbed by a wind that roared across the North Sea straight from the Siberian steppes, that Mickey was far from being in a kick-receiving mood. Not altogether surprising, because, as Rafferty looked round the caravan’s ever seedier interior, that his brother’s careless habits had not improved, he discovered that one or several of the family visitors had brought bottles of seasonal cheer as consolation for his stint in solitary The place stank like a distillery. Not, in other circumstances, an altogether unpleasing smell to Rafferty, but with Mickey in his current unpredictable mood, it was the last kind of aroma Rafferty wished to smell.

  Spirits had always made Mickey belligerent. And Rafferty, belatedly appreciating that his little brother was no longer quite as little as he had always thought, came close to getting a kicking himself, almost upsetting and breaking the bottles in the process, which, given the solace they were clearly providing, really would have ensured a fraternal fracas.

  Maybe he should have emptied the blasted things down the sink, only his Irish soul hadn’t quite been able to do it. But at least he had managed to persuade Mickey to go easy on the booze. As it was, he had arrived to hear the portable radio that must have been another family gift, blaring forth with more than enough volume to attract any stray nosy- parkers who happened to be within a hundred yards of the van. It was fortunate that there had apparently been no creatures more naturally inquisitive than the whirling, argumentative seagulls to hear the racket of Mickey singing discordantly along with the music as alcohol eased all pain.

  Rafferty sighed as he realised that the rest of his family would have to be warned off providing Mickey with bottles of the hard stuff. As well as making him aggressive, alcohol had always loosened Mickey’s tongue.

  Rafferty had tried for years, without success, to find out what exactly Rufus Seward had done to his brother in their youth. The only thing he did know was that the lies Seward had spread had caused Mickey to lose his childhood sweetheart.

  After Rafferty’s stern lecture at his noisy lack of discretion, Mickey had become morose. But suddenly galvanised by self-pity and resentment, Mickey’s anger at his predicament finally found voice once more.

  ‘Bloody Rufus Seward!’ he shouted, his promise to keep the noise down evidently forgotten. He ignored Rafferty’s desperate ‘shushing’s’ and ranted even louder. 'This is all his fault. If he hadn’t been such a bastard when we were kids, I’d have had no reason to go to see him that night-’ Mickey’s lips pinched tight – ‘no reason, if it wasn’t for him, to be incarcerated in this miserable hole, either.’

  Rafferty, by now more than a little fed-up himself and with his own store of resentment at the situation steadily growing, sat down opposite his brother and bluntly observed, ‘It’s a bit late for might-have-beens.’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Mickey ground out between teeth that didn’t look to have come in contact with a toothbrush since his hasty incarceration.

  Couldn’t even manage to pack himself a toothbrush, Rafferty sighed to himself. I suppose that’s something else to add to the list. As he stared at the increasingly dishevelled Mickey, Rafferty felt his resentment grow a notch, then, another, as his brother stared back at him with an unmistakable belligerence.

  'And it’s a pity you weren’t there with your trite comments when Seward and his gang were sticking my head down the bog,’ Mickey retorted.

  ‘Is that what he did to you?’ Rafferty’s brassed-off feelings lost some of their indignant glow at this revelation.

  Mickey nodded, his expression now a strange mix of fury and shame. ‘One of the things, only he made sure he’d deposited some turds in the bowl before my head went in.’

  Rafferty’s lips pursed tightly in involuntary protection from the turds. The association of ideas had him wondering what turds would taste like. He gagged on the thought.

  ‘The bastard even had his latest little tart and her cronies watch as he took my pants off and had one of his mates smear his shit all over my face and todger. Then he made me eat it — the shit that is, not my todger.’ Mickey looked as if he was about to be sick at the memory. Or perhaps it was just from all the alcohol he had drunk.

  Rafferty could find no words of comfort, instead, to his shame, he found himself tempted to satisfy his earlier curiosity and ask Mickey about the taste of turds. He stopped himself just in time, confident that such a question would not be well received. He’d heard of people drinking their own urine when in dire straits, but eating someone else’s shit…

  Rafferty almost gagged again. But at least Mickey’s alcoholic revelations had killed any remaining resentment. He even reached out a hand to pour Mickey another drink but wisdom prevailed and he stayed his hand.

  After what his brother had told him, Rafferty couldn’t be sorry that Rufus Seward was dead. He wished the sadistic swine had suffered rather more than one thrust of a sharpened chisel for his sins. But his death had been a quick one — too quick. To have Seward endure some of the suffering he’d happily doled out would have given Mickey some measure of consolation. Instead, even after his death, Seward was still managing to make his brother’s life a misery. Bloody Rufus Seward indeed.

  There wasn’t a lot more to say after Mickey’s revelations. It was apparent from his withdrawn demeanour that Mickey regretted the confidences

  Rafferty thought the best thing he could do was to remove himself from the sight of his brother’s shame. He prepared to make his goodbyes and leave, but Mickey, clearly exhausted by the heavy combination of alcohol and confession, promptly fell into a drunken stupor before he could say anything. But at least, with his brother slumped, snoring on the grimy orange banquette, Rafferty had the opportunity to look around him. His gaze alighted on Mickey’s old mobile perched on the tiny, folding table between the twin banquettes and just visible beneath the pile of junk Mickey had managed to acquire from his various family visitors during his short time in the caravan. He’d forgotten to retrieve this during his previous visits, and now he slipped it in his pocket while he had the chance. No way did he want to risk a drunken Mickey using the wrong phone. It could prove to be a very costly mistake for both of them.

  After Mickey’s revelations, Rafferty had reason to wonder what Seward and his loutish friends might have inflicted on others in his brother’s year at school. What had he done to Randy Rawlins, for instance? He doubted Rawlins would tell him — certainly not if it was anything as humiliating as what Mickey had suffered, though he thought it likely the weedy no-mates Rawlins would have been subjected to even worse treatment. And as Seward couldn’t tell him and Randy Rawlins probably wouldn’t, Rafferty decided the only way he’d find out was to put the squeeze on one of Seward’s old gang.

  ‘Look, I’m not proud of what we did, but it was years ago, all over and forgotten. Most teenage boys go through a stage of being appalling thugs. We were no different.’ Nick Marshall – a party guest who had been early exonerated – didn’t seem to find it too hard to forgive himself his youthful excesses. His self-justifying bluster wasn’t attractive.
/>   ‘No different?’ Rafferty managed to inject his comment with sufficient contempt to help conceal the fact that he had no idea what Seward, Marshall and their pals had done to the weedy Randolph Rawlins. It certainly seemed to convince Nick Marshall that he knew more than he claimed, because, in his attempts at self-justification, Marshall immediately blurted it all out.

  ‘Rufus Seward always swung both ways, even then, and little Randy Rawlins was clearly effeminate. He was asking for it, or so Rufus claimed. OK, Rufus and a couple of the others took turns to bugger Rawlins, but I never did.’

  Rafferty had already half-suspected that the young Rawlins had been subjected to gang rape, but, like his brother’s turd encounter, it still didn’t make Marshall’s admission any easier to stomach. His voice flat with contempt, Rafferty asked, ‘So how many times did it happen?’

  Marshall shrugged as if it had been nothing to do with him. ‘I’m not sure. I’d guess every week for a year till Rufus left to go to his posh school.’

  Rafferty turned away quickly before anger made him do something even more unwise as far as his career was concerned than the cover-up in which he was currently engaged. He let himself out of Marshall’s comfortable Elmhurst home without another word, but part of him hoped that Randy Rawlins had killed Seward. Part of him hoped, too, that he proved smart enough to get away with it. Though the trouble with that, of course, was that if Rawlins had murdered the tormentor from his schooldays and proved sufficiently canny to avoid leaving any trace of himself in the bedroom at the scene, it meant his brother would remain in the frame.

  Idris Khan had elected to see Rafferty in his mayoral parlour in Elmhurst’s Town Hall. This building was, like the Elmhurst Hotel, another large, imposing Edwardian structure. Designed by the same architect, the Town Hall was in the heart of the town, on the corner of Market Street and the High Street.

  The market town’s mayors did rather well for themselves; from reading the local paper, Rafferty was aware that no expense had been spared in equipping the mayor to play host in considerable style, although, as he looked around the mayor’s parlour, he decided that the councillors tasked with commissioning the building’s embellishment were the sort of people who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing.

  The town’s heraldic device of three axes decorated the mahogany panels covering the walls. A high-end artist had been hired to make these emblems. Typically, as with the Princess Diana memorial in London’s Hyde Park, there had been more reliance placed on the hype surrounding the artist’s name than on discovering if he had the skill required to carry out the work.

  The council certainly hadn’t got their money’s worth, was Rafferty’s opinion as he studied the large room. The emblems had only been finished for two years, to his recollection, but already the red enamel the artist had used was flaking off the axes.

  Rafferty scowled. There were any number of local craftsmen who could have done a better job and for a fraction of the price this hyped artist had cost, but their names didn’t carry the cachet that the council members seemed to consider their due.

  The rest of the parlour followed the depressing and shoddy example of the flaking emblems. The carpet, another expensively commissioned item, this time from a fashionable Scottish weaver, was wearing thin in places, the red of the Essex axes in the weave already fading in the sunlight that flooded through the south-facing windows. The pity was that under the carpet was a glorious, golden parquet floor that Rafferty recalled from a previous, unofficial, visit to the parlour.

  Idris Khan, his mayoral chain once more resting on his shoulders prior to attending another official function, bustled in to meet his visitor. And when questioned, he wasn’t long in emulating the self-justifying tones of Seward’s school bully accomplice, Nick Marshall.

  Clearly, Khan had decided that the more prudent, stiff upper lip, British half of his racial inheritance would serve him best, for his words and demeanour were both more reserved than during their previous conversations.

  ‘In answer to your question, Inspector, and as I have already told you, I really have no idea who could have killed poor Sir Rufus. I saw no one enter his bedroom – I certainly didn’t. As I told you, my wife and I left the party early and—‘

  Rafferty broke in. ‘Yes, but you came back, didn’t you, Mr Khan? A fact both you and your wife failed to reveal at your initial interviews.’

  Idris Khan, now seated on his throne-like chair behind another enormous lump of mahogany, pursed his lips. Had he really expected to be able to conceal his late return to the party? Rafferty wondered. If they hadn’t discovered it from the security men, they would still have had the evidence from the security camera.

  Perhaps he had thought his prominent position would preclude him from police suspicion and the investigation of his movements? It wouldn’t be the first time that a VIP had required disillusioning in this regard.

  When Khan said nothing, Rafferty asked, ‘So what was it that made you return?’

  Khan cleared his throat. ‘My wife had managed to forget her evening bag.’

  ‘Unusual for a woman to forget such an intimate item.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true, for most women, but my wife doesn’t habitually carry a handbag. She only tends to use one when she accompanies me on official, mayoral functions.’

  ‘You found the bag?’

  ‘Indeed. It was in the main bathroom near the entrance, where she left it.’

  ‘Your wife didn’t return to the party?’

  ‘As I imagine you already know, Inspector, she remained outside in the corridor while I went and looked for the bag. I only expected to be a short while, which, I recall, was all that it took — a minute or so, as I’m sure the security guards can verify.’

  As it happened, the security guards had proved to be as lax in observation and timing as they had proved to be in checking the invitations of the later arrivals. The security camera, of course, had better recall and made mock of Idris Khan’s claim that he had remained in the suite for only ‘a minute or two’.

  When Rafferty challenged him on this, the mayor flushed up sufficiently to blend in nicely with the red décor of his parlour.

  ‘Very well, Inspector, since you are so insistent, I admit I may have been in the bathroom for slightly longer. I suffer from an unfortunate malady,’ he told Rafferty stiffly. ‘Something akin to Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I found I had to make urgent use of the facilities.’

  Rafferty gave an understanding nod. ‘I see. And your GP will confirm this?’

  Khan’s flush faded to leave a strange, waxen pallor on his light brown skin. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I have not consulted my GP. It is a recent problem only and one I have been treating myself, with over-the-counter remedies.’

  Rafferty nodded again and, with his previously perfectly correct English in retreat, the mayor burst out. ‘But surely you can’t be suspecting me of this murder? What for would I do this thing? I have no reason to want to kill Sir Seward, no reason at all.’

  ‘Then I’m sure this investigation will exonerate you,’ he told the mayor with a smoothness that was foreign to him.

  But his words failed to reassure Idris Khan. The parallel furrows above his brown eyes deepened. From somewhere in his red mayoral robes, he found a set of beads which he proceeded to run through his fingers while staring with a fixed expression at Rafferty.

  For a moment, Rafferty thought the mayor had pulled a rosary from his pocket, but then he realised his mistake. For whatever reason, Idris Khan was sufficiently rattled to need the comfort of worry beads.

  But what reason would Idris Khan have to want Seward dead? Rafferty mused as he stared at Khan and his fretful fingers. He was some years older than Seward, so clearly had not been one of the dead man’s schoolboy victims. And his wife was some years Seward’s junior, so the same reasoning applied in reverse in her case.

  Had Seward somehow damaged one or more of Khan’s many business interests? Or perhaps, given the
dead man’s goatish tendencies where women were concerned, was it possible the mayor had a more personal reason for wanting Seward dead?

  But if he did, it had been plain during their conversation, that he wasn’t about to reveal it to Rafferty. And in view of his insistence that it was his wife’s handbag rather than her cocaine tin for which they had returned to the party, it had become clear that a broaching of his back-scratching deal vis-à-vis keeping quiet about the superintendent’s attendance at the reception, wasn’t an option at present.

  Disgruntled that his hopes had been so prematurely dashed, after a few more questions that only gained answers of a non-revelatory nature, Rafferty said, ‘I imagine I will need to speak to you again, sir. I’ll see myself out.’

  As he made his way to the car park at the rear of the Town Hall, Rafferty found himself musing on the interview with Idris Khan. The security guards, Jake Arthur and Andy Watling, had at least been able to agree with the tape’s evidence — Mrs Khan hadn’t re-entered Seward’s suite. But, for whatever reason, Idris Khan had been in the suite for long enough to both retrieve his wife’s handbag and kill Seward. Neither act would have taken much time.

  If he had killed Seward, it was unfortunate for him that Marcus Canthorpe had discovered his boss’s dead body no more than ten seconds after Khan and his wife had said goodnight to the security staff and begun to walk back down the corridor to the lift. They could hardly ignore the ensuing hubbub and return home. So, whether they had wanted to be or not, they were ushered back into Seward’s suite by the surely no longer bored security guards and, along with the guests who had elected to remain at the party to the bitter end, were eventually persuaded into an empty suite to await the arrival of Rafferty and the rest of the team.