Death Dues Read online

  ‘Indeed it is. And so I’ll tell her if she comes up with any more superstitions or old wives’ tales.’

  ‘Though it’s no good settling on the date unless we also settle on the place.’

  Rafferty grinned. ‘Ma’s got firm opinions on that and all. But you know that. She has her heart set on Father Kelly marrying us in St Boniface.’

  ‘I rather fancied one of the local stately homes. But I’m going to have to let you off the hook on that one, too. I rang all the nearest ones today. Not a hope. They’re very popular so are booked up months ahead. So, given that I haven’t got that option, I can agree to St Boniface as long as I’m not expected to learn a lot of religious claptrap in the weeks leading up to the wedding.’

  Abra, unlike Rafferty, wasn’t a Catholic. Not even a lapsed one. So Rafferty, suspecting the opposite, crossed his fingers behind his back as he told her, ‘I think you’ll find Father Kelly can be an obliging sort. And more than understanding.’ With all his vices, he had to be. ‘You were a bit out of it at the time, but he came up trumps when you lost little Joey early and insisted you wanted him christened.’ Abra had miscarried their first child some months before in the early stages of pregnancy. ‘If it hadn’t been for him the christening you’d set your heart on wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘I know that. I’m not stupid, Joe.’

  ‘OK. So that’s two of the majors sorted. Now for the guest list.’ Two out of three things going his way wasn’t bad for one evening, Rafferty mused, particularly given the mood Abra had worked herself into by the time he arrived home. Perhaps he was pushing his luck in going for the hat trick?

  And so it proved. Abra dug her heels in over the invitees.

  ‘Why on earth do you want all these people to attend?’ Rafferty asked as he scanned the list of names. ‘I’ve never met most of them.’

  ‘That’s because you spend so much of your time at work,’ Abra pointed out. ‘Besides, you’ve been married before. I haven’t. I bet your first wife insisted on a big wedding and got her own way.’

  As this was true, Rafferty didn’t have much of an argument. It was no good lying to Abra. She had a way of knowing when he wasn’t telling the truth. She was like his Ma in that respect. Instead, he tried a more sneaky tactic. ‘I wanted our marriage to be a more intimate occasion,’ he began. ‘Small and exclusive.’ It sounded horribly pretentious put like that, but he didn’t know how else to express what seemed to be his fast fading hopes of saving some money on the nuptials.

  ‘What’s the point of our big day being so small and insignificant? I want to feel married with the good wishes of everyone I know. I want it to be a real celebration of our love.’

  Sneaky, bringing emotions into it when he was trying to concentrate on practicalities. But he was sensible enough to recognise that this was one argument he wasn’t going to win, so he gave in gracefully. ‘Did you manage to get anything else sorted today?’

  Abra nodded. ‘I beat the caterer’s price down and I found a photographer a friend used for her wedding who did a great job for less than the others quoted.’ She pulled a face. ‘Though he wouldn’t commit to a firm booking. Said he was provisionally booked throughout next summer.’

  Rafferty, still hoping to be able to put aside the ‘wedding’ conversation for what remained of the evening, picked up the plates and said, ‘Don’t worry Abracadabra. We’ll find someone. It’s early days yet. I’ll bring the food through if you get the cutlery and do the honours on the drinks front.’

  ‘Changing the subject, Joe? There’s still loads more to sort out.’

  ‘Not at all. Just feeding the inner man. The groom can wait awhile.’

  ‘OK. I can take a hint. We’ll leave any more decisions till later in the week. I’ll get those drinks.’

  Rafferty smiled to himself as he made for the living room, pleased the trials of wedding arrangements would take a back seat for the rest of the night.

  Rafferty had several times had dealings with Malcolm Forbes. He’d been warned on a couple of occasions about intimidating debtors who failed to pay their debts on time. The debtors, of course, always refused to press charges when the neighbours called the police, for fear that worse would follow. With the astronomical interest rates that Forbes charged, Rafferty was amazed that any of his clients managed to keep up their payments.

  The weather had changed for the better; gone was the heavy rain and wind of yesterday. The pawnshop behind which Forbes operated his loan company was in Elmhurst High Street sandwiched between a charity shop and the independent butchers that Ma patronised. It looked reasonably smart with the morning sun glinting off its black paintwork and the three golden coloured balls that were the pawnbrokers’ trademark.

  ‘A grubby business, pawn broking,’ Rafferty remarked as they crossed the road to the shop, having parked down a side street.

  ‘It’s not as grubby as it once was,’ Llewellyn commented. ‘I understand a lot of them are moving upmarket and trying to appeal to the cash-poor middle classes. Quite successfully I believe.’

  ‘Me, I’ve always wondered about the three balls. Why do all pawnbrokers use them? Why not two balls? Or none at all?’ Rafferty mused as he gazed in the window. The display was full of watches and jewellery; mostly cheap stuff, though one or two of the engagement rings appeared more expensive as if they had been bought in happier times when money wasn’t a problem.

  Needless to say, Llewellyn had an answer for his musing.

  ‘They’re a relic from fifteenth century Florence when the Medici family of bankers had the image as their coat of arms. Did you know that pawn broking goes back three thousand years to the Chinese?’

  Rafferty didn’t. And to forestall the longer lecture that he sensed was about to be delivered, he opened the door to the shop. A bell attached to the frame rang out a loud warning as Rafferty entered. The single member of staff sat caged behind a protective grille. His assessing glance showed he had got their measure, but Rafferty brought out his warrant card just the same. He introduced himself and Llewellyn and asked, ‘Is Mr Forbes in? We’d like a word.’

  The assistant, a thin man of around fifty, with a long, hang-dog face, abandoned the racing pages of his newspaper, hopped down from his stool and said, ‘I’ll just see if he’s available.’ He knocked on a door at the back of the shop and disappeared. He came back in thirty seconds and opened up a door in the grille for them to pass through.

  Malcolm Forbes was sitting behind a shabby desk that looked as if it might have formed part of his early stock; the low-key nature of the furnishings, nothing over the top or showy to fuel the punters’ resentment, gave out the message that he was running a service that barely ticked over. A much-needed service for those down on their luck rather than a profiteering racket with a serial usurer at its head.

  ‘Ah, Inspector Rafferty. I learned from the officer you sent to see me yesterday that you were in charge of the murder investigation. John Harrison’s a sad loss.’ This was said with a suitably mournful demeanour. Then, mock mourning over, it was business as usual as he asked, ‘How’s the case going? Are you anywhere near catching the scum who killed him?’

  ‘The investigation is progressing as expected, Mr Forbes,’ Rafferty told him, keeping his feelings in check. He’d never liked Forbes. The man was an overbearing bully. It went against the grain to have to be polite to him. ‘All the residents of the street adjoining the alley where he was found have been questioned and will be so again.’

  Forbes was a big man, though clearly not in every sense, given his barely concealed lack of interest in the late John Harrison. He had a jowly red face that could have looked jolly but for the mean grey eyes. Still there was a surface bonhomie there. But scratch the surface and pretty soon the real Forbes emerged; the small town thug who thought he was Mr Big.

  Rafferty’s teeth grated together as he awaited some derogatory comment.

  But today, with them, Forbes was clearly in a magnanimous mood. He invited th
em to sit down and asked how he could help.

  With difficulty, they squeezed onto two narrow chairs wedged under the barred rear window. ‘We wondered what you could tell us about the victim,’ Rafferty began. ‘Whether anything about him can have contributed to his death.’

  Forbes frowned, turning his beetling brows into a mono-brow. ‘But surely this was just another mugging like the other two cases?’ The welcoming smile vanished with his question to be replaced by the ferocious scowl of the true thug. His expression made clear that no one damaged his business or his employees and got away with it. He was the one who doled out the violence and threats of violence. It made Rafferty hope that they caught the perpetrator before Forbes did: he wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of Forbes’s retribution.

  ‘Had the late Mr Harrison worked for you for long?’ Rafferty asked.

  ‘Eighteen months or thereabouts. I can check my records if you like.’ It was a tight squeeze in the small office as he swivelled his chair round towards a filing cabinet, reached for a file and handed it over.

  ‘Tell me, had any of your clients made threats against him?’

  Forbes gave a cynical laugh. ‘Most of them, I should think, at one time or another. It goes with the territory. Our client base is not of the brightest and tend to relieve their anger at being expected to repay their loans by making empty threats. They’re happy enough to borrow money from me, but less happy when they’re asked to start paying the instalments. Such threats are part and parcel of the job.

  Forbes cracked his knuckles and said, ‘But I know how to deal with them. Let the punters backslide once and they’ll expect to be able to do it again. The trick is not to let them backslide at all. Gentle persuasion usually does the trick.’ Forbes’s irony was heavy handed and cynical. The persuasion was only gentle if broken arms and smashed jaws came into that category. ‘Nothing has ever come of any of their threats.’

  ‘Until now,’ Rafferty reminded him. Though, as yet, they had no clear evidence apart from their close proximity to the alley to point to any one of the debtors on Harrison’s round having murdered him. ‘I’ll need to know the names of those who issued the threats. One of them might be Mr Harrison’s murderer.’

  Forbes leaned back in his chair and gazed at him from under his thick, black brows. ‘I doubt it. Weak old men and stupid women, most of them. Harrison was a strong man. A big, muscular man. It would take, I would have thought, someone with the strength stronger than their threat to kill him.’

  ‘Maybe so. But we have to investigate every avenue. One of them will lead us to the murderer.’

  Rafferty glanced quickly through John Harrison’s staff file. There wasn’t much of it; references about good behaviour and a pleasing disposition were unlikely to be required in Forbes’s business. A full set of muscles and a menacing air provided all the references required. He hefted Harrison’s file and asked, ‘OK if we take this?’

  Forbes gave a shrug of acquiescence. ‘No use to me.’

  Rafferty handed Harrison’s file to Llewellyn and reminded Forbes, ‘About those threats. If I can have some names?’

  Forbes shrugged his meaty shoulders again. ‘As I said, threats are an occupational hazard. I only hear about them if my collectors feel something might come of them.’

  ‘And did Mr Harrison mention any such threats?’

  ‘One or two.’ Forbes shifted in his chair and it gave a protesting creak. It was a big, sturdy executive chair, but it clearly found Forbes’s weight at the edge of its limits. ‘A couple of little old ladies who were more feisty than usual, that’s all. Nothing to frighten a grown man. He only told me about them because he wanted to give me a good laugh. Names of Mrs Noades and Miss Peterson.’

  Rafferty did a quick check of his memory banks. Neither of the women lived on Primrose Avenue. ‘So nobody from Primrose Avenue threatened him?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. If they did, he didn’t see fit to mention it to me.’ Forbes rose from his chair, his bulk seemed to fill a good half of the cramped office. ‘If that’s all?’

  Rafferty nodded, glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of intimidation from such a man. It was clear there was little else to be gained by prolonging the conversation. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

  ‘All right?’ the assistant asked as they came through the door.

  Rafferty nodded and thanked him.

  The assistant let them out through the grille. And once they were back on the street, Rafferty said, ‘Mr Forbes wasn’t too chatty, was he, seeing as it’s one of his staff who’s dead. Reckon he intends to find out who killed Harrison himself and mete out his own punishment?’

  ‘It would certainly fit his profile.’

  ‘Or maybe he’s hiding something else?’

  ‘What? Do you think he might have had something to do with Mr Harrison’s death?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why would he? The only reason I can think of is if Harrison was helping himself to some of the money he collected and Forbes found out about it.’

  Although the rain had stopped, it was another chilly day. Rafferty said, ‘Come on, let’s step on it and get back to the car. My feet are like blocks of ice.’

  They increased their pace, rounded the corner, and made for the car.

  ‘But would he murder Harrison if so?’ Llewellyn mused out loud on Rafferty’s previous point. ‘Rather a drastic way of teaching someone a lesson.’

  ‘Mmm. Admittedly, it would be difficult to learn that or any other lesson when you’re dead. But maybe Forbes would be more concerned with keeping up his reputation as a man not to be crossed. Collectors like Harrison are probably ten a penny. Nothing like throwing your weight about and getting paid for it. It must be a nice little number for a certain type of man.’

  Rafferty opened the car door and got in, glad to get out of the wind. He started the engine and turned the heater up to its maximum setting, willing it to kick in quickly. ‘Though if Forbes had anything to do with Harrison’s murder, I reckon we’ll be the last to hear. Like the mafia’s code of Ōmerta, that sort of information is unlikely to be for our ears.’ He checked the mirror and pulled out. ‘Let’s get back. Maybe something new has come in.’

  But once back at the station, there was no revelatory news awaiting them; just more of the labour intensive paperwork that was so familiar. And Superintendent Bradley demanding a progress report. He ordered Rafferty along to his office and he was told to shut the door and sit down.

  'So what's doing on the murder front? You must have some suspects, but,' he said as he sat behind his massive desk.

  'We have a number of suspects,' Rafferty told him as he studied the array of photographs of Bradley cosying up to the great and good on the wall behind his desk. 'Half the residents of Primrose Avenue had the opportunity to kill Harrison and all of them had good reasons to murder him.'

  'Anyone specific in mind?'

  'Not yet. It's early days. But there are several youths who'll bear closer scrutiny.'

  Bradley nodded. 'I shall want a report by the end of the day. And not one of your usual scrimped efforts. And no getting Llewellyn to do it for you. You're the investigating officer. Remember it.'

  If only I could forget, thought Rafferty as the super let him go. With a succession of long days I'm not going to be flavour of the month with Abra. Worse, the evenings spent alone would give her even more opportunities to come up with novel ways of over spending.

  ‘I think we should take a thorough look through Harrison’s home,’ Rafferty said when he returned to his office. He sat down and leaned back in his chair away from the incessant paperwork. Annie Pulman had earlier been persuaded to identify the body; they’d dropped her back home on their way to interview Malcolm Forbes. ‘If he was helping himself to some of the cash from his collections that’s where we’d find it. It’s not as if he’d be likely to put it in a bank or building society.’ He glanced down at the high-piled paperwork the house-to-house had produced and sighed. Then his
emotions rose at the realisation that the visit to Jaws Harrison’s place would enable him to put off fighting his way through it for a while. And if they found a stash of cash or anything else of interest there, the paperwork could be put off for even longer as they chased evidence against Forbes in the role of murderer.

  ‘It’s still possible we’re on the wrong scent and that someone had reason other than debt to want him dead.’

  ‘We’ve no evidence for that,’ Llewellyn pointed out. ‘The facts point the other way. Few enough could have had the opportunity to kill him down that alleyway. The killer would surely have been seen either going in or coming out, no matter what motive they might have had.’

  ‘Maybe, but we’ve only the word of Tony Moran for that. The other three yobbos in their little gang are sticking pretty much to their “no comment” stance, though at least Jake Sterling backed up Moran about the identities of the three women who left the Avenue that afternoon and seemed to take a delight in doing so. No one else has so far come forward with any evidence.’

  In spite of what Llewellyn said, it was certainly a possibility that someone other than one of the Primrose Avenue residents had killed Harrison, especially when the late Harrison’s personality was taken into the equation. He spent his life throwing his weight about and threatening those in no position to retaliate; maybe he’d met his match, and his murderer had been someone whose visit to the Avenue Moran had preferred not to mention. Like Malcolm Forbes, for instance.

  Annie Pulman answered the door. She looked surprised to see them again so soon. Given her so recent bereavement, her tears seemed to have dried up remarkably quickly after identifying John Harrison’s body. She’d obviously re-done her make-up and was quite the painter’s palette of primary colours. Clearly not cut out to play the grieving widow for long.

  Rafferty explained the reason for their visit. Annie Pulman stared at him, hostility writ large, for several seconds, but then she stood aside to let them pass.