A Thrust to the Vitals (21 page)

‘Either way, you must see that Bignall accepting a fluke of nature is one thing, but this was something very different. Maybe we’ll find that he attended that party for another reason altogether, as I said, and that was that he had discovered another ambition: Getting away with murder.’

Rafferty turned into Bacon Lane, pulled into the rear yard of the police station and parked untidily across two bays. He shrugged as Llewellyn, in a pained voice, pointed this out to him. To himself, he felt a vague twinge of unease about his own conclusions, because although he didn’t doubt that Bignall was clever enough to come up with a method of killing that would point the finger away from himself, he was also clever enough to work out that it must, instead, point the finger at more vulnerable suspects. Would he really be willing for someone else to be convicted and serve a prison term for what he had done? Rafferty wondered whether he was reading him all wrong? Or was he, like Llewellyn, creating unnecessary complications when, in reality, it was a possibility that the eminently sane Ivor Bignall had been sent beyond reason into temporary madness? In which case, it was probable that he had given no thought to that aspect at all. Until it was too late.

Irritated by his own contradictory thoughts, Rafferty climbed out of the car, slammed the door and stomped across the yard to the station’s back entrance. And then he thought of his brother, hiding out further up the Essex coast, and caught something of Bignall’s supposed insanity himself. No brother of his was taking the rap for this crime. If Bignall was guilty, Rafferty was set on proving it. He mightn’t like doing it, he mightn’t like being the police officer who caged such a big and proud beast as Bignall, especially when the victim had used him so cruelly, but if it came to a toss up between Bignall and Mickey then it was no contest. Still, as he climbed the stairs to his office, Rafferty’s heart was heavy because he privately felt that whoever had killed Rufus Seward had done the world a favour.

Chapter Fourteen

It was after nine o’clock by the time they got back to the station. It was a little while later when Rafferty picked up his own car from the car park and headed for his Ma’s house.

After visiting the Bignalls’ beautiful manor house home and seeing again the elegance of the Christmas tree in their sitting room with its subtle silver and gold decorations, the eyeball-searing yuletide gaudiness that met him as he turned into his Ma’s road on the council estate almost caused him to stall the car. Although not normally one to flinch at such flamboyantly exuberant colours, even Rafferty admitted that the vision before his eyes was completely over the top.

Between his last visit and this one, Ma’s next door neighbour had surpassed herself. Still trailing his Ma — the proud possessor of twelve grandchildren and one great-grandchild — in the grandmother stakes, she had, it seemed, hit on a way of beating Ma in something.

The neighbour’s accomplishment really was a blinder in more ways than one because between the flashing, illuminated and mechanical Santa, the reindeer gambolling over the roof, the choir of gold-winged, haloed angels around the crib on the dirty pebbledash beneath who were in imminent danger of having their heads kicked in by the reindeers’ hooves, and the glowing primary-coloured lights that festooned whatever space remained, Ma’s neighbour had certainly won the year’s vulgarity cup.

But, as she sharply informed him when he went inside to pick up Mickey’s clean clothes and was foolish enough to point out her neighbour’s feat of one-upmanship, Ma had no desire to win such a trophy.

‘Christmas is about the birth of our Saviour,’ she told the son who was still considering transferring his allegiance to Old Nick. After she had banged about in the kitchen to make tea and fill another hot water bottle for Mickey, this theme continued. ‘It’s not meant to be turned into some kind of three-ringed circus with people coming from miles around to watch the show. I’m surprised you could get into the street. Since those monstrosities went up, by this time in the evening the road’s usually clogged with cars and gawpers.’

She snorted. ‘Her-next-door even comes out every evening around this time to take a bow as if she’s done something to be proud of.’

Rafferty just restrained a snigger. He didn’t doubt that his Ma’s feelings on the religious front were entirely genuine; she was a regular at St Boniface Catholic Church, but although religious, she also had a strong competitive instinct and liked to be a winner. And in spite of vigorously protesting that she had no desire to match her neighbour’s flashy show, she must hate being trumped by a woman who had never bested her in anything before.

This year, of course, Ma had the Mickey problem to contend with. She had confided to Rafferty that with all the anxiety his brother was causing her, she had really had no heart to put up her own Christmas decorations. She wouldn’t have bothered at all if it wasn’t for the grandchildren who expected their gran to do Christmas properly.

Rafferty could see that, in the circumstances, Her-next door’s blatantly colourful and offensively irreligious decorations must be even harder for her to stomach.

With the trip out to Mickey still to be made, Rafferty cut his visit as short as he could. He left Ma muttering darkly about ‘short-circuiting the entire street.’

He wasn’t sure whether this comment was indicative of worry that the neighbour’s Christmas decorations would bring this about or whether his Ma was actually plotting some kind of sabotage. He wouldn’t put it past her.

It was a worry he could do without right now. But, he assured himself as he left to pick up Mickey’s takeaway and other food, she wouldn’t have the technical knowledge to bring this about.

This comfortable thought was soon edged aside by the realisation that she hadn’t had a husband, two sons and other assorted relatives working in various aspects of the building trade for years without having picked up a trick or two…

The shops in the High Street were open late, as was usual at this time of year, in order to accommodate as many free spending customers as possible, and were lit up with their entirely commercialised version of Christmas. And unlike Ma’s neighbour’s innocent if vulgar exuberance, theirs showed their grasping, greedy desire to part their customers from every last penny. This year, he saw as he drove past, they had even gone in for a form of emotional blackmail that he had never noticed in previous years. A sign in one of the larger stores proclaimed in neon-lit letters a foot high:
Why not spend that little bit extra this Christmas and purchase the gifts your loved ones will adore? Surely they’re worth it?

Not when the January credit card bills fell on the mat and induced half a year or more of penury, they’re not, he thought. But even Rafferty, who had believed himself immune from such blatant cash extraction tricks, found himself imbued with uncomfortable feelings of meanness and guilt as the traffic stalled and allowed them to impart their message over and over again to their captive vehicular audience. Because the sign made him realise that he had yet to find time to buy Abra anything at all.

In previous years, his Ma and sisters had sorted out his Christmas list between them without consulting him. But this year, seeing as he was with Abra and their relationship had now been cemented by an engagement, they had taken it for granted that Abra would assume this responsibility. Rafferty had rather assumed it, too. But whether Abra realised this or not, he knew he could hardly expect her to buy her own present.

On an impulse, he indicated left and was just about to try to find a parking space and check in the window of the same jeweller’s where he had bought Abra’s engagement ring to see if he couldn’t get her a pair of matching earrings, when his mobile went. Still without a hands-free phone and guiltily aware that he was breaking the law, he pressed it furtively to his ear and cupped a concealing hand around it.

It was Mickey calling, complaining about something Rafferty couldn’t quite catch and demanding his immediate presence.

‘I can’t hear you,’ Rafferty bellowed into the phone. ‘You’re breaking up.’

‘There’s …storm…injured…dangerous. Come…’ Then the phone went dead.

Rafferty looked up through the windscreen at the night sky. He could see a few faint stars vainly trying to compete with the neon glow from Earth and asked himself, Storm? What storm?

He vaguely recalled hearing snatches of that morning’s weather forecast. He’d had more than enough other worries and hadn’t paid it much heed at the time, but now, he remembered that there had been a storm warning. Mickey was on a jutting-out part of the coast so the weather promised from the east would hit him first.

Rafferty abandoned any further thoughts of window shopping for Abra’s Christmas present and finding his way back into her good books. He would have to get himself out to the caravan park pronto to see what was happening to his brother. He’d sounded panicked about something.

The rain started coming down in earnest and he was forced to switch the wipers to double speed, but they were still having trouble coping with the deluge. Talk about it never rained but it poured.

Suddenly, as a hefty gust slewed the car towards the pavement, and he had to struggle to correct it, it occurred to him to wonder what it must be like in a flimsy caravan when the weather was this windy.

Feeling as panicked now as Mickey had sounded when he had struggled to transfer the word ‘injured’ over the air waves, Rafferty was finally able to put his foot down and aqua-planed his way through the puddles, earning more than a few clenched first salutes and more colourful expletives from the soaked pedestrians he passed that, thankfully, for his delicate sensibilities, blew away on the wind.

But although he mouthed several useless ‘Sorry’s’ through the rain-drenched windows, Mickey’s well-being took first claim. He was now too worried about what might have happened to his brother to allow himself to be distracted by his own road-hoggery.

The anxious dash through the storm turned out to have been needless. Mickey was perfectly all right, as Rafferty discovered when he had finally fought his way through the wind and rain, risking his own neck in the process. As he squelched his way across the caravan park, getting thoroughly soaked in the process, it was to find Mickey standing in the caravan’s doorway, one of their Ma’s best blankets around his shoulders, peering out at the weather.

When he saw Rafferty, he shouted, ‘…took your time…been scared witless….’

The wind took away most of his brother’s words, but the ones remaining were sufficient to tell Rafferty that Mickey was in a foul mood. He just hoped he hadn’t managed to persuade one of the family to bring him more anger-stoking alcohol.

Rafferty reached the van, angrily pushed his brother aside and barged past him. When Mickey followed him, Rafferty turned accusingly. ‘What did you have to get me all worried like that for? You’re not injured. There’s damn all wrong with you as far as I can see. You’re not even wet,’ he remarked begrudgingly, ‘unlike me. And as for the storm—‘

This had died down somewhat in the last few minutes. OK, he conceded, it might have been a bit gusty before, but it was quiet enough now.

They must have been in a lull, for just then the caravan rocked alarmingly from side to side. Rafferty and Mickey looked at one another, then they made a simultaneous dash for the door before the wind could blow the caravan right over. In their rush to escape, they both reached the door together, then promptly got wedged in the opening. The caravan teetered even more violently and threatened to land on top of them.

They fought free of each other’s shoulders, waited till the wind which was thrashing and crashing its way around the park like some unearthly predator forced the caravan to lean the other way, then they both jumped free to land on the hard-standing. Rafferty turned an ankle. He hobbled, roughly dragged by an unsympathetic Mickey, till they reached the protected lee of the concrete toilet block from where they stood and watched the storm do its worst.

By some miracle, and, it had to be said, to Mickey’s bitter regret, when the storm finally died out two hours later and they went to inspect the damage, it was to find that although battered, the hated caravan was still standing and was ready to resume its job of harbouring Mickey’s fugitive and reluctant body.

As they tidied up the thrown-about contents, Rafferty asked, ‘Why on earth didn’t you abandon the bloody thing if you were frightened and take refuge somewhere out of the wind?’

‘And where was I meant to go, exactly?’ a sullen Mickey demanded. ‘You told me to stay inside, out of sight.’

‘True, but I didn’t mean for you to remain in the van, you idiot,’ Rafferty contradicted, ‘if you felt you were in imminent danger of being blown out to sea. I assumed I could rely on you to use your common sense.’ Why had he made such an assumption? he wondered as he took in his brother’s features dimly glowering at him in the gloom. He sighed. ‘The storm’s over, let’s get you bedded down for the night. I was expected home hours ago.’

‘Nice to have a home to go to,’ Mickey muttered.

Rafferty decided his best response to this was to ignore it. He had little compunction about leaving his ingrate of a brother to his own devices a short time later. In his panic, he had neglected to buy any food; something else about which Mickey wasn’t slow to complain.

Muttering every inch of the way, Rafferty slid and squelched his way back across the park to retrieve the forgotten bag of clean clothes from the boot along with the replacement and, by now, lukewarm hot water bottle. Wordlessly, he thrust them at his brother before heading home, doubtless to listen to the anticipated further complaints from his neglected fiancée.

By the following morning, the night’s storm had turned into a penetrating drizzle, which, although light, had an unpleasant way of stealing under the collar and soaking through the soles of one’s shoes, causing a miserable dampness of the spirit as well as the body.