Bad Blood (12 page)

Unsurprised, Rafferty nodded at this. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Do you know if Mrs Mortimer made a will?’

Mary Soames shook her head. ‘I'm afraid not, though I doubt it. Clara always put off writing a will. But you could check with her solicitors - Parkes, Parkes and Witherspoon in East Street.’

While Llewellyn made a note of this information, Mary Soames continued. ‘Clara was old-fashioned about a number of things. She didn't deem husbands or money suitable subjects for conversation. For Clara, her money and her husband were subjects only suitably discussed with the Almighty. She tolerated my impertinence – just – because she always thought of me as being something of a bohemian.’

Mary Soames laughed. It was a rich laugh, full of pleasure in life. ‘Clara could be unimaginative and often looked no further than the surface of things. No doubt that's how she ended up marrying Harry Mortimer. I'm no more a bohemian than my vicar father. All I am is a lazy housewife with an interest in the arts.’

Her bright eyes twinkled at them over her mug. ‘Of course, with Clara, I played up to the bohemian tag for all I was worth. I thought it a better label than that of domestic slut that would be more accurate. Sometimes, when my untidy house got too much for her, Clara would send over her cleaning lady and stump up the cost. She didn't do it often, though. I always had the feeling that Clara rather liked my disordered house after the controlled environment of her own. I suspect my home was the one place Clara allowed herself to let her hair down a little.’

Mary Soames sighed. ‘Poor Clara. In many ways, she had a sad life. I always hoped she'd learn to loosen up as she got older. Now, she'll never get the chance to become the disreputable old lady I thought she had it in her to be. I suppose her natural effervescence was repressed for too long.’

It was only as they were about to leave, Rafferty, with the carrier bag of pinks wrapped in wet newspaper that were destined for his ma's garden, that curiosity impelled him to question Mrs Soames further.

‘Since I understand from Mrs Ogilvie that Clara's husband died some years ago, I wondered–’ he began, only to be interrupted.

‘Oh no, Inspector.’ Mary Soames shook her head. Another hairpin flew off. ‘That's not right at all. I don't know why Jane should tell you such nonsense. Harry Mortimer's not dead at all.’

Mary Soames's revelation
shook Rafferty. It was only now he realised that all her references to Harry Mortimer had been in the present tense. He had just assumed she had not learned of his death. Stupid really, she had been in regular contact with Clara Mortimer who might have been relied upon to know if the father of her only child was still alive or not.

Having shaken them once, Mrs Soames proceeded to shake them a second time.

‘Far from being dead,’ Mary Soames explained, ‘Clara told me Harry Mortimer had actually moved into one of the cheaper apartments in her block and was attempting to woo her all over again. Only for some reason he calls himself Hal Oliver.

‘I can only presume he's trying to escape some creditors. Or perhaps the Child Support Agency managed to catch up with him at last. It's common knowledge that he's left a trail of illegitimate children behind him. Hard to believe at his age, I know, but I heard that he only fathered the last one two years ago.’

Rafferty was annoyed with himself that he had yet to get around to checking what Jane Ogilvie had told him. The fact that he had had no reason to doubt what she said was insufficient excuse; especially as she had now proved herself as proficient a liar as her father.

Still, he couldn't allow himself to become excited at these latest revelations; they had investigated the alibi Hal Oliver had given them and DC Lilley whom he had assigned the job had confirmed it had checked out. Hal Oliver – or Harry Mortimer as it now turned out was his true identity, had told them he had stayed overnight with a male friend in central London and had shared breakfast with his friend on the morning of Mrs Mortimer's murder. Afterwards, Lilley said Hal Oliver's friend, Mike Brown, had told him Hal had gone off to complete some urgent and long overdue errands before he had caught the train back to Elmhurst.

Lilley, whom Rafferty had always found an intelligent and entirely competent detective, had taken the trouble to check this story with the porter at Mr Brown's apartment block. The porter had confirmed what Oliver/Mortimer and his friend had said.

Yet now, Rafferty began to have serious doubts. Was it possible that Mike Brown, the porter and Oliver/Mortimer himself had all colluded in the lie and he hadn't stayed overnight with his friend in London at all? With Clara Mortimer dead it certainly looked to be a possibility.

Rafferty gave his head a tiny shake and tuned back in to what Mary Soames was saying.

‘Harry always did carry fatherhood too lightly for Jane to turn out anything but needy. I often think her father, rather than her mother, was the cause of most of her problems.’

Rafferty said ‘Tell me, what did Mrs Mortimer think of these renewed attentions from her estranged husband?’

‘You know, I suspect she was rather tickled. She still loved him, you see, in spite of everything. She was always very fastidious about her appearance, but she became even more so. She had her hair styled twice a week instead of her usual once and treated herself to some tailor-made suits and dresses. She even bought an up to the minute computer, I presume so that if any of Harry's numerous offspring should happen to call, they would be able to play their computer games. Harry, naturally, hadn't even thought of providing such an amusement himself.’

They all pondered this for a few moments. Then Rafferty ventured another question. ‘Did you think it would have been a good idea for Mrs Mortimer to get back with her husband?’

Mary Soames didn't require any more than a second to consider the question. ‘No, not at all,’ was her immediate response. ‘Harry Mortimer was always bad news as far as Clara was concerned. She was the only one who couldn't see it.’

She sighed and added, ‘But there, she was always foolish over that man, no matter how sensible she was in every other area. Harry had cheated on her I don't know how many times, sponged off her quite shamelessly and finally left her to bring up their child on her own. I thought allowing him back into her life was the worst possible thing for her. We nearly had a falling out over it, actually, especially when I told her it would end in tears.’

She paused to add poignantly, ‘And now it has. Though I never thought it would come to this.’

Mary Soames had given them a lot to think about, particularly her last enigmatic comment and its implication that she thought Clara Mortimer's estranged husband could have had something to do with her death.

It was certainly suspicious that, a mere two weeks before her murder, he should have moved into the same apartment block as his estranged wife.

With so much to think about, Rafferty was happy to let Llewellyn drive; his slower mode of locomotion would, he thought, enable him to turn these latest discoveries over in his mind and decide how best to approach the questioning of Harry Mortimer aka Hal Oliver and his alibi-producing friend.

‘Why would Jane Ogilvie tell us her father was dead?’ he asked Llewellyn as the latter negotiated his careful way round the roundabout that led them back to Priory Way. ‘She must have known we'd find out the truth.’

'Mrs Ogilvie struck me as an impetuous person,' Llewellyn remarked, with a moue of distaste for such an undesirable character trait. ' One who acts first and thinks afterwards, if at all.’

She was in good company, thought Rafferty wryly. He had ever been impetuous. He bit the bullet and commented, ‘Yes that's my opinion, too.’ Takes one to know one, he thought. ‘You've only got to consider her careless approach to the responsibilities of parenthood.’

The words were barely out of his mouth before his conscience struck him a metaphorical rap over the knuckles. "Judge not – lest ye yourself be judged,' it said. For once, he had no quick, conscience-silencing riposte.

Llewellyn nodded. ‘Harry Mortimer sounds to me to be the kind of charming rogue of a father that little girls adore, so I presume Jane Ogilvie still feels some affection for him and wanted to protect him. Presumably, she was scared we would think him the obvious suspect-’

Damn right, was Rafferty's natural response. But once again he kept his thought to himself.

Llewellyn continued. ‘Especially given that Mortimer's estranged wife was a fairly wealthy woman and he had so conveniently moved into the same block.’

‘It's certainly an interesting pointer that she should lie for him so automatically. And it was automatic,’ he told Llewellyn when he recalled that his sergeant hadn't witnessed Jane Ogilvie's lie. ‘She didn't even pause for thought. It strikes me it was something she was used to doing; presumably when one of his discarded mistresses was trying to track him down. But it's even more interesting that she should feel the need to lie about him to us as well as raging mistresses. It gives us another indication as to the man's character should we need one after listening to what Mrs Soames had to say about him.’

Rafferty reached forward. ‘I'll get on to the station and get Lilley to again check out Mortimer's friend, Mike Brown and the alibi he supplied. If Mortimer was still at this Brown's apartment at the time Clara Mortimer died someone else apart from a possibly bribable porter may have seen him coming and going. While I'm at it, I'll get him to check Mortimer out under both his names.’

Much to his surprise, a couple of minutes later, DC Jonathon Lilley came back with the news that Harry Mortimer had no criminal convictions under either his own name or his adopted name.

‘Perhaps he has a third name he uses for criminal activities,’ was Rafferty's comment as he replaced the speaker-mike.

Rafferty began to regret handing the car keys to Llewellyn. The late Mrs Mortimer's estranged, but very much alive husband, sounded an interesting prospect – more so given that they had so far failed to find the dead woman's will. If no will turned up at the solicitors that Mrs Soames had mentioned, then Harry Mortimer could be in line for a substantial inheritance under the intestacy laws.

That possibility brought a number of questions to mind. Not least why Mortimer had chosen to relocate himself to the same apartment block as the victim? So he could again woo the woman he had already rejected once, as Mary Soames claimed?

It seemed unlikely. Somehow, Rafferty doubted that wooing his estranged wife had been high on Harry Mortimer's agenda.

So what had been?

The more he thought about it, the more Rafferty regretted not knowing Harry Mortimer was very much alive when they had interviewed Hal Oliver/Harry Mortimer first time round. The delay would have given him ample time to come up with more plausible lies to account for the concealment of his identity and his recent house move to the apartment block of his estranged wife. What was it the bible said about liars?

Rafferty racked his brains as they waited at the zebra crossing for a gaggle of schoolchildren to cross the road. It was only when Llewellyn had started up again that as clear as clear, in his head echoed the voice of Miss Robson, his old junior school religious teacher. How could he have forgotten, especially when she had so frequently quoted it about him?

'There is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.'

The father of it – and maybe the friend of it also, as like sought like. Given that Harry Mortimer had already proven himself a more than proficient liar, it seemed an odds on possibility that his obliging friend, Mike Brown, was a man of the same ilk.

At that thought, Rafferty's foot pressed a non-existent accelerator pedal to the floor in his eagerness – now he was armed with excellent ammunition – to question Mortimer again.

As
Hal Oliver-Mortimer let them in, Rafferty again noted the confident way he walked. This was not a man bowed by age or sin, was Rafferty's firm opinion. All his years and his sins looked lightly borne. Guilt for all the fatherless children that Mary Soames mentioned he had left in his wake had left few tracks on his forehead. In fact, unlike the rest of his face, his forehead was strangely unmarked by the passage of time or sin: those marks, those sins, had been borne by others.

Blithely must he have passed through his life and the lives of others, Rafferty thought, not even noticing the damage he left behind him. The man might be a wraith – a spirit who touched the lives of many, but who was himself untouched.

Rafferty wasn't sure whether to feel sad at the shallow emptiness of Harry Mortimer's life or be impressed by how successfully he had evaded what should have been his many responsibilities. Clearly, he had the ‘bugger you, I'm all right’ outlook, which a younger Rafferty would probably have admired.

But now, as the older Rafferty thought of young Gemma and the countless Gemma's males like Mortimer left in their roué’s wake, he felt only anger, an anger not lessened by his own guilty feelings about Abra, followed by an urgent desire to tell the man a few home truths. But the thought that similar home truths would find as ready a billet with him as with Mortimer made him restrain the impulse.

Besides, to be fair to the man, disarmingly, Mortimer had admitted he had lied to them before they had even begun to question him; before they had even had a chance to take the seats he so smilingly offered.