Bad Blood (7 page)

Certainly, it seemed unlikely that Jesmond supported himself with legally earned income, given that he was at home in the middle of the morning and didn't wear the jaded air or pale skin of a night-worker.

‘We're police officers,’ Rafferty confirmed what he thought Jesmond already suspected, before introducing himself and DS Carmody. ‘We'd like to speak to Mrs Jane Ogilvie, who we believe lives here. It's about her mother, Mrs Clara Mortimer.’

‘What's that old bitch been saying about me now?’ Jesmond demanded belligerently. ‘If she's accusing me of stealing from her again, I'll–-‘

Again, Rafferty wondered whether this show of belligerence was used to conceal some other emotion. If Jesmond had had anything to do with Mrs Mortimer's death, he could have decided that such a show of aggression towards the victim would be a clever after-the-act move to put on for the investigating officers.

‘Mrs Mortimer‘s not in a position to accuse anyone of anything, Mr Jesmond,’ Rafferty told him flatly. ‘That's why we're here. We've some bad news for Mrs Ogilvie concerning her mother.’

Darryl Jesmond suddenly became much less voluble. He gazed suspiciously at them from narrowed eyes before he told them, ‘Jane's not here. She's at work’

‘When do you expect her back? Only we do need to see her as a matter of urgency.’

‘Why?’ He frowned. ‘You said it was about the old woman. Urgent. That can only mean one thing. She's dead, isn't she? The old girl, I mean?’

He gazed at them triumphantly, as if expecting them to congratulate him on his perspicacity.

Again, Rafferty wondered if this parade of questions and self-provided answers were gone through merely for their benefit. But perhaps he was being unduly cynical.

Rafferty neither confirmed nor denied Clara Mortimer's death, but simply repeated his question as to when Jane Ogilvie was expected home.

Jesmond shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. She should have been back ages ago She got herself a night job a few months back, stacking shelves at the supermarket. I suppose you'd better come in and wait,’ he invited ungraciously as he turned away and headed back up the narrow hallway.

Rafferty and Mary Carmody followed Jesmond down a hallway that was partly bare brick where plaster had fallen from the walls. It was littered with bags of overflowing rubbish that were beginning to smell; clearly the household had failed to rise early enough to put their rubbish out on the allocated collection day.

‘Surely you have a phone number for her?’ Rafferty asked as he just avoided the last, precariously placed and bursting bag of rubbish and entered the back living room.

‘Of course I've got a phone number for her. It's just that our phone's out of order.’

Been cut off, more like, thought Rafferty as he pulled out his mobile. ‘If you can give me the number?’

After Jesmond had rummaged for a minute in a cupboard drawer crowded with flyers from local take away restaurants and cards for mini cab firms, he finally located the scrap of paper. But before he could give it to Rafferty, a key turned in the front door and a harassed-looking woman he assumed must be Jane Ogilvie opened the door and saved him the trouble.

As skinny as a teenager and with long, straggly, badly-bleached hair that only served to emphasise the lack of a youthful bloom to her skin, she appeared to be trying – and failing – to hold back the years. No wonder, with the much younger Jesmond for a live-in partner that she should look harassed; Rafferty could imagine Darryl Jesmond would make the women in his life jump through hoops for his benefit. A night spent stacking supermarket shelves was even less likely to increase a woman's bloom, certainly not one who looked, like Rafferty himself, to be on the fast track to forty and whose bloom had now to be applied from a tube.

Jane Ogilvie was trailed by a young man in his early twenties who wore a smart and expensive-looking light grey executive's suit, with a jaded, over-stressed, executive's demeanour. He was carrying a suitcase that wasn't a match for the smart suit. But even with the shabby case, he looked as out of place in the scruffy family home as a sleek, just off the assembly line limousine in a used-car lot.

Rafferty, wondering if this latest arrival was another one, albeit more up-market, of Jane's toy boys, thought his guess confirmed when Jesmond, with a glower, took in the other young man's suitcase.

‘What the hell-?’ he began.

‘Please don't have a go, Darryl,’ Jane said hurriedly, her tone placatory. ‘This is my son, Charles. I said he can stay for a few days.’

Darryl stared at her as if he thought she was losing her wits. ‘I know who he is, for Christ's sake. How could I not?" he demanded.

This last was a surprisingly reasonable question from Jesmond, who had the looks of a man who took unreasonableness to an art form. For as Rafferty himself had already noted, the living room revealed that in matters of family sentiment, Jane chose the opposite course to her mother.

Pictures of her children held a prominent, no, defiant place, as if she was determined to ram the fact of their existence down her mother's throat even though Jane must have known how unlikely it was that the far more fastidious Clara Mortimer would ever set foot over the threshold of the squat.

As he gazed from toddler photographs through to those of sulky teens, he managed to work out that Jane had three children. They comprised one white son, one mixed race daughter and another son of middle-eastern appearance. Clearly, Amelia Frobisher hadn't known how widely Jane Ogilvie had cast her favours; if she had, her comments would be likely to make even the defiant Jane's ears burn.

Rafferty was surprised to discover that the smart as paint young man was Jane's son; as he had already observed, the smart-suited Charles didn't look as if he belonged in his mother's run down and borrowed home. He had changed quite a bit from the boy in his last, teenaged photo. The chubbiness of childhood had vanished as had the mud and the football strip and though the teenage tendency to pimples remained pallor had replaced the healthy colour of the sporty schoolboy.

‘As I said,’ Darryl's belligerent voice butted into Rafferty's musings. ‘I know who he is. What I want to know is why–?‘

Jane cut him off. ‘Please don't make a scene, Dazza,’ she pleaded. 'You know I haven't seen him for months.' Her voice full of earnest entreaty, continued to coax. ‘He'll only be here for a few days. I know we weren't expecting him, but it was a spur of the moment visit before he starts his new job. He'll be no trouble.’

Darryl opened his mouth as if about to say 'he'd better not be'. But instead, after a glance at Rafferty, he shrugged and shut his mouth as if he had just remembered that Jane had more pressing problems to face than placating him over their unexpected house guest.

He jerked his head towards Rafferty and Mary Carmody. ‘You've got visitors. Coppers. They want to speak to you about your old mother,’ he told her bluntly.

Jane blinked and turned from Darryl to stare warily at them.

The wayward Jane's wary expression caused Rafferty to wonder whether Darryl Jesmond might not be the only one to have crossed swords with the courts and the criminal justice system.

‘What do you want?’ Jane asked Rafferty as she pulled off the uncomfortable looking high heels that were so unsuitable for a shelf-stacking job and slumped wearily on the stained green settee. She pushed her hands through already disordered hair and told him with teenage petulance, ‘I've just finished a long night shift and I'm bushed. Can't it wait, whatever it is?’

Rafferty hesitated. He was conscious that, concerning Jane's relationship with her murdered mother, he had only heard half the story and that half might be unfairly prejudiced against a Jane, who, to Clara Mortimer's apartment block contemporaries, must seem challengingly unconventional.

‘I'm sorry,’ he said. ‘But no, it can't wait. I'm afraid we have bad news regarding your mother, Mrs Clara Mortimer.’

Jane's gaze flickered from Rafferty to Mary Carmody, to Darryl, then to her son, before it settled back on Rafferty. ‘What about my mother?’

‘As I said, Mrs Ogilvie, it's bad news. You should prepare yourself for a shock'

Rafferty tentatively sat opposite her on the edge of a green armchair that was a stained match for the settee. He waited as her son dropped the suitcase in the corner and sat next to his mother on the arm of the settee as if hoping to shield her from the bad news that was obviously coming.

‘You mother was found dead earlier this morning in her apartment on Priory Way,' Rafferty told her gently. 'It looks like she disturbed an intruder.’

Jane's lips formed the words, an intruder, as if she couldn't quite grasp his meaning. Once again, her gaze went from face to face as if seeking further enlightenment.

Rafferty explained. ‘I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother suffered a fatal head injury. One of her neighbours found her.’

Jane took a few moments to absorb this. Then she said simply, ‘I see.’ She fixed Rafferty with an abstracted eye. ‘This neighbour,’ she began. ‘Did they see anything? Were they able to tell you who might have attacked my mother?’

‘I'm afraid not. We believe your mother had already been dead for around an hour when the neighbour noticed her apartment door was ajar. She investigated and found your mother.’

Jane drew in a deep, shuddering breath and slumped back in her chair.

‘I'm sorry to have to ask further questions at such a difficult time, but is there anyone else we need to contact? Your mother lived alone. Her husband–?’

Jane took a few seconds to drag herself back from shock. ‘He's dead,' she told him briefly. ‘My father died some years ago.’

Glad to get confirmation of this, Rafferty sat back. He noticed Darryl Jesmond open his mouth again, but he obviously thought better of whatever he had been going to say, because again he shut it without saying anything. Clearly, he wasn't a young man gifted with the ability to comfort the bereaved. Neither, for that matter, was Jane's son. But, at least Charles Ogilvie, his face a greenish grey, put a trembling hand on his mother's shoulder in an awkward attempt to offer comfort. His touch was tentative, as if he feared the mercurial-seeming Jane would reject it and the comfort he was trying to provide.

Charles Ogilvie seemed far more affected by the news of his grandmother's violent death than did his mother, Rafferty observed. This young man struck him as being more in need of comfort than the still dry-eyed Jane. From his fine-hewn features and nervy air, Rafferty judged him a sensitive lad. But he was young yet and, unlike Jane who had already lost her father, the violent death of his grandmother was likely to be his first contact with mortality.

Suddenly, Charles's face looked even more stricken and he asked, ‘What about my brother and sister? Who's going to break the news to them?’ His sensitive face turned even greyer as he voiced the question.

Rafferty asked where they were.

Jane answered. ‘They're at school. If they're there, that is and not bunking off.’

Charles clarified his mother's answer. ‘They go to St Vincent's. My sister's name is Aurora Mortimer and my brother's name is Hakim Mohammed Abdullah. His father's Arab,’ he unnecessarily explained what Rafferty had already surmised from the many photographs.

Rita Atkins's talk of Jane's children being something of a Heinz 57 varieties wasn't far out, thought Rafferty. He wondered what the children thought about them all having different fathers.

But as the thoughts of Jane's other children on such a matter seemed unlikely to be confided to a policeman, far less one they had yet to meet, Rafferty put aside such pointless musings, took out his mobile, rang the station and he arranged for the children to be collected in an hour's time and brought back home.

After what he had so far learned of Clara Mortimer's relationship with her daughter Rafferty wasn't surprised that Jane had remained dry-eyed at the news of her mother's murder.

But now, as if she had only just taken it in – or was doing what she must consider expected in the circumstances – she surprised him by bursting into tears and flinging herself into her son's arms. Charles looked horrified.

Rafferty thought for a moment or two that he was going to thrust his weeping mother away from him, as if all this sudden emotional drama was more than he could cope with. But after that brief drawing back, he hugged Jane as tightly as any mother could wish. It was some time before Jane calmed down sufficiently in order to be told the rest.

Rafferty noted that, in spite of her storm of weeping, there were few marks of tears on her cheeks. But before he could take this thought to a natural destination, Rafferty remembered he had sworn to give up jumping to conclusions before he had any facts to back them up. Besides, it was possible that she thought he was unaware of the family estrangement and felt obliged to supply the tears such a sudden bereavement warranted.

While Jane Ogilvie indulged in unnecessary mopping-up operations, Rafferty tipped the wink to Mary Carmody to check whether the mortuary was ready for them.

A few minutes later, DS Carmody slipped back in to the room and gave him the nod.

Rafferty turned to Jane. ‘Do you feel up to identifying your mother now, Mrs Ogilvie?’

‘Me?’ Clearly appalled at such a responsibility, Jane appealed to her eldest son. ‘You do it, Charlie. You were her favourite grandchild. At least you used to be.’