Dying For You (18 page)

Rafferty wanted a few moments to think, so he signalled to Llewellyn to take over. Farnell certainly seemed to have a down on Isobel. Was that just because he was clearly homosexual and Isobel's crass style offended his own impeccable taste? Or was there a deeper reason? Lancelot Bliss had revealed that Isobel was a bit of a snoop. Did she have something unsavoury on Farnell? But given that Farnell made no secret of his homosexuality, what could she have on him? Isobel would be unable to use her usual weapon – her body – to prise his secrets from him, as some of the recent statements hinted she did.

Llewellyn had discovered that Farnell had pushed to set up a ‘gay’ section to the dating agency and although Guy Cranston had made no objection, Caroline had. Was it possible that Farnell was the killer but that he had mistakenly killed the wrong women? Given that Caroline had crushed his ambition by rejecting out of hand his desire to set up the gay section and if Isobel did have some kind of hold on him, either woman could have been his chosen victim.

If so and Farnell had made a botch of it, his remark that such a killer would have to be completely inept to make such a mistake not once, but twice, could be a double-bluff.

‘You're looking very thoughtful, inspector. I do hope you're not judging me too harshly for my frank comments about Isobel.’ Simon Farnell gave him a coy glance from under his lashes.

Rafferty assumed the man must have a taste for the butch look he currently sported. Dear God, he thought, please don't let him start flirting with me. Not on top of all my other troubles. I might just land him one.

‘Just so you don't think I'm being a spiteful queen, let me give you an instance of Isobel's ineptitude. The party where we've since learned Jenny Warburton was murdered was another of her muddles. She caused both Caroline and me to arrive late. We didn't realize until we got to The Elmhurst hotel and found there was no booking that Isobel had given us invitations for the previous week's function. It wasn't the first time something like that has happened, either. I can only think Caroline puts up with her because it was Guy who took her on.’ Simon sighed. ‘The perils of nepotism.’

Rafferty recalled Simon and Caroline's late arrival at the first party; now he knew the reason for it.

‘I wish Isobel would find herself a wealthy man to keep her in style.’ Farnell looked archly at Rafferty. ‘Wouldn't mind one myself, come to that.’

Beside Rafferty, his sergeant was emitting strange muffled sounds. He ignored them and observed stiltedly, ‘Isobel's plan doesn't seem to be working. I gather she's been on the staff since the agency opened. How old is she, twenty-seven?’ Farnell nodded. ‘So what's she doing wrong?’

‘As I said, Inspector, I find the female of the species unfathomable. But you're a red-blooded male, my dear, what do you think she's doing wrong?’

Rafferty winced at the ‘my dear’. Careful to call to mind only Isobel's office clothing of low-cut blouse and scarlet lipstick rather than her barely-there party dress, Rafferty shrugged. ‘She's a bit obvious, I suppose. Shows a bit too much flesh and wears too much make-up. It hints at desperation.’

‘Perhaps you should tell her that. Then we might get her married off before she tries her vampish tricks on any more clients. Several have complained about her. She's also inclined to be inquisitive, which doesn't go down too well. Our clients expect discretion. It's the reason they come to us in the first place.’

There was no question now that Farnell had a definite down on Isobel. But as Rafferty recalled the comments in the statements of some of the male members, perhaps Farnell perhaps had a point.

‘Isobel's a bit of a snoop,’ Lancelot Bliss had said. ‘Caught her going through my desk once I often work at home and keep lots of confidential stuff there. Luckily, I keep the main section locked. God knows what she was looking for.’

‘Isobel's a bit of a bike’ – this had been Ralph Dryden's comment. ‘Most of the members here have had a ride or two on her.’

‘Isobel likes expensive presents,’ Rory Gifford had revealed.

Tired of trying and failing to find a rich husband, had Isobel settled for expensive trinkets and a side-line career as a blackmailer? Could that be why she made her body available to rich men who might have a murky secret or ten? Men forgot to be discreet when their trousers were down and their passion was up. If she was into using her body to encourage men to reveal their secrets it would explain why she had thought herself the murderer's intended target .

The fact that Jenny, Estelle and Isobel were all superficially alike, all being blondes, around the same height and build and all favoured little black dresses increased the possibility of mistaken identity. In the sparsely illuminated car parking area at the Cranstons’ home and the equally dimly-lit rear grounds of The Elmhurst's annexe it would have been easy to mistake one girl for another.

Rafferty mentioned the possibility to Llewellyn when they left the agency offices and were back in the car. Llewellyn had taken to being the driver as quickly as he had taken to running most of the investigation. Rafferty was beginning to suspect, if he ever managed to divest himself of the shackles tying his hands in this case, he might find himself permanently in the passenger seat in more ways than one.

‘After all,’ he said, ‘why should she think she might have been the intended victim if she didn't harbour a guilty secret or two?’

‘Such a possibility had occurred to me, sir,’ Llewellyn told him. ‘I put something similar in my last report if you recall. I can't think how you missed it as you've been studying the paperwork so assiduously.’

Rafferty couldn't think how he'd missed it, either. He supposed he could put it down to his father's glasses. The headaches were now getting pretty insupportable. Obviously, he couldn't tell Llewellyn this. Instead, he clutched at a dim memory. ‘Must be that bang on the head that's affecting my memory.’

‘What bang on the head?’

‘Happened when you were on honeymoon.’

‘Ah,’ said Llewellyn.

‘What do you mean, Ah?’

‘Just that it would explain a lot.’ Llewellyn briefly studied him, before he returned his attention to the road. ‘You've been subdued lately, not like yourself. Not like yourself at all,’ the usually eloquent Welshman repeated. ‘You've been behaving, well, as I said, not like yourself.’ Solicitously, he asked, ‘Are you feeling unwell?’

Rafferty, seeing the genuine concern on Llewellyn's face, felt a brief temptation to ‘tell all’. Fortunately it passed. But he was hungry for sympathy, so he decided to seize the moment and the ready excuse for his recent uncharacteristic behaviour. He made his voice weak and lacking in conviction. ‘I'm all right, really. I suppose.’ His pathetic reply brought the desired response.

‘You're not, though, are you? Even Maureen said she's never seen you so subdued. Why not tell Dr Llewellyn what the problem is?’

The normally dour, dry as a desert Llewellyn must be worried to make such a naff effort at humour, Rafferty realized. I'm not lying, he told his nagging conscience before it got into its stride, as he confessed. ‘I haven't been sleeping well. Apart from these headaches, I keep getting recurring nightmares.’

‘Nightmares?’ Llewellyn echoed again. ‘What about?’

Rafferty was again tempted to confide his troubles to Llewellyn and put himself out of his misery. But again the temptation lasted only a moment. He could imagine Llewellyn's reaction if he told him his nightmares consisted of bloody visions, with him in the role of double murderer. So he temporized. ‘I keep getting nightmares about murdering Ma.’ Well, that was true, too. He had sometimes had murderous thoughts in that direction. He was only human. But the knowledge that his ma always bested him had put a stop to such dreams. He had never managed to win an argument with her, never mind a struggle to the death.

‘There's nothing else troubling you?’

Rafferty was quick to deny it.

‘Then, apart from making an appointment with your doctor for a check-up, I suggest you need a holiday. You should try to get away when we've resolved this case. A long break from murder is probably exactly what you need.’

Rafferty merely nodded, smiled and said, ‘You're probably right.’ It was the possibility that he'd have a very long break – an involuntary one, courtesy of Her Majesty – that had exacerbated the nightmares. But, of course he said nothing about that. Keen to get all the most problematic interviews over as quickly as possible, he simply suggested Llewellyn put his foot down – a request sure to encourage the suddenly chatty Welshman into stubborn silence

He made use of the journey time to think about another possibility. Thus far, because the two victims had been young women and Simon Farnell clearly played from another sexual song sheet, he hadn't featured strongly as a suspect. But the murders were not necessarily crimes of gender. Neither girl had been raped. They might well have been killed for reasons other than sexual ones.

Farnell was ambitious, gossipy and also a little spiteful. Caroline had thwarted his ambitions to launch a homosexual arm to the agency. She, rather than Guy had been the stumbling block to this ambition. Had he tried to remove this stumbling block and made a hash of it both times?

It seemed pretty unlikely, even though the three women – Jenny, Estelle and Caroline – were superficially alike and might be confused for one another in dimly-lit grounds by a man blinded by ambition. But what made the possibility difficult to accept was Farnell himself. The man might harbour ambitions, but they were realistic ones. Or they would have been if Caroline hadn't been so set against them. Farnell's resentment about this had come across clearly in his statement even though he'd barely referred to the matter. But he'd clearly researched the market. Lancelot Bliss had confided to Llewellyn that Farnell had paid for a firm of accountants to do the costings out of his own pocket. Clearly, he must be convinced his planned agency arm would meet a need.

Rafferty was inclined to agree with him; not every male homosexual would be happy to explore the more sordid ways of finding a partner. Farnell's ambition was far from blind. It was clear-sighted, unhampered by distorting blinkers. That was why Rafferty had managed to convince himself that if Simon Farnell meant to kill a particular person he wouldn't mistake their identity.

There again, Isobel had managed to head him off when it came to questions about her intelligence, so maybe Farnell had done the same but from the opposite direction. Perhaps, for all Farnell's apparently intelligent application to providing solid evidence to support his desired gay section ‘baby’, it only pointed to what an obsession it had become to him. It didn't necessarily mean he would be able to apply such intelligence to other areas.

Given the electronic gates at New Hall, the odds were short on Jenny's murderer being one of the attendees at the house party, so he couldn't discount Farnell. Nor could he be discounted when it came to Estelle's murder as the side entrance to The Elmhurst's annexe had a spring-loaded lock that only opened from inside. So again, without complicity from someone inside, no stranger could have gained easy access to the grounds to kill Estelle.

Everyone had been questioned as to whether they had let someone in from outside; naturally, all had denied it. Nor could an outsider have gained access from the front of the annexe. Doormen had been on duty all evening to keep out potential gate-crashers.

By now, thanks to Llewellyn's diligence, most of the attendees at both parties had been whittled from the suspect list. They had already checked and disproved the possibility that a stray stranger-killer could have gained access to the first party by waiting outside the grounds of New Hall for the gates to open so he could slip through and find a girl to kill. The possibility had been there for a time, even though he had thought it too bizarre to be given any credence, his increasing paranoia had insisted he consider it. But that worry had died an early death on the study of the video footage. The camera on the gates of New Hall had failed to record any suspicious looking characters – apart from himself – as he and Llewellyn had discovered on playing the tape back.

Rafferty had cringed when he had recognized himself in the back of the cab behind the concealing handkerchief. He had cringed even more when Llewellyn had said, ‘I don't know why, but there's something strangely familiar about that cab passenger. I wish I could put my finger on what it is.’

Fortunately, Llewellyn hadn't mentioned the matter again, so Rafferty concluded his sergeant's finger had failed to find the spot. Even I must have one stroke of good fortune, Rafferty told himself.

Next on
the list was Rory Gifford, the TV producer friend of Dr Lancelot Bliss. Gifford's apartment, like Nigel's, was another of the recent developments that attracted affluent young professionals. Of course, Elmhurst was a handy commuter ride into the centre of London.

Situated on Elmhurst's outskirts, on the north bank of the river at Tiffey Reach, within easy walking distance of Northgate and the High Street with their shops and restaurants, Gifford's apartment was in a futuristic modern block. Rafferty guessed it must have stunning views over the water and the mostly open country to the north-east of the town. Each apartment had a large balcony featuring intricate ironwork and supported by metal pillars.

An entry-phone system was in operation. Rafferty pressed the button for Gifford's apartment and they were admitted to a spacious entrance hall carpeted in a soft grey and filled with huge plants lit from a central atrium. Two lifts faced the entrance door, while, to the left, a wide staircase curved round the wall.