A Thrust to the Vitals

Chapter Two-2

FROM WHERE RAFFERTY stood, with his sergeant, Dafyd Llewellyn, at the entrance to Rufus Seward’s suite, it was clear the alcohol had flowed with a bacchanalian abandon at his celebratory civic reception. The Elmhurst Hotel’s cleaning staff hadn’t of course been allowed admittance, and the debris left at the end of the extravagant spending of council tax-payers’ funds indicated that a good, free-loading time had been had by all. There were numerous bottles of what Rafferty learned were jeroboams of vintage champagne. Big buggers, anyway, thought a Rafferty unfamiliar with both the term and the extravagance. Stint me not on my big day, Sir Rufus must have said. And stint they had not.

Nice of them to be so generous with my money, thought the sober and begrudging council tax-paying Rafferty. Especially when police stations that had once been open all day and all night, were now mostly restricted to office hours. That would be fine, of course, if criminals followed suit and adopted a nine to five working day.

Some of these big bugger bottles were lying on the floor like so many drunken sailors. If they’d had heels, they’d have kicked them up, for sure. The only wide and round thing that was no longer rolling around was Dr Sam Dally, who had departed after he had viewed the body, though the forensics team would be kept busy for some time yet.

Seward had been killed in the suite’s main bedroom. Rafferty had, of course, already studied this bedroom and Seward’s corpse while it had still been in situ. But, to give the forensics team room to move, he hadn’t lingered longer than necessary to absorb the details, preferring to take in the suite as a whole.

The victim’s bedroom was located down a short passageway lined with floor-to-ceiling closets near the entrance door to the suite. A large and ornate gilt mirror was on the wall opposite this corridor; Rafferty paused in front of it to tidy what he saw was thoroughly windswept hair. It seemed Seward had been seated at the desk the hotel provided in the largest of the three bedrooms, with his back to the door, when someone had crept up on him and plunged the chisel into his back. This creeping had certainly been made easier by the luxurious thickness of the carpet, the fact that Seward had, reportedly, been far from sober, and that the short passageway that housed the ensuite bathroom before it led into the bedroom itself, would have absorbed any warning draught from the opened door.

Rafferty forced his concentration back to the scene in the main reception room. Several of the celebration’s remaining buffet canapés of what looked like smoked salmon and caviar lay abandoned in the centre of vast silver platters, though, by now, these looked rather less appetising than they must have been at the start of the evening. More bottles, mostly three quarters empty, were fixed into the optics behind the specially set up bar in the left-hand corner of the suite’s main room. These bottles’ earlier companions, now drunk dry, stood in crates stacked behind the bar, awaiting collection. There was a well-spread stain of what Rafferty assumed was red wine on the once crisp white cloth that covered the long buffet table facing the door. Someone had also crushed one of the canapés underfoot on the pricey-looking carpet. All in all, it looked much as Rafferty imagined a room must look the morning after one of those Roman orgies when the participants were all nursing sick headaches, and saying, ‘Never again, Nero.’

In his head, Rafferty could hear his Ma tut-tut ting in disapproval at the self-indulgent and careless antics of these new Romans. Of course they, like their ancient predecessors, could make as much mess as they liked, sure in the knowledge that some other, much poorer, bugger, was going to get the job of cleaning up their mess. It was ever thus.

But Rafferty, left with the job of cleaning up an even bigger, more bloody mess, was only too aware that he had no time to indulge in a bout of self-righteous moralising. He didn’t have time, either, to enjoy the Edwardian splendours of one of the more pricey of the Elmhurst Hotel’s enormous suites, even though he felt like a round-eyed urchin with his nose pressed against the glass of an upmarket toy shop and with no hope, unless he was prepared to get himself hopelessly in debt, of ever playing with what was behind the glass.

The plush penthouse suite had, of course, been hired, at vast expense, by the local council for Seward’s shindig, the usual town hall accommodation having been pre-booked for another, even higher status, VIP. With its glittering Tiffany crystal chandeliers, and its Sicilian Carrara marbled bathrooms with the Jacob Delafon bath-ware and its giant-sized, carved, African walnut beds, the suite gave a whole new meaning to the word ‘ostentatious’.

Rafferty, who wouldn’t have known a Tiffany chandelier if one had crashed down on his head, had gained this sophisticate’s vocabulary after he had requested and been given one of the Elmhurst’s promotional brochures by the manager on his arrival. It was from this slim but triumphalist piece of literature that he had learned of the hotel’s self-proclaimed class and style. He had gained a knowledge of the hotel’s prices, too, of course. They made him wince. Of course, such swank didn’t come cheap: the quoted price for one night’s stay had rendered him goggle-eyed in nose-pressed urchin mode. It had also sent up a warning signal to make sure he didn’t take the brochure home with him in case Abra found it on her return from Dublin. It might give her ideas that would make his bank account, rather than his body, wince.

With the thought of the prices still at the forefront of his mind, Rafferty was moved to comment, ‘I wonder what Elmhurst’s council tax-payers would have to say about this extravagance if they ever got to know how much it must have cost. Especially when they get their next inflation-plus increase on their bills.’

Dafyd Llewellyn, a sternly brought-up Welsh Methodist, gave a Puritan’s sigh for such excess and told him, ‘As I’m one of those council tax-payers, I’m sure I can provide you with enlightenment.’

Rafferty smiled tautly. ‘Don’t bother, Daff. I’m one as well, as you know. All this high on the hog stuff at our expense makes me sick. I’ve a good mind to write the Elmhurst equivalent of the “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” letter to the local rag—especially as our free-spending representatives have decided to put the tax up again next year.’ He snorted. ‘Probably need it to pay for the army of snoopers they’re also planning to foist on us.’

‘Mmm,’ Llewellyn murmured. ‘I can see that writing such a letter to the local newspaper might ease some of the pain, but I doubt it would be wise.’

Rafferty gave another snort—the effects of this snouts in trough business seemed to be spreading. ‘Probably not. I’ll have to wait till I retire before I can voice my protest at the way they spend my hard-earned money.’

‘There’s that too, of course, though I was thinking more of the fact that Superintendent Bradley was one of this reception’s attendees.’

Rafferty turned and stared at Llewellyn. ‘Old Snout-in Trough-in-Chief? Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Given Bradley’s propensity for high-hoggery, this revelation wasn’t that unexpected. Still, the thought of Bradley finding himself numbered amongst the murder suspects brought Rafferty a little shiver of delight. Then he protested, as memory provided a reminder. ‘But old ‘Long Pockets’ wasn’t on the guest list.’

‘No, but I gather that’s only because he had an earlier engagement this evening and said he would have to cry off on this one. It seems the other one ended sooner than he expected and he had kept his invitation to this reception just in case.’

’Trust Bradley to manage to get his snout in two troughs in one night.’

Although Llewellyn had no comment to make on his superintendent’s trough-finding skills, he told Rafferty, ‘I only know he was here because DS Mary Carmody overheard one of the guests mention his name as being present, and she questioned the man about it. Although, I gather the superintendent and his wife weren’t at this function for very long—an hour at most. They left shortly before Sir Rufus’s body was discovered.’

Better and better, thought Rafferty.

‘This particular guest, the local mayor, Idris Khan, seemed to think the presence of a heavyweight policeman, like the superintendent, would provide him with alibi enough.’

In spite of his rumbling stomach, the anticipated long night ahead, and the worry about his brother, this information brought something approaching a grin to Rafferty’s lips. ‘Who knows? It might at that, especially if I’m able to prove our esteemed super was the chisel-wielder. After all, it wouldn’t be unprecedented. He’s shown plenty of previous form in plunging sharpened implements in backs. Even if it is more in the meta—meta—’ Rafferty frowned.

‘Metaphorical?’

Rafferty nodded. ‘That’s the bugger. Plenty of metaphorical knives in backs. Proves capability of the crime to my mind.’

‘Mm... You might like to know that several – more than several – of Seward’s other guests are also reputed to have such a predilection.’ Llewellyn gave a discreet cough. ‘In fact, I noticed a certain Nigel Blythe was numbered amongst the guests. That wouldn’t be the same Blythe—?’

Rafferty gave a weary nod. ‘The very same.’ Llewellyn, of course, remembered this Rafferty family cousin from a previous case.

Llewellyn wisely said no more on the subject.

Rafferty recalled himself to duty. Now, beckoning Llewellyn to follow, he walked back down the suite’s chandeliered hallway to the main bedroom, the scene of the murder. He stood in the doorway, and, although Sir Rufus Seward’s body had now been removed to the mortuary, the vivid picture of his fleshy-girthed and well-fed body slumped over the gilded desk in front of the curtained windows in the bedroom, the thin chisel thrust deep in his back, was unlikely to leave him any time soon. But then, neither were his worries about Mickey.

Rafferty recalled Dr Sam Dally’s comment as he viewed and examined the corpse of the late Sir Rufus: ‘At least you won’t be short of suspects for this cadaver, Rafferty. From what I’ve heard of the man, he was one of those types who smarms all over those he regards as his social superiors – though, I suppose, since his knighthood, only royalty would be so regarded – and saves his bile for those not in a position to answer back. Not a likeable man, by all accounts.’

Rafferty had nodded. Even if he hadn’t already been, from personal knowledge, well aware of that fact, he would have got a hint of Seward’s reputation from the reported comments of the few guests who had chosen to linger long after the party was scheduled to finish, and who had been herded from the scene once the police had arrived at Marcus Canthorpe’s summons on finding the dead body of his employer. These guests had received the reward deserved by all such late-lingerers - nasty questions and unwanted invitations to linger even longer. Some of the replies, fortunately for the investigation, had been of the unguarded nature that copious quantities of alcohol invariably encourage.

Seward, like Rafferty and his two younger brothers after they had moved to Essex from their south London home, had attended the local RC secondary modern. But Seward, to give him his due, had been smart even then, and had been destined for higher things. It had only been his early idleness that had caused him to attend the secondary modern in the first place, rather than the grammar school. But, in his final year, he had obtained a scholarship to St Oswald’s, the nearby fee-paying boarding school with an excellent reputation.

He hadn’t wasted the opportunity. Nor had he hesitated to crow about it. Even now, twenty-five years later, Rafferty could recall his younger brother’s resentment at Seward’s boasting of his scholarship success and Mickey’s relative ‘failure’, as Seward called it, in merely managing to get signed up to attend the local technical college. No, Seward had not been a nice man.

Rafferty, being a year older than both his brother Mickey and cousin Nigel, had seen less of Seward’s youthful arrogance than had been displayed to his two relatives. And, as a teenager, Rafferty had been both taller than his younger brother and cousin and handy with his fists, so Seward had had the sense not to tangle with him in the way that he had so enjoyed tangling with those younger or smaller than himself of whom, Mickey, of course, had been one.

But, while the grown-up Mickey might not have Seward’s money or worldly success, he did have a craftsman’s skills in carpentry, painstakingly acquired during the City & Guilds course he had taken at the local college during his apprenticeship.

His brother had managed to put them both in an extremely unfortunate position over Seward’s violent murder. His failure to bring it to anyone’s attention before he scarpered with the words ‘chief suspect’ inevitably trailing behind him, was impossible to refute. But what Dally the pathologist had said about the number of people who would be glad to assist Seward to even greater, heavenly, glory, was true enough. It provided Rafferty with the only solace currently on offer.

Of course, he had yet to meet Seward’s unwillingly lingering guests, though, from all the reports he had so far heard, they sounded a pretty uncongenial lot.

Okay, finding yourself involved in a murder scene when all you had expected to do was drink and stuff your face, would be a shock to anyone. Still, given that Sir Rufus had known and associated with some characters who were, by repute, as unpleasant and ruthless as he was, Rafferty felt it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that at least one of them would be revealed to have nursed a magnate-sized grudge against the dead man. It might yet let his i***t brother off the hook.