Dying for You

Chapter One-2

AS HE ENTERED THE POLICE station, a song hovering on his lips, from behind the desk Constable Bill Beard hailed him. ‘Heard the latest, Inspector?’

‘Surprise me,’ Rafferty unwisely invited.

‘We’ve a new murder case. The ‘Lonely Hearts’ murder the lads are calling it.’ Beard shook his grey head. ‘These young women—no sense, some of them. Seem to positively put themselves in the way of murderers.’

His head still throbbing from its argument with the shelf, Rafferty had let Beard’s news wash over him. It was only when Beard mentioned the name of the victim that Rafferty’s head shot up as if someone had inserted a 1000-watt probe into his rectum.

Fortunately, as Beard spoke, there was a tremendous clap of thunder directly overhead and the storm which had been threatening since the previous Friday freed itself from its meteorological shackles and lashed the car park and the few poor under-dressed souls caught between it and the safety of the police station. It distracted Beard from Rafferty’s shocked reaction.

Above the noise of the downpour and the curses of the soaked stragglers as they tumbled into reception, Rafferty found a strangled voice to utter the dead girl’s name. ‘Estelle Meredith?’ before he floundered to a halt, his new-found happiness washed into the gutters like the car park’s litter. Dimly, he perceived trouble afoot.

As the soaked complainants dispersed to their work stations, emptying reception, Beard raised shaggy eyebrows and asked, ‘Knew her, did you?’

Instinctively Rafferty denied it. ‘Me? No. Not at all. Never met the girl in my life.’

His sleeping conscience stirred, called him ‘Peter’, for his thrice-denial. But although his conscience might throw accusations about with Old Testament fervour, he was relieved when Beard shrugged aside his odd response.

Fortunately, the news had been broken by Bill Beard rather than one of the station’s ambitious young blades whose observational skills had been honed to recognise guiltily furtive replies when they heard them. But Beard was desk-bound nowadays and his ambition – never very strong – had withered on the vine as he plodded his way to retirement.

‘The victim was a member of a dating agency. The ‘Made in Heaven’ dating agency.’ Beard snorted. ‘Made in The Other Place, if you ask me. According to Harry Simpson, who’s been put in charge of the case, the poor girl was so beaten and slashed you could believe some demon had been at work on her. God knows how Harry will cope. He hasn’t been looking too chipper lately. Reckon this case is likely to finish him off.’

Shell-shocked by Beard’s revelations, Rafferty nodded absently at this statement of the obvious; the entire nick – apart from Harry Simpson himself – knew he should have gone on sick leave weeks ago.

Conscious that not only was he probably the last person to see Estelle alive, but that witnesses could testify to this, Rafferty questioned Beard further.

What-ho, Rafferty, he mused to himself as he slunk off upstairs to his office, Beard’s last words ringing like a death-knell in his ears. ‘Sounds like an open and shut case to me. Another agency member, some bloke called Nigel Blythe, is in the frame. He was obliging enough to supply that agency with his address. Man must be a right pillock.’

Rafferty couldn’t disagree with this sentiment. What had his stars said in that morning’s paper? ‘A day not without its troubles. As Saturn squares Mars, you would be wise to keep a low profile.’

And how, he thought. For not only had the engaging Estelle Meredith who had sparked that morning’s happiness been savagely murdered, it was clear he’d managed to make himself the chief suspect. And all he’d been doing was looking for love...

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