Death Line

CHAPTER ONE-1

CHAPTER ONE

This novel uses British English, so if there is a word or phrase with which you are unfamiliar, there is a handy list at the back of this novel.

Jasper Moon, internationally renowned "Seer to the Stars", had signally failed to predict his own future. He lay sprawled on the dark carpet of his consulting room with the back of his skull caved-in. A small, bloodied, crystal ball – presumably the murder weapon – lay beside him.

A black silk cloak covered the torso, leaving only the head and feet exposed. Disconcerted to see that, like himself, Moon sported a pair of vivid emerald green socks, Rafferty turned his attention back to the cadaver's other end. The waxy, heavy-jowled profile was in ghastly relief to the dyed black hair and the midnight richness of the silk. A crescent-shaped scar under his left eye showed up with a lividity it had lacked in life. Rafferty imagined that the reputedly vain Moon would have been glad that the cloak lent his podgy, middle-aged body a certain dignity, a touch of elegance. An elegance certainly not shared by the room.

Obviously, Moon hadn't subscribed to the less is more style of interior design. Even Rafferty, not normally one to flinch from the garish, spared only a cursory, deprecatory glance for the night black ceiling with its mother of pearl stars and scale paintings of the planets and what he assumed were astrological symbols decorating one of the walls.

Unlike Sergeant Llewellyn, whose face evinced its usual Sphinx-like inscrutability, Rafferty had never learned to mask his emotions. He was reminded of this flaw when Edwin Astell, a tall spare man and the victim's business partner commented from the doorway, 'You shouldn't judge Jasper by ordinary standards, Inspector. In his own way, he was as much of a star as his clients—they mostly came from the entertainment world. You could say that Jasper shared their showmanship and taste for the dramatic.'

So did his murderer, thought Rafferty. There was a TV and video in the corner. The video was undamaged, though empty of film, but the screen of the television had been smashed in; it looked as though someone had taken a hammer to it. The drawers had been removed from the desk and stacked on top of it, dislodging a vase of late roses. They lay strewn on the floor in front of Moon's desk, as though thrown in tribute by a mourner. The filing cabinet was surrounded by untidily strewn piles of its contents. Glass from a broken pane was scattered under the window. Rafferty walked carefully round the body and over to the window. The bottom sash had been raised to its full extent and a chill wind teased the curtains over the sill, blowing them about in a frenzied dance as he examined the rear of the premises.

An alleyway ran the length of the parade of shops and flats. The consulting rooms of the partners were on the first floor, above the Psychic Store, the partnership's side-line, which, Astell had already informed him, sold New Age books and trinkets. A door from the street opened onto a flight of stairs that led directly to the consulting rooms. But Astell had told them that it was seldom used and kept locked. During the day, clients came through the shop and reached the first floor by another, inner staircase; the one they had used. Moon's office was the largest of the three. It shared the back of the premises with a windowless internal kitchen and a small washroom with windows of frosted glass.

Whoever had broken into Moon's office would have found little difficulty, Rafferty realised. Not only had the burglar alarm been switched off, presumably by Moon himself, but access would have been simple as a small, flat-roofed extension from the ground floor of the shop ended just under the window. And, as an additional bonus for the intruder, although Moon's window had a security lock, the key was in it and he guessed that it had been a simple matter for the intruder to stretch an arm through the broken pane and help himself to the key that had presumably dangled from the empty hook less than one yard away.

Rafferty's lips pursed. He could understand the desire to have the key close at hand in case of fire, but surely a man who spent his time peering into the future could find sufficient foresight to put the key out of sight? Unwilling to risk any more mind-reading by Astell, he took the trouble to compose his features before he turned and nodded at the silk-shrouded body. 'You haven't touched anything? Is this exactly how you discovered him? Covered like this?'

Astell confirmed it, adding anxiously, 'I hope none of his client files are missing. They're confidential and it could be embarrassing.'

Rafferty frowned, inscrutability forgotten as the words "confidential" and "embarrassing" set off warning signals in his brain. Moon and his partner ran a kind of group practice, providing clients with astrology and tarot readings, as well as palmistry—hand analysis Astell had called it. He had told them that Moon had regarded the crystal ball as nothing more than an amusing paperweight and didn't use it in his work. As it seemed likely that this ball had been the murder weapon, he wondered if the dead man would appreciate the irony. Now, seizing on one of Astell's words, Rafferty repeated it, 'Confidential?'

'Perhaps it'll surprise you to learn this, Inspector, but in this profession, one can hear as many secrets as doctors, listen to as many confessions as priests. You might say we're the social workers, marriage counsellors and career advisors of the psychic world. I've often thought Jasper was unwise to keep so much personal information on his clients. My own files are much more circumspect. Of course,' he added deprecatingly, 'I rarely see clients personally, as Jasper did. But, even by post, people confide the most intimate details of their lives.'

'Are you saying that Mr Moon might have been murdered because one of his clients had told him something and then regretted it? Regretted it enough to kill him?'

Astell looked appalled at Rafferty's suggestion. 'I didn't mean that at all. I was thinking more of an opportunist, than a client, someone who thought there might be scope for blackmail in Jasper's files.' Astell nodded at the broken window. 'No client of Jasper's would need to break in. They would only have to use the intercom at the street for Jasper to release the private door.' Sounding a touch put-out that Rafferty should suspect the clients, Astell added, 'Surely, it's obvious that some intruder attacked him? Someone who riffled Jasper's files looking for whatever damaging information he could find.'

Rafferty didn't think much of Astell's detecting skills, though he could understand why he found this scenario more attractive than the alternative. Would Moon be likely to turn away from an unknown intruder and present the back of his skull so obligingly for the blow?

Rafferty realised that his face had again betrayed his thoughts. 'Jasper's clients were more concerned with matters financial and emotional,' Astell told him with a cool smile. 'No-one has yet confessed to anything worth murdering for.'

Not to you, perhaps, thought Rafferty, as he again forced his face into unnatural immobility. But, suspecting the flamboyant Moon would have been the repository of more such secrets than his reserved partner, he made the observation, 'I imagine Mr Moon would be more understanding of human weaknesses than most.'

Glancing again at the corpse, with its Dracula cape and Satan-black hair and beard, the late Jasper Moon looked, to Rafferty, to have had more than his fair share of such weaknesses himself; maybe one of them had caused his death.

Moon was certainly very famous; that his international clientele, many of them household names, should be prepared to travel to an Essex backwater, spoke volumes for his ability. Though, Rafferty, with a sceptic's humour, wondered whether Moon's greatest skill mightn't have been for self-publicity.

He remembered seeing Moon during an experimental dally with breakfast television a month ago. Moon had been giving his daily predictions. He had come over as someone larger than life, a creature apparently so running over with love and concern for his fellow man that he had called them all "darling". Such show-biz mannerisms always jarred on Rafferty. He had immediately switched off and gone back to BBC Radio 2.

He moved away from the window as he heard the SOCO team clattering heavily up the stairs, weighed down with their professional paraphernalia. Rafferty glanced atEdwin Astell and asked him to wait in his own office.

Once Astell had left the room, Rafferty had a word with Adrian Appleby, the head of the SOCO's. 'Can you get Moon's appointments book and the filing cabinet and its contents dusted ASAP?' He would need to speak to all Moon's clients. Of course, most of them would be quickly exonerated. He had had a quick flick through the diary earlier, and, even though Astell had briefly mentioned the names of some of Moon's more famous clients, it had revealed names from the film, music and literary world that startled him; people like Shane Dalton, the teeny-boppers' idol; Sian Silk, the hottest property in Hollywood at the moment; even Nat Kingston, the well-known writer and literary critic. If the rest of Moon's clients were even half as well- known as those, a fair number probably wouldn't even have been in the country – never mind in Elmhurst – on the night Moon was killed, which should, once their movements had been checked out, lessen the load a bit.

He had earlier noticed several threads of black material with glittery silver bits caught on a rough section of Moon's desk and, as he drew Appleby's attention to them, he heard, from the stairwell the unmistakable sound of Dr Sam Dally's Scottish tones muttering about "bloody women drivers". Rafferty went down to the shop to speak to him while Sam got into his protective gear. 'Here at last then, Sam? What delayed you?'

Dally raised his head. There was a lump on his forehead the size of a hen's egg. 'Some damn-fool woman. She was racing away from town here, way past the speed limit, overshot the lights and ploughed into me. She didn't stop, of course.' He gave Rafferty a grim smile. 'Got her number, though.'

'Are you okay?'

Sam nodded. 'Banged my head on the windscreen.'

'As long as you didn't damage anything vital.' Rafferty peered at him. 'Sure you're all right? You ought to get yourself looked at. There might be concussion.'

'I popped into old Boyd's, the optician here in the High Street. Luckily he lives in the flat above his business and I got him to give me the onceover. After gazing lovingly into my eyes for a bit he pronounced me fit, so I suppose I'll live. It would happen the day I forgot to put my seatbelt on, of course. You can be sure that blasted insurance company will make something of that if I go gaga in the next day or so.' Having finally struggled into his gear, Sam thrust his outer clothing at Smales, who was still guarding the door, with the instruction to mind it, before stomping up the stairs. 'Got a new toy I see,' he said to the video-camera toting photographer as he pushed his way into Moon's office. 'Nearly finished, I hope.'

'Just waiting to film the star.' Lance, the photographer, who had ambitions beyond police work, grinned as he got Sam in focus. 'Scowl nicely for the camera. That's it. It's a wrap.'

With an 'Hmph', Sam bustled past the SOCO team, bent over the corpse and got to work. 'Rigor's well established,' he remarked a few minutes later. He took the temperature of the room and the rectal temperature of the corpse, frowning as he made his calculations. 'He's a fine figure of a man, isn't he? Tends to slow the onset of rigor down a bit. Did you know, Rafferty,' he threw over his shoulder, 'that some particularly fine-figured specimens never develop rigor at all?'

Rafferty frowned. 'Are you trying to tell me that he's too fat for you to give me an idea of the time of death?'

Sam, whose figure was at least as "fine" as Moon's, tutted at Rafferty's want of sensitivity. 'Certainly not. He probably died sometime yesterday evening, say between 7.00 p m and 11.00 p m. Of course that's a rough calculation. But I can tell you that he was definitely killed from behind by a right-handed person plying our old friend, the blunt instrument.' Sam paused and added teasingly, 'Unless it was a southpaw masquerading as a right-hander. Modern killers are getting very crafty about hiding their tracks. t's all those crime programmes on the telly—gives 'em ideas.' He glanced at the crystal ball lying on the floor next to the victim's head. 'And by a Holmesian process of deduction, I'd say this cute wee thing was the weapon.'