Death Dance

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

THE BALMY WEATHER AND flower-strewn verges would have made for a pleasant drive out into the country surrounding the Essex market town of Elmhurst, but for what awaited Rafferty at journey’s end. Another person brought to a sudden and violent death.

He hated viewing the body of a human being that had presumably been breathing and walking about, enjoying their life and its pleasures, such a short time before being brutally murdered.

He wondered what the world would be like without him in it. He found it difficult to imagine himself not existing. But the world had gone on for countless millennia before he was born, and would doubtless continue after his death, strange as he might find the fact. ‘Joe Rafferty centre of the universe,’ he murmured to the empty car. ‘Not.’

After he’d passed a sizeable house, and driven on a further hundred yards down Lavender Avenue, it wasn’t difficult to realise he had arrived at the right place with all the police vehicles and flashing lights to point the way. Perversely, the White Farmhouse was painted yellow. It stood in spacious grounds and had several outbuildings. The green front door stood wide open. Rafferty said hello to the young PC Timothy Smales, looking important with his clipboard. He climbed into his protective gear and ducked under the police tape.

‘Dr Dally here yet?’ he asked.

‘Just arrived, sir,’ Smales informed him as he entered Rafferty’s name on his clipboard in his best, schoolboy handwriting.

Rafferty nodded acknowledgement.

The Scene of Crime team had yet to arrive, so the farmhouse was peaceful. The house was quite substantial, Rafferty noted as he paused in the doorway to get his bearings. There was a wide hallway leading from the front of the house right through to the rear, with two doors opening on either side, and stairs to the left. He slowly paced his way to the first two doors. There was a large room with a desk and a computer off to the left, with the even more spacious drawing room off to the right. Llewellyn was in there with a man Rafferty guessed was the husband. He entered and Llewellyn stood up and introduced them.

Rafferty acknowledged John Staveley with a nod, but he wasn’t ready to question him yet. After briefly commiserating with the new widower, he gestured for Llewellyn to come into the hall and bring him up to date.

‘So, what’s occurring?’ he asked after Llewellyn left the drawing room and shut the door behind him.

‘I’ve just been speaking to John Staveley, the victim’s husband.’

‘And what does he have to say for himself?’

‘That he was out all day. Came home around six and found his wife dead in the kitchen.’

‘Anyone with him when he found her?’

‘No one.’

‘Did he have company while he was out of the house?’

‘He says not.’

‘Who are the other occupants? Or did Mr Staveley and his wife live alone?’

‘Kyle, Mr Staveley’s son by a previous marriage. He’s a schoolboy. He’s out, but according to his father he’s expected back any time.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Sixteen.’

Rafferty nodded and muttered, ‘Teenage angst. Better have a look at the body. In the kitchen you said?’

‘Yes. It’s next door on the left. The dining room’s opposite.’

When they entered the large, modern and expensively outfitted kitchen Dr Dally was busy about his usual examination and didn’t welcome the interruption.

‘Last to arrive as usual, Rafferty,’ he said irascibly as he eased his plump knees on the hard stone floor.

‘I was at my wedding rehearsal when Dafyd phoned,’ he defended himself against this unjust accusation. ‘Anyway, you’re a fine one to talk. You’re not known as Dilly Dally for nothing.’ Rafferty nodded at the woman’s corpse. The body was on its back with the legs bent. There was purple bruising to the throat and the face and neck were dark red and congested and looked even more so when adjoined by a white sleeveless top. ‘Any idea how long she’s been dead?’

‘No more than an hour-and-a-half. Two hours, tops. Strangled, as you can see. Done manually. He left the marks of his fingers on the skin.’

‘There were no signs of a break-in at the front,’ Rafferty said. ‘What about at the back?’ he asked Llewellyn.

‘No. Nothing like that. Either she let her killer in or they were here already.’

‘The husband, you mean. I’ll have a word with him now. See if he feels like incriminating himself.’

This remark received one of the Welshman’s pained expressions. You’ve only just got here, it seemed to say, and have barely spoken to the man, yet you’re ready to place him in the role of chief suspect.

Rafferty winked, tapped his nose and said, ‘Nearest and dearest, Daff. Nearest and dearest—often not as dear as they make out.’ They walked back along the hallway and into the drawing room. John Staveley was still sitting as before, with his hands clenched between his knees and his head bowed, seemingly unaware of their entrance.

‘Mr Staveley,’ Rafferty began, to get his attention.

Slowly, John Staveley looked up, blinking. He brushed his straight dark hair out of his eyes with long, slim fingers. His deathly pallor, combined with his black hair and thin face, gave him a Draculaesque appearance. Rafferty half expected him to bare his teeth in a snarl. He found his hand reaching for his throat in a protective gesture. Sheepishly, as he became aware of what he was doing and why, he dropped his hand back to his side.

‘I’m sorry to have to speak to you at such a time, sir, but there are a few questions I need to ask. Was your wife expecting any visitors this afternoon or evening?’ Rafferty sat on the settee opposite. Llewellyn did the same and got his notebook out again.

‘Not that I know of, but she is – was – a sociable woman. People would drop in to see her without ringing first.’

‘Did she have a job?’ Rafferty, thinking about work colleagues, brightened when he learned there weren’t any. Fewer suspects to complicate matters. All to the good.

‘No. Until I was made redundant six months ago I earned enough to keep all of us.’

‘You were made redundant? The last months must have been difficult for you.’

‘Yes. You could say that.’

‘You haven’t been able to find another job?’

‘No.’ This last was said with a note of bitterness. ‘It’s not for want of trying. I go to the Job Centre every day.’

‘What time did you go there today?’

‘My normal time. Nine o’clock.

‘I understand you were out all day. Where did you go after the Job Centre?’

‘I–I stayed in town. I took a newspaper to the public library to study the job vacancies.’

‘What’s your line of work?’

‘I’m an engineer. Or I was. Now all the Job Centre can offer me is factory work or shelf-stacking.’ The bitter note was back. Staveley had rather beautiful brown eyes. They were large, with clear whites and long lashes. At the moment, unsurprisingly, his gaze was troubled and his lashes shielded his eyes as if he preferred to avoid meeting another’s gaze. Especially Rafferty’s.

‘You told my sergeant you didn’t get back home till six o’clock this evening.’

‘That’s right. That’s when I found my wife lying dead on the kitchen floor.’

‘So you were out all day. What were you doing, apart from going to the Job Centre and the library?’

‘I just walked around. Had a couple in the pub. Nothing much.’

‘You must have spent several hours just walking around. Pretty tiring.’

‘I’m all right. I’m used to it. I do it most days.’

Which, to Rafferty, pointed to a reluctance to go home. Why? Hadn’t he and his wife got on? There was no time like the present to find out. ‘Were you and your wife happy together, Mr Staveley?’

‘What’s this? The husband as the guilty party?’ Strangely, the possibility didn’t seem to worry him. ‘I thought we were happy. Happy enough, anyway. But since I was made redundant I’ve been getting on her nerves. Under her feet all day. That’s why I stay out. It gives – gave – us both some space. The lack of money doesn’t help either. Adrienne was used to me earning good money. She was used to spending it, too. We’ve both had to pull our horns in. I’ve had to take my son, Kyle, out of private school. He’s at the local comprehensive now. He hates it. I know he’s desperately unhappy there, but there’s nothing I can do about it.’ He swept the black hair off his forehead in a gesture of despair.

Just then, there was a commotion at the front door.

‘Let me in. I live here. Dad! Dad!’ A gangly six-foot youth almost fell into the drawing room, a flustered Timothy Smales close behind him. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Kyle. You’re home. Where have you been till this time?’

‘Nowhere. Tell me what’s happened.’

Rafferty gestured for Smales to return to the front of the house.

‘It’s your stepmother. She’s dead. Murdered.’

‘I didn’t do it,’ Kyle blurted out.

That he should immediately think to deny any involvement rather than ask how she had died, brought a stunned silence. His father quickly broke into the silence to say, ‘No one thinks you did.’

Kyle didn’t look too sure that this was so. His face was flushed and he fumbled awkwardly at his pockets as if trying to hide hands that suddenly seemed too large and guilt-clumsy.

Rafferty butted in. ‘I take it you didn’t get on with your stepmother, Kyle?’

‘Not really. I tried to stay out of the house most of the time. She always made me feel I was in the way. She wanted me to go to boarding school, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. I’d have gone like a shot, but there’s no chance of that now since dad lost his job.’

‘And no need with your stepmother dead,’ Rafferty pointed out.

‘No, I suppose not.’

There was another awkward silence, and then Rafferty stood up. ‘I’ll need to have one of my officers take the fingerprints of both of you—just for the purposes of elimination. If you’ll wait here.’

He called Fraser the dabs man in. The fingerprints were taken, and Rafferty said, ‘I’ll want to talk to both of you again. The kitchen’s going to be out of bounds for a day or two—is there anywhere you can go in the meantime?’

‘I suppose we could go to my mother’s,’ said Staveley as he stood up. ‘She doesn’t live far and she’s got plenty of spare bedrooms.’

‘If you can let me have the address.’

Staveley did so and Llewellyn made a note of it.

‘Perhaps you’d like to pack a bag and I’ll get one of my officers to drive you there.’

‘There’s no need. I can drive.’ Staveley turned to his son. ‘Come on, Kyle, you can put a few things together, too. Not too much.’ He glanced at Rafferty. ‘I presume we won’t be away from home for long.’ He nodded to Llewellyn and went out, closely followed by his son. Rafferty heard the thump of footsteps on the stairs. Ten minutes later they were back, John Staveley with car keys in one hand and a leather holdall in the other.

‘I’d better ring my mother,’ he said. ‘Let her know what’s happened and that she’ll have to put us up for a day or two.’ He dropped his holdall, pulled a mobile from his jacket pocket, jabbed at a few keys, had a low, murmured conversation, and then he and Kyle left.

Rafferty and Llewellyn went back to the kitchen. Dr Sam Dally was just finishing up. The SOCO's were busy dusting surfaces and sweeping dust and other particles from the floor.

‘Where’s the nearest neighbour?’ he asked Llewellyn.

‘You passed them on the way here. The house about one hundred yards nearer the main road.’ Llewellyn was well aware of Rafferty’s dislike of the use of metric measurements and always used Imperial. ‘That and the Staveley’s place are the only houses in the road as it finishes in a dead end another fifty yards further along.’

Rafferty remembered passing the other house at the beginning of Lavender Avenue, the side road leading to the Farmhouse. ‘Better send someone to check if they saw anything or heard any cars.’

Llewellyn nodded and went out.

Rafferty returned to the empty drawing room and sat down to think through what to do next. Kyle and John Staveley would have to be questioned more thoroughly as to their whereabouts this afternoon and early evening. The son was as tall as his father and had admitted he hadn’t got on with his stepmother. He looked strong enough to manually strangle the slender Adrienne and there was certainly no love lost there.

And then there was John Staveley. Money worries inevitably brought tension. It had apparently developed to such an extent that Staveley had taken to staying out all day. He would need to talk to Staveley’s mother and see what he could learn from her about their relationship. The neighbours, too, might be able to tell them something about the Staveley household.

He had obtained the address of Staveley’s mother so he could speak to her at any time. There would also be friends and possibly other relatives they could talk to.

He went back to the kitchen. The Coroner’s Officer had just given permission for the body to be removed. Sam Dally was still there, chatting to Adrian Appleby, head of the SOCO’s.

‘All done, Doc?’ Rafferty asked.

‘For now. I doubt I’ll be able to tell you more than I already have even after I get her on the table.’ He began to pack his instruments back in his bag.

Rafferty nodded. He hadn’t expected any more: it looked a simple enough murder with little in the way of complications from the pathologist’s point of view.

The SOCO's would be here for some time, but there was no need for him to be. He would go back to the station and write up his report. But before he could make good this intention, Llewellyn and the officer he had despatched to the neighbours returned with the news that the victim had regularly entertained a male visitor when her husband was out.

‘Chap called Gary Oldfield.,’ Llewellyn told him. ‘The neighbour said she often saw his car parked outside when she took her dogs for a walk.’

‘Just good friends, or rather more?’ Rafferty mused. ‘Does she know where this Oldfield lives?’

‘No. But she knows where he works. That second-hand car lot on Station Road. He’s a used car salesman.’

Rafferty grinned. ‘Bit of a cliché if he was her lover. I wonder was the husband aware of these visits.’

‘What is it they say?’ Llewellyn intoned. ‘That the husband is usually the last one to find out.’

‘Not always. And maybe not in this case.’