Death Dance

Chapter Three-2

HELEN AND DAVID AYLING lived in the small and ancient hamlet of St Botolphe to the south of Elmhurst. It didn’t take long to drive there from Mrs Staveley’s. It was a house somewhat smaller than Mrs Staveley Senior’s home, but it was still substantial. It was thatched and picture-postcard pretty – Rafferty could imagine Americans lining up to photograph it when the summer tourist season got into full swing.

David Ayling was at work, but his wife was at home. Although a large woman, of around forty, Helen Ayling looked stylish in a smart pair of black trousers and a thin, tan, cowl-neck jumper. She had a look of Staveley, sharing her brother’s black hair, dark eyes and pale skin, though her hair looked as if it had a bit of assistance from the dye bottle. She seemed very much the protective older sister. She invited them into her home and when they were all seated around the inglenook fireplace in a living room as large and stylish as its owner, with two cream settees and an oak dresser that, with its silvery-grey wood, looked as old as the house, she asked them how the case was going.

‘Slowly as yet,’ Rafferty replied. ‘But it’s early days, as your sister-in-law was only killed yesterday. I wonder what you can tell me about her. Do you know any of her friends, for instance? Anyone who could shed some light on her character.’

Helen Ayling gave a short laugh. ‘I can do that all right. Although I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, Adrienne was a woman who liked a good time. She was happy enough when the money was coming in, but once my brother was made redundant and the money dried up, she became very dissatisfied. I suggested she get a job, but she just laughed at me as if she thought the idea was ludicrous. You’d think she’d want to help, but not a bit of it. She wasn’t the sort of wife who was a helpmeet.’

Clearly, Helen Ayling hadn’t approved of her sister-in-law any more than had her mother.

‘What about her friends? Did you know any of them?’

‘I know she had men friends, several of them. I occasionally saw her with one or the other in town, having lunch. I don’t know of any women friends.’

‘Do you know the names and addresses of these men friends?’

‘As it happens, I do—not their addresses, but their names. One’s called Gary Oldfield. The other’s called Michael Peacock.’

‘Do you think there was more between them and Adrienne than just friendship?’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised. Adrienne was a terrible flirt. It used to upset my brother, which made her do it all the more. I sometimes think she did it just to spite him. She could be a difficult, headstrong woman.’ She paused, and then asked, ‘Do you think one of these men killed her?’

‘As to that, we don’t know.’ He didn’t add that, as the husband of the victim, John Staveley was inevitably a suspect. But Helen Ayling seemed to be an intelligent woman and even if she chose not to bring it up, she must be aware of the possibility of her brother’s guilt, particularly as, by his own admission, he and his wife hadn’t been getting along. As the protective older sister, she would surely have known of the situation as regards their marriage.

‘Tell me, Mrs Ayling, were you at home between four and six yesterday evening?’

‘Why? Am I a suspect?’

‘We’re just trying to eliminate as many people as possible.’

‘As it happens, I was. My husband didn’t get back from work till around 6.30.’

‘I see. Thank you. Were you alone?’

She gave a brief nod.

‘That’s all for now, but we may need to question you again.’ He told her they would need to take her fingerprints and if she could come into the station for this procedure it would be helpful. Rafferty thanked her again and they left, got in the car and returned to the station.

Superintendent Bradley had left a message with Bill Beard on reception that he wanted to see Rafferty as soon as he returned.

‘What sort of mood is he in?’ he questioned Bill. ‘Am I going to get my head bitten off? Just for a change?’

‘It’s a bit early in the case even for him to go off on one,’ said Bill placidly. ‘But he said he wanted to see you as soon as you got back, so I’d get along there sharpish, young Rafferty, if you don’t want him to snack on your brains.’

Beard, the oldest officer in the station, had seemingly been there when Noah was a boy, and felt such longevity had earned him privileges denied to others. Familiarity in addressing ranking senior officers was one of them. Rafferty was often addressed as ‘me duck,’ by Beard. Such familiarity didn’t bother him as it did some of his colleagues, but then, he was far from being a rule-book copper. Rafferty pulled a face and headed for Superintendent Bradley’s first floor office.

Bradley didn’t beat about the bush. ‘So what’s happening?’ he asked as soon as Rafferty had knocked and entered.

‘We’ve interviewed nearly everyone with a family connection to the dead woman. She almost certainly had a lover, if not more than one. One is probably a Gary Oldfield. And as she hadn’t been getting on with her husband, he’s also got to be a strong suspect.’

‘Any evidence against the husband?’

‘Not yet. But he doesn’t have an alibi. He told us he was out just wandering the streets when his wife was murdered.’

‘Sounds an unlikely alibi. I understand there’s a stepson as well?’

‘Yes. Kyle. He’s sixteen and he didn’t get on with the dead woman either. In fact, none of her husband’s family seems to have liked her very much, including her mother and sister-in-law.’

‘So she was an unpopular woman with the females in the family. Strangulation though. That’s generally a man’s crime. Anyway, get your report written up and let me have it as soon as possible.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Rafferty exited the super’s office smartly. The old man had been in a benign mood for a change. It was a welcome relief from the usual sarcasm. He went back to his office and wrote up his report as the super had instructed; he didn’t relish getting in the old man’s bad books this early in the investigation.

That job done, he sat back and stared into space before he said to Llewellyn, ‘So what do you think, Daff? Did the husband do it?’

‘It sounds as if he had cause.’

‘Mmm. The way she entertained that Gary Oldfield regularly in her home doesn’t suggest innocence to me. I can’t believe John Staveley wasn’t aware of it.’

‘He doesn’t have a credible alibi, either.’

‘What about the mother-in-law? She seemed formidable enough to be prepared to commit murder, especially for her precious son’s sake.’

‘Yes, but strangulation. It’s not a woman’s crime.’

‘That’s what the super said.’

‘And he’s right.’

‘Still, it’s possible. We don’t want to make too easy assumptions. And that mother-in-law looks capable of it. But I’m keeping an open mind.’ Rafferty was determined on it. It wasn’t his usual practise. No wonder Llewellyn’s normally Sphinx-like expression relaxed a little in surprise.

***