Rafferty and Llewellyn British Mysteries Books 1 - 4

Chapter Six-3

THE PRIVET HEDGE SURROUNDING the Wilks's small front garden was fussily neat and clipped as efficiently as a sergeant-major's moustache, but to Rafferty it had more of the appearance of a green, plastic wall than a living thing. As he advanced up the path, he took in the sparkling white nets draped across the louvre windows of the terraced house, each of their full folds a neat one inch from its neighbour and he sighed. The short back and sides on the hedge had hinted at it, but the curtains confirmed that he and Llewellyn were likely to be regarded by the murdered girl's parents as little better than murderers themselves: murderers of reputation and respectability and pride. He glanced at Llewellyn as he raised the door-knocker and realised the Welshman had reached the same conclusion. His face was stiff, as though it had been dipped in a bucket of Robin's starch.

The door was opened a bare three inches and a woman's face appeared. Rafferty felt a momentary shame at the relief that flooded him when he saw her eyes were red-rimmed with weeping; they must already know, he decided, mystified as to how, but grateful that someone else had broken the bad news to them.

'Who are you? What do you want?'

'Police, Mrs. Wilks,' Rafferty explained in a low voice, holding up his identity card for her to see. He cleared his throat of a sudden frog. 'It's about your daughter, Linda.'

Her head shot up. 'Linda? What's happened? Has she been arrest—' her voice broke off abruptly. She bit her lip, and, with evident reluctance, she opened the door wider. 'You'd best come in.'

Rafferty and Llewellyn exchanged puzzled glances as they followed her past the well-buffed horse-brasses and flower-patterned carpet of the hall. Rafferty concluded they must have had other bad news; something totally unconnected with their murder investigation.

Although it was still bright outside, the curtains were pulled across the windows and the living room was shrouded in gloom. But the curtains were unlined and allowed sufficient filtered light through for Rafferty to confirm his earlier conclusions about the Wilks's respectability from a swift survey of the room. Everything was spotless and fussily neat. No books or newspapers created the usual friendly muddle that filled most people's homes. Each item had its place and remained in it. There were still more flowers here; on the fitted carpet, full-blown pink roses on the faded chintz-covered suite, delicate, tightly-enclosed buds on the wallpaper.

Rafferty felt Llewellyn give a start, when behind them, and so far, unnoticed in the gloom, a man's figure rose to his feet. Linda's father, Rafferty guessed and introduced himself and Llewellyn. Like his wife, Mr Wilks didn't seem surprised to see them. What was going on here?

Sidney Wilks was not an impressive man. Short and wiry, under sparse pepper-and-salt hair, his face was brick-red, and a curious selection of expressions passed, one after the other over his features – shame, resentment, anger – and a quickly hidden fear, which Rafferty found even more baffling.

Invited to sit down, they eased themselves gingerly on to the edge of the chintz settee, Rafferty now almost as anxious as his sergeant for the job to be over and done with.

'Well?' Sidney Wilks barked at them suddenly. 'Why don't you get it over with? What's stopping you? Though I don't know why it takes two of you.'

Beside him, Rafferty felt Llewellyn jump and he quickly found his voice in case his sergeant's stern self-control gave way and he said something they'd both regret. 'I'm sorry, it's just that I thought you knew, Mr Wilks,' he began. 'You seemed—'

'Knew? Of course we knew,' Daphne Wilks broke in before Rafferty could continue. 'Why else would we be so upset?' She glared at him, then, slowly, her gaze swung to Llewellyn and her face changed as though she saw something in the Welshman's stiff, white demeanour that suddenly made everything clear to her. All at once her face became ashen; she sat abruptly on the armchair behind her and gazed accusingly at Rafferty. 'You're the one in charge of the murder. It was in the local paper.' Her voice was now no louder than a whisper. 'Oh, my God, no! It's her isn't it? The girl found murdered at that hospital—it's our Linda. That's why you're here. And I thought—' She gave a faint, hysterical laugh. 'Stupid of me. Why else would you come to see us? She is—was of age after all. What concern is it of the parents if a girl decides to pros—?’

'Mother!' Sidney Wilks's sharp voice cut across her words. 'They're not interested in that. That's our business.' He scowled a warning at her before he turned to Rafferty with an apologetic smile. 'I'm sorry. She's not herself. It's her age, you know?'

Rafferty stared at him, conscious that he'd made a terrible blunder. Did Sidney Wilks really imagine they were unaware of their daughter's extra-curricular activities? The way he had shut his wife up, suggested that was exactly what he did think.

Mr Wilks gave his hand-knitted cardigan a tug downwards as if to say, 'Glad I've got that out of the way', before he met Rafferty's eyes once more. 'Was she right? About Linda being the murdered girl?'

Rafferty nodded and mumbled, 'We know what your daughter did, Mr Wilks, there's no point in trying to hide it. I'm sorry.' But Wilks gave every appearance of not hearing him and he lapsed into silence.

'Perhaps these gentlemen would like some tea?' Wilks suggested to his wife, in the voice of a man determined to observe the civilities. His daughter might have been murdered, its tone implied, but that was no reason to forget one's manners. Mrs. Wilks cast a reproachful glance at her husband before going out and shutting the door behind her.

Rafferty found himself watching Wilks with a kind of horrid fascination. Unlike his wife, he didn't seem shocked by his revelation of their daughter's murder. Of course, shock came in many forms, but Sidney Wilks was a shade too accepting, too unemotional and Rafferty wondered if he'd already known that his daughter was dead. But how could he? Unless...? But he was jumping to conclusions again, he chided himself. It might just be that he was one of those men who considered it unmanly to show strong feelings. He was of the generation to think that way. And it seemed likely that Linda would have been the sort of girl to think nothing of disappearing for a few days without a word to her parents. Even so, his manner made Rafferty feel increasingly uncomfortable. He opened his mouth to speak when Wilks's lack of emotion was dispelled in an outburst that was as sudden as it was furious.

'Wanted to be an actress!' His voice scorned such an ambition. Now he seemed to need to talk, to explain feelings he had been keeping pent-up. 'I told her not to be so stupid, as if such jobs were for people like us. Security, I said, that's what you need, my girl. Told her if she persisted no good would come of it, and I was right, wasn't I? No good has come of it.' He sounded satisfied that his prediction had been proved correct. Perhaps he realised how this must appear, for his voice became quieter, more intense. 'I fixed her up with a good job at the power supplier when she left school,' he told them, as though he still didn't understand why his daughter should reject what had been good enough for him for forty years. 'Typing. They were even willing to train her on the ‘phones in their Customer Service Department. But no—that wasn't good enough for Madam Linda. She had ambitions, she told us. Ambitions!'

Mrs. Wilks came back with the tea. Rafferty wasn't surprised that the bone china tea service had been brought out. More roses decorated the matching teapot and crockery. He was beginning to find the flowery theme of the room oppressive; he longed to loosen his tie and fling open the windows.

Mrs. Wilks poured the tea and passed it round. The hot beverage seemed to restore her, for now she began to explain 'We had a row, the night—the night before she was found in that hospital. When I heard about it, I wondered if it could be our Linda. She hadn't come home, but then that wasn't unusual.'

'Used this place like a hotel,' Sidney Wilks interrupted. 'Thought her mother was a launderette and restaurant combined. I told her—'

‘Please Sidney.' Obviously distressed, his wife cut off his flow, before she quietly continued. 'Besides, I didn't want to think about it. I persuaded myself it couldn't be her. I didn't want to face —' her voice trailed away, and Rafferty concluded that Daphne Wilks would always shy away from unpleasant reality. In this instance, he couldn't really blame her. The death of a child, whatever their age, was more than most parents could come to terms with. 'She died very quickly, Mrs. Wilks,' he told her, in a futile attempt at comfort. 'She couldn't have known anything about it. The – rest – happened after death.'

Mrs. Wilks nodded mechanically, as though she hadn't really taken in what he had told her, and she went on as if he'd never spoken. 'After the row, Linda ran out and Sidney went after her.'

'I couldn't catch her,' Sidney Wilks broke in again. 'She'd disappeared by the time I got to the end of the road.'

'I don't know why you never came straight back,' complained his wife. 'When you knew how upset I was.'

'I was upset too,' he defended himself aggressively. 'I wanted to be alone for a while, to think what was best to do. She told us she was moving out permanently,' he explained for Rafferty's benefit. 'She wasn't here much at the best of times. Staying with friends, she used to tell us she was. Anyway, she said she'd fixed up to move into a flat in London with some girlfriends. God knows who they were, she never mentioned any names. Had it all planned and not a word to us.'

'Was that what caused the row?' Llewellyn asked quietly, apparently having got himself back in control.

'No,' replied Mrs. Wilks. 'It was the—other business. You see I found her dia—'

'Mother!' Sidney Wilks’s voice sharpened again. 'They don't need to know about that.' He turned back to the policemen, as though his word settled the matter, but Daphne Wilks had decided to face facts and she overruled her husband.

'It's no use, Sidney,' she told him. 'We can't hide it. Linda must have had a criminal record don't you see? How do you think they were able to identify her? According to the papers...' She took a shuddering breath. 'Anyway, it might help them find out who did this dreadful thing. I owe her that much. We both do.'

She ignored her husband’s ugly red flush, turned back to the policemen, and said, 'I found her diary, you see. Usually she locked it away, but that evening she must have forgotten. 'I was so stupid,' Daphne Wilks went on. 'At first, I thought she'd written a series of little plays. They were all set out like that, you see. But they were all on the same theme. That was what made me suspicious. She always took a particular case with her when she went up to London. Her "auditioning" gear, she told me it was. I forced it open. She kept it hidden at the back of her wardrobe. No wonder. Inside there were the most—’

She stopped for a moment to wipe her reddened nose with a damp handkerchief and then went shakily on. 'All I could think was "why?" What could have made her do this to us?'

Mrs Wilks gave a half-shamed glance at her husband, before she went on. 'Sidney had been in the garage, working on the car, and when I heard her come home, I fetched him, so we could confront her together. I was in such a state; I didn't even make sure he washed his hands first. He left a dirty smear on the wallpaper.' Her mouth formed into lines of reproach, as if she believed that, by concentrating on mundane resentments, she could push the horror to the back of her mind. 'I haven't been able to get it ou—'

'Can I see this diary?' Rafferty interrupted before the pair started on mutual recriminations.

'We burnt it,' said Sidney Wilks quickly. But not quite quickly enough, as his wife reached beneath the seat cushion of her armchair and brought out a large and expensive looking calf-skin-bound book and handed it over.

'You promised you'd burn it!' her husband accused.

'I know.' Her head drooped. 'I couldn't.' Slowly, she raised her head and looked at Rafferty. 'We've just got the gas fire, you see,' she explained with an air of apology. 'I'd have had to burn it out in the garden and I kept thinking what the neighbours would say if any of the pages were to blow away.'

Rafferty guessed that what the neighbours would say had largely governed their lives. Sadly, he reflected that the neighbours would now have enough scandal to keep their tongues wagging for many a long day.

Mrs. Wilks was right, he saw, as he flicked through the diary. Linda had set it out like a play or a film script, or as near to them as either of them would recognise. The diary contained Linda Wilks's dreams; the film-script-like layout had helped to clothe the sordid reality of what she was doing in the soft-focus lighting of a film seduction scene. Had she managed to convince herself as well that she was merely acting out a role? He wondered. Had she persuaded herself that should the acting become too brutally real the director would shout "Cut"? He turned back to the first few pages. Slowly, he began to read.

ACT 1 SCENE 1

The scene opens in a book-lined study. We see an elderly man dressed in a school uniform sitting in front of a desk.

CUT TO: A young woman wearing a cape and mortar-board enters. In one hand she is carrying a cane which she hits into the other palm. She walks slowly forward till she is standing in front of the elderly schoolboy.

GIRL: You've been a naughty boy, haven't you, Simpson?

MAN: (Cringes). Yes Miss.

GIRL: Do you know what happens to naughty boys?

She swishes the cane.

MAN: Oh, yes Miss. I know.

The man's face goes pink. Now he seems suddenly excited.

GIRL: Lower your trousers then, Simpson and bend over the desk.

The man does as she says.

GIRL: It's six of the best for you.

Her cape swings open. Underneath she is naked. She gazes at the quivering buttocks of the man and raises her arm—

Rafferty snapped the diary shut and glanced quickly up as though he had been caught doing something dirty. From his brief flick through, the entire diary seemed filled with similar scenes. That one had been quite tame. But others...

'I'll have to take this,' he told them apologetically.

Sidney Wilks hissed at his wife. 'You should have destroyed it, as I said. Now the whole world will know exactly what sort of little trollop your daughter was.'

Rafferty wasn't altogether surprised at the speed with which Wilks distanced his own relationship with the girl. The theory was that tragedy brought people together. It didn't—more often it tore them apart in a manner as savage as the original crime. He'd seen it many times and it never failed to depress him. Grimly, he looked at Wilks as he began to taunt his wife.

'At least when they catch the man who killer her and that's read out in court, the papers won't need to make up anything worse,' he told her, voice spiteful. 'This'll give the neighbours something to talk about all right.'

Mrs Wilks gasped. Her hand clutched at her bosom and the look she gave Rafferty was beseeching. 'Is he right? Will everyone hear all the details of what Linda—what she did? I thought you'd be able to keep it quiet.'

Rafferty looked from one to the other and swallowed hard. How could he tell her the truth? It would be kinder to let it dawn gradually on her. 'It depends,' he temporised. 'The way she earned her living may not have had anything to do with her murder, of course, in which case—'

'You don't really believe that though, do you, Inspector?' Sidney Wilks derided. 'It'll come out, especially as she was going to meet another of her men that night.'

Rafferty felt Llewellyn tense beside him before he made his second contribution to the interview. 'How do you know that?' he asked.

'She had a phone call, didn't she? About half ten that night, a few minutes after she came home. Taunted me with it when I demanded to know who it was. "One of my men friends," she said. "A medical man".' He glanced at his wife's huddled figure. 'Of course, you know we'll never be able to hold our heads up again,' he spat at her. 'We'll have to move.' This was said with such spiteful satisfaction that Rafferty felt his whole body cringe.

Mrs. Wilks's face seemed to crumple as she realised her husband was right. Fresh tears filled her eyes. She looked around her oppressively tidy living room with a tragic expression, shaking her head all the while, as though that, to her, was more unbearable than her daughter's death.

'Could we perhaps have a photograph of your daughter, Mr Wilks?' Rafferty put in abruptly. He needed to get out of this stifling atmosphere and breathe some fresh air. 'It might help us to catch her killer.'

'Have one?' The voice was tart. 'You can have them all. What do we want with them now?'

One by one, he pulled every photograph of Linda from the fireplace wall and dropped them with a clatter on the low table in front of the settee on which the two men sat. His wife made no protest, but just sat rocking herself backwards and forwards staring sightlessly at nothing, as though she had retreated to a secret refuge where sordid reality couldn't touch her.

'Ahem, Mr Wilks?' Rafferty began tentatively. 'Can you give us any reason why your daughter should dye her hair dark?'

Sidney Wilks blinked rapidly as he gazed down at the photographs; family snaps taken in happier times of Linda as a baby propped up with cushions, as a toddler, as a gap-toothed and wriggling tomboy sitting on her father's lap, school photos as a teenager where she looked with sultrily half-closed eyes into the camera—perhaps even then convinced she would be a great actress.

'It was for those acting roles she kept going for,' he told them in a flat voice. 'She thought she'd stand more chance if her hair was the same colour as the character she was trying for.' He reached out a shaking hand, picked up one of the most recent photographs and rubbed his thumb over the glass. 'That was my little girl,' he told them bleakly. 'My pretty, innocent little girl.'

He took out a large white handkerchief, and after blowing his nose, put it carefully back in his pocket. For a moment, he looked bewildered, as though he hadn't quite grasped what a cataclysm had wrecked his orderly little world. Then, without any warning, his face contorted, and he smashed the glass of the frame against the corner of the mantelpiece, yanked out the photo, and threw it at Rafferty. 'Take it. Take them all. We don't want them back. Wearing those short skirts of hers, flaunting herself, the b***h asked for it. She deserved all she got. Deserved all she got,' he repeated, as though trying to convince himself of it.

Silently, they stood up and Rafferty picked up the photograph. Mrs. Wilks was still in a world of her own and took no further interest in the proceedings. 'I'd like to look at Linda's bedroom, Mr Wilks, if that's all right?' Sidney Wilks just nodded. He'd washed his hands of his daughter, his expression said. They could do what they liked. 'Em. Perhaps, while I'm doing that, you could let my sergeant here have a description of what Linda was wearing that night?' he suggested.

Llewellyn shot him a reproachful look and sat down again. Slowly, he pulled his notebook back out and began to write as Sidney Wilks' voice, drained now of emotion, described what his daughter had been wearing.

Rafferty went upstairs. It was evident which room had been Linda’s. A riot of clothes in a tawdry kaleidoscope of colours littered the room as if in defiance of the order in the rest of the house. He saw a worn teddy on a shelf, tattered film scripts of old television series, make up scattered across the top of the dressing table. His search was brief, but thorough.

He found the case that Mrs. Wilks had referred to, but it was empty, all the usual erotic items of a prostitute's art removed. Sidney Wilks had obviously been here before him. He must be cursing himself that he hadn't been quite thorough enough.

Rafferty returned to the living room to collect the stiffly-perched Llewellyn. And after drawing Sidney Wilks back from whichever hell he had retreated to, they said their goodbyes and speedily left.