All the Lonely People

Chapter One

Chapter One

This novel uses British English spellings and slang, so anything with which you are unfamiliar, is to be found in a handy list at the back of this book.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR Joe Rafferty had just beaten a couple to the window seat in The Railway Arms. He ignored the dirty look they directed at him, and sat down, the raised glass of Jameson’s that he’d been anticipating for the last hour of listening to Superintendent Bradley’s rhetoric, tightly clenched, when the landlord’s urgent voice stayed his hand.

So intent had he been on his first mouthful of Irish, that he hadn’t noticed Andy Strong’s approach. Andy leaned across the small table in the saloon bar, and in a harsh whisper, said, ‘We’ve what could be a dead man in the car park, Joe. At least, if he’s not dead, he’s a bloody good actor. You’re a copper and know first aid. Mine’s rusty. Will you come and have a look at him?’

Rafferty sighed, gazed with undisguised longing at his untouched whiskey, and muttered, ‘it’ll be some drunk who’s had a heart attack. Ring for an ambulance, Andy. That’s what they’re there for.’ He raised his glass to his lips. But again his hand was stayed.

‘It’s no heart attack. There’s what looks like blood staining his jacket.’

Rafferty studied Andy’s face for a few seconds, but the short back and sides of his iron grey hair, the epaulettes on his shirt, and the no-nonsense manner, all shouted ex-army, and unusual for a pub landlord, sober ex-army at that. He whispered a sad adieu to his whiskey, stood up, and followed the landlord out and round the side of the building to the car park.

The weather was still mild when they got outside, though a slight breeze had blown up. It ruffled Rafferty’s hair, but it had no effect on Andy’s grey regulation short back and sides, which was as disciplined as the rest of him, and stayed put whatever the weather and stood to attention like its owner.

There was a row of lights illuminating the part of the yard nearest the pub, but the darkness increased the further they got from the building, the cars’ shadows stretching out lengthily and adding to the gloom.

The landlord threaded his way through the darkness with a sure and confident step. He rounded a couple of parked cars and pointed. 'There he is.'

Rafferty stared over Andy's shoulder for several seconds, but the parked cars shadowed the spread-eagled body, and he could make out little. 'Hang on,' he said. 'I'll get my torch from the car.' He hurried across to his vehicle and rummaged in the glove compartment for a little before his fingers found the hard surface of the torch. He was back in a couple of minutes. He edged past the landlord and shone the torch over the man on the ground. He had thought the sudden light would rouse him if he was simply out cold, but it had no effect. He knelt down and felt for a pulse.

'I've already done that,' Andy told him. 'I couldn't feel anything.'

Neither could Rafferty. He stood up again and played the torch slowly over the man's body. He suspected Andy was right, and it was a corpse that lay on the ground. He was certain of it when he saw the slit in the man's light-coloured jacket, right between the shoulder blades, and what looked like blood seeping around the edges of the slit. 'He’s been knifed,’ he told the landlord. As he spoke, the thought of the lonely flat that had driven him out in search of company became more attractive, as the possibility of reaching it any time soon vanished. He'd have to call the team out.

'Do you know his name?' Rafferty asked the landlord. 'His face is familiar, but I've only seen him in here a couple of times.'

Andy nodded. 'His name's Keith Sutherland. One of my regulars. Or he used to be. But he’s usually in later than you, which is why you’ve not seen much of him.'

Rafferty pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and called the station to get the team mobilised. That done, he turned to the landlord. 'I want you to lock the pub doors, Andy, and keep the punters inside. I don't want anyone scuttling off until they've been questioned and given their names and addresses.' Though, he knew, in all likelihood, their killer had already fled into the night. 'I'll have to stay with the body while you do that. I don't want to risk anyone interfering with the crime scene. Just tell them that someone's been killed in your yard, and they'll have to stay till the police arrive.'

Andy stared at him for several seconds, before he nodded again, and marched purposefully back to the pub. Rafferty was left alone with the corpse. He looked down at the sprawled body, its face pressed against the cold tarmac. He shivered, and moved away a few yards, nearer to the pub lights.

It was eerie in the car park. The night seemed darker and more threatening now that the reassuring bulk of Andy Strong had gone. The wind had got up even more, and whistled through the trees in the neighbouring gardens, blowing litter into the pub yard that Andy usually swept clean several times a day.

Rafferty pulled his jacket collar closer to his ears and angled his watch to the light to see how much time had passed, and how soon he could expect the arrival of his police colleagues. But only five minutes had gone by. He sighed. It would be a while yet before he could expect company. While he waited, he spent the time noting down details of the vehicles in the yard and their registration numbers.

That done, he simply stood and absorbed the night, and its atmosphere. The silence reminded him of his echoing, empty flat, and Abra. She had proved intransigent after their row. If, that was, she was still his fiancée. At least she hadn't given him the engagement ring back. It had been two months now and Abra still refused to speak to him. It was his own fault, of course. He knew that. If he hadn't tried to keep their wedding costs within reason, Abra wouldn’t have left him. When Llewellyn’s wife let the cat out of the bag about what photographer Rafferty had organised for the wedding, it had been the last straw.

Musing on his wedding misdemeanours passed another five minutes, and at the end of it, he saw the first flashing lights of a police car as it pulled up at the kerb. It was quickly followed by another.

Soon, the entire team was assembled. Rafferty had a quick word with them, and then left them to the well-ordered routine of securing the scene. He instructed two of the uniformed officers to return with him to the pub. He banged on the door, and the landlord opened up and let him and the other two officers in, locking the door again behind them as Rafferty instructed.

Once back in the bar, he and the landlord were immediately surrounded by a crowd of belligerent, questioning customers. They became more belligerent when Rafferty announced that no one could go home yet. They grumbled even more when Andy Strong threw tea towels over the pumps, signalling that the evening's pleasure was at an end. Rafferty was pleased to see it. He'd have told him to do so if the landlord hadn't acted on his own initiative; he didn't want his potential witnesses any more drink-befuddled than they already were. Besides, his witnesses, already resentful, didn’t need any additional reasons to feel aggrieved at him and his colleagues. Such negative emotions might incline them to be less co-operative.

Rafferty quickly divided the customers into two groups for initial questioning by the uniformed officers, and then went back to the car park and the corpse.

It was still there. Not a figment of his imagination then, he thought. Pity. It meant it would be a long night.