All the Lonely People

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

THE PUB CUSTOMERS WERE waiting in two raggedy lines in front of the two uniformed officers to take their turns at giving their details, and anything they recalled of the evening. The officers had commandeered a table apiece, and were working methodically through the lines, taking names and addresses and any other immediately relevant information. The customers still grumbled amongst themselves, but in lowered tones as if they were anxious about disturbing the corpse which was still laid out in the pub’s yard. In spite of their lowered tones, they were getting querulous. Rafferty stood and listened for a while. The information they gave was sparse enough; the customers who had been in the Saloon Bar all seemed to say the same thing: that the dead man had entered the Saloon Bar from the door leading from the Snug and accosted one member of a stag party who were using the pub to begin their celebratory evening.

While he listened, no one admitted to going outside or around to the car park during the latter part of the evening. But, as well as going out to the toilets which were situated at the entrance to the bars, since the smoking ban, people were always going in and out of the pub to light up.

Naturally, all this information-gathering took some time. There had been thirty customers in the pub when the body was discovered, and another ten or so who had left the pub before then: they would also have to be questioned, of course. Rafferty had managed to get the names of most of them from the landlord. As for the others, he could only hope they came forward when news of the murder broke, as Andy only knew them by their first names or nicknames and didn’t know where most of them lived.

Rafferty had a word with the uniforms, and then wandered over to the bar. He brightened when Andy put a glass under the Jameson optic, served up a large one, and placed it in front of him. ‘Cheers.’ He took a consoling gulp, but then he caught the gaze of one of the customers who was giving him the evil eye for getting preferential treatment from the landlord. His thoughts turned to business, and he replaced the glass on the counter. ‘So, who found the body, Andy? Are they still here?’

‘No. It was a chap called Cookham. David Cookham. He drove off after he called me outside by shouting from the door that I needed to call a cab and pour the drunk sprawled in my yard into it. That was the first I knew of it.’

‘Do you know this Cookham’s address?’

Andy nodded again.

Rafferty got out his notebook and jotted down the details. He’d need to speak to the man as soon as possible. He might have noticed something, and close questioning could jog his memory if it needed jogging. While he had his notebook out, he also obtained the names of as many of those customers that Andy could recall, who had left before the body was discovered. Then he looked up, and said, ‘So tell me about Keith Sutherland. Why would anyone want him dead?'

The landlord turned and poured himself a stiff brandy before he answered. 'Keith was the sort of bloke who rubbed others up the wrong way. He was always getting into arguments with people. He even had a shouting match with his son tonight. Ian Sutherland’s getting married in a couple of weeks. He was in here with a gang of mates for his stag night.’

Rafferty straightened on his bar stool. ‘Some of the other customers mentioned an altercation with a stag party. So it was his son that the victim had the argument with?’ Andy nodded. Hovering to listen in to some of the witness’ statements had failed to reveal that little snippet. 'And was his father one of the guests?’

‘No. From what I heard, the father wasn't invited. He came into the Saloon Bar from the Snug a little before you arrived and started a row with his son. When he started throwing punches, I told him to leave.'

‘So why wasn’t the father invited to the stag night?’

Andy shrugged. 'Presumably because he was dead set against his son marrying Georgie, his fiancée. Thought she was a gold digger. After the son's inheritance.'

'Was the victim rich, then?'

'Not so's you'd notice. I never saw him flinging his money about in here, anyway, though I knew he had his own business, and was able to spend enough most nights to get well-oiled.'

Rafferty made a few more notes. Andy’s information meant that Sutherland’s son had motive enough to wish his father dead.

'I take it the dead man was married?'

'Yes.’ The landlord kept busy polishing glasses while he talked. He was as thorough in this as he was in everything else, and already had an array of them lined up military-fashion on the shelf.

‘His wife's name's Mary. There's a daughter, too, name of Susie. Ian and Susie are both in their twenties. Neither of the kids live at home. I think they left as soon as they could support themselves, in order to get away from their old man.’

'Can you let me have a list of those of your customers he'd had rows with?'

'Quicker to let you have a list of those he didn't row with. But okay, I can try. Might be a long list.'

Oh joy. Rafferty reached for his glass and swigged down what remained.

At his disconsolate expression, Andy took pity, and put another glass in front of him, before he hung the tea towel he had used to polish the glasses on two of the beer pumps and went off. He came back with a writing pad and pen. As he began to jot down a list of names, he commented, 'Not seen you in for a while, Joe. Nor Abra for that matter. You two had a falling out?'

Before responding, Rafferty glanced over his shoulder to check how the uniforms were getting on. The lines were thinning out nicely, and there were now less than a dozen customers still waiting to give their details. He turned back to the landlord. 'You could say that. At least, Abra's had a falling out with me.'

'What happened? You been playing away?'

'No. Nothing like that. I’m the faithful type. Abra thought I was trying to cheese pare on the wedding arrangements. We had a big bust up.'

‘And were you? Trying to cheese pare?’

Rafferty nodded.

'So she decided to do without the groom, is that it?'

'Got it in one.' Morosely, he sipped his whiskey. He took the second whiskey more slowly. He couldn't continue to drink his sorrows away.

Andy handed over his list of Sutherland’s potential enemies, and said he had to bottle up. Rafferty told him he wouldn’t be able to open again until the SOCOs had finished.

Andy nodded. ‘I realise that. But I want to be ready with the shelves fully stocked when your lot have cleared off.’

Once Andy had descended to the cellar and began stacking the crates of beer at the bottom of the steps, Rafferty returned to the study of his whiskey.

The news about the stag do made him maudlin, wondering when – if – he'd have a stag party of his own, and whether Andy would be willing to play host to a motley crew of coppers and other ne’er-wells in the event his own stag do ever happened. The Railway Arms was the regular haunt of some of his colleagues. It was the handiest pub for the station, of course, and some of the commuters came in on their return from work and forgot to go home. It was a good sized pub, with two large bars and a small Snug to the rear. It wasn't the oldest pub in Elmhurst, having been built when the railway was run through the town, but it was comfortable, responsibly-run, with well-kept toilets.

A true piece of Victoriana, from its decorative plate glass mirror behind the bar, to the carved wood embellishing the booths, by some miracle it had never fallen foul of the mad modernisers like several of the other historic pubs in the town when they were taken over by pub chains. It was one of Rafferty’s favourite watering holes and he, like the home-going commuter wage-slaves, often popped in for a quick one after work. It was on the way home, and the service was always good, not like some of the town’s other pubs where bored teenage barmaids took their own sweet time to serve, or even notice, you.

The booths – four of them lined the walls of the saloon bar – had benches that were made of mahogany. Say one thing for the Victorians, they didn’t stint. The backs of the benches were intricately carved with designs of the famous steam trains of the day: The Flying Scotsman, The Great Western, The Rocket and The Papyrus. The booth seats were crimson plush, recently redone. The curtains that had once screened each booth were long gone. In their place were small swing doors, about a third the length of the door-sized gap. They gave an illusion of privacy.

Pictures of Elmhurst in its Victorian railway heyday lined the walls, full of uniformed railwaymen, from the stern-faced stationmaster proudly displaying his pocket watch like a badge of office, to the young lad dogsbody with his pale face and spindly limbs, wearing a too-big uniform that looked to be someone else’s cast-off. Other pictures showed carriages lined up to collect the gentry off the London train.

The whole pub was a paean of praise to a long-gone era and its glorious over-the-top-ness. The Victorians, when they believed in doing something, did it to the hilt, and beyond. Theirs had been an age in British history that Rafferty strongly admired: tenacious, go-getting, ambitious. Sometimes, he thought it was an era he would have liked to have been part of—until, that was, he remembered his parents on both sides had come from long lines of Irish peasants. If he wasn’t one of the gang of Irish Navvies the British hired to dig out their train tunnels, he’d have been fighting in their wars, likely to die in agony of gangrene in some disgusting field hospital in the Crimea before Florence Nightingale – with her up-to-date ideas about hygiene – arrived to nurse the troops.

Rafferty sighed, and glanced again at the list of possible enemies that Andy had given him. He missed Llewellyn and his organisational skills – Dafyd was good at the routine stuff, but he was away until tomorrow, or rather – he glanced at his watch, and saw it was 12.30 in the morning – later today now. He was relieved the first part of the investigation had gone relatively smoothly, and that the bar was finally quiet. The last couple of customers, after being questioned, were making for the door, their eagerness to leave the pub in marked contrast to the usual dragging footsteps of the merry who wished to be merrier.

Dr Sam Dally arrived a few minutes later. 'Struck lucky, didn't you?’ was his greeting for Rafferty. ‘Having a murder investigation set in a pub. Going to set up the Incident Room in the Snug?'

'I wish. No. The Incident Room will be set up at the station. It's near enough to the scene.' The police station was only about a hundred yards up Station Road and over the crossroads.

'So where's the body?'

'In the car park.' Rafferty downed his drink in one swallow, and said, 'Come on, I'll show you.'

'I'll get into my protective gear first. I've got some stashed in the car. It’s parked on the road.' Sam eyed Rafferty's jacket and trousers. 'Maybe you ought to do likewise.'

'Bit late for that. I was just being a civilian, enjoying a quiet drink, when the job decided to follow me.' But he made after Sam and took the protective gear Sam handed him and put it on, before he led the pathologist to the scene.

The pub car park was as full of bodies and bright lights as a fairground. Arcs had been set up and made the yard as light as day. The previous darkness had been kinder to the corpse. And Rafferty. But now the body was starkly-lit, and the victim's skin looked waxy.

By now, Lance Edwards, the photographer, had finished his work. He made way for Dally, who knelt by the body, eased down the victim’s trousers, and started to take the rectal temperature.

But this last was scarcely necessary. According to the landlord, there had only been around ten minutes between him ordering Keith Sutherland from the bar, and his body being found, something Rafferty could corroborate without difficulty from the evidence of the other customers. Time of death was the easy part. Clearly, also, Sutherland had died where he had been found, as Dally soon confirmed from the hypostasis evidence.

'You hardly need me,' Dally complained ten minutes later, after he’d finished examining the body, and with difficulty eased his chubby form upright. 'You could have left me in my comfortable bed with my comfortable lady.'

'And have you miss all the fun? I reckon if you ask nicely, the landlord will be able to find you a single malt to console you.'

Dally’s half-moon glasses glinted under the arc lights. 'Now you're talking. One won't put me over the limit. Lead on, MacDuff.'

Five minutes later, after Rafferty had shouted down to Andy who was still stacking crates in the cellar and getting the okay to help themselves to a round, Rafferty and Sam Dally were seated companionably at the bar, two single malts in front of them.

‘So what more can you tell me, Sam?’ Rafferty asked, as he appreciatively sipped his drink, the thought: this is the way to begin an investigation, bringing a faint and scarcely appropriate smile to his lips.

‘One thrust through the heart, as you saw for yourself. But don’t bother to ask me anything more till I’ve done the post mortem. You know I like to be certain of my facts before I share them with your lot.’

In truth, Dally tended to hug the facts to himself like a miser till prodded. ‘Always the hard man.’

'So,' said Sam, changing the subject as he held his glass up to the light over the bar. He sighed contentedly. 'What's the news on the Abra front?'

Rafferty pulled a face. 'Much the same as it was last time you asked. She's still not talking to me. Dafyd’s volunteered to try his hand at mediation. See if we can't patch things up.'

Dally pursed his lips at this, made that sound peculiar to builders when asked how much a job would cost, and peered at him over his glasses. ‘Volunteered? I thought yon sergeant of yours had more sense than that. Actually volunteering to put himself in the middle of a ‘loves young dream’ spat between you and your young lady is asking for unpleasantness. God knows, it’s a bad do when you have a big bust up before the wedding. Makes you wonder how many sparks'll be flying after.'

'If we ever get to after,' Rafferty muttered. He downed his malt and stood up. 'Now, suitably fortified, I have to go and break the news to the victim's family.'

‘Good luck with that. Give me the dead every time. No tears. No tantrums. No accusations. Just silence, and acceptance of their lot.’ Sam eyed first Rafferty’s glass, and then Rafferty. ‘I’m guessing that’s not your first. Hope you’re not driving.’

‘With all these cops around?’ Rafferty produced a mirthless grin. ‘Not likely. I’ll get one of the team to act as my personal chauffeur.’ He gazed at Sam and his glass in turn. ‘I’m guessing that’s not your first, either. So ditto Dally.’

‘You’d guess wrong. It is. I’m on a diet.’ He held up his glass, and said, ‘Lot of calories in a wee dram of this stuff, apparently.’

Rafferty stared at the portly doctor and grinned again. ‘On a diet? You?’

Sam nodded glumly. ‘Cottage cheese and lettuce leaves are my daily sustenance. I’m expecting to start fainting away any time at all, like some Victorian Miss with the vapours.’

‘Doctor’s orders?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never taken any notice of him. Damn quack. No, it’s my lovely lady. She’s convinced I’m going to keel over any minute. She became quite upset when I proved stubborn.’ He patted his wallet. ‘Still, it’s nice to know she wouldn’t rather have the life insurance money, and that I’m loved for myself alone.’

‘She’ll know you’ve been drinking. Women always do.’

Sam patted another pocket. ‘Not over the extra-strong peppermints, she won’t.’

‘And what about when the weight hasn’t come off?’

‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Reckon I’ve a few weeks’ grace yet. Besides, everyone knows weight’s difficult to shift when you get older.’

‘If you say so. Right. I’d better be off. Let me know when you’re ready to do the post mortem.’

Sam nodded, saw the landlord coming up from the cellar, and ordered a packet of Pork Scratchings.

Rafferty just looked at him and shook his head.

***