Kith and Kill

Chapter Two-2-1

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR Joseph Rafferty, dragged from a sound sleep to take over the investigation on a day he had elected to give himself a late start, had decided to use the study of the Egertons’ late patriarch, Thomas Egerton, for the interviews. Dahlia Sullivan, the housekeeper, had told them it was a room that was seldom used any more, so they could call it theirs for as long as necessary.

Rafferty sat in the high-backed maroon leather chair behind the imposing mahogany desk and surveyed his temporary domain with satisfaction. ‘The family’s clearly not short of a bob or two,’ he said to Sergeant Dafyd Llewellyn. ‘According to the housekeeper, this house belonged to the victim. Reckon one of them bumped the old lady off for her money?’

‘We don’t know yet that she was “bumped off”, as you so delicately put it,’ Llewellyn, always keen on working from the basis of fact, reminded him. ‘She might just have died in her sleep as her family seem to think.’

‘Nah.’ Rafferty liked facts well enough, but he liked his theories, too. And this situation seemed ripe for another one. ‘Look at the facts we do know: rich old lady, in apparent good health, dies suddenly in her bed. Rapacious family all in the house eager for some ill-gotten gains and—’

‘Another little problem with your facts is that we know nothing about the family yet. What makes you say that they’re rapacious?’

‘Come on, Dafyd. Loosen up a bit and let your imagination flow. Not that it needs much of it here. As I said, Sophia Egerton was a rich old lady, with a beautiful Georgian house that must be worth a packet and a successful business that must be worth ditto. A business, moreover,’ Rafferty was proud of that moreover, ‘of which she still had a firm hold. Made the family toe the line and all that. She was ripe for plucking, I reckon.’

‘Maybe Dr Dally will disagree with you.’

‘When he gets here. He’s taking his own sweet time, as usual. By God, his name’s not a misnomer. To think he’s even got his own song. What was it? I know.’ Rafferty broke into song. ‘“My old man said follow the van and don’t dilly dally on the way”.’

Llewellyn’s ear c****d and not to better enjoy his boss’s dulcet baritone. ‘I think I hear Dr Dally arriving now.’ He got up. ‘I’ll go and escort him upstairs.’

‘You sound like his jailer.’ Reluctantly, Rafferty rose from his throne. ‘Come on, then. Let’s get Dally’s facts and then I can really go to town on theorising.’

Dr Sam Dally rubbed his fleshy chin and observed, ‘Suffocation, I believe.’ He lifted up one of Sophia Egerton’s eyelids. ‘See the petechiae in the eyes? That’s tiny ruptured blood vessels to you, Rafferty.’

Rafferty nodded. ‘I know what petechiae are, even if I can’t spell ‘em. I can even recognise a stiff when I see one. Gold star called for. Someone was intent on making sure the old lady didn’t get to celebrate her 91st birthday, that’s for sure. Sad. Ain’t family love a wonderful thing?’

‘Definitely one of the family?’ asked Dally.

‘Apart from the housekeeper and her husband, they were the only ones in the house.’

‘What? No friends? For a ninetieth birthday?’

‘Seems not. Apparently, the old lady didn’t want a fuss. Didn’t even want a party until her grandsons just went ahead and organized it. Said she’d had too many birthdays. Seems one of her relatives agreed with her. Awful to outlive the love.’

Sam packed the tools of his trade away. ‘Got any theories yet?’

Rafferty smiled. ‘Well, now that you mention it. As you say, death by chocolate, it ain’t. One of her ever-loving did it. The only question is—which of them? You got any theories on that score, Sam?’

The rotund Scot shook his head. ‘Not me. I steer well clear of theories. And the weeping and wailing. Just give me a nice, cold corpse and I’m happy.’

‘You’re all heart.’

‘I’d rather have it than your job, Rafferty.’ Sam walked to the door, stripping off his protective clothing as he went. He handed the white gear to Rafferty, said, ‘Get rid of that,’ and snapped his bag shut. ‘Grieving relatives – well, some of them, anyway – and Superintendent Bradley. Unhappy combination.’

Rafferty pulled a face. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘Right. I’m off. Good luck with it.’ Sam smiled a mischievous smile. ‘Families can be the very devil, so something tells me you’ll need it.’ He bade Rafferty and Llewellyn farewell, leaving the inspector staring down at the dead old woman in her frivolously frilled red nightie. She made a good corpse, he decided. Very handsome and with a bone structure that the pale hues of death only served to enhance. It was an unusual ninety-year-old who could carry off not only several shades of scarlet but so many frills, also. ‘Wonder what’s in the will,’ he said to Llewellyn. ‘And now we’ve got official confirmation that this is murder, we’d better organise getting that checked out before we do anything else.’

‘I’ll get on to it. The housekeeper should know the name of the family solicitor.’ Llewellyn went off downstairs, leaving Rafferty with the body.

They were still waiting for the Crime Scene Investigators to arrive. Or Scene of Crime team, as he still preferred to call them. He wasn’t one for being influenced by American TV shows. Especially as they didn’t always get their facts right. He had given the nod to Llewellyn to phone the SOCOs as soon as he’d heard Dally’s pronouncement of the cause of death and he knew Llewellyn would have it in hand.

Rafferty looked around the room. The bedroom was grand, all massive dark wood and scarlet hangings, with a stately four-poster bed that even Henry VIII himself might consider over the top in its size and accoutrements. The four vast wardrobes had intricate carvings and inlays, two either side of a huge full-length mirror. It was all on the grand scale. He thought it likely that they were all family pieces handed down from the Victorian era. He guessed none of the younger generation would want any of it. The dressing table, of a similar style to the wardrobes, was laden with lotions and potions and enough make-up to paint the faces of the entire cast of The King and I. Vain, then. Unusual. At ninety, it was surely more normal to have long since given in to the losing battle with time and gravity.

There were photographs of Sophia Egerton all around the room. He picked up one of the earlier ones. She was wearing some kind of Roman dress. Must have been the clothing for a play; the housekeeper had told him Mrs Egerton had been an actress in her youth. She had certainly been beautiful, strikingly so, with a willowy figure and the kind of bone structure models would kill for. Her lips were full, though naturally so, not like the burst tyres of modern times. Her nose wasn’t quite as beautiful, being rather Princess Dianaesque in profile, but it suited her somehow. And he still wouldn’t have kicked her out of bed, though there was a certain arrogance in the way she held her head as if she were very aware of her beauty and how it could be used to her advantage.

Although, as an actress, Rafferty had never heard of her, she had managed to do very well for herself. The house alone must be worth a fortune. And then there was the family business. He’d yet to learn much about that beyond the fact that it was involved in high-end dress design.

He had a quick look through one of the wardrobes; there was nothing old and slouchy hanging from the rails. Everything was stylish. There were chic little suits and gorgeous dresses for evening functions, though he noticed all of them had high necks and long sleeves. Seems she had a sensible streak and knew an old lady’s neck and arms weren’t her best features. Cover them up and you could still look stylish. There were enough shoes to give Imelda Marcos palpitations.

Rafferty shut the last wardrobe, closed the bedroom door, locked it and pocketed the key. He nodded at Constable Lizzie Green, who was doing guard duty as he walked past and wondered if Llewellyn had got anywhere with the solicitor. He headed downstairs to find out.

Llewellyn was in the hall and still on the phone. For some reason, the solicitor was being obstructive. Rafferty’s lips tightened, and he held out his hand for the phone.

‘This is Detective Inspector Rafferty,’ he said. ‘I’m in charge of investigating the murder of Mrs Sophia Egerton. And you are? Right, Mr Selby. I’ll need to come to see you this morning as a matter of urgency. How does eleven o’clock sound?’

Mr Selby tried to fob him off, but Rafferty was having none of it.

‘You do understand, sir, that this is a murder case? Someone has done your client to death. I would have thought you would be as keen to find the perpetrator as we are unless—’ Tempted to say, ‘Unless you’re the guilty party’, he was saved from such folly by the solicitor’s capitulation.

Mr Selby agreed that eleven o’clock would suit just fine. Rafferty smiled, snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Llewellyn. ‘See, Dafyd. You’ve just got to be firm with these legal types. They’re used to that, first from their nannies, then from the judge presiding. It’s in their nature to say ‘yes’ if approached in the correct manner. Right. I suppose we’d better begin getting to know our suspects.’

He had a quick word with Constable Timothy Smales, whom he had drafted to front door duty, and told him to let him know when the forensic guys arrived. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen.’

Smales sighed, clearly recognising that he’d be standing doing door duty for hours yet.

‘We all had to do it, lad,’ Rafferty told him. ‘They say it’s good for the character.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Tim Smales woodenly.

Rafferty turned away, smiling to himself. He and Llewellyn headed back down the hall and through the green baize door of what had originally been the house’s servants’ quarters. They found themselves in a small hall with black and white tiles and hooks for coats. Rafferty could hear raised voices through a half-open, semi-glazed door off to his left. He put a hand out to stop Llewellyn from venturing further and brought a finger to his lips. They were going at it hammer and tongs in there.

‘And what about you?’ A male voice, youngish. ‘You said your bookmaker had started to turn nasty over your unpaid bills. Reason enough to kill Grannie if you wanted to get your hands on her money. God knows you’ve done enough bad things in your life not to cringe at murder.’

‘Don’t talk such crap. I loved Grannie, you know I did.’

‘I know you were always her favourite.’

‘Jealous?’

‘No. Just curious as to why Grannie’s taste in people wasn’t as perfect as her taste in clothes. You always were a—’

‘Must you argue like this? My lady’s not cold yet and all you can do is bicker.’ Rafferty recognised the housekeeper’s voice. ‘What would the police think if they heard you?’

‘They’d think that one of us is a murderer, Dahlia. And let’s face it, they wouldn’t be wrong.’

There was a strained silence after that. Rafferty took the opportunity to interrupt this cheery discourse. He opened the door to its full extent and entered the room. Seven pairs of startled eyes swivelled in his direction. It was a large room with a vast, old-fashioned dresser, presumably a leftover from the days when the building housed a large family and plenty of servants. The present-day family sat round a huge, rectangular scrubbed pine table, with the housekeeper and a man who was presumably her husband, the gardener c*m handyman standing, one near the sink and one by the back door as if ready to bolt.

‘Good morning. I’m Detective Inspector Rafferty. And this is Sergeant Llewellyn.’ He nodded at the housekeeper. ‘I’ve already met Mrs Sullivan.’ His gaze swept around the table. ‘Perhaps you’d like to introduce yourselves?’

One of the pair of identical thirty-something male twins said, ‘I’m Adam Chambers and this,’ he gestured to the twin sitting beside him, ‘is Eric, my brother.’

‘And what relations are you to the late Mrs Sophia Egerton?’

‘We’re her grandsons.’

Another member of the family introduced herself. ‘I’m Penelope Chambers. I’m mother to the twins. I’m Sophia’s only child. This is my daughter, Caroline Templeton.’ The woman she gestured to was in her late thirties. Caroline was a capable, motherly-looking woman and had a comforting arm around the shoulders of one of the twins.

‘It looks like I’ll have to introduce myself.’ This from an elderly woman who appeared to be in her eighties. She was overweight, with a screwed-up mouth that looked as if she felt permanently dissatisfied with life. ‘I’m Alice Pickford. Sophia was my sister. My elder sister.’ This last was said with an air of defiance as if she expected someone to contradict her. She certainly looked the older of the two sisters. Discontent could play havoc with one’s looks, especially when said looks hadn’t been of the best to start with.