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'NOT YOUR AVERAGE ‘ESSEX Man’,' Rafferty pronounced after Shore had positively identified the body as that of Barbara Longman and driven off to his meeting in the turbo-charged BMW in which he'd followed them to the mortuary.
Llewellyn nodded. 'Not your average family either,' he commented. 'Didn't you think it strange that Shore didn't even trouble to go upstairs to offer Henry his condolences? It would have been the normal thing to do.'
Reminded of his earlier pity for the children of the household, Rafferty nodded. 'But that household doesn't strike me as exactly normal.'
'Perhaps Mrs Shore will break the news?'
Rafferty gave him an oblique glance. 'You think so? I'd say it would be more likely that she'd take off back to London to get away from the general gloom. She didn't look as if she would be likely to join in any breast-beating. Besides, from what Shore said, the dead woman seems to have acted as a stand-in mother to all of them. Poor little sods. I suppose the job of breaking the news to them will fall to that sour-faced housekeeper.' Rafferty unlocked the car door. 'Oh well, it's none of our business. Come on; let's get back to the station. I want to talk to the Suffolk CID - find out if their murderer's MO has any more similarities to ours than we've so far discovered.'
***
ONCE BACK AT THE STATION, and before he got onto Ellis, the Suffolk DI in charge of the other, serial investigation, Rafferty had a word with those of the house to house team who had returned, though he had little hope that any witnesses would emerge. And so it proved. As young Hanks remarked, what would anyone but an ardent conservationist be doing, hanging around an overgrown meadow? Particularly one within sniffing range of the River Tiffey.
Though he didn't say so to the young constable, Rafferty shared his opinion, and Hanks's remarks deepened his doubts about the killer's identity. The bodies of the two victims in Suffolk had been found in alleyways. Why would a rapist like the killer over the border change his pattern and hang around a lonely meadow? Surely he would realise that potential victims were likely to be few and far between? Even the two boys who had found the body had only been there exercising their dogs because they'd been at a loose end after being thrown out of their local soccer team for fighting, and were intent on proving to each other that they didn't care.
Dismissing the team for a quick cup of tea in the canteen before they went out again to resume their questioning, Rafferty was disappointed to discover that the early results from the team questioning the motorists on the main road by the meadow were equally disappointing. Reminding himself, again, that it was early days yet, Rafferty picked up the telephone once more. He hoped DI Ellis at Suffolk would have a bit more information for him.
But Frank Ellis, the officer in charge of the Suffolk investigation wasn't available. His sergeant told Rafferty that Ellis was over at Ipswich, checking out a possible suspect for their serial killings. 'Perhaps I can help, Inspector?'
'I hope so,' said Rafferty. 'We've had a murder here that looks like it might be the work of your killer. Can you give me the details of his MO?'
'Sure.' The sergeant gave a tired laugh. 'To tell you the truth, Inspector, we won't be sorry if your killing turns out to have been done by our boy. We'd be glad of someone to share the work and the blame. I've had six hours sleep in the last two days, and the way things are going, I'll be lucky to get that much in the next two.'
'I'd sympathise,' Rafferty remarked dryly, 'only I have a feeling I might need all the sympathy I can get for myself if your killer's moved his base of operations over our border. If I can have those details?'
'Sure. You'll know from the newspaper reports that both our victims have been in their late twenties, early thirties and blonde, and that our chappie likes to hang around back alleys waiting for his victims?'
Rafferty confirmed that he knew that much. Remembering the telephone call that Shore had mentioned, which had drawn Barbara Longman to her death, he asked, 'Any evidence that they might have known their killer? Such as a phone call before they left home, perhaps?'
'Funny you should mention that,' said the sergeant. 'Because we've reason to believe that they did both know their killer. Though the phone call aspect's out. The first victim didn't have a phone and the second was staying at her mother's for the weekend and the mother was adamant that it didn't ring the entire time her daughter was there. But both victims were married, and from what their neighbours said, we think they might both have been playing away. It looks as if they arranged to meet their killer close to where their bodies were found. We know they both set out on their own, and although we can't know if the second victim arrived there alone, as she drove her own car, the first one went by bus and the driver remembers her getting off the bus by the alley where she died. He told us no-one else got off there, so it seems as if her killer might have been waiting for her.'
'How about the method of killing? I know they were suffocated, but have you any idea what he used?' Rafferty, aware that serial killers often had their own particular trade mark, knew that these details wouldn't have been released to the press. Stevens confirmed it before he went on. 'Stuffed the victims' panties in their mouths after he'd beaten them semi-conscious and then held their nostrils closed with his hand. He's a vicious sod, this killer,' Stevens told him, 'and getting more so. I saw both victims, and although the first one had been pretty badly roughed up before he killed her, the second was far worse. You should see the autopsy report. Oh, and, they were both raped, but after death, not before, as the papers assumed. Anything else you want to know?'
'Not just now, thanks. What you've told me has given me plenty to think about.'
'And do you think your killer and ours might be the same bloke?' With an apologetic laugh, Stevens added, 'Only it would be nice to have some news to give to DI Ellis when he gets back. We seem to be getting pretty bogged down with this one,' he confessed.
'I'm not sure, Sergeant. There are certain similarities, such as the age of the victim, and the hair colour. But the rest of your killer's MO doesn't match up.'
'Think you've got a copy-cat killer, then?'
'Could be. Thanks for all your help. Can you tell DI Ellis I rang and that I'd like to come over and see him as soon as possible?'
'Will do, sir.'
Thoughtfully, Rafferty replaced the receiver and told the hovering Llewellyn what he had just learned.
The Welshman frowned. 'It's not exactly conclusive either way, is it, sir?'
'No. Though, if it was the same killer, it's strange that he didn't beat her as he did the other victims. Especially as, since the other cases followed a predictable pattern of increasing violence, you would expect the third victim to be beaten far more brutally than the first two. Yet, this murder was gentle by comparison. Apart from a small bruise on her temple, he doesn't seem to have hit her at all. Dally doesn't think she was raped, but we'll know for sure after the post mortem. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean anything; he might have been disturbed before he could do so, though it seems unlikely as it was such a lonely spot.'
He picked up his mug of tea but it was cold and he put it down again in disgust. 'Anyway, I've left instructions for Ellis to contact me, as I'd like to compare notes more fully on this one. But, as the information from Suffolk is inconclusive, we can't afford to rule anyone out of our suspicions. That means we'll have to speak to the dead woman's family again, get some statements from them. For one thing, I'd like more information about that phone message to the Shore house, and the farmer it mentioned. But we'll leave all that until after the p m. Dally tells me he's scheduled it for tomorrow morning.'
***
RAFFERTY WAS PLEASED Sam Dally had decided to exert himself on this one. Unusually, he combined two roles, and Rafferty surmised that his Police Surgeon half must have given his Pathologist half a talking-to for not only did the post mortem start on time but for once, Dally didn't indulge his usual macabre line in jokes and it finished earlier than Rafferty had expected.
Sam confirmed that Barbara Longman had been suffocated. Or – as Sam had it – her death was "consistent with suffocation", and, although he refused to commit himself as to the means, he thought it probable the killer had pressed something soft, like a cushion, over her face.
She hadn't been raped. Although an attempt had been made to make it look as though she was the latest victim of a sex killer, it was an amateurish effort. Her clothing had been disturbed, but that was all. There was no seminal fluid, no bruising to the soft flesh of the inner thighs, no real assault at all - apart from the undeniable fact that the victim was dead. To Rafferty, it was looking more and more like the work of a copy-cat killer.
Keeping a careful distance between himself and the body on the autopsy table, Rafferty asked, 'How much effort would it have taken to hold her down and suffocate her at the same time? Or do you think she was knocked out, first? That bruise on her temple—'
'Might have stunned her, made her less able to fight back. But there are several indications that she was conscious before she died. And if you left that wall to hold itself up and came a bit closer, you'd not only be able to see the pinpoint haemorrhages in the eyes, consistent with suffocation, you'd also be able to see the grazes on the back of her legs. As if she'd scratched them on the rough grasses, as she tried to drag her legs up to remove a heavy weight.'
Rafferty took Sam's word for it and stayed where he was.
'And then, there's bruising to the skin around the wrists. I'd say her killer forced her bent arms up beside her head and held them there with one hand to stop her struggling—unnecessary if she had been unconscious.'
Rafferty nodded and reminded Sam that the dry grass under her heels had been reduced to shreds, which suggested her shoes had beaten a tattoo on the ground before she had died. All in all, it seemed pretty conclusive that she had not only been killed where she had been found but had been conscious at the time. Now, he tried another tack. 'I suppose we can take it for granted that she was killed by a man?'
'I wouldn't take anything for granted if I were you, Rafferty,' said Dally, as he threw his gloves in the bin and removed his blood-stained gown. 'Especially as I doubt if it took much effort at all. She was only a slender little thing.'
It was funny, Rafferty mused, keeping his eyes averted from the cadaver on the table, although he knew the victim had a slight figure, he continued to think of her as a buxom woman, some sort of earth mother. The expression "kind but firm" which Shore had used, invariably produced such a picture in his mind. He toyed with the idea of asking Llewellyn, who had studied psychology, what the professionals would make of such a confession, but thought better of it. Anyway, he had a good idea what Llewellyn would say. Psychologists usually managed to make the most innocent revelations sound perverted. Generally, as far as he understood it, they traced everything back to a fellow's mother and Rafferty didn't need an honours degree to figure out that they'd have a field-day with his.
'Thanks, Sam.' Rafferty headed gratefully for the door, and away from the assorted odours of the pathology department. 'I'll see you at the inquest, I suppose?'
'Wouldn't miss it, laddie, especially as it's being held in that hall next to The Green Man.' Sam beamed ebulliently at him. 'The publican there knows his trade. Keeps a very special malt for favoured customers, like yours truly. Want me to put a word in for you?'
After witnessing the post mortem, Rafferty doubted he'd ever again have the stomach for any alcohol, and he managed only a sickly grin and a shake of the head before following Llewellyn out to the car. As all the shady places in the car park had, of course, been appropriated hours ago, they had had to park where they could find a place. And, after standing in the baking sun for so long, the inside of the vehicle was as hot as a furnace. Rafferty opened all the windows before he settled into his seat.
'Right, let's go and see the family again,' he said, as he started the engine. 'There are enough doubts now about the killer's identity to press them for statements. Hopefully, as – with the conspicuous exception of Mrs Shore – they're all supposed to have been so fond of the victim, they'll be only too happy to do their duty in that direction.'
His words reminded him of a duty of his own that he'd rather forget. But, he knew if he didn't at least ask, his Ma would give him no peace, so he might as well get it over with, before they were well and truly immersed in the eighteen hour days of a murder enquiry.
'Speaking of happy families. How goes it between you and Maureen?'
Unfortunately, as Maureen was Rafferty's second cousin, and Llewellyn his partner, his Ma took a proprietary interest in the romance and was continually badgering him as to its progress. He wasn't surprised when Llewellyn's reply amounted to no more than a brief, 'All right,' that more or less advised him to mind his own business. Llewellyn believed in keeping personal things personal, Rafferty reminded himself wearily. The trouble was, Kitty Rafferty didn't share the reserved Welshman's love of privacy. She either didn't, or wouldn't, understand that, although Rafferty had fostered the relationship, from mixed motives of altruism and self-interest, he hadn't expected to oversee it personally. But convinced - with some reason he had to admit – that the emotional hang-ups lingering from a strict Methodist upbringing would render the otherwise perfectly capable Welshman inadequate in the rites of courtship – his Ma felt that Llewellyn needed encouraging. Rafferty reflected that she was just the woman to do it.
She'd been driving him mad on the subject for weeks, and now that he'd finally broached it, he blundered determinedly on, trying his best to ignore the closed-up expression on the Welshman's face, as he recalled the latest leverage his Ma had primed him with. 'It's Maureen's birthday tomorrow,' he commented, trying to sound unrehearsed, and hoping it would ease a revealing remark or two from Llewellyn. 'I suppose you'll be getting her a present?'
'Her birthday?' Llewellyn frowned. 'Are you sure? She didn't say.'
'Course I'm sure.' Although remembering birthdays wasn't something generally expected of a mere male in the Rafferty matriarchy, he was confident that his Ma wouldn't get such a thing wrong. The women in the family did the remembering and the selecting; all that was required of him and the other males was that they coughed up the cash. And as present buying Rafferty-style had as many competitive elements as the Olympics, he reckoned he got off lightly.
Relieved to be able to abandon the Agony Aunt pose, and adopt instead that of the wise uncle, he went on, 'That's women for you. Expect you to know such things without being told and then get all sniffy when you fail.' He shook his head, pleased, for once, to be able to boast a superior knowledge. 'Women can be very unreasonable about such things, Llewellyn. Take it from me.'
'Not Maureen,' Llewellyn shook his head, and his lips parted in a rare smile. 'She's far too sensible.'
Rafferty looked pityingly at him. Although both intelligent and intellectual, at twenty-nine, Llewellyn was still something of an innocent where women were concerned. With an air more of sorrow than superiority, Rafferty put him straight. 'Listen Taff, they're all like that. Don't think just because Maureen's always got her head stuck in some old Greek geezer's book that she's not the same.' If she wasn't, her mother certainly was, he reminded himself, and if they did end up getting hitched, it would be unwise for Llewellyn to get on the wrong side of Maureen's mother so early in the relationship. With a sly glance at Llewellyn, he wondered if his sergeant had realised yet that that formidable snob, Claire Tyler-Jenkins, was being primed by Kitty Rafferty as his future mother-in-law.
He had been surprised when his Ma had taken a shine to the Welshman. He had been even more surprised when Kitty Rafferty – a committed Roman Catholic who thought the Pope an infallible deity instead of a poor old mortal like anyone else – hadn't raised a murmur against the slowly burgeoning, interdenominational romance between the Welshman and Maureen, Rafferty's Catholic cousin. In fact, once Ma had finally accepted that he and Maureen would never become an item, she had been positively encouraging. No doubt, a change in the Welshman's religion would be his Ma's next campaign. It would be just like her to even offer to give him Catechism instruction herself. Poor Llewellyn.
Rafferty said no more, but the thoughtful look on Llewellyn's face was sufficient to satisfy him that his point had gone home. Although Llewellyn had confided little, Rafferty felt that the little had been significant. If Llewellyn was at the present buying stage, or even just the present considering stage, it indicated a certain depth to the relationship. That suited him. He'd be happy if it deepened into something permanent—he favoured a very long engagement himself, because, not only had the more irritating edges been smoothed off Llewellyn's personality since he and Maureen had got together, but, as a bonus, all his Ma's considerable matchmaking talents had been concentrated away from him.
Pleased at his dexterous handling of the situation, Rafferty spared his reflection in the driving mirror a brief congratulatory glance. Two and a half years after being widowed, he was just beginning to savour his freedom, and he was very keen to keep it that way. Beside him in the passenger seat his sergeant was getting restless in spite of the welcome breeze brought by the car's movement.
'About this present, sir,' Llewellyn began, after another contemplative five minutes. Unlike Rafferty, he wasn't a man for impulsive reactions. 'What do you think I ought to get?'
'Call me Joe, for God's sake,' Rafferty commanded. Llewellyn's constant "sirring" got on his nerves. He hadn't bothered to get on first name terms before because, although he had been happy to discover that the Welshman was very close-mouthed, he had still harboured doubts about their partnership. But, in many ways, he realised, they made a good team. Odd, perhaps, but better than he'd expected.
And it would almost be worth welcoming him into the Rafferty clan to see the invariably neat and precise Welshman at one of the family's hooleys, jacket off, tie under his ear, as he leapt about with the rest, a half pint of the water of life whooshing around inside him. Rafferty smiled inwardly and permitted himself another piece of advice. 'I'd send her a bunch of flowers, Dafyd,' he counselled confidently, as he drove into the Shores' entrance. 'Can't go wrong with flowers.'
