***
Rafferty popped his head round the door of his office. 'I've got to go out again. Some checking up to do,' he explained quickly, shutting the door behind him before Llewellyn could offer to come with him. This was one task he wanted to see to by himself.
And once he’d got Jailhouse Jack sorted out, he would have to try to persuade Superintendent Bradley to sanction the funds for DNA tests on Linda Wilks’s foetus and the male suspects in the case. He wasn’t optimistic that he’d get Bradley to agree—he wasn’t called “Long Pockets” for nothing.
He turned into the car park at the Harcombe police station, ready, if not wholly willing, to do his familial duty. But as he knew he'd never hear the end of it if he didn't at least make the attempt, he gritted his teeth and put a good face on it.
'Morning, Tom,' he greeted the desk sergeant with false bonhomie in an attempt to cover his awkwardness. 'I rang earlier about a fellow called Jack Delaney. The constable who answered the phone told me he'd been charged and was back in the cells on remand. I'd like a word with him.'
'Oh yes?' The sergeant eased his bulk off the counter and looked at Rafferty with interest. 'I didn't know you were involved in this case, Inspector. You know Brown's back from that case up north and has taken over the investigation?'
Rafferty hadn't, and now he swore silently. The desk sergeant whistled and obtained the services of the nearest constable to escort Rafferty down to the cells. 'Brown's in his office,' the sergeant told him slyly. 'You'll want to see him, of course. Out of courtesy, like.'
'Of course,' Rafferty muttered, trying to stop himself from glaring at his persecutor. In his late forties, the desk sergeant was only hanging on for his pension. He knew all about the little feud between Rafferty and Rick Brown, and, having long since given up on getting beyond the rank of sergeant, it amused him to pass the years till retirement fomenting trouble amongst his superiors, the "clever young buggers", as he called them. He wasn't partisan; he despised them all without particularity.
Affecting an air of unconcern, Rafferty said, 'I'll see chummy first,' and followed the constable down to the cells. Before he'd learned that Brown was in charge of the case, he'd still had a faint hope of emerging from the station with his pure policeman image virgo intacta. But once he discovered their distant family ties, Brown would plunder his most secret cranny with all the finesse of a mad rapist. Rafferty knew well enough that Rick Brown was still looking for an opportunity to get his own back and here he was with no choice but to present it to him, gift-wrapped.
The constable unlocked the door of the cell and let Rafferty in, banging the door shut behind him. Luckily, Jack waited till then to express his joy at their reunion, leaping to his feet as relief chasing the worry from his face. 'Long time no see, Jar. Sure an' you're a sight for sore eyes. Are they lettin' me go then?'
'No. Not yet.'
The expression on Jack's face was that of one whose trust had been irretrievably shattered. 'But Deirdre said… I thought you'd come to get me out,' he reproached. 'What's goin' on?'
If it hadn't been for Jack's fiancée, Rafferty’s cousin, Deirdre, a sensible girl who didn't deserve such a husband, he wouldn't have bothered his head about his gormless relative’s fate. But he consoled himself with the thought that Jack was taking his bride back to Dublin with him after the wedding. It could be worse. 'Why don't you tell me all about it, ‘he encouraged now.
With a face as deceptively blameless as a choirboy's, Jack chorused in his peculiar high-pitched voice, 'They're fitting me up, Jar, I didn't do it, as God's me witness.'
'Let's save God for the real witness-box, shall we?' Rafferty suggested tightly, annoyed by Jack's use of his old childhood nickname. 'I'm sure he's got enough on his plate at the moment worrying about your nuptials. Right. Where and when is the crime of the century supposed to have taken place and what were you doing at the time?'
'It was last Friday night, way over near Colchester. But I wasn't anywhere near there.'
Rafferty's drooping head jerked up at this. 'You mean the night of the murder?'
'Was that the same night?' Jack grinned, his troubles evidently forgotten. 'Well, well, you were kept busy then, one way and another. Poor old Jar. Still,' he added airily, 'if you will join the pigs you've only yourself to blame.'
Rafferty looked pityingly at him. The eejit didn't even have the nous to keep his usual insults to himself. Now he said flatly, 'If you want this particular pig to squeak in your defence, you'd better remember your manners.'
The tactlessness of his remark must even have penetrated Jack's thick skull, for he murmured, 'Sorry, Joseph,' in a suitably chastened manner. 'Slip of the tongue.'
'Try not to have any more,' Rafferty advised, 'or there's a good chance I might have a slip of the foot and slide right back out that door, leaving you this side of it. Wedding or no wedding. Now,' he sat down on the thin mattress, 'why don't we make ourselves comfortable? Then you can tell me the rest.'
'I didn't do it, Joe, honest, I didn't. Admittedly, the money would have come in useful for the honeymoon, but I was casin' a joint out at Elmhurst that night.'
'And that's your defence, is it?' Rafferty sighed. 'It won't do. It won't do at all. Let's start again. You were out for a walk on a particularly fine spring night…'
Surprisingly, Jack caught his drift. 'Right. I was out for this walk, like, me and Deirdre and—'
'Hold on, hold on. Let's get this straight. Do you usually take your fiancée out with you when you look over a likely prospect?' It seemed a strange thing to do, but then, with Jack, anything was possible, the dafter the better.
'It was only a general once-over,' Jack defended himself from the slur of unchivalrous behaviour. 'We'd been to the pub by the loony-bin. Deirdre knows the landlord and I fancied me chances of gettin' a late session.'
Rafferty's instincts went into overdrive at this. 'What time was this?' he demanded. 'What time did you leave the pub, I mean?'
Unnerved, Jack was, for a moment or two, incapable of getting his small vocabulary together, but at last he managed it. 'I dunno. About half eleven or thereabouts, I s'pose.' He pulled a face. 'Deirdre knocked the idea of afters on the head. Shame, as it was a good night, too. Anyhow, sure an' we was walkin' back up the road to where I'd left me car and—'
'You hadn't left it in the pub car park then?'
'Course not! Do you think I'm daft?' Rafferty forbore to comment. 'I'd had a few drinks, hadn't I? It was after hours and the landlord's late with his back-handers this month. Deirdre was worried the cops might pounce out of spite. You know how the bastards…' Jack's voice trailed away and a sheepish grin decorated his face. 'Sorry,' he mumbled. 'Anyway, the car was up the road, across the way from the madhouse on that patch of waste ground.'
Rafferty broke in. 'Why didn't you tell the police you'd been in the pub with a bar-full of witnesses at the time someone was ripping off the lorry?'
'I told you,' he explained patiently. 'It was after hours. I'd have got them all in shtook, wouldn't I?'
Apparently Jack's capacity for making instant friends hadn't changed either. He thought the whole world was his bosom buddy.
'I'd a still been there meself, only Deirdre kept on at me till I agreed to leave.'
Rafferty reminded himself that he was related to this cretinous individual, even if only distantly, and counted to ten before he allowed himself to reply. 'I see. So in your opinion, it's better to go down for another five stretch than to nark on your mates for after-hours drinking?' It wasn't as if they'd been that much over time, but perhaps his cousin had a point. Back-handers were a way of life and some of the uniformed branch could be most unpleasant about any delay in receiving their dues.
Jack nodded, quite impervious to the sarcasm. 'That's right. I'll tell you somethin' else, an' all. Deirdre said I'd 'ad enough to drink – you know how women do – anyway, when I saw the bleedin' monk I thought she might 'ave a point. Perhaps I ought to lay orf it for a bit. What do you th
ink?'
'Monk? What monk was this then? Friar Tuck?' Rafferty was beginning to wonder if the low-wattage light bulb of his cousin's intelligence hadn't finally flickered out altogether.
'I dunno,' Jack answered in all seriousness. 'He 'ad his hood over 'is 'ead. I only saw 'im for a second. Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. Thought I was gettin’ them whatdoyoumacallits—the DTs'.
Rafferty decided to humour him. 'This monk,' he asked patiently, 'where did he go?'
'Into the nut-house.'
Rafferty didn't believe it. It couldn't be happening. Surely God wasn't so kind as to reward his good deed with such charity? Could it be, was it possibly—a lead? He felt a taut shiver of awe run up his spine as he looked at Jack's vacant features. What was it the bible said? Something about the least of his creatures? Out of the mouths of babes and the simple-minded? Llewellyn would know, of course, but Rafferty had no intention of bringing him into this little tête-à-tête.
Careful, Rafferty warned himself, as he felt the urge to grab hold of Jack and shake him. Don't spook the witness. Take it nice and slow. 'You didn't, by any chance happen to see a car parked outside the hospital gate as well did you, Jack?'
'A car?'
'You know, one of those painted jobs with a wheel on each corner,' he enlarged sarcastically, saintly patience quickly forgotten.
Jack's mouth dropped open. 'How did you know that? Bloody 'ell. You're smart and no mistake.'
Rafferty smiled smugly. 'I try. Any idea what make it was?'
'Can't remember.' Jack gave a sheepish shrug. 'I'd just come out of the pub, remember? One of those sleek jobs though. I'm thinkin' of getting one meself,' he added.
Stealing one, more like, thought Rafferty. 'Get a glimpse of the licence plate, did you?'
Jack shook his head again.
But it wouldn't have made any difference if he had. Rafferty had nearly forgotten that eleven years of schooling had failed to teach Jack even the rudiments of the alphabet. Perhaps Deirdre would know.
'You've been lucky, Jack,' he told him, as he stood up and knocked on the cell door. 'I'll tell the inspector your story myself; it'll save Deirdre the trouble.'
If he'd known his cousin had been with his girlfriend that night, he could have saved himself the unpleasantness of sorting it out. Women, he generally found, didn't worry overmuch about the shamefulness of snitching. Practical creatures, women.
Still, he'd done himself a bit of good as well as Jack, so he shouldn't complain. 'You'll be out of here in an hour or two, I shouldn't wonder.' Ebullient, he nearly told Jack he could buy him a pint when he got out, but stopped himself in time. That wouldn't be such a good idea, he realised. The fewer people who saw them together, the better he'd like it.
The constable let him out and Rafferty walked thoughtfully back up the corridor. He stopped abruptly as his mind strove manfully to connect the tenuous strands of the case to the latest information. There was something, some glimmer of a connection. Was it, no wait a minute, could it be—? Something heavy lurched against his shoulder.
'Sorry Inspector.'
The constable grinned apologetically for his clumsiness and walked swiftly away as Rafferty scowled ferociously at his back. Whatever his mind had been reaching for was gone. A few seconds before he had felt puffed up, good deed for the day performed and smug with the self-righteousness of the properly rewarded. Now he felt horribly deflated.
Slowly, reluctantly, he walked towards Rick Brown's office. But at least he wouldn't have to admit to a delighted Brown that Jack was his relative. Just checking out a possible witness in a murder case, wasn't he? And he had a whole bar full of drinkers to back him up.