Love Lies Bleeding (17 page)

Yes, the flat looked beautiful; even Nigel, his upwardly mobile estate-agent cousin, would be unable to find much to sneer at now. But without Abra in it, it felt empty, soulless and unhappy; much like me, thought Rafferty.

And as he recalled Stephanie Raine's taunts, he felt even more unhappy and slammed his glass down on the coffee table.

OK, he told himself, you have doubts that Felicity Raine did for her old man. Justifiable doubts, no matter what Llewellyn or the vengeful Stephaine Raine might have to say to the contrary. You're the man in charge, so you have to check them out, even if that means upsetting Abra, the applecart and whatever —
whoever
— else would be more than happy to see Felicity Raine conveniently tried and convicted.

It may well be that your brain — and other parts — are beguiled by her beauty. But even if they are and she's as guilty as hell, one of the first rules of a murder investigation is to find out about the victim. No matter what Stephanie Raine might have implied, it was still good police procedure to check out the victim and see if there might be anyone else — other than his wife — who might have had it in for Raymond Raine. And they
had
found others, several others, in fact, all with more than enough reason to wish him dead.

Apart from Michael and Stephanie Raine, who both stood to gain financially from Raymond's death, Llewellyn had also found another strong possibility in the cuckolded Peter Dunbar. And, for all they knew, there might be others whom Raymond Raine had treated badly. After all, not only had the Raines’ neighbour and Sandrine Agnew, Felicity's friend, told them they suspected he beat Felicity, but Raymond had also hung on to what his cousin, Mike Raine, undoubtedly regarded as his rightful equal share in the family business. Ray Raine's behaviour to these two most important people in his life — his wife and his business-partner cousin — gave rise to the possibility that there were others to whom he had acted with a less than generous heart.

Maybe he ought to set his Welsh bloodhound to sniffing out the existence of more cuckolded husbands, resentful business colleagues or frustrated, lust-filled women of mature years who might have yearned after Raymond, as he suspected Stephanie had done? If he did so, he might just uncover something that would either get Felicity Raine out from under altogether, or prove her guilt once and for all.

With that thought to sustain him, Rafferty headed for his empty bed. He had just climbed between the cold sheets when, from the living room of his flat, he heard his mobile ring out. His heart started hammering with expectation as he asked himself who would be likely to ring him at this hour, who but the station — or Abra?

The thought caused him to leap out of bed and race for the phone.

Rafferty snatched up
the mobile and said, ‘Hello,’ he felt flooded with a feeling of euphoria that Abra had at last remembered his existence. Just don't sound pathetic, he reminded himself as he spoke her name.

‘Abra, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘What's happening?’ In spite of his resolution of only seconds ago, he found himself demanding, plaintively, ‘Why haven't you rung me? I thought—’ He stopped abruptly.

‘Thought what?’ Abra immediately asked.

‘Nothing. It's not important. You've rung now and that's all that matters.’ He would rather Abra remained unaware of what he
had
thought … He was only too conscious how much she hated it when his insecurities surfaced.

‘I’m sorry I haven't managed to ring you before now, but you wouldn't believe the time I've had with Gloria. And I forgot to bring my mobile charger in the rush to get up here and Gloria's been in such a state that I didn't like to leave her to go into town to buy a replacement. Gloria doesn't have a phone in the house and she wouldn't let me ask the next-door neighbour if I could use hers. Anyway, it's taken me all this time, but I finally managed to persuade her that I really had to contact you and that in order to do so I needed to go shopping.’

It was on the tip of Rafferty's tongue to ask if she had never heard of public phone boxes, but he didn't want to start an argument, not now when she had finally rung him. Of course, Abra was younger than him, still in her twenties. He supposed it would never even occur to the mobile-besotted younger generation that such things as public phones were there to be
used
rather than just furnishing the street. The thought made him feel very old.

‘You've certainly been a woman of mystery lately,’ he remarked, striving for a lighter tone. ‘I was beginning to think I'd have to get the Welsh boyos in blue to track you down. So how's Gloria?’

‘Much the same. She's the reason I'm ringing, actually. Sorry it's so late. I hope I didn't wake you?’

‘No. I'd only just turned in. Another long day at the coalface.’ He again opted for the light tone, but this time it was the wrong choice as Abra immediately seized on his words.

‘You're still on the Felicity Raine case, I gather? I've been reading about it in the papers.’ She didn't wait for him to answer, but just added, ‘Then the late night figures.’

Rafferty recalled Abra's thoughtful expression as he had kissed her goodbye on the morning of the day she had left for Wales. Her feelings of antipathy towards Felicity Raine had grown overnight; he knew she thought his concern for the woman was bordering on the obsessive and he had been unable to convince her otherwise.

‘Funny that this Felicity Raine should turn out to be far from the innocent damsel in distress you imagined when you were gearing yourself up to be the valiant knight errant who freed her from captivity,’ she commented. ‘Tell me if I've got it wrong, Joe, only didn't she divorce her first husband and marry the second before the ink was dry on the divorce papers?’

Reluctantly, Rafferty confirmed it. T wouldn't believe everything you read in the papers, Abs. You know they always like to put the worst possible spin on things.’

‘Mm.’ She didn't sound convinced, he noticed. ‘And now she's charged with murdering the second husband.’

As Abra had, with some relish, pointed out, Felicity Raine was hardly the stuff that would-be knights errant would be likely to champion. Rafferty thought that was all the more reason for
him
to do so. But he had no desire to talk further about Felicity Raine, certainly not with Abra, and he hurried on before she could say anything else on the subject.

‘So, how are you? Have you managed to sort out your Aunt Gloria's little problem? When are you coming home?’

Abra laughed. But her laugh sounded strained to Rafferty's ears.

‘So many questions. The answers are: OK, no and I don't know, in that order.’

Her third answer caused Rafferty's previously hammering heart to receive what felt like a mortal blow. ‘You don't know? But—’

‘Let me explain, Joe. I promised Gloria I'd say nothing to you or Dafyd — or anyone else for that matter — but just before she went to bed tonight, she had a change of heart, about telling you, at least. The truth is Gloria's got a shoplifting charge hanging over her.’

‘What?’ Rafferty was too stunned by this revelation to say anything further for several seconds. Whatever else he might have been expecting — from Gloria signing up with a mature version of the Folies Bergères to Abra telling him it was over between them — he had never considered the possibility of the morally upright Dafyd Llewellyn's mother getting in trouble with the law.

Dafyd's widowed mother had married a Methodist minister and although she had been a dancer and a bit of a girl in her youth and was still an outgoing, people person, he had never thought her likely to cause her family any concerns of a criminal nature. That had always been
his
family's role …

‘So, what's she done, then?’ he asked. ‘Helped herself to some expensive jewellery?’

‘Hardly. She is a Methodist widow, remember? Though I can see it's a good job you're not going to be responsible for the case as it's clear you'd have her convicted before she could say, “It's a fit-up, Your Honour,’” Abra reproved him. ‘Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Or does that only apply to good-looking young women like Felicity Raine?

Before Rafferty could protest his own innocence, Abra went on. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘at least she's yet to be charged, though I think it's only a matter of time before that happens.’

Rafferty was too shocked to say anything else for the moment, which was perhaps just as well. It gave him the chance to gather his wits before he tactlessly blurted out something else that he shouldn't. ‘So how is she?’ he finally asked. ‘Is she OK?’

‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘When she's about to be charged with shoplifting and has my upright cousin Davy for a son? Of course she isn't OK.’ He heard her take a deep breath. ‘I'm sorry, Joe. I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just that I've been trying to cope with this on my own and it's been a bit of a strain. When I finally managed to replace my charger and Gloria put aside her scruples for long enough to borrow my recharged phone, I thought she was finally going to ring Dafyd, but not a bit of it. Instead, she rang your ma and had a long heart-to-heart with her about her arrest, though at that stage, she still refused to let
me
confide in anybody. But I finally managed to get her to agree that I could tell you. I think she's more upset and worried about Dafyd finding out about this than she is about the charge itself.’

‘Understandably.’ Worry about Dafyd finding out about criminal behaviour was something Rafferty could empathise with. ‘Poor Gloria. You've rung him now, though, surely? It wouldn't be right to keep it from him. How did he take it?’

‘He hasn't taken it one way or the other,’ Abra revealed. ‘He still doesn't know. And never will, if Gloria has her way.’

‘But surely she realises he'll find out sooner or later?’

‘I suppose she must, deep inside. How can she not? But at the moment, she's intent on burying her head in the sand. She refuses to let me ring him.’

Abra's voice lowered conspiratorially. ‘She's in a bit of a state, to be honest, Joe. She's been going through The Change and having a bad time of it. I wonder if that's what caused her to take the stuff from the supermarket. She's told me she's been sleeping poorly for weeks. She's been having these night sweats that wake her half a dozen times a night. And although she insists she's innocent of this shoplifting charge, she's admitted that she's been getting a bit forgetful and muddle-headed through tiredness. And then there's the video footage.’

‘Video
footage?’ Rafferty repeated.

‘Yes. She's bang to rights, Joe. I'm at my wits’ end to know what I can do. Unless a miracle happens, I don't think there's any doubt but that she'll be charged. And although Aunt Gloria insists she's technically innocent, that she didn't
intend
to steal, the police here seem to have no doubts. And Gloria keeping banging on that she's innocent isn't helping, to be honest. But in a way she's right. She
is
innocent. I'm convinced she's telling the truth when she says she didn't deliberately set out to take things without paying for them. She's just so tired with not sleeping. I don't think you could call it proper stealing. I don't know what to do, Joe. But I really can't come home yet. You do see that, don't you?’

Abra's voice wobbled and Rafferty, conscious of how badly he had let her down once already this year, and unwilling to do so again, put aside his personal anxieties and hurried to reassure her.

‘Of course I do, sweetheart. It sounds as if Gloria needs someone there for her right now. Your mother … ?’

‘She's away on holiday with Dad. Just about everyone in the family's away. It
is
August, after all. Besides, she doesn't want them to know about it either.’

‘Yet you said she's spoken to Ma about it?’

Abra confirmed it.

‘I wonder,’ he said. ‘What would she say if I got Ma to agree to travel up there — to add a bit more womanly support and all that? Might be just the ticket, and no one can say that Ma hasn't had occasion to learn something about the law and all its processes.’

At least as talented as his ma at ferreting out information, since they had been together Abra hadn't taken long to extract from Rafferty most of the juicy details of these learning processes.

‘It would certainly take some of the worry off me,’ Abra agreed. ‘Would she come, though?’

‘Oh, I think you can leave that to me,’ Rafferty promised airily. ‘I can be quite the persuader when I set my mind to it — I'm not Ma's blue-eyed boy for nothing.’

‘It's true that Aunt Gloria might listen to and be comforted more by an older woman,’ Abra murmured. ‘Whatever I say just seems to get her goat. As I said, there's video footage, so there doesn't seem much question but that once she
is
charged she'll be found guilty. God knows what she'll do if she really thinks Dafyd is likely to find out about it. Just make sure
you
don't let anything slip.’

‘Mum's the word,’ Rafferty agreed while he marvelled at the strange turns of the wheel of fate.

Dafyd Llewellyn had been strictly raised, on his minister father's insistence, with a staunchly moral outlook on life in which wrongdoing was never anything but wrong, and always deserved punishment.

Rafferty, with his own family's predilection for breaking laws they regarded as unimportant, had had several anxious episodes himself in keeping news of their actions from Llewellyn. It was ironic that he should now be charged—unfortunate word in the circumstances — with keeping news of
Llewellyn's
family's wrongdoing from him.

He sighed. He hated to be put in this position. He just hoped Dafyd never found out about it — or that his DI had known about it and said nothing to him.

Abra said she was tired; she had had another trying day and wanted her bed.

‘OK, love. But promise me you'll ring me around ten tomorrow morning at work?’

Abra promised.

‘l'll drop in on Ma first thing in the morning on the way to the station and exert my fabled charm to persuade her to travel up to Wales. Though I don't anticipate any problems. I know how much she likes Gloria. I'm sure she'll be only too pleased to provide whatever she can in the way of support.’ Rafferty paused, then said, ‘Blow me a kiss, Abra. You don't know how much I'm missing you, sweetheart.’