Love Lies Bleeding (24 page)

Jonas Singleton had made clear that, as trustee, he felt no inclination to shield the younger Raine cousin or any other family member should any of them turn out to have had a hand in Raymond's death. In fact, he had gone out of his way to fully explain Mike's position both before and after Raymond's death.

Understandable if Mike had felt bitter about the unfairness of his situation as the junior partner. Had he decided he would prefer to be top dog, and set about murdering Raymond in order to achieve it?

But if he had, why on earth hadn't he made a proper job of the planning? The way he had just blurted out the thoughtless lie about not knowing who Raymond's solicitor was was surely more indicative of panicked innocence? Besides, he'd put up with his cousin lording it over him for more than two years. So what had changed?

Mike was twenty-seven and was not only unmarried but without a partner of any sort. In fact, their questioning of Jonas Singleton had revealed that Mike Raine lived alone. Yet, in spite of this and the fact that he had no girlfriend there had been no hint that he had homosexual leanings, which was something Rafferty had wondered about, given that the rag trade was largely run by homosexuals.

Jonas Singleton, he recalled, had let slip that Mike would make sure Felicity was looked after financially. And as he thought of Felicity's haunting beauty, he wondered if
she
was the catalyst for change. Did Mike have leanings in that direction?

Certainly, to Rafferty, Mike's evident concern for Felicity's financial well-being indicated a degree of tenderness. And now, if he suspected that Felicity
had
killed Raymond, Mike, at last about to take what he must regard as his proper place in the firm, had even more reason to feel tender towards the woman who might well have made that rise possible.

Could Felicity and Mike together have conspired to bring about Raymond's death and Mike's inheritance? Having failed to provide Raymond with the heir to the Raine kingdom Felicity might have thought that throwing in her lot with his successor might be a good idea. If Mike had a yen for Felicity and if his feelings were reciprocated, they could provide him with an additional motive to the basic, business one, to remove Raymond. And with Raymond gone, who knew to what — or whom — else Mike might aspire?

If only Felicity, as though determined to sacrifice herself to some savage god, hadn't made that hasty confession. Because although, as he had prophesied right at the beginning of the case, she had soon been persuaded to retract, that confession had coloured and influenced his conduct of the case right from the start when she had stumbled into the police station reception in her bloodied dress, soaked to the skin and, in a voice that made clear she could hardly herself believe that she had done the deed, told them she had just killed her husband.

From recollecting the recently discovered Raine family history, Rafferty was dragged back to the present by the still-cool voice of the receptionist.

‘Mr Raine is free now,’ she told them. You may go up and he will meet you at the lift on the sixth floor as before.’

The
receptionist had failed to mention that Mike had removed himself from his smaller office to his late cousin's much larger corner suite.

The phrase ‘dead men's shoes’ ran through Rafferty's mind as they followed Mike into the plush office with its own private bathroom and settled in the informal seating area rather than around the desk. Was this an attempt to disarm them? Rafferty wondered as he again mused on what explanation Mike Raine would come up with for lying to them. For all his boyish looks and seeming openness, the lie had exposed Raine as a man ready to deceive. It made Rafferty wonder just what treachery might be concealed beneath that youthful exterior.

Mike Raine interrupted his thoughts. ‘Your sergeant didn't say exactly why you needed to speak to me again, inspector.’

‘Did he not? I'm sorry. It was a simple matter really. I would like you to explain something to me.’

Mike Raine shrugged. ‘If I can.’

Rafferty thought it was likely to be more a case of whether he
would
and whether his explanation would be the truth. ‘It's a perfectly simple matter,’ he said, ‘though one that has intrigued both Sergeant Llewellyn here and myself since we discovered it. We would like to know why you lied to us.’

Mike blinked.
‘Lied
to you? I don't understand. Lied about what, exactly?’

‘You told my sergeant when he telephoned you that you didn't know the name of your cousin's solicitor.’

Mike Raine stared at him. ‘Is that all?’ — as though he had feared Rafferty was going to refer to something else entirely. Then he recollected himself and asked, ‘Did I?’

‘Yes, you did. I'd like an explanation.’

Mike stared at him. Then he began a rapid blinking while his eyes darted all around the room. For a moment, Rafferty thought the man was going to make a bolt for the door. But then he got a grip and visibly calmed himself.

‘I can't imagine why I would do such a thing.’

Rafferty could – if Mike
had
murdered his cousin, he might have welcomed the delay such a lie would cause while he thought his actions through further. Yet Rafferty had to admit that the delay — given his ready admission to having no alibi, which, fortunately for him, had been readily contradicted by his secretary — had gained him little. The receptionist-cum-fill-in-secretary was clearly a far from disinterested party. Rafferty had the feeling she would have sworn the moon was made of green cheese if it would get Mike Raine out from under.

‘I'm sorry,’ Mike said. ‘I really don't know why I said such a thing. I don't even remember doing so, but I accept that I must have.’

‘Yes, Mr Raine. You did. We have, of course, since learned that you and your late cousin shared the same solicitor.’

Mike Raine shrugged. ‘Well, yes. Of course we do. I can't have been thinking straight, inspector, or even listening straight for that matter, after the shocking news your sergeant gave me. Besides’ — he smiled his disarming boyish smile -‘what difference can all this make now? You have Felicity's confession that
she
killed Raymond. Poor Felicity.’ He looked at them with an expression of bewilderment. ‘Who'd have thought little Fliss would do such a thing? It's hard to make sense of it. I don't know what to think any more. I simply don't know what to make of it.’

‘Snap,’ Rafferty felt like saying. Only pride and professional prudence required that he keep his tongue discreet. It wouldn't do for any of the suspects to know how far at sea he felt, nor that, rather than swimming for the shore, he felt increasingly as if some powerful undertow was at work which was sending him further towards deep water with each movement he made.

Fortunately, Mike seemed oblivious to Rafferty's inner turmoil.

‘And although I feel dreadfully sorry for her if she was so unhappy that she resorted to murder, I don't understand why you're continuing the investigation. Unless — unless—?’ Mike paused, then the rest came out in a rush. ‘Unless you think she had an accomplice?’

As Rafferty didn't choose to satisfy his curiosity on the matter, Mike's gaze swivelled searchingly between him and Llewellyn. And although the office was cool, sweat broke out on his forehead. Then his gaze slid away from them and fixed on a point beyond them. For a few brief seconds, Mike looked as if he might burst into tears. Was he imagining losing what had taken him so long to acquire?

If he was, he chose to follow Rafferty's example. With a smile, he said, ‘I admit the thought of being Felicity's partner in anything is a very attractive one, but I'm afraid I must disappoint. Unfortunately, the divine Felicity never put such a proposition before me.’

The recovery had been swift. Rafferty wondered if he had imagined that moment's blind panic that had frozen Mike Raine's mobile face. Had he really just clutched at the opportunity to delay their investigation, as Rafferty believed? And was he now using his shock at the news of Raymond's murder as an excuse for his earlier information failure?

If he felt he had need of such a delay it could indicate that Mike had had some involvement in his cousin's murder. And if he one day had a child, he stood to benefit from Raymond's death more than anyone. Certainly more than Felicity — who had lost everything, even her home and her freedom. Yet why had she made that confession?

Rafferty was beginning to feel that both he and the case were going round in circles of the ever-decreasing sort. If he wasn't careful, he'd disappear up his own fundament.

Although Mike had freely confessed to having no alibi, he seemed untroubled by this, or that the one belatedly supplied for him wasn't entirely unprejudiced and still left him placed in an invidious position. Rafferty decided that troubling Mike Raine might be a good idea. It might help him get to the truth.

‘By the way …’ He wondered what Mike's reaction would be when he told him that Felicity had retracted her confession. He thought it might startle Mike into some unwise revelation and he studied his face closely as he said, ‘Were you aware that Mrs Felicity Raine has retracted her confession?’

Clearly, he hadn't known. For a fleeting moment, before the shutters came down, Rafferty had caught the sudden fear in Mike Raine's eyes. Though whether the fear was brought about by guilt, or by anxiety that his convenient alibi would make him of more interest to the police than he might have hoped to be before the retraction, wasn't clear.

‘So you see, the investigation is now wide open. We shall, of course, need to look deeper into all the alibis given to us and consider all the possible motives, of which yours, you must admit, looks pretty strong — financial gain and increased power are two of the prime motivations for murder. And you possess both of them.’

Maybe, if, as Rafferty suspected, Mike had also lusted after Raymond's wife, they would have the grand slam of motives in the one suspect. Though, against that, was the knowledge that Felicity had failed to confide in Mike about either her confession
or
its retraction. He couldn't help but wonder why this was.

‘There's one other matter that I wanted to speak to you about.’ Rafferty turned the screw. ‘Since we last spoke to you we've learned that you felt your cousin had unfairly deprived you of your full share in the business. That would be enough to make any man angry and want to do something about it. Was that the effect it had on you, Mr Raine?’

For a moment, Mike said nothing. Then he conceded that his ill-luck
had
angered him.

‘Of course it did. Naturally, I wanted what should have been mine — what
would
have been mine but for my late father's last illness and the sudden and unexpected death of my uncle. Wouldn't any man? That's why I came in early on the morning he died. I thought if I forced Raymond to at least acknowledge my industry and that I was an asset to the firm he might relent and agree to let me have back what in the normal course of events would have been mine by right — the ten per cent of the business which would have brought me up to a full fifty per cent share.’

Rafferty found Mike's explanation less than convincing. From what he had so far learned of Raymond Raine, giving others what they considered their due didn't immediately strike him as being in character. He was, if what Elaine Enderby and Sandrine Agnew said were true, not simply a jealous wife beater but a secretive man who kept things close to his chest and who didn't voluntarily give up the things he considered his possessions. The late Raymond Raine struck Rafferty as likely to possess a ruthless streak that he doubted the younger Mike could have matched, especially when it came to an ego contest about who made the greater contribution to the family firm.

In fact, he felt Mike's determination to take the confrontational approach would, with Raymond, have been the worst possible way to go about getting his ‘rights'. And Mike must surely have realised that? He had presumably known the older man all his life and must have had regular exposure to his cousin's determined personality. So what, he wondered, had been different about that particular morning that he believed he would be in with a chance of persuading his cousin to do the ‘right’ thing?

He asked Mike the question, but Mike simply smiled that winning smile of his again, the peevish look that had made a fleeting appearance now gone, and replied that he had no particular reason — apart from natural justice and the proper rewarding of those who increased the firm's profits — for thinking that Raymond would see things his way.

‘Anyway,’ Mike continued, ‘you seemed interested to know if I was the one who murdered him. In my defence, as you must also know, I'd worked with Raymond for several years and managed to resist any temptation you seem to think I might have had to kill him. Why would I have chosen to kill him now? Nothing had changed.’

‘I don't know, Mr Raine,’ Rafferty told him. ‘But if you did, I'll not rest till I find out the whys and wherefores.’ He stood up. ‘We'll see ourselves out.’

As
Rafferty returned to the car park with Llewellyn, he asked, ‘Still no theories you'd like to share with me?’ Llewellyn, never one to rush in with an unconsidered comment, pondered for several seconds before he remarked, ‘Only the one.
Cherchez la femme.`

‘Not still harping on that theory? It seems to me there are far too many
femmes
in this case already, without looking for any more.’

As they drove back to the station in their separate cars, Rafferty mentally reviewed the means, motives and opportunities of each of the suspects in the investigation. And as he did so, for the first time he began to see a pattern emerging.

But then he was brought up short at the realisation that the pattern he thought he saw lacked one vital factor. Without that one element, the pattern collapsed.

The following morning,
when Rafferty, with Llewellyn hard on his heels, entered the police-station reception, it was to learn from Bill Beard on the desk that he had visitors.