The Scent of Death--A Sukey Reyholds British police procedural (19 page)

‘We've already come to the conclusion that he was attacked,' Sukey reminded her. ‘All we're waiting for is the precise cause of death. Going back to what we've learned about Rainbird this afternoon, I think Barbara was trying to sell us the idea that Rainbird's private life might be worth investigating.'

‘If that's the case, why didn't she say so?'

‘Perhaps it's because she's got someone in mind but isn't sure. If it got around that she'd been spreading false rumours she might lose her job.'

‘Well, he's a free agent so there's no reason why he shouldn't have a bit of nookie if he wants to,' said Vicky. ‘I wonder if it was Luke Grayson's wife?' she added mischievously. ‘Probably not – in any case, she was celebrating her Mum's birthday the day after he died so it would have been difficult to look cheerful if her lover had just popped his clogs. Still, that was Saturday and I don't suppose the news had reached the firm by then. Do you think we should check Luke's alibi?'

‘Now you're winding me up,' said Sukey with a touch of exasperation.

‘Sorry, only kidding.' Vicky grinned. ‘Let's get back to the car; I think it'd be a good idea to get out of London before the rush hour.'

‘If you say so. I was hoping to do a bit of window shopping, but …'

‘No time for that,' said Vicky firmly.

‘OK, Sarge.'

The traffic on the motorway was moving freely and they were back at headquarters shortly after seven. Rathbone had left a message informing the team that the post-mortem on Lance Rainbird had revealed no alcohol or toxic substance in his body and no evidence of a condition that might have caused loss of balance or a dizzy spell. Death was due to drowning, but before entering the water he had suffered one or possibly two blows to the back of the head. There were traces of sawdust in the wound, which appeared to have been inflicted by some kind of blunt instrument.

‘I guess for “blunt instrument” we can read “chunk of timber”,' said Sukey.

‘Well, we'd already figured that out as a possible cause of the injuries,' said Vicky, ‘but we still can't be sure they were the result of a deliberate attack. He could have slipped, fallen heavily backwards on to a lump of wood, did it again in his struggles to get up and then went slithering down the bank in a semi-conscious state and into the water.'

‘And we've already thought of that scenario,' Sukey sighed.

‘So just suppose,' Vicky went on, ‘that Sir and Mr Leach decide to charge Justin Freeman with murder, the motive being fear of exposure at having made false claims about his qualifications. I don't know what you think, but I doubt if the CPS would allow the case to get to court. And even if it did, any barrister worth their salt could have shown – as we've done – that it was possible for Rainbird to have sustained his injuries by accident.'

‘So without further evidence, there's no case against Freeman,' said Sukey. ‘Not that I ever really thought he did it anyway, and after meeting him it's more than just a hunch.'

‘Do you still think Rainbird's death could have been an accident, then?'

Sukey shook her head. ‘On the contrary, I'm convinced he was attacked and left unconscious in the water to drown. Someone had a grudge against him. The trouble is we know so little about him.'

‘So what do you suggest we do about it?' Vicky persisted. ‘I can't see Sir granting us another day's leave to go to London to probe into Rainbird's social life. Mr Ashman didn't seem to know anything about what he did in his spare time; on the contrary he described him as a very private individual. That goes some way to confirming what Barbara said – although he didn't work in the same office so he wouldn't have picked up anything the women said about Lance's sexy voice and so on.'

‘I guess we'd better do our reports on today's interviews and then go home,' said Sukey. ‘It will be interesting to see what Sir's reaction is when he reads them. If you're right and he insists we keep digging for evidence against Freeman perhaps we should poke around in
his
private life.' Privately, she was working on another idea that had just come to her – an idea she was not prepared to share with Vicky for the moment, and certainly not with DI Rathbone.

When Sukey reached home she found a message from Harry. ‘Where have you been? I'm pining for a sight of you,' he said. ‘Please call.'

She picked up the phone and punched in his number. ‘It's only been a couple of days since we saw each other,' she said.

‘So what? I want to see you every day. What about now? Have you eaten yet? Dad and Freddie have suddenly decided to fly up to Scotland to meet some friends for a few days' golf so I'm languishing here alone. Shall we go out, or how about a take away?'

‘I'd rather eat in if you don't mind. I've got plenty of stuff in the freezer; I'll take something out and we can have a drink while it's defrosting. It so happens I was going to call you anyway. There's something I want to talk to you about.'

‘With you in no time.'

He arrived within five minutes. His first words, when he was free to speak, were ‘Are you
very
hungry?' He nuzzled her ear. ‘How about defrosting whatever it is on the lowest, slowest setting?'

‘Not all that hungry,' she whispered. ‘The defrosting can wait.'

An hour or so later, when they were in the kitchen with a glass of wine while a casserole defrosted in the microwave, he said, ‘You said you wanted to talk to me about something.'

‘I want to run an idea past you.'

He was instantly alert. ‘Something tells me you need my help on the Dallington Manor murders. Ah, I see I'm right,' he added, noticing her raised eyebrows. ‘It's been obvious for days that your enquiries have run into the sand. DI Rathbone's pet suspect hasn't been charged yet and the body count is rising. What do you want me to do? My investigative skills are at your disposal.'

‘Harry, you're absolutely right, we're getting nowhere. The PM result has only confirmed what we already knew and potential witnesses are dying off like flies. All DI Rathbone can think of is looking for more evidence against Freeman, but the more Vicky and I ferret around, the more I'm convinced that he didn't kill Lance Rainbird or either of the others. Harry, you will swear to treat what I'm going to ask you to do – and anything you manage to dig up – as completely off the record until I give you the go ahead to tell your editor.'

‘You know you can trust me,' he said, putting a hand over hers. ‘What do you have in mind?'

‘You mentioned a few days ago that you'd be covering the trial of the six people who've been accused of running a cannabis farm in a Gloucestershire village.'

‘That's right – the case against them opens tomorrow. It'll probably last for days and my boss has decided it'll be cheaper for me to stay in a B and B during the week rather than drive to town and back each day and charge mileage. But I don't understand your interest – surely you don't think Rainbird's killer is somehow mixed up in the cannabis farm case?'

‘No, of course I don't. It's just that I was wondering if while you're in town you could find time to do a spot of research for me.'

‘What kind of research?'

‘We know very little about Rainbird's background. He wasn't exactly a social animal; something of a loner in fact, and it's been suspected that he had some kind of personality disorder although another suggestion is that he had some traumatic experience as a child. We do know that he was what someone described as “a devout atheist” who'd been accused of blasphemy by one of his colleagues, who's a committed Christian. What we – Vicky and I – found particularly interesting is that one of his female colleagues describes him as “sexy in an odd sort of way”, and one or two witnesses mentioned that he had what one of them described as a “mellifluous” speaking voice.'

‘You're wondering if he had a love life and you want me to do a little poking around for you. I take it he lived in London?'

‘Yes, in Richmond. He owned quite a large house there; it was pretty run down and he managed to get a bank loan and have it renovated and divided into flats. He lived in one of them and the rest are let.'

‘That suggests he was quite well off,' said Harry. ‘You mentioned colleagues, so I presume he had a full-time job as well?'

‘He worked for a very well known firm of accountants. He'd been with them for five years and one of the partners, it seems, took him under his wing and acted as his financial adviser.'

‘What's the name of the firm?'

‘I don't think you need to know that,' said Sukey. ‘We've visited their head office and spoken to the people who knew him. As far as DI Rathbone is concerned there's nothing further to be gained from any further enquiries there and I don't think for a moment that he'd authorize another trip to London to probe into Rainbird's social life. All he's interested in is getting evidence to support his case against Justin Freeman.'

‘Who, I take it, you don't think is the killer?'

‘No I don't, but it seems obvious I'm the only one who believes his version of events.'

‘Which is?'

‘Sorry, you don't need to know that either.'

‘You're not giving me much to go on,' Harry grumbled. ‘I take it I can claim expenses if I undertake your commission?' he added.

She punched his arm and then gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘I'll pay you in kind,' she whispered. ‘Will you do it? It might lead to the biggest scoop of your career.'

‘With such an inducement, how could I refuse?'

‘You're a star.'

‘I'm a very hungry star,' he complained. Surely that casserole must be ready by now.'

She jumped to her feet. ‘Of course – I was forgetting. Give me a few minutes to cook the vegetables.'

There was very little conversation over the meal. When they had finished, Harry said, ‘Are you working next weekend?'

‘No, it's my weekend off. Why?'

‘Come to London and spend it with me. We can do some sleuthing together – when we're not otherwise engaged.'

O
n Thursday morning Rathbone, together with DS Vicky Armstrong and DCs Sukey Reynolds, Mike Haskins and Tim Pringle, were summoned to DCI Leach's office.

‘No prizes for guessing what this is about,' Leach began when they were all assembled. ‘Dallington Manor; we seem to be getting nowhere with this case so treat this as a brainstorming session. I've received all your reports; I know they've been circulated round the team and I hope you've got all the details at your fingertips, but just to bring everyone up to speed I'll run over the story so far. Come in and sit down everyone,' he added with a touch of impatience as the group stood in a cluster just inside the door.

When they were all settled, Leach resumed. ‘I spent most of yesterday reading and rereading your reports,' he began. ‘Nothing jumped out at me, but it's obvious we're missing something. Of the three deaths that occurred over the weekend, only one – that of the young waiter Reg Law – was unmistakably murder. We suspect that Lance Rainbird's death was not an accident, but the PM didn't throw up anything to either confirm or kill off our suspicions and our enquiries seem to have run into the sand. As to the fatal accident to John Grayson's van; it's been established that it was caused by the brakes failing on a particularly dangerous stretch of road because the pipe carrying the brake fluid had become detached, but we don't know if it came adrift by accident or was due to sabotage. Is everyone with me so far?'

There was a general nodding of heads and replies of ‘Yes, sir.'

‘We have established that Justin Freeman does not in fact possess the qualifications – namely degrees from certain American universities – that he claims on his prospectus. He eventually admitted under questioning that Lance Rainbird, who we know had an Open University degree in music in addition to his Oxford degree in maths, had discovered this fact and tackled him about it. It was put to him that Rainbird threatened to expose him as a fraud unless he paid substantial sums of money to keep quiet and that he killed him rather than submit to blackmail. He strongly denied the accusation but admitted that Rainbird had demanded, at a pre-arranged meeting in the hotel grounds, that he remove the bogus degrees from his prospectus and he'd agreed to do that. He also admitted that Rainbird wanted something else in return but he refused at first to say what it was. Eventually, under further pressure from DI Rathbone, he offered what was obviously a hastily thought-up story to account for the fact that Rainbird had requested a clandestine meeting.

‘We later learned that Rainbird had very strong views about religion which caused conflict between him and a colleague. Vicky and Sukey followed up this aspect of his character and uncovered the fact that he and John Grayson's brother Luke were colleagues and that it was with Luke Grayson that Rainbird had some very heated arguments. It became evident that Grayson had been less than frank during earlier interviews so Vicky and Sukey made an appointment to see him at his office. Acting on one of Sukey's famous hunches –' a brief smile flitted over Leach's features and he gave a sidelong glance in Sukey's direction – ‘she and Vicky called in to see Freeman on their way to interview Luke Grayson. What Freeman said in response to their questions added very little to what we already knew about Rainbird, but since that visit Sukey has experienced further doubts about Freeman's guilt. Would you like to add anything to that, Sukey?'

‘Not really sir, except to say that I was probably the only person to give some credence to Freeman's story when he first told it, although I didn't mention my doubts about his guilt to DI Rathbone at the time. My son did a degree in Business Studies; from time to time we discussed various topics covered by his course and one of them was taxation. I'm not claiming to be an expert, but it did seem to me that Freeman's account was at least feasible. And when we visited him at his home his manner was very frank and open; he didn't exactly apologize for his outbursts during his interviews but he did say he understood why he was a suspect while insisting that he had nothing to do with Rainbird's death.'