A Thrust to the Vitals Extract A Rafferty and Llewellyn Crime Novel

One

It was just another day, yet another murder inquiry. And then Rafferty's mobile rang. It
changed everything.

'JAR? That you?'

Detective Inspector Joseph Aloysius Rafferty immediately recognized his younger
brother Mickey's voice, even though it sounded a bit strange. 'What do you want,
Mickey? Now's not a good time.' Rafferty frowned as he watched the white-suited
forensics team bustle busily around him at the scene, their practised routine ensuring they
didn't get in one another's way even if he got in theirs.

It was one o'clock in the morning and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. The
last thing he needed right now was a phone call from a member of his family. A call at such
an hour was unlikely to herald good news. But Mickey was his brother, so he relented and
said, 'Come on, then. Spit it out. What can I do you for?' and then braced himself for
trouble.

From the other end of the line came a swiftly indrawn breath. It made Rafferty's frown
fiercer. These facial gymnastics attracted the interest of his sergeant, Dafyd Llewellyn.
Rafferty turned away from this scrutiny as Mickey said, 'I just heard on the local radio
that you're in charge of the Seward murder investigation.'

Bloody hell, Rafferty thought, the dead man's not even cold yet. Who let that cat out of
the bag? But the suspects for this violent death were too numerous for him to even
consider issuing reprimands right and left. News of the murder must have gone round the
four-star, 100-bedroom Elmhurst Hotel and Conference Centre venue like nits round a
nursery school. It was impossible to keep a clamp on the wagging tongues of so many.

His brother's voice interrupted the tail end of these thoughts and forced Rafferty from
his wool-gathering.

'Sorry, Mickey. What did you say?'

'Christ, Joe. Can't you listen? This is important.'

'So's my murder investigation,' Rafferty retorted. 'And I'd quite like to get back to it.'
Actually, what he'd rather do was go home and retire to bed with a nightcap. But chances
were that wouldn't be on the cards for hours. Shoulders slumped, he leaned back against
the nearest wall. Grumpily, he told his brother, 'Spit it out so I can get started organizing
one more triumph for British justice, there's a good lad.'

'That's just it,' Mickey told him, his voice sounding increasingly tense, 'I'm scared this
case might turn out to be yet another injustice. You asked me what you could do me for.
I'm worried, once your inquiry gets started, that you might think you have reason to do me
for something. That something being this murder.'

Aghast, Rafferty felt a deep foreboding followed by an unwillingness to delve any
further. But Mickey's words gave him no choice and he demanded, 'What are you on
about?' But before his brother could reply, Rafferty became conscious of the many
listening ears surrounding him. Telling Mickey to hold on, he slipped from the murder
scene in the plush penthouse suite of the Essex market town's Elmhurst Hotel. He found a
quiet corner in the corridor where he could see and be forewarned of all the comings and
goings before he put the mobile back to his ear. Then he said, in a harsh whisper, 'Christ,
Mickey, don't tell me you were a guest at last night's civic reception for our esteemed
prodigal, Sir Rufus bloody Seward?'

Please don't let him tell me that, Rafferty prayed to his long-ignored God. Fortunate it
was that God chose not to ignore him, because his prayers were answered in the positive
with an immediate and unexpected speed when Mickey said, 'No. I wasn't at the party.'

Rafferty brightened, but only for a moment, because his brother barely paused for
breath before he rushed on to tell him, 'I know you won't believe this, but I got an invite
from Seward himself. I didn't go. But, seeing as he was here in Elmhurst, I took the
opportunity to go to see him late on in his hotel suite when the party was all but over.'

'You did what?' Rafferty realized he was shouting. Worse, he'd attracted odd looks from
a couple of the uniformed officers guarding the outside door to the murder suite. They
quickly averted their eyes when they caught sight of his scowling countenance. He was
thankful to realize that his words sounded less incriminating than admonitory, as if he was
giving some unfortunate a bollocking. Even so, he forced himself to calm down. He even
managed to find a tight smile for Dr Sam Dally as he emerged from the lift, rolled in that
familiar, bouncy way on the thickly carpeted hallway towards Rafferty and raised an
eyebrow in greeting.

Rafferty told his brother to hang on again. He waited as Sam struggled to insert his
generous body into his protective coveralls and disappeared into Seward's suite. It was too
public here, he thought, to be having this conversation � too close to the police and
forensic bustle that surrounded the discovery of recent, violent death. The thought made
him even more uneasy. His uneasiness forced him to lower his voice again till it was all but
inaudible. But his brother, with his fear-heightened senses, still managed to hear him.
Rafferty hoped no one else could.

But never mind not having this conversation here; Rafferty thought it was undoubtedly a
conversation he shouldn't be having at all.

'What on earth did you go and see Seward for?' Rafferty was becoming more seriously
concerned for his brother as admission followed admission. 'It's not as if you were ever
best buddies, is it? Even at school, you always hated his guts. And with good reason, as I
recall.'

Rufus Seward had always been a bully. And Mickey, having never been tall or well built,
had been a natural target for Seward's nastiness. Rafferty had protected his younger
brother as much as he could, but bullies always found their moment and it wasn't as if he
had been in a position to guard his brother all the time: they were different ages and
therefore in different classes. Besides, Rafferty had been raised to stand up for himself,
and part of him expected Mickey to be able to do likewise without help from him.

'I�I had something I wanted to discuss with him. A bit of business�.�.�.'

Mickey sounded awkward and Rafferty wondered, even as his unease grew and
developed love handles, why his little brother felt it necessary to lie. He'd never been any
good at it; it was a trait they shared. What possible business could his brother, a poor
carpenter, just like Jesus, have with Sir Rufus Seward, the local bad boy prodigal made
good?

Sir Rufus Seward had returned to his hometown in triumph to receive Elmhurst Council's
civic honours and acclamations by the bucketful after his knighthood in the New Year's
Honours List.

This was the same Rufus Seward who, in his youth, had made Mickey's life � and those
of so many others smaller and weaker than himself � a misery, until, fortunately for
Mickey, Seward's other physical pursuits had caused him to be all but chased out of town
by a posse of angry fathers of tearful teenage girls.

In the intervening years, Seward had made his pile. He had returned to Elmhurst in
triumph only the day before, for the first time since his involuntary departure, to receive
his hometown's accolades after his ennoblement.

Sir Rufus's civic honours had been awarded with all the dignity and pomp even his self-
regard could desire. He had also received another, unanticipated honour: the attentions of
a murderer who, unlike our own dear Queen with her gentle shoulder-tapping sword, had
thrust a sharpened carpenter's quarter-inch wood chisel deeply and far from gently
through Seward's back and into his heart.

A clammy hand seemed to clutch Rafferty's own heart. It gave it such a sharp squeeze
that the organ paused in its beat for a few worrying seconds, before it resumed its thud,
thud, thud again, but on its recommencement, it beat with a speed that was positively
breathtaking.

As a carpenter, Mickey worked with such chisels. They were the daily tools of his trade.
He also had reasons � several of them � to hate Rufus Seward. If Rafferty had been any
other copper, after his brother's admission that he had been in Seward's suite on the
evening of his murder he would have concluded Mickey had means, motive and
opportunity in plenty and slap the cuffs on him. Fortunately for Mickey, if not for himself,
as his brother had said, Rafferty was in charge of the investigation.

Last night's reception had, naturally, given Seward the fawning attentions such honours
attracted, and had been attended not only by those who had peopled Seward's past, but
also by the great and good who had peopled what had been his present. And, from what
Rafferty had learned from uniformed's early questioning of the few guests who remained,
Seward, during the party, had not hesitated to rub a number of his guests' noses in his
success. It must, if the reported accounts concerning his behaviour from several of the
more unguarded attendees were anything to go by, have left some of the party guests
feeling the urge to plunge something sharp between Seward's meaty shoulders. For all his
wealth and success, the man, like the boy, had been both a bully and a poor judge of
people. Certain it was that he had badly misjudged someone, otherwise that someone
wouldn't have given in to the plunging urge.

Rafferty could only pray that guilty someone hadn't been his little brother. Because he
knew � who better? � how much rage Mickey nursed in his heart against his youthful
persecutor. Mickey also had a temper; one he hadn't always managed to govern.

Now Rafferty, in an attempt to dispel his growing anxieties, did some confiding of his
own. 'You're not the only family member with cause to be�worried about Seward's murder,'
he told Mickey. 'You'll never guess who else amongst our relatives received an invite.
Only "dear" Nigel.'

'Not Slimy Nigel?'

'The very same.'

Nigel Blythe or Jerry Kelly, the name he had held before he had spurned it as being too
common, was cousin to the Rafferty brothers, whom he considered himself a cut above.

'Trust him to slime himself an invite to such a swanky do.'

'Mmm. Muck, brass and Nigel always did form a natural, unholy trinity.'

In spite of his brother's worrying admission, Rafferty felt humour bubble up and he
added, 'Bet he wishes he'd kept his distance from all that undoubtedly dodgy money for
once. Even if he didn't kill Seward, with the number of crooked deals that estate agency of
his goes in for, I imagine the last thing "dear" Nigel wants is the police having a reason to
sniff around.'

'Especially if he's the one who topped the pompous prat.'

'True.' But although Rafferty tried hard, for Mickey's sake, he somehow couldn't see his
devious cousin Nigel � who always had one eye on the main chance and the other on the
exit in case a swift flit was required � committing this particular murder. It seemed too
little thought through and spur of the moment for Nigel. If he had wanted to kill someone,
unlike the less than cool-headed Mickey, he would bide his time and await his best chance
of doing the deed without unpleasant repercussions. Like getting caught. Mickey, by
contrast, could be a bit of a hothead. This was a worrying trait in view of his late night visit
to the long-loathed victim, and the other, steadily accumulating list of circumstantial
evidence potentially linking him to the crime.

Rafferty's lips thinned. And as his gaze followed the busy Scene of Crime team, he
wondered if Mickey had left a trace of his presence behind. Anxiety over his brother's
problem as well as the increasingly pressing need to get back to the murder scene made
him curt and he asked, 'Where are you?

'At home. Sweating.'

'Stay there,' Rafferty quietly instructed. 'I suppose you're on your home phone?'

Rafferty sighed as Mickey confirmed it. He wished his brother had had the nous to ring
him from a public phone. If questions were asked at a later date, calls to his mobile from
his brother's home at such a time would make it harder for him to deny either knowledge
or complicity. 'Did anyone see you in Seward's suite?'

'The two security guards on the door and one of the guests,' Mickey confirmed.

'Did they get a good look at you?'

'Yes.'

Well, of course they had, Rafferty told himself. Stupid to ask, really.

Mickey's third confirmation was even more worrying than the previous two, as was his
clearly reluctant admission that he had actually asked the guest where to find Seward. The
fool had left a trail that even young Tim Smales could follow.

Conscious of time ticking away, Rafferty said, 'I've got to go. I'm still at the scene.
There's no way I can leave yet � I probably won't be able to see you for hours, but I'll
come to your flat as soon as I can get away. We need to put our heads together.' He would
also need to separate the truth from the lies Mickey had already told him. The idea of his
little brother having a 'bit of business' with the wealthy and successful Seward was about
as likely as him reforming the band he had played guitar with in his youth and them having
a smash hit. So why had Mickey lied? The question stirred even more uneasy feelings and
yet more questions.

'In the meantime, stay where you are and keep out of sight. I'll try to think of somewhere
I can stash you, since you clearly can't remain at the flat. Somebody's bound to recognize
you when the witnesses' photofit is circulated.' He'd delay this as long as he could, but it
would be only a short-term holding measure until he had time to organize moving Mickey
somewhere safer and more low profile.

Although he missed her dreadfully, it was fortunate that Abra, his live-in girlfriend, was
away on a hen party weekend in Dublin and wouldn't be around till late on Sunday night to
notice his absence while he tried to sort Mickey out with the essential bolt-hole.

In spite of the promise he had made to Abra in October, only a couple of months back,
about not keeping things from her, this was one secret he would have to keep to himself �
certainly until he had had a chance to think of who was most likely to be able to supply him
with a place to stash Mickey where he would, for the foreseeable future, at least, have the
best chance of staying hidden.

Because Rafferty didn't relish the prospect of having to charge his brother with murder.
Even less did he relish having to listen to what their ma would say if he did such a thing.
But as neither possibility bore thinking about, he put both from his mind.

With a grimace, after warning Mickey not to panic and do anything they might both
regret, he said goodbye to his brother, pocketed his mobile and returned to the scene of
Seward's murder.

It was going to be a very long night.