Bad Blood by Geraldine Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

take root that it was owing to Rita's drunken stupor that Clara Mortimer had died and died all alone.
    In fact, Clara Mortimer's body had been right beside one of these panic buttons. Had she frozen in fright, as he had earlier thought likely? Or had her attacker knocked her unconscious before she had had time to react?
    As they took their leave of Amelia Frobisher and returned to Clara Mortimer‘s apartment, he put the question to Llewellyn.
    As usual, his sergeant had a logical explanation.
    ‘Perhaps Mrs Mortimer was unwilling to risk Rita Atkins being attacked when she came to check on her? Given her small stature, it's not as if Mrs Atkins would be much assistance against a determined assailant.’
    ‘Maybe so. But a stranger couldn't know for sure who would respond to the panic alarm,’ Rafferty pointed out. ’If she had pressed it, he would have been more likely to flee to stop himself being apprehended than to wait and see if a Mr Burly turned up. Nobody's suggested Clara Mortimer was stupid, so she must have realised that pressing the alarm was her best chance to save herself.’
    Llewellyn shrugged and repeated Rafferty's earlier thought. ‘She probably just froze. People do.’
    Rafferty said no more. But the picture of Clara Mortimer that was already building in his mind didn't suggest she had been the type of woman to freeze in fright. On the contrary, she hadn't been scared to tackle her daughter's boyfriend and accuse him of stealing from her or to tell the importunate Freddie Talbot to take a hike.
    The determinedly solitary Clara Mortimer, with her estrangement from her real family and her rejection of the one that had attempted to adopt her, was beginning to intrigue him.

Chapter Three
     
    Rafferty set Llewellyn the task of organising a house-to-house of the neighbouring streets as well as making a start on the preliminary interviews of the other residents. In the hope that at least one possible suspect would be eliminated early in the proceedings, he sent DC Hanks off to speak to Freddie Talbot and get his statement as to his whereabouts this morning
    While Llewellyn got on with the routine tasks, Rafferty used his mobile to contact the station and arrange for DS Mary Carmody to meet him in Mercer's Lane to break the news of Clara Mortimer's murder to her daughter, Jane Ogilvie.
    Mary Carmody, although only in her thirties, had a comforting, motherly air about her. She would, Rafferty knew, as he left the scene and turned right into the High Street to walk the two hundred yards to Mercer's Lane, be a staunch support in the hours that followed.
    DS Mary Carmody was waiting in her car a few houses up from No 12 when Rafferty arrived. Carmody got out of her car and approached him.
    ‘I checked the daughter's name and street number,’ she told him. ‘According to the neighbours, she's still calling herself Mrs Ogilvie. The current live-in boyfriend's called Darryl Jesmond. They're squatting at No 12, I gather.’ She nodded at a rusty blue Rover that was parked haphazardly about eighteen inches from the kerb. ‘The neighbour told me that vehicle belongs to Jane Ogilvie, so it's likely she's at home.’
    Rafferty nodded. The careless parking in the narrow street of mean Victorian terraces added to the sum total he had gathered of Jane Ogilvie's character. So far all of it was negative. But as he wouldn't like his own character to be assassinated by the likes of Rita Atkins and Amelia Frobisher without benefit of self defence, he put aside their sweeping judgements and prepared to keep an open mind and listen to what Jane Ogilvie had to say.
    Together he and Mary Carmody approached the house. Like Jane Ogilvie‘s car, the house had seen better days. No wonder she and her boyfriend had tried currying favour with Mrs Mortimer. Plumb in the middle of the terraced row, their squat looked originally to have been a family house, but the two floors had been broken up into flats. Although No 12A’s front