Dead Before Morning #1 Rafferty & Llewellyn procedural

Dead Before Morning CHAPTER TWO

Chapter Two

In spite of the deceptively pretty name of Primrose Avenue, the road beside the alley where the murder had happened contained nothing more decorative than weeds, of which there was a fine collection.

Not surprising really, given the torrential rain. Rafferty struggled to keep the umbrella aloft in the high wind as it was almost torn from his grasp. Primrose Avenue was in a run-down area of Elmhurst on the southern outskirts of the town, the houses mostly rented from the Council or from Buy-to-Let private landlords, with unofficial lodgers taken in to help pay the rent. Here lived Elmhurst’s low-end population: the single mothers, the unemployed and unemployable, people in their fifties unable to find work, pensioners, the chronically sick and so on. The ‘deserving poor’, he supposed was how Llewellyn would describe them, if asked. But Rafferty had no intention of asking and inviting a lecture on this or any other subject.

The dead man had been attacked in the alleyway that ran behind the left-hand-side row of terraced houses. Both the alley and the houses ended in a high brick wall belonging to a canning factory so were effectively cul-de-sacs.

Their cadaver had clearly been robbed as Smales had confirmed there was no wallet or mobile phone on his body nor any other means of easy identification. He lay, partially on his side. His face, from what Rafferty could see of it, bore a surprised look. He had been struck from behind and then his attacker had continued to rain down blows on his head, though fortunately, they had mostly been to the back of his skull so they should have less trouble identifying him than might otherwise have been the case.

Rafferty huddled into his thin raincoat and prayed for summer to arrive as he stared at the dead man’s face. He couldn’t but help think that this new investigation was somehow Llewellyn’s fault. If he hadn’t said that today looked likely to be quiet maybe they wouldn’t be standing out in a howling gale with him doing a poor man’s rendition of Singing in the Rain. But without the singing. Or the dancing, unless the jig of his raincoat counted. ‘You know,’ he said to Llewellyn, a smidgeon of blame in his voice that he knew was unfair, ‘Lizzie Green thought the victim was a John Harrison who works for Malcolm Forbes. I think she's right.’ It was the confirmation he had feared ever since Smales’ phone call.

Llewellyn nodded. ‘I thought that, too.'

Malcolm “The Enforcer” Forbes, was one of the local loan sharks, a business he ran from the back room of his pawnbroker’s shop. ‘The victim's nicknamed “Jaws”, if I remember rightly. And not only on account of his gnashers.’ The large, protruding teeth should have provided him with the dead man’s ID immediately. With such a face, he looked particularly suited to the job of loan shark’s gofer. His was a familiar face in the neighbourhood. John “Jaws” Harrison was something of a poacher turned gamekeeper. A man who had got deeply in debt to Malcolm Forbes and who had offered his services to Forbes as a collector in order to pay them off. And as he was built like the proverbial brick outhouse with a face to match, his offer to demand money with menaces had been taken up.

‘Should have stayed in debt, mate,’ Rafferty advised the corpse. ‘You might have lived longer. There’s nothing worse than shitting on your own doorstep for breeding hatreds, especially when you work for someone like Forbes.’

He was so deep in thought that the fierce wind forced his umbrella inside-out, nearly poking Llewellyn’s eye out and he didn’t notice. Instead, he let the umbrella have its head, stared at the corpse and took in its appearance. Whoever had murdered this man had done a thorough job; the skull was visibly dented with crusted blood congealed in the light brown hair. The victim was wearing thick black brogues and green corduroy trousers. His raincoat, a pale fawn, was rucked up under the body. It had absorbed water from the muddy puddles decorating the alley. Altogether, he looked a sorry corpse.