Bad Blood Read Free Page B

another pointer to her having been frozen with fright and unable to defend herself.
    From her elegantly styled and now bloodied white hair, gathered in a French pleat at the back of her head, to the expensive cashmere jumper and dainty, real? pearls, in her ears, to the low-heeled leather shoes rather than the more common bedroom slippers of early-morning, Clara Mortimer appeared far from the usual run of sad and vulnerable elderly ladies they saw at scenes of violent death.
    Rafferty stood up and turned to Llewellyn. ‘Let's go and have a look round the rest of the apartment. Then I want a word with the warden, Mrs Atkins. She should be able to let us have details of Mrs Mortimer‘s family.’ He tapped the list Llewellyn had given him. ‘The residents will all have to be questioned as a matter of priority.’
    Clara Mortimer's apartment had two spacious bedrooms off the lobby, both with double beds, though the bed in the second bedroom wasn't made up and the room had an entirely unlived-in appearance.
    Rafferty, expecting to find more family photographs in Clara Mortimer's bedroom, was surprised and saddened when they found none. He immediately pictured his Ma's living room with its walls crammed with family photographs and felt that, for all her obvious riches, the dead woman cut as pitiful and lonely a figure as more impoverished elderly and lone-living victims of crime.
    There was no sign that anyone else lived in the apartment; there were none of the welcoming touches usual in a guest room. Old lady's clothes in expensive fabrics; summer silks and winter cashmere, were the only clothes in the cavernous mahogany wardrobes. He presumed Mrs Mortimer's husband must be dead and found himself hoping – and not just for the sake of the murder investigation – that the victim hadn't been as all alone in the world as she appeared to be.
    There was one way to find out and he said to Llewellyn, ‘Let's go and speak to the warden.’
    They left the rest of the team to get on with their work and went back to the ground floor where, according to the residents’ list, the warden had a small apartment. He followed Llewellyn through a door to the rear of the entrance hall. It led to a short, wholly-enclosed and dimly-lit corridor. It smelt musty. The opulence of the rest of the block ended abruptly. Here there was no expensive carpet or original artwork. In their place was cheap vinyl and bare walls, the warden's apartment seemingly squeezed in as an afterthought.
    Although the morning was now well-advanced Rita Atkins, a small, slight woman, answered their knock in a none-too-clean woollen dressing gown in an unflattering shade of beige. As she peered up at them in the enveloping gloom, her expression appeared glazed. And as she stood aside to let them in, Rafferty caught a whiff of whisky. So it wasn't only the shock of sudden, violent death that had caused the glazed eyes. He could hardly blame such a tiny, vulnerable woman for taking a nip of something restorative in the circumstances. When he thought of Clara Mortimer's smashed in eye and the other one, staring up at him, Rafferty felt he could do with a restorative nip of something himself. But as Dr Sam Dally, who could always be relied upon to supply such liquid refreshment had yet to arrive, Rafferty had perforce to do without.
    Rita Atkins's apartment seemed as tiny as the exterior had indicated. As she led them the short step from her apartment's front door to her living room, he took in the rest. A single, small bedroom led off the two yard square hallway. An overflowing wardrobe and a single bed took up all the floor space. Beside it was a bathroom that looked to have dimensions no bigger than a large broom cupboard. A tiny kitchen was immediately off to the left of the front door. It looked out on the covered dustbin enclosure. Rita Atkins's living room had a musty, uncared-for air and shared the kitchen's unattractive outlook.
    In total contrast to the first floor