Bad Blood by Geraldine Evans Page A

easy.'
    Rafferty's smile was more a half-grimace. The clean living Llewellyn, of course, had never smoked so how did he know how hard or easy it was to give up the habit of two thirds of a lifetime?
    'I know there are one or two backsliders at the station who insist that they've still given up,' Llewellyn confided. 'They don't seem to realise the smell of stale smoke from their clothes is a giveaway that they've started smoking again on the sly.'
    Rafferty, not entirely convinced that he would get to the end of this investigation without being numbered amongst the backsliders, had his excuse ready, just in case. 'Abra's started smoking in the house again. She said she's fed up having to go outside on the balcony every time she wants to smoke.'
    To give Abra her due, she had continued this self-imposed banishment for two months. 'I thought she might keep it up, but she's hasn't. It's tough, Dafyd, to continue not smoking when you live with a smoker.'
    Abra was Rafferty's girlfriend. Llewellyn, Abra's cousin, had introduced them in April, some two months' ago. She and Rafferty had jelled at the very first meeting.
    Llewellyn gave him a sideways look from his knowing dark eyes as the lift doors opened with a groan surprising in such a plush block and they emerged on the top floor.
    'Is that the sound of you getting your excuses ready?' he asked as if he had read Rafferty's mind.
    'Certainly not,' Rafferty indignantly replied.
    He consulted his list and marched purposefully forward. ' Here's Mr Oliver's apartment. Number 3c.'
    He rapped on the door, loudly enough to block any more attempts by his sergeant at reading his mind and possible intentions.
    Although Hal Oliver, at seventy-five, had a face as cadaverous as Mick Jagger's and a neck as ropey as a yacht's equipment locker, when they met him in the entrance hall of the apartments, he still had a rake-hell's attraction about him, accentuated by the thick white hair, which flowed, with a Cavalier dash, around his sinuous neck.
    His trousers were creased, attesting to the fact that currently there was no woman in his life. But for all his creased trousers and neck, for all the cadaverous folds of flesh, the confidence good looks brought was still in evidence. It was there in the bold bright blue gaze and the repose of his hands, which lay at ease on the arms of his chair as they questioned him.
    When he led them in to his small apartment, Rafferty noted Hal Oliver walked with that upright, slow-paced, slight swagger of a confident man at ease with himself.
    Oliver's apartment had as rakish and lived-in an air as did the man himself. For all that he had only lived there for a short time he had already put his stamp on it. There was a huge chestnut brown leather settee in front of the fireplace with a smaller one at right angles to it. Several battered leather trunks lined the walls and, above the trunks, hung many photographs of foreign parts, with Hal Oliver at various ages and with assorted attractive young women, featuring in most of them.
    After he had explained the recent tragic events, Rafferty said, 'I understand you were friendly with Mrs Mortimer? Even gave her flowers – red roses.'
    Hal Oliver gave a rueful laugh. 'These old biddies don't miss much, do they?' he commented. 'Though trying to be friendly would be a more accurate description, Inspector,' he corrected. 'I liked her, for all that most of the other residents said they found her standoffish. Standoffishness is something I regard as a challenge. Besides, I think I'm right when I claim we share similar interests. Clara,' he paused, then as if belatedly realising such a show of intimacy in front of the police was unwise, he corrected himself and became more formal. 'Mrs Mortimer – was a reserved woman.'
    His blue eyes sparkling, Oliver flashed his devil-may-care smile. 'You could say the flowers I bought were merely a supplicant's offering, designed to knock a brick or two out of the wall she seems – seemed