Free Blood on the Bones by Geraldine Evans Page B

arrogance.
    He didn't, of course, need to ask why his unwelcome correspondent had sent the letter. His guilty conscience provided reason enough. Two beautiful young women were dead, after all. And even though he hadn't killed them, their fate still troubled him. But what troubled him even more, was why his correspondent had waited till now to write to him, as the business to which the letter referred had happened months ago.
    What did the blackmailer want? The usual money? At first Rafferty thought that this was unlikely. Because, after racking his brains, off and on, since he had received the letter, considering and discarding possible suspects, he had, just before he had departed from the convent, come to the inescapable conclusion that his blackmailer was most likely to be found amongst his one-time fellow members of the Made in Heaven dating agency. Which one, though? That was the question.
    All were well educated professionals with incomes to match, so why would they think it worthwhile, not only to risk damaging their high flying careers, but also to risk a prison sentence, in order to blackmail him and extract part of his strictly-limited police income?
    At first he had thought his conclusion made sense. But later, during their mostly fruitless questioning of the nuns, it had struck him that the saying 'the rich get richer while the poor get poorer', had been coined for a very good reason.
    With their frequently extravagant lifestyles, the rich proved every day just how much they liked money. And the more of it they managed to pile up, the more they wanted, even if the means of acquiring it were morally reprehensible. Shady businessmen with their backhanders proliferated. Shady politicians, ditto. Greedy insurance and pension salesmen more interested in increasing their commissions and bonuses than in ensuring their clients were sold the most appropriate policies for their needs, had all, in recent years, featured frequently in the news.
    The country was full of the financial and other scandals of the monied-classes. He thought it possible that some amongst them wouldn't turn their noses up if the opportunity for a lucrative spot of blackmail presented itself.
    It was his firm belief that the worst elements of such classes had a preference for keeping the mass of the population uneducated and ignorant, particularly about financial matters. Feed them a steady diet of mind-rotting swill such as soaps and TV reality shows and they were likely to lose any discernment they started out with.
    The proles as milch cows, in fact. Always there to have more squeezed out of them. The proof for this was certainly there: the mass of people were more appallingly educated than ever before, the same applied to their equal lack of financial education.
    It all went to prove that wealthy people were often greedy people, uncaring of how many poorer folk they robbed of their futures. They were mean, too, as many charity collectors would confirm.
    OK, a chunk of the rest of the population shared such traits. But Rafferty had always thought the monied-classes were a breed apart when it came to ruthless self-interest. You only had to look at the scandals attaching to government ministers of whatever political colour to realise there was little to which they wouldn't stoop.
    Which meant he couldn't discount the possibility that any one of his ex fellow Made in Heaven members might be the blackmailer.
    It had to be one of them, surely? he reasoned. One of those who had met him both as Nigel Blythe, the alter ego he had, at the time of the Made in Heaven investigation, felt it essential to adopt before signing up as a fellow lonely heart and Made in Heaven member, and as Inspector Joseph Rafferty, the policeman who found himself at the same time both the chief suspect and the officer charged with investigating the violent murders of two lady members.
    It wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility that one of his fellow members had seen through the