Murder at Swann's Lake (6 page)

Doris snorted. “Let's start as we mean to go on, shall we?” she said. “I was married to Robbie Peterson for twenty-seven years, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've been happy about the fact. So if you're expectin' tears and sighs of regret, you've come to the wrong place.”

“Was he a bad husband?” Woodend asked.

“He was a
man
,” Doris told him, “and he did what all men do – drink too much, act bone idle when they think they can get away with it, an' chase anythin' wearin' a skirt.”

“You're sayin' your husband was unfaithful to you?”

“Well, of course he was.” Doris paused, as if she'd realised she was not quite telling him the whole truth. “Or at least, he used to be when we lived in Liverpool. When we moved down to Swann's Lake, he seemed to have lost the urge.”

“An' why do you think that was?”

Doris shrugged. “Age catchin' up with him, I expect.”

“Let's talk about his background,” Woodend suggested.

“Why would we want to do that?” Doris asked belligerently.

Woodend sighed. “The only reason I'm askin' questions is because I think they might help me to find your husband's killer. You do
want
him caught, I take it.”

“Yes,” Doris admitted, almost reluctantly. “Robbie was a bit of a bugger, but when all's said and done, I wouldn't like to see whoever did him in gettin' away with it.”

“Very commendable of you, I'm sure,” Woodend said drily. “I was askin' you about his background.”

Doris laughed. “Robbie was what you might call the family success story,” she said. “His dad an' his uncles never got beyond petty theft, but Robbie made it to the big time.”

“Was he in the rackets when you met him?”

A look of caution came to Doris' face. “None of this is goin' on the record, is it?”

“Do you see my sergeant writin' anythin' down?” Woodend countered.

“Yes, he was in the rackets. An' doin' very well – big car, money to burn.”

“And that's what attracted you to him?”

“I'd be lyin' if I said the money didn't play a part in it, but there was more to it than that. Robbie had somethin' about him. A spark, I suppose you'd call it. An' he had guts. He wasn't a big feller, but he'd take on anybody who got in his way, whatever their size.”

“Who had the idea of givin' it all up and movin' to Swann's Lake?” Woodend asked.

“Robbie.”

“Did he give you any reason for the decision?”

“He said he wanted a new start, somewhere he wasn't known. Said it was time for him to go straight.”

“
Did
he go straight?”

The widow hesitated for a second. “As far as I know.”

“And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean that I was careful not to look too closely at what Robbie was doin'. If he got caught,
I
wasn't goin' inside as his accomplice.”

“But you did have your suspicions?” Woodend pressed.

“He used to go away, sometimes for as long as a week or two at a time. When I'd ask him where he'd been, all he'd tell me was it had been a business trip. Well, there's only one kind of business Robbie ever knew anythin' about – the crooked kind.”

“Do you know if he's seen any of his friends from the old days recently?” Woodend asked.

“Funny you should say that,” Doris told him. “Sid Dowd was down here just the other week. Robbie used to work for him in Liverpool.”

“An' why did he come? Was it a social visit?”

Doris laughed with the rasp of a heavy smoker. “You don't know Sid, do you? He wouldn't cross the street if there wasn't some money in it for him.”

“And what kind of money was he hopin' to make in Swann's Lake?”

“He wanted Robbie to let him buy into the club.”

“And what did you husband say to that?”

“He said no. What did he need a partner for? We own this business outright – why would he want to see part of the profits goin' to somebody else?”

Maybe because it was safer that way, Woodend thought, though he kept the idea to himself. “Thanks for your help, Mrs Peterson,” he said. “No doubt I'll be wantin' to talk to you again.”

Doris stood up. “No doubt,” she repeated.

Annabel Peterson carried herself with the same air of defiance as her mother did, but she managed to do it with more class. She was a pretty girl, Woodend thought, and it was a pity that she had chosen to apply her make-up in a way which implied such crude sexuality.

“I've just a few questions to ask you,” he said as she sat down. “I'll try to make them as painless as possible.”

“Painless!” Annabel repeated, as if the term held no meaning for her – and Woodend noticed, even in that one word, that her accent was much more refined than her mother's.

“Your father's death must have come as quite a shock to you,” he said.

Annabel opened her handbag and took out a packet of cigarettes. When Woodend struck a match and reached across the desk, she shook her head and produced an expensive gold lighter. Taking her time, she flicked the lighter open, lit the cigarette, and inhaled deeply. “Robbie was a criminal,” she said, blowing smoke through her nostrils. “So it wasn't a shock at all. I'm not the least bit surprised he came to a bad end.”

Woodend tried to imagine his own daughter talking about him in these tones. It was almost too painful to contemplate. What in God's name had Peterson done to this girl to merit such contempt?

“I was part of Robbie's experiment,” Annabel said, as if she could read the Chief Inspector's mind.

“His experiment? His experiment in
what
?”

Annabel laughed bitterly. “In social climbing. I didn't used to be ‘Annabel' when I was a little kid, you know. ‘Annie' was good enough for me then.
And it is now
.”

“Unlike the rest of the family, you don't live here, do you, Miss Peterson?” Woodend asked.

“No, I certainly bloody don't,” Annabel said viciously. “I've got a flat in Maltham.”

“And what do you do for a living?”

Annabel sneered. “I do just what my expensive private education has equipped me to do,” she said. “I live on the dole.”

So much bitterness, Woodend thought. “But you do come home now an' again,” he said. “You were in the club on Friday night.”

“Oh yes, I was there,” Annie agreed. “I like to bring my ‘boyfriends' here occassionally. It was much more fun watching Robbie making a fool of himself in company.”

Why had she felt the need to squeeze so much contempt into the word ‘boyfriends'? Woodend wondered. But now was not the time to ask – he had other fish to fry. “Did you notice anythin' unusual while you were in the club?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“Did you happen to see any suspicious strangers?”

Annabel shook her head. “Only the usual riffraff who get in there on a Friday night.”

“What about your father? Was he behavin' strangely in any way? Did he seem worried at all?”

“He forgot his lines in the middle of his act – if that's what you want to call it – but that was only because there was some trouble at the door with a non-member. After he'd sorted that out, he was back to being his normal vulgar self.” She clicked her fingers as if she'd suddenly remembered something. “But I'll tell you who was acting a bit off – Jenny's husband Terry and that schoolteacher brother of his.”

“Actin' a bit off? In what way?”

Annabel lit a new cigarette from the stub of her old one, then threw the stub on the floor and ground it with the sole of her shoe. “They were arguing about something. And if you knew Michael Clough, you'd realise how uncharacteristic that is.”

“Tell me more,” Woodend said with growing interest.

“Michael's a little saint. A perpetual do-gooder. He doesn't argue with people. He reasons. Reasons and reasons and reasons until you're sick to your guts with it.”

“He's tried that with you, I take it.”

“Pull yourself together,” Annabel said, her voice imitating a tenor's, her tone whining. “You're a pretty girl. A beautiful girl. And so intelligent. There's nothing you couldn't achieve if you put your mind to it.” She took another drag of her cigarette. “That's the kind of thing you have to put up with from Michael Clough,” she continued in her normal voice.

“But you're sure that him and his brother were arguin' in the club on Friday night?”

“Positive. And then they went outside together. They were gone for quite a while.”

Was there a touch of malice in her last statement? Woodend wondered. Was she trying to point the finger of suspicion at the Clough brothers? And if she was,
why
was she doing it?

“When they left the club, was your father still inside?” he asked.

“Yes. He was still on the stage, telling his dirty jokes.”

“And when they returned?”

“He'd left by then. In fact, if you want to pin it down, I'd say that they didn't come back until just before the alarm was raised by that swine Detective Sergeant Gower.”

Woodend played a scene quickly through his mind. The Clough boys have a real problem with Robbie Peterson. Perhaps he has some kind of hold over one of them. Michael – the teacher, the reasonable one – wants to try talking their way out of the situation, but Terry – who was part of Robbie's criminal network in Liverpool – says that will never work with a man like Peterson. There's only one solution, he insists. They have to kill Robbie while they have the chance. But even discounting the fact that Robbie was Terry Clough's father-in-law, would they be stupid enough to kill him when there were witnesses who could place them near the scene of the crime? Wouldn't it have been wiser to wait for a better moment? Unless, of course, Robbie Peterson was planning to do something that very night which could ruin them both.

“You don't like your family very much, do you, Miss Peterson?” Woodend asked the girl.

“I don't like
anybody
very much,” Annabel replied dully. “And that includes myself.”

Gerry Fairbright rested his hands, hardened by years of work as a fitter and turner, on the waist-high fence which separated the caravan site from The Hideaway's yard. From where he was standing he had a clear view of the office. Those policemen from London were in there now, and with them – as he knew because he'd been watching for some time – was Annie Peterson. He wasn't worried about Annie. She could do nothing to hurt him. There had been only two people with the power to do that. One of them was now dead, and the other was useless without him. No, people weren't the problem.
People
weren't what would point the finger at him.

He turned round and looked back at his caravan. It was a cream Alpine Sprite, which he'd bought on the never-never for £280. It had seemed such a good idea at the time.

‘Think of the money we'll save on boardin' houses,' his wife had said. ‘An' it'll be there for us every weekend, not just for a couple of weeks a year.'

Oh yes, it had seemed a fine idea all right. How could he have known that it would lead him into such trouble, that it would be like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden? He hated the caravan now. He hated Swann's Lake. But most importantly, he hated himself – hated the cowardice he had shown when it really mattered. He could have gone back into Robbie Peterson's office the night after the murder, but he hadn't dared. Now the Scotland Yard men were there, and it would be much more difficult. But difficult or not, he was going to have to break in. There really wasn't any choice.

“Can I help you, sir?” said a voice from behind him.

Gerry jumped, then turned around. One of the policemen – the older one, who wore the big hairy sports jacket – was standing just the other side of the fence. “Help me?” Gerry asked stupidly.

“Yes,” Woodend replied. “I couldn't help noticin' that you've been standin' there for some time, and I was wonderin' if perhaps it was because there was somethin' you wanted to tell me.”

Gerry shook his head, more violently than he'd intended. “N . . . no,” he stuttered, “there's nothin'.”

“You've got a right to be here, have you, sir?” Woodend asked.

“A right?” Gerry gasped.

“What I'm askin' you, in my roundabout way, is do you own one of the caravans on this site.”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

Woodend smiled. “Must be very pleasant to come down here for your holidays.” His eyes narrowed. “I expect your wife's enjoyin' it, too.”

“I . . . no . . . she's—” Gerry said.

“She's
what
, sir?”

“She's not here at the moment. She . . . she had to go back to Oldham. That's where we're from. Her mother's been taken proper poorly.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,” Woodend said. “Are you expectin' her back soon?”

“I'm not sure. It depends.”

Woodend nodded sympathetically. “Well, enjoy your holiday as best you can, sir. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll have to get back to my work.”

He turned and walked away, leaving Gerry Fairbright standing there in a cold sweat. He was no fool, that bobby, Gerry decided. No fool at all. And now they'd spoken, things were even worse than they'd been before. Oh God, what was he going to do?

Standing in Trafalgar Square, surrounded by so many of her fellow countrymen, Maria was engulfed with a nostalgia for a Spain she'd never really known. How many people were there, she wondered. Five hundred? A thousand? It was difficult to say.

She looked up at the base of Nelson's Column, on which one of the march's organisers was standing. “This will a peaceful demonstration,” the man was shouting through his megaphone. “I repeat – peaceful. When we reach the embassy, we will form lines in front of it, and then I will step forward and present our letter of protest.”