Rest Assured (20 page)

‘I must send Bert Hook out for a round with Vanessa. I'm sure they'd both enjoy that.' Chris Rushton and John Lambert grinned for a moment at the thought of the Junoesque and fashion-conscious Vanessa Norton with the staid and persevering Bert Hook, whose golf gear was usually just too worn to wear socially and just too good for gardening. Chris was delighted to enjoy even the smallest of jokes with Lambert, whom he had held in awe for far too long.

Rushton now said, ‘There's one little mystery which has emerged. Probably perfectly innocent, but intriguing nonetheless.' Chris liked to save what he considered his best or most meritorious discoveries until last, so as to leave the chief with the best impression of his industry and efficiency. ‘It concerns Geoffrey Tiler and Michael Norrington.'

‘Our gay couple. I hope you're not going to exhibit any evidence of prejudice.' Lambert kept his face studiously straight. Chris was a modern man and well aware of the dangers of sexual bias, despite the police service's well-earned reputation for homophobia.

‘Nothing to do with their sexual orientation,' said Rushton stiffly. He still found it difficult to know when Lambert was giving his leg a gentle tug. ‘No criminal record for either of them. Tiler runs a successful plastics business in Wolverhampton. Small but highly successful, it seems. The attitude towards them here could best be described as reserved. Amongst the conservative community of Twin Lakes, gay couples are not treated as unthinkingly as they might be in London or Brighton. People may not be biased against them, but they treat them cautiously. Having said which, I get the feeling that people are warming to this couple after a cool start. Norrington in particular is popular, because he's always ready to help people out.'

‘As when he offered to look for Debbie Keane's husband and discovered a corpse.'

‘Along with George Martindale, yes. Nothing has come up so far to connect either of them with the killing. But it's Michael Norrington who has provided me with my little mystery. I was checking him out on the electoral register to make sure of his address. He appears to have changed his name – a few years ago, probably, but I can't be sure exactly when as yet. That's not illegal, of course, but I thought it might be of interest.'

He looked up to find John Lambert staring at him intently, with his head a little on one side and his grey eyes wide and inquisitive. ‘Now why would a man want to do that, Chris?'

J
ason Ramsbottom tried to disguise his impatience. Lisa had been longer at the village store than he had anticipated – shopping always took more time when you held conversations with the owner, as you were expected to do in country areas when the shop was quiet. He helped his wife to unload her purchases and to carry them up the steps and into their kitchen. She sank thankfully into her armchair in the sitting room. ‘No cup of tea for a weary shopper?'

‘I have to go out. They've phoned from work. Sorry.' He resisted the temptation to look at his watch. Instead, he looked at his wife's pretty face and buxom figure and thought how strange human nature was. And how stupid men were, not to be content with women like this.

‘You didn't say anything about that. I was hoping we—'

‘I didn't know this was going to happen. I had a phone call whilst you were out.'

‘But you're on holiday. They surely can't—'

‘They shouldn't, but they do. We're in a recession, Lisa. They're taking advantage of that. Everyone is scared of losing his job. It isn't pleasant, but we have to live with it.'

He was on his way five minutes later, glancing at the murder room on his right as he approached the exit of the site, wondering exactly what was going on in there and exactly how much those shrewd and experienced CID men now knew about him. Then he was out on the open road, driving away from Twin Lakes and what he thought of as his public life. He slid his window down a little and felt the exhilaration of air around his head as he accelerated. His spirits should have lifted now, but he felt only the heaviness of guilt and what he was doing to Lisa.

He drove thirty miles before his pulses quickened and elation took over from guilt. He put his foot down when he reached the dual carriageway, wanting suddenly to waste as little time on travel as he could. Then he glanced at his speed, saw the needle creeping towards ninety, and slowed immediately. It would be stupid to get pinched for something silly like speeding, when there were much greater issues at stake.

He wondered again what those policemen were doing back at Twin Lakes. ‘Rest Assured' the notice said beneath the name of the place. There hadn't been much rest there since the discovery of the body on Saturday morning. How much had the CID discovered about him and Lisa? He'd been appalled when she'd brought that stolid and friendly Bert Hook on to the site all those weeks ago to investigate the notes they'd received. But perhaps it had been a good thing, as things had turned out. The CID surely couldn't suspect him now, when he and Lisa had invited one of their men in of their own free will a couple of months earlier.

The last four miles were through lanes. Here he had to twist and turn the Audi expertly round bends and over crossings. He had to crawl along behind a tractor for over a mile, whilst his impatience grew at the same rate as his excitement. And then suddenly he was there, cruising into the village which was scarcely more than a hamlet, turning into the tight drive of the chocolate-box cottage with the pink roses climbing beside and over the door. He wondered if those staid Victorians who had cherished and painted places like this had behaved as passionately within the dwellings as he did.

Anna Riley was waiting for him, in black jeans and a vivid green top. They looked at each other for a second, then said not a word as she flung herself urgently against him. He ran his hands over her small breasts, then up and over her shoulder blades, down the small of her back and on to the exquisite curves beneath. Then the green top and the jeans were off and they were naked together on top of the bed. The love-making which had begun with the first touch climaxed with penetration and the urgent and repeated thrusts of ecstasy which followed.

They held each other for minutes after they had finished, enjoying their gradual relaxation both as an expression of trust and as a conclusion of the intimacy between them. She had shouted exhortations to him during their coupling, but when he finally held her away from him and gazed fondly into her face, his single appreciative breathing of ‘Anna!' was the first word he had uttered since he had entered her home.

Freda Potts was at her most understanding and considerate. ‘You needn't come if you don't want to, Matt. You won't enjoy it. Dinners aren't your sort of thing and you wouldn't know many of the people there.'

Matthew was tempted but dutiful. He said after a pause to consider the matter, ‘But it's meant to be couples, isn't it?'

‘Yes. It's the staff dinner we always have just after the end of term, at the beginning of the summer holiday. But I've been on my own before. You were away when they had it last year. I don't mind, really I don't. I'm used to going to things on my own; it's not your fault that you have to be away a lot.'

‘No, it's not. But that's all the more reason why I should support you, when I am here. I'm coming with you tomorrow night.'

She forced a grin. ‘Very noble, I'm sure. But unnecessary. I don't mind going on my own. It's only an hour's drive from here and the roads will be very quiet when I'm on the return journey. I expect it will be after midnight by the time I get back here.'

‘And you won't be able to drink unless I come.' He said it firmly, because he worried sometimes about her weakness of will over drink-driving. She was prone to push it a little, take the odd risk, and in a convivial gathering of staff he feared she might do just that. ‘But you will be able to drink tomorrow, because I shall be driving. You can get paralytic if you like, so long as you don't start snogging everyone in sight.'

‘I shan't get paralytic. That would be educationally indiscreet and make me a cause célèbre in the gossip stakes. And you obviously don't know my colleagues. You'd have to be tight to consider a kiss on the cheek from most of them!'

‘You make them sound quite irresistible! It's obviously high time I got to know this fascinating cross-section of the intelligentsia. And I assure you, after the company I keep most of the time on the oil rigs, the teaching staff of a comprehensive school will seem richly diverse.'

And so it was settled. Freda felt strangely queasy at the prospect.

In the murder room, DI Rushton conducted a long, intense phone call with a former colleague, then sought out Detective Chief Superintendent Lambert.

‘It looks as though you could be right about Richard Seagrave. Seagrave Enterprises might well be a front for something much more sinister. The local CID are working on it, but they're hampered because they've been told not to alert anyone at the firm to their enquiries.'

Lambert sighed. Complications like this were much more common than most members of the public appreciated. That was understandable, since most members of the public never heard about them. But where extensive criminal networks were involved, as for instance in the illegal drugs trade, local forces were often warned to hold off, in case a minor arrest alerted much bigger villains to the fact that their activities were under investigation.

This was logical and inevitable, since everyone wanted to pin down the faceless moguls who controlled the worst and most lucrative criminal enterprises in Britain. But it led to much frustration. Sometimes local CID sections had conducted an investigation which had occupied many months and much manpower, only to be told when they were near to an arrest that they should hold off and pass on their information to units with a national overview. When clear-up rates were often the measure by which their efficiency was judged, this could be highly frustrating.

‘Seagrave is under investigation.' Lambert nodded thoughtfully. It was the blanket phrase which covered a multitude of different possibilities. ‘Is Vanessa Norton involved?'

‘There is no evidence that she is. My contact wasn't even aware of her. He made a note of the name.'

Lambert was vaguely pleased that Norton probably wasn't involved. He wondered if he would have felt the same measure of relief if an unattractive middle-aged man rather than a striking, curvaceous and highly articulate blonde had been involved. He said to Rushton, ‘Any ideas about where we go from here with the delightful Mr Seagrave? The people investigating him should be aware that he is now a murder suspect here, whatever else he is also involved in.'

‘I think we just have to proceed as normal, assessing whatever we find here whilst being aware that there is accumulating evidence that this particular suspect may well be a major criminal player elsewhere.'

‘Agreed. Have we any idea where “elsewhere” might be?'

Rushton pursed his lips. ‘My contact mentioned Oxford.'

‘I've a couple of old friends in the Oxford CID. I'll see what they're able to tell me. Off the record, of course.'

‘Off the record, inevitably.' Both of them savoured the use of the phrase which journalists offered so often when quizzing them.

Then Lambert voiced a much more important thought. ‘I wonder whether anyone here was aware of Seagrave's activities elsewhere? Whether Walter Keane, for instance, knew anything about them?'

That idea seemed preposterous, but within twenty-four hours it would seem much less so.

As Monday 21st July moved into a tranquil evening, Geoffrey Tiler and Michael Norrington were quite unaware that the identity of one of them was the subject of police investigation. Murder brings heightened attention to any irregularity, but neither of them had yet grown accustomed to thinking of himself as a suspect in a murder investigation.

The site was busy. Children released for the long summer holiday were making the most of each other's company in boisterous games; no less than five dinghies sailed on the two lakes which gave the place its name; the golf course was filled with players displaying a wide range of abilities and epithets, as well as the endless optimism which is a necessity for all participants in the ancient game.

Geoffrey and Michael were walking in the quietest section, on the edge of the woods which fringed the lakes. They skirted the area which was still ribboned off as a scene of crime, studiously avoiding any glances towards the tree where Wally Keane had been left hanging three days ago. Without any words of agreement, each of them knew that they would not speak of Wally, nor of the progress of the police investigation, nor even of the questions the police had asked and the responses they had given when they had been interviewed about that death on Saturday. It seemed a long time since they'd spoken to the CID, but neither of them voiced even that innocent thought.

Norrington was looking across the lake, towards where three boys were trying to launch a rowing boat on the opposite side of it, when he said quietly, ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this, Geoff?'

‘I'm very sure. Are you?'

‘I've been sure for months now. I think you know that. But I want you to be sure. I don't want you to be railroaded into this by things quite outside our control.'

Tiler smiled ruefully. ‘Maybe I needed a little railroading. I'm happy with things as they are here, where no one has known us except as a couple. It's more difficult for me elsewhere.'

‘In your normal life, you mean. In that life you live during the working week, when you have to leave behind our escapist world.'

Michael hadn't meant it to be an accusation, but it emerged as just that. He could hear the underlying bitterness which he thought he had banished for ever. Geoffrey Tiler wasn't offended. He nodded his head slowly and put his hand softly upon the forearm of his companion. ‘I used to be like that. I wouldn't admit it, even to myself, but that's how it was at the beginning of our time together. But it's changed completely now: you must believe that.'