by J M Gregson
The corpse was so still as it hung from the bough of the tree that it might have been something else entirely. Until you looked up and saw the features. The face was a livid crimson-grey, turning rapidly towards black around the tongue, which stuck out oddly on one side of the distorted lips. The eyes were so bulbous that they looked as if they might at any moment spring forth from the head.
There was but the slightest movement on the rope which suspended Walter Keane from the branch of the oak.
SEVEN
The owner of Twin Lakes was tight-lipped and strained. There had been reports of the death, first on local radio and then on the national bulletins. Foul play had not been ruled out, the official police release said. The familiar phrase was repeated with relish by the newsreader on Radio Gloucester. That got the journos interested. Jim Rawlinson’s phone had scarcely stopped ringing during the last two hours. He had tried to ban reporters and journalists from the site, keeping the barrier beside his office firmly lowered.
But journalists are insensitive beasts, as he already knew. They were finding other ways on to the site, which was almost impossible to defend against unscrupulous human parasites in search of news and quotes. He had been relieved when the police had banished reporters and sealed off a wide area on the far side of the big lake with their plastic scene-of-crime tapes. But Jim Rawlinson had searched the site and found two reporters still snooping around, trying to get quotes from his residents about the site and the man who had been found hanged.
And now he had Detective Chief Superintendent John Lambert in his office. This was perhaps the most famous detective in the country and certainly the one whom almost everyone had heard of in this area. If the papers got hold of the fact that he was at Twin Lakes, they’d descend like locusts upon the site. And they’d be looking for the sensational and the bizarre, not the pleasant rural solitude and relaxation which Jim sold as the keynotes of this place.
Rawlinson said gruffly, ‘I can’t see why the top brass should be here at all. Not for a routine suicide.’
‘If that is what this proves to be, we’ll happily leave you in peace. DS Hook alerted me to the fact that threats have been issued to people on this site by a person or persons unknown. In view of that, any death needs to be thoroughly investigated.’
Rawlinson accepted that, reluctantly. The fact that he didn’t query the threatening notes probably meant that he knew all about them: Bert had always known that Debbie Keane wasn’t going to keep her mouth shut after he’d questioned her about the threats to the Ramsbottoms.
Jim Rawlinson said, ‘This isn’t the kind of publicity I need. I’m running a business here.’
The tall man nodded gravely, though he did not seem much impressed. ‘We’ll keep this as low-key as we can, but we can’t control the media.’ He smiled sourly. ‘This might even be good publicity for you, Mr Rawlinson, if you take the long view. Murder – if this is murder – has a horrid attraction for many of the public. It would certainly put you on the map. Whether it would help you to sell your units might be another matter. But that’s not my business. We need to determine whether there has been a serious crime here, and to find the culprit if there has been. We shall need your records of everyone on site. I’m sure you don’t allow people to come here without recording a good deal about their backgrounds.’
‘Our records are confidential.’
‘And we shall treat them as such and return them to you. I assume your documentation of the home-owners is computerized. Detective Inspector Rushton at Oldford CID will require a full copy of them. Providing he has that, we needn’t take anything away from here.’
Jim Rawlinson was reluctantly agreeing to this when DS Hook’s mobile rang, sounding shrill and ominous in the high, quiet office. ‘They’re ready for us at the scene of crime, sir.’
Lambert glanced at Rawlinson. ‘Don’t worry, sir. We always describe the area as that, until we are sure that no crime is involved. Guilty until proved innocent, I suppose you could say, in this case. Do you think this was a suicide?’
The sudden baldness of the query took Rawlinson by surprise. ‘I haven’t even thought about it – I haven’t had much chance to think, with these damn media people swarming around. I can’t think anyone would want to kill Wally Keane. He was helpful and friendly. He even helped us out in the office here, when we were pushed for staff, with holidays and sickness. He was always ready to lend a hand, and he was almost a permanent resident at Twin Lakes. As far as that’s allowed, of course.’ He remembered hurriedly that he was speaking to what his father always called the long arm of the law.
‘We’ll let you know as soon as possible about the findings of our team. I’m afraid the woods are going to be inaccessible for your residents for at least the rest of today. And for considerably longer, if foul play has been involved.’
Lambert kept his face as blank as possible, implying that he would be pleased if this proved to be no more than the personal and individual tragedy of a suicide. But even as a veteran, he felt that quickening of the pulse which all CID men feel at the prospect of something more sinister.
The scene of crime area was not only taped off but protected by high screens. The sinister burden which hung from the tree had grown even darker as the sun had risen higher and the corpse had turned slowly backwards and forwards on its rope. It had now been photographed from every angle and carefully lifted down.
The two CID men, with plastic coverings over their feet to avoid contamination, moved slowly along the designated path, skirting the man and two women who were painstakingly gathering whatever they could glean from the area that might signify a recent human presence there. Lambert stared dispassionately at the small form upon the ground. Hook looked at it with more emotion, for he had known this thing as a living, speaking man, who had spoken to him and smiled at him on his last visit here three months earlier. Both men had seen hanging suicides before. Of the common means of suicide, this was the one which most affected you, because the evidence of the desperation which drove the decision to end life was somehow more apparent and stark with a hanging than with any other of the usual forms of suicide.
This was not a suicide.
The pathologist who had been examining the mortal remains of Walter Keane was quite definite about that. The body lay face downwards, looking pathetically small amidst the grass between the trees. ‘This man was either dead or unconscious when he was strung up on that oak.’ He glanced up at the tree which had been here already for a couple of centuries and looked good for a couple more; somehow that extended presence seemed to make human death and human activity beneath its branches less significant. ‘I suspect the man was insensible rather than dead when he was strung up, but I’ll tell you definitely when I’ve had him on the slab.’
Every profession has its own jargon. It is a long time since post-mortems were conducted upon slabs, but the men who conduct them still use the term, in a world of stainless steel. This one pointed at a wound at the back right of the dead man’s head. It seemed at first insignificant, as there was little blood and the damage was concealed by Keane’s lengthy grey hair. ‘Someone hit this man very hard with the traditional blunt instrument. We haven’t so far found anything round here which fits the wound.’
‘And the rest of this was then arranged to suggest suicide.’
The pathologist nodded. ‘Unless the victim was already wearing a rope around his neck, which seems highly unlikely, the person who hit him then fastened this rope around his neck and hauled him up into the tree.’
Lambert looked automatically from the body on the ground to the limb of the tree above them. ‘So we can probably assume it was a man, because of the strength involved.’
‘No.’ The pathologist’s prompt and definite rebuttal suggested he was enjoying increasing their problems. ‘The victim is small and lightly built. We’ll have an accurate weight by the end of the day, but I suspect it will be less than ten stones. Slinging the rope over that branch and using
her own weight intelligently, any reasonably healthy woman could have got him up there.’
The scene of crime officer in charge of the team, a retired sergeant who knew a little of Lambert from his days in the service, said quietly, ‘We don’t know for certain that only one person was involved in this. We’ve found various bits and pieces within twenty yards of here, but it may be that none of them is significant. I understand that many of the residents walk through these woods. It will be difficult to pin anything down to last night.’
Lambert glanced automatically at the pathologist with the mention of a time. The man nodded. ‘Almost certainly late last night, from rectal temperature and the progress of rigor. I might be able to give you something more accurate when I get to analyse the stomach contents.’
He sounded almost eager. Lambert, who had attended many a post-mortem in his younger days, could almost catch in his brain the sickening smells and sounds which would shortly proceed from what lay on the ground beneath them. He’d never developed the stomach needed for post-mortems.
He said without great enthusiasm to Bert Hook, ‘We’d better speak to the wife of the deceased.’
For obvious reasons, the spouse of any murder victim and the last person known to have seen him alive always excite police interest. Debbie Keane was both of these. But neither man held any great hope that they were speaking to Walter Keane’s murderer.
Lambert made his stock opening to bereaved wives. ‘We’re very sorry to have to intrude at a time like this. You’re naturally very upset, but you might be able to offer us scraps of information which will help us to establish how your husband died.’
‘It wasn’t suicide?’ Debbie Keane had been looking much older than her sixty-one years, with her face drawn and very pale, but obviously her brain was working well enough. She had picked up the implications in phrases he had hoped might pass her by.
He glanced at Hook, who said, ‘It seems possible that he didn’t die by his own hand, Mrs Keane.’
She was silent for such a long time that they thought she wasn’t going to speak. But experienced CID men often let silences stretch; they realize that people who are accustomed to the normal social conventions will usually feel the need to fill a silence. And sometimes what they say under emotional pressure will be revealing. What Debbie Keane said was simple and quiet. ‘I knew that. I knew that Wally wouldn’t have gone up there and killed himself.’
She seemed relieved by the thought, even though it raised the possibility of the worst crime of all. It meant that Wally hadn’t felt so desperate that he wanted to get away from her, that he hadn’t felt that his life with her had nothing left save a suffering so crushing that even oblivion was preferable to it. There was another long moment during which she said nothing but allowed her mind to race. Then she said, ‘You told me when you were here before that someone had been sending notes around, threatening people with death.’
‘I did indeed. I asked for your help, Debbie, didn’t I? But you had no more idea than anyone else who’d been sending those notes. Have you had any thoughts on it since?’
Again a pause, when this time they would have expected an immediate answer. She looked for a moment as if she might volunteer something. Then she brushed the strand of grey hair which strayed persistently over her forehead impatiently away and said, ‘No, I haven’t come up with anything. And neither has anyone else I’ve spoken to about it.’
Bert Hook gave her a quiet smile, which was designed to be encouraging but also had an element of resignation. He’d told her clearly all those weeks ago that what he’d said to her had been confidential, yet he’d known even as he’d given her the information that she would swiftly spread it around the site and through the very varied community which constituted Twin Lakes. And in a way that seemed to have served its purpose. There had been no reports of any further threatening notes like the ones which had so disturbed the Ramsbottoms. Perhaps the news from Debbie Keane that a detective sergeant was on the case had silenced the mischievous brain which had devised those melodramatic and distressing messages.
Hook said gently, ‘Probably Walter’s death had nothing to do with those notes. But it looks to us at present as though someone killed him. There’ll have to be a post-mortem, I’m afraid. But we shall know more after that.’
‘They’ll cut him up, won’t they?’
‘Post-mortem examinations tell us all sorts of things, Debbie. We shall learn more about exactly how Wally died. Perhaps even things about whoever else was involved in his death.’
She nodded quietly, then repeated her previous reaction with some satisfaction. ‘I knew he didn’t kill himself. Wally wouldn’t have done that. He enjoyed his life here far too much to do that.’
‘When was he last with you, Debbie?’
‘They always ask that, the police, don’t they? They think the wife is a possibility for the killer, don’t they?’
She seemed more excited than disturbed by the thought. Perhaps even a little local infamy was better than obscurity. Bert Hook said sturdily, ‘I’m sure no one thinks that in this case, Debbie. But we need to establish whatever we can of Walter’s movements last night.’
Her eyes filled suddenly with tears. She was in that febrile state which results from shock; she was experiencing swift changes of mood and emotion that were as much a surprise to her as to the onlookers. ‘We ate at about seven. We don’t like to eat too late in the evening nowadays; we need the time to digest the food during the evening. We had quiche and new potatoes and broccoli. Wally always likes new potatoes – he says they’re a meal in themselves, when you get salt and butter with them.’ She stopped, and for a moment they thought she was going to weep and lose control of her speech. But then she swallowed twice and continued. ‘We had apple crumble for afters; he always liked that. It was much later that he went out for a walk; he often did that in the evenings in the summer. He liked to see what was going on around the site. See who was on the golf course and the bowling green. Find if there was anyone sailing or fishing on the lakes. But I think he would have been too late for that last night, by the time we’d finished watching the telly.’
They waited again to see whether grief would take over and destroy her coherence, but she merely shook her head sadly, as if she were speaking of a distant acquaintance rather than the man who had shared her life for over thirty years. Lambert said gently, ‘Can you recall exactly what the time was when he went out, Mrs Keane?’
She looked at the older man sharply, as if she had forgotten for a moment that he was there. She had been concentrating upon the homely features of Bert Hook, the man she had met months ago in happier times. ‘It must have been quite late, I think. We watched Gardeners’ World until nine. We like Monty Don, because he’s a real gardener. Then we saw a couple of comedy programmes on BBC One. It must have been somewhere around ten when Wally went out.’
‘Thank you. That is precise and helpful. And as far as you know, he didn’t return here after that?’
‘No.’ She was suddenly brimming with tears, after the control she had shown in giving her account.
Lambert left it to Hook to ask the most difficult question. Bert gave her an encouraging smile as he said, ‘But you didn’t raise the alarm last night. Weren’t you anxious then, when Wally didn’t come back?’
She was suddenly anxious to speak, her tragedy forgotten for a moment in the necessity to explain herself and her conduct. ‘I didn’t know he hadn’t come in. He moves quietly, does Wally. And he has his own room. He spends hours in there with his computer. Sometimes he’s studying things on it long after I’ve gone to bed. He has his own bed in there, you see. But he comes in and we have a cup of tea together in the mornings. That’s in my bed.’ It was plainly important to Debbie Keane to explain that even if they slept apart they were not estranged from each other. It did not seem to have struck her yet that there would be no more companionable cups of morning tea.
Hook nodded. ‘So it wasn’t until this morni
ng that you realized he hadn’t come back from his evening walk.’
‘That’s just it, yes. I woke early with the sunlight. The place felt very empty. There was no noise from Wally’s room. No flushing of the toilet or running of taps. And he didn’t bring in the tea.’
Now she did weep, but softly and steadily, not in the great sobs they would have expected. Hook, who had never grown hardened to death, was suddenly full of pity for this woman who had been translated overnight from annoying tittle-tattler to tragic widow. She looked small and very helpless, as if she would never cope without the man to whom she had deferred so readily. She would survive, of course, when she had taken the time to grieve and to establish the rails upon which her new life must run. But she looked at this moment as if she needed someone to put arms around her and hold her for a long time, whilst she wept away the first and most wracking bout of her misery. He said softly, ‘Do you have relatives who can help you? Children, perhaps?’
‘We have one daughter. She’s in Aberdeen. It’s a long way away, and we’re not close.’ It was almost Chekhovian in its stark negativity.
‘Perhaps you could go to her for a few days.’
‘I wouldn’t want to go there. My friends are here. This is where I belong, now.’
‘I see. Debbie, I’m sorry, but I have to ask you this. Do you know of anyone who would have wished to harm Wally?’
‘You mustn’t be sorry, DS Hook. We all want to find out who did this, don’t we? And I can think of a few people around here who weren’t keen on Wally. He could be irritating sometimes, you know. He thought he knew everything and people didn’t always like that.’ She was suddenly shaken by a sigh which seemed almost too much for her thin frame to contain. ‘But no one would have wanted to kill him, just because he was irritating, would they? You don’t go killing people because you’re annoyed about an adjustment to your golfing handicap, do you?’
