by J M Gregson
Yellow-shirt flashed a warrant card that signified he was a Detective Inspector. Mark didn’t bother to register the name. The DI studied him wordlessly for a few seconds; you needed to assess men like Mark Patmore before you decided how much to rely upon what they told you. If they moved beyond a certain point, they could sell out and disappear into the murky underworld they were supposed to be illuminating for you. When he said, ‘What news, Sergeant?’ the rank was meant as a reminder that they were on the same side: he had caught a whiff of the under-cover man’s disillusion.
‘I saw them last night. Well, saw Mercer. They’re promoting me. Me and one of the others.’ Patmore curled his lip on the thought, as if promotion merely emphasized what a dangerous farce these bastards had devised for him. ‘They want to move us up – they’re putting each of us in control of a group of dealers.’
‘Congratulations.’ Yellow-shirt kept any hint of irony out of his tone, but it was a strange thing to be acknowledging the promotion of your own man amongst the enemy. ‘Have you any names for us beyond those of the dealers around you? It’s the men further up we need to nail, if we’re ever going to break this.’
Mark was suddenly enraged that the smug bastard should remind him of something so obvious. He wanted to crash his fist into the small straight nose and the prim, successful mouth beneath it. ‘That’s why I’m here! That’s why I’ve been risking my life for the last eight months. And no, I haven’t any names for you. Not yet. Perhaps by the time I have them, I’ll be doing so well out of drugs that I won’t want to reveal them. Sir!’ He delivered the last word like an expletive, after a lengthy pause.
‘Take it easy, Sergeant Patmore.’ But the DI knew that the reminder of rank meant nothing here, that he was dealing with a man near to the end of his tether. He was on ground where he had not ventured before, and he felt it crumbling beneath his feet. ‘When you have names, we’ll take them and get you out. Meanwhile, you’re doing a good job.’
The phrase fell limply amidst the wisps of dead grass on the wooden floor of the room. Who the hell knew what a good job was, in this extraordinary context? Even Mark Patmore, who was at the centre of it, had no idea whether he was doing a good job or drowning in vice. He had no comparisons, no measures by which he could judge himself and his performance. He knew now that he wanted it to end, but how it would end and what he would do if he survived he could not even contemplate. He stood up, wanting to be out of the presence of this smooth bastard, back in the squat with the losers he suddenly loved. ‘I’m seeing them on Wednesday.’
‘Good. And you’ll let us know if you get any names of the men issuing orders to you at this new level.’ He didn’t wait for assent, since it might not be voiced. ‘What about the other dealer who’s being moved up with you? Do you have a name for him?’
‘It’s the black man.’ But there were a lot of them among the dealers as well as the users. Mark liked this one, what little he’d seen of him, and the other half of him didn’t want to deliver the name. But he sighed and said, ‘He’s not a user. That’s why they think he’ll be reliable, I suppose. His name’s Martindale.’
DI Rushton had completed his initial trawl of criminal records by early afternoon. He was not optimistic when he reported to his chief superintendent.
‘We’ve turned up two previous instances of violence which have led to court proceedings and convictions. One was fourteen years ago and was a domestic. The man assaulted his former wife. He broke a cheekbone and two ribs but claimed she was threatening him with a knife at the time. The court must have believed him, because he got away with a suspended sentence. He is now forty-nine, apparently happily settled with his second wife, with whom he has two children. The family were here on Friday night and are still on site. He was with other people throughout the evening and has no connection with this crime, unless we think he brought a killer in from outside, which seems highly unlikely because of his background and present income. I doubt if he’d have the contacts or the money to bring in a contract killer.’
‘And your other man with form?’
‘He was involved in a pub brawl eight years ago. Put a man in hospital. Seems to be a man handy with his fists and with his boots who lives on the edge of the law. But he’s small-time. He doesn’t like us and the two officers who took his statement didn’t like him. I had a look at him myself and agreed with them, but I don’t think he had any involvement in this crime. He has an impeccable alibi for Friday night and no apparent motive: he’s only just bought one of the homes here and scarcely knew Keane. Other people have confirmed that. Again, I think a contract killer would be beyond both his experience and his resources.’
‘So how does this crime look to you, Chris, now that you’ve assessed all the statements and the previous form?’
DI Rushton was now used to being treated as an equal and being asked his opinion as such by the great man. Lambert had overawed him, when he had first been assigned to him as a young and newly promoted detective inspector. ‘I suppose it’s still possible that someone totally unconnected with what goes on here came in from outside to commit murder, but that seems highly unlikely, especially if we posit a prearranged meeting at a specific place in those woods. More important to me is that Walter Keane’s life revolved totally around Twin Lakes and what happens here. The Keanes have been virtually full-time residents here for the last eight years. Walter’s death must surely be directly connected with previous events here.’
‘Agreed. So what next?’
‘I’d be pretty confident that the killer is among the five couples whom you and Bert have already spoken to. Everyone else with even the flimsiest of motives seems to have several people to attest his or her alibi.’
‘And you’ve come up with nothing in the way of form on any of these ten people?’
Rushton smiled grimly. ‘Enquiries are ongoing, as we tell the public when we’ve nothing to report. In this case, they really are. There’s nothing useful on record, but I’m still exploring the police grapevine in the case of two of the ten.’
Lambert’s answering smile was rueful, but even more grim than Rushton’s. ‘We can’t afford to wait for you to gather information, Chris. Tell me what you have, and where you have nothing, give me your thoughts.’
‘Let’s take the easy ones first. Lisa and Jason Ramsbottom. He got in with a bad set when he was younger. He was a member of a gang with whom he had a series of Saturday-night rumbles up in Lancashire, where he grew up. I suspect that there were a couple of occasions when his youth protected him from charges, because we all know it’s hardly worth the bother of charging kids under eighteen. But all that’s a long time ago. Marriage and a daughter, who’s now fourteen, seem to have settled him down. Most important of all, it was the Ramsbottoms who brought Bert Hook on to the site more than two months ago to investigate threatening notes. They’d hardly have done that, if they’d been contemplating murder.’
‘Only one person needs to be involved in murder, but I take your point. Go on.’
‘George and Mary Martindale. George was a jobbing builder for several years, taking work wherever he could get it, but almost never unemployed. He seems to have been involved in a few fights and scuffles, but nothing serious; I expect as a black man in that environment, he had to learn to use his fists. He’s been working for the council in the road works department at Kidderminster and I’ve spoken to his bosses there. They’re very well satisfied with him and have recently promoted him, making him foreman of a road works gang. They say George is popular with the other men, looks after youngsters well, and is generally a good example. He and his family – he has two boys aged eight and six – seem to be well liked on the site. Several of the other people we’ve interviewed have told us that, without any prompting.’
‘All round good egg, then. If a Jamaican can be such a Bertie Wooster thing as a good egg. Life being what it is, we’ll probably find he strung up our victim on Friday night.’
Chris Rushton grinned.
‘I doubt it. He has the physique to do it, but hardly the motivation. He seems to treat Debbie Keane’s nosiness with an affectionate tolerance. From what they’ve said to us so far, we could probably say the same of Matthew and Freda Potts – well, of her, anyway. Matthew hasn’t been here often enough to have many dealings with the Keanes. He works on oil rigs in the North Sea and is away for lengthy periods. But Freda has been here two or three times with her nephew. Neither of the Potts seems to have any criminal record. Matthew Potts was in the SAS for several years and I’m still trying to check his army record: the military authorities are notoriously stingy with information, as you know. I suppose with his background he’d be able to kill someone like Wally Keane with great competence, but I can’t see why he would want to do that, and no one else has suggested a reason. He seems to have hardly known the victim. His wife, on the other hand, was quizzed and irritated by the Keanes when she was here without Matthew.’
Lambert came back to the people who had been in his mind for almost twenty-four hours now. He said hopefully, ‘Have you turned up anything useful on Richard Seagrave or Vanessa Norton?’
‘No criminal record for either of them. Seagrave went to Rugby public school as a day boy and Norton was at Roedean for a time. Her father was an army major and her parents were abroad for most of the years of her schooling. Seagrave and Norton aren’t married and we’ve no evidence about how long they’ve been together or how serious the relationship is.’
‘Pretty serious, I’d say, from what we saw. Bert and I interviewed them yesterday afternoon. She did most of the talking and I felt that was something they’d agreed on before we saw them. We got very little out of them.’
‘Neither of them has any criminal record, as I said. They seem pretty high-powered people to take a place here, but perhaps it’s a bolt-hole from taxing lives elsewhere. She writes a fashion column for the Mail on Sunday and he has his own successful business, Seagrave Enterprises. Office supplies. Highly successful, apparently, for a small business which is run almost entirely by the owner.’
‘Could it be a front for something larger and darker?’
‘It’s possible, I suppose. I’ll make unofficial enquiries. There’s a DI in Birmingham who trained with me and owes me a few favours.’
Lambert grinned. ‘I’m the one who always tells my team members they mustn’t assess people’s characters without assembling the proper factual basis, so I don’t want this to go any further at present. But I didn’t like Mr Seagrave and I didn’t trust his partner, if that’s what the blonde goddess is. How have they been received here at Twin Lakes?’
‘They’re more popular here than they are with you, by the sound of it. No one seems to know much about him; he doesn’t mix a lot, though people find him pleasant enough to speak with. He provided a fine silver cup for a junior golf competition, and presented it to the first winner himself, as well as providing other generous prizes. That hasn’t done him any harm in this holiday environment, where families are so important. Vanessa has taken up golf herself and made rapid progress, apparently. There was some amusement because Wally Keane kept having to adjust her handicap and was reputed to resent her progress.’
‘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?’
THIRTEEN
Jason 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 note
s 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?’
