Rest Assured (14 page)

‘Did you use the path through the woods?'

‘No. We kept to the more open ground. With no street lighting and no major town in the area, you get a very good view of the stars here, on a clear night. I was pointing out some of the better-known constellations to Freda. We were probably out for about twenty minutes. Certainly no more than twenty-five.'

‘I'm very ignorant about the sky at night, and Matt knows a lot about it,' said Freda quickly, as if she felt it necessary to give substance to his statement.

Lambert had watched the pair very closely whilst Matthew Potts gave his account of their evening. He'd delivered it almost as if it had been a prepared statement. Perhaps it had been just that; men who distrusted words often liked to prepare exactly what they intended to say. The CID instinct was to disturb this measured control. ‘What time was this?'

Matthew nodded, as if he had expected the question and welcomed its arrival. ‘It must have been well after ten, I think. We could see the stars quite clearly, but there were still the last vestiges of light over the hills to the west.'

‘We do not yet know when Walter Keane died. We shall have more accurate information on that after the post-mortem examination. He may well have died at around the time when you were strolling around the site. Did you see anyone else whilst you were out?'

Potts paused, giving the matter thought, as the question required him to do. ‘No, I don't think we did. Can you recall seeing anyone, Freda?'

She gave a little shudder at the thought of there being a murderer abroad as they had innocently studied the sky and strolled arm in arm through the warm and friendly night. ‘No. We heard voices and laughter from some of the homes, as you'd expect. And I think I remember seeing a few shadowy figures away to our right when we were on the golf course. I thought at the time that they were going down to the bar for a drink, or perhaps moving away from there. But they were much too far away for us to identify anyone, and we were more interested in what we were doing ourselves.' She glanced up into Matthew's face and received a small, confirmatory smile.

‘How long are you here for?'

‘For the next few days certainly. Probably for the week, we thought. We're both on holiday. Getting to know each other again, you might say!' Freda managed this time to suppress her giggle, whilst Matthew looked as if he wished she had not volunteered her last thought.

‘Carry on thinking about this and keep your ears open, please. If you hear anything which might help us, or indeed have any further thoughts of your own on the matter, please ring this number immediately.'

The couple watched through the long window in their sitting room as the CID officers walked away from them. Then Freda said, ‘I probably sounded very nervous when I was speaking to them.'

He didn't look at her but watched their late questioners until they disappeared. ‘They won't make anything of that. You've ample reason to be nervous, after all.'

The Martindale boys were excited by the news of death and the numbers of policemen and police cars that poured on to the site during the day. Their mother told them repeatedly during the morning to moderate their shouting and their laughter and to refrain from racing around their unit.

It was futile, of course. Boys of eight and six are incapable of retaining instructions in their heads for more than three minutes when they are together and excited. And they were not alone. On this July weekend, there were many children on the site. Most of them were at least as excited as Nicky and Tommy and many were less responsive to parental control.

Mary Martindale was relieved when someone took the boys away to the golf course and organized an informal children's competition. In this the prizes were small, the competition fierce, and the carelessness accorded to the rules of golf would have scandalized the late Wally Keane. Mary heard the distant cries of happy children and marvelled at how swiftly tragedy could be shrugged away by those too young to recognize it for what it was.

George Martindale was normally ebullient and happy at Twin Lakes, but today he was in a sober mood. He had given a formal statement to the police about his discovery of Walter Keane's body with Michael Norrington. Perhaps that had depressed him, Mary thought, for he did not speak much during the rest of the morning, even to her. You only realized how cheerful George was most of the time when that bright face and flashing smile disappeared for a while.

George was in fact preoccupied with something else entirely. Mary knew nothing of this and he was determined that she never would. He had received a text on his mobile which had disturbed him. He knew that he couldn't afford to ignore it, but it took him some time to respond. Eventually he told Mary that he would slip down to the golf course and check that the boys were behaving well and not getting too raucous on this sombre day for Twin Lakes.

Mary approved of that. She was proud of her boys and proud of the reputation they had established here as being ‘well brought up'. People thought of Nicky and Tommy as the key members of a happy and popular family. She had not the slightest doubt that George intended to do just what he had said he would: they did not have secrets from each other.

The big man set off towards the golf course, then turned sharply away from it as soon as he was out of his wife's view. He found a quiet place by the smaller of the two lakes, well away from the spot where Wally Keane had died and from the police activity which surrounded it. He moved beneath the canopy of a sycamore and reluctantly dialled the number on his mobile. ‘You took your time!' said the aggressive voice which responded.

‘It's a bad reception area here for mobiles,' said George. That was in fact perfectly true, but he didn't for a moment think that he would be believed.

‘Change of plan. You're doing an extra drop.'

‘But I don't operate from here. My weekends and holidays here are my time away with the family.'

‘You don't have a choice, Marty boy!'

This man always called him that and he hated it. ‘There was a clear understanding that I wouldn't be contacted here.'

‘Fuck your clear understanding, Marty boy! You're a well-paid operative, not a virgin being violated. You do as you're fucking told.'

‘But I have an image here as a family man. We don't want to jeopardize that, do we? It's safer for me if I'm left alone here, which means that it's safer for you as well.'

‘Since when did you become a planner, Marty? Moved up the ranks, have you?'

‘I was just pointing out what seemed—'

‘Well don't! Leave the planning to the big boys. You're a very small cog in a very big wheel. You could be replaced at any time. Not just replaced, but cast aside and never seen again! You would do well to remember that, Marty boy.'

For the hundredth time, George Martindale wished that he had never got himself involved in this. But he was enjoying the results, wasn't he? He would never be at Twin Lakes and Mary and the boys he loved wouldn't have all this without that odious man at the end of the line and the anonymous tycoons who controlled both of them. He was a hypocrite to enjoy the pickings and yet ignore the way in which he obtained them.

And there was no way out, even though he wanted one. He had no choice in the matter. He had known in his heart since the moment he received the text that he would do whatever he was directed to do. He said hopelessly, ‘I want you to know that I am doing this under protest. I do not wish to be disturbed whilst I am here and I tell you again that there was a clear understanding that I wouldn't be.'

‘Shut the fuck up and move your arse, Marty boy! You don't want me to lose patience with you, do you? I'm telling you that you don't!'

‘Where?'

‘Lay-by on the A49. One mile south of a village called Hope Under Dinmore. What could be more innocent than that, Marty boy?' The voice hardened even further. ‘Be there in one hour from now. Stay in your car until you are approached. As usual, we do all the work for you whilst you sit on your arse and wait.'

The phone went dead before he could confirm that he would be there, leaving him staring at the instrument in frustrated resentment.

‘I have to go out,' he said to Mary when he returned to the unit.

‘Must you? I thought we might take the boys to the river this afternoon. Have a family picnic. It's the right day for it.'

He couldn't deny that. So he didn't respond to the suggestion in any way. He said sullenly, ‘I have to go. I don't have a choice. I shouldn't be away for very long.'

Mary wondered where he was going and what was so urgent that he had to desert her and the boys for it. But in her Nigerian culture you didn't question your man, didn't even try to find out what he was about. She wasn't stupid. She had wondered several times as she looked out over the sunlit acres of Twin Lakes where the money for all this came from. Not from what the council paid George, that was for sure, even though he was now a foreman on the road works team.

But you didn't ask about these things. You trusted your man absolutely to provide for you and your children, and George did that handsomely and lovingly. Lovingly was a big bonus. George had given her love, and given her Nicky and Tommy. She wasn't going to start questioning him now. She said only, ‘Get back as quickly as you can. I'll make up a picnic. It won't be wasted: we can eat it here, if we have to.'

He nodded, but didn't speak to her again before he left. She wondered if he had even heard what she said.

T
hey seemed an oddly matched couple, Geoffrey Tiler and Michael Norrington. That was Lambert's first impression and it had nothing to do with their sexual orientation.

Nor did he think his view significant. He had met many oddly matched couples over the years, and their oddness usually proved to have no bearing on the crimes he'd been investigating. And people who did not match each other physically, like the old seaside-postcard pair of huge-busted wife and diminutive and downtrodden husband, often complemented each other and handled life's problems well. It was sometimes the couples who seemed most at ease with each other, like the gruesome Fred West and his equally appalling wife in Gloucester, who perpetrated the most unbearable of crimes.

Moreover, John Lambert's impression of oddness in this pair was completely subjective and based merely on appearances. These men very probably got on perfectly when they were alone and away from the world. Whatever got you through the night, in the old phrase: the long hours of darkness during a winter night were surely the best test of any relationship.

Geoffrey Tiler was short and thickset. He had plentiful grey hair and watchful brown eyes, which registered every movement of these visitors to his chalet but betrayed no obvious hostility. Michael Norrington was five or six inches taller than his partner, blue-eyed and very thin. His dark hair was so free of any greyness that Lambert fancied he resorted to a bottle to keep it that way. He was more obviously nervous than Tiler at this intrusion; his quick physical shifts betrayed that. It seemed that the movements of his hands were sometimes a surprise to him as well as to the men who had come here to question him.

Lambert said to him, ‘It was you who discovered the body, wasn't it, Mr Norrington?'

‘Yes. I've made a full statement of how I did that. I wasn't alone. I was with George Martindale.' He asserted that firmly, as if it established his innocence in the matter of Walter Keane.

‘Yes. I've read your statement. You were abroad very early this morning. Can you tell us why that was?'

‘There were perfectly innocent reasons for it.'

‘Then give them to us, please.'

Norrington looked as if he was being upset by this directness. Geoffrey Tiler said calmly, ‘No one is accusing you of anything, Michael, and you've nothing to hide. Just tell them what happened.'

Norrington looked at him for a long moment, then turned back to the CID men. ‘I awoke to find the sun filling the bedroom with light and the birds trilling their hearts out in celebration. The curtains are much thinner here than in my room in Stourbridge. I lay and listened for a while and enjoyed the birdsong. Then I tried to go to sleep again. I dozed a little, but I couldn't get off. Geoffrey was fast asleep, of course: he's a good sleeper. He was snoring a little – well, more of a snuffle really.' He turned his head abruptly back towards Tiler and smiled at him, as if it was important to him that he had asserted their intimacy.

Lambert said with a trace of impatience, ‘But you didn't stay in bed for long, did you?'

‘I wasn't able to get back to sleep. I think I probably dozed a little, but further sleep proved impossible for me.' He smiled, as if the formality of this phrasing gave him satisfaction. ‘I eventually decided to get up. It seemed a shame not to be in the fresh air and enjoying Twin Lakes by myself, on such a glorious morning. You may find this strange, but I thought that this would be a good time to examine people's horticultural efforts. There are lots of flowers which people have planted in little plots near their units, but you aren't able to appreciate them properly when there are people around and you have to make conversation. Well, I feel that I do, anyway.' He glanced suddenly at Hook, with one of those swift and unpredictable movements of his head. Perhaps he thought the man with the countryman's exterior might be the one most likely to confirm his sentiments.

It was Tiler who tried to explain what he meant. ‘Michael is an excellent conversationalist, but he doesn't like making small talk, especially with people he hardly knows. He's a shy man.' He spoke as if he was providing some sort of verbal testimonial for his companion.

Norrington nodded. ‘I did indeed inspect many of the annuals which are now providing such colour around the site. I'm happy to say that Geoffrey's begonias and geraniums are more than a match for anyone else's efforts.' He knew he sounded pompous, but he was prepared to accept that, to create the nerdish impression he wanted them to take away.