by J M Gregson
Mrs Keane was plainly delighted and animated by this news. ‘Goodness! What on earth can have happened on our quiet little site to excite the attention of a detective inspector?’
‘Detective sergeant, Mrs Keane. And an off-duty detective sergeant at that. This is almost certainly a false alarm. Many people are stupid, but only a much smaller number among them are vicious.’ He was aware from her face that he was getting this wrong, that instead of making it low-key as he had intended he was adding to her excitement with every phrase. But he couldn’t see what else he could have done; you had to issue the standard cautious reminders.
And now came the most important, and in this case probably the most futile reminder of all. ‘I must emphasize that what I say now must go no further. I am taking you into my confidence, Mrs Keane, and it is important that you keep this to yourself.’ He spoke the words with all the solemnity he could muster, but even as he pronounced them he heard their futility. You couldn’t talk to the village gossip and expect her to keep what you said to herself, however steely your warnings. Because after his day on the site, Bert realized that this is what this community was: a particular kind of village, which assembled every weekend, with a few permanent occupants like Debbie Keane who made it her business to acquire and disseminate knowledge of the inhabitants’ affairs.
‘Oh, you’re safe with me, Detective Sergeant Hook. You can say whatever you want in here and know that it will go no further.’ Debbie Keane looked round at the walls and the windows of her unit and nodded sagely. Probably at that moment she actually believed what she was saying. Busybodies had an enormous capacity for self-deception.
Bert knew what would happen, but he could see no alternative. The woman was a source of information and he needed to use her. And if news of the threatening notes the Ramsbottoms had received trickled round the site, that might be the best method of suppressing them. Nutters who wrote notes did not usually welcome publicity, and the news of police investigation might well frighten them off. Suppression wasn’t as good as exposure and punishment, but it was a good second best.
‘Lisa Ramsbottom contacted me because she had received unpleasant notes, Mrs Keane. This is the first of them.’ He produced the polythene envelope in which he had placed the card. Debbie stared with widening eyes at the words in capitals: YOU ARE LINING YOURSELF UP FOR DEATH.
There was an extended dramatic pause before she said tremulously, ‘Goodness me! Someone is threatening them. Who could have done this?’
‘I’m hoping that is where you might be able to help, Debbie.’ He used her first name now, partly to alleviate what seemed her genuine fear, partly to emphasize how much he was taking her into his confidence. ‘Can you think of anyone on the site who might have done this?’
She shook her head slowly, as if she did not trust herself with words.
‘Someone with a grievance against Lisa and Jason, perhaps. You chat to a lot of people, I know. Has anyone told you that they dislike the Ramsbottoms?’
‘No. We’re a friendly lot here. We get on well with each other. We don’t come here to do things like that.’ She dipped her head towards the note, as if she feared to use her hand to point at it.
‘It’s not just an isolated incident, you see. There have been other notes.’ He produced his second polythene cover and his second message: HEED YOUR WARNINGS. THE TIME IS NEAR.
Debbie Keane stared at the words in horror for a moment, then turned her white, round face back to Hook. ‘Someone is threatening them. Do you think he’s really going to attack them?’
‘No, I don’t, Debbie. It might not be a he, of course. But these things are false alarms, in nineteen cases out of twenty. They are sent by silly or disturbed people who want to frighten their targets. But they have to be investigated.’ It flashed across his mind that it might just be this appalled-looking grey-haired woman who had slipped these messages into the Ramsbottoms’ unit. And if into theirs, perhaps into others which had yet to come to light. Everyone seemed to think that she was the person who knew most about the business of others in this constantly changing village. That would make her best placed to have the material which would embolden her to issue threats like this. He said, ‘You used to have a dog, didn’t you, Debbie?’
She nodded, seeming to find nothing to alarm her in this odd switch of subject. ‘Fox terrier, she was. Bessie. She died not long ago.’
‘You must miss her.’ He was studying her closely; he had known at least two elderly ladies who had become unbalanced after the loss of a pet, though they had each been at least ten years older than Debbie Keane.
‘You get over it. It’s a blow when they go, but you always knew they would, eventually. I still enjoy walking in the woods – still enjoy meeting other people’s dogs. There are quite a few of them come here.’
No sign of any mental disorder there; Bert felt rather ashamed of himself for even considering the possibility. ‘Well, as I say, it’s almost certainly a false alarm, Debbie. But if you have any further thoughts on it, or hear of anyone else being threatened, you should get in touch with me immediately at this number.’ He gave her his card. She studied it with the reverence she might have accorded to a royal telegram before setting it carefully against a china dog on her mantelpiece.
He was leaving her home when Walter Keane appeared and was introduced. Hook hastened away to take his leave of the Ramsbottoms and head for home. As he left he heard Debbie saying to her husband, ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened, Wally …’
So much for confidentiality.
George Martindale and his family arrived for the weekend half an hour after DS Hook had left Twin Lakes.
The Martindales were popular on the site. The whole family were very black and very cheerful. Even the people who thought you should never mention the word black when speaking of people knew that you couldn’t escape it with the Martindales. George and Mary seemed to thrust it at you sometimes, with their smooth dark faces and their large and very white teeth, whilst their two young children seemed totally unconscious of their colour. More importantly, they were perpetually cheerful and polite. Well brought up, people said approvingly. That phrase represented the perfect middle-class compliment for children, and there were many middle-class people who had units at Twin Lakes.
George was Jamaican and Mary was Nigerian, but many people thought that they were from the same place. Their two delightful boys were aged eight and six. By seven o’clock on this May evening, both boys were out on the otherwise deserted golf course with their father, staring at small white balls with the intensity and single-minded concentration which only children of their age can summon. Mum was preparing food. It was an arrangement which feminists would have deplored but which Mary seemed happy to accept. The boys – and the much bigger boy who had sired them – were out from under her feet whilst she got on with preparing a meal in the rather constricted kitchen of her holiday home.
The boys had cut-down clubs and were showing promise. That at any rate was the verdict of their cheerfully biased father. Tommy, the six-year-old, grew increasingly frustrated as he perpetrated two air shots, then a series of frantic swings which sent his ball scuttling along the ground. He said a rude word, was admonished by his father, and maintained sturdily that he had learned the word from him. Then, wonder of wonders, he dropped the face of his iron club on the ball correctly and it soared high and straight in front of him, to noisy acclaim from his father and more muted recognition from his elder brother.
This wonder stroke immediately became to Tommy his natural game and his usual shot. His previous efforts were forgotten as mere aberrations from his normal game, probably the result of some external distraction from his partners or from the world around them.
At six years old, Tommy was on his way to becoming a golfer.
His father was a powerful man and an optimist. This is rarely an effective combination when golf is the sport. George smote the ball vast distances, but only rarely on the line which was re
quired. His sons were impressed by his drives, but intrigued by the places from which he had to play his second shots. Martindale was a big man, but definitely not at his golfing best when he was bent almost double beneath birch trees or standing on one leg against a fir.
‘You’d be better taking a drop,’ advised his elder boy gravely. Nicky was offering the accumulated golfing wisdom of an eight-year-old.
His father would undoubtedly have counselled a drop to any of his normal golfing companions, with the resultant penalty of one shot, and a free swing. He now waved away his son’s advice and told him to stand clear of danger. This splendid figure of a man then crouched on one knee, swung back the club for the eighteen inches which was all the tree allowed him, and swatted at the ball with the arthritic twitch of an octogenarian. It moved a foot, into a totally unplayable lie against the base of the tree.
George Martindale uttered the word he had deplored in his younger son. The boys’ laughter was unseemly as well as disrespectful.
But each of the trio hit three or four very good shots in the six holes they played. That was sufficient to make them think that this game was in essence really rather simple; only practice was needed to create consistency. They went happily back to their holiday home with three enormous appetites.
‘Dad got into some horrible places,’ Nicky told his mother happily. ‘He’s not really as good at this game as he lets you think he is.’
‘He’s never pretended to be very good,’ said Mary Martindale loyally. ‘You should be grateful that he’s prepared to give you his time and teach you about the game.’
‘The man on television said you should have a professional to teach you when you start,’ said the precocious Nicky loftily. ‘He said you get into bad habits if you don’t.’
‘You get started in the game and show some interest. Then I’ll think about lessons for you,’ said his father sternly. But he patted the boy’s head with affection, and Nicky knew, as he had always known, that Dad was a soft touch.
‘Dad used a rude word,’ said Tommy delightedly. ‘It was one he said I hadn’t to use.’ He shook his head censoriously, as he’d often seen his teacher, Miss Fletcher, do. ‘And when he was crawling under the trees to get his ball, he did a big fart!’
Both boys collapsed in helpless laughter at this, as much because Tommy had produced this daring word in the home as for the event itself. Mary kept her face straight with some difficulty as she told them to wash their hands and come to the table.
The boys were in bed and it was quite dark when George Martindale came out for a breath of the clear, cool night air. He sauntered round the side of the lake, close to the two boathouses where the woods began, before he produced his mobile phone. He knew exactly what he wanted and it didn’t take him long to make the call. He rapped out the quantities, waiting each time for the person at the other end of the line to make a note of his requirements.
George Martindale waited whilst his order was read back to him, then rang off after a terse confirmation. There was no social exchange, no polite leave-taking. This was strictly a business call. He was back with Mary and the sleeping boys in no more than fifteen minutes.
He would have been amazed to know that his call had been overheard.
The bar restaurant had closed and the lights were going off around the site by the time the last car to arrive on that Friday night drove quietly through the gates.
The three-litre Jaguar was a powerful car. It made very little noise, easing almost silently between the gates and around the site to the home beside the lake, which was now silvered by a crescent moon. The thickset man and the statuesque woman beside him sat for a moment and looked across the water, then climbed softly from the big vehicle and carried their bags without a word into their unit.
She said, ‘I’ll make us a hot drink, shall I?’ but he took her into his arms and held her tight against him, running his hands softly down the length of her back and the soft curves at the base of it.
‘Switching off for the weekend, are we?’ she said into his ear. She held the back of his head carefully in both her hands and pressed his lips softly against hers.
He kissed her for a long moment, but tenderly, without the brutal fierceness he could display on other occasions. ‘Rest Assured,’ he quoted and they both chuckled a little, whilst he glanced at the closed door of their bedroom.
The man’s name was Richard Seagrave and earlier in the evening he had been much less relaxed. At six o’clock, he was still in his office. His PA and almost everyone else in the building had gone home. The cleaners moved in, anxious to complete their work and leave the big modern building clean, shining and ready for the new week’s work on Monday morning. Richard Seagrave told them they could not yet enter his office, nor indeed any of the rooms in the large section of the floor which he controlled.
He carried that sort of authority.
At ten minutes past six, two Asian men entered the lift, rose to the second floor which housed Seagrave Enterprises, and moved swiftly through the PA’s anteroom and into the head man’s office. ‘The thing is going ahead,’ said the one who was slightly the taller of the two. He had a beanie hat pulled down over his forehead, almost masking his eyes, as if he was deliberately playing a sinister stage villain.
‘The thing?’ said Seagrave, with a curl of the lip.
‘Area Seven,’ said his visitor hastily.
‘That’s better. It’s important to me that you use the correct code. I have many concerns. I cannot afford to be vague.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’ He glanced at the man waiting expectantly beside him. ‘I understand that we must be precise, because you have many concerns. We ourselves have only the one concern. It occupies much of our lives and we are determined to get it right.’
‘I also am determined that you will get it right. I hope you see that it is highly important that you get it right, for your own sakes. I hope you also see that if it blows up in your faces, I will not be around to defend you. There is no way in which I can afford to be connected with this, if it goes wrong.’
The second Asian man spoke for the first time. His Pakistani accent was more marked than that of his companion, whose English had been almost perfect, save for the flattened northern vowels which emerged strangely from his sallow features. ‘That does not seem entirely fair, Mr Seagrave. We are taking all the risks. You should surely be prepared to do your best to protect us, if things go wrong.’
Richard Seagrave gave him his unpleasant smile again. His friends said that his face had a lived-in look, but he hadn’t many friends. Ugly or malevolent were more usual descriptions. His attitude now matched his features. ‘You’re right. It is not “entirely fair”. Life itself is not “entirely fair”, Mr Anwar.’ He mimicked the precise, careful pronunciation of the man who had dared to question his attitude. ‘No doubt some of the girls you’ve recruited for us would also think that you in turn were not being “entirely fair”. In case you hadn’t noticed, I fund all this. And we have a saying in Britain that he who pays the piper calls the tune. You won’t hear any piping, but I’m calling the tune, Mr Anwar. You would do well to remember that.’
The taller and more senior of the men who stood before his desk hastened to intervene. There was big money at stake here, and they’d run major risks to get it. The squat man behind the desk was going to take by far the biggest share for the smallest risk, but he’d financed the whole enterprise; they couldn’t have done it without Seagrave. He didn’t want to jeopardize his own share at this stage, after the trouble they’d gone to, the dangers they had run, and the months it had taken them to get here. ‘We understand what you say, Mr Seagrave. It’s only right that you should be kept clear of any risks.’
‘If I’m not, I shall know who allowed my name to become involved; you two are the only ones who know anything about my financing of your little scheme. I have some rather nasty people who work for me: I don’t even like them much myself, to tell you the truth. I shouldn’t
like them to feel they had to take any sort of action against you.’
‘I’m sure that won’t happen, Mr Seagrave. Nothing will go wrong, but even if it does, we shall make sure that you are in no way involved.’
Richard left a couple of seconds for the words to reverberate around his office, then stood up. ‘I can’t see why anything should go wrong. I look forward to years of profitable cooperation with you.’
They thought he was going to shake their hands, but he did not do that. He waited until they had gone, looking down from his office as they moved to their car in the almost deserted car park below him. Then he made two swift phone calls. Twenty minutes later he picked up Vanessa and drove out of the city. The roads were quiet as he drove towards Twin Lakes and the weekend.
He reached across a couple of times to grasp the slim forearm of the blonde woman in the front passenger seat of the Jaguar. He was working hard on himself, trying to contact that other and better Richard Seagrave, the pleasant, responsive man who had almost disappeared beneath his recent business ventures.
He could be that man at Twin Lakes. No one knew anything about Richard Seagrave there, did they?
SIX
Spring moved into summer, England played Australia for the Ashes, and Detective Sergeant Bert Hook almost forgot about the fears expressed to him by Lisa and Jason Ramsbottom.
The spring had been cold and late. It had needed tornados in Oklahoma and the loss of over thirty American lives to remind Britons perennially complaining about their weather that there was much to be said for a climate without extremes. At Twin Lakes the summer, when it eventually arrived, was warm and dry and the people who were to become the main protagonists in the dramatic events of July congratulated themselves on their choice of venue.