by J M Gregson
‘Not much competition for that title, is there?’ Bert pointed out dryly. It was true that tact was not a highly estimated virtue within the CID ranks. But he had talked to Debbie Keane two months before tragedy had struck, and he had actually quite liked the sixty-one-year-old whom most people found an irritating busybody. Hook had known loneliness in his own life, and he recognized that an interest in the lives of others and garrulous gossiping could be an outlet for some people who were beset by it.
Debbie looked even older and greyer than she had done when he’d seen her three days earlier after the news of Walter’s death. Her face was more noticeably lined and the puffiness round her eyes showed that it was not long since she had been weeping. Hook said he was sorry to intrude and she said, ‘Do come in. I’m tired already of being treated like cut glass by the people around here.’ She sounded surprisingly weary of the daily interchanges which had been the pulse of her life. ‘Have you come here to tell me who killed Wally?’
‘No, we can’t do that yet, Mrs Keane. Perhaps we might have some news by the end of the week.’ He didn’t know why he’d said that: there was no basis for it, and it wasn’t the kind of reassurance he should be offering.
‘Call me Debbie, please. I feel that we’ve known each other for quite a long time – I suppose something like this brings you closer. But I shall continue to call you DS Hook.’ She gave a little smile, more of relief than amusement. They were the first words she had uttered with even a suggestion of humour since she’d heard about Wally. She realized now how weary she was of hearing sympathy.
Bert smiled back at her, then said awkwardly, ‘We’re working hard and making progress, I think. One of the things we do in cases like this is to investigate the finances of the murder victim. It’s all part of what we told you on Saturday: we have to take all possible steps to get to know as much as we can about someone who can no longer speak for himself.’
She nodded several times, staring past him and out of the window towards the busy, carefree happiness of others. ‘He was quite a private man, Wally. We got on well together, and people thought we were very close. I suppose we were, in most ways, but he kept some thoughts to himself. There were a lot of things he shut away from me.’
Hook nodded, wondering if she had ever confessed this to anyone before. He recognized that this was his moment to speak and yet he felt that he was taking advantage of the defencelessness of grief. ‘Did Wally tell you that you will have no need to worry about money, Debbie?’
She came back to reality with a sudden start. ‘He said we were comfortable enough. This is where we live, you know. We don’t have another home, like most of the people here.’
‘Well, you won’t have any financial worries. You could probably buy somewhere quite grand, if you wanted to do that. There’s a lot of money in Wally’s bank account.’ She looked at him sharply, and he felt compelled to add, ‘Bank accounts are normally kept confidential, but even the banks have to give us details, in the case of a murder victim. You’d be surprised how often it helps us with our investigations.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to start worrying about financial matters now. Wally used to do all that, and I was happy to let him get on with it.’
‘The bank will give you all the advice you need, if you ask them about it. People think banks are very impersonal nowadays, but you can still make an appointment to speak with someone who’ll answer all your questions.’
Debbie Keane sighed wearily. ‘Thank you. I’ll do that, when I feel up to it.’
Hook smiled nervously. He didn’t want to press her now, but he knew he had to do just that. ‘You won’t have any worries, as I said. There’s a lot of money in Wally’s account, and the bank holds some quite valuable stock market shares. The bank has the certificates and will give you the details. Debbie, there’s an awful lot of money gone into the account in the last year. Do you know where it came from?’
She looked quite shocked and Bert was pretty sure that she wasn’t simulating her surprise. ‘No. Wally had a pension from British Telecom. He’d taken early retirement. He told me he’d made some investments with the lump sum he’d been given and that they were doing well. Would that account for this?’
Her eyes were wide with wonder. She was stunned, as Bert Hook had seen many widows shocked before, by the discovery that this man who had shared her life and her thoughts and her bed had kept part of his life completely denied to her. He said gently, ‘No, his investments wouldn’t account for this, Debbie. Almost a hundred thousand pounds has been paid into the account over the last year. We need to know where that money came from, because it might have a connection with his death. But you aren’t able to tell us that?’
‘No. I’ve no idea. We lived quietly here. Our whole life was at Twin Lakes. We know all sorts of things about people here.’
Bert glimpsed for a moment the lover of tittle tattle who had amused him when he had first spoken to her months ago. ‘So you’ve no idea where these large sums of money might have come from?’
He had a shrewd idea himself, but he wasn’t going to upset this bewildered and rather pathetic lady with that thought.
Vanessa Norton was enjoying herself. She was modelling clothes for a fashion photographer. She mostly wrote about fashion now, but it was good for her morale to know that her willowy figure and strong Nordic features were still in demand when it came to showing expensive clothes to their best advantage.
She had given up the catwalk years ago. She didn’t need to have sweaty journalists staring up at her from all angles and assessing the flesh within whilst they made notes about the clothes in yet another spring or autumn collection. These days she sat among the hacks herself, compiling an informed commentary for her occasional columns in Vogue and her regular ones in the Mail on Sunday. But this assignment was different. She was treated as the most important person in the room. The gay man who was photographing her was both deferential and humorous, coming forward occasionally to adjust the fall of a skirt or the tautness of a blouse around her bust with no consideration except for his camera.
He provided her as he worked with a string of bitchy but humorous gossip about models of her own age and their decline, as well as news of the latest foibles of the big-name fashion designers. They controlled the industry, but were also at the mercy of it as soon as they followed a wrong trend. She knew that Nigel would speak to others in the same waspish vein about her, but she reflected that there was no real malice in his chatter. It was a tool in his professional equipment, the means he used to relax his models, so as to enable them to strut their stuff and make the very best of these ridiculously expensive creations.
It was a luxury for Vanessa to be working in Birmingham. Usually she had to race down to London on the train to view the latest creations in the salons of the capital city. Nigel was highly efficient beneath all his prattle. He was pleased to be working with an experienced model who understood what was needed and was able to react promptly to his every suggestion about the positioning of her excellent body and the rake of the clothes he had set upon it. He was finished and highly satisfied with his results within ninety minutes, when he had privately allotted three hours to this session. He would charge for three hours of his expensive time, of course. That was the agreement and if the clothes sold for anything like the price tags which were being allotted to them the designer could well afford it.
He offered to lunch with his model, but to his secret relief Vanessa Norton declined. Nigel wasn’t anything like as good at conversation once he moved away from his work. His steady stream of chat and banter derived entirely from the fashion industry and those who worked within it.
Having finished early and being highly satisfied with the session, Vanessa thought this a good opportunity to join Richard at his place of work. With any luck, they might be able to have lunch together. Her taxi dropped her off within fifteen minutes at the entrance to the high building which housed Seagrave Enterprises. She was so full of energy that
she ignored the lift and raced up the four flights of stairs which took her to the second floor and the offices of Richard’s firm.
Richard’s PA told her that he had someone with him at the moment but she would let him know that Ms Norton was here. That was fine: she had expected him to be fully engaged and he wasn’t expecting her. The PA made sure that the boss’s lady had a tray with china teacups and teapot delivered to her in the spacious waiting area. Vanessa was happy to see that the PA was a no doubt highly efficient woman in her mid-fifties. She sipped her tea contentedly and virtuously ignored the home-made cookies which had come with it.
The two men who came in and sat five yards away from her on the other side of the room were Asian and looked very sinister. Vanessa wondered if that thought was racist, but then assured herself that it wasn’t. These two would have been sinister whatever their colour, creed, or country of origin.
The older man had heavy jowls and was frowning ferociously. That seemed a habitual expression; his heavy-lidded eyes scarcely lifted during the ten minutes when they studied her. He was heavily built and powerful, running a little to fat, though she wouldn’t have cared to be the one who told him that. His companion was thinner of face and body and even more contemptuous in his visage. He looked like the sort of man who would dart at you with a knife if he suspected any sort of insult.
They sat and looked at her with a scorn which they did not trouble to disguise. Indeed, their disdain seemed to be an active and aggressive weapon against her, rather than a mere reaction. She had become used over the years to men mentally undressing her. The less subtle ones did not even realize how transparent they were. Usually she contented herself with imagining these pathetic creatures in shabby boxer shorts, with pot bellies drooping over the waist elastic. She even managed to feel sorry for some of them, pity being the ultimate sexual insult.
These two were different. They gazed at her not surreptitiously but quite openly, mentally stripping the clothes away from her elegant body and treating it as a plaything for their perverted pleasure. She tried not to contemplate what they might wish to do to her, but she had no doubt that it would be abnormal, violent and humiliating. Their dark eyes surveyed her minutely and very slowly from top to toe and then moved upwards again equally slowly. Not a word was spoken, but she was left in no doubt of both their contempt for her and their inclinations.
Vanessa was very relieved when the PA appeared and said briskly, ‘Mr Seagrave will see you now, gentlemen.’ She wondered what sort of business Richard could be conducting with men like this. They did not look like men who would be placing large orders for office supplies.
They were in the head man’s office for exactly seventeen minutes: Vanessa had no idea why she timed their meeting, but she did. The men left quickly, making for the lift, staring straight ahead of them, affording her not even a final lecherous glance as they passed. Vanessa was surprised, but felt in no way deprived.
And then Richard was with her, beaming his pleasure, planting a kiss on her forehead as she stood up, saying, ‘This is a bonus and an unexpected pleasure. And I have a full hour for lunch with my favourite woman!’
It was a small pub round the corner, a place you would scarcely have noticed if you were a stranger. But they knew Richard and saw to his every need and the food was unexpectedly splendid. Her sea bass and his duck were both cooked to perfection and the vegetables were succulent and not too al dente. Half an hour had passed before she ventured, ‘I didn’t like the look of those two men you saw at the end of your morning. They looked like rogues to me.’
Richard frowned and stared studiously at his plate rather than his companion. ‘Not very prepossessing, I suppose. But one can’t pick and choose one’s clients, when one’s in business.’
People always switch to the indefinite pronoun when they’re uncomfortable. An internal, unwelcome voice reminded Vanessa of that. She knew she should leave this now, but she picked at it as she had picked at scabs on her knee when she’d been a child. ‘I found them quite unpleasant.’
‘They didn’t speak to you, did they?’ He was looking her full in the face now; she suddenly had all of his attention.
‘No. They looked at me and stripped me bare. Their eyes told me what they wanted to do to me.’
He relaxed a little, forced a smile. ‘Penalty of being an attractive woman, I suppose. Someone with your attributes must be used to that sort of attention.’ He touched her foot softly with his beneath the table.
Normally she liked him being slightly risqué, even found it stimulating when he made sexual references to what they might do later in private. Today she said simply, ‘They were repulsive. I should screw them for everything you can get from them, and then get rid of them, if you’ll pardon the expression.’ She pasted a smile on to her words, feeling that she was over-reacting. ‘I don’t know much about your business affairs and the people you have to deal with, do I?’
‘And you don’t want to, my darling! I thought we were agreed that that is how it should be.’
‘You’re right. I’ve no intention of prying into your affairs and you’ve quite rightly got no interest in the highly superficial world of fashion. It’s just that I didn’t like the look of those two at all.’
‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, my dear!’ It was a joke between the two of them. He’d used the cliché before to send up other men who treated women as idiots, and now he was using it partly to send up himself. But he was fobbing her off without an explanation, and Vanessa Norton knew it. She felt that a small, invisible barrier had been raised between them.
Detective Inspector Rushton sought out John Lambert quickly. He was glad the chief was on site, because he had urgent news for him and he wanted to bear it himself.
‘I told you DS Jameson was a wizard with computers. I’ve never known him to fail. It took him a while, because Walter Keane was evidently a more subtle operator than we thought he was. He’d built in all sorts of defences and it was difficult to crack his passwords, Tom says. But he’s done it. And the results are going to surprise you.’
‘Not for long, they’re not. Because you’re going to tell me everything the wizard DS Jameson has discovered. Right now and very simply.’
Chris Rushton grinned. ‘I’ve had to listen to a detailed account of how intricate the codes were and how clever Tom was to work them out. I’m not sure I understood it all and I’m certain I couldn’t relay it to you accurately. The gist of it is that Keane investigated certain people at Twin Lakes in much more detail than we had previously realized. He not only recorded their weaknesses but he kept full chapter and verse on them. There’s an amazing amount of information there on all of our main suspects. Keane had begun files on four other people on the site whom he thought possibilities, but there’s scarcely anything about them.’
‘Possibilities?’
‘We all know that the Keanes pried into the lives of people on this site. We’ve been given the impression that they were great gossips, who found out whatever they could about people’s lives, then retailed it to others in exchange for more scandal.’
‘Bert Hook thinks that Debbie Keane did just that, and from what I’ve seen of her I would agree with him.’
Rushton nodded grimly. ‘When you see what Walter Keane gathered and recorded for his own purposes, you’ll agree that he was a lot more than a mere gossip. It seems to me that he used whatever Debbie picked up as a mere starting point. He’s contacted all sorts of other people who’ve never set foot here to follow up anything he saw as incriminating.’
Lambert struggled to recall the words of the grief-stricken widow from three days earlier. ‘His wife said that he spent many hours alone with his computer. That he often worked on into the night. This must have been what he was about.’
‘And he had more information than Debbie Keane could ever have imagined. Carefully filed on his computer, to be used if he ever needed chapter and verse.’
‘Dangerous stuff. St
uff which now gives us motive, where there was no motive before. It’s pretty obvious where these large sums of money Keane banked during the last twelve months were coming from.’
Bert Hook appeared beside them, almost as if responding to a cue. ‘I’ve talked to Debbie Keane. Wally was up to things she knew nothing about.’
Lambert smiled grimly. ‘And we finally have the details of what was on Walter Keane’s computer. Information about our leading suspects.’
Hook nodded. ‘We have a blackmailer as our murder victim.’
FIFTEEN
Freda Potts was right about the staff dinner: Matthew wasn’t comfortable with the other people there.
She wore the low-cut green evening dress which had seen far too few special occasions. The pendant which she sported at her neck held mostly semi-precious stones, but the delicate framework was of pure gold and the workmanship was good; she was complimented on it throughout the evening. She would have liked to say that Matt had bought it for her, but he was there and he would have denied it, so she had to tell everyone that it had belonged to her grandmother and was probably Edwardian.
Some of the other spouses at the staff dinner felt as awkward as Matthew Potts at the beginning of the evening, as the teachers who had worked with each other exchanged in-jokes and reminiscences about problem pupils. But most of the other partners had been to these or similar functions before, so that they could renew acquaintances and talk with each other on how careers and families were developing.
Matthew was quite new to all of this. He decided after ten minutes of it that he was much more at ease in the company of men than in mixed gatherings like this. He had spent years in the army and was now building up years on the oil rigs. In both of these environments he had been respected for his own expertise. That was a basis on which he had been able to build the type of persona he wanted for himself. Men were easy: they talked about sport and sex for many hours, even when they were hundreds of miles from either of them.