by J M Gregson
It was ridiculous, but Richard Seagrave was more shaken by this than by their previous assertions about his involvement in the Oxford set-up. If you couldn’t rely on plods to be thick and ignorant, what on earth could you rely upon? He said with as much conviction as he could muster, ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m taking notice of your accusations and your attitude. In due course, you will suffer for what you are saying.’
Lambert said crisply, ‘Other people will substantiate what we’ve been saying about the grooming of minors for illicit sex. DS Hook and I are concerned with something much more local. What involvement did you have in the death of the man who was blackmailing you here?’
‘I had nothing to do with the death of Wally Keane. He was a snivelling little toad and I’m glad he’s gone. I didn’t kill him.’
‘You have muscle at your disposal. Some of the men you employ are being questioned this morning, probably at this very moment, about the tasks you have given them in the pursuit of your criminal activities. Did you instruct them to dispose of the troublesome Mr Keane for you?’
He was shaken by the news of how close the police were getting to his machine. Quotations sprang into his head when he least needed them. ‘Now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief.’ Macbeth, he thought, in his final hours. Not a good model: he wished that he hadn’t got this talent for recall of those school days now so far away. He said evenly, ‘I’m telling you for the last time: I had no involvement in the murder of Wally Keane.’
Lambert regarded him without comment, allowing the seconds to stretch. ‘We may need to speak to Ms Norton about your movements on Friday night.’
NINETEEN
There are large teams attached to any murder enquiry. They collect a lot of information, most of which proves to be totally irrelevant to the case in question. Occasionally and unpredictably, someone on the edge of the investigation turns up a fact which seems highly significant.
Detective Constable Tessa Jones had only been in CID for two months and this was her first murder case. More senior officers told her that the case at Twin Lakes would be routine and boring, that she would spend hours on repetitive questioning of innocent people who had nothing to do with the crime, that she was learning her trade. She would need to become accustomed to being at once bored and meticulous.
They weren’t very far wrong. But the excitement carried her along. Murder had its own dark glamour; her mother and her younger siblings asked her about the progress of the investigation every night. For almost the first time since she had joined the police service, Tessa felt very important.
And on her fourth day of involvement, Tessa turned up something quite important. Something which she felt might even be a gem.
The setting was most unpromising. At ten in the morning, before the place was open, she was interviewing the landlord of a village pub. He was overweight, he looked jaded, and he was anxious to be rid of DC Jones and get on with the rest of his day. He’d seen her yesterday and told her everything he had to say. But now here she was again, bright and youthful and distressingly enthusiastic.
The White Hart was in Chardon, the nearest village to Twin Lakes. It was exactly half a mile from the gates of the leisure park, the zealous Tessa Jones had calculated, and thus no more than a brisk stroll for anyone who fancied moving off the site for a drink. The landlord had mentioned one such person yesterday. ‘Definitely not a local,’ he’d said. ‘Very likely from up there.’ The gesture with his head had been in the direction of Twin Lakes.
This morning DC Jones was back with a photograph, thrusting it under his nose before he was properly prepared for his working day. ‘Is this the man?’
The landlord peered at the picture, then produced a pair of spectacles from beneath the bar. He was obscurely conscious that this might be important. He might just have a part to play in the drama which had been the talk of the pub since last Saturday. He said with an unexpected touch of excitement, ‘That’s him. That’s the man. He was in here last Friday night.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Of course I am. That’s why I got my glasses out.’ But he looked again, just to check.
‘What time did he come in?’ Tessa had her notebook out and was looking suitably official.
‘About half past eight. I told you that yesterday.’
‘And how long was he here?’
‘It couldn’t have been more than half an hour. He had a pint, but just the one. He didn’t join in the conversation with my regulars.’
‘Thank you, sir. You’ve been most helpful.’
Tessa Jones couldn’t wait to deliver her news to that handsome and serious DI Rushton, who collected and collated all their findings. Matthew Potts had made no mention of leaving the site in his written statement. He’d said that he’d been with his wife in their mobile home throughout the evening.
Black men couldn’t look pale and distressed. Bert Hook had decided that many years ago. But George Martindale certainly looked distressed.
He’d exuded an air of confidence when they had seen him earlier, especially when he had been with his family. Without any detailed evidence to support the view, Hook had no doubt that the Jamaican was a good husband and a devoted father. But he reminded himself sternly that many vicious criminals had been good family men.
Lambert’s concern was to put Martindale on the back foot, to render him least able to defend himself and most likely to reveal things about himself and others which would help the enquiry. John Lambert had taught himself long ago to be professionally blinkered in the pursuit of his goals.
He said severely, ‘You’ve landed yourself in a lot of trouble, Mr Martindale.’
‘I’m not guilty of what they’ve charged me with. I’m not guilty of procuring. I’m nothing to do with this sex ring. I know nothing about it. They were trying to involve me in it last night, when your lot turned up. I was trying to tell them I wanted nothing to do with it.’
He stopped abruptly. They weren’t going to believe that. These were coppers: it was their job to think the worst of you and then try to find the evidence to prove they were right. A sense of hopelessness settled on top of his misery and his broad shoulders drooped.
Lambert studied him as if he were a specimen under a microscope. He felt no compunction in extracting all he could from this distress. The man was a criminal, whether or not he was involved in grooming kids for sex. He might yet be a murderer. The more vulnerable he became, the more frank he was likely to be. ‘You were dealing in drugs. Have been for the last two years.’
‘Yes. I’ve already admitted that.’
‘Walter Keane knew that.’
Martindale started, even in his wretchedness. It was as if someone had jabbed a pin into his powerful frame. ‘I’d almost forgotten about Wally.’
It was DS Hook who now said, ‘You shouldn’t do that, George. Wally’s a murder victim and you are a suspect. A greater suspect, in view of last night’s happenings.’
‘I didn’t kill Wally.’ He said it hopelessly. He was a man who no longer expected to be believed.
‘Wally knew about the drugs, didn’t he? He’d had money from you on account of that.’
‘And he wanted more. More than I could afford to give him. He’d had thousands and he wanted more. I tried to tell him that Mary was going to find out if I gave him more, but he didn’t care about that. He said that wasn’t his concern.’
‘Unpleasant men, blackmailers. They always come back for more, even when they’ve promised that they won’t. It’s too easy for them. And they’re almost invariably greedy men. Too greedy for their own good. That makes people desperate. They become desperate enough to kill, when they can’t see any other way of shutting the man up.’
George looked down for so long at his broad and powerful hands that they wondered if he was contemplating what they had done on that fateful Friday night. He said in his low, rich voice, ‘I’d lik
e to have killed him. I so wanted him to shut up and leave me and my family alone.’
‘And did you do that, George? Did you hit him over the head and then string him up from the tree? It must have been easy for you. He didn’t weigh much more than a child. Not a lot more than your Nicky, I should think.’
Now, at last, Martindale was animated. He was almost shouting as he said, ‘I didn’t kill Wally Keane! I would have done, if he’d done anything to threaten my boys!’
‘But he was threatening them, wasn’t he, George? He wanted more money, which you couldn’t provide for him. He was threatening to tell Mary and the children, as well as the police, wasn’t he?’
He nodded miserably and thrust his head briefly into those powerful hands. He said, ‘I’ll plead guilty to the drug-dealing. I wanted out, but I don’t expect you’ll believe that. But I had nothing to do with grooming black kids for that sex ring. And I didn’t kill Wally Keane.’
There was a curious contrast between the immense physical strength of his body and the abject state of his spirit. George Martindale was a man who no longer expected to be believed.
The dinghy moved very slowly across the lake. There was so little breeze that it seemed at first not to be moving at all, but Michael Norrington realized after a few minutes that the far bank now definitely seemed nearer to them. Geoffrey Tiler had been an expert sailor in his youth. He had sailed dinghies round the tricky waters of the Menai Straits and won prizes for it. His expertise was one of the many surprising things Michael had discovered about the man with whom he was to share the rest of his life. He enjoyed the process of discovery. A lover should be full of surprises, so long as they were pleasant ones.
Geoff made the tiniest adjustment to the rudder, then watched the swans and their cygnets pass within ten yards of the hull of the little boat. The cygnets were growing surprisingly quickly, but they retained their brownish plumage, making the whiteness of their parents seem even more dramatic and immaculate. Michael Norrington watched them pass, then dipped his right hand into the water, enjoying its coolness as it flowed gently between his fingers.
‘I’m glad Wally Keane’s gone.’ The words surprised even Mike. The thought had been in his head, but he hadn’t known he was going to voice it. Perhaps the serenity of the lake and the isolation it was affording them had prompted him to lay bare his innermost thought to his companion. Or perhaps it was merely an impulse which he hadn’t resisted. He tried to be honest with himself. He didn’t want any sort of pretension, when he was alone with Geoff in such a perfect setting.
Tiler now said, ‘He’d had money from me. He wanted more. Blackmailers always come back for more: everyone says so.’ Geoffrey spoke as if pronouncing some sort of epitaph. He looked over the calm water to the spot where Keane had died. The police had this morning removed the scene-of-crime tapes which had cordoned it off, but no one was at present treading the path through the tall trees. Did the police action mean that they felt the case was concluded and that they were near to an arrest? Or only that they’d discovered all that they could possibly find after their minute examination of the site?
Mike said with as much finality as he could muster, ‘It’s good to be rid of him.’ He turned his back resolutely on the place where Keane had died and directed his gaze towards the other shore of the lake and the golf course beyond it. As he looked, the athletic figure of Vanessa Norton appeared on the highest point of the course and he watched her swing a club easily and elegantly at an invisible ball. Then she smiled and spoke to someone else, but he couldn’t see who was her companion on the course. Her yellow-shirted torso disappeared again, and Norrington’s too-vivid imagination suggested to him that she was a significant vision that had been offered to him, rather than a random sighting.
Geoffrey Tiler hadn’t turned with Norrington, hadn’t seen the fleeting view of the supple Ms Norton. He moved the tiller again and looked up towards the Welsh hills above Twin Lakes. ‘Life’s much better with Wally out of the way. I couldn’t have endured what he was going to do to us.’
Freda Potts looked down from the door of her mobile home on Lambert and Hook and felt an immense foreboding.
‘Matt isn’t here. He’s out. I don’t know where.’ The two of them hadn’t been together much in the twenty hours or so since they’d come back from the Brecon Beacons. Matt hadn’t slept with her last night. He’d hardly spoken to her this morning. She didn’t know what was going to happen; couldn’t even think a day ahead, let alone to next week and next month. And now the police were here again, looking as bright and alert as she felt jaded and defeated.
John Lambert smiled up at her. ‘That’s all right. We’d like a few words with you on your own, Mrs Potts.’
She led them with a feeling of inevitability into the sitting room, conjured up a wan smile for them as she sat down opposite the tall man with the lined face and the clear, unblinking grey eyes.
Lambert watched her closely, unwaveringly, as if the slightest movement of her features would offer him new and valuable insights. He seemed almost apologetic for the familiar phrases when he eventually said, ‘Certain information has come to light which needs to be followed up, Mrs Potts. It casts doubt on the statements which you and your husband gave to us concerning your movements on Friday night.’
‘And what is the source of this information?’
‘I am not at liberty to disclose that.’ The police jargon was useful, when you wished to give nothing away. ‘It appears that your husband was not with you for the whole of the evening, as both of you claimed in your statements.’
‘Oh?’ The monosyllable was ridiculous, and she felt it so as it dropped on to the rug between them. But she had nowhere to go and all three of them knew it.
‘We have a witness who is quite certain that your husband was in the White Hart public house in Chardon at eight thirty last Friday night. He stayed there for around half an hour and then left.’
‘He didn’t kill Wally Keane.’
‘He hasn’t been accused of that. Not yet. But if both of you have lied to us, we need to know why.’
Freda flicked her black hair back from her forehead and her dark eyes glittered. She looked for a moment as if she might fly into a rage. Then, with an effort, she spoke very calmly. ‘I should have thought that was obvious. Matt needed an alibi for when Wally was killed. I knew he hadn’t done it, so I was quite prepared to say that he’d been with me.’
‘Why did you think you would be suspected, Freda?’
The question came very quietly from Bert Hook. It was as unexpected as the use of her first name. Both factors disconcerted her. ‘We – we didn’t ask each other that. You were questioning us along with everyone else who’d been around at the time, so we had to account for ourselves. And Matt has worked in some violent places and with some violent people. He’s seen people killed. He was in the SAS for four years. And life on the oil rigs in the North Sea is no picnic. Lots of tough men living together can lead to incidents. Matt doesn’t talk about it much, but I know that happens. We knew you’d find all this in his background. So when we knew he’d been out at the time of the killing, it seemed best that I said he was with me. Surely you can understand that?’
Bert smiled at her. ‘And why would Matt want to kill Wally Keane, Freda? What would be his motive?’
The dark eyes looked at him blankly for a moment. Then she glanced at Lambert and said, ‘That’s right. He had no motive. I rather liked Wally and Matt hardly knew him.’
Hook was quiet but insistent: his tone seemed to emphasize the logic of his argument. ‘Wally knew about you, didn’t he, Freda?’
Her eyes were a very dark blue as they widened. ‘About me? Knew what? I don’t understand.’
‘Oh, but I think you do, Freda. Wally knew all about you and Wayne Briggs, didn’t he?’
‘What do you mean? He knew about my nephew, yes. Everybody here knew about my nephew. Wayne had been here with me a couple of times, so the people who were here regu
larly all knew about him. He enjoyed it here.’
She stopped abruptly, realizing how banal this must sound to these experienced men, knowing that she was in danger of speaking too much and merely underlining the lameness of her case.
‘You should have expected gossip, Freda. But people who are normally realistic become very naïve, once sex is involved. We see that quite often.’
She said dully, ‘Debbie Keane chatted to me about Wayne. She tried to pry and I shook her off. I thought she was just being her normal gossipy self. But Wally followed it up. He spoke to Wayne himself. I think he even contacted people at my school in Bristol, but I’m not sure of that.’
‘And he was pressing you for money.’
She stared at him for a long moment, as if estimating the possibilities of further denial. Then she said, ‘He’d had money. All I had, in my own bank account. He was demanding more. He said that my whole career was at stake, that I’d be banned from teaching for life if he revealed what he knew. He said that he’d ruin me and make Matt a laughing stock – the tabloids would love it, he said.’ She looked at them wildly, reliving that moment and pleading for them to relive it with her. ‘I know that Matt didn’t string Wally up, but I could understand it if he had done. I’m very grateful to whoever it was who shut his rotten mouth for good.’
Bert stared at her for a moment, then nodded. ‘I think you now realize how unwise it would be to tell us more lies, Freda. What time did Matt come back in on Friday night?’
‘I couldn’t be precise. But it was round about eleven o’clock.’
Vanessa Norton returned to their unit whilst Richard Seagrave was still making phone calls. She couldn’t hear the words, but she listened to his low, urgent tones behind the door which he had shut upon her. She stared at the places on the sofa where the CID men had sat an hour ago and wondered what had passed between them and Richard. Then he came back into the room and she uttered the well-worn phrase she had sworn to herself she would never use. ‘We need to talk.’