Murder at Swann's Lake

by Sally Spencer

  Doris stood up. “No doubt,” she repeated.

  Annabel Peterson carried herself with the same air of defiance as her mother did, but she managed to do it with more class. She was a pretty girl, Woodend thought, and it was a pity that she had chosen to apply her make-up in a way which implied such crude sexuality.

  “I’ve just a few questions to ask you,” he said as she sat down. “I’ll try to make them as painless as possible.”

  “Painless!” Annabel repeated, as if the term held no meaning for her – and Woodend noticed, even in that one word, that her accent was much more refined than her mother’s.

  “Your father’s death must have come as quite a shock to you,” he said.

  Annabel opened her handbag and took out a packet of cigarettes. When Woodend struck a match and reached across the desk, she shook her head and produced an expensive gold lighter. Taking her time, she flicked the lighter open, lit the cigarette, and inhaled deeply. “Robbie was a criminal,” she said, blowing smoke through her nostrils. “So it wasn’t a shock at all. I’m not the least bit surprised he came to a bad end.”

  Woodend tried to imagine his own daughter talking about him in these tones. It was almost too painful to contemplate. What in God’s name had Peterson done to this girl to merit such contempt?

  “I was part of Robbie’s experiment,” Annabel said, as if she could read the Chief Inspector’s mind.

  “His experiment? His experiment in what?”

  Annabel laughed bitterly. “In social climbing. I didn’t used to be ‘Annabel’ when I was a little kid, you know. ‘Annie’ was good enough for me then. And it is now.”

  “Unlike the rest of the family, you don’t live here, do you, Miss Peterson?” Woodend asked.

  “No, I certainly bloody don’t,” Annabel said viciously. “I’ve got a flat in Maltham.”

  “And what do you do for a living?”

  Annabel sneered. “I do just what my expensive private education has equipped me to do,” she said. “I live on the dole.”

  So much bitterness, Woodend thought. “But you do come home now an’ again,” he said. “You were in the club on Friday night.”

  “Oh yes, I was there,” Annie agreed. “I like to bring my ‘boyfriends’ here occassionally. It was much more fun watching Robbie making a fool of himself in company.”

  Why had she felt the need to squeeze so much contempt into the word ‘boyfriends’? Woodend wondered. But now was not the time to ask – he had other fish to fry. “Did you notice anythin’ unusual while you were in the club?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Did you happen to see any suspicious strangers?”

  Annabel shook her head. “Only the usual riffraff who get in there on a Friday night.”

  “What about your father? Was he behavin’ strangely in any way? Did he seem worried at all?”

  “He forgot his lines in the middle of his act – if that’s what you want to call it – but that was only because there was some trouble at the door with a non-member. After he’d sorted that out, he was back to being his normal vulgar self.” She clicked her fingers as if she’d suddenly remembered something. “But I’ll tell you who was acting a bit off – Jenny’s husband Terry and that schoolteacher brother of his.”

  “Actin’ a bit off? In what way?”

  Annabel lit a new cigarette from the stub of her old one, then threw the stub on the floor and ground it with the sole of her shoe. “They were arguing about something. And if you knew Michael Clough, you’d realise how uncharacteristic that is.”

  “Tell me more,” Woodend said with growing interest.

  “Michael’s a little saint. A perpetual do-gooder. He doesn’t argue with people. He reasons. Reasons and reasons and reasons until you’re sick to your guts with it.”

  “He’s tried that with you, I take it.”

  “Pull yourself together,” Annabel said, her voice imitating a tenor’s, her tone whining. “You’re a pretty girl. A beautiful girl. And so intelligent. There’s nothing you couldn’t achieve if you put your mind to it.” She took another drag of her cigarette. “That’s the kind of thing you have to put up with from Michael Clough,” she continued in her normal voice.

  “But you’re sure that him and his brother were arguin’ in the club on Friday night?”

  “Positive. And then they went outside together. They were gone for quite a while.”

  Was there a touch of malice in her last statement? Woodend wondered. Was she trying to point the finger of suspicion at the Clough brothers? And if she was, why was she doing it?

  “When they left the club, was your father still inside?” he asked.

  “Yes. He was still on the stage, telling his dirty jokes.”

  “And when they returned?”

  “He’d left by then. In fact, if you want to pin it down, I’d say that they didn’t come back until just before the alarm was raised by that swine Detective Sergeant Gower.”

  Woodend played a scene quickly through his mind. The Clough boys have a real problem with Robbie Peterson. Perhaps he has some kind of hold over one of them. Michael – the teacher, the reasonable one – wants to try talking their way out of the situation, but Terry – who was part of Robbie’s criminal network in Liverpool – says that will never work with a man like Peterson. There’s only one solution, he insists. They have to kill Robbie while they have the chance. But even discounting the fact that Robbie was Terry Clough’s father-in-law, would they be stupid enough to kill him when there were witnesses who could place them near the scene of the crime? Wouldn’t it have been wiser to wait for a better moment? Unless, of course, Robbie Peterson was planning to do something that very night which could ruin them both.

  “You don’t like your family very much, do you, Miss Peterson?” Woodend asked the girl.

  “I don’t like anybody very much,” Annabel replied dully. “And that includes myself.”

  Gerry Fairbright rested his hands, hardened by years of work as a fitter and turner, on the waist-high fence which separated the caravan site from The Hideaway’s yard. From where he was standing he had a clear view of the office. Those policemen from London were in there now, and with them – as he knew because he’d been watching for some time – was Annie Peterson. He wasn’t worried about Annie. She could do nothing to hurt him. There had been only two people with the power to do that. One of them was now dead, and the other was useless without him. No, people weren’t the problem. People weren’t what would point the finger at him.

  He turned round and looked back at his caravan. It was a cream Alpine Sprite, which he’d bought on the never-never for £280. It had seemed such a good idea at the time.

  ‘Think of the money we’ll save on boardin’ houses,’ his wife had said. ‘An’ it’ll be there for us every weekend, not just for a couple of weeks a year.’

  Oh yes, it had seemed a fine idea all right. How could he have known that it would lead him into such trouble, that it would be like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden? He hated the caravan now. He hated Swann’s Lake. But most importantly, he hated himself – hated the cowardice he had shown when it really mattered. He could have gone back into Robbie Peterson’s office the night after the murder, but he hadn’t dared. Now the Scotland Yard men were there, and it would be much more difficult. But difficult or not, he was going to have to break in. There really wasn’t any choice.

  “Can I help you, sir?” said a voice from behind him.

  Gerry jumped, then turned around. One of the policemen – the older one, who wore the big hairy sports jacket – was standing just the other side of the fence. “Help me?” Gerry asked stupidly.

  “Yes,” Woodend replied. “I couldn’t help noticin’ that you’ve been standin’ there for some time, and I was wonderin’ if perhaps it was because there was somethin’ you wanted to tell me.”

  Gerry shook his head, more violently than he’d intended. “N . . . no,” he stuttered, “there’s nothin�
��.”

  “You’ve got a right to be here, have you, sir?” Woodend asked.

  “A right?” Gerry gasped.

  “What I’m askin’ you, in my roundabout way, is do you own one of the caravans on this site.”

  “Yes. Yes I do.”

  Woodend smiled. “Must be very pleasant to come down here for your holidays.” His eyes narrowed. “I expect your wife’s enjoyin’ it, too.”

  “I . . . no . . . she’s—” Gerry said.

  “She’s what, sir?”

  “She’s not here at the moment. She . . . she had to go back to Oldham. That’s where we’re from. Her mother’s been taken proper poorly.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Woodend said. “Are you expectin’ her back soon?”

  “I’m not sure. It depends.”

  Woodend nodded sympathetically. “Well, enjoy your holiday as best you can, sir. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to get back to my work.”

  He turned and walked away, leaving Gerry Fairbright standing there in a cold sweat. He was no fool, that bobby, Gerry decided. No fool at all. And now they’d spoken, things were even worse than they’d been before. Oh God, what was he going to do?

  Standing in Trafalgar Square, surrounded by so many of her fellow countrymen, Maria was engulfed with a nostalgia for a Spain she’d never really known. How many people were there, she wondered. Five hundred? A thousand? It was difficult to say.

  She looked up at the base of Nelson’s Column, on which one of the march’s organisers was standing. “This will a peaceful demonstration,” the man was shouting through his megaphone. “I repeat – peaceful. When we reach the embassy, we will form lines in front of it, and then I will step forward and present our letter of protest.”

  “They won’t accept it!” someone called angrily from the crowd.

  “If they refuse to accept it, I shall offer it a second time,” the organiser said with dignity.

  “And if they ignore you a second time?” the same heckler called back.

  “Even if they use refuse to acknowledge it, we will still have made our point. I will step back into the ranks, and together we will march away up Chapel Street.”

  “Let us act like men!” the heckler bellowed. “Let us fight fire with fire.”

  The organiser shook his head. “We will not stoop to their level,” he said. “We will show them the true meaning of dignity. Brothers and sisters, it is time to go and face the enemy.”

  Perhaps the heckler said more, but if he did, his words were lost in the general groundswell of noise as the demonstrators formed a column. Maria, finding herself at the front of the column, felt a sudden burst of exhilaration. It was true what they said, she thought – strength did come from unity. She lifted her placard high in the air, and when the whistle blew she took a decisive step forward.

  There were only a few policemen in evidence as they marched down Whitehall, but by the time they had reached Victoria Street there was one every fifty yards, and the closer they got to Belgrave Square, the more the officers there seemed to be. Standing silently. Watching them.

  “They must have cancelled all leave today,” Maria said to the girl who was marching next to her.

  “Do you think there’ll be policemen in front of the embassy?” the girl asked nervously.

  “There’s bound to be,” Maria said. “But don’t worry, as long as we behave in a civilised manner, there’ll be no trouble.”

  But she couldn’t help remembering that Bob had been worried – and Bob knew about these things!

  They entered the square from Belgrave Place, and Maria let out an involuntary gasp as she saw the embassy. Yes, she been expecting a police presence – but not like this! Not this wall of blue serge which hid the embassy railings from view. Not so many badges on pointed helmets reflecting the rays of the afternoon sun at the oncoming marchers. And even more threatening, six policemen on horses towered over their colleagues at each end of the cordon. Though she tried to tell herself she was a fool to be concerned, Maria could feel a tiny knot of fear start to form itself in the pit of her stomach.

  There was a low, angry murmuring from further back in the column. This is how the British authorities treat us, the murmur seemed to saying. We are not even to be allowed to get near our own embassy.

  “Fan out,” one of the organisers was shouting through his megaphone. “Form a line to face the police. But make sure you are at least ten feet away from them.”

  Ten feet! Maria thought. That was no distance at all! But if that was what was necessary, then that was what they would have to do.

  The protestors’ line, though more ragged than the one maintained by the police, was soon in place. Maria ran her eyes over the policemen’s faces. Some of the officers had their expressions set in grim concentration, others – mostly the younger ones – seemed a little frightened.

  ‘We’re not used to protests in London,’ Bob had said. ‘We’re not trained to handle them. And that could spell trouble.’

  She could feel the people behind pressing against her – not aggressively, but relentlessly – and it took all her effort to hold her position. It had been agreed they would stand in silence, but from further back she could hear ugly taunts being shouted. She wished the organisers would get it over with quickly. Wished they would try to deliver their letter, then everyone could go home.

  One of the policemen suddenly lifted his hands in front of his face. At first, Maria couldn’t understand why. And then – with sudden horrified realisation – she did. A brick! Someone in the crowd had had the criminal stupidity to throw a brick!

  As if it had been the signal for a general outbreak, bricks and bottles were suddenly raining down on the police line from all directions.

  “No!” Maria shouted. “No! It wasn’t meant to be like this!”

  The policemen had had their arms linked, but now they broke free of each other. Some held their hands up to protect themselves – others were already drawing their truncheons.

  It was the clatter of the horses’ hooves which started the panic. The huge animals edged their way into the crowd, and immediately people began to scream, to push – to lose all control. Some of the demonstrators stumbled and fell. Then others tripped over them, landing in a heap of struggling arms and legs which didn’t look like people at all.

  Maria no longer had her placard, though she’d no idea where she’d lost it. She heard the girl next to her call out to God for help, and knew that would do no good – they could only help themselves. She saw a young policeman, his truncheon drawn and his face ablaze with hatred, heading towards her particular section of the chaos. She somehow managed to pull herself free, so that she was standing right in front of him.

  “Leave us alone!” she begged. “Please!”

  With one hand the constable grabbed her roughly by the hair. With the other, he swung his truncheon. Maria had a split second of absolute terror – and then everything went black.

  Sid Dowd was sitting at a table in the members’ bar of a golf club which wouldn’t even have taken him on as a caddy twenty years earlier. A newspaper was spread out in front of him, and he didn’t look pleased.

  “There’s not as much about Robbie’s murder in today’s paper as there was in yesterday’s, Phil,” he said to the hard young man in the smart blue suit who had been waiting patiently to be addressed, “but it’s still not good.”

  “No, Mr Dowd,” the young man admitted. “It’s still not good.”

  “I made a mistake sendin’ you up to the club on Saturday night,” Dowd said. “I should have been playin’ things much more cautiously. But how was I to know the way things would turn out?”

  “No way in the world, Mr Dowd,” Phil assured him.

  “Do you think many people will have noticed you?”

  “Most of the club,” Phil confessed. “You see, the steward didn’t want to let me in without a membership card, then Robbie Peterson – who was on the stage at the time – t
old him to buy me a drink. Well, he was speakin’ into the microphone, so most of the punters turned round to see who he was talkin’ to.”

  “Not good,” Dowd repeated, signalling the steward for another round of drinks. “I’ve come too far and taken too many risks to have this sort of cloud hangin’ over me.”

  Phil nodded. “So what do you intend to do about it, Mr Dowd?”

  Dowd thought for a moment. “Get onto one of the coppers who belong to my lodge,” he said finally. “DI Roberts is probably your best bet. Ask him to find out what he can about this Chief Inspector Woodend feller.”

  Five

  Jenny Clough sat with her hands folded demurely on top of her pinafore, almost like a nun in quiet contemplation. She was a pretty woman, Woodend thought. Not pretty like her sister was pretty. Not pretty so she’d turn every head in the street. Hers was a prettiness it would be good to come home to after a hard day at work – a prettiness that offered a great deal of consolation for the right man.

  “I expect you’ve heard some quite horrible things about my dad,” she said across the desk.

  “Now why would you think that?” Woodend asked.

  Jenny laughed bitterly. “Because you’ve already spoken to my mum and sister. Why else?”

  “Why don’t you tell me how you saw him?” Woodend suggested.

  “He wasn’t perfect – nobody ever is – but he always tried to do his best for his family.”

  “Like sendin’ your sister Annabel to an expensive boardin’ school?”

  Jenny nodded. “That’s right. He wanted her to get the best education money could buy.”

  That was not how Annie Peterson saw it, Woodend thought. As far as she was concerned, Robbie had merely been using her as a ladder to climb out of the gutter. “Why didn’t he send you to private school as well?” he asked.

  “He told me recently that he would have done if he’d had the money at the time.”

  There was something evasive in her answer, Woodend thought – something which didn’t ring quite true in her words.