Rest Assured (21 page)

‘I believe it. I can feel it.' Norrington looked down at the hand upon his arm for a moment as if he meant that literally. ‘It takes time for things to develop and to deepen. Especially in your situation, when you've been straight and married. I've known I was attracted only to men since I was an adolescent, but you've had to discover that much later.'

Tiler nodded, eager to accept that analysis. ‘I should have asked myself all sorts of questions years ago. But it wasn't until I met you and our friendship ripened that I became sure – it was only then that I was prepared and willing to ask those questions of myself.'

‘Friendship.' Michael smiled wryly, then detached the hand from his arm and picked up a small flat stone. He crouched and skimmed it vigorously across the deserted section of the lake which was nearest to them. They watched its six swift splashes, then the widening ripples which spread from them across the calm water. A moorhen which they had not seen took off, flew no more than forty yards, and then settled on the surface again, immobile after a vigorous shaking of its tail.

‘Don't decry friendship, Michael. It's a splendid thing. Ours was the beginning of my salvation, before it grew into something more.'

‘And now you're ready to acknowledge us in the wider world outside Twin Lakes. The world where you live your working life and make your living. Are you sure you want to do that?'

‘I'm sure. I should have done it long ago.' Geoff turned and looked at Michael and felt awkward and apologetic, as he always felt when they came to this issue. He was intensely aware of his tardiness when it came to going public over this most important thing in his life. ‘You've been very understanding, Mike.'

‘I know that it's different for you. You have a well-established public persona which is going to be completely changed by this. You run a business, employ almost a hundred people. It will affect the way people look at you.'

‘I'm not interested in the people who will look at me differently when I announce that I'm gay. Fools like that are out of the Ark. If they want to go on living in the past, so much the worse for them.' But Geoff wondered even as he asserted it whether it was wholly true, whether he was strong enough to simply shrug off any opposition, as well as the welter of excited gossip which would follow the announcement of his revised sexual preferences.

‘Will it affect the business? Will you lose orders?'

‘No. The public won't even be aware of it. It's the quality of the goods we produce which will affect the orders, not the chairman's preference in partners.' He spoke very firmly and he spoke good sense, he was sure. But a small part of him wondered whether some of his older clients might be staid enough and conservative enough to hesitate over continuing to do business with him. Wolverhampton was not London, with its chattering classes and influential media, where it seemed almost more fashionable to be homosexual than heterosexual.

‘Will you want me to come to your works social affairs? I wouldn't really enjoy that. I've always been a shy man. But if you want me there, I'll be there. It's the least I can do.'

‘No. That won't be necessary.' Geoff wondered if his assurance was too prompt, whether it sounded relieved rather than reassuring. What a complicated business gay love was in public, when in private it seemed to him so natural and straightforward. ‘I know you don't enjoy socializing unless you know the people involved quite well. I think I'm the same myself, actually, though of course I've known most of the people I work with and deal with for many years.'

‘There's still a lot of you I don't know, Geoff, isn't there? Almost all of your working life, which means about three quarters of your life in all, I suppose.'

Geoffrey Tiler put his hand back on his partner's arm, this time very firmly. ‘You know me, Mike. You know the private me and the real me. Everything else is irrelevant – well, not irrelevant, because my work is important to me and to the people who are dependent on me for their livings. But the real me, the one who matters, comes alive when I am alone with you.'

Norrington looked across the lake at the distant dinghies, at the boys noisily preoccupied with their rowing boat. He didn't like physical displays of affection in public, so that even Geoff's hand on his arm made him check to see if they were observed. ‘We should be getting back. We arranged to eat with other people in the restaurant, if you remember.'

It was almost an accusation, as if he was stating his resentment at being paraded as part of a couple in front of others. Yet he knew that it was Geoff who was making the effort, that it was Geoff who was forcing himself to get used to appearing in public as half of a gay couple. He himself had been used for many years to such things. He tried to sound relaxed. ‘I'm quite looking forward to a bit of company.'

Geoff had arranged earlier in the day for them to meet up with the Potts and the Martindales in the unpretentious little restaurant on site. They had been comparing notes on what the police had asked them about Wally Keane. As they had stood beside the bowling green and swapped experiences, dinner had seemed an agreeable notion. Now, he wasn't sure it had been such a good idea. He could sense that Mike was a little uneasy about it. But then Mike knew nothing about the announcement he was planning to make, if things went according to plan.

They went back to their site home and put on their clothes for the evening, as the time dictated that they should. They didn't exchange many more words. Geoff sensed a nervousness in both of them as the appointed time approached. What had earlier seemed a chance to declare his love now seemed to have all sorts of dangers. But he was resolved, and his determination carried him through all of his doubts.

The Potts were already in the bar when they got to the long, single-storey building which housed the small dance floor and the restaurant. It was a relief to chat to Matthew Potts, whom they hardly knew. He was a quiet, reserved man, who observed what went on around him, missed nothing, and generally offered opinions only when asked for them. That probably stemmed from his army background and his present work on the oil rigs, Geoff decided. But Matthew was friendly enough; he seemed to appreciate being asked to join their small party tonight. Freda was more outgoing and seemingly more nervous. ‘I'm really being spoiled this week,' she giggled. ‘Treated to a meal here tonight and then out tomorrow to my school's staff dinner with my husband. It helps to make up for all those lonely microwave meals on my own in front of the telly when he's away!'

They chatted a little about her work as Head of History in the comprehensive and she emerged as altogether more grounded and less shallow than she had appeared earlier. She showed an eagerness for her subject which she normally concealed because she was afraid of boring people she scarcely knew. Geoffrey Tiler was glad to see how well Freda was getting on with Michael Norrington, who was both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about British history.

It was seeing Mike at ease that emboldened him to ask Jason and Lisa Ramsbottom to share their table when they came in for a meal. The pair hesitated for a moment before Lisa said, ‘Thank you, that would be lovely. It might save us from grumbling at each other over our food; Jason's been out for most of the day, when I wanted him here!'

‘Pressure of work!' said Jason, with a forced smile and a shrug of his shoulders. He didn't enlarge upon the thought.

The Martindales were last to arrive. Geoffrey, who now found himself acting as unofficial host, said with studious neutrality, ‘You didn't bring the children?'

Mary said immediately, ‘They're used to eating quite early. And young Alison, who lives next door, offered to babysit for us. She likes the boys and they like her. She's very responsible, for a seventeen-year-old.' She was anxious to get the girl's age in, to show that this was all quite proper and that her children were not being neglected. She glanced at Freda Potts. ‘I think Alison wants to become a teacher eventually, and she says it's all good experience for her.'

George Martindale said more quietly, ‘We love the little demons dearly, but it's good for us to be able to get out for a civilized meal without them for a change.' His dark-brown voice was as smooth as velvet, easing all of them towards relaxation with each other. Geoffrey Tiler took it as the cue to order two bottles of wine as they sat down to their meal. He had taken over, he realized, but that was appropriate enough, in view of what he planned as the climax of this modest gathering.

The eight of them got on remarkably well, as people of very different backgrounds sometimes do over food and drink, and the decibel level of the conversation rose steadily, punctuated as it was by outbursts of genuine laughter as the meal proceeded. The wine went down well, and when a third bottle was eventually ordered, the company seemed to accept that it would be Geoffrey Tiler who bought it, since there was a general recognition now that this had evolved into his evening, however informally it had been planned earlier in the day.

Geoffrey himself became very quiet as they finished dessert and waited for coffee, seemingly content to observe the pleasure his companions were taking in each other's company. Because things had gone so well, they had now been here longer than any of them had expected, and the few other customers in the restaurant on a quiet Monday evening had mostly filtered away, with envious looks at the convivial eight and the clinking glasses at the end of the room.

It was a surprise, but not a major one, when Geoffrey Tiler rose to his feet with a nervous smile. As the owner of a prosperous small business, he had grown used to making short, generally humorous speeches on a variety of occasions, most of them concerned with retirements. He was more nervous before this speech than before any other he had made, but quietly determined, as he had been throughout the day.

‘This won't take long, but it's very important. Thank you for joining Mike and me tonight.' He looked round at the suddenly expectant, wondering faces and took encouragement from them. ‘All of you know that Michael Norrington and I are a partnership. We are grateful for the way you have received and befriended us here at Twin Lakes.' There were mutters of approval, then an assurance in Martindale's mellow base tones that the feeling was mutual.

Geoffrey Tiler smiled at his small audience. ‘I want you to be the first people to hear the formal announcement that we have decided to cement our relationship for the rest of our lives. Michael and I will be taking advantage of the recent recognition of partnerships like ours in the laws of the land. We shall be getting married on the twenty-eighth of September and we'd like all of you to be there.'

D
etective Sergeant Bert Hook was the one who was sent to question the grieving widow.

‘You already know her,' Chris Rushton pointed out. ‘And you are by far the most tactful senior officer we have in the team.'

‘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.'