Rest Assured (29 page)

Rushton was unusually pessimistic. ‘There are too many candidates. And with all these pairs supporting each other, too many dodgy alibis that we'll find it impossible to break.'

The three senior men had an unexpected visitor waiting for them with the female detective constable in the murder room. Lisa Ramsbottom rose and said nervously, ‘I'd like to speak to Detective Sergeant Hook, please. Alone, if that's possible.'

Bert looked at Lambert, who nodded his assent. He took Lisa into the improvised interview room at the end of the mobile home they had commandeered. She looked round it curiously and said, ‘This is an exact replica of the second bedroom in our unit. It seems odd to be talking to a policeman in here.'

It was no more than a diversion, a means of putting off what she had come here to say, and they both knew it. Bert said gently, ‘I don't want to hurry you, but I have to ask you to be as brief as possible. We have other people to see today.'

‘Of course. I'm sorry and it's probably nothing.' But it wasn't. It was highly important. Important for her alone, she hoped. If not, the consequences were too awful for her to contemplate. She took a deep breath and said, ‘I need to know what Jason said when he came to see you yesterday.'

‘I'm afraid I can't tell you that, Lisa. All our exchanges with the public are confidential. Sometimes we have to talk to other people as a result of what they reveal to us. This is not one of those occasions.'

‘But I'm his wife. He doesn't have secrets from me.'

How often had he heard that, and how often had it been absurdly wide of the mark? ‘I'm sorry. Perhaps you should ask him about it yourself.'

‘I've done that and he won't tell me. That's why I'm here. We're neighbours when we're in our real homes in Tewkesbury, Bert.'

‘And in this case that makes no difference. I'm sorry.'

She stared out of the window for a moment, watching a wagtail hopping away from them over the close-cut turf. ‘What did you make of my suggestion that it might have been Wally Keane who sent us those ridiculous threatening notes?'

Bert had a problem. He couldn't reveal confidential information, but he sensed that Lisa Ramsbottom had something to tell him. Something which for all he knew might have a vital bearing on the case. He wanted to offer her something, so as to encourage her to keep talking, but he had precious little available to him. He said rather stolidly, ‘It was an interesting suggestion. We haven't ignored it. But I can now tell you that we don't think that those letters came from Wally Keane.'

‘It was Jason who made up those messages, wasn't it?'

‘I can't tell you about that. Perhaps you should talk about it with Jason, if that's what you think.'

‘Jason was appalled when I brought you here to talk about those notes back in May. He tried to pretend he wasn't, but I know him too well.'

Too well and not well enough, Bert thought. He said stiffly, ‘If you think that, you should discuss it with your husband. I'm sorry we can't help, but I'm sure you understand.'

She nodded absently and continued to look out of the window, staring without reaction towards the spot a hundred yards away where a young spaniel leapt high in the air after the ball with which a ten-year-old boy was teasing it. Bert said softly, ‘I think you came here to tell me something. Something you feel is important. I think you should tell me that now.'

She glanced fiercely at him for a moment, then resumed her gaze through the window. She was looking beyond the boy and his dog, towards the hill which rose gently away behind them as she said dully, ‘Jason went out on Friday night. I can't be sure of the time. It was on the edge of darkness.'

Bert's tone altered not an iota. He remained as low key as ever as he said calmly, ‘And how long was he out for, Lisa?'

‘About half an hour, I should think. Maybe a little longer. It was quite dark when he came in.'

‘We need to speak to you on your own, Mr Seagrave.'

The powerful figure stood above them in the door of his holiday home and showed no inclination to relinquish that dominant position. ‘I think I'd like Vanessa to hear this. Just to make sure you don't twist anything I choose to say to you.' He looked down on Lambert and Hook and made his derision quite clear in the smile which he allowed to twist his broad features.

Vanessa Norton appeared suddenly beside him in the doorway. ‘It's all right, Richard. The officers might have things to say to you in private, and I understand that. I can busy myself on the golf course. I'll probably have more frustrations there than you will endure here.' She slipped past him, descended the three steps, then lifted the lid on the storage bin beside the wall. She lifted out a bag of golf clubs, as if providing evidence of her honesty. She slung the bag over her shoulder and departed without another glance at the trio behind her, an attractive figure in yellow shirt and green slacks. On this bright summer morning, her tall, willowy figure seemed a personification of innocent activity in that outdoor world which was so alien to the man she had left behind her.

Hook, staring after her, wondered if this was her declaration of non-involvement.

Seagrave said heavily, ‘I suppose you'd better come inside and sit down.'

He motioned to the sofa in the living room, then sat down heavily in the armchair opposite them. Its seat was two inches higher than theirs; his superiority was preserved. It wasn't important or significant, but the idea of it pleased him.

The CID men waited, stretching the silence to see if it would unsettle him. He was too wily a bird for that. He'd played these games before, he told himself. He was an educated man, wasn't he, and far too intelligent for these jumped-up plods?

Lambert said, ‘We've been examining again the full details of what Walter Keane had recorded upon his computer. He had collected some interesting and highly damaging facts abut you, hadn't he?'

‘Mere speculation. I treated Keane with contempt. I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry he's dead. I don't go in for that sort of mealy-mouthed sentimentality.'

‘No. The Serious Crime Squad is well aware that you are not a man who shows sentiment. Grooming helpless young girls for sex with callous and perverted older men shows a complete absence of sentiment.'

Lambert detected the first flash of fear in the narrowed brown eyes. Seagrave said, ‘I've no idea what you're talking about, Chief Superintendent Lambert.' He invested his enunciation of the rank with a sneer of contempt.

‘Oh, but I think you have. The whole network is about to be exposed. It covers many cities and towns, as you are well aware.'

Seagrave made himself take his time. There was never anything to be gained by being too hasty. They had to be bluffing. No doubt they were trying to get him to give them facts they needed but were never going to have. ‘I've read a little about these sex rings. Quite interesting stuff. Little sluts being introduced to the game early. Apprentice tarts being taught their trade, as far as I can gather. It's an alien world to me, of course, as a respectable businessman.'

‘Yes, it would be.' This time it was Lambert who did not care to conceal his contempt. ‘These activities have been financed by businessmen like you. A lot of money's gone into this. You must have been anticipating rich rewards.'

‘What a vivid imagination you have, Lambert! Unusual in a policeman, I'd say. And likely to get you into a whole lot of trouble, when I sue for defamation. “Who steals my purse steals trash. But he that filches from me my good name makes me poor indeed.” Othello says that, Chief Superintendent.' Let the bastards know they're dealing with an educated man here, not some thug with pretensions, Richard thought.

The riposte came from the man he hadn't even deigned to consider. Bert Hook regarded his adversary steadily as he said, ‘That's not an exact quotation, but near enough. And it comes from Iago, the villain of the piece, not Othello. The greatest of all villains, most people think. The kind of man who might set up innocent kids to provide for the sexual tastes of rich villains.'

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.'

T
here 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.'