Rest Assured (7 page)

‘It wasn't your face I was planning to look at,' said Wayne dreamily. He liked this. You could say things to a grown woman that you wouldn't dare say to a girl of your own age. Say things and do things, and get gratitude rather than rejection. He let himself be pulled outside. He didn't mind fresh air and a walk in the woods. And she was going to feed him. Feed him much better than he was fed at home, by the sound of it. She was a bit of all right, Miss Potts. Freda. They were the words Grandad had used about a pretty girl, in the week before he died.

Freda's home wasn't one of the ones by the lake. They were more expensive, and she and Matthew hadn't been sure about how much they would use the place when they decided to give themselves a bolt-hole. That was what this was, thought Freda: a glorious bolt-hole where you could bring your illicit lover and hide away for the weekend. Sex affects judgement: it made Freda, who was normally rational and practical, unrealistically optimistic.

For the first time in many hours, she thought of Matthew and their life together. He was a good husband. More distant than she would have liked, but that might have been because they had to spend so much of their lives apart. It wasn't his fault that he had to work on the oil rigs. And that work brought them plenty of money. It was Matthew's money which had bought them this place and given her this opportunity with Wayne. As Freda Potts stood beside her bright blue Peugeot and waited for Wayne to emerge from the unit, she felt a surge of dark and depressing guilt. She really was a slut, despite her attempts to convince Wayne Briggs that she was something else.

Then the toilet flushed and he stood on the step above her, adjusting his jeans and looking round for the first time at this place she had brought him to. Freda gave him a shy smile and tried not to show the fear which had beset her as she had stepped out into the clear light and cool air of the late afternoon. He tried to take her hand, but she detached herself hastily and whispered, ‘Aunt and nephew, remember? They don't hold hands!'

‘I'll hold more than hands if you give me half a chance!'

He seemed to be determined on sexual innuendo. It was becoming a little tiresome. She didn't want to be reminded all the time of what she did in the privacy of the bedroom, of how abandoned she had been with him. That had been a surprise to her as well as to him, and she hadn't grown accustomed to it yet.

Freda hastened towards the woods and the cover they offered. She felt very exposed out here with Wayne, who was moving unhurriedly a pace behind her, chatting inconsequentially as he walked. She was relieved when they reached the path which wound among the trees, so that she could slow her pace and move beneath the canopy of bright green spring leaves. It was pleasant here, and almost deserted. The only person they met was an older blonde woman with a small and friendly dog called Rosie. This lady knew Freda and was prepared to chat, but Freda gave her a smile and a ‘Hello there!' and passed quickly on. She didn't want to introduce Wayne as her nephew; she was afraid he wouldn't be convincing in the role.

‘It's nice here,' he said eventually. It was the first evidence that he was trying to please her, that he wasn't completely dominated by his sexual triumphs. It wasn't much, but it allowed her to feel that there was something more than sex between them, that he felt a little of the tenderness she felt for him. They watched the swans for a minute and he said, ‘There are five of the little ones.'

‘Cygnets,' said Freda, and then wanted to bite her tongue for saying the innocent word. It was the teacher in her that wanted the correct term, she supposed. She identified various birds for him. She had her illustrated guide to British birds back in the unit, but she knew he'd laugh at her if she produced it for him.

They were on their way back there when they saw in the distance a grey-haired woman with a burly man she did not recognize. They were eighty yards away and Freda slowed automatically to make sure they did not meet them and have to speak. ‘That's Debbie Keane,' she said quietly to Wayne. ‘She knows everything that goes on here.'

He grinned. ‘She doesn't know about us.'

‘No. Let's keep it that way.'

Wayne Briggs didn't reply. He seemed to be observing the camp gossip with interest, but when he spoke she realized that it was Debbie's companion he had been studying. ‘I know that bloke. He lives near me. He's a police sergeant. CID, I think.'

Freda was disturbed by that. She didn't like the thought that there could be a CID sergeant here, walking around the site and talking to Debbie. Learning about her ‘nephew' perhaps. She turned abruptly into one of the boathouses by the lake before they could see her.

Wayne was delighted by the move. He took it as an invitation for him to renew his sexual advances, in this strange, high place with wooden walls and the coils of rope beside the two battered rowing boats which were awaiting repair. It was in one of these that he took the Head of History, though he remembered to breathe ‘Freda' into her ear as he clumsily removed her jeans. It was good in here, once he'd got her going and she was urging him on again. Even the strange smells of wood and oil and sawdust added to the strangeness and the wonder of it all. And staid Mrs Potts forgot her caution and cried out to him to fuck her, once he'd got her going. He was getting quite good at sex, he decided complacently. That surely was pretty good at sixteen.

Neither of them saw the small man in the trees as they cautiously resumed their walk. Wally Keane went back to his home and recorded the time and the date.

D
ebbie Keane's unit was surrounded by flowers. There was a fine crimson rhododendron in a large pot, standing high above the newly planted annuals which crowded the oblong plot beside the wooden steps leading up to a balcony and an open door.

‘You have a wonderful spot here,' said Bert Hook. He was quite sincere. The plants complemented the elevated home, and the longer landscape of the lake and the distant trees behind it set the place off perfectly.

‘We think so,' said Debbie. ‘This is our permanent home, really, so we enjoy making the very best we can of it. We have to move out for a month of each year, of course, but we understand that. And we're always delighted to move back in here. It really feels like home to us now.'

‘You must know more about what goes on at Twin Lakes than anyone else around here. More than even the owners, I expect.'

‘Oh, I don't know about that!' said Debbie automatically. But she preened herself a little at the thought, settling into her armchair like a bird resuming its nest after an exhilarating fluttering of its plumage. ‘I suppose we do know the whole site pretty well by now. And I know most of the people who use it. They like to chat, and you get to know a little of their lives, over the years.'

I bet you do, thought Bert. Whether they like to chat or not, you find out about them and their families and their opinions. He knew Debbie Keane's type pretty well by now. Sometimes they gathered information effortlessly; sometimes they worked much harder to do it and put people's backs up. But the important fact about the Debbie Keanes of this world is that they can be very useful to the police. He took the plunge. ‘My name is Bert Hook, Mrs Keane. Detective Sergeant Hook, when I'm at work, rather than enjoying myself here.'

‘My word! I hope we haven't done anything wrong! You're not going to put the cuffs on us and take us in, are you?' Debbie giggled and gripped the arms of her chair.

Bert smiled patiently. It was a little tiresome, but you had to accept that the words were meant as friendly. People didn't realize how often he'd endured this or similar reactions, just as they didn't realize how his tall chief John Lambert had been asked whether it was cold up there by short people who seemed to think the tired joke was original. ‘Nothing like that, Mrs Keane. I came here for pleasure and I've enjoyed my day on your delightful site. Something has come up, that's all. Something I felt should be investigated, just to put Mrs Ramsbottom's mind at rest. And Jason's of course. He has a right to be disturbed by this, even though he's a man!' Hook gave her a big smile to show that this was a joke and that there was no need for her to be alarmed.

Mrs Keane was plainly delighted and animated by this news. ‘Goodness! What on earth can have happened on our quiet little site to excite the attention of a detective inspector?'

‘Detective sergeant, Mrs Keane. And an off-duty detective sergeant at that. This is almost certainly a false alarm. Many people are stupid, but only a much smaller number among them are vicious.' He was aware from her face that he was getting this wrong, that instead of making it low-key as he had intended he was adding to her excitement with every phrase. But he couldn't see what else he could have done; you had to issue the standard cautious reminders.

And now came the most important, and in this case probably the most futile reminder of all. ‘I must emphasize that what I say now must go no further. I am taking you into my confidence, Mrs Keane, and it is important that you keep this to yourself.' He spoke the words with all the solemnity he could muster, but even as he pronounced them he heard their futility. You couldn't talk to the village gossip and expect her to keep what you said to herself, however steely your warnings. Because after his day on the site, Bert realized that this is what this community was: a particular kind of village, which assembled every weekend, with a few permanent occupants like Debbie Keane who made it her business to acquire and disseminate knowledge of the inhabitants' affairs.

‘Oh, you're safe with me, Detective Sergeant Hook. You can say whatever you want in here and know that it will go no further.' Debbie Keane looked round at the walls and the windows of her unit and nodded sagely. Probably at that moment she actually believed what she was saying. Busybodies had an enormous capacity for self-deception.

Bert knew what would happen, but he could see no alternative. The woman was a source of information and he needed to use her. And if news of the threatening notes the Ramsbottoms had received trickled round the site, that might be the best method of suppressing them. Nutters who wrote notes did not usually welcome publicity, and the news of police investigation might well frighten them off. Suppression wasn't as good as exposure and punishment, but it was a good second best.

‘Lisa Ramsbottom contacted me because she had received unpleasant notes, Mrs Keane. This is the first of them.' He produced the polythene envelope in which he had placed the card. Debbie stared with widening eyes at the words in capitals: YOU ARE LINING YOURSELF UP FOR DEATH.

There was an extended dramatic pause before she said tremulously, ‘Goodness me! Someone is threatening them. Who could have done this?'

‘I'm hoping that is where you might be able to help, Debbie.' He used her first name now, partly to alleviate what seemed her genuine fear, partly to emphasize how much he was taking her into his confidence. ‘Can you think of anyone on the site who might have done this?'

She shook her head slowly, as if she did not trust herself with words.

‘Someone with a grievance against Lisa and Jason, perhaps. You chat to a lot of people, I know. Has anyone told you that they dislike the Ramsbottoms?'

‘No. We're a friendly lot here. We get on well with each other. We don't come here to do things like that.' She dipped her head towards the note, as if she feared to use her hand to point at it.

‘It's not just an isolated incident, you see. There have been other notes.' He produced his second polythene cover and his second message: HEED YOUR WARNINGS. THE TIME IS NEAR.

Debbie Keane stared at the words in horror for a moment, then turned her white, round face back to Hook. ‘Someone is threatening them. Do you think he's really going to attack them?'

‘No, I don't, Debbie. It might not be a he, of course. But these things are false alarms, in nineteen cases out of twenty. They are sent by silly or disturbed people who want to frighten their targets. But they have to be investigated.' It flashed across his mind that it might just be this appalled-looking grey-haired woman who had slipped these messages into the Ramsbottoms' unit. And if into theirs, perhaps into others which had yet to come to light. Everyone seemed to think that she was the person who knew most about the business of others in this constantly changing village. That would make her best placed to have the material which would embolden her to issue threats like this. He said, ‘You used to have a dog, didn't you, Debbie?'

She nodded, seeming to find nothing to alarm her in this odd switch of subject. ‘Fox terrier, she was. Bessie. She died not long ago.'

‘You must miss her.' He was studying her closely; he had known at least two elderly ladies who had become unbalanced after the loss of a pet, though they had each been at least ten years older than Debbie Keane.

‘You get over it. It's a blow when they go, but you always knew they would, eventually. I still enjoy walking in the woods – still enjoy meeting other people's dogs. There are quite a few of them come here.'

No sign of any mental disorder there; Bert felt rather ashamed of himself for even considering the possibility. ‘Well, as I say, it's almost certainly a false alarm, Debbie. But if you have any further thoughts on it, or hear of anyone else being threatened, you should get in touch with me immediately at this number.' He gave her his card. She studied it with the reverence she might have accorded to a royal telegram before setting it carefully against a china dog on her mantelpiece.

He was leaving her home when Walter Keane appeared and was introduced. Hook hastened away to take his leave of the Ramsbottoms and head for home. As he left he heard Debbie saying to her husband, ‘You'll never guess what's happened, Wally …'

So much for confidentiality.