The Sleeping and the Dead

The road to the lake was signposted Cranwell Village and showed a No Through Road symbol. Beneath it was a brown tourist sign which said Cranford Water Adventure Centre. Cranwell Village was a scattering of houses on either side of the single-track road. There was a church and a pub and a country-house hotel where, the month before, Porteous had briefly attended a colleague’s engagement party. Then there was a bend in the road and a sudden, startling expanse of water, this morning dazzling in the sunlight. The lake had a circumference of thirty miles. The valley twisted, so although Porteous could see across the water to the opposite bank, each end of the reservoir was invisible. The lane ended in a car park, with a grassed area to one side and a couple of picnic tables. There was a noticeboard with a map showing a series of walks and nature trails. A gravel track followed the lake a little further north to the Adventure Centre, a wooden building of Scandinavian design, surrounded by trees. Porteous parked by the noticeboard and studied it before walking up the track.

Detective Sergeant Stout had arrived before him. His car was parked in one of the residents’ marked spaces next to the building. He wore, as he always did, a suit and a tie, and looked out of place in the clearing, surrounded by trees, with pine needles underfoot. An officious garden gnome. Next to him stood a fit, middle-aged man in shorts, a black T-shirt with the Adventure Centre logo on the front in scarlet, and the rubber sandals used by climbers. Porteous always treated Stout carefully. The older man had been expected to get the promotion which had brought Porteous to the team. He was well liked but too close to retirement now to move further.

‘Thank you for getting here so quickly, Eddie.’ As soon as the words were spoken he thought they sounded sychophantic, insincere. Stout only nodded. ‘Perhaps you could introduce us.’

Stout nodded again. He was a small, squat man with the knack of speaking without appearing to move his mouth. He would have made a brilliant ventriloquist, though Porteous had never passed on the compliment. ‘This is Daniel Duncan. He’s director of the Adventure Centre. One of his instructors found the body.’

Porteous held out his hand. Duncan took it reluctantly.

‘Perhaps I could talk to him,’ Porteous said.

‘Her,’ Duncan said. ‘Helen Blake. She’s a bit upset.’

‘We should give her a few minutes then. Is there anything we can see from the shore?’

From where they were standing the view of the lake was obscured by trees. Duncan led them along a path to the back of the building, to a dinghy park, where there were half a dozen Mirror dinghies and a rack of canoes. A concrete slipway sloped gently into the water. He walked very quickly, bouncing away from them on the balls of his feet, as if he hoped the matter could be dealt with immediately.

‘This is the last thing we need,’ he said crossly. ‘We’ve only been going three years and this is the first season we’ve shown any profit.’

‘But the building must have been here longer than that.’ It looked weathered. Lichen was growing on the roof.

‘It’s nearly ten years old. It used to be run by the council but in the last round of cuts they had to sell it off. I took it over then.’

‘What was here before that?’

Duncan shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘It was a caravan site,’ Stout volunteered. ‘A sort of holiday centre. I think the people who owned it went bust. The wooden building wasn’t here then, though, and the trees have grown a lot. There was the reception and a bar nearer the lane. Brick and concrete. An ugly place. I remember it being demolished.’

Porteous leaned against the stone wall which separated the dinghy park from the shore. There was the smell of baked mud. A slight breeze moved the water but seemed not to reach him.

‘Where did Ms Blake find the body?’

Duncan pointed to a rotting wooden staithe which jutted out from the water about thirty yards from the wall.

‘This is the driest summer since the reservoir was built. The water’s never been so low. Those posts haven’t been exposed since I’ve been here. Not until a couple of weeks ago. I think they formed part of a jetty or a pier when the lake was first flooded. The body’s near that far post.’

‘So it was probably weighted and thrown from the jetty? Before it collapsed?’

Duncan shrugged again as if he wanted to disassociate himself from the enquiry.

Porteous gave up on him and turned to Stout. ‘I don’t suppose you remember when the jetty fell into disuse. That might help us date the body.’

‘I don’t think it fell down. I think the council knocked it down when the Adventure Centre was built. They didn’t want the kids drowning themselves.’

Porteous pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. ‘So we’re talking a ten-year-old body. At least. When was the reservoir completed?’

‘1968. The year Bet and I moved here.’