Read Online Rest Assured by J.M. Gregson - Free Book Online

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.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.

FIVE
    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.
    â€˜You have a wonderful spot here,’ said Bert Hook.