Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

‘Do you think it’ll make the papers?’ Gemma’s hyperactive imagination was ahead of Jo’s.

‘The absent mother? Could do. In any case, the affair will be all round the office, and none of your doing. All you did was act responsibly.’

Gemma’s big eyes locked with Jo’s. ‘Tell me, wise one. Can it go wrong?’

‘I can’t see how. It may not unfold exactly as we think, but whatever happens they’ll walk into a hotbed of scandal when they get back. He’ll find it impossible to promote her.’

‘Or sack me?’

‘Or sack you.’

‘So will you come with me?’

Jo played the question over.

‘Where?’

‘To Fiona’s house, of course. Doing this alone will spook me out.’

A volley of no’s exploded in Jo’s head. She’d had her brush with the police and it hadn’t turned out nicely. ‘Couldn’t you take someone from work? It would look so much better if you did.’

‘Why?’

‘When you go to the police station they’ll be sure to ask who we are. If I say I’m your friend it won’t sound half so official as if I’m another Kleentext employee.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘It does to the police. They could think you’re wasting their time.’

Gemma heaved a huge sigh. ‘Ain’t that the truth and no mistake. But sweetie, I don’t know who else to ask. Like I said to you the other day, I’m not the flavour of the month here.’

Jo had some sympathy, but nothing would induce her to cross swords with DCI Mallin again.

Now Gemma gave a self-pitying sniff and her eyelashes moistened. ‘Please?’

A compromise was wanted here. ‘Tell you what,’ Jo said. ‘Why don’t I come with you for company, but stay out of sight so it will look as if you’re acting all alone for the good of the firm?’

‘Cool.’

Jo seemed to have got it right.

‘Babe,’ Gemma said. ‘I’m going to pay you the supreme compliment. You’re better than a line of coke.’

Fiona lived in Emsworth, a coastal resort, small, red-brick, and with an unfortunate history. Once noted for the excellence of the local oysters, said to excel those of Whitstable and Colchester, the town supplied some for a civic banquet in Winchester in 1902. Within days a number of the guests became ill with typhoid and died, among them the Dean of Winchester Cathedral. You don’t kill a dean without repercussions. In the enquiry it was alleged and later admitted that all of Emsworth’s sewage was pumped into the harbour beside the oysterbeds. Mischief makers suggested that the oysters owed their unrivalled size and flavour to their food source. The Worshipful Company of Fishmongers imposed a national ban. Cause and effect was never established beyond doubt, but Emsworth oysters became notorious and the industry collapsed overnight. These days the town was better known for its large colony of swans. Fiona had a terraced house facing across the Mill Pond, a less than adequate name for a ten-acre sheet of water that took a half hour to walk round. Here a hundred or more swans were ever-present, along with mallard ducks, coots, and gulls. Jo drove the Panda up the narrow road between the water’s edge and the houses.

‘Here we go, then,’ Gemma said.

‘Here you go,’ Jo said. ‘I’m sitting here. Remember?’

She stopped some way short of the house and watched Gemma step up to the front door and try the bell. No one came, but of course it would have surprised them both if Fiona had appeared. Gemma tried a couple more times and bent down and peered through the letterbox. Then she turned towards the car and flapped her hand to let Jo know she was getting no response.

‘Idiot,’ Jo said between gritted teeth. If anyone was watching they’d know for sure that the two of them were in this together. She looked the other way at a group of swans.

Gemma stepped around the dividing hedge and tried next door. An upstairs window opened and a shaven-headed man in a white vest leaned out.

In the car, Jo pulled down the sun visor.

The man seemed to be a caring neighbour and a typical male as well, all brass and swagger. He came downstairs and out to the front and tried Fiona’s doorbell himself. He stepped onto the small front lawn and looked through the living room window. A short consultation followed. The man went back inside his own house and returned with a mobile. The plan was racing ahead. This was clearly phase two: Call the police.

Jo slid so far down in her seat that her head was below the steering wheel.

Presently the passenger door opened and Gemma looked in. ‘Trying out a new position?’ She was on a high again. The neighbour’s show of cooperation had pumped up her adrenalin. ‘Take it from me, it wouldn’t be comfortable in the driver’s seat. I’d say it was damn near impossible.’

‘I’m trying to stay out of sight.’

‘And succeeding. For a moment I thought you’d gone AWOL. He’s a hunk to die for, that neighbour. Did you check those pecs? He’s called Francisco and he works nights as a bouncer in Portsmouth. What a waste. Hasn’t seen anything of her or the child for a week and said we should definitely report it. He saved me the trouble of calling the police.’

‘You don’t have to relay all this to me,’ Jo said. ‘You can tell me later. I’m supposed to be invisible, okay?’

‘Lighten up, poppet. He’s back in his house putting on a shirt. Funny, he didn’t mind me seeing his tattoos, but he gets dressed for the rozzers.’

‘They’re definitely coming, are they?’

‘Relax. They won’t be here for ten minutes.’

Jo wasn’t waiting for that. ‘Look, Gem, I think this might work better if I get out and take a walk along the path. I’ll come back after they’ve gone.’

‘Be like that.’

‘We agreed I keep a low profile.’

‘Sure thing, kiddo.’

‘You don’t sound nervous any more.’

‘It’s turned out rather well. Francisco could be the find of the week. The last time I set eyes on a hunk of manhood like that, he was tossing a caber. Well, I think it was a caber.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed.

‘Hold on a mo. You’re forgetting what this is all about. You’re supposed to be worried about Fiona and the little boy, right?’

Jo got out of the car and started a brisk walk along the bank, intent on putting distance between herself and Gemma. She’d lost all confidence. No way would that daft creature play her part convincingly with the police. Still, she reminded herself, that was down to Gemma. This was her show. The overriding need at this stage was not to be a part of it.

Annoyingly a flotilla of swans and ducks swam beside her, keeping up. She had missed a trick here. Anyone patrolling the Mill Pond had a duty to toss in pieces of bread or, preferably, seed. She was ignoring them and they weren’t giving up.

Ahead was the sailing club. Soon she would disappear from view behind the clubhouse, safe from waterfowl and nosy parkers. She risked a glance back. The find of the week had put on a red shirt and was striking a pose in the middle of the road, arms folded, legs astride, like the genie of the lamp. Gemma was sitting on his garden wall swinging her legs, anything but anxious about Fiona and her son.

People, Jo thought. The ones who are most fun are the least reliable.

The walk brought her past the club to the southern extreme of the Mill Pond where the road became the top of a harbour wall. She would head back on the side opposite the house, where she could safely watch any developments while seeming to admire the scenery.

She now had a view of the sea, the marshy inlet between the islands of Thorney and Hayling. Here, through the narrow Emsworth Channel, waves of invaders had come in times past. It wasn’t beyond imagination to picture a Viking ship approaching on the high tide.