Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

She chuckled. ‘I could have been wrong there. Actually I don’t have a lot of confidence in the rozzers. Plenty of crimes go undetected and it’s only thanks to informers that any get cleared up at all.’

‘There’s some truth in that.’

‘They take the easy option every time. The next thing is they’ll put Dr Sentinel on TV appealing to the public for help. That’s the giveaway. You see it so often. Men think they can bluff it out. Can they, hell?’

‘You don’t think they suspect anyone else?’

‘Like you, for instance, just because you found the body? No, babe, don’t waste any sleep over that.’

Jo wasn’t thinking about herself. ‘Someone local, maybe?’

‘I doubt it. Selsey’s got its share of weirdos, I’m sure, same as every other place, but this looks like a domestic. If it was a sex crime, you could be right, but this wasn’t, was it? I know she was practically starkers, but there was no sign of ground rations that I heard of.’

‘Ground what?’

‘Naughties. Brace up, ducky.’

‘It would be all over the papers if there was.’

‘The lines are open again. Have you asked yourself why she wasn’t wearing clothes?’

‘They went for a midnight swim?’ Jo said. ‘People do. It’s supposed to be liberating.’

‘You’re firing on all cylinders now. Think about it. She’d have to know her killer pretty well to skinny dip with him. Which is precisely why I don’t think it was some yobbo she’d met over a couple of drinks the same night. It’s got to be the husband or a lover.’

‘I think you’re right.’ Jo hoped the police were working along the same lines. She was feeling better for talking to Gemma. ‘But in the picture I saw he appeared to be quite fond of her.’

‘That’s the one he gave the fuzz, I expect. He’s not daft.’

‘He doesn’t look like a killer.’

‘They don’t all have slitty eyes and bad teeth. The Boston Strangler was a dish. Tony Curtis played him in the film.’

‘Gemma, you’re the bloody limit, did you know that? Speaking of murder suspects, have they found your boss yet?’

‘No chance. If you ask me, he’s living it up on the Costa del Crime.’

‘And are you still running the business?’

‘Trying to. I did what you said and pulped all those council pamphlets. Even Hillie on reception has gone quiet now. The next thing will be Fiona’s funeral, I suppose. Some of us will have to show our faces there.’

‘Has it been arranged?’

‘I don’t think they’ve released the body yet. I say… ’ Gemma took a gasp that could be heard down the phone. ‘I just had a thought. What if Dr Sentinel murdered Fiona as well as his wife?’

‘I don’t see how,’ Jo said. Gemma’s capacity for invention knew no bounds.

‘He was in the area.’

‘He was in St Petersburg.’

‘We dealt with that. He came back. First he drowned his wife and then Fiona.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s for the Old Bill to find out. Far be it from me to speculate but if I was in charge I’d look for a connection, like was Fiona ever a student of his?’

‘Unlikely,’ Jo said. ‘She was trained in accountancy, you told me. He’s a geologist.’

‘Yes, and he gets his rocks off by drowning women.’

‘Oh, come on!’

‘It’s worth investigating. I may have a word in that inspector’s ear if she comes by again.’

‘Do that,’ Jo said, deciding to humour her.

‘I’d better go and put on some face. I’m meeting the gorgeous Rick tonight.’

‘It’s still on, then?’

‘Bubbling nicely. We had a slight falling-out over this woman he sees on Sundays, but we’re over it now.’

‘Sally.’

‘I call her his dinner lady, which irks him a bit, because she’s posh and very rich. Lives in a mansion overlooking the harbour at Bosham. It’s got a studio, a games room, and an indoor pool. I wondered why he was wasting his time with me until I found out Sally’s fifty-three.’

‘As old as that? I didn’t know.’

‘A mother-figure, you see. Some men have a lifelong need for them.’

‘He won’t get much mothering from you.’

‘Christ, no. And how’s yours?’

‘Mine? You mean Jake? I still like him, yes.’

‘Cool. Why don’t we all meet for a drink tonight, mend some fences?’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘Just for an hour. We don’t have to spend the whole evening together. Rick and me are going clubbing, anyway, and that’s not Jake’s style. You two could go bowling after. He likes that. But it’s not for me to organise your evening. Let’s say we’ll be in the Slug amp; Lettuce between seven and eight and we’ll look out for you guys.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Go on. Give it a whirl. Jake won’t mind. I’ll call him if you like.’

‘No. Don’t.’ To fend off that possibility, Jo said, ‘If we can get there, we will, but don’t wait around.’ The right moment, she thought, to end the call. ‘Thanks for phoning, Gem. I don’t believe half of what you say, but you always cheer me up.’

After putting down the phone, she shook her head and smiled at the riot of fantasy she’d just heard. A lecturer not only drowns his alcoholic-or insane, or depressed-wife while skinny dipping, but is confirmed as a serial killer by drowning Fiona as well. All of this while he’s attending a conference in St Petersburg.

Inside the terraced house Jake rented in Selsey, Hen Mallin picked a lump of stone off the top of a bookcase. ‘Tell me about this, Jake.’ She’d learned at the first interview that she’d get more out of the man when he relaxed a bit. The rocks on display weren’t things of beauty, so they had to hold some other appeal for their owner. ‘Looks to me like an oyster.’

He emitted a long, tense breath. Even in his own setting he was stumped for words.

Jake may have preferred to move on. Hen didn’t. ‘It’s not shell any more. It’s rock, so this is a fossil, yes?’

A definite nod this time.

She exchanged a glance with Stella, then pressed Jake harder. ‘You’re going to have to help me here. I suppose it has a Latin name?’

‘Gryphaea.’

‘Cop that, Stell. And it’s special, obviously. Very old?’

‘Hundred and fifty.’

‘Thou?’

A shake of the head.

‘Million? Hundred and fifty million? That’s prehistoric.’ She tossed it across the room to Stella, who made a one-handed catch. ‘Have you handled anything as ancient as that, Stell, not counting that sandwich in the police canteen today? And it looks just like a modern oyster to me.’

‘Me, too,’ Stella said. ‘Except this is a Gry-?’

‘-phaea,’ Jake said and volunteered something else. ‘Extinct.’

Now that he’d broken cover, he had to be pursued. ‘Ah,’ Hen said, ‘but it takes an expert to tell the difference. How can you tell it isn’t a common or garden oyster, a mere ten thousand years old?’

‘Thicker,’ he was moved to say. He retrieved the fossil from Stella and returned it to the bookcase. ‘The valve is thicker. In folklore… ’ His voice trailed off, as if he suddenly realised he’d been manoevured into uttering more than a couple of words.

‘Go on, Jake. We’re listening.’

‘In folklore these are devil’s toenails.’

‘So this innocent-looking oyster gets a bad name. I guess devil’s toenails are easier to remember than Gry- whatever.’ She eyed the rest of the exhibits, thinking there wouldn’t be much mileage in them. They were uninspiring. She wouldn’t have minded insects in amber or sharks’ teeth. These were plain old rocks, even if they had Latin names like the extinct oyster.

He was shaping to say something else.