Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

‘Go on,’ she encouraged him. ‘I’m all ears.’

‘Good for arthritis.’

‘Are they, by all that’s wonderful? But how do you take them? Not swallowed, surely?’

‘Grind them to powder.’

‘When my joints start giving me gyp, I’ll know where to come. You’re an authority, obviously.’

‘Amateur.’

‘Shall we talk about the reason you texted me?’ she said, deciding that the confidence-giving had run its course. ‘You say you know the dead woman, Meredith Sentinel.’

‘Met her, yes.’

‘Well, there’s a thing. You’re pulled in for questioning for being close to the scene and having a record and now it turns out the victim is known to you.’

‘Coincidence,’ Jake said, reddening.

‘Really? Let’s look into that. Where did you meet?’

‘Natural History Museum.’

‘London? You visited there?’

‘A few times.’

‘I get the connection, I think. Mrs Sentinel had a part-time job in the fossil department. Not such a thumping great coincidence, then. Showing her some of your specimens, were you?’

He shook his head. ‘Looking at theirs.’

‘Did you meet Mrs Sentinel outside the museum?’

The question startled him. ‘No.’

‘But you knew her by name?’

‘She introduced herself.’

‘Bully for you. Pretty woman, wasn’t she, Jake?’

He didn’t answer that.

‘I thought we might agree on that,’ Hen said. ‘Most guys like a good-looking blonde. She must have made an impression, for you to remember her. How did you find out she was the dead woman on the beach? Saw her picture on TV?’

‘Radio.’

‘I follow you… I think. You recognised the name and decided to tell all before we kicked your front door in. Wise move, Jake.’

He lifted his shoulders a fraction.

‘Where were you when you heard this news?’

‘With a friend.’

‘I said where, not who with.’

‘Chichester.’

‘How long was it before you texted?’

‘Immediately.’

‘Aside from the discussions you and Meredith had about fossils, did you get to know the lady at all? Was she friendly?’

The inevitable nod.

Hen was annoyed with herself. She needed to phrase her questions better to get a response. ‘What did you learn about her life outside the museum?’

‘She cared.’

‘Cared about you?’

‘The rainforests.’

‘Conservation? She shared your opinions, then?’ She saved herself from another nod by saying, ‘You don’t need to answer that. I’m thinking aloud. I’m interested in where you talked about such matters. Must have been difficult in the fossil gallery, or whatever it’s known as.’

‘Over coffee in the restaurant.’

‘Ah-it got as friendly as that? I’m getting the picture now. And what did she have to say about personal matters?’

He frowned.

‘Like life at home?’ Hen prompted him.

‘Not much.’

‘But there was something?’

‘Her husband wasn’t in-’ The statement stopped there.

‘Are you saying you went to the house, Jake?’

‘No.’ He backtracked. ‘Wasn’t in agreement.’

‘With what?’

‘Climate change. He said it was cyclical.’

‘Right,’ she said, the disappointment obvious in her tone. She didn’t want to get into a debate on global warming. ‘Did she at any point talk about coming to Selsey?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t invite her down to see your fossils or go looking for them on the beach?’

Another shake of the head.

‘We don’t know why she was here and neither does her husband. Fossil-hunting seems as likely a reason as any. Do you have any suggestions? No? I wasn’t expecting any, but I had to ask.’

His small living room was pretty basic, emulsioned in the uni- versal off-white called magnolia, with a patch of blue carpet over brown-stained boards. Three-piece suite, vintage 1970, portable TV, bookcase stacked mainly with maps and magazines, coffee table with a bunch of Fair Trade bananas still in their wrapper. A Vernon Ward on the wall of wildfowl flying over water. Not a family photo in sight.

‘How long have you been living here?’

‘Four, five years.’

‘Get on with the neighbours, do you?’

‘No problems.’

‘Do you get out much?’

‘Got an outside job.’

‘Yes, but do you have a social life? Know what I mean?’

He lowered his eyes as if his large feet held the answer. Finally he said, ‘I’m okay.’

In the car, Stella said, ‘Am I missing something here, guv?’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘You don’t think we should pull him in?’

‘Why, do you?’

‘He’s our only suspect apart from the jogger we haven’t traced. And this links him to the victim.’

‘It was a voluntary statement.’

‘I know that, guv. If he’s our man, he’s made a smart move. We would soon have made the link. I happen to think he’s a whole lot brighter than we take him for. He can’t string six words together at a time, but when he does say anything, it’s measured.’

‘I don’t underrate him,’ Hen said. ‘He’s holding down a responsible job. The problem is that the custody clock starts ticking and what do we get out of him? We’ve been over his movements in the hours leading up to the murder. He isn’t fireproof, but any connection is circumstantial.’

‘This link to the victim has some clout, surely?’

‘Not enough to make a charge stand up. Next time I don’t want him to walk away.’

‘So you rate him as the killer?’

Hen tossed it back. ‘Do you?’

‘I was trained to look for motive, means, and opportunity. He had the means to hold her under. He’s a big, strong guy. He had the opportunity. She came to Selsey knowing he lived here. He takes her down to the beach on a fossil hunt. But what would have been his motive?’

‘The visit turned sour,’ Hen said. ‘He’s an ex-con trying to hide his past. Maybe she got wind of it and he panicked and attacked her. Or she told him his fossils are a heap of rubbish.’

‘She was supposed to be a charmer,’ Stella said. ‘I can’t see her treating him like that.’

‘All right. Here’s another angle. She was the first woman who’d agreed to go out with him in five or six years.’

‘She was married, guv.’

‘Yes, and we’ve both seen what the husband is like. Would you stay loyal to a self-regarding berk like Austen Sentinel? You’d find it a strain.’

‘To say the least.’

‘Let’s say Meredith was tempted to play away. She had interests in common with Jake and he was the opposite of her old man, the strong, silent type. But it turned out he wasn’t up for it. He was thinking fossils while she was thinking sex.’

‘Or the reverse.’

Hen frowned, thought about it and gave a nod. ‘I guess. Either way, there’s a fatal moment of discovery. He’s big and strong and violent in a crisis. All the frustrations of the past erupt in him. He grabs her and holds her under till she can’t struggle any more.’

‘I can believe that,’ Stella said.

‘I’ve only got one problem with it,’ Hen said.

‘What’s that?’

‘How come you and I just went to and his house and felt so safe with him?’

On their return to Chichester police station, Hen and Stella were met inside the entrance by DC Gary Pearce looking like the wildebeeste who couldn’t work out why the rest of the herd had bolted.

‘Something up, sunshine?’ Hen asked.

‘Don’t know, guv. The ACC was asking for you.’

‘The main man? What time is it? He’ll have left by now.’

‘I don’t think so. It sounded urgent,’ Gary said.