Peter Lovesey: The Headhunters

He didn’t seem to have an opinion.

After they’d ordered, she tried another tack. ‘Do you live in Chichester, Jake?’

‘Selsey.’

This, at least, was a place she could talk about. ‘I like Selsey, the seafront, anyway. I sometimes go there for an early morning walk. Doesn’t matter if the tide’s in or out. Always interesting.’

‘Seolesig.’ His eyes focused directly on hers for the first time and weren’t so off-putting. Dark and deep-set they might be, but now they wanted to communicate, as if to make up for his halting conversation.

‘What was that you said?’

‘Anglo-Saxon. Seolesig.’

He’d surprised her. ‘Does it have a meaning?’

‘Seal Island.’

‘But it isn’t an island, is it? Oh-did it used to be? Of course, you can see when you drive out there. The road is raised up in parts, like a causeway.’

‘Big question,’ he said.

‘What is?’

‘Managing the landscape.’

‘Whether to shore up the sea defences or let nature take its course?’

He nodded. ‘Pagham Harbour. East Head. Habitats.’

‘All this comes into your work?’

‘One time-’ he began to say.

She waited.

He drew another breath. Long sentences were definitely an ordeal. ‘-at Sidlesham-’

She encouraged him with a nod.

‘-there was a ferry.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ she said. ‘Tell me again. Seal Island. Seole-’

‘-sig.’

‘Seolesig. There you go. I’ve learnt something. I suppose it was a favourite place for seals in the old days.’

He made a simultaneous movement with his mouth and shoulders that conveyed that he didn’t know for certain, but she could be right.

There was more to Jake than she’d first appreciated. He was hard work, but when you persevered he had depth to him, unlike golden boy Rick. ‘Next time I go for one of my walks I’ll think of it in a different light. Don’t suppose I’ll spot a seal, though.’

‘Might.’

‘I never have up to now.’

‘I see them.’

She gave an uneasy laugh and said, ‘Really?

‘Common seals. Grey seals, too.’

‘Where?’

‘Where I work. Pagham.’ A place just along the coast from Selsey. He paused, making a huge effort to say more. ‘On the mudflats at low tide.’

After that, she had to believe in the seals. She’d lived locally for some years and never seen or heard of one before.

The food came. Jake had chosen a cheese and tomato pizza. She had fish and chips. It was predictable but embarrassing that the waitress assumed they were a couple and tried to talk them into buying the house wine, with some remarks about putting them in the mood. Jo handled it smoothly and said they were meeting friends later and just wanted water at this stage.

‘Was that all right, speaking for us both?’ she asked when the waitress had left them.

Jake nodded. ‘Water is good.’

‘We could have ordered coffee.’

He shook his head.

The food provided a break from conversation, and gave Jo a chance to reflect on how this evening had turned out. First impressions can be misleading. Jake’s looks were against him and his problem communicating hadn’t allowed him to appear as anything but oafish, even sinister. In company he was fated to be the victim of the quips Rick excelled at. But like this, one-to-one, if you persevered he had thoughtful things to say. She couldn’t imagine him starting a conversation, not with someone who was virtually a stranger, but he’d made efforts to respond. Was he short of confidence? There wasn’t any speech impediment she could detect. Maybe he’d been given a hard time at school by people like Rick. Being so tall and-well-grim-faced, he’d no doubt been picked on by other kids, particularly when they sensed he wasn’t the threat his size suggested.

She wanted a chance to know him better. And if Rick disapproved, tough. She hadn’t liked what she’d seen of him tonight.

The situation with Gemma was more complex. She valued her as a friend. You can’t take over your best mate’s boyfriend the first evening you meet him. But was Jake her regular bloke? Gemma had never mentioned him before. She seemed to treat him without much affection. She’d blithely gone off with Rick.

Hard to tell.

‘I go for my walks at the weekend, really early, before many people are about,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t matter what the weather is doing. I always enjoy it.’

‘Nice,’ he said without looking up from his plate.

‘Won’t be there tomorrow, more’s the pity. I sometimes have to work Sundays.’

‘Me, too.’

A short time later they returned to the multiplex and waited in the foyer for the others to come out. When they did, Rick’s face suggested the Russell Crowe film was a turkey. His mood had taken a plunge. He’d changed his mind about Jongleurs. He complained of a raging headache and said he needed to get home right away. They called a taxi. Jo did the decent thing and joined him in the cab.

He closed his eyes most of the way.

‘I’d ask you in for a coffee,’ he said when they reached the block where his flat was, ‘but I’m damn sure I’m running a temperature and I don’t want to pass some bug on to you. The driver will take you home.’

‘Make sure you take something for it.’

Before getting out, he said, ‘Messed up your evening, didn’t I?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I had a good time.’

He took out his credit card, but she said she’d got change and would take care of the fare. He thanked her and turned away.

It was difficult to be certain, but he hadn’t carried total conviction as a headache victim. Jo had her own theory and wondered if Gemma would confirm it the next time they met in Starbucks.

A week later, just after seven on Sunday morning, Jo got in her Fiat Panda and took the winding road to the coast. The shoreline at Selsey had always appealed to her as a place to walk: stimulating, never the same. And now its possibilities had increased.

The night had been mild for late September, but when she arrived in the car park at the end of the High Street, an offshore wind was whipping foam off the crests of some sizeable waves. A few people, as always, were sitting in their cars watching from behind glass, as if it was television. Jo had definitely come to walk, but before getting out she checked her face in the mirror. She’d decided not to wear the woolly hat she sometimes pulled on for blustery days. Instead she’d fastened her hair at the top with two red clips and let the rest hang loose.

She stood for a moment to savour the smell of beached seaweed and feel the spray against her cheeks. The last high tide had spread pebbles and bits of driftwood across the concrete path above the sea wall. She picked her way through for a few paces and then took the steps down and crunched into the shingle. A real beach this, she thought, where you could hear the rattle of stones shifted by the waves and see the stacks of lobster pots. Free of day trippers, too. Most favoured the broad, clinically clean sands of West Wittering, a few miles up the coast.

The breakwaters at this end were almost submerged and easy to step over. She continued down to where the stones got smaller and blended with tiny shells. Strips of sand were exposed in places. In another hour there would be a clear stretch to walk on.

When she’d rounded the narrow section below the high sea defences at Bill Point, the southernmost tip of Sussex, she returned to the path for a bit and was treated to the long view of the East Beach stretching for a couple of miles to Pagham Harbour, the conservation area where Jake worked. Much closer stood the grey lifeboat house and slipway at the end of a pier long enough for launchings, even at low tide. Around it was moored the last of Selsey’s ancient fishing fleet, much favoured by photographers, about twenty small, brightly coloured craft moored to orange buoys. Beyond, a good six miles off, looking as if it was just a continuation of the walk, was the tentlike roof of Butlins at Bognor.