Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

‘Obvious.’

She frowned. ‘Not to me.’

‘The drownings. I’m the main suspect.’

‘That’s pants, Jake.’

‘The police don’t think so.’ He gave her another long look with his brown eyes. ‘You’re taking a risk in a boat with me.’

She tried laughing it off, but he was obviously serious. ‘Bit late to warn me, isn’t it?’

‘Aren’t you even slightly worried?’

She dipped her hand in the sea and splashed him. ‘Quit teasing me, or I might jump over the side.’

‘I meant what I said just now. They’re out to get me.’

‘Who, the screaming heebie-jeebies?

‘The police.’

She couldn’t continue treating it lightly. ‘I don’t think so, Jake. I understand how you feel after all you’ve been through, but they’d need proper evidence. They can’t charge you just because of something in your past.’

‘I met Meredith more than once in London at the museum,’ he said, refusing to be persuaded. ‘She was a fossil expert. I met the other woman, too. They don’t know about that.’

She realised that the roles had switched. He needed reassurance from her. ‘That’s pure chance, isn’t it? Just meeting them is hardly enough to convict you of killing them.’

‘I wish… ’ he began.

‘Go on.’

‘… I hadn’t met them.’

‘Put it all behind you, Jake. You’re a good man. You’re innocent.’

He gave a nod. ‘Are you getting cold?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Want to steer?’

‘I’m not much of a sailor.’

‘Come and sit beside me.’ A sailor’s chat-up line. She was amused. He made room and helped her move. He pulled the starter rope and the engine spluttered into life. ‘Now try.’

It was easy to steer without getting splashed in this placid sea. She took the inflatable in several directions. ‘I’m keeping you from your duties.’

‘You’re not.’

A faint sound began chiming in with the engine note. Not a natural sound.

‘D’you mind?’ He switched off the engine. ‘My mobile.’ He delved into an inner pocket and put the phone to his ear.

Jo didn’t say so, but wondered if Jake’s boss had spotted him out here in the Conservancy boat with a woman aboard.

His expression wasn’t relaxed any more. He went back to monosyllabic mode. ‘Yes… Ah… Right… Thanks.’ He pocketed the mobile again and there was desperation, if not panic, in his eyes.

‘What is it?’ Jo asked.

‘That was Gemma.’

‘Gem? What did she want?’

‘She’s had the police there, at the printworks. They found out I met Fiona and now they’re coming here. They’ll arrest me again.’

‘This time we’ve got him,’ Gary said in the car on the way to Pagham.

Hen gave him a look. ‘There’s an old saying, Gary. Don’t sell the skin till you’ve caught the bear.’

‘New to me.’

‘I dare say. But worth remembering.’

‘Like don’t count your chickens?’

‘This one is more bear than chicken.’

She’d visited this part of the coast a few times before without taking in the existence of the nature reserve. All she’d taken in were drunk and disorderlies from the Crab and Lobster at the north end-and that was way back, before it became an upmarket restaurant. Walking and birdwatching were not pursuits of choice for Hen. She studied the map while Gary did the driving. ‘Bigger than I thought,’ she said after a long silence.

‘That bear?’

‘The place where he hangs out.’

‘His den.’ Gary seemed to be enjoying himself.

‘The main acreage of the reserve is inland, to the north of us, farmland put to grass by the look of it. Before we look there I want to be certain he isn’t on view around the edges of the harbour. The footpath goes right around.’

‘Exposed, then?’

‘By the looks of it. We’ll see if we can spot him from the viewpoint I know. If nothing else, I get to have a smoke,’ Hen said.

‘In a nature reserve, guv?’

‘It’s the open air.’

She lit up the moment she stepped out of the car. She’d brought Gary to the rear of the Crab and Lobster at Sidlesham Quay because she knew they didn’t need to walk far to have a panoramic view of the harbour. The pub would also be a good meeting point if reinforcements were needed. Coppers know how to find pubs.

‘We’re going to need glasses.’

‘Plenty in the pub, I reckon,’ Gary said.

‘Field glasses.’

He opened the boot of his car and handed her a pair of 8x binoculars.

‘Good planning. You wouldn’t have size five wellies as well? I thought not.’ She told him to look through the glasses for a tall, solitary man, possibly hooded. Meanwhile, she found a flat rock and sat inhaling from her cigarillo.

‘Any joy?’

‘Not yet,’ Gary said. ‘It’s as quiet as the grave this morning. Just a courting couple on the Church Norton side.’

‘How do you know they’re courting?’

‘He’s unbuttoning her jacket.’

‘They must be good glasses.’

‘They’re steaming up.’

‘Isn’t there anyone else in view? Who’s that on the other side?’

Gary put the binoculars down to check and then refocused. ‘A little bald guy in a shellsuit walking his dog.’

She came to a decision. ‘Obviously we can’t see all of the harbour from here. We’ll have to find another viewpoint.’

‘Church Norton?’

‘Voyeur.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You just want a closer view of that couple.’

‘Seriously, guv. Church Norton looks like the best bet. We could follow the footpath.’

‘That isn’t serious, Gary. It’s at least a mile off.’

They returned to the car and used the roads to reach the car park created for birders and visitors to St Wilfrid’s Chapel. Theirs was the only vehicle. A short walk in the harbour direction gave them a view right across to Pagham. Nobody of Jake’s description was in sight. Even the lovers had disappeared.

Hen lit up again. She was getting anxious. This manhunt wasn’t the doddle it had first appeared.

‘You know what? This is a job for the Eye in the Sky.’

Gary was wide-eyed. ‘The chopper?’

‘Think big, lad.’

There was only one helicopter for the whole of Sussex Police, a McDonnell Douglas 902 Explorer, based at Shoreham airfield.

‘Get on to the Air Ops Unit and see if it’s available. From all I’ve heard there are four pilots on standby and they spend most of their time playing poker.’

‘It costs a bomb to run.’

‘Six-fifty an hour. A lot of those hours are spent collecting suicide victims at Beachy Head. This will give the lads a break: a real, live suspect to find. Tell them we’ll meet them on the Church Norton shingle spit. Too many trees around this poky little car park. They can put down there, no problem.’

Gary got busy with his personal radio. The chopper would arrive in under twenty minutes, he informed Hen.

‘I’m surprised we qualify to use it,’ he told her as they stepped out towards the spit, and then added, ‘Do we?’

‘Leave that for me to sort out,’ she said. ‘We’re dealing with a serious crime here.’

She’d not flown in the helicopter and she was sure Gary hadn’t. It was supposed to be used when life was at risk or a serious crime in progress, but she’d once seen a headline in the Mail on Sunday: SPY IN THE SKY POLICE AIM TO TRAP SPEEDSTERS. The Sussex chopper was ‘bringing more misery to Britain’ by reporting speeding motorists, timing them from eight hundred feet between sections of road marked with spots as large as dinner plates. Hen was occasionally tempted to put her foot down. She’d been caught in a speed trap once and only escaped thanks to a good story and a sympathetic traffic officer. If the helicopter crew hadn’t got anything better than speeding motorists to occupy them, she reasoned, they could help round up Jake.