Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

And while she watched, another police vehicle swung into the car park, a van marked DOGS UNIT. This was massive overkill. Two German shepherds and their handlers joined the searchers. The young plainclothes detective called Gary led the way out of the car park and down the path to where Hen Mallin waited.

Unable to protest, let alone stop the madness, Jo was furious with herself for not doing more. She hadn’t played this at all cleverly. The smart move would been to have feigned cooperation and actually sent the search party on some fools’ errand miles from where she’d last seen Jake. Instead she was stuck here away from the action with no knowledge of what was happening.

Almost an hour passed before any other vehicle entered the car park, and then it was a mud-spattered old Ford pickup. Two elderly men who were obviously birders got out. They had the woolly hats, anoraks, beards, boots, and binoculars. The humdrum routine of the nature reserve was going on while a manhunt was under way. For some seconds the pair stared in puzzlement at the police vehicles as if they were an unknown species freshly arrived from Siberia. Shaking their heads, they moved off in the direction of the small pool in search of something they would recognise.

Five minutes later, Hen Mallin opened the car door. ‘You’re steaming up. Step outside and get some air.’

It was good to stretch, even with the cuffs on, but no relief from the mental torment. ‘Haven’t you found him yet?’ Jo said, trying to sound bullish against all the evidence.

‘We picked up his bike, which means he can’t be far off, unless he got a lift from someone.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

‘And he hasn’t borrowed your car, because it’s standing by the visitors’ centre. We ran a check on your registration.’

‘Tax and MOT up to date. You can’t do me for that.’

Hen took out a pack of small cigars and lit one. ‘Honey, I’ll do you for obstructing my murder enquiry.’

‘You’re so wrong about all this.’

‘Run this up your flagpole, Miss Stevens. I could have been fishing your body out of that harbour. We’ve had two drownings. It won’t stop at two. I know the way these psychos act. They seem normal enough, charming at times. But they’re extremely cunning because they have no moral sense. And they’re brilliant at concealing their true intentions. You’ve no conception of the risk you took by getting into his boat.’

‘I’m still here, aren’t I?’

‘You’re telling me he acted normally?’

‘Completely.’ She wasn’t going to report Jake’s heart-to-heart to someone so unsympathetic.

‘Right now he’s acting the runaway killer. Chew on that. You were definitely in the boat with him?’

There seemed no reason to deny it. Jo gave a nod.

‘And then he gave you his coat to wear?’

‘Obviously.’

‘So he knew we were coming. You told him. Someone tipped you off and you came here to warn him.’

‘No,’ Jo was able to say truthfully. ‘I live twenty minutes away. I would have phoned him, wouldn’t I?’

‘So how did he find out?’

This was trickier. Jo said nothing.

‘And from where? The printer’s.’

Hen was answering her own questions and starting to get them right. ‘Gemma, the PA. Can’t be anyone else. But what’s her game, tipping him off? She gave the impression she didn’t have much to do with him any more. She went out with him once and passed him on to some other hapless female. You, I presume. So you’re a friend of Gemma’s.’

Jo took the opportunity to say, ‘Like me, she knows he’s not a murderer. She’s good-hearted. She wouldn’t willingly get anyone into trouble.’

‘You’re a cliquey little lot, by the sound of it. How did you get to know this Gemma?’

‘Yoga.’

‘On the health kick, are you?’

‘We left pretty quickly.’

‘We’ll walk to the shore and see how the search is going,’ Hen said. ‘That’s if you don’t want to meditate in the car.’ She set off fast enough to demonstrate that a cigar smoker has functioning lungs, and Jo went with her.

Her sidekick Gary was directing operations using his personal radio. Most of the search team were just in sight, away up the shore.

‘What progress, Gary?’ Hen asked.

‘The tide’s on the ebb, which is useful,’ he said. ‘We found the marks where the dinghy was brought in for him to land, and some of his footsteps. Big feet.’

‘Big guy. Where?’

‘Just past the point they’re searching now. Unfortunately the footprints vanish where the mud ends and the shingle takes over.’

‘Are the dogs any use?’

‘They sniffed his coat and seemed to get interested in the footprints. We’ll see.’

‘There’s not a lot of cover here. We’re bound to find him.’ She turned back to Jo. ‘What brought you here this morning if it wasn’t to tip him off? He’s supposed to be at work, not entertaining his new girlfriend. You needed to talk, and urgently, right? What about?’

Hard to resist the temptation to blurt out the whole grisly story she’d got from Rick and Gemma about Cartwright’s murder. Whether true or not, it would create a diversion from Jake. But she doubted if anything would shake Hen Mallin’s conviction that he was the main man, the psycho who drowned women. Instead she just said, ‘I was depressed. I haven’t been sleeping well. He’s a kind man and a good listener.’

‘Are you lovers?’

The question couldn’t have been more direct. Jo knew she’d given the answer with her face, whatever words were spoken. ‘I don’t see what-’

‘So you are.’ Hen flapped her hand. ‘I’m not being nosy for no reason. Need to know who I’m dealing with. Did he also have sex with your friend Gemma?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You hope he didn’t.’

‘She told me they didn’t and I believe her.’

Hen shrugged and spoke to Gary as if Jo wasn’t there. ‘This guy obviously has a way with women, even though he’s an ugly brute. I doubt if it’s his skill at chatting them up, so what’s his secret?’

Gary took this as rhetorical and said nothing.

‘Four women,’ Hen went on, raising four fingers. ‘Our friend here, Gemma, Meredith, and Fiona. He went out with them all.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Jo said, provoked.

‘Oh, but I do. You just told me about Gemma and yourself and we already knew about the unfortunate two who were drowned. I’m sorry if I’m trampling on your feelings, Miss Stevens, but you have to face it. He’s a ladies’ man, and that’s the delicate way of putting it.’

‘You’re making it sound as if they were all his girlfriends, and that just isn’t so. He happened to know the woman found at Selsey on a professional level, because of his interest in fossils.’

‘He’s told you that, has he?’ Hen said. ‘And did he also explain why Meredith Sentinel came all the way down to Selsey to meet him when her husband was abroad? If that was professional, I’m the tooth fairy.’

Jo tried to stay calm. She knew she was being wound up in the expectation she’d give something away. ‘She didn’t come to meet him. You’re making this up to suit your theories.’

‘What, she came for her health, did she? And it was pure coincidence that Jake lives here?’

‘I’ve no idea why she came and neither has he. The first he knew of it was after she was identified, when it came out in the news.’

‘Dream on, dear,’ Hen said. ‘Did he tell you he also knew Fiona, the second victim?’

‘We haven’t discussed her.’

‘Surprise, surprise. How long has he lived in Selsey, by the way?’

‘I’ve never asked.’

‘Is he a Sussex man?’