Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

Hen came out saying this had better be something special.

Paddy Murphy updated her.

Special it was.

She shook her head. ‘Another one? I had a gut feeling this might happen. And the body is at Cartwright’s place in Apuldram? But we sent a search team there.’

‘They didn’t look in the pool, apparently. The cover was over it.’

Hen’s face turned crimson. ‘Morons! That’s the first place I would have looked.’ She was on the point of demanding names. Then, appalled, she remembered who she’d put in charge of the search team.

Stella.

Loyal, dependable Stella, who she’d insisted came with her as deputy when she’d transferred to Chichester. How could Stell have missed something as obvious as the pool?

‘To be fair, guv,’ Murphy was saying, ‘the search team were looking for Cartwright, or clues to his whereabouts. He wouldn’t have hidden in the pool because he’d never have been able to fit the cover over himself.’ He was straining every sinew to cover for Stella. Everyone in the team adored her.

But Murphy’s special pleading only forced Hen to counter it more strongly. ‘You can’t excuse them, Paddy. Someone is going to be hung out to dry for this. Who discovered the body?’

Murphy cleared his throat like a bit-part actor playing to the gallery. ‘Two of the women you interviewed: Jo Stevens and Gemma Casey.’

Hen’s eyes didn’t register much. The long pause was enough to show her reaction. ‘This gets worse. Those two?’

‘It seems they weren’t impressed with our efforts.’

‘They’re not impressed? I’m not impressed.’

‘So they did some sleuthing of their own.’

‘They had the savvy to search the pool after our team ignored it? Give me strength. Are they still at the scene?’

‘I told them to wait. A car will be there by now. I radioed all units as soon as the shout came.’

‘I must get out there. Make sure everyone is alerted: crime scene people, pathologist. I’ll need anyone from uniform we can raise. Where’s Gary?’

‘Canteen, I think.’

‘Tell him to bring his car to the front, and fast.’

She went back to Stella. The interview was suspended. Jake would remain in custody while the new incident was dealt with. She said nothing to Stella except that a body had been found at Apuldram. The reckoning would have to wait.

She tried to compose herself on the drive. Her anger had to be pushed to the back of her mind while she assessed the new situation. A third body-presumably another homicidal drowning- removed all uncertainty. A serial killer was at large on her patch. She no longer needed to spend time probing motives. Psychopaths killed routinely on the slightest of pretexts. This one was in the habit of drowning women. It could be as simple as that. He’d stake out his locale near water and wait for an opportunity. Or he’d lure the victim to it. They could be charming and persuasive, these nutters.

On the face of it, Cartwright now had centre stage. A body in his pool, his garden, surely clinched it, allowing that he’d gone missing. The manhunt must be stepped up, using Interpol. He’d kill repeatedly until he was caught.

Yet the strange thing was that the search of his house and office hadn’t yielded any clue to a fixation with drowning. His hard disk had been picked apart for downloads that would confirm his guilt. He was a sailing enthusiast, admittedly. Looked at the websites, read the books, took the magazines. But floating on water wasn’t the same as wanting to be in it with your hands on some poor woman’s shoulders, forcing her under for minutes on end until she drowned.

Denis Cartwright appeared to be a loner with no history of mental illness, no previous, whose divorce had left him out of touch with everything except his business, obsessive about tidiness and eccentric in dress (the bow ties), but friendly to his staff, vulnerable to advances from an ambitious young woman like Fiona, yet with no obvious potential for violence. You’d expect to have found something if it existed.

His ex-wife might have given some helpful insights. Unfortunately she’d died of cancer three years after the divorce. There were no children and no close relatives.

Hen felt in her pocket and fingered her pack of cigarillos.

Extra pressure was inevitable now that a third victim had been found. A media frenzy would follow. Just as surely, the high-ups in headquarters would question whether an officer of chief inspector rank was competent to investigate. Trouble was looming about the use of the helicopter this morning. And when they learned that Cartwright’s house and garden had been searched previously and the body missed they’d really have something to chew on. She didn’t relish the next couple of days.

Sensing, correctly, that this wasn’t the right time to comment on victim number three, Gary asked, ‘Did you get much out of Jake, guv?’

She stared ahead. Large drops of rain were hitting the windscreen. Typical of the day so far if the crime scene took a drenching that washed away all traces of the killer. ‘What did you ask?’

‘About Jake.’

The big man still in custody was just one more problem. ‘If I tell you he’s not saying much, you’re going to say, “So what’s new?” The latest on Jake is that he’s not said anything to incriminate himself. Yet.’

‘But he resisted arrest.’

‘He’s an ex-con. He doesn’t expect any favours from us. I don’t blame him for that.’

‘And what does he say to the fact that he met Fiona as well as the first victim?’

‘Nothing sinister in it, according to him. He was at the printer’s ordering Christmas cards for the nature reserve. He claims she came by and asked if he was being looked after and he answered yes and those were the only words she ever spoke to him. In fact, he was more interested in Gemma Casey, who we’re shortly going to meet again. They went ten-pin bowling together. A cosy little quartet was formed that evening. Jo Stevens was the other woman and she was partnered by a man called Rick, who I haven’t met yet. But I’m seeing more than I wish of the two women. They’re a pain in the backside.’

‘Is Jo the one who acted as a decoy at Pagham this morning?’

‘Yes, she’s batting for Jake.’

‘What does Rick think about that?’

‘I just told you I haven’t met the guy. I gather he switched to Gemma. And now the same two women turn up in Apuldram sniffing around Cartwright’s place and finding the body that my own officers missed. God, I could do with a smoke. Put your foot down, Gary.’

Sheltering from the downpour under a conifer, she’d got through two of her cigarillos and was lighting a third when the pathologist arrived. The white-clad crime scene officers and uniform PC’s had secured the area around the pool with tape and retreated to their transport. Everyone had a valid excuse to stay under cover until the pathologist had done his stuff. Only the dead woman lay exposed to the rain, adrift in the middle of the pool, any parts of the pink costume above the waterline now as saturated and strawberry-coloured as the rest.

Dr Kibblewhite was new to Hen, a tall white-haired man with a stoop and a squeaky voice. He was carrying a huge blue umbrella with the words SAVE TUFTY written on it in white. ‘A freebie from a previous case,’ he explained to Hen. ‘You never know what’s coming your way in this job. Tufty was a pedigree bull under threat of slaughter in a bovine TB scare. There was a huge campaign and more tests were ordered and he was saved and it was champagne all round, but one of his supporters was unwise enough to pat him on the head. I did the autopsy. Would you mind holding the brolly over me? Should keep us both dry with any luck.’