Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

‘It’s vile,’ Stella said. ‘In her shoes, I would have gone.’

‘Me, too. What precisely happened in the hours before she was murdered we can only guess. I see her arriving at the beach around eight-thirty and finding nobody. Then he appears and says he, too, received an invitation. Whether he really was around in nineteen-eighty-seven is uncertain. Probably not. But he’s done his research and he knows she was there. He says the event must have been cancelled and nobody told them. He has wine with him and something to eat. He suggests they sit on the beach and drink the wine. If Austen Sentinel can be believed, Meredith likes men.’

‘I think you’ve sussed it, guv. He suggests a moonlit dip. She’s game, but she keeps her pants on, as I would. And he does what he’s been planning all along, grabs her in the water and drowns her.’

‘And because he’s a cold-hearted calculating killer, he gathers up her clothes and bag and removes them from the scene. His hope is that she’ll be taken for someone who died at sea and was washed up by the tide.’

‘That could easily have happened. The planning that went into this!’

‘I know. It makes me wonder if the other killings were equally premeditated.’

‘Are you certain Jake isn’t the killer? I know he admitted being a friend of Meredith as soon as the news broke, but that could have been a smart move to wrong-foot us.’

‘If you’re right, I shouldn’t have let him go. But I think it suits the real killer to have Jake in the frame. We’re dealing with someone of exceptional guile. What you see with Jake is what you get.’

‘He was pretty upset at the end of that last interview.’

‘You noticed it, too? I think it was when I told him Jo and Gemma found the body at Cartwright’s place. There’s something he’s holding back.’

‘About Rick?’

Hen nodded. ‘It’s high time we spoke to that young man.’

‘But we’ve got nothing on him. He’s been in the background all along.’

‘Yes, and up to now Jake has taken all the flak. Our first move tomorrow is to see Rick.’

The rain was stampeding across the roof when Jo woke from a troubled dream and looked at the clock. Still only 1.15 a.m. She got out, pulled back the curtain, and watched water pouring down the front of the house opposite. The gutters couldn’t cope. On TV last night the local weatherman had issued a flood warning. There was a small river north of the city called the Lavant that always dried up in the summer and yet caused huge problems in conditions like this.

Unable to go back to sleep, she put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Always when extreme weather arrived she found herself thinking about global warming and its effects. Drought was not the whole story. Temperate countries could expect more of this monsoon-type weather that they weren’t equipped to cope with. Jake would know the science, exactly why it occurred

And so her thoughts returned, as they often did now, to Jake. She assumed he was still in police custody. She’d heard no more from him. How could the police be so short-sighted when it was obvious that Cartwright was the murderer, the body in his own pool sealing his guilt?

The body in the pool proved also that Rick’s horrifying claim had been moonshine. Far from being dead and pulped, Cartwright was alive and well and murdering women.

Jake had been right about that. In the morning she would call him and see if the police had come to their senses.

She made the tea and went back to bed.

Hen had slept through last night’s downpour. She had the ability to shut eyes and shut off, even when dealing with serial murders. Perhaps it was not an ability, just exhaustion. She drove into work without really paying attention to the amount of water lying on the roads. Coming out of Bognor she sprayed a postman and had to get out and apologise. Not the best start to her day. Or his.

Better news greeted her at the nick. Stella was waving a piece of paper from across the incident room. ‘Report from the lab, guv. We’ve got a match for victim number three.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Honest. She’s local, too. Lives at Bosham, or did. Named Sally Frith.’

‘I don’t understand. How did her name come up?’

‘She’s on the DNA register because she was fencing stolen antiques two years ago. Fined five hundred pounds and put on probation as it was a first offence.’

In the CID, good fortune is treated with suspicion. ‘What’s going on, Stell? Are the fates toying with us, or is this on the level? Is the age right?’

‘Fifty-three.’

‘I wonder who dealt with it. You and I were still working out of Bognor CID two years back.’

‘I’ll get the file up.’

‘No, I’ll check the paperwork You’d better get out to Bosham right away and see what you can find at the house apart from dodgy Chippendale chairs. Take Paddy with you.’

‘Paddy?’ The silver-haired sergeant was the one fixed point in the incident room.

‘He needs to get out more.’

‘You don’t want to come?’

‘I’ve got other fish to fry.’

‘Meaning this guy Rick?’

‘Spot on. We’ve got nothing on him, but he swims into view every once in a while.’

‘The one that got away?’

‘Or a red herring. I’ll let you know.’

Light words, but behind them, serious intent.

First, she accessed Sally Frith’s file. The case had been handled by a DI who had since moved on to Brighton CID, and he’d written a useful account of the case. Frith, twice divorced and with a small fortune from the second marriage, seemed to have become a soft touch for a fraudster. She’d met a slippery character called Fu Chin and allowed him to store antique pottery in her large house in Bosham. The items turned out to have been stolen from a museum in Brussels. Fu Chin had spun her some yarn about needing cash for medical treatment for one of his children in Hong Kong and she’d found buyers for five of the pieces and transferred the money to his numbered account. Described by the judge as a foolish and gullible woman, she’d taken the rap. Fu Chin was still at liberty.

Hen recalled the lily-white body floating in the pool. You see dead flesh and know nothing of the personal story behind it. This hapless woman had been conned again, putting on her swimsuit for a dip with a serial killer. How foolish and gullible is that?

More urgently, what did it say about the killer?

He must have persuaded two of his three victims to go into the water. There wasn’t any evidence of compulsion about the apparent way Meredith had stripped to her undies and walked into the sea. And Sally Frith must have put on the pink swimsuit before going into the pool. Had they been charmed to their deaths? At a stretch Hen could imagine taking a midnight bathe on a warm September night with Jack Nicholson about the time he made Easy Rider, but a dip in an outdoor pool in an English October was something else. Not sexy old Jack nor any man alive could have talked her into getting her kit off in those conditions. She could only suppose the murderer had turned on the heating well in advance.

Such thoughtfulness.

A little shudder ran through her body.

She told Gary to get his coat on. Rick Graham’s office was in West Street. ‘Normally I’d walk,’ she said, ‘but look at that sky. It’s going to tip down again any minute. Fetch your car. I’ll see you out front.’

‘What’s Rick’s connection with the case?’ Gary asked when they were in motion, staring through the wipers at the lights of the car ahead.

‘Yet to be discovered,’ Hen told him. ‘He’s one of the pain-inthe-bum quartet.’

‘Jake, Gemma, Jo, and Rick?’