Peter Lovesey: The Headhunters

‘We’ve done quite a lot together.’ And how! ‘I expect she would have come to make sure you’re all right, but I’m just up the road so I offered to look in.’

‘I don’t see a lot of Gemma these days.’

The very thing Mummy would say, given the opportunity. The older generation like to portray themselves as neglected. ‘She’s been really busy at work, having to take over from the manager.’

‘I’m her only living relative.’

Cue the plaintive violin music. ‘She told me.’

‘Her parents died when she was quite a small girl, you know. Killed in a car crash. Dreadful. Her mother was my sister, Angela. A lovely young woman. I’ve got a picture of her somewhere. It’s among the things I carried upstairs for safety. My photo album was the first thing I made sure was safe. You can’t replace such a thing and it holds so many memories.’ She spilt some of her tea turning to look over the old-fashioned eiderdown. ‘There it is. The big red book. Could you hand it to me carefully so that nothing falls out?’

Old people and old photos. Jo could see this taking longer than she’d expected. She didn’t really want to be looking at ancient snaps for the next hour.

‘I haven’t stuck them all in,’ Miss Peabody said, seating herself on the bed and opening the album on her lap. She’d drunk the tea hot and placed the empty cup back on the tray. ‘I’ve been promising myself for years that I’d do it. Well, that’s a bit of luck.’ She’d picked up a small snap in colours so faded that they were almost monochrome. ‘Here they are on their wedding day. They were married in that tiny little church at Upwaltham. A lovely setting for a wedding.’

Jo gave it a polite glance. ‘She was a beautiful bride.’

‘I was the maid of honour. I didn’t want to be called the bridesmaid. They’re usually much younger than I was. I had a pink headdress and a matching pink bouquet.’

That figures, Jo thought, wondering if the pink hat went back to those days. She handed back the photo and glanced at her watch. She’d been in the cottage twenty minutes already.

‘Carnations mainly.’ Miss Peabody was still on about the bouquet. ‘A hardy plant, the carnation. It can survive mild frost conditions and under glass it will flower all the year round.’ She started sorting through a mass of pictures. ‘Here’s one that will amuse you. Gemma at five years old with Terry. Look at her expression, as if she really could be doing something better than being made to pose for a picture with her little brother. Isn’t it a scream?’

Jo tried to show some enthusiasm. The small girl with chubby arms folded did have a pout, as if she would rather have been elsewhere. The curly-headed boy had managed a cute smile for the camera. ‘Very amusing.’

‘She was rather put out when Terry came along. It can be difficult for the older child.’

Fifteen minutes more passed and they’d only started on the photo collection. Jo was trying to think of ways of bringing this to an end without being hurtful. Outside she heard a vehicle stopping somewhere near. With any luck it would be the fire service or the police and they would take over.

No one knocked.

‘Oh, dear. Here’s the Chichester Observer report of the accident,’ Miss Peabody said, handing across a yellow press clipping. ‘It’s family history, so I kept it, but I didn’t know it was among the photos.’

Jo scanned it rapidly and then read it a second time:

TWO DIE IN SOUTH MUNDHAM CAR CRASH

A fatal car crash in South Mundham on Tuesday evening has shocked the village. The victims were named as Patrick and Angela Casey, both aged 27. Their overturned Ford Cortina was found by office cleaner David Allday close to Limekiln Barn in Runcton Lane. He was returning from his late shift at 1.45 a.m. The couple appeared to have died instantly, a police spokesman said. ‘No other vehicle seems to have been involved. There was ice on the road and they may have taken a turn too fast.’

The Caseys are survived by one daughter, Gemma, aged 8. Their son Terry died in another tragic incident in 1978, when he drowned in their garden pond at the age of 3.

‘So sad, isn’t it?’ Miss Peabody said. ‘Gemma had to be fostered. My health wasn’t good, or I would have taken her on. Between you and me, she was quite a handful. Very wilful. Still is, from what I see of her.’

‘And the little brother drowned?’

‘Yes, that was awful. One August afternoon the children were playing in the garden. I think Angela was watching television. Gemma came in and said Terry was lying in the pond and wasn’t moving. She’d tried to lift him, poor mite. Her little dress was soaking. When Angela got out there it was too late.’

Austen Sentinel was his usual unfriendly self. ‘Some other time. I’m interviewing students,’ he told Hen on the phone.

‘Fine,’ she said, prepared for this. ‘Finish your interview. We’ll have a car pick you up in twenty minutes.’

With an impatient sigh, he said, ‘What is it?’

‘Cast your mind back to nineteen-eighty-seven. The dig at Selsey. You told me you were only twenty-five at the time.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Young, energetic, and with leadership qualities.’

‘I don’t remember claiming all that.’

‘In short, attractive.’

‘That was for others to judge.’

‘You mentioned all those young girls in bikinis.’

‘Ha.’ From the satisfied sound, he might have been a chess player whose opponent has at last revealed her strategy. ‘You won’t get me on that. I behaved myself.’

‘I believe you. You told me after the inquest-I’m quoting you now-you would have been a total idiot to risk your career by going to bed with a student.’

‘And I stand by that.’

‘You also said that the ratio of women to men at the university meant you were the proverbial kid in the teashop.’

‘There’s no contradiction there. One can look at the sweets without sampling them.’

‘But what about the sweetshop across the street?’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘You said you recruited local people for the dig as well as students. It wouldn’t have broken university rules to chat up some of the local totty.’

‘So why are you raising it?’

‘Because one of the Selsey lasses apparently took a shine to you. And I dare say you encouraged her.’

‘If I did, the memory has faded.’

‘Hers didn’t fade. She carried a torch for you for twenty years.’

‘Oh, what nonsense.’

‘It wasn’t nonsense to her. She formed a plan. She’d have a reunion with you, a private one. Just the two of you, at Selsey, letting you believe it was a beach barbecue for everyone who took part. She went to all the trouble of getting an invitation printed- just for you-and sent it.’

‘You’re mistaken. That invite wasn’t meant for me.’

‘It was.’

‘My wife opened it. I told you.’

‘Because it was addressed to Dr Sentinel. You both had doctorates.’

Some seconds of silence followed.

Hen resumed, ‘Unluckily for the sender, you were booked for St Petersburg, and Helsinki. If you saw the invitation, you chucked it aside.’

‘So what are you accusing me of?’

‘Nothing. I’m telling you why your wife was murdered. She found the invitation. She may have been the one who opened it. If so, I’m sure she found it tempting.’

‘Oh, she would, knowing Merry.’

‘She decided to go.’

‘We know that.’

‘Right. But this is the crux. When Merry got there it was a tremendous shock for your old flame, expecting you to turn up. And when Merry said who she was-your wife-the shock must have been seismic. I doubt if the wretched woman knew you were married. People who harbour fantasies for many years don’t move on mentally. She pictured you as you were in nineteen-eighty-seven, young, amorous, and hers alone. The existence of a wife would have been unthinkable.’