Peter Lovesey - The House Sitter

“The next of kin, you mean? You’ll have to be patient with me. I’m not fully up with it.”

“Why not? It’s been on national television. Didn’t I tell you she was murdered?”

“Yikes-you didn’t.”

“So you’d better get up with it fast. Are you CID?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Why don’t you get hold of someone who is and ask him to call me in the next ten minutes? I’m DS Gregson, at the incident room, Bognor police station.”

The name of Bognor never fails to kindle a smile. There is a story told of that staid old monarch, George V, that it was his favourite seaside place, and on his deathbed he was offered the incentive that if he got better he might care to visit Bognor, whereupon he uttered his last words, “Bugger Bognor”-and expired. According to his biographer, they were not his last words at all. He spoke them in happier circumstances when told that thanks to his patronage Bognor was about to be accorded special status as Bognor Regis. It’s still worthy of a smile.

“ Bognor ?” Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond repeated.

“But the body was found at Wightview Sands,” the sergeant who had taken the call informed him, then, listening to his own words and thinking how daft these places sounded, wished himself anywhere but in Diamond’s office.

However, Diamond said without a trace of side, “I know Wightview Sands. Big stretch of sand and a bloody long line of beach huts. And this is murder, you say?”

“They say, sir.”

“A Bath woman?”

“Emma Tysoe. A profiler.”

“A what?”

“Psychological offender profiler. She helps out in murder enquiries.”

“She’s never helped me.”

The sergeant was tempted to say Perhaps you didn’t ask. Wisely, he kept it to himself. “All I know is that she was reported missing by the university. She often goes away on cases connected with her work, but she always keeps in touch with the department. This time she didn’t get in touch. After some days, they got concerned.”

“Where does she live?”

“A flat in Great Pulteney Street.”

“Posh address. There must be money in profiling, sergeant.”

“It’s only a basement flat, sir.”

“Garden apartment,” Diamond said in the tone of an upmarket estate agent. “No such thing as a basement flat in Great Pulteney Street. Why haven’t I heard of this woman before?”

The sergeant sidestepped that one.

“How was she topped?” Diamond asked.

“Strangled. It’s been in the papers.”

“It’ll be all over them when they know what she did for a living. Strangled on a beach?”

“On a Sunday afternoon when everyone was down there.”

“Odd.”

“They don’t have any witnesses either.”

“People are holding back, you mean? Someone must have seen it. This is weird. You’ve got me all of a quiver, sergeant.”

He sent a couple of young detectives to Great Pulteney Street to seal the missing woman’s flat and talk to the neighbours. One of them was DC Ingeborg Smith, the sometime newshound, bright, blonde and eager to impress, recently enlisted to the CID after serving her two years in uniform. He asked Keith Halliwell, his trusty DI, to go up to the university and establish that Emma Tysoe was known to the Psychology Department.

Then he collected a coffee from the machine-with a steady hand for a man who was all of a quiver-and passed a thoughtful twenty minutes pondering why a profiler should have been strangled on a public beach on a Sunday afternoon. Finally he called Bognor and spoke to Stella Gregson. Inquiries into the background and movements of Emma Tysoe were well under way, he told her. He looked forward to full cooperation over this case, which he expected would require a joint approach. He would therefore accompany the identity witness to Bognor and use the opportunity to make himself known to the SIO.

“He sounds pushy,” Stella told Hen Mallin.

“Peter Diamond? I’ve heard of him, and he is. I’ve also heard that he pulls rabbits out of hats, so we’ll see if his magic works for us. Don’t look so doubtful, Stella. I’ve handled clever dicks like him before. When they stand up to take a bow, you pull away the chair.”

“I guess we can’t avoid linking up with Bath.”

“We’re not going to get much further unless we do. That’s where Emma Tysoe lived, so that’s where we look next.”

And Diamond duly arrived that afternoon, a big man of about fifty with a check shirt, red braces and his jacket slung over his shoulder. Going by looks alone, the beer belly, thrusting jaw and Churchillian mouth, he was pushiness personified. With him was a less intimidating individual, altogether smaller and more spry, a kind of tic-tic bird in tinted glasses.

“This is Dr Seton,” Diamond said. “He’s a professional colleague of Dr Tysoe, here to see if he can identify the body.”

Dr Seton’s face lit up, suggesting he was relishing the prospect. “But I have to make clear I’m not a doctor of medicine,” he said. “I’m a behavioural psychologist.”

“No one in Dr Tysoe’s family was available,” Diamond said, virtually admitting Dr Seton was second best. “There’s a sister, but she’s in South Africa.”

“Good of you to come,” Hen said to Dr Seton.

“He was volunteered by the professor,” Diamond said. “Shall we get on with it?” Considering Dr Seton had given up most of his day, this seemed unnecessarily brusque.

Hen started as she meant to go on with Diamond. She knew he must have quizzed Seton thoroughly on the journey down and could probably have summed up the salient facts in a couple of sentences. However, she intended to hear everything first hand. “Before we do, I’d like a few words of my own with Dr Seton- that is, if you don’t object.”

Diamond shrugged.

She swivelled her chair away from him and asked, “So, Dr Seton, are you involved in Emma Tysoe’s work as a profiler?”

“Absolutely not,” the man said, as if it was tainted. “That’s extracurricular.”

“Something she does independently?”

“I believe it arose out of her Ph.D research into the psychology of violence.”

“So you have some idea of what she does?”

“She acts as an adviser to the police.”

“Regularly?”

“Pretty often, yes. She has an arrangement with the university and takes time off when required.”

“Convenient.”

“Enviable,” Diamond said, winking at Hen.

“And was she currently working on a case?” Hen asked Dr Seton, ignoring Diamond.

“I presume so. We hadn’t seen her for a while.”

“But you wouldn’t happen to know the details?”

“No.”

“Did she keep it to herself, the offender profiling?”

“It doesn’t interest me particularly. We all have different areas of interest.”

“So what’s yours, Dr Seton?”

“Masturbation.”

For a full five seconds nothing was said. Diamond, who had spent the last two hours with the man and must have known what was coming, was gazing steadily out of the window at the trees in Hotham Park. Stella covered her mouth with her hand.

Dr Seton ended the silence himself. “The subject was rather neglected until I started fifteen years ago. Surprisingly little was known of the psychology, yet it’s a fascinating aspect of behavioural science and, let’s face it, something we’ve all experienced.”

“Hands on,” Diamond said, but only for Stella’s ears. Still with her hand over her mouth, she made a sound like a car braking.

Now he had started on his pet subject, Seton didn’t want to stop. “It was unfortunately branded as a sin by the religionists, so there’s this burden of guilt that goes with it. Genesis Thirty-eight. I can quote if you like.”