Peter Lovesey - The House Sitter

They carried out the instructions well. She explained that they would be measuring the length of their shoes, and showed them how to make two marks on the paper, and measure in centimetres. Most of the children understood and started making marks. She moved among them, assisting the slower learners.

After twenty minutes she said, “Now we’ll see what results we have.”

Not all of the kids had fully understood, so there were a few strange answers causing hilarity among those who had done the thing properly. Aidan, who was Haley’s partner, reckoned the length of his shoe was eighty-four centimetres.

“I expect you used the wrong end of the rule,” Miss Medlicott said. “What about you, Haley? What was your measurement?”

Haley held up the paper. She seemed to be hiding behind it.

“No, I’m asking you to tell me the length of your shoe in centimetres.”

Haley turned and whispered something to Aidan.

Aidan said, “She says fifteen, miss.”

“Thank you, Aidan, but I’d like to hear it from Haley.”

Again Haley whispered to Aidan, who said, “She can’t, miss. Her daddy said she isn’t to speak to you.”

After a moment, Miss Medlicott said, “Very well. Who’s next?”

She thought about asking Haley to remain behind to explain exactly what her father had said, but she decided the child was under enough pressure already. Something very wrong was happening in that family. She would have another word with the mother.

Diamond didn’t mention to Hen Mallin that he intended visiting Wightview Sands beach before returning to Bath. She might have taken it as interference. He was going there, he persuaded himself, purely from altruism. To contribute as fully as possible to Hen’s investigation, he needed to visualise the scene.

He didn’t inform Dr Seton either, until they were most of the way down the road to Wightview Sands and Seton remarked, “I don’t remember coming this way.”

“We didn’t. I thought you’d like to see where your colleague was found.”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, I do, and as I’m driving…” His stock of altruism was all used up.

This being towards the end of the afternoon, the oncoming lane was busy with cars leaving the beach, but the southward side was clear. At the car park entrance, they were asked for a pound.

“We’re not here for the beach,” Diamond told the attendant. “I’m a police officer, here about the murder.” He held his warrant card up to the cubicle.

“Bath and North-East Somerset?” the man said. “I thought this was a Sussex investigation.” He had the look of a petty official, tight, thin mouth and ferrety eyes. Dark hair flattened to his skull.

Diamond gave him the benefit of the doubt. “You’re perfectly right. I have a kind of watching brief. You can help us, in fact. Where’s the lifeguard hut?”

“Park near the beach café and you’ll see it,” he said. “Are they under suspicion, those lifeguards? They’re Aussies, you know.”

“That’s the bit of beach where the body was found, I was told.”

“So was I,” the man said. “I was stuck in here issuing tickets, so I missed all the excitement.”

“You must have let the police cars through.”

“I meant I missed what was happening on the beach.”

“Do you happen to remember the woman who was killed?”

“Out of a thousand or more who came past me? I’m afraid not, my friend. No doubt I met the murderer as well, but don’t ask me to pick him out.”

They drove through and parked where he’d told them. “Want an ice cream?” he asked Dr Seton, as they were passing the serving hatch of the beach café.

“I haven’t had such a thing for years,” Seton said

“Give in to it, then. It’s allowed. Wicked, but not illegal,” he said, having his own private joke. “If you don’t want an old-fashioned ice cream there are plenty of things on sticks. Take a look at the diagram and pick one out.”

“I don’t know, I’m sure.”

“Go for it, man. You look like a Classic Magnum fancier to me.”

“All right.”

When Diamond had paid for two Magnums and handed one over, he said, “Looking at that board with all the different shapes and colours, I was thinking they’d make a nice research project for someone.”

Seton gave him a frown and said nothing.

They moved across the turf and sat on the stone wall above the pebbles. The tide was some way out, so Diamond was able to point to where the sand met the stones. “That’s approximately where she was found, I gather, in a white two-piece swimsuit. Don’t suppose you ever saw her in a swimsuit, Dr Seton.”

“Certainly not.”

Diamond was the first to finish his Magnum. He said he’d go and have a word with the lifeguards. Unfortunately the two lads on duty hadn’t been around on the day of the murder. “You want to speak to the Aussies,” one of them said. “They know all about it.”

He would have to leave the Aussies for another day. He crunched across the pebbles to Seton and said, “Let’s go. Mustn’t keep you from your researches.”

Seton didn’t smile. He was probably thinking Diamond was a suitable case for analysis.

Diamond got back to Bath just before seven and dropped Dr Seton outside his lodgings, where else but in Odd Down? He swore a few times to release the tension, lowered the windows for some fresh air, and then set off directly for the university campus at Claverton.

Tired from all the driving, which he knew he didn’t do well, he found himself in the early evening snarl-up. Coming down Wellsway into the city in a slow-moving line of traffic he let his attention wander. Halfway down, they had erected one of those mechanical billboards with rotating strips that displayed three different ads. These had the same slogan, BECAUSE IT’S BRITISH METAL, but the pictures altered. He watched an image of Concorde being replaced by the Millennium Bridge-and then jammed his foot on the brake just in time to avoid running into the bus in front of him. Fortunately the driver behind him was more alert.

He was relieved to complete the drive without mishap.

The Department of Behavioural Psychology was quiet at this hour, though not deserted. A research student confirmed that Professor Chromik had been in earlier.

“Do you happen to know where he lives?”

The young man shook his head.

“It’s important.”

“You might catch him at the end-of-semester bash later tonight if he hasn’t already pissed off to Spain, or somewhere.”

“Where’s it held?”

“The clubhouse at the Bath Golf Club.”

Dr Seton hadn’t mentioned a staff party. Possibly his colleagues had decided not to tell him.

There was time to go home to Weston and shower. He called the nick to make sure he still had a job, as he put it to Keith Halliwell. Nothing more dramatic had happened in Bath than a middle-aged streaker running down Milsom Street. “He didn’t have a lot to show to the world,” Halliwell said. “Nobody complained.”

“How did we get to hear about it, then?”

“A Japanese tourist tried to get a photo. The streaker grabbed the camera and carried on running and we had to decide whether to do him for theft. But you know how it is trying to nick a naked man. Not one of the foot patrols answered the shout, so he got away. The camera was recovered later behind a bush in Parade Gardens.”

Unwisely, Halliwell asked if the trip to Bognor had turned up anything.

“Which reminds me,” Diamond said. “You went up to the university and spoke to the professor, right? Did he tell you about the tosser he unloaded on me for the day?”

“Not a word,” Halliwell said.