Peter Lovesey - The House Sitter

“Is that the truth?”

“Didn’t you get on, guv?”

“Don’t push me, Keith. I have a strong suspicion you were in on this.”

“In on what? I’m not following you at all.”

He seemed to be speaking sincerely, so Diamond moved on to other matters. “What’s this professor like? I’m going to meet him tonight.”

“He’ll talk. Doesn’t give much away, but I don’t know how much there is to tell. The dead woman was very brilliant, he said. She’s on the list of approved offender profilers and the university seem to be under some obligation to let her go off and assist with investigations.”

“Pressure from the Home Office?”

“Could be. All their undergraduate students have to be found placements in their third year for job experience. Some of them go to the Crime Analysis Unit at the Yard.”

“Did he talk about the cases she’s involved in?”

“He was guarded about that.”

“Let’s see if I can catch him off guard tonight.”

He took that shower, and decided on the dress code for a university staff party at a golf club on a summer evening. Cream-coloured trousers, navy shirt and pale blue linen jacket. As a safeguard, he tucked a tie into an inner pocket. Golf clubs could be sniffy about open necks. The shirt was a favourite, made of a fabric that didn’t crease. In the year since Steph had died, he’d scorched a couple of shirts trying to iron them.

It was after eight when he parked his old Cortina in a nice position outside the club, only for some member to point out that he was in the space reserved for the club captain. Tempted to riposte that the captain wasn’t using it, he controlled himself and found another berth. As an extra gesture to conformity, he put on the tie, a sober-looking black one with a repeat design of silver handcuffs, some wag’s bright idea for a birthday gift for a copper.

Inside, he located the psychology crowd in a private room upstairs. Plenty of beards and bow ties. Leather jackets seemed to be de rigueur for the men and black trouser suits for the women. Picking a glass of wine from a passing tray, he steered a course around the groups to where a dark-haired woman in a silvery creation with a plunge stood alone and conspicuous.

“You don’t have the look of a trick cyclist,” he told her.

She said, “Can I take that as a compliment?”

“Of course.”

“I’m Tara, the PA.”

“To the boss man, by any chance?”

“He’s the only one of this lot who rates a PA. And who are you?”

“The unlucky cop who took Dr Seton to the seaside today.”

Tara gave the beginning of a smile, and no more. Like every good PA, she was discreet-which Diamond was not.

“After five hours in the car with that weirdo I deserve this drink,” he said, and told her his name. “Which one is Professor Chromik?”

“Over on the right, with his back to us.”

“Frizzy black hair and half-glasses?”

“That’s him. Did he invite you, then?”

“No, but I’m here to talk to him. You must have heard about Dr Emma Tysoe.”

Her features creased. “It wasn’t really Emma?”

“Seton identified her.”

She put her hand to her throat. “None of us thought it was possible. She went missing, but… this!”

He was silent, giving her time to take it in.

“And here we are, enjoying ourselves,” she said. “Did you come here specially to tell the professor?”

If the truth were told, he hadn’t. He’d come to ask questions, not pass on the bad news. It hadn’t occurred to him that someone had to tell them, and it was unlikely Seton would have got in touch already. However, it legitimised his presence here. “I intend to break the news to him,” he said as if it had always been his painful duty. “Have you any idea what she was doing down at Wightview Sands?”

She lifted her shoulders a fraction. “Maybe she likes the seaside.”

“Was she on holiday?”

“Not officially. She had this arrangement to take time off to help the police with difficult cases. I expect you know about it. She told us she was on a case. But she usually lets us know where she is. She phones almost every day to check in.”

“But not this time?”

“That was why we got worried in the end. No one had heard from her for something like three weeks. I kept phoning the flat in Great Pulteney Street, but got no reply. I went round there myself one lunchtime and saw a heap of mail waiting for her.”

“Didn’t anyone know what case she was on?”

“I assumed she’d told Professor Chromik, but it turned out she hadn’t. He asked me if I’d heard from her.”

“Hush-hush, was it?”

“I couldn’t say. I can’t think why anyone would want to murder her, whatever she was working on. She was only an adviser.”

“What about her personal life? Was there a boyfriend?”

“She never mentioned one. She wasn’t the chatty sort. A lovely person, but she didn’t say much about her life outside the department. Mind, I don’t blame her. They’re a nosy lot. It goes with the subject.”

“Who were her special friends at work, then?”

“Nobody I noticed. She seemed to stay friendly with everyone.”

“Even the ones who had to fill in when she was away?”

“People grumbled a bit. They do when there’s extra work being assigned. A few harsh words were spoken in the last few days.”

“About Emma skiving off, you mean?”

“Well, it could be taken that way, but they’ll be regretting it now. It’s not a reason for murdering anyone, is it?”

“Let’s hope not.”

He drifted away from Tara and stood for a while watching the Behavioural Psychology Department socially interacting. It was not so different from a CID party, the high flyers hovering around the boss while the subversives formed their own subgroups and the touchy-feely element played easy-to-get on the fringe.

In this heated atmosphere the tragic news circulated rapidly. You could see the stunned expressions as it passed around. The moment arrived when Professor Chromik was informed. Frowning and shaking his curly head, he disengaged himself from his colleagues and moved towards the door, perhaps to use a phone. Diamond stepped in fast.

“You’ve just heard about Dr Tysoe, I gather? I’m Peter Diamond, Bath CID.”

The professor’s brown eyes were huge through his glasses. “CID? It’s true, then? Appalling. Do you mind stepping outside where it’s more private?”

They found a quiet spot below a gilt-framed painting of a grey-bearded nineteenth century golfer in plus-fours and cap.

“The whole thing is a mystery, and I’m hoping you can help,” Diamond said. “We’ve no idea why she was at Wightview Sands, or who would have wished to murder her.”

“It’s a mystery to me, too,” Chromik said. “I’m devastated.”

“You must have known why she was away from your department.”

“She was a psychological offender profiler.”

“I know.”

“Well, this is your territory, not mine.”

Diamond recalled Halliwell’s comment about the professor not giving much away. “She’s employed in your department, isn’t she? She has to let you know if she takes time off.”

“She did. She came to see me and said she’d been asked to advise on a case.”

“When was this?”

“Mid June.”

“Can you be more precise?”

“The seventeenth.”

“… to advise on a case. Is that all she said?”

“It was confidential.”

“You mean she told you about the case and you’re refusing to tell me? Confidentiality goes out of the window when someone is murdered.”

Chromik caught his breath in annoyance. “That isn’t what I said. She was not at liberty to speak to me about the matter. I can tell you nothing about it. That’s why I said it’s your territory.”