Peter Lovesey - The House Sitter

Diamond disagreed, and explained why. “Some students buckle under the pressure. Look at the suicide rate in universities.”

“That’s another matter,” Helen Sparks said sharply. “I wouldn’t accept a link with murder, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“But if someone felt their problems were inflicted by one of the staff, the anger might be focused there, instead of internally.”

“Ho-hum.”

“What do you mean-ho-hum?”

“These are just assertions,” she said. “You don’t have any data base to support them.”

“There won’t be data. Murder is an extreme act.”

“That’s no reason to be suspicious of students.”

“Helen, I have to be suspicious of everyone.”

He asked her to introduce him to more of her colleagues, and he met three others on the staff. All professed to having been on good terms with the saintly Emma. It was obvious no one would admit to being on bad terms with her. Maybe he should have delayed the questions until they’d all had a few more drinks.

He left the party disappointed, feeling he’d not learned much from the stroppy professor and his uncritical staff.

“The key to this may well be the case she was working on,” he told the small team he’d assembled. They were Keith Halliwell, his main support these days; John Leaman, the young sergeant he’d come to value in the case of the Frankenstein vault; and the rookie, Ingeborg Smith, chisel-sharp and chirpy. “The word that was used about it was ‘huge’. What I don’t understand is the need for secrecy.”

“Maybe someone is knocking off members of MI6,” Leaman said, not entirely joking.

“Or the royals-and no one is being told,” Ingeborg said.

“The corgis?” Halliwell said.

“Had your fun?” Diamond said with a sniff. “Anyone got any more suggestions? Whatever she was asked to do, we need to find out. As I understand it, profilers work with serial cases. There can’t be that many under investigation. I want you to start ferreting, Keith.”

“Using HOLMES?”

Diamond gave him a glare.

“The computer, guv.”

“Fine. By all means.” In time, he’d remembered HOLMES was one of those acronyms he found so hard to take seriously: Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. In theory it collated information on similar serious crimes. Diamond’s objection to HOLMES was that as soon as the computer came up with cases in different authorities, someone of Assistant Chief Constable rank was appointed to coordinate the efforts of the various SIOs. One more infliction. “But ask around as well. Down in Bognor they claim there aren’t any serial crimes under investigation.”

“If it’s hush-hush…”

“Exactly.”

“Are they up to this-the Bognor lot?” Halliwell asked.

“I think so. Hen Mallin, the SIO, has a grasp of what’s going on, and there’s a bright young woman DS helping her. They’re having trouble finding genuine witnesses. That’s the main problem.”

“From a crowded beach?” Ingeborg said in surprise.

“They put out a TV appeal and had plenty of uptake, but not one was any use. The only person they can definitely link to the case is the fellow who found the body, and he’s done the disappearing act.”

“He has to be a suspect, then.”

“He is. Said his name was Smith.”

“That’s suspicious in itself,” Leaman said.

Ingeborg’s big eyes flashed fiercely. “Thank you for that.”

Diamond said, “Bognor police won’t make much headway unless we turn up something definite on Emma Tysoe. I didn’t get much from her workmates.”

“Colleagues,” Ingeborg murmured.

“You went to the home address?”

“Great Pulteney Street. There’s a big pile of mail I brought back, most of it junk, of course. A couple of holiday postcards. A short letter from her sister in South Africa saying the husband went into hospital. Various bills.”

“Bank statements?”

“Yes. She has a current account with about fifteen hundred in credit, and two hundred grand on deposit.”

“A lady of means. Did you get into the flat?”

She nodded. “Eventually. She has one of those code-operated locks on her front door. It’s the garden flat, amazingly tidy. Living room, bedroom, study and bathroom. The main room is tastefully furnished in pale blue and yellow.”

“We don’t need the colour schemes,” Diamond said. “Did you find anything that would tell us what she was up to in recent weeks? Diary, calendar, phone pad?”

“We looked, of course. I got the impression she’s organised. There’s not much lying around.”

“In other words, you didn’t find anything.”

He was confident Ingeborg had made a thorough search.

She said, “There’s an answerphone and I brought back the cassette. I’ve listened to it twice over, and I really believe there’s nothing of interest on it.”

“Address book?”

“She must have taken it with her.”

“Computer, then?”

“There’s one in the office, and she had a laptop as well, because we found the user’s guide. I didn’t attempt to look at the computer. I arranged for Clive to collect it.”

Clive was the whizzkid who handled all computer queries at the Bath nick. He would go through the files and extract anything of importance. Presumably Emma had written reports on previous cases. With luck, there might be e-mail correspondence about the new investigation.

“Is that it, then?” he asked Ingeborg.

“She drives a sports car, dark green.”

“Registration? Make? Have you checked with the PNC?”

The colour came to Ingeborg’s cheeks. “Bognor are onto it. They expect to trace it down there.”

“I don’t mind who checks so long as we’re informed. What else have you got?”

“She spends a lot on clothes. And she must be interested in golf. There was a photo of some golfer next to the computer, and it was inscribed to her. Do you play golf, guv?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you mob. It’s the high-flyers’ game, isn’t it? I’d be wearing white gloves and taking the salute at Hendon.”

He summed up by handing out duties. Ingeborg was to get onto Clive for a speedy report on the contents of the computer. She would also make contact with the sister in South Africa. Leaman would set up a mini-incident room. Halliwell would see what HOLMES could deliver on serial crimes in the coastal counties of Sussex and Hampshire.

Diamond himself would get onto the man at Bramshill who kept the list of profilers. Someone at the top knew what Emma Tysoe had been up to.

The National Police Staff College at Bramshill is in Hampshire, an easy run from Bath along the M4 to junction 11, but alien territory for Peter Diamond. His eyes glazed over at the name of the place. For years he’d ducked his head whenever anyone mentioned the Bramshill refresher course for senior officers. He pictured himself like Gulliver in Lilliput, supine and tied down by little men who talked another language. To find him driving there of his own free will was proof of his commitment to the Emma Tysoe murder case.

After reporting to an armed officer at the battlemented gatehouse, he was told to drive up to the house. Facing him at the end of the long, straight avenue was a building that made the word “house” seem inadequate, for this was one of the stately homes of England, a Jacobean mansion with a south front that in its time had drawn gasps of awe from hardened policemen of all ranks. The brick facade rose three storeys, dominated by a huge semi-circular oriel window, mullioned and double-transomed, above a triple-bayed loggia. At each side were three tiers of pilasters. Vast side wings, also triple-bayed, projected on either end.