Peter Lovesey - The House Sitter

She thought of Garth, the strip-cartoon muscleman who’d gone on for years in the Daily Mirror . Parents little realise what their son will grow up into when they give him the same name as a super-hero. Maybe trying to live up to the name turned him funny.

After parking on the turf near the beach café she found the gap between beach huts that led to the lifeguard lookout post, above where Emma Tysoe’s body had been found. You wouldn’t have known it was a murder scene now. Children were busy in the sand where the body was found, digging a system of waterways, their shadows long in the evening sun. The tidal action cleanses and renews. If the strangling had happened higher up, on the grass, the site would have been turned into a shrine, marked with flowers and wreaths.

Most of the day’s visitors had left. Nobody remained at the lifeguard platform at this stage of the day, so she stepped onto it herself to see how much they could observe from there. It was a simple wooden structure that needed repairing in places. A position well chosen for views of most of the beach. Yet they wouldn’t have been high enough to see over a windbreak to the person lying behind it.

She stepped off and moved down the shelf of stones to the sand, trying to picture the scene on the day of the murder. Emma Tysoe had spread out her towel and erected her windbreak a short way in front of the Smiths. The French family were to the right of the Smiths and three teenage girls to the left. At some stage of the morning, the man in the black T-shirt had come strolling along the sand and tried to engage Emma in conversation, even offered to join her. She’d given him his marching orders. This encounter-witnessed by Olga Smith-was the one possible lead they had apart from Emma’s own files. T-shirt man was still the best bet, deeply angered, perhaps, by the brush-off, and returning later to kill the woman who rejected him. It would be an extreme reaction, and a risky one to carry out, but rejection is a powerful motive.

Hen picked her way carefully over the children’s digging and out to a stretch of sand beyond the breakwaters, where she could walk freely. She lit one of her small cigars and let her thoughts turn to Peter Diamond. Up to now, he’d proved less of an ogre than she’d expected. He was brusque at times, but funny, too, and willing to listen. He wasn’t a misery-guts, like so many senior detectives. She couldn’t fault the way he’d conducted the case so far, keeping her informed of each development. Mind, he was a risk-taker. This plan of his to take over the protection of Anna Walpurgis could so easily go wrong. It gave him what he’d wanted all along, a legitimate reason to be involved. But what resources did he have in Bath, and what guarantee that a spirited woman wouldn’t upset everything? Hen could only hope he had a strategy. He’d talked of Walpurgis being “bait” to the Mariner. He’d set his heart on catching this killer, but at what cost?

One of the problems with all this concentration on the Mariner was that there was a big incentive to wrap up the Emma Tysoe case as fast as possible. Hen wasn’t going to allow Diamond to cut corners. The murder of Emma was a Bognor Regis case- hers. If Ken Bellman proved beyond doubt to be the killer, well and good. But if there were doubts, she wouldn’t let Diamond ride roughshod over them.

So she liked the man, enjoyed his company, admired his independent ways, yet couldn’t rest all of her confidence in him. The loss of his wife must have cast him adrift, even though he appeared strong. The shock was bound to have wounded him. She suspected he was hiding the pain.

She picked up a flat stone and skimmed it across the surface of the water, watching it bounce several times before meeting a wave and disappearing, a trick she’d tried many times before but never mastered. Typical, she thought, that I do it when no one is here to see. She continued her walk as far as the flagpole at East Head. If she walked any farther she’d be late getting back to her car, and she had no confidence Garth would let her out of the car park.

Georgina Dallymore, the Assistant Chief Constable, was on her guard that morning. It wasn’t like Peter Diamond to knock on her door and ask if she could spare a few minutes. He was the man who avoided her at all costs. He’d once nipped into the ladies’ room and locked himself in a cubicle when he spotted her approaching along a corridor.

She folded her arms and rotated her chair a little. “To what do we owe this, Peter?”

“I expect you noticed the furniture disappeared from the corridor, ma’am?”

“No,” she said with a faint flush of pink. “I hadn’t noticed. Do I have you to thank for that?”

“No problem.”

“It had to be sorted. It was a fire hazard.”

“You can enjoy your cruise now. When are you off?”

She relaxed a little. He was only there to get some credit for doing a good turn. “Tomorrow, actually.”

“All set, then?”

“Pretty well.”

As if it was mere politeness, he asked, “What’s happening to the cat? That handsome white Persian?”

“Sultan. You know about Sultan?”

Everyone who’d been in her office knew about Sultan. There was a photo on her desk of this mound of fur with fierce blue eyes and a snub nose.

“Sultan, yes,” Diamond said.

“He has to go into a cattery, unfortunately. He doesn’t care for it at all, but you can’t let them run your life.”

“Shame. Quite a change in his routine.” He paused. “I don’t suppose he’ll suffer.”

“ Suffer ?” A cloud of concern passed across Georgina’s face. “I should hope not. The place is well recommended, and very expensive.”

“He doesn’t know that. Has he been there before?”

“No, this will be the first time.”

“Poor old Sultan.” Diamond picked up the photo in its gilt frame. “I’ve got a cat myself, just a moggy, but a character. They hate their routine being messed about. Personally, I favour having a house sitter if I go away. They stay in your house and look after the place and feed the cat as well. It’s nicer for your pet and you can relax knowing someone is there.”

“Ideally, that sounds a good solution,” Georgina agreed.

“Bit of a holiday for the sitter as well. In a city like Bath, house sitting is no hardship. You’re convenient for everything in Bennett Street.”

Now she frowned. This was becoming a touch too personal. “How do you know where I live?”

“You gave a party not long after you arrived. I came with Steph. Very good evening, it was.”

She looked relieved to have her memory jogged. “My ‘At Home’. It slipped my mind.”

“A house sitter would jump at the chance.”

“It’s a lovely idea, Peter. Unfortunately, it’s too late for me to start looking for someone now.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Georgina tried to appear unmoved, but he could see she was all attentiveness.

“If you’d like one, I may be able to help,” he offered. “I know of a lady shortly coming to Bath who would gladly look after your home-and Sultan-for no charge at all.”

“No charge?”

“A chance to stay in Bennett Street would be reward enough.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Georgina said. “Who is she?”

He sidestepped the question, letting his sales pitch sink in. “All you’d need to do is get in some tins of his favourite catmeat.”

“I bought those anyway,” she said, and there was something in her eyes she tried not to have there, a strong desire to clinch this deal and save herself some money.

“Then you’re laughing. You may have heard of her-Anna Walpurgis.”

The eyes widened. “The pop star?”

“As was. More a lady of leisure now. Very used to living in nice surroundings, until recently. Some maniac threatened her life and she’s been stuck in a safe house being looked after by Special Branch for some time. It’s Salman Rushdie all over again. She got so bored. It would do everyone a good turn if she could escape to Bath for a week.”