Peter Lovesey - The House Sitter

“You know a lot about cars. That’s obvious. You must be an expert, Garth. A connoisseur.”

He didn’t respond.

“You could probably tell me the makes of cars that were taken for joyrides in recent weeks. An MG. A Lancia. A Porsche.”

“No,” he said. “You’re wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“There was never a Porsche. That’s wrong.”

“I believe you. You’d remember, I’m sure of that. It must have been something else in the sports car line. But you confirm the MG and the Lancia, do you?”

“I didn’t say I took them.”

“Borrowed them, Garth. Joyriding is only borrowing really, isn’t it? What do you say, Stella? It’s hardly a crime if the cars aren’t damaged.”

Stella said, “Kids’ stuff.”

Hen said, “We issue an unofficial warning usually. It’s too much trouble to take them to court.”

Garth wiped some sweat from his forehead.

“We’re inclined to be lenient if they admit to the joyriding, and haven’t been caught before,” Hen continued. “Mind you, if they deny it, we don’t have much difficulty proving their guilt. They leave their fingerprints all over the cars, and those surfaces pick up the prints really well. Remind me, Stella, did we find prints in the MG?”

“And the Lancia,” Stella said, nodding.

“And the Porsche?”

“There wasn’t a Porsche,” Garth blurted out.

“I keep forgetting,” Hen said. “You should know. You’re better placed to know than anyone else, aren’t you? Did you go for a spin in the MG, Garth?”

“No.”

“The Lancia?”

He shook his head.

“So you’re in the clear. You won’t mind letting us take your fingerprints down at the nick just to remove all suspicion?”

She watched his hands clench, as if to press the telltale ridges out of shape. He was hopelessly trapped. He said the only thing he could, knowing in his heart that it was hopeless.

“What if I said I took those cars for a ride?”

“Admitted it?”

“Yes.” His face had gone white.

“Admitted you were the joyrider?”

“Yes. Would you let me off with a warning, like you said? I wouldn’t do it again, ever.”

Hen said, “Let’s get this clear, then. You’ve been taking cars from the car park without the owners’ consent and driving them just for the pleasure of being at the wheel?”

“That’s it,” Garth said, nodding vigorously. “Just the pleasure. I wasn’t stealing them.”

“But you stole the keys first. Tell us about that.”

“Borrowed them.”

“Borrowed them, then. How, exactly?”

He was forced to explain. “I remembered who the owners were.”

“So what’s the system? You chat to them from your kiosk, just to get a good look at them?”

“Usually, yes.”

“Go on, then.”

“When I go off duty, I go looking to see where the car I fancy is parked. Then I make a search for the owner. They nearly always pick a place on the beach near the car. I observe them. I might watch from the sea wall, or go down on the beach myself. I wait for them to go for a swim. Then I choose my moment to pick up a bag or some clothes with the keys.”

“What about the people around? Don’t they say anything?”

He shook his head. “Not if you do it with confidence. I know what I want and I go directly to it. The stuff goes into a beachbag and then I’m away and straight to the car. I find the key and drive off.”

Stella said, “What about when you go past the barrier to get out? Aren’t you afraid of one of the other attendants spotting you in a smart car?”

“They’re facing the other way, checking the incoming cars.”

“You’ve got it all worked out,” Hen said. “You’re a smooth operator.”

“I’ll stop now,” he said, desperate to draw a line under this. “I knew it was wrong. It was getting to be a habit. I’m sorry. It was stupid of me.”

“I wouldn’t mind if that’s all it was,” Hen said. “Unfortunately, Garth, we all know it’s far more serious than you make out. The last time it happened, things went wrong, didn’t they? There was a struggle for the bag containing the key. You killed the woman.”

“No,” he said vehemently. “No, no-I didn’t do that!”

“This joyriding was more than a habit. It was a compulsion. You had to get that key from her, and she didn’t leave her bag unattended for one second. So you snatched it.”

“That isn’t true.”

“And she wasn’t asleep, as you thought. She was awake, and she tried to hang onto her bag, which was very unwise of her, because you panicked, thinking she would scream and make a scene, and you killed her.”

“No,” he said, his eyes stretched wide.

“OK,” Hen said calmly. “We’ve got the fingerprints on the car-the dark green Lotus Esprit-and we’ll check them against yours. You’re under arrest, Garth. We’re taking you for fingerprinting now.”

He gave a sob and sank his face into his hands. Any uncertainty was resolved in that moment.

Diamond finally got to bed at ten-fifteen that morning, later than he wished, and with a Band-Aid on his right hand. He’d had to get out the ladder to collect Sultan from one of the high branches of the hawthorn in the front garden. Reluctant to be dislodged from this place of safety, Georgina’s pet had let Diamond know with a couple of swift, efficient paw movements, almost causing him to tip backwards. Only with the greatest difficulty had he brought the terrified cat down the ladder. All of this had been observed from the front room window by Raffles with an expression of supreme contempt.

The exhausted man sank immediately into a deep sleep, blanking out everything. So when Ingeborg phoned him from Bennett Street twenty minutes later, he slept through the sound. After an hour the phone beeped again, this time with more success, because he happened to be turning over. He groaned, swore and reached for it.

“Guv, are you there?”

All he could manage was another groan.

“Guv? This is Keith Halliwell. It’s an emergency.”

“Mm?”

“We just heard from one of the lads on watch in Bennett Street.”

Bennett Street. Bennett Street, Bennett Street. The conscious mind groped for a connection. He forced himself to pay attention.

“Ingeborg put in a routine call about ten thirty to make sure Anna Walpurgis was all right and got no answer. She tried several more times. Nothing. She tried calling you as well, and you didn’t answer. In the end she acted on her own and used the key to let herself in.”

“Oh, Christ.” He was fully awake.

“And now we can’t raise her, either.”

He felt as if the floor caved in and he dropped a hundred levels. “Tell them to go in after her-all of them. I’m coming at once. Get everyone there you can. This is it, Keith!”

Recharged and ready to go, he threw on some clothes, dashed out to the car and drove to Bennett Street at a speed he would normally condemn as suicidal.

Two response vehicles had got there before him. Halliwell was also there, ashen-faced, standing in the open doorway.

“Well?”

“Come and look at this, guv.”

In the hallway of Georgina’s house someone had used a red marker pen to write on the wall in large letters:

The game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!

Diamond stood blankly before it, shaking his head. He felt a throbbing sensation in his legs. Not the shakes. Not now. He didn’t want to get the shakes.

He knew the line, and he was certain who’d written it. There was a scene in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner when Death was dicing with Life-in-Death for the ship’s crew and everyone except the Mariner himself dropped dead.