Peter Lovesey - The House Sitter

“She’s the only female ACC, and her name is often in the local press. She isn’t in the phone book, as you say, but she votes in elections. She’s in the electoral register. People forget how simple it is to check up on them. I went to the library and asked to see the register. It’s all in the public domain.”

“We know you got into the house opposite during the night. You’ll admit you were lucky the basement wasn’t lived in?”

“No,” he said, affronted by the suggestion. “Empty basements are the norm if you walk along Bennett Street. Either that, or they’re in use as store places. Let’s be frank. Your so-called security was seriously at fault, Mr Diamond. It was rubbish.”

“We caught you, didn’t we? Where did you get your chloroform?”

“My old university. They kept a row of bottles in one of the labs. Chloroform has gone out of fashion for anaesthetics, but it’s still widely used as a solvent.” He smiled. “The effect of inhaling the stuff is rather enjoyable before the victim goes under. Ask Ingeborg. She might remember.”

“I told you all this was on tape,” Diamond said.

“I heard you.”

“You’ve admitted to everything.”

“I’m not ashamed of it, either. I look forward to my day in court, when I shall repeat it all for a wider audience.”

Such self-congratulation was hard to stomach. The entire performance had been repellent. Murderers of Ken Bellman’s type, seeing themselves as the maltreated victims, are the most unrepentant. True, he had a genuine grievance at the beginning. But the vengeance he took was out of all proportion. He had expressed not a word of remorse for the killing of people who had done nothing to damage him. As he said it himself, they were “put down.” It was as callous as that.

Diamond walked to the car park with Barneston and Hen.

“I feel as if I need a shower after that,” Hen said.

“I practically thumped him for one thing he said,” Barneston said.

Neither of the others asked what.

“And he still thinks he’s the bee’s knees,” Hen said.

“But none of that came out when we interviewed him for the beach murder,” Diamond said. “I thought he was a weak character at the time.”

“ ‘A piece of pond life’, you called him.”

“He’s that, for sure. But I didn’t see him as the Mariner. He fooled us, Hen, and I blame myself. I was doing the interview.”

“And I was asking you to soft-pedal,” she said. “Don’t knock yourself, Peter. You got everything else right. The British Metal connection and the fact that he was a pissed-off academic. Did you ever get that list of the people who lost their bursaries?”

“On my desk.”

“And was his name on it?”

“Yes. I just didn’t get a chance to see it on the morning we nicked him.”

“But you would have got there,” Hen insisted. “You did all right. And I hate to say that you solved my murder for me, by fingering Garth, but let’s face it, you did. I was up a gum-tree with those Aussie lads.” She opened her car door and then held out her hand to him. “But don’t let it go to your head. You’re still a pushy bastard.”

On the day Georgina Dallymore returned from her Nile cruise and let herself into the house in Bennett Street, Sultan was curled up as usual in his basket in the hall. The big ball of fur opened both eyes briefly but didn’t get out to greet her.

“Exhausted, are you, my darling?” she said. “That makes two of us. But the difference is, I’ve got every right to be tired. I’ve had such an exciting time.”

The place looked immaculate, maybe even better than she’d left it. You wouldn’t know anyone had stayed here. Yet when she opened the visitors’ book, there was the name of Anna Walpurgis with the date and the comment “I’ll always remember my visit here.” How good it was to come home to a tidy house and a famous name in the visitors’ book and a contented cat, she thought. The house sitter had been one of Peter Diamond’s better suggestions.