Peter Lovesey: The House Sitter

The eighth book in the Peter Diamond series, 2003

After lunch Georgina Dallymore, the Assistant Chief Constable at Bath, took an hour off work and drove out to the cattery at Monkton Combe. She’d decided to board Sultan while she was away on holiday. She needed to be sure it was a place where he would be treated kindly. He wouldn’t get the devoted attention he got at home, but he was entitled to some comfort, and she was willing to pay. She’d brought along the framed photo she kept on her desk, just to make clear how special he was.

She expected a better response than she got.

“He’s a long-hair, then,” Mrs O’Leary, the cattery owner noted without a word about his good looks. “He’ll need grooming.”

“Every morning.”

“Getting down to basics…”

“Yes?”

“Getting down to basics, has he been done?”

Georgina frowned. Even an officer of her rank didn’t always catch on immediately. “I don’t follow you.”

Mrs O’Leary gave a wink, raised two fingers and mimed the action of scissors. “I won’t have rampant males making nuisances of themselves in Purradise.”

This was the moment Georgina decided there was no way Sultan would be happy in Purradise. “He was neutered as a kitten, if that’s what you mean.”

“I should have known, looking at the picture. He’s too dopey-looking for a stud. Is he up to date with his injections?”

“Fully.”

“Any problems I should know about? Parasites?”

“I don’t think I need take up any more of your time,” Georgina said, putting the photo away. “I’ve several other addresses to visit.”

“Please yourself. You won’t find one better than this.”

“I’ll make up my own mind, thank you.”

“Where are you off to, anyway?”

“That’s really no concern of yours.”

“I’m not asking which catteries you’re trying. I’m talking about your holiday.”

Georgina couldn’t resist telling Mrs O’Leary, “Egypt. The Nile Cruise, as a matter of fact.”

“Not bad. I thought you police were underpaid.”

“It’s my first overseas trip in ten years.”

“They treated their cats like gods, the Ancient Egyptians. They were more important than people. Did you know that?”

“Yes, and I applaud it. Good afternoon.” Georgina turned and walked with dignity towards her car.

“Stuck-up cow,” Mrs O’Leary said. “You’ll end up paying through the nose for some house sitter who runs up enormous phone bills and burns holes in your carpet.”

But she wasn’t heard.

If you were planning a murder and wanted a place to carry it out, a beach would do nicely.

Think about it. People lie about on towels with no more protection than a coating of sunscreen. For weapons, there are stones of all weights and sizes, pieces of driftwood, rope and cable. When it comes to disposing of the body, you’re laughing. If a hole in the sand doesn’t suit, then with a bit more effort you can cover the victim with stones. After the deed is done, the tide comes in and washes everything clean. Your footprints, fingerprints, traces of DNA, all disappear. Scenes of crime officers, eat your hearts out.

Every half-decent weekend in summer, the shoreline at Wightview Sands on the Sussex coast is lined with glistening (and breathing) bodies. This stretch of beach is estate-owned and spared from the usual seaside line-up of amusement arcades and food outlets. The sand is clean and there is plenty of it, in sections tidily divided by wooden groynes. Lifeguards keep watch from a raised platform. There are no cliffs, no hidden rocks, no sharks.

This Sunday morning in June, the Smith family, Mike, Olga and their five-year-old daughter, Haley, arrived shortly before eleven after an uncomfortable drive from Crawley, paid their dues at the gate, and got a first sight of the hundreds of parked cars on either side of the narrow road that runs beside the beach.

“Should have started earlier,” Mike said. The heat had really got to him.

“We’ll have plenty of time to enjoy ourselves,” Olga said.

“If we can park this thing.”

They cruised around for a bit before slotting into a space on the left, sixty yards past the beach café. Outside the car, the breeze off the sea helped revive them. They took their towels and beachbags from the boot. Mike suggested a coffee, but young Haley wanted to get on the beach right away and Olga agreed. “Let’s pick our spot first.”

Picking the spot was important. They didn’t want to sit too close to the lads with shaven heads and tattoos who had several six-packs of lager lined up beside them. Or the howling baby. Or the couple enjoying what looked like a bout of foreplay. They found a space between three teenage girls on sunloungers and a bronzed family of five who were speaking French. Mike unfolded the chairs while Olga helped Haley out of her clothes. The child wanted to run down to the sea with her bucket and spade. The tide was well out.

“Remember where we are,” Olga told her. “Just to the right of the lifeguards. Look for the flags.”

“You’re fussing,” Mike said.

“Stay where we can see you. Don’t go in the water without us.”

“Lighten up, Olg,” Mike said. “This is a day out. We’re supposed to relax.”

Haley ran off.

“If I don’t get my fix of coffee soon, I’ll die.” Mike went in the other direction.

Olga sat forward in her chair and watched every step Haley took. Whatever Mike said, she didn’t fuss for fussing’s sake. She knew how easily things could go wrong because she’d worked as a nurse in an A & E department before she got married. The beach was new territory. Until the child had been to the water and found her way back at least once, it was impossible to relax.

Briefly Olga’s line of sight was blocked by a woman doing exactly what Olga and Mike were doing a few minutes before, choosing the best place to sit down. She was hesitating, taking a good look around her. Olga couldn’t see past her. The woman took a few steps down the beach, spread a large blue towel on the sand, unfurled a windbreak and pushed the posts into the sand to screen herself on three sides. To Olga’s relief, she could now pick out the tiny figure of Haley again, jumping in the shallows.

The woman took time to get settled. She took off her headband and shook her hair loose. It was copper-coloured and looked natural too, right for the pale, freckled skin. She was some years older than the giggly girls on sun loungers. Around thirty, Olga reckoned, watching her delve in her beachbag and take out a tube of sunscreen and a pair of sunglasses. Finally she sank out of sight behind the windbreak.

Sunscreen was indispensable today unless you wanted to suffer later. The light was so clear you could see the green fields of the Isle of Wight ten miles across the Solent.

Mike returned with his hands full. “Where’s the kid? I got her an ice cream.”

Olga pointed Haley out. “You’d better take it down to her.”

“My coffee’s going to get cold.”

She laughed. “Should have thought of that when you bought the ice. All right. Give it to me.” Her own coffee was just as certain as his to lose its heat, and she was not one of those submissive women, but she didn’t want another argument to ruin the day, so she took the ice cream down the beach, threading a route through the sunbathers, feeling cool drips on her hand and trying not to sprinkle them on other people’s warm, exposed flesh. Grateful to reach the damp sand where no one was lying, she kicked off her flip-flops and enjoyed the sensation of the firm surface against the soles of her feet. She felt like a child again.