Walking Into the Ocean

by David Whellams

  “The house cannot be released until we review the forensics, see what else needs to be done. If I have to call in London for additional tests, I will. We’ll see. Thank you for your help, Constable. Can you provide me with a door key?”

  He had tried for a firm tone, but not too harsh, and he watched the calculations roll over in Willet’s brain. His face betrayed the lumpen resentment of a man who had spent a lifetime obeying orders from better paid officers. Peter edged towards the hallway and the front door. Willet was pondering his supervisor’s reaction to Scotland Yard’s request. Peter turned and looked expectantly at him.

  “All right, Inspector, take the spare,” Willet responded. “I found it out back under a flower pot. You’re welcome to it.”

  “Leave it there,” Peter said. “I’ll retrieve it as needed.”

  Willet locked the front and they stepped down to the empty street. They agreed that the yellow tape and the Keep Out notice only attracted snoops and vandals and they removed the warning; a chunk of the green lacquer came off with the notice. Willet looked up and down the bare street and shifted from one heavy foot to the other. He picked up on Peter’s comment from five minutes ago. “I dunno, Guv’nor. The scanners over in the local lab are pretty good.”

  “I have no doubt.” Peter had confidence in the Regional Forensics Laboratory, which served all of southwest Britain, and the Whittlesun Force was proud to have the facility on the edge of their town. But they did not have Stan Bracher from the London lab, whom Peter liked to think of as his personal haematology expert. He’d make the call from the street once the constable went his own way.

  Willet remained sullen and stoic. He’d done nothing wrong, Peter reminded himself. His tone was conciliatory as he said, “Constable, if you were André Lasker, how would you disappear?”

  Willet rubbed his beefy hands together as if he had been waiting for someone to ask him this very question.

  “I’d stash some clothes and a disguise in one of the caves up the coast and hide out there for a night. The next morning I’d hitchhike the short hop to Plymouth, buy a ticket on the ferry to Cherbourg.”

  “Why that ferry?”

  “Well, it only takes three hours.”

  “Have you done it?”

  “What, Cherbourg? What business do I have in Normandy?”

  CHAPTER 4

  It was now mid-afternoon and Peter was scheduled to meet Detective Hamm at the Crown at 5:00 p.m.; he intended to be on time. But he was restless. To some, though not to Bartleben, he was known as a plodder, yet he understood momentum, the momentum he needed in order to gain perspective and push the investigation along to the next stage.

  And he already sensed that some things were wrong.

  There was time for a quick interview with André Lasker’s mother, who, according to the file material, lived nearby. Peter was still gathering general impressions, and she might be a good source of information about her son’s marriage. He needed Willet to introduce him to the mother, but not to stay around. As it turned out, Willet was quite open to Peter’s suggestion that he see Mrs. Lasker alone, and led him to the front door without ceremony, and certainly without griping. Peter chose not to over-interpret the gesture.

  Having made sure that Peter had his mobile number, Willet waved goodbye and walked off. Of course, in the exchange, the constable now had his number.

  The old lady occupied a typical terrace house on a quiet street. She had resided there for fifty years and had given birth to two sons in it, the first boy dying in infancy. All this he knew from the file, although oddly there was no record of her being interviewed by the Whittlesun Police. She answered the door when he buzzed, and smiled warmly when he apologized for interrupting her afternoon. She was grey and birdlike; her left eye wandered as she tried to focus.

  “Officer Wilmot?” And Peter understood that not only had she been interviewed by the police, Willet had done it. He’d failed to mention that.

  “Come in, please,” she continued. “Are you here for Mrs. Pease or for Mrs. Lasker?”

  “To see you, Madam,” Peter said, for he recognized her from a family portrait in her son’s bedroom. She spoke with a wisp of Dutch inflection.

  The mother shuffled towards the interior of the house, assuming he would follow. The living room was populated by an excess of doilies, Toby jugs and teapots, but had been beautifully maintained. He estimated the place to be worth one and a half times the selling price of her son’s home (if and when someone repainted it). The basswood trim around the doors had been refinished recently, and the paint on the walls was fresh and tasteful. Was André an attentive son wanting to comfort his mother, or had he been preparing for the day when she would be gone? Or the day when he would go.

  The other lady, Mrs. Pease, came down the stairs and introduced herself in a hovering, protective manner, and waved him to a large stuffed chair. Her height gave her a mannish look. She begrudged him a smile. “Hello. I am Mrs. Pease and I live here.”

  Bully for you, Peter wanted to say, but he sat down anyway. “Chief Inspector Cammon.”

  Mrs. Lasker took what looked to be her habitual spot on the chesterfield opposite him, and before Mrs. Pease could speak, demanded: “Tea!”

  It was apparent that the conversation wouldn’t begin until the tea ritual was set in motion, and so Peter waited with the old woman while Mrs. Pease went to the kitchen. When they were settled, Mrs. Pease, who wore heavy pearls and whose hair had been permed that very day, took on the role of interpreter for her companion.

  “Mr. Cammon is from the police, dear,” she said, putting her hand over her friend’s.

  Senile dementia, in Peter’s experience, varied widely case by case, and Mrs. Lasker’s disease had rendered her a benign, happy figure. Still, he wasn’t sure that an interlocutor was useful. He would have wagered that she had forgotten the distant years as a War refugee, and the death of her husband. Nothing he asked could revive any deeper truths from that era.

  “Collecting?” Mrs. Lasker said.

  “Collecting?” Peter said. “I’m here to ask you about your son, André.”

  Mrs. Pease placed her left hand over Peter’s right, as if completing a séance circle, and frowned.

  “My son,” said Mrs. Lasker, “is dead. Buried in Marchmount Cemetery.”

  “André.”

  “He is my second son.”

  “Yes, and when did you last see him?”

  “Sunday. He always visits then.”

  “That is accurate,” Mrs. Pease said, withdrawing her hand from Peter’s. Her duty, it seemed, as she saw it, was not to amplify but only to verify.

  But Mrs. Lasker wanted to talk. She bounced from snippets of André’s childhood to comments on current politics at Whitehall to memories of sunny days along the cliffs, when she and André would picnic and take in the views of the Channel. Peter gave up asking sequential questions and remained content with minutiae. Her rambling anecdotes by no means coalesced into a clear picture of the mother–son relationship but he learned that old Mrs. Lasker was on good terms with her daughter-in-law. Her son had remained devoted over the years and had kept up the house for both ladies. Peter had hoped for general impressions of the Lasker clan, and that was about all he got.

  At the door, Peter turned to Mrs. Pease, who was three inches taller.

  “Did André visit every Sunday?”

  “Yes. She knows nothing of what happened. We’ve had the police here before. Now yourself.” She looked worried, defiant. “Will you be executing a search warrant?”

  “No, Mrs. Pease. But I may need to come back.”

  As he moved to the doorway he suddenly understood about the sauce. It hadn’t been “research” at all; Willet had identified the Dutch goulash from the mother. Mrs. Lasker had taught Anna the recipe and she had kept a pot boiling on the stove to please her husband. Peter tolerated Willet’s effort to exalt his police work. His unconfessed restoration of the cleaver to its slot in the kitchen was an
other matter.

  Peter hastened back to the high street, not because he was late for the pub but to try to fit in a quick call to London before meeting Hamm. The air in the Lasker place had been rancid, in the kitchen in particular, and the atmosphere in the mother’s house not much fresher. As he walked, he took in whiffs of tomato sauce, oregano and lavender. He should have dropped by the hotel to take a shower and change into his tweed jacket, but he didn’t really mind. He carried part of the killing floor with him, and that was a memory he needed to sustain. He considered returning to the house now. He would like to sit in the hallway, or the kitchen, or the blood-painted lavatory, until Anna finished telling him her secrets.

  He reached the Crown sooner than he expected. He guessed that Hamm would be early, probably already inside. Streams of young couples crossed in front of him on the pavement, celebrating the fading of their work day. Passersby seemed startled by the sight of the elderly man in the black suit standing in front of the pub window, trying to make himself heard through his mobile phone. Peter was lucky and reached Bartleben on the first ring, but it was almost impossible to hear through the din on the street. He shouted.

  “Stephen, are you there? I’ve just visited the Lasker home. I have no time now but I wanted to make sure you’ll be around later.”

  Sir Stephen had read the call display and picked up before his secretary outside could reach her phone. He was eating a very late lunch, take-away sushi from the place on the corner. He considered Cammon’s statement doubly inane. If Peter needed to talk to him later, he need only ring up later. If he had to talk now, make the time. Bartleben didn’t mind a bit. He understood the rhythms here, the momentum that Cammon must create at the start of a case, and if it sounded to the layman like neurosis, he knew that Peter was the most rational of operatives. His first thought when Peter made these calls was always: better him in the field than me. Bartleben’s role, at this stage, was to man the cheering section. He was amused by the ambient shouts of the pub patrons on the street, and thought of baiting Peter with a comment about hanging out with a non-octogenarian crowd; but you didn’t tweak Peter Cammon at this point in an assignment.

  There was only one thing to say: “Christ on a crutch, Peter! Call whenever it suits you, and if I’m asleep, have a chat with the wife.”

  “Okay,” Peter said. If Bartleben heard the unease in his colleague’s voice, he didn’t over-analyze it. It was the fact he had called that was important. He knew from talking to that pompous Inspector Maris that the Lasker place was a slaughterhouse. That was precisely why he sent Cammon. He now grasped that something in the house had set Peter off. It was a bit early, but, he guessed, Cammon was about to cause some trouble.

  The Crown was nearly filled with after-work patrons but Hamm, whether thanks to his police credentials or because he was a regular, had commandeered a booth at the back. It was away from the swinging door to the kitchen, and Peter was grateful not to have warm grease added to the veneer of smells on his suit. Hamm looked as unkempt as ever, that white shirt never staying tucked in. His face carried the stains of a hard day and he had given up combing his hair. So much for trying to impress the man from the Yard. Yet he was openly glad to see Peter and pumped his hand with a dry grip. He gestured for Peter to take the bench opposite.

  “I presumed to order you a pint,” the young man said, but then he looked doubtful.

  Peter smiled and sat down. He was suddenly happy to be drinking in a pub, and at once raised his stein. He loved beer, a little too much perhaps, and seldom touched wine or the hard stuff. The beer tasted wonderful.

  “To your health. How has your day been, Mr. Hamm?”

  “That’s Hamm, short for Hamster, as in running in place on a wheel all day. I’ve been getting to know the coastline more than I wanted. Villages I never heard of, like Glenfanning, New Dominion and Dunstaffnage. Did you see the Lasker place?”

  “A first time through, yes.”

  “And what did you think, Guv?”

  “Ah, the watchful Constable Willet. I appreciate his preserving the crime scene, but I would rather he didn’t seal it off against me.”

  Hamm laughed politely and swigged his beer. “While we’re on the subject . . .”

  He fished a thick envelope from under the table and handed it over. “This is the balance of the Lasker file, the interview notes and so on.”

  Peter took the two-inch packet of documents and tucked it under his coat on the banquette. He decided not to reveal his talk with Mrs. Lasker and Mrs. Pease, at least for the moment. He wasn’t sure why he demurred. It had something to do with the cleaver, the possibility that Hamm himself had moved it.

  “Thank you.”

  Hamm leaned closer. “Also in there is what we have on the Rover, the Task Force summaries. That’s what they’ve shared with us.”

  “But aren’t you officially on the Task Force?”

  “As of today, yes. Before now we were ex officio members. Liaison status, if you will.”

  “Bureaucracy,” Peter sympathized. He knew Jack McElroy and couldn’t see a reason for him to exclude Maris. But McElroy was cautious by nature, and maybe the inspector had somehow overplayed his game — clearly he had career ambitions. Peter reminded himself not to speculate; it wasn’t his case.

  But then he immediately violated his own admonition. “Let me guess. Maris thinks the predator will move into Dorset soon, and McElroy won’t yet concede the point.”

  Hamm raised his mug. “Exactly. You see, the predator has committed four murders in Devon, but he’s definitely moving this way.”

  “I thought I heard three.”

  “Three confirmed murders. Girls about the same age. All local teenagers. A fourth girl, Molly Jonas, hasn’t been found, but, you know . . .”

  “Do they think the killer’s local?”

  “They won’t speculate — the Task Force people, that is. But he leaves the bodies in obscure places along the cliffs, which indicates that our man knows the area. The curious part is, they were abducted from well-known walking trails, of which there are hundreds near the Channel, but left in odd caves or places that are hard to get to. The second girl was abandoned, dead, on a big rock overlooking the Channel.”

  “Ritualistic?”

  “Yes. Laid out for sacrifice, you might say.”

  “Any indication that he knew the women?” Peter asked.

  Hamm offered a puzzled look whenever Peter asked a question. He seemed to think there was a secret Scotland Yard technique in play each time, when it was just Peter’s blunt style of inquiry doing battle with his resolve not to chime in too hastily on the Rover investigation.

  “No indications either way. The women were taken from trails close to villages or their own farms. We’re out there questioning everyone we can find. Alert them without panicking them.”

  Peter finished his pint a bit too fast and leaned back against the bench. The bar echoed with shouts and clattering glasses. McElroy seemed convinced that the Rover would limit himself to Devon, but the pattern clearly was linear, eastward. Investigators always looked for patterns, but this one — a measured geographical sequence — made little sense to Peter. For one thing, rapists are opportunists, as well as impulsive. He leaned forward.

  “Just musing here, but could the spacing of the killings indicate that the Rover doesn’t know his surroundings? That perhaps it’s less risky for him to find a new killing ground and not revisit old venues?”

  “But he would have to explore each new path and set up new observation posts, new lines of sight,” Hamm replied. “Risky, I think.”

  The greatest fear from the Task Force’s viewpoint, Peter knew, was that the serial killer would suspend activity for the winter and pick up again in the spring. Meanwhile, anxiety among residents along the coast wouldn’t lie dormant. The political pressures, from village officials and women’s groups, you name it, were already growing, he was sure.

  Hamm was right with him. “Know who’s squawking
the loudest? The tourist authorities. Say they’re losing business. From whom? Bird watchers? Boat spotters? Crikey, it’s September! Soon be winter and nobody on the cliffs.”

  Hamm drew a line down the sweat on his beer glass. “There’s something else in play, but Maris doesn’t want us talking about it.”

  “Okay, I won’t talk about it.” Peter tried to look neutral.

  “London just won its bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The organizers want the sailing events to happen on the Jurassic Coast. They don’t need a scandal. Don’t be surprised if J.J. McElroy gets nervous about publicity.”

  Peter understood that the pressure would be on to nab this Rover quickly. He grimaced at the likely fortunes of Scotland Yard in all this. For a while, Jack McElroy would resist calling on the Yard, hoping for quick clearance of the case; but if it dragged on, a way would be found to shift responsibility to London. Peter stopped before downing the dregs of his beer. He should give Jack McElroy more credit as a pro — cynicism had crept in with the booze.

  Hamm fetched another round. He and Peter knew no one could overhear them, but they kept their voices low anyway. Peter hefted the envelope containing the Lasker and Rover material, held it aloft in acknowledgment, and placed it under his coat once more.

  “Thanks for the briefing, Ron,” he said. “I’ll read the file through tonight. By the way, has there been talk of calling in Scotland Yard’s profilers?”

  “It came up at Maris’s staff meeting,” Hamm said. “McElroy has indicated that the Task Force can handle it, maybe with a bit of help from the Regional Lab. Maris strongly agrees.”

  “They’re within their authority to refuse. You can be sure, however, London’s already made the offer.”

  For some reason the pub began to empty out. It was midweek and perhaps the after-work drinkers were due home for supper; fewer than a dozen patrons remained, and the bar fell into near silence. The quiet seemed to change the air pressure in the bar, leaving Peter and Hamm light-headed. Hamm gave no signal that he was expected at home; Maris must be pushing his staff hard to put in long days, Peter reasoned. The young man persisted in treating Peter with excessive deference. His was the Scotland Yard of Lestrade and Gregson, and better yet the independent preoccupations of Sherlock. There was a certain belatedness in Hamm’s attitude, as if he felt he was living a detective’s career a hundred years too late.