The Headhunters

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘Get with it, Jo. We’ve been through that already.’

  ‘But the police haven’t. They should be keeping an open mind.’

  She gave a hoot. ‘You think?’

  ‘Was she injured, then—besides being drowned, I mean?’

  ‘They didn’t say. I was in no doubt they were serious.’

  ‘Was anything said about why you called at Fiona’s house?’

  ‘I did the right thing, apparently. They praised me up. I’m a star, a copybook executive who cares for the staff she manages. An absolute credit to Kleentext Print Solutions.’

  ‘Gemma, be honest. Did they really say all that?’

  ‘Not word for word, but that was the gist of it.’

  ‘And you didn’t let on that we saw the body in the water?’

  ‘What do you take me for, dumbellina? No way. That’s a closed book. We agreed.’

  Jo was tempted to say it wasn’t a closed book to Rick, but why waste her breath?

  ‘Are you sure you kept me out of it?’

  ‘No chance. I said I was with this dangerous woman called Jo who drives a Panda and works at the garden centre and shits a brick every time I mention the word “police.”’

  ‘You said what?’

  Gemma’s laugh rattled the phone. ‘Give me a break, sweetie. I wouldn’t rat on my best mate.’

  ‘Piss off, Gem.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, they showed a lot of interest in Francisco.’

  ‘The neighbour? I told you he could have done it.’

  ‘They seemed to think I was his chick. I should be so lucky.’

  ‘You were at his side when that police car arrived.’

  ‘They’re sure to question him. I hope they treat him well.’

  ‘I hope they get the truth out of him,’ Jo said. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he’s the killer.’

  ‘He’s a bunny rabbit.’

  ‘I’m not convinced of that. He was overplaying the part when I was watching.’

  ‘What part?’

  ‘The helpful neighbour.’

  ‘He’s a Latino. You’ve got to make allowances. You didn’t get up close like me. I could tell he was legit.’

  ‘We’re obviously not going to agree about Francisco. I thought it was Rick you fancy. He told me he’s going out with you tonight.’

  ‘Yes, he’s got lucky. But if Francisco makes a move, Rick is history. Don’t tell him, will you?’

  Jo ended the call and walked down the steep bank of shingle to where Jake was standing, still with the hood up. ‘Can we get a coffee somewhere?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think we should. People know me here. It’s only a small place.’

  He was being protective, not wanting to draw her into the suspicion he felt was still attached to him. Concern like this was a new experience for Jo. ‘Somewhere else, then?’

  They returned to the car and she drove back to Chichester without telling him she was heading for her flat. In his present state of mind he might think it was entrapment. All she said was she knew of a place where they could get coffee. It was a calculated risk that could backfire, but she was going to have to make the first move. Any other guy invited back would think he’d hit the jackpot, but Jake was the exception.

  nine

  THE VISIT TO THE mortuary hadn’t put Austen Sentinel off food. He went through a round of egg and cress sandwiches and two cups of black coffee while Hen was agreeing to the text of the press release. When she joined him in a side room he looked and sounded much recovered.

  ‘You’re about to break the news, then?’ he asked. ‘Those jackals will soon be after me, no doubt. I’ve watched grieving spouses forced to appear on television. Is that being suggested yet?’

  The subtext, Hen suspected, was that the poor bereaved guy wanted his five minutes of fame.

  ‘Not unless it becomes necessary.’

  Disappointment spread over his face like a maiden’s blush. ‘I thought it was standard procedure.’

  ‘It could still happen.’

  ‘I’ll do anything to help catch the monster who murdered my wife. I’m willing to face it today.’

  ‘Thanks, but that would be too soon. We’ve got all the publicity we need at this stage.’

  ‘What if they call me at home and ask for a statement?’

  ‘You say “no comment” and refer them to our press office. You’ve got enough to cope with. You’ll be wanting to contact her family and friends, I expect. Are her parents alive?’

  He clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘God, the old couple. They’ll be devastated by this. I ought to speak to them before they hear it from someone else. They live in Kentucky. What time is it now?’ He looked at his watch. ‘They’ll be up and about.’

  ‘Do you have a mobile?’

  His hand went to his pocket, but not inside. ‘Oh, hell. I doubt if there’s enough credit for a call to America. It needs topping-up.’

  ‘So you’d like to use one of ours?’ Making a mental note that he was a tightwad as well as a self-admirer, she took him into the CAD room and found him a seat.

  She sought out Stella in the incident room. ‘Check the St Petersburg flight arrangements both ways with the British Council and compare them with the airline passenger lists. Let’s be sure he was on the flights he said he was. And see what you can find out about this conference and his part in it. I’ve no doubt he was there, but I want to know where he stayed and for how long and if he attended all the sessions.’

  ‘Do you think he’s flaky?’

  ‘As a bowl of All-Bran. But I don’t know if he’s a killer as well.’

  Dr Sentinel had finished speaking to his parents-in-law when Hen returned to him. ‘One of the most difficult calls I’ve ever had to make,’ he said. ‘You can’t imagine.’

  ‘Actually I can,’ she said. ‘I had to break the news to you.’

  ‘So you did.’

  ‘And it wasn’t my first time. Every copper has to do it.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Feel ready to answer some questions? Not here. We’ll use an interview room.’

  He frowned. ‘Shouldn’t you be going after the monster who did this?’

  ‘I am. You offered to help. I’m asking for information.’

  ‘Is there anything we haven’t already covered?’

  ‘Quite a bit.’

  In Interview Room 2, with DC Gary Pearce at her side, Hen explained that it would streamline the process if they videoed what was said. Sentinel commented that in modern Britain you never knew when you were being secretly videoed anyway, and he had no objection. He didn’t require a solicitor. Why should he?

  For the record, Hen spoke the preliminaries, and then told him, ‘I want as much as you can give me about your wife. Her personality, likes, dislikes, interests, friendships. It’s our job, with your help, to work out what she was doing in Selsey.’

  ‘That’s a closed book to me,’ he said. ‘Let’s try, but I don’t hold out much hope that I can be of use to you. Personality-wise, Merry was charming in the way American women are, or most of them. She charmed me, anyway. We first met in the late nineteen eighties when she was an undergraduate at Brighton and I was a visiting lecturer attached to the geology department. I led a course in palaeontology for a couple of terms there.’

  ‘And she was on it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that old cliché.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Tutor seduces student. She wasn’t even my student.’

  ‘So what was she reading?’

  ‘Zoology. Got a first, in spite of me. Merry could have excelled in any of the sciences, including my own. She had that sort of brain.’

  ‘“In spite” of you?’

  ‘She could so easily have been sidetracked. Academically, I was bad news for her. You see, I was on attachment from Brunel, twenty-five years of age, full of myself, not bad-looking. She was eighteen, a fresher.’

  Not a mil
lion miles from that old cliché, Hen mused.

  ‘The ratio of women students to men at Brighton was outrageous compared to what I was used to. I was the proverbial kid in the sweetshop. For me it was ideal, but not for Merry. I came along at a critical stage in her studies and took far too much of her time. It’s a measure of her ability that she still got the best degree going.’

  Something in his favour. He had a conscience.

  ‘When did you marry?’

  ‘Nineteen-ninety-two, after she graduated. The wedding was in Louisville, where they have the Kentucky Derby. Her father owns a string of racehorses. It was a society do. And they do their best to convince you America has no class system. You wouldn’t believe the hats. Like that scene in My Fair Lady.’

  ‘But you chose to live in England?’

  ‘My career. I was hoping to get the chair at Imperial. I’m still waiting. I worked damned hard establishing myself, writing books and so forth. Merry was a huge support.’

  ‘Did she continue her studies?’

  ‘She took her doctorate at University College, but she wasn’t cut out for lecturing, so she didn’t stay in education.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘Various things. She worked mornings at the Natural History Museum in South Ken, classifying bones and fossils. Yes, I know it sounds like the ultimate dead end, but the work had a link with her zoology, you see. And once a week she was doing what she really believed in, helping living species as a volunteer for the World Wildlife Fund.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Stuffing things into envelopes mainly.’

  Hen had pictured her bottle-feeding baby pandas. ‘And she found that fulfilling?’

  ‘She valued the animal kingdom above mankind.’

  Was that what irked him?

  ‘The whole ecology, in fact,’ he added.

  ‘Flora as well as fauna?’ A new thought came to Hen. ‘She wasn’t, by any chance, a campaigner for trees?’

  ‘Not unless they were homes to one-toed sloths.’

  ‘She must have made some friends in these jobs she did.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  A vague answer. ‘You didn’t meet any of them?’

  ‘She didn’t bring them home, no.’

  ‘You’re private people?’

  ‘We gave the occasional dinner party for colleagues of mine.’

  It seemed equality hadn’t penetrated the Sentinel household.

  ‘Did she ever mention names?’

  ‘Of her friends? If she did, I wouldn’t recall them. I have more than enough going on at Imperial to occupy my attention.’

  Hen felt some sympathy for Meredith Sentinel. Marriage to this self-serving man must have been a pain. ‘Enemies, then?’

  ‘None that I heard of. She was difficult to dislike. I can see where you’re going with that question, but I can’t help, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You mentioned the work she did at the Natural History Museum. Did she go on field trips?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Parts of the coast down here are well known for deposits of fossils.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. They aren’t short of specimens at the museum. She hasn’t been here since her student days.’

  ‘She was here last month when she was murdered.’

  ‘And you’re suggesting she came fossil-hunting? I don’t think so.’

  ‘So why did she come to Selsey as a student?’

  ‘That was the woolly mammoth.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Twenty years ago some large bones were exposed in the clay after an unusually low tide and they turned out to be the complete skeleton of a young mammoth. My lucky day. This happened during my lecturing stint at Brighton—what is it?—thirty miles up the coast, and I was the obvious person with the skills and knowledge to supervise the excavation.’

  ‘You were in charge?’

  ‘The man on the spot. Palaeontologists don’t grow on trees.’

  ‘Neither do mammoths, I guess.’

  ‘Not in nineteen-eighty-seven, anyway,’ he said, causing Hen some puzzlement. She didn’t interrupt. ‘The dig had to be done swiftly because of the tidal conditions. And this was towards the end of September, before the university session began. I’d come up early to prepare and I recruited all the help I could, local volunteers and students from anywhere and everywhere, including Merry.’

  ‘So that was the start of your romance?’

  He was quick to scotch that notion. ‘No, she was just a fresher, then. The mammoth dig was before I started going out with her. I took note of her, of course. You tend to spot the pretty ones on an excavation and they were in bikinis, if I recall correctly.’

  Hen trusted his memory on that. ‘How long did this dig go on for?’

  ‘Three or four days only, at extreme low tide. Very demanding conditions. It’s a pity, because a lot can be learned from the clay the bones are embedded in. You can isolate fossil plant-seeds that provide insights into the conditions at the time the mammal met its end.’

  ‘This was an important find, I imagine?’

  ‘Sensational, yes. The press came, and radio and television. Nowadays it wouldn’t be the story it was. Global warming has led to wonderfully preserved mammoths being hacked out of the permafrost. In Russia they have so many you can buy them on the black market.’

  One little query answered. Mammoths didn’t grow on trees in 1987, but twenty years later was another story.

  ‘To your knowledge, Dr Sentinel, that was the last time your wife visited Selsey?’

  ‘I can’t think of any other reason she would have come. We don’t take our holidays here.’

  ‘There are other local sites where ancient remains have been excavated.’

  ‘Boxgrove,’ Gary Pearce put in.

  ‘Didn’t I make myself clear?’ Sentinel said. ‘She doesn’t— didn’t—go on digs. The mammoth was a one-off.’

  ‘And you can’t think why she would have come to Selsey this September, or who might have come with her?’

  ‘If I knew the answer to that, I’d have told you already.’

  ‘Did she own a car?’

  ‘A Volvo Estate. It’s still in the street outside our home.’

  ‘So either she took the train or she was driven here.’ Hen let a few seconds pass. ‘There’s something I’m bound to ask and it’s vital that you give me a frank answer. Was your marriage in any difficulty?’

  The colour rose in his face. ‘Certainly not. Hasn’t everything I’ve said up to now demonstrated the strength of our affection for each other?’

  ‘You’ve no reason to suppose she might have met someone else?’

  ‘That suggestion is in appalling bad taste in the circumstances.’

  ‘Sorry to give offence, but I had to ask,’ Hen said. ‘She acted out of character, according to you. Whilst you were away, she came to a place you knew nothing about and was found half naked on a beach.’

  ‘Obviously she was abducted and brought here by her attacker.’

  ‘Why? A public beach isn’t the ideal place to conceal a murder.’

  ‘He must know the area. You’re looking for someone with local knowledge.’

  It was a reasonable comment, but was he deflecting suspicion?

  He continued, showing remarkable detachment, ‘Sadly, bodies are washed up on beaches from time to time and most of them are victims of drowning. He must have assumed you would think she went swimming and got into difficulties. He didn’t expect to leave those marks on her neck. That’s my reading of it.’

  On this, Hen agreed with him.

  JO LIVED on the north side of Chichester in a 1930s semi converted into two flats. She had the upper one. Doreen, a widow in her seventies, lived downstairs and did all the gardening, one of those hardy Englishwomen who knew about plants and was never happier than when out there watering, weeding, and pruning. They shared the front door.

  She noticed Jake
getting tense as the car left the main road into town and headed along suburban streets.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ She was doing her utmost to sound relaxed. ‘I thought my place would be less public than one of the coffee shops in town.’

  He said nothing. At least he didn’t protest.

  Fortunately Doreen wasn’t working in the front. She would have insisted on being introduced and asking questions, well meant, but liable to alarm anyone as wary as Jake.

  Jo parked on the drive and switched off. Jake remained in his seat with the belt fastened.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’re wondering if this is wise.’

  He gave a nod.

  ‘There’s no hidden agenda. It’s coffee and biscuits and a chance to talk.’

  After a pause for thought he said, ‘Suits me,’ and got out.

  First base, she thought, and then gave herself a silent reprimand.

  Upstairs in the living room Jake said, ‘Nice place.’

  ‘Not to everyone’s taste,’ she said. ‘The colours are on the strong side, but I like the orange to red range. Shall I take your coat?’

  A small courtesy, but the reaction was symbolic of trust when he unzipped the jacket and handed it to her.

  ‘Have a seat and I’ll get the kettle on.’

  Had she prepared for this by some trick of the subconscious? She’d left an unopened packet of chocolate biscuits beside the kettle. She found a plate for them.

  ‘I seem to remember you like yours black without?’ she called from the kitchen. ‘Put some music on if you like.’

  The Lazy Sunday brand of coffee would have to do for Saturday. Humming to herself, she spooned some into the cafetière and poured on the water. Then she noticed there was a message on the answerphone. Gemma? Unlikely. Gem would have called her mobile. I know who that is, she thought with resignation. Her mother always used the land line.

  Jake had chosen her CD of the Goldberg Variations. Glenn Gould, another guy with a personality problem.

  ‘Do you play?’ she asked as she came in with the tray.

  ‘Badly.’

  ‘Better than me. I lasted one week on the violin. My parents were keen for me to learn and that turned me right off. I have a pushy mother, though I have to admit she pushes herself hardest of all. She’s mastered all kinds of skills, from marquetry to martial arts.’