The Headhunters

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘Oh, bugger.’

  ‘But she thought Kleentext had done something recently for the nature reserve as a small job, so she printed off a list of clients. I have it here.’ Gary was learning quickly how to humour the boss.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Pagham Harbour reserve is on the list. Five hundred Christmas cards.’

  ‘The best news I’ve had in days. Hand it across.’ Hen was given the list and spoke as she was scanning it. ‘And did this order involve a visit from one of the wardens?’

  ‘Four altogether.’

  ‘Wardens?’

  ‘No, visits, around the end of August,’ Gary said. ‘One to make the first enquiry, another to place the order, then returning the proofs and collecting the cards after they were finished.’

  ‘Four visits seems excessive. Things like that are usually put on a van, aren’t they?’

  ‘That’s what I thought, guv.’

  ‘Did you ask if Fiona dealt with it? I wonder if she was the attraction.’

  ‘I didn’t have time. I left with the list and checked it in the car. Then I came straight here for the meeting.’

  ‘So you didn’t ask which warden placed the order and kept coming back? No names are listed here.’

  ‘No, guv.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind betting who it was. Nice work, Gary.’

  ‘Have I missed much?’

  ‘Forget it,’ Hen said. ‘You’re my hero. A superstar.’ She turned to Stella. ‘This gets priority. You and I are shortly off to Kleentext. Meeting over, boys and girls.’

  ANOTHER NIGHT without much sleep had left Jo in a frazzled state. She’d already called Adrian at the garden centre to tell him she wasn’t coming in. She’d make up time at the weekend. Now that the storm damage was cleared up there wasn’t a lot to be done. Sales of horticulture products tail off as winter approaches.

  She was still troubled about not reporting Rick to the police. One line of thought argued that he’d committed the worst of all crimes and should be handed over to the law; another, that he was not an obvious danger to the public. If she’d thought other people were at risk she would certainly have done her public duty. But the killing of Mr Cartwright was a one-off crime. She couldn’t imagine Rick murdering anyone else. He’d done this to find favour with Gemma—and Gem was too alarmed by it to encourage a repeat.

  In an ideal world the police would investigate and solve the crime without any tip-off. Before long Cartwright’s disappearance was going to be taken seriously. But in the absence of a body would they ever find out he was murdered?

  All of this churned repeatedly in her head. She’d come round to thinking after all she would confide in Jake. He sure wouldn’t blurt it about. What was more, he knew the people involved. And he was mentally strong. He’d come through his own hell and was wiser for it. He was the only person she would trust.

  And it would be so good to see him.

  She got in the car and drove out to the nature reserve. The sharp morning, the clear October sky, and the task of steering the car through the turns of the narrow road gave her a sense that she was doing something positive instead of keeping it all inside. Just being with Jake would lift her.

  She hadn’t phoned ahead. Far better to turn up and find him. Phoning would call for an explanation and she didn’t know how to start telling him all that had happened in the past forty-eight hours.

  Pagham Harbour is a southeast facing inlet about a mile across, between Selsey to the south and Bognor to the north. The reserve measures over 1,400 acres, about half of which is water. The shoreline is probably six miles around, with tidal creeks fringed by mudflats and salt marshes, so spotting someone isn’t straightforward, even though most of the protected area doesn’t extend far beyond the footpath. She thought when she parked by the visitors’ centre off the Selsey Road that she should have brought binoculars. She had some at home.

  At this time of day no one was around. The centre is staffed only at the weekends. Hers was the only car, not a promising sign. Then she remembered Jake cycled to work from Selsey. But where did he leave the bike? Not here, apparently. She started wavering over her decision not to phone. I didn’t even get that right, she thought.

  Now that she was here, she had to track him down. Having circled the buildings and found nothing, she got back in the car, consulted the map, and drove south to approach the reserve by Church Norton, which would be the nearest she’d get by car to the harbour entrance. From there she’d get a view of the shoreline.

  She soon located a small car park that also catered to visitors to St Wilfrid’s Chapel, a Norman chancel, and a mound where a castle had once stood. You’d think with all those attractions there would be somebody to ask.

  Disappointment again. The whole area was deserted. Stepping out along the footpath she passed some pools where wading birds foraged. Plenty of avian life and not a single human being. She could understand why the job appealed to Jake, with his need for open spaces.

  The footpath brought her to the start of the bank of shingle that fronted the sea and lifted her spirits. Various plants had managed to flourish here, and she remembered Jake mentioning the shingle plants when he’d come to the garden centre. She wasn’t familiar with the names, but the sea-kale, looking like cabbage, was obvious.

  Was it too much to hope that he was at work here with the labels he’d bought from her? She couldn’t yet see over the ridge. She used the wooden walkway Jake or his employers had provided. It made for easier progress as well as protecting the plants.

  Disappointment awaited at the high point. He wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  She tried to console herself with the broad band of the sea, glittering silver this morning. If nothing else, she was nourishing her mind with some glorious images. The worries of last night were already fading.

  Then as she stepped along the shingle spit that was the southern bastion of Pagham Harbour, she turned and saw a movement, distant but unmistakable, a small boat no bigger than a dinghy chugging between the mudflats. She swore at herself for not bringing those binoculars. She could just about make out the single figure steering a course towards the place she’d first called at, where the visitors’ centre was. Could this be Jake? He hadn’t mentioned using a boat in his work, but then they hadn’t talked much about what he did.

  Whoever this boatman was, if he came ashore he’d be worth speaking to. He might know where Jake could be found.

  She was certain she was visible against the skyline. She waved several times and got no response, so she slid and leapt down the inner bank where the shingle was finer, but just as steep, trying to keep her footing without damaging the plants.

  The boat seemed to have turned and was heading in her direction. She could see now that it was an inflatable. And she had a better view of the man.

  Her pulse beat faster.

  He was wearing a jacket with the hood up.

  She completed her dash to the water’s edge and waved again with both arms. He put his hand to his eyes and stared back. She felt sure he was Jake. He was big enough.

  Wouldn’t anyone wave back? This man didn’t. Her confidence dipped. Was she still visible down here at the water’s edge?

  She waved again with huge movements as if hailing an aircraft.

  Finally he raised a hand in salute like an Indian brave. The hood fell back from his head and she was certain.

  ‘Jake!’

  He steered the inflatable in, stopped it in the shallows, turned off the outboard, jumped out, and hugged her. ‘Surprise.’

  ‘For me, too,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you used a boat.’

  ‘We patrol the harbour,’ he said. ‘There was a grebe that seemed to be in trouble, but it flew off.’

  ‘I thought I wasn’t going to find you. I’m supposed to be at work, but I took the day off.’

  ‘Problems?’

  ‘Yes. What’s that?’ She’d heard voices from somewhere behind. She’d thought the place was deserted
. ‘Oh, blast. What timing.’

  ‘Visitors, I expect,’ he said.

  ‘They may want to ask you things.’

  ‘My job.’ He looked in that direction, came to a decision and gripped her arm. ‘Okay. In the boat.’

  She wasn’t dressed for wading through water so she stooped to take off her shoes, but he said, ‘Don’t bother.’ He picked her up easily and carried her. ‘Lightweight.’

  ‘You said it. I can’t even make decisions.’ But her face was close to his and she felt the warmth from him.

  He let her down gently on the centre seat, then turned the little craft, stepped in, sat by the outboard, and started the motor. The people still weren’t in sight. They’d have to manage without a warden.

  Out in the deeper water there was nothing you could call a wave. Only ripples. Well out from the shore he switched off the motor for easier conversation.

  ‘What’s up, then?’

  She told him everything, reminding him of the ill-fated banter with Gemma and Rick about murdering the boss, and then repeating what those two had admitted in the nightclub, and Gemma’s none-too-subtle reining back when she came visiting the next evening.

  Jake listened without any change of expression. Finally, when she’d done, he said, ‘Obviously you believe him.’

  ‘Believe Rick? Yes, I do, and so does Gemma.’

  ‘Gemma would.’

  She heard the remark without fully taking it in. ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘She has a stake in this.’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘She wants the murder to be true. Shows he’s nuts about her.’

  This was almost telepathic. ‘That’s the word she used. She said he’s nuts.’

  ‘Look at it the other way round,’ he said. ‘Suppose Rick is lying.’

  ‘She’d go ballistic. He’d have conned her into sleeping with him. She’d hate that.’

  ‘So she believes him because she wants to.’

  She understood.

  He said, ‘You have to make your own judgement. Think about what Rick said, not Gemma.’

  ‘Rick didn’t say much at all.’

  ‘But he’s the one who knows.’

  ‘You’re right. Gemma’s only got his words to go on.’ She cast her thoughts back. ‘Gemma had to drag them from him. He didn’t want me to know.’

  ‘And that made it more believable?’

  ‘I’m sure it did. But he was very clear. You couldn’t take his words to mean anything else. He said he took the body to a paper mill in Kent and pulped it.’

  He nodded. ‘Rick’s a serious guy. Now see it from his point of view, supposing he made it up about the murder.’

  ‘Just to get her to sleep with him?’ She thought about that. Up to now she’d relied heavily on Gemma’s account.

  ‘If he felt she was losing interest,’ said Jake.

  ‘She was,’ Jo said, remembering. ‘She’d been going on and on to me about Francisco. She even said to me that Rick wouldn’t stand a chance if Francisco asked her out.’ She thought again. ‘But she wouldn’t have told Rick.’

  ‘He’d pick it up.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Men do.’

  ‘I suppose he might.’ She could see a persuasive cause and effect in what Jake was suggesting with his terse interpretation of the nightmare. ‘If he’d made it up about killing Cartwright just to get back in Gem’s favour, he wouldn’t deny it after she’d slept with him. He’d hope it would be a secret between them.’

  ‘But Gemma can’t keep secrets.’

  ‘Right. She insists that Rick confesses to me.’

  ‘So he’s forced to repeat the lie.’

  Her brain was fizzing with this new possibility, one she wouldn’t have considered without Jake’s prompting. Like the horrors of childhood, the fear drained away when it was explained.

  ‘I’ve spent time with men who killed,’ he said. ‘There’s something about them Rick doesn’t have.’

  ‘But Mr Cartwright is still missing.’

  ‘He may be dead.’ He looked away at a seabird skimming the water. ‘Doesn’t mean you have to believe Rick. Or Gemma.’

  HEN ALLOWED Gary to drive her to Kleentext, seeing that he was known there. He’d spoken to Gemma Casey, the woman who was running the office while the boss was missing. Hen remembered her as an open talker, freely admitting she’d resented Fiona’s too obvious overtures to Cartwright, the manager. Today she was still in her outer office, and looking under strain. No surprise, considering she was just a PA who found herself trying to run a business.

  ‘If you’re wondering why we’re back so soon,’ Hen said, ‘you supplied one of my officers with this list of recent clients. I notice you printed some cards for the nature reserve at Pagham.’

  ‘That’s right. Geese on the ice. Nice for Christmas.’

  ‘A goose on the plate is better.’

  ‘My thought exactly,’ Gemma said, ‘but I wouldn’t mention it to the client.’

  ‘Who was the client?’

  ‘You said already—the Pagham Harbour people.’

  ‘Yes, but who came here and placed the order?’

  ‘A man called Jake Kernow.’

  Hen could gladly have goose-stepped around the room. ‘And would he have met Fiona Halliday when he came here?’

  Gemma tapped her chin. ‘It’s possible. I took the order, but Fiona was always hovering around this office.’

  ‘To be noticed by the boss?’

  She smiled. ‘You have it. She was supposed be in accounts, but she spent more time swanning in and out of here than checking invoices.’

  ‘But you can’t say for certain if she and Mr Kernow met on one of his visits?’

  ‘I didn’t actually see them together.’

  ‘Was he alone here at any stage?’

  ‘More than once I had to go downstairs and fetch some samples of card or proofs. I made him a coffee and left him for five or ten minutes.’

  ‘In that time he could have met Fiona?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘I was told he made four visits here.’

  ‘That’s what I recall.’

  ‘Seems a lot.’

  Gemma reddened. ‘To be perfectly honest, I think he fancied me. Well, I know he did, because we went bowling together.’

  ‘You went out with him?’

  ‘Just the once. I felt sorry for him. He gets a bit tongue-tied, doesn’t know what to say to a girl.’

  ‘But he succeeded with you?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by “succeeded,” she said with a smile. ‘We bowled a few ends. It didn’t last. I managed to unload him onto a friend.’

  ‘Not Fiona?’

  ‘Christ, no. I don’t like speaking ill of the departed, but she was never a friend. One of my yoga chums.’

  ‘You say you felt sorry for him. It sounds as if he does rather well with girls.’

  ‘Now that you mention it. He’s not much of a looker, but he appeals to the caring, maternal thing. Not for long, in my case.’

  ‘Why? Did you have a bad experience with him?’

  ‘Nothing like that. I got bored, that’s all.’ She held up her forefinger. ‘I’ve just had a thought. When he kept coming back here on any pretext—like insisting on bringing the proof to me in person when he could easily have put it in the post or left it at reception—I took it that he wanted to go out with me. Maybe he was trying to get a date with Fiona.’

  ‘She didn’t mention going out with him?’

  ‘She wouldn’t. Not to me.’

  ‘Is there anyone else she worked with who might know?’

  ‘Can’t think of anybody. She wasn’t one to have close friends.’

  ‘But she got on with Mr Cartwright?’

  ‘Huh!’ It still rankled evidently. ‘She’d be with him behind that door and I’d be told they were not to be interrupted.’

  ‘You think they were having sex?’
>
  She glanced towards Gary. ‘Close your ears, Sunny Jim. This is girl talk. I saw the smirk when she came out. She was practically rubbing her hands.’

  ‘You’ve worked here for how long?’ Hen asked.

  ‘Twelve years.’

  ‘And Fiona?’

  ‘Less than two. At first I was sorry for her, a lone parent, young kid to bring up. We got quite friendly. I’ve had it tough, too, but not in the way she had. She was telling me Mr Cartwright was coming onto her and she didn’t know how to give him the old heave-ho. I believed her. Then she started appearing in these ridiculous low-cut dresses and I sussed her out. She’d been trying to pull him from the word go, and wanted to find out if I was a threat.’

  ‘Weren’t you?’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t confuse business with pleasure. Besides, he’s not my type.’

  ‘So what do you think happened to him?’

  ‘He hasn’t absconded with the funds, I’m glad to say. He left here with Fiona looking as if they were off for a quickie, or maybe even the whole weekend. I was really surprised when she was found in the Mill Pond. He’s a waste of space and a pain to work for, but in my wildest dreams I’ve never thought of him as a killer. It says in the papers she was murdered. Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of accident?’

  ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ Hen said. ‘She was held down in the water.’

  ‘Horrible.’

  ‘We can agree on that.’ She turned to Gary. ‘Feel like a trip to the nature reserve?’

  JAKE SEEMED in no hurry to return to dry land. He told Jo the harbour had once been so deep that it was navigable by Tudor galleons all the way up to Sidlesham. Centuries of silting had encouraged Victorian landowners to block off the narrow entrance and reclaim hundreds of acres for farming, and they managed it for about forty years, but a great storm in 1910 broke through the defences. ‘What the sea wants, it gets,’ he said. The nature reserve had been created and now the land grabbers had to look elsewhere.

  Here in his own workplace, he had no difficulty stringing sentences together. He pointed to a formation of birds flying overhead and talked with relish of the latest arrivals, a flock of curlews driven south by the onset of the Arctic winter. ‘We see them best at low tide, digging for the lugworm and gilly-crab. Right now the tide’s in, so they’re resting up. The wildfowl at this time of year are marvellous. Godwits, redshank. We’re blessed.’