The Headhunters

by Peter Lovesey

  The pilot said, ‘The Eye in the Sky will watch over you, son.’

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ Gary said.

  Below, the inflatable dinghy continued steadily towards the Church Norton shore. Probably it would take another minute.

  ‘We’ll go for it,’ the pilot said, veering left, inland, and over the roof of St Wilfrid’s Chapel. ‘Want me to call up ground reinforcements?’

  ‘You bet I do,’ Hen said. ‘You’re carrying cuffs, are you, Gary?’

  Gary nodded. He was looking pale.

  They touched down in the car park and jumped out, Gary first. ‘Don’t wait for me,’ Hen yelled, on her knees. ‘Get weaving.’

  The helicopter soared again and away over the trees, to keep tabs on Jake.

  Hen pulled herself upright and jogged along the footpath some way behind Gary, taking shallow breaths and regretting the years of smoking. Her mouth was dry and her chest hurt, but she made the best speed she could. For all the tough talk she didn’t want Gary tackling Jake unaided.

  The Eye in the Sky was hovering only about a hundred yards ahead, an encouraging sign. Hen redoubled her efforts, climbed up a small rise and saw that Gary had already reached the inflatable. But to her amazement, he wasn’t struggling with Jake. He hadn’t made the arrest or taken out the handcuffs. He was helping to beach the dinghy.

  Chest heaving now, she had to walk the last stretch. She could see as she approached that the hooded boatman wasn’t tall enough to be Jake. Not a boatman at all, she now discovered, but a boatwoman whose face was familiar.

  seventeen

  ‘LADY, YOU’VE GOT SOME explaining to do,’ Hen shouted, in competition with the helicopter overhead. She was breathless from running.

  This time Jo wasn’t going to be unstrung by this assertive little officer. She’d had time to think about what she would say. ‘I can’t see why. It’s not unlawful to be out in a boat.’

  ‘Come on, it’s obvious what you were doing. You look ridiculous in the big man’s coat. Now where is he?’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest.’

  ‘You don’t seem to appreciate how serious this is.’ Hen turned and spoke to the young detective beside her. ‘Send the chopper on its way, for God’s sake, Gary. I’m losing my voice.’

  ‘Don’t we need it any more?’ he asked.

  ‘Not if the backup are coming. Tell them it’s mission accomplished and ta-ra, thanks very much.’

  Gary took out his personal radio.

  The arrival of the helicopter had alarmed Jo at first and then angered her. She’d couldn’t stay floating serenely in the middle of the harbour when the rotor action was churning the water, threatening to sink her. Ideally she would have have sat longer in the boat wearing Jake’s hooded jacket. She just hoped she’d bought him enough time. In this vast nature reserve there ought to be hiding places, but she hadn’t expected the search from the air and neither had he.

  Gary told Hen, ‘They’ve seen she’s a woman and they want to stay and find Jake.’

  ‘What else can they do from up there? All right. Ask them to fly over the farmland area and see if he’s there. I can’t hear myself think.’

  Presently the helicopter rose higher, swung about, and crossed the water towards the north. The clatter overhead became less.

  ‘Jake put you up to this, obviously,’ Hen said to Jo. ‘He’s left you deep in shit for helping him to evade arrest. You’d better give straight answers if you don’t want to face a serious charge. Where is he?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Jo said, speaking the truth.

  ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve got yourself into? I’m investigating two murders and he’s the prime suspect.’

  ‘You couldn’t be more wrong,’ Jo said. ‘Jake is a really good guy.’

  ‘How often have I heard that from some crook’s besotted woman? Listen. If he was that good he wouldn’t need you to cover for him.’

  ‘He had unfair treatment in the past.’

  ‘I know all about his record, dear, and you’re coming across as naïve and gullible.’

  ‘He wasn’t the man I saw on Selsey beach, and that’s the truth.’

  Hen’s tolerance was under severe strain. ‘Interesting, however, that you and he should turn out to be friends. You’ll be facing questions about that ID parade he was on. Now tell me precisely what he said when he handed you his coat.’

  ‘He didn’t say much at all.’

  ‘His words, Miss Stevens. What were his words?’

  ‘He told me to take care.’

  ‘Was it his bright idea for you to take the boat out?’

  Jo shook her head. ‘I volunteered.’

  ‘And did he say where he was going next?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Take off the coat and give it to me. I see you’re still wearing your own underneath.’

  Jo obeyed. She guessed it would be taken for forensic examination. They really believed Jake was the killer.

  From somewhere across the harbour came the two-tone note of a police siren. Then another, chiming in with the first. Hen turned to her assistant. ‘Book this woman and stick her in your car, Gary. She’s obstructing a murder enquiry.’

  HANDCUFFED AND locked in the back seat of the Nissan, Jo watched as two police minibuses drew up and disgorged men and women in uniform. All this activity following the helicopter search showed the high priority being given to Jake’s arrest. Yet she refused to believe he had killed anyone. His decency shone through in everything he did. He’d dedicated himself to an ethical life. If she could see that, why couldn’t the police? She remembered his words, ‘You serve your time, but your record is always there.’ How true it was proving.

  She hoped he’d found somewhere safe to hide. Those policemen were certain to look in all the obvious places like the bird hides and the chapel and the reed-beds. Thank God he’d said nothing to her about what he planned next. They could question her all day and all night and she’d give nothing away. She doubted if he was right to evade arrest, but she would support him even though she feared he was making things worse for himself. She hadn’t experienced the trauma of prison herself, so she had no right to criticise his actions.

  She was horrified by what she saw next—the police emerging from the second minibus in black body armour and armed with submachine guns they checked and gripped in a way that left no doubt they meant to use them. Her heart battered her ribcage like a trapped bird. How often she’d heard of innocent men being gunned down in error. Dreadful if Jake fell in a hail of bullets simply because he had a phobia about being arrested.

  And while she watched, another police vehicle swung into the car park, a van marked DOGS UNIT. This was massive overkill. Two German shepherds and their handlers joined the searchers. The young plainclothes detective called Gary led the way out of the car park and down the path to where Hen Mallin waited.

  Unable to protest, let alone stop the madness, Jo was furious with herself for not doing more. She hadn’t played this at all cleverly. The smart move would been to have feigned cooperation and actually sent the search party on some fools’ errand miles from where she’d last seen Jake. Instead she was stuck here away from the action with no knowledge of what was happening.

  ALMOST AN hour passed before any other vehicle entered the car park, and then it was a mud-spattered old Ford pickup. Two elderly men who were obviously birders got out. They had the woolly hats, anoraks, beards, boots, and binoculars. The humdrum routine of the nature reserve was going on while a manhunt was under way. For some seconds the pair stared in puzzlement at the police vehicles as if they were an unknown species freshly arrived from Siberia. Shaking their heads, they moved off in the direction of the small pool in search of something they would recognise.

  Five minutes later, Hen Mallin opened the car door. ‘You’re steaming up. Step outside and get some air.’

  It was good to stretch, even with the cuffs on, but no relief from the mental torment. ‘Haven’t you foun
d him yet?’ Jo said, trying to sound bullish against all the evidence.

  ‘We picked up his bike, which means he can’t be far off, unless he got a lift from someone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

  ‘And he hasn’t borrowed your car, because it’s standing by the visitors’ centre. We ran a check on your registration.’

  ‘Tax and MOT up to date. You can’t do me for that.’

  Hen took out a pack of small cigars and lit one. ‘Honey, I’ll do you for obstructing my murder enquiry.’

  ‘You’re so wrong about all this.’

  ‘Run this up your flagpole, Miss Stevens. I could have been fishing your body out of that harbour. We’ve had two drownings. It won’t stop at two. I know the way these psychos act. They seem normal enough, charming at times. But they’re extremely cunning because they have no moral sense. And they’re brilliant at concealing their true intentions. You’ve no conception of the risk you took by getting into his boat.’

  ‘I’m still here, aren’t I?’

  ‘You’re telling me he acted normally?’

  ‘Completely.’ She wasn’t going to report Jake’s heart-to-heart to someone so unsympathetic.

  ‘Right now he’s acting the runaway killer. Chew on that. You were definitely in the boat with him?’

  There seemed no reason to deny it. Jo gave a nod.

  ‘And then he gave you his coat to wear?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘So he knew we were coming. You told him. Someone tipped you off and you came here to warn him.’

  ‘No,’ Jo was able to say truthfully. ‘I live twenty minutes away. I would have phoned him, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘So how did he find out?’

  This was trickier. Jo said nothing.

  ‘And from where? The printer’s.’

  Hen was answering her own questions and starting to get them right. ‘Gemma, the PA. Can’t be anyone else. But what’s her game, tipping him off? She gave the impression she didn’t have much to do with him any more. She went out with him once and passed him on to some other hapless female. You, I presume. So you’re a friend of Gemma’s.’

  Jo took the opportunity to say, ‘Like me, she knows he’s not a murderer. She’s good-hearted. She wouldn’t willingly get anyone into trouble.’

  ‘You’re a cliquey little lot, by the sound of it. How did you get to know this Gemma?’

  ‘Yoga.’

  ‘On the health kick, are you?’

  ‘We left pretty quickly.’

  ‘We’ll walk to the shore and see how the search is going,’ Hen said. ‘That’s if you don’t want to meditate in the car.’ She set off fast enough to demonstrate that a cigar smoker has functioning lungs, and Jo went with her.

  Her sidekick Gary was directing operations using his personal radio. Most of the search team were just in sight, away up the shore.

  ‘What progress, Gary?’ Hen asked.

  ‘The tide’s on the ebb, which is useful,’ he said. ‘We found the marks where the dinghy was brought in for him to land, and some of his footsteps. Big feet.’

  ‘Big guy. Where?’

  ‘Just past the point they’re searching now. Unfortunately the footprints vanish where the mud ends and the shingle takes over.’

  ‘Are the dogs any use?’

  ‘They sniffed his coat and seemed to get interested in the footprints. We’ll see.’

  ‘There’s not a lot of cover here. We’re bound to find him.’ She turned back to Jo. ‘What brought you here this morning if it wasn’t to tip him off? He’s supposed to be at work, not entertaining his new girlfriend. You needed to talk, and urgently, right? What about?’

  Hard to resist the temptation to blurt out the whole grisly story she’d got from Rick and Gemma about Cartwright’s murder. Whether true or not, it would create a diversion from Jake. But she doubted if anything would shake Hen Mallin’s conviction that he was the main man, the psycho who drowned women. Instead she just said, ‘I was depressed. I haven’t been sleeping well. He’s a kind man and a good listener.’

  ‘Are you lovers?’

  The question couldn’t have been more direct. Jo knew she’d given the answer with her face, whatever words were spoken. ‘I don’t see what—’

  ‘So you are.’ Hen flapped her hand. ‘I’m not being nosy for no reason. Need to know who I’m dealing with. Did he also have sex with your friend Gemma?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You hope he didn’t.’

  ‘She told me they didn’t and I believe her.’

  Hen shrugged and spoke to Gary as if Jo wasn’t there. ‘This guy obviously has a way with women, even though he’s an ugly brute. I doubt if it’s his skill at chatting them up, so what’s his secret?’

  Gary took this as rhetorical and said nothing.

  ‘Four women,’ Hen went on, raising four fingers. ‘Our friend here, Gemma, Meredith, and Fiona. He went out with them all.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Jo said, provoked.

  ‘Oh, but I do. You just told me about Gemma and yourself and we already knew about the unfortunate two who were drowned. I’m sorry if I’m trampling on your feelings, Miss Stevens, but you have to face it. He’s a ladies’ man, and that’s the delicate way of putting it.’

  ‘You’re making it sound as if they were all his girlfriends, and that just isn’t so. He happened to know the woman found at Selsey on a professional level, because of his interest in fossils.’

  ‘He’s told you that, has he?’ Hen said. ‘And did he also explain why Meredith Sentinel came all the way down to Selsey to meet him when her husband was abroad? If that was professional, I’m the tooth fairy.’

  Jo tried to stay calm. She knew she was being wound up in the expectation she’d give something away. ‘She didn’t come to meet him. You’re making this up to suit your theories.’

  ‘What, she came for her health, did she? And it was pure coincidence that Jake lives here?’

  ‘I’ve no idea why she came and neither has he. The first he knew of it was after she was identified, when it came out in the news.’

  ‘Dream on, dear,’ Hen said. ‘Did he tell you he also knew Fiona, the second victim?’

  ‘We haven’t discussed her.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise. How long has he lived in Selsey, by the way?’

  ‘I’ve never asked.’

  ‘Is he a Sussex man?’

  ‘I believe he’s from Cornwall originally.’

  Hen snapped her fingers. ‘Right on. That’s where he kicked the young soldier out of the tree and put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Cornwall it was.’ She swung around to Gary. ‘Get through to Paddy Murphy now and tell him to pinpoint Cornwall.’

  With that sorted, she set off at a sharp pace along the shore towards the searchers. Ignored, Jo thought she had better follow. Making a bid for freedom wasn’t a serious option. Besides, she wanted to find out all she could about this misguided police enquiry. Someone had to stand up for Jake’s rights, or he’d be crushed.

  A cool east breeze had started to disturb the mirror surface of the water, giving the gulls the incentive to swoop and glide. The tide was receding fast. In another hour it would begin reclaiming the foreshore.

  The team was spaced at wide intervals across the pebble beach and right up to the scrub above it. The theory was that because Jake had come ashore on the Church Norton side of the harbour he’d holed up there rather than hiking to the opposite side—which, anyway, was more populated. The dog-handlers led, with the main search squad behind and the armed officers bringing up the rear. Progress was brisk. This was a manhunt, not a fingertip search.

  Hen caught up with them and spoke to one of the sergeants out of range of Jo’s hearing. She seemed to be suggesting a change of method. Some of those closest to the waterline were sent higher up the beach.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jo asked Gary, who had caught up.

  ‘They think he could ha
ve buried himself under the pebbles, but the boss says there’s no point searching so close to the water because it’s wet underneath and the stones are too small anyway.’

  She hoped against hope that Jake had gone right off the beach and was hiding in the reeds. Yet another part of her knew that the longer he stayed at liberty the more guilty he appeared. That prison experience had left him with a terror of being locked up again. You couldn’t argue with someone who has gone through such a trauma.

  Her support for him hadn’t been shaken by anything Hen Mallin had said.

  She crunched through the pebbles, trying to be positive.

  Suddenly there was frenzied barking from one of the dogs below a bank of white shingle. The other German shepherd was immediately brought over and joined in the barking. The marksmen ran forward and made a half-circle around the area, crouching with weapons levelled.

  From nowhere, it seemed, the helicopter homed in and hovered above.

  A knot formed in Jo’s stomach.

  The dogs were straining at the leash, alternately barking and whimpering, pawing at the stones. Everyone closed in.

  Please, God, let it be a dead bird, Jo said to herself.

  Hen directed operations, ordering the unarmed searchers to stand back. The weapons team, rigid and ready in their black kevlar body armour, were chilling to behold.

  For what seemed minutes, but was probably not more than twenty seconds, nothing happened. The dogs were dragged away by their handlers to give the gunmen a clear line of fire. Trying to be heard above the sound of the rotors, Hen spoke through a loudhailer, apparently to a mound of stones.

  ‘Jake, this is DCI Mallin. It’s all over. You’re surrounded and we’re armed.’

  Nothing.

  Then one pebble shifted, teetered and toppled from the mound.

  ‘He’s in there,’ someone yelled.

  More pebbles rolled off.

  Everyone tensed.

  The whole mound moved. A hand emerged from the stones and dragged some of them clear. Jake’s pale face appeared, blinking in the light.