The Headhunters

by Peter Lovesey

  He listened in silence as she expected, but there was more than a flicker of interest.

  ‘I’ll get to the point,’ she said. ‘You met Meredith more than once in London, at the Natural History Museum. I asked if she talked about coming to Selsey and you said she didn’t. Does that answer still hold?’

  He gave his trademark nod.

  ‘You drank coffee together and talked about the rainforests and the ecology, but you must have touched on some personal matters as well. When people meet for the first time they look for things in common. She must have asked where you live, am I right?’

  After some hesitation, another nod.

  Leading the witness like this would be inadmissible in any court, but what else could you do with such a reticent man? ‘And then she would surely have said something like, “I’ve been to Selsey. I was there for a dig twenty years ago.” Is that what she told you, Jake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A small triumph.

  ‘Right. I need your help here. Did she tell you anything else about the dig?’

  ‘It was done in a hurry.’

  He’d actually crafted a sentence.

  ‘Because of the tides, yes. Did she mention anyone else who was there?’

  ‘Dr Sentinel.’

  ‘No others? We’re trying to trace people. We believe she was murdered at the reunion.’

  He leaned forward and his voice was more animated. ‘Why?’

  ‘That isn’t clear. We may be looking at a motiveless murder. A psychotic killer who takes any opportunity to strike. As you know, a second woman was drowned at Emsworth. And you won’t yet have heard that another body was found today in a private swimming pool in Apuldram.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Not yet identified. She was discovered by two of your friends, Jo and Gemma.’

  He released a long deep breath that developed into a sigh. He looked personally troubled.

  ‘Do you know anything about this, Jake?’ Hen asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If you do, and someone else is killed, she could be on your conscience for the rest of your days.’

  Silence. He’d retreated into non-communication again.

  She exchanged a look with Stella, who rolled her eyes.

  ‘Jake,’ Hen said, ‘I’m going to release you without charge. I’m sorry all this has been necessary, but you can’t deny that you acted suspiciously trying to avoid arrest. You’ll be driven back to your home. Get some sleep. If you can think of anything you haven’t mentioned, call me.’

  He continued to sit there, deep in thought.

  Hen was on her feet. ‘Come on, fellow, let’s get you out of here.’

  He looked up, the dark eyes haunted by something unspeakable. ‘Have you . . . ’ The words faltered.

  ‘Have I what?’ she asked.

  He got it out. ‘Spoken to Rick?’

  ON SOUTHERN Counties Radio the same evening the lines buzzed with Selsey residents who remembered the finding of the mammoth. In the nature of chat shows, the focus of discussion kept changing. Some had watched from the promenade. One caller remembered a photographer falling over in the water. Another spoke about the fisherman who had first noticed the bones and thought he should have been given more credit and this started a spate of comments. Among all these, two of the original volunteers phoned in with their memories. Stella spoke to them later. Neither knew anything about the barbecue.

  Hen was alone in the incident room when Stella returned.

  ‘I listened in to most of it. Worth trying.’

  ‘This barbecue is a mystery,’ Stella said. ‘Did we find out which stretch of the beach they used?’

  ‘The invitation was clear on that: the section where the dig was done. Paddy looked it up. The strange thing is, it was right where the body was found.’

  ‘I don’t see what’s strange,’ Stella said. ‘We’re assuming she was murdered at the barbecue.’

  Patiently, Hen explained her thinking. ‘Picture it, Stell. The barbecue going. Music. Beer. Smoke. Some people standing about or sitting on the pebbles talking about what they’ve done in the past twenty years. The moon is up, and a nearly full moon at that, so they can see what’s going on. What do you reckon happens next?’

  ‘Someone suggests a swim?’

  ‘My thought exactly. They don’t have costumes, so they skinny-dip, or strip to their undies.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘This is the problem. In a party of people you’ll get a few bold souls, but not all will want to go in. The others watch. They may even come down to the water’s edge and shout encouragement. With all that happening, how does the killer carry out a drowning that can take up to five minutes?’

  Stella tilted her head. ‘Tell me, then.’

  ‘It can’t have happened in the presence of everyone else, can it?’

  ‘Not the way you tell it, boss. I suppose they paired off— Meredith and the killer—and snuck away to another bit of the beach where they could be alone. He suggested a dip and they went in and he attacked her.’

  ‘Reasonable, except for two things. She was found on the exact section of beach where the original dig took place. And there was no evidence of a barbecue there.’

  ‘The tide must have washed over it.’

  ‘These things tend to be held high up the beach where the water rarely reaches.’

  ‘Well, I can’t think of anything better.’

  ‘Try this, then,’ Hen said. ‘What if the barbecue never happened?’

  Stella blinked. ‘You’ve lost me now.’

  ‘We’ve been trying for hours to trace people who were there. Yes, we found about a dozen from the original dig who could have come. Not one of them did. They didn’t get invitations. And the reason is that there was no barbecue. It was never going to happen.’

  Stella thought a moment and frowned. ‘Invented by the killer?’

  ‘Exactly. He’s devious. There was only ever one invitation and we’ve seen it. The killer sent it to Meredith as bait, to lure her to Selsey. Handsomely printed, official-looking, friendly. She was tempted. Her husband would be away, enjoying himself in Moscow or wherever. The dig had been a highlight of her student life, and now she makes her living as a fossil expert. Why not join in the fun and meet some friends from way back?’

  ‘It’s vile,’ Stella said. ‘In her shoes, I would have gone.’

  ‘Me, too. What precisely happened in the hours before she was murdered we can only guess. I see her arriving at the beach around eight-thirty and finding nobody. Then he appears and says he, too, received an invitation. Whether he really was around in nineteen-eighty-seven is uncertain. Probably not. But he’s done his research and he knows she was there. He says the event must have been cancelled and nobody told them. He has wine with him and something to eat. He suggests they sit on the beach and drink the wine. If Austen Sentinel can be believed, Meredith likes men.’

  ‘I think you’ve sussed it, guv. He suggests a moonlit dip. She’s game, but she keeps her pants on, as I would. And he does what he’s been planning all along, grabs her in the water and drowns her.’

  ‘And because he’s a cold-hearted calculating killer, he gathers up her clothes and bag and removes them from the scene. His hope is that she’ll be taken for someone who died at sea and was washed up by the tide.’

  ‘That could easily have happened. The planning that went into this!’

  ‘I know. It makes me wonder if the other killings were equally premeditated.’

  ‘Are you certain Jake isn’t the killer? I know he admitted being a friend of Meredith as soon as the news broke, but that could have been a smart move to wrong-foot us.’

  ‘If you’re right, I shouldn’t have let him go. But I think it suits the real killer to have Jake in the frame. We’re dealing with someone of exceptional guile. What you see with Jake is what you get.’

  ‘He was pretty upset at the end of that last interview.’

  ‘You no
ticed it, too? I think it was when I told him Jo and Gemma found the body at Cartwright’s place. There’s something he’s holding back.’

  ‘About Rick?’

  Hen nodded. ‘It’s high time we spoke to that young man.’

  ‘But we’ve got nothing on him. He’s been in the background all along.’

  ‘Yes, and up to now Jake has taken all the flak. Our first move tomorrow is to see Rick.’

  twenty-three

  THE RAIN WAS STAMPEDING across the roof when Jo woke from a troubled dream and looked at the clock. Still only 1.15 a.m. She got out, pulled back the curtain, and watched water pouring down the front of the house opposite. The gutters couldn’t cope. On TV last night the local weatherman had issued a flood warning. There was a small river north of the city called the Lavant that always dried up in the summer and yet caused huge problems in conditions like this.

  Unable to go back to sleep, she put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Always when extreme weather arrived she found herself thinking about global warming and its effects. Drought was not the whole story. Temperate countries could expect more of this monsoon–type weather that they weren’t equipped to cope with. Jake would know the science, exactly why it occurred

  And so her thoughts returned, as they often did now, to Jake. She assumed he was still in police custody. She’d heard no more from him. How could the police be so short-sighted when it was obvious that Cartwright was the murderer, the body in his own pool sealing his guilt?

  The body in the pool proved also that Rick’s horrifying claim had been moonshine. Far from being dead and pulped, Cartwright was alive and well and murdering women.

  Jake had been right about that. In the morning she would call him and see if the police had come to their senses.

  She made the tea and went back to bed.

  HEN HAD slept through last night’s downpour. She had the ability to shut eyes and shut off, even when dealing with serial murders. Perhaps it was not an ability, just exhaustion. She drove into work without really paying attention to the amount of water lying on the roads. Coming out of Bognor she sprayed a postman and had to get out and apologise. Not the best start to her day. Or his.

  Better news greeted her at the nick. Stella was waving a piece of paper from across the incident room. ‘Report from the lab, guv. We’ve got a match for victim number three.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Honest. She’s local, too. Lives at Bosham, or did. Named Sally Frith.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How did her name come up?’

  ‘She’s on the DNA register because she was fencing stolen antiques two years ago. Fined five hundred pounds and put on probation as it was a first offence.’

  In the CID, good fortune is treated with suspicion. ‘What’s going on, Stell? Are the fates toying with us, or is this on the level? Is the age right?’

  ‘Fifty-three.’

  ‘I wonder who dealt with it. You and I were still working out of Bognor CID two years back.’

  ‘I’ll get the file up.’

  ‘No, I’ll check the paperwork You’d better get out to Bosham right away and see what you can find at the house apart from dodgy Chippendale chairs. Take Paddy with you.’

  ‘Paddy?’ The silver-haired sergeant was the one fixed point in the incident room.

  ‘He needs to get out more.’

  ‘You don’t want to come?’

  ‘I’ve got other fish to fry.’

  ‘Meaning this guy Rick?’

  ‘Spot on. We’ve got nothing on him, but he swims into view every once in a while.’

  ‘The one that got away?’

  ‘Or a red herring. I’ll let you know.’

  Light words, but behind them, serious intent.

  First, she accessed Sally Frith’s file. The case had been handled by a DI who had since moved on to Brighton CID, and he’d written a useful account of the case. Frith, twice divorced and with a small fortune from the second marriage, seemed to have become a soft touch for a fraudster. She’d met a slippery character called Fu Chin and allowed him to store antique pottery in her large house in Bosham. The items turned out to have been stolen from a museum in Brussels. Fu Chin had spun her some yarn about needing cash for medical treatment for one of his children in Hong Kong and she’d found buyers for five of the pieces and transferred the money to his numbered account. Described by the judge as a foolish and gullible woman, she’d taken the rap. Fu Chin was still at liberty.

  Hen recalled the lily-white body floating in the pool. You see dead flesh and know nothing of the personal story behind it. This hapless woman had been conned again, putting on her swimsuit for a dip with a serial killer. How foolish and gullible is that?

  More urgently, what did it say about the killer?

  He must have persuaded two of his three victims to go into the water. There wasn’t any evidence of compulsion about the apparent way Meredith had stripped to her undies and walked into the sea. And Sally Frith must have put on the pink swimsuit before going into the pool. Had they been charmed to their deaths? At a stretch Hen could imagine taking a midnight bathe on a warm September night with Jack Nicholson about the time he made Easy Rider, but a dip in an outdoor pool in an English October was something else. Not sexy old Jack nor any man alive could have talked her into getting her kit off in those conditions. She could only suppose the murderer had turned on the heating well in advance.

  Such thoughtfulness.

  A little shudder ran through her body.

  She told Gary to get his coat on. Rick Graham’s office was in West Street. ‘Normally I’d walk,’ she said, ‘but look at that sky. It’s going to tip down again any minute. Fetch your car. I’ll see you out front.’

  ‘What’s Rick’s connection with the case?’ Gary asked when they were in motion, staring through the wipers at the lights of the car ahead.

  ‘Yet to be discovered,’ Hen told him. ‘He’s one of the pain-inthe-bum quartet.’

  ‘Jake, Gemma, Jo, and Rick?’

  ‘Friends, swingers, clubbers. None of them married. Between them Jake, Gemma, and Jo link up in some way with each of the killings. They knew one or more of the victims or they discovered one or more of the bodies. Rick stays in the background but he may have things to tell us.’

  Not many cars were parked in West Street so early in the day. Gary steered into a spot right outside the Georgian doorway of the surveyor’s. ‘Does he know we’re coming?’

  Hen shook her head. ‘Watch how he reacts. You may learn something.’

  She flashed the warrant card and instructed the receptionist not to announce them over the intercom. She didn’t want Rick leaping out of a top floor window.

  His name was on the door at the top of the stairs: Richard O. Graham, member of this and fellow of that, a string of qualifications that didn’t include immunity from investigation. Hen turned the handle and they went in.

  He was reading the Daily Mail. Guiltily, he slammed it into a drawer. His blue eyes blinked nervously. Unruly hair poked up like a tussock of sun-bleached grass. It didn’t look right for the grey suit.

  Hen gave a kickstart to the interview. ‘Were you reading about the body your friends found in the pool? We’re CID, by the way. DCI Mallin and DC Pearce.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘That was a question.’

  ‘Er, no. I get it for the business pages.’

  ‘Didn’t the latest murder make the national press? It will tomorrow. She’s a local woman.’

  Wanting to get over the shock of their sudden appearance, Rick tried letting them know that they’d invaded his territory. In a prim tone he said, ‘I have an appointment shortly.’

  ‘Not until this one is through.’

  ‘What exactly do you want?’

  ‘Information. You’re the listening post. Heard it all: dead bodies, an ID parade, a chase, an arrest.’

  ‘If you’re talking about Jake, I scarcely know the guy,’ he said. ‘He’s just a hanger
-on.’

  ‘Hanging on to Jo as I understand it,’ Hen said. ‘She was your girlfriend and he took her over.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call her a girlfriend. He’s welcome to her.’

  ‘How very gracious that sounds. Didn’t she give you what you wanted? You swapped her for Gemma, I was told. Tricky when they’re close friends, I imagine. Leads to all kinds of comparisons.’

  He reddened, either with anger or embarrassment. ‘I can’t see what relevance this has.’

  ‘All right, Rick, I’ll stop being personal. Tell me about your work.’

  More signs of panic. He was out on the highwire again, and teetering. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like does it get you out, looking at people’s houses?’

  ‘That’s part of it.’

  ‘Someone plans to move away, so they ask you to survey the property in line with the new government legislation. You should be telling me this. Have you been invited to do a job in Apuldram in the last three weeks? Desirable country house with swimming pool?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘The owner seems to have gone. I wonder who did the survey. Tell me, Rick, if you were surveying a house and the winter cover was over the swimming pool would you lift the end to inspect underneath?’

  He started to bluster. ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about and why. I’ve never been to Cartwright’s house. I had nothing to do with what happened in Apuldram.’

  ‘Except by association,’ Hen said. ‘You’re sleeping with one of the women who found the body and the other is your ex.’

  ‘You said you’d stop being personal.’

  An interruption: Hen’s phone gave its call note. ‘This had better be earth-shaking,’ she said to Gary, looking round for a place with more privacy. She settled for an armchair across the room from Rick’s desk.

  The caller was Stella. ‘Sorry to disturb you, guv, but you ought to know this. We’re at Bosham, Sally Frith’s house. Huge place with an amazing harbour view. We started in her bedroom and almost the first thing we found beside the bed was this photo of a guy in swimming trunks, and written across it is—wait for it— “All My Love, Rick.”’