The House Sitter

by Peter Lovesey

  “When we came back from our swim, and Haley was missing, I thought the woman was asleep,” Olga recalled, picturing the scene. “She was very still. She could have been dead already.”

  “Must have been.”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite so strongly as that. When Haley went missing, you went off to look for her and I was in no state to notice anything. The woman could have been strangled while I was standing there, looking along the beach. What a ghastly thought!”

  “Unlikely.”

  “And when the lifeguard brought her back, I ran up the beach towards them. It could have happened then.”

  “Does it matter?” Mike said. “The whole point is that we don’t know because we saw nothing.”

  “You were the first to find her dead.”

  “Someone was going to find her. I’m keeping out of this, Olga. Our life is heavy enough. We can do without this.”

  He’d talked her round. She was uneasy, but she didn’t want another argument. There had been too many in their marriage in recent days.

  “What’s she like-Dr Wilkinson?”

  Stella had targeted the receptionist she reckoned would say most if encouraged, the smiling woman in her fifties with carefully made-up eyes that gleamed through dark-framed oval rims. Mrs Bassington would have you believe she ran the entire health centre without interference from doctors, nurses or her fellow receptionists. She had shown Stella straight into Shiena Wilkinson’s consulting room, a stark place with little in it suggestive of the doctor’s personality except a Vermeer print on the wall behind the desk. There was a box of tissues on the desk. No family photos.

  “What’s she like?” Mrs Bassington repeated. “A sweet doctor, very popular with the patients.”

  “I meant in appearance.”

  “Oh. Rather pretty in an intelligent way, if you understand me. She’s slim and about your height. Lovely hair with a reddish tinge to it. Natural, I’m sure. You can tell, can’t you?”

  “Reddish?”

  “Chestnut, I’d call it.”

  Would chestnut pass for copper, the description everyone seemed to agree on? Stella wondered. She thought of copper as more red than brown. She was too experienced to put words in the witness’s mouth. “What length?”

  “That I couldn’t tell you. She always wears it up, fastened across the back with a large wooden clasp like a geisha. It could be quite long. I’ve never seen it loose.”

  “You knew she was off duty at the weekend?”

  “Naturally I knew. The doctors’ schedules are my responsibility. Her next surgery was this afternoon.”

  “And did she say how she planned to spend the weekend?”

  “Not to me personally, but she goes to the beach to relax sometimes. She’s mentioned it in the past.”

  “When did she join the team of doctors here?”

  “It must be two years now. Her first GP appointment. We were overstretched at the time. Normally I’d ease a new doctor in, specially a first-timer, but she was given a full list straight away and she coped brilliantly. You see, Dr Masood had died suddenly and Shiena had to step into his shoes. We unloaded a few of his patients to the other doctors, but basically she took over his list.”

  “Dr Masood? He was here before she came?”

  “Yes.”

  “And died suddenly?”

  “Killed in a motorway accident. A great shock to us all. You don’t really believe Shiena is this woman who was strangled, do you?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Stella said. “We found her car abandoned. That’s all.”

  “It would be too awful-another doctor dying.”

  “What can you tell me about her personal life?” Stella asked, leaving aside the possible implications of another dead doctor. “Is there a family?”

  “Not here, for sure. I think they lived abroad. She used to talk about Canada. Her people are over there if they’re anywhere.”

  “Any men in her life?”

  “Apart from two or three hundred patients? I couldn’t tell you. She isn’t very forthcoming about her life outside this place.”

  “Let’s talk about patients, then. I’m sure she must have had a few difficult characters on her books.”

  “What do you mean by difficult?” For a moment it seemed Stella had miscalculated and was about to be lectured on patient confidentiality.

  “Unstable personalities.”

  Mrs Bassington spread her hands and laughed. “They’re two a penny in Petersfield. It’s that sort of town.”

  “Anyone with a grudge against her?”

  “All the doctors have complainers, if that’s what you mean. People who think they’re not getting the treatment they deserve, or the miracle cure they read about in some magazine.”

  “Try and think, please. Someone angry enough to be a threat to Dr Wilkinson.”

  “A man?”

  “I’m asking you, Mrs Bassington.”

  After a significant pause, she said, “Is this strictly between you and me? I wouldn’t want him knowing I gave you his name.”

  “He won’t find out.”

  She took off her glasses and polished them with one of Dr Wilkinson’s tissues. “There’s a certain man I could mention-a very unpleasant person who treated his wife appallingly, beating her up a number of times. Dr Wilkinson saw the injuries after the latest episode and got her into a women’s refuge in Godalming. The wife is so scared of him she won’t report him to the police. He’s very angry with Dr Wilkinson for interfering in his marriage, as he puts it. He’s not her patient, but he was here twice last week demanding to see her.”

  “As recently as that?”

  “The second time he marched into her room when she was seeing another patient. She called for help and we had to fetch two of the male doctors to evict him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Littlewood. Rex Littlewood. People in the town know him well. It’s the drink. He gets very abusive.”

  “Did you see him yourself when he came in?”

  “The first time, yes. No appointment. He came in last Monday morning and told me he wanted to speak to Dr Wilkinson. He isn’t even registered here. He’s not the sort of man who’d go to a lady doctor. I could see straight away that he was out to make trouble. I told him she was fully booked-which she was-and suggested he tried later in the week. Usually people like him don’t bother again if you can put them off. I can be very firm with difficult men. He did leave, but unfortunately he returned on Wednesday, when I wasn’t here, stormed in past reception and into Dr Wilkinson’s surgery, with the result I mentioned.”

  “I’ll need his address. Does he have a car?”

  “If he does, it shouldn’t be allowed. Each time I’ve seen him, he was smelling of drink.”

  “Is the wife all right? Has anyone phoned the hostel?”

  The blood drained from Mrs Bassington’s face. “Oh my God! You don’t think he’s killed her as well?”

  “We should check. Where exactly is this refuge?”

  Outside in her car, Stella asked for a PNC check on Rex Littlewood’s form. He had two convictions for being drunk in a public place, but none for vehicle offences. Nothing, either, for assault or violence. This didn’t mean he was a model husband; just that his wife hadn’t reported him.

  Stella was wary. It would be all too easy to cast Littlewood as Dr Wilkinson’s killer, then find he was thirty miles away at the time.

  She drove to Godalming and found the refuge north of the town, a derelict mansion someone had rented for a peppercorn. The rotten window frames were barely holding the glass. There were broken tiles on the ground by the front door. But someone answered the knock and it was a relief to hear that Ann Little-wood was alive and still in residence.

  The mental picture Stella had built up couldn’t have been more wrong. The battered wife was a huge woman with arms like a wrestler’s. She was sitting on a bench in the overgrown garden, trying ineptly to shell peas. An entire pod’s wo
rth shot out of her hands when Stella approached. Perhaps someone had tipped her off that the police were here.

  “I only want to ask about your husband.”

  Ann Littlewood didn’t look up. “Don’t want to talk about him.”

  Stella picked some of the peas off the ground and dropped them in the colander. “Can I help with these?”

  After serious thought, Mrs Littlewood made room on the bench by shifting her substantial haunches from the centre to one end. Stella sat beside her and scooped up a handful of pods.

  “This isn’t to do with the way he treated you. It’s about something else.”

  “What’s he supposed to have done now?”

  “We’re not sure. Does he have a car?”

  “A Ford Fiesta. It’s taxed.”

  “Does he use it much?”

  “Can’t afford to. Didn’t they tell you we’re on the social?”

  “Does he ever drive down to Wightview Sands at the weekend?”

  “All that way? What for?”

  “The beach?”

  “You’re joking. He’s never been near the place. He hates the sea. He’s always in the Blacksmith’s Arms at the end of our road or sleeping it off in the churchyard. What would he want with the beach?”

  A burgeoning scenario withered and died. Stella had almost persuaded herself that Littlewood had driven to the beach with a few six-packs and chanced upon his enemy Shiena Wilkinson sunbathing close by. She preferred it to the notion that he’d followed her there in the car.

  She tried a different tack. “Has Dr Wilkinson been to visit you here?”

  “Why should she? I’m all right. It’s just bruises and stuff. You’ve only got to touch me and I bruise.”

  “So you haven’t heard from her?”

  “She’s busy, isn’t she? Got people who are really ill to look after.”

  Between them, they finished shelling the peas.

  “I’ll be given a load of spuds to peel now,” Ann Littlewood said as Stella left her. “This is no holiday.”

  All the signs were that she would discharge herself and return to her violent husband in a matter of days.

  Hen Mallin called St Richard’s hospital at eleven thirty and asked if Dr Mears, a colleague of Shiena Wilkinson, had been in as arranged to identify the body recovered from Wightview Sands. He had not. A call to the health centre revealed why. At eleven fifteen in the Waitrose supermarket one of the doctor’s patients had collapsed with chest pains. Dr Mears was at the hospital, in attendance at an intensive care ward, not the mortuary. The living had priority over the dead.

  Hen seriously thought about having twenty minutes with her Agatha Christie tapes. It was that or another cigar. This case was an obstacle course. She had to be certain that the body was Dr Wilkinson’s. Stella had reported back with news of a violent character who had created a scene in the surgery the week before. Really they should interview this man as early as possible. Yet all she could do at present was chain-smoke.

  She got through two more deciding how to pitch the TV appeal. She wanted her message to reach the Smiths, the family who had reported the dead woman on the beach. It was a tough decision whether to name them and their child, Haley. Normally you kept children out of it, but this name pinpointed them and might prompt friends and neighbours into asking if they were the Smith family in the news. On balance, she thought she would go for it. The Smiths might not even have heard about the strangling. Some people sailed through life without ever reading the papers or looking at television news.

  She would also ask for other witnesses. Plenty of the public had been on that stretch of beach when the body was found. The sight of four men lifting a lifeless woman from the water must have created some interest. And who were those four men? Smith, for sure, the lifeguard for another, and two others. How much had they seen?

  By the time she went in front of the cameras she would expect to know if the dead woman was Dr Wilkinson. If the information was right that the doctor’s nearest relatives lived in Canada, she’d make sure the police over there were requested to break the news to the family. Then she could go public and show a photo of the victim on TV-no reason not to-and ask for help in tracking her movements up to the moment of her murder. They’d need a bank of phones to handle all the calls coming in.

  Now it was a case of drafting the text for her short slot in the regional news. Maybe thirty seconds. Every word had to count.

  Satisfied at last with what she would say, she went for a late lunch in the station canteen. Half the murder squad was down there drinking coffee. She couldn’t blame them.

  Hen enjoyed her food. Light lunches were out. She had a theory that in this job she could never be certain where the next meal would come from, so she stoked up with carbohydrates like a marathon runner packing energy before the race. Steak and kidney pie and chips today, followed by apple tart and custard. She claimed she could go for hours after a lunch like that, though she wouldn’t turn down a good supper.

  At two thirty-eight, a call came in from a car park attendant at Wightview Sands. Hen was back in the incident room to take it.

  “Yes?”

  The speaker was self-important, typical of a certain kind of minor official, and he obviously had difficulty accepting a woman as chief investigating officer. “Am I speaking to the person responsible for the murder?”

  “Not literally. He’s the one I’m trying to catch. If you want the person heading the enquiry, that’s me.”

  “The senior detective?”

  “Right. Have you something to tell me?”

  “I’m speaking from the car park at Wightview Sands.”

  “I’ve been told that.”

  “Are you sure you’re in charge?”

  “Look, do you have something to tell me, squire, or not? We’re very busy here.”

  “I’m not personally involved,” he said. “If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong. I wasn’t even on duty when the woman was found.”

  “So what’s this about?”

  “Actually a lady here would like a word with you.”

  What a relief. “Put her on, then.”

  The new voice was easier on the ear, low-pitched for a woman, well in control. “I understand you’ve taken possession of my Range Rover. My name is Shiena Wilkinson. How do I get it back, please?”

  5

  Hen Mallin’s television appeal needed some rapid script changes now. So it was Stella who drove out to Wightview Sands and met Dr Wilkinson. Not an easy assignment.

  The first thing she noticed was the hair. Mrs Bassington, the health centre receptionist, had been right. It was emphatically more chestnut than copper. Thick, long, and worn loose, as if to make clear Shiena Wilkinson was off duty. She was in T-shirt and close-fitting denim shorts, with a figure that… well, maybe she looked more like a GP in her work clothes.

  They spoke in the windsurfers’ club, close to where the Range Rover had been parked. The car park attendant who had spoken to Hen on the phone lingered as if he might have something to contribute, but he was a new face. Another man had been on duty when the body was found. From the looks he was giving the young doctor it was obvious what this fellow’s agenda was. He was around thirty, with thick, slicked-back hair and a stupid grin. Stella asked him if he shouldn’t be back in his kiosk.

  “It’s on automatic,” he said. “We put it on automatic when things are quiet. People put in their money and the gate goes up. I can get you ladies a coffee if you want.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Stella said. “Unless…” She gave Dr Wilkinson an enquiring look and was grateful for a shake of the head.

  The car park man still hovered. “I expect you thought Dr Wilkinson was the victim, being the owner of the Range Rover.”

  Stella gave him a look she reserved for really pathetic cases. “I’m asking you to leave us now, Mr, em…”

  “Garth,” he said. “My name’s Garth.”

  When the two women were alone, Shiena
Wilkinson said, “I understand you took my car away because you thought it belonged to that unfortunate woman who was found dead. Well, I need it back-urgently.”

  “Understood.”

  “It contains things essential to my work. I’m a doctor.”

  “And I’m a detective, so I know you are.” Stella smiled to ease the tension. “You’ll get your things back directly. But as for the car, you’ll need to hire another for the next day or two. We had to look inside. We’ll put the damage right, of course.”

  “Damage?”

  “We broke a window.”

  “I thought you had bunches of keys for a job like that.”

  “We couldn’t wait. We had a body, obviously murdered. We needed to identify her quickly.”

  “Point taken,” Dr Wilkinson said in a more accepting tone.

  “What made you leave it here?”

  “That’s personal. I was going to collect it today. Hairy moment for me when it wasn’t here.”

  “Do you mind telling me?”

  She sighed. “I met a friend on the beach yesterday and spent the night with him in Brighton. He took me there in his car. It’s as simple as that. He offered to bring me back today to collect mine and he did.”

  Stella drove the young doctor to the motor vehicle forensic unit to collect her medical bag and other things. On the way, Shiena Wilkinson talked about the man she’d met. He was Greg, a college friend she hadn’t seen for a couple of years, though they’d phoned each other. It seemed he regularly came to the beach to surf. He’d produced a bottle of cooled Chablis from an icebox he had in his car, and it had been like revisiting her student days because she’d got (in her own words) “rather mellow as the day wore on”. At the end of the afternoon Greg persuaded her she was in no state to drive (women being more susceptible to alcohol than men-at which Stella rolled her eyes, and Dr Wilkinson said, “Yes, but more to the point, I’d drunk two-thirds of the bottle”) and suggested it would be safe to leave the Range Rover overnight. If there was a problem, he’d say he was a member of the windsurfers’ club and square it with the car park man.”

  “Was he worth it?” Stella asked.

  “Are they ever?”