The House Sitter

by Peter Lovesey

  “You could cut it by half if you learned to use a mouse.”

  He didn’t dignify that with a response. “Did you read any of it?”

  Clive shook his head. “Not my kind of reading.”

  “If I was looking for something in particular-case notes, for instance-is there any way I could find them quickly?”

  “Depends. Is there a key word I can use to make a search?”

  “Try Summers.”

  The quick fingers rattled the keys, apparently without a satisfactory result. “This could take longer. Give me an hour and I’ll see what comes up.”

  “And, by the way, Clive, this is under your hat, right? If you find something interesting I don’t want it all over the world wide web, or the Bath nick, come to that.”

  “Stay cool, Mr D. My lips are sealed.”

  Diamond returned to his office and called Hen Mallin. Liberally interpreting the need-to-know principle, he told her everything he’d learned at Bramshill. Senior detectives don’t betray much emotion as a rule, but Hen spoke the name of Axel Summers as if he were a personal friend.

  “You knew him?” Diamond queried.

  “No more than you, sugar, but he’s always on the box, isn’t he? A bit old for me, but definitely dishy, I thought. Where did they say this happened?”

  “A house in Sussex.”

  “That’s my manor. I haven’t heard a whisper.”

  “Shows how seriously they take it. Have you heard of Jimmy Barneston? He’s in charge.”

  “That makes sense. He’s top of the heap, young, energetic, and gets results.”

  “So I was told,” he said with a slight note of irony.

  “Really,” Hen said. “His clear-up rate is awesome.”

  “Sounds like a vacuum cleaner. Where’s he based?”

  “Horsham, the last time I heard. Should I have a quiet word with him, do you think?”

  “I wouldn’t trouble him yet. He’ll be trying to keep the cap on the bottle. Let’s wait until we’ve got something to trade.”

  She said, “You’re a wily old soul, aren’t you? Good thinking.” After a pause, she added, “You really believe she was killed by the man who did Summers, don’t you? In spite of what you were told?”

  “I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that. But I’m not ruling it out just because Bramshill tells me to. One thing I’ve learned in this job, Hen, is that the people at the top have their own agenda, and it doesn’t have much to do with what you and I are working on.”

  “Speaking of which, I’d better let you know what’s been happening here.” She told him about Stella Gregson’s visit to the school and the interview with Haley Smith. “We’ve now established that the father, Michael Smith, manages a bookshop at Gatwick Airport. Stella has gone to interview him.”

  “Will she bring him in?”

  “Depends what he says. She’ll see him initially in the airport police office.”

  “He’d better have a good story. Have you checked him on the PNC?”

  “No previous. If we pull him in, do you want some of the action?”

  “Try and keep me away. What about his wife?”

  “Olga Smith. Done. I sent Stella to see her directly. Stella was all for racing off to Gatwick right away, but I wanted the woman’s angle first.”

  “Was it helpful?”

  “It filled in some gaps. She’s an ex-nurse who now works just round the corner from the school as one of the check-out staff at Safeway. Claims she was so taken up with Haley being lost that she scarcely registered what was going on with the dead woman. But she confirmed that her husband was the first to do anything about it. He saw that the woman was dead and alerted the lifeguard and helped carry the body to the hut. Afterwards they cleared off fast in their car.”

  “Why?”

  “They figured they wouldn’t have anything useful to contribute. They hadn’t seen anyone with the victim all day.”

  “She’d been there all day?”

  “Arrived soon after they did and set up her windbreak and lay behind it sunbathing.”

  “Were they close to her?”

  “Just a few yards. But there was a time in the afternoon when they went for a swim. And there was also a period when Haley went missing and they were both very taken up with searching for her. The husband went off to look and Olga Smith stood up to be visible. She says she was far too upset to have noticed whether the woman was alone, or if she was dead at that stage.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Yes, Stella believed her, but got a strong impression that she’s scared of her husband. He made the decision to quit the scene as soon as possible and he’s insisted ever since that they can’t help us in any way. She knew we were appealing for information. He seems to have put her under pressure to say nothing. And we know he ordered the child not to speak to her teacher.”

  “He’s got plenty to explain, then.”

  “When we’ve picked him up, sunshine, I’ll let you know.”

  “What I didn’t appreciate when I printed all the files is that some of them are encrypted,” Clive told Diamond when he checked with him after the hour he’d requested.

  “You mean we can’t read the stuff?”

  He nodded. “I guess she had reasons for keeping some of her case notes secure. The text is scrambled. It’s put through a series of mathematical procedures called an algorithm and comes out looking like gobbledegook. If you go through all those sheets I printed out for you, you’ll find some that make no sense at all. They’ll be the encrypted files.”

  “So how do you unscramble them?”

  “Decrypt them. With blood, toil, tears and sweat. We need to know the key to access them.”

  “Key?”

  “Password, then.”

  “Why not try ‘Sesame’ again?”

  “You think I haven’t? She wasn’t messing about here. She really meant to stop anyone from breaking in. Most encryption systems use a secret key and a pass phrase. Some are asymmetric, meaning one key is used to encrypt the data and another to decrypt it. As I think I told you, she was obviously computer-literate.”

  “Do we use any of these systems in the police?”

  “Of course.”

  “And are they listed somewhere? What I’m getting at, Clive, is that she could have been given the police software to use for her profiling notes.”

  “I’ll check it out. But even if I know the software, it could still take me weeks to crack this.”

  “Better make a start, then.” He rested a hand on Clive’s shoulder and said as it began to droop, “If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t ask.”

  Stella Gregson had only ever been through Gatwick Airport on holiday trips, but she found the right terminal and located the bookshop easily enough. Finding the manager was not so simple. He’d gone for a late lunch, the woman on the till told her, and he should be back soon.

  Stella said she’d wait. She’d had no lunch, late or otherwise. She had a young male DC with her and she treated him to a toasted sandwich at the Costa shop, which offered a good view of the open plan bookshop. People with time on their hands and flying on their minds were blankly staring at the shelves, occasionally picking something up, riffling the pages and replacing it.

  After forty minutes Stella and her companion got off their coffee stools and started browsing through the magazines.

  “Does Mr Smith carry a mobile?” she asked the woman on the till. “We can’t wait much longer.”

  “He does, but I don’t know the number.”

  “Where does he eat, then? Somewhere in the terminal?”

  The woman shrugged. “This is only my second week.”

  They asked at the shop next door, a place that retailed shirts and ties. The manager said he thought Smith went home to lunch. He lived nearby, in Crawley. “Is he in trouble, then?” he added cheerfully.

  “We just need to check something with him.”

  “Police, are you?”

  Stel
la’s eyes widened.

  “It’s the way you walk.”

  She called Hen Mallin to let her know they were about to leave the airport and would call at the Smiths’ house. Hen was talking on another line, so Stella left a message.

  She nudged the DC in the back. He was looking at pink shirts. “Leave it. We’re on the move.”

  * * *

  The house was only ten minutes away, on the north side of Crawley. “I don’t know why,” Stella said to her young colleague as she drove out of the airport, “but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” The feeling got worse when they turned the corner at the end of the Smiths’ street and an ambulance sped towards them, siren blaring, lights flashing. A police patrol car was parked outside one of the houses.

  “That’s the one.”

  They drew up outside and went in through the open door.

  “Who the fuck are you?” a sergeant in uniform asked.

  Stella held her warrant card up to his face and said, “So what the fuck is going on?”

  He blinked. The words ‘Bognor Regis CID’ seemed to have that effect on people. “It’s a domestic. Some bastard beat his wife unconscious. She’s on her way to hospital.”

  “Is he in there?”

  “No, he scarpered. She was in a right old state when she was found. We’re trying to get the facts straight. The people’s name, would you believe, is-“

  “Smith.”

  10

  Very late the same afternoon, Diamond heard from Hen Mallin that Olga Smith had been attacked and was in hospital, and the husband, Michael Smith, was missing.

  “I’ll come at once,” he said.

  “Hold your horses, squire,” she told him. “She’s in intensive care. She took at least one heavy blow to the head. She won’t be talking to anyone until tomorrow at the earliest.”

  “The husband did it, I suppose?”

  “There’s little doubt. His car was seen outside the house between two and three. A white Honda Civic. It was gone when she was found.”

  “He’ll be miles away, then.”

  “Could be in another country. Working at the airport as he does, he’d know the likely standbys. Crawley police are checking the airport car parks.”

  “Now you’re depressing me. Who called the ambulance? The husband?”

  “That’s something I didn’t ask.”

  “It’s got to be checked. What could have triggered this attack, Hen?”

  A heavy sigh came down the line. “You remember I told you about Stella Gregson visiting the school and speaking to the child? Immediately after, she went to see Olga Smith-at my suggestion.”

  “You told me.”

  “And the most likely sequence of events is that Olga phoned her husband at the airport after Stella’s visit and he came straight home in a vile temper and knocked her senseless.”

  “Why?”

  “For blabbing to us. We know he wasn’t willing to help us with the Tysoe murder.”

  “But she didn’t come to us.”

  “Right.”

  He thought for a moment. “So if Stella hadn’t spoken to Olga Smith…”

  “Yes, and I take responsibility,” Hen stressed. “We should have picked him up first. Mistake.”

  “We all make them.”

  “And Olga Smith is fighting for her life because of me.”

  “Hold on,” he said, not liking the confessional tone. “It was her decision to phone him-if that’s what happened. She knows what he’s like. If he’s violent, she knew exactly what to expect, so don’t take on that burden, Hen.”

  “I still cocked up, Peter, and we both know it.”

  He could tell there was no use in pursuing the point. “What about young Haley? I hope she wasn’t home when this was going on.”

  “No, thank God. She has lunch at school. One of the neighbours is looking after her tonight.”

  “Poor little kid. Mother in intensive care and father on the run.” Diamond had no difficulty empathising with children, even though he’d never been a parent. This man Smith couldn’t have given much thought, if any, to his daughter. Callous behaviour would be characteristic of a serial killer, but it was too soon to build anything on that. Plenty of people who are not psychopaths treat their children with indifference. “So what’s being done to find him?”

  “Crawley are handling the search and letting me shadow the SIO. They’ve already held a press conference and issued a photo and announced that Smith is wanted for questioning. The main effort is being put into finding the Honda.”

  “Are they doing enough?”

  “No complaints.”

  “Does he have form?”

  “Apparently not-if Michael Smith is his real name.”

  “How much have you told Crawley Police about this guy’s connection with the Emma Tysoe case?”

  “They’re aware of it. Obviously nothing was said to the press.”

  “I’ll come in the morning, then. Which hospital?”

  “Crawley General.”

  “Would around nine suit you? Main entrance?”

  He went to the incident room to update those of his team who were still at work. And on his way back to Weston that evening he called at the library and borrowed a copy of The Selected Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

  Evenings were hard for him. He no longer thought of the house as his home. He still grieved for Steph more than he would admit to anyone. When the place was silent, he would sometimes speak a few words to her as if she was in the room. If the phone rang, he would snatch it up in the expectation that through some miracle he’d hear her voice. When he was really unable to cope he went for long walks, and even that was no remedy because he’d find himself fantasising that he’d meet her in the street. Non-stop television seemed to be the only way to occupy his mind, except that it could trick him at any time with subversive images that brought pain. Whether reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner would be a better distraction remained to be seen.

  The next morning Hen Mallin sported a yachting cap that gave her a maritime air, perfect for the esplanade at Bognor, but slightly frivolous for a visit to intensive care. She was waiting in the main entrance when Diamond arrived, his legs stiff and shaky from flogging up the motorway faster than he liked. An officer from Crawley, DI Bradley, was also waiting, but unfortunately for all of them the interview with Olga Smith would have to wait. “There’s a definite improvement,” the doctor told them. “She’s conscious now, but I can’t have her subjected to the stress of questions when we’re still looking for symptoms of more serious damage. Why don’t you come back later this afternoon, say around four?”

  Police work is like that.

  Diamond asked about the extent of Olga Smith’s injuries and was informed she’d taken a blow to the back of the skull, her right arm was fractured and there was extensive bruising.

  “A single blow to the head?”

  “Yes, and that could easily have killed her. The cranium is lacerated and there’s a swelling under the scalp.”

  “So she’ll have concussion.”

  “That’s to be expected. It’s highly likely she’ll have no memory of the incident.”

  “You haven’t already asked her what happened?”

  “I’m dealing with the injury, officer, not the cause of it.”

  Thanks a bunch, doc, Diamond thought. He suggested a visit to see where the attack had happened. DI Bradley, the Crawley officer, looked at his watch.

  “Is it far?” Diamond asked.

  “It’s not so much a question of how far it is-” Bradley started to say.

  “It is to me. How far?”

  So the hard-pressed DI Bradley drove ahead, and the house was only five minutes from the hospital. The Smiths lived in a semi on a recently built estate where coachlamps and satellite dishes seemed to be standard fittings. Two laburnum saplings had been planted in the front and the lawn-like most of the others in the street-had the stripes of a recent mowing.

&nbs
p; Bradley had a key and let them in. It seemed the Smiths had a taste for period furniture. A rosewood table and a pair of upholstered chairs stood in the hallway. The SOCOs had been through the previous afternoon, leaving a powdering of zinc over the hard surfaces.

  “She was found in here,” Bradley said, pushing open a door.

  This room was more typical of a young family, with fitted carpet, three-seat sofa and matching armchairs, a wall-unit with TV, sound system and a few books. The only period piece here was a mahogany dining table in the bay of the window, square, with built-in flaps to extend it. The surface had the same fine coating of white dust as the hall furniture.

  “Where, exactly?”

  “I thought that was obvious.” DI Bradley was making it clear this was all extremely tedious for him. He pointed to a bloodstain at the window end of the room, close to the table. It was the size of a beermat, but it blended with the carpet’s busy brown and beige design. Diamond hadn’t noticed it at a first glance.

  “Was any weapon found?” he asked, knowing anything portable would have been taken for forensic testing.

  Bradley shook his head. “If he had any sense, he’ll have taken it with him. Villains are wise to DNA these days.”

  “I was thinking if there isn’t a weapon she could have cracked her head on the corner of the table.” He stepped closer to the table and assessed its position in relation to the bloodstain.

  “Theoretically possible, I suppose.” From his tone, Bradley didn’t think much of the suggestion.

  “If this is where she was lying…”

  “Are you saying it was an accident?” This was fast becoming a spat between Crawley and Bath.

  “If she fell and hit her head, it wouldn’t be the same as if he bashed her with a blunt instrument.”

  Hen said with diplomacy, “I don’t suppose she tripped over the cat. The husband probably took a swing at her.”

  “Maybe,” Diamond conceded without going so far as “probably”.

  “Anyway,” Hen added, “forensics have obviously looked at the table. They’ll find out if she cracked her head on it. Every contact leaves a-”

  “Yes, we know,” Diamond cut her off. “But were there signs of a fight?”