Murder on the Short List

by Peter Lovesey

He frowned as if straining to hear some distant sound.

  “Just to get fresh air and exercise,” I said. “You live in a nice area. The gardens are full of flowers in spring and summer. I think you do get out quite a bit.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Then I dare say you’ve met some of your neighbours, the people along Steven Street, when they’re outside cleaning their cars, doing gardening or walking the dog. Did you ever speak to the old couple at number twenty-nine?”

  He started swaying back and forth in the chair. “I might have.”

  “They have a little toy dog, a Chihuahua. They’re very attached to it, I understand.”

  “Don’t like them,” Jon said, still swaying.

  “Why’s that? Something they did?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I think you do. Maybe they remind you of some people you knew once.”

  He was silent, but the rocking became more agitated. Momentarily his chin lifted from his chest and his face was visible. Fear was written large there.

  “Could this old couple have brought to mind those foster parents you told me about in a previous session, when we discussed your childhood, the people who locked you in the cupboard under the stairs?”

  He moaned a little.

  “They had a small dog, didn’t they?”

  He covered his eyes and said, “Don’t.”

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll talk about something else.”

  “You’ll get thrown out of the union, showing me that,” Morgan said. “Isn’t there such a thing as patient confidentiality?”

  “In the first place, I don’t belong to a union,” I said, “and in the second I’m trying to act in the best interests of all concerned.”

  “Thinking he could kill again, are you?”

  “Who are we talking about here?” I asked.

  “The second man. Jon. He seems to have a thing about old people. He’s obviously very depressed.”

  “That’s his usual state. It doesn’t make him a killer. I wanted you to look at the interview before you jump to a conclusion about Nathan, the other man.”

  “Nathan isn’t depressed, that’s for sure.”

  “Agreed. He has a more buoyant personality than Jon. Did you notice the body language? Nathan sits forward, makes eye contact, while Jon looks down all the time. You don’t see much of his face.”

  “That stuff about the foster parents locking him in the cupboard. Is that true?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sure of it. I’d be confident of anything Jon tells me. He doesn’t give out much, but you can rely on him. With Nathan I’m never sure. He has a fertile imagination and he wants to communicate. He’s trying all the time to make his experiences interesting.”

  “Falling into the pond, you mean? Did you believe that?”

  “It’s not impossible. It would explain the change of clothes.”

  “I was sure he was talking bollocks but now that you’ve shown me this other man I’m less confident. I’d like to question Jon myself.”

  “That won’t be possible,” I said.

  He reddened. “It’s a bit bloody late to put up the shutters. I’ve got my job to do and no one’s going to stand in my way.”

  “Before you get heavy with me, inspector, let me run a section of the second interview again. I’m going to turn off the sound and I want you to look closely at Jon. There’s a moment when he sways back and the light catches his face.”

  I rewound the tape and let it play again, fast forwarding until I found the piece I wanted, the moment I’d mentioned the old couple and Jon had started his swaying, a sure indicator of stress. “There.” I used the freeze-frame function.

  Jon’s face was not quite in focus but there was enough to make him recognizable.

  “Christ Almighty,” Morgan said. “It’s the same guy. It’s Nathan.”

  I let the discovery sink in.

  “Am I right?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Then what the hell is going on?”

  “This may be hard for you to accept. Nathan and Jon are two distinct identities contained in the same individual, a condition we know as Dissociative Identity Disorder. It used to be known as Multiple Personality Disorder, but we’ve moved on in our understanding. These so-called personalities are fragments of the same identity rather than self-contained characters. Jon is the primary identity, passive and repressed. Nathan is an alter ego, extrovert, cheerful and inventive.”

  “I’ve heard of this,” Morgan said. “It’s like being possessed by different people. I saw a film once.”

  “Exactly. Fertile material for Hollywood, but no entertainment at all if you happen to suffer with it. The disturbance is real and frightening. A subject can take on any number of personality states, each with its own self-image and identity. The identities act as if they have no connection with each other. My job is to deconstruct them and ultimately unite them into one individual. Jon and Nathan will become Jonathan.”

  “Neat.”

  “It may sound neat, but it’s a long process.”

  “It’s neat for me,” he said. “I wasn’t sure which of the two guys is the killer. Now I know there’s only one of them, I’ve got him, whatever he calls himself.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” I said.

  He shot me a foul look.

  “The therapy requires me to find points of contact between the alter-personalities. When you came to me with this double murder, I could see how disturbing it would be for Jon. He carries most of the guilt. But this investigation of yours could be a helpful disturbance. It goes right back to the trauma that I think was the trigger for this condition, his ill-treatment at the hands of foster-parents who happened to own a dog they pampered and preferred to the child.”

  “My heart bleeds,” Morgan said, “but I have a job to do and two people are dead.”

  “So you tell me. Jon thinks he may have murdered them, but he didn’t.”

  “Come off it,” he said.

  “Listen, please. Nathan’s story was true. He really did have that experience with the balloon and the little dog and falling in the pond. For him – as the more positive of the identities – it was one more entertaining experience to relate. But for Jon, who experienced it also, it was disturbing, raising memories of the couple who fostered him and abused him. He felt quite differently, murderous even.”

  “Hold on,” Morgan said. “Are you trying to tell me the murders never happened?”

  “They happened in the mind of Jon and they are as real to him as if he cut those old people’s throats himself. But I promise you the old couple are alive and well. I went to Steven Street at lunch time and spoke to them. They confirmed what Nathan told me.”

  “I don’t get this. I’m thinking You’re nuts as well.”

  “But it’s important that you do get it,” I told him. “There’s a third identity at work here. It acts as a kind of conscience, vengeful, controlling and ready to condemn. It, too, is convinced the murders took place and have to be investigated. Recognizing this is the first step towards integration. Do me a favour and have another look at Jon’s face. It’s still on the screen.”

  He gave an impatient sigh and glanced at the image.

  “Now look at this, inspector.”

  I handed him a mirror.

  WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

  “There is a window in your life. All you have to do is open it and let the sunshine in.”

  Nikki listened, fascinated. She’d come here expecting a con, but the man spoke like a prophet. He had his audience enthralled. He was a brilliant speaker. Looks, perfect grooming, charisma. He had it all.

  “How many times have I heard someone say, ‘You should have been here yesterday. It was glorious’?” He smiled. “A comment on our English weather, but it sums up our attitude to life. You should have been here yesterday. My friends, forget about yesterday. We are here today. Seize the day. Open that window and let the sunshine in.”
r />   The applause was wild. He’d brought them to a pitch of excitement. And this wasn’t evangelism. It was about being effective in business. The setting was Lucknam Park in Wiltshire, where the government held its think-tank sessions. Companies had paid big bucks to send their upcoming executives here. Lives were being changed for ever. Not least, Nikki’s.

  This was her window of opportunity. She’d been sent here for the weekend by the theatrical agency to help with the role play. Inspired by what she had heard, she was about to act a role of her own. She stepped to the front, scythed a path through the admirers and placed a hand over his arm. “If you don’t mind, Julian, there’s someone you should meet upstairs, in your suite.” To his adoring fans she said, “He’ll be back, I promise.”

  It worked. In the lift, he said, “Who is it?”

  “Me.”

  His amazing blue eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve seized the day.”

  The moment he laughed, she knew she’d succeeded. He was still high on the reception he’d got. When they entered the suite, she put the do not disturb sign over the doorknob. The sex was sensational.

  They had a weekend in Paris and a Concorde trip to New York. Nikki found herself moving in circles she’d never experienced before. Royal Ascot. Henley. Her drama school training came in useful.

  They married in the church in rural Dorset where her parents lived. She arrived with Daddy in a pony and trap and after the reception in Dorchester’s best hotel, she and Julian were driven to the airport in a stretch limo. The honeymoon was in Bermuda. Julian paid for almost everything. Daddy couldn’t have managed to spend on that scale.

  “It’s no problem,” Julian said. “I’m ridiculously well off. Well, we are now.”

  “You deserve to be, my darling,” Nikki said. “You’ve brought sunshine into so many lives.”

  They bought a huge plot of land in Oxfordshire and had their house built to Julian’s design. As well as the usual bedrooms and reception rooms, it had an office suite, gym, games room and two pools, indoors and out. A tennis court, stables and landscaped garden. “I don’t want you ever to be bored,” Julian said. “There are times when I’ll be away.”

  Nikki was not bored. True, she’d given up her acting to devote more time to homemaking, but she could not have managed both. When Julian was at home, he was forever finding new windows of opportunity, days to seize. His energy never flagged. He got up at five-thirty and swam a mile before breakfast and made sure she was up by seven. Even in her drama school days she hadn’t risen that early. Actors work to a different pattern.

  He had each day worked out. “We’ll plant the new rockery this morning and clear the leaves out of the pool. This afternoon I’ll need your help fitting the curtains in the fourth bedroom. This evening the Mountnessings are coming for dinner and I want to prepare an Italian meal, so we’ll need to fit in some shopping.”

  Nikki suggested more than once that most of these jobs could be done by staff. They could afford to get people in.

  “That goes against my principles,” Julian said. “There’s immense satisfaction in doing the jobs ourselves.”

  “One day I’d like to sit by the pool we keep so clean,” she said.

  “Doing what, my love?”

  “Just sitting – or better still, lying.”

  He laughed. He thought she was joking.

  In bed, he showed no sign of exhaustion. Nikki, twelve years younger than he, was finding it a trial to match this energy.

  At such a pace, it didn’t take long for the house to be in perfect shape, all the curtains and carpets fitted, the pictures hung. Nikki had looked forward to some time to herself when the jobs were done, but she hadn’t reckoned on maintenance.

  “Maintenance?”

  “Keeping it up to the mark,” Julian explained. “We don’t let the grass grow under our feet.”

  In the middle of their love-making the same night, the thought occurred to her that he regarded this, too, as maintenance. From that moment, the magic went out of their marriage.

  What a relief when he went to America for a week on a lecture tour. He left her a maintenance list, but she ignored it and lounged by the pool every day watching the leaves settle on the surface and sink to the bottom.

  When he returned he was as energised as ever. Jet-lag was unknown to Julian’s metabolism. “So much to attend to,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you’d ignored that list I gave you.”

  He was as active as usual in bed. And up before five next morning. He’d heard some house martins building a nest under the eaves above the bedroom window. They made an appalling mess if you didn’t do something about it.

  When Nikki drew back the bedroom curtain she saw his suntanned legs right outside. He’d brought out his lightweight aluminium ladder. His feet, in gleaming white trainers and socks, were on one of the highest rungs. She had to push extra hard to open the window and force the ladder backwards, but she succeeded. And let the sunshine in.

  THE CASE OF THE DEAD WAIT

  A Christmas at home wasn’t ever in Laura Thyme’s plans. Where was home? She’d hurled a large stone through the front window of her last one. Her two-timing cradle-snatcher of a husband Nick had blighted all the nice memories of that place. She tried to think of herself these days as a free spirit. Tried, because deep inside she hadn’t entirely got the man out of her system. He still had the capacity to hurt.

  Well, she was sure of one thing. She wouldn’t dump herself on either of her grown-up children. They would have plans of their own, and quite right, too. If Matthew or Helena looked forward to pulling anything on Christmas Day it wasn’t a cracker with their mum. They really were free spirits, long past the stage when Laura made it her business to know who they were sleeping with.

  As for Rosemary – her gardening oppo, Dr Rosemary Boxer, the ex-academic with the happy knack of finding wealthy clients with ailing plants – she’d be the perfect company for a festive lunch, but she had an elderly mum living alone. Last weekend Rosemary had called to wish Laura a merrier time than she was expecting for herself.

  The result: Laura was house-sitting.

  She was alone in The Withers, a large Jacobean house in Wiltshire. Two of her oldest and richest friends, Jane and Michael Eadington, were having three weeks in the Canaries. A call at the end of November had set it up. “We’re in such trouble, Laura. You know we’ve got these silly orchids that are Mike’s latest hobby? Our daughter Maeve – the model – was going to look after them and now she’s got a chance to do a series of shows with Calvin Klein in New York. Could you, would you, will you, please, be our fairy godmother?”

  Sorted.

  Even after discovering that the house had another resident – Wilbur, the rescue greyhound.

  She’d driven the Land Rover down there on Christmas Eve. For all its mechanical uncertainties the ancient four by four was ideal transport for the country. She overheated only once, and the car didn’t overheat at all. She was just in time to see the Eadingtons off. A quick introduction to the orchids, six trays of them in the conservatory under banks of fluorescent tubing. Hurried instructions about the central heating, persuading Wilbur to wear a coat for winter walks and what to do in a power failure. Firm orders not to be in the least concerned if anything broke or went wrong. “It’s all replaceable, darling. We’re just so pleased to have you here. Treat it like your own home. Raid the freezer, watch the DVDs, drink the wine in the cellar, have an orgy if you want.”

  For a few minutes after they’d driven up the lane Laura wondered if she’d done the right thing. The house seemed bigger than she remembered from the last visit. She’d never once set foot upstairs. The orchids were in flower, but didn’t look pleased at being handed over to her care. Winter was supposed to be the flowering season, but some of them were wilting. Mike had talked about misting and humidity levels and feeding. She didn’t want any casualties. She returned to the vast space the Eading
tons used as the living room.

  A sudden movement at the window gave her a wicked shock. The greyhound had emerged from behind the curtain, where he’d been sitting on the sill. Yes, a greyhound on a window sill. It was that kind of room, that kind of window, that kind of curtain. “I’m in charge now, Wilbur,” she told him, wagging a finger, “and if the two of us are going to survive you’d better not play any more tricks like that.”

  Treat the place like your home, they’d said, so she took out her Christmas cards and started setting them up. The cards triggered mixed feelings. It was good to hear from old friends, but it could hurt when the envelopes came addressed to Nick and Laura with messages along the lines of “How are you two getting along? Give us a call and let’s all meet up in 2005.”

  Wilbur jumped back on his sill and knocked down most of the cards.

  “Making some kind of point, are we?” Laura said. But she moved them to the grand piano.

  When the doorbell rang a moment later, the rest of the cards dropped out of her hand. It was a chiming bell and her charming friends had set it to the opening bar of God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, which can be pretty startling when you don’t expect it. Wilbur barked, so she had to shut him in the conservatory first.

  A tall – six foot tall, at least – thin-faced woman with deep-set, accusing eyes was on the doorstep with a plate covered with a cloth. “And who the devil are you?” she said.

  Laura did her best to explain, but it didn’t make much impact.

  “Where’s young Maeve? She ought to be looking after the house,” the woman said.

  “Yes, but she’s dashed off to New York. A last minute change of plans.”

  “What do I do with these, then? I made them for the family.” She lifted the cloth briefly to reveal a batch of underdone mince pies.

  “I don’t know,” Laura said, adding with tact, “They smell delicious. I’m sorry, but you didn’t say who you are.”

  “Gertrude Appleton from next door. We always exchange mince pies at Yuletide. Have you made yours?”

  “I just arrived.”

  That didn’t count with Gertrude Appleton. She clicked her tongue and looked ready to stamp her foot as well. “I must have one of yours, or I’ll get bad luck for a year.”