The House Sitter

by Peter Lovesey

  “Any family?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You don’t even know where she was brought up?”

  “I said I can’t remember. We’ll have details of her secondary education on file somewhere.”

  “Is there anyone on the staff who knew her? Anyone she might have confided in?”

  “You could speak to one of the women. Before you do I’d better break the news to them all.”

  “I think they’ve heard by now.”

  “That may be so, but something needs to be said. I’ll make a brief announcement in there.”

  “And I’ll add my piece.”

  Both men knew the object of this exercise was not really to break the news. By now, the entire room had heard it. Some formula had to be found to allow everyone to remain at the party without feeling guilty.

  Back in the room, Chromik called his staff to order and said he had just been given some distressing news. One or two gasps of horror were provided as he imparted it. Without much subtlety, he went straight on to say he believed Emma would have wished the party to continue. There were general murmurs of assent.

  Diamond stepped forward and introduced himself, admitting Dr Tysoe’s death was a mystery and inviting anyone with information to speak to him. He said he wasn’t only interested in the circumstances leading up to her murder, but wanted to find out more about her as a person.

  As soon as he’d finished, a woman lecturer touched his arm. He was pleased. If one person comes forward, others generally follow.

  “I can help with the background stuff. I’m Helen Sparks, and we shared an office.” She spoke with a South London accent. She was black, slim and tall and probably about the same age as Emma had been. Her eyes were lined in green.

  He took her to a large leather sofa at the far end. “Thanks. I appreciate this.”

  “Like you said, I can talk about Emma as a person. I liked her a lot. She had style.”

  “Are we talking fashion here?”

  “Absolutely. For an academic, she was a neat dresser. She knew what was out there and made sure she wore it.”

  “The latest, you mean?”

  “No. The best. The top designer labels.”

  “That must have used up most of her salary.”

  “Emma wasn’t short of money. I think her parents died a few years ago and left her comfortably off.”

  “Did she have a lifestyle to go with it?”

  “Depends what you mean. She was living at a good address in Great Pulteney Street. Drove a dream of a sports car that must have cost a bomb. But she wasn’t one for partying or clubbing. I think she just loved the feeling that she was class. Shoes, hair, make-up, the works. Not showy. Elegant.”

  “To attract?”

  “I don’t think attraction was in her scheme of things. Obviously men were interested, but she didn’t encourage them. Certainly not in the workplace, anyway.”

  “She preferred women?”

  A shake of the head. “If she did, I never got a hint of it. No, she had her own agenda to look a million dollars and that was it.” Helen Sparks laughed heartily. “You’ve seen the rest of this lot. She was in a minority of one.”

  “Two, I would think.”

  She accepted the compliment with a shrug and a wry smile.

  “Where was she from?”

  “Liverpool, originally, but I don’t think she had anyone left up there. Most of her travelling was to help the police.”

  “So she talked about the work she did, the profiling?”

  “Once or twice when she got back from a case she mentioned what it was about. There were some rapes in a Welsh town, and she put together a profile of the man that definitely helped them to make an arrest. She also helped with a horrid case in Yorkshire, of someone maiming farm animals. She said it became fairly obvious which village the man came from. They caught him in the act.”

  “What about the case she was involved in this time? Did she say anything at all?”

  Dr Sparks leaned back, frowning, trying to remember. “One Thursday, she said she wouldn’t be in for a few days, and if I had to cover for her, would I arrange to show the final year students a film we have of juvenile offenders talking about their attitude to crime. I think I asked her where she was going this time and she said she wasn’t allowed to speak about it. I said, ‘Big time, then?’ and she said, ‘Huge, if it’s true.’ ”

  “‘Huge.’ She said that?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “‘If it’s true.’ I wonder what she meant by that.”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “And that was all?”

  “Yes, apart from some messages for students about assignments.”

  “How was she when she told you this? Calm?”

  “Yes, and kind of thoughtful, as if her mind was already on the job she had to do.”

  “Is there anyone else she might have spoken to?”

  “Professor Chromik, I suppose.”

  “He says she didn’t tell him anything,” Diamond said. He hesitated before asking, “Is it just me, or does he treat everyone as if they crawled out from under a stone?”

  She smiled faintly. “It isn’t just you.”

  “Did Emma have enemies?”

  “In the department? Not really. You couldn’t dislike her.”

  “Students?”

  She drew back, surprised by the suggestion.

  He said, “She graded them, presumably. Her marking might affect the class of degree they got, right?”

  “It’s not so simple as that. They’re being assessed all the time by different people.”

  “But one of them could hold a grudge against a member of staff if he felt he was being consistently undervalued?”

  “Theoretically, but I don’t think they’d resort to murder.”

  Diamond disagreed, and explained why. “Some students buckle under the pressure. Look at the suicide rate in universities.”

  “That’s another matter,” Helen Sparks said sharply. “I wouldn’t accept a link with murder, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “But if someone felt their problems were inflicted by one of the staff, the anger might be focused there, instead of internally.”

  “Ho-hum.”

  “What do you mean-ho-hum?”

  “These are just assertions,” she said. “You don’t have any data base to support them.”

  “There won’t be data. Murder is an extreme act.”

  “That’s no reason to be suspicious of students.”

  “Helen, I have to be suspicious of everyone.”

  He asked her to introduce him to more of her colleagues, and he met three others on the staff. All professed to having been on good terms with the saintly Emma. It was obvious no one would admit to being on bad terms with her. Maybe he should have delayed the questions until they’d all had a few more drinks.

  He left the party disappointed, feeling he’d not learned much from the stroppy professor and his uncritical staff.

  * * *

  “The key to this may well be the case she was working on,” he told the small team he’d assembled. They were Keith Halliwell, his main support these days; John Leaman, the young sergeant he’d come to value in the case of the Frankenstein vault; and the rookie, Ingeborg Smith, chisel-sharp and chirpy. “The word that was used about it was ‘huge’. What I don’t understand is the need for secrecy.”

  “Maybe someone is knocking off members of MI6,” Leaman said, not entirely joking.

  “Or the royals-and no one is being told,” Ingeborg said.

  “The corgis?” Halliwell said.

  “Had your fun?” Diamond said with a sniff. “Anyone got any more suggestions? Whatever she was asked to do, we need to find out. As I understand it, profilers work with serial cases. There can’t be that many under investigation. I want you to start ferreting, Keith.”

  “Using HOLMES?”

  Diamond gave him a glare.


  “The computer, guv.”

  “Fine. By all means.” In time, he’d remembered HOLMES was one of those acronyms he found so hard to take seriously: Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. In theory it collated information on similar serious crimes. Diamond’s objection to HOLMES was that as soon as the computer came up with cases in different authorities, someone of Assistant Chief Constable rank was appointed to coordinate the efforts of the various SIOs. One more infliction. “But ask around as well. Down in Bognor they claim there aren’t any serial crimes under investigation.”

  “If it’s hush-hush…”

  “Exactly.”

  “Are they up to this-the Bognor lot?” Halliwell asked.

  “I think so. Hen Mallin, the SIO, has a grasp of what’s going on, and there’s a bright young woman DS helping her. They’re having trouble finding genuine witnesses. That’s the main problem.”

  “From a crowded beach?” Ingeborg said in surprise.

  “They put out a TV appeal and had plenty of uptake, but not one was any use. The only person they can definitely link to the case is the fellow who found the body, and he’s done the disappearing act.”

  “He has to be a suspect, then.”

  “He is. Said his name was Smith.”

  “That’s suspicious in itself,” Leaman said.

  Ingeborg’s big eyes flashed fiercely. “Thank you for that.”

  Diamond said, “Bognor police won’t make much headway unless we turn up something definite on Emma Tysoe. I didn’t get much from her workmates.”

  “Colleagues,” Ingeborg murmured.

  “You went to the home address?”

  “Great Pulteney Street. There’s a big pile of mail I brought back, most of it junk, of course. A couple of holiday postcards. A short letter from her sister in South Africa saying the husband went into hospital. Various bills.”

  “Bank statements?”

  “Yes. She has a current account with about fifteen hundred in credit, and two hundred grand on deposit.”

  “A lady of means. Did you get into the flat?”

  She nodded. “Eventually. She has one of those code-operated locks on her front door. It’s the garden flat, amazingly tidy. Living room, bedroom, study and bathroom. The main room is tastefully furnished in pale blue and yellow.”

  “We don’t need the colour schemes,” Diamond said. “Did you find anything that would tell us what she was up to in recent weeks? Diary, calendar, phone pad?”

  “We looked, of course. I got the impression she’s organised. There’s not much lying around.”

  “In other words, you didn’t find anything.”

  He was confident Ingeborg had made a thorough search.

  She said, “There’s an answerphone and I brought back the cassette. I’ve listened to it twice over, and I really believe there’s nothing of interest on it.”

  “Address book?”

  “She must have taken it with her.”

  “Computer, then?”

  “There’s one in the office, and she had a laptop as well, because we found the user’s guide. I didn’t attempt to look at the computer. I arranged for Clive to collect it.”

  Clive was the whizzkid who handled all computer queries at the Bath nick. He would go through the files and extract anything of importance. Presumably Emma had written reports on previous cases. With luck, there might be e-mail correspondence about the new investigation.

  “Is that it, then?” he asked Ingeborg.

  “She drives a sports car, dark green.”

  “Registration? Make? Have you checked with the PNC?”

  The colour came to Ingeborg’s cheeks. “Bognor are onto it. They expect to trace it down there.”

  “I don’t mind who checks so long as we’re informed. What else have you got?”

  “She spends a lot on clothes. And she must be interested in golf. There was a photo of some golfer next to the computer, and it was inscribed to her. Do you play golf, guv?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you mob. It’s the high-flyers’ game, isn’t it? I’d be wearing white gloves and taking the salute at Hendon.”

  He summed up by handing out duties. Ingeborg was to get onto Clive for a speedy report on the contents of the computer. She would also make contact with the sister in South Africa. Leaman would set up a mini-incident room. Halliwell would see what HOLMES could deliver on serial crimes in the coastal counties of Sussex and Hampshire.

  Diamond himself would get onto the man at Bramshill who kept the list of profilers. Someone at the top knew what Emma Tysoe had been up to.

  8

  The National Police Staff College at Bramshill is in Hampshire, an easy run from Bath along the M4 to junction 11, but alien territory for Peter Diamond. His eyes glazed over at the name of the place. For years he’d ducked his head whenever anyone mentioned the Bramshill refresher course for senior officers. He pictured himself like Gulliver in Lilliput, supine and tied down by little men who talked another language. To find him driving there of his own free will was proof of his commitment to the Emma Tysoe murder case.

  After reporting to an armed officer at the battlemented gatehouse, he was told to drive up to the house. Facing him at the end of the long, straight avenue was a building that made the word “house” seem inadequate, for this was one of the stately homes of England, a Jacobean mansion with a south front that in its time had drawn gasps of awe from hardened policemen of all ranks. The brick facade rose three storeys, dominated by a huge semi-circular oriel window, mullioned and double-transomed, above a triple-bayed loggia. At each side were three tiers of pilasters. Vast side wings, also triple-bayed, projected on either end.

  Mindful of his parking error at the golf club, he picked a bay well away from the main entrance and walked back, pausing only to buff his toecaps on the backs of his trousers. His appointment was with a civilian whose name on the phone had sounded like Hidden Camera. It turned out to be Haydn Cameron. But cameras hidden and visible are at Bramshill in plenty. This academy for top policemen is more secure than the average prison. Someone had watched him polish his shoes.

  Inside, he gave his name and was directed to the National Crime Faculty. It sounds like a college for crooks, he thought. What names these desk detectives dream up. He stepped through the Great Hall, panelled from floor to ceiling, into a waiting area where, if he felt so inclined, he could leaf through the latest Police Review, or The Times. Nothing so subversive as the Guardian.

  His spirits improved when a bright-eyed young woman with flame-coloured hair came in, asked him his name and invited him upstairs, that is, up the exquisitely carved stairs. On the way she told him that the staircase had been built in the reign of Charles II, adding with a bit of a giggle that it didn’t belong to Bramshill. It had been plundered from some other mansion during the nineteenth century. He smiled at that. She was doing her best to put him at ease, and a pleasing thought crossed his mind. “Your name isn’t Heidi, by any chance?”

  She looked puzzled and shook her head.

  “I thought I might have misheard it,” he said. “Heidi Cameron?”

  “Sorry. No.”

  “Or is Haydn one of these unisex names?”

  She was highly amused. “Now I know what you’re on about, and you’ve got to be joking. I’m not going to interview you. I’m just the gofer here.”

  Wishful thinking. He was shown into the office of an overweight, middle-aged man with a black eye-patch and hair tinted boot-polish brown. The charming gofer went. And closed the door on them.

  “What’s it like out there?” the real Haydn Cameron asked, as if he never left the office.

  “Not so bad,” Diamond answered.

  “Good journey?”

  He tried an ice-breaker. “The last part was the best.”

  “Oh?”

  “Following the young lady upstairs.”

  It hadn’t broken the ice here. “I don’t have a great deal of time, superintendent.” Camero
n spoke Diamond’s rank as if it was an insult. Probably was, in this place.

  “Let’s get to it, then.”

  He got a sharp look for that. What did the man expect? Yes, sir, no, sir? He was just a civilian.

  “We run regular courses on how to conduct murder enquiries for SIOs such as yourself. According to my records you haven’t attended one.”

  The old blood pressure rose several notches and this wasn’t a good moment to have a coronary. Calm down and speak to the pompous prat in his own language, he told himself. “No, I haven’t found a window of opportunity yet.”

  That was met with a glare. “All the courses are oversubscribed,” Cameron said with pride.

  “That could be why you haven’t seen me, then.”

  “You could go on the waiting list.”

  There was a dangerous lack of contact here. Diamond tried not to curl his lip. “The list that interests me is the approved list of offender profilers.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was told you deal with it. Each request for assistance goes through your office.”

  Everyone in the police knew why the list was centrally controlled. After psychological offender profiling burst into the headlines in January 1988 following the conviction of John Duffy, the serial rapist and killer, forces up and down the country had turned to psychologists for help in tracking down serial offenders. Not all of the so-called experts were up to the challenge. A top-level decision had been made to oversee the use of profilers.

  Personally, Diamond had never consulted a profiler. This wasn’t from any prejudice, but simply because the cases he’d investigated weren’t serial crimes in the usual sense of the term.

  “But I understood from your call,” Cameron said, “that this isn’t a routine request.”

  “Right,” Diamond responded. “It’s about the murder of one of the profilers on your list, Dr Emma Tysoe.”

  “Which is why I made an exception and agreed to meet you. We’re not unaware of the case.”

  “Did you meet her personally?”

  “Yes, several times,” Cameron said. “Everyone we approve has been vetted.” He glanced at his notes. “Dr Tysoe has been on the list since February nineteen ninety-nine. She worked on five inquiries.”