The House Sitter

by Peter Lovesey

  “I heard she was good at it.”

  “Exceptionally good.”

  “Do you mind telling me how it works? When an SIO asks you to recommend someone, do you look at your list and choose a name?”

  “It isn’t just a matter of seeing who is available,” Cameron said acidly. “The matching of the profiler to the case is far from simple. All kinds of criteria come into play.”

  “Such as where they live?”

  Not a good suggestion. Diamond got a basilisk stare from the seeing eye. “That’s of trifling importance. You really ought to do the course.”

  This was not a comfortable interview. “You mentioned all kinds of criteria,” Diamond prompted him.

  Cameron braced himself with a wriggle of the shoulders and a tilt of the chin and started again. “The term psychological offender profiler is a useful label, but I have to point out that it includes several different types of expert. There are currently twenty-six on my list-twenty-five, now, unfortunately-and if you asked each of them to provide a job description you’d get twenty-five different answers. Some stress the statistical element and others the clinical. There are those who like to be detached about the whole business and those who involve themselves closely with the police team. Those who use strict scientific methodology and those who are more intuitive.”

  “How did you class Emma Tysoe?”

  “She was one of the latter.”

  “Intuitive?”

  Cameron sighed and rolled the eye. “I thought you’d jump on that word. It gives the impression of guesswork.”

  “I didn’t take it that way.”

  A better response, it seemed. A note of conciliation, if not approval, crept into the conversation. “All right. She was a psychologist, as you know, not a psychiatrist, not medically trained. Her approach was more theoretical than hands-on. But it was based on a remarkable understanding of the criminal mind. I’ve heard from officers who worked with her that she somehow immersed herself in the thinking of the offender and predicted what would happen next, and very often where, and when.”

  “That’s the intuitive part?”

  “Yes, but only as a result of minute observation of all the data from the previous crimes. To give you an example, she assisted on a case of serial rape in North Wales. The attacks were spread over a long period, about six or seven years, and the local force were getting nowhere. Emma Tysoe was brought in, read the statements, visited the scenes, spoke to all of the victims, including several who were stalked but not attacked. By analysing the data-and interpreting the behaviour of the rapist- she decided he had spent most of his youth in custody or institutions and lived with someone of his own sex who dominated him-his elder brother, as it turned out. She said because of the way he picked his victims it was clear he was actually in awe of women. He would spend weeks or months stalking them, but not in a threatening way, and only rarely choosing to attack them.”

  “More like a Peeping Tom?”

  “Not at all.”

  Another wrong note.

  “He was on the lookout for certain women who appeared even more submissive than he was. Dr Tysoe produced her findings, estimated the perpetrator’s age, intelligence and the type of work he would do, and it led them to a man they’d disregarded much earlier, a farm worker. Broken home, fostering, youth custody, just as she’d said. On his release he’d ended up living with the bullying brother. He confessed straight away. That’s only one example.”

  “So Emma got to be one of your star performers.”

  The staring eye told Diamond he still hadn’t clicked with this mandarin. “Please. This isn’t show business. Her name came up more frequently after that. Word travels from one authority to another.”

  “Do you, personally, deal with all the requests?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Her latest assignment?”

  “That’s confidential, also.”

  He couldn’t take much more of this evasion. “I’m investigating a murder, Mr Cameron. I’m entitled to some answers.”

  “Correction. Bognor Police are handling the investigation, not you. Chief Inspector Mallin is the SIO.” Cameron was well briefed.

  “But the victim lived on my patch. In that sense it’s a joint enquiry.”

  “Does she know you’re here?”

  “Hen Mallin? She will, if I manage to chip out any information at all.”

  “In other words, you’re doing this off your own bat,” Cameron said. “That’s the way you work, I’m told. Bull at a gate.”

  Better a bull at a gate than a dog in a manger, Diamond thought, and wisely kept it to himself. Instead, he said with so much tact it was painful, “You obviously have a high regard for Dr Tysoe’s work as a profiler. Why not help us find her murderer?”

  “By passing on classified information?”

  “Sensitive, is it?”

  “We run this service on the need to know principle. Our judgement is that you don’t need to know.”

  Great, he thought. More malpractice and corruption is perpetrated under the banner of the need to know principle than in the mafia. “So I’ve come all this way for nothing.”

  Cameron didn’t answer. He looked at the ceiling with the air of a bored host waiting for the last guest to leave.

  “If Hen Mallin came, would you do business with her?”

  “We don’t ‘do business’.”

  “Would you tell her any more than you’ve told me?”

  “No-for the same reason.”

  All this stonewalling had incensed Diamond. He couldn’t pull his punches any longer. “In the real world, Mr Cameron, I’d have you for obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty.”

  “I’m sure you’d try, superintendent.”

  “She was one of your experts. Don’t you give a toss what happened to her?”

  That touched a raw nerve. “Of course we care, damn it! There’s no evidence of a link between her murder and the case she was advising on.”

  “The evidence isn’t there because it hasn’t been investigated.”

  “The incidents are unrelated.”

  “How can you be so sure? She was strangled for no apparent reason.”

  “Have you enquired into her personal life?” Cameron asked in an unsubtle shifting of the ground.

  “There isn’t much to speak of.”

  “Her work, then? The university?”

  “We’re looking at it, of course. The problem is that we have this black hole-the last ten days of her life when we don’t know what she was doing, who she was meeting, where she was based, even. Her body turns up on a beach in Sussex. That’s it. How can we conduct a murder enquiry without knowing any of these things?”

  Cameron didn’t move a muscle.

  “You might as well tell me,” Diamond persisted. “You’ve obviously been looking at my personal file, so you’ll know I’m a stubborn cuss.”

  “Anyone can see that.”

  “Well, then?”

  Cameron shook his head and sighed.

  Sensing a small advantage, Diamond weighed in with another attempt. “If I don’t get answers from you today, I’ll start rooting for them.”

  No response.

  “It’s my job.”

  And no response to that, either.

  “How else can I find the truth? I’ll beetle away until I get there. It could be far more damaging than finding out from you today.”

  He seemed to have made some impact at last, because Cameron said, “Sit there, will you? I have to speak to someone.” He got up and left the room.

  Trying not to be over-encouraged, Diamond amused himself swaying back in the chair, looking for the gleam of a camera lens in the panelled walls. He was sure this interview would be kept for training purposes. How to deal with dickheads from the sticks.

  Five minutes at least passed before Cameron returned and invited Diamond to go with him. He was out of that chair like a game-show volunteer. They e
ntered the south-east wing, the business end of the house, by way of a magnificent drawing room with a marble chimneypiece and tapestries of classical scenes, and so into the library, a place of quite different proportions, which in the heyday of the house must have been the Long Gallery where the inmates and their guests promenaded. He was taken through a recessed, almost hidden door into a low-ceilinged office where a small man with a shock of white hair stood looking at a computer screen. Whatever was on the screen was more gripping than his visitors, because he didn’t give them a glance.

  Cameron stated Diamond’s rank and name without any attempt at a two-way introduction. The need to know principle in action again. Obviously this was someone pretty high in the Bramshill pecking order. Diamond privately dubbed him the Big White Chief.

  Closing the door after him, Cameron left the room, which was a relief.

  Still without turning from the screen, the Big White Chief said, as if he were continuing the conversation in Cameron’s office, “This black hole of which you spoke, these missing days in Dr Tysoe’s life.”

  This came across as a definition of what was to be discussed, not a question, so Diamond said nothing.

  It was the right thing to do. “If I fill in some detail for you, you’ll have to treat it as top secret.”

  Progress at last. “Understood.”

  “You’re not known for your discretion, Mr Diamond.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  “No, it’s a matter of record. What makes you think you can keep your mouth shut this time?”

  “If you don’t tell me what it’s about, how can I answer that?”

  The Big White Chief turned, unable any longer to resist a look at this visitor, and Diamond was glad to see he possessed two eyes and there was a spark of humanity, if not a twinkle, in each of them. He had a pencil-thin moustache of the sort military men, and few others, cultivate. “There you go again, shooting off at the mouth. All right, you have a point. You may be a loose cannon, Diamond, but you hit the target more often than most. I’ll take you on your own terms, and I may regret it. Let’s hope not. The matter Emma Tysoe was engaged in is highly sensitive. If I tell you about it, you become one of a very small group who are privy to this knowledge.”

  “I’m OK with that.”

  “You may be OK with it, but is it safe with you?”

  Diamond didn’t dignify the question with a response.

  “All right. Sit down.” The little man turned back to his computer, switched to a screensaver and swung his chair right round to face Diamond. He assessed him with a penetrating look, as if still reluctant to go on. “You won’t have heard about this. On June the fourteenth, a man was murdered in the grounds of his house-a rather fine house-in Sussex. Nothing was taken. There was a wallet in his pocket containing just over three hundred pounds and his credit cards. The house was open. It was hung with valuable paintings by Michael Ayrton, John Piper and others, and there are cabinets of fine china and pottery. Everything was left intact.”

  “Except the owner.”

  “Yes. He was shot through the head.”

  “What with?”

  “A bolt from a crossbow.”

  “From a what?”

  “Crossbow.”

  Diamond took this in slowly. “Different.”

  “But effective.”

  “It’s a medieval weapon.”

  “With modern refinements. They fit them with telescopic sights these days. Still used in sport for shooting at targets. And killing wild animals. Great power in the string, which isn’t string at all, in fact. It’s steel. But you don’t have to be strong in the arm.”

  “There can’t be many around.”

  “Actually, more than we ever imagined.”

  “You’d still need to be an expert.”

  “It’s a surprisingly simple weapon to use.”

  “Strange choice, though,” Diamond said. “What kind of person uses a crossbow as a murder weapon?”

  “This is where the profiler comes in.”

  “Emma Tysoe?”

  “Yes. She was consulted as soon as it was clear that an early arrest was unlikely. She was the obvious choice. Her reputation here was second to none.”

  “And was she helpful?”

  “We thought she could be. She seemed confident. But it all takes time. They don’t like to be rushed.”

  Diamond didn’t need telling. The so-called scientists in the crime field seem to take a professional pride in delaying their results. Only the beleaguered policemen have any sense of urgency.

  “So did she give you any opinion at all?”

  “A few thoughts at the scene, though she stressed she didn’t like giving off-the-cuff opinions. What she said was pretty obvious, really. The killer was methodical, unemotional and self-confident to the point of arrogance. He, or she-because a woman could use a crossbow just as well as a man-had an agenda, and expected to carry it out.”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  “There’s more. I’ll tell you presently.”

  Tiresome, but the promise was there, so Diamond didn’t press him. “You said the victim was in the grounds of his house. Was he alone?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “I mean was anyone there apart from the victim and the killer?”

  “We know of no one else. It was a fine evening. He was sitting on a wooden seat watching the sunset. That’s the presumption, anyway. He liked to do this.”

  “Literally a sitting target.”

  “Yes. Plenty of bushes within range as well.”

  “When was he found?”

  “The next morning, about eight. He had a manservant who lived out.”

  “Who came under suspicion, no doubt?”

  “Briefly. But he’s in the clear. A good alibi. He was on a pub quiz team that night. They met early to drive to another village and spent the whole evening there.”

  “His special subject didn’t happen to be archery?”

  The Big White Chief wasn’t amused. “If you’ll allow me to continue, I’ll give you the salient facts. The police arrived at eight twenty the next morning, and everything was done correctly. Jimmy Barneston, a young Sussex detective who has handled several big investigations, took charge. He was unable to find any obvious motive. The victim was a film and TV director, a highly successful one with a number of big successes to his name. Well, I’ll stop talking about him in the abstract. It’s Axel Summers.”

  Diamond was no film buff, but he knew the name and he could picture the face. Summers had been at the top of his profession for over twenty years. He was well known for appearances on radio and television, a witty, confident speaker with a fund of stories about the film world. He was much in demand for chat shows.

  “And they decided not to go public on this?”

  “Not yet. I’ll tell you why in a moment. Summers was in the middle of filming a major project for Channel Four, with a top American actor in the title role.”

  “Which is…?”

  “The Ancient Mariner.”

  “The poem?”

  “Yes. You wouldn’t think a poem could be turned into a feature-length film, but, as you probably know, the Mariner is a powerful story running to many verses and scenes. Summers decided it would cater very well to the current appetite for fantasy and myth and persuaded the backers to invest over fifteen million.”

  “Is that big budget?”

  “By UK standards, yes. There’s a hefty financial input from industry. They get their corporate message on the credits and in the commercial breaks-that is, if the film isn’t blown out of the water by this tragedy. Quite a lot is in the can already. Summers had just been away for five weeks shooting the sea sequences off the coast of Spain.”

  “Nice work if you can get it.”

  “Rather exhausting, actually. He’d told his office he was taking a complete break before the next phase, leaving them to deal with enquiries. He didn’t want to be disturbed. Conv
enient for us, as it turned out. It wasn’t necessary to announce his death immediately. Only a small number of people know of it.”

  “Why are you suppressing it?”

  “Do you know your Coleridge?”

  “Do I look as if I know my Coleridge?”

  “Inside the house on Summers’ desk the murderer left a sheet of paper with five words on it: ‘he stoppeth one of three’.”

  “‘It is an ancient Mariner, and he stoppeth one of three,’” Diamond chanted.

  “So you do know it?”

  “We did it at school. Heard it on disc. Ralph Richardson, I think. Some lines stay in the mind once you’ve heard them. I couldn’t have told you who wrote it.”

  “This was cut from a book and pasted on an ordinary A4 sheet of copying paper. Below were three names, cut from newspapers. The first was Axel Summers.”

  “And the others?”

  “Are equally well known.”

  “A death list?”

  “We have to presume so.”

  “You could take it that way,” Diamond said. “On the other hand, if you read the lines as Coleridge intended them you could take it to mean Summers was the chosen victim and the others won’t be troubled.” Not very likely, he thought as he was speaking.

  A nod, and no other response.

  Diamond waited. “So you’re not going to tell me who they are?”

  He was given a less than friendly stare. “I’m telling you about Emma Tysoe’s part in all this. As a matter of urgency the team investigating the murder wanted to know if the others were under serious threat-in other words, was this a serial murderer at work?”

  “What was her answer?”

  “After much thought and a couple of visits to the scene, yes. She said the killer was a type unknown in this country. By naming a list of potential victims he-and she was in no doubt that this was a man-was challenging the police, an act of pure conceit.”

  “Psychotic?”

  “‘Emotionally disconnected’ was the phrase she used. He was treating this as a chess game. He had planned it cold-bloodedly, and with the advantage of surprise was already several moves ahead in the game. It was probable that he’d drawn up his list in a way that best suited his plan. So we might be mistaken if we looked for motives, personal grudges against the people. Quite possibly there was no motive in the sense that you or I would understand it. The motive was the challenge of the game.”