The House Sitter

by Peter Lovesey

  “Chilling.”

  “Yes, it shows a complete absence of humanity, the mentality of a psychopath. My word. Psychologists are wary of using it. But what she said made sense.”

  “Did she get so far as to produce a profile?”

  “Apart from what I’ve just told you, no. She was still absorbing the data. Profilers like to take their time, and there was plenty to take in-the reports from the scene, the forensics, the autopsy, all the follow-up stuff.”

  “The strange choice of weapon.”

  “Certainly.”

  “That must limit the field. What sort of people learn to use crossbows?”

  “I told you. It’s not specially difficult. No doubt Dr Tysoe would have given us some guidance if she had lived.”

  “Wasn’t the SIO-this man Barneston-getting her advice?”

  “That isn’t the way she worked. She preferred to go away and make up her mind. When she was ready, she would come back with her recommendations. Barneston was running a full-scale murder investigation-still is-and she was on the fringe of it, really.”

  “Was it her suggestion to keep the whole thing under wraps?”

  “No, that was the SIO’s decision, and I’m sure he’s right. We must protect the two other people the killer named on his list.”

  “Are they going to be any safer if it isn’t made public?”

  “We’re sure of it. This man, whoever he is, wants his crime sensationalised. He’s picked people in the public domain as his targets. Imagine what the tabloids would make of it.”

  “So have you slapped on a D-notice?”

  “In effect. The local paper discovered something was afoot and we secured their co-operation. The nationals still don’t know.”

  “And the others on this death list?”

  “Have been told, of course. They were offered round-the-clock protection, and they’ve taken it.”

  “Quite a number are in on this, then?”

  “Already more than we would wish.”

  An ominous statement. “One more is no big deal, then.”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  Diamond knew as he spoke what the answer to his next question would be. “So are you about to tell me the same thing your man Cameron was suggesting-that there’s no link between the murders of Axel Summers and Emma Tysoe?”

  The answer was laced with scorn. “You can’t compare them. This killer is focused, organised. A controller. Emma herself told us that. He’s got his agenda and he’ll stick to it. He’s not going to put his master plan at risk by strangling her on a public beach. That’s another MO, altogether.”

  “It’s cool.”

  “That may be, but it leaves far too much to chance. You’re investigating an opportunist killing. This man doesn’t work like that. He’d hate the idea of so many people around, so much outside his control.”

  “Just now you said he wants it in the papers.”

  “Ah, he’s conceited, yes, a publicity seeker, but he’ll carry out the killings-if his plan succeeds-in an environment he controls. A beach has too much potential for interference.”

  Diamond doggedly refused to be steamrollered. “It may be another move in the chess game. If this genius felt his master plan was threatened when Emma Tysoe was called in, wouldn’t he do something about it?”

  “But he didn’t know she was involved.”

  “How can you be sure? Certain people knew. The SIO and his team presumably. Yourselves. Her professor at the university.”

  “He doesn’t know the details of the case.”

  “You keep this list of profilers. You said she was the obvious choice.”

  “To ourselves, yes.”

  “A cunning bastard like this is going to have heard of your list and know she’s the number one choice.”

  “Possibly,” he conceded.

  “If the killer is as smart as you say he’s going to have a line into the investigation.”

  The Big White Chief was quick to say, “So you think you should have a line in as well?”

  “We’re on the same side, aren’t we?”

  “I’ve told you more than I intended already, and I thought you’d have the experience to see that these killings are chalk and cheese.”

  “I’d still like to have the full picture.”

  “You’ve got it-apart from names, and they aren’t germane to your enquiry. People’s lives are threatened, Mr Diamond. I don’t suppose you’ve ever worked with a burden like this, knowing that named individuals will die if you make a mistake. Show some sensitivity towards your fellow officers who carry that responsibility.”

  Faced with an argument like that, he couldn’t pursue it. He shrugged and said, “I can try.”

  “If it’s of any interest you can look at other enquiries she advised on. I don’t mind giving you chapter and verse of those.”

  Peter Diamond left Bramshill some time later with a sheaf of photocopied material that he slung onto the back seat of his car. He was unsatisfied and unconvinced.

  9

  DS Stella Gregson arrived in Crawley soon after ten and was driven to the school in Old Mill Road. She hesitated before knocking on the head teacher’s door. Childhood conditioning never entirely leaves you. Even after the head had introduced them and left them to it, neither Stella nor Miss Medlicott sat in the chair behind the desk, or anywhere. They remained standing.

  “I hope this isn’t a waste of your time,” Miss Medlicott said. “All I’ve got for you is secondhand.”

  “You don’t have to apologise,” Stella said. “We’re grateful for any information. This comes from a child in your class, I was told.”

  “Haley Smith. She’s acted strangely-perhaps nervously is a better word. She drew a picture of a visit to the beach and told me one of the figures on it was a dead lady. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t be budged, so I discussed it with the mother when she came to collect Haley. Mrs Smith seemed rather guarded when I spoke to her. The family were at Wightview Sands on the day that poor woman was found, she admitted that. She thought the child must have heard her talking about the incident with her husband and then assumed some sunbather had been the dead woman. But it was a strained conversation, I felt. And I didn’t mention to her something else the child had told me-that her Daddy had been with the lady.”

  Stella felt goosebumps prickling her flesh. Suddenly this low-key enquiry took on a new significance. “Haley said that?”

  “Yes. And later in the week I had problems getting any response at all from the child. She was acting dumb, or so it seemed to me. One of the other children told me Haley’s daddy had said she wasn’t to speak to me. I tried to talk it over with Mrs Smith at the end of the day, but she was short with me and said it was obviously another misunderstanding, as if it was my fault. I’ve worried about it since, in case Haley did see something dreadful.”

  “You did the right thing,” Stella said. “May I speak to Haley?”

  “You can try. You won’t get much out of her.”

  “Can I see her in the classroom?”

  “That would be better than here.”

  The children were on their morning break as Miss Medlicott escorted Stella along the covered walkway at the edge of the playground. Stella entered the classroom and the teacher went to find Haley.

  The truth, simply stated, has to be used when questioning children. So when the small, dark-haired child was brought in with bowed head and sucking her thumb, Stella invited her to sit in her usual chair and sat beside her and said, “Haley, my dear, I want to talk to you about what happened that day you spent with Mummy and Daddy at the seaside. I’m a policewoman, and you don’t have to worry, because you’re not in trouble. I think you can help me.”

  The child’s pale face, framed by the bunched hair, registered only apprehension. She was already shaking her head. Creases had formed around her little mouth.

  “A poor lady was killed,” Stella continued, “and it’s my job to f
ind out about it. We don’t want anyone else being killed, do we? Did you see what happened?”

  Haley looked up and there was eye contact. She shook her head, gazing steadily, and Stella had to believe her.

  “That’s good then. We can talk about other things. I was told you did a lovely painting of your day on the beach. May I see it?”

  Haley showed she had a voice. “Miss Medlicott’s got it.”

  “So I have. I’ll fetch it,” the teacher said, going to the tall cupboard in the corner.

  Stella said, “Why don’t you help Teacher find it?”

  It was good for the child to move. She’d been going tense in the chair. In a moment she returned to Stella, the painting in her hands.

  “My, that’s a picture!” Stella said. “Such colours. What a bright blue sea. That is the sea, across the middle?”

  A nod.

  “And this yellow part must be the sand. Is this you on the sand?”

  Haley shook her head.

  “Are you in the picture?”

  She placed her finger on one of the figures.

  “Of course, it has to be you. Is that a ball in your hand, or an extra large orange?”

  “Frisbee.”

  She hadn’t clammed up completely. This had to be encouraging.

  “So it is. Silly me. It’s too big for a ball. Did you play with the Frisbee on the beach?”

  A nod. This was chipping at stone, but it had to be done.

  “Who did you play with?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Some other children?”

  Another nod.

  “And while you were playing, where were Mummy and Daddy?”

  The tiny forefinger pointed to two stick figures on the band of yellow, with circles for heads, a scribbled representation of hair and rake-like extensions on the arms for hands.

  “So they are. But they seem to be lying down. Didn’t they stand up to look for you when you were lost?”

  “Don’t know,” Haley said, with logic. If she was lost, she wouldn’t have known what her parents were doing.

  “I expect they got worried because they couldn’t see you.”

  The child felt for one of her bunches and sucked the end of it.

  “So where were you?”

  She was silent.

  “Haley, no one is angry with you. I’m sure you can help me if you really try to remember what happened.”

  Haley took her hand away from her mouth and pointed once more to the picture, to the figure of herself with the Frisbee.

  Stella said, “That’s you, of course. And these are children, too. You were playing with them, were you? That must have been a lot of fun.”

  The comment disarmed the child and triggered the best response yet. “A girl I was with got hit in the face by the Frisbee and she was bleeding and crying and stuff, so we all went up to the hut where they’ve got bandages and things. Then the other girls went back to their mummy and I was lost, and the man found me and I went back to Mummy, and Daddy wasn’t there.”

  Stella did her best to recap. “Who was the man who found you?”

  “Him with a whistle and red shorts.”

  “The lifeguard?”

  “Mm.”

  “Silly me. I understand now.”

  Haley pointed again, to a horizontal figure immediately above the parents, half over the blue band representing the sea. “That’s the dead lady.”

  “How did you know she was dead?”

  “Daddy said so.”

  “So Daddy came back?”

  “I seed the lady lying on the beach and she wasn’t moving and the sea was coming in and I thought she was asleep and Daddy went to look and said she was dead and got some men and carried her off the beach. It’s not in the picture.” She’d answered almost in a single breath.

  “So before this, Daddy must have been somewhere along the beach looking for you?”

  “I’spect so.”

  “Did Daddy know this lady?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I believe you told Miss Medlicott he was with her.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you mean by that?”

  “He was with her. I told you.”

  “Do you mean when he went to see what was the matter with her?”

  She nodded.

  “Daddy looked at the lady, did he? And got some help? Did you notice who helped?”

  “Some men.”

  “The lifeguard-with the red shorts?”

  “I think so.”

  “Did you remember the other men? What were they like?”

  “Pictures on them.”

  “Their shirts?”

  “No.”

  “On their bodies? You mean tattoos?”

  “And earrings and no hair.”

  “Young men? That’s a help. You have got a good memory. Tell me, Haley, did you drive home after that?”

  She nodded again.

  “And did Daddy say anything about the lady?”

  “He said we don’t know who she is or why she snufted.”

  “Snuffed it?”

  “What’s snufted?” the child asked.

  “It’s just a way of saying someone is dead. Did he say anything else?”

  “About e-dot questions.”

  “E-dot?” This was beyond Stella’s powers of interpretation.

  “They’ll keep us here asking e-dot questions.”

  “Idiot questions? Is that what he said?”

  “I’spect so.”

  Stella thanked the little girl, and Miss Medlicott said she could go out to play again. She sprang up from the chair, then paused and said, “Are you going to talk to my daddy?”

  “Yes, but you don’t have to worry. I’ll tell him he can be proud of you. You’re a clever girl, and helpful, too.”

  After the child was gone, Stella said to Miss Medlicott, “Am I going to talk to her daddy? You bet I am-and fast.”

  For much of the journey home from Bramshill, Diamond carried on a mental dialogue, telling himself to cool it, and then finding he was simmering again. It’s a blow to anyone’s self-esteem to be denied the full facts when others have them. This was not just about pride. His freedom to investigate was at stake. He’d been told, in effect, to keep out. The Big White Chief had played the innocent-lives-are-at-stake card, and there was no way to trump it.

  So the official line was that the murders of Emma Tysoe and Axel Summers were unrelated. Tell that to the marines, he thought. Emma had been at work on the Summers case when she was murdered. There was a link, and he would find it. He’d root out the truth in his own way and the Big White Chief, to put it politely, could take a running jump.

  But he’d heard enough at Bramshill to know he was getting into something uniquely strange. No murderer he’d ever dealt with had used a crossbow, or quoted from eighteenth century poets, or named his victims in advance. If Emma Tysoe’s observations were correct, and this was a killer playing a game, it was a sick way of being playful.

  It would be interesting to see if the hot-shot sleuth from Sussex could make any sense of it.

  Back in Bath late in the afternoon, he was pleased to find Sergeant Leaman had acted on the order to set up an incident room. The best he’d hoped for was a corner of the main open-plan area, but Leaman, good man, had found a first-floor office being used as a furniture store. He’d “rehoused” the furniture (he didn’t say where) and installed two computers and a phone. Keith Halliwell was already at work at a keyboard getting information from HOLMES.

  Diamond asked if he’d come up with anything.

  “It’s given me all the unsolved cases of strangling in the past five years. More than I bargained for.”

  “A popular pastime is it, strangling-like home decorating?”

  “Do you mind, guv? I do a spot of DIY myself.”

  “Don’t I know it! We’ve all seen the bits of torn paper in your hair on Monday mornings.”

  Halliwell, with hal
f his attention on the screen, wasn’t up to this. “Bits of paper?”

  “At one time I thought you were into polygamy.”

  “Polygamy?” Halliwell was all at sea now.

  “Confetti. While you’re still spending time with HOLMES, see if there’s any record of deaths by crossbow, will you?”

  Halliwell swung round as if this was one send-up too many.

  “I’m serious.”

  He said with suspicion, “Can I ask why?”

  “No. Just do it. Is our computer geek about?”

  “Clive? He’s downstairs with Dr Tysoe’s disks.”

  Diamond found the whizzkid in front of a screen in his usual corner of the main office, fingertips going like shuttles.

  “Any progress?”

  “On the psychologist lady? Yes. I got in eventually. She had a firewall on her system.”

  “Oh, yes?” Diamond said in a tone intended to conceal his total ignorance.

  “A lockout device. You get three attempts to guess the password, and then the system locks down for the next hour.”

  “So what was the password-‘Sesame?’”

  Clive’s fingers stopped. “As a matter of fact-’

  Diamond laughed. “All this technology and it comes down to finding a password you can remember.”

  “Her choice. Personally I’d have picked something more original.”

  “Like the name of your cat.”

  “Well…”

  “Dog?”

  “You’re right about ‘Sesame,’ Mr Diamond. It’s always worth a try.”

  “And has it helped us, breaking through the firewall?”

  “I’ve done a printout. Thought you’d like to see it on paper rather than use the screen.”

  “You know about me and computers, then?”

  “It’s common knowledge.”

  “So what have you got?”

  “See over there?” Clive pointed to a wall to his right stacked high with paper, reams of it. “That’s the contents of her hard disk. She was well organised.”

  “All of that?”

  “You wouldn’t believe how much can be stored on a modern disk.”

  “This could take months.”