Desai and Andrews promptly sat down at their computers and started typing, Desai determinedly and Andrews with a hint of resignation. Collison had been meaning to ask one or both of them for a private chat in an effort to get to know them, but thought better of it. They clearly had things to do. He turned to Willis instead. “I was wondering if you might be free for a chat, Karen,” he said. “Maybe a quick drink in the pub, or something?”
“Thank you,” she said straight away. “That would be nice. Not the Flask, though, guv, if you don’t mind. I think half the nick go there after work.”
“Whatever you like,” he said with a smile. The thought of being surrounded by drinking coppers did not appeal to him either. “Where would you suggest?”
“There’s the Freemason’s Arms just down the road,” she replied. “Our lads stopped going there when they took the sawdust off the floor. Or, if you don’t mind a bit of a walk, there’s the Wells Tavern up in the village. That’s a gastro-pub too, but they still do decent bitter, if that’s what you’re after.”
Collison realised that a decent bitter was exactly what he was after. “A walk would be great,” he said decidedly. “The Wells it is.”
Bob Metcalfe, who had observed this exchange, felt a quick pang as though someone had given his intestines a brief but firm squeeze, coupled with a sudden shortness of breath. It was not until some time later that he was able to admit to himself what had caused it.
Chapter Four
Once upon a time the Wells Tavern had been a traditional London boozer but it was one of the first pubs in the area to strip out the jukeboxes and fruit machines. Pared back to its original Georgian fabric, it was an undeniably elegant building, with an open plan bar area on the ground floor, and a restaurant above. As Collison and Willis climbed Christchurch Hill it became increasingly grey overhead, so they abandoned any thought of sitting outside. They had just bought their drinks and sat down when it started to rain, gently but persistently, the occasional gust of wind throwing drops against the windows.
Collison glanced round appreciatively. “Lovely place,” he said.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Karen agreed, as she stowed her bulky handbag beside her chair. “We come here a lot, my boyfriend and I. The restaurant upstairs is good too, though rather pricey. They’re open every day of the year, you know. We had Christmas lunch here.”
“So you know this area pretty well, then?”
She laughed. “I should do, guv. I only live about fifty yards away.”
“Did you grow up around here?”
“Colindale, actually,” she said with another laugh. “Not exactly the same thing, is it? No, in fact I couldn’t afford to live round here, and nor I suspect could any copper—not one below the rank of commander, anyway. It’s my boyfriend’s place.”
Collison wondered whether to pursue this line of conversation, and decided against it. He took a thoughtful pull at his pint of Adnams. “So you’ve only just joined the investigation, Karen? Hard luck. I think most of the Met is trying hard not to get involved with this one. A lot of people are saying it has career-ending potential written all over it.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Only partly,” he conceded.
“Well, I was delighted when I was assigned to the team,” she said firmly. “As a matter of fact, I requested it.”
“Really? Why?”
“How often do you get the chance to help catch a serial killer? And anyway, I was ready for a change from filing burglary reports and giving the good folk of north-west London reference numbers for their insurance claims.”
“I can understand that,” Collison remarked. “I’ve never had to do it myself, but I’d imagine it’s pretty soul destroying.”
“It is,” she said shortly. “Anyhow, I felt I deserved better. I put a lot of hard work into getting my qualifications and I want a chance to use my brain—you know, stretch myself intellectually. This is just the sort of case I want to work on.”
“Well, that’s good,” he said calmly. He felt instinctively that they were going to be friends, though he could understand the effect that she had on Metcalfe. She was not obviously beautiful but there was something about her that seemed to draw men’s attention, and hold it. Her dark hair and fine-boned features gave off the suggestion of the classic girl-next-door while also exuding a sassy self-confidence.
“How about you, guv?” she was asking, as he managed, with difficulty, to refocus his thoughts on their conversation. “How did you feel about being assigned to a murder enquiry that’s supposed to be going nowhere fast?”
“On one level,” he said slowly, “I was assigned by direct order of the ACC. So, since I had no choice in the matter, I suppose I reasoned that I should make the best of it.”
He sipped his beer. “On a different level, I’ve never run a murder enquiry before, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
“And on yet another level?” she asked him, with a hint of a cheeky smile.
“On yet another level, I knew all too well how Tom Allen would feel about being relieved. Whatever anyone says, and unfair though it all undoubtedly is, some people are bound to see it as some sort of implied criticism. Naturally, I found that aspect of it…awkward. I had worked with Tom before, you see, when he was very much the boss. Suddenly here I was, swanning in and taking over, having been promoted over his head. Promoted too quickly, as doubtless he thought.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I can see that must have been difficult.”
“It was,” he said frankly. “Though I like to think that I handled it more delicately than others might have done. God knows, I tried.
“Not sure if I succeeded though,” he added after a while.
She sipped her wine and gazed at him equably. “I’m sure you did your best,” she said. “No-one can do more. So did Tom Allen, incidentally.”
“I know that,” he said quickly. “Nobody respects Tom more than me.”
She fiddled with the strap of her bag for a minute and then asked: “Is it all right to talk about the case in here?”
He looked around. They were alone in the bar at present apart from what were almost certainly a couple of estate agents in another corner, and they were clearly much too interested in their own, very loud, conversation to listen to anybody else’s.
“Yes, I think so,” he said, “as long as we talk quietly and don’t mention any names.”
“Well, there’s an idea I had as soon as I joined the team, after I spent hours and hours reading the files,” she said hesitantly. “I mentioned it to DCI Allen, though I felt a bit strange about it, being so new to the team, but he more or less ignored it.”
“Try me,” Collison said, taking another pull at his beer.
“Well, I feel it even more strongly now, given the way that you are approaching the investigation.”
“Feel what?”
“That there must be some sort of important psychological issue lurking here somewhere—maybe even more than one. Now, I’ve studied psychology a little bit myself, but I’ve only scratched the surface. What we need is a real expert—that’s what I think anyway.”
He considered her words carefully. “I think that’s an interesting idea. You mean, like a profiler?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought it through to that extent but, yes, a profiling exercise would make sense.”
“To tell the truth,” he said, “I had actually begun thinking about something like that myself, though I don’t in any way want to detract from it being your idea.”
“I don’t really care about that. In fact, I’m not sure I want to put myself forward in any way. Some of the team don’t really like me as it is.”
“That’s their problem,” said Collison firmly. “It’s having ideas like this, and the courage to put them forward, that should mark an officer out for advancement. If others have a problem with that, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
She gri
maced wryly.
“Don’t get me wrong. You should get credit for your ideas, particularly if they lead to a result. However, we need to take into account the possibility that this may not work out. It doesn’t always, you know. I did quite a lot of reading about profiling a little while ago. And there’ll be plenty of folk—the traditionally minded, and those who didn’t have the gumption to think of it themselves—all too ready for it to fail, you know. That’s human nature for you.”
Karen tossed her head, and looked at him with keen determination. “I’ll take my chances,” she said squarely. “If it’s a good idea, it’s a good idea. That’s all there is to it.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Collison said with a grin. “In that case I’ll make sure the record shows that it’s down to you. However, there’s no guarantee the powers that be will say ‘yes.’ I don’t have to tell you the sort of pressure our budget is under, particularly now that the investigation’s been running for eighteen months.”
“Actually, that was part of my idea,” she said quickly. “I thought it might be difficult to get it authorised officially, but there’s a way in which we could get some expertise for nothing.”
“I’d like to hear that,” Collison remarked sardonically. “How do you plan on getting a professional to give his or her expertise for nothing?”
“It’s a little unorthodox, but in this case, the expert is my boyfriend.” She could see he seemed a little taken aback, and her expression changed from triumphant to dubious.
“That’s what I wanted to ask you, really,” she said. “Would it matter if he was connected to somebody on the investigation?”
“I don’t know,” Collison replied honestly. “I’d have to check. You can’t be too careful with the rules, though on the face of it, I can’t see why it should matter. After all, suppose your boyfriend just happened to be a pathologist who was assigned one of our victims. Would he be required to refuse to perform the post-mortem? I can’t believe that he would.”
“That’s what I was hoping. Apart from anything else, frankly it would be helpful to be able to talk to him about the case. It’s very difficult when you go home with stuff whirling around inside your head, knowing you can’t share your ideas with anyone until the next morning.”
“I know what you mean,” Collison admitted. “My wife often accuses me of being distracted in the evening when I’m working on a case, and she’s right, though I try to leave my work behind me when I come home. Fortunately for me, she’s very good-natured.”
“So is Peter,” said Karen. “That’s his name, by the way, Peter Collins.”
“Same as the racing driver.”
She looked at him blankly.
“Sorry,” he said. “Before your time. Before mine as well, actually. I’ve just read about him, that’s all.”
He saw his glass was empty, and got up to go to the bar for a refill. Karen declined, saying she would be drinking wine later over dinner.
“Tell me a little about Peter,” he said when he returned. “I’ll need some background for my official request. I assume he has the necessary qualifications and experience? Just for the record.”
“He’s a very intelligent man,” she said seriously, “the most intelligent person I’ve ever met, anyway. He’s got three degrees in psychology, including a PhD in criminal behaviour, and he’s writing several books, though I’m not sure he’s close to finishing any of them. He’s interested in so many different things, you see. Quite often he gets a craze for something or other and scours the internet for everything he can find on the subject. Then he decides that the precise book he wants has never actually been written, so he starts writing it himself.”
“But?” he queried.
“Before he can finish it, he’s usually struck by some fresh craze,” she explained resignedly. “Some last longer than others. Medieval history seems to have stuck. So has philosophy. He’s been making notes for months now on the Logical Positivists.”
“Right,” said Collison, feeling that he was in danger of getting rapidly out of his depth, “well, that all seems fine.”
He took another sip of beer, hesitated, and then asked: “If it’s not prying, how did you meet?”
“He was one of my tutors when I did my criminology diploma, actually. We started going out not long after we met, about six months into the course, which was all a bit awkward, as you can imagine. We had to keep it very quiet until I left.”
“Was that difficult?” he asked curiously.
“Horrible!” she said determinedly. “I hated it. I couldn’t see how two adults wanting to spend time together could be anything to be ashamed of. I wasn’t a child, after all; I’d already done three years at university. But there were all these stupid rules about lecturers not having relationships with students, though in reality of course it happens all the time. I hated having to creep round secretly as if it was some sordid little affair. I used to get quite upset about it.”
She smiled at the recollection.
“Why don’t you come and meet him now?” she suggested suddenly. “It’s only just up the road.”
He glanced at his watch and grimaced. “I’d love to, but I can’t. We have a deal that I’ll always be home by 7.30, unless it’s an emergency.”
He downed a further gulp of his second beer. “Tell you what, though,” he said. “I’ll ring the ACC first thing in the morning and ask him personally to sanction bringing Peter on board. My guess is that he’d say ‘yes’ anyway since he knows he’s put me in a bit of a spot, and he seems to like me. And if he doesn’t agree straight away, then I’ll throw in the added inducement that it’s not going to cost the Met a penny. That should do the trick.”
“So,” he went on, draining what was left of his beer, “why don’t you tell Peter that you hope to be able to fix a time for him to come in and see us tomorrow?”
When Peter Collins entered the incident room late the next morning, it was with an air of diffidence, as though he felt he should apologise for being there. Tall, slim and fair, he made a striking figure: he was wearing what looked like a hand-tailored suit of light grey tweed, with an old-fashioned watch chain fastened across the waistcoat. Highly polished brown lace-ups completed the look of a man who was visiting the present as a brief experiment in time travel, but really inhabited the England of forty or fifty years previously.
Collison clapped his hands and called for quiet. “Can I have your attention for a moment please, folks,” he said firmly, and waited a few seconds for the hum of conversation to die down. “I’d like to introduce Dr Peter Collins, who has kindly agreed to give us the benefit of his expertise as a psychiatrist. Just for the purposes of full disclosure, I should mention that Peter is Karen Willis’s partner. Dr Collins, welcome to the investigation.”
Peter blinked at him uncertainly. Then he took a pair of round, tortoiseshell spectacles out of his breast pocket and put them on. “Thank you,” he said finally. “I think I should clear one point up, though. I’m not a psychiatrist.”
“You’re not?” Collison echoed. “But, I thought Karen said—”
“I’m a psychologist, certainly,” Peter said. “One who studies psychology. But I’m not a psychiatrist. You have to be a doctor for that—a proper doctor, a doctor of medicine. And they aim to treat people for mental illnesses. I don’t do that. I study why people behave as they do—I teach it too, of course.”
He noticed that there was a smudge on one lens, and so took his glasses off again and started wiping them absent-mindedly with a clean white handkerchief.
“Though I could have chosen to treat people, you know,” he mused. “One can become a chartered psychological therapist. Indeed, the whole thing is really totally unlicensed. There’s nothing to stop you just putting a plate up and inviting people to come along and pour out their troubles to you. But somehow that never appealed.”
He put his glasses back on and smiled benignly at Collison with a newly focused gaze.
&n
bsp; “Not sure why,” he went on. “Maybe I disliked the responsibility of having all sorts of good folk depending on me to sort out their problems for them. Maybe I wouldn’t want the discipline of keeping regular consultation hours. And anyway, I wouldn’t really have had the time. There are so many things which keep me busy, you know.”
“Quite,” Collison agreed, at a loss as to where this was going.
“Main thing is, I’m not a psychiatrist,” Collins emphasised quietly but insistently. “Mustn’t call me one, I’m afraid. Very naughty. Criminal offence, and all that, to impersonate a member of the medical profession. Like a policeman, in fact.”
Metcalfe’s face had borne a curious expression ever since the announcement of Collins as Karen’s partner. Now he began to smile, and seemed about to say something. Collison noticed, and threw him a stern glance. “Absolutely,” he agreed hastily. “A simple misunderstanding, that’s all.
“OK, boys and girls,” he said more loudly. “Everyone back to work.”
There were quite a few amused faces around the room, which now bent themselves slowly back to their desks. Andrews looked at Desai and raised his eyebrows. She shrugged in reply. Metcalfe noticed that Karen was looking at Peter Collins with a concerned expression, as though worried that he should make the right sort of impression upon the team, and troubled that he had not.
“Now then, Doctor,” Collison went on, “let me introduce you to Bob Metcalfe, my right-hand man. He’s been on the investigation from the beginning, so anything you want, or need to know, he’s the man to ask.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Metcalfe said formally, shaking hands. Once again he felt that strange feeling briefly in the pit of the stomach, before it disappeared just as quickly.
“How do you do,” the other replied. He glanced briefly at Metcalfe and then let his gaze wander over the whiteboard.
“So these are our—um—victims?” he enquired.
What Would Wimsey Do? Page 5