The Headhunters

‘ I could cheerfully murder my boss,’ Gemma said.

‘Is he a slave-driver, then?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘A groper?’

‘No. He’s nice.’

The logic was lost on Jo, but her friend had a wild imagination- which was why she was fun to be with. ‘You want to kill him and he’s nice?’

‘Not nice.’ Gemma stretched her small, neat mouth into a large, forced smile. ‘Na-eeeeece.’

‘I get you,’ Jo said. ‘I’ve met people like that. Drive you mad.’

‘Imagine working with one.’

Starbucks on North Street, Chichester, was frantic as usual. It was always a haven for mothers with fractious children but on Saturdays entire families with shopping and strollers rearranged the seating and turned the narrow walkway into an obstacle course. Mercifully, the staff turned up the music to drown the sound of infants. But the coffee tasted right and the eats were fresh so where else would you go? While Jo got in line Gemma used her one-time hockey skills to shimmy to the far end and bag two of the much-sought-after purple armchairs, almost knocking over the elderly couple who had just got up from them.

‘So?’ Jo asked when they were seated with their cappuccinos.

‘What?’

‘How would you do it? What lurid little fantasies have been whirring in that head of yours?’

‘Kill my boss, you mean?’ Gemma was shouting to be heard above a Robbie Williams track. ‘With something extremely slow-acting. I’d definitely want to clock that stupid smile being wiped off his face when he sees what’s coming to him. I could force-feed him marshmallows.’

Jo took a moment to think and laughed.

‘Or drown him in golden syrup,’ Gemma said, her weird mental process churning away now.

Jo joined in the game. ‘Sit him in a jacuzzi until he passes out. They say it’s dangerous to overdo it.’

‘You’ve got the idea. A non-stop massage by a team of gorgeous Polynesian girls until he’s rubbed to nothing.’

‘I can’t top that. You’ve obviously given this some thought.’

‘It keeps me going.’

‘What exactly is your job? You’ve never told me.’

‘I’m his PA. In the office next door, guarding the inner sanctum. Anyone wants to see old sweetie-pie, they have to get past me, the battleaxe. I take the phone calls, open the mail, tell the staff he’s in a meeting when he isn’t. Anything unpopular, I break it to everyone else. The result is I have no friends at work. They see me coming and they think extra duties at best.’

‘What’s the work?’

‘Printing. Everything from parish magazines to pizza vouchers. It’s massive and hi-tech. Well, the machinery is, not the staff. We’re small and plodding. The old printing skills have been replaced by laser technology. A halfwit could do it. And a halfwit is running it.’

‘Your nice Mr Cartwright?’

‘You want the measure of the man? This is something that happened this week. Some political agent ordered some election literature, the stuff that gets pushed through your door. We printed his leaflet and there was a typo in the headline. It read, “‘My Erection in Your Hands Again.”’

Jo almost choked on her blueberry muffin. ‘Gemma, that’s priceless!’

‘Our client didn’t think so. His people delivered two hundred before someone noticed.’

‘Love it.’

‘Yes, but who took the rap? Muggins, as always. Our charming Mr Cartwright never picks up his phone. “Tell him I’m out, my dear,” he said when I tried to transfer the rabid caller. “And remind him politely that he must have been sent the proof to check and passed it. But as a gesture of good faith we’ll reprint the entire batch.” So it all comes down to me. And that isn’t the end of it. I have to find the wretched printer who cocked up and tell him he’s in deep shit and had better stay late and redo the job and deliver it himself.’

‘I’m getting the picture now. Your Mr C is a delegator.’

‘Some sort of reptile, for sure.’

‘I don’t think you heard me.’

As likely as not she did. Her brain had its own anarchic way of working. She was already planning a better fate for Mr Cartwright. ‘I wonder if he’s allergic to anything. You can kill someone with a single peanut.’

‘That wouldn’t be slow, would it?’

‘You’re right. No pleasure looking at that. Forget the peanut. Here’s a neat one. We tell him he’s been selected for one of those reality programmes on TV and it’s going to be rigged so that he wins a million. All he has to do is a filmed sky-dive, and then, of course, when he tries to open the parachute… ’

‘That isn’t a slow death either.’

‘But it’s on film, sweetie. I can watch it again a million times and in slo-mo if I wish.’

This whole conversation was off the wall and not meant to be treated as real, but you’d be a party pooper to say so. Instead, Jo prolonged it by injecting some logic. ‘All these ideas have a fatal flaw. You’re going to be left with a dead body and they’ll do a post mortem and trace it back to you.’

‘The Polynesian girls?’

‘If we’re not in fantasy land, Gemma, the Polynesian girls won’t massage everything away. At some point he’s going to expire and they won’t want to massage a corpse.’

The mouth turned down at the edges. ‘You’re saying I’m stuck with Denis bloody Cartwright, aren’t you?’

‘Unless you want a life sentence, yes.’

‘He isn’t worth that.’ Gemma’s eyes gleamed as yet another idea came to her. ‘How about getting him a life sentence?’

‘What-stitch him up?’

‘Worth thinking about. It would get him off my back, wouldn’t it? It’s the sort of lingering fate I was talking about. I could visit him in prison and gloat.’

‘How would you do it-stitch him up, I mean? You’d need a body.’

‘Trust you to throw a spanner in the works.’

‘And if he’s as charming as you say, the jury might give him the benefit of the doubt.’

Gemma sighed. ‘Dead right. He’d charm their socks off.’

‘The woman sounds mental,’ Rick said when Jo told him. Rick was her latest bloke. He ticked most of the boxes: confident, clever and gorgeous to look at, with sun-bleached hair and blowtorch blue eyes, but there’s always a drawback. The drawback was Sally, a so-called ‘older woman’ Rick had met when he did a survey on the big house she bought in Bosham. He insisted on seeing this Sally every Sunday for a roast lunch-and Jo didn’t like to think what happened after lunch. She wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement, but she had the feeling it wouldn’t be wise to interfere-yet.

‘She wasn’t totally serious. We were being silly, dreaming up ways to kill this freeloading boss of hers, but it was obvious she’s thought about it quite a lot, so there’s a little bit of intent behind the joking.’

‘Waste of space, is he, this Mr Cartwright?’

‘A complete nerd, according to Gemma. I haven’t seen him, but I’ve met his sort before. They ooze charm and get what they want without ever doing a hand’s turn.’

‘He can’t be clueless if he’s managing a print business.’

‘It gets managed no thanks to him, Gemma says.’

‘Is he married?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘The thing is,’ Rick said, ‘scarcely anyone is alone in the world. You rub Cartwright out and then you find there’s a wife and six kids, or a little old mother. If he’s as charming as we’re led to believe he’s going to leave behind a bunch of friends desperate to find out what happened to their dear old buddy.’

‘Good thing she isn’t serious,’ Jo said.

‘How did you meet this Gemma?’

‘In yoga. She and I are the ones who couldn’t lie on our backs without laughing. We had a giggle about it in the break and decided to leave at the same time. I haven’t known her long. Don’t know much about her.’

‘Except she’d like to murder her scumbag boss.’

‘Her na-eeeeece scumbag boss.’

‘I’ve always thought the right way to go about it is to make them disappear,’ Rick said. ‘Without a corpse the police are buggered.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘There are plenty of ways.’

‘Such as?’

‘Lost at sea is one.’

‘What-push him overboard?’

‘Preferably with a ton weight attached. The sea idea isn’t perfect, though. I’ll give you that.’ He raised his finger. ‘Here’s a better method. I remember reading about a woman who was kidnapped back in the sixties. It went on for weeks. She was the wife of some rich guy in the newspaper industry. In the end, after several attempts to set up a ransom arrangement, they arrested two brothers, but the poor woman was never found. These kidnappers had a farm, you see, and the police reckoned she must have been fed to the animals. Pigs are supposed to eat everything-skin, bones, the lot.’

‘Ugh!’ Just like a man, making the whole thing grotesque. At least Gemma’s zany ideas had been redeemed by humour. ‘I’m going to change the subject. Where shall we go this evening? Fancy Portsmouth for a change?’

‘Is that, like, a joke?’ he said. They’d gone clubbing in Portsmouth’s Gun Wharf for the past two Saturdays.

‘Name someplace else, then.’

After four frames, she was getting nowhere in the bowling. She should have guessed Rick would be good at it. He’d already scored two strikes and was way ahead on the screen. She didn’t mind really. It wouldn’t be long before he offered hands-on advice how to pick the right ball and improve her action: the game within a game that girls play to win.

From infancy Jo had been burdened with high expectations. As the only child of a domineering mother, she’d been pushed to excel, whether in music, producing a sound on the violin like triplets being born; dance, in the fifth row back, extreme left, where they could grab her from the wings when she tripped; or skating, with an apparent mission to bring down everyone else on the ice. At school she’d been average, so her mother had arranged for private tuition to bring out her hidden talents. All it had brought was a mental breakdown, a gap year with a meaning all its own. Instead of university she’d gone to an undemanding, stress-free job at a garden centre. She’d left home (the best thing she ever did) and got to enjoy her work and feel like a human being again.

While Rick was waiting for the ball to return, she spotted a familiar figure just two lanes away: Gemma, looking the total athlete in stretch jeans and stripy top that revealed a flash of scarlet bra straps. The way she released the ball and immediately flapped her hand in disappointment showed she was used to winning at this game.

‘Your go,’ Rick said. He’d cleared the pins again.

‘See that girl with the ponytail? She’s the one I was telling you about, wants to murder her boss. Shall I tell her we’re here?’

‘We’re in the middle of a game.’

‘If she looks this way I’ll wave. You’ll like her. She’s fun.’

‘Okay, but let’s get on with it.’

She took her turn, not thinking about the aim, and struck down all ten-her first time ever.

‘Hey-how did you manage that?’ Rick asked.

Next time up, her next ball slipped to the side and disappeared down the back without a score. She heard her name being called.

Gemma was waving.

‘Meet you after for a bevvy,’ Jo called back.

Suggestions like that, made with the best of intentions, sometimes have unplanned results. Not long after, they were in Chicago Rock knocking back spritzers and eyeing up the possibility of grabbing a table as soon as some other people left.

‘Jake will give them one of his looks and they’ll get up and leave, no problem,’ Gemma said. She pointed a thumb at her bowling companion, who’d had to dip his head when he came through the door. Dressed entirely in black, Jake could have stepped out of an old Hammer horror movie. There was no question that his eyes were scary. With his pale face and twisted mouth he would have seen off Dr Phibes, no problem.

Rick was getting on fine with Gemma-a touch too fine, Jo thought-praising her bowling skills and saying she must have played the game before. There was no ‘How did you manage that?’ Strange. He hadn’t seen much of her play unless he’d been taking stock of her before Jo had pointed her out.

Jo tried talking to big Jake and found he was no conversationalist. Besides, he was working his influence on the people at the window table. His stare was making them increasingly ready to leave.

‘So do you like dancing?’ Rick asked Gemma.

‘Why-are you guys going somewhere later?’ she said.

‘Nothing planned. I was just thinking you move so well you have to be a dancer.’

‘Bit of a Sherlock Holmes, isn’t he?’ Jo couldn’t stop herself saying. ‘We’ll get you a pipe and deerstalker, my love.’ It sounded more sarcastic than she meant. She didn’t want Gemma thinking she was jealous.

‘We could all go clubbing,’ Rick said.

‘Me and Jake haven’t talked about what we’d do,’ Gemma said. ‘D’you want to go clubbing, Jake?’

Clubbing seals would be more to Jake’s taste, Jo thought.

Without looking away from the people by the window he said, ‘Whatever you want.’

‘Jongleurs?’ Rick said.

Jo couldn’t believe her ears. This was the same guy who’d bellyached about another evening in Portsmouth. Now he was pushing to go there. True, there wasn’t much in Chichester, but Jongleurs was scarcely a novel experience.

‘Cool,’ Gemma said. ‘Shall we drink up and get on the road?’

‘Hold on, I’m sure those people are about to leave,’ Jo said. ‘It’s early, anyway. Let’s sit down for a bit now we’ve got a chance.’

The other party moved out with some backward glances at Jake. He was too large and scary to take on. His knee rubbed against Jo’s under the table and it wasn’t because he was getting frisky, just that a leg the size of his had nowhere to go. She was opposite him and would have got the full force of the stare except that he was focusing somewhere over her head. I do believe the poor guy is shy, she thought, getting all maternal.

‘Are you from round here?’ she asked him.

He shook his head, still without eye contact.

‘Jake’s a Cornish lad,’ Gemma said for him. ‘Would you believe there’s a place called Bugle down there?’

‘Get away.’ Rick held an invisible bugle to his mouth and sounded a fanfare.

Jo tried again. ‘So what brought you to Chichester, Jake?’

‘Motorbike.’

‘You’re a biker?’

Another shake of the head.

‘He was riding pillock,’ Gemma said for him.

‘Pillion,’ Jake said.

‘All right. Have it your way.’

‘I like it Gemma’s way,’ Rick said with a laugh. ‘Riding pillock.’

Jake gave him a look and he went quiet.

‘What I meant,’ Jo said to Jake, doing her best to take the mockery out of this, ‘was what are you doing here?’

‘Having a drink.’ It was becoming clear that if you wanted information you had to phrase your question precisely.

‘Are you in work?’

‘Yup.’

‘You’re keeping her in suspense, Jake,’ Gemma said. ‘She’s asking about your job. He’s in nature conservancy, looking after the wildlife. He knows all there is to know about birds and before you say anything, Rick, we’re talking ducks and moorhens, right?’

‘Did my lips move?’ Rick asked.

‘So what do you do when you’re not ten-pin bowling?’ Gemma, too, seemed to have decided Jake needed a break from the ribbing.

‘Me? I’m a chartered surveyor. I can tell you when your house needs money spending on it.’

‘All the time.’

‘How did you guess? And you work at the printer’s out at Fishbourne.’

She flushed scarlet. ‘Who told you? Jo, I suppose.’

Jo gave a shrug and a smile.

Someone had to compensate for Jake’s non-existent social skills, and Rick was doing his damnedest. ‘Hey, I heard all about this creepy boss you want to do away with. Mr Cartwright, Yeah? Between us we ought to be able to help you out. I was saying to Jo, it’s not enough to top him. You’ve got to think the whole thing through. Make him disappear as well. That’s the biggest challenge. I was telling her about the case of a woman-’

‘Rick, don’t,’ Jo cut in. ‘We don’t want to hear it.’

‘We only ever hear about murders that get discovered,’ Rick said. ‘Those are the failures. There are plenty that go undetected. Hundreds, if not thousands. Think about all the people who go missing and are never seen again.’

Gemma’s eyes widened. ‘Do you think some murderers get away with it?’

‘You’re joking. All the time.’

‘The perfect murder?’

‘I wouldn’t call it that. Getting rid of a body is no big deal. All it wants is some planning. In my job, for instance, I visit building sites, roadworks, motorways. When the foundations go down, they have to be approved. I get to know when a piece of ground is ready to be laid over with a few tons of cement. Come to that, I’ve surveyed old cemeteries that are getting turned into car parks and supermarkets. Who’s going to know?’

‘You’ve still got to get on the site and bury the body. I wouldn’t care for that,’ Gemma said.

‘Better than keeping it in your front room.’

She laughed. ‘Well, yes, but there must be easier ways.’

‘I’m sure there are. Take Jo’s job.’

‘What?’ Jo said. She’d been listening to this and wishing Rick would shut up. ‘This is nothing to do with me. He’s not my boss.’

‘She works in a garden centre,’ he told Gemma as if she didn’t know already. ‘All she has to do is stick him in a raised flowerbed in one of the glasshouses and cover him with compost. You can get stuff to rot anything down. He’ll be pushing up next summer’s bedding plants and no one will be any the wiser.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Jo said.

‘She’d find it difficult on her own,’ Gemma said.

‘You’d help her, wouldn’t you?’ Rick said. ‘It’s your boss we’re knocking off.’

Gemma exchanged a look with Jo that said, some men never know where to draw the line. ‘I meant it wouldn’t be easy moving his mortal remains.’

‘What are those little carts for that they have in garden centres?’

Gemma burst out laughing again.

Jo had heard more than enough. ‘If you think I’d risk my job to carry out your crazy scheme, you’re nuts.’

‘Lighten up, babe,’ Rick said. ‘I was only using you as an example. Who knows? You might need our services if your boss turns nasty. We’d better think up a team name.’

‘The Cretins?’ Jo said.

‘I was thinking the Headhunters.’

Gemma said, ‘Neat.’

Rick gave her a smile and continued stirring. ‘Between us, we’ve got it made. Take Jake, for instance. I expect he goes out in a boat looking at his waterfowl. I guarantee he knows places where you could shove a body overboard and it would stay there. What do you reckon, Jake?’

Jake appeared to ponder the matter for a while. Finally, he said, ‘I don’t dance.’

A real conversation-stopper.

Rick frowned. ‘Get with it, mate. We’re dumping a body.’

‘No problem, Jake,’ Gemma said. ‘Jongleurs is a comedy club as well. You can sit and have a laugh. And if we do some dancing no one’s going to notice you. It’s too crowded.’

‘Don’t know about that,’ Rick said. ‘He would stand out in a crowd.’

Gemma giggled again. It seemed unkind.

Jo said, ‘We don’t have to go dancing. We could see a film.’

‘Bor-ing,’ Rick sang out.

‘You haven’t even checked what’s on.’

‘March of the Penguins,’ Jake said at once, belying the impression that he was slow.

‘That’s a documentary, isn’t it?’ Rick said. ‘Came out yonks ago.’

‘I didn’t see it,’ Jo said. ‘It’s supposed to be a classic.’

‘What else is on?’ Rick said. ‘There must be something better than a line of bloody penguins walking across the screen.’

‘It’s good,’ Jake said.

‘What-the penguin film?’ Rick said. ‘How do you know, mate? Have you seen it?’

Jake nodded.

‘You wouldn’t want to see it again, then.’

‘Would.’

‘Oops, I’m forgetting. Hands up anyone who wants to look at the penguins with the bird man of Chichester.’

Jo hesitated. She’d become increasingly irritated by Rick’s attempts at humour. She said, ‘If you and Gemma would rather see something else, maybe we can all meet up after.’

A pivotal moment. Rick looked shocked, Gemma disbelieving. To Jo it seemed obvious that she wasn’t making a play for Gemma’s Neanderthal boyfriend, and at this minute she didn’t care what Rick thought. Besides, Gemma hadn’t declared yet. She had the chance of seeing the penguins if she chose.

Rick recovered enough to say, ‘Fair enough, but count me out. Don’t know about you, Gemma, but I’d like to find out what else is on.’

‘Suits me,’ Gemma said.

SO IT WAS that Jo found herself seated next to Jake in a dark, almost empty cinema. He watched the film intently. Jo, too, was absorbed in the drama of the penguins’ long treks across the ice. It was only towards the end that her attention strayed as she tried to think of her strategy for when the lights came on. She couldn’t get up and walk away. The others had gone to see the latest Russell Crowe on Screen 3 and she’d noticed the running time was at least an hour longer than the penguins.

‘Amazing,’ she said after the credits had rolled. ‘What an existence.’

‘Migration,’ Jake said.

‘I know, but under those conditions.’

‘They get on with it.’

‘Yes, I suppose it’s a mistake to think of them in human terms, but I can’t help sympathising with them. How about you?’

‘I’d like-’ Jake said, and stopped.

‘Yes?’ She almost completed it for him by saying, ‘A drink?’

‘-to turn off the commentary.’

She had to think for a moment. ‘But it needs explaining to people, doesn’t it, or we wouldn’t appreciate the distances they march and the reasons?’

‘I can watch the pictures.’

‘True, but… ’

‘Don’t need the voiceover.’

‘I suppose it would grate a bit if you’ve seen the film before.’

‘Five times.’

‘Five?’ She laughed and Jake gave a faint smile. Next time you’d better take earplugs. Do you fancy a bite to eat? After all that ice and snow I’d like to get something warm inside me. The others won’t be out for some time.’

He thought about that and gave a nod.

They went to Frankie amp; Benny’s, where the music was from the fifties. A Johnny Mathis CD was playing.

‘How did you and Gemma meet?’ Jo asked.

‘Print job,’ he said, as if that explained all. She wasn’t going to get the romantic version, for sure.

‘I think that boss takes advantage of her,’ she said. ‘He leaves all the decisions to her and if there’s any credit going, he takes that for himself. I wonder if she’ll leave.’

He didn’t seem to have an opinion.

After they’d ordered, she tried another tack. ‘Do you live in Chichester, Jake?’

‘Selsey.’

This, at least, was a place she could talk about. ‘I like Selsey, the seafront, anyway. I sometimes go there for an early morning walk. Doesn’t matter if the tide’s in or out. Always interesting.’

‘Seolesig.’ His eyes focused directly on hers for the first time and weren’t so off-putting. Dark and deep-set they might be, but now they wanted to communicate, as if to make up for his halting conversation.

‘What was that you said?’

‘Anglo-Saxon. Seolesig.’

He’d surprised her. ‘Does it have a meaning?’

‘Seal Island.’

‘But it isn’t an island, is it? Oh-did it used to be? Of course, you can see when you drive out there. The road is raised up in parts, like a causeway.’

‘Big question,’ he said.

‘What is?’

‘Managing the landscape.’

‘Whether to shore up the sea defences or let nature take its course?’

He nodded. ‘Pagham Harbour. East Head. Habitats.’

‘All this comes into your work?’

‘One time-’ he began to say.

She waited.

He drew another breath. Long sentences were definitely an ordeal. ‘-at Sidlesham-’

She encouraged him with a nod.

‘-there was a ferry.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ she said. ‘Tell me again. Seal Island. Seole-’

‘-sig.’

‘Seolesig. There you go. I’ve learnt something. I suppose it was a favourite place for seals in the old days.’

He made a simultaneous movement with his mouth and shoulders that conveyed that he didn’t know for certain, but she could be right.

There was more to Jake than she’d first appreciated. He was hard work, but when you persevered he had depth to him, unlike golden boy Rick. ‘Next time I go for one of my walks I’ll think of it in a different light. Don’t suppose I’ll spot a seal, though.’

‘Might.’

‘I never have up to now.’

‘I see them.’

She gave an uneasy laugh and said, ‘Really?

‘Common seals. Grey seals, too.’

‘Where?’

‘Where I work. Pagham.’ A place just along the coast from Selsey. He paused, making a huge effort to say more. ‘On the mudflats at low tide.’

After that, she had to believe in the seals. She’d lived locally for some years and never seen or heard of one before.

The food came. Jake had chosen a cheese and tomato pizza. She had fish and chips. It was predictable but embarrassing that the waitress assumed they were a couple and tried to talk them into buying the house wine, with some remarks about putting them in the mood. Jo handled it smoothly and said they were meeting friends later and just wanted water at this stage.

‘Was that all right, speaking for us both?’ she asked when the waitress had left them.

Jake nodded. ‘Water is good.’

‘We could have ordered coffee.’

He shook his head.

The food provided a break from conversation, and gave Jo a chance to reflect on how this evening had turned out. First impressions can be misleading. Jake’s looks were against him and his problem communicating hadn’t allowed him to appear as anything but oafish, even sinister. In company he was fated to be the victim of the quips Rick excelled at. But like this, one-to-one, if you persevered he had thoughtful things to say. She couldn’t imagine him starting a conversation, not with someone who was virtually a stranger, but he’d made efforts to respond. Was he short of confidence? There wasn’t any speech impediment she could detect. Maybe he’d been given a hard time at school by people like Rick. Being so tall and-well-grim-faced, he’d no doubt been picked on by other kids, particularly when they sensed he wasn’t the threat his size suggested.

She wanted a chance to know him better. And if Rick disapproved, tough. She hadn’t liked what she’d seen of him tonight.

The situation with Gemma was more complex. She valued her as a friend. You can’t take over your best mate’s boyfriend the first evening you meet him. But was Jake her regular bloke? Gemma had never mentioned him before. She seemed to treat him without much affection. She’d blithely gone off with Rick.

Hard to tell.

‘I go for my walks at the weekend, really early, before many people are about,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t matter what the weather is doing. I always enjoy it.’

‘Nice,’ he said without looking up from his plate.

‘Won’t be there tomorrow, more’s the pity. I sometimes have to work Sundays.’

‘Me, too.’

A short time later they returned to the multiplex and waited in the foyer for the others to come out. When they did, Rick’s face suggested the Russell Crowe film was a turkey. His mood had taken a plunge. He’d changed his mind about Jongleurs. He complained of a raging headache and said he needed to get home right away. They called a taxi. Jo did the decent thing and joined him in the cab.

He closed his eyes most of the way.

‘I’d ask you in for a coffee,’ he said when they reached the block where his flat was, ‘but I’m damn sure I’m running a temperature and I don’t want to pass some bug on to you. The driver will take you home.’

‘Make sure you take something for it.’

Before getting out, he said, ‘Messed up your evening, didn’t I?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I had a good time.’

He took out his credit card, but she said she’d got change and would take care of the fare. He thanked her and turned away.

It was difficult to be certain, but he hadn’t carried total conviction as a headache victim. Jo had her own theory and wondered if Gemma would confirm it the next time they met in Starbucks.

A week later, just after seven on Sunday morning, Jo got in her Fiat Panda and took the winding road to the coast. The shoreline at Selsey had always appealed to her as a place to walk: stimulating, never the same. And now its possibilities had increased.

The night had been mild for late September, but when she arrived in the car park at the end of the High Street, an offshore wind was whipping foam off the crests of some sizeable waves. A few people, as always, were sitting in their cars watching from behind glass, as if it was television. Jo had definitely come to walk, but before getting out she checked her face in the mirror. She’d decided not to wear the woolly hat she sometimes pulled on for blustery days. Instead she’d fastened her hair at the top with two red clips and let the rest hang loose.

She stood for a moment to savour the smell of beached seaweed and feel the spray against her cheeks. The last high tide had spread pebbles and bits of driftwood across the concrete path above the sea wall. She picked her way through for a few paces and then took the steps down and crunched into the shingle. A real beach this, she thought, where you could hear the rattle of stones shifted by the waves and see the stacks of lobster pots. Free of day trippers, too. Most favoured the broad, clinically clean sands of West Wittering, a few miles up the coast.

The breakwaters at this end were almost submerged and easy to step over. She continued down to where the stones got smaller and blended with tiny shells. Strips of sand were exposed in places. In another hour there would be a clear stretch to walk on.

When she’d rounded the narrow section below the high sea defences at Bill Point, the southernmost tip of Sussex, she returned to the path for a bit and was treated to the long view of the East Beach stretching for a couple of miles to Pagham Harbour, the conservation area where Jake worked. Much closer stood the grey lifeboat house and slipway at the end of a pier long enough for launchings, even at low tide. Around it was moored the last of Selsey’s ancient fishing fleet, much favoured by photographers, about twenty small, brightly coloured craft moored to orange buoys. Beyond, a good six miles off, looking as if it was just a continuation of the walk, was the tentlike roof of Butlins at Bognor.

As always there were people walking their dogs, although fewer than usual this morning.

You could spot anyone coming from a long distance. A man of Jake’s height would be more obvious than most. She passed one tall guy a good bit younger, in a fleece top and tracksuit trousers. A jogger, maybe, though he was walking. He had iPod earphones.

Not that she expected to see Jake. Nothing had been arranged. But a chance meeting wasn’t out of the question. She told herself she wasn’t even sure if she wanted it to happen today. He might think it was a set-up. How cringe-making would that be? Far better at some time in the future.

Only a short way on she was reconsidering. A chance meeting might not be so hard to handle. The way she pictured it, they would exchange a few friendly words and then move on. Unless. Unless what? Well, unless he suggested they stop and sit on one of the benches facing the sea.

Get real, she told herself. He’s Gemma’s boyfriend and she’s your friend from yoga. You can’t behave like that.

Absorbed in these thoughts, she strolled for another ten minutes or more, past the lifeboat station and the upended dinghies opposite the place where the fish was sold.

It was increasingly obvious that Jake was nowhere on the front.

This end of the beach was divided by stout wooden breakwaters, and the tidal movement had produced a strange effect. On the side facing her the stones were heaped almost to the top, but on the reverse the wood was exposed, producing a drop of at least ten feet.

At one point she paused to watch a youngish man in army fatigues throwing a ball for a large frisky poodle. They’d been hidden below the breakwater until she got level with them. The dog was running fearlessly into the waves, emerging with the ball and insisting on a repeat performance.

What now, then? She had the choice of continuing the walk on the path above the beach or venturing down in one of these sections between the breakwaters and coming to a forced stop. This, in the end, was her choice. She picked a stretch inhabited only by herring gulls bold enough to stand their ground as she approached, the wind ruffling their feathers. She stood for a while watching the breakers until the same wind that was producing the spectacular choppy sea started to chill her, threatening a headache. She wished she’d put comfort before image and worn the woolly hat after all. Time to turn back, she decided. She was struggling up the bank of stones when her attention was caught by a pale object in the shadow of the breakwater.

All kinds of rubbish is cast up on a beach, particularly when the sea is rough. At first sight this had the smooth curved surface of a large fish, a beached dolphin perhaps.

Jo went closer and lifted away some seaweed. This was no dolphin, nor any other marine species.

She had found a human body.

‘No way! All I ever find is lolly-sticks and fag-ends. What did you do?’ Gemma asked when they met the next Saturday in Starbucks.

‘Went up the beach and knocked at the door of the first house I came to. They called the police.’

‘So whose body was it?’

‘Some woman. She was nude except for her pants.’

‘Drowned?’

‘They thought she probably fell overboard and got washed up.’

‘In her Alan Whickers? That doesn’t sound likely.’

‘I don’t know. If she was sunbathing on the deck of some yacht, a freak wave could have swept her overboard.’

Gemma raised her eyebrows in mocking disbelief. ‘You reckon?’

‘It’s only a suggestion. There has to be an inquest, doesn’t there? They look at reports of people lost at sea.’

‘What age would she have been?’

‘Late thirties, the cop said. I didn’t go too close when I took them down to see. I just pointed to where she was. They took my details and said I could leave. They’re going to put something in the paper in case anyone knows about her. A reporter phoned me later.’

‘Didn’t you get a look at the face?’

‘No, thank God. She was turned away from me.’

‘Are they certain she’d been in the water? She might have snuffed it on the beach.’

‘Some seaweed was twisted round her. It’s more likely she came in on the tide. They say the sea gives up its dead, don’t they?’

Gemma was remembering something. ‘When I was having my winter break in Tenerife last year there was a body washed up on the beach and the locals said he was an asylum seeker. These poor bloody Africans put to sea in boats that are unsafe and hundreds of them never make it. Was your woman black?’

‘Extremely white, by the time I saw her. I don’t think she was an asylum seeker.’

‘Escaping from the Isle of Wight,’ Gemma said, that fertile imagination at work again.

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘You’re smiling, but there are prisons on the Island.’

‘Her pants didn’t look prison issue to me.’

‘Honey, these days they don’t wear kit with little arrows over it.’

‘Naff off, will you?’

They were perched on tall stools by the front window watching the people walk by. The pedestrianised North Street in Chichester, stiff with shoppers, was a far cry from Selsey beach last Sunday morning. ‘The way you tell it,’ Gemma said, ‘you don’t seem to have panicked. If it had been me, I’d have run a three minute mile, screaming all the way.’

‘Strangely enough, I didn’t feel anything at the time,’ Jo said. ‘I mean, I didn’t trip over her, or anything. If I had, I might have screamed. I noticed something large and pale under the seaweed and walked over to where she was and that was it.’

‘I’ve never seen a dead body.’

‘That was my first. There isn’t much to it.’ She gave Gemma a faint smile. ‘If you’re going to murder your boss like you said the other day you’ll have to face up to it.’

‘Won’t be so scary if I’m expecting it. What I wouldn’t like is finding one I didn’t know was there, like you did. They’re always doing that in films.’

‘The people who make films are out to shock you, aren’t they? The quick burst of music and the sudden close-up? Real life isn’t like that.’

‘Real death.’

‘All right. Real death. It’s not the big deal we’re all led to believe. Don’t worry, Gem. When the time comes, you’ll be fine, just fine.’

‘I’m going to need someone like you to keep the heeby-jeebies at bay.’

‘I’m not sure I want to be party to a murder.’

‘A brilliant undiscovered murder.’

‘If you insist.’ She smiled and sipped her coffee. ‘You know, if they served this in smaller mugs, everyone would drink it quicker and the place wouldn’t get so crowded.’

‘It’s their marketing strategy. You bet they’ve worked it out. There are good commercial reasons for large mugs, but don’t ask me what they are.’

A tall, good-looking guy in a suit paused outside the shop and appeared ready to come in, then changed his mind and walked on.

‘Did we do that?’ Jo asked.

‘We were the reason he stopped in the first place,’ Gemma said. ‘He’ll be back.’

‘You wish.’ They weren’t teenagers. They were in their thirties. Jo had been thinking for some time it would be no bad thing if they started behaving like grown-ups.

But Gemma wasn’t of the same mind. ‘Did you see the size of his feet?’

‘No. Should I have? Why?’

Gemma shook with laughter. ‘If you don’t know by now, I’m not going to tell you.’

‘Oh, that.’ Jo sniffed. ‘It’s a myth.’

Gemma spooned some of the froth from her coffee and licked it. ‘Mind if I ask something personal?’

‘Ask away. If it’s off limits I’ll tell you.’

‘You and your squeeze. Have you known him long?’

‘Rick, you mean? Not very. Why?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

They watched more people cross their vision. In her mind Jo was running through the reasons for Gemma’s question. Could it be the solution to the dilemma she’d been facing all week?

‘You want to know if I’m serious about him? As it happens, I’m not. He’s just someone I’ve been out with a couple of times. We don’t have much in common, as you probably noticed last weekend. Was he coming on to you in the cinema?’

‘A bit.’

‘What a prick.’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Gemma said, and she was actually blushing. ‘It wouldn’t have bothered me normally.’

‘How embarrassing. It crossed my mind when he mentioned the headache. His excuse to cover up what had been going on, was it?’

‘To be fair it was only a problem because I thought you and he were, like… you know. I let him know he was out of order.’

‘What did you do-mark the back of his hand with your fingernails? I would have.’

‘I just told him to leave off.’

‘Bastard.’

A customer looking for a place to sit caught the full force of Jo’s annoyance and slopped coffee over his tray.

Gemma said, ‘Oops.’

Jo ignored the guy. ‘Him, not you. I’m not saying just because I’ve been out with him a couple of times he’s got to be totally loyal to me, but you are my friend and it was the first time he’d met you. That entitles you to some respect.’ She gave a sharp, angry sigh. ‘That’s Rick and me finished. I wasn’t that keen on him anyway.’

Gemma said after a pause, ‘Are you sure about that?’

‘You heard me, Gem. He’s just a bad memory now.’

‘Then you wouldn’t curse me and my progeny for a thousand years if I went out with him?’

Jo, tiptoeing as lightly as Gemma, said, ‘But what about Jake? Isn’t he your boyfriend?’

‘Jake?’ Gemma squeaked at the suggestion. ‘God, no. Don’t run away with that idea. He’s only a customer-at the printer’s, where I work. We’re doing some Christmas cards for the wildlife thing he’s part of, and he said he’d seen me at the bowling. When he asked me to play some ends with him I thought it was naughty talk, but it wasn’t. The guy’s got the sense of humour of a wombat. I felt sorry for him, so I went as an act of charity. He hasn’t a clue how to chat up a girl.’

‘He got a result with you.’

‘Get away.’ She laughed. ‘A game of ten-pin. Call that a result? Not where I was brought up, ducky. If you want the truth I was trying to think of ways of unloading him on someone else when we met last week and you were the unlucky one who copped him.’

‘So you won’t be seeing him again?’

‘The son of Frankenstein? You’re joking. I’ve done my bit for customer relations.’ She clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘You don’t actually fancy him, do you? Omigawd, Gemma puts her foot in it again.’

‘I didn’t say I fancy him,’ Jo said-which was true. She hadn’t said anything about him. She hoped she looked indifferent. ‘He was okay with me. I’ve nothing against him.’

‘Me neither,’ Gemma said, ‘but you wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning and find that face next to you on the pillow. Know what I mean?’

‘His looks don’t bother me.’

Gemma gave her a nudge. ‘I think you do fancy him on the quiet. A bit of Rocky Horror, eh?’

‘I wouldn’t call him that.’

‘Nor would I-to his face. Well, you have a clear run as far as I’m concerned.’

‘Oh, thanks,’ Jo said, and tried to make it sound ironic.

‘Got any plans for tonight?’

‘Nothing definite.’

‘Not for publication?’

‘Yet to be decided.’

‘He hangs out at the bowling place most Saturdays, I heard. Play your cards right and you could even get to see the penguins again.’

Jo screwed up her paper napkin and threw it at Gemma.

‘I was going to give you the latest goss on Mr Cartwright,’ Gemma said. ‘Don’t know if I will now.’

‘Goss on the boss? Go on. It had better be good.’

‘Well, he’s started chatting up this woman in accounts called Fiona. She’s a good twenty years younger, about twenty-four. This isn’t like him. Whatever I’ve said about him in the past, he’s not a skirt-chaser.’

‘Given the incentive, they all are,’ Jo said. ‘Pretty, is she?’

‘I suppose. Well, yes. A redhead.’

‘Say no more. Is he married?’

‘Divorced. He lives alone.’

‘Then I don’t see what the problem is.’

‘Fiona is the problem. The thing is, she’s a single mum. There’s a four-year-old son. She needs the work and she’s afraid if she gives him the big E she’ll lose her job.’

‘Are you sure she isn’t out to pull him?’

‘Jeez. You want to work with him.’

‘Some women are turned on by power.’

‘Running a print business in Fishbourne? It’s not exactly Microsoft International.’

‘Have you talked to her?’

Gemma nodded. ‘She’s the homespun type, a bit short of confidence. Doesn’t know how to handle it.’

Jo giggled a bit. ‘Handle what? What exactly has he been up to?’

‘Get a grip, girl. You’re positively slavering. No, it isn’t physical. Not yet, anyway. But the early signs are there. Yesterday he was in the stock room showing her the papers we use, telling her about quality and sizes.’ With a glare at Jo, who was grinning again, she said, ‘Sizes of paper. Today he was with her for over an hour explaining how the big colour printer works. She’s in accounts, Jo. She doesn’t need to know that stuff.’

‘And she spoke to you about it?’

‘In the loo at the end of the day. She knows I’m his PA. We haven’t talked much before this, but she said she’s getting embarrassed about all this interest and some of the other women are noticing. Basically she was asking if I think he’s got the hots for her.’

‘Obviously he has. Is that what you said?’

‘Come off it. I was trying to reassure the poor wee lass. I said I’ve never known him get heavy with a female employee, which is true.’

‘There’s always a first time. Was she asking for support?’

‘Not directly. No, I wouldn’t say so. I guess she wanted me to know it wasn’t welcomed-in case I was jealous, or something. Which I most definitely am not.’

‘But you’d like him to cool it?’

‘For everyone’s sake, yes.’

‘Does he know she’s got a kid?’

‘He ought to. He interviewed her when she joined. He could easily look at the file.’

‘I expect he’s conveniently put all that out of his mind. Randy old men are like that.’

Gemma rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘But you just said he hasn’t tried it on with you.’

‘Please! I was speaking generally. This is about Fiona, not me. She’s got to find a way of giving him the elbow without putting her job at risk.’

‘You want my advice?’ Jo said. ‘Don’t get involved or you’ll end up getting grief from both of them. She’s a grown-up. She can deal with this herself.’

She didn’t, after all, go bowling. There was a phone message from her dad to say Mummy was in Southampton Hospital with concussion after falling off Penrose, her white gelding.

‘Wasn’t she wearing a riding helmet?’ Jo asked him when they met outside the ward.

Daddy was a silent man with a large moustache that was his defence barrier. ‘You know Mummy,’ he said, as if that explained all. Really it did. This was the third time she’d fallen and ended up in the hospital.

‘Couldn’t she get a safer horse?’

‘I’m not sure it was the horse’s fault.’

‘He’s so tall. It’s a long way to fall.’

‘You could be right, but I don’t see your mother on a pony.’

‘She ought to think about giving up riding.’

‘Try telling her.’

Telling her wouldn’t aid the recovery. Margaret Stevens was a stubborn woman. The mother-daughter relationship had foundered years ago when Jo went through teenage rebellion and Mummy went through her room looking for unsuitable reading and cannabis. Harmless things all her friends were trying at the time, like coloured hair and ripped jeans, became issues. If her mother had treated her with a modicum of understanding some of this might have made sense, but it was handled in a vindictive way. Mummy’s own self-indulgence, the gin and cigarettes and all the expense on the riding, was not for comment. Jo had a suspicion there were other dissipations, and it had suited her mother to turn the spotlight elsewhere. The trust between them had never recovered.

She was in a side ward in Accident amp; Emergency and as pale as the pillow but still in good voice. ‘You look like death, darling. What’s wrong? ’

‘You’re what’s wrong, Mummy, giving us a shock like this. How did it happen?’

‘Don’t ask me. It’s a blur. They’re keeping me in overnight. What a bore. You two had better go out for a meal. Your father won’t cook for himself. If I remember, there’s a good Italian restaurant opposite the hospital.’

Typical of her mother, directing operations.

‘Don’t suppose I’ll get much,’ she ranted on. ‘They have a system of ordering here and I missed the chance to see what’s on offer. I’ll get the leftovers, I expect, cold stew and semolina.’

‘You must be feeling better if you can think about food.’

‘I wouldn’t mind a drink right now.’

Jo reached for the jug of water on the cabinet.

‘I mean a tipple, not that stuff.’

‘You’re here to get your head right, Mummy.’

‘Fiddlesticks. What have you been up to? Ages since we saw you. It’s a funny old world when it takes something like this to get you calling on your parents. Are you still working in the glasshouse?’

‘Garden centre, Mummy. Yes, I am.’

‘What do you do-water the plants?’

‘I’ve told you before. Lots of things.’

‘It’s not good for you, working under glass. It’s no protection from those rays. You can get skin cancer. Tell her, Willy.’

‘I’m not telling her anything,’ her father said.

Mummy was unfazed. ‘She should get a different job. With the education we gave her, she ought to be doing something better than watering pansies.’

Daddy rolled his eyes and was silent.

‘Come on, dear,’ Mummy insisted. ‘What have you been up to? Is there a man in your life? I wish there was, someone you could start a family with, legally of course. No such luck, I suppose?’

Jo was beginning to think she would leave. She hadn’t come here for an inquisition into her private life. ‘How is the horse?’

‘Which horse?’

‘Penrose. Did he fall as well?’

‘I’ve no idea. I told you it’s a blur and you’re trying to change the subject.’

Her father said, ‘The stable lad who phoned said you went under a tree and got knocked off by a low branch.’

‘That doesn’t add up,’ Mummy said. ‘I’m too experienced for that.’

‘It happened before.’

‘Willy, I was a novice then. I don’t make basic errors these days.’

‘Something unseated you.’

‘I expect the horse reared. You can’t do much when that happens. A dog must have frightened him. People should keep them on leads. And muzzled. Josephine, you didn’t answer my question. What sort of company are you keeping?’

‘Mummy, I’m thirty-six years old. I don’t have to account to you for the friends I have.’

‘Be like that. I wouldn’t mind betting you won’t be so reticent when you want us to fork out for a big white wedding in the cathedral.’

‘Ha!’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means don’t worry. It won’t happen.’

‘I’m not worried. We took out insurance shortly after you were born.’

‘You what?’

‘Tell her it’s true, Willy. She can have a white Rolls Royce and a champagne reception for a hundred guests.’

He confirmed it with a shrug.

Instead of feeling grateful for such foresight, Jo thought it mercenary. She decided if she ever did get hitched she’d go to a register office and tell her parents later. The last thing she wanted was a monster shindig managed by her mother.

‘You’re getting overwrought,’ she said. ‘I’m going to leave. Get some rest while you’ve got the chance.’

Driving home, Jo had to admit she was the one who was overwrought. They still had the capacity to make her feel eleven years old. Maybe she should have gone for the Italian with Daddy. Stupid old man, he was no use at fending for himself. Never had been. Even if he’d offered, Mummy wouldn’t have wanted him in her kitchen.

One night of cheese sandwiches wouldn’t hurt him, she told herself, but she still felt bad about it.

There was a message on the answerphone. ‘Jo, this is only me.’ (It was Gemma’s voice) ‘Disappointed? I bet you are. I don’t know if you’ve seen the local rag, but you’re in it, babe. Front page news. “Woman’s Grim Discovery at Selsey. Miss Josephine Stevens, twenty-nine.” That’s pushing it a bit, isn’t it? I thought we agreed we were roughly the same age and I won’t see thirty-five again. The rest of it seems reliable, though. I thought you might want to get a copy. I’ll keep mine in case you can’t. See you Saturday, I hope. ’Bye.’

Nine thirty, just gone. She wasn’t going out again. If she wanted to see the paper she could pick one up in the morning. She wasn’t too excited about making the front page. Finding a body on a beach wasn’t much of an achievement, not like swimming the channel or rescuing someone from a blazing building. Any fool could stumble over a body.

She regretted being economical with her age to the reporter. Gemma was right. Twenty-nine was pushing it. Why did newspapers always want to know your age, as if it mattered? The people at work were going to have a ball. Twenty-nine and counting, they would say.

As she cooked herself a late supper of a mushroom omelette, she had a mental picture of her father alone at home with his cheese sandwich. She was still thinking what a mean cow she was when the smoke alarm went off. The omelette was burning. All in all, this hadn’t been one of her better days.