The Headhunters

EIGHTEEN

Hen’s hectic day brought her next to the court building in Chichester. She hadn’t had time to change. She hadn’t even picked up a sandwich before she appeared at the inquest into Meredith Sentinel’s death. So it came as a relief when her favourite coroner rattled through the formalities in under twenty minutes and the inevitable adjournment was declared.

In the corridor outside, she cornered Austen Sentinel before he could slip away and back to London. In court, he’d confirmed in evidence that he’d identified his late wife. Nothing else had been required from him at this stage. In a black pinstripe suit and dark tie, e’d made the right impression, still grieving, yet bearing up bravely. The demeanour became sharply more assertive as soon as he saw who was barring his way. ‘I have a train to catch,’ he said.

Hen became the party hostess determined to hold on to her guest. ‘No panic. Two or three go to London every hour. I’ll see that you get home all right.’

‘Thanks, but I’m leaving.’ He turned towards the main exit.

‘Not that way,’ she said. ‘There’s a media scrum outside. I’ll show you the back way out.’ She was already steering him towards the side door. In the street she asked, ‘Have you eaten? The pub across the way does a pie and chips to die for.’ Not the best form of words to use to a recently widowed man, but her hunger pangs were extreme.

Even before he turned her down she sensed that he wasn’t a pie and chips man. His fine Italian suit wouldn’t look right in the Globe. ‘Tell you what. The Cloisters Cafe in the cathedral is five minutes from here. A good class of place. Salads, home-made soups, and local apple juice.’

‘I can get myself something on the train.’

I wouldn’t trust the trolley service,’ she told him. ‘Besides, there are a couple of things I’d like your help on. I’d hate to put you to all the inconvenience of returning tomorrow.’

‘I thought we went over it all before,’ he said.

They went to the Cloisters. Hen made a phone call along the route and by the time they’d gone through the self-service and arrived with their trays at a table by the window, Gary had nipped round from where he’d been waiting in the Globe and was sitting there.

‘You remember DC Pearce from before?’ Hen said in a disrming tone to Dr Sentinel.

‘What’s all this about?’

‘Two of us have to be present when a witness is interviewed. It’s for your protection really.’

‘I didn’t agree to an interview.’

‘But you aren’t refusing? You heard the coroner say it’s crucial that everyone cooperates fully with the police investigation.’

‘Heaven knows I’ve done that.’

‘It’s only clarification at this stage.’

He glared at them both, sat down, and started ripping his croissant to shreds. And he’d looked so amenable when he was giving evidence. ‘Go on, then.’

She’d already decided to hit him early with the big one. ‘Your St Petersburg trip: Did you attend all the lecture sessions?’

Unprepared, he struggled for the right response. ‘One isn’t required to.’

‘The seminars, the visit to the Hermitage, the formal dinners?’

‘I read my paper.’

‘What-for two whole weeks? I get through mine in ten minutes over breakfast.’

He looked like a first class passenger forced to use the third-class toilet. ‘It’s an academic expression. I gave my prepared talk to the conference.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. You were sponsored by the British Council, I think you said.’

The blood pressure was rocketing, bringing a patchy orange look to the designer tan. ‘Does that have any relevance?’

Where did you go on all those days off?’

‘I fail to see what connection any of this has with my wife’s death. This is my professional life you’re questioning.’

Hen was unmoved. ‘Your hotel room wasn’t used most of the time you were booked in.’

That one practically floored him.

Eyes swivelling in panic, he said, ‘This is an intrusion on my personal liberty. Have you been checking up on me?’

‘On your story,’ Hen said as if it was the only reasonable way to go. ‘People tell us things and we make sure the information is reliable. You claimed you were in St Petersburg when your wife met her death and now it seems you may not have been. You can clear this up very easily.’

‘I gave my paper and did what I was asked.’

‘On the first or second day.’

His sigh was more like a rasp. ‘I took some time out from the conference to visit a colleague. That isn’t a matter for the police, so far as I’m aware.’

‘Oh, but it is if you weren’t where you said you were. Did you leave St Petersburg?’

A long pause while he seemed to be deciding if he could tell a downright lie and bluff it out. Apparently not. ‘Yes.’

‘Returning at the end of the three weeks to check out?’

‘You’re treating me like a schoolboy who played truant.’

‘Who was the old colleague, Dr Sentinel?’

‘A Finnish geologist. You wouldn’t even be able to repeat the name if I gave it to you.’

‘Try me.’

‘Dr Outi Koskenniemi.’

‘You’re right.’ Hen handed him a pen and one of her personal cards. ‘On the back, please.’

Shaking his head at this imposition, Sentinel printed the name.

‘Male or female?’ Hen asked, looking at the card he’d returned.

He hesitated before saying, ‘Female.’

Hen lifted an eyebrow.

His shoulders slumped and all the fight went out of him. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you’ve got the picture now. I was playing away, so to speak, and I’m bloody ashamed it should have happened when Merry was being murdered. One can’t re-run events, unfortunately.’

‘Was this lady at the conference?’

He shook his head. ‘She lives in Helsinki.’

‘Excuse me. My geography isn’t the best.’

‘It’s a short hop by plane.’

‘So you travelled there and stayed with her. You’d better write down the address for me.’

‘I don’t want Outi involved.’

A fine time for gallantry, Hen thought. ‘She’s your alibi. You went missing from the conference at a sensitive time.’

Shaking his head, he added the address.

Hen leaned back in her chair. ‘You and your friend Outi must have planned this when you got the invitation to St Petersburg. Has it happened before?’

‘This was my first visit to Russia.’

‘But not to Helsinki?’ The answer to that was written all over his face. ‘That explains it, then. An affair of the heart. Your marriage to Meredith wasn’t roses all the way, in spite of what you told me last time?’

‘I was in shock when we spoke.’

‘Agreed. And now you can be more frank.’

He felt the knot of his tie as if it was too tight. ‘Merry and I stopped sleeping in the same room a long time ago. We continued to live together because neither of us wanted all the hassle and expense of separation.’

‘Did she know about your Finnish lady?’

‘I expect so. I got to know about some of her male friends. We didn’t discuss them, but the signs were there for me to see.’

Hen recalled him accusing her of appalling bad taste for suggesting Meredith might have met someone else. She let it pass, feeling she was on the brink of a breakthrough here. ‘Was there a man friend down here in Sussex?’

‘Of course.’

‘You knew?’

‘She didn’t come here for the scenery.’

‘Who was he?’

‘It’s obvious.’

‘Not to me.’ Getting a straight answer was a major challenge. ‘I’m asking for his name.’

He shrugged and looked away.

‘Don’t know?’ said Hen, ‘Or won’t tell?’

He was silent.

‘You just said it was obvious who he was.’

‘Obvious that some man existed,’ he said.

‘Isn’t there some way of finding out? A name she let slip? Phone calls? Letters?’

If Dr Sentinel was capable of recalling anyone at all, he was in no frame of mind to be helpful. ‘I wasn’t that inquisitive about her fancy men. “Better not to know,” was my philosophy, or you start making comparisons with yourself and losing confidence.’

Hen was so frustrated that she departed from her script. ‘You couldn’t have missed the man I have in mind. He’s six foot six.’

‘There you are then,’ Sentinel said smoothly. ‘I’m five nine. That would be a blow to my self-esteem.’

She wished she’d kept quiet about Jake. A tactical error. ‘When we spoke before, you went so far as to suggest that the murderer must be somebody with local knowledge.’

‘Obvious, isn’t it?’ He was recovering some of his poise. And arrogance.

‘Yes-and we’re working on that assumption.’

‘And you have a suspect?’

‘More than one,’ she said, trying to compensate for the gaffe over Jake.

‘Not much of a friend if he murdered her.’

She was trying to keep her cool. ‘You’ll have read in the papers that we linked this case to another murder by drowning. It’s vital that we catch this killer. Any detail about the men she met recently could put us onto him.’

‘You’re not listening, Chief Inspector. I just told you I didn’t wish to know anything about them.’

‘Is there a woman friend Meredith might have confided in?’

‘I doubt it. Most of her friends were male.’

‘Did she keep a diary?’

‘Never had the time. Speaking of which… ’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’d like to leave now.’

Hen ignored that. She felt certain there was more to be winkled out from this unpromising source. ‘You talked about the time you first visited Selsey, to excavate the mammoth on the beach. Meredith was a Brighton University student who joined the dig, and that’s how you met.’

He sighed and shook his head. ‘Do we really have to go over this?’ He’d taken a near knockout punch, but he was back on his feet and fighting.

‘I’d like to know who else was on that dig.’

‘Ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Twenty years ago and you want names?’

She continued to prompt him. Obnoxious as he was, he could provide the crucial link. ‘You said the work had to be done fast because of the tides, so you recruited everyone you could get.’

‘It was a miracle I found anyone at all. The term hadn’t started, so I had to phone around for students I taught and, frankly, any Tom, Dick, or Harry who was up at the university early, as well as locals in Selsey. But if you think I kept a list of their names, you’re mistaken.’

‘I expect you wrote about the mammoth later for some scientific journal.’

‘At some length. It was a major event for this country and I was a young man with a career to pursue. I’ve lectured on it extensively. Only last June at Brighton in commemoration week I gave the Howard Carter lecture to mark the twentieth year since the dig.’

‘As recently as that? Who were the audience?’

‘All the VIPs from the vice-chancellor down, plus some experts and enthusiasts. It was a full house, and appreciative, I may add.’

‘Good to go back, was it?’

‘I’m not sentimental, Chief Inspector.’

‘Did you meet any of your original team?’

‘There you go again. I’ve taught hundreds of students since. If I met them, I wouldn’t recall their names.’ With his giant ego, he’d wiped them all from his memory.

‘With one exception,’ Hen said.

‘Oh?’

‘Your wife.’

‘Well, yes,’ he conceded without much grace.

‘Was she at the lecture?’

‘Merry?’ he said, as if the idea was preposterous. ‘She’d heard it all before. She called it my spiel. No, she was out and about in London being wined and dined by some fossil hunter, no doubt.’

Hen’s antennae twitched. ‘Fossil hunter? Why do you say that?’

‘Because those were the types she was most likely to meet at the museum. In archaeology we often talk of finds. The term had its own special meaning for Merry.’

‘No fossil hunter in particular?’

‘You’d have to ask her. But of course it’s too late now.’

This was like being baited. Each time Hen got close, the lure was jerked out of range. ‘Was this lecture of yours illustrated?’

‘Certainly.’ The words were guaranteed to flow when anything to Sentinel’s credit was mentioned. ‘I showed a selection of slides and some newsreel footage. The dig was photographed officially and covered by the media as well.’

‘You said you wrote about it yourself. With pictures?’

‘Some journals like to use illustrations. Some don’t.’

‘Pictures of the bones, I suppose. Any of the dig in progress?’

‘Several.’

‘But you wouldn’t have captioned them with the names of the diggers?’

He looked pained by this suggestion. ‘These are professional journals. The finds are significant, not the finders.’

Hen couldn’t resist commenting, ‘But I dare say your name appeared.’

‘Well, it was my project.’

‘You see why I’m so interested?’ she said, still trying for cooperation. ‘Selsey was where the mammoth was found and where your wife was murdered. We don’t know why she came back twenty years later. What time of year was the dig?’

‘End of September.’

‘Exactly twenty years on.’

‘Not significant, in my opinion.’

‘I beg to differ,’ Hen said. ‘A connection is possible, and it’s my job to examine it.’

Sentinel was unimpressed. ‘Strictly speaking, the anniversary may have been September, but scarcely anybody in a university is up then. The session begins in October, and we’re so busy then that a special lecture would be out of the question, I can assure you. And another thing: Merry was only eighteen in nineteen-eighty-seven. I’m damned sure she wasn’t having affairs at that age.’

‘I’m not suggesting that. But if one of the team from way back resurfaced and got in touch, mightn’t Meredith have thought it fun to revisit the place?’

‘She had the opportunity in June when I gave the lecture.’

‘That was Brighton. Selsey was where it happened.’

‘She said nothing to me about going back there.’

‘You must have talked about the dig from time to time.’

‘It came up sometimes.’

‘Are you sure she didn’t keep up with any of your team?’

‘She kept up with me.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘Touche.’

‘Nobody else?’

‘I wouldn’t know unless she told me, and she didn’t.’

‘Someone must have remembered her. I expect the dig was memorable for the people who took part.’

‘Oh, you can be sure of that,’ he said with another rush of hubris. ‘Not many undergraduates get such an opportunity.’

‘You must have been quite young yourself.’

‘To be leading such a dig? Twenty-five.’

‘Admired by all those little girls in bikinis? I’m sure you were.’

Too obvious. He put up the shutters. ‘You’re straying into fantasy here, I think.’ He drew the chair back from the table. ‘I need to go now.’

‘When we first discussed this, you said Meredith was one of your team, a fresher. You were very clear about what happened.’

‘Nothing happened.’

‘Right. You said you noticed her, but that wasn’t the start of your romance. That came later. Is that still your position on this?’

‘Of course. I’d have been a total idiot to risk my career going to bed with a student. It was a no-no. Didn’t I make it clear that we linked up later, after she graduated?’

‘I believe you did.’ And Hen was forced to admit to herself that his claim rang true. This calculating man was too ambitious to have risked a scandal

In this particular contest, he’d taken some hard knocks and survived them, but Hen, too, had gone through a shaky period. Towards the end, Sentinel had recovered some punching power. Even so, he wasn’t behaving with total openness. Hen suspected strongly that he was still holding something back. She’d run out of steam and he was about to escape.

It was infuriating.

‘Gary will show you to the station.’

Jo needed to prove beyond doubt that somebody other than Jake had carried out the drownings. After a light salad lunch she made herself a strong espresso. Then she planned the rest of her day. First, she faced facts. Jake was the prime suspect for the murder on the beach. The police had got onto him almost from the start, influenced by his previous offence. They’d stacked up plenty of circumstantial evidence against him.

But this wasn’t an isolated killing. Fiona had been drowned in a similar way. The police had made it their job to find some link between Jake and Fiona and now they’d got it. He’d almost certainly met her at the print works. But unless they knew something that hadn’t yet come out, they were still some way from proving he’d murdered her.

Jo had an alternative theory. If you took the killing of Fiona in isolation there was an obvious suspect in Cartwright, her boss and the man she was last seen with. Fiona had set out to seduce him and succeeded, but only up to a point. Obviously she’d told Cartwright her terms: a top job and maybe even a seat on the board. He’d seen that he’d been set up and must have got angry. She’d died and he’d disappeared. Surely the police must have deduced this much?

The next, more difficult, step was to see if Cartwright could have murdered Meredith as well. Was he one of those unassuming men who live quiet, ordered lives and turn out to be sociopaths? Was the drowning on Selsey beach a trial run for Fiona’s murder? Or was there a connection with Meredith that no one had yet discovered?

She needed to know more about Cartwright and it was obvious who to ask.

Time to mend fences.

She called the print works and got through to Gemma. The first contact was terse and untypical, but was bound to be after the hard words they’d exchanged the evening before. ‘Thanks for that message you left about Jake. I’m sorry to say he got arrested again.’

‘Poor old darling,’ Gemma said, trying her best and not quite getting there. ‘I saw it coming. We had the plod here on the case at the crack of dawn. They took a copy of the list of clients and it was as certain as death and taxes they’d discover Jake had been here in August and must have met Fiona. Sweetie, you must be gutted.’

‘I’m sure he’s innocent.’

‘Goes without saying,’

‘I’ve got to help him, Gem.’

‘I’m with you on that-but what can anyone do if the police have got him?’

‘I’ve got some ideas. Will you help me?’

‘How?’

‘I’d like to come out and see you?’

‘Aren’t you at work?’

‘I took the day off.’

‘Shoot right over, then. You’re not interrupting much. I’ve been doing my toenails.’

The last time she’d come to Kleentext, it was at Gemma’s request. This was so different.

They embraced in a token way.

‘I was still in shock last night,’ Jo said. ‘I’m sorry about some of the things I said.’

‘And I was out of order, forcing my way in like that,’ Gemma told her. ‘Pax? Put it there.’ She held up her hand for a high five that Jo was pleased to complete. ‘So what are we going to do to help Jake?’

‘Basically, find out who really did the drownings.’

‘Okay.’

‘And your boss is the main contender.’

‘Wow! Tell me more.’ Gemma gestured to Jo to sit down while she perched herself on her desk not a yard away.

After Jo had laid out her theory she added, ‘So you see, I’ve got to find a link to the drowning on the beach. There’s no question that this was a double killing. This is where I need your help.’

‘And you’ll get it if I can think of a damned thing,’ Gemma said. ‘At this moment I can’t. It’s not as if the dead woman was one of our clients.’

‘It won’t be as obvious as that,’ Jo said. ‘How much do you know about Mr Cartwright’s life outside here?’

‘Only bits. The divorce happened yonks ago, so I doubt if that has any bearing. He lived at Apuldram and grew roses. Sometimes came in with a rosebud in his buttonhole. He fancied himself as a fashion object, I think, what with the dicky-bows and the brothel creepers. He was way off track.’

‘Was he bitter to women?’

‘Because of the divorce? I don’t think so. Not that you’d notice, anyway. He acted the gent, smiled and put on the charm, like I told you. Mind, when you visit a house you don’t ask to see the cesspit.’

‘Did he go to university?’

‘Never mentioned it.’ Gemma raised a finger. ‘Ah, you’re thinking they could have met as students. Well, I doubt it. I always thought Cartwright left school early to join the printing trade and worked his way up the ladder. Give him his due, he knew every bit of the biz.’

‘How about the marriage? Did he talk about that?’

‘Not to me, poppet. I’m sorry. I’m not being helpful. How would the marriage make a difference anyway?’

‘If his ex was a friend of Meredith.’

‘I see.’ But there wasn’t much enthusiasm in the way Gemma spoke. She hesitated and then said with a tentative smile, ‘Jo, are we in danger of clutching at straws?’

Jo nodded. It was fair comment. ‘The thing is, I never met the man and you only knew him as your boss. There’s a lot more of his life we know nothing about. Did he keep any personal items in the office?’

‘Sorry to disappoint. The police took all his stuff away last week. The drawers of his desk, files, a couple of photos, even the calendar off the wall. They had the hard disk out of his computer. Go in and look if you like, but I don’t think you’ll find anything.’

Jo sighed. This had been the key part of her plan.

‘At least it shows they’re not ignoring him,’ Gemma added.

‘Do you think they searched his house as well?’

‘It would make sense, wouldn’t it?’

‘Did they say anything about a search?’

‘To me?’ Gemma shook her head.

There was a moment of silence while each of them wrestled with her conscience. Then Jo said, ‘Are you up for it?’

‘If you are.’

Apuldram was an ancient shrunken hamlet a ten-minute drive away, fringing the Fishbourne Channel immediately south of Chichester in an undeveloped area designated as of outstanding scenic interest. The A27 bypass had effectively cut it off from the city. Known for its rose garden and the Crown and Anchor Inn at Dell Quay, it was not a bad place to have a pad, as Gemma remarked.

Jo had always believed in being open with her friends and she wanted to clear the air with Gemma, so as soon as they drove off, she said, ‘I’d better tell you, Gem. I’ve thought about Rick’s story and I’ve got serious doubts.’

Gemma said in a subdued voice, ‘Go on.’

‘Well, I wonder if he said he’d killed Mr Cartwright just to impress you, almost as an extension of the joking we did about it. The thing is, Rick is serious-minded and when he says something it doesn’t come out as wacky. He doesn’t do wacky.’

‘That’s for sure,’ Gemma said.

‘So I can’t help thinking he got himself into a situation he couldn’t find a way out of. He made this claim in such a serious way that you believed him-and so did I when he repeated it to me-and he couldn’t go back and say it was all made up.’

‘You mean because I had sex with him?’

‘Well… yes.’

‘I told you how it happened, and it was true,’ Gemma said. ‘It blew my mind when he said he’d murdered Cartwright for real. All the talk about totalling him had been meant in fun, like you’re saying. I was really scared, and I felt responsible. He’d never have done it without me opening my big mouth. So when he said the next bit, about doing the perfect murder and making every trace disappear, I can’t describe the weight that was lifted from me. Okay, it was still a nightmare, but we’d got away with it. So we shagged like the only two bunnies who made it across the motorway, and that’s the truth of it.’

‘Do you see where I’m coming from?’ Jo said. ‘It was your first time with Rick, right? It was a big deal for him.’

‘Better be.’ Gemma laughed, and it cleared the air a little.

‘And then-being Rick-he can’t tell you it was all made up.’

‘Really?’ Gemma scraped her fingers through her hair and pulled some across her mouth.

‘In his eyes, he’s conned you. He didn’t mean to, but that’s how it worked out. So he can’t bring himself to tell you none of it was true because he’s afraid you’ll slap his face and tell him to get the hell out of your life.’

‘Which I might.’

‘The thing is, Cartwright vanished, and as long as he stays vanished, Rick can stick to his story. Mind he’s not exactly shouting it from the rooftops. He didn’t want me to know until you pushed him to tell me.’

‘So I did…’ She was shaking her head. ‘Poor guy. I never thought. Jo, you’re brilliant. A mind-reader. I’m sure you’re right. It never happened and I feel so much better.’

Inside herself Jo knew she shouldn’t really take the credit. Jake had unravelled Rick’s lie, but there were times in life when silence was the right option.

Gemma started singing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,’ and Jo joined in until they ran out of lines they remembered.

‘There’s only one thing,’ Gemma said finally.

‘What’s that?’

‘Whatever happened to Mr Cartwright?’