The Headhunters

NINE

The visit to the mortuary hadn’t put Austen Sentinel off food. He went through a round of egg and cress sandwiches and two cups of black coffee while Hen was agreeing to the text of the press release. When she joined him in a side room he looked and sounded much recovered.

‘You’re about to break the news, then?’ he asked. ‘Those jackals will soon be after me, no doubt. I’ve watched grieving spouses forced to appear on television. Is that being suggested yet?’

The subtext, Hen suspected, was that the poor bereaved guy wanted his five minutes of fame.

‘Not unless it becomes necessary.’

Disappointment spread over his face like a maiden’s blush. ‘I thought it was standard procedure.’

‘It could still happen.’

‘I’ll do anything to help catch the monster who murdered my wife. I’m willing to face it today.’

‘Thanks, but that would be too soon. We’ve got all the publicity we need at this stage.’

‘What if they call me at home and ask for a statement?’

‘You say “no comment” and refer them to our press office. You’ve got enough to cope with. You’ll be wanting to contact her family and friends, I expect. Are her parents alive?’

He clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘God, the old couple. They’ll be devastated by this. I ought to speak to them before they hear it from someone else. They live in Kentucky. What time is it now?’ He looked at his watch. ‘They’ll be up and about.’

‘Do you have a mobile?’

His hand went to his pocket, but not inside. ‘Oh, hell. I doubt if there’s enough credit for a call to America. It needs topping-up.’

‘So you’d like to use one of ours?’ Making a mental note that he was a tightwad as well as a self-admirer, she took him into the CAD room and found him a seat.

She sought out Stella in the incident room. ‘Check the St Petersburg flight arrangements both ways with the British Council and compare them with the airline passenger lists. Let’s be sure he was on the flights he said he was. And see what you can find out about this conference and his part in it. I’ve no doubt he was there, but I want to know where he stayed and for how long and if he attended all the sessions.’

‘Do you think he’s flaky?’

‘As a bowl of All-Bran. But I don’t know if he’s a killer as well.’

Dr Sentinel had finished speaking to his parents-in-law when Hen returned to him. ‘One of the most difficult calls I’ve ever had to make,’ he said. ‘You can’t imagine.’

‘Actually I can,’ she said. ‘I had to break the news to you.’

‘So you did.’

‘And it wasn’t my first time. Every copper has to do it.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Feel ready to answer some questions? Not here. We’ll use an interview room.’

He frowned. ‘Shouldn’t you be going after the monster who did this?’

‘I am. You offered to help. I’m asking for information.’

‘Is there anything we haven’t already covered?’

‘Quite a bit.’

In Interview Room 2, with DC Gary Pearce at her side, Hen explained that it would streamline the process if they videoed what was said. Sentinel commented that in modern Britain you never knew when you were being secretly videoed anyway, and he had no objection. He didn’t require a solicitor. Why should he?

For the record, Hen spoke the preliminaries, and then told him, ‘I want as much as you can give me about your wife. Her personality, likes, dislikes, interests, friendships. It’s our job, with your help, to work out what she was doing in Selsey.’

‘That’s a closed book to me,’ he said. ‘Let’s try, but I don’t hold out much hope that I can be of use to you. Personality-wise, Merry was charming in the way American women are, or most of them. She charmed me, anyway. We first met in the late nineteen eighties when she was an undergraduate at Brighton and I was a visiting lecturer attached to the geology department. I led a course in palaeontology for a couple of terms there.’

‘And she was on it?’

‘No, it wasn’t that old cliche.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Tutor seduces student. She wasn’t even my student.’

‘So what was she reading?’

‘Zoology. Got a first, in spite of me. Merry could have excelled in any of the sciences, including my own. She had that sort of brain.’

‘“In spite” of you?’

‘She could so easily have been sidetracked. Academically, I was bad news for her. You see, I was on attachment from Brunel, twenty-five years of age, full of myself, not bad-looking. She was eighteen, a fresher.’

Not a million miles from that old cliche, Hen mused.

‘The ratio of women students to men at Brighton was outrageous compared to what I was used to. I was the proverbial kid in the sweetshop. For me it was ideal, but not for Merry. I came along at a critical stage in her studies and took far too much of her time. It’s a measure of her ability that she still got the best degree going.’

Something in his favour. He had a conscience.

‘When did you marry?’

‘Nineteen-ninety-two, after she graduated. The wedding was in Louisville, where they have the Kentucky Derby. Her father owns a string of racehorses. It was a society do. And they do their best to convince you America has no class system. You wouldn’t believe the hats. Like that scene in My Fair Lady.’

‘But you chose to live in England?’

‘My career. I was hoping to get the chair at Imperial. I’m still waiting. I worked damned hard establishing myself, writing books and so forth. Merry was a huge support.’

‘Did she continue her studies?’

‘She took her doctorate at University College, but she wasn’t cut out for lecturing, so she didn’t stay in education.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Various things. She worked mornings at the Natural History Museum in South Ken, classifying bones and fossils. Yes, I know it sounds like the ultimate dead end, but the work had a link with her zoology, you see. And once a week she was doing what she really believed in, helping living species as a volunteer for the World Wildlife Fund.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Stuffing things into envelopes mainly.’

Hen had pictured her bottle-feeding baby pandas. ‘And she found that fulfilling?’

‘She valued the animal kingdom above mankind.’

Was that what irked him?

‘The whole ecology, in fact,’ he added.

‘Flora as well as fauna?’ A new thought came to Hen. ‘She wasn’t, by any chance, a campaigner for trees?’

‘Not unless they were homes to one-toed sloths.’

‘She must have made some friends in these jobs she did.’

‘I expect so.’

A vague answer. ‘You didn’t meet any of them?’

‘She didn’t bring them home, no.’

‘You’re private people?’

‘We gave the occasional dinner party for colleagues of mine.’

It seemed equality hadn’t penetrated the Sentinel household.

‘Did she ever mention names?’

‘Of her friends? If she did, I wouldn’t recall them. I have more than enough going on at Imperial to occupy my attention.’

Hen felt some sympathy for Meredith Sentinel. Marriage to this self-serving man must have been a pain. ‘Enemies, then?’

‘None that I heard of. She was difficult to dislike. I can see where you’re going with that question, but I can’t help, I’m afraid.’

‘You mentioned the work she did at the Natural History Museum. Did she go on field trips?’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Parts of the coast down here are well known for deposits of fossils.’

‘I’m aware of that. They aren’t short of specimens at the museum. She hasn’t been here since her student days.’

‘She was here last month when she was murdered.’

‘And you’re suggesting she came fossil-hunting? I don’t think so.’

‘So why did she come to Selsey as a student?’

‘That was the woolly mammoth.’

‘The what?’

‘Twenty years ago some large bones were exposed in the clay after an unusually low tide and they turned out to be the complete skeleton of a young mammoth. My lucky day. This happened during my lecturing stint at Brighton-what is it? — thirty miles up the coast, and I was the obvious person with the skills and knowledge to supervise the excavation.’

‘You were in charge?’

‘The man on the spot. Palaeontologists don’t grow on trees.’

‘Neither do mammoths, I guess.’

‘Not in nineteen-eighty-seven, anyway,’ he said, causing Hen some puzzlement. She didn’t interrupt. ‘The dig had to be done swiftly because of the tidal conditions. And this was towards the end of September, before the university session began. I’d come up early to prepare and I recruited all the help I could, local volunteers and students from anywhere and everywhere, including Merry.’

‘So that was the start of your romance?’

He was quick to scotch that notion. ‘No, she was just a fresher, then. The mammoth dig was before I started going out with her. I took note of her, of course. You tend to spot the pretty ones on an excavation and they were in bikinis, if I recall correctly.’

Hen trusted his memory on that. ‘How long did this dig go on for?’

‘Three or four days only, at extreme low tide. Very demanding conditions. It’s a pity, because a lot can be learned from the clay the bones are embedded in. You can isolate fossil plant-seeds that provide insights into the conditions at the time the mammal met its end.’

‘This was an important find, I imagine?’

‘Sensational, yes. The press came, and radio and television. Nowadays it wouldn’t be the story it was. Global warming has led to wonderfully preserved mammoths being hacked out of the permafrost. In Russia they have so many you can buy them on the black market.’

One little query answered. Mammoths didn’t grow on trees in 1987, but twenty years later was another story.

‘To your knowledge, Dr Sentinel, that was the last time your wife visited Selsey?’

‘I can’t think of any other reason she would have come. We don’t take our holidays here.’

‘There are other local sites where ancient remains have been excavated.’

‘Boxgrove,’ Gary Pearce put in.

‘Didn’t I make myself clear?’ Sentinel said. ‘She doesn’t- didn’t-go on digs. The mammoth was a one-off.’

‘And you can’t think why she would have come to Selsey this September, or who might have come with her?’

‘If I knew the answer to that, I’d have told you already.’

‘Did she own a car?’

‘A Volvo Estate. It’s still in the street outside our home.’

‘So either she took the train or she was driven here.’ Hen let a few seconds pass. ‘There’s something I’m bound to ask and it’s vital that you give me a frank answer. Was your marriage in any difficulty?’

The colour rose in his face. ‘Certainly not. Hasn’t everything I’ve said up to now demonstrated the strength of our affection for each other?’

‘You’ve no reason to suppose she might have met someone else?’

‘That suggestion is in appalling bad taste in the circumstances.’

‘Sorry to give offence, but I had to ask,’ Hen said. ‘She acted out of character, according to you. Whilst you were away, she came to a place you knew nothing about and was found half naked on a beach.’

‘Obviously she was abducted and brought here by her attacker.’

‘Why? A public beach isn’t the ideal place to conceal a murder.’

‘He must know the area. You’re looking for someone with local knowledge.’

It was a reasonable comment, but was he deflecting suspicion?

He continued, showing remarkable detachment, ‘Sadly, bodies are washed up on beaches from time to time and most of them are victims of drowning. He must have assumed you would think she went swimming and got into difficulties. He didn’t expect to leave those marks on her neck. That’s my reading of it.’

On this, Hen agreed with him.

Jo lived on the north side of Chichester in a 1930s semi converted into two flats. She had the upper one. Doreen, a widow in her seventies, lived downstairs and did all the gardening, one of those hardy Englishwomen who knew about plants and was never happier than when out there watering, weeding, and pruning. They shared the front door.

She noticed Jake getting tense as the car left the main road into town and headed along suburban streets.

‘You don’t mind?’ She was doing her utmost to sound relaxed. ‘I thought my place would be less public than one of the coffee shops in town.’

He said nothing. At least he didn’t protest.

Fortunately Doreen wasn’t working in the front. She would have insisted on being introduced and asking questions, well meant, but liable to alarm anyone as wary as Jake.

Jo parked on the drive and switched off. Jake remained in his seat with the belt fastened.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’re wondering if this is wise.’

He gave a nod.

‘There’s no hidden agenda. It’s coffee and biscuits and a chance to talk.’

After a pause for thought he said, ‘Suits me,’ and got out.

First base, she thought, and then gave herself a silent reprimand.

Upstairs in the living room Jake said, ‘Nice place.’

‘Not to everyone’s taste,’ she said. ‘The colours are on the strong side, but I like the orange to red range. Shall I take your coat?’

A small courtesy, but the reaction was symbolic of trust when he unzipped the jacket and handed it to her.

‘Have a seat and I’ll get the kettle on.’

Had she prepared for this by some trick of the subconscious? She’d left an unopened packet of chocolate biscuits beside the kettle. She found a plate for them.

‘I seem to remember you like yours black without?’ she called from the kitchen. ‘Put some music on if you like.’

The Lazy Sunday brand of coffee would have to do for Saturday. Humming to herself, she spooned some into the cafetiere and poured on the water. Then she noticed there was a message on the answerphone. Gemma? Unlikely. Gem would have called her mobile. I know who that is, she thought with resignation. Her mother always used the land line.

Jake had chosen her CD of the Goldberg Variations. Glenn Gould, another guy with a personality problem.

‘Do you play?’ she asked as she came in with the tray.

‘Badly.’

‘Better than me. I lasted one week on the violin. My parents were keen for me to learn and that turned me right off. I have a pushy mother, though I have to admit she pushes herself hardest of all. She’s mastered all kinds of skills, from marquetry to martial arts.’

‘I won’t pick a fight,’ he said.

‘Yes, she’d see how tall you are and take you as a challenge. Are your parents anything like that?’

‘Tall?’

‘No. Cringe-making.’

‘Died when I was too young to know them,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Another gaffe.

‘I was a Barnardo’s boy. Have you heard of it?’

‘I’ve seen the charity shops. That must have been a tough time. Were you in a children’s home?’

He shook his head. ‘They closed all the homes some time ago.’

‘So?’

‘I was fostered, three times.’

‘That’s a lot of changes. Weren’t the parents suitable?’

‘I wasn’t. A right little tearaway.’

She smiled. ‘Hard to imagine.’

‘Oh, yeah? I took advantage. Didn’t settle down until I went to school. Other kids put me in my place, let me know I was different.’

‘Kids are cruel.’

‘I have the hide of a rhino.’ He managed a rare smile while working himself up to say something else. ‘Your mother might knock me over, but she wouldn’t hurt me.’

He did have a sense of humour. ‘She still knows how to needle me,’ Jo said. ‘There’s a message on the answerphone and I’m certain it’s going to be from her. I don’t visit enough for her liking, but when I do she makes me feel guilty.’

‘Do you want to listen?’

‘Right now I’d rather listen to Glenn Gould. And to you. Can I be personal and ask how you and Gemma got together?’ She’d heard it from Gemma already, but his version would be more reliable.

‘I don’t think we did,’ he said with the beginning of a smile. ‘Needed some printing done for my job. Found her firm in the Yellow Pages.’

‘So you visited Kleentext. Who did you meet?’

‘A tough lady on reception.’

‘That would be Hillie. I met her, too. She keeps throwing wingdings, to quote Gem. I think I’ve got the general idea, but I’m not always sure what her expressions mean.’

‘It’s a party, isn’t it?’

‘A wingding? More like some kind of outburst, I think. Yes, from what I saw of Hillie she isn’t the sort to throw a party. Did you get to meet the mysterious Mr Cartwright?’

‘Saw him. He walked through the office. Didn’t speak.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘Dark hair, slicked back. Suit and bow tie. Glasses. Average height.’

‘Bow tie? You know the saying? Dicky bow, no dick below.’ The moment she spoke, Jo wished she hadn’t. It was girl talk, strictly, strictly girl talk, of the sort she’d have a giggle over with Gemma.

‘Haven’t heard that one,’ he said, straight-faced. Then smiled and said, ‘Like fur coat and no knickers.’

‘Much the same, yes.’ He’d spared her blushes and she was grateful for that. ‘And was Fiona about?’

‘I couldn’t tell you. Gemma took over.’

‘I know what you mean. Meeting Gem for the first time is an experience. We were in the same yoga group and for some reason she homed in on me and we were asked to leave for being disruptive. Embarrassing really, but yoga classes are two-a-penny and Gemma’s a one-off. And I’ve interrupted what you were telling me.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You know the rest.’

‘She chatted you up?’

‘Told me I should get a life. Offered to take me bowling. That’s where you came in.’

‘At Chichester Gate. Wasn’t that a strange evening? Rick being difficult and I’m not sure why. Maybe he was miffed about spending the evening with other people. It’s not as if he and I were close. We’d been out together a couple of times and he kept on about this older woman called Sally he’s known for ages who lives in a big house and cooks a roast for him on Sundays, so I was very much the second choice of date, or so I felt. He was totally open about her. I wonder if he’s told Gemma.’

‘Are they going out now?’

‘Rick and Gem? She’s dead keen. He can lay on the charm when he wants. She cleared it with me. We’ll stay friends. Have one of the biscuits.’

‘Thanks.’

‘They’re total opposites,’ she said, ‘so they ought to complement each other, like the two hemispheres of the brain. I never remember which is the intuitive, creative side, but that’s Gemma.’

‘The left.’

‘And Rick is the analytical one. Put them together and you get something formidable. Gemma talks about murdering her boss- which is pretty outrageous-and Rick thinks of ways to go about it. Her ideas are off the wall, but he thinks it through like a chess player. Creepy. He’s harmless, I’m sure, but I felt uncomfortable that evening we discussed it.’

‘The power of suggestion.’

‘Yes, and when I actually discovered a body not long after, it was very weird indeed. Then, on top of that, Fiona dies.’

The phone rang.

She said, ‘Sod it.’

‘Could be important,’ Jake said.

She picked it up and of course the voice was her mother’s. ‘Didn’t you get my message? Does that machine of yours work?’

She carried it through to the kitchen. ‘I only just came in. Is everything all right?’

‘Where were you, then?’

‘Out for a walk. Does it matter where I was? If you want to reach me, Mummy, I carry the mobile almost everywhere. I wrote down the number for you. It’s tucked in with your credit cards.’

‘You haven’t been listening to the radio, then?’

‘No. Is something going on?’

‘You’d better switch it on. Or look at the television. They’ve identified that poor woman you found on the beach. You’d like to know who she was, wouldn’t you?’

‘I suppose, yes. Did they say how she got there?’

‘It’s still a mystery, apparently, but now they know who she is they’ll soon sort it out.’

‘How did they find out?’

‘From the husband. Why don’t I get off the line and let you hear it for yourself?’

One of Mummy’s better suggestions. ‘All right. Take care.’

She stepped back into the living room. ‘I don’t know if you heard. That was my mother. It seems we ought to be listening to local radio. They’ve named the woman I found at Selsey.’

‘Who was she?’

‘Don’t know yet.’ She crossed the room and switched off Glenn Gould. ‘Do you mind?’ She tuned in to Southern Counties Radio. They were playing Westlife. ‘Damn. Some other station must have it.’

‘Stay with it. They keep giving the news,’ Jake said.

‘I suppose. More coffee?’ She topped up his cup. ‘Mummy said the husband came forward. It’s been at least two weeks and more like three. I wonder why he left it so late?’

The question couldn’t be answered yet. Jake gave a shrug and looked at his watch. Radio bulletins generally come on the hour and half hour.

Jo remained standing, more tense than she expected, gripping her arms to stop them from shaking. She couldn’t explain why she was reacting like this. Hearing the name of the murder victim on the radio wasn’t going to resolve anything. In a subversive way the woman was about to become more real. The sight of the almost naked body draped with seaweed and curled against the breakwater was still vivid in her memory, often returning, but it was just that, a shocking image. Now it was as if the poor woman was about to acquire a personality and make a stronger claim on the imagination.

The music ended, and the news jingle followed. Then: ‘Southern Counties Radio at five o’clock. The stricken tanker in the Solent has been brought under control and is being towed towards Portsmouth. Coastguards report that the spillage of oil is less than was first feared and is being managed with booms. The woman found dead on the beach at Selsey two weeks ago and believed to have been murdered has been named as Mrs Meredith Sentinel of Islington. She was identified by her husband, Dr Austen Sentinel, a university lecturer, who has just returned from an overseas trip. Police are now trying to establish her movements prior to her death.’

Jo picked up the remote and switched off. Just as she’d feared, the dead woman seemed more real, more tragic, now that she had an identity. ‘A lecturer’s wife. I wonder what brought her to Selsey.’

Jake didn’t say anything. He’d taken out his mobile and was texting someone. If anyone else had behaved like that it would have been rude.

‘I mean she must have had a reason,’ Jo said. ‘It’s a long hike from London.’

He didn’t look up from the display.

‘If she came by car they would have found it, surely,’ Jo said, as much to herself as Jake, the thoughts tumbling from her in pity for a real woman, no longer just a corpse. ‘They didn’t even find her clothes. Well, I guess they’ll have more to go on now they know who she was. The husband must be devastated, poor man. Fancy coming home from abroad and finding your wife was murdered.’

Jake stood up. The colour had drained from his face, leaving an unhealthy sallow that picked out the dark hollows and crevices as if a spotlight was on him. ‘I must get home.’

‘Is something wrong?’ she said. ‘Are you ill?’

He shook his head. Back to minimal communication.

‘I’ve got painkillers if you want.’

‘No.’

She collected his coat. She wondered if she’d touched on some painful memory when she commented on the news of the dead woman. A man with a stricken past was a minefield.

They went downstairs to the car and were soon south of the city on the Selsey Road.

‘It’s been a good afternoon, anyway,’ she said to break the silence.

He said nothing.

One thing she’d learned was that you didn’t force Jake to communicate. Trying to hold back her tears, she gave all her attention to the series of sharp bends. The light was fading fast.

‘I don’t know exactly where you live,’ she had to say when they were approaching Selsey.

‘Keep going.’

They had driven some way up the High Street before he said, ‘Next left.’

She made the turn and he immediately said, ‘Put me down here.’

‘Now?’

‘Here. Don’t hang about.’

Up ahead, under a lamp-post, a police car was parked. He got out and started walking towards it.