The House Sitter

9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can I see her in the classroom?”

“That would be better than here.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A nod.

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

Haley shook her head.

“Are you in the picture?”

She placed her finger on one of the figures.

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

“Frisbee.”

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

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

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

“Who did you play with?”

“Don’t know.”

“Some other children?”

Another nod.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So where were you?”

She was silent.

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

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

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

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

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

“Him with a whistle and red shorts.”

“The lifeguard?”

“Mm.”

“Silly me. I understand now.”

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

“How did you know she was dead?”

“Daddy said so.”

“So Daddy came back?”

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

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

“I’spect so.”

“Did Daddy know this lady?”

“Don’t know.”

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

“Yes.”

“What did you mean by that?”

“He was with her. I told you.”

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

She nodded.

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

“Some men.”

“The lifeguard-with the red shorts?”

“I think so.”

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

“Pictures on them.”

“Their shirts?”

“No.”

“On their bodies? You mean tattoos?”

“And earrings and no hair.”

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

She nodded again.

“And did Daddy say anything about the lady?”

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

“Snuffed it?”

“What’s snufted?” the child asked.

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

“About e-dot questions.”

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

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

“Idiot questions? Is that what he said?”

“I’spect so.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diamond asked if he’d come up with anything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Polygamy?” Halliwell was all at sea now.

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

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

“I’m serious.”

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

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

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

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

“Any progress?”

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

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

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

“So what was the password-‘Sesame?’”

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

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

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

“Like the name of your cat.”

“Well…”

“Dog?”

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

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

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

“You know about me and computers, then?”

“It’s common knowledge.”

“So what have you got?”

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

“All of that?”

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

“This could take months.”

“You could cut it by half if you learned to use a mouse.”

He didn’t dignify that with a response. “Did you read any of it?”

Clive shook his head. “Not my kind of reading.”

“If I was looking for something in particular-case notes, for instance-is there any way I could find them quickly?”

“Depends. Is there a key word I can use to make a search?”

“Try Summers.”

The quick fingers rattled the keys, apparently without a satisfactory result. “This could take longer. Give me an hour and I’ll see what comes up.”

“And, by the way, Clive, this is under your hat, right? If you find something interesting I don’t want it all over the world wide web, or the Bath nick, come to that.”

“Stay cool, Mr D. My lips are sealed.”

Diamond returned to his office and called Hen Mallin. Liberally interpreting the need-to-know principle, he told her everything he’d learned at Bramshill. Senior detectives don’t betray much emotion as a rule, but Hen spoke the name of Axel Summers as if he were a personal friend.

“You knew him?” Diamond queried.

“No more than you, sugar, but he’s always on the box, isn’t he? A bit old for me, but definitely dishy, I thought. Where did they say this happened?”

“A house in Sussex.”

“That’s my manor. I haven’t heard a whisper.”

“Shows how seriously they take it. Have you heard of Jimmy Barneston? He’s in charge.”

“That makes sense. He’s top of the heap, young, energetic, and gets results.”

“So I was told,” he said with a slight note of irony.

“Really,” Hen said. “His clear-up rate is awesome.”

“Sounds like a vacuum cleaner. Where’s he based?”

“Horsham, the last time I heard. Should I have a quiet word with him, do you think?”

“I wouldn’t trouble him yet. He’ll be trying to keep the cap on the bottle. Let’s wait until we’ve got something to trade.”

She said, “You’re a wily old soul, aren’t you? Good thinking.” After a pause, she added, “You really believe she was killed by the man who did Summers, don’t you? In spite of what you were told?”

“I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that. But I’m not ruling it out just because Bramshill tells me to. One thing I’ve learned in this job, Hen, is that the people at the top have their own agenda, and it doesn’t have much to do with what you and I are working on.”

“Speaking of which, I’d better let you know what’s been happening here.” She told him about Stella Gregson’s visit to the school and the interview with Haley Smith. “We’ve now established that the father, Michael Smith, manages a bookshop at Gatwick Airport. Stella has gone to interview him.”

“Will she bring him in?”

“Depends what he says. She’ll see him initially in the airport police office.”

“He’d better have a good story. Have you checked him on the PNC?”

“No previous. If we pull him in, do you want some of the action?”

“Try and keep me away. What about his wife?”

“Olga Smith. Done. I sent Stella to see her directly. Stella was all for racing off to Gatwick right away, but I wanted the woman’s angle first.”

“Was it helpful?”

“It filled in some gaps. She’s an ex-nurse who now works just round the corner from the school as one of the check-out staff at Safeway. Claims she was so taken up with Haley being lost that she scarcely registered what was going on with the dead woman. But she confirmed that her husband was the first to do anything about it. He saw that the woman was dead and alerted the lifeguard and helped carry the body to the hut. Afterwards they cleared off fast in their car.”

“Why?”

“They figured they wouldn’t have anything useful to contribute. They hadn’t seen anyone with the victim all day.”

“She’d been there all day?”

“Arrived soon after they did and set up her windbreak and lay behind it sunbathing.”

“Were they close to her?”

“Just a few yards. But there was a time in the afternoon when they went for a swim. And there was also a period when Haley went missing and they were both very taken up with searching for her. The husband went off to look and Olga Smith stood up to be visible. She says she was far too upset to have noticed whether the woman was alone, or if she was dead at that stage.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yes, Stella believed her, but got a strong impression that she’s scared of her husband. He made the decision to quit the scene as soon as possible and he’s insisted ever since that they can’t help us in any way. She knew we were appealing for information. He seems to have put her under pressure to say nothing. And we know he ordered the child not to speak to her teacher.”

“He’s got plenty to explain, then.”

“When we’ve picked him up, sunshine, I’ll let you know.”

“What I didn’t appreciate when I printed all the files is that some of them are encrypted,” Clive told Diamond when he checked with him after the hour he’d requested.

“You mean we can’t read the stuff?”

He nodded. “I guess she had reasons for keeping some of her case notes secure. The text is scrambled. It’s put through a series of mathematical procedures called an algorithm and comes out looking like gobbledegook. If you go through all those sheets I printed out for you, you’ll find some that make no sense at all. They’ll be the encrypted files.”

“So how do you unscramble them?”

“Decrypt them. With blood, toil, tears and sweat. We need to know the key to access them.”

“Key?”

“Password, then.”

“Why not try ‘Sesame’ again?”

“You think I haven’t? She wasn’t messing about here. She really meant to stop anyone from breaking in. Most encryption systems use a secret key and a pass phrase. Some are asymmetric, meaning one key is used to encrypt the data and another to decrypt it. As I think I told you, she was obviously computer-literate.”

“Do we use any of these systems in the police?”

“Of course.”

“And are they listed somewhere? What I’m getting at, Clive, is that she could have been given the police software to use for her profiling notes.”

“I’ll check it out. But even if I know the software, it could still take me weeks to crack this.”

“Better make a start, then.” He rested a hand on Clive’s shoulder and said as it began to droop, “If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t ask.”

Stella Gregson had only ever been through Gatwick Airport on holiday trips, but she found the right terminal and located the bookshop easily enough. Finding the manager was not so simple. He’d gone for a late lunch, the woman on the till told her, and he should be back soon.

Stella said she’d wait. She’d had no lunch, late or otherwise. She had a young male DC with her and she treated him to a toasted sandwich at the Costa shop, which offered a good view of the open plan bookshop. People with time on their hands and flying on their minds were blankly staring at the shelves, occasionally picking something up, riffling the pages and replacing it.

After forty minutes Stella and her companion got off their coffee stools and started browsing through the magazines.

“Does Mr Smith carry a mobile?” she asked the woman on the till. “We can’t wait much longer.”

“He does, but I don’t know the number.”

“Where does he eat, then? Somewhere in the terminal?”

The woman shrugged. “This is only my second week.”

They asked at the shop next door, a place that retailed shirts and ties. The manager said he thought Smith went home to lunch. He lived nearby, in Crawley. “Is he in trouble, then?” he added cheerfully.

“We just need to check something with him.”

“Police, are you?”

Stella’s eyes widened.

“It’s the way you walk.”

She called Hen Mallin to let her know they were about to leave the airport and would call at the Smiths’ house. Hen was talking on another line, so Stella left a message.

She nudged the DC in the back. He was looking at pink shirts. “Leave it. We’re on the move.”

The house was only ten minutes away, on the north side of Crawley. “I don’t know why,” Stella said to her young colleague as she drove out of the airport, “but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” The feeling got worse when they turned the corner at the end of the Smiths’ street and an ambulance sped towards them, siren blaring, lights flashing. A police patrol car was parked outside one of the houses.

“That’s the one.”

They drew up outside and went in through the open door.

“Who the fuck are you?” a sergeant in uniform asked.

Stella held her warrant card up to his face and said, “So what the fuck is going on?”

He blinked. The words ‘Bognor Regis CID’ seemed to have that effect on people. “It’s a domestic. Some bastard beat his wife unconscious. She’s on her way to hospital.”

“Is he in there?”

“No, he scarpered. She was in a right old state when she was found. We’re trying to get the facts straight. The people’s name, would you believe, is-“

“Smith.”