The House Sitter

12

Diamond’s voicemail had been building up while he was in Sussex. He was not bothered. Much of it could be ignored now. And being out of the office has other advantages. He’d missed a meeting called by Georgina Dallymore, the Assistant Chief Constable, to discuss some desks and chairs that had mysteriously been dumped in the executive toilet upstairs. “Couldn’t have helped, anyway,” he said, as he called her to give his apologies.

Georgina said, “Would you have any use for some extra desks?”

“Not really, ma’am.”

“I had to have them moved, and now they’re cluttering the corridor. I’m worried about fire regulations.”

If that’s all you have to worry about, he thought, it’s not a bad old life on the top floor. “Someone will have a use for them, ma’am.”

“I hope so. I’m going on holiday next week. When I come back, I don’t want to find them still there.”

His interest quickened. Georgina off the premises was good news. “Anywhere nice?”

“A Nile cruise.”

“Sounds wonderful. How long?”

“Ten days.”

He made a mental note.

Back to the voicemail. The one message that stood out was from Clive: “Mr D, I’ve got a result. Any time you want to go through those files, we’re ready to roll.”

Clive’s hours of work spoke of long nights on the Internet. He never came in until after eleven. Today, it was twenty minutes after, and he looked spent before he’d started. Eventually the two got together with black coffees and doughnuts in a small office in the basement. While the computer was booting up, Diamond told the young man he’d done well. “I just hope this is worth all the hours you put in.”

“It will be.”

“Hot stuff?”

Clive grinned. “I haven’t looked at all of it, but hot’s the word, from what I saw.” He took something not much bigger than a cigarette lighter from his shirt pocket and attached it to a lead at the back of the computer tower.

“What’s that?”

“A USB-portable storage device. I had to work on this at home, you see.”

“And that’s all there is?” Diamond couldn’t disguise his disappointment.

“Mr D, this little item is a hard drive. Five hundred and twelve megabytes. You could put the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare on this and still have space.”

“So how much is there in reality?”

“Enough to keep you busy for the rest of the morning,” Clive told him as he worked the keys.

He explained that there had been three encrypted files on Emma Tysoe’s hard disk, each allotted a number that he thought represented the date it was created. 1706 was the seventeenth of June. The next was the twenty-second. The last was the twenty-fifth.

“Two days before she was murdered,” Diamond said to show he wasn’t completely adrift. “And we can now read it straight off the screen? Let’s go. It starts on the seventeenth, you said?”

Clive had better ways of spending the rest of the morning than sitting beside Peter Diamond. He gave him a quick lesson with the mouse, showed him how to access the files and left him to it.

Magic.

The first lines of text were on the screen, and suddenly Diamond was right where he wanted to be, inside the mind of the murdered woman, getting that precious insight he’d been denied up to now. So direct was the contact, so vivid, it was almost too intimate to take in a sustained read.

Had this 8.30 a.m. call about another profiling job. Just when I was starting to coast, and think of holidays. Bramshill insists no one else but me will do, and won’t give me any details except an address in Sussex. All very cloak and dagger. Just to cover my rear end, I’m going to keep this personal record of what happens and encrypt as I go along. I can’t keep everything in my head.

I’m flattered in a way to get this assignment, kidding myself I’m indispensable, but it’s a bloody nuisance too if I’m going to have to make up excuses for not going out with Ken. We’re supposed to be eating at Popjoy’s tomorrow night. Just my luck. Even if I get there it takes the pleasure out of a beautiful meal (not to mention the shag later) when you’ve looked at a mangled corpse the day before.

The upside is that I get out of the university for a bit. This end-of-semester time is when Chromik tries to think of jobs to keep people busy. I called the office and fixed it with Tara to take indefinite leave. More later.

I dressed for the country, smart casual, and drove to this house overlooking Bramber, a village tucked away below the South Downs in Sussex, and rather a dinky place. In fact there wasn’t much to see-of the murder scene, I mean-except police photos. It all happened three days ago, so they’d already removed the corpse and finished their forensics. Victim was Axel Summers, that smooth old (fiftyish?) film director who can talk about anything. Saw him on Question Time a few weeks ago speaking up for the right to choose, and rather liked him. Someone didn’t, obviously. He’d been hit through the head with a nine-inch arrow-a bolt, they call it-from a crossbow.

Archery isn’t my kind of sport. I had no idea a crossbow packed such force. In the photos you could see the point sticking out of the other side of his head. They tell me when it was a weapon of war a crossbow bolt was made to penetrate armour. The power is in the bow part (or ‘prod’), made of steel usually. The bowstring is pulled back to a catch, or ‘cocked’ (dear old Freud would have a field day with this jargon) with a lever or some winding mechanism far more powerful than you get with ordinary bows and arrows.

The reason they asked for a profiler is that the killer left a note- the usual paper and paste job-with a quote from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “he stoppeth one of three,” and two extra names. Is this a serial murderer declaring himself? they want to know. Strictly between you and me, Computer, one of the names is the glamour boy golfer, Matthew Porter, and the other is gorgeous, pouting Anna Walpurgis, the one-time pop star.

“Get away!” said Diamond aloud. These were huge names. Already the decrypted files were yielding information he’d been denied. He took a gulp of coffee and scarcely noticed it was lukewarm.

Media people-and named. My first thought is that this killer must be some kind of attention-seeker. Egocentric, and either extremely stupid to announce his plan, or brilliant. I don’t see much between. Summers has been filming a big-budget movie of The Ancient Mariner, that strange, long poem by Coleridge we did in the fifth year at school. The wording of the message was straight from the poem, and so was the weapon. The SIO reminded me that the Ancient Mariner in the poem uses a crossbow to kill the albatross. Coincidence? I don’t think so. This is someone using murder as a melodramatic statement.

Does he have to be an insider, close enough to the victim to know what he was filming? Not necessarily. The Ancient Mariner project has been getting plenty of publicity. They brought over Patrick Devaney from Hollywood to play the main role, and he’s a megastar in the movie world. The budget runs to millions. With some arm-twisting from the Arts Council they managed to get some of Britain’s industrial giants to back it, companies like Superglass and British Metal. I said I couldn’t imagine how a poem, a long one admittedly, can be spun out into a feature-length film. The SIO-a literate policeman!-tells me they could do a lot with the life aboard ship and the character of the Mariner even before the story gets under way. There’s also a secondary plot involving the wedding guest the Mariner meets. And there are huge set-pieces ideal for all those special effects you expect in a movie these days.

God knows what happens now, because a lot of the film still has to be shot. Summers had finished directing the scenes with the star and was having a few days off. Up to now, they’ve put some kind of press embargo on the news of his murder, but it’s bound to break soon.

The police have already warned the other two “targets” and beefed up their security.

So what are my early thoughts? This could be a one-off murder. If the killer-the police team call him the Mariner-is an attention-seeker he may have thrown in a couple more juicy names just to see the effect. Somehow, I doubt it. I think he really means to get Porter and Walpurgis as well. This is an off-the-cuff reaction on my part, but I get the impression of a cold-blooded killer (unscientific terminology, but I’m doing my best to avoid the term psychopath) at work here, untroubled by conscience or emotion, figuring he’s so far ahead of the game he can safely post his intentions. It’s new in my experience, actually to name future victims. I can’t remember anything like this.

And murdering Summers must have been a pushover for him. The level of security at the scene was nil. It’s an isolated house built quite high up, well above the village, in a large, wooded garden with only a low iron railing around it. Summers was killed while seated outside on a bench that faced a gorgeous view to the west, watching the sunset and enjoying a g &t. Apparently this was his routine on fine evenings when he was home. If the Mariner knew of this, he had a good opportunity to choose his shooting position (do you shoot with a crossbow?). There was plenty of thick foliage only ten metres away, where the police say the killer probably stood or lay. No obvious footprints in soft earth, or fibres caught on the branches. He was ultra-careful to leave no trace except the bolt. They’ve carried out fingertip searches, but I’ll be surprised if anything is found.

Motive? We’ll see. At this stage it doesn’t look like theft. Summers had valuable paintings and some cash in the house, and according to the housekeeper (a man I haven’t yet met) everything is intact. Housekeeper, by the way, has an alibi for the evening of the murder. He knows of no feuds, no obvious enemies, though there’s always bitching in the TV and film world. Actually Summers had the reputation of being a charming bloke, generous to others in the profession and always willing to help people out. There are no women in the frame. The police think he was probably gay by inclination, but sexually inactive. He put a lot of energy into his work.

What does the method tell us about the murderer? I’m relying on what I’ve been told here. The crossbow is an eccentric choice of weapon, as accurate and deadly as any gun, the only drawback being… the drawback. Unlike a handgun it takes time to load. However, there can’t be all that many crossbows in circulation, and I gather the dishy detective is pinning his hopes on finding where it was obtained. There are archery clubs all over the country, but they mostly use the longbow. There aren’t more than a couple of hundred regular crossbowmen, he’s been told. But there’s no official register of these things. You don’t need a licence. Hunting using bows is against the law in this country, and that’s that. They can shoot at targets if they want or, more rarely, for distance.

What interested me when we talked about crossbows is that anyone can learn to use them easily and quickly. You may not become a champion in a couple of hours, but you can learn enough to hit a target at thirty metres. There’s no strain on the muscles, as there is with a longbow. The length of draw is fixed and the release is mechanical. The modern bows have telescopic sights. It’s rather like shooting a rifle, except that there’s no recoil. There’s that disadvantage-and it was a major problem in ancient warfare-that it takes time to reload. But one shot should be enough.

I wouldn’t mind DCI Jimmy Barneston showing me how to hold a crossbow. He’s the SIO I’ve been itching to write about. Tall, a smart dresser, broad-shouldered, mid-thirties (I’d say), with amazing blue eyes like Peter O’Toole’s. Long, elegant fingers. If he only knew what I was thinking when I looked at those fingers! I just know he’d be sensational in bed. Watch out, Ken. There’s someone else for me to fantasise over now.

It’s not just his good looks. He’s got to be a crack hand to have been picked as SIO on this one. I like his confidence. Predictably, this hunky cop wanted an instant opinion and I had to tell him sweetly that certain things can’t, and shouldn’t, be rushed. I fed the poor lad a few first thoughts to keep him sweet, the idea that the killer was challenging the police and this could be a motive in itself. I warned him to expect surprises and gave him a bit of a look. I’m sure the blue eyes twinkled.

I drove back to Gt Pulteney St still thinking about it all. Didn’t even bother to garage the car, I was so hyped up. I really want to make a contribution here. This, I feel strongly, has the hallmarks of a groundbreaking case, certain to be written up in the literature for years to come, and I don’t want to put a foot wrong. There’s huge pressure, with the lives of two named people at risk. True, the pressure isn’t all on me. It’s up to my new friend Jimmy to see that Porter and Walpurgis are given protection. There’s a double bind here. They’re public figures. If they’re kept under wraps for long, they’ll die a professional death anyway. In their lines of work they have to show themselves, and the Mariner will be waiting.

He may not use a crossbow next time. He’s obviously intelligent and capable of devising an even more ingenious method. Having killed once and got clean away from the scene, he’ll be confident. With an inflated sense of his self-worth and a total lack of conscience, he’ll throw himself into this challenge of his own making and try to show us up as incompetents. I’m scared, as well as excited. I fear thee, ancient mariner! Yes, Computer, I’ve found a copy of the poem, and I’ve read the whole thing again. It has more than enough scenes of horror in the text, without the added dimension this murder brings.

Too soon yet to start on a profile. I want to weigh up all the information I have. It’s tempting to assume this is a serial killer before he carries out a second murder-and that may be a mistake. Am I dealing with a boaster or is he a committed killer? Obviously there’s pressure on me to provide a profile before someone else is murdered.

So let’s assume the Mariner intends to kill again. I can’t duck the perennial question any longer: is this a psychopath? How I hate this word with all its colourful associations, suggesting, as it does, a biological propensity to kill, a pathogenic drive, when in reality there’s no organic or psychotic explanation for such behaviour. All we can say for sure is that certain individuals who persistently commit violent crimes are able to function at two contradictory levels. They appear ‘normal’ with an ability to understand and participate in human relationships. Yet they have a detachment that allows them to carry out random acts of violence without pity or guilt. If the Mariner fitted this profile I would expect him to have a history, a trail of cruelty, broken hearts and suffering. They don’t suddenly take to murder. It’s part of a process that begins early. I keep saying him, and I ought to remind myself that a woman could fit this crime. Harder to imagine, but not impossible.

Then there’s the other kind of serial killer, equally as chilling, acting not on impulse, but from a clear motive such as revenge, or ambition, or greed, probably deriving from some seminal incident in his life. He has an agenda and the killing of his victims is purposeful. He’s not at all the same as the random killer who may claim to have a ‘mission’ to kill prostitutes, or gay men, or people of a certain racial group. He has made decisions to deprive certain individuals of life. He creates a role for himself in which he has the power to rectify what he sees as personal injustices.

I don’t know yet where to place the Mariner.

This evening I cooled off in the bath and drank lager from the fridge and lolled around in my Japanese dressing gown listening to Berlioz and thinking. Just before ten the phone went and I jumped up and grabbed it. Only Ken, making sure I was still on for Popjoy’s tomorrow. Couldn’t get too excited about the prospect. I mean, I knew we had a booking already, and I suppose it showed in my voice. For him it’s a very big deal. I could tell he was disappointed in me, but I told him I’d had a trying day and I’d be more like myself tomorrow night. He’s getting clingy and I’m not sure I like that.

And now it’s another day and I’m spending the morning at home with my books checking on the kinds of serial killers who choose or need to communicate information about their crimes. I just want to see if it’s an indicator. Jack the Ripper-if his letters are to be believed-must have been an early example of this type. ‘You’ll hear about Saucy Jack’s work tomorrow. Double event this time.’ Another was David Berkowitz, self-styled ‘Son of Sam’, who wrote to the police in 1976 claiming that he felt on a different wavelength than everybody else-‘programmed to kill’. About the same time in Wichita, Kansas, the so-called ‘BTK Strangler’ killed a family of four and followed it up with more murders of women. ‘How many do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?’ he demanded in a letter to a local television station. There’s a sinister element of showmanship in each of these cases. Unwise to draw conclusions from so small a sample, especially as two of them were never identified.

I’ve been through all the data I have on serial killers and I’ve yet to find any who actually named their victims in advance. This must be arrogance without precedent. Can it mean, I keep asking myself, that the Mariner is really only a bluffer? I’d like to answer yes, only my gut feeling is that he’s deadly serious. Many of these people I’ve been reading about were pathological liars, but their statements can’t be dismissed when they amount to boasts. This man is too self-centred, too full of his own importance, to bluff about the one thing he’s getting attention for. He has published his agenda and I fear he’ll carry it out unless he is stopped in time.

The police are looking for links between the victim, Summers, and the ‘targets’, Porter and Walpurgis, in the hope that this will lead them to the killer. I wish them luck, but I fear they may be wasting their time. These are media people, never out of public attention. There will be parties two or more of them attended, charities they supported, journalists who interviewed each of them. What matters is their link to the Mariner, if any.

That was the sum of my thoughts this morning. After lunch I washed my hair and turned my attention to what I would wear tonight. Finally chose the dark blue Kenzo trouser-suit with the padded shoulders I bought last year in Oxford. Slightly formal-it is Popjoy’s-and not too much of a come-on to Ken, who needs no encouragement. Oh dear, am I going cool on him?

The meal was the best part of the evening, a wonderful breast of pheasant as my main course and the most delicious crème brûlée I’ve ever tasted to follow. You’d think that would have guaranteed the rest of the night would be a wow. Not so. Unfortunately, Ken picked a red Californian wine, Zinfandel, that always makes my head ache. I’m sure it was a good vintage, and expensive, but I wish he’d asked me first. He was doing his masterful bit, showing off to the waiter. In any restaurant they always give the wine list to the man and he takes it as a personal challenge to sound knowledgable about what’s on offer. Ken simply went ahead and ordered, murmuring something patronising about how I would enjoy this. Stupidly I drank a glass or two with the meal, not wanting to mess up the evening. My head started splitting before we got to the desserts. I was in no condition to talk about my day, as he suggested, and I didn’t want to hear about his, either. He was really miffed when the waiter asked if we would take coffee and I said what I really wanted was a glass of still water with two Alka Seltzers. Yes, I embarrassed him horribly. He showed it by leaving a huge tip, far bigger than he can afford.

Then he proposed to walk me home-me in a pair of strappy high heels!-all the way from Sawclose, at least half a mile. He claimed it would be romantic. Stuff that, I told him. I want a taxi. Unfortunately the theatre crowd had just come out and we spent the next twenty minutes trying to beat other people to a cab. He isn’t much good at that. Result: I wasn’t in the mood for the shag he expected when we finally got back here. I’m going to draw a veil over what happened. Ugly things were said, entirely by me. If he’d called me a prickteaser or something I might respect him more. He’s so nice he’s boring, but I can’t expect him to understand that. He listens to me, praises me up, treats me like a princess, and that’s OK-until the glitter wears off. Things went wrong in the restaurant and they weren’t really anyone’s fault, but it helped me to face facts. I happen to have a bigger-than-average appetite for sex and I needed a bloke and Ken came into my life at the right time and did the necessary in bed. And let’s give him credit: I’ve known a lot worse. We had five or six good weeks. Now it’s time to draw a line under them.

Basically, it’s over. I said too many horrible things for us to kiss and make up-ever. And to be honest, I’m relieved.

Diamond used the mouse to close the file and sat back in the chair. He needed a short break from this outpouring. There is only so much you can take in at a session, especially when you are extracting crucial information. He found it demanding to switch mentally between two murders, trying to catch the implications for both. On one level it was a fascinating insight into Emma’s analysis of the Summers case. Equally, it seemed to open the way to new lines of enquiry in her own murder. Ken, the lover on the skids, was a real discovery. Nobody in the Psychology Department had mentioned him. Not one of them he’d spoken to, Tara, Professor Chromik or Helen Sparks, seemed to have any knowledge of Ken’s existence. She must have been very determined to keep the worlds of work and home separate.

Ken had to be traced-and soon. He would get Halliwell and the team onto it.

The Summers case, also, was opening up nicely. It was a definite advance to have the names of the two “targets” Bramshill wanted to keep to themselves. They couldn’t object. This was all legitimate stuff. The names had come up as a direct result of research into the beach strangling. He had a right to know Emma’s thoughts in the days leading up to her murder.

His own emotions were mixed. There was no denying that he felt some guilt at peeking into her private journal, tempered by the knowledge that she had locked away essential information there. Some of it would surely have been passed on to the police if she had lived long enough to assemble the profile. The other bits-the intimate stuff about Ken-might well have a bearing on her own murder. He had to go on reading. As a professional, Emma would understand the justification. That’s what he told himself.

He reopened the file.

I got in touch with Jimmy Barneston today, wanting to follow up on a few matters. He’s terribly busy, but came to the phone and listened to everything I said, and seemed genuinely grateful for my suggestions. The main thing I wanted to get across was that I now believe the Mariner really does intend to kill those two he named, and he’ll be cunning and ruthless in carrying out his aim. The police should get them away, abroad if possible, and keep them under twenty-four hour surveillance. And it’s got to be kept up for months and years if necessary. Jimmy said he was confident of finding the bloke in a matter of days. He sounds convincing, too. I hope to God he’s right.

He said I was welcome to sit in on one of their case conferences and I’ve agreed to drive down to Horsham tomorrow. I’ll make another visit to Bramber in the afternoon without the murder squad in attendance. I’m probably kidding myself, but I feel I have a better chance of getting inside the mind of the killer if I stand where he did. I also plan to call on Axel Summers’ housekeeper. He lives in the village.

Ken left a message on the answerphone, asking me to call back when I get a chance. He wants to start over, I suppose. I’m going to ignore him. Our fling is over. A clean break. He thinks I’ll melt, but I won’t. Now that it’s done and dusted I can see there was never very much emotionally. I was keeping it going for the sex on tap, my personal demon, the tyranny of the hormones. Let’s be honest, he was rather good at it, but not world class. There’s better to be had. Let the quest begin!

Did some more reading today. This will not be easy, this case. You can’t make too many inferences from a single crime. The horrible truth is that I need the Mariner to kill again before I can make an accurate assessment of his psychosis-if he has one. It’s quite on the cards-I’d put money on it-that he has carried out crimes in the past, maybe even murders. But I can’t access them unless the police pick up some piece of evidence that links him to their records. So I’m hamstrung.

What age might he be? It ought to be possible to posit a range. The trouble he took to pick out the crossbow suggests someone reasonably mature, calculating, rather than impulsive. Not a youth, I would say.

The choice of “targets” is intriguing. They’re all huge names, but apart from that they don’t have much in common. Summers was creative and intelligent and over fifty. Porter is precocious, little more than a kid, certainly under twenty-one, famous for being young in a sport where older men dominate. Walpurgis is past thirty and very rich, still a celeb, but past her prime as a pop singer. Note: I must look at cases of celebrity slayers such as Mark David Chapman, the killer of John Lennon. What was his motivation?

This afternoon I took a walk to the top of the street and spent a couple of hours in Sydney Gardens wandering the paths and mulling over the case. I was crossing the Chinese Bridge over the canal when a jogger stopped to chat me up. Tall, thinnish, fair hair. Not a bad looker. Offered me a cigarette. I thought, What sort of jogger carries a pack of cigarettes in his tracksuit? Gave him a smile and said I didn’t, and anyway I was waiting for someone. I am, in a way. But not a smoking jogger.

I notice Matthew Porter isn’t competing in the big golf tournament at Sunningdale this week. I hope he’s sensible enough to cooperate and lie low for as long as it takes. Wouldn’t know about Anna Walpurgis. She’s still a favourite of the tabloids. See-through dresses at film premieres. Married some millionaire twice her age and inherited a fortune when he died soon after. Then had a fling with a soap star. I can’t imagine a ball of fire like her lying low-unless it’s in someone’s bed.

So off I drove to Sussex again for a day that was to surprise me. Lunched well at a quaint, low-beamed place in Arundel and called at the bookshop there and was delighted to find a copy of Hunting Humans, a Canadian study of multiple murder that has been on my want-list for some years.

Just as I hoped, no one was on duty at the Summers house in Bramber, so I let myself into the garden and tried to think myself into the Mariner’s brain as he stalked his victim that fine evening. It’s a safe bet that he drove there and parked somewhere along one of the quiet lanes. Probably he’d risk leaving the car really close. He wouldn’t want to be seen carrying the crossbow. A gunman in a country lane might not attract a second glance, but a crossbow is something else, awkward in shape, yet almost as long as a rifle.

I’m certain, looking at the scene, that he would have made a dummy run-maybe without the weapon-some previous evening, getting a sight of Summers sitting with his usual drink. If so, it would have been in the last couple of days after Summers finished filming the sea sequences. So the Mariner would have decided precisely where to set up. I know from Jimmy Barneston where the bolt appeared to have been fired from, a position fifteen yards or so away, behind a small rhododendron bush. Actually tried it. Lay on my tummy and looked down an imaginary telescopic sight at the wooden seat where the body was found. The place is incredibly quiet, apart from birdsong. He must have been in place before Summers appeared with his g &t. And after the bolt was fired, he calmly entered the house and left his note.

It helped to confirm some earlier thoughts. Here is a killer who is painstaking, yet audacious. If he’d shot his quarry and quit the scene, we wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of catching him. By choosing to leave a note, he issues a challenge, and takes a huge risk. He relishes the thrill of taking us on.

Aubrey Wood, the housekeeper, lives alone in a terraced cottage in the village. He was willing to talk when I explained who I was. Made me tea and brought out some home-made jam tarts that if they were from a shop would be way past their sell-by date. Poor man, I felt sorry for him. He’s around fifty, slow of speech, and not yet over the shock. He had a nice little number working for Axel Summers, and now he’s ‘on the social’. There aren’t many openings as a gentleman’s gentleman in Bramber. He’s not a countryman, so he’ll probably return to London. I understand there’s a modest legacy, a couple of thousand, coming his way.

He’d worked for Summers for nearly ten years, cooking and cleaning and doing jobs about the house. When Summers was away on film projects, he’d look after the place and sort the mail. He wasn’t asked to travel. But he saw various friends of his boss when they came to the house. He never detected any bad vibes.

He said Summers had been planning this film for at least ten years and finally got the backing he needed about a year ago. He’d gone to infinite lengths to get the screenplay right, and the cast he wanted. It was over budget, but his films had a good record at the box office and no one was too concerned. He was very tired when he came home two days before he was killed. Prior to that he had been away filming in the Mediterranean for five weeks. He returned to Sussex knackered, but pleased that this phase of the project was complete. There was still a lot to be done, in particular the special effects sequences, bits now vivid in my brain like the skeleton ship with Death dicing with Life-in-Death, the souls of the crew whizzing upwards, the storms and calms and the water-snakes. Summers was modifying things he’d mapped out in storyboard form. He’d been too busy to do any entertaining since his return. Hadn’t even walked to the village for a paper, as he sometimes did when he was home.

On the evening of the killing, Wood served a light evening meal about six, loaded the dishwasher and left sharp at seven, on his bike. He noticed nothing unusual. No car parked in the lane and no strangers about. He left Summers in a good frame of mind, some crucial decisions about the film made. He was relaxed and looking forward to some late-night television programme. Wood met his friends at seven-fifteen and was driven to Plumpton for the pub quiz they’d entered as the local team. I’m satisfied he’s incapable of anything so callous as this killing.

After that, I had to get to the 4 p.m. case conference in Horsham and made it with not much to spare. Met in the incident room: the entire murder team and a couple of people from Bramshill. Jimmy Barneston chaired it. Watching him in action, I was more smitten than ever. He has a way of energising everyone, encouraging them to chip in and picking out the salient points. As expected, I was invited to contribute, but I made clear it was too soon to give them anything reliable, and I’d come to listen. They were OK with that.

Jimmy went through the various lines of enquiry. Sightings of cars around the village (inconclusive). Forensic reports on the fingertip search (little of interest). Crossbow manufacturers and retailers (more promising, although they don’t all keep records of customers). The crossbow bolt was picked for the job, apparently, with a three-bladed head normally used for killing game. He spent some time going over Summers’ career, pointing out that jealousies and hurts are common in show business. Even a man so popular and friendly must upset people when he makes decisions on casting and scripts. An embittered actor or writer might fit the profile of the killer. At the use of the ‘p’ word, heads turned to see if I had any comment. I looked steadily ahead and said nothing.

Two of Jimmy’s senior people gave similar rundowns on Porter and Walpurgis. Was there some deeply wounded person who had been damaged by all three? Apart from possible attendance at a TV awards dinner in 2001, nothing to connect them had so far been discovered.

A question was asked about the security arrangements for Porter and Walpurgis. Jimmy answered that steps had been taken to safeguard each of them, but for obvious reasons he was not willing to comment any further. A long discussion about the practicality of keeping Summers’ death out of the papers. Some kind of embargo could be enforced for a time, and the press would cooperate until word leaked out from some source-as it surely will.

It was after seven when the meeting ended. Jimmy asked if I’d like to eat before getting on the road. I took this to mean several of them would be going to some local pub and it seemed a good idea, because by the time I got back to Bath it would be getting late for a meal. Then would you believe it? He used his mobile and booked a table for two at a local Italian restaurant. Wow!

Mild panic. I’m in my denim jacket and designer jeans, still dusty at the knees from lying on the ground simulating the shooting. So I nip into the ladies and brush myself down and do some repair work on the face. Probably makes a bit of difference. Not as much as I would have liked.

Wasn’t entirely sure if Jimmy fancied me or just thought I might give out some more about my thoughts on the case. In ten minutes we’re in the window seat at Mario’s looking at each other by candlelight, with Neapolitan love songs in the background. No, we weren’t there to talk shop. Having established that we were both free of ties (he’s divorced and has lived alone for two years), we spend the next hour getting to know each other the way you do on a first date. He’s a graduate (business administration at Reading) and he shares quite a few of my tastes in music and film. Plays squash and goes to a gym.

We share a bottle of Orvieto-with none of that sexist nonsense over the ordering-and have chicken and pasta, and at the end he suggests coffee at his place. No heavy breathing or smouldering looks. Just a casual take-it-or-leave-it.

I answer just as casually that it might be sensible to get some caffeine into my system before I get on the road. So I find myself next in his gorgeous stone-built house beside the River Arun. Slate floors and expensive rugs. Real coffee, Belgian chocs and Mozart’s flute and harp concerto, and I just know I won’t be driving back to Bath that night. He takes me onto the terrace to see the view of the river and that’s where we kiss.

Jimmy is a natural. Knows without asking what gets me going and goes for it with such a sense of sharing the excitement that I came very quickly still standing outside under the stars and before taking off any clothes. Talk about hitting the spot! It was obvious we both wanted more, so we moved inside to his bedroom and undressed each other and I set about enjoying him with a sense of freedom I never had with Ken or any other bloke. After several Himalayan-class peaks, we drift off to sleep some time after midnight, and that isn’t the last of it. I wake up around four feeling the urge again and climb on him and ride him like a showjumper. A clear round. No faults.

Was it a one-night stand, or can it develop into something more permanent? The morning is when you find out, usually. Each of us played it cautiously over breakfast (toast and very black coffee), not wanting to seem possessive, and no commitment was made. But this man really is special, and I honestly think he finds me more adventurous (exciting?) than the average girl, so I’m hopeful of another invitation. It won’t be easy keeping a relationship fresh when we live a couple of hours from each other, but we do have a good excuse to stop over. This case requires close and frequent consultation!

Here, the file ended. Just as well, because Diamond was at the point of spontaneous combustion. Jimmy Barneston and Emma Tysoe! Barneston hadn’t even hinted at this when they’d talked about the case. He knew the dead woman’s private life was fundamental to the investigation and he’d said bugger all. It wasn’t as if he needed to feel guilty. He wasn’t having a fling with a suspect, or a witness, or even one of his team. She was a profiler, an extra. But once Emma had been murdered, everything about her, and not least her love life, had to be out in the open. Barneston had a duty to declare it.

“Ride him like a showjumper,” he muttered to himself. “He’s a dark horse, for sure.”