The House Sitter (30 page)

“Just about,” Hen said. “Where does it get us?”

“Back to the killer.”

“Some kid, you mean?”

“Maybe someone slightly older, but still nuts about cars, the man in the perfect position to pick out the one he wants to joyride, someone who sees every car drive in.” He waited, wanting her to make the connection.

Finally she said, “The car park attendant?”

“We know he was on duty in the morning when she drove in, because Ken Bellman saw him chatting with her, holding up the queue.”

“That was Garth,” she said. “A weird guy with slicked-back hair. But we didn’t consider him because he was on duty.”

“All day?” Diamond said with more than just a query in the voice. “I don’t think so. They wouldn’t have one man in the kiosk for the whole of the day. Someone will have taken over by the afternoon.”

She was so long reacting that he wondered if the line had gone.

Finally she said, “You’re right. I was told on the day of the murder. Someone else came on duty at two. When I spoke to Garth he tried to give the impression he didn’t leave the kiosk all day.”

“Giving himself an alibi?”

“When actually he was free to stalk Emma and murder her. Oh my God!”

“Worth getting his prints, anyway.”

“Peter, you’re not so dumb as I thought.”

“You’re early, Mr D,” Pandora, the doyenne of the double entendre, said, her ladle ready with the baked beans.

“Late,” he said. “I’ve been on duty all night.”

“So was my husband, poor lamb. He was glad to get out of bed and back to work this morning.”

He managed a tired grin.

At nine fifteen, he succeeded in getting through to Mrs Poole at British Metal. She promised to check for the names he needed.

At nine forty, thinking only of bed, he opened the front door of his house in Weston and Sultan streaked out and into the front garden, pursued by Raffles. There were tufts of white cat fur all over the carpet.

24

“The funny thing about mobile homes is that most of them aren’t mobile at all. They’re static,” Hen said as they drove into the park. “The owners have no intention of moving them anywhere.”

Caravans and tents occupied most of the field. The more permanent homes were lined up on the far side. Hen steered a bumpy route around the edge and came to a stop near a woman who was hanging washing behind her van, and asked if Garth was about.

“Third one from the end, if he’s in,” the woman said. “He works at the beach, you know, on the car park.”

“It’s his late morning,” Hen said. “We got that from the Estate Office. Do you know him?”

“He’s all right,” she said. “Bit of a loner, but that’s up to him. He’s paid for his bit of ground, hasn’t he?”

They drove the short way to Garth’s residence, a medium-sized cream-coloured trailer secured to the ground at each end. Some of the paint was peeling off the sides. A red Renault was parked close up.

“Velvet glove, at least to start off with,” Hen said to Stella.

The man was at home. He answered Hen’s knock right away, opening the door a fraction to look out. From what Hen could see through the narrow space he was in khaki shorts and a white T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved and his breath smelt.

“Garth, we’ve met at the beach,” Hen reminded him, “DCI Mallin, Bognor CID, and this is DS Gregson.” They showed their IDs.

“What’s up?” he said in a shocked tone.

“A few simple questions. May we come in?”

His brown eyes widened in alarm. “No. It’s not convenient.”

“Untidy, is it? Don’t worry, Garth. We’re used to that.”

“You can talk to me here.”

“Certainly we can talk to you here, but it’s going to be overheard by some of your neighbours.”

Garth opened the door a little wider to look about him. As if on cue, a couple of small girls stepped in close to hear what was going on.

“If you prefer,” Hen said, raising her voice a fraction, “we can do this at Bognor police station, but I don’t suppose you want to make a big deal of it.”

“No, I don’t,” he said.

“So may we come inside?” she asked, becoming curious at to what he wanted to hide from them. Was someone in there with him? Or was it evidence he didn’t wish them to see?

“Can we do it in your car?”

This was a battle of wills, gently as it was being contested.

“No,” Hen said. “We can’t. What’s your problem, Garth? Something to hide?”

He folded his arms as if to ward off the cold, even though it was a fine, warm morning. “No.”

“Stolen goods?”

He shook his head.

“You see, you’re making me suspicious before we start,” Hen said. She held out her hands in appeal. “OK, if you’re going to insist, we’ll take you down to the nick.”

“I don’t want that.”

Hen turned to Stella. “Give the young man his official caution.”

Stella spoke the approved words at the speed of a tobacco auctioneer.

“Right,” Hen said. “Step this way, Mr Trumpington.”

“I’ve got something cooking,” he said on an inspiration.

“Better see to it, then,” Hen said, putting her foot on the retractable step.

He tried shutting the door, and she said, “Naughty,” and slammed the flat of her hand against it. Stella gave the door a kick and so it was that they gained admittance, forcing him back inside.

Of course there wasn’t anything cooking, except possibly an alibi. They found themselves in the kitchen area, and there wasn’t even a tap running. Hen stepped through to the living section and said, “Now isn’t this something? What do you make of the décor, Stell?”

Every portion of wall space was taken up with colour photos of cars. The ceiling was covered with them, too. And there were model cars on every surface, shelves, table, the top of the TV set. A large stack of motoring magazines stood in one corner.

“Talk about bringing your work home . . .” Hen murmured.

“It’s none of your business,” Garth was bold enough to say.

“We’ll find out,” Hen responded. “Let’s all sit down.”

Stella brought a stool from the kitchen and they started, Hen seated in the only armchair, Garth tense on the edge of a put-you-up.

“Cars are obviously your thing,” Hen commented. “Is that your Renault outside?”

He nodded.

“I’d have thought a man like yourself would have gone in for something more flash, but I guess it’s what you can afford. You see some really smart motors drive past your kiosk at Wightview Sands, I reckon. Do you ever get the urge to drive one of them?”

“No.” He was watchful, and his well known conversational habit had temporarily deserted him.

“The reason I ask is that we’ve had a spate of joyriding over recent months—from your car park, so I’m sure you know all about it. Nothing too serious. The cars are recovered later. Not much damage, if any. The doors aren’t forced, because the joy-rider goes to the trouble of borrowing the key, usually from clothes or handbags left on the beach. The owners are so pleased to get their cars back that they don’t press charges. So it’s one of those minor problems. Annoying, but not high priority for us. Would you know anything about it?”

“No.”

“Pity. Your advice would be taken seriously. You’re well-placed to see what goes on.”

“I’m too busy issuing tickets,” he said, finding something to say in his defence.

“All day long?”

“While I’m there.”

“How long is that? A couple of hours at a time?”

“Longer,” Garth said. “Four, five hours.”

“That’s a long stint.”

“I do mine back to back for preference.”

“Then what do you do? Rush to the loo, I should think.”

He didn’t smile. “If I want to go during my duty hours, there are people I can ask.”

“OK,” Hen said. “So you knock off after four or five hours. Is that your working day over?”

“Could be, unless I’ve promised to do another turn later.”

“Coming back to my question, how do you spend your time off?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I might get something to eat. If it’s nice, I could go on the beach.”

“And match up the drivers to the cars you fancy?”

“No.”

It was said a shade too fast. Hen paused, letting him squirm mentally. She was playing a tactical game here. Nothing had been said about the murder. The aim was to manoeuvre him first into admitting the joyriding episodes.

“You know a lot about cars. That’s obvious. You must be an expert, Garth. A connoisseur.”

He didn’t respond.

“You could probably tell me the makes of cars that were taken for joyrides in recent weeks. An MG. A Lancia. A Porsche.”

“No,” he said. “You’re wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“There was never a Porsche. That’s wrong.”

“I believe you. You’d remember, I’m sure of that. It must have been something else in the sports car line. But you confirm the MG and the Lancia, do you?”

“I didn’t say I took them.”

“Borrowed them, Garth. Joyriding is only borrowing really, isn’t it? What do you say, Stella? It’s hardly a crime if the cars aren’t damaged.”

Stella said, “Kids’ stuff.”

Hen said, “We issue an unofficial warning usually. It’s too much trouble to take them to court.”

Garth wiped some sweat from his forehead.

“We’re inclined to be lenient if they admit to the joyriding, and haven’t been caught before,” Hen continued. “Mind you, if they deny it, we don’t have much difficulty proving their guilt. They leave their fingerprints all over the cars, and those surfaces pick up the prints really well. Remind me, Stella, did we find prints in the MG?”

“And the Lancia,” Stella said, nodding.

“And the Porsche?”

“There wasn’t a Porsche,” Garth blurted out.

“I keep forgetting,” Hen said. “You should know. You’re better placed to know than anyone else, aren’t you? Did you go for a spin in the MG, Garth?”

“No.”

“The Lancia?”

He shook his head.

“So you’re in the clear. You won’t mind letting us take your fingerprints down at the nick just to remove all suspicion?”

She watched his hands clench, as if to press the telltale ridges out of shape. He was hopelessly trapped. He said the only thing he could, knowing in his heart that it was hopeless.

“What if I said I took those cars for a ride?”

“Admitted it?”

“Yes.” His face had gone white.

“Admitted you were the joyrider?”

“Yes. Would you let me off with a warning, like you said? I wouldn’t do it again, ever.”

Hen said, “Let’s get this clear, then. You’ve been taking cars from the car park without the owners’ consent and driving them just for the pleasure of being at the wheel?”

“That’s it,” Garth said, nodding vigorously. “Just the pleasure. I wasn’t stealing them.”

“But you stole the keys first. Tell us about that.”

“Borrowed them.”

“Borrowed them, then. How, exactly?”

He was forced to explain. “I remembered who the owners were.”

“So what’s the system? You chat to them from your kiosk, just to get a good look at them?”

“Usually, yes.”

“Go on, then.”

“When I go off duty, I go looking to see where the car I fancy is parked. Then I make a search for the owner. They nearly always pick a place on the beach near the car. I observe them. I might watch from the sea wall, or go down on the beach myself. I wait for them to go for a swim. Then I choose my moment to pick up a bag or some clothes with the keys.”

“What about the people around? Don’t they say anything?”

He shook his head. “Not if you do it with confidence. I know what I want and I go directly to it. The stuff goes into a beachbag and then I’m away and straight to the car. I find the key and drive off.”

Stella said, “What about when you go past the barrier to get out? Aren’t you afraid of one of the other attendants spotting you in a smart car?”

“They’re facing the other way, checking the incoming cars.”

“You’ve got it all worked out,” Hen said. “You’re a smooth operator.”

“I’ll stop now,” he said, desperate to draw a line under this. “I knew it was wrong. It was getting to be a habit. I’m sorry. It was stupid of me.”

“I wouldn’t mind if that’s all it was,” Hen said. “Unfortunately, Garth, we all know it’s far more serious than you make out. The last time it happened, things went wrong, didn’t they? There was a struggle for the bag containing the key. You killed the woman.”

“No,” he said vehemently. “No, no—I didn’t do that!”

“This joyriding was more than a habit. It was a compulsion. You had to get that key from her, and she didn’t leave her bag unattended for one second. So you snatched it.”

“That isn’t true.”

“And she wasn’t asleep, as you thought. She was awake, and she tried to hang onto her bag, which was very unwise of her, because you panicked, thinking she would scream and make a scene, and you killed her.”

“No,” he said, his eyes stretched wide.

“OK,” Hen said calmly. “We’ve got the fingerprints on the car—the dark green Lotus Esprit—and we’ll check them against yours. You’re under arrest, Garth. We’re taking you for fingerprinting now.”

He gave a sob and sank his face into his hands. Any uncertainty was resolved in that moment.

25

The exhausted man sank immediately into a deep sleep, blanking out everything. So when Ingeborg phoned him from Bennett Street twenty minutes later, he slept through the sound. After an hour the phone beeped again, this time with more success, because he happened to be turning over. He groaned, swore and reached for it.

“Guv, are you there?”

All he could manage was another groan.

“Guv? This is Keith Halliwell. It’s an emergency.”

“Mm?”

“We just heard from one of the lads on watch in Bennett Street.”

Bennett Street. Bennett Street, Bennett Street. The conscious mind groped for a connection. He forced himself to pay attention.

“Ingeborg put in a routine call about ten thirty to make sure Anna Walpurgis was all right and got no answer. She tried several more times. Nothing. She tried calling you as well, and you didn’t answer. In the end she acted on her own and used the key to let herself in.”

“Oh, Christ.” He was fully awake.

“And now we can’t raise her, either.”

He felt as if the floor caved in and he dropped a hundred levels. “Tell them to go in after her—all of them. I’m coming at once. Get everyone there you can. This is it, Keith!”

Recharged and ready to go, he threw on some clothes, dashed out to the car and drove to Bennett Street at a speed he would normally condemn as suicidal.

“Well?”

“Come and look at this, guv.”

In the hallway of Georgina’s house someone had used a red marker pen to write on the wall in large letters:

He knew the line, and he was certain who’d written it. There was a scene in
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
when Death was dicing with Life-in-Death for the ship’s crew and everyone except the Mariner himself dropped dead.

Halliwell said, “We’ve been right through the building. There’s no one in there, guv.”

“There won’t be.” Still staring at the wall, Diamond crossed his arms over his chest to control his hands. They
were
starting to shake. “What’s written here is the truth. He’s beaten us. I don’t know how, but he’s done it. He’s got to Anna, and he’s got Ingeborg as well.”

One of the team on duty said in his own defence, “We’ve had round-the-clock surveillance, sir. No one went in except DC Smith.”

“You
saw
no one go in,” Diamond said without even turning his head to look at the speaker.

“But the place is empty. He got out as well, with the two women. It’s a bloody impossibility.”

“Shut up, will you?” He looked to his right. “Keith.”

“Guv?”

“The roof. These are terraced houses. The roof is the only way I can think of.”

Together they ran upstairs, up two storeys to the attic, a surprisingly spacious room with surprising contents—the secret Anna had wanted to impart to Diamond. Eccentric, weird even, but harmless and of small consequence now. Georgina’s attic was occupied by a family of people-sized teddy bears dressed in knitted garments and seated around a table laid for tea with real cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits. “Try the window,” Diamond said, blotting out the rest of the scene.

It was a small double-sash, and Halliwell made an effort to shift it, but with no success. “I don’t think this has been opened, guv.”

Diamond had a go, and felt the resistance. The thing wouldn’t budge a fraction.

“Look, it’s been painted over at some time,” Halliwell said, pointing to where the bottom rail of the window met the sill. An unbroken coat of paint connected them. “He didn’t go this way.”

“Bloody hell. How did he do it, then? The back of the house?”

“I don’t think so. Every door and window is still locked from the inside. She had locks on all the ground floor windows and fingerbolts on the door.”

Diamond pressed his hands to his forehead and shut his eyes, desperate to make the mental leap that was wanted. It wasn’t for want of trying that he didn’t succeed. But there was another way to approach this problem, and he had the vision to recognise it. All he’d done so far in this emergency was what the Mariner would have predicted, reacting to events by trying to understand them, charging up the stairs in the hope of finding which way the Mariner had escaped with the two women. Truly there wasn’t time for that. Ingeborg and Anna had been missing for an hour already. Not much could be gained from discovering how it had been done.

He said to Halliwell, “Where has he taken them? That’s the priority. That’s what we’ve got to work out.”

Halliwell didn’t say a word. The answer was beyond him.

Beyond Diamond, too, it seemed. He shook his head and sighed heavily. After a long interval, he started to talk, more to himself than Halliwell. “This man has a sense of the dramatic. He went to all the trouble and risk of leaving Porter’s body on the eighteenth hole of a golf course—just for the effect. The act of murder wasn’t enough. It had to be done in the most symbolic way. He’ll have worked out something for Anna, some place of disposal that he considers fitting. But where?”

Where? His body strained to
do
something, to race off in some direction with sirens blaring and stop the killing. But until his brain supplied the answer, any action would be futile. While he floundered like this, apparently indecisive but actually groping for the truth, two lives were on the line, for nothing was more certain than that the Mariner would kill again.

Georgina’s giant teddies, immobile in their chairs, reinforced the inertia in his brain. He couldn’t stay in the room any longer. “No use standing here,” he told Halliwell. He led the way downstairs, still trying to animate his tired, shocked brain. But the physical action of moving about the house was no help. It solved nothing. Down on ground level again, he was still without an explanation or a plan.

Forcing himself to face the worst outcome, he tried once again to work out the Mariner’s strategy. In all probability, he’d have killed Ingeborg first. Inge, poor kid, was extraneous to the plot. She’d walked into the crossfire because of inexperience and blind courage and the stupid overconfidence of her boss. I should never have left her in charge, he told himself. I could have stopped her if I hadn’t slept through the call they say she made to me. God knows I’ve made mistakes before, but this is the worst ever.

Self-recrimination wasn’t going to help.

Instead, he forced his thinking back to the Mariner and his embittered plot. He visualised the execution of Anna, first tied up, or drugged senseless, then despatched, almost certainly by a crossbow bolt to the head. The body would be driven to whichever location the Mariner had selected as appropriate.

The game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!

Think ahead, he urged himself. It’s the only chance I’ve got now. I have to out-think him, anticipate him for once. He’s already picked the place where her body will be discovered, somewhere fitting, or symbolic, like that eighteenth hole. He wants the world to know how clever he is. Where is it?

Somewhere appropriate to Anna. Her pop music career? Some place that links with a song title. Or her name?

No, he told himself. The Mariner isn’t interested in her career. He’s entirely taken up with the part of her life that affected him. If I’m right, and he was one of those academics whose bursaries were taken away, he blames her personally for that. This is the climax of his killing spree. He’ll have thought of something that makes the point. He’s been hitting back at British Metal by killing the people they sponsor, but Anna is different from Summers or Porter. She hurt him. He’ll turn her death into some emblem of his anger.

Now something was beginning to stir in his memory. Faint and tenuous, just out of reach, it tantalised him for what seemed an intolerable interval before vanishing again.

He felt certain it was significant, and it derived from personal experience, an observation he’d made some time ago, not in the last twenty-four hours, or even the last week. Surely, he reasoned with himself, if it’s of any significance, it must have a connection with British Metal.

And now the image surfaced. Concorde taking off.

Because of British Metal
.

He gave a cry that was part-triumph, part self-reproach. He’d got there at last. That mechanical billboard he’d driven past on Wellsway with the rotating images. The slogan perfectly summed up the Mariner’s twisted rationale. All the bitterness, his justification for the killing, was encapsulated in those four words.

He explained his reasoning to Halliwell. “And as far as I know,” he added, “it’s the only one of its kind in the city. Have you seen another?”

“No, guv. I know the sign you mean. Shall we go?”

He thought for a moment and shook his head. “I’d bet anything that’s where he means to leave the body, but not in broad daylight. It’s too busy up there. He’ll go tonight, when it’s dark.”

“And then we ambush him?”

“Too late, Keith. He’ll have killed them both already. Remember he killed Matt Porter first and transported the body to the golf course. We’ve got to find him before tonight.”

The disappointment in both men was palpable, although nothing was said. Even when you achieved the aim of anticipating this killer’s movements, it wasn’t enough.

Halliwell started stating the obvious just to fill the silence. “Nobody saw them leave. He’d need transport. Every car in the street has been checked.”

“Then they’re still here.”

“No, guv. I promise you, I went through every room myself.”

“Including the basement?”

Halliwell nodded. “It’s filled with cartons and packing material for the boss’s electrical appliances, and, believe me, we looked in every box.”

“Was it locked?”

“The basement?”

“
Yes
. Was it locked?”

“The door to the street was. And bolted. As I told you, all the external doors in the house were locked, and none of them show any sign of being tampered with.”

“I’m going to take a look myself. The stairs down . . .?”

“The internal staircase? Next to the kitchen.”

Diamond stepped out of the front room into the hall. An internal door was fitted at the top of the basement stairs. The lock had obviously been forced, the strike plate ripped from the woodwork. “Who did this?”

“We did. She obviously keeps it locked. There wasn’t time to go looking for the key.”

“What if the key was in the lock and the Mariner locked it himself and took the key with him?”

Halliwell stared back with a slight frown, failing to see what difference it would make.

Without adding to his question, Diamond pulled open the door, switched on the light and went down into the basement. Just as it had been described to him, the back room, the largest, was in use as a box room, each box labelled.

“They were stacked tidily when we came in,” Halliwell said.

Diamond rapidly checked the other rooms. In the front room was a second door. “What’s this—a cupboard?”

“Sort of,” Halliwell said. “It’s more storage space, but she doesn’t use it. Actually it’s a kind of cellar. Goes right under the street. All these old houses have them. There’s no one in there. Just some wood and a heap of coal left by a previous owner.”

Diamond opened the door. “Someone get me a torch.”

One was handed to him and he probed the interior with the beam. He’d have called this a vault. Basically it was a single arch constructed of Bath stone, and tall enough to drive a bus through, except that a wall blocked off the end. Yet it was obvious no living creature larger than a spider was lurking there.

Halliwell said, “It’s not connected to any other house, if that’s what you were thinking, guv. They used them as wine cellars two hundred years ago. There’s been a lot of concern about them because they weren’t built to support the modern traffic going over them.”

Diamond stepped around a dust-covered heap of coal that had probably been there since the Clean Air Act came in, and moved towards the back wall. He swung the torch beam over the stonework and bent down to look at some chips of broken mortar he’d noticed among the coal. “This is recent.”

Halliwell came closer.

Diamond shone the torch close to the wall itself. “You see where this comes from? Some of these blocks of stone have been drilled out and moved. They’re not attached to anything. The wall isn’t surface-bearing here. It’s just a screen to separate this side of the street from the house opposite. Someone has broken through and replaced everything later.”

Halliwell crouched down to look. “Sonofabitch!”

Now it was Diamond who felt the need to speak the obvious. “He must have got in from the house across the street, down into their basement. He got to work on some stones in the wall and cut his way through. And that’s the way he got out with his prisoners. When they were through he shoved the blocks back into position from the other side.”

“But the door to the basement was locked,” Halliwell said.