“He’s the one I’d put my money on.”
Colin Rich leaned across to the uniformed inspector. “One weekend course up at the university and he thinks he’s Sigmund Freud.”
“Give him his full title, then.”
“Professor?”
“Bloody. You forgot the bloody. Sigmund bloody Freud.”
“Funny!” said Rich, sitting back. “Very bloody funny!”
“We have acquired the services of a Professor Ramusen from the polytechnic’s psychology department, who will look at letters with a view to picking out any which seem to suggest any kind of abnormality or deviancy. Any tendency towards violence.” Skelton paused, as if waiting for comments which were unforthcoming. “I’ve been in touch with the Yard this morning about the services of a handwriting expert and I’m waiting on their response.”
After that it was wrapped up quickly. Uniforms were going back over the house-to-house checks in the area of the two incidents. The Serious Crimes squad would start picking up anyone thrown up by the computer as being previously known. Grafton and Hunt would divide the remainder between them, beginning with those who had made multiple replies. It was down to Resnick and his team to follow up the letters that Graham Millington had discovered in Mary Sheppard’s bedroom, also the lead that Lynn Kellogg had picked up after Shirley Peters’s funeral.
A warrant would enable them to add the identities of all those responding to personal advertisements from first post that morning, although, once Skelton’s press conference, scheduled for eleven, had been reported, it was expected that the numbers of both replies and new advertisers would drop. Initially, however, it meant more legwork, more reports to be filed, more time.
“This time next week we’ll be up to our collective arses in astrologists and bloody clairvoyants!”
Colin Rich leant against the wall beside the coffee urn, looking at the expression of distaste on Resnick’s face at the sight of the coffee.
“Wait till you taste it, Charlie.”
Resnick lifted up the lid of the urn and poured it back.
“Champagne soon for you, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“How’s that?”
“Regular golden bollocks on this show, aren’t we?”
Resnick shrugged and turned away. The sooner he got back to the station, the sooner the team could get to work.
“Too good for the rest of us already, Charlie?” Rich was standing close behind him, but his voice was loud enough to be heard by the rest.
Resnick continued walking.
“That’s it, Charlie. You keep going. That way we can all see the way the sun shines out of your arse!”
“So what do they say about plumbers?”
It was a conversion job. Take an old house, large, garden on two levels with birch trees and wild strawberries thatching themselves across what had passed for lawns; gut it, aside from the central sweep of staircase and main load-bearing walls; fillet out the dry rot; spray for fungus and drill for damp; matching kitchen units, pine’s out so this is a job lot in heavy wood and dark. Executive apartments in highly sought-after residential area, excellent amenities, easy reach of the city center. Penthouse flat with superb views available now for immediate viewing.
Dave Beatty had his head behind the waste disposal, most of his body to the waist out of sight beneath the sink. A small transistor was not quite tuned to the local commercial station and too loud. Divine reached over and turned it off.
“Hey!”
The shout was muffled. Divine kicked the toe of his polished black shoe against the sole of Dave Beatty’s worn-down Adidas sports shoe. Not hard.
“What the hell d’you…”
“Come on out from there.”
“Who…?”
“Do yourself a favor, take a break.”
Beatty swung himself from under the sink and on to his feet. A wrench was gripped tightly in his left hand. Divine looked at him levelly, glanced at the wrench with a dismissive grin, and lifted up the kettle, testing the weight.
“Electrics working?”
“Yes. What’s going on?”
Divine switched on the kettle and picked up a jar of instant coffee, setting it right back down again. “No tea?”
Dave Beatty moved the wrench to his other hand and opened a cupboard; inside was a large packet of tea bags and some sugar. He was conscious of Divine looking at him again, weighing him up.
“Five-seven,” Divine said.
“Look…”
“About eleven stone.”
“This is bloody silly.”
Mark Divine reached out slowly and took the wrench from Beatty’s hand. “But I still don’t know what they say about plumbers.”
“If someone’s sent you round here to check on me, you can tell them they’re wasting their time. I said the end of the week and the end of the week’s what I meant.”
Divine smiled and switched off the kettle. “You want to be mum, or shall I?”
Dave Beatty didn’t move.
“Fair enough.” Divine dropped a bag into a clean mug and went towards the sink to rinse another.
“Don’t,” warned Beatty.
“You don’t want one?”
“If you run the tap it’ll go right through.”
Divine shrugged. “Not very clever.” He put the tea bag into the dirty mug, poured water into both of them. “You know what you’re doing, I suppose?”
Beatty gave a short, humorless laugh, almost a snort. “I’m fitting a sodding disposal unit, I don’t know what you think you’re pissing around at.”
Mark Divine stirred, added milk, pushed one mug-the used one-towards Beatty. “Better put in your own sugar.”
Divine allowed himself another smile. This was fun: he was enjoying himself. Almost as much as he would have been if Beatty had decided to have a go at him with the wrench.
“Don’t know what you’re getting shirty about. Thought you said you could always squeeze in a quick hour in the daytime.”
“Said?”
“Well, be more accurate, wrote.”
Beatty’s right eye blinked shut and a little nerve began to beat beside it; some of the color drained from his face. He glanced at where the wrench lay close to the kettle, closer to Divine than to himself.
“Remember?”
“Listen, all that stuff…”
“Yes?”
“That stuff I wrote…”
“Yes?”
“It was just a laugh, you know, just for…”
“A laugh.”
“Yeh, you know. I mean, wasn’t as if I meant anything by it.”
“Getting right down to it.”
“Eh?”
“Isn’t that what you like to do? No monkeying around beforehand, strictly wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, now where was that other little plumbing job you wanted fixing?”
“Jesus! All I did was write to her.”
“All?”
“Yes! Well, ask her. Ask her, for Christ’s sake! It was just a bit of fun. You know…”
“A laugh.”
“Yeh, a laugh.”
“You said.”
Beatty was looking smaller, younger by the second-a kid from the estate just starting on his City and Guilds. His age was what he’d lied about, Divine thought, probably wanted to convince her of his maturity, man of the world, no make of faucet that can’t be fixed.
Divine was staring him out the way he stared out the opposition across the other side of the scrum; the way he faced down a belligerent drunk after closing.
“Your tea.”
“What?”
“Don’t let it get cold.”
“W-what?”
“Nothing worse than mashing good tea and watching someone let it get cold.”
Beatty brought the mug up towards his mouth and Divine feinted towards him. The edge of the thick mug banged against Beatty’s teeth and the mug started to slide between his fingers.
“Easy!”
Divine steadied it before a drop could be spilt; he pressed the plumber’s fingers tight around the circumference of the mug and held them fast.
“The truth?”
Dave Beatty drew in air too fast and began to choke but still Divine didn’t release his grip. He knew that all he had to do now was wait.
“All right, all right, only it was just the one time, after I’d been round there. To the house. You got to believe that. I mean, we kidded around, you know how it is. Joking, sort of thing. But she had, well, the kid was with her and so she couldn’t, we couldn’t…that was when I wrote them letters. Didn’t even think, you know, she’d take them serious. Not till, till she called me. Got home one night from this job, emergency, bloke with five inches of water in his bathroom and half a hundredweight of sewage backed up right out to the street. She’d left this message on the answerphone. How she’d, she’d meet me. In the van. It was the only time. Honest. Honest.”