The inevitable nod.
Hen was annoyed with herself. She needed to phrase her questions better to get a response. ‘What did you learn about her life outside the museum?’
‘She cared.’
‘Cared about you?’
‘The rainforests.’
‘Conservation? She shared your opinions, then?’ She saved herself from another nod by saying, ‘You don’t need to answer that. I’m thinking aloud. I’m interested in where you talked about such matters. Must have been difficult in the fossil gallery, or whatever it’s known as.’
‘Over coffee in the restaurant.’
‘Ah-it got as friendly as that? I’m getting the picture now. And what did she have to say about personal matters?’
He frowned.
‘Like life at home?’ Hen prompted him.
‘Not much.’
‘But there was something?’
‘Her husband wasn’t in-’ The statement stopped there.
‘Are you saying you went to the house, Jake?’
‘No.’ He backtracked. ‘Wasn’t in agreement.’
‘With what?’
‘Climate change. He said it was cyclical.’
‘Right,’ she said, the disappointment obvious in her tone. She didn’t want to get into a debate on global warming. ‘Did she at any point talk about coming to Selsey?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t invite her down to see your fossils or go looking for them on the beach?’
Another shake of the head.
‘We don’t know why she was here and neither does her husband. Fossil-hunting seems as likely a reason as any. Do you have any suggestions? No? I wasn’t expecting any, but I had to ask.’
His small living room was pretty basic, emulsioned in the uni- versal off-white called magnolia, with a patch of blue carpet over brown-stained boards. Three-piece suite, vintage 1970, portable TV, bookcase stacked mainly with maps and magazines, coffee table with a bunch of Fair Trade bananas still in their wrapper. A Vernon Ward on the wall of wildfowl flying over water. Not a family photo in sight.
‘How long have you been living here?’
‘Four, five years.’
‘Get on with the neighbours, do you?’
‘No problems.’
‘Do you get out much?’
‘Got an outside job.’
‘Yes, but do you have a social life? Know what I mean?’
He lowered his eyes as if his large feet held the answer. Finally he said, ‘I’m okay.’
In the car, Stella said, ‘Am I missing something here, guv?’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘You don’t think we should pull him in?’
‘Why, do you?’
‘He’s our only suspect apart from the jogger we haven’t traced. And this links him to the victim.’
‘It was a voluntary statement.’
‘I know that, guv. If he’s our man, he’s made a smart move. We would soon have made the link. I happen to think he’s a whole lot brighter than we take him for. He can’t string six words together at a time, but when he does say anything, it’s measured.’
‘I don’t underrate him,’ Hen said. ‘He’s holding down a responsible job. The problem is that the custody clock starts ticking and what do we get out of him? We’ve been over his movements in the hours leading up to the murder. He isn’t fireproof, but any connection is circumstantial.’
‘This link to the victim has some clout, surely?’
‘Not enough to make a charge stand up. Next time I don’t want him to walk away.’
‘So you rate him as the killer?’
Hen tossed it back. ‘Do you?’
‘I was trained to look for motive, means, and opportunity. He had the means to hold her under. He’s a big, strong guy. He had the opportunity. She came to Selsey knowing he lived here. He takes her down to the beach on a fossil hunt. But what would have been his motive?’
‘The visit turned sour,’ Hen said. ‘He’s an ex-con trying to hide his past. Maybe she got wind of it and he panicked and attacked her. Or she told him his fossils are a heap of rubbish.’
‘She was supposed to be a charmer,’ Stella said. ‘I can’t see her treating him like that.’
‘All right. Here’s another angle. She was the first woman who’d agreed to go out with him in five or six years.’
‘She was married, guv.’
‘Yes, and we’ve both seen what the husband is like. Would you stay loyal to a self-regarding berk like Austen Sentinel? You’d find it a strain.’
‘To say the least.’
‘Let’s say Meredith was tempted to play away. She had interests in common with Jake and he was the opposite of her old man, the strong, silent type. But it turned out he wasn’t up for it. He was thinking fossils while she was thinking sex.’
‘Or the reverse.’
Hen frowned, thought about it and gave a nod. ‘I guess. Either way, there’s a fatal moment of discovery. He’s big and strong and violent in a crisis. All the frustrations of the past erupt in him. He grabs her and holds her under till she can’t struggle any more.’
‘I can believe that,’ Stella said.
‘I’ve only got one problem with it,’ Hen said.
‘What’s that?’
‘How come you and I just went to and his house and felt so safe with him?’
ELEVEN
On their return to Chichester police station, Hen and Stella were met inside the entrance by DC Gary Pearce looking like the wildebeeste who couldn’t work out why the rest of the herd had bolted.
‘Something up, sunshine?’ Hen asked.
‘Don’t know, guv. The ACC was asking for you.’
‘The main man? What time is it? He’ll have left by now.’
‘I don’t think so. It sounded urgent,’ Gary said.
‘Got to be. I hope you told him I was out seeing a witness.’
‘I said you’d left the building, anyway.’
‘Oh, thanks a bunch.’
‘Not long after, he came downstairs.’
‘Got up from his chair to come looking for me? That’s a first.’
‘He asked me to call you.’
‘What stopped you?’
‘I tried. I kept trying.’ He shot her an apprehensive glance. ‘Is it possible your phone was switched off?’
‘When was this?’
‘Twenty minutes ago.’
‘Ten past six. It could have been. We were dealing with an incident, weren’t we, Stell? Did he say what the flap is about?’
‘No, but he wants to see you the minute you return.’
‘I’d better give him the pleasure, then.’
Stella waited until Hen was out of earshot and then told Gary, ‘The incident was a shortage of cigarillos. We had to find a pub that sold them. You did good, Gary.’
Just when she was resigned to not hearing anything, Jo’s mobile sounded and it was Jake. ‘Me again.’ His voice was strong. ‘I thought I’d better call.’
‘You sound okay,’ she said.
‘I am. It’s all right.’
‘It’s great to hear from you,’ she said. ‘I was spooked when I saw the police car. Are you at home?’
‘Actually, no. On the bus to Chichester. There was a message from Gemma about meeting in the Slug and Lettuce.’
That Gemma! Bloody nerve. ‘Was there indeed?’
‘You’re going to be there, aren’t you?’ Now the anxious note returned to his voice. ‘Gemma said you would.’
‘Em, of course. You bet I am.’
‘We don’t have to… ’
‘Spend the whole evening with them? No. That’s for sure.’
‘See you soon, then?’
‘Quick as I can make it.’
When Hen came back from the ACC’s office, something had changed. She seemed smaller, less jaunty, more thoughtful. ‘Going outside for a smoke,’ she said. ‘No one is to leave. Mother Hen will address you shortly.’
There were some puzzled looks. ‘Trouble?’ one of the newest detectives said.
‘We’ll know soon enough,’ Stella said.
Gary said, ‘Do you reckon she’ll be quick? I was hoping to go off duty. Pompey have an evening match.’
‘I wouldn’t bank on it.’
But in five minutes the boss was back and some nicotine-assisted bounce was back as well. ‘Listen up, people. Things have moved on. Eighteen days after Meredith Sentinel’s body was found, another woman drowned. Why the hell didn’t we find out? You may well ask. Two reasons. First, it looked like an accident. Second, it wasn’t on our patch. It was at Emsworth, over the county border. The woman was floating face down in the water in the Mill Pond, that big stretch where all the swans are. Why am I telling you this? Because the post mortem report is out and the pathologist noticed some pressure marks on the back of her neck and shoulders suggesting she was held under.’