‘That’s for the Old Bill to find out. Far be it from me to speculate but if I was in charge I’d look for a connection, like was Fiona ever a student of his?’
‘Unlikely,’ Jo said. ‘She was trained in accountancy, you told me. He’s a geologist.’
‘Yes, and he gets his rocks off by drowning women.’
‘Oh, come on!’
‘It’s worth investigating. I may have a word in that inspector’s ear if she comes by again.’
‘Do that,’ Jo said, deciding to humour her.
‘I’d better go and put on some face. I’m meeting the gorgeous Rick tonight.’
‘It’s still on, then?’
‘Bubbling nicely. We had a slight falling-out over this woman he sees on Sundays, but we’re over it now.’
‘Sally.’
‘I call her his dinner lady, which irks him a bit, because she’s posh and very rich. Lives in a mansion overlooking the harbour at Bosham. It’s got a studio, a games room, and an indoor pool. I wondered why he was wasting his time with me until I found out Sally’s fifty-three.’
‘As old as that? I didn’t know.’
‘A mother-figure, you see. Some men have a lifelong need for them.’
‘He won’t get much mothering from you.’
‘Christ, no. And how’s yours?’
‘Mine? You mean Jake? I still like him, yes.’
‘Cool. Why don’t we all meet for a drink tonight, mend some fences?’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Just for an hour. We don’t have to spend the whole evening together. Rick and me are going clubbing, anyway, and that’s not Jake’s style. You two could go bowling after. He likes that. But it’s not for me to organise your evening. Let’s say we’ll be in the Slug amp; Lettuce between seven and eight and we’ll look out for you guys.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Go on. Give it a whirl. Jake won’t mind. I’ll call him if you like.’
‘No. Don’t.’ To fend off that possibility, Jo said, ‘If we can get there, we will, but don’t wait around.’ The right moment, she thought, to end the call. ‘Thanks for phoning, Gem. I don’t believe half of what you say, but you always cheer me up.’
After putting down the phone, she shook her head and smiled at the riot of fantasy she’d just heard. A lecturer not only drowns his alcoholic-or insane, or depressed-wife while skinny dipping, but is confirmed as a serial killer by drowning Fiona as well. All of this while he’s attending a conference in St Petersburg.
Inside the terraced house Jake rented in Selsey, Hen Mallin picked a lump of stone off the top of a bookcase. ‘Tell me about this, Jake.’ She’d learned at the first interview that she’d get more out of the man when he relaxed a bit. The rocks on display weren’t things of beauty, so they had to hold some other appeal for their owner. ‘Looks to me like an oyster.’
He emitted a long, tense breath. Even in his own setting he was stumped for words.
Jake may have preferred to move on. Hen didn’t. ‘It’s not shell any more. It’s rock, so this is a fossil, yes?’
A definite nod this time.
She exchanged a glance with Stella, then pressed Jake harder. ‘You’re going to have to help me here. I suppose it has a Latin name?’
‘Gryphaea.’
‘Cop that, Stell. And it’s special, obviously. Very old?’
‘Hundred and fifty.’
‘Thou?’
A shake of the head.
‘Million? Hundred and fifty million? That’s prehistoric.’ She tossed it across the room to Stella, who made a one-handed catch. ‘Have you handled anything as ancient as that, Stell, not counting that sandwich in the police canteen today? And it looks just like a modern oyster to me.’
‘Me, too,’ Stella said. ‘Except this is a Gry-?’
‘-phaea,’ Jake said and volunteered something else. ‘Extinct.’
Now that he’d broken cover, he had to be pursued. ‘Ah,’ Hen said, ‘but it takes an expert to tell the difference. How can you tell it isn’t a common or garden oyster, a mere ten thousand years old?’
‘Thicker,’ he was moved to say. He retrieved the fossil from Stella and returned it to the bookcase. ‘The valve is thicker. In folklore… ’ His voice trailed off, as if he suddenly realised he’d been manoevured into uttering more than a couple of words.
‘Go on, Jake. We’re listening.’
‘In folklore these are devil’s toenails.’
‘So this innocent-looking oyster gets a bad name. I guess devil’s toenails are easier to remember than Gry- whatever.’ She eyed the rest of the exhibits, thinking there wouldn’t be much mileage in them. They were uninspiring. She wouldn’t have minded insects in amber or sharks’ teeth. These were plain old rocks, even if they had Latin names like the extinct oyster.
He was shaping to say something else.
‘Go on,’ she encouraged him. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘Good for arthritis.’
‘Are they, by all that’s wonderful? But how do you take them? Not swallowed, surely?’
‘Grind them to powder.’
‘When my joints start giving me gyp, I’ll know where to come. You’re an authority, obviously.’
‘Amateur.’
‘Shall we talk about the reason you texted me?’ she said, deciding that the confidence-giving had run its course. ‘You say you know the dead woman, Meredith Sentinel.’
‘Met her, yes.’
‘Well, there’s a thing. You’re pulled in for questioning for being close to the scene and having a record and now it turns out the victim is known to you.’
‘Coincidence,’ Jake said, reddening.
‘Really? Let’s look into that. Where did you meet?’
‘Natural History Museum.’
‘London? You visited there?’
‘A few times.’
‘I get the connection, I think. Mrs Sentinel had a part-time job in the fossil department. Not such a thumping great coincidence, then. Showing her some of your specimens, were you?’
He shook his head. ‘Looking at theirs.’
‘Did you meet Mrs Sentinel outside the museum?’
The question startled him. ‘No.’
‘But you knew her by name?’
‘She introduced herself.’
‘Bully for you. Pretty woman, wasn’t she, Jake?’
He didn’t answer that.
‘I thought we might agree on that,’ Hen said. ‘Most guys like a good-looking blonde. She must have made an impression, for you to remember her. How did you find out she was the dead woman on the beach? Saw her picture on TV?’
‘Radio.’
‘I follow you… I think. You recognised the name and decided to tell all before we kicked your front door in. Wise move, Jake.’
He lifted his shoulders a fraction.
‘Where were you when you heard this news?’
