‘The tide must have washed over it.’
‘These things tend to be held high up the beach where the water rarely reaches.’
‘Well, I can’t think of anything better.’
‘Try this, then,’ Hen said. ‘What if the barbecue never happened?’
Stella blinked. ‘You’ve lost me now.’
‘We’ve been trying for hours to trace people who were there. Yes, we found about a dozen from the original dig who could have come. Not one of them did. They didn’t get invitations. And the reason is that there was no barbecue. It was never going to happen.’
Stella thought a moment and frowned. ‘Invented by the killer?’
‘Exactly. He’s devious. There was only ever one invitation and we’ve seen it. The killer sent it to Meredith as bait, to lure her to Selsey. Handsomely printed, official-looking, friendly. She was tempted. Her husband would be away, enjoying himself in Moscow or wherever. The dig had been a highlight of her student life, and now she makes her living as a fossil expert. Why not join in the fun and meet some friends from way back?’
‘It’s vile,’ Stella said. ‘In her shoes, I would have gone.’
‘Me, too. What precisely happened in the hours before she was murdered we can only guess. I see her arriving at the beach around eight-thirty and finding nobody. Then he appears and says he, too, received an invitation. Whether he really was around in nineteen-eighty-seven is uncertain. Probably not. But he’s done his research and he knows she was there. He says the event must have been cancelled and nobody told them. He has wine with him and something to eat. He suggests they sit on the beach and drink the wine. If Austen Sentinel can be believed, Meredith likes men.’
‘I think you’ve sussed it, guv. He suggests a moonlit dip. She’s game, but she keeps her pants on, as I would. And he does what he’s been planning all along, grabs her in the water and drowns her.’
‘And because he’s a cold-hearted calculating killer, he gathers up her clothes and bag and removes them from the scene. His hope is that she’ll be taken for someone who died at sea and was washed up by the tide.’
‘That could easily have happened. The planning that went into this!’
‘I know. It makes me wonder if the other killings were equally premeditated.’
‘Are you certain Jake isn’t the killer? I know he admitted being a friend of Meredith as soon as the news broke, but that could have been a smart move to wrong-foot us.’
‘If you’re right, I shouldn’t have let him go. But I think it suits the real killer to have Jake in the frame. We’re dealing with someone of exceptional guile. What you see with Jake is what you get.’
‘He was pretty upset at the end of that last interview.’
‘You noticed it, too? I think it was when I told him Jo and Gemma found the body at Cartwright’s place. There’s something he’s holding back.’
‘About Rick?’
Hen nodded. ‘It’s high time we spoke to that young man.’
‘But we’ve got nothing on him. He’s been in the background all along.’
‘Yes, and up to now Jake has taken all the flak. Our first move tomorrow is to see Rick.’
TWENTY-THREE
The rain was stampeding across the roof when Jo woke from a troubled dream and looked at the clock. Still only 1.15 a.m. She got out, pulled back the curtain, and watched water pouring down the front of the house opposite. The gutters couldn’t cope. On TV last night the local weatherman had issued a flood warning. There was a small river north of the city called the Lavant that always dried up in the summer and yet caused huge problems in conditions like this.
Unable to go back to sleep, she put the kettle on for a cup of tea. Always when extreme weather arrived she found herself thinking about global warming and its effects. Drought was not the whole story. Temperate countries could expect more of this monsoon-type weather that they weren’t equipped to cope with. Jake would know the science, exactly why it occurred
And so her thoughts returned, as they often did now, to Jake. She assumed he was still in police custody. She’d heard no more from him. How could the police be so short-sighted when it was obvious that Cartwright was the murderer, the body in his own pool sealing his guilt?
The body in the pool proved also that Rick’s horrifying claim had been moonshine. Far from being dead and pulped, Cartwright was alive and well and murdering women.
Jake had been right about that. In the morning she would call him and see if the police had come to their senses.
She made the tea and went back to bed.
Hen had slept through last night’s downpour. She had the ability to shut eyes and shut off, even when dealing with serial murders. Perhaps it was not an ability, just exhaustion. She drove into work without really paying attention to the amount of water lying on the roads. Coming out of Bognor she sprayed a postman and had to get out and apologise. Not the best start to her day. Or his.
Better news greeted her at the nick. Stella was waving a piece of paper from across the incident room. ‘Report from the lab, guv. We’ve got a match for victim number three.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Honest. She’s local, too. Lives at Bosham, or did. Named Sally Frith.’
‘I don’t understand. How did her name come up?’
‘She’s on the DNA register because she was fencing stolen antiques two years ago. Fined five hundred pounds and put on probation as it was a first offence.’
In the CID, good fortune is treated with suspicion. ‘What’s going on, Stell? Are the fates toying with us, or is this on the level? Is the age right?’
‘Fifty-three.’
‘I wonder who dealt with it. You and I were still working out of Bognor CID two years back.’
‘I’ll get the file up.’
‘No, I’ll check the paperwork You’d better get out to Bosham right away and see what you can find at the house apart from dodgy Chippendale chairs. Take Paddy with you.’
‘Paddy?’ The silver-haired sergeant was the one fixed point in the incident room.
‘He needs to get out more.’
‘You don’t want to come?’
‘I’ve got other fish to fry.’
‘Meaning this guy Rick?’
‘Spot on. We’ve got nothing on him, but he swims into view every once in a while.’
‘The one that got away?’
‘Or a red herring. I’ll let you know.’
Light words, but behind them, serious intent.
First, she accessed Sally Frith’s file. The case had been handled by a DI who had since moved on to Brighton CID, and he’d written a useful account of the case. Frith, twice divorced and with a small fortune from the second marriage, seemed to have become a soft touch for a fraudster. She’d met a slippery character called Fu Chin and allowed him to store antique pottery in her large house in Bosham. The items turned out to have been stolen from a museum in Brussels. Fu Chin had spun her some yarn about needing cash for medical treatment for one of his children in Hong Kong and she’d found buyers for five of the pieces and transferred the money to his numbered account. Described by the judge as a foolish and gullible woman, she’d taken the rap. Fu Chin was still at liberty.
Hen recalled the lily-white body floating in the pool. You see dead flesh and know nothing of the personal story behind it. This hapless woman had been conned again, putting on her swimsuit for a dip with a serial killer. How foolish and gullible is that?
More urgently, what did it say about the killer?
