The House Sitter (22 page)

“Let me think about this.”

“Yes, of course, ma’am. It’s a big decision, letting a stranger have the run of your home, but I’ve never heard a word of scandal about the lady. And I dare say Sultan would approve.” With a display of care, he replaced the photo on her desk.

“Did he give any problems?”

“He came like a lamb.”

“Say anything?”

“Just nodded and said, ‘All right.’”

“Resigned to it, maybe. Has DCI Mallin arrived from Bognor yet?”

“Down in the canteen, guv, tucking into a fried breakfast.”

“Wise woman.” He went down to join her.

While Hen had a smoke, and Diamond a doughnut and coffee, they agreed on a strategy. Hen would ask the first questions, with Diamond chipping in when the moment was right. With so much experience between them, they didn’t need the nice-cop—nasty-cop approach. They’d know how to pitch it.

“Careful,” Hen said. “You could ruin your prospects that way.”

“It’s OK.” He didn’t smile. He looked nervous. Sweatmarks showed around the armpits of his blue tanktop shirt. He placed the coffee well to one side.

“Finish your drink, love,” Hen said.

“I’m fine.” Yet he couldn’t hide a ripple of tension across his cheek. The description they’d had from Olga Smith was spot on. Latin looks, definitely. Strong features. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, dark, curly hair that looked as if it never needed combing.

Hen and Diamond took their seats. Hen, unashamedly friendly, thanked him for coming in and apologised for the formality of asking his name and stating for the tape that he had been invited to attend of his own free will to assist with the enquiry into the death of Dr Emma Tysoe.

He blinked twice at the name.

“So may I call you Ken?” Hen asked after she’d identified herself and Diamond.

“Whatever you want.”

“You live locally, I gather. Do you work in Bath?”

“Batheaston. I’m an IT consultant.”

“Forgive my ignorance. What’s that exactly?”

“I’m with a firm called Knowhow & Fix. Kind of troubleshooters really. If a firm has a computer problem we do our best to sort it.”

“So people are always pleased to see you?”

“Usually.”

“Is it nine to five?”

“Not really. It can be any time. When they want help, they want help.”

“So you turn out in the evening sometimes?”

“I have done.”

“And—through the wonders of modern telecommunications —can you sometimes fix a problem from home?”

“Some of the work can be done on my own PC, yes.”

“Ken, this is beginning to sound like a job interview,” Hen said with a smile, “but I’m getting a picture of how you spend your time. I suppose you need a car in this job.”

“That’s essential.”

“What do you drive?”

“A BMW.”

“Nice.”

“It’s quite old, actually, but it belongs to me.”

“Reliable?”

“I think so.”

“How long have you owned it?”

“Five or six years. I bought it secondhand.”

“Before you came to Bath?”

“Yes.”

“When
did
you come here?”

“Just before Christmas.”

“And where were you before that?”

“The job? SW1.”

“London?”

“Right. But I was living in Putney.”

“What sort of work? Similar?”

“Not quite the same. I was a techie—technical support programmer.”

“You’ve been doing this sort of work for some time, then?”

“Since university.”

“Where was that?”

“Liverpool.”

“Computer science, I suppose?”

“Pretty close. Electronic engineering. I picked up my computer skills later, when I was doing my MSc. In the end IT proved more marketable than pure electronics.”

His hands felt for the arms of the chair and gripped them. “About ten years.”

“As long as that?”

“I met her when we were students at Liverpool. She read psychology there. We went out a few times. I liked her.”

“And it developed into something?”

He shook his head. “Not at the time. We were friendly, and that was all. After she left to continue her studies in the south, we lost touch. It was pure chance that brought us together again. I didn’t know she was living in Bath until I met her one day in the library a few months ago. There was a lot to talk about, so we went for a drink together, caught up on old times, and what we’d each done since then. It blossomed into something stronger. Well, we weren’t living together, but we got serious, if you know what I mean.”

“You slept with her?”

“Right.”

“And it lasted some time?” Hen asked with the implicit suggestion that the friendship came to an end.

“Some weeks.”

“Can you be more specific?”

He frowned. “I didn’t keep count, if that’s what you mean. Six or seven weeks, probably.”

“Was it a loving relationship?”

“I thought I loved her, yes.”

“You
thought
?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Love is more about feelings than thoughts, isn’t it?” Hen asked.

“I suppose you’re right. I’m a scientist. I analyse things, including my feelings. My estimation was that I loved Emma. It’s not easy, assessing your own emotions, trying to understand how genuine they are.”

“I’d say if you had to assess them, it’s questionable whether you really were in love,” Hen said.

“And I say if you can’t be honest with yourself how can you be honest with the person you’re sleeping with?”

It was a neat riposte. Hen tried to make use of it. “Was she honest with you?”

“I believe she was.”

“Did love come into it?”

“On her side? I don’t know what was in her mind. She said she enjoyed being with me. We had Liverpool in common, our student life. Lots of good memories.”

“No more than that?”

“It was enough to be going on with.”

“So is it fair to say, Ken, that you were keener than she was?”

He frowned a little. “Is that a trick question?”

“Why should it be?” Hen said.

“Let’s face it. Emma was murdered. If I come across as the guy who pestered her for sex, it doesn’t look good for me, does it? We were good friends, we slept together a few times because we wanted to.”

“I’m not trying to trick you, ducky. We just want to get the picture right. Did she have other friends? Did you go round in a group?”

“There were only the two of us. She wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed being in company.”

“I expect she had friends at work—in the university.”

“If she had, she didn’t talk about them.”

“So you and she spent the time in each other’s company— doing what?”

He shrugged. “What people do. Pubs, the cinema, a meal out sometimes.”

“And at the end of an evening, would you go back to her flat in Great Pulteney Street?”

“A few times. Or else she’d come to my place.”

“Not long before her death, you took her for a meal at Popjoy’s. Is that right?”

He gave a nod.

“Would it be true to say the evening didn’t go according to plan?”

There was a delay before he responded. “How do you know that?”

“We’re detectives,” Hen said. “It’s our job. We’d like to hear your take on the evening.”

He stared into the palm of his left hand, as if he was reading the lines. More likely, Peter Diamond thought, watching him, he didn’t want eye contact. “It started well enough. It was a very good meal. Towards the end she complained of a headache and blamed the wine. There was nothing wrong with it. She said some wines had that effect on her, letting me know, in a way, that I should have let her see the list instead of going ahead and ordering. She asked the waiter for an Alka Seltzer, which I found deeply embarrassing in a smart restaurant. Then we had to wait a long time for a taxi. I thought we could walk home—it isn’t far to her place—but she was wearing unsuitable shoes. I seemed to be saying the wrong thing at every turn.”

Diamond said, to keep the confidences coming, “We’ve all had evenings like that.”

Bellman gave a shrug and a sigh. “Well, it got no better. Back in her flat I made some coffee and asked if the headache was easing off and she said I was only asking because I wanted my money’s worth, which was pretty hurtful. I think I told her so. She was in a black mood, for sure. I can’t cope with women when they get like that. I left soon after.”

Hen asked, “Was it a break-up?”

“I didn’t think so at the time. I tried calling her next day to see if I was still in the doghouse. I had to leave a message on the answerphone, which wasn’t easy. I think I just said I hoped she was feeling better and would she call me. But she didn’t. When I eventually got through to her some time in the evening, she told me straight out that she didn’t want to see me any more because she was seeing someone else. I was shattered. Gutted.” The pain of the memory showed in his face.

“Did she say who?” Hen asked.

“No. Just ‘someone’. I reacted badly. I’m ashamed now. I called her some ugly names. A rush of blood, I guess. She slammed down the phone and I can’t blame her for that.” He shook his head. “Wish I could take back what I said. Death is so final.”

The self-recrimination didn’t impress Diamond. With a glance towards Hen, he took up the questioning. “Did you hear from her again?”

“Not on the phone.”

“You’d said these things—called her names—so did you regard the break as final?”

“No. I’d lost control. I wanted her back. Thinking about it after that phone call, I wondered if she was speaking the truth about going out with someone else. I’d got no hint of another man up to then. I wondered if she’d made it up—invented him, in other words—to hurt me in the heat of the moment. I didn’t want our friendship to end. I thought if I handled it right we could get back together again. This was the first serious row we’d had.”

“You said you’d lost control. What do you mean by that?”

“Control of myself, when I shot off at the mouth.”

“Ah, so you didn’t mean you’d lost control of the relationship?”

“God, no! I was never in charge. Didn’t wish to be.”

“OK. So did you do any more about patching it up?”

“Not immediately. As I said, I was slightly suspicious about this other man she’d met.”

“Only slightly?”

He coloured noticeably. “More than slightly, then.” He shifted position in the chair. “This doesn’t reflect very well on me, but I’d better tell you. The next weekend I followed her, to try and find out. On Saturday morning she drove off in her sports car and I followed.”

“Didn’t she know your car?”

“We’d never been out in it. She drove all the way to Horsham. There, she parked and bought herself a soft drink and a sandwich and sat for a while in a park. I was beginning to think I’d made a mistake and she was simply enjoying a day on her own. Then suddenly she returned to her car and drove south of the town until she came to a house near the river. It was fairly secluded, so I had to park some distance off or I’d have been far too obvious. I didn’t actually see her go in, but her Lotus was parked outside. I watched and waited, not liking myself at all, but committed to finding out if she was visiting this other man. She could have been seeing her mother, or someone else in the family. The whole afternoon went by before they appeared. It was around six thirty when she came out.”

“Alone?”

“No, he was with her, a tall bloke, dark, in a suit, hair brushed back. He opened the garage and backed out his car, a red Renault, I think. She got in and they drove off, leaving her car on the drive.”

“Confirming your worst fears?”

“Absolutely.”

“So what did you do?”

“This is going to sound daft. I didn’t follow them. I guessed they were off for a meal somewhere, and I couldn’t get back to my own car in time, so I waited for them to come back. I knew there was a man now, and I had to find out if she would spend the night with him.”

Hen said, “Wasn’t that torturing yourself?”

“It would have been worse not to have known. In my mind I was making up all kinds of scenarios to explain away this bloke.”

“But she’d told you she had another man.”

“And I wasn’t willing to believe her. I still thought I had a chance.”

“So did they return that evening?” Diamond asked.

“About ten. And she went into the house with him and didn’t come out again. I know because I slept in my own car that night. That’s how single-minded I was.” He paused, looking shamefaced.

Diamond didn’t press him and neither did Hen. The man couldn’t have been more candid, and every detail chimed in with information they already had. This was beginning to have the force of a confession.

“But I had a surprise next morning,” he resumed, “because the man left his house alone, dressed in his suit again, and drove off in his car. Hers was still outside. She came out half an hour later and drove away.”

“This was the Sunday—the day she died?”

“Yes. I got in my car and followed. She headed south and eventually ended up in Wightview Sands.”

“It must have been obvious you were behind her.”

“I don’t know. She didn’t attempt to lose me, or anything. I kept some distance back, often with another car between us. She may have noticed the car, but I was never close enough for her to recognise me.”

Hen commented to Diamond, “Some drivers don’t check their mirror that often.”

“And when we got closer to the beach, and everything slowed down, I made sure I was at least two cars behind,” Bellman added. “As it happened, that almost threw me. There was a barrier system at the beach car park. You paid a chap in a kiosk. He was chatting to Emma and then she went through and drove off. All I could do was sit in the queue and watch her car disappear into the distance. It’s a very large car park.”