That was the sum of my thoughts this morning. After lunch I washed my hair and turned my attention to what I would wear tonight. Finally chose the dark blue Kenzo trouser-suit with the padded shoulders I bought last year in Oxford. Slightly formal-it is Popjoy’s-and not too much of a come-on to Ken, who needs no encouragement. Oh dear, am I going cool on him?
The meal was the best part of the evening, a wonderful breast of pheasant as my main course and the most delicious crème brûlée I’ve ever tasted to follow. You’d think that would have guaranteed the rest of the night would be a wow. Not so. Unfortunately, Ken picked a red Californian wine, Zinfandel, that always makes my head ache. I’m sure it was a good vintage, and expensive, but I wish he’d asked me first. He was doing his masterful bit, showing off to the waiter. In any restaurant they always give the wine list to the man and he takes it as a personal challenge to sound knowledgable about what’s on offer. Ken simply went ahead and ordered, murmuring something patronising about how I would enjoy this. Stupidly I drank a glass or two with the meal, not wanting to mess up the evening. My head started splitting before we got to the desserts. I was in no condition to talk about my day, as he suggested, and I didn’t want to hear about his, either. He was really miffed when the waiter asked if we would take coffee and I said what I really wanted was a glass of still water with two Alka Seltzers. Yes, I embarrassed him horribly. He showed it by leaving a huge tip, far bigger than he can afford.
Then he proposed to walk me home-me in a pair of strappy high heels!-all the way from Sawclose, at least half a mile. He claimed it would be romantic. Stuff that, I told him. I want a taxi. Unfortunately the theatre crowd had just come out and we spent the next twenty minutes trying to beat other people to a cab. He isn’t much good at that. Result: I wasn’t in the mood for the shag he expected when we finally got back here. I’m going to draw a veil over what happened. Ugly things were said, entirely by me. If he’d called me a prickteaser or something I might respect him more. He’s so nice he’s boring, but I can’t expect him to understand that. He listens to me, praises me up, treats me like a princess, and that’s OK-until the glitter wears off. Things went wrong in the restaurant and they weren’t really anyone’s fault, but it helped me to face facts. I happen to have a bigger-than-average appetite for sex and I needed a bloke and Ken came into my life at the right time and did the necessary in bed. And let’s give him credit: I’ve known a lot worse. We had five or six good weeks. Now it’s time to draw a line under them.
Basically, it’s over. I said too many horrible things for us to kiss and make up-ever. And to be honest, I’m relieved.
Diamond used the mouse to close the file and sat back in the chair. He needed a short break from this outpouring. There is only so much you can take in at a session, especially when you are extracting crucial information. He found it demanding to switch mentally between two murders, trying to catch the implications for both. On one level it was a fascinating insight into Emma’s analysis of the Summers case. Equally, it seemed to open the way to new lines of enquiry in her own murder. Ken, the lover on the skids, was a real discovery. Nobody in the Psychology Department had mentioned him. Not one of them he’d spoken to, Tara, Professor Chromik or Helen Sparks, seemed to have any knowledge of Ken’s existence. She must have been very determined to keep the worlds of work and home separate.
Ken had to be traced-and soon. He would get Halliwell and the team onto it.
The Summers case, also, was opening up nicely. It was a definite advance to have the names of the two “targets” Bramshill wanted to keep to themselves. They couldn’t object. This was all legitimate stuff. The names had come up as a direct result of research into the beach strangling. He had a right to know Emma’s thoughts in the days leading up to her murder.
His own emotions were mixed. There was no denying that he felt some guilt at peeking into her private journal, tempered by the knowledge that she had locked away essential information there. Some of it would surely have been passed on to the police if she had lived long enough to assemble the profile. The other bits-the intimate stuff about Ken-might well have a bearing on her own murder. He had to go on reading. As a professional, Emma would understand the justification. That’s what he told himself.
He reopened the file.
I got in touch with Jimmy Barneston today, wanting to follow up on a few matters. He’s terribly busy, but came to the phone and listened to everything I said, and seemed genuinely grateful for my suggestions. The main thing I wanted to get across was that I now believe the Mariner really does intend to kill those two he named, and he’ll be cunning and ruthless in carrying out his aim. The police should get them away, abroad if possible, and keep them under twenty-four hour surveillance. And it’s got to be kept up for months and years if necessary. Jimmy said he was confident of finding the bloke in a matter of days. He sounds convincing, too. I hope to God he’s right.
He said I was welcome to sit in on one of their case conferences and I’ve agreed to drive down to Horsham tomorrow. I’ll make another visit to Bramber in the afternoon without the murder squad in attendance. I’m probably kidding myself, but I feel I have a better chance of getting inside the mind of the killer if I stand where he did. I also plan to call on Axel Summers’ housekeeper. He lives in the village.
Ken left a message on the answerphone, asking me to call back when I get a chance. He wants to start over, I suppose. I’m going to ignore him. Our fling is over. A clean break. He thinks I’ll melt, but I won’t. Now that it’s done and dusted I can see there was never very much emotionally. I was keeping it going for the sex on tap, my personal demon, the tyranny of the hormones. Let’s be honest, he was rather good at it, but not world class. There’s better to be had. Let the quest begin!
Did some more reading today. This will not be easy, this case. You can’t make too many inferences from a single crime. The horrible truth is that I need the Mariner to kill again before I can make an accurate assessment of his psychosis-if he has one. It’s quite on the cards-I’d put money on it-that he has carried out crimes in the past, maybe even murders. But I can’t access them unless the police pick up some piece of evidence that links him to their records. So I’m hamstrung.
What age might he be? It ought to be possible to posit a range. The trouble he took to pick out the crossbow suggests someone reasonably mature, calculating, rather than impulsive. Not a youth, I would say.
The choice of “targets” is intriguing. They’re all huge names, but apart from that they don’t have much in common. Summers was creative and intelligent and over fifty. Porter is precocious, little more than a kid, certainly under twenty-one, famous for being young in a sport where older men dominate. Walpurgis is past thirty and very rich, still a celeb, but past her prime as a pop singer. Note: I must look at cases of celebrity slayers such as Mark David Chapman, the killer of John Lennon. What was his motivation?
This afternoon I took a walk to the top of the street and spent a couple of hours in Sydney Gardens wandering the paths and mulling over the case. I was crossing the Chinese Bridge over the canal when a jogger stopped to chat me up. Tall, thinnish, fair hair. Not a bad looker. Offered me a cigarette. I thought, What sort of jogger carries a pack of cigarettes in his tracksuit? Gave him a smile and said I didn’t, and anyway I was waiting for someone. I am, in a way. But not a smoking jogger.
I notice Matthew Porter isn’t competing in the big golf tournament at Sunningdale this week. I hope he’s sensible enough to cooperate and lie low for as long as it takes. Wouldn’t know about Anna Walpurgis. She’s still a favourite of the tabloids. See-through dresses at film premieres. Married some millionaire twice her age and inherited a fortune when he died soon after. Then had a fling with a soap star. I can’t imagine a ball of fire like her lying low-unless it’s in someone’s bed.