Death on the River: A gripping and unputdownable English murder mystery (A Tara Thorpe Mystery Book 2)

by Clare Chase

  It was the headline that hit Blake first: about a young man drowning off the Suffolk coast. He’d swum out too far. Lucas Everett. The date of the article was 4 October – shortly after Cairncross had drowned, if he remembered correctly.

  Blake frowned. ‘Could this be a suicide, as a result of his mentor’s death?’ He indicated the computer screen. ‘Maybe Everett and Cairncross were especially close?’ He hadn’t read the full story.

  But Tara shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I found a more recent article, which reported the coroner’s findings. They recorded misadventure, just as they did for Ralph Cairncross. There aren’t many details in either of the newspaper reports, but if I went over to Suffolk I could find out more by talking to Lucas Everett’s mother.’

  ‘We are in the middle of the Hunter case.’ He could hear the anger in Patrick’s voice. Blake guessed a lot of the emotion derived from Tara ‘interfering’ with a case he’d shelved. For a moment his mind went to his former DS, Emma Marshall, who’d got her promotion to DI two months earlier and left him with Patrick. At times like this, he missed her cool-headedness and good humour more than he could say. The higher-ups were still deciding whether to replace her role or recruit another DC. More upheaval…

  He sighed. Things weren’t that stretched at the moment. He could sub someone in for the rest of the day to give Wilkins the manpower he needed, and let Tara go. But was it justified? That was the question. Two drownings of two interconnected men within a short time period was certainly striking, but it didn’t shout ‘foul play’ to him.

  ‘Leave it with me,’ Blake said, waiting for his DS and DC to vacate the room. It was time for him to have a look at the case notes. That would decide matters.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was staring unseeingly at his screen, having read Agneta Larsson’s report. Somewhere deep inside him the first twinge of doubt stirred. He called Tara into his office.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Get over to Suffolk for the day, then report back to me. I’ll make sure Patrick has the support he needs in your absence. Use kid gloves. There’s probably nothing to it, but I’d rather be sure.’

  Four

  Tara was glad to get out of the office, even though the alternative was driving through the snow, which had just started to fall, towards Suffolk on the A14. As Blake had said, there was probably nothing in it. Unless she found something concrete by the end of the day she could look forward to Patrick Wilkins’ sneering face – but not until Monday, at least. The weekend lay ahead – before her return to more paperwork relating to the Hunter drugs case. As she’d made her preparations for the day, she’d heard Blake sorting out someone to cover for her. He’d assigned DC Max Dimity to do the leg work she’d normally have undertaken.

  Wilkins wouldn’t be pleased with the arrangements. He called Max Dimity ‘Max Dim’ behind his back. Never in front of Blake though – he wasn’t quite that stupid. Tara had first met Max four years earlier when she’d been caught up in the Samantha Seabrook investigation. She had a feeling still waters might run deep as far as he was concerned, and it would be a while before she knew him well. Blake seemed to rate him.

  The snow was coming down faster now, and thicker. She wondered whether she should have brought more gear with her: warmer clothes, a bottle of water and food in case she got stuck. She’d got her long coat at least: a knee-length woollen number that was smart enough for work. Ahead of her she could see a multitude of brake lights coming on, and from somewhere behind came the sound of sirens. A moment later an ambulance wove its way past.

  She was heading for a seaside town called Kellness, where Lucas Everett’s mother lived. He’d been staying with her in early October when he’d drowned – taking a few days out from the research project he’d been working on in Cambridge’s English faculty. She planned to visit the local coroner’s office before she returned home too. How had the authorities decided on a verdict of misadventure rather than accidental death? They must have had reason to believe a deliberate action by Lucas had been a deciding factor in his demise.

  She’d called ahead to talk to Lucas’s mother, Jackie Everett. Tara was going to meet her at the family home in – she glanced at the time on the car’s dashboard – one hour. Then she looked at the snow. Hell. When you’d called someone out of the blue to ask to discuss an emotionally harrowing family death, the last thing you wanted was to keep them waiting. She wasn’t second-guessing what she’d find, but the two deaths in quick succession made her wonder. And then there was Monica Cairncross’s attitude towards her sister-in-law and niece and the relationship Ralph had had with his group of young friends. All the dynamics gave her an uneasy feeling in her gut.

  And then, finally, there was the mere fact that Blake had decided to send her off to Suffolk. What had he been doing in those fifteen minutes after he’d dismissed her and Wilkins from his office? If he’d been reading the files she’d been denied, they must have triggered his decision. Was there something odd about the case? Something that ought to have made Wilkins look more closely?

  If so, it would explain why he was dead against her finding out more. And it meant she owed it to Monica Cairncross to investigate further – even if booze had been the deciding factor in her brother’s death.

  The car’s heater was going full blast, but it didn’t stop the chill she felt inside.

  At three, Tara drew up outside a large, well-proportioned, red-brick Victorian villa overlooking the sea. Jessop House, the home of Lucas’s mother. The woman had explained on the phone that his father had died five years earlier, and that Lucas was an only child. It had been just the two of them, when he’d been at home. The house was right on the edge of Kellness, a good hundred metres from its nearest neighbour. Just a narrow lane separated it from the town’s stony beach. Snow fell over the grey, turbulent water. Standing outside her car, Tara watched the waves for a moment; heard the relentless repeated crash as they smacked up onto the shingle, then the sound of the water dragging at the stones as it receded again. Gulls called as though in distress, and the smell of saltwater was carried on the wind.

  It was hard to imagine someone choosing to swim out into the sea there. It was so exposed. Wind and the icy flakes whipped into her face, chilling her nose and cheeks. She tried and failed to visualise the beach in summer, crowded with children carrying rubber rings and beach towels. In October, when Lucas had drowned, it had been mild, but the North Sea would still have been freezing.

  After a second, she turned back towards the house. It had gates guarding the drive, but she’d decided to park in the lane, rather than opening and closing them behind her. She used a smaller side gate to enter the property and made her way up to the red front door. The windows looked dark, as though the life had gone out of the place. It was a couple of minutes after she’d knocked before she heard movement inside. At last she saw a shadow through the glass in the front door, slowly getting nearer. The woman who opened up was around sixty, Tara guessed. She had grey hair, cropped short, and was dressed in a blue denim fisherman’s smock and navy slacks, with a green knotted scarf around her neck.

  She stood back once Tara had introduced herself and shown her ID. Inside, the hall was cold and almost dark, but there was light at the rear of the house.

  ‘It’s warmer in the kitchen,’ Jackie Everett said. ‘I pretty much live there in winter, because of the Aga. You must be cold after your journey. Can I get you some tea?’

  Tara accepted and followed the woman through.

  ‘I didn’t expect to hear anything more about Lucas’s death,’ Mrs Everett said. ‘And you mentioned this visit relates to Ralph Cairncross. I thought that was all tied up now.’ She was busying herself with an old-fashioned kettle that was already sitting on one of the Aga’s hotplates, but Tara didn’t miss her change in demeanour as she mentioned Cairncross’s name. Her jaw tightened, and there was a constrained quality to her voice, as though she was trying to master her feelings.

  ‘We thought so too
,’ Tara said. ‘And it’s still likely that that’s the case. But questions have been raised over the manner of his death.’ She was glad the woman hadn’t witnessed Monica Cairncross’s accusations or Wilkins’ scepticism. ‘As a result of some background checks we found the press reports about your son’s death. As far as we know, no one was officially aware that two people who were so closely connected had died in quick succession. We’re just making a couple of routine enquiries, to ensure we’ve covered everything properly.’ She took the tea Mrs Everett had poured for her and added milk from the bottle the woman had put on the kitchen countertop and pushed towards her. ‘I’m sorry. The last thing we want is to force you to have more painful conversations about your son. I shouldn’t take up much of your time.’

  Jackie Everett motioned Tara to take a seat at a vast, solid wooden table. ‘I like speaking about my son, DC Thorpe, but talking about his connection with Ralph Cairncross brings back bad memories. And I can’t see how there can be any question over how he died. Lucas told me that Ralph had been drinking heavily the night he drove his car into the river.’

  Tara took the seat Mrs Everett had indicated and loosened her coat. ‘You didn’t like Mr Cairncross?’

  Jackie Everett sank down onto a ladder-backed chair next to the Aga and let the steam from her tea warm her face. ‘Lucas changed when he took up with him. He used to come back here quite frequently, and that tailed off. It wasn’t a problem. He was twenty-seven; he’d probably been spending too much time at home. He was overdue a life of his own – but not with someone like Ralph Cairncross. I wanted him to have healthy relationships with people his own age.’

  ‘I had the impression the other members of Mr Cairncross’s inner circle were around Lucas’s age too,’ Tara said, sipping her drink. She remembered Monica Cairncross saying they were young. As she set her mug back down on the table she realised it wasn’t altogether clean and closed her eyes for a moment, wishing she could un-see the lipstick mark she hadn’t made.

  ‘Oh yes!’ Mrs Everett’s laugh was mirthless. ‘Ralph Cairncross liked to gather youthful people around him, evidently. But they weren’t a group of interconnected friends. They all related to each other through him. He was the common link, if you like. And he was in charge of who came and went – who was part of the gang, and who wasn’t. He reminded me of some of the girls I used to know when I was a child.’

  Tara knew what she meant. They’d had that sort at her school too. ‘And you said your son changed, when he joined Ralph Cairncross’s group?’ she said. ‘Beyond just coming home less frequently?’

  Jackie Everett nodded. ‘He started to look down on anyone who didn’t share Ralph Cairncross’s outlook on life,’ she said.

  Tara raised a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘That youth is everything. That we should burn bright, then embrace death and burn out.’

  Tara thought of Ralph Cairncross’s last book for a second: of the swimmer who’d decided to meet death and accept it. She had to quell a shudder.

  Mrs Everett’s eyes were far away for a moment. ‘I wondered if Ralph Cairncross had got drunk that night and been reckless because living into old age would have gone against his whole policy on life. Perhaps he liked the idea of going out suddenly like that, on what he would have thought of as a high, rather than fading away gradually.’ She looked down into her drink. ‘He was fifty-seven when he died, you know. Younger than me.’

  Tara guessed others might have wondered the same thing, if that had been Cairncross’s creed. Would he have done that? His sister clearly didn’t buy it.

  ‘But Lucas believed Ralph Cairncross’s drowning was the result of a straightforward accident,’ Jackie Everett added. ‘He said Ralph measured age – in himself at least – by behaviour and attitude rather than actual years. That was why he kept his group of young ones close. And if he carried on behaving like a foolish teenager, then he was being true to his principles.’ Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. ‘But he’d already had a good life, and he was old enough to make his own decisions. If he wanted to live like that, careless of his own future, then fine. But he had no right to infect Lucas with his warped ideals.’ Her damp eyes met Tara’s. ‘My son would never have risked such a swim before they’d met – of that I’m certain.’

  Tara leant towards the woman. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She paused for a moment to give her time to recover. ‘Did you speak to Lucas in the immediate aftermath of Ralph Cairncross’s death? Was he very upset?’

  ‘You’re wondering if that might have made him more careless of his own safety, because he was grieving?’

  ‘It happens sometimes.’

  Jackie Everett nodded. ‘I must admit, I was worried that he’d be devastated.’ She looked away for a moment. ‘My son was gay, you see, and I wondered if Ralph Cairncross’s influence on him was so great because Lucas had fallen in love.’ Her eyes met Tara’s. ‘But yes, I did speak to him – the day after the accident, as a matter of fact – and I knew then that I’d been wrong. Lucas was upset. Of course he was. And shocked too. But not broken. Not like I was when his father died. And’ – she took a deep breath – ‘he was more his old self than he’d been in a while.’

  ‘And how was he when he returned here that final time?’ It would only have been a couple of weeks after his mentor’s death.

  The tears were back in her eyes. ‘He’d pulled himself together. The shock had dulled, and he was talking about how the rest of Ralph Cairncross’s circle were determined to carry on their association in his memory. And to live by his rules. I could have wept when he said that. They were cruel rules. And they were destructive. And now Lucas is dead.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Tara said, ‘the coroner found death by misadventure, but the details weren’t given. I can get the records from their office, but I wondered if you’d mind sharing the circumstances with me?’

  Tears pooled in Jackie Everett’s eyes. ‘He went out for a late-evening swim,’ she said. ‘I’d gone to visit my sister in Ipswich overnight, so I had no idea what he was up to. It was some neighbours who found his clothes on the beach early the next morning, when they were out walking their dog. He’d left a note, too. It said: “An adventure in memory of Ralph. And if I die, then death is not the end.’” Without warning, she took her mug and threw it down on the hard kitchen tiles. The remainder of her coffee spattered over the white wall next to the Aga, and bits of china flew in all directions. She clenched her fists and pushed them into her eyes. ‘Stupid, stupid boy,’ she said. ‘Because death is the end. It’s the end for me.’

  Tara had tried to help Jackie Everett tidy up the broken china before she went, but the woman had made it clear she just wanted to be left in peace. Tara could understand that well enough. What would happen to her now? How well did she know the neighbours who’d found her son’s clothes? Was there anyone around to break up the hours of her day?

  The snow had stopped, but slushy piles of it lay on the ground. She walked back down the driveway of Jessop House and let herself out again by the side gate, tightening the belt of her coat. The sky was still thick with pinkish-brown cloud. How long would it be before the weather closed in again?

  She went around the corner to buy a sandwich and a Coke from a small Co-op supermarket before starting her journey home, via the local coroner’s office. She wanted to double-check the full details; she sure as hell couldn’t ask Mrs Everett for more information.

  Three hours later, Tara walked back home across Stourbridge Common, the snow wetting her boots. There was no vehicular access to her place, and she hadn’t bothered with her bike that morning.

  Her head was full of the information she’d got from the coroner. It wouldn’t be enough to convince Blake to extend her enquiries into the case on Monday, but everything she’d learned made her uneasy. She was glad she’d got the weekend in which to find out more about Ralph Cairncross and his family. She had one daunting appointment on Saturday – with Bea; it made her stomach clench – but after t
hat, she’d devote herself to the task.

  She glanced ahead to her cottage, sitting in darkness and isolation. She was the first person to tread that particular route since the snowfall. Everything was very quiet and still.

  Her mind ran back to the summer, four years earlier, when she’d been followed – and when there’d been a murder right outside her door. You never really knew how safe you were.

  Had the deaths of Ralph Cairncross and Lucas Everett really been simple misadventure? She could see Lucas might have thrown caution to the winds in some kind of delayed reaction to his friend’s death, even if he hadn’t set out to end his life.

  Instinctively, she looked over her shoulder at the white world. The sky was mainly covered by cloud, but moonlight shone through a gap, making the snow sparkle and the common look less dark than usual. She could see further than she would normally. And she knew anyone watching her – perhaps carefully hidden – would be able to, too. But though she strained her eyes, she couldn’t detect any movement, or anything out of the ordinary. Except perhaps that the whole place was more deserted than usual.

  Hardly surprising, given the temperature.

  At last, key in hand, she reached the low brick wall that marked the border to her tiny front garden. She opened the gate to walk the short tiled path leading to her front door, and stepped forwards.

  Within a second, she was out of control. Her right foot slid from under her, and as she brought her left foot up to try to steady herself it met with the same ice-rink surface beneath the snow, spanning the width of the tiles, giving no grip. She fell hard, hitting her lower back and then her left elbow. Her right foot slammed into the stone step up to the front door itself. Her laptop bag was flung off to one side, and her handbag, which had been open, had landed upside down, losing half its contents.