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

by Clare Chase

  He waited for her to look at him again. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got a lot more to get through here.’

  ‘Ah. Okay then.’ Her voice sounded worn. ‘I might go on up. I’m shattered.’

  After she’d left the room he spent a few minutes doing battle with guilt before he managed to settle back to work. He hadn’t started the mess with Babette, but he knew he was perpetuating it.

  At last he shelved the thoughts that had been causing his stomach to tense and focused on Tara’s email. He shifted in his seat, frowning. The report on her interview with Jackie Everett made uncomfortable reading. Ralph Cairncross’s little band felt like a cult. It seemed as though Lucas Everett had followed the man so unquestioningly, even after his death, that he’d lost his own life. Cairncross had certainly wielded considerable power. But although the circumstances made Blake’s skin crawl, none of it added up to anything criminal, or even hinted that there was more to uncover.

  He shivered and went to draw the curtains on the dark winter world outside before returning to his seat. Misadventure. Two men who’d drowned in tragic circumstances, but circumstances where their demises were sadly predictable. Too much to drink, too far a swim – too much bravado. Maybe each had been careless of their safety for different reasons: Cairncross from a desire to live as he had when he was young, and Everett because he was influenced by his dead mentor.

  What had Tara got apart from that? A page torn from a notebook that couldn’t be found; a wild-sounding accusation of foul play from one of Cairncross’s relations; and a claim by that same woman that she’d been followed. It was tissue-paper thin.

  Except… except for what he’d read in Agneta Larsson’s post-mortem report. It was probably nothing; the coroner had obviously decided on balance that it wasn’t significant. The guy had been so damned drunk when he’d drowned – that had to have been the overriding factor. Blake made up his mind to have coffee with Agneta sometime soon – just to get her take on things.

  Seven

  Patrick Wilkins sat in his Rondo leather armchair with a whisky on the side table next to him. Instead of relaxing and drinking it, he was staring at the corner of his flat’s open-plan living room, frowning. When his girlfriend, Shona, came into the room and spoke, he jumped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said you’re miles away. I was just telling you about the story I’m working on. Shall I start again?’ She rolled her eyes and he wished she wouldn’t. She worked for Not Now magazine, the same publication that had employed Tara Thorpe when he’d first met her. Patrick and Shona had hooked up over a missing child case a year back, but he’d been eyeing her up for a lot longer than that. They kept their relationship under wraps. It avoided the entire station coming down on him each time there was a leak to the press. And Shona liked her colleagues to think every little snippet of information she acquired was down to her hard work and diligence – not because of who she was shagging.

  She was a glamorous woman, and they had some laughs, but her constant need to share her enthusiasm for her job wore him down. He wasn’t enjoying life at the station at the moment, and hearing her talk up her own career was the last thing he felt like. He just wanted to switch off.

  Still, it wouldn’t do to say so. ‘Yeah, sure.’ He picked up his drink. ‘Sorry. Start again.’

  She told him about the artist the magazine was featuring, and how she was cohabiting with her own nephew by marriage. Not Now liked that kind of thing.

  At last Shona stopped and perched on the arm of the chair he occupied, her clingy dress riding halfway up her thigh. ‘What’s eating you?’ she said. ‘You’ve been positively sullen since last week.’

  He didn’t normally share stuff about work. He gave Shona the most positive spin on everything that he did. He had his pride. And besides, you could never be sure with journalists. If their relationship went sour he didn’t want to give her anything damaging she could quote in some future story. But Shona had worked with Tara Thorpe. It was tempting to confide. Not Now had run a story about her appointment with the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. They’d used all their inside knowledge about her and shown no loyalty. He knew she hadn’t been well-liked whilst she’d been with them, either.

  ‘It’s my new detective constable,’ he said.

  ‘Ah yes. My erstwhile colleague Tara. Don’t tell me she’s giving you trouble already?’ Shona put her head on one side and stroked his neck with her right hand. She had long, elegant fingers.

  ‘I feel as though she’s walking all over everyone at the station. And she’s only been with us a matter of weeks.’

  Shona sighed. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. It was the same when she worked at Not Now.’ She gave him a look. ‘You do know the circumstances around her leaving, right?’

  Patrick shrugged. ‘I heard she resigned.’

  Shona laughed. ‘Yeah, right before she was pushed. Giles’ – Giles was Shona’s editor at the magazine – ‘well, he gave her an ultimatum. He found out she’d been holding back a whole lot of information about the Samantha Seabrook murder case that would have led to a massive spike in readers for us. She hadn’t even told him she’d been threatened by Samantha Seabrook’s murderer. When he found out, he told her she’d got to display some loyalty and behave like a proper journalist. He wanted the full, personal story from her as an exclusive, or else she could pack her bags. Rather than help him out, she resigned.’ She got up from the chair arm and went to fetch the glass of white wine she’d left on the sideboard. ‘She’s got no sense of loyalty, whatsoever. She’s only out for herself.’

  She brought her drink back and settled down again.

  Patrick hadn’t heard about the circumstances before. It all figured. ‘I’d love to know what made her decide to apply for police training after that,’ he said.

  Shona smiled. ‘Well, I think her journalism career was scuppered. You know she once decked another reporter, when they came after the same story she was onto?’

  ‘She’d been stalked, hadn’t she? And she thought the guy might be him?’

  Shona opened her eyes wide. ‘Well, yes, I think that’s what she said. But the incident with the fellow journalist was years after her stalker gave up. Besides,’ she sipped her drink slowly, ‘she didn’t do things by halves. The journalist she hit ended up with a black eye and a broken finger.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘That much I’d heard.’

  ‘She’s lucky he dropped the charges. I’m amazed the police allowed her in.’

  ‘I was too. Exceptional circumstances, apparently.’

  ‘And you think that was enough?’

  He looked at Shona. ‘What do you mean?’

  She glanced sideways at him, her ice-blue eyes on his. ‘I remember seeing Tara having a drink with your DI Blake once, during the Seabrook murder investigation.’ She paused. ‘My colleague Gav was there too. We both thought they looked pretty chummy. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d put in a good word for her. Maybe he even suggested the police as a career.’

  Patrick felt his heart rate increase and his jaw tense. He still remembered the look of horror on Blake’s face when he’d arrived just in time to see Tara’s apparently lifeless body, underwater, out in the Fens. He’d been in after her in seconds, even though another officer was already on the scene, and in the process of hauling her out. Then he’d waited whilst she’d been resuscitated. He’d been completely still, his face pale, his eyes concentrated on hers, waiting for them to open. Patrick had known then that Tara Thorpe had some kind of hold on his boss’s feelings. But then it hadn’t mattered. And she’d gone off for four years. Even when she came back he hadn’t anticipated her being quite such a thorn in his side. After all, Garstin Blake had got back together with his wife. He presumed Tara Thorpe had just been a distraction whilst they’d been on a break. Patrick had only found out his boss’s marriage had been foundering at all thanks to some overheard gossip.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Shona said.

  ‘That you
might be right about DI Blake putting a word in.’ Though if he had, he bet Tara Thorpe didn’t know anything about it. She was the kind of person who’d resent any good turns as patronising. ‘And I reckon he still favours her now. I think her presence is colouring his judgement and damaging my standing, too.’

  ‘In what way?’ Shona shifted her body closer to his and he could feel her warmth.

  ‘Tara started to secretly investigate an old incident behind my back. It’s nothing – less than nothing – a complete waste of time. But she’s sweet-talked Blake into letting her spend more hours on it.’

  ‘She went over your head?’ Shona sounded shocked and Patrick felt a bit better.

  He nodded. ‘And then, without consulting me, the DI took her off the Hunter case and gave me Max Dim-ity in her place.’ He didn’t mention that Blake had only given Tara the day to look into the Cairncross business, and the fact that the arrangements were only temporary. One way or another, he wouldn’t be surprised if Tara Thorpe managed to wangle an extension.

  He glanced at Shona, whose own eyes were now on the middle distance. He watched as she slowly turned to face him again. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I imagine it would cause quite a scandal if your DI and our Tara took things further. What with him being married, and it affecting his judgement at work too, maybe.’

  Patrick gave a hollow laugh. ‘You’re right there.’

  ‘So,’ she sipped at the last of her wine, ‘if there’s ever any shred of evidence that DI Blake and Tara Thorpe are having an affair, you can slip the information to me. Anonymously of course. Giles is a great one for holding a grudge. If there’s anything that might bring Tara down, he’d be delighted to give it the oxygen of publicity.’

  Friday 30 November

  I didn’t stay to watch you come home, Tara. Why would I waste my time, out in the cold? As before, I just sowed a seed and stood back to let events take their course.

  Did you fall? And are you lying awake in bed now, wondering? Trying to think of another logical explanation for the sheet of ice outside your door? A leaky pipe, perhaps? Old houses like yours often have problems with plumbing and electrics. I bet that’s what your colleagues will assume, if you tell them. But will you even share the information? People will only think you a fool.

  Are you worried about what might happen next?

  I’m sorry – but I wanted to get at you – if only in a small way. It makes me angry that the police are spending any time on such worthless men as Ralph and Lucas. But you’re safe for now. I’ve no need to twist fate again unless you get too close to the truth.

  No – it’s others you should worry about. Because I haven’t finished, yet.

  If two deaths by misadventure is frustrating, how will you feel when there are three?

  Eight

  Tara found it hard to relax that Friday night. She ached from her fall and couldn’t help listening for sounds out on the common. The ice sheet outside her door preyed on her mind. She simply couldn’t think of any logical explanation for its presence. It was a matter of physics. But anyone could have been responsible, of course – it might have been Wilkins for all she knew.

  At last she must have managed to drop off, but the night felt short, and she wasn’t refreshed when she woke. Now there she was, at six on Saturday morning, worrying about her appointment with Bea later. But the whole reason she’d come back to Cambridge was to help her mother’s cousin through her grief at losing her husband. Today would be part of that process.

  She lay curled up in the cool bed, knowing she wouldn’t get back to sleep, but refusing to give in to it. It would be colder still when she got out from under the covers. At last, at six twenty, she got up, dragged on her clothes and settled down to coffee and toast, her laptop booted up at her side.

  After her second slice, she turned to her computer and opened her email. She found herself rereading Monica Cairncross’s message first. She sat back, closed her eyes for a moment and cursed Wilkins. If he hadn’t blocked her attempts to read up on the Cairncross case at work Tara might have been satisfied by now – content to let the matter rest. As it was, her decision to double check for anything that looked off had been thwarted.

  At last, against her better judgement, she replied to Dr Cairncross, saying she’d do a small amount of extra digging in her free time. She’d have to use unofficial means to extend what she knew. Her first move was to ask the dead man’s sister for the details of the rest of the group he’d gone to visit the night he’d drowned.

  It would be a challenge, but she’d secretly enjoy it. And it would be good to have something of her own to pursue. She thought of Kemp. His intervention when she’d been stalked had pretty much saved her sanity, and she valued his opinion. Consequently, she’d been disgruntled when he’d laughed at her decision to join the police. He’d told her she’d be rubbish. She wasn’t a team player, hated taking orders from anyone else, and was far too impatient. In short, he’d told her she was just like him. He was a lone wolf now, taking on security and investigative work. His doubts had made her determined to prove him wrong. She could keep herself in check when she needed to, and four years working closely with colleagues had almost turned her into a team player. In particular, her first two years – spent in uniform – had introduced her to a feeling of camaraderie she hadn’t known before, and hadn’t thought she could be a part of. But from time to time, she did miss being autonomous. Until Giles at Not Now had forced her to resign, he’d at least given her plenty of freedom.

  Four hours later, Tara was outside Bea’s house. They’d just finished clearing away and washing up after her paying guests. Tara had spent the previous half hour with her hands submerged in scalding-hot soapy water. The contrast outside was startling. It was dry for now, after the rain that had fallen in the early hours, but the temperature was bitter and patches of the pavement under their feet were still slippery, where yesterday’s snow had been compacted into ice that was too thick to have thawed. Despite the weather and their walk, Tara hadn’t worn jeans and jumpers. It hadn’t felt formal enough somehow. She’d opted for a knee-length woollen dress and boots, with her coat over the top.

  She looked down at Bea – tiny, her eyes slightly red and her cheeks pink from the cold. She was carrying the china urn containing her husband Greg’s ashes.

  Her mother’s cousin let out a small giggle that cracked partway through, and gulped back what might have turned into a sob. ‘I hope to God I don’t drop him here. Ditton Meadows, he said in his will, by the river. Not just off Chesterton High Street.’

  Tara leant down, put her arm round Bea’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She had to pause a moment before she spoke. Greg hadn’t been around when Bea had looked after her as a child; she’d only met him later. Tara could still remember the sparkle she’d seen in Bea’s eye when she’d relayed the story of the new ‘friend’ she’d made.

  When they’d married and bought the boarding house she’d never seen Bea happier. It was as though things had finally fallen into place. And Tara felt almost as relaxed with Greg as she did with her mother’s cousin. Bea had spent years putting everyone else first, and it had seemed she’d finally got her happy ever after. But it wasn’t to be. They’d had seven laughter-filled years together before his aneurism. It had all been over so quickly. Tara wished she’d been on the spot for Bea when it had happened.

  ‘We’d better watch out at the bottom of the Green Dragon Bridge,’ Tara said. ‘That’s the spot that’ll get us if anywhere does. There’s a patch that still hasn’t thawed. I almost went flat on my backside there on my way over to your place.’ She hadn’t mentioned that it would have been the second time in twenty-four hours. Her own ice patch hadn’t finished melting yet either.

  They didn’t talk much on the walk to Ditton Meadows. As they traversed the slippery boardwalk next to the river, under the railway, Tara saw a few flakes of snow fall. Again? She’d already had enough of it.

  She felt Bea tense next to her. ‘I
want to put him straight down on the bare ground,’ she said suddenly. ‘I want to see where he goes; not leave him to be carried away by melting snow.’

  A woman walking a dog, going in the other direction, glanced at them curiously, then darted her eyes away.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Tara hugged Bea again. ‘I don’t think the snow’s going to lie.’

  They carried on walking up the river, crossing the wooden bridge that spanned the small stream coming off the Cam, then trudging along the Reach. At last they passed through the gateway that gave on to the meadow nearest Fen Ditton. Ahead, Tara could see the edge of the village and the church.

  ‘I thought maybe we should scatter him round here,’ Bea said, her gloved hands tight on the urn. ‘It’ll be peaceful if I want to come and feel near to him, but within sight of the village, so it’s not too lonely. And when the Bumps are on he’ll get a visit from all the spectators. I think he would have liked that.’

  The Bumps. Rowing races where either college boats or those from the town clubs raced to try to catch each other up. Fast and furious affairs, watched from the meadows by picnickers when the weather was better. Tara nodded and pictured Greg’s laughing face. His image made her throat feel tight. ‘I think you’re right. And if you visit, and you feel like company, you can knock on my cottage door on your way.’

  Bea nodded, swallowed and took off her right glove, putting it in her pocket. And then, without looking at Tara, she removed the lid of the urn and reached inside it, taking a handful of the ashes. She walked forward and let the dust run through her fingers as she went. After a moment she took another handful and another, walking here and there across the cold, hard ground. At last she turned. ‘Would you like to scatter a handful? Greg liked you so much.’

  Tara went forward and put her hand into the urn, feeling the dust, like sand between her fingers. She copied Bea, whilst trying to focus hard on tiny details: the shape of the grass at her feet, the sound of a swan landing on the river. Allowing her mind to dwell on the enormity of what Bea had lost would undo her. As she watched the remains rain down, flakes of snow stung her cheeks, but the ground was still bare.