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

by Clare Chase

  ‘What made you lie to us about staying in to watch a film, Tess?’ Tara said. ‘Given we’ve got you on camera, you might as well tell us.’

  Her eyes were ice cold. ‘You tricked me.’ She breathed the words out. They were all the more chilling for being uttered quietly.

  Tara shook her head. ‘I only realised it was you when I went out there’ – she nodded over her shoulder – ‘and saw your coat. It triggered a memory of the features of the woman in the picture.’

  Tess Curtis had gripped part of her trouser material between her forefinger and thumb and held it tightly. There was a long pause.

  ‘I think you’d better tell us, Ms Curtis,’ Wilkins said.

  She let out a sigh, short and sharp. ‘For God’s sake, this is just so unfair! After twenty years of nothing much going right, things were finally coming together.’

  Tara waited, and thankfully Wilkins did too.

  ‘I was there for a business meeting with Christian Beatty,’ Tess Curtis said.

  ‘On a Saturday night?’ Wilkins’ tone was mocking.

  The woman’s eyes flashed.

  ‘It was an unusual time to choose,’ Tara said. ‘Why pick then?’

  Curtis turned to face her. ‘We’re both busy people. Christian had been out all day and tied up the week beforehand. And he was due to go off on some job again yesterday. It was simply when we were both free – his diary being more crowded than mine.’

  And of course, it had been coffee cups that had been found in Christian Beatty’s flat, which fitted with a formal conversation. ‘What kind of business were you discussing?’ After a pause, she heard Wilkins huffing. ‘It would be better to tell us.’ She kept her tone gentle. ‘If it’s nothing to do with Christian’s death then we can just keep it on record and stop bothering you.’

  Tess Curtis still looked mutinous, but after another long moment, she took a deep breath and spoke. ‘I don’t think it’s got anything to do with what happened. I don’t see how it can have.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Tara said. ‘In that case you don’t have to worry, do you?’

  Tess Curtis looked at her. ‘As a matter of fact, I do. Christian and I were going to collaborate on a book.’

  ‘A book?’

  ‘About Ralph,’ she said. ‘We’d just signed the paperwork. It was going to be a “warts and all” biography.’ She stared at Wilkins and then at Tara. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Hardly the action of a loyal PA. But my God, I deserve something back after the runaround Ralph gave me over the years.’ She smiled. ‘And I know enough for it to make for some juicy reading. Christian promised he could give me a lot more on top of that. He’d been at all the parties – stayed when I’d had to go home. Between us we could have made a packet.’

  Tara’s mind was spinning with the implications. ‘Did anyone else know you were planning this?’

  Tess Curtis frowned. ‘I don’t see how they could have. Unless Christian had confided in someone.’ She sighed. ‘He hadn’t got as far as telling me what he knew. I took what he said on trust.’ She sat back in her chair.

  ‘And why was this meeting so secret?’ Wilkins said.

  ‘Can you imagine if word had got out about what we were up to? I don’t want interference from anyone that I might refer to in the book.’

  Tara could see that. She knew Verity Hipkiss and Ralph had been lovers, for instance. And Thom King had told her how keen Verity was to make sure the affair stayed under wraps. She bet that was one of the juicy titbits Christian Beatty would have served up – assuming he’d got proof. It gave Verity a firm motive for getting rid of the fashion model if she’d known what he was planning. And she didn’t imagine Ralph’s family would be too happy at the idea of Christian and Tess washing his dirty linen in public either.

  ‘I presume you’ve got a copy of the contract you can show us?’ Tara said.

  Tess Curtis’s shoulders sagged. ‘Not the version he signed. Damn.’ She bit her lip. ‘I wasn’t sure what would happen, when I heard he’d died. The contract talked about the profits and so on. I wasn’t sure if I could prove he hadn’t told me anything yet. I imagined his heirs might accuse me of taking his information, then stealing his share of the book’s proceeds.’ Colour came to her cheeks and she looked down. ‘So I burnt the contract.’

  She’d be lucky if that’s all his beneficiaries accused her of. ‘What about an electronic copy?’

  ‘Only of the template, and I deleted it.’ She looked worried now. ‘But computer forensics people can recover deleted documents, can’t they?’

  Tara nodded. ‘Most probably. We’ll need to take your machine with us. What about emails between the two of you – or texts or whatever – referring to the project?’

  Tess Curtis shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. We had all our detailed discussions by phone.’

  ‘Did you talk about anything else, other than the book, when you met on Saturday?’ Wilkins asked.

  ‘No,’ Tess Curtis said, ‘but one thing he said seems to link the project with what happened to him.’

  He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘He told me he ought to have some extra colour to add to the story we’d write, after that evening.’

  What the hell did that mean? Had he simply been going to regale their readers with stories of his daredevil activities, done in Ralph Cairncross’s memory? But the biography wasn’t going to be about him. Had the person he’d been going to meet promised him something spectacular on Ralph? They could have proposed they drank his health first, and commemorated his devil-may-care approach to life, before they settled down to talk.

  Perhaps Christian Beatty had only seen the promised prize at the end of the evening, and not the danger that lay between.

  As they entered the station, Tara and Wilkins were still discussing Tess Curtis.

  ‘It rang true to me,’ Tara said. ‘She’s right about the interference she’ll get when her project becomes public.’

  Wilkins’ expression was sour. ‘I thought it was far-fetched – but the alternative, that she’s really involved in some kind of plot to kill three men – is far more so.’

  Whatever the truth, Tara was looking forward to passing on their news. She’d got a kick out of being the one to recognise Tess Curtis; it might have been luck that she’d had cause to walk past her coat rack, but that didn’t dampen the buzz of achievement she felt.

  Tara was about reply to Wilkins with a swift retort, but as they walked into the office, the atmosphere was oddly quiet. Her irritation with her boss was pushed from her mind. Everyone had been staring at their computer screens, but when they entered, all eyes were on her.

  Something was up.

  Twenty-Eight

  She saw the headline over Max Dimity’s shoulder, but there was no doubt it was up on most people’s screens. The byline announced it was the work of Shona Kennedy, the woman who’d turned up so quickly after Christian Beatty had fallen to his death. Tara felt her cheeks prickle with heat as she read the article.

  The Serpent and the Temptress

  Many people will have read with shock and sorrow about the recent death of a talented young model and Cambridge graduate, Christian Beatty. Readers may not be aware, however, that a loose connection of Christian’s, Lucas Everett, a postdoctoral researcher in the English faculty, also died this year. This tragic event took place two months ago when Lucas drowned off the coast of Kellness in a swimming misadventure. Both men were part of a group that socialised with the writer, Ralph Cairncross, who died in a car accident earlier this year, in which no one else was involved. Most people would see the three deaths as a sorrowful coincidence, separated by time, geography and circumstance. But Not Now hears from a contact within the police that one woman – relatively junior in rank – has decided to base a far-fetched, though intriguing, conspiracy theory on the three events. It reminded the team here at Not Now of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle.

  Sherlock Holmes. Wilkins had likened her ‘obsession’,
as he called it, to Conan Doyle’s plots. She clenched her fist and winced as her nails dug into her palm. He must be the one who’d leaked this. But then she paused. She couldn’t be certain. Even she could see how elements of her theory linked in with his style. Giles, her old editor at Not Now, might have had the same thought independently.

  According to our source, the theory puts a scheming third party in the frame for engineering all three deaths, beguiling the young men into putting their lives at risk, and planting a snake in the car of the older man to frighten him into losing control. However, Not Now understands there is no proof to substantiate any of these possibilities. Yet this line of enquiry – all based on what some might call fairy tales – is being actively pursued.

  Readers might want to know how the young female officer who is propounding these theories comes to command such influence. Not Now can’t say much on this.

  Not without getting sued, anyway.

  But we can all imagine how certain dynamics might enhance her chances of being taken seriously.

  In the meantime, rest assured that the officers that serve you are working all the hours God sends on this case. Not Now happened to chance across this senior detective accompanying the junior officer in question to carry out a routine interview on a Sunday, nobly giving up time that might have been spent with his wife and family.

  Max gave her an apologetic look and scrolled down. There was a grainy photograph which must have been taken with a long lens from somewhere on Parker’s Piece. It showed her and Blake outside the station the previous afternoon, before they’d set off to interview Stephen Ross at the house on the Forty Foot Bank. How the heck had they managed that? Had Wilkins still been in the building after all, and realised they were leaving together? Could he have taken the photo and supplied it to the magazine?

  Whatever the truth, it didn’t alter the damage.

  Her and Blake’s faces were illuminated by the light that spilled out from the building. Blake was smiling, his head turned towards her and she looked – hell and damnation – she looked like a lovesick teenager. Would her pent-up feelings be that obvious to anyone else who saw the image? She hated Giles. The rage against him left her wanting to do something violent: hit a desk or scream. But if she wanted to maintain any kind of dignity she’d just have to stand there and take it, knowing everyone’s eyes were on her. She hoped some of them – perhaps, with luck – were still thinking more about the Cairncross case than her possible dalliance with their DI.

  And what about Blake? And his wife and their daughter? This whole situation was because Giles hated her so much. Even if she wasn’t guilty of what the article implied, and even if someone was systematically picking off Cairncross and his Acolytes, the fact remained that she was the sort of person who had enemies. She couldn’t leave that behind, and by taking a punt on her, people like Blake and Fleming had let themselves in for this sort of sniping.

  Before, even when she’d worked for Not Now, she’d always kept herself at a distance. She could break free when she needed, so her entanglements didn’t impinge on anyone else. But things were different now. Police work and being part of a team were inseparable. If she garnered the wrong sort of attention they all suffered for it.

  Max Dimity turned to her. ‘It’s not just you. They love to latch onto anything they think will draw the readers in, no matter who gets hurt in the process.’

  She knew that, of course. It wasn’t the sort of article she’d ever written, but when she’d been on Not Now’s staff she’d seen it happen. She should never have worked for them in the first place. She’d been complicit. It was a shame eating was dependent on earning a living…

  ‘Certain people at Not Now have it in for me in particular,’ Tara said. ‘I was stupid enough to work for them once. I resigned when I saw the error of my ways and they don’t like defectors.’

  At that moment, Fleming appeared in the doorway and caught Tara’s eye. The DCI was white-faced with rage. Tara followed her through to her office. Blake and Wilkins were already inside. Fleming must have beckoned her boss in whilst Tara was still staring at the story on Max’s computer screen. Blake looked pale – possibly hung-over, in fact – which wasn’t going to help. Wilkins looked furious.

  Blake glanced at Tara. She felt all the words she’d liked to say tumbling inside her head and wished she’d seen him in private before being hauled up in front of a group.

  ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry,’ Tara said. ‘The article’s quite obviously driven by a personal grudge. Up until now I’ve always been able to fight my own battles without causing other people problems.’

  ‘Except during the Seabrook murder case,’ Wilkins said.

  Bloody hell, he’s on dangerous ground. In their previous article, written on her return to Cambridge, Not Now had emphasised the ‘trouble’ they felt she’d caused by getting involved then. Wilkins was practically parroting their words.

  ‘Patrick,’ Fleming said, ‘we don’t normally accuse victims of attempted murder of causing trouble by expecting the police to help save them. We tend to put the responsibility at the would-be murderer’s door.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Generally speaking, we wouldn’t even react to something like this, but under the circumstances, and with DI Blake’s family in mind too, the press office are going to put out a very brief statement to explain his decision to attend the interview with Tara.’

  Tara could see by Fleming’s expression that she regarded that as less than straightforward.

  ‘In terms of the case, the article’s deeply damaging to our investigation. All possibility of catching a witness out by keeping the news of the snake under wraps is gone. But it makes no difference to our actions, of course. We will work with the evidence we have and then take a view on whether we continue the investigation or not. If this does turn out to be a dead end, that will be regrettable and it’s true that I have had to spend more time than usual considering your requests for resources on this, Blake. It’s been a judgement call, but it’s been mine, and if a mistake’s been made then I take responsibility. The other priority here is to work out who Not Now’s source is.’ She was looking at Patrick. ‘I heard it mentioned, Patrick, that you’d compared the theories we’re working on to a Sherlock Holmes plot.’

  The DS shrugged. ‘Sure – and more than once. Any of the guys here could have overheard me and passed that on. Or equally the staff at Not Now could have thought the same.’ He looked straight at the DCI. ‘Ma’am – you, DI Blake and DC Thorpe all know I’ve been sceptical about this investigation from the start. It’s not something I’ve tried to hide. If I was looking for someone who’s leaking to the press, I’d be eyeing up an officer who’s less open about their feelings.’

  Fleming looked at him for a long moment, but then nodded. ‘Well, if there’s any hint at all, I want to hear about it. I want that person’s head on a plate. For now, you’d all better crack on.’

  As they left the room, Wilkins caught Tara’s eye for an infinitesimal moment and she saw the mocking amusement there – for her eyes only. Bastard.

  Blake stopped them in the corridor and steered them into his office.

  ‘We might have got some idiot leaking information, but we’ve still got a case to sort out. How was the interview with Tess Curtis?’

  Wilkins relayed the results as though the detective work had all been his doing. Blake’s eyes widened when he heard that she had been their mystery CCTV star. Curtis’s explanation for her presence made him frown.

  ‘I think I believe her,’ Tara said. ‘When I faced her with being at Beatty’s flat she looked cross, not worried – as though she was coming to terms with having to tell us something that would ruin her plans. And she probably realised burning the contract Beatty had signed looked questionable too.’

  ‘God knows why she invented watching Jean de Florette.’ Wilkins rolled his eyes. ‘Seems like a complication she didn’t need.’

  ‘Maybe it was part truth,’ Tara said. ‘Perhaps she’d notic
ed it was on and planned to watch it until she made her appointment with Beatty. That way it would have stuck in her mind and come to the fore on the spur of the moment.’

  ‘You’ve got an answer for everything,’ he replied, as though it was a bad thing. ‘I don’t see why she didn’t just tell us the truth from the start.’

  ‘I suppose she’d been waiting a long time to get her own back on Ralph Cairncross.’ Tara could imagine the effect of years of pent-up frustration. ‘She’s not keen to let go of the opportunity now. Of course, my gut instinct might be wrong. That much resentment means she had a motive for killing him. And Beatty too. Maybe he had told her all he knew, and she decided she didn’t want to share the book royalties. She could have arranged to meet him again later, fed his ego and encouraged him to make the jump. She’s an attractive woman.’

  ‘It’ll be interesting to see whether the deleted contract for the book can be recovered,’ Blake said. ‘But if Tess Curtis did somehow persuade Christian Beatty to take that leap, then she must have developed the plan at the last minute. Otherwise, why risk visiting his apartment block that same evening? It’s the sort of place that’s bound to have CCTV.’

  Wilkins pulled a face. ‘Ergo, she didn’t, sir. With respect, I still think this whole enquiry is a wild goose chase.’

  ‘Thank you, Patrick. I had taken that on board. I don’t happen to agree with you.’

  The DS glanced at what looked like a Rolex on his wrist and sighed. ‘Time to leave for the post-mortem.’

  But Tara was quite sure he was delighted to be the one at the centre of things. She smiled for a moment as she remembered that Agneta Larsson didn’t like him.

  ‘You’d better go and check Sadie and Philippa Cairncross’s alibis,’ Wilkins added, turning to her.