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

by Clare Chase

  ‘And did you see anyone else?’ Tara asked.

  The girl’s eyes slid towards her mother again. What was this about?

  ‘Come on, Philippa,’ Wilkins said. ‘You’re clearly leaving something out. Without it, you’re lining up a whole load of trouble for yourself.’

  At last the woman took her phone out of her jeans pocket. ‘I’ll show you.’ She opened up her camera roll and spooled back. ‘There,’ she said at last, not looking at her mother now, and pushing the phone to a space between Tara and Wilkins.

  Tara recognised the house on the bank as the backdrop in the photograph. In the foreground, hard up against the wall of the house – between two sets of windows where they wouldn’t been seen from inside – were Ralph Cairncross and Verity Hipkiss. The light was dusky, the image slightly blurred, but there was no mistaking them. They were entwined. He had one hand in her hair, the other up her skirt.

  ‘They didn’t spot me,’ Philippa said, spitting the words out. ‘As you can see, they were pretty engrossed.’

  Before any of them could stop her, Sadie Cairncross had snatched up the phone. Philippa made a grab for it too, but she was a second too late. She stood up abruptly and went to her mother’s side.

  ‘I didn’t want you to know,’ she said. ‘Not now. Not after he died. I’d been trying to get proof. If he’d lived, I wanted you to see him for what he was. He was still ruining your life, and you were letting him.’ She gripped her mother’s shoulder, her hand claw-like. ‘I wanted you to wake up! How many more years would you have let him abuse you? Use you? Make you feel like nothing?’ She took a huge breath. ‘But when he died, then there was no point in showing you. You were free of him anyway, and I’d only be hurting you.’

  She put her arm round her mother’s shoulders now, but Tara could tell frustration was battling with tenderness. On the whole, she thought frustration was winning.

  ‘Please, Mum. Take your coffee into the sitting room, let me finish up here, and then we can talk.’

  At last Sadie Cairncross nodded and got up. Before she exited the room she turned one more time to face her daughter. ‘You didn’t need to do it, Philippa. I’ve known about his infidelity for years.’

  With that, she walked out into the hall and Philippa closed the door behind her. Her cheeks were tinged with red, in stark contrast with the rest of her pale face.

  She came back to the table and looked at Tara and Wilkins in turn.

  ‘She might have known, in her heart of hearts, but she chose to stick her head in the sand and suffer. I thought if she saw proper evidence, it would break his hold over her. She’d be forced to face reality, and hopefully to leave Ralph.

  ‘You’ve got to understand,’ she went on, ‘that my mother suffered for years because of him. It was a sort of endless, grinding humiliation and sorrow.’ She looked Tara in the eye. ‘You remember you asked me about what ended Mum’s career as a flautist and I said it was a car crash?’

  Tara nodded. ‘What really happened? Did Ralph injure her?’

  Philippa gave a mirthless laugh that sent the hairs on Tara’s arms rising. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ She slumped back down into the chair she’d occupied before. ‘He made it clear to Mum that he only wanted women – and indeed companions – who were in their first flush of youth. Line-free, carefree and – in his eyes – beautiful. She used to pretend she didn’t mind. She called herself his anchor – but all that really meant was that she kept house for him and ensured there was a hot meal waiting if he wanted it.

  ‘I was only a young child when I started to get the measure of what was going on. I was bright. I overheard things, and I used to hear her crying. Then she told me she had to go away for a few days. A cousin came and looked after me – it wasn’t a job for Ralph, obviously. He was above that sort of thing.’

  Tara remembered Tess Curtis talking about Sadie disappearing for a few weeks. ‘She was gone longer than expected?’

  Philippa nodded. ‘Yes. And when she came back, she’d lost that mobility in her mouth. There was a scar too – I still remember it, but it’s faded with time. God.’ She paused for a moment and swallowed. ‘I can still remember saying to her: “Mummy, your mouth’s gone funny”, and she cried. But I didn’t know. I was only little. I found out what had really happened later. She only told me when I was fifteen.’

  Tara waited.

  ‘Plastic surgery gone wrong,’ Philippa said. ‘She hadn’t got much money of her own. Her career was flourishing, but all her earnings went into their joint account, and she didn’t want Ralph to know she’d given nature a helping hand by paying a surgeon. So she risked skimping on the cost. And that decision cost her her career.’

  She looked at them steadily. ‘The injury still hurts her, too. I was worried when I heard you’d been to see her this morning. She’d taken something strong earlier to numb the pain.’

  It figured, though whether the hurt she suffered was still a result of her surgery, or down to other causes, was up for debate.

  ‘She’s always been ashamed of what she did,’ Philippa went on. ‘Ashamed – even though it was my father who was responsible. She came up with the car crash story to avoid having to admit to the truth. And all because my father had a preference for a youthful face.’ Philippa put her shoulders back. ‘You know, scholars spend hours of research time trying to work out why he was so obsessed with youth. They come up with all sorts of crazy theories. They actually get funded for their efforts.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘But I know the truth. I overheard him talk about it once, with an old university friend of his. They were sitting in here making merry whilst my mum had yet another one of her early nights.

  ‘I was reading in the sitting room, but it was impossible not to listen. They’d had a lot to drink.’

  ‘What did you overhear?’ Tara remembered Dr Richardson had said Sadie claimed Ralph had been scarred by seeing his grandparents suffer in old age. That had always sounded like a feeble excuse to her.

  ‘His friend had been trying to get published too, so Ralph regaled him with his own experiences. He said he’d got nowhere when his agent first sent his work out to publishers. People loved his poetic language but his plots weren’t compelling enough. So his agent suggested he should write something deliberately controversial.’ She looked at them. ‘And that’s just what he did. Dreamt up an obsession with youth and an abhorrence of the aging process. And made a packet out of it. And as an extra bonus, it meant my mother excused his behaviour as being necessary to “feed his creativity”. In reality, he just liked running after younger women and partying. Hardly a first…’

  She stood up again now, her shoulders forward, her face white with anger. ‘He was a prize bastard. If someone did have a hand in his accident they did us all a good turn.’

  Thirty-Three

  Blake had caught up with Patrick and Tara and heard the results of their interviews with Philippa and her boyfriend. As he walked through the station’s corridors, he wished he’d been there. Philippa Cairncross’s story might be true – and of course she’d produced the photo proving her father’s infidelity – but there was no doubt she’d had a motive for killing him. He could well understand her hatred, and the way she despised Ralph’s followers. What would years of resentment have done to her? He’d seen a picture of Philippa now. She really did look like her father. That could have played a part, if she’d secretly formed close relationships with Lucas Everett and Christian Beatty, ready to influence their behaviour. But could she have hidden her true feelings towards them enough to form that kind of bond?

  He’d been spending his time preparing for the Hunter drugs trial. As planned, Megan Maloney and Max Dimity had been dividing their time between paperwork for that and leg work around the Cairncross investigation. Their contribution to the Hunter case was all but complete, but for Blake it had been a tense day. One of the witnesses to some associated gang violence was getting cold feet. He’d sat opposite the guy as he’d cried, and sworn he’d made
false claims in his previous statement. It had taken all Blake’s powers of persuasion – and some veiled threats – to talk him round.

  Lesser of two evils, he told himself firmly as he opened the station door to leave for the evening. But he felt uneasy as he went to get his bike.

  He was due at Agneta and Frans’ for dinner. He’d stuck to his plan to make the visit alone. He’d told his wife that he needed to meet with the pathologist to talk about a case, leaving it until the last minute to mention his plans. Christian Beatty’s death at the weekend made it more plausible. He felt guilty – for lying and for leaving her out, but most of all for not tackling the situation he was in head on. All the same, he couldn’t help feeling relieved she wouldn’t be there, brooding over Agneta and Frans’ nine-month-old, ready to steer him back to the topic of expanding their own family as soon as they left.

  The snow had started again: thick, slow-moving flakes drifted down, shifting at haphazard angles as the breeze took them. His route towards Milton Road took him along the river first, towards his own home in Fen Ditton and past Tara’s house. He found himself pausing just after he’d crossed the cattle grid, staring ahead at her tiny cottage, hunkered down against the winter weather. He bet it was cold inside. His own house was cosy, but all at once, without being able to stop the thought, he acknowledged he’d prefer to go home to Tara’s each night… were it not for Kitty. They’d have brandies, huddle round a heater and talk about whatever case they were working on. He stopped the train of thought before it strayed onto more dangerous territory.

  As he sat astride his bike, looking ahead, he saw a figure. They’d stopped, just as he had, dead still, close to the Green Dragon Bridge. How long had they been there? He’d been so focused on Tara that he hadn’t taken in the wider scene until that moment. He couldn’t see the person clearly, but they were on a bike too. Was it a man? Hard to tell at his distance, and the snow was coming down faster, creating a filter between him and everything in his line of sight. He started to pedal towards the stationary cyclist. They only waited a moment longer, then resumed their journey as soon as it was clear he was headed in their direction.

  What had they been up to? It wasn’t the weather for standing around, enjoying the view. Another scandal-hungry reporter? Or someone connected to Cairncross? Then again, they might have paused for an innocent reason. After all, he’d stopped too. After a moment’s hesitation, he switched direction and cycled towards Tara’s place. There was a rough track where she herself must regularly cross the grass. It was all the harder to traverse now it was under a thickening layer of snow. He followed it, then propped his bike against the low wall of her garden. After a moment, he knocked.

  She arrived at the front door wearing jeans and a figure-hugging emerald green jumper that echoed her eyes and contrasted with her red hair. ‘Blake? Is everything all right?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He explained about the figure he’d seen. ‘Given recent events it’s probably a journalist.’

  She gave him a wry look and a grimace. Some colour came to her cheeks, but that was probably just the cold. Tara was tough enough to cope; he knew that.

  ‘All the same,’ he added, ‘after what Monica Cairncross said, that first time she came to see you – and the ice on your path – I wondered. I wanted to warn you. And if a photo of me outside your door appears in Not Now magazine tomorrow I’ll go and sort them out. You might like to join me. Together I reckon we’d be invincible.’

  She smiled at last. ‘Count me in.’ But then a frown crossed her face and there was a pause before she added: ‘Do you want to come in for a drink? I’ve just unfrozen a bottle of red.’

  The temptation to say yes was strong. Just as well he’d got a dinner appointment. ‘I should probably get going,’ he said. ‘I’m due at Agneta Larsson and her husband’s for a meal. We’re old friends.’

  She nodded and glanced down. ‘Sure.’ After a moment she added, ‘I liked Agneta.’

  There was an awkward pause. ‘It was great work you did today,’ he said at last.

  ‘Thanks… though I feel Wilkins won’t be able to let go of the idea of Philippa Cairncross as our perpetrator now.’ He saw her sigh. ‘It’s funny: he was so set against my whole theory to start with. Now I can see he’s torn between holding onto that idea and sticking the boot into Philippa. She didn’t fall for his charms when they first met, and he hasn’t forgiven her.’

  ‘To be fair, she has a pretty good self-confessed motive, as well as opportunity – for her dad at least. And then there’s her resemblance to Ralph Cairncross. I’m not wedded to most of Patrick’s theories, but I do see that anyone who idolised her dad might transfer their admiration to her, based on looks at least.’

  Tara shrugged. ‘All true, but you should have seen her face when she realised there might be more undiscovered booby traps at Madingley Road. She looked scared, and sounded it too. Her reaction seemed totally spontaneous.’

  ‘You could be right. We shouldn’t discount her though, or her mother.’ And, of course, Tess Curtis still had potential as a suspect too. She’d been at the house the night Cairncross died; she could have put the snake in his car. And if she’d been seen anywhere near his vehicle, the Acolytes would probably have assumed she was performing some solicitous task, like removing rubbish from his footwell. And to complete the picture, one of the Acolytes themselves could be guilty. They’d been on the spot and each had their own problematic dynamic with Ralph and the rest of the group…

  Tara’s eyes met his and the silence hung between them.

  ‘I’d better be off then,’ Blake said at last, turning to reach for his bike. And as he did, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Up by the bridge again. Someone also on a bike. The same person who’d been watching before? Had they come back? But once again, as soon as he turned to look properly the cyclist changed course, towards Chesterton, and went on their way.

  ‘Was that them?’ Tara said.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He ought to have been keeping an eye out. His mind had been on other things. ‘Take care, all right?’

  She nodded. ‘Will do. I had my self-defence skills put to the test recently, in fact.’ She sounded awkward.

  Blake raised an eyebrow.

  ‘An old friend, Kemp, turned up out of the blue, when I came back from Kellness a couple of weeks ago. Gave me the fright of my bloody life. Still, I got him good and proper.’ She grinned now. ‘Without breaking any bones on this occasion, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ He wondered where this ‘old friend’ had stayed for the night. Kemp. The name rang a bell. After a moment he had it. The ex-police officer who’d taught her self-defence. He must be pleased she hadn’t lost her skills. The thought of him filled Blake with misgivings. The guy had been on the point of getting the sack when he’d resigned, if the gossip was true. But he bit back anything he might have said. None of his business.

  ‘He’s staying at my relative Bea’s boarding house now,’ Tara said, as though reading his mind.

  Now. He’d stayed over before that then, Blake guessed.

  Absolutely none of my business. He repeated the mantra as he turned his bike round. ‘See you tomorrow, Tara,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘Bright and early. Or early, anyway.’

  Blake bumped his way back over the rough track through the snow. He needed to cross the Green Dragon Bridge – a narrow iron construction for cyclists and pedestrians – to cut through to Milton Road. When he reached Water Street on the other side he scanned the wide lane, looking for the solitary cyclist who’d seemed to pay him and Tara such close attention. But the street was quiet, other than a couple scurrying through the cold night to the warmth of the timber-framed Green Dragon pub, with its crooked, snow-covered roof. If the watcher really had been a journalist, he didn’t fancy the thought of Fleming’s reaction to another photo of him and Tara together. But that possibility still beat the alternative – that whoever was doing all this had her in their sights to
o.

  Thirty-Four

  Tara closed the door on Blake, the night, and the mysterious cyclist who’d been watching them from the Green Dragon Bridge.

  What had Blake thought when she’d invited him in for a drink? Did anyone do that with their boss’s boss for innocent reasons? But he’d been standing there on her doorstep in the snow, having taken the trouble to come and warn her about the person who seemed to be watching her house. She’d felt she should ask if he wanted to come in – not just leave him standing there.

  She tried to push the feeling of embarrassment away, but it lingered, especially when she reflected on the awkward way in which she’d worked Kemp’s recent visit into the conversation. She’d made up her mind previously that she wanted to explain in an upfront way that her old mentor had been there. She still didn’t know if Blake had ever met him but, if he had, she didn’t like the possibility that he might have seen Kemp exiting her house on his way to work. She could imagine what he’d assume. But in the end her mention of the former cop hadn’t sounded natural at all. Just like some kind of weird confession.

  This was crazy. As if she didn’t have anything important to think about. After the interview with Philippa, and her and Wilkins’ debrief with Blake, she’d managed to snatch a moment to bike to Heffers – the university bookshop – to buy a copy of the two poetry pamphlets Stephen Ross had had published to date, as well as a copy of Verity Hipkiss’s acclaimed novel. She wanted to look at their output, and do more research on Thom King too. She didn’t believe Philippa was guilty of plotting the deaths they’d seen so far. Her mother and Tess Curtis were still possibilities though, as Blake had said, and the Acolytes were of interest too. They’d have had the best opportunity to put the snake into Ralph’s car.

  On reflection, she ignored the bottle of red and went to make herself a hot chocolate. She guessed she’d need something sustaining if she was going to wade through their artistic output, but would probably require a clear head to go along with it.