Murder in the Fens: An utterly gripping English cozy mystery novel (A Tara Thorpe Mystery Book 4)

by Clare Chase

  ‘It would be useful to know more about your role here, and how you knew Julie,’ Max said.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Balfour spoke slowly. ‘The impenetrable Cambridge system. No reason you should know if you weren’t educated here.’

  Being patronised was one of Tara’s least favourite pastimes. She took a deep breath and tried to relax her shoulder muscles.

  ‘I have multiple roles in the college and the university,’ Balfour went on, leaning back in his chair and running his hand through his thick hair. ‘But in relation to Julie, I was her college tutor. To an outsider, the name might imply that I taught her her subjects, but that’s not the case. College tutors exist to provide all-round pastoral support and guidance to students. We welcome them when they arrive, introduce them to college and university life, then offer advice on anything from health and finance to study worries or family problems. We tutors are a friendly face – a port in the storm, if you like. We’re a dedicated bunch.’

  He smiled and Tara inwardly gave up and acknowledged that she didn’t like him; it wasn’t something she could switch off. At least she realised she was prejudiced. She’d had her stepfather’s views on the overriding superiority of the university rammed down her throat for years and that had been enough to make her kick back.

  She always tried to look at the place in the round. She’d met the most wonderful people who were products of a Cambridge education, understood how its Nobel laureates had changed the lives of millions, and had encountered lively and enthusiastic academics who lit up the world.

  But, Tara being Tara, she couldn’t help noticing the others. The ones who seemed so conscious of their superiority. Those who were quite happy with the old-boy network. The ones who divided people up into the right and the wrong sort to attend a place like this.

  She sprang to attention and switched it all off – at least, as best she could. ‘That sounds like a very valuable resource for the students here.’ She smiled at Balfour, thanking her mother inwardly for her inherited acting skills. ‘And I can see that role would give you more insight into Julie’s personality than other members of college staff.’

  He smiled back. ‘That’s right – or at least, than any other fellow. When we say “staff” we tend to mean people who work to support us. I speak of administrators, housekeepers, cooks and the like.’

  I stand corrected…

  ‘So, Julie would have come to you with her worries?’ Max said.

  ‘I sincerely hope so. I like to think we had a good, solid student–tutor relationship.’

  ‘I appreciate everything she told you would have been in confidence,’ Max went on, ‘but in situations like this it would help us a great deal to know if she had any particular worries.’

  Balfour frowned for a moment, but then nodded. ‘I understand.’ He steepled his fingers, then shifted slightly in his chair.

  Tara couldn’t help thinking that he was filtering what he knew, mentally, before committing himself. She glanced at Max for a second, her eyebrows raised, and he nodded her on.

  ‘Were you aware of Julie receiving any unwanted sexual attention – either from a student or a member of staff?’ she said quickly, staring into his eyes. ‘Or,’ she paused a moment, ‘from a fellow?’

  She hoped Max had guessed she would go in hard. She wanted to pull Balfour out of his careful contemplations. By his expression, her tactic had worked.

  ‘Good Lord!’ The words came out with a splutter. ‘Where on earth did you get that idea? I’ve never heard anything of the kind.’ A moment later, he caught up and closed his mouth. ‘Oh.’ A gulp. ‘Oh, heavens. I see. Had she? I mean, when you found her? Had she been…?’

  Max leant forward. ‘You’re reading more into my colleague’s question than you should. But it’s not uncommon for relationships to turn violent.’ He paused. ‘And that can be especially true if there’s an imbalance of power in that relationship.’

  Tara properly loved Max sometimes. He was able to cut to the heart of the matter in such a calming, deceptively innocent way.

  Balfour leant back in his chair, heaved a sigh and straightened his shoulders. He’d recovered himself now. ‘Of course, of course. Well, as I said, Julie never mentioned anything.’

  ‘Would it always be up to her to come to you with a problem?’ Julie had sounded like an independent type and Tara could relate to that. For her part, she wouldn’t dream of going for a heart to heart with someone whose job it was to be her ‘friend’.

  ‘By no means.’ Balfour looked affronted. ‘I make sure I see my students at least twice a term, whether they request it or not. We have informal get-togethers over tea; I try to create an atmosphere that will put them at their ease.’

  ‘And Julie attended those sessions?’ Max asked.

  Balfour nodded. ‘Beyond those occasions, of course, I sometimes hear via other routes if there are problems that might affect my cohort.’

  ‘Other routes?’

  ‘For instance, if a student was struggling, academically, then I might get that information from one of their supervisors.’

  So people told tales behind the students’ backs? Tara could see it made sense – otherwise they might never have the courage to ask for help – but it made the trusting relationship between a student and their tutor feel less secure. What else might Balfour have been told about Julie? Had she been aware of all the knowledge her tutor had – perhaps relating to quite personal issues?

  ‘Did Julie have academic worries?’ Max asked.

  Balfour laughed now. ‘Oh heavens, no! She was one of the brightest in her year. And very sure of herself. You asked if she ever received unwanted attentions from any students or employees. Well, I can tell you now, she’d have given them short shrift if she had.’

  She and Max exchanged a quick glance. They both knew that wouldn’t be enough with a certain sort of person. Some men didn’t understand that no meant no. Some might be determined to get their revenge…

  ‘That was one comment on her personality that did come back to me,’ Balfour said. ‘She was headstrong. Wilful. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. She did her work all right, but she was opinionated, and that wasn’t always popular.’

  ‘Headstrong’ and ‘wilful’ sounded like outdated objections from supervisors who didn’t like having their viewpoints challenged. Tara knew all about that. It made her think of her former boss, ex-DS Patrick Wilkins. ‘Can you tell us who found her attitudes challenging?’

  Balfour pulled back at her question. ‘Oh, that was more of a general comment.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘I probably heard most of the people who taught her say it at one time or another. But she was young. Personally, I respected her for knowing her own mind.’

  Was that really true? Perhaps they’d never know.

  ‘Did she ever come to you proactively with any worries?’ Max asked.

  ‘None. I wish she had. If I’d had any inkling that she was in danger…’

  ‘We still don’t know exactly how she died,’ Tara said.

  ‘I’m afraid the rumours flying around and your presence don’t leave much to the imagination.’

  His words came quickly. It was a fair point, but she could tell he was rattled.

  ‘And what about any other trouble you heard about, via the alternative sources you mentioned?’ Max asked. ‘We understand she was politically active – involved in demos, maybe, that kind of thing.’

  He raised his eyebrows at that. ‘That’s not to be discouraged, I presume?’

  Max didn’t rise. ‘Far from it. But things can get out of hand, occasionally.’

  Balfour shook his head. ‘I imagine she was too astute to get caught up in anything that might damage her future.’

  ‘But you were aware she took part in that type of activity?’ Max persisted.

  ‘Vaguely. I knew she had passionately held beliefs. She had a boyfriend at one time, from another college. I think they egged each other on.’

  ‘Stuart Gilmour?’ Tara’
s eyes were on him.

  Balfour frowned. ‘Yes, that’s right. Now there’s someone who was on my radar for a while. I understand he found it hard to let go when they broke up. In the end, I discovered Julie had complained about him to his college. His name hasn’t cropped up for a while, but he might be one to watch.’

  That extra bit of information was interesting. Why had Julie let the guy into her room over the summer if she’d previously complained about him hounding her? And it proved Tara was right about Julie being the sort to tackle things independently. She’d dealt with the trouble direct rather than asking Balfour to hold her hand.

  ‘What about any unhealthy friendships?’ Tara was thinking of Bella. The student made her uneasy.

  But Balfour opened his eyes wide. ‘Oh no. I think Julie was too self-sufficient to get sucked into anything like that.’

  ‘Do you know Bella Chadwick?’

  ‘Ah.’ A sour smile crossed Balfour’s lips. ‘Now I understand what triggered your question. I do know Bella. She was a great admirer and imitator of Julie’s. I’m afraid I’ve found her to be something of a fantasist, but I believe Julie kept her at arm’s length. A wise move.’

  Tara wondered. Julie might well have done her utmost to keep some distance between them. But what did you do if you’d acquired someone like Bella – keeping an eye on your movements, copying the clothes you wore, moving into the same temporary accommodation you’d chosen over the summer?

  Much of what Tara was considering was speculation – at the moment. There was more research to complete. But something about Bella Chadwick made her skin creep.

  Eight

  Veronica Lockwood put down the phone in the Master’s Lodge at St Oswald’s. Her husband – billionaire chairman and chief executive of Lockwood’s Agrochemicals, and figurehead of the college – lowered his Sunday paper. He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Tony, calling from the porters’ lodge. The CID pair have left, it seems.’

  ‘Thank God for that. Last thing anyone needs, a load of police tramping about the place just as the parents and students are turning up.’

  ‘They’ll be plain-clothes detectives, Alistair. It won’t be obvious.’

  ‘But they’re crawling all over the girl’s room on Chesterton Road, I hear. The gossip will be rife.’

  ‘And that is why I thought it would be best if you went over to the main college today. If you show your face, it will promote a feeling of calm control.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s nonsense. As it is, people know a St Oswald’s student died in suspicious circumstances over the summer. Who knows what she got up to during that period? It’s nothing to do with us. If I dash out there and start issuing calming words to the parents, it’s taking ownership of the thing. I intend to stand well back. And besides, most of the fellows know I went down to London yesterday to see old Westerly.’ Lord Westerly. Alistair was trying to get funds out of him for a new library. ‘They probably assume I’m still down there. They won’t question my not being on the spot. The less I fuss, the quicker everything will die down.’

  ‘What made you stay in London overnight in the end?’

  He chuckled. ‘You know how it is. You have to oil the wheels if you want to get money out of a chap. Westerly can put alcohol away like nobody’s business without it mellowing him at all. I had trouble keeping up. Ended up toddling back to the flat. I couldn’t possibly have used the car.’

  It would have been useful if he’d let her know. Though she’d relaxed gradually, as she became increasingly certain he was telling the truth. He didn’t know the tension he’d caused.

  ‘So you really were there all night then, were you?’ She watched his expression closely. She had his attention now.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He gave an impatient sigh. ‘Look, I know the gossip worried you, but I never saw the girl as a threat. If you’re feeling tetchy, why don’t you play something?’

  Veronica glanced at her harp, sitting in the corner of the palatial, high-ceilinged room. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  He was reading the paper again. ‘Well, so long as you keep in good practice, ready for the students’ welcome party.’

  She didn’t bother suppressing a groan. ‘Alistair, I’m used to playing to audiences in international concert halls. I’m not going to get worked up about a gaggle of youths whose preferred listening is probably distinctly low-brow.’ She walked over to the drinks table and poured herself a whisky instead.

  ‘Get me one too, would you?’

  She did so, and gave it to her husband. As he took his first sip, his eyes still on a news story about the economic forecast, she analysed his face. No trace of worry at all – he seemed entirely relaxed. She’d known him many a long year now, and that had to be a reassuring sign, surely?

  Nine

  Blake was perched on a beige sofa next to Megan in a bungalow on Atterton Road. Stuart Gilmour’s landlady, Janice Lopez, sat opposite them, her hands clasped together. Stuart himself was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I’ve been away for the weekend – my sister’s hen party, down in Brighton – so I don’t know where he’s got to,’ she said.

  She looked very post-hen party: eyes bloodshot, skin pale. She’d probably been hoping for a quiet evening…

  ‘But it’s odd, because he was meant to be moving out today – back into college accommodation.’ She pulled a face. ‘I still don’t have anyone to replace him. This place might not look like much but the mortgage is almost killing me. Having a lodger just about keeps the bailiffs from the door.’

  ‘What’s Stuart been like as a tenant?’ Blake asked.

  The woman shrugged. ‘Fine. Keeps himself to himself. Turns his music down if I yell at him.’

  ‘Did he ever bring this girl back here?’ He showed her a photo of Julie.

  The woman looked at the image through half-closed eyes, frowned and then winced as though the action had hurt her. ‘No, I don’t think so. She’s a girlfriend?’

  Blake didn’t answer. The report of a suspicious death was already on all the regional news sites he’d checked, stating that the victim was being ‘named locally’ as student Julie Cooper. Photos of the dead woman were being posted. But he guessed Stuart’s landlady had been too busy nursing her hangover to read the latest headlines.

  Janice Lopez sighed. ‘Well, I’m guessing by your faces that Stuart’s in trouble. Shall I tell him to call you when he reappears?’

  He and Megan exchanged a glance. ‘I’ll get one of our people to come and wait outside,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep trying his mobile too.’

  ‘Oh, Lord.’ Lopez put her head in her hands, her long, dark wavy hair falling forward. ‘A friend of mine did ask if I knew what I was doing when I agreed to have him here.’

  Blake leant towards her. ‘Why was that?’

  She looked up at him slowly. ‘He needed a place after he was suspended from college for the rest of the academic year. You didn’t know?’

  Blake took a deep breath. ‘No. I didn’t know.’ From what his own academic mother said it took quite a lot for someone to get suspended – or ‘rusticated’, as she called it. Antonia Blake had had to deal with discipline once upon a time, when she’d acted as a college tutor. Nowadays she’d escaped that sort of irksome role and concentrated on her research and teaching as a professor of art history.

  Megan sat forward, notebook in hand, eyes alert. ‘Did he tell you why?’

  ‘Oh yes, he was quite open about it. He’s very active, politically, and he got caught after a protest that went too far. It wasn’t a first. I think he said he’d been fined for criminal damage once, and there was something else. I can’t remember what.’

  Would that be enough to get you suspended? Blake wasn’t sure. Maybe the repeat offences had finally pushed the college authorities over the edge. The background checks Blake had asked for would include everything they needed to know. Shame he hadn’t got the information already.

  ‘The college obviously took the m
atter seriously.’ Blake frowned. ‘But you weren’t too worried about having him here?’

  ‘St Bede’s housekeeping department and his tutor gave me a reference to say that he’d never been known to cause trouble in his college accommodation. He’s clearly very idealistic, but I didn’t have any reason to think he’d cause me problems.’

  She leant to one side, grabbed a handbag from a coffee table and set it on her lap. A moment later she’d retrieved a bottle of water and a packet of painkillers that had been inside. ‘Why did you want to talk to him again?’

  As they pulled out of the bungalow’s drive, Blake turned to Megan. ‘If Gilmour had brought Julie back here last night he could have attacked her without anyone hearing. No landlady at home, and there’s enough space between this and the next house for a scuffle or her cries to go unnoticed.’

  ‘And if it’s not him, then why has he gone AWOL when he’s meant to be moving back into his college?’ Megan said.

  ‘Good question. We need an update from Jez.’

  Megan called the DC, putting him on speaker, and Blake asked him for the latest.

  ‘I’m about to come back for the briefing. No sign of Gilmour at St Bede’s, yet. One other interesting thing.’ He paused.

  ‘Go ahead.’ It’s not the movies. I just need the information…

  ‘Someone else has been asking for him too. A student from Julie’s college. She was a bit het up, apparently, and left a note for the porters to deliver. They weren’t keen to let me see it, but I managed to persuade them.’ Blake wondered what methods he’d used. ‘Turned out the message was from a girl called Bella Chadwick. She wanted Stuart to get in touch.’

  ‘Useful to know. We’re aware of her.’ A second later he rang the station. He needed Tara to contact Chadwick again – find out why she was so desperate to reach the dead student’s ex.

  Ten

  Ex-detective sergeant Patrick Wilkins was sitting in the Grain and Hop Store pub, next to Parker’s Piece – the square expanse of grass that separated Regent Terrace from Parkside police station. He glanced at Shona, her red lipstick gleaming, long red nails in pristine condition. How did she chase around all day, yet still look so immaculate? He half admired and half mistrusted her for it. Shona was the kind of person who got other people to do her work for her. For a long time, he’d provided her with leads for the scoops she wrote up for Not Now magazine. He’d always wondered if their affair was based on anything more than her career ambitions and the bitterness he felt towards his colleagues. And yet here they still were. As for the leaks, Patrick felt he’d been entirely justified. His old boss – DI Blake – had always been down on him. And then, when Tara Thorpe had joined the team as a detective constable – supposedly working under Patrick, but with no sense of respect whatsoever – he’d been all the keener to feed Shona information that would make both his colleagues’ lives difficult.