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

by Clare Chase

  ‘Was drug taking common, where you studied?’

  For a second, Edward laughed. ‘Just as well their PR office can’t hear our conversation. Their hair would fall out. But it wasn’t unheard of by the final year. And it was more common still in our senior school. They came down hard on anyone found in possession, but kids are canny. I don’t believe that was John’s problem though – or not to start with. I think the drink and the drugs came later, as a result of what was bothering him.’

  ‘He must have been grateful that you stuck by him.’ She waited to see what he’d say, wondering what had made them stay close.

  ‘I was having a rough time too, to be honest. My dad had just walked out and there was some uncertainty over whether I could stay at the school.’

  ‘So, you and John shared your problems?’

  Edward pulled a face. ‘I shared mine. And John shared the results of his… his moods, his need to escape – but not what had caused them.’

  ‘You mentioned your theory about him becoming dependent on drink and drugs because of his problems. Do you think he went off the rails in other ways? Risky relationships? Aggression? Anything like that?’ Bella said Julie had witnessed him losing his temper.

  ‘No.’ Edward frowned. ‘Not at all. It was all turned in on himself, and it was as though he had no energy. He didn’t go wild, he went down.’

  Tara nodded. ‘Do you have any idea at all what might have caused him to change so suddenly? Might his parents have had trouble with their marriage, do you think?’ It must have been something major to send him so thoroughly off course, but things like that could have a profound effect.

  ‘I never heard anything about it if so, but now you mention it, that might make sense. It was around that time that I stopped going round to his parents’ house. And I do remember that the change coincided with the start of a new school year. He came back troubled. If he’d been witnessing rows between his mother and father for six weeks, that might explain it.’

  Suddenly his eyes darkened, and his look was far away. A frown spread over his face and he shifted in his seat.

  ‘You’ve remembered something?’ Tara sat absolutely still, on high alert.

  He nodded slowly. ‘Nothing important. I just suddenly have this image of John in my mind’s eye. I remember him blanking a teacher on his first day back. It was weird, because he’d always been quite ready to take part in lessons up until then, so I was struck by it. And she was only making conversation – not even asking us about the work we were meant to have done.’

  ‘What was she talking about?’

  ‘Just the holidays. She was going round the class and asking everyone where they’d been. She had to ask John three times before he answered, and when he did, you’d think she’d asked him to repeat the proof for Fermat’s last theorem. He spoke really slowly, as though he was dreaming.’ He looked at Tara with sad eyes. ‘He just said he’d been to visit his grandmother. In Scotland.’

  Tara felt her stomach flutter. She thought of the odd note the tech team had found on Julie’s phone: just that one word – ‘Scotland’ – and a question mark. And the searches the dead student had performed on her laptop, with the words Lockwood’s and Scotland entered as the terms.

  Scotland, where there was no branch of the firm, but where either Sir Alistair or Lady Lockwood’s mother had lived.

  As soon as Edward Morpeth left, she called Blake.

  Forty-Nine

  Tara was due to meet Max at the Master’s Lodge. She entered the Lockwoods’ home with a gaggle of students. One of them had been in the group she’d interviewed at the café earlier. The girl caught her eye over the heads of the others and Tara met her anxious look with a tiny nod. A little way ahead she could see Bella Chadwick too, in her Julie Cooper uniform.

  As she walked into the imposing hallway – long, wide, and lined with dark paintings that gave the place a sombre feel – she could hear the sound of a harp. Veronica Lockwood must be playing.

  Normally, Tara might have relaxed and enjoyed it, but her nerves were jangling after her talk with Edward Morpeth. Blake had got Jez researching the Lockwoods’ parents’ connections with Scotland. Had something happened on the holiday that sent John off the rails? It was a leap, but Julie’s preoccupation with Scotland had to mean something. She wished she was at the station, doing the research herself, but she could imagine DCI Fleming’s reaction to that: There’s no ‘I’ in team, Tara. It turned out people like her really did say that.

  Attending the gathering at St Oswald’s felt unimportant by comparison. She was only there to get an idea of how easy it would have been for Julie to sneak about the house undetected, the previous year. She wished she knew what the dead girl had been hoping to find. Unless John had told her of the family heirloom’s existence, of course. That was possible. Tara could imagine Julie being seriously irked at the Lockwoods having such a valuable ornament. Maybe she’d sought it out for the reason Josh had suggested, if she’d known about it in advance. Tara’s ex was right: it would make a memorable image to go alongside an article on Lockwood’s.

  Tara made her way through the hall and to the doorway of the grand, formal drawing room. Lady Lockwood was at one end, playing the harp, a group of students gathered round her.

  As Tara watched, a man she recognised as Douglas Lockwood rounded up the onlookers. ‘Do come and talk with the others,’ he said. ‘You needn’t feel you’re being rude. My mother heads off on tour tomorrow. This is the last chance she’ll get to practise before her instrument’s packed up.’

  How must she feel, heading off after the trauma of the last few days?

  Douglas Lockwood’s reassurances had done the trick and the students moved off towards the sherry station.

  Across the room, Tara could see Max talking to Sir Alistair. He must be saying all the right things; the master was nodding and smiling. And Tara could see Selina Lockwood too. She hesitated. She half wanted to say hello – and they had met officially, when Tara had visited the Master’s Lodge about the cat – but she didn’t want to worry the woman. At that moment, as though Selina had sensed Tara’s eyes on her, she glanced up. Her look was shuttered.

  Tara turned away, and went to speak to Sir Alistair, now that Max had moved off to circulate.

  ‘It must be hard for you, carrying on with something like this,’ she said, after they’d greeted each other, ‘but I can see how much the students are enjoying the party. And it’s amazing for them, being able to listen to a world-class musician play, as part of the proceedings.’

  He nodded and smiled. ‘I’ve managed to persuade Veronica to do it each year since I took up my role. I believe it encourages everyone to come along – they’d have to pay a hundred pounds or so to see my wife in a proper concert hall.’ He glanced over at Lady Lockwood. ‘She tried to duck out of it this year. She’s got an early start tomorrow and her harp’s being shipped tonight, but I think it’s best if we all keep fully occupied at the moment. When something awful happens, there’s no benefit in sitting around moping. The family and its responsibilities come first.’

  Family above all else. The Lockwood motto filtered through Tara’s head.

  ‘I can see Douglas and Selina are of the same mind,’ she said. ‘It must be a support to have them helping out.’

  He nodded again. ‘They always come. Again, anything I’m involved with has a potential effect on the family firm. Who knows? Some of the students here might end up working for Lockwood’s when they graduate. In my business you need to make sure the show goes on, and its public face never slips.’

  She nodded. She was used to putting on a brave face herself, but she wouldn’t give a damn about appearances if she’d just lost a loved one.

  ‘On another issue,’ Sir Alistair said, lowering his voice slightly, ‘I wanted to mention that – somewhat embarrassingly – I can now give you a witness who knows I was in London all night on Saturday.’ He held up a hand. ‘I understand you were only asking so that you
’d dotted your “i”s and crossed your “t”s, but you might as well know, for what it’s worth.’

  Had he really believed they weren’t genuinely interested?

  ‘The fact is, someone came back to our London flat with me. Only with my age, and the amount I’d had to drink’ – his eyes twinkled for a moment – ‘I have to confess I had no memory of their presence. It was an old friend, Marcus Thompson, and I only found out he was there at all when he called me to say he thought he might have left a scarf at our place. Apparently, we sat up drinking until four.’ He shook his head. ‘I shall have to watch myself. I’ll send his contact details over to the station later this evening.’

  It seemed convenient that he’d managed to produce this person like a rabbit from a hat. Not that she had any particular reason to suspect him. Julie might have been a thorn in his side, but Tara couldn’t currently see how she’d been anything more than that.

  As the master moved off to speak to a group of students, Tara wove her way across the room, back towards the hall. She hadn’t completed her mission yet.

  The light levels were already low outside, and the upper floor of the Master’s Lodge was in darkness, a clear sign that partygoers were meant to remain down below. This was only an exercise – she could explain herself if she got caught – but she wanted to think like Julie had.

  She listened. Veronica Lockwood was still playing the harp in the drawing room. Downstairs, a few students were milling round between the kitchen and the large reception room, but they were all engrossed in their own conversations, some laughing, one or two looking serious – all intent on each other.

  She began to mount the wide, sweeping stairway. The high-quality carpet helped her. Even if it had been silent down below, she doubted anyone would have detected her footsteps. She kept an eye out over her shoulder, moving cautiously but quickly. It was impossible not to feel a rush of adrenaline, even though this was play-acting.

  At the top of the stairs, she listened instinctively. Just because the upper floor appeared to be deserted, didn’t mean there wasn’t some Lockwood minion squirrelled away somewhere, working by the light of a single lamp, finishing off some administrative task or other. But all was quiet and when she ran her eyes along the base of each closed door, no light shone through.

  She stepped forward along the corridor. How many doors had Julie tried? It might just have been one, if John had told her about the cat and where to find it. But if she’d been on a fishing mission – as Tara suspected – keen to find out anything she could about the family firm, then she might have tried several.

  She remembered her ex’s thoughts. There was no way a savvy businessman like Sir Alistair would leave evidence of damaging secrets around when the house was full of strangers. It wouldn’t have stopped Julie from hoping, though. And maybe the secret she was onto had been John’s, not the firm’s.

  She took a glove out of her pocket, pulled it on, and put her hand on the door nearest to her – the one she knew led to Sir Alistair’s study. She wasn’t intending to go in – only to see if they’d bothered to secure it. And they had. She wasn’t surprised. It didn’t follow that they had this time last year though. They’d probably be more cautious after seeing the photo Julie had taken of the cat.

  She went to the door of the room that housed the ornament next. It was locked as well. For a second, at the end of the long, dark corridor, she felt claustrophobic. Downstairs she could still hear the music and chat, but at that moment, she also heard voices. Someone was coming up the stairs.

  She wished she knew which door led to the bathroom. Suddenly, explaining what she was up to felt awkward. She’d just have to brazen it out as she’d planned. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have a good reason for looking – and you didn’t need a search warrant to walk along someone’s upstairs landing if you’d been invited to their party.

  It was Sir Alistair who appeared. He was smiling, as usual. ‘You’re trying to retrace Julie Cooper’s footsteps, I presume?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I should have warned you, but it wouldn’t have been a proper test of what she might have been able to do in secret unless I tried to operate the same way.’

  He nodded. ‘I quite understand. And this year we are – no doubt – more vigilant. A little bird told me they’d seen you come up here, out of the corner of their eye.’

  Who could that have been? As they descended the stairs to rejoin the party, she caught the gaze of Douglas Lockwood, down below in the hallway, his expression blank.

  Max left to go back to the station, but in the end, Tara stayed on. She felt uneasy – as though there was something she was missing. At last, only she and a few student stragglers remained. She said goodbye to each of the Lockwoods in turn.

  Outside, a logistics lorry had appeared and behind her, as she walked along the hallway, two guys with shoulders the size of sideboards were manoeuvring Veronica Lockwood’s harp case up the stairs from the Master’s Lodge basement and across the hall towards the drawing room. The music had stopped. The next time the instrument was played it would be somewhere like Milan or Paris.

  She walked outside, onto the gravel forecourt in front of the lodge. Through the window she could see the burly men lifting the precious harp inside its case, where it nestled in the green felt interior. Veronica Lockwood was standing next to them, monitoring their progress. At that moment, she looked up and her gaze seemed to meet Tara’s. Could she see her, out there in the dark?

  She heard the gravel crunch behind her, and turned. Douglas Lockwood was outside too, on the forecourt. Maybe Veronica had been staring out into the dark to see where he’d gone. He walked over to Tara now. ‘Are you all right?’

  She was thinking about the green felt of the harp case. What was it made of? Was it wool?

  She swallowed. ‘I’ve just never seen a harp being packed up before. It’s huge, isn’t it? Quite a job. Just as well the logistics guys are so burly.’

  One person moving the case alone would have their work cut out. But of course, if that was where Julie had been left to die, her killer could have taken her body out again before they’d driven it to Wandlebury Ring…

  Fifty

  In the distance, across a stretch of grass, Blake could see the lights of St Oswald’s College’s Master’s Lodge. Sir Alistair’s party would be winding up now. He’d probably enjoyed playing host, handing out drinks, offering a supportive word. He’d always say the right things.

  Blake had just knocked on Bella Chadwick’s door, but there’d been no reply. It was his plan to catch her as soon as she left the master’s party. He was keen to speak to her, after the interview with Lucien Balfour. He was quite sure from the tutor’s reaction that the rumours of his and Bella’s affair were true, but he wouldn’t get far on a hunch. He needed to break down Bella’s defences: get her to talk, so that no other student would have to put up with Balfour’s unwanted attentions.

  He hovered now, watching as clusters of people left the distant lodge. He could just distinguish them in the light from the windows of the vast house, coalescing – presumably to say their goodbyes – and then heading off in smaller dribs and drabs. He’d wait for Bella’s return, close to her room.

  He turned back and stood near the door that led to the students’ staircase. Three people walked past him in relatively quick succession and he called out to the last, a female student.

  ‘Excuse me, have you been at the gathering at the Master’s Lodge?’

  She nodded, her look slightly wary, which was understandable.

  ‘I was looking for Bella Chadwick.’ He pulled his ID out of his jacket pocket. ‘Do you know if she was at the do? I was hoping I might speak to her this evening.’

  The student frowned. Blake wasn’t sure if the effect of his badge had been positive or not. ‘She was there,’ she said at last. ‘But I think she left a while back.’

  Why wasn’t she answering her phone? ‘You don’t know where she might have gone?’
<
br />   Bella’s neighbour shrugged. ‘She’s been seeing a lot of this guy from St Bede’s.’ She looked down for a moment. ‘The one that Julie went out with – Stuart Gilmour. I think they might have been consoling each other.’ She pulled a face. ‘You know about him?’

  Blake nodded.

  ‘To be honest, Stuart’s very… well, he’s hard as nails – very ambitious. I don’t think he cares for all those causes he supposedly champions half as much as his own future.’

  ‘He’s into journalism, isn’t he?’

  She nodded. ‘Same as Julie was.’ She sighed. ‘As for Bella,’ she glanced around her for a moment, as though she was checking there was no one listening, ‘she’s got pretty appalling taste in men.’

  Blake guessed she’d had a few sherries at Sir Alistair’s do, her candour brought on by booze. He raised his eyebrows. ‘There are other examples, as well as Stuart, then?’

  The student lowered her voice now. ‘To be honest, some of my mates mentioned one of your lot had been to talk to them about Lucien earlier today. Lucien Balfour, that is, one of the college tutors. Did they mention Bella and Lucien had had a fling?’

  Blake hesitated. ‘We’ve heard various rumours.’

  The young woman nodded. ‘Well that’s one with substance, take it from me. I’m one of Lucien’s students too, and I saw him at work on Bella. I knew what he was up to; he’d tried the same with me.’

  ‘And how do you know things went further?’

  She leant back against the stone wall of her college staircase. ‘Well, I didn’t see them in flagrante or anything like that. But I spoke to Bella to warn her – to tell her I’d back her up if she wanted to make a complaint. But she wasn’t up for that. She looked kind of resigned and said: “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” After that I noticed her staying behind after our sessions with Lucien to “ask extra questions”. Their body language told me what was going on.’