Cherringham--A Lesson in Murder
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“Nasty piece of work,” said Jack.
Sarah waited to speak as Jack turned the Sprite onto the busy main road and accelerated into the evening traffic.
“Well, guess tomorrow you just tell them what we found and leave them to fix the mess.”
“Mess is the word for it,” said Jack. “I doubt Tahir will keep his job.”
“And I’d be surprised if Freya and Sophie stick another year.”
“Not our problem, Sarah,” said Jack. “We did what we were asked and we did it well. Got any plans for tonight?”
“Have a bath. Light a fire. TV supper. And then cuddle up with Chloe on the sofa.”
“Nice. Till you start snoring and she packs you off to bed?”
“You know me too well, Mr. Brennan,” said Sarah.
And she laughed, feeling just a little bit better.
14. The World Turned Upside Down
Jack’s mobile phone went off loudly, pulling him sharply out of his sleep.
He reached over to the bedside light and flicked it on. He looked at the clock: one in the morning.
“Jeez,” he said out loud.
He grabbed the phone, stared at it. Sarah? At this hour?
He answered quickly.
“Sarah. You okay?”
“I’m fine. Sorry if I woke you.”
“That’s okay. What’s up?”
“We’ve got it all wrong, Jack.”
“What do you mean?”
“Emily. The girls. The school. The whole thing. We nearly missed what was really happening.”
“Whoa, slow down — what are you talking about Sarah? What’s happened?”
“Emily’s computer. The hard drive. I’ve been going through it. You need to come over, now.”
“Now? You sure?”
“I’m sure. Oh — and you know you said you wanted to nail Weiss?”
“I do.”
“Well, you will. Big time.”
Jack blinked, his mind racing.
“Okay, give me twenty minutes, I’ll be right over. Oh — and put the coffee on — and make it strong.”
He put the phone down and looked across at Riley in his dog basket.
“Just like old times Riley — don’t you love it?”
*
The back door open, Jack saw Sarah at the kitchen table, lost to her screen. He walked in.
“That was quick,” she said.
“Middle of the night summons? Gets me racing.”
Sarah pointed at the screen. “Sorry, but I don’t think we can waste any time. You are not going to believe what I found …”
Jack pulled up a chair so he could see the screen.
“You want that coffee?” Sarah said.
“And have to wait before I see this? No, detective — show me what you got.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Amazing emails. That business manager …”
“Weiss …”
“Has been putting major pressure on Braithwaite.”
“To do?”
“That’s the amazing part. To use all her connections to get Freya DeLong into — well, I’m not sure whether the dad wanted Oxford or Cambridge.”
Jack turned to her.
“And she balked?”
“Yes! That’s the amazing thing. Even Ward wrote to her, telling her she had to start making calls, even suggested pumping up Freya’s record with letters of recommendation … just making stuff up.”
“All for the rich American donor.”
“Wait. It gets better.”
Jack smiled. “Who needs coffee?”
“Emily’s bank account.”
“You could get into that?”
Sarah smiled “Easy. Especially when she kept a Word file with clues to her passwords. Easiest thing in the world to work those out.”
“And?”
“Money, Jack. Pots of cash flowing into her account from Weiss. Then out to — it looks like — various university administrators.”
“They bribed people?”
“Probably covered their tracks by saying it was for expenses or some such. But yes, absolutely.”
Jack turned away.
Potent information here, he knew. But what did it mean? How did it fit with everything else they knew, about Braithwaite, her favourites, the rejected Freya, the vandalism?
Her death?
He looked back to Sarah. “There has to be more.”
“There is. With those threats from Weiss, the pressure … Braithwaite wanted out. That’s what she was doing up in London, meeting a lawyer, to protect herself in all this.”
“No medical emergency?”
“Not at all.”
“And looked like she was going to go whistle-blower on the thing, hmm?”
“If she had lived.”
“Quite the motive. So you think this points to Weiss …?”
It felt strange for Jack not to be the one in their partnership putting all the pieces together.
Guess I’ve trained Sarah well …
“Ward and Weiss knew she went to London. Probably guessed why. They also shared that information with someone.”
The light bulb went off.
“Freya’s father. George DeLong?”
“Yes. And so the father, after all the money he gave to Cherringham Hall — a million dollar endowment, you know — asked for Emily Braithwaite’s email address. I’ve got it right here. He wanted to meet her when she came back. Asked what train she was on …”
Jack sat back.
“Wow.”
For a moment, quiet.
“So why did Ward bring us in?”
“Why not?” said Sarah. “He wasn’t to know there was a connection between the fire — the rats — and Emily …”
Jack nodded. It made sense.
Then he looked at the clock. Well after four A.M.
“You know what? I’ll take that cup of coffee now.”
*
It was after the second cup, with the remaining shortbread biscuits all devoured, that Sarah heard Jack say that he was stunned at what she’d discovered …
She felt so glad to have found the missing pieces.
But now — what were they going to do with it? How would they put it all together?
For that she depended on Jack.
“I’ve learned not to rush you …”
Jack smiled. “Yes, me and my — what do you call it — ‘process’? But okay, the minutes fly by, and I think I have a plan.”
“Just the words I was hoping to hear.”
“Have to wake up Alan. Need him to check on something from Saturday night.” Jack laughed. “Won’t he be glad he gave me his private mobile number? And you and I will have to make some calls as well.”
“Calls? To …?”
“I think a bit of acting will be needed, so we best rehearse.”
What was this about? she wondered.
“Okay — I’m all ears.”
“You … are going to have to pretend to be Fliss Groves.”
“I’ll need to work on my ‘pompous’.”
“That you will. And me, well, I already speak ‘American’ … I’ll just need to channel my inner billionaire, maybe fake a bit of a cold.”
Then Jack’s secret plan, with those words, started to become clear.
“You’re going to set up a meeting?”
“You got it. First thing in the morning. Before any more tracks can be covered, or DeLong runs back to his horses and his estate in Bedford.”
“I never knew detective work could be so … theatrical.”
Jack laughed at that. “Sometimes, it’s all that theater that makes a perp crack.”
He smiled at her, looking just like a kid having the best adventure ever.
“It’s what makes the job so much fun.”
And Sarah filled the kettle again and grabbed some yellow pads so they could start taking notes, preparing for the calls and this important confrontation to come.
Jack had parked the Sprite down a lane off the main road that led to Cherringham Hall.
Lights off, no one would notice it hugging close to the dry-stone wall.
And then they waited.
Sarah had easily tracked DeLong to the King’s Head hotel, really the only quality hotel in Cherringham … where she guessed he must be staying.
And, a little after dawn — and using her best ‘Fliss Groves’ voice — she called the front desk and insisted to be ‘put through to Mr. DeLong’s room on a matter of utmost urgency’.
‘It involves his daughter,’ Sarah had said, guessing that the hotel people had seen doting dad and demanding daughter in full action.
And then, though nervous, she was short and to the point with DeLong.
‘Mr. Weiss and Mr. Ward will meet you at eight A.M. when everything will be resolved regarding your daughter.’
DeLong for his part couldn’t have agreed faster to the meeting.
Jack meanwhile barked out his words, interjected with coughs, first to Ward, then to Weiss … their numbers easily obtained, saying that he demanded to meet them ‘first thing’.
Eight A.M. sharp.
Or else.
Considering how important DeLong’s American money was to the school, they too agreed instantly.
And when Alan called back with the answer to the question Jack had asked … they were all set.
Everything in motion.
Now, they waited, watching the road.
Looking for DeLong’s black Porsche 4WD to go racing by, heading to Cherringham Hall.
The morning sky finally free of clouds. A buzzard lazily circling over the fields, hunting for its breakfast.
The sun shooting golden rays over everything.
“Sleepy?” Jack asked.
Sarah didn’t lie. “Yes. But excited.”
Jack nodded. “Me too.”
They had a plan, but that didn’t mean everything would go as they hoped it would.
Jack turned, squinting into the low sunlight.
“Such a beautiful morning.” A breath. “I do love it here.”
Then quickly back to the quiet road.
Had DeLong changed his mind? Had he called Weiss directly, changing the setup?
Sarah chewed her lower lip.
As much as she wanted to appreciate the beautiful morning, she worried that the meeting wouldn’t happen.
Then, with her window open, she heard the deep, throaty rumble of car.
“There we go,” Jack said, now the two of them looking down the lane, watching for the Porsche.
Until — racing at a crazy, unsafe speed — DeLong went flying by.
“We give him five, then—”
Sarah finished the sentence … “—off we go.”
Jack looked at his phone, and hit a button.
An important text message sent.
And it had to be the longest five minutes Sarah ever experienced.
*
But when Jack started the Sprite and threw it into gear, he too drove as fast as he could.
Until they hit the curved long driveway that led to the Main Building of Cherringham Hall, DeLong’s black car parked right in front of the steps.
Jack pulled up beside it.
“Hope they don’t hear us,” he said. “Hate to spoil the surprise …”
Sarah opened her door, and — out into the cold morning air — she raced up the steps to the massive wood doors that led into the school.
*
Into the headmaster’s outer office.
Still too early for Fliss Grove to be at her desk — and to wonder how this meeting occurred without her knowledge.
Jack and Sarah walked side by side past the secretary’s desk to the headmaster’s door.
Opaque bevelled windows showed three blurry figures inside.
But their voices carried clearly out here, loud, yelling.
Jack touched Sarah’s arm, signalling they should wait … just a bit.
Sarah heard Ward, who had seemed such a quiet chap, yelling: “This was your doing, Weiss. Mr. DeLong, I am sure you realise that—”
Weiss: “Oh do shut up, Ward.”
DeLong joined in: “And where is your damn secretary? She told me you two had—”
“B-but you … called us,” Ward said to DeLong.
Weiss voice shifted. “Wait a second. Hang on. If you didn’t—”
Jack turned to Sarah.
“Our cue.”
And Jack opened the door.
*
The three men with their red faces also now sported looks of — at first — confusion.
Then something else.
Fear, Sarah guessed.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Weiss asked, attempting to summon command of this circus.
“Just here to tell you Mr. Weiss, that we know what you have been doing, using Emily Braithwaite … forcing Emily Braithwaite to ‘grease the wheels’, as we’d say back in New York, of school admission offices throughout this country.”
“I’m calling my lawyer …” DeLong said.
“Oh, not a bad idea,” Jack said. “Because you see, we also know that you met Emily Braithwaite at the train station the night she died.”
Jack’s words made DeLong stop.
Now Sarah saw the three men restrain their bluster, too eager to know what she and Jack had found out.
“There’s no CCTV of Braithwaite, her supposed suicide. But I’m afraid it did catch you … and a young girl.”
“Freya,” Sarah said.
DeLong looked from Sarah, to Jack, trapped.
“Emily Braithwaite wouldn’t do what you wanted. She had … had it. Done with the game. So either you or your daughter — so angry — pushed her onto the tracks.”
DeLong had forgotten his threat to call his lawyer.
Though no doubt now — he’d soon need one.
“No. It wasn’t like that. You cannot, must not involve my daughter …”
“I’m afraid she is involved,” Sarah said. “Her relationship with Braithwaite — the things she did to the school — we know all about that.”
And then suddenly DeLong looked crushed.
“Say nothing, DeLong, Absolutely nothing,” Weiss said, his teeth clenched.
Sarah looked right at the slimy ‘business manager’.
Shut up, she thought.
He too would need a good lawyer.
Then — like a dam breaking, a small crack, opening, widening …
“No. It was me. Only me. Arguing with that woman. Pleading with her! I grabbed her, saying she can’t do this! Not to me, not to my beautiful Freya. My daughter begged me to stop. But that woman wouldn’t listen to sense! She said she had seen a lawyer, and — and—”
“What happened?” Sarah said.
“Then — I let go … she stumbled backwards, off balance. The train coming, and … and—”
Silence.
It was all out there.
All the nasty secrets exposed.
She looked at Jack.
In his eyes, not quite the joyful moment she’d imagined.
Solving someone’s death, a death like this …
And at that moment, they heard the police siren.
Alan, hard on their heels as planned.
“Time for the police to take over,” Jack said.
*
By the time she and Jack walked out to see Alan hurrying up the steps, the sun sat higher in the perfectly blue sky.
Students were out, cutting across the courtyard to hit those early classes.
A beautiful morning, a beautiful school … and yet, inside this building, the ending to a lot of bad decisions that had cost Emily Braithwaite her life.
“Good timing, Alan,” Jack said.
A small smile as the police officer nodded. “Yes … just don’t make a habit of those early calls, if you don’t mind.”
“They’re still in s
hock inside there,’ Sarah said.
“Okay I’ll get statements. But it all played out as you thought?”
“Yes. Think the CCTV was the final straw,” Jack said. “They’ll be lawyering up. But not much they can do with all the evidence.”
“That’s usually the way,” Alan said. “I’d better get in.”
“And thanks, Alan,” Sarah said.
He smiled at her, as he took the steps up two at a time.
*
Then Jack drove Sarah back to Cherringham.
“To your office?” he asked. “Or home for some sleep.”
“I’d love to sleep, but I’m way too wired. You?”
“Think a walk with Riley. Rain finally gone, sun out … got to enjoy that, hmm? Then,maybe a nice long nap this afternoon.”
“Oh, God yes. Me too.”
For a minute they sat, the ending of this case now making Sarah feel like she’d been on a wild roller coaster ride that had suddenly ended.
She had a question though.
“So, Jack, it wasn’t really a murder, right? Just an accident.”
He nodded, thinking over the question, before he turned to her.
“Technically, guess you’re right. But in all my years, when people do bad things, things that hurt people … and that leads to someone dying? Well, that’s never really an accident, is it? Just a different kind of murder …”
And Sarah thought … he’s seen a lot of those.
Even she was beginning to feel — what? — experienced at this?
An old hand at this crime business.
Jack pulled into a parking space by the Village Hall, just across from Sarah’s office. She looked up. The big window of her web design office glowed a golden colour, reflecting the bright sun.
Getting lost in some work with Grace would feel good.
“Okay, I’m off.”
A nod, a smile, from Jack.
How much she liked this cop from New York, she thought.
A good — no — a great detective.
And what a friend.
He smiled as he popped open the door.
“Till next time,” he said with a grin.
She laughed at that as she shut the door.
The streets of Cherringham were coming alive.
And on a morning like this, the village was indeed beautiful.
END
Next episode
When the penniless FitzHenrys, proprietors of the rundown Combe Castle Heritage Site, find themselves victims of a threatening campaign to oust them from their ancestral home, Jack and Sarah are called in to track down the culprit. But nothing is what it seems at this castle — from the curious and unnerving waxwork displays of the ‘Odditorium’ to the in-laws and neighbours who can’t wait to see the last of aristocratic couple. Soon Jack and Sarah discover that truth is often stranger than fiction, and in Combe Castle things do indeed go bump in the night …