The English Boys

by Julia Thomas

  Murray sat back in the seat, looking for signs of activity. The main thoroughfares were still busy, though the shops were for the most part closed. Restaurants seemed to be doing brisk business, and he was certain that the theatre district was easily filling seats on such a pleasant evening. In Holland Park, he instructed the driver to stop the car some distance away, paid him, and got out of the vehicle.

  The moon was high and the stars burned red and gold against the cloudless sky. He walked past Ashley-Hunt’s home, to the end of the road, and back again. He was surprised that it appeared empty. Perhaps Hugh’s parents had insisted that he stay longer in Mayfair, in light of the circumstances. Taking a left into Earl’s Court Road, Murray followed it until it turned into Redcliffe Gardens, and then into Edith Grove. From the house to the Thames was nearly a mile’s walk, and Lizzie Marsden’s body had been found over half a mile farther down, on the Chelsea Embankment.

  Of course, it was possible a cab had been rung for but paid off when it arrived. But why, he wondered, would Ashley-Hunt do something like that? Richardson had already seen Marsden at the house. Murray didn’t like it. The young woman couldn’t possibly have staggered that far on foot while under the influence of drugs. If she hadn’t gotten into the cab, someone else had to have driven her closer to the river. Years had passed since then, though; too many for it to be realistic for Ashley-Hunt to still be driving the same car. Otherwise, he might have asked for a warrant to search it.

  Thirty-One

  Every case Gordon Murray had ever successfully completed had been solved by the process of elimination. Prove someone couldn’t do it, and the number of suspects who could became that much smaller. In spite of all the large and even famous personalities involved in the Tamsyn Burke murder, the cold, hard facts remained the same. Men were more likely than women to stab, and although women used knives in rare cases of self-defense, men were more prone to use them. Also, relatives and friends who had traveled a long distance to be at the wedding were less likely suspects than someone who had been close to the victim recently, and the likelihood of Tamsyn knowing the person who killed her approached nearly one hundred percent.

  Therefore, the killer was a man who was close to her, someone whom she knew well. Though there had been other men present that morning, men who could excite some interest in a police inquiry for their past histories, their unlikable natures, or their reticence to cooperate with the police, it had come down, in Murray’s mind, to two main suspects: Daniel Richardson and Hugh Ashley-Hunt.

  Murray tapped his pencil on the desk, thinking. Of the two, Daniel Richardson seemed less likely. He had been something of a lapdog of Tamsyn’s, though lapdogs had sometimes been known to bite. Murray had the strong suspicion that Richardson was in love with her and would have done anything for her. In his conversations with him, he had got the feeling Daniel had been pained to watch the budding relationship between Tamsyn and his best friend. On the other hand, Murray had heard no account of a true, deep love between Ashley-Hunt and the murder victim, and his demeanor on the occasion of their meeting indicated a man with no emotional attachment. Ashley-Hunt was a calculating sort of man, and the last person it seemed he would ever entertain the notion of marrying was precisely the girl he intended to marry. Therefore, there was the possibility that these two young people had not been marrying for passion, but for other motives. Perhaps they had brokered one of those private deals one hears about in Hollywood: a marriage of convenience for limited duration with a cash settlement afterward. If so, something had scotched the plan.

  Blackmail crossed Murray’s mind. If Tamsyn Burke had known something about Ashley-Hunt, something about Lizzie Marsden, perhaps, she could have negotiated for money. An actual marriage between them was more difficult to understand. Blackmailers generally wanted huge sums of cash, which would have been easy enough to obtain from someone as wealthy as Ashley-Hunt, but the status she might have gotten through marrying him didn’t seem at all the sort of thing she would go after. Choosing marriage over money was a far more dangerous game, one that kept her in the constant company of a man who probably had murdered at least once before.

  Then again, Tamsyn might not have known about Elizabeth Marsden, in which case there had to have been another reason to get involved with Hugh. She may have seen a marriage to him as a way to reach her ambition to act on a national or even international level more quickly. However, from his research, it seemed clear that she had happened into the opportunity for the Hodges’ film by chance.

  Ennis had uncovered only one unusual fact about Tamsyn Burke: that she had been raped ten years earlier by two English boys in Wales. No identification of the boys had ever been made. The initial police report said that the victim could provide little or no help in finding her assailants, merely that there were two, and they had driven a black car. She had been young and traumatized; an innocent casualty of a violent crime, who had become pregnant and had given birth to the child instead of having an abortion. It had changed her life in more ways than one.

  What did Hugh know about Tamsyn’s past? Murray doubted the girl would have been forthcoming after an incident like that. And perhaps her parents, who were raising the child, didn’t want anyone to know it wasn’t their own.

  Ever since seeing Tamsyn’s corpse on the slab in the morgue, he had itched to bring the killer to justice. He couldn’t bring the girl back, but he would see that justice was done. Another interview with Hugh Ashley-Hunt was now a certainty.

  After that, Murray resolved, he would get about the business of putting his personal life in order. At home on his desk were two tickets to the Royal Ballet for the following week. All he had to do was pluck up the courage to ask Rachel Quinn to go with him. Though there was some work to be done on his part, to woo and win her, there was hope, after all, that he wasn’t to be a single man forever.

  His phone rang as he mulled the situation. “DCI Murray.”

  “Sir, this is Constable Jay Langley. I’ve been assigned to surveillance on the Ashley-Hunt home, and for the last two nights, Hugh Ashley-Hunt has left by the back door and gone for a short walk in the park nearby. I thought you’d like to know.”

  “Yes, certainly,” Murray said, his attention piqued. He had never met Langley but had heard of him after he’d been wounded during a robbery a couple of months earlier. It had been in all the papers and was the talk of Scotland Yard. “You were right to call. Did he leave at the same time both nights?”

  “Eleven o’clock sharp, sir, both nights.”

  “Who’s watching the house tonight?”

  “I’ll be there with Constable Grisham at the usual time, ten o’clock.”

  “Thank you for letting me know.”

  What reason could Ashley-Hunt have for leaving the safety of his parents’ house, which was nothing less than a fortress with its gates and armed bodyguards? Was he feeling so confined that he would risk being seen by the press or even harmed by a misguided fan?

  Whatever the reason, Murray would be there to follow him that night. If nothing else, it would provide material for his interview. He worked at his desk until six o’clock, and then took his coat from the hook and locked his office door.

  Traffic was average for this time of day, and Murray threaded through it, considering his next move. As far as he was concerned, Hugh’s behavior was a red flag. How the young man had evaded the press, he had no idea, but he would find out.

  When he reached his house, he went inside to find out what Josefine had made for supper. There were lamb chops in the oven. He wasn’t fond of lamb chops, but Brooks was certain to appreciate the scraps. He unwrapped the meal and took it to the table. The dog followed, lying patiently at his feet. He knew that if he waited long enough, he wouldn’t be forgotten. Murray likened the quality to being a good detective. Watch and wait, and sooner or later, the reward would come. After the meal, he cut the trimmings off the meat and put it on a s
aucer for the dog. Then he took him outside one last time. It was a good night for reconnaissance. The sky was clear, the ground dry, and there was no wind to interfere with proper detection. He brought the dog back into the house and locked the door behind him. Then he went upstairs to change.

  It was always difficult getting information from a suspect, but he had a particularly bad feeling about Ashley-Hunt. If he was correct, the man had murdered that girl in cold blood, a crime that had been premeditated and planned to the last detail. Ashley-Hunt had wanted to see the look on Tamsyn Burke’s face, to see whether she showed surprise or shock or fear. Later, after the funeral, he had stood with her parents as her body was buried deep in the plowed earth, his arm around her mother. It was a contemptible move, no mistake.

  The street was empty, the sky dark. Murray got into his car and started the engine, but before he could put the car into gear, a rope was snaked around his neck, pinning him to the headrest. Looking up at the rearview mirror, he could see Ashley-Hunt behind him.

  The rope was so tight about his throat he couldn’t speak. He grasped it with his hands, desperate for air, but Ashley-Hunt had wrapped each end around his fists securely.

  “Inspector Murray,” he said in his ear. “I decided to pay you a visit. Or perhaps I should say that ‘Constable Jay Langley’ did.”

  Constable Langley. Ashley-Hunt must have read his name in the paper and impersonated him on the phone. It was clever, Murray had to admit. The man loosened the rope just enough for Murray to cough and try to speak.

  “Tamsyn Burke,” he rasped. He tried to wedge his fingers between the rope and his throat, but there was no room.

  There was a moment’s hesitation. There was no sound but the distant rumble of cars in the next street, which felt worlds away.

  “Tamsyn Burke,” Ashley-Hunt repeated after a moment. “God, I’m bloody sick to death of hearing about Tamsyn Burke.”

  “Did you kill her?”

  “Who wouldn’t want to kill her? She was the world’s most infuriating human being.”

  “Blackmail?” Murray asked, keeping his eye on him. If Ashley-Hunt started talking, he might be able to pull away quickly enough to reach his gun, though he felt his fingers going numb.

  “No,” Ashley-Hunt said, shaking his head. “She was going to kill me.”

  “Kill you? Why?” he asked. “Had she figured out about Lizzie Marsden?”

  “Lizzie Marsden?” Hugh asked with an incredulous laugh. “Actually, I was surprised you made the connection.”

  “A better question is, how did you know I was on to you?”

  “I had someone watching my house. You were followed all the way to the Thames. There was only one thing you could be thinking to do something like that.”

  “What did Tamsyn want from you?”

  “Well, for one thing, she was still pissed about what happened when we were young.”

  The light began to dawn. “The rape?” Murray asked, hoarsely. “Were you one of the boys who raped Tamsyn in Wales?”

  Ashley-Hunt’s eyes narrowed before he spoke. “Well, you can’t really prove rape, can you? A couple of underage kids having a lark; that’s not a crime.”

  “Why did she go after you?” Murray asked.

  “The virgin’s wrath, I suppose. She was probably saving herself for some disreputable little bugger at school.”

  Murray was stunned. Tamsyn Burke had been no ordinary victim. She had gotten close to a man who’d raped her to exact some sort of revenge of her own.

  What had really happened between them, after all?

  Ashley-Hunt laughed in his ear. “She fooled you, didn’t she, Inspector? Did you really take the side of the poor little dead girl?”

  For a moment, Murray thought of Ingrid. She had been supportive of his career, but nonetheless had feared for him in certain circumstances. Although he was careful not to take too many calculated risks, occasionally they were unavoidable. This situation had to be taken in hand. He hadn’t expected to face a sociopath in his own vehicle. He should never have believed a call from someone he hadn’t even seen before.

  The rope was tight and he was running out of time. Murray pulled forward with all his might and reached for his gun, but Ashley-Hunt jerked the rope tighter, pinning him to the seat and cutting off his windpipe. He’d heard dozens of stories from policemen recounting tales of being shot, but he had never considered that he might be strangled. After a couple of moments, black spots began to appear before his eyes, and the man leaned closer, watching him.

  Murray tried to move, but he was losing consciousness. He took one last look at Ashley-Hunt in the mirror, with the same wonder that Tamsyn Burke must have felt. Everything felt disconnected; his arms and legs were suddenly too heavy to move. He thought again of Rachel Quinn; of the tickets and the ballet and the lost opportunity. He had wasted so much time. Pain shot through his body, a pain unlike anything he had ever felt before. For a moment, he thought he heard Ingrid’s voice calling him, and he strained to hear it. He closed his eyes, listening for the voice that had been so dear. She was waiting, he knew. Well, he thought. Perhaps there would be ballet after all.

  Thirty-Two

  Daniel followed Carey into the back of the cab, gave the driver Hugh’s Holland Park address, and then pulled out his mobile to look at the last few photos he’d taken of the happy couple at a restaurant a few days before the wedding. There was one of Hugh with his arm around Tamsyn and a few of Tamsyn alone. Daniel scrolled to look at the one of them together. In that particular image, Hugh wasn’t smiling; he looked tired and perhaps somewhat bored. Tamsyn, however, looked very much her usual self. There was a secretive smile playing about her lips, a knowing look in her eyes. Daniel had thought her flirtatious at the time. Studying it now, he saw she was leaning away from Hugh rather than toward him. Of course, it was a random snap, one of a thousand moments he’d spent with the two of them in the last few months, but it brought home an uncomfortable truth: he had never really known either of them.

  In the last ten years, Daniel’s life had taken many unexpected turns. He had gotten an education he’d never dreamed of, embarked on what to many was a dream career, and had been best friends with one of the greatest young actors in England. It hadn’t seemed extraordinary at the time, merely a series of small, incremental steps that had led him to this point in his life. What was extraordinary, he realized, was the fact that he had been friends with someone who may have been capable of brutal rape and murder. And perhaps not even once, which was difficult enough to accept, but twice.

  For the first time, he wondered what had happened to Lizzie Marsden. For years after her death, he had stifled every memory of that night. The encounter itself had been brief but disturbing. He and Hugh had gone out for sushi and then returned to Hugh’s house to watch a film on television, a new BBC production of Trollope’s Kept in the Dark. Hugh had turned down the part of George Western and wanted to see if he had any regrets, though Daniel had never known him to second-guess himself about anything. They had sat down to watch it, criticizing the bland moments and the occasional miscasting, when Lizzie Marsden had knocked at the door.

  Daniel didn’t know which of them had been more surprised by her sudden appearance. It was clear that Hugh hadn’t been expecting her. She was a little drunk, which gave her a more vulnerable quality than her usual aggressive manner, somehow softer around the edges. Her hair spray had worn off, and her blonde hair, sheared to just below her chin, was tousled perfectly, as if after a night of lovemaking. Her lipstick, which must have been put on in a taxi, was not perfectly applied, and if she hadn’t been quite so beautiful or dressed in an Alexander McQueen gown, she might have seemed like a normal girl. Daniel had been aware of an attraction to her in that moment, which he’d tried to shake off. She was a barracuda who had slept with him once without batting an eye, merely to be able to say she had done it, and sh
e would chew him up and spit him out if he let it happen again. He and Hugh had stood at the door, trying to decide what to do with her, as she thrust herself between them and walked into the room.

  Hugh closed the door behind her but made no effort to follow as she walked into the sitting room and tossed her coat across the arm of the sofa, smiling. She hiked up her skirt to a dangerous level and sat, swinging her perfectly sculpted legs up onto the sofa and crossing them at the ankle. Daniel remembered looking at Hugh, who watched her without a word in that chilly aristocratic way of his, and his next thought was that perhaps he should leave. Perhaps Hugh wanted to be alone with her, although he hoped not. As far as he knew, they treaded carefully in that department. He had always thought it would be a little incestuous to sleep with the same women.

  Lizzie laughed suddenly. It was a beautiful laugh, and Daniel thought it was the best part of her.

  “Pleased with yourself, are you?” Hugh asked.

  “I can’t believe you’re both here. Talk about a dream come true.” She heaved a great sigh. “Where’s the vodka, boys?”

  “How about a cup of coffee instead?” Daniel asked. The last thing on earth he wanted was to watch this girl get even drunker than she already was.

  “Killjoy.”

  “What’s gotten you in such a good mood?” Hugh asked. He neither moved toward the drinks table nor any further into the room.

  Lizzie stroked her leg coquettishly. “I was at Annabelle’s tonight, and Chelsea Drummond walked in with Viscount Blakeley. She’s gained twenty pounds since I saw her last. You should have seen her; it was all in her arse. He couldn’t keep his eyes off me. Or anyone else in the room, for that matter. They’ll be broken off within the month, mark my words.”

  Hugh smiled. “Nothing like a wee bit of schadenfreude to make the day better.”