MURDER AMONG FRIENDS a totally gripping crime thriller full of twists

by JANICE FROST

  “We’re interested in speaking with people who knew Mark, that’s all. Ronan wasn’t his real name. Did you know that? Did you ever hear him refer to himself by any other name?”

  “No. I didn’t talk to him much. We were at the presentation, then we went out in the field. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity to get to know one another. And, like I said, he wasn’t at the debriefing.”

  “Is there anything you remember about him that stands out? About his physical appearance or his personality?”

  “Not really. He was just ordinary. Good physique, like I said. I’m not good with faces.” Scott was silent for a moment, before adding, “Not sure what he was doing on the course, really. He seemed more confident than me and the other guy. And he was okay looking. Just had an aggressive nature, I suppose. Way he went after that woman, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the type to beat a woman up in a relationship. He really took it badly being talked back to.”

  Steph nodded. “What was your impression of Adam, Phil and Mark, and their course?”

  “I thought it was all kind of lame. Their advice was pretty obvious, the sort of thing I could have worked out for myself. I’m basically a shy person. No amount of coaching is going to change that.” He didn’t quite meet Steph’s eyes. “What you said about women having a right to go about their daily lives without being pestered by men trying to hit on them, I never thought about it that way before.”

  There was hope for him then, Steph thought. “Good. I hope you’ll remember it in future. Besides you and Ronan, there was a third client on the course that day. What do you remember about him?”

  “His name was Jake Flood, I think. He wasn’t a student. That’s all, really. Like I said, we didn’t talk that much. I thought the same about him as I did about Ronan Cox, or whatever his name is. He wasn’t bad looking, and he seemed confident enough. I wouldn’t have thought he’d have that much trouble approaching women.”

  Steph wondered if she should tell Scott he wasn’t bad looking either, but the moment passed. Instead, she thanked him for his time.

  “Easy to see why Adam and his cronies saw poor Scott as perfect recruitment fodder,” Elias remarked when they were out of earshot. “Low self-esteem, shy and unconfident. He was ripe for exploiting. Interesting that he didn’t see things from the woman’s point of view until you pointed it out to him. That’s the thing with these pick-up gurus. They teach men that women enjoy being hit on, that it makes them feel good about themselves, therefore men shouldn’t feel bad about it. More than that, they preach that it’s men’s right to do it. They don’t stop to consider it from the woman’s perspective.”

  Steph nodded. “All about perspective, isn’t it? What some men see as harmless chatting up, women may consider harassment. The worst thing is, it makes men think of it as their entitlement. You know it’s the women who end up feeling bad when a man makes an unwelcome comment or approach? They have to invent an excuse like, ‘Sorry, I’ve already got a boyfriend.’ Or ‘Sorry, I’m in a hurry,’ as though they owe these men an excuse, or even an apology for not wanting to engage with them. How stupid is that?”

  “Hmm. You’re right. My sister has experienced that kind of thing many times. I read The Game when I was a teenager,” Elias said. “It was my sister who gave it to me. She told me to read it so I’d learn how not to treat women. Forget about learning tricks to impress women, she said. The only strategy you need when it comes to succeeding with them is to be respectful.”

  “Your sister is a wise woman.”

  Elias had been referring to the internationally bestselling book by the American author, Neil Strauss. Published in 2005, it had introduced a generation of young men to the world of pick-up artistry. The problem was that the Internet had enabled a darker variety of pick-up ideology to evolve and proliferate.

  Steph pondered a moment. “Are you familiar with the word Incel?”

  “A very nasty lot,” Elias said.

  “Yes.” Beginning in the early nineties Incels, or involuntary celibates as they styled themselves, had been expressing their frustrations over their lack of access to sex in dark regions of the Internet. Mostly men, they blamed women for their predicament, complaining that the vast majority of women were attracted to a very small percentage of the most attractive men. The Incel community was associated with misogyny and at its most extreme, violence towards women, and towards the ‘alpha’ males who could have any woman they desired.

  “Nasty doesn’t begin to describe them,” Steph said. “You touched on this sort of thing before, didn’t you, when you suggested our killer might be an unconfident male who targets both the women who reject him, and the alphas, men like Mark, who get to have their pick of women. If our perp spent a lot of time in forums where Incel-like beliefs were circulating, his own beliefs would have been affirmed and reinforced. These forums are basically echo chambers. He would come to believe all the bullshit they espouse. He would be likely to believe that he wasn’t to blame for his lack of success with women, but that it was the fault of modern, liberated women who have agency over their sex lives and who can make choices about who they want to date. If our killer fits this type of profile it would explain why he killed both Mark and Kylie. And committing murder would be a sure way of attracting attention to his cause.”

  Elias frowned. “I hope you’re not suggesting we might be looking at an Elliot Rodger scenario here.”

  In 2014, Elliot Rodger had become a hero of the Incel community after he killed six people and injured fourteen others in California. Tragically, he had inspired others to follow his example.

  Grim-faced, Steph said, “Jesus, Elias. Let’s hope not.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The news of her suspension sent Jane into a spiral of guilt. She’d exceeded her authority as a special by involving herself in a murder investigation, and her actions might well have contributed to the death of a young woman. DI Warwick was right to have her suspended before she could do any more harm.

  She’d had a call from Allie the morning after Yvonne’s party, asking if everything was okay. Jane knew she was desperate to hear why the police had wanted to talk with her, so she’d told her friend about Kylie’s murder.

  She didn’t tell Allie about her suspension. Thankfully, Allie hadn’t asked too many questions.

  Jane couldn’t help wondering whether DI Warwick and DS Harper had spoken with Ryan Brown yet. Had Ryan and Kylie gone on a date? She felt a stab of sadness for Ryan’s loss. Another person whose life she had potentially ruined. To add to his trials, poor Ryan would probably be counted as a suspect.

  Still, there was a small part of her that harboured some hope that she wasn’t responsible for what had happened to Kylie. It was possible that Kylie had never tracked down the man who harassed her in the restaurant, that even if she had, he had nothing to do with her murder.

  There was also another possibility. Perhaps it wasn’t merely coincidence that the man had been in the restaurant at the same time as Kylie that day. He could have been stalking her and it might well have enraged him to see Ryan succeed in connecting with her. He’d gone after Ryan, and then Kylie. In that scenario, Jane couldn’t be blamed for Kylie’s death. She sighed. She was clutching at straws. Anything but face the fact that she’d made a serious error of judgement.

  With Kylie dead, Jane could see no way of discovering the identity of the man in the Chinese buffet. She assumed that the police would have looked at CCTV footage of the time Kylie spent there. She wondered how else DI Warwick might proceed. By questioning Kylie’s friends, putting together a picture of her movements, her behaviour, her contacts over the past few weeks. Looking for patterns. Making connections. She envied Warwick’s freedom of access to people and resources.

  Becoming a special had awakened unexpected feelings of frustration about the choices she had made. She’d been born in the seventies to working-class parents who had grown up in the forties. Their attitude to the value of education for girls m
irrored that of their parents’ generation — it was a waste of time. When Jane had broached the possibility of going to university with them, she’d met with resistance. Her choice of teaching as a career was just about acceptable. At least it was a respectable enough job for a woman.

  Bloody hell! She really must be feeling sorry for herself if she’d started blaming her parents. She’d got a lot out of her career as a teacher, and it wasn’t as if she couldn’t have switched jobs at some point in her life. It was just . . . sometimes she worried that she’d let her mum and dad emotionally blackmail her into choosing a career they approved of. She wished she’d taken more time to think about what else she might have done. At least she hadn’t perpetuated this brand of sexism in the family. Norah had been given free rein to do whatever she wanted in life.

  But she had to put all that aside for now. She was due at Thea’s for a lesson.

  By the time she arrived at Thea’s house, Jane’s mood was a little more upbeat. “Parents still away?” she asked when she saw that Thea was alone.

  “Yes. No idea when they’re coming back. It doesn’t matter though. Imagine how many teenagers would love to have a house this size to themselves. Stacey keeps saying I should have a party.” She grinned.

  But Thea’s cheeriness seemed feigned. She looked tired. She was still wearing her pyjamas under a jumper that looked much too big.

  “Have you had any breakfast?” Jane asked.

  “Not yet. I’ll just get dressed, and then I’ll make us some coffee.”

  “I’ll make the coffee. You go and get dressed.”

  Thea returned wearing black leggings and a pink fleecy hoodie. She went straight to the fridge, took out a carton of milk and placed it on the island. “I’ll just have a quick bowl of cereal if you don’t mind. I’m up to date with the work you left last time and I’ve already gone through a couple of practice papers, so it doesn’t matter if we don’t start right on time.”

  “Did you sleep in?” Surely Pearl and Buddy must have demanded their early morning walk?

  “I went back to bed after taking the mutts for a walk. I stayed up late last night binge-watching The Walking Dead. Have you seen it?”

  Jane smiled. “I don’t share your obsession with zombies, remember?”

  “Come on, Jane. Everybody loves a zombie.” Thea had given Jane a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for Christmas. She’d rather enjoyed it. Jane thought Thea herself looked a bit zombie-like this morning. She hoped she was just tired and not coming down with something.

  “So, have you been to see Adam Eades and Phil Lavin yet?”

  It was inevitable that she would ask. Jane considered telling Thea about her suspension, then changed her mind. It would involve revealing more details about the case, and about Kylie’s murder. Thea would probably have heard about Kylie by now, but Jane didn’t want her to make any connections between Kylie’s murder and Mark’s.

  “No. It’s not my job. I’m only a volunteer. It’s up to the detectives on the investigation to do that.”

  “But you’ve told them about Adam and Phil being friends of Mark’s? Did you tell them I put you on to them?”

  “They know about Adam and Phil.” Jane was certain that by now they must have checked out Mark’s friends. “They didn’t need me to tell them.”

  Thea studied her spoonful of muesli before conveying it to her mouth. “Don’t go berserk when I tell you this, right?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “So, Stacey and I have been doing a bit of research on those two.”

  “Thea!” Jane’s heart sank. Was she guilty of putting Thea in danger too?

  “Don’t worry. We haven’t put ourselves at any risk. Stacey’s big sister, Karina, is in her second year at the uni. Stacey asked her if she could find out more about them from her friends.”

  Was it wrong that she was eager to hear what Thea had to report? She hadn’t encouraged her to do this and would have forbidden it if she’d known.

  Thea took a few more mouthfuls of her cereal, as if giving Jane time to assimilate what she’d just told her. Then she said, “Karina had heard of them through a friend she’d met at one of the societies she joined. Her name is Ivy Cross.”

  She set her bowl aside and leaned across the granite-topped island, lowering her voice, though only Buddy and Pearl were around to hear. Judging by their snores, they weren’t in the least interested.

  “It turns out that Adam, Phil and the late Mark Ripley ran a sort of group for men, coaching them on how to go about hitting on girls.”

  “Okaaay.”

  “Ivy’s boyfriend, Tristan, was one of their ex-clients. He told Ivy about it. Apparently, when they took their students on a walkabout to practice hitting on women, Mark would demonstrate how to approach girls and get their phone numbers. Then the clients would have a go. According to Tristan, Mark encouraged him to stop a girl who was obviously underage, so Tristan walked off in disgust.”

  Thea leaned back again. “Remember what I told you about that time Stacey and I were in the café at the sport’s club, and we saw Mark with his friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t tell you that we were goofing around, being silly and trying to attract their attention. Mark was the only one who took any notice. The other two ignored us. Probably thought we were just a pair of silly schoolgirls.”

  “I remember you saying that he winked at you.”

  “Yeah, well, he did more than that. I didn’t tell you at the time because you went all protective on me.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He came over and spoke to us while his mates were talking to one of the staff. He asked us if we’d like to meet him later, go round to his place for drinks. Of course, we didn’t take him up on it. Mind you, Stacey might have been game if I hadn’t been there.”

  Jane was silent. “Anyway,” Thea said, “back to what Karina found out. Apparently, Tristan was uncomfortable with a lot of other stuff Mark and his friends recommended. He’d joined the group because he wanted to boost his confidence but he wasn’t at all impressed with what was actually going on. He realised pretty fast that Mark and his mates were all about tricking girls into having sex with them.”

  Thea pulled her bowl back towards her. She held it in one hand while spooning cereal into her mouth with the other. She ate quickly, ravenously almost. It made Jane wonder how long it had been since she’d eaten a proper meal. Thea looked at her over the rim of the bowl.

  “Your friend Stacey is certainly a useful person to know,” Jane said.

  “There’s more,” Thea said, swapping bowl for coffee cup. “You know that student who was murdered the other day?”

  “Kylie Bright.” Jane couldn’t keep the sadness from her voice.

  “Yes, Kylie. Karina told Stacey that Ivy’s friend, Lottie, told Ivy that Mark Ripley bullied Kylie into having sex with him!”

  Jane tracked the confusing chain of people in her head. Was there any hint of truth here, or was it all just rumour, Chinese whispers?

  “So, what do you make of that, Special Constable Jane Bell?”

  To Jane it suggested that there was some sort of connection between the murders of Mark Ripley and Kylie Bright. But how to make sense of that knowledge? It seemed an impossible task.

  Not for Thea. “So, here’s what I think. Kylie either killed Mark or had him killed in revenge. Maybe she just meant to teach him a lesson, you know, get him roughed up a bit, but it went too far. Then Mark’s friends found out what Kylie had done and murdered her in revenge.” Her eyes gleamed. “What do you think?”

  “Neat,” Jane said.

  Thea looked disappointed. “You’re not convinced, are you?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Jane said. “Presumably you need to go at a thing like this from all possible angles to avoid pursuing a single theory down an ever-narrowing tunnel.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, that’s my theory, for what it’s worth.”

  Aft
er the lesson, Jane again asked Thea if she minded her parents being absent for so long. Thea’s answer was the same. “Of course not. I’m not a little kid. They shouldn’t feel they have to stay home and look after me all the time. Besides, it’s cool having the house to myself.”

  Again, despite her upbeat tone, Jane couldn’t help thinking that Thea wasn’t being quite honest. She’d all but said previously that her parents had been neglectful when she was younger.

  But she needn’t poke her nose in. She was a private tutor now. It was no longer in her job description to double up as a social worker. Except, old habits die hard. Moreover, people always said she was a caring soul. That’s why she reminded Thea to contact her if she needed her — any time, for any reason.

  Later, Jane mulled over what she’d learned from Thea over a glass of wine. She dismissed Thea’s theory that Kylie had killed Mark. She wondered how the attack on Ryan Brown fitted in with the two murders, if at all. She wished she’d asked Ryan if he’d known Mark and his friends.

  She was aware that she had to be wary of making the facts fit the theory. Starting with a hypothesis was fair enough, so long as you subjected it to rigorous testing. She had no reason to connect Ryan Brown with Mark Ripley. She sighed. I’m such an amateur at all of this. Maybe I need to leave it to the professionals.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. DI Warwick was the last person she expected to see standing on her doorstep. For a few moments, the two women stared at each other, eyes reflecting their mutual distrust.

  “Would you like to come in?” Jane asked at last. She looked over Warwick’s shoulder for her sidekick, DS Harper, but Warwick was alone.

  “If it’s convenient.”

  “I was supposed to be on duty later but seeing as how you’ve put paid to that . . .” Jane trailed off, aware that she needed to swallow her pride and apologise.

  “Look,” she went on, “I know I shouldn’t have agreed to Kylie trying to find out about the man who harassed her.” I did caution her not to approach him. It was tempting to say the words aloud, but Jane sensed it was better not to try and justify her behaviour. Warwick didn’t seem the type to accept half measures, nothing less than a full admission of guilt would suffice. Maybe she should prostrate herself before her and beg forgiveness?