Ann Granger

by That Way Murder Lies

  ‘May I ask who you are?’ Jess retorted. She ignored the bit about the drugs bust. To have immediately leapt to this conclusion suggested this girl had been through that particular procedure somewhere before, but was sure there were no banned substances on these premises at the moment.

  ‘I’m Tara Seale. I live here with Fi, with Fiona.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jess. ‘I’m sorry if I seem to have barged in. I didn’t realize Miss Jenner shared the flat.’

  ‘Well, you know it now,’ was the ungracious reply. ‘And you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

  Jess eyed her. There was surly defiance and suspicion but no grief, as yet, anyway. Tara didn’t know what had happened. There was no way she could know, of course, unless someone from Overvale had contacted her. The death had made the local press in a couple of lines but, as yet, Jess didn’t think it had reached the national papers.

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,’ she said.

  Tara Seale’s gaze sharpened. She snapped, ‘What sort of bad news?’

  Belatedly, Jess remembered Toby Smythe behind her. She turned to him and said, ‘I don’t need you any more.’

  ‘Right,’ mumbled Toby and left.

  Tara watched him go with something akin to contempt. ‘Who’s that? Don’t tell me he’s a copper. He didn’t show any ID, you didn’t introduce him as a colleague and he doesn’t look like a policeman.’

  I suppose, thought Jess crossly, I look like a policewoman! Well, so what if I do? That’s what I am.

  ‘He’s Fiona’s cousin, Toby Smythe.’

  Tara’s eyebrows twitched. ‘I’ve heard about him. Fi told me.’ She almost smiled.

  Jess’s antennae twitched. ‘Told you what?’

  ‘Oh, that he was showing signs of being smitten. She liked him very much, don’t get me wrong. But she’d realized she was going to have to tell him about us.’

  ‘You’re Fiona Jenner’s partner.’ Jess said it as a statement, not a question. She remembered the pair of neatly made-up beds on the mezzanine and all those clothes and shoes crammed in the one wardrobe.

  ‘Yes!’ Tara replied impatiently. ‘What’s this bad news? Has something happened to Fi?’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Jess said gently. ‘She’s dead.’

  As a police officer she’d been given all kinds of advice on breaking bad news, especially news of a death. But in the end there wasn’t any other way of putting it, other than a bald statement.

  She saw Tara’s eyes widen in shock. The young woman swayed and Jess stepped forward hastily but Tara put out a hand to ward her off.

  ‘I’m not going to faint! What do you mean, dead? Rubbish. She’s going to be twenty-one next month. I’m organizing the party. There’s nothing wrong with her. She couldn’t just die!’

  Denial, a common first reaction to the news.

  ‘I’m afraid not. She died on Saturday.’

  ‘This is crap,’ said Tara, but with less conviction. Abruptly she sat down on the white leather sofa where Toby had sat earlier. Her complexion had drained of colour, leaving the freckles startlingly obvious. She was seated beneath the white painting with the black squiggles and, in her charcoal grey, she formed a grey, black and white unity with her surroundings.

  ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ Jess offered. ‘You were just going to make one, weren’t you?’

  ‘Coffee,’ muttered Tara. ‘I don’t drink tea:

  Jess went to the kitchen area and made a mug of coffee. Bringing it back, she glanced at the briefcase on the breakfast bar. Tara was sitting as she’d left her, staring at the floor with a pinched angry face. After denial would come fury, and Jess was going to have to bear the brunt of it.

  ‘Here,’ she handed the other woman the mug.

  Tara took it without thanks. After taking a sip, she put it down on the floor by her feet. When she looked up her eyes sparkled fiercely. ‘Was it an accident?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry to have to tell you this is a murder investigation.’

  ‘Somebody killed Fi?’ Incredulity mixed with outrage. ‘Who’d do that? When did this happen and where? Is it possible you’ve got this wrong? It’s a wrong identification, it wasn’t Fi—’

  Jess shook her head, interrupting the flow of protestations. ‘Her father identified the body. She died in the grounds of her family’s house, while out jogging it seems, at around eight thirty on Saturday morning.’

  ‘You mean someone got into the grounds? Was she raped?’ Tara’s ferocity increased.

  ‘No. There was, as far as we know at the moment, no sexual motive.’

  Tara asked in a low hoarse voice, ‘How did she die?’

  ‘She was stabbed.Yes, in the grounds somewhere, but we’re not sure where. We believe her body was moved and placed in an ornamental lake where it was found.’

  Tara sat for a few minutes absorbing this. Her expression was still fixed in angry disbelief but she seemed to be in control of her emotions. Jess nodded towards the briefcase on the breakfast bar. ‘You’ve been to work today? You’re home early or do you always come home for lunch?’

  ‘I’m a financial journalist. I meant to work at home today. I went into the office to collect some documents, that’s all. I need the article for tomorrow. I thought, as Fi was away … I thought, it would be a good opportunity to work undisturbed.’

  ‘Fiona didn’t work?’

  ‘No. Not at the moment. She was talking about getting another job. She’d tried television but it hadn’t worked out. She was interested in journalism, because of me. She was talking about doing a degree course. I told her, she’d do better trying to get back into television and learn the ropes there. I warned her, it’s a tough world.’Tara shook her head as if to clear her brain of a mist. ‘Fiona wasn’t tough …’she mumbled. ‘She took things to heart. I can’t believe this. It doesn’t seem real.’ A tear trickled down her cheek and was angrily brushed away.

  ‘How long have you been together?’ Jess asked sympathetically.

  ‘Five months living here. We’ve known each other longer.’ Tara leaned back against the sofa’s pneumatic leather upholstery. By her feet the cooling mug of coffee sent up a spiral of steam. ‘I should have realized when I called her mobile on Saturday night and she didn’t reply, not even to the message I left. I should have guessed something was wrong.’ Tara narrowed her eyes, shining brightly with unshed tears, and asked suspiciously, ‘He didn’t do it, did he?’

  ‘Who?’ Jess asked, startled.

  ‘That guy, Toby. Fiona thought he was getting round to pop the question. We had a bit of a laugh about it but we knew it was a serious situation. She was going to have to tell him and her family about us. Her father’s a bit stuffy and her stepmother one of those clingy women who feel they’ve always got to be hanging on some guy’s arm. She’d always meant to tell them, of course. But she was waiting to pick her moment. Toby complicated things by getting lovesick. She hadn’t allowed for that. Perhaps she did tell him, Toby, and he flipped, you know, offended male ego. Some men are like that about lesbians. They see us as some kind of an insult to their virility.’

  Jess digested this information. She’d had no idea Toby had had plans involving his cousin. ‘We’ll investigate all avenues,’ she said.

  ‘Investigate all avenues?’ Tara jerked upright. Her foot struck the coffee mug and sent it spinning across the wooden floor, the contents spilling out in a dark puddle. ‘Is that police-speak?You’ve got to do a bloody sight better than that! You’ve got to find him! You’ve got to find that bastard!’ Without warning, she burst into a flood of wild tears and, with her arms wrapped round her body, began to rock to and fro, sobbing.

  Jess left the flat and set out to walk back the way she’d come. It had taken a while to stem Tara Seale’s grief and even longer to persuade her to let Jess go through Fiona’s private papers and belongings. But once Jess had started, Tara became helpful. Her outburst of grief seemed to have cleared the air. In the en
d, however, nothing of significance had been found.

  At a waterside wine bar, Jess noticed quite a few people sitting on an open area outside it, enjoying the spring sun. Several were eating. It was still lunchtime, she thought, and wondered whether to join them. Then she saw a figure sitting alone, hunched over a coffee. Oh dear, first she’d had to console one of Fiona’s lovers, now she was going to have to console the other one.

  She walked up to the table and asked, ‘May I join you?’

  Toby glanced up. ‘Go ahead.’

  Jess pulled out the chair and sat down. She waited.

  ‘You must think,’ Toby said, not looking at her, ‘that I’m a complete fool.’

  ‘No. I don’t think you’re a fool at all. I think you were daft to let Jeremy persuade you come here and go through the flat. But that’s not the same thing. You know yourself it was daft.’

  ‘I feel a fool,’ said Toby fiercely, looking up now and straight at her. His face was flushed. ‘I should have known, shouldn’t? That she was a lesbian? But she didn’t say. She didn’t look it. She didn’t act like it.’

  ‘Mr Smythe,’ Jess said, ‘don’t you think you might be in danger of assigning people to stereotypes here? What did Fiona have to do to qualify, in your mind, as looking or acting like a lesbian? Wear dungarees and big boots? Shave her head and go in for body-piercing?’

  ‘All right, all right!’ Toby said irritably. ‘Point taken. I’m not that stupid. It’s just that I thought I knew Fiona quite well and it’s come as a surprise, a shock.’ He eyed her. ‘You’re not one, too, are you?’

  ‘Me? No, actually, I’m not. Not that it’s any of your business or has any relevance here. Why? Do I qualify because I joined the police force?’ Jess heard the sharp note in her own voice.

  ‘You’re not going to let me forget this, are you?’ Toby said with an unexpected grin. Then the grin faded. ‘Now I know what Jeremy wanted me to find out, why he sent me up here. The silly old devil, why didn’t he warn me?’

  ‘You think he knew?’

  Toby considered the question before replying. ‘I’m pretty sure she hadn’t told him. I think he’d have told me or Alison would have done. It’d have been general knowledge in family circles, wouldn’t it? I’m also sure he didn’t know she was sharing the flat with anyone of either sex. I think, though, that he must have had his suspicions because Jeremy isn’t a slouch at summing up people. Probably she’d never brought a boyfriend to meet him, never spoken of a boyfriend. She was a stunner, wasn’t she? There ought to have been a horde of blokes trying to date her. It did cross my mind that it was curious she hadn’t got someone in tow. But I didn’t ask myself why. I just assumed she didn’t want to talk about her love life. Why should she? Jeremy was smarter than I was. He must have asked himself what was going on. So he sent me to find out and I, prize idiot, obediently came along here and, well, I did find out, didn’t I? And now I’m going to have to go back and tell him.’

  ‘He’ll be upset?’ Jess asked.

  ‘Of course he’ll be upset. He’s a traditional sort of bloke. But he’s not the kind who’d have thrown her out of the house. He’d have accepted it if that was her choice. She should have told him.’

  ‘According to Tara Seale she was going to.’ Jess hesitated. ‘She was going to tell both her father and you. Fiona had the idea, and told Tara, that you might be going to ask her to marry you.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Toby crossly. ‘Everyone knows everything about everybody except me. I just blunder along in a world of my own.’

  ‘I’m curious,’ said Jess. ‘Something must have given you the idea she’d accept you.’

  Toby looked awkward. ‘It wasn’t a great romance, obviously, in view of what we now know! But even before I knew, I couldn’t have kidded myself there was any real deep feeling between us, other than friendship. But it was a good friendship. We really enjoyed one another’s company. I’m on my own. I thought that, living on her own, because I thought she did live on her own, she didn’t have much of a life.’

  Tell me about it, thought Jess ruefully. ‘And she’d rather be married to you?’

  ‘It makes me sound conceited, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘Not to say desperate. I can’t explain it to you. I explained it to Meredith and she understood. Working in embassy circles, your social life is known to everyone. Everyone goes to the same parties. Everyone passes round the latest gossip. If you get romantically interested in someone, everyone knows and it pours cold water on any relationship. Perhaps I was lonely, and although I don’t think I was, or am, desperate, I felt I ought to make some positive decision about finding a partner. Possibly I was conceited to think Fiona would marry me. After all, I’d never even kissed her. If I’d tried, she wouldn’t have let me, I now know. She’d have explained about her preferences. I could have accepted that, but she didn’t say a thing! If that Tara person is right and Fiona did guess I was going to suggest we get married, then she could have put me off, couldn’t she?’

  His manner changed. ‘Hey!’ he said sharply. ‘Did you ask that woman, Tara, to account for her movements on Saturday? Perhaps she was jealous? Perhaps she thought Fiona had decided that lesbianism wasn’t for her? Perhaps Tara followed her down to Overvale, waylaid her when she was out jogging and they had a row about me. Tara whatsit lost her temper, and stabbed her with - with something she’d got with her.’

  ‘Funny you should suggest that,’ said Jess. ‘Tara thinks perhaps you were the jealous one and you did something like that.’

  ‘Me?’ howled Toby so loudly that people at a nearby table turned their heads in alarm. ‘Me?’ repeated Toby in a stage whisper. ‘Of course I didn’t!’

  ‘How do you account for Fiona being found in the lake?’ Jess asked. ‘I mean, if you think Tara went down there and killed Fiona in a fit of jealous rage, why did she put her in the lake?’

  ‘Cover up. Make it look like a drowning, an accident.’

  ‘Tara Seale is an intelligent woman and if she stabbed Fiona, she’d know that a post-mortem would discover it. Putting the body in the lake mimicked the way in which Freda Kemp died. That’s just coincidence, you think?’

  He paused again to consider his reply. ‘It might be. Coincidences happen. On the other hand …’ Toby hesitated again. ‘Fiona might have told her about Alison’s trial. Tara might have remembered and she decided to make it look like a copycat thing.’

  ‘You think Fiona would have told Tara Seale about such a sensitive family matter?’

  ‘They were partners,’ said Toby simply, ‘as we now know. Partners tell one another things about their families. Besides …’ He paused yet again and looked embarrassed. ‘To tell you the truth, Inspector, Fiona had a quirky sense of humour. She could be quite cruel.’

  A waiter appeared at the table and Toby added, ‘Look, let me buy you lunch. I’m really sorry about messing about in the flat without telling you I was going there.’

  ‘I’ll join you at lunch but I can’t accept your kind offer.You’re a—’ Jess glanced briefly at the waiter. ‘You’ll understand why.’ She picked up the menu card and scanned it. ‘I’ll have the Caesar salad.’

  ‘Rabbit food,’ muttered Toby. ‘I’ll have the hamburger.’ When the waiter had departed,Toby asked, ‘I’m a what?You were going to say I’m a suspect?’

  ‘I was going to say you’re a witness. The funny thing about witnesses in this case is how little they have to tell me. Apart from your family’s peculiar sense of omertà, there was nothing in the flat and even Tara -Seale hadn’t much to tell me.’

  Except, thought Jess, one thing of interest.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said to Toby. ‘This last weekend, did you ever see Fiona use a mobile phone? Or notice one in her possession?’

  Toby shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. I certainly didn’t see her using one. I don’t remember her carrying one or a phone sticking out of a pocket. Why?’

  ‘Tara Seale tried to call her on her mobile phone. I didn’
t find one in your cousin’s bedroom at Overvale House or in her bag. There certainly wasn’t one on the—in her clothing.’

  ‘She might have dropped it, then,’ Toby said immediately. ‘Either while she was jogging or, more likely, when she was attacked.’ His face grew grim. ‘She may have tried to call for help and the killer took it off her! In that case, he’s got it.’

  Toby leaned forward excitedly at the very moment the waiter placed Jess’s salad on the table, and sent the plate skimming to the ground in a shower of green, yellow and gold.

  When apologies had been exchanged all round, the salad replaced and Toby’s hamburger had arrived, Toby’s appetite appeared to have disappeared. He prodded the hamburger listlessly and asked, ‘Are you going to tell Alan Markby I was in the flat?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘He already thinks I’m accident-prone. This will confirm it. Still, he has to know. I’d tell him myself if you didn’t. I am sorry about it and I am sorry I knocked your salad off the table.’ Toby paused and scowled thoughtfully into space. ‘Perhaps I’ve got a clumsy gene.’

  Jess struggled to suppress her laughter. ‘I think you’re inclined to overdramatize.’

  ‘Meredith will tell me off, too. Have you met Meredith?’

  ‘Mr Markby’s fiancée? No, but I’m hoping to have a talk with her soon about your cousin. I want her impression of Fiona. It’s difficult for me to feel I know her. That’s because I didn’t know her, I realize that. But the more I know about the victim, the better it is and, as I’ve already told you, no one seems very keen to tell me anything.’

  ‘I’m not going to ask you why you became a police officer because you must be sick of people asking you that. But doesn’t it ever get you down?’ Toby asked curiously. ‘You always see people at their worst. You know, the one thing I’ve always admired in Markby is that after all the years he’s been doing the job he hasn’t become cynical.’

  ‘Well,’ Jess said, ‘I hope I don’t become cynical.’