Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller)

by Clark-Platts, Alice

  Martin arrived at the bridge and looked at her watch. It had taken her less than fifteen minutes to get there. Were the photos actually just a red herring? Were they connected to Emily’s murder at all or something entirely separate? Martin walked up to the centre of the bridge and looked down on to the weir, the green, clear waters dashing over the stones on the river bed. She lifted her head to look up the length of the river, which curled around and out of sight, banked by the bush of the trees, the cathedral towers rising above. Emily had started self-harming at Easter, so the counsellor had said. But the trolling had started before then, after Christmas. What had happened at Easter to change things in Emily’s mind?

  Martin headed back to the bridge to return to the station. Nick had said the photos were a joke, and it seemed from the mass of comments and contributions online from the other students that the use of the internet to take the piss and bring people down was prolific. Was the university in control of this, Martin wondered? Maybe Emily had accepted the trolling up to a point, but at Easter it had all got too much.

  Martin reached the stone steps which led up from the river to Framwellgate and climbed them to the top. Was this all part of what that journalist Egan had been saying? That, basically, sex was a commodity here. And if that were the case, Martin thought, reaching the entrance to the station, was Principal Mason a part of that culture?

  THE DURHAM CHRONICLE NEWS WEBSITE ‘PURPLE PROSE’: THE SOCIAL COMMENT COLUMN BY SEAN EGAN TUESDAY 23 MAY

  So, new whispers swirl that someone very high up, in quarters not so very far away, is more than a little close to one of the students at a certain reputable college . .

  Far be it from me to stir the pot, but my little birds have also told me that the tragic murder of Emily Brabents, announced yesterday, is being investigated with only one person in mind.

  Tweet on, little birds. It’s what you’re good at.

  Remember, nothing strengthens authority so much as silence …

  21

  I spoke to Emily a couple of times over the Christmas holidays. She was downcast. She had gone back to her family home. Her parents were arguing a lot, she mentioned. Emily had an older brother, Christopher, although everyone called him Kit, she said. He was away a lot as a drummer in an indie group, and they were all very excited because the group had just got a recording contract. They were heading down to London between Christmas and New Year to watch them play a gig in Hammersmith. Even with this news, though, Emily sounded distant. She said she was dreading coming back to Durham in January.

  I didn’t know what to say. I scanned the Facebook page daily, along with the other Durham social media sites people posted on to. I didn’t know why, really. Everything on it was horrible. The remarks people made were truly some of the most atrocious things I had ever read. Names I recognized, people in Joyce. It didn’t seem to stop either. It carried on mercilessly. I couldn’t stop looking at it, it became a kind of compulsion. The jokes and links to porn sites. It was appalling.

  On Christmas Day, I sat in the front room with Mother, watching a sitcom about a family nothing like ours, but which we were supposed to find funny because it was so similar to us, or so different, I couldn’t tell. Mother had a cup of tea, and I had my second bottle of lager between my feet on the carpet. My sister hadn’t been able to come, she’d told us, frazzled, on Christmas Eve, because the second child had chickenpox and the husband was going away on business the day after Boxing Day. Mother and I didn’t care really. Those children were a pain, and we knew what we liked on Christmas Day. Now that we had a bit of money, Mother could afford to get a free-range chicken (turkey was too big for just the two of us), and I had bought double cream and made dauphinoise potatoes. Mother had laughed at this, said I was getting hoity-toity (her words) now I was at university. But they were delicious. and we toasted each other with a glass of wine, the bottle of which now sat half-drunk with the cork in it, in the fridge. Mother would probably throw it out before the New Year began.

  As we watched TV, I was flicking through my phone and checking my email account. I had a message from someone whose name I didn’t recognize. They seemed to have sent it to themselves, which made me think I wasn’t the only recipient, that I had been blind copied. The email itself was blank but there was an attachment. It looked like a video. Who had sent me this? Who else had been sent it? I excused myself to Mother and ran up the stairs to my bedroom. I pressed the triangle in the middle of the picture, and the video began to play.

  Emily and Nick were in a bedroom I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t hers, so I imagined it must have been his. She was sitting up in the bed, resting against the pillows. She was naked, I could see her breasts. She laughed, tossing her hair. Nick came into view. He was wearing jeans with the fly unzipped. The camera seemed to be at the end of the bed, slightly raised, and the right corner of the vision was hidden by something, the duvet perhaps. He said something to her that I couldn’t catch and then she crawled over the covers to him on all fours. She reached for him at his waist and – I turned it off. I couldn’t watch.

  I knew, you see. That was what disgusted me. It wasn’t that she was seemingly about to give him oral sex or that I had now seen her naked – seen her so intimately that I could see she had a mole at the top of her left thigh. No, it wasn’t that. It was in the last movement I had watched her make as she crept towards Nick, her hips in the air. The camera had been close on her head, her lips fashioned into a tight smile. Right before I switched the whole thing off, she had turned her face to the camera and done it. She’d given a slow wink. Her face was buttoned up and closed but her right eyelid had come down and then up. That was what was so upsetting.

  Emily was doing this after she had been so distraught about the photograph that Shorty had posted on the Facebook page. The date in the corner of the screen showed that she had made this video with Nick afterwards. I didn’t understand it. How could she parade herself like this? She knew she was being filmed, that was bad enough. But more than that, Emily was acting in this video. Nick was filming her like some kind of porno. And she was letting him.

  22

  Tuesday 23 May, 10.00 a.m.

  The trouble with secrets, thought Stephanie as she drove out of the city, is that there are never any watertight ones; they drip like jelly through muslin. After Martin had left her earlier, she had reached under her desk to where a small tape recorder was taped to the underside of it. She didn’t know why she had concealed it from Martin and the police. It was a matter of instinct, she told herself, and she was good at instinct, at feelings of the gut.

  Hers was cast iron, a product of her south Indian heritage, good and spicy Keralan cuisine. This situation with Emily was a little like that. A green peas masala: simple ingredients, peas and onions and coconut milk in a stew. But throw in ginger, turmeric, fennel, coriander, chilli, garlic and look at what you had. A soup of yellow velvet dotted with emerald balls which burst in your mouth: a harmony of spices, an orchestra of culinary elements. This was the problem here. You had Emily and Nick and whatever his stupid friend was called – the one that posted the photo on the internet; all fine and manageable. But then here appears Annabel, out of joint with the recipe, a jealousy berry pie. Then, and more crucially, here comes Daniel. Daniel Shepherd was the spice. Without him, Stephanie suspected, all you’d have was a pretty bland Durham gravy.

  She carried on driving. It was one of those early summer days when you want to open the window and blast music out at the countryside. She zoomed past hedgerows, all so very English. Even the unreliable weather – sparkling sunshine bouncing off the rape in fields but, in the distance, purple clouds circling, honing in on their prey – this was quintessentially English: one moment, all smiles and welcome to our country; the next, bugger off, it’s pissing down with rain and the picnic’s off. Stephanie tightened her grip on the steering wheel. There was something about it she liked, though, she had to admit, despite all of this.

  When Louis had suggeste
d the move back to his native continent, she’d cried for weeks. She would be taken away from their beautiful apartment in Repulse Bay, watching the junks smoothing around the water; Rosena would lose her tennis lessons and weekends playing beach volleyball; their ama would be packed off, back to the Philippines. They would live in a spiky city of mirrored glass and rubbish swirling on the streets: a burgeoning city, up and coming in Europe, Louis had said, persuasion in his voice. But Stephanie had known that that wouldn’t affect them, sitting in their cosy lounge with the curtains drawn from four in the afternoon. Whatever the economics, they would be transported from turquoise waters, holidays in tropical Indonesian islands, fresh papaya and pineapple every morning – to this.

  But still, she liked the people for the most part. No bullshit about them, that was for sure. She was probably more accepted here than in the expat landscape. Here, she was termed quirky; there, she was just thought of as a bit weird. Here, she could work with her maiden name unjudged; more to the point, here she could work. She tapped her fingers in time to the music and adjusted the sun visor. The road ahead was a Roman roller coaster: straight as a die, bending meticulously over an abundance of hills. After about half an hour, she indicated right and turned into a smaller lane. She followed it for about a mile before turning off again, on to a wooded track, which eventually ended in front of a detached stone cottage on the edge of a wood.

  Stephanie got out and stretched her back. They lived only about twenty miles out of Durham, but it felt like another world. She lifted up the hem of her sari as she walked to the front door and let herself in. She sat at her desk, having made a cup of fennel tea, and switched on her computer. Rosena was at school. Louis was at work. She found it easier sometimes to concentrate, here in the quiet, without the bustle of students outside her window.

  She tapped on the keyboard and inserted a memory stick. She wanted absolute peace to read what was on the screen. Having spoken to that policewoman, she had several ideas about things. About Emily.

  A document appeared, and Stephanie leaned forwards in her seat to peer closely at its contents. After a while, she minimized the screen and sat back, sunlight streaming in through the window. She knew she would have to mention him to the police. The boy who had been writing to her throughout the year, a boy whose emails gave full and intimate details about the last few months of Emily Brabents’ life.

  She extracted the thumb drive and placed it carefully in front of her, next to a small tape she had removed from the machine hidden under her desk in the office in Durham. The tape was of Emily, recorded by Stephanie during her last few sessions, speaking from the dead. And, here, she tapped the thumb drive thoughtfully, here was Daniel Shepherd. Stephanie smiled to herself, her heart bumping more loudly than she was used to, despite the calm of the tea.

  Here they were together. Daniel and Emily. Together at last.

  23

  Tuesday 23 May 10.40 a.m.

  Martin sat in the incident room at a computer, looking at the whiteboard on which were stuck the photos of Emily, Simon and Nick. She added one of Annabel Smith, drawing a line between her and Emily. Above them all, she had written ‘Daniel Shepherd??’.

  Butterworth put his head round the door. ‘Still nothing on the psych report from the hospital, Martin. They’re still assessing Rush.’ He looked around. ‘Where is everyone?’

  Martin leaned back in her chair, still looking at the board. ‘There’s a massive culture of trolling going on here, Sam. All the students are doing it. They’re thick with it,’ she murmured.

  Butterworth sat on the edge of Martin’s desk. He passed over a manila envelope. ‘It’s the photograph of the Brabents’ house which you requested.’ He gave a puzzled shake of his head. ‘Any reason why?’

  ‘Hard rage disguising fair natures,’ Martin said quietly, her eyes glazing over as she stared off into space. ‘Or the other way around?’ she whispered.

  ‘Eh?’

  Martin sighed and focused on Butterworth. ‘I need to talk to Mason again. I bumped into that journalist this morning.’ She turned the computer monitor around so that Sam could see the screen. ‘Another little gem of an article from him this morning, by the way.’

  Sam read it quickly. ‘Who’s the person high up he mentions? Mason?’

  Martin rubbed her nose. ‘Seems likely. This Egan guy knows about the trolling, knows about the photos of Emily. Jones reckoned Annabel Smith had been talking to someone in the press. He seems to think he’s the next Carl Bernstein about to uncover Trollgate or something …’ Martin’s voice was rich with disdain. ‘Whatever. But the trolling was tolerated, it would seem.’

  ‘I want you to tread carefully with Mason. I don’t need to tell you that he wields a lot of power in the university.’

  Martin shrugged.

  ‘Yes, Martin. Tread carefully,’ Butterworth repeated. ‘It’s in your own best interests.’ He glanced up at the board, folding his arms. ‘Who is Daniel Shepherd?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Martin answered, opening up the envelope and taking out the photograph. The Brabents’ house was impressive. Tudor, she guessed. Ecru and black with a thatched roof, casement windows, a magnolia curling up its walls. To the front was a typical country garden but to the side lay an expanse of lawn. Martin’s eyes moved to that section of the photo. The grass sloped downwards; the edge of the photo indicated that its boundary met rolling fields. A football net sat in its middle; there was a shed, it seemed, at the very bottom.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked Butterworth, pushing the photo over to him. He had good hands, she thought absent-mindedly as he took it. His nails were square and clean.

  ‘Nice house,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m still not sure why you’re bothered by it though.’

  ‘I’m bothered by it because we need to know where Emily came from, what kind of person she was. This is a middle-class house; her parents are well-to-do.’ Martin sat back in her chair. ‘So I still don’t have a reason for what prompted her to come to Durham, a bastion of tradition, and get her kit off for the lads.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Butterworth acknowledged. ‘I can’t understand it myself. If my daughter behaved like that,’ he sighed. ‘I’d lock her up for the rest of her life.’

  They both sat silent for a moment before the telephone bombed into their thoughts with a yell. Martin snatched up the handset. ‘What is it?’ She paused, listening, looking at Butterworth as she did. ‘Fuck a duck,’ she said softly as she put the phone down gently. ‘Fuck a fucking duck.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Martin stared at him.

  ‘Come on, Martin, what? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  She shook her head, swallowing. ‘That was Jones. The response car called her on route.’

  ‘On route to where?’

  ‘Joyce College. Emily’s mum – Rebecca Brabents?’ Martin hesitated. ‘She’s been found dead.’ She looked at Butterworth. ‘Hanging from the rafters in one of the college guest bedrooms.’

  Jones was waiting for Martin outside Joyce. The women exchanged glances as they crossed the threshold of the college but said nothing. Julia Earl stood in the lobby, waiting for them. ‘Principal Mason is with Mr Brabents.’ Her voice shook. ‘It’s a terrible thing. We’re all very upset as you can imagine.’

  Martin nodded. ‘She’s upstairs?’

  ‘Yes. Some of your lot are there with the doctor. They were staying in one of our visitor rooms. We have them free for guest speakers, VIPs and the like.’ She twisted her wedding ring in a reverie, snapping out of it as Martin cleared her throat. ‘Oh, sorry. I’ll take you up.’

  Martin and Jones followed Mrs Earl up the stairs to the corridor where Principal Mason’s office was situated. Beyond that door, around a corner, led another flight of stairs, and they continued up until Martin could hear the voice of Brian Walsh. He was just leaving the room as they reached it; a uniformed bobby stood outside as sentry.

  ‘Martin,’ he acknowledged her arr
ival.

  ‘How are you, Dr Walsh? What have we got here?’

  ‘Looks like suicide by hanging, I’m afraid. Can’t say for sure obviously until after the post mortem. Have a look yourselves, she’s certainly hanging. No other marks on her except on the neck.’ He looked at Martin. ‘There’s no sign of a struggle. I’ll try and get the report to you in the next twenty-four hours anyway.’ He inclined his head as if to tip a hat and made his way past the policewomen to leave, his black bag dangling uselessly in his grip.

  Mrs Earl gestured towards the room’s interior in a limp fashion. She moved backwards down the corridor as if unable to turn away as Martin and Jones spent some seconds putting on their protective suits.

  The room was filled with the silence of the dead. Rebecca Brabents’ body swung from a thick wooden beam which crossed the high ceiling over a bed covered with a thick crimson bedspread. Her head lolled forwards at an angle. Martin walked under the body, trying to see her face; her eyes bulged, purple spiny veins standing out from her eyeballs, pupils dilated into black discs. Martin peered closer; she had used what looked like a golden rope to wrap around the beam and then her neck. Martin scanned the room and saw that a thick, brocaded curtain tie was missing from one of the windows. It cut into her flesh, red raw marks visible beneath it. Her hands swung at her side, her toes pointing down to where a three-legged teak stool had been kicked over. A cool breeze permeated the room, and the body swayed a little in its thrall.

  Rebecca’s arms were bare, and Martin studied them. ‘No other marks apart from the neck,’ she said quietly. ‘Walsh is right. Doesn’t look like a struggle.’ She looked around the room. It was overstuffed and overly decorated. The furniture was dark and cumbersome, the soft furnishings all in various shades of red. Martin shook her hair back from her head. It was a room of nightmares, a red room of death. They would need a new SIO to handle this, alongside the investigation into Emily’s death. Martin could already hear the scream of the newspaper headlines, ramping up the heat which already emanated from the university.