Murder on the Marshes_An absolutely gripping English murder mystery

by Clare Chase

  Needs was an interesting word to choose. Blake watched Cooper’s expression. ‘Did you socialise outside work at all?’

  He laughed at that but there was something slightly forced about it. ‘I need more sleep than she did. No. Anyway, when she was taking time out from her work, I’d still be doing my long hours here.’ He paused. ‘No rest for the wicked.’

  Cooper was no longer meeting Blake’s eye. Maybe he’d made up to Samantha Seabrook and never got anywhere. If so, he probably didn’t want anyone digging in that direction; he was the sort who’d hate to lose face. But, alternatively, he might be lying about how personal their relationship had become. ‘Do you know what she did in her spare time?’ Blake asked. ‘Did she have any particular hobbies, for instance? Music maybe, or sport?’

  But Cooper just shrugged. ‘Spending time with friends, as far as I know.’

  ‘Speaking of which, is there anyone here you think Professor Seabrook was close to?’ Blake took a deep breath. ‘Apart from you, that is?’ He was trying, but the flattery Emma used refused to trip off his tongue. He could hear the light dusting of sarcasm in his voice.

  Cooper’s eyes narrowed as he shook his head. ‘No one in particular. Who she socialised with depended on what was happening at the time.’

  Once he’d left the room, Emma looked at Blake. ‘Seems as though Cooper and Seabrook had some kind of “special relationship”, whether or not it extended beyond work. Maybe she was the only one here who made him feel valued.’

  Blake nodded. ‘Maybe. And if that’s the case, I wonder what he might have done if she’d let him down?’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Do you reckon he could climb a high wall?’

  Emma nodded. ‘He certainly looks young enough and fit enough to manage it. He must have to be strong and agile to do his job if he’s in charge of the maintenance here.’

  Blake had been thinking the same thing. ‘I watched him when I asked whether the professor had liked sport. I couldn’t tell if he was covering up, but could you check with Kelsey Kerridge sports centre? See if he or the professor were registered to climb there? Better check the rest of the staff here and at St Francis’s College too.’ The local sports hall’s facilities might be a bit tame compared with the wall at St Bede’s, but it was worth a try.

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Blake frowned. ‘Whether I could see him sewing handmade dolls is another matter.’

  Emma raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know. I mean, a needle would look tiny in his hand, but he’s bound to be dextrous if he does any kind of building maintenance, or wiring. That’s pretty fiddly.’

  And that was a fair point. ‘Interesting what he said about Samantha Seabrook despising her colleagues. Whatever she said in private though, you can bet your life she made herself pleasant to people in public.’ His mother always bemoaned the need to be charming to her colleagues, whether she liked them or not.

  ‘Maybe she was the sort who managed to be all things to all people,’ Emma said.

  ‘Quite possibly.’ Blake remembered Cooper’s last words, about her social relationships being governed by what was happening at the time. ‘I suppose we’ll find out more about her personality when we look round her flat.’ Other members of the team were already over at the exclusive penthouse where Professor Seabrook had lived. He and Emma were due to join them later so they could oversee developments. ‘Then again, if she was as much of a workaholic as Cooper says, we might get just as many hints from this place.’

  As usual, they looked at the big picture first, each scanning the office as a whole. It was too easy to home in on the details and miss something obvious.

  In this case, the smell of the room had been the first thing to strike Blake, whilst they’d been talking to Jim Cooper. The overriding scent was a cloying mix of flowers – there were some roses in a vase on the professor’s window sill, already dropping their petals – and some kind of perfume.

  ‘Rive Gauche,’ said Emma, seeing him sniff. ‘Classic and classy.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m so glad I didn’t have to put my own opinion into words. That and the flowers are doing a good job of masking it, but I can smell cigarette too.’

  Emma nodded. He half expected her to tell him which brand, but she didn’t. ‘So you think the professor was a rule breaker, at least in a small way?’ She glanced up at the smoke alarm on the ceiling. ‘Maybe she stuck her head out of the window to avoid getting found out.’

  He nodded. ‘Sounds about right.’ He walked over to the roses and peered amongst their stems but there was no card attached. ‘Would you see if the receptionist knows who sent these? I presume no one buys themselves a dozen.’

  Emma nodded. ‘I’ll get on to it. And did you notice the wall planner?’

  Blake looked. There were various dates noted on it. Large-scale stuff – lines running over several weeks indicating the run of a lecture series, and a couple of deadlines for funding applications. One ‘Application deadline – Social Impacts of Poverty’ had been crossed out in an extravagant way: done with a flourish.

  Blake raised his eyebrows and photographed it for the record.

  They seemed to have reached the end of the obvious stuff. ‘Let’s look more deeply now,’ he said. ‘You take the desk and the in-tray. I’ll tackle the filing cabinet.’

  Emma nodded and went to work.

  Blake opened the top drawer and found it was devoted to Samantha Seabrook’s research interests. The big project she’d been working on most recently had focused on social relationships of children born into poverty. It probably ought to be mandatory police reading, Blake thought. Perhaps it would be in future, assuming someone finished the research. The drawer underneath held papers relating to previous projects, as well as lecture and seminar plans. All interesting, but it was the third drawer that shed more light on the professor’s relationships within the institute. He found a file devoted to Chiara Laurito, Samantha Seabrook’s current PhD student. He took it over to a chair and settled down to read.

  ‘Blimey,’ he felt compelled to say, after he’d glanced at the first couple of papers in the file.

  Emma looked up from the desk drawer she was gutting, her curly blonde hair falling over her eyes. ‘Boss?’

  ‘Looking at Samantha Seabrook’s comments on her PhD student’s papers reinforces what Jim Cooper said about her low opinion of her workmates.’ He held out the one he’d just been reading for Emma to see.

  His DS looked down. ‘“Only an individual with a genuine and complete lack of imagination would be able to draw such a pedestrian conclusion from this data”.’ Emma winced.

  ‘And that’s just the tip of the iceberg if you look further down the page.’ Blake sat back in the chair.

  Emma read on. ‘I see what you mean,’ she said after a moment. ‘Samantha shared this feedback with her student? Well, this Chiara Laurito’s just leapt up the list of possible suspects.’

  ‘Joking aside, Samantha Seabrook certainly didn’t take any prisoners. That kind of criticism must have been pretty hard to stomach.’

  ‘No arguments there.’

  And it wasn’t just that the professor had been harsh. There’d been a sort of exuberant relish in the way she’d styled her comments; as though she’d enjoyed composing them. She’d clearly wanted to make damn sure anyone who didn’t make the grade knew it. And presumably her verdict would have got back to the rest of the institute staff too. It reminded Blake of that cynical old maxim: ‘It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.’ He’d always found it funny, but he was guessing Chiara Laurito hadn’t enjoyed the joke quite so much.

  Emma handed back Laurito’s file and he replaced it. There were one or two more in the same drawer relating to PhD students past. Some of her comments on their work had been just as dramatic, but in a positive way. Either she was fair but with a total lack of tact, or she’d really had it in for Chiara.

  At last he crouched down to search the final cabinet drawer. He’d been wondering
what it might contain. The top three seemed to span the various areas of institute work Samantha Seabrook would have been responsible for.

  Now, looking at the bottom one, he classified it as dedicated to ‘extracurricular interests’. It was all the more fascinating for that. In it he found a bottle of gin (two-thirds empty), a packet of condoms (ditto) and various items that would have aided the professor if she’d wanted to leave the office and head straight for a night out. Prada shoes, a make-up bag containing lipstick, eyeliner and mascara, and a box with three necklaces in it and two pairs of earrings. It all supported Jim Cooper’s claim that she’d had a healthy social life outside work. One of the necklaces in particular caught his eye. It was quite a different style to the others: old-fashioned – heavy and ugly in his opinion – but valuable-looking. ‘Emma?’

  She looked up.

  ‘Would you recognise rubies if you saw them?’

  She glanced at the large red stones set into the gold chain he was holding. ‘You’re kidding, right? But seriously, I’d say those look special.’

  ‘There’s an engraving on the back of the setting for the largest stone. A monogram – S.F.S. Those aren’t the professor’s initials – her middle name was Bella, after her mother, I presume – but maybe it’s a family heirloom, passed down by a senior Seabrook.’

  ‘Sounds possible.’ Emma peered at it more closely. ‘I can’t imagine she’d have worn it much. Not her style, if the other jewellery’s anything to go by.’

  He took some photos of the drawer’s contents. Emma was poring over a book. ‘What have you got there?’ he asked.

  ‘Her desk diary.’

  ‘Thoughtful of her to have had one. It’s nice not to be forced to wait until forensics have finished trawling through her Outlook calendar.’ They’d already taken her laptop away.

  ‘I’m right with her there,’ Emma said, her head still buried in the diary. ‘I like to see my week laid out in front of me on paper. Stops things sneaking up and giving me a fright.’ She went quiet again. He watched her flick back and forth through the pages.

  ‘Found something interesting?’ he said, when he couldn’t bring himself to wait any longer.

  ‘Maybe. I mean, a lot of it’s just the usual stuff. But look here.’

  She pushed the pages down flat and showed him a period spanning the last week in July and the first in August. The word ‘leave’ was written across the top of each page.

  ‘So it’s summer and she went on holiday. Hold the front page.’

  Emma gave him a look. ‘Thanks for your support. But look at these other pages.’ She flicked back to late March. It was another page marked ‘leave’; just one this time. ‘Leave – Paris’. ‘And then this one.’ Emma flicked back again. It was an academic diary running from October to September. She’d reached December. From 28 December to 4 January, the diary was marked ‘Leave – Bern’.

  ‘There are other instances too,’ Emma said. ‘The most recent is the only one where she didn’t write where she was going.’

  ‘Okay, I take it all back. Under the circumstances that’s definitely worth investigating.’

  He turned to sift through a collection of papers on top of the filing cabinet, but before he got started, movement caught his eye.

  Outside, beyond the glass panel in Samantha Seabrook’s office door, a man was passing. Or wanted them to think that he was. Blake wondered how long he’d been standing there watching them. As soon as their eyes met, the guy had walked on, touching his forehead with one finger in a mock salute – he knew he’d been sussed. He hadn’t looked bothered though. There’d been a spark of challenge in his eyes that had instantly made Blake’s hackles rise.

  He carried on looking out for one more long moment at the space the guy had vacated. Never mind. He’d find out who he was soon enough.

  Eight

  Tara mostly preferred to be alone, especially when she was working. Her preliminary research on Samantha Seabrook was absorbing, but part of her was always listening, straining to hear any sound that might be a warning. She worked in the kitchen, the willow outside the window casting constant shadows into the room, making patterns on the floor. Each time the flickering movement caught her eye she was jolted back to her immediate surroundings. The creaking of the house was the other thing that disturbed her. Sounds that she’d normally write off as wood expanding in the summer heat now made her think of footsteps, creeping closer. Beyond her four walls she could hear the swifts, high in the summer sky, but no human noise at all.

  She’d left her bedroom window ajar whilst she was at home to try to get some air in. When a sudden gust blew in, making the thin bathroom door slam, she jumped so hard she bit her tongue.

  With an hour to go before she had to leave the house, she went upstairs to get ready for her interview with Professor da Souza, Head of the Institute for Social Studies. Up in her bedroom, she kept half an eye on the common as she looked through her wardrobe. At last she picked out one of her best dresses – a designer number that had been a present from her mother and stepfather. For ages she’d let it sit there unused – she couldn’t be bought – but not wearing it today was childish. It had a matching jacket and its sea-green colour went with her eyes and set off her red-gold hair. She chose low heels that she knew she could run in. As for her hair, she was going to take the advice of the crime reduction officer and put it up. She got to work with some pins, and went for an artfully tousled style, leaving the odd strand hanging down. And then she started on her make-up. As she applied eyeliner she wondered about the task ahead. Would the person who’d sent her the doll watch her as she left the house? Might they follow her to the institute? Or perhaps they’d be one of the people she spoke to that day, biding their time, waiting for her to understand their motives and what they wanted of her.

  How long would it be before they ran out of patience?

  She put on a scarlet lipstick, pressing hard. Well, they’d better not touch her hair. If they made a grab for it as it was it would bring the whole arrangement down.

  She put the tiny digital recorder she owned in her bag along with her camera, notepad and phone. Then she added the bottle of hairspray she’d put by her bed.

  For two minutes she stood staring at the knife she’d held for self-defence the night before. She knew what could happen if things went wrong, even if you weren’t armed. And she knew the law. It wasn’t legal to carry anything you intended to use as a weapon. She’d even heard of a woman getting done for fighting her attacker back with a set of keys. The prosecution had made much of the fact that she’d had them out and ready.

  At last, she picked up the knife and put it diagonally into the side pocket of her handbag, with some paper tissues stuffed in on top. She knew she wasn’t going to use it unless it was a choice of her death or injuring her attacker. Surely that had to be enough.

  She’d decided to take her bike. She could just about cycle in her dress and although the idea of locking herself in her car appealed she couldn’t use it door to door. The bike meant she wouldn’t have to enter one of the town’s multistoreys, out of the public eye. She’d still have to cross the common, but she’d be quick. Someone else on two wheels might catch her there – but only if they were fast. She was fit enough to out-pedal most people. And once she was on the roads she’d be surrounded by the summer crowds.

  As she exited her back garden all was quiet, and the meadow smelled sweet in the still, warm air. She looked around for movement, holding her breath, scanning the willows that dotted the grassland, where someone might hide. Then she pedalled hard, trying to combat the jellyish feeling in her legs. She must have reached the relative safety of Riverside with its closely packed houses within a minute, but it felt like longer. On the way into town she kept an eye on the traffic around her – both vehicles and pedestrians. Was the man running along the pavement anything to do with her? Could the woman in the Ford who’d come within inches of her be a threat?

  She locked her bike to
the railings outside the imposing stone façade of the Senate House, jamming it in amongst the others that were parked there, overlapping, their handlebars tangled. The cycle chaos contrasted with the serene neoclassical backdrop the old building provided. A moment later she entered the road where the institute was based. For a few seconds she forgot the crowds around her – the sea of voices, many languages mingling in the canyon of Trinity Street – and saw only the towering medieval buildings to her left and right. Stone gargoyles and grotesques looked down at her – strange animals snarling, their teeth barred, a malevolent devil laughing. She’d read somewhere that the stonemasons made them like that to ward off evil. Demons to deter demons. It made the buildings forbidding to outsiders, but maybe the evil at the institute had come from within.

  Samantha Seabrook had known the person she’d met the previous night well enough to trust them. And she’d gone with them to one of the university’s colleges. Surely her killer had to be an insider – and probably someone she saw day-in, day-out – most likely in the very building she was about to enter.

  Well, if so, she’d be in pole position to identify them, and stop them from making her their next victim.

  She took a deep breath and turned to her right to walk under a shadowy archway to the entrance she needed. It was an oak door, rounded at the top, solid and dark. She pressed a buzzer and after a pause an unseen male voice told her he’d released the door. As she stepped inside she left the cacophony of street noise behind. Closing it behind her made her feel cut off. After a moment she heard the male voice again from behind the front desk – the receptionist, who must be on the phone. Without that hint of life she’d have thought the place was deserted. Everything was quiet and still. Then, as she waited, she heard a door creak, somewhere way off down the shady corridor, but no one came. The DS who’d been at her house earlier had said DI Blake would be at the institute for most of the day. She wondered if he was there now. It didn’t feel as though there was any outside presence in the place.