Murder on the Marshes_An absolutely gripping English murder mystery

by Clare Chase

  The next message was from Emma Marshall. She’d found that the roses in Samantha Seabrook’s office had been sent by her father, so not much to be learnt there, probably.

  By the time he got to the third message, confirming that some CCTV footage taken on Queen’s Road showed Samantha Seabrook approaching St Bede’s College – alone – Blake was beginning to feel dispirited.

  Tara Thorpe’s tapes had been interesting though. Revealing and unnerving in equal measure. She could sure as hell turn on the charm when she wanted to. Only Blake knew how calculated it was; judging by their responses, her interviewees had lapped it up. But it had paid dividends – for him, as well as for her. The recordings had prompted him to dig for information on Askey’s dad. Of course, the sins of the father shouldn’t be visited on the child. In theory… He’d repeated the mantra to himself as he’d looked the guy up. The fact that Askey senior had done time for drug possession and armed robbery didn’t make his son guilty of anything. Still, it must have affected his outlook on life.

  At that moment, a man who wasn’t Askey appeared in front of Blake. Young – mid-twenties at a guess, wearing jeans and a charcoal-grey open-necked shirt. He had wavy dark hair and blue eyes.

  ‘DI Blake?’ His accent was Liverpudlian.

  Blake stood and nodded, taking the outstretched hand.

  ‘I’m Kit Tyler, the research associate on Simon Askey’s project. I’ll show you up to our offices.’

  So Askey had sent a deputy. It figured. Guilty or not, Blake would look for every opportunity to put the guy in his place. Without being childish, obviously…

  The impulse was heightened when they reached the office Kit Tyler had mentioned only to find it empty. From the expression on the research associate’s face, Blake guessed he hadn’t expected this either. There was a note on the table nearest the door, scribbled on a carelessly torn bit of lined paper.

  Apologies. Had to take a call. Back in ten.

  Back in ten. Kit Tyler was watching him. Blake wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed for his supervisor or not. He bloody well ought to be.

  ‘It makes no odds,’ Blake said. ‘I wanted to talk to you as well, anyway.’

  ‘Sure.’ Kit motioned for him to take a seat at the table. As Blake drew out a chair he took in the scene outside the window. The room faced the opposite direction to Samantha Seabrook’s office, down onto a cramped courtyard somewhere in the area bordered by Trinity Street and the market square. It made it rather dark.

  ‘When did you first meet Samantha Seabrook?’ Blake asked.

  Kit pushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘The day I started here. I wasn’t working with her directly of course, but she was like that. She made a point of welcoming new staff.’

  Blake remembered Mary Mayhew, the institute administrator, saying the professor had had the ability to make people feel special. He got the impression Kit had made the same assessment.

  ‘I’ll tell you now,’ Kit glanced towards the door, then back towards Blake and laughed a little, ‘I actually applied for this job at the institute because Samantha Seabrook was here. Simon knows that, but it’s not the kind of thing he likes to be reminded of.’

  Blake could imagine. ‘So you hoped to work with her when you came?’

  Kit shrugged. ‘The role was with Simon and I was very happy with that. The project we’re working on is fascinating – and the difference we might make keeps me going. But I also thought it would be good to be part of the same institute where Samantha was doing her work.’

  Blake nodded. ‘So what’s your background then?’

  ‘I started off just up the road, north of Ely in Peverton – but my dad moved us to Liverpool when I was small, after my mum died.’ His gaze met Blake’s. ‘The seeds for my future career were sown all the way back then. Mum did piecework for a living; altering clothes for boys who went to the local fee-paying school. Even when she got ill she’d stay up until all hours, so we could make ends meet.’ He stared down at the table between them and shook his head. But after a moment he looked up again and smiled. ‘There are still way too many inequalities today, but I’m happy. I know I’m in the right place to bring about change. So, after school I went to Newcastle to do my first degree, and then back home again for my PhD. I stayed on in Liverpool for a bit, working as a researcher on a project there.’ He shrugged. ‘Then the opening came up here.’

  ‘I see. And how much did you interact with Professor Seabrook generally?’

  ‘A fair amount,’ Kit Tyler said. ‘We attended the same cross-institute meetings and events, and chatted in the coffee queue. Some of us would go off for a drink after work too.’

  ‘A big gang of you?’

  Kit shrugged. ‘Quite often it was just her, me and Simon, in fact. I think she felt less constrained without some of the more senior staff around.’

  ‘Professor da Souza and Mary Mayhew never joined you?’

  Kit laughed now. ‘No! Never. Mary Mayhew wasn’t Samantha’s number-one fan, to be honest. Sam was too much of a rule-breaker. And I think she found Hugo da Souza’s paternal concern patronising. Besides, people were always talking about the family connection between them. The last thing she wanted was to encourage gossip.’

  ‘And no Chiara Laurito?

  He watched Kit Tyler’s expression.

  ‘Not if Sam could help it.’

  ‘They didn’t get on?’

  ‘That’s something of an understatement.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It was odd, really. They had a lot in common, and their backgrounds were pretty similar, just as mine and Simon’s are.’

  ‘And you and he get on?’

  Kit nodded. ‘We don’t socialise beyond after-work drinks, but our working relationship is fine.’

  ‘Presumably Simon Askey and Samantha Seabrook hit it off all right too, if she didn’t object to him joining the pub trips?’

  He waited for Tyler to fill the silence.

  ‘Samantha accepted him as an equal, I guess; someone she could tussle with.’

  At that moment the man Blake recognised as Askey ambled into the room. He stood behind Blake’s chair and to the right, holding out a hand. In his other was a fresh mug of coffee.

  Good to know you haven’t rushed back, then.

  Blake got up to perform the formalities, even though he knew he was being played. Kit Tyler rose to his feet too.

  ‘I might go for a coffee too,’ he said. ‘Can I bring one back for you?’ He met Blake’s eye.

  ‘No thanks.’ Blake sat down again and waited for Askey to realise he was going to have to follow suit. Either that or stand around looking like an idiot. At last he gave in, though he made his journey to the seat opposite Blake as slow as possible.

  ‘So, I understand you and Samantha Seabrook were going to put in a joint funding bid,’ Blake said without waiting for him to get settled. ‘But she pulled out on you. That must have been annoying.’ It might not have been that way, but going in hard ought to produce a reaction. It would give him some direction.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  So, he had known then. Blake didn’t bother to answer and – satisfyingly – it took Askey a moment to revert to his laid-back, cool-guy posture.

  When he did, he shrugged. ‘Sam was a tricky character; you’ll have gathered that already if you’re any sort of detective. We disagreed over the approach to the research and instead of thrashing the matter out, she threw a tantrum.’ He smiled for a moment. ‘I think she was rather surprised when I made it clear I was going to put the bid in anyway, with or without her help. No one’s indispensable.’

  ‘You won’t miss her now that she’s dead, then?’

  Askey made a sound that was probably meant to express shock. It came across as phoney. ‘Oh, come on!’ he said. ‘That’s not playing fair!’

  Blake gave him a look. ‘I’m not playing.’

  Askey gave a heavy sigh. ‘Look, she riled me, okay? But I’ll miss her all right. She livened things up around here.’
All the same, there was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice; emotion that he couldn’t hide.

  ‘What precisely did you disagree on, when it came to the funding bid?’ Blake asked.

  ‘Seriously?’ Askey sat back in his chair, carefully choreographing his body language once again. It all tied in with what Tara Thorpe had said. He took a sip of his coffee. ‘Surely you don’t want to know all the technical details? No offence, but it won’t mean anything to a layman anyway.’

  ‘Indulge me.’

  Askey sighed. ‘Okay.’ He took a moment to stare at the ceiling before meeting Blake’s eye again. ‘I’m just thinking how to explain so you’ll understand. So, it was simply to do with how we were going to select the participants for our research.’ He put his head on one side. ‘Her approach would have skewed the results.’

  Really? Blake made sure he didn’t break eye contact. ‘I’m surprised someone as experienced as Professor Seabrook would make that kind of error.’

  ‘So was I,’ Askey said. The muscles round his jaw were taut. Was he lying? Or just angry to hear Blake emphasise the professor’s expertise?

  ‘I gather you’ve spoken to a journalist who is writing about the professor – what do you know about her?’ Blake watched the man try to find his mental footing again.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Blake leant forward. ‘I mean,’ he took a deep breath, ‘what do you know about the journalist who’s writing about Samantha Seabrook?’

  Askey looked pissed off. ‘Suit yourself. I don’t know what you’re driving at but for what it’s worth she’s called Tara Thorpe and she works for a low-brow magazine called Not Now. I gather her mother’s the actress, Lydia Thorpe.’

  Blake waited. ‘And?’

  Askey shrugged. ‘Easy on the eye, charming to talk to but no doubt trained to be that way. Jim Cooper mentioned she lives by the river. He goes past her house every day. I get the impression he enjoys the view. I can’t say I blame him.’

  Time for another deep breath. Blake forced himself to sit back in his seat before he spoke again. ‘When did Cooper mention her?’

  Askey frowned. There was curiosity in his eyes. ‘Just after Mary Mayhew told us all that Tara would be visiting us. Cooper was clearly looking forward to it. Mary heard his comments on the subject and told him to put a sock in it.’

  ‘So Mary Mayhew passed the news on to everyone? You were all in the room?’

  Again signs of curiosity flitted across Askey’s face. ‘Yes. Everyone who’s around at the moment, that is. About three-quarters of the staff are off sunning themselves before the students come back. Sorry – I mean to say, off pursuing their research interests until term starts.’

  So Jim Cooper had definitely known about Tara Thorpe’s riverside house when she’d been sent the doll. And soon after, Askey, Tyler, Laurito, Mayhew and da Souza learnt about it too. Had any of them also known all along, just like Cooper? That was the question.

  ‘Do you like climbing, Dr Askey?’

  There was anger in the man’s eyes now. ‘I saw the news report, so I can at least tell where you’re coming from there. No, I don’t. It’s not something I’ve ever done as a hobby.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Blake liked that. A nice, flat-out denial. If he ever found so much as a sniff of evidence to the contrary he’d have caught Simon Askey out. He intended to check very thoroughly.

  Fifteen

  Tara had got permission to visit the institute library to research some of Samantha Seabrook’s recent publications.

  The librarian – a Jeremy Irons lookalike of around fifty – helped her find the journals and books she needed, and they stacked them at one end of a long, polished wooden table next to a tall window with leaded panes. Sunlight drifted in, catching the dust motes they’d stirred up with their activity. The place smelled of books and printing ink.

  Tara got busy with the top journal and tried to focus.

  ‘Do ask me anything you’d like today,’ the librarian said, before she’d managed to zone in. ‘The library will be closed next week. We have a shut-down during August. It makes sense for me to go on leave when the institute’s so quiet.’

  Tara nodded. ‘I’ll shout if I’ve got any questions about Professor Seabrook’s work, but what about her as a person? It’s always useful to have another viewpoint.’

  She saw the librarian flinch, as though the thought of what had happened hurt him physically. ‘She was fabulous,’ he said at last. ‘Tremendous fun. I really can’t believe she’s gone.’ He gave a laugh that caught in his throat halfway through. ‘I think it’s fair to say the library wasn’t her natural habitat. Quiet isn’t an adjective I’d use to describe her. If ever I heard a guffaw or a sudden cry of outrage, I could be pretty certain she was responsible. I’d go and tell her off and she’d roar with laughter and say: “Well, go on then; throw me out! The sun’s shining, so I won’t really mind.” I shall miss her.’ He swallowed and looked away.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Tara averted her gaze too, and focused on the article she’d just opened. ‘I’ll have a look at this now. Is there any background you can give me, so I understand it better?’

  He seized on the lifeline she’d thrown him. ‘Ah yes, I remember that study. Fascinating. It’s reasonably self-explanatory. The sample of children she used came from one of the more deprived areas here in Cambridgeshire – close to where she was brought up, in fact.’ There was a fondness in his tone again now. ‘I remember her saying she wanted to “do something for the folks back home”. It was a slightly tongue-in-cheek comment though. I dare say the village she grew up in was a world apart from the locations she used for that research.’ He tapped the corner of the journal. ‘Cambridgeshire is such a varied county. Like a lot of places, of course.’

  After that he left her to it. The paper focused on the relationship between childhood poverty and truancy. The librarian was right, it was fascinating, and written in an accessible way, but within five minutes Tara had still lost concentration. The room was warm, and lack of sleep was catching up with her, tugging at the edges of her mind and pulling her towards a dream-like state. She tried to snap out of it, but Professor Seabrook’s work sent her thoughts off on the wrong train too. She’d said academics must avoid becoming blinkered. Even if a particular conclusion seemed obvious, they needed to look beyond it to test their findings. Without that they risked failing the young people they were trying to help. Her words made Tara think again of the police investigation into her previous stalker, and how the officer on her case had become so blind to any conclusion other than his own.

  Her mind ran over her old tormentor’s plan of campaign. The envelope full of dead bees had come first. It had arrived two days before her sixteenth birthday with a note on the outside in block capitals that said, ‘no peeking’. She’d assumed it was a present. She remembered squeezing the package; trying to guess what it might be. It felt soft, loose and a bit bumpy, and she’d been excited and curious for forty-eight hours. On her birthday morning she’d been staying with Bea, but her mother’s cousin had slept in and Tara had gone downstairs first. She hadn’t planned to open any of the presents on her own, but at last she’d given in to curiosity for that one packet. She’d ripped the seal and then leapt back, dropping the envelope when she’d realised what was inside. It had been stuffed full. As she’d thrown it away from her, handfuls of bees had scattered over the floor, spraying over her other presents. Bea had done her best to clear them up, but they kept finding them later. There’d been one mixed up with the bow on her present from Bea, and one had landed in the cup of hot chocolate she’d made herself.

  The envelope had had a Cambridge postmark and was empty apart from the bees. Bees for her birthday at Bea’s. Had that been deliberate? Now, each time she heard the name of the person she was closest to, she had to push away the feeling of horror. Mind games.

  She and Bea had taken the packet to the police, but it hadn’t led anywhere and six months later it seemed to have bee
n a one-off. It had still preyed on Tara’s mind, but she’d tucked the memory away as something horrible and inexplicable – but over.

  And then the next delivery had come. It had arrived in a different kind of envelope that time: Tyvek branded – strong and waterproof.

  She’d been at her mother’s, out in the Fens, but the rest of the family were away. Her mother and stepfather had taken her two-year-old brother on holiday to the south of France. They’d invited her, but the idea of tagging along hadn’t been appealing. And she’d seen the relief in her stepfather’s eyes when she’d turned them down.

  Although the envelope had been a different sort from the one containing the bees, the postmark was Cambridge again. And the feel of it had been odd. Something weighty had slid inside as she picked it up and she remembered feeling nervous. Instinct had made her hold off opening it at first. The feel of the packet set her hairs rising but a nagging voice kept telling her she was being ridiculous. At last she had opened just one corner, with a pair of scissors. The scissors had come back stained dark red. She’d got the blood on her fingers.

  She’d called Bea with shaking hands and her mother’s cousin had come, dropping whatever she’d been doing to reach her. Bea had had a closer look with a torch and then they’d taken the envelope to the police station in the nearby town of March. The packet had contained a pig’s heart and some bits of chopped up intestine.

  After that the deliveries got more frequent. Bird feathers. Maggots. But by then any unexplained package put her on high alert. Just the sight of a suspicious envelope was enough to throw her into full-blown panic, with sweats and palpitations. The police were receiving and opening the deliveries for her now, but she still ended up finding out what had been inside and sometimes she handled the envelopes. Each time her mind conjured up an image of what might be enclosed. It had been almost as bad as looking at the reality. There was no limit to the horrors the human mind could invent.