Murder on the Marshes_An absolutely gripping English murder mystery

by Clare Chase

  She pulled up in front of the Travelodge and secured her bike outside. She didn’t hate all police. She was just selective – God, she was with all people; life had taught her that trust wasn’t something to hand over lightly. Blake was all right. Probably. If nothing else, the suggestion about her training to be a police officer showed off his excellent sense of humour. She found herself smiling just for a second – at the same time as shaking her head.

  There was no one on the reception desk as she walked past. She took her hotel key card out and let herself through the door to the sleeping accommodation. On the other side there was a deserted corridor full of anonymous doors, as well as a route off that led to a stairwell and the lifts. It was oddly quiet. She chose the stairs to reach her floor. Avoiding situations where she might get cornered was instinctive; she hadn’t needed the crime reduction officer’s advice. And Kemp had drummed it into her when she’d learnt self-defence too. At the top of the flight, she went through another fire door and on to the corridor where her room was located. As she entered it, she heard another door close quietly. Who’d just disappeared from her line of sight? She listened for the sound of someone talking. To know she was next door to a family, or a couple, would have been reassuring. But everything was quiet and still. She touched her key card to the card reader. The light went red and the door didn’t open.

  She tried it again. The same.

  And then the third time, the light went green. She took a deep breath.

  Inside, her room was just as she’d left it. She went into the bathroom. Nothing was out of place. Back in the main room, she went to draw the curtains shut. Instinctively she pulled at them from an angle, standing well back from the glass. If Samantha Seabrook’s killer was out there watching, she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.

  After the second shower of the day – a scalding hot one this time, that lasted for ten minutes, not two – she sank down onto the bed.

  She had long enough to worry that she wouldn’t sleep. Her heart was racing. Probably the result of the day, and the note. And possibly the vodka on top of the garden-party Prosecco. But after that she must have gone out like a light.

  Sometime in the early morning she got up to go to the bathroom. The palest hint of first light was creeping in behind the curtains. Newmarket Road wasn’t the quietest place to stay. Outside she could hear an emergency vehicle screaming its way past. She was instantly relieved it wasn’t anything to do with her, but someone was in trouble. It just wasn’t her turn.

  She felt strange when she woke again at nine thirty in the morning – almost as though she’d been drugged. The unfamiliar effects of a really good night’s sleep. She wondered if Blake had managed to catch up too. Though after all that Coke at the pub he’d have been lucky; he must have been wired. Slowly, she began to gather her things together. A quick check of the emails on her phone revealed several she would definitely ignore – either until later or altogether. One such was from Giles, Not Now’s editor. The message was flagged as important. He was disappointed in her for not drip-feeding him more breaking news ahead of filing her feature. Sod that. If she told him her latest it would steal her thunder and she wouldn’t get any of the credit. For a moment she thought back to Blake’s joke the night before, about her retraining as a police officer. It had to be said, she didn’t much like being beholden to someone like Giles, and the ideals he stood for.

  At last she saw that there was one email of interest. Patsy Wentworth, the childhood friend of Samantha Seabrook’s who featured in the drunken photo in the professor’s flat, had answered the email she’d sent. Patsy would talk to Tara that afternoon, if Tara could be bothered to get herself to Camden Town in London. Tara emailed back to say that she could be bothered and would see her later. She felt another passing stab of guilt at not having told Blake that she’d found the woman. But she had to have some things for herself. An old mate from school might tell her more about what had really made Samantha Seabrook tick. She put it out of her head and made up her mind not to look at anything else to do with work until she was back at home.

  She went down to the reception desk and picked up a breakfast box thing with a muffin in it, and yoghurt, amongst other stuff. Then she holed up in her room to eat it. The last thing she wanted was to sit in the café with the world going by, watching her.

  She wanted to keep her mind blank; wanted to stay there tucked away from reality. But she needed to look life in the face. If she dug hard enough she might work out what Samantha Seabrook’s killer had been after. And if she managed that, she might identify them.

  Within ten minutes, Tara was cycling down River Lane towards Riverside, past Victorian terraces on her left and new-builds on her right. You could tell it was Saturday without looking at the calendar. Several of the houses she passed still had their ground-floor curtains closed and the man and woman she saw walking along the pavement were moving at a leisurely pace. She was gesticulating, he was nodding. And then he laughed.

  It was only when she reached the end of the lane and cast her eyes right, down Riverside towards Stourbridge Common, that she realised something was wrong.

  Police. A lot of them.

  The iron gate that normally barred the entrance to the common had been opened and in the distance, in the meadows on the way to Fen Ditton, she could see more than one police van. Just beyond the vehicles, a tent had been erected and an area of common cordoned off.

  The hair stood up on Tara’s arms.

  In front of the scene, white-suited figures moved purposefully to and fro.

  She’d carried on cycling at a snail’s pace along Riverside, slowing to process what she was seeing. Now she stopped. Her legs were quivering, shivers running through them and up through her stomach. She tried to catch her breath.

  ‘They’ve only just started letting people on to the common again,’ a voice near her right ear said.

  She started and looked round. A man she vaguely recognised, wearing shirt, trousers, socks and sandals, had wandered across the way to talk to her. She thought he lived in one of the houses along there.

  ‘They were crawling all over the cattle grid and the pedestrian gate up until half an hour ago.’ He nodded towards her house. ‘You didn’t hear anything?’

  He clearly recognised her then. Knew where she lived. She’d made herself conspicuous. The weird woman who’d made her home in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I was away last night.’

  The man gave her a look from over his brown tortoiseshell glasses. ‘Just as well, by the look of things.’

  ‘Do you know what…?’ She let the sentence hang.

  ‘No one knows what or who,’ the man said. ‘They won’t tell us anything. They’ve sent the press away.’

  Tara’s phone started to ring. She didn’t bother to look at it.

  ‘Right.’

  She set off again. Her legs didn’t feel as though they’d got the strength to propel her but she kept going through the motions. She didn’t stop at her house, but ploughed on, towards the police cordon, bumping over the tufty grass, the smell of the cattle all around her.

  A uniformed officer was waving at her. ‘You can’t come any closer,’ the woman said. ‘Are you a journalist?’

  Best not to answer that one. ‘Is DI Blake here?’

  A momentary frown crossed the officer’s face and for a split second she glanced behind her. A few of the white overall-clad figures had clearly caught sight of their exchange. They were looking in Tara’s direction. And then one figure broke away from the rest and strode over to the cordon where Tara and the officer were standing.

  As the figure got closer she realised the eyes visible under the hood and above the mask were Blake’s. He turned to the uniformed officer. ‘This is Tara Thorpe.’

  Understanding sparked in the woman’s eyes and she walked away, just enough to give them some space.

  Tara looked at Blake and waited. She felt sick.

&n
bsp; ‘This is for your ears only,’ he said, ‘because of your involvement. If any of this goes public it’ll be my head on the block as well as yours. We want some time to get initial questions in before it all goes public.’ He was deathly pale and there were dark rings under his eyes.

  She nodded. ‘Understood.’

  ‘Chiara Laurito.’ He nodded over his shoulder, towards the tent. ‘We’ll be moving her body in just a moment.’

  She could hear the emotion in his voice and felt her chest tighten. Had he had any idea that Chiara might be a target? Or had his attention been focused solely on her?

  Blake turned to her again, his eyes haunted.

  Twenty-Eight

  Blake had only spent a second longer talking to Tara. He’d said he or one of the team would be in touch to talk to her again later. They would let her know if what had happened to Chiara gave them any more clues about the killer, and the way their mind was working. His words had been professional and controlled, but she could see from his eyes the effect that Chiara’s death had had. Visions of Samantha Seabrook’s glamorous PhD student filled Tara’s head as she stood near the window of her sitting room, staring out across the meadow towards the tent and the river. Why had Chiara been killed? Was it because she’d been outside Tara’s home? Perhaps it was somehow her fault that Chiara was dead.

  In her hand she held a note she’d found on the doormat when she’d let herself in. It was from her mother’s cousin, Bea.

  Darling – don’t think me an old fusspot, but I’ve started to worry. You’ve been a bit elusive recently and I popped round on the off-chance I might catch you in. I imagine you’re out on the town. I hope you’re having a lovely time. Don’t be a stranger. Bea xxx

  The note tugged at Tara’s insides. Bea couldn’t help worrying; it had been just the same when she’d looked after Tara as a child. And in trying to keep her out of what had been happening, to protect her, Tara had made her more anxious. What would she think when she saw the news of Chiara’s death?

  And when had she dropped the note round? When Tara had been at the garden party? Whilst she’d sat in the pub with Blake? Or later, when Chiara and her killer had been out on the common? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  She had to wait some minutes to control her reactions – pacing round the house to get rid of the wobble she could feel in her legs – but at last she sat down to call Bea. It was better she heard Tara’s version of events now, rather than reading about the murder outside her house and rushing over again in a panic.

  But she still wouldn’t mention the frightening dance she was performing, to the tune of someone who’d now killed two women.

  Blake and Emma Marshall stood outside a small but beautifully kept terrace in the Kite – a pricey area of Cambridge, close to the centre of town. Unusually, it had a driveway (which probably added fifty grand or so to the value of the place). On it was parked a Mini, finished in racing green. All the signs of a secure and comfortable life. He took a deep breath. He was still trying to assimilate the fact that Chiara Laurito was dead. Nothing had flagged her as a potential victim. He’d failed her and everyone who’d loved her. What had he missed? Even if the killer had lashed out this time, instead of employing the same meticulous planning they had previously, there would be a reason they’d targeted Chiara. And if there was a reason, he should have been able to predict what would happen. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to take a step back from his guilt and think. Samantha Seabrook and Chiara had been at daggers drawn, by all accounts. Who was it who’d had reason to kill them both?

  ‘What’s her name again?’ Blake asked. His mind had gone blank.

  ‘Mandy. Mandy Holden.’

  They looked at each other and then at the house Chiara Laurito had shared with her flatmate.

  ‘Better get it over with,’ Blake said, and they walked up the drive, along the narrow path.

  ‘Ms Holden?’ Blake said, to the woman who opened the door. She was tall and willowy with spiky blonde hair.

  She nodded and looked from one of them to the other, a frown tracing its way across her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We’re here because of your housemate, Chiara.’

  She was chewing her lip now. ‘Why? What’s this about?’

  He pulled out his warrant card. ‘Do you mind if we come in?’

  The woman took them down a hallway that was barely wide enough to accommodate the coats and shoe racks it housed as well as the incoming visitors. Blake wasn’t massively tall, but his shoulders were broad and he turned sideways to follow her into a compact front room. In it everything was designer, expensive and plush in rich colours. The armchair and sofa were covered in purple velvet. But each item was also in miniature. It had to be in a house that size. All the same, Blake knew for a fact that places round there went for four or five hundred thousand. He wondered what Mandy Holden did for a living. She didn’t have the look of a high earner, with her tie-dye crop top.

  ‘I’m afraid we have some bad news for you, Ms Holden,’ Blake said, as the woman motioned them to take a seat.

  She blinked quickly, and her frown deepened. ‘What do you mean?’

  He paused for a moment, then took a deep breath. ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that Chiara Laurito’s body was found on Stourbridge Common this morning.’

  Mandy Holden stood up suddenly. ‘It’s not possible,’ she said, moving towards the door. Within seconds she was striding up the steep staircase to the upper floor. They heard a door open, and then a half-shouted curse that turned partway through into a sob.

  ‘Hell,’ Emma whispered. ‘She didn’t even know she wasn’t upstairs in bed?’

  ‘Looks that way.’ If he’d realised he’d have tried to break the news differently.

  Mandy Holden came back into the room, her face pink, her eyes red. She clutched at her short hair, her fingers knotted. ‘What happened?’ she said, slumping down in the armchair.

  ‘I’m afraid she was attacked.’ Blake paused whilst she took it in.

  ‘Raped, you mean, before she died?’

  He shook his head. ‘The pathologist will be checking everything but on first appearances we don’t think so.’ He paused for a long moment. ‘She was strangled.’

  Mandy Holden’s head was in her hands now, her eyes closed tight. ‘Shit. Shit. I didn’t even know anything was wrong.’ She leapt up out of her chair again and paced the room, up towards the windows and then abruptly back again. ‘I can’t believe it. I just assumed she was in her room, sleeping it off. Why the hell didn’t I realise?’

  Emma stood too. ‘If you thought she was in her room you wouldn’t have known there was any reason to check. Please could you tell us what happened yesterday evening? We know Chiara was out at a garden party.’

  Mandy Holden rolled her eyes. ‘Oh yes. The institute late-summer garden party. I knew that would be trouble from the moment I saw the invitation arrive.’ She sighed. ‘Chiara didn’t find the institute all that easy, socially. She usually coped by getting tanked up at their events. But that just made her more outspoken than usual, which led to fresh problems.’

  Blake nodded. ‘So, what were you up to last night? You’re not associated with the institute yourself?’

  She shook her head. ‘Chiara and I are both attached to the same college. I’m researching for a PhD in psychology.’

  Blake nodded, and couldn’t help but glance around the room. ‘It’s a lovely place you’ve got here.’

  Mandy Holden put her head in her hands for a moment. ‘Chiara’s parents bought it for her. Said there was no point being fleeced for an outrageous level of rent when they could buy a place for her outright.’

  Outright. Okay.

  ‘Going back to last night,’ he said, ‘did you see Chiara after the garden party?’

  She nodded. ‘I was here when she returned, getting ready to go out with my girlfriend.’ She gave a quick sigh. ‘I’d been held up at work, so I was running late and it was a spec
ial occasion – her birthday – so I was already on edge. Then Chiara came in, drunk as usual – though I presume she must have sobered up a bit on her way home. She was upset, but I didn’t want to listen to another long ramble about the institute gang.’ She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I told her to make herself a cup of coffee and that she’d be able to cope a lot better with everything if she could stay sober for once.’ Her blue eyes were huge and full of tears. ‘I wasn’t very sympathetic.’

  ‘You couldn’t know what was going to happen,’ Emma said. ‘Sounds like sensible advice on the face of it.’

  Mandy Holden shook her head.

  ‘So, you left and went to keep your appointment?’ Blake said. ‘What time was that?’

  The woman frowned for a second. ‘Our table was booked for nine at the restaurant. My girlfriend didn’t finish work until eight, so it was a late-ish dinner. I arrived five minutes behind schedule, so I guess I left here around eight fifty?’

  ‘And you didn’t hear anything further from Chiara during the evening?’ Emma said. ‘She didn’t call or text?’

  Mandy Holden shook her head. ‘She’d no reason to. Sadie – that’s my girlfriend – and I went out clubbing after our meal and then back to her place for a bit.’ She looked down. ‘I would have stayed over, but she’d got to work this morning, so I came back here after that. I must have been home by around four.’

  Blake nodded. Emma was taking notes.

  ‘There was no sign of Chiara of course, but I could see she’d had her coffee.’ Mandy looked up and winced. ‘And then some brandy after that. She’d left a mess in that way people do when they’ve had too much to drink. The cafetière was in the kitchen sink, unwashed. There was a glass out on the coffee table here,’ she indicated it with her hand, ‘with a depleted bottle of Courvoisier next to it.’