by Clare Chase
Death Comes to Call
An absolutely unputdownable English cozy mystery novel
Clare Chase
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Hear More From Clare
Books by Clare Chase
A Letter from Clare
Acknowledgements
Death on the River
Murder on the Marshes
To the wonderful Westfield gang
One
Detective Constable Tara Thorpe’s eyes ran over the abandoned room. The light levels outside were already low, and a tall Anglepoise lamp shone out from one corner. The shadows it cast, thrown by a pair of easels and some high stools, ran like outstretched fingers across the room. The space was gloomy, and filled with canvases, rags and half-used bottles of turpentine. The smell of the solvent mingled with that of oil paint and dust. On a scuffed wooden table next to her sat a coffee-stained sea-green mug. There was a dead spider next to it, so insubstantial it looked as though the slightest breeze would turn it to dust. It wasn’t often that she got such an instant feeling of unease about a place.
The paintings she could see, stacked up against one wall, looked just as threatening as the weather outside. There had been a bitter cold snap over the last week and a half. It felt nothing like March and dusk was already taking hold though it was still afternoon.
The canvases were thick with paint in dark colours – indigos, greys, black and midnight blue. A lot of the images were of stormy fenland skies, reeds and waterways. She could see one of St John’s College Chapel, shown in near darkness, rain reflecting off its roof. Luke Cope – an artist and the missing occupant of the house she was standing in – had made it look like a place of evil. What kind of a person imbued everything they depicted with such an ominous atmosphere?
‘For God’s sake, I just need you to do something.’
Very understandable, of course, but the flak was undeserved. She evened out her expression and turned to face the man who’d spoken. Matthew Cope was tall, with deep brown eyes. His lips were white, his jaw set, cheeks tinged red. The rest of his face was pale. He was agitated all right. Agitated and angry.
‘I reported my brother missing over a week ago, and they send me you!’
The words came out in a rush, his pitch rising and uncontrolled as he finished his sentence. He took a deep breath – to steady himself, Tara assumed. She hoped it did the trick. She could understand he was concerned, and she could rise above the way he was treating her, but she’d rather not have to.
‘Have people told you Luke’s unreliable? Is that the problem?’ Cope didn’t pause long enough for her to answer. ‘Take it from me, this is completely out of character.’
Tara had read the case notes when she’d been sent to talk to Matthew Cope after the latest approach he’d made to the police. He’d been forced to admit that his brother had gone missing of his own accord before – but never for more than a night or two.
Cope paced up and down next to the table, which Tara now saw was makeshift – the planks of wood were balanced on piles of bricks. After a moment, he stopped and closed his eyes. ‘I want him found. I’ve got the worst possible feeling about his disappearance. Why the hell doesn’t anyone understand?’ He went on to bad-mouth the first officer who’d been to see him and ‘clearly done nothing’.
Tara decided to let him vent for a bit. She could appreciate his anxiety, but his lack of control over his temper was annoying. It was pointless to address his criticism of the police until he’d calmed down. Wade in now and she’d just be stoking an argument. She made use of her time by continuing to size up the room they were standing in.
The contents of the studio were incongruous with Luke Cope’s stately Cambridge villa. The other rooms she’d walked through were grand and elegant, but this large space at the back of the house was spattered with paint and full of clutter. That was fair enough; everyone had the right to do what they damn well liked in their own home. But there was something about this area that felt out of control; as though the occupier had been living on the brink. The carpet had been taken up to reveal bare, unvarnished boards. It was still rolled up at one end of the room, with paint spatters on its woven reverse side. The studio was just off the kitchen and Tara guessed it might once have been a very large utility room. Who could possibly need that much space to do their chores? There were cupboards on the walls – their paintwork chipped as though they’d been there for some years – and a lopsided wooden laundry pulley dangled from the high ceiling. All around there were bits of paper that had been torn or crumpled up tight and tossed here and there. Something about the way they’d landed spoke of a man with a short temper. Perhaps the brothers had that in common. She could see plates of half-eaten food dotted around: toast with a single bite out of it; an apple, nibbled on one side, then left to go brown. It must only be the cold that prevented the room from smelling of decay as well as the artist’s materials. A Stanley knife stood at a forty-five-degree angle to a work bench – its blade had been jammed into the wooden surface. She could imagine someone ramming it in like that in a moment of frustration.
Matthew Cope had stopped pacing. She met his look, keeping her eyes sympathetic, whatever she felt inside. Her journalist’s instinct, ingrained and automatic, served her well now she’d retrained as a police officer. She wanted him to open up, because this place gave her the creeps like nobody’s business. Luke Cope’s case wasn’t an official priority, but her antenna told her something was off.
At last her patience had the desired effect. He pushed his fingers through his thick hair. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry. It’s just – well.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘Truth to tell, my brother’s caused me a lot of grief over the years. I’m anxious, but I suppose at least part of me is angry at him for causing me so much worry.’ Tara reckoned the anger was winning. ‘If I could just be sure people are actively looking for him… It feels as though everything’s gone quiet.’
‘It can seem like that when everything’s happening at arm’s length,’ Tara said. ‘I’m here to make sure we’ve covered all possible angles of enquiry.’ But Luke was an adult and not considered vulnerable. She knew her colleagues had already followed the standard procedures. It was chilling that someone co
uld just walk out of their life like that and – unless they were seen as at risk – there wasn’t much you could do about it. For a second she imagined it being someone she loved – Bea, for instance – the woman who’d brought her up whilst her mother had been busy with her acting career. It didn’t bear thinking about: the not knowing.
The man was shifting his weight uneasily from foot to foot now. ‘I thought maybe they’d send someone more senior at this stage. I wanted to…’
She longed to tell him he was lucky to have her. She wouldn’t stop digging if she thought something was off, even if it meant working in her own time.
Tara waited for him to continue but it was clear he’d changed his mind about confiding. She could see he was chewing the inside of his cheek. What had he been going to say? Something he felt he could only raise with a higher-ranking detective?
‘Please, tell me what’s on your mind, Mr Cope. I can either handle it or pass it on. If you’ve got extra information, it can only help your brother.’
The man shook his head sharply. ‘I’m not sure that’s the case.’
Interesting… She waited. He was close to coming across with extra information, she could tell. Pausing for long enough usually did the trick. Most people were amazingly uncomfortable with silence.
‘I was worried about Luke before he disappeared,’ he said at last. ‘About the way his mind was working.’
‘Why was that?’
He frowned, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again before taking a deep breath and starting afresh. ‘I hadn’t really intended…’ He broke off and pursed his lips, shaking his head. ‘Dear God, this is no good. It might be best if I show you. It’s not something I wanted to share, but if it’ll make you take this seriously…’ He turned his back on her and strode to the opposite side of the space, where he began to rummage through a series of paintings. The pictures were facing away, towards the wall that they leant against, so that she could only see the frames and the backs of the canvases. Matthew Cope had crouched down and was pulling them back one by one, resting them against his knees as he scanned the compositions.
At last he selected one from the pile, lifted it free of the others and let the rest fall back again.
He stood up. ‘Possibly I should have mentioned this when I first called. I’m quite sure it’s not directly relevant to Luke’s disappearance. But, if I share it with you in confidence…’
Before she had time to warn him it might have to go further, Matthew Cope had turned the canvas so Tara could see the picture. For a second, before she looked down, her eyes were still on his. He averted his gaze.
The painting was of a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, her head resting on a scarlet cushion. The picture only showed her head and shoulders, but she looked as though she was naked.
And around her neck was a pair of hands, tightening over her windpipe…
Two
It wasn’t just the subject matter of Luke Cope’s painting that was shocking; it was the feeling he’d managed to put into the image – the raw violence. ‘Who is she?’ Tara said, slowly. ‘And how is she connected with your brother?’
‘Her name’s Freya Cross. She works at a gallery called Trent’s just outside Cambridge, where Luke shows his paintings.’ He hesitated. ‘They’re friends, too.’
There was nothing friendly about the scene in the painting, but the nudity made Tara wonder. ‘She and Luke are in a relationship?’
Matthew Cope looked uncomfortable. ‘Freya’s married. But – well – I’d suspected there might be something going on before I saw this.’ He indicated the painting. ‘Of course, I knew Luke couldn’t have acted on what he must have been imagining when he painted her. It would have been reported if anything had happened to Freya. But the idea that he’d been having that sort of thought just before he disappeared makes me think he was close to the edge.’
No kidding…
‘How did you come to see the painting?’ She couldn’t imagine Luke Cope showing it off.
‘I was round here one night. He’d been ranting on about Freya all evening. They’d clearly quarrelled about something. Luke had drunk a lot and after a while he fell asleep on the couch there.’ He pointed to a sort of day bed at one side of the large room, covered in a tattered throw. ‘It was only then that I spotted it. The paint was still wet.’
‘He didn’t give any hint about why they’d fallen out?’ Tara’s stomach was tense.
Matthew Cope shook his head.
‘Have you ever known him to be violent… apart from in his imagination?’
‘No.’
Tara looked at him sharply. Had he answered too quickly? ‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘Could you take me back to the beginning please?’ Having read the case notes was all very well, but hearing Cope’s account face to face would be much better. She wanted to see the subconscious signs he gave off as he talked. What did he really think of his brother? ‘You realised something was up around ten days ago?’
She walked up and down the room to try to keep warm. She was only one step away from shivering. She was wearing a hazelnut-brown tweed trouser suit – a present from her mother which she secretly rather liked. It was more flattering than she’d expected, and warm too, but still no match for the current temperatures.
Matthew Cope nodded. ‘That’s right. We were meant to be meeting up for a drink at the Snug, a week ago Saturday.’ Tara knew the place. A trendy little bar that described itself as bohemian, and a home for intellectuals… Enough said. ‘When he didn’t show up I called his mobile first, but there was no reply. After that, I came round here and knocked. When I got no answer I wrote him a note – asking him to call me – and pushed it through the letter box.’ Cope paused to drag in a deep breath. ‘The following day I called him again, four times. It was then that I started to feel really uneasy. No replies to any of my attempts to reach him and my head was still full of that damned painting. What is it that they say about the balance of someone’s mind?’ He put his hands up to his face for a moment. ‘By the Sunday evening I’d decided to let myself in, using his spare key. It felt like an intrusion, but I didn’t know what to think. Even when I managed to ignore the most dramatic thoughts I was having, the more mundane ones still worried me. My father died falling down the stairs.’ He paused. ‘Given Luke likes the odd drink, I wondered if he could have missed his footing and shared the same fate. But once I got inside there were no signs that anything was wrong. He’d just disappeared and my note was still sitting on the doormat.’ His eyes met Tara’s. ‘You can see there’s good reason to make a concerted effort to find him.’ His strident tone was making a comeback.
In fact, it was the woman, Freya Cross, who was the vulnerable one as far as Tara was concerned. But Matthew Cope was right: she was sure they’d have heard if something had happened to her. After all, she was local and had someone at home to raise the alarm if she went missing.
‘Okay. We need to take this step by step and look at all the options.’ She’d already read his answers to the standard questions, from whether he’d checked the local hospitals, to if there were any signs Luke had intended to stay away overnight. And when he’d first made the report he’d confirmed that he’d spoken to Luke’s friends too, but time had passed between now and then.
‘Have you called his contacts again, to see if they’ve heard anything from him?’ She glanced around at the evidence of Luke Cope’s career. ‘I presume he’s freelance, so there’s no place of work to check?’
Matthew nodded. ‘He sells his artwork for a living – or tries to – he doesn’t make much. His work’s first class, but he’s no salesman. You have to be hard-nosed – or team up with someone who is.’
Again, she could hear Cope’s frustration. But his brother must be doing all right, to be living in a place like this. Tara ran her eyes over the expansive room.
‘The house was handed down by my parents.’ Matthew must have read her thoughts. ‘It was here that my fat
her fell down the stairs. It’s not officially Luke’s yet – we each had property left to us in trust until we’re forty.’ He raised an eyebrow and gave her a look that challenged her to make a comment. ‘Some people feel that’s rather Victorian, but my parents didn’t want us to have too much too soon.’
She looked at the room again. For a moment she wondered what the Copes senior would have thought – having part of what had been their smart Cambridge home turned upside down like this. Tara’s own mother was always incredulous about the way Tara chose to live – though she fondly imagined she managed to hide the fact. Tara’s house wasn’t chaotic though – just lonely and in a poor state of repair.
Matthew Cope’s sigh – short and sharp – brought her focus back to him. ‘But to answer your question, I’ve called round the friends I know about, and they haven’t heard anything from him. This is going over old ground. I assumed when I showed you the painting things would move up a gear.’
‘So, you’ve contacted Freya Cross, I presume, to see if she knows where your brother is?’ Tara kept her tone calm, despite the rising annoyance in his voice.
She’d wrong-footed him by the look of it. His haughty, irritable expression morphed into one of uncertainty. In spite of the situation, Tara found it hard not to feel pleased.
