Death Comes to Call: An absolutely unputdownable English cozy mystery novel (A Tara Thorpe Mystery Book 3)

by Clare Chase

  Just before he’d got in his car, Tara had called him with an update. Luke Cope’s recent change of fortunes, allowing him to move back into the family home, was interesting.

  The entrance to the gallery came off the road between densely planted yew trees. As the day wore on the snow was continuing to melt, dripping off their leaves. Everything looked bedraggled. As he followed the winding driveway it was like entering the illustration of one of the books of fairy tales Kitty – his-but-not-his daughter – had at home. He loved reading her those stories, but whenever they had father–daughter time together, he couldn’t help thinking of that other man. The unknown guy who Babette had slept with – and who Kitty was tied to forever, without yet knowing it. She’d have to be told one day. Would that change the way she felt about Blake? He assumed she’d want to meet her biological father. If it were him, he would.

  A rabbit scampered out into the driveway, causing him to slam on his brakes and return abruptly to the present. The trees surrounding the route were still dense. Over the top of them now, he could catch a glimpse of tall chimneys which must presumably belong to the gallery. They could just as well have adorned an enchanted cottage in the middle of a wood.

  A little further on he could at last see the building in its entirety. He didn’t know what he’d expected before he’d set out, but it wasn’t this. The place looked like a large private house. Unlike most galleries it had no tall windows to let in the light and show off the artwork that must be on display. He wondered if it was where Jonny Trent lived, as well as worked.

  The forecourt was gravel and currently only home to three other cars, all smart and shiny, except for their undersides, which were inevitably spattered with mud and grit, thanks to the weather. He brought his own vehicle to a halt and got out, locking it and then looking curiously through the house’s windows as he made his way towards the door. The entrance was wide and wood-panelled with a fanlight over the top and a large old-fashioned-looking bell. He pressed it and heard a resounding single-tone buzz inside. As he waited, the sky darkened visibly. There’d be rain before he left again, he guessed.

  The man who came to the door was dressed in a brown tweed suit with a crisp white shirt, open at the neck. He had wavy grey hair, which was slightly darker in his beard and moustache, and an engaging twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Mr Jonathon Trent?’

  At his formal words, the man’s confident swagger dulled subtly, and his nod looked rather unwilling. Blake’s badge accentuated the effect, but within a second the gallery owner had controlled his reactions and reinstated the twinkle. Here was a man whose default setting was ‘charming’. A thick veneer over his natural character, Blake reckoned. Snap judgements ought to be avoided, obviously – except he was sure he was right.

  ‘What can I do for you, Inspector?’ Jonny Trent said. ‘We have a client with us at the moment. Perhaps you’d like to come through to my office and we can speak there?’

  Blake followed the man down an oak-panelled corridor. Through an open door he could see into what must have once been a drawing room. It still contained a couple of comfortable chairs and the odd side table. Other than that, it had been given over to the art on sale. The works hung on walls that were also panelled, just as the hall had been. There were stands holding prints too. A woman in a navy suit and high heels was hovering next to an elderly man with a walking stick, who was peering at one of the canvases, adjusting his round gold-rimmed glasses for a better look. Blake didn’t envy the woman. The idea of having to dance attendance on all comers for the sake of a sale sounded soul destroying.

  Jonny Trent walked them further down the corridor – the walls of which were also lined with art – and led Blake off to a room on the right.

  ‘My office. I removed the panelling in here. It’s a wonderfully atmospheric backdrop for displaying some of the artworks, but it does make our spaces rather dark, and I like to be able to see what I’m doing when I complete our paperwork.’ His eyes met Blake’s.

  The news that a woman’s body had been found in the Paradise Nature Reserve was already leaking out onto some of the online media sites, but Blake guessed Trent wouldn’t have seen it. He’d have been busy with his customers and he didn’t look like the sort to spend time glued to the internet in any case. His desk was full of ledgers that showed he tackled a lot of his work without the aid of a computer.

  Yet the man had seemed agitated when he’d seen Blake’s ID. Did that mean anything? Did he somehow know independently that his employee had been murdered? Or was it simply that the police seldom brought good news?

  ‘So,’ Trent motioned Blake to take a seat on an upholstered upright chair, still smiling, ‘what can I do for you?’ He took a seat himself, behind his leather-inlaid desk.

  ‘I’ve come to ask about your gallery manager, Freya Cross.’

  Trent frowned. ‘Is this pertaining to the call I had from a colleague of yours yesterday? I hadn’t expected to receive a visit in person.’ Blake was sure his expression was meant to convey polite surprise, but he didn’t buy it. Why was the man acting? Did he know something about the woman’s death? Or was he expecting some other kind of trouble?

  Instead of answering, Blake opted for an old gambit. ‘But I expect you must know why I’m here?’ It probably wouldn’t get Trent to say anything he shouldn’t, but it was worth a go.

  The debonair man put his head on one side. ‘I’m afraid I don’t, Inspector.’ But again Blake had the impression that he was bluffing. There was unease behind those shifty eyes.

  ‘It seems Mrs Cross left her home just over a week ago, apparently to stay with a friend, but she never arrived.’

  The frown on Jonny Trent’s face deepened. ‘Oh, dear me. Really?’ He sat back in his chair and turned his palms upward. ‘That’s very worrying. As a matter of fact, I’ve been texting and calling her all week but she never replied.’

  Blake thought of Freya Cross’s mobile in the handbag found just a foot from her body; imagined it ringing, out there in the nature reserve, until its battery ran flat. If the weather hadn’t been so bad a passer-by might have heard it and gone to investigate.

  ‘I understand Professor Cross told you that his wife needed some time off at short notice? ’ Blake said.

  Jonny Trent nodded. ‘He did indeed.’

  ‘And yet you still tried to contact her. Why was that?’

  A trace of irritation touched the man’s face but it was gone in an instant. ‘I was concerned for her, naturally. It wasn’t at all usual for her to let me down at the last minute like that. Zach was pretty cagey about why she’d taken off as she did.’

  ‘What explanation did he give, exactly?’

  ‘He said she’d been suffering from stress and repeated migraines and that she needed emergency leave.’

  ‘And when did he call to tell you this?’

  ‘A week ago yesterday. But he didn’t ring me – I rang him. Freya was two hours late.’

  Interesting. ‘How did he sound, when you asked where Freya was?’

  Jonny Trent shrugged. ‘As though he’d been thinking of something else, and had to drag his mind back to the matter in hand, if you know what I mean. But then that’s academics for you. Heads in the clouds. Once he’d managed to focus he apologised and said he’d meant to ring but he’d been lecturing.’

  Blake made a note to check his timetable. Had the man been making excuses? If he’d killed his wife he’d have every reason to call her employer with an excuse, to buy himself some time. But he might have been too stunned to think straight.

  ‘He told me straight away after that that she’d gone to stay with a friend, and why,’ Trent finished.

  ‘You must have been cross, having been given no notice like that.’

  Trent shrugged. ‘I live here – the upstairs is converted into a flat – so I’m quite used to taking charge. And I was able to ask Monique – the lady you saw along the corridor, Freya’s assistant – if she could do some extra hours. I w
as surprised, rather than cross.’ That smile again. The man was trying to win him over. Something about him made Blake’s skin crawl.

  ‘She’d shown no signs of being under strain here, then?’ Blake said.

  ‘Not at all. We worked well together and the business is going swimmingly.’

  ‘There were never any tensions? You always agreed on the way things should be run?’ That really would be unusual…

  ‘Oh!’ Trent laughed. ‘That’s absolutely Freya’s domain, Inspector. It’s why I employ her. She’s the brains of the organisation. I just show up to chat to the clients and add a bit of colour to the place.’

  Blake could imagine him revelling in that side of the operation. As for the claim that it was always sweetness and light between him and Freya, he took that with a pinch of salt. Talking to her assistant, Monique, might be helpful. But not when Jonny Trent was around.

  ‘But now you have got me worried,’ Trent went on. ‘Why the official visit, and all these questions?’

  Blake watched him closely. ‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that the body of a woman has been found in the Paradise Nature Reserve in the Newnham area of Cambridge, just round the corner from Mrs Cross’s home. There’s been no formal identification as yet.’

  Jonny Trent raised his left hand and put it over his mouth. ‘Good heavens. How awful.’ He stood up, turned his back on Blake and walked over to the window. ‘I just need to take a moment.’

  A moment when Blake couldn’t see his reactions…

  It was thirty seconds or so before he turned back to face the room again – not long, but long enough to control whatever emotion he really felt at the news. Or to disguise his lack of shock if it hadn’t been news at all.

  ‘Mr Trent, we understand Freya intended to talk to you about something in particular last Monday. She’d marked it on her calendar. Can you think what that might have been?’

  He was still monitoring the man’s facial changes intently and swore he saw a little extra colour come to his already florid cheeks.

  ‘How very odd to make a note of it like that,’ he said after a moment. ‘She could talk to me at any time. I’m always available to my staff.’

  Blake wasn’t quite sure he believed in the ‘Britain’s best boss’ persona Trent was trying to convey, but he’d thought it odd himself. Maybe Freya had been trying to shelve the worry of whatever it was she needed to say, as Tara had suggested. What could have been that daunting?

  ‘I gather you stock artwork by Luke Cope?’ Blake said.

  The look Trent gave Blake in response was suddenly sharp, cutting through the apparent upset traced across his features. ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Did Freya Cross know Luke well?’

  The man’s chest rose and fell. ‘Fairly well, I think. I had the impression they met outside work sometimes. We were all at Luke’s house-warming party, for instance. I wasn’t quite sure…’

  ‘Mr Trent?’ Blake wasn’t certain if he was pausing for effect.

  ‘I wasn’t quite sure how far their friendship went. I could tell Freya’s husband was a little – shall we say – uneasy about the way they interacted.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  Trent gave a shrug. ‘Luke had had a few too many drinks. He was standing very close to Freya and she didn’t brush him off as quickly as she might have. After that, Zach encouraged her to leave the party. He was rather heavy-handed about it.’

  ‘I see. Have you seen Luke recently?’

  The man raised an eyebrow, then frowned. ‘No. His brother called me, as a matter of fact, just over a week ago, asking me that same thing. Why do you want to know?’

  He looked rattled. Blake smiled inwardly and decided not to answer his question. The more jittery he got, the better. ‘When did you last meet?’

  The man opened his mouth again, glanced at Blake and evidently thought better of it. Instead, he sighed, then leant to one side and opened a desk drawer. A moment later he had a leather-bound diary on his desk. He opened it and flicked back through the pages. ‘He last came in three weeks ago, or thereabouts,’ he said, showing Blake the entry. ‘We’d sold one of his paintings and he brought a replacement to fill its place.’

  ‘His works sell well then?’ Not what the police had been told, but he was interested to see what sort of spin Trent would put on the truth.

  ‘Not terribly, to be honest. Before that we hadn’t sold one of his since October.’

  ‘But you keep stocking his works. Why is that?’

  Jonny Trent looked him straight in the eye. ‘He’s a good artist. A lot of what we sell is popular because it’s pretty and unchallenging, or derivative. I do well out of those pieces and that means I can keep stocking artists whose output is actually meaningful. It’s a huge privilege.’

  All very laudable. ‘You haven’t tried to contact Luke in the last week?’

  ‘I haven’t.’ Jonny Trent ran his tongue over his lips. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘He’s missing. His brother, Matthew, reported it just over a week ago. Do you have any idea where he might be, other than his home address?’

  The gallery owner’s face was a blank. ‘None whatsoever,’ he said. ‘He was living in a flat on Histon Road before he moved into the house off Trumpington Road, but that was rented, and the landlord will have got someone new in. I can give you the address if you want it?’

  Blake nodded. He took the contact details for Freya’s assistant, Monique, too. He wanted to get her when she wasn’t with gallery clients. A relaxed conversation was what he had in mind…

  As he drove back towards town, down the wide road, past flat fields and farm shops, his mind was full of Luke Cope and Zach Cross. Possible motives for the murder of Freya Cross seemed to abound, though they were all based on speculation at the moment. He needed to talk to more people. If Luke and Freya had been having an affair someone ought to have more details. And Luke Cope must have run somewhere – unless Zach Cross had killed them both.

  And then there was Jonny Trent. How did he fit into it all? He’d been happy to drop Zach Cross in it – portraying him as a jealous man – and equally happy to hint that Freya had had a fling with Luke Cope, which would automatically make him a suspect. Yet he’d championed the man’s work.

  And on top of all that Blake was sure Jonny Trent had been hiding something.

  Seven

  Patrick Wilkins – Detective Sergeant Patrick Wilkins, dammit, even if he was currently suspended – was standing opposite Parkside police station, on the edge of Parker’s Piece. The expansive green behind him was all but empty today, just the odd person dashing across, away from town, their heads bent against the weather. Wilkins had an umbrella with him, a decent one from Aspinal of London. He made it a rule to spend the most he could afford on both clothes and accessories, even if it meant saving up for a while. Appearances mattered; it made sense to do yourself justice when you set out in the morning.

  The umbrella meant he had no need to dash into the station, out of the rain, and he certainly had no other urge to hurry.

  He was bound for his third disciplinary meeting. Third! He remembered DCI Fleming’s face from the second one. Her look had gone from patronising and firmly practical at the start to barely controlled by the end. She’d kept up appearances of course, but she’d been infuriated underneath. That had been in response to his defence of his actions. She hadn’t liked him airing his grievances about Tara Thorpe, but it had been when he’d started on his DI that her cracks had really begun to show. Karen Fleming set a lot of store by Blake, Wilkins knew, but it wasn’t just that. What DCI Fleming really couldn’t stand was anyone questioning her as a leader. Especially not in front of the chief super… Fleming was reasonable on investigations – you could argue the toss with her about a lead you wanted to follow, for instance, and talk her round if your idea was good. But question her management style or choice of staff and fair play went out of the window. She was woefully blinkered. For a second, Wilkins tried
to imagine what it would be like to work in her team again.

  He couldn’t.

  But the options before him were stark. What would he do if he resigned, with no regular income and no glowing references? He glanced up at the umbrella over his head. No more shopping at Aspinal of London, that was for sure. And none of it was even his fault.

  But he had contacts who might help him out if he decided to resign; other people who’d been ‘Tara Thorped’ in the past.

  He glanced at his watch. It was time to go and face the panel again. Should he just turn around and walk away?

  But he hadn’t finished telling his side of the story yet. He was going to carry on repeating it to anyone who would listen.

  Eight

  Tara was on her way back to Newnham, driven by Max Dimity.

  The news that it was Freya Cross’s body that had been found in the Paradise Nature Reserve had started to filter out. Her stepson had been informed and the official identification of her body had taken place. At that moment Blake and DCI Fleming were giving a statement to the press.

  Tara had had a quick look at Not Now magazine’s website earlier, to see if Shona Kennedy had been ahead of the pack of newshounds. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d managed to squeeze privileged information out of a contact on the force. But in fact, all they’d reported so far was that the police were attending a ‘serious incident’ at the nature reserve. She glanced down at her screen again now and watched as ‘Breaking News’ scrolled across the publication’s website.

  Body found at Paradise Nature Reserve is wife of local professor.

  Tara flung the phone back into her bag. Five years earlier, when she’d worked at Not Now, she’d have made damn sure the report referred to Freya as a ‘local gallery manager’, not just someone’s wife.