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

by Clare Chase

  ‘Afternoon, Megan,’ he said, hiding what he really thought of her with a smile.

  ‘Afternoon, sir.’ Very formal, but he was pleased she was still acknowledging him as her superior. And maybe their meeting had some benefit after all. It suddenly occurred to him that what he had said in his disciplinary meetings wouldn’t have reached the wider staff.

  Down the corridor to their right he could see that there were no other officers currently standing by the coffee machine. ‘If you’re going for a quick shot of caffeine I might join you before I head off?’

  She nodded and turned in the direction of the drinks station. ‘Of course.’

  Once she’d got her coffee from the dispenser she turned to him. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Black coffee as well. Thank you.’ Maybe Maloney would be more receptive than Fleming. She’d had to deal with Tara Thorpe joining the team too – she’d be aware of how bossy the woman was. And how much she was given her head; she counted herself as more accomplished than the others, and Fleming and Blake seemed to believe the hype. If Maloney had any sense – a moot point – she might feel the same resentment that he did.

  ‘How are things in the team?’ he asked, taking his drink from the DC.

  ‘Busy.’

  That was a non-committal answer if ever he’d heard one. And her tone was still cool. She was avoiding his eyes. There was an awkward pause.

  ‘Listen, Megan, I know everyone was furious with me before Christmas, and I can understand why. I overstepped the mark.’

  He was disappointed and surprised to note the woman’s look in response. She clearly thought his words were an understatement.

  ‘When I come back’ – well, if, but it was better for his cause if Maloney thought of it as ‘when’ – ‘when I come back, I’d like my colleagues,’ he avoided the word subordinates, even though it was what he was thinking, ‘to understand why I acted as I did. That way, even if they feel I made an error of judgement, they can at least understand why that was.’

  He barely had the patience to make his case. Part of him felt it simply wasn’t worth his time and effort. But he owed it to himself – and to people who had been under his direction, for God’s sake – to set the record straight. And if it robbed DI Blake and Tara Thorpe of an easy ride, that was all to the good.

  Maloney didn’t respond, but she met his eyes, waiting for him to carry on. Her decision not to encourage him or sympathise in any way made him feel hot under his jacket. She was being bold. She might have called him ‘sir’ just now, but the balance of power between them had still changed. After his downfall she felt herself to be pretty much his equal. Maybe even better than he was. His sweat now was brought on by anger. If he was going to use this opportunity he’d better make it count.

  ‘I’m afraid I was frustrated by the way certain elements of the team were working,’ he said at last. ‘Now, you might be perfectly happy with how things have been since Tara Thorpe joined us.’ He took a deep breath to counteract the anger coursing through his system and held up a hand when she threatened to interject. ‘If you are, then that’s fine. But one thing: I’d suggest you keep a very close eye on DI Blake and DC Thorpe – the way they work together, I mean, their body language, any preferential treatment Thorpe might get, any odd decisions you think DI Blake might have made, under her influence. You see, I saw the two of them together once, and their feelings… Well, let’s just say their feelings for each other won’t necessarily benefit the team as a whole.’

  He left out the fact that the occasion he was referring to had been nearly five years ago now, when Blake had been separated from his wife – and that Tara Thorpe had been receiving artificial respiration from another officer at the time, having almost drowned. He’d never forgotten the look of anguish on his boss’s face. He’d known immediately that his feelings for Tara Thorpe were something out of the ordinary. The pair of them had each been investigating the same murder – she as a journalist, he as a detective – and Tara had shared some of her information with Blake and the police. Their cosy chats must have had an effect.

  Blake might have decided to give his marriage another go, but Wilkins was in no doubt that his feelings for Tara Thorpe remained. And Wilkins dated his own problems at work to when she’d joined their team and started to question his judgement.

  His eyes met Megan Maloney’s again. ‘If you don’t notice anything untoward you can put this conversation out of your head,’ he said. ‘But it’s best you’re alert to the possibility. I wouldn’t want the way you and Max are treated – for instance – to be affected by their relationship.

  ‘Anyway,’ he swigged the bitter dregs of his coffee, ‘I’ll see you soon.’ He turned and walked back towards the exit. He had no evidence at all of any ‘relationship’ between Blake and Thorpe, in fact, as DCI Fleming had pointed out, furiously, her eyes flicking to the detective chief superintendent. But it was as well to sow the seeds of doubt in Megan Maloney’s mind. It was for her sake – hers and Max’s. He’d been their boss and they needed to know he’d got their backs. His own feelings didn’t come into it.

  As he let the station door swing shut behind him he unfurled his umbrella with a sharp, angry movement, scaring a pigeon that had been sitting on the paving just outside. It flapped away noisily. Idiot bird. The whole world was full of idiots.

  Ten

  Blake dashed into the incident room slightly late for the briefing. He’d come straight from Addenbrooke’s and witnessing Freya Cross’s post-mortem. It wasn’t an experience he’d ever get used to – and he’d worry if he did. He tried to banish the dead woman’s pale flesh from his mind. Fat chance.

  As he entered the room he saw Tara and Max at the front, near the display boards, talking to DCI Fleming, who glanced over and met his eye as he approached. His boss looked as though she’d got something on her mind – more than just the murder. No doubt she’d offload on him sooner or later. Behind them, Blake could see photos of Freya Cross in life and death, as well as one of a Byronic figure. He walked closer to the board.

  ‘That’s Luke Cope?’

  Tara nodded.

  The man looked every bit the impassioned artist – full, sensitive lips and a slightly wild spark in his eye. He’d be easy to recognise once they did catch up with him.

  ‘Let’s make a start now,’ DCI Fleming said, achieving instant hush. She’d had her hair done two weeks earlier and Blake couldn’t get used to it. The jet-black dye was still in place, but the spikes had gone. She’d had the whole arrangement slicked down into a sleek pixie crop.

  He took a seat in a chair next to Kirsty Crowther and glanced across at Tara, wondering what she’d been passing on to Fleming. He took in her red-gold hair, her neat frame and the look of challenge in her eyes. In an instant his mind ran back to when he’d sat opposite her, flirting in a pub, yet still resolutely turned back to a wife who’d betrayed him to try to save his marriage. What the hell had he been thinking?

  ‘What’s the news from Agneta?’ Fleming asked, pulling Blake out of his thoughts.

  ‘The conditions outside over the past week mean it’s hard to be absolutely precise over her time of death, but Freya Cross’s stomach contents indicate her last meal was the one she had with her husband on Friday twenty-third February, so I think we can assume she died at the Paradise Nature Reserve that night. There’s no sign of intercourse before she was killed, and her death was suffocation caused by strangulation. There were strands of her scarf embedded in her skin.’

  Fleming nodded.

  ‘What we didn’t expect was that she’d also had a blow to the head. The wound was to the side of her skull, but the snow banked up around her meant we missed it when she was lying on the ground. It might be that the killer wanted to subdue her before finishing the job. It would have given them the chance to tighten the scarf round her neck without so much resistance.’

  ‘It begs the question, why not just finish the job by bludgeoning her to death?’ Fleming
said.

  Ever practical, the DCI. ‘The killer might simply have got squeamish.’ It seemed highly hypocritical to Blake that murderers might find some methods more palatable than others, but it appeared to be the case. ‘Or perhaps whatever they used for the initial blow wasn’t suitable. Agneta said it could have been something like a stone. If the killing was in anger, on the spur of the moment, they might have lashed out with that first, but realised it wasn’t big enough to smash through her skull at speed.’

  ‘Back to Luke Cope,’ Fleming said, ‘what’s being done?’

  ‘The warrant came through to enter his house. The CSIs have been checking for less obvious signs of trouble that might have been missed. If a third party killed both Luke and Freya they could have murdered Luke at his home. They’re searching for traces of blood, or anything that’s been disturbed, but there’s nothing doing as yet. We’ve put his number plate through all the usual systems too. The last time his car was picked up was when he drove past a camera on the ring road, the night before Freya’s death.’

  ‘Other than Luke, who do we have as suspects for Mrs Cross’s murder?’

  ‘Most obviously, the husband, Zach.’ Blake pictured the large, powerful man, sitting in his beautifully ordered Cambridge home. ‘His explanation of his wife’s plan to go away was vague at best, and he looked as though he was improvising. Meanwhile, the woman he says Freya was intending to stay with wasn’t expecting her. Freya’s employer, Jonny Trent, of Trent’s art gallery, says he called Freya’s home number when she didn’t come in for work. He spoke to Professor Cross who gave him the same story he told us – that she’d gone for a last-minute break having felt under pressure recently. If Zach Cross really believed that, he probably assumed Freya had told Jonny Trent herself that she wouldn’t be in, but everything about his story seems flaky. There are rumours that the marriage was under strain. That said, if he did kill his wife, then I’d like to know why he didn’t call Trent pre-emptively to make excuses for her absence.’

  Fleming nodded and turned to Tara. ‘I think you and Max have information to contribute there?’

  Tara relayed the conversation she and her fellow DC had had with another professor on the Crosses’ street, Cindy Musgrove, and how distant Freya and her husband had seemed at a recent drinks party. ‘And another neighbour, Diana Johnson, said she saw Freya walking towards Paradise Nature Reserve on Friday twenty-third and that she was carrying a holdall.’

  That put a new spin on things. He’d have sworn the professor had been lying about what his wife had taken with her.

  Tara glanced round at Blake, and her eyes held his for a moment before she spoke. ‘I’ve been trying to work out why the killer would have removed that luggage from the crime scene, and yet left her handbag next to her body.’

  Blake nodded. ‘A very interesting question.’

  ‘The first woman,’ Tara went on, ‘Cindy Musgrove, mentioned how resentful Oscar Cross, Freya’s stepson, was about his father remarrying. Apparently he’s only eight or nine years younger than Freya was.’

  ‘We should add him to our list of people of interest,’ said Blake. He glanced at Megan Maloney. ‘Megan, we’ll want to arrange an interview. And can you check his, Luke’s and the professor’s names for any previous trouble?’

  The woman nodded. ‘You might want to keep one of Luke Cope’s contacts in mind too, for possible involvement in some way.’

  Blake knew she’d been re-examining the list of the missing man’s acquaintances, as provided by his brother, Matthew. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘A Dr Imogen Field,’ the DC supplied. ‘She’s an ex of Luke’s apparently. They were together for three years, and the timing means it might be Freya Cross who superseded her. She says she hasn’t seen Luke and has no idea where we might find him.’

  ‘Useful knowledge. Thanks, Megan.’ Blake faced the room as a whole again.

  Before he could speak, Fleming butted in. ‘Certainly, a top priority has to be to find Luke Cope.’

  No, really? ‘I agree, ma’am,’ he said, trying to relax his knotted shoulder muscles. ‘I’m not clear yet whether he’s our killer or a third party has murdered him and Freya too. Zach Cross has a motive for wiping them both out, but I’m not so sure about his son. Unless Oscar found the pair of them playing around. If he already blames Freya for breaking his family apart, finding her being unfaithful to his father might be enough to make him lose control.’ It didn’t seem likely though. Managing to kill them both, one by one, then move Luke Cope’s body, would have been no mean feat.

  As for Dr Imogen Field – she sounded interesting…

  Kirsty Crowther, the family liaison officer, lifted her hand and Fleming nodded for her speak. ‘Oscar Cross came with his father to identify Freya’s body,’ she said. ‘In spite of the horrific circumstances he didn’t show much sympathy for his dad’s upset. But Professor Cross’s shock and sorrow seemed genuine, as far as I could tell.’

  ‘I’ve also got my eye on Jonny Trent, the gallery owner,’ Blake said.

  ‘For what reason?’ Fleming looked at him from under her new un-Fleming-like fringe.

  ‘As well as employing Freya Cross he stocked Luke Cope’s artwork, so there’s a connection there.’ He gave them the background. ‘And for a moment, when I first showed my ID, Trent looked alarmed – though that could just be habitual. I appreciate no one relaxes when they’re visited by a detective. But throughout our conversation I got the impression he was trying to butter me up. And he claimed there were no tensions at all at the gallery, whereas the friend of Freya Cross’s in London said she thought Freya was having trouble at work.’

  ‘The neighbour, Cindy Musgrove, said she didn’t seem to want to talk about her job when she last saw her, too,’ Tara said. ‘And of course Freya was planning to tackle Jonny Trent about something the Monday after she was killed.’

  Blake nodded. ‘Trent claims not to know what her problem was.’

  ‘On top of all that he was definitely cagey when I called to ask to speak to Freya, before her body was found,’ Tara finished.

  ‘Interesting,’ Fleming said.

  ‘Not strong as evidence goes, I grant you.’ Blake knew what his boss was thinking, and he’d rather spell it out than pussyfoot around. ‘But Trent’s reaction to hearing the news about Freya Cross was odd as well. He turned away and walked across the room. He didn’t want me to judge his response. And when I mentioned that Luke Cope was missing too, he went pale. There’s something off about that man. I’m just not sure what it is yet.’

  Fleming nodded. ‘What do we have from Freya Cross’s phone?’

  Blake glanced down at the list he’d been given by the tech team. ‘Jonny Trent’s been texting her repeatedly since she went missing.’ For a second he remembered Trent claiming he’d tried to reach her because he’d been concerned. ‘The messages are each more impatient than the last. The first says: “We can sort this out, just give me a call. Everything will be fine.” Which does imply there were tensions at work. They carry on in a similar vein. The final one reads, “Where the hell are you? Call me”.’

  Fleming’s dark eyes met his. ‘He could still have killed her and then sent the texts afterwards to make his claims seem more plausible.’

  ‘He could have,’ Blake replied. ‘Though in that case you’d think he’d have made the messages match the “concerned employer” persona he was trying to portray when I spoke to him. But it’s possible. He could even have predicted this conversation we’re having now.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Fleming said.

  Blake nodded. ‘Two very interesting facts. One, Zach Cross didn’t text or call his wife for the entire time he supposedly thought she was away, visiting her friend. He said himself that she was troubled. You’d think he’d have at least tried to check in with her.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘There’s a text from Luke Cope’s number, earlier in the evening on the night Freya Cross died. It reads
: “Please, Freya, meet me. Usual place. Nine tonight. Give me a chance and we can start again.”’

  ‘What kind of car does Luke Cope drive?’ Tara asked.

  Megan Maloney answered. ‘A dark red Volvo.’

  Fleming raised her eyebrows. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Blake watched frown lines trace their way across Tara’s expressive face. ‘When I went to talk to Matthew Cope at his home earlier a dark blue Mercedes came at me at speed from the direction of his house – I assumed from somewhere further up the road. I thought back to it just now and looked on Google Maps. There isn’t anything beyond Matthew Cope’s place – just some fields. The road peters out. So, if they were visiting Matthew, I wonder what they could have been doing there. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am they were very keen to make themselves scarce.’

  Eleven

  Jonny Trent watched Freya Cross’s second-in-command, Monique, teeter down the gallery driveway towards her Mini Cooper. How could she afford such a stylish little runaround? He must be paying her too much. She was faffing around with her handbag now, must have mislaid her keys. She was good with the customers, especially the male ones, but not the brightest of specimens. Of course, in many ways that was a blessing. He hadn’t told her about Freya’s death. After all – he excused himself – the detective inspector had said the news was pending a formal identification of the body. And if Monique was going to spend a couple of hours or so blubbing, he’d rather she did it in her own time… She’d hear the details on the news, soon enough.

  Hurry up. Hurry up, woman!

  At last she reached down deep inside an inner pocket and found what she was looking for. Before she’d started her engine, Jonny was fetching his own car keys and locking up. For a second he stood looking up at one of Luke Cope’s paintings, so dramatic and so hard to sell. It was of a church somewhere out in the Fens: bleak and atmospheric. The sky was stormy, and behind one of the windows of the building Luke had added a streak of blood-red paint. Jonny had always felt the man was only a whisker away from violence. The trouble was, he wanted to make some kind of dramatic mark on history. Don’t we all, to begin with? But most people reached some kind of acceptance at some stage of the game. Jonny had. But Luke was still waiting for it to happen, and the lack of it seemed to fill him with a desperate kind of rage. And of course he was talented, that was the ironic thing.