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

by Clare Chase

  ‘We need to go.’ There was a meaningful look in his eye.

  After they’d said goodbye to Monique (who looked tearful) and Jonny (who looked worried), they both got into the car and Blake turned the key in the ignition.

  ‘Something new on our agenda?’ Tara asked.

  ‘Back to Professor Cross.’ He manoeuvred the car to face down the drive. ‘I directed a couple of constables to carry on going door to door, to try to mop up his neighbours who were out when you and Max started the job yesterday.’ He signalled right at the end of the driveway and waited for a gap in the stream of traffic which splashed through the deep puddles at the side of the road. ‘Turns out the professor’s next-door neighbour heard him and Freya having a noisy row, the night she left the house for the last time. They bumped into the professor in the street a couple of days later and asked after her. Apparently they were a bit worried. And when the professor said she’d gone off to see a friend, they guessed she’d maybe walked out.’

  He pulled onto the far carriageway and put his foot down.

  ‘They’re now wishing they’d called us, instead of talking to him…’

  Twenty-One

  If Professor Cross had looked wary last time they’d left him, it was nothing to how he appeared now, Blake thought. The trauma of discussing the discovery of his wife’s body – whether or not he’d been responsible – would have abated a little. Maybe now his own place in their investigation was sinking in.

  Blake planned to make the most of it – for the greater good. Before Tara had even sat down, and as soon as the professor sank into the same chair he’d occupied on their previous visit, Blake got stuck in.

  ‘We have a witness who says you and your wife argued immediately before Mrs Cross left the house on the twenty-third of February. A row so loud it could be heard from the street.’

  The colour came to the professor’s cheeks almost instantly. Not that Blake had doubted the neighbour’s word.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this when we spoke yesterday? It’s relevant information.’ But of course, it didn’t take a genius to work that one out; whether he was guilty or not, it didn’t look great. Whilst Zach Cross was still thinking about how to frame his answer, Blake went in again. ‘Why were you yelling at your wife?’ He wanted Cross so flustered that he’d fail to lie convincingly.

  The professor sat forward in his chair, his hands clasped together, knuckles white. Then suddenly he fell back against the cushions and put his palms over his face.

  ‘We already have several witnesses who say your marriage was in trouble.’ The guy was bereaved, but he might be a killer too. Blake couldn’t let him off the hook. ‘As well as rumours that Freya was having an affair. Was that why you were so furious?’

  At last the professor’s hands fell to his lap and he nodded. ‘I’d got no proof,’ he said. His eyes were open wide now, his jaw slack. ‘I might have been wrong.’

  Was this guilt at having killed his wife over what had only been a suspicion? Or horror at Freya having walked out to her death, on the back of upset he’d caused?

  ‘What triggered the argument that particular night?’

  ‘She wanted to go for a walk. It was a filthy evening – it seemed like a pretty odd time to take the air. When I said I’d go with her, she told me she wanted to be on her own “to think”.’ He took a tissue from his trouser pocket and blew his nose before carrying on. ‘But I suspected her of going to meet someone, and I told her so.’

  ‘And you believed that to be Luke Cope? You faced her with it?’

  The professor paused for a moment, tense again in his chair, but at last he nodded.

  ‘What made you think they were having an affair?’

  ‘You only had to hear Freya talk about him to know he’d cast a spell on her!’ His voice was angry now, and several times the volume it had been. Blake was starting to see how the neighbours had overheard him, the night of the argument. The man took a deep breath and Blake watched his powerful chest rise and fall. ‘You have to understand, Inspector, that Freya lived for her work. Art was her life. And here was a man she regarded as a troubled, undiscovered genius. Each time she spoke about him it was clear she was captivated. And when I saw them together the connection they felt was obvious.’

  ‘You were suspicious about their feelings for one another when you attended Luke Cope’s house-warming party?’

  He nodded. ‘There were at least fifty people in that makeshift studio of his, but when I watched them it was as though they were the only two in the room, sidestepping round everyone else, performing their own private dance.’

  For a second Blake thought of Tara. It sounded as though the pull between Luke and Freya had been intense. Relationships like that could lead to trouble. It made him think of Romeo and Juliet. These violent delights have violent ends… What had happened to make Luke so angry that he’d painted her dead? And maybe made the image a reality? Zach Cross had said Freya thought the artist was troubled. And Freya had asked Luke how he could have been so stupid, when they had argued. Tara had filled him in on their way over in the car.

  ‘What was your wife’s reaction, when you confronted her?’

  ‘She was angry, but she didn’t answer my accusation directly. She said she—’ He stopped abruptly and then restarted. ‘She said she felt constrained.’

  Blake wondered exactly how she’d put it. He guessed the professor’s pride wouldn’t let him echo her precise words. Trapped? Like a pet on a leash? He’d have been better off being explicit, rather than letting Blake’s imagination run wild. ‘And then?’

  ‘She told me not to come near her. She was crying by that stage. And she went out as she’d planned.’

  ‘Why did you lie to us about her taking overnight things?’

  ‘I stayed up until half past midnight, waiting for Freya to come back. I assumed at first that she was taking her time to teach me a lesson. But gradually it dawned on me that if she had gone to meet Luke, she’d probably decided to go off with him. If I didn’t trust her anyway, where was the benefit of meekly coming home and playing the loyal wife? So I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. The very next morning people started to ask where she was.’

  ‘Jonny Trent at the gallery?’

  Cross nodded. ‘Even though I’d concluded that Freya had walked out on me, I hoped she’d realise how foolish she was being and come back, once she’d had the chance to think. I certainly expected her to go into work. Luke Cope lives here in Cambridge too – there would be no barrier to her carrying on other aspects of her life as normal. Trent’s call, telling me she was absent, came as a shock but I’d already decided what to tell anyone who asked. I couldn’t face the gossip if I admitted we’d had a row, so I just kept repeating the same excuse to everyone: that she was taking some time out.’

  ‘Repeating a lie to your friends and colleagues is one thing,’ Blake said. ‘Giving it as part of a statement in a murder enquiry is on an entirely different level.’ He knew his anger was showing and he let it.

  ‘I didn’t kill my wife, Inspector,’ Zach Cross said. ‘It was for that reason that I wasn’t worried about glossing over why she walked out that night. I guessed someone would mention Luke Cope’s name sooner rather than later. You didn’t need me to put you onto him by washing our dirty linen in public.’

  But Blake was still incredulous. ‘I’d have thought your fury at the man you suspected of killing your wife would have overridden all that.’

  ‘Nothing I could do would bring her back. And I still have to live in this road, and work in a claustrophobic environment at my university department. If I once admitted to the row, people would always blame me for Freya having walked out into danger – at best. At worst they’d suspect me of killing her myself. That’s not a smear I want to live with, given my position.’

  But Blake still wondered. The professor would have every reason to lie if he was guilty of his wife’s murder, too.

  ‘So as far as you’re a
ware she didn’t take overnight kit with her,’ Blake went on. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing missing? You’d notice if pyjamas had gone, or make-up? Anything like that?’

  ‘I don’t keep an inventory of Freya’s things.’ The professor spat the words out, but then he sighed. ‘I didn’t see her packing anything of that sort, and I’m fairly certain nothing’s missing.’

  ‘Yet we have a witness who said she was carrying a holdall, as well as her handbag, when she left home.’

  ‘Dear God,’ the professor said, ‘what a street I live in; full of spies. Yes, she was carrying a holdall.’

  ‘Can you remember, did she fetch it after your row?’

  The question clearly wasn’t what he’d expected and he frowned for some moments. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘She must have had it downstairs already. She grabbed it just before she left, along with her handbag, and walked straight out.’

  Five minutes later, Blake and Tara were in the car again, on their way back to join Max and Megan. Blake had suggested they pick up some sandwiches to keep them all going. He wasn’t looking forward to returning to the artist’s empty house; he found the gloomy atmosphere oppressive. The weather wasn’t helping, either. It was still raining and the sides of the streets were awash with water.

  ‘So, we know Freya Cross had a text from Luke, asking her to go and meet him the night she left home,’ Tara said. ‘The professor was right; she wasn’t just after time to herself. And whatever she was up to involved carrying something to their meet-up – but likely not overnight gear.’

  Blake nodded as he upped the speed of the windscreen wipers. ‘Right. And someone – we assume her killer – removed her holdall. It might have contained something valuable, or something the killer didn’t want found.’ He swore. ‘There’s something I’m not getting here. I can’t work out how it all ties together.’

  ‘Zach Cross could have followed Freya if he was jealous and suspected her of seeing Luke. It would have been perfectly natural.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘He could have found them together, stunned Freya with the stone Agneta thinks was used and then killed Luke, before finishing the job with his wife. He’d be big enough to move Luke’s body without all that much trouble.’

  Blake nodded. ‘He could have taken his car round to the Lammas Land side of the nature reserve and picked up Luke’s body from there, then gone and dumped it somewhere, hoping we’d assume that Luke had killed Freya, then done a runner.’ He sighed. ‘What are the chances of Fleming letting us apply to get his car checked over, based on our clever speculation?’

  Tara give him a sidelong glance. ‘Slim.’

  She was slightly more optimistic than he was, clearly. For a moment they drove on in silence, but then Blake heard Tara curse under her breath.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Breaking news on Not Now’s website. Cambridge artist and rumoured lover of murder victim, Freya Cross, sought by police.’

  Blake swore harder than she had. With Patrick Wilkins on suspension he’d thought they’d have put a stop to this sort of leak. Clearly not. If he ever found out who’d passed the information on this time he’d be tempted to break the law himself, in the course of meting out justice.

  He’d been planning to run a statement and appeal for information on the man’s whereabouts once he’d spoken to Fleming, but he’d wanted to manage the news carefully, not have it come out in this haphazard way. Publicising the unsubstantiated rumour of his relationship with Freya Cross could cause them problems on several counts.

  ‘Ask Max to ring them,’ he said. ‘I’d like him to press them on their source.’

  There was a pause, during which he guessed Tara was considering arguing that she should be the one to tackle her old employer, but then thinking better of it. ‘Okay. I’ll call him.’

  As she exchanged news with Max, Blake mused on who could have contacted Not Now. It might not be one of their own, of course. If Luke Cope was innocent perhaps the leak had come anonymously from the guilty party, to make sure everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere.

  He was pulled out of his thoughts by Tara, who’d ended the call.

  ‘Max is going to call Shona f-word Kennedy and ask her,’ she said. ‘He had another update too. There was a painting of a windmill he and I both spotted when we were back at Luke Cope’s place. It looked like a fenland scene.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He and Megan have found three more drawings of what appears to be the same mill.’

  He glanced at her for a second.

  ‘Max wondered if it’s an area Luke Cope visits regularly. They’ve asked for advice, but I gather they’re having trouble pinpointing the location. The backdrops in the compositions don’t give much away. They’re going to keep searching.’

  ‘Good,’ Blake said. He pulled the car up outside a sandwich bar on Hills Road. ‘Any special requests?’

  ‘Something big.’

  He found himself grinning. ‘Noted.’

  He’d just undone his safety belt and opened the car door when Tara let out an exclamation.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The painting of Luke Cope’s at the gallery. Did you see it?’

  He nodded. ‘The fenland scene that looked a bit post-apocalyptic?’

  ‘That’s the one. I’ve just remembered: the angle meant you could see into some kind of channel of water below. He was looking down on the scene.’

  He frowned for a moment but then the penny dropped. Where had the man been when he’d painted it? ‘There aren’t many high vantage points in the Fens…’

  ‘Very few,’ Tara agreed. ‘And those that there are, are man-made. I wonder if Luke Cope could have been sitting high up in a windmill when he painted that scene.’

  Twenty-Two

  ‘What can you remember about the painting in the gallery?’ Blake asked.

  Tara was trying to conjure up the image. ‘I wish I could look at it again.’

  ‘I don’t want Jonny Trent to get wind of our suspicions. I don’t trust him.’

  ‘Nor me. He was watching and waiting this morning, I reckon. Hang on.’ She called up the website for Trent’s gallery. ‘His approach to business might be old-fashioned, but it sounds as though Freya was on the ball – and Monique too. With any luck…’ She found a selection of images of the current artworks on sale. ‘Yes. Here’s Luke’s painting.’ She noticed the church again – a small black silhouette against the skyline, with that very tall tower…

  Blake was craning over to see too, his head an inch from hers. ‘It’s familiar to you?’ he said, turning to meet her eye.

  ‘Yes. I’m just trying to think where from.’ She cast her mind back to childhood days, out in the countryside. The bus to primary school in a nearby village, cycle rides to isolated spots in summer where she could do her own thing without anyone hassling her, and then later—

  ‘Wait. When I got as far as secondary school I used to go into Cambridge. I spent half my time living with Bea anyway, so it made sense. But when I was travelling in from my mother’s house there was a bus route…’ She called up Google Maps on her phone, pinpointing her mother’s place and scanning the villages she used to have to travel past. She relived the route in her mind’s eye. Suddenly she had it. ‘The spire of St Peter and St Paul’s, on the outskirts of Whitwell.’

  ‘So where would Luke Cope have painted that picture from?’ Blake’s voice was urgent.

  She frowned for a moment. ‘I’m not sure. I would have viewed it end on from the north, but it was out on the edge of the modern-day settlement, so I reckon you’d be able to see it from other directions too. If I could just work out what that waterway is… but there are so many rivers and dykes in the Fens.’

  Blake was already keying the location of the church into the satnav. ‘Let’s get straight over there,’ he said. ‘We can look around and see if we can see a mill. I don’t want to risk going back to the house to get Max and Megan. Us going in and out might be how No
t Now picked up on our interest in Luke Cope in the first place. If they’re keeping an eye on the place I wouldn’t put it past Shona Kennedy to follow us and foul up our operation.’ He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘If we find the place we can call Max and Megan to follow us. Sorry about the sandwiches – but there are some emergency rations in the glove compartment. Why don’t you eat whilst I drive? If Luke Cope’s hiding out there, we’ll need to be on our toes.’

  It was already well after what most people would call lunchtime and Tara felt cold and hollow. She was slightly surprised to find four fruit and nut chocolate bars when she looked for the food he’d suggested. He didn’t have the physique of a man who had a snacking habit. Maybe they were for Babette – after all, she was eating for two…

  ‘Thanks.’ She took one. ‘Probably makes sense to keep well-fuelled.’ But as Blake pulled the car into a hasty U-turn she paused her unwrapping for a moment as a shiver of anticipation tickled her stomach.

  By the time they reached the Fens the sky had darkened still further. Tara scanned the road signs for Whitwell with her breath held. When at last they reached the turning, adrenaline was pumping round her system. Crazy. They didn’t even know if Luke Cope was still in the locality, let alone if he was guilty. But then she thought of the paintings they’d seen in his studio. Whatever his story, he’d want careful handling.

  Blake was totally focused on the road, and covering the distance at high speed. Neither of them spoke.

  At last Blake made the turn towards the village, driving through quiet, wet byways, past thatched cottages, until he reached Church Lane. As they ground to a halt in the gravel car park, the spire of St Peter and St Paul’s towered above them, slate grey against an even darker sky.

  She was out of the car before her DI, striding along the pathway which sloped upwards slightly as it reached the church doors and would give the best vantage point. She was looking in the direction she’d used to travel to school now. No mill. She shook her head at Blake, then walked round the perimeter of the church, scanning the skyline.