by Clare Chase
‘Heroin?’ What was Tara onto? ‘What was the vehicle?’
‘A dark-blue Mercedes.’
Blake felt cold. ‘Wasn’t it a navy Merc that almost hit her, when she went to visit Matthew Cope?’
Max nodded slowly. ‘I think you’re right. She might have headed back out that way, I suppose, after she’d finished with Vicky.’
‘Without bothering to let us know? That’s typical of her attitude.’ Megan’s voice was sharp.
Blake took a deep breath. Tara should have told them, but sitting around bad-mouthing her was hardly the right response, especially under the circumstances.
‘Want me to head over there and check?’ Max said.
Megan’s eyes were on him, Blake noticed. Why was managing a team always so bloody complicated?
‘Yes.’
‘Though she might have gone to Luke Cope’s house for all we know,’ Megan said. ‘If she was talking to the sister a moment ago they might have discussed the woman’s inheritance.’
‘True… we should check both locations. Get over there, will you, Megan? See if you can find her.’
Megan was too professional to tut at her boss, but he could tell the impulse was there. He wanted to accompany one or other of them. Tara’s phone call and her unresponsiveness now told him there was a problem. His mind flitted from one option to another as he tried to predict Tara’s moves. Where would she have gone?
She must have spotted the car again and, if it was linked with a drugs racket, he was guessing she might suspect Matthew Cope knew more than he was saying. Heroin – it was the common link. A heroin case associated with the pub where the older brother had been drinking, and with the car that had been seen driving back towards town from the direction of his house.
Blake made his decision. ‘I’ll come with you, Max. If she thinks she’s onto new information about Matthew Cope, my bet is she’ll have gone back to his territory.’
And now, Megan did tut.
Forty-Three
For a split second, Tara thought of using the same tactic on Matthew Cope a second time. Shooting wasn’t the only thing you could do with a gun: smash it into someone’s hand and you had a fair chance of knocking what they were holding clear. But the older Cope brother was one step ahead of her now. Even as she jerked forward he slashed at her with his knife, cutting across the fingers of her right hand. It was she who dropped her weapon.
For a second, she was so shocked she didn’t even feel the pain. It was fury she was conscious of, rising up in her gut. She couldn’t believe she’d bungled the move and couldn’t bear the thought of him subduing her. She’d spent too much of her life at someone else’s mercy, being made to cower. Fear and humiliation pulled at the edges of her mind too, as the blood dripped from her fingers onto her coat.
He’d stopped slashing when she’d dropped the gun. ‘Get the cloth that’s on the table and wrap it round your hand. Hold it tight.’
He didn’t want her blood left on the floor. He was planning to take her away from the house, she guessed. Though how he thought he could get her out she couldn’t imagine. Maybe he’d knock her unconscious, just as he had Freya. He could strangle her before removing her body.
Suddenly, Tara heard a tinny voice. It came from the direction of Matthew Cope’s jacket pocket.
‘What’s going on up there?’ He had a call open on his mobile. To the guys in the Merc downstairs, she guessed.
‘An unexpected complication.’ He took a step towards Tara. ‘I’m going to need your help.’
There was a harsh laugh. ‘You’re kidding, right? We’re not getting involved in your mess. Are we clear to come in and take what’s ours?’
Cope took a deep breath and moved a step closer still. He was between her and the door, and well within range if he decided to lash out again. Tara’s eyes darted left and right, looking for something she might use as improvised weapon.
‘You’re clear,’ Cope said. ‘Get on with it. Don’t take anything more than we agreed.’
The laugh was audible again. ‘What’s to stop us, Matty boy?’
‘I’ll call the cops and take you down with me if you take anything extra. I’d rather do my twenty years than see you take me for a fool.’
‘Whatever.’
Matthew’s eyes were back on Tara’s.
‘My colleagues will know you’ve got me,’ she said. ‘You’ll go down anyway, whether you give yourself up or not.’
The man raised an eyebrow and reached up with his free hand to cut the call on his mobile. ‘I don’t think so. I overheard you phone the station about the car outside. Your lot will assume they’ve taken you.’
It wasn’t a good thought. Tara kept her expression steady. If he imagined he was winning it would give him a boost. Psychological advantage was a powerful thing.
‘What are they taking?’ she asked. She tried to swallow back her fear, but she could hear the slight tremor in her voice.
‘Selected paintings of my brother’s to sell. I owe them money. They’re a charming bunch. I’d just been paid for selling a sizeable batch of product and I got mugged. Must have been someone in the know, who was well aware I couldn’t go to the police. Probably one of them, in fact. The sum involved was substantial. I couldn’t cover my debt.’
‘But the paintings…’
‘Were pretty much worthless before Luke died. But I’m a salesman – marketing’s my game, from the stuff I do in my day job to the heroin I sell to kids. I can tell you that artwork by a murderer escalates in value like you wouldn’t believe. I told my brother I could make a success of his talent, but he was too proud to let me help. So now, I’m doing it without him.’
‘You set him up in the role of a killer…’
‘I knew I could make it work.’ She could see the zeal in his eyes, but no emotion at all in relation to his sibling. ‘Once an artist is sufficiently notorious their output develops a fascination for a certain sort of person. I’ve got a rock star interested, and a multimillionaire recluse. Both disgusting people, both very ready to part with their money. I need to make the deals before it gets out that Luke was a victim. The value won’t be half as high then. Thank God the creeps downstairs don’t know how precarious their pay-off is.’
‘You killed Freya Cross, just to make your brother look like a murderer.’ Tara was still trying to get her brain to accept the idea.
He shook his head. ‘To make a fortune out of his paintings. We’re talking a lot of money here, Tara.’ He looked at her as though she was crazy; as if his motivation made his actions entirely explicable.
And suddenly Tara thought of the books downstairs, in Luke’s bedroom – all about psychopaths. Had he bought them because he was worried he had one in the family, not because he’d been analysing his own make-up? What about the one on escaping your genes?
Outside, she could hear a car’s wheels spinning.
Matthew Cope nodded. ‘That’s them off.’
‘How did they know it was safe to come now? How did you?’ They’d had people posted on the door almost constantly.
‘I knew what would happen once you found Luke’s body. You’d be bound to put someone on lookout here. But I had plenty of time to make arrangements. I put up mini spy cameras front and back, whilst I waited for your lot to take my worries about Luke seriously. When the time came, everything was in place. Even police officers leave their posts occasionally.’ He frowned. ‘But I wasn’t watching when you entered the house this afternoon, clearly. By the time I checked I just saw that your colleague had left his post on the front door.’ He was moving towards her once again. She shifted back, glancing sideways. She needed a heavy ornament. Or something. Anything within arm’s reach. There was a tall pewter vase on a side table nearby, but she’d never get to it before he got to her. Yet if she let him take control, she’d be as good as dead.
She’d risk fighting where she stood, rather than let him make her disappear quietly. Her whole body shook at what might lie ah
ead. She tensed her legs. She mustn’t lose control now.
Suddenly, she heard a noise beyond him, somewhere down the stairs.
‘Tara! Is that you up there? What the hell are you playing it?’ Megan’s angry voice carried easily through the quiet house.
Matthew Cope put his finger to his lips and looked from Tara to the point of his knife.
Despite the warning, she almost called out. But even without the man’s threat there were reasons not to. She guessed Megan would carry on searching for her when she got no reply, and whilst the DS was in the house, Matthew’s attention would be divided. She remembered Kemp’s advice: Half the focus is half the threat. Tara stood there, knowing her body was teetering on the brink, the tension pent-up, but liable to break out into full-blown shakes at any second. She listened hard. That was the way to beat it. Focus and breathe.
Footsteps. She guessed Megan was on the middle floor. There was no way she could let her come any closer. Dividing Matthew Cope’s attention was one thing, letting him have a crack at one of the team was another. Her eyes went from the pewter vase to Matthew. The ornament was too far away, and his attention still too much on her.
But then she heard the sound of a police radio, crackling into life on the floor below.
There was a subtle shift in Cope’s stance, a little more towards the door, a little less towards her. In that fraction of a second she crossed the room and swept the vase up in her hand, just as Cope moved towards the door, his knife still at the ready.
Tara couldn’t hear if Megan had started on the stairs. The carpet deadened all sound. She might already be halfway up.
There was no time to think further. In an instant she judged the angle and method she’d need to use. She couldn’t let Megan arrive in his line of sight unless she’d disarmed him first.
If she misjudged her move…
As she swung her arm she knew she couldn’t risk staying silent. ‘Run, Megan!’
In the same moment, Tara brought the heavy vase down with her full force across the metacarpal bones in Cope’s right hand.
‘What the—?’ Megan exclaimed. She must only be feet away.
The vase landed. Tara heard bones crack.
Matthew gave howl of pain as his knife fell from his fingers and skittered across the wooden floor. Once again, Tara’s knee went up, hard into his groin.
And this time, her aim was much better.
Forty-Four
‘It was an irresponsible way to behave.’
Blake looked at Megan. He felt exhausted. Tara’s independence and her habit of keeping her plans to herself had almost cost her her life. But she was standing by her reasons for doing it, and even now he wasn’t entirely sure she’d behave differently in future. How the hell could he make her see the potential consequences of her actions? What might have happened played through his mind like a technicolour horror movie. Matthew Cope’s gun hadn’t been loaded. Had that meant he’d fought less hard to hang onto it, knowing it hadn’t the power to kill? How good were her skills really? Pretty impressive, he knew, but no one was invincible. How much of today’s success was down to luck? And would she be emboldened to take even bigger risks next time? What if her good fortune ran out?
Megan was right. Tara’s failure to follow protocol would have to be looked into.
‘Ironic that she broke Matthew Cope’s hand,’ Megan said. ‘It’s as though she’s moving up the scale of body parts.’
Blake thought back to the journalist with the broken finger. ‘I don’t think escalating violence is an ambition of hers; she was short on options.’ But Blake knew Megan’s sarcastic comment was born of frustration at Tara’s overall attitude, not at her use of self-defence – which had been justified. He’d spoken to Tara shortly after that day’s drama. He knew how scared she’d been, and how – in her eyes – she’d done what she needed to protect Megan by calling out a warning. At the same time, following her own rules would have been a no-brainer to her. He sighed. He was starting to understand why DCI Fleming sometimes treated them like a classful of recalcitrant children.
‘Let’s get back in there,’ he said to Megan. They’d been taking a brief break from interviewing Matthew Cope. Their talk about tactics for their questioning had gone off-topic.
With the recorder back up and running, Blake weighed in. ‘When did you first get the idea of setting up the murder–suicide scenario?’ He still couldn’t believe the man had coldly killed two people – including his own brother – to make money. And, Blake felt, to make a point too.
‘When I saw that ridiculous painting he’d done of Freya Cross. The brainwave could have come to me sooner of course. I’d seen the picture he’d done of Imogen Field too, but it was only when I saw the second one that the notion took hold. And it was easier to set things up with Freya, because she and my brother were still seeing each other.’ He smiled. ‘The painting played right into my hands. It made Luke look guilty from the outset.’
It was strange. Luke had been the one to feel violent rage towards the woman, which had allowed Matthew – cold, calculating and reptilian – to make his move.
‘He must have been very angry with her to paint that scene,’ Blake said.
Matthew shrugged. ‘I’ve no doubt he was. They had a massive row, I understand, when she found out he’d been defrauding gallery customers. But Luke was following some crackpot therapist’s recommendations too.’ He laughed and Blake quelled a shiver. He’d never come across someone like this before. Someone watching Cope’s body language in isolation might have assumed he was chatting with old friends. ‘She told him to paint the worst possible images going through his mind to exorcise them.’ His calm eyes met Blake’s. ‘You see, Luke spent his whole life fearing that he had the same taint as me.’
Blake thought of the books Tara had told him she’d seen in Luke’s bedroom.
‘I’m a psychopath, apparently,’ Matthew said conversationally. ‘Interesting. Unusual. It’s not something I can do anything about.’
The solicitor sitting next to Cope looked pained, but he’d clearly given up trying to get his client to stick to whatever party line they’d agreed before the interview started.
Blake’s mind ran back to the other painting they’d found of Luke’s. ‘What made Luke paint that picture of your father? Was he angry with him?’
Matthew Cope laughed again. ‘Oh no! I was the one who was angry with our father. He and my mother always prized Luke above me. So creative, so distinctive. Sensitive. I knew how the land lay.’ Blake could hear disdain in his voice, rather than anger. It was as though he pitied his parents for what he saw as their poor judgement. ‘The day my father told me he and my mother had arranged for Luke to have their town house in trust, and for me to have that mouldering monstrosity out on the edge of Cambridge, it was quite clear which of us they valued most. The day he passed on the news was the day my father died. As I told you before, Luke was out of the house when he fell downstairs. My mother was too…’
Blake felt a chill run down his back. Matthew Cope just smiled.
‘Mr Cope, did you kill your father?’ Blake managed to keep his voice steady despite his shock. To his left he could see Megan’s eyes – wide and horrified.
The solicitor opened his mouth to speak, but he wasn’t quick enough.
‘I pushed him. He fell. He died.’
How many crimes went undetected, unsuspected, for so many years? But then this wasn’t unsuspected, Blake guessed. ‘Your brother knew what you’d done?’
‘He had no proof, but he drew his own conclusions. That was why he was always so frightened of his own feelings of rage. And the reason he followed the quack psychologist’s advice and tried to “paint them out of his system”. I mean, seriously? I often used to tell him we were from the same mould, just to make him wonder.’
‘So your relationship was poor?’ Blake remembered Tara’s notes from when she’d met with Matthew Cope’s boss. He’d had Luke down as the difficult one. He sa
id Matthew had tried to build bridges, but his efforts had been thrown back in his face. Blake could see why Luke had wanted to distance himself now.
‘It wasn’t good. I had to use all my acting powers once I had the idea of arranging his and Freya’s deaths. Part of my plan relied on Luke letting me go with him to the mill, so we could get drunk together. I told him his suspicions about my involvement in our father’s death were unfounded, and that I’d been so hurt that I’d played up to his fears. I said wasn’t it time to bury the hatchet? We’d wasted too much of our lives, being at each other’s throats.’
‘And he believed you?’
Matthew nodded. ‘Eventually, but not quickly enough. All the time I worked to break down his defences, the outfit I owed money to were putting the amount up. “Interest”, they called it.’
‘So you finally managed to persuade Luke to take you out into the Fens. Then you faked his suicide. You use heroin yourself?’
Matthew Cope sat up straighter and looked down his nose at Blake. Blake found it hard to hold back, never had a face begged for a punch harder than Cope’s was now. ‘I’m not that much of a fool,’ the man said. ‘But I know exactly how to inject. A lot of younger heroin users start off by smoking the stuff; they find it less frightening. But the dealers’ aim is to move them on to using intravenously. It’s an almost instant hit, and they get through more. And then more still. The profits are far better.’ He gave that smile again; the condescending expert passing on his knowledge. ‘As part of my salesman role, I played the friendly experienced user, able to show them just how to do it without harming themselves and acting as a go-between for my suppliers. It was a good sideline until it all went sour.’
For a second Blake’s eyes met Megan’s. He thought of the countless lives people like Cope sent spiralling downwards, out of control.
‘Why the hell didn’t you use your skills honestly?’ Blake found himself practically shouting, the words reverberating around the room. It was Megan and the solicitor who jumped. Matthew Cope just sat there, as though Blake had criticised the design of his tie.
