by Julia Thomas
“What do you mean?” Carey asked. Had he taken something to remember Tamsyn by? She was surprised, but she didn’t blame him. She had a few mementoes of her own for private remembrances.
“There was something stuffed behind one of her old posters, and I pulled it out to see what it was.”
Daniel reached into his pocket and retrieved the folded newspaper cuttings, opening them to show her. They were yellowed and wrinkled, but she could see they were articles with photos of Hugh and his father. She looked at him, shaking her head.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not sure I do either.”
She picked up the clipping of Noel Ashley-Hunt and checked the date, which was more than ten years old. “Why would these have been hidden in her room?”
“I was wondering that myself,” he answered. “The clippings themselves are old, not photocopies of articles from old newspapers. And I gather she hadn’t gone back to Llandudno after she began to see him.”
“Is it possible that Hugh was one of the two English boys … ?” Carey couldn’t finish the sentence.
“No,” Daniel said. “Hugh could never have done something like that.”
“What about the other boy? Who else was he close to ten or eleven years ago?”
“His only other longtime close friend is Marc Hayley.”
“Marc Hayley!” she repeated. “He was at the Abbey! But if it’s true, would Tamsyn have remembered them? And what was she doing?”
“Is it possible she saw these photos and just thought Hugh good-looking? He’s the son of a famous actor. Their faces must have been in all the magazines and newspapers. Girls do that, don’t they?” Daniel asked. “Fixate on rich people and stars?”
Carey gave him a solemn look. “It’s a little far-fetched that she would have had a crush on someone she would later marry, you know.”
“There’s something else I didn’t tell you.”
Carey felt a moment of alarm. “Oh, god,” she said. “The diary.”
“It doesn’t name names,” he said, “but there were a couple of entries after the incident at the lighthouse. She didn’t describe the attack. She just wrote that her life was over. And she mentioned the two boys, that she wanted to find them and seek some sort of revenge. Of course, she was too young to do anything about it.”
Carey suddenly felt ill. “How did she meet Hugh? On the set of the film?”
He shifted in his seat. “Hugh and I were in France at the Hodges’s estate last summer. On a whim, I talked him into taking the ferry back instead of the train. When I went out to the deck, Tamsyn was sitting there and approached me.”
“Tamsyn? In France?”
“She said she had gone to Calais for the day to go shopping.”
“And you introduced her to Hugh?”
“Not that day, actually. She talked me into bringing her with me when I reported for filming a couple of weeks later. I’m the one who got her a bit part, but Hugh met her and before long recommended her for the lead.”
“But why would she do that?” Carey asked, looking around at the other travelers, who seemed oblivious to any conversation but their own. “Was she following Hugh? If it’s true, he would have recognized her.”
“I don’t know.”
“Or perhaps he didn’t,” Carey said. “Her hair was blonde then. There’s a world of difference between a fifteen-year-old girl and a grown woman. She wasn’t the same person anymore. Do you think she reinvented herself in order to go after him?”
Daniel sat back in his chair. “I’m not sure what to think. There must be some other explanation.”
The train jostled them back and forth around curves and hills. Daniel stared at the seat in front of him. Carey closed her eyes and tried to block out the world. As much as she hated to admit it, she could imagine Tamsyn hell-bent on revenge. But surely, she thought, it can’t be true. To seek revenge was madness.
Daniel put on his earphones, though whether he was listening to music or just blocking out the world, she didn’t know. Eventually, they reached Euston Station. When they collected their bags and made it to the street, Daniel hired a cab and gave the driver Carey’s address.
That’s it, then, she thought, too knackered to care anymore. She wanted to go home, pull back the covers, and flop into bed and never get out again. When they arrived at her flat, however, Daniel turned to look at her for what felt like the first time in hours.
“Shall I take your bag?”
“No thanks, it’s not heavy. You don’t have to walk me to the door.”
“Yes, I do.”
They went upstairs and Carey unlocked the door, dropping her things on the floor.
“Do you want a coffee?” she asked.
“No,” he answered. He was facing her, close enough to touch her, but his hands stayed at his side.
“Wine? I think there’s a bottle from last week.”
Shaking his head, Daniel pulled off his jacket, and suddenly he was kissing her. It was a long, urgent kiss that sucked something out of her. Before they knew it, they were on the bed, kicking off shoes, tugging off clothes. His mouth found hers, and it was breathless, sweet. His hands roamed her body as if they were old lovers coming together after a long, excruciating absence. Carey was unaccustomed to intimacy, but everything about it felt right. For a while, time was suspended. She wasn’t Carey Burke, Virgin Sister of Murdered Girl, and he wasn’t Daniel Richardson, Famous Playboy Actor. He was her only confidant, the person she had trusted with her life, the one she had somehow fallen in love with.
Afterward, they lay on the narrow bed, his feet sticking out one side. She brought her body up against him, breathing in the smell of his skin. It was a long time before either of them spoke.
“I have another thought,” he said, “if you’d like to hear it.”
She buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m not sure I can stand it.”
“Remember Tamsyn’s diaries?”
“You didn’t take one?” she asked, propping herself up on an elbow to look at him.
“No. But I was thinking, on the train, that if she kept diaries for such a long time when she was a girl, perhaps she did the same as she got older.”
Carey frowned. “I don’t know if she did or not. I don’t remember seeing anything like that in her old flat. But of course I wasn’t looking for one.”
“Wait,” he said, snapping his fingers. “The day we went to Brighton, she was scribbling in some kind of notebook.”
“She gave up her flat, remember? Her things are at Hugh’s.”
“We’ll have to go over there and see if we can find anything.”
“What about Hugh?” Carey said, sitting up, pulling the sheet around her. “Is he back there now?”
“He was still with his parents a couple of days ago.”
“Do you have a key?”
“Not exactly,” Daniel said, stroking her arm.
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
“I mean, I’ve had one before, when Hugh needed me to take care of something once or twice, but afterward I returned it.”
“Tamsyn would have had one, but her keys weren’t in her bag.”
“Where could they be?”
“I don’t know. Lost, maybe.”
“Well, I’m sure we can get in somehow,” he said.
“You mean, break in?”
“If it’s the only way. It won’t take long to search the place, and then we’d know for sure.”
“If the gods aren’t against us,” Carey said. She could feel her muscles tensing up and down her naked spine.
Daniel gave her a cheerless smile. “Well, as Kipling said, ‘England is a bad country for Gods.’”
Thirty
“Do you still want the car?” Ennis asked, as he retrieved a stac
k of discarded files from Murray’s desk.
It had been pouring all morning, a hard, driving rain that flooded gutters and streamed down windows, reducing the visibility to naught. Murray had spent two hours sifting through records, trying to come up with something new as he waited for the weather to abate. It would be a shame to ruin a new pair of leather brogues without a very good reason. His mackintosh hung in a small closet behind his desk and a hat lay on the shelf above it. His good umbrella stood in the stand next to the door, a Classics City umbrella from James Smith and Sons in New Oxford Street. It was the finest money could buy and one couldn’t ask for anything sturdier in a downpour, but he hated using it in the worst sort of weather.
“I think not,” he said. It was a disappointment to plan a day in the field only to have to delay it.
When Ennis walked out, Murray stood behind his desk. He stretched, aware he had been sitting too long. Glancing at the notes he had written during the last hour and a half, he decided to pursue the possibility of a connection between Daniel Richardson and a deceased socialite named Lizzie Marsden. He opened the door to speak to Ennis, but found the sergeant, efficient to a fault, had already left
to return the files. Murray walked out into the outer office and went to stand by his sergeant’s desk. A hum of noise hung in the air as work went on all around him. Secretaries were making copies in the copy room; clerks filed and typed forms; DI Patel and Sergeant Morrissey were laughing over something in a magazine and drinking the tepid coffee that kept the office smelling rancid. No matter how many notices were put up, people continued to pour the last cup of coffee and put the glass pot back on the burner, where the remains burned until the stench clung to the very walls. Even if he had not preferred tea, Murray wouldn’t have dared touch the coffee in this office.
Sighing, he went down the corridor and looked into the small library where Rachel Quinn could usually be found. His favorite clerk stood in a corner, her reading glasses pushed halfway down her nose, pulling a copy of Blackstone’s Civil Law from an upper shelf.
“Is there anything I can get for you, Inspector Murray?” she asked. Her voice was unusually pleasant. It held just the right timbre of lightness and professionalism he admired in well-spoken women.
“Have you seen Detective Sergeant Ennis?” he asked.
“No, I’m afraid I’ve been searching for a few things the Superintendent needs this morning. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No, no, it’s quite all right. He’ll turn up again in a few minutes.”
Murray didn’t want to admit that he had come to the library with the express purpose of finding her, although now that he had, he wasn’t quite certain what to say. How about a drink after work? sounded nothing less than crass. He had enjoyed the luxury of being pursued by Ingrid when he was younger, which had taken the pressure off him so that he could enjoy the budding relationship. Even though women occasionally tried to get his attention, he found it so off-putting that he was not even tempted to take advantage of the opportunity. They weren’t Ingrid, that was for certain.
He went back down the hall and into his office, pulling a file from his desk. Then he turned to his computer, where he typed in an image search for Lizzie Marsden. Dozens of pictures of a beautiful girl stepping in and out of nightclubs and limousines leapt onto the screen. She was exactly the sort of girl Hello! magazine kept popular with a constant stream of full-page photographs. Every few years, it propelled a face into the public arena until someone more outrageous came along. Elizabeth Marsden fit the criteria perfectly: a socialite who was known for nothing more than looks and style and the impressive list of famous men she’d dated. That she had died under mysterious circumstances six years earlier made her story all the more thrilling, he was sure. Flipping through the file, he saw with some surprise that both Daniel Richardson and Hugh Ashley-Hunt had been questioned by the police the day after her body was found, having been the last two people known to have seen her alive.
Newspaper reports suggested suicide. The Sun’s headline, “Heiress Had Nothing to Live For,” and the Daily Mail’s, “Lizzie Marsden Suicide Heartbreak,” surely convinced the public that this privileged young woman with her questionable moral compass had tired of her life of parties, drugs, and men. Somehow, it didn’t quite ring true. As much as the public would like to believe it, a life of parties and spoiling oneself did not inevitably lead to regret, and if it did, a week spent helping orphans in tent cities in the Philippines with cameramen in tow soon put things to rights. Murray stared at the enigmatic face on the screen, searching her features for clues.
Turning to the file, he read Richardson’s report first. It appeared straightforward enough. During the investigation, both men had offered their full and complete cooperation. Marsden had shown up uninvited at Ashley-Hunt’s house the night of her death and tried to get them to go with her to a party in Mayfair, which they had both refused. Ashley-Hunt called for a taxi for Marsden, while Richardson, as witnessed by several local residents, left on foot to go home. Although the toxicology report showed both illegal and prescription drugs in Marsden’s system, neither of the men had been doing drugs and none were found in their possession. A quick check of the records showed that Ashley-Hunt had made two calls to a cab company in West London that night, although the driver did not remember the girl later. Ashley-Hunt, according to his file, gave the same information as Richardson, and also stated that his second call to the cab company was to hire a ride to a restaurant a few miles away for a late meal. There were no holes in the story, no reason to question its veracity.
However, looking again at the high cheekbones of the well-born Marsden, who had, like Ashley-Hunt, enjoyed a childhood of wealth and ease, Murray could ill imagine a life of self-loathing. No, indeed, he thought, narrowing his eyes. She had the look of a narcissist, one who loved the attention she received. If that were true, she was not a candidate for suicide at all, which left only two options: either her death was a tragic accident or a staged murder.
Her body had been found in the Thames, two miles or more from Ashley-Hunt’s house. Of course it was possible, in fact probable, that the effects of the drugs found in her system had impaired her judgment and actions. It did not escape his notice that Richardson and Ashley-Hunt, being actors, might be able to lie in a somewhat more convincing manner than someone without their training. If that was true, then discovering a motive would be the next step.
He worked at his desk for the rest of the day, thinking over the details of Marsden’s death and staring from time to time at the rain. It was one of those days for thinking rather than for concentrating on paperwork. He knew it, yet he still made an effort to make sense of the notes before him.
Shortly after six o’clock, he let himself into his house with a feeling of relief. Brooks, the Springer, leapt toward his trouser leg as he came through the door. He reached down and scratched the pup between the ears, murmuring in an attempt to calm him down. He had to admit that sitting in a chair after dinner with a book in hand and Brooks lying at his feet brought him a sense of satisfaction that few things had in recent years. There had been a few problems, mostly with chewing, particularly an incident with a book he had left on a low stool where the dog had been able to get it, as well as the antique barley-leg table in the front room. He noticed it every time he went in there and promised himself he would fix it, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
Murray walked into the kitchen and was pleased to find that Josefine had made a shepherd’s pie. He helped himself to a slice, eating at the same table where she had peeled the potatoes a couple of hours before, and then cut another slice. Afterwards, he wrapped cling film around the pan and put it in the refrigerator so he could reheat it the following day. Filling the kettle, he picked up his book, The Master of Ballantrae, and waited for the tea to boil. He filled the brown betty he’d had for decades with the tea and water hot from the Aga and then took the boo
k and tea and went to sit down, Brooks at his heels.
The Master of Ballantrae was an old favorite, and though he did not admit it to himself, it was often pulled from the shelves when he needed the familiarity of a favorite book to read during troublesome cases. He tried, unsuccessfully, to concentrate on the page where the Master had returned to Durrisdeer under the alias “Mr. Bally,” and then closed the book and set it upon the table. It was a rare evening when he couldn’t take his mind off the events of his day or the case on which he was working. He reached down and pulled Brooks onto his lap for a moment, and the puppy lavished kisses upon his face for the attention.
“All right, all right,” he said, stroking the silky hair about the pup’s snout. He got up, carried the dog into the kitchen, and put a little of the shepherd’s pie in a saucer, watching as Brooks lapped it up. Then, rinsing the teapot and the dish, he righted the kitchen, turning out the light behind him as he left. Upstairs, he changed into walking shoes and telephoned for a cab.
It took fourteen minutes for the taxi to arrive. He had been surprised. He rarely went out in the evenings, and if he did, he took his car. London was quiet; the glow from the windows all around him in the darkness indicating that most people had settled in for the night.
Fourteen minutes, he thought, his brow furrowing as he bent his head to get into the cab. What might have happened in the time it took for the taxi that Ashley-Hunt had summoned to arrive at his house? Richardson, he was certain, was not involved. There were witnesses who had seen him, good, solid witnesses that included the barrister next door and his wife, who had arrived home as Richardson was leaving. That left Hugh Ashley-Hunt. The girl had had drugs in her system, likely before she’d even arrived at his house.
“Where to?” the driver asked, and Murray gave him Ashley-Hunt’s address in Holland Park. He wasn’t certain if the posh address was a result of the young man’s success in his chosen career or if it had been provided by his wealthy parents. Either way, Ashley-Hunt was living a very privileged life.