Murder on the Marshes_An absolutely gripping English murder mystery

by Clare Chase

  She nodded slowly. ‘Could be… and then what about Chiara?’

  ‘Tara Thorpe says she was snuggling up to Askey at the institute garden party. Maybe something she said made him think she’d guessed he was Samantha Seabrook’s murderer.’

  ‘So he killed her to keep her quiet?’

  Blake nodded. ‘It certainly sounds as though she’d have been happy to meet him wherever he suggested. Tara said she looked smitten, whereas he appeared to be irritated by her.’

  He paused for a moment, trying to read the expression in Emma’s eyes. She looked almost amused, despite the topic of their conversation. ‘What is it?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, sorry. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Emma?’

  She bit her lip, but the smile was still there in her eyes. ‘Just that you refer to what Tara says a lot, that’s all.’

  Blake was brought up short. Maybe he did… but then, she’d made a lot of useful contributions, one way and another.

  ‘Not that I’m feeling put out or anything,’ Emma said. ‘Her insights do sound well worth considering.’

  ‘Nothing to yours, Emma, obviously.’

  Her smile was broader now. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘So anyway,’ he said. ‘There were no relevant messages or numbers on Chiara’s phone from the night she died, but Simon Askey could have arranged to meet with her at the party; or slipped out and called on her after her flatmate had left for her date. One thing’s for certain: his wife’s got no idea exactly when he came and went that night.’

  ‘True,’ Emma said.

  ‘Time to invite Askey in for a voluntary interview,’ Blake said.

  ‘Think he’ll come?’

  ‘I suggest we make the request in front of his wife. He’ll probably come with us if he thinks the alternative is a no-holds-barred chat in front of her.’

  Askey sat in the interview room trying to look bored, but failing. Blake smiled. No amount of staring at the ceiling, leaning back in his chair or picking at his nails could hide the anger in Askey’s eyes. But there was no fear as far has he could see, only defiance. Still, give it time. Blake hadn’t got started yet.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us you and Samantha Seabrook were having an affair before she died?’

  There were probably dozens of people from New York currently in Cambridge, but one look at Askey’s eyes told Blake he’d hit the bullseye.

  But it only took a moment for the man to recover. ‘I wouldn’t have called it an affair. Hell, we only had sex a couple of times. Given that I’m married, and I knew it didn’t have a bearing on Sam’s death, I kept quiet.’

  ‘The fact that she aborted your baby without your knowledge provides a pretty good motive for murder though, wouldn’t you say?’ Another gamble. There was shock in Askey’s eyes now, and confusion.

  ‘You shouldn’t shout so loudly at work,’ Blake said, smiling again.

  ‘Chiara wasn’t shouting,’ Askey said, giving himself away nicely. She’d been the one to break the news then.

  ‘Your response was enough for us to guess what she’d told you.’

  Anger cracked its way across Askey’s features as he realised he’d confirmed what had only been a suspicion.

  ‘How did Chiara find out?’

  Askey rolled his eyes. ‘She first got wind that something was up when she walked back into their research room whilst Sam was on a call, so she said. She took Sam by surprise – she’d only just left to take her lunch break, but she came back because she’d forgotten her purse. Chiara only heard her say a date, and then something about recovery time, but it made her curious.’ He pulled a face. ‘She realised the date Sam had mentioned was the first date she’d booked off as leave and wondered what treatment she might be getting that was so secret.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Sam was careless. She’d left her mobile in her office whilst she went to interview a visiting scholar in da Souza’s room. Chiara heard her phone buzz. She claimed she was in Sam’s inner office to look for a paper she needed to reference. I’m not so sure. Anyway, she “glanced at the phone”, saw one of those automated appointment reminder texts had come in and that was that. She matched it with the clinic and understood the truth.’

  ‘Must have been humiliating to find out Samantha’s PhD student knew your business better than you did yourself.’

  ‘For sure,’ Askey sounded resigned, ‘but as you can imagine, not humiliating enough for me to want to murder her. And what other reason could I have?’

  ‘We can think of several,’ Emma said. ‘And although we hear Chiara was all over you the night she died, we understand you weren’t her biggest fan.’

  Askey took a deep breath; his eyes were fiery.

  Blake felt another adrenaline rush and leant forward. ‘What did you do when you found out about Professor Seabrook’s abortion?’

  ‘I told her what I thought of her; made it clear I never wanted to work with her again. Then she pulled out of our joint funding bid.’

  ‘Passionate stuff. Are you seriously telling me you left it at that?’

  Askey leant forward himself now, his shoulders hunched, fists clenched. ‘If you think the row I had with Chiara was noisy, you should have heard the one I had with Sam. We were in her room at our college. Some nosy shit will probably be able to fill you in. But as for killing her for what she’d done, why would I? I’ve got one brat at home, I sure as hell wouldn’t want another. I was just angry that she hadn’t talked to me before going ahead, that’s all. It wasn’t her sole decision to make. That said, I’d have backed her up if she had come to me. And I’m not the sort to turn to violence over a matter of principle.’

  Suddenly, Blake wondered if Samantha Seabrook had assumed Simon Askey had sent her the rag doll, to spook her after their argument. She might have thought he was just being dramatic, and that she wasn’t in danger.

  But had he been the one to send it to her? That was the question.

  Blake terminated the interview and left the room for a moment, with Emma at his heels.

  ‘We haven’t got enough to charge him,’ DCI Fleming said, coming to join them. She’d been watching from the observation suite. She put a hand on Blake’s shoulder and he fought the urge to shake it off. ‘This is excellent work but we’re not home and dry yet. We need to do more digging. If he did it then the evidence will be there. Max is still trawling through CCTV between Chiara Laurito’s house and Stourbridge Common and we’ll add a door-to-door on Askey’s street to the one we’re conducting on hers, too: see if anyone saw any comings and goings on the relevant nights. And we can try to find someone who overheard the row Askey mentioned at St Francis’s College.’

  Blake took a deep breath and felt both Fleming and Emma’s eyes on him.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay.’

  At that moment, Patrick Wilkins appeared at his side. ‘Call from Sir Brian Seabrook,’ he said. ‘He’s been sent a note.’

  All eyes were on Patrick now, which was just as he liked it. His dramatic pause almost pushed Blake over the edge. ‘What did it say?’ he asked, resisting the urge to shake the man.

  Patrick looked down at his notebook. ‘“Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.”’

  ‘John Donne,’ DCI Fleming said. ‘How very Cambridge.’

  Blake left Fleming and Wilkins to feel pleased with themselves. He was due with Sir Brian that afternoon anyway, for Professor Seabrook’s memorial service. And now he had a long list of questions for the man too.

  Thirty-Seven

  ‘Well, Tara?’ Giles’s confident voice poured from her phone like oil. ‘When can we talk about your exposé?’ The news about her death threat had already been hinted at on Not Now’s website, with promises of more juicy details to follow. ‘I don’t think you should write the piece yourself. Come in for an interview. Shona would make a good job of it.’

  The bitch who’d told Giles she’d been in the Champion of the Th
ames, chatting with Blake. Or ‘looking very cosy’ as she’d put it.

  ‘I don’t think so, Giles,’ she said.

  ‘All right. You write it and we can jazz it up afterwards.’

  ‘You’ve misunderstood my point. You’re not getting your story. About me or about Professor Seabrook. I resign.’

  Giles was silent for a moment. ‘Tara, you’re out of your depth. I can make sure you never work as a journalist again.’

  She laughed at that. ‘Seriously, Giles? I think you’re exaggerating your influence in the business.’

  ‘Four years ago, you decked a fellow journalist and only just escaped prosecution. In the last week you’ve gone behind my back and kept stories from me that could have quadrupled our hit rate. Even the other staff here have gone off you. That’s a lot of enemies to have.’

  She wondered about Matt, her one friend at Not Now. She’d be sorry to lose him. And put like that maybe her prospects for future employment did look a bit chancy. But if her stories were good she could still get work as a freelancer. One thing was certain, she was going to finish her work on Samantha Seabrook’s story; she wouldn’t stop until she’d got to the truth. She was confident she’d be able to place it somewhere.

  ‘Bugger off, Giles,’ she said. ‘It’s an utter pleasure to leave your foul rag.’

  Adrenaline flooded through her as she got changed, ready to drive north to Samantha Seabrook’s memorial service. At first she felt elated, but by the time she applied her make-up the practicalities of the situation were edging their way into her consciousness. Her stomach was tense.

  Something made her want to share her news. She emailed Kemp.

  Just resigned before I got the sack, she wrote. But hey, DI Blake, the detective working on my case, reckons I could have a second career as a cop, so all is not lost. How d’you think I’d look in uniform? My future is assured.

  She was joking of course, just as Blake had been.

  As for her future, it had been hanging on a very thin thread ever since she’d got the death threat anyway. She moved her lips together to even her out her lipstick and then looked out at the common. When would the police catch the killer? Surely with two women dead some crucial evidence would come to light. But then she’d been interviewing Samantha Seabrook’s key contacts too, and she hadn’t worked out who’d done it…

  She took out her phone and looked back at her photos, including the one of the doll she’d been sent in its plain blue skirt and white blouse.

  Someone had worked hard to make it. Although neatly finished, the doll wasn’t quite perfect, she now noted: one leg was very slightly longer than the other. She looked again at the way it had been dressed. Almost like a uniform. Did it mean anything? She closed her eyes for a moment. She was getting too close to all this; couldn’t see the wood for the trees. All the same, she texted Blake to share her thoughts. It wasn’t worth a call.

  Thirty-Eight

  Blake was sitting opposite Sir Brian Seabrook in his sitting room. He had the note the man had received in his hand. The paper and print appeared to match the message Tara had found in her bicycle basket.

  Sir Brian was dressed in a black suit and tie, ready for the memorial service, and his face was pinched. ‘Do you think it’s a warning?’ he asked, nodding at the note.

  ‘The content is different,’ Blake said, ‘so I’d guess the motivation for sending it is too. But we can’t take that for granted.’

  ‘I wonder just how long it will be before you track down this madman,’ Sir Brian said. ‘How many more people will have to die before you make any progress?’

  Blake took a deep breath. Chiara Laurito’s death weighed heavily on his conscience. He’d been so unprepared for that development. But Sir Brian had some explaining to do, too. ‘We are making progress,’ he said. ‘But we need all Samantha’s connections to be honest with us. Yourself included.’

  Sir Brian shifted in his chair. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You pretended not to remember Patsy Wentworth’s name and address, yet you passed it on to a journalist quite happily.’

  A look of confusion crossed the man’s face and Blake wondered what story Tara had spun in order to get the information.

  ‘Patsy Wentworth was a childhood friend of Sammy’s. Not one I approved of, and not one who had anything to do with her day-to-day life as an adult. I didn’t tell you about her because I knew she was irrelevant.’

  ‘With respect,’ yeah, right, ‘that’s for us to decide as the investigating team. Everything helps us build up a picture. And you also hid the fact of your daughter’s recent abortion. I find that inexplicable.’

  Sir Brian turned a shade paler than he already was. ‘Dieter Gartner is based in Germany, Inspector. I knew he couldn’t have killed Samantha because of the abortion, so again, why would I mention it? It was a purely personal matter.’

  ‘Did your daughter tell you Dieter was the father?’

  A shadow crossed Sir Brian’s face. Blake reckoned it really hadn’t occurred to him that Samantha might have had more than one lover. In spite of his frustration he felt a wave of sympathy for the man.

  ‘You should have told us, sir,’ Blake said, quietly. ‘It might have made a difference.’ But it might not have. Either way, he’d failed: his lack of progress meant a second innocent woman had died.

  He left Sir Brian to compose himself, ready for the service. As he left, a woman in a smart, conventional black suit and lace-up shoes flitted across the hall. Could this be Pamela Grange, the supportive family friend? Her look told him she laid most of their current problems at the police’s door. Not unusual but hard to take all the same.

  Sir Brian wasn’t having people back to the house, Blake understood. There would be refreshments at the church for those that wanted to stay and chat – and then a proper, private funeral and wake for close family and friends later.

  He went out to his car, got in and sat with the windows down as he waited for the appointed hour. A bus passed him, filling the car with diesel fumes. He opened the door for a moment to try to change the air, but it was so hot and still that it didn’t help much.

  He wondered about Askey. The guy was up to his neck in this business, but Blake had a creeping feeling that he wasn’t their man. The note to Tara Thorpe didn’t fit. The journey to Great Sterringham and the ‘chat’ with Sir Brian had given everything more time to settle in his mind. Whoever had threatened Tara Thorpe had chosen her because she was a relentless journalist who wouldn’t rest until she knew all the facts. They wanted her to find out something about Professor Seabrook and splash it all over the press – for whatever reason. And try as Blake might, he couldn’t make that fit Askey. The guy had been having an extramarital affair – and with a woman who’d been promoted above him, at that. There was no way he’d want that shared publicly: it would damage everything from his ego to his domestic life.

  And the note Sir Brian had received made him wonder too. It didn’t sound like a threat; it was more as though the sender was making a point… but they were making it to Samantha’s father, as though they felt they’d taught him a lesson. Blake wondered whether the whole business had more to do with Professor Seabrook’s family life than he’d originally thought.

  And then there was the old lipstick in the professor’s apartment and the dolls made from the perished cotton and aging cloth. What was the connection with the past?

  At that moment he remembered Tara’s text and frowned as he opened it up again. He reread her thought on the outfits the rag dolls wore. Like a uniform.

  He was missing something.

  Thirty-Nine

  The church car park was already full when Tara arrived at Samantha Seabrook’s memorial service. She overshot the entrance and found a spot where the lane widened slightly, before narrowing again thanks to a russet brick wall that presumably bordered some grand country home. She glanced over her shoulder, wondering if someone driving past might clip her wing mirror. But sh
e was short of time now and she reckoned she’d be okay. She slung her bag over her shoulder, locked up and jogged back towards the church, as quickly as her heels would allow.

  Sir Brian Seabrook was standing at the church door, with the vicar next to him. They’d just turned to head inside.

  Tara slipped in behind them and found a space in one of the rear pews on the right-hand side. It took her a moment to realise she was next door but one to Blake. He leant across the blonde woman who sat between them. ‘Thanks for the text,’ he said, as the organ music played.

  ‘Just a thought. It suddenly occurred to me that most rag dolls are dressed more colourfully than my one was.’ She thought again of her photo. ‘Whoever made it certainly did a professional job; the stitching was very neat. The shape of the doll’s legs was slightly uneven, but I don’t think that can be significant. I didn’t even notice it at first, it was so subtle.’

  He nodded and she thought how good he looked in black. ‘I think the clothes mean something. Especially as both dolls were dressed in exactly the same way.’

  At that moment the music started, and the congregation stood up. Tara looked around her for familiar faces.

  After a second she picked out Patsy Wentworth, squashed between a man and woman who were both in beige. Her parents? Tara could see why she’d rebelled.

  And there was da Souza, standing erect, head held high, but she could see his knuckles were white where he gripped the rear of the pew in front of him.

  Mary Mayhew, the institute administrator, was present too, and Peter Mackintosh, the librarian. Kit, Simon Askey’s PhD student, stood between Mackintosh and Jim Cooper, whose head was bowed.

  Across and to the right of them she spotted Adele Pomphrey.

  Simon Askey seemed to be absent though. She scanned and rescanned, row by row, but there was no sign of him. She’d thought he would turn up for appearances’ sake, even though he and Samantha Seabrook hadn’t got on.