by Clare Chase
‘I didn’t like to. It might have sparked gossip if I called her at work, and I don’t have any other number for her.’
The missing man probably had a lover – a lover who he’d quarrelled with – and Matthew Cope hadn’t approached her…
‘But her name was on the list I gave to your colleagues,’ he added quickly.
Tara nodded. ‘That’s good, but if you told them you’d already had a ring round they wouldn’t have immediately followed up on those names.’ How much spare time do you imagine we have? ‘But it’s useful to know,’ she added, burying her irritation deep. ‘It’s a fresh line of enquiry. I’ll see if I can reach her at Trent’s.’ She met his eye. ‘You needn’t worry – I’ll be subtle about it. And I’ll keep you up to date.’
Inside her car, Tara reached for her coat, which she’d left on the back seat, and wriggled her way into it, tying the belt round her waist.
Five twenty. A quick google on her phone told her Trent’s – owned by one Jonny Trent – would be closing in ten minutes. She’d call them now, before she returned to the station to report back and then swap her work car for her bike to cycle home.
The phone rang for a minute before a man’s voice answered, rich and plummy.
‘Trent’s.’
‘Please could I speak to Freya Cross?’
There was a pause. ‘Who’s that calling?’
The voice was cagey now. Tara frowned. She’d love to be economical with the truth, but saying she was a friend would look suspicious. Any mate of Freya’s would call her on her mobile. Her DI, Garstin Blake, would no doubt point out it was against protocol to lie, too.
‘My name’s DC Tara Thorpe. Is she around please?’
‘Police? Is something wrong?’
‘Not at all. My call doesn’t directly relate to her. I’m just hoping she might have some useful background information that would help with a case I’m working on. Is that Mr Trent?’
‘Yes, yes, Jonny Trent speaking.’ He sounded a little less bristly now. ‘I’m afraid Freya’s away from work at the moment.’
Tara felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. ‘On leave, you mean?’
‘That’s correct,’ Trent answered after a second.
‘Could you tell me when she’ll be back?’
‘It’s uncertain.’ There was a momentary pause. ‘She’s been feeling the strain – pressure of work – the usual story. I understand from her husband that she’s gone to stay with a friend. She knows she’s welcome to take as long as she needs. I’ve got plenty of cover. I’ll ask her to call you when she returns, shall I?’
He was all bonhomie now, but Tara’s adrenaline was ramping up further. An open-ended time away from work, under the circumstances, made her want to speak to the woman immediately. She presumed the story of her absence due to stress was true, given that the information had come from her husband, and her boss didn’t sound surprised. But what had caused her emotional upset? Had it been related to Luke Cope? The timing was suspicious.
‘I’d be grateful if you’d text her to ask her to give me a call.’ She reeled off her mobile number. ‘Even though my enquiry doesn’t relate directly to her, it’s urgent.’
Jonny Trent heaved a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t like to bother a member of staff when they’re on leave, but I’ll try for you. I can’t guarantee that she’ll reply.’
She thanked him and hung up. His responses made her frown. Someone calls to speak to an employee, but they’re away on leave. Wouldn’t you normally say as much first off, without any fuss? I’m afraid she’s away at the moment. Who’s calling? Can I take a message? That’s how Tara would have dealt with it.
She wondered what Blake would think, back at the station. She was sure he’d be interested. As she turned her key in the ignition and began her journey, her mind was on sharing the information she’d gathered. Thank God it was her DI that she was reporting to at the moment, and not her immediate – and currently suspended – boss, DS Wilkins. Hunches based on people’s behaviour weren’t something Wilkins took seriously. A momentary shudder went through her as she thought of the day when he might be back in his post. But it would be a while yet, by the sound of things. Despite her worries over Freya, she found herself smiling fleetingly as she turned right at the roundabout, back towards the centre of town.
The room where Blake’s team worked was oddly quiet that evening – so much so that when Tara walked past the DI’s office door she could hear immediately that he had someone with him. It was often the case, of course, but she still felt thwarted. She’d have to wait to fill him in on the afternoon’s events – or else email him, but that wasn’t the same as discussing something in person.
She wondered who was inside. The soundproofing for his office was good enough to keep what was being said private. All she could hear were murmurs, and they didn’t give much away. She hung her coat on the stand in the corner, dropped into her chair and logged back into her computer.
She was part way through writing up her report when Blake’s door opened. She glanced up quickly, but in a second her eyes were down on her screen again. It wasn’t Blake who’d appeared, but a woman she recognised as his wife, Babette. ‘Babette the babe’, Wilkins used to call her – secretly, with a low laugh – before he’d been put on the disciplinary for unrelated misconduct. Tara had an alliterative pet name for Wilkins too, but it was too obscene to utter out loud.
It was amazing how much you could observe in a split second. Tara only recognised Babette at all because she’d accidentally caught sight of her, Blake and their daughter Kitty outside what was clearly their family home in Fen Ditton. She’d never seen her at the station before. And she’d got the impression – for many different reasons, from Wilkins’ gossip to the way Blake sidestepped conversation about her – that their marriage wasn’t strong.
But now, here was Babette, looking what Tara’s mother would call ‘ravishing’, all of a glow, and clearly… very much pregnant. How quickly did you get that big? Tara was no expert but she guessed the woman had to be six months along at least.
Which meant Babette and Blake must have already been expecting when she’d glimpsed them outside their house at the start of December. And certainly just before Christmas, when Blake had held Tara tightly in his arms, just after she’d escaped from a burning building…
Shaky marriage, huh? Catching that one glimpse of Babette, smiling, putting a protective hand on her bump – glowing – made things look rather different. If your relationship was washed up, you didn’t try for another baby.
She was conscious that Blake was standing outside his office now too. She could see his legs out of the corner of her eye; he must be facing in her direction. She kept her head down and carried on typing. Hopefully he’d assume she was too absorbed to have noticed him.
After a moment, she heard Babette speak.
‘Come along, darling! You said you were ready to leave. We’re due to pick Kitty up from Esme’s in ten minutes. Don’t you want to see your daughter?’ She laughed.
At last, Tara raised her eyes slightly, to see if the coast was clear. The pair of them had already turned towards the exit, but, just before they left, Blake glanced over his shoulder.
‘Good night, Tara.’ He sounded uncomfortable.
Tara sat there for a full five minutes, digesting what that meant.
That night, as she lay awake in her cottage with its draughty sash windows, her mind was on Blake rather than Luke Cope and Freya Cross. She thought back to that last look he’d given her as he’d left the station that evening. If he felt awkward about her seeing Babette then maybe she hadn’t misread his actions before Christmas.
She tried to put a stopper on the thoughts that were invading her headspace; what he’d done back then had simply been an impulsive response in the heat of the moment. Except it hadn’t just been relief she’d seen in his eyes as he’d held her… why had he radiated such intense emotion when he’d known Babette was pregnant?
At last she must have slept. It was still – ridiculously – the first thing in her head when she woke again. Talk about a waste of time. No amount of dwelling on the situation would alter the facts.
But the focus of the day changed very quickly.
The call from her colleague DC Max Dimity came in at seven thirty. Blake wanted them both over at the Paradise Nature Reserve.
A dog walker had discovered a body.
Three
Paradise Nature Reserve lived up to its name in spring and summer – a secluded overgrown haven with boardwalks skirting round its dense interior. It was just across a branch of the River Cam from Sheep’s Green, but DI Garstin Blake couldn’t see any animals grazing there today. The was no grass to be had – it was still buried under the compacted snow.
Sue and Barry – the uniformed cops who’d been dispatched when the call came in – had done a good job in securing the scene so quickly. The entrances to the reserve were taped off – both at the end nearest Lammas Land, with its ancient willows and playground (thankfully deserted, due to the weather), and where the area met Owlstone Road in the well-to-do district of Newnham. They’d put tape along the river’s edge too, using the ivy-covered tree trunks as posts to which to tie the plastic. Anyone could reach the nature reserve by boat – or punt, it being Cambridge – but Blake wasn’t expecting many curious river-goers on a day like today.
He’d already pulled on the requisite white overalls – handed to him by one of the CSIs, who’d filled him in briefly – when he caught sight of Agneta Larsson, the pathologist. She was dashing towards the police barrier from the direction of the Lammas Land car park, her blonde fringe flying in the strong breeze.
It was the first time they’d seen each other since he’d confided to her over the phone that his wife, Babette, was pregnant again. Hell, it wasn’t his fault, but he was still embarrassed – ashamed even – about the state of affairs. When he’d been to dinner with Agneta and her husband Frans just before Christmas, Babette had already been three months gone, but he’d had no idea. That evening, he’d confessed to Agneta that he didn’t want another child. Or at least – not with Babette. And when he’d explained – for the first time ever – just why there was such a rift between him and his wife, Agneta’s white-hot anger – felt on his behalf – had shocked him. But it had also reflected his feelings of four and a half years earlier, when he’d found out how Babette had planned to betray him. Agneta was the only person he’d fully confided in.
She was pulling on her overalls now, whilst nodding at him. ‘Blake. Where do we go?’ They’d first met through work, and she still called him by his surname, just like most of his friends. The only people who habitually called him Garstin were his mother and Babette, which was ironic. He had complex relationships with them both. His sister used the pet name Gar, which he could just about cope with – because it was her.
Once Agneta was ready he led her along the route the CSI had described, following the icy raised path away from the river, then stepping off it and into the snow-covered undergrowth. A very slow thaw was taking place. The compacted flakes on the upper side of the tree branches glistened with a covering of meltwater, but the wind still made it bitterly cold – intense enough to have numbed his feet already, and to have worked its way through his clothes.
On the other side of a tree that had one long, low branch sticking out at right angles to its trunk, lay the body of the woman identified as Freya Cross. Sue had found her handbag nearby, containing all the usual ID. There was nothing obviously missing from it: her phone, purse, cards and keys were all there. Her driving licence showed she’d lived in Newnham and Blake already had reports coming in on everything from her line of work to her next of kin. She’d been very close to home when she’d been attacked. She was fully clothed in a high-quality grey woollen coat. The skin that was visible was blue-white, and snow had built up around the outline of her body. He shivered. When they moved her she would leave behind her imprint.
Freya Cross had worn a scarf, too, which was now loose around her neck. But Blake could see without Agneta’s help that it had been tight at one point. Too tight. There were abrasions round her throat, and her open eyes were glassy and bloodshot. Her tongue protruded a little. Some bastard must have taken her by surprise. Someone she’d agreed to meet? Or someone – a friend or a stranger – that she’d been unlucky enough to run into by chance?
‘The CSIs told me it’s Freya Cross. I see it’s not manual strangulation, then.’
He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t heard footsteps behind them. The snow had likely deadened them anyway. He didn’t have to turn to know it was Tara. Her voice was shaky and when he spun round her green eyes were on the dead woman.
‘What did you say?’
Tara recounted the interviews she’d conducted the previous day. As she described Luke Cope’s painting of Freya Cross, Agneta put a gloved hand to the area of her mask that covered her mouth. ‘My God.’
Tara was white-faced. ‘If I’d pushed harder yesterday – called her home, gone to look for her in person – she might not be dead. I just went back to my cottage. I poured myself a glass of wine, for God’s sake.’
Blake cursed inwardly. Tara’s revelation had caught him off balance too. Normally, he’d have read her report the previous evening, but he and Babette had got into one of their ‘discussions’. It had gone on into the night.
‘Remind me again when Luke Cope went missing?’ he asked.
‘A week ago last Saturday.’
Blake looked at Agneta. She was already crouched over the dead woman’s body, examining her, gingerly touching her unyielding arm.
Now the pathologist turned to meet his gaze. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘she’s rigid. In temperatures as cold as this rigor mortis can last way longer than usual – up to three days or so potentially. But in this case, she is simply frozen stiff. There’s nothing to say she hasn’t been here since the same Saturday the artist went missing.’ She glanced up at Tara. ‘You can set your mind at rest. Searching for her yesterday evening would already have been too late, though I may never be one hundred per cent certain on the timing. This weather is no help. We can at least say she died after the first snowfall. Her body was warm enough to melt the flakes beneath her torso when she fell, but there’s thick snow under her hands and boots that stayed frozen.’
‘What about the method, using the scarf rather than bare hands? Would that make Luke Cope less likely to be the perpetrator?’
Agneta shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say so. What seemed appealing in his sick dreams might not have been practical in reality. Manual strangulation takes a lot of strength, and it’s harder to control someone if they’re standing, and on a slippery surface as well. Whoever your killer is, they probably realised the scarf was a surer option and went for that.’
Blake nodded. ‘The bastard who did this got lucky. If the weather had improved she’d probably have been discovered the day after she was strangled – possibly by some cheery family with kids scrambling over the tree trunks, looking for beetles.’ He closed his eyes for a second, imagining six-year-old Kitty faced with such a horrific sight. ‘As it is, the trail’s likely to be as cold as the weather – and if Luke Cope is the guilty party, who knows where he might have got to by now?’
‘You’re not certain it’s him.’ Tara’s eyes were on Blake.
He shook his head. ‘And you’re not either.’ He could see it in her expression.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Her husband told her boss she was staying with a friend for an indefinite period. If his wife’s been here all this time he can’t have spoken to her to check how she was doing. That seems odd for a start.’
Blake agreed. ‘And you said her employer was cagey when you called?’
‘Yes. He didn’t respond in the way I’d have expected.’
Blake looked down again
at the body. He thought of the stilled blood in her veins, the life that had been cut off so violently.
‘Her other half is one Professor Zach Cross, apparently. I’ll be watching him very closely when we go to break the news,’ he said, turning to Tara. ‘The family home is just round the corner, so we haven’t got far to go. And then we’ll want to talk to Matthew Cope again too, to find out more about his brother.’
Tara nodded, but already she’d turned away from him. The action seemed pointed to Blake.
Agneta looked up. ‘I should have more for you by late afternoon. I’ll call you when I have a firm time for the post-mortem.’
‘Thanks, Agneta.’
She nodded.
‘Tara, will you join Sue and talk to the woman who found the body?’ He nodded over to where a grey-haired lady in a Barbour jacket, brown skirt and wellington boots was speaking to one of the PCs. ‘I’m going to explore this place – get my bearings – and then we can get going.’
She’d turned to face him again. ‘Sir.’ Just that one word of acknowledgement… but then she smiled. It wasn’t a genuine one though; she was being professional.
He watched her duck under the police tape before removing her mask and pulling down her hood. Her movements were controlled, even in overalls. He wondered if it was down to the honed spatial awareness that had come from the self-defence training she’d done. She’d been stalked as a teenager and taken steps to protect herself. The offender had never been identified, and he suspected she’d been on her guard ever since.
He wished he’d known Babette was going to drop into the station the evening before. If I had I would have— But he cut off the thought. Focusing on anything but finding Freya Cross’s killer was a betrayal of the dead woman.
Blake took the circular path that ran round the outer perimeter of the nature reserve. When he reached the exit that led towards Newnham he realised that the walk to Freya Cross’s home was even shorter than he’d thought. And the house where the missing man, Luke Cope, lived wasn’t far off either – though in the opposite direction. His brother Matthew had clearly thought they’d been having an affair and although it didn’t sound as though there was proof, a painting of the woman naked in his house was pretty suggestive. And they’d fought, if Matthew Cope’s report was accurate… Maybe he’d asked to meet her there, out in the wilderness, to sort out their differences. Perhaps, given the location, it was a favourite rendezvous point of theirs – part way between their two homes. Luke Cope could have reached it quickly on foot from Trumpington Road, cutting along Vicar’s Brook through the meadows of Coe Fen, and then over the two footbridges, with their steel frameworks and timber decking, to reach the nature reserve. Maybe Freya Cross had arrived from her quiet, respectable street, all ready for a reconciliation. Only Luke hadn’t come in peace after all…