‘Helena!’ Emsworth’s greeting on opening the door was effusive.
‘I hope you weren’t expecting anyone else,’ Grant smiled. ‘You do know we’re not allowed to mix with other households?’
‘Certainly not. I was just delighted as always to see you. Luckily we can be each other’s support bubble.’
‘You know how to say the right things, Bill. I’m delighted to be here.’
‘You’d better come in.’ Emsworth peered past her into the darkness. ‘Smells like snow out there.’
‘They’ve forecast some overnight. Just a sprinkling, I think.’
‘Enough to give us a white Christmas, I hope. Can’t remember the last time we had one.’
‘Not for a few years, even up here,’ she agreed. ‘Usually seems to wait till January, just to add to the misery.’ She followed him into the spacious hallway. He’d pulled out all the stops to get the place ready for Christmas. ‘It’s looking very Christmassy.’
‘Well, that’s the idea. This place isn’t really Victorian or even Edwardian, but I’ve taken a few liberties with the period style.’
‘It looks marvellous,’ she said. ‘Very cosy.’
‘I’m aiming for a cosy Christmas,’ he said. ‘Just the two of us. One of the few benefits of social distancing.’
‘Sounds idyllic. Better than most of my recent Christmases by quite a long way.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Emsworth said. ‘Though I’ll do my best to make this one a success.’
‘I’ve usually just been working,’ she explained. ‘That’s how I was able to justify taking tomorrow off as well as Christmas Day and Boxing Day. They owe me several.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it. It means we can have a proper little holiday together. I hope the ship stays on course in your absence.’
From their first meeting, she’d been amused by his manner of speaking. The slightly florid and self-conscious language, the sense that he was always partly giving a performance. If it had been more exaggerated, it might have been irritating, but he seemed to know how to keep it under control. At first, she’d assumed the verbal style would be echoed in his writing, but she’d read a number of his books now and his written style was almost the opposite – simple, unadorned and plain. Perhaps he allowed what he took out of his writing to flow into the way he spoke.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Alec McKay will deputise very ably. He’ll probably rub a few people up the wrong way, but he’ll have it all under control. The main issue’s clearly the murder investigation.’ She’d followed him into the living room, and was now gazing with admiration at the ornately decorated Christmas tree, stretching up into the vaulted roof space. ‘I don’t think anything new’s likely to break over Christmas, though obviously the investigation’s continuing. Mind you, I should warn you that, if anything major does happen, I might still need to go in.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t, then,’ Emsworth said. ‘Keen as I am for you to bring the perpetrators to justice.’ He gestured towards the tree. ‘What do you think? All my own work.’
‘You’re a man of hidden talents, Mr Emsworth.’ She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. It wasn’t the first time, but she still felt slightly awkward with the intimacy.
‘You wait,’ he said. ‘Now, would you like a coffee or something stronger?’
She looked at her watch. It was still only just after 6pm, though as she’d driven here through the darkness, it had felt much later. ‘Coffee for the moment. We can move on to the harder stuff later.’
‘Very wise. Don’t want us falling asleep before supper. I have a haunch of local venison ready to roast.’
‘Goodness. As I say, hidden talents.’
‘I’m pushing the boat out this Christmas,’ he said. ‘In celebration.’
‘Of what?’
He was already disappearing out of the door on his way to the kitchen, but he stopped and looked back. ‘Of us, of course. What else?’
Grant remained slightly unsure if this really was a good idea. She’d been hoping for a new relationship, a serious relationship, for a couple of years now, but it had increasingly felt out of reach. Then, out of the blue, Bill Emsworth turned up. They’d got on well, bonding during Bill’s so-called research sessions, in which he’d plied her with questions about police procedure in exchange for excellent dinners in Rocpool and the Mustard Seed. They’d discovered they had plenty in common, and the ‘research sessions’ had gradually transformed into genuine dates. It had happened more quickly than she’d expected, and she was worried she might be rushing into things.
On the other hand, neither she nor Bill were getting any younger. This might be the one chance they had to start something new, so why not give it a try? So far she was enjoying it.
She sat herself on the plush sofa and looked around the room. She’d been here a couple of times already, and she liked the house. It felt like Bill himself – just a little ostentatious in its style but comfortable and welcoming. Despite its high vaulted ceiling, the living room felt cosy against the chill of the winter night. She was already beginning to think she could feel at home here.
Emsworth returned bearing two mugs of coffee. ‘Hope I’ve remembered correctly. Milk and no sugar?’
‘Exactly right,’ she said, as he seated himself beside her.
He sat back on the sofa, watching her. ‘I hope I don’t prove too boring over the next few days,’ he said. ‘I do tend to live a quiet life these days.’
‘Exactly what I want. I get plenty of excitement and stress at work.’
‘I had a visit from one of your people today. DS Horton?’
‘Ginny? I hope she was gentle with you.’
‘The very model of professionalism. I’m not sure I could help much, though.’
Grant nodded. ‘I don’t want to seem difficult, Bill, but it’s probably better if we don’t talk shop. I’m skating on slightly thin ice anyway given our relationship. It really wouldn’t be appropriate for me to discuss the case. Sorry.’ She shifted awkwardly, wondering if she’d already managed to offend him.
Emsworth smiled. ‘No, you’re quite right. I’ve no desire to put you in a difficult position. I fully appreciate the sensitivities.’ His smile widened. ‘Anyway, it gives me an excuse to talk about me instead. My favourite subject.’
‘There we go then,’ she said. ‘We’re all winners. Anyway, it’s about time. I’ve given you all that inside knowledge about policing. Now you can tell me the secrets of writing.’
‘I wish I knew what they were,’ he said. ‘I’ve written twenty novels, and it seems harder each time. I keep thinking eventually I’ll discover the trick, but it hasn’t happened yet.’
‘Are you working on something at the moment?’ They’d never really discussed Emsworth’s work, except in relation to his questions about policing.
‘I’m always working on something. Quite often more than one thing. At the moment, I’m editing one book and trying to write another.’
‘That must be confusing.’
‘It can be. Especially if you work in the chaotic way I do. It’s only a matter of time before I insert the wrong character into a book.’
‘Do you enjoy it?’ she asked, unsure if it was a stupid question. ‘The writing, I mean.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t, I suppose. Nobody forced me to take up this profession. Mind you, if you were to ask me when I’m in the middle of trying to make a plot work, I might tell you differently. It can feel like hard work sometimes, but it’s not exactly digging ditches.’
‘You’ve obviously done quite well from it,’ she said, looking around the room.
‘Don’t let the house fool you. I’m making a decent living from the writing these days, but it’s not exactly made me rich. Not yet, anyway. This place is the result of being able to buy a small house in London in the days when I had proper jobs. Bought it for what seems like peanuts now – though it didn’t then – and sold it for enough money to buy this place. But I do okay, as long as I keep writing.’
‘I supposed I’d assumed you’d always written,’ Grant said. ‘I didn’t realise you’d had other jobs. That was just naïve of me.’
‘It’s what people always assume if they don’t know how it works,’ Emsworth said. ‘I mean, I have always written. It just took me a long time to get published. And even longer to start making any money from it. I almost gave up a few times. I did various other jobs, but ended up running my own business, which was pretty all-consuming in itself, so I was struggling to find time to write. But I realised it was what I really wanted to do. In the end, I sold the business – for less than I should have done, looking back, but it gave me enough to tide me over – and carried on doing consultancy work for them. That gave me some savings, a bit of an income, and enough time to take the writing seriously. Luckily it worked.’
‘I hadn’t realised it was like that,’ Grant said. ‘I’d never really thought about it.’
‘People tend to assume we’re all J. K. Rowling and the money just comes flowing in, but it’s not like that, except for a fortunate few. You have to want to do it.’ He stood up, collecting the now empty coffee mugs. ‘I’ll go and get the food going. And return with a drink for you. Any preferences? Wine? G&T?’
‘Wine’s fine. Whatever’s going.’
‘Red okay?’
‘Anything, honestly. I’m very unfussy.’
‘Well, you’ve already agreed to spend time with me.’ He smiled. ‘Make yourself at home. I won’t be long.’
While she waited for him to return, she busied herself exploring the room. Not in a nosy way, she told herself, but just to get a better sense of who Bill Emsworth might be. There was a low cabinet along one wall, which held a selection of ornaments and photographs. Most of them were unrevealing, though Grant assumed some of them had particular sentimental significance for Bill.
She moved around the room and peered at the tightly packed bookshelves. She was an enthusiastic reader herself, but in no sense a collector of books. She tended to read a book once and then donate it to one of the charity shops in Inverness, and increasingly she was buying e-books to save herself the trouble of disposing of them.
Bill was clearly a very different kind of reader. He’d told her these bookshelves were only part of an extensive book collection located around the house, with the majority in the room that he used to write in. The books here were mostly crime novels, including some impressive old hardback editions of famous writers whose names she recognised. Agatha Christie. Dorothy L. Sayers. Margery Allingham. Ngaio Marsh. Other shelves including American writers such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and James Ellroy. Many of the other names meant nothing to her, but she assumed they were similarly renowned crime writers. The books were organised thematically rather than alphabetically, though she had no idea of the significance of some of the clusters.
The second shelf was devoted largely to books on true crime, ranging from serious scholarly studies of famous murders or murderers to more sensationalist accounts. Some of the books she recognised from her own studies in criminology – Ludovic Kennedy’s book on John Christie, Gordon Burn’s books about Peter Sutcliffe and Fred and Rosemary West, and various others. She supposed that kind of reading was as essential to Bill’s work as, in its way, it had been to her own training. The more sensationalist accounts of true crimes had never appealed to her, but again she imagined they would be useful in feeding Bill’s plot lines.
‘I see you’ve discovered the Black Library.’ Emsworth had re-entered the room without her hearing, and his voice just behind her ear made her start. She turned to see him smiling at her. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to make you jump. Thought you’d heard me come in.’
‘I was engrossed in looking at the books,’ she said. ‘It’s a fascinating collection.’
‘This is just a small part of it. There’s all kinds of stuff scattered about the house.’
‘I’d have thought you’d have kept the crime stuff in your work room?’
‘I do. These are just overflow shelves, really. Wait till you see how much stuff I’ve got up there.’ He gestured towards the true crime section. ‘That’s what I call the Black Library. My little joke. Like the old Black Museum in Scotland Yard.’
‘It’s still there, I think,’ Grant said. ‘In New Scotland Yard, that is. They just call it the Crime Museum these days.’
‘Of course they do. Political correctness gone mad and all that. By the way, I’ve brought wine as promised.’ He gestured towards two glasses sitting on the low table beside the sofa.
She wondered how he’d managed to enter the room and place the glasses on the table without her hearing. She had been focused on the bookshelves, as she’d said, but even so he must have moved very quietly. For a moment, the thought made her uneasy, as if he’d deliberately crept up on her.
It was nonsense, of course. If you’re trying to sneak up on someone, you don’t stop to place two glasses of wine on the table first. It was probably a sign of how tired and stressed she was that the idea had even occurred to her. She needed this Christmas break. ‘How’s the food going?’ she asked.
‘All under control. Roast potatoes in and cooking. I don’t want to put the venison in too early in case it overcooks.’
‘You sound quite the expert.’
‘Hardly. But I enjoy cooking. Even when it’s just for myself. But it’s more fun when it’s for someone else. Especially when that someone else is you.’ He raised his glass and clinked it against hers. ‘Cheers. And a very merry Christmas to both of us.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I think I needed this more than I realised.’