Crime_Scene

Kate Ellis

‘Comment vous appellez-vous, Madame?’ Barney Tollemache’s French was rusty but he always believed in trying.

His expensive fountain pen hovered over the title page. He’d bought the pen when he’d received his first contract and he regarded it as a talisman. Everybody needs luck. Especially in his line of work.

‘You already know my name.’

His eyes had been focused on the book so he hadn’t been paying much attention to the woman standing in front of him, the last in the queue to have her copy of his hardback signed.

He looked up at her. After a day spent murdering the French language, her English voice aroused his interest. She was in her early thirties, around his own age, with blond hair and a short black skirt which left little to the imagination. Her long scarlet fingernails reminded him of the talons of an elegant bird of prey whose nest was lined with old copies of Vogue. He experienced a faint bat squeak of recognition but the more he studied her, the more convinced he was that he’d never seen her before. He would have remembered.

‘Sorry. You’ll have to remind me. My memory’s...’ he said with an apologetic grin. He went through a rapid mental list of all the females he’d encountered over the two years since his novel was published, but there’d been so many festivals, so many libraries, so many book-signings, that it wasn’t humanly possible to recall everyone. Especially for someone like Barney, who’d always been terrible with faces.

‘You really don’t remember me?’

‘You’ll have to give me a clue.’

He suddenly had the awful thought that he might have slept with this woman, that she might have been one of his literary festival one-night stands. To forget about such intimacy seemed bad manners at best, sordid at worst. But these things happened—especially after the amount of drink he usually put away at such events. And he needed a drink now, so he glanced at his watch, wondering how soon he could get away.

She was smiling now, teasing, enjoying his discomfort. ‘I’ll give you a clue. It was a very long time ago.’

‘Before I was published?’

‘Long before.’

‘At Oxford?’ he said hopefully. His university days had been equally alcohol-soaked and his memories were consequently hazy.

‘Before that.’

‘School? Bilson Hall?’

Her smile widened. He’d got it right. If only he could remember her name.

‘Of course. I remember now,’ he lied. ‘Sorry it took so long to muster my brain cells into action.’ He beamed his most appealing smile at her, the smile that guaranteed forgiveness of any sin—and he’d committed quite a few in his time.

‘That’s okay. Aren’t you going to sign my book?’

He looked at the book and realised it was an English edition, whereas most copies he’d signed that day had been French translations. ‘Remind me how you spell your name again?’ He looked at her expectantly, pleased with himself for thinking up this ploy.

‘S U Z Y. Suzy with a Z.’ She leaned forward and he felt an unexpected thrill of desire pass through his body.

‘Of course. How could I forget?’ he said. But he had forgotten and he was still no wiser.

He began to write. ‘For Suzy. Once seen, never forgotten.’

‘Would you like love or best wishes?’

‘Just your signature will do.’

He signed it with a flourish and when he handed it back to her their fingers touched. Then he looked round and realised the other authors on his panel had departed and they were now alone apart from a thin girl who was refilling bottles of water in the far corner.

‘What brings you to Paris?’ he asked.

‘Same as you. Work. Enjoying the festival?’

Barney shrugged. ‘It keeps my French publisher happy.’

‘Fancy a drink?’ said Suzy, her voice full of promise.

‘Why not?’ With the prospect of a large red wine dangled before him, he hurried to pack up his things, hoping the bar wouldn’t be too crowded.

‘I wasn’t thinking of here,’ she said as though she’d read his mind. ‘My apartment’s not far away and I bought a case of rather nice Beaujolais when I was down that way last year.’

‘Your place it is, then.’ He suddenly felt reckless, like a boy released from school at the end of term. He was stuck there in a strange city without any of the usual drinking buddies he met at British festivals and here was an attractive woman about to ply him with decent wine. Things were looking up.

The convention hotel was on the banks of the Seine overlooking the Île de la Cité. Barney could see the towers of Notre Dame from his third-floor window but the demands of his French publisher and the punishing schedule of panels and book-signings meant he hadn’t been able to get out and explore the city as much as he would have liked. But now he was eager to seize his chance.

Suzy assured him her apartment was nearby, although they seemed to walk for ages through the narrow, picturesque streets of the Marais, so different from Haussmann’s imposing boulevards. After a while they found themselves in a large square surrounded by fine arcaded buildings with a fountain in the centre of a formal garden where children played on the manicured grass watched by their elegant mothers. When he asked Suzy where they were she told him it was the Place des Vosges. The name was familiar and he knew he must have been there before as a student when he’d spent a weekend sampling the cheapest alcohol the city had to offer—not that he remembered much about it. He stopped to take in the scene, until Suzy took his arm and led him off down a side street into a maze of ancient buildings. Eventually she stopped by an old wooden front door with an iron grille set into the top and a row of neat bell pushes at the side.

‘This is me.’

She pushed the door and it opened smoothly to reveal a stone-flagged hallway. A stone stairway with intricate wrought-iron banisters snaked to the upper floors of the building. The walls were whitewashed and the flaking paint looked as though it was meant to be that way. French shabby chic. But Barney’s mind was on the wine—and any other treats that might be on offer. He followed her up the stairs to the top floor.

‘A Parisian garret,’ he said as he stepped into the small apartment in the eaves. The walls sloped but the white walls and the light flooding in from the tall windows gave it a feeling of space. ‘Yours?’

‘Yes. I’m working in Paris for a couple of years.’

She made for the kitchen and he followed. He needed that wine; he could almost taste it. He stood in the doorway of the tiny room, little more than a cupboard, and watched her extract the cork from the bottle. There was a sensuous quality about the movement but he was focused on the red liquid cascading into the glass rather than the prospect of any sexual delights to come. When she passed him his drink, he caught the ghost of her perfume—something heady he didn’t recognise.

‘Cheers,’ he raised the glass.

‘Santé,’ she replied, her eyes fixed expectantly on his face.

He drained the glass like a thirsty man in a desert and she smiled when he held his glass out for a refill.

‘Let’s sit down.’ She made her way to the sofa, and when she sat, she patted the space beside her. Before accepting the invitation he picked up the bottle and placed it on the tiled coffee table with exaggerated care. The wine was starting to affect him, which was unusual because he’d always been able to hold his liquor; he’d had years of practice. But now the room was swimming in and out of focus. He put down his glass. Perhaps the life of a crime writer was catching up with him at last.

‘Sorry,’ he said, concentrating on getting the slurred words out. ‘I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch.’

‘Drinking on an empty stomach doesn’t agree with me either,’ she said sympathetically. He was aware of her fingers stroking his hair. ‘Why don’t you lie down for a bit? I’ll rustle up something to eat.’

Barney murmured his thanks and closed his eyes. The world was still spinning and when he sat back, he felt himself drifting into sleep. The convention had exhausted him so, a doze would do him good, he thought.

He felt bad, as though a thousand builders with lump hammers were hard at work in his head. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again because the light streaming in from the window hurt him. A minute later he tried again, looking at the room through half-open eyelids until he summoned the courage to lever himself upright. This had never happened before and he was seized by panic. What if there was something seriously wrong with him?

Once he was in a sitting position he looked round, confused at first. Then he remembered. He’d been having a drink with a woman called Suzy when he’d fallen asleep. He looked at his watch. Seven-thirty. He must have been out for a couple of hours. He remembered the bottle of wine and glass on the coffee table but they weren’t there now, so she must have tidied up and left him to sleep it off. The heavy silence told him she was no longer in the apartment. Perhaps she’d gone out to buy something for dinner—or more wine, he thought hopefully as he tried to stand up. He felt shaky and collapsed onto the sofa again, but on the third attempt he managed to struggle to his feet.

He needed a pee so he staggered towards a closed door he hoped led to the bathroom, undoing his zip on the way. He opened the door and the bright white tiles told him he was in the right place. The bathroom was spacious and he headed straight for the toilet, closing his eyes as he relieved himself. He immediately felt better—until he turned his head and caught a glimpse of red against the clinical white.

She was sprawled in the bath, eyes closed as if in sleep. The blood on her blouse stood out, red against the whiteness of the crisp cotton. It formed a heart-shaped patch on her chest and he knew she was dead. He tore his eyes away from her and saw a knife on the bathroom floor; a sharp kitchen knife with a white handle covered in blood. Then he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and saw blood on his own shirt, splashed on the front and creeping up the cuffs.

He stood staring at the body, paralysed with fear. He should call the police. It was the only thing to do. The private eye in his book wouldn’t have bothered; he would have solved the crime with no official help. But this was real life, not fiction. Although…there was something horribly familiar about the scenario.

It took him a few moments to recognise the similarity to the opening scene from his novel; the blood-soaked girl in the bath; the detective passing out and not knowing how she got there.

When he stumbled into the main room to fetch his phone from his jacket pocket, he found his battery was dead.

He had second thoughts about the police and got out of there fast after wiping the place clean of fingerprints with a tea towel, hoping nobody had seen him. If he alerted the authorities, he’d be subjected to hour upon hour of awkward questions, and he knew nothing, apart from the fact that he hadn’t killed her. Had he? He’d lost a couple of hours and that blank in his memory made him uneasy. As did the resemblance to the murder in his book.

He hurried back to the hotel, his jacket concealing the blood on his shirt. It was the gala dinner that night and he needed a shower before he ventured down. His head felt better, but he wondered whether it would be wise to drink. Maybe he should stick to orange juice that evening—although the prospect of such abstinence horrified him.

He didn’t know how he got through the evening—picking at his food, chatting with his French publisher and translator and greeting his fellow writers with his usual bonhomie while all the time trying to banish the vision of the dead woman in the bath from his mind. Had he really been so drunk that he couldn’t remember what happened? He hadn’t had that much, so surely it wasn’t possible. But he had seen what he had seen.

He excused himself early and returned to his room. He’d put the shirt into a plastic bag and he knew it would be wise to get rid of it, so the next morning he rose early and caught the Metro to the Gare du Nord, where he dumped the bag into a bin. He’d wiped it clean of fingerprints before going out—he was a crime writer so he knew about these things—and he’d been careful to place it into another bag and pull it out protected by a handkerchief at the crucial time. After it was done he returned to the hotel in a daze. He made his living by writing about murder but he’d never before encountered its reality.

At breakfast he found that morning’s newspaper on a neighbouring seat and he trawled through it, using his schoolboy French to translate the headlines. But nowhere did it mention that a woman’s body had been found in a Marais apartment.

She hadn’t been found yet. And he was returning to Manchester in three days’ time.

The temptation to go back to the apartment was great, especially when he remembered that she’d been in possession of a book signed by him. He knew enough about police investigations to know that, if it was known that they’d had any contact, he’d have to be traced, interviewed, and eliminated from inquiries. The brand-new book, signed at the convention, would be a clue.

He told himself there was no way they could link him to Suzy’s death just because he’d signed a book for her. But what if he’d been seen leaving the hotel with her? What if they’d been caught on CCTV? Although he’d once heard that the French weren’t as obsessed with surveillance cameras as the British, who were said to be the most watched people in Europe. If he kept calm he’d be home soon and all would be well.

The day before he was due to leave for England his French publisher took him for lunch in a good restaurant where he consumed a bottle of Burgundy with no ill effects and walked back to the hotel feeling mellow. If there were going to be repercussions from the incident in the Marais, he would surely have heard by now. Perhaps the similarity to the murder in his book was just a coincidence. Perhaps she had been killed by a lover who came in, found him there asleep, jumped to conclusions, and killed her in a fit of jealous rage. The French were reputed to be very forgiving about crimes of passion.

He returned to his room intending to shower and pack before that evening’s session in the bar, and as he helped himself to a bottle of water from the minibar, he noticed a large brown envelope lying by the door as though someone had pushed it underneath. Curiosity made him tear it open and his heart hammered as the photographs slithered onto the bed. He stared at the coloured images and felt sick. She was lying there in the bath, her chest a mass of crusted blood. The photographs had been taken from different angles, like crime-scene pictures, some close-ups and others taking in the whole bathroom. There were others, too—Barney slumped on the sofa with his eyes closed, a bloody knife clasped in his hand.

Then there was the accompanying note, written in neat capitals on deckle-edged note paper:

DO AS YOU’RE TOLD OR THESE GO TO THE POLICE.

Barney was so preoccupied with his problem he hardly noticed time passing as he journeyed back on Eurostar. Could he have killed Suzy without remembering a thing? He wasn’t a violent man and he had absolutely no recollection of it. Besides, why would he kill her? The pictures were hidden at the bottom of his case and he couldn’t wait to destroy them; a symbolic act because he knew they were only copies.

The sender of the letter had ordered him to do as he was told but there’d been no more communication. Perhaps it was some sort of frame-up. But who had taken the pictures?

Once back at the flat in the centre of Manchester he’d bought with the publisher’s extremely generous advance for his first novel, he ripped up the photographs and pushed them into the waste disposal. He needed to resume work on the manuscript he’d abandoned to go to Paris. It was a second draft, an untamed mess of a plot that needed sorting out. But when he sat at his desk staring at the words on the paper, his mind refused to focus.

His debut novel, In My Flesh, had taken the world of crime fiction by storm, been awarded the CWA Gold Dagger, and had made his name and his fortune. The book had been translated into forty languages, a film had been made of it with a major Hollywood star in the leading role, and his agent frequently fielded requests for TV interviews and festival appearances. In My Flesh had changed his life, but since then he’d found it difficult to produce anything as noteworthy. His agent had assured him that ‘second novel syndrome’ was common. But that didn’t stop the sleepless nights and the increasing feeling of hopelessness.

Over the next days he found it hard to concentrate on work. Instead he found himself trawling the Internet for reports of a body found in a Paris apartment. But there was nothing. Perhaps she hadn’t been discovered yet, he thought. Perhaps she wouldn’t be found until the neighbours noticed an unpleasant smell. The thought disgusted him but it was the most likely explanation. Surely somebody, her colleagues perhaps, would notice her absence, but then he realised she hadn’t told him what she did or where she worked. He knew nothing about her, apart from the fact they’d been at school together.

He had some old photo albums stuffed in the back of the sleek, pale wood sideboard in the living room. He wasn’t normally the sentimental type, but he’d felt a need to have something from his past in the sterile modern flat in the glass tower. After a brief search he pulled out an album filled with pictures from his childhood. Then there were the school photographs, teenagers lined up in rows wearing smart uniforms and forced smiles. The name of the school ‘Bilson Hall’ was printed at the bottom of the cardboard frame in embossed gold letters along with a date—2004. He turned it over and saw a list of names printed on the back, row by row and left to right—but none of them was Suzy. There was, however, a Susannah listed, but when he studied the photograph he saw that the corresponding girl was black. He remembered she’d been deputy head girl and had gone on to medical school. She definitely wasn’t his Suzy…and neither, on close inspection, were any of the others.

Perhaps she’d been away that day but he hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from school, so there was nobody he could ask. When he’d gone to Oxford, he’d discarded his old friends like a butterfly shedding a chrysalis.

Then three days later the second letter arrived.

The postmark on the envelope was unreadable and Barney held it for a while before slitting it open with the dagger given him by a fan which now served as a paper knife. His hands shook as he unfolded the note written on the same thick deckle-edged paper as the one that had accompanied the pictures. Although the bloody image of the dead woman still disturbed his sleep, his memories of the Paris incident were beginning to fade. But the words on the paper brought them flooding back, raw and fresh:

DEAR MURDERER,

MEET ME IN THE READING ROOM.

CENTRAL LIBRARY.

3 P.M. TUESDAY.

TELL NO ONE.

It was Tuesday already so he didn’t have much time to brood on it. He spent the morning trying to edit his manuscript but the increasingly meaningless words swam in front of his eyes. His flat was open plan and from where he was sitting he could see a bottle of wine squatting on the kitchen worktop. He needed a drink. Dutch courage. Giving silent thanks to the inventor of the screw top, he opened the bottle, pouring the ruby liquid into a large glass. If he was going to face his nemesis that afternoon, he needed to take the edge off his fear.

Creeping into the Central Library’s magnificent circular reading room, he barely noticed the huge dome above his head and the elaborate clock in the centre. He’d always loved the room, a temple to reading created by a proud industrial city, but now the place seemed tainted by this new association with his Paris experience. He looked round, scanning the faces. His letter-writer had to be there somewhere.

None of the people there appeared to be the type who’d send those photographs, although he was sure blackmailers came in all shapes and sizes. And was it blackmail? There had been no mention of money in the first note delivered to his hotel room, just ‘do as you’re told or these go to the police,’ But what was he supposed to do?

He sat down at a table and waited, his eyes fixed on the entrance. Nobody had reacted when he’d walked in, so he was as sure as he could be that his letter-writer hadn’t yet arrived. He looked at his watch. Five minutes to go.

At three o’clock on the dot, a man appeared in the doorway and looked around. He was thin, almost emaciated, with a long face and, even though his mousy hair was thinning, he was a similar age to Barney, he guessed. And there was certainly something familiar about him, although he couldn’t place what it was.

The man was circling the room, studying faces. Barney picked up a newspaper and hid himself behind it, although this meant he couldn’t keep an eye on the newcomer. He was aware of someone sitting down on the chair next to him and he sneaked a glance at his new neighbour. It was him.

As the man leaned towards him the sense of familiarity increased. Then he spoke, in hushed library tones.

‘Hello, Barney. Long time no see.’

Barney put the paper down and twisted round to face him, his heart beating fast. ‘You’ll have to remind me.’

‘School days. Sixth form at Bilson Hall. Luke Vardey. Remember?’

Barney stared at him. He remembered all right. They’d been best mates, sharing each other’s hopes, dreams, and secrets until they’d gone their separate ways—although Luke had changed a lot in the intervening years, almost beyond recognition.

‘So…er, what have you been doing with yourself since school?’ Barney asked, feeling a sudden nag of guilt that he’d made no effort to keep in touch. Luke had gone through a bad time when he was eighteen. He’d suffered some sort of breakdown and failed his A-levels, while Barney had swept off to Oxford without giving his old friend a second thought.

‘This and that,’ Luke whispered. ‘You got my letter?’

Barney saw desperation in Luke’s eyes—and suddenly felt afraid.

‘What do you want?’

Luke opened the shabby old briefcase he was carrying and drew out some photographs, copies of the ones Barney had received in Paris.

‘How did you get these?’ Barney pushed them away. He didn’t want to be reminded.

‘Never mind how I got them. If you don’t do as you’re told, they go to the police.’

‘You want money?’

‘It’ll do, for starters.’

‘What do you mean?’

Luke hesitated for a moment. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said before picking up his briefcase and hurrying away.

It was obvious that Luke had endured hard times since leaving school and Barney supposed that when he’d heard about his literary success he must have decided to try his luck. Although this didn’t explain how he came to have the photographs.

After leaving Oxford, Barney had taken a series of dead-end jobs while he struggled to establish a career in writing. He’d failed at first, receiving rejection after rejection, until he’d found an old synopsis amongst a load of old school books in his parents’ loft and set about transforming it into In My Flesh, which rapidly became a best seller. He’d been lucky and as he’d moved on with his life, he’d put Luke out of his mind. Now he had the uneasy feeling that maybe he owed him something. Perhaps paying him to keep quiet about Suzy’s murder would be the right thing to do.

A few days later he received another letter, suggesting a meeting at Luke’s address, naming the time and place. What he had to say to Barney needed to be said in private.

Luke lived in a large Victorian house in a run-down area favoured by students. Barney’s nose wrinkled as he passed the wheelie bins lined up for collection in the once prosperous tree-lined road that had plummeted down the social ladder over the course of the twentieth century. There was a row of plastic buzzers beside the front door, some broken and mended with peeling tape, and Barney was struck by the contrast to Suzy’s Marais apartment building.

As Luke led the way up the uncarpeted staircase, Barney could smell drains and stale cooking. The bedsit was a small, seedy room with a tiny kitchenette at one end and an unmade bed at the other. There was an old gas fire and the wallpaper was peeling. The only thing of interest, as far as Barney could see, was an old-fashioned typewriter on a desk in the large bay window.

‘This Suzy…did you know her?’ Barney asked as he took in his surroundings.

‘She was a friend of mine,’ Luke answered. ‘She helped me.’

‘So you were in Paris when I was?’

‘What if I was? It’s you we’re talking about.’

‘I didn’t kill Suzy.’

‘You were holding the knife. Your prints were all over it. And there was blood all over your shirt.’ He made for the kitchen and rooted in a cupboard. Barney immediately recognised the carrier bag he produced. It was the one he’d dumped in the bin at the Gare du Nord.

‘How the hell…?’

There was a look of triumph on Luke’s face. ‘For a crime writer you’re not very good at this sort of thing, are you?’

‘How much do you want?’

‘This isn’t about money. It’s about truth.’

The seed of suspicion that had been growing in Barney’s mind suddenly sprung to life. ‘It was you who killed Suzy? You stabbed her while I was asleep and left her body in the bath like in my book?’

‘What makes you think you didn’t kill her? I don’t expect you remember much about that afternoon.’

‘I think I was drugged. It’s the only explanation.’

‘Or drunk. You drink too much, Barney. You didn’t know what you were doing.’

‘How do you know all this? Were you following me?’ Barney felt himself sweating with panic. Luke was right. He didn’t know what he did that afternoon. He might be a killer. Then he noticed Luke’s hands shaking as he fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.

‘I’ll offer you a deal. I’ll destroy all the photos, provided you tell the truth.’

‘I don’t know the truth. I can’t remember what happened.’

‘I’m not talking about Suzy now. I want you to tell the truth about In My Flesh. The idea was mine. I wrote that synopsis and the first two chapters in the sixth form—I gave you a copy, remember? Asked your opinion about it. I kept a copy, so I can prove you’re a fraud.’

There was a heavy silence while Barney took it in.

‘I want you to call your agent and tell her,’ Luke continued. ‘Then you’ll make a public announcement—tell the world the story was mine.’

‘Did you kill Suzy because of this?’

Luke shook his head. ‘I didn’t kill her. You did. And I want half the royalties you’ve earned so far from my idea because I need to get out of this shithole. If you haven’t announced it by the end of this week, the pictures go to the police.’

Barney gaped at him, his fists clenched. What Luke said was true. His inability to write wasn’t due to second novel syndrome; it was because he hadn’t produced the idea for the first. He’d put Luke’s detailed synopsis into decent English, tweaking it so that the narrative flowed and the tension built. But the story hadn’t been his, and he couldn’t see how he was going to create the follow-up. His mind didn’t work that way. Maybe he had no choice but to give in and do as Luke asked.

But what else did he have in his life? In My Flesh had brought him everything he’d longed for—fame, money, security, a purpose. And what was to stop Luke from demanding the remaining half of his royalties, using the threat of being named as Suzy’s murderer to wield power over him for the rest of his life?

Barney had a sudden bitter vision of the life he’d built on the lie vanishing, of being forced to hand over everything until he and Luke eventually swapped their lives. He saw a vegetable knife amongst a heap of apple peelings on the stained table a couple of feet away and, on impulse, he grabbed it and lunged at Luke, thrusting the blade in once, twice—just as he must have thrust it into Suzy’s body that day.

He’d heard it said that murder is easier the second time around, but it didn’t feel that way as he stared down with horror at the thin, shabby man lying lifeless at his feet. He felt as though he was in the middle of a nightmare but this was real and he knew he needed to eliminate all evidence that they’d ever had any contact. There was no sign of a computer in the flat and Barney was grateful for Luke’s old-fashioned habit of communicating by letter. But then Luke had always been different.

After wiping everything he might have touched, Barney crept back down the stairs, listening for telltale noises in the silent house. When he reached the front door he covered his hand with his sleeve before touching the handle.

Then he heard the scrape of a key in the lock so he sprang back, but there was nowhere to hide. The door swung open and he saw a blond woman standing in the doorway, staring at him in astonishment.

It’s not often people return from the dead.