Francis woke early, with a dry mouth and a stinging headache. It was barely light, though outside the birds were serenading the little town with another noisy dawn chorus. It had rained in the night, and heavily, because he could hear drops still falling from the leaves of trees in the garden outside. He thought about boiling a kettle to make tea. But Priya was still asleep on the sofa, hands clasped tightly in her lap. It wasn’t fair even to risk waking her. So he took a sip of water from the glass by the bed, then lay still, staring up at the ceiling, doing stretching exercises with his toes, thoughts about the case racing around his brain.
His main problem was this. If the two deaths were related – and surely they had to be? – Grace’s ‘accident’ had drastically narrowed the field of suspects. Conal, for example, had to be struck off; at the critical time Francis had seen him with his own eyes out at the Black Bull. Unless his appearance there was some kind of elaborate alibi; but then how could he have known that Francis was going to visit that pub? He’d only dropped in on a whim. Then Virginia: even if her confessions of last night had given her more of a motive, the simple fact was that she’d been doing her event from 3 to 4 p.m. Was it possible that she’d hung around the Green Room afterwards to create an alibi before racing out to Wyveridge to do away with Grace? Hardly. Scarlett, too, was surely out of the frame. Not only had Francis been with her at the time of the second death, it wasn’t clear that she even knew of Grace’s existence. Which left three candidates from his original list: Dan Dickson, who had always seemed unlikely (even if the fight on the bridge offered an explanation for that bruise on Bryce’s cheek); Priya, first on the scene, but despite that traditional indicator of guilt, surely another long shot, with a watertight alibi and no obvious motive (though that missing chocolate still bothered him); and finally (and most likely?) Anna Copeland, with or without the assistance of four-fingered Marv. But however badly he’d treated her, Bryce’s behaviour hardly justified murder, did it? Even if she was completely broke and he’d left her money in his will. No, almost certainly, in a non-Braithwaite world, the real-life killer was someone else entirely. With some proper motive that had nothing to do with literary rivalry or being scorned in love.
Outside, down the street, he could hear the electric hum of a milk float, the clink of bottles being left on a doorstep. What on earth was he doing, he wondered. Curiosity had got him started on this quest, now he felt emotionally involved. He had barely known Grace, talked to her for what, ten minutes at the outside. But the thought of that bright young spirit snuffed out for no reason – or rather, for some all too compelling reason – had stirred him up horribly.
He knew why. Grace had reminded him, from the first moment he’d spoken to her, of his wife Kate. Not only did she have the same boyish figure, she had her attitude too: questioning, enthusiastic, always up for something different. Grace was Home Counties to Kate’s Devon, but it was the same essential personality.
Six years after she and Francis had got married, they had been on holiday in Egypt when they had decided that now was the time to start trying for a family. Neither of them were earning much, but, as the Peruvians say, and Kate liked to repeat, ‘every child brings a loaf with them’. It had been an intensely romantic time, touring Cairo, seeing the spooky mummies in the museum, laughing about the Pyramids being in a suburb of the city, being taken round on camels by a guide who refused to drink water in the heat of the day (it being Ramadan) but then strained every sinew to sell them overpriced perfumes back in his shop. From there they had headed on up the Nile, with Kate so enthusiastic about the people and the country she had been talking about Egyptian names for the baby they probably hadn’t even conceived yet. At the end of their first week they had decided at the last moment to go for a three-day cruise on a felucca. It was a dodgy-looking craft and the youthful, bearded captain didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but hey, wasn’t that all part of the adventure?
‘Don’t be so uptight!’ Kate had said to him, and Francis had gone against all his instincts and acquiesced. They were abroad, she was right, he should stop being so English and careful about everything. On their second night on the river, a freak storm had swept in – terrifying lightning zig-zagging across the black sky, a tree-bending desert wind bringing with it sand that stung your cheeks. It had been thrilling for an hour; then the boat had flipped over in a second and they had found themselves trapped underwater in their cabin. They had fought like wild animals to get out, but it had proved impossible to shift the door. Francis remembered all too vividly the choking panic as his lungs filled with water, then the strange sense of acceptance that came over him once he realised there was nothing more he could do. In that moment he thought they would die together and he squeezed his wife’s hand tight as it went limp in his. When he came to, strange men were yelling at him. There was bright torchlight in his eyes. He was being dragged by his arms through the shallows to the shore. Choking, vomiting up river water on the reeds, he had screamed for Kate. But she hadn’t made it. He knelt beside her pale, naked body on the stony mud, weeping incoherently.
That had been twenty years ago. There had been several attempts to replace her, but none had worked out. Now Francis was more or less reconciled to being on his own. He simply wasn’t prepared to compromise with any relationship that didn’t give him what he’d had with Kate; a mutual understanding that felt so easy, yet so complete.
When Francis woke again the sun was shining on his face. It was nine forty. Damn! He had missed the hotel breakfast and now he’d have to make do with coffee shop pastries. Priya had woken and gone; though her electric toothbrush was still in the bathroom and her lipsticks were lined up in a row on the glass shelf, so she hadn’t left town.
Francis stood for a couple of minutes under the puny shower, trying unsuccessfully to establish a mean temperature. Towelled dry, standing in the soothing warmth of an oblong beam of sunlight, he pulled on a khaki T-shirt and matching shorts.
Outside it was a beautiful day. The sky was that lovely blue of late July, the soft-edged clouds tinged with an ochre that spoke already of the end of summer. There was the lightest breeze, tickling the hair on Francis’s bare arms and legs. Even at ten in the morning, the festival crowds thronged the narrow pavements, ambling between talks in a fine variety of summer gear – everything from fluorescent crop tops to grey wind jackets and back again. One man was dressed as a fairy, complete with pink ballet shoes and wings; if his outfit was a joke, he wasn’t smiling, as he paced along alone, intently studying his programme.
Pausing at the newsagent’s Francis saw that Mold was now headline news. He bought a Times and stepped into The Coffee Cup two doors along, scanning the front page as he waited in line for a latte.
MYSTERIOUS DEATHS AT LITERARY FESTIVAL
Detectives investigating the deaths of two journalists at the annual Mold-on-Wold literary festival are now treating both as suspicious. Bryce Peabody, 54, was found dead in his room at the White Hart Hotel early on Sunday morning. He was the Literary Editor of the Sentinel and a well-respected reviewer and commentator on literary affairs. Later yesterday, the body of Grace Pritchard, 24, a junior reporter on the same newspaper …
Having got his coffee, Francis found a stool by the window and read on. Further down the piece Bryce was described as ‘a literary hatchet man’ and ‘a legend in the world of books’. The picture editors, meanwhile, had done a number on Grace. They had clearly found an old photoshoot where she had been modelling various eye-catching outfits. The sexy pics gave the story the glamorous edge it needed. Seasoned, disreputable-looking writer and bright-eyed totty in a catsuit, what more could you want? Francis wasn’t surprised, looking round the café, to see that the tabloids had gone big on it too. The same pictures, Grace’s full lips in a pout that had presumably been ironic, were everywhere.
He sat, soaking up the criss-crossing conversations around him. Amid the discussion of the talks people had been to or were about to go to, one subject predominated: ‘got to be a link’ … ‘maybe she will have to cancel’ … ‘all kinds of drugs out there’ … ‘but you’d have to be seriously off your face to jump’ …
He looked up from his paper to see, at the front of the queue, Anna the ghostwriter, a Daily Mail tucked under her arm. She smiled and gave him a wave; then, latte glass in hand, came over.
‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Out on your own?’
‘Marv’s off on his training run. Likes to do ten miles before breakfast. And about five thousand sit-ups and squat jumps. Not to mention the hundred one-armed press-ups.’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘You should be. He likes to make the most of what he’s got left.’ She waved her Mail at him. MURDER, THEY WROTE was the three-quarter page headline. ‘So what d’you make of all this?’
‘Hadn’t you heard?’ Francis asked. ‘About Grace?’
‘Not until I saw this, no. Marv and I had an early night last night. We’ve got our talk later.’ She was shaking her head solemnly at the paper. ‘It’s appalling. I can’t quite believe it.’
‘Actually, I was on the point of deciding yesterday that Bryce had had a heart attack –’
‘You knew about this yesterday?’
‘I went out there. Saw her body … spreadeagled on the gravel.’
‘How awful.’
‘It was.’ The image of that broken rag-doll came back to him forcefully. He gritted his teeth, fighting back a sudden wave of emotion.
‘So what d’you think?’ she asked. ‘That this is related … somehow … to Bryce?’
‘Has to be. Doesn’t it? Why else would someone want to do away with a blameless young woman like that?’
‘Unless she did fall. Or had a freakout and jumped or something. It is a pretty druggy scene out there.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ said Francis. ‘But from what I can gather, Grace wasn’t into that side of things at all. She was just a smart young cookie who was staying out at Wyveridge because it was fun and, presumably, a hub of the kind of gossip she was after.’
‘So what … you think she found out something about what had happened to Bryce?’
‘She was certainly out and about, asking questions.’
‘As were you.’
‘Not as successfully as her, obviously.’
‘You don’t feel in any danger yourself?’
‘I’m certainly watching my back. But then I haven’t found anything out yet, have I?’
‘Haven’t you? They don’t know that, do they?’
‘I suppose not,’ he said. They, he thought, that was an interesting usage.
‘You’ve let me off the hook, I trust.’
Francis acted surprised. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Oh come on! I’m sure you weren’t quizzing me yesterday out of idle curiosity. That was why Marv was so pissed off. He thought you were trying to pin something on us. He might have helped me out or something … bit of military expertise?’
Francis laughed, he hoped convincingly. ‘Oh dear. I suppose if you’ve been taught how to kill people for real it would make you a bit sensitive about stuff like that.’
‘It’s one of his big things. That the training he’s received means he’d be far more disciplined than most if he ever faced a crisis in Civvy Street. It’s like karate: you school your body to be a weapon, but simultaneously learn how to control your aggression.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’ she said, with a sharp look in her eye. ‘Marv suffers from PTSD, so he has real problems in that area.’
Francis let the pause hang in the air, as they sipped at their matching lattes. ‘So you’ve been helping him with a book about his time in Afghanistan?’ he asked.
‘And Iraq, yes. Among other places. To Helmand and Back it’s called. We’re promoting it together. The Marine and the ghostwriter. It was Marv’s initiative. He wanted to be totally open about how it came into being. Very keen on giving me credit. It’s unusual.’
‘And the publishers are happy with that?’
‘Not initially they weren’t. They thought it would confuse the picture. Readers don’t want to know about the process, they want an image, a brand they can identify with. But when we presented it to them as a publicity angle, us going out together and all that, they went for it. Black warrior and white ghost. It seems to be working well.’
‘I hope you sold the book for a shedload.’
‘More like a rabbit hutch. It’s a tough time at the moment.’
She smiled. She was a good-looking woman, Francis thought, with a lovely aura: thoughtful, obliging, though in some way damaged (there was something about her eyes).
‘Presumably,’ he said, ‘you must have been pretty angry with Bryce when he told you that he wanted to be with Priya?’
There was silence. Anna held his gaze. For a moment he thought he’d pushed it too far.
‘He didn’t tell me,’ she said eventually. ‘Spineless creep. I found out at a dinner …’
‘Party?’ he said to fill the silence.
‘No, no, it was one of those sessions after a book launch. You know, where everybody’s a bit pissed and you go on to some restaurant and then wonder why you’ve bothered. As you find yourself sitting between the two most tedious people at the event.’
Francis chuckled; he recognised the scenario all too well.
‘It was some bash at Daunt’s in Marylebone High Street. Afterwards about fifteen of us descended on this cheap Turkish place over the road. Souvlakia and shevtalia and red wine that gives you a hangover before you’ve finished your glass. Anyway, I found myself next to this chatty American who writes about fashion for the Sentinel. Skinny little creature with beady black eyes like a dachshund. Over the table was some enormous old hack who’d worked on the paper before they had their latest cull, wheezing as he crammed his face with kebab. Right in front of me they started gossiping about Bryce, neither of them obviously aware of my involvement with him. So I kept schtum and listened in. And the fashionista was full of this story that was apparently halfway round the office. That Bryce had finally left his long-term partner and run off with his girlfriend …’
‘You didn’t think they were talking about you?’
‘For about half a minute, yes. Typical Bryce, I thought. Finally gets it together to leave home and then doesn’t even bother to tell me. I was all set for the sketch of me, the siren who’d lured him away. Then came my shock. It wasn’t me at all. It was this “Asian babe”. My stomach just turned over, because I knew all about Priya. I’d even teased Bryce about fancying her, because he’d started repeating funny things she said to him at work, always a bad sign. Not that I ever thought she would look in his direction for more than a second. I listened for five minutes, just to be sure I hadn’t got my facts wrong, then I left the table and called him. He cut me off, the coward, then switched his phone off. I was sorely tempted to go straight to his house, but I couldn’t face Scarlett, so I waited till morning and turned up at the Sentinel.’
‘You bearded him in his lair?’
‘Had to. He wasn’t answering my calls. I knew it was press day and he’d be there. He was pretty cross actually.’
‘But not as cross as you?’
‘I was off the register. It was a wonder to behold. I really didn’t care who knew. Here was a guy who’d been promising me for five years that he was imminently going to leave his wife …’
‘I thought she wasn’t his wife?’
‘As good as. You’re right though. The bastard never gave her a commitment either. Not that that ever bothered me when I was with him. I was in love with him and he’d managed to fool me that he really was waiting for the right moment to go …’
‘Worried about the children?’
‘Of course. He wasn’t inhuman – and nor was I. I come from a broken family myself, so I knew what I was going to put those girls through. But he kept telling me how his relationship with Scarlett was a completely busted flush, she didn’t love him, they hadn’t had sex for five years, blah blah, and I believed him. So we were waiting for the twins to get into this school, some C of E place that meant he and Scarlett had to go to church together, present a united front; then we were waiting for them to be settled; then this, then that, on and on it went. Meanwhile, I’d put my own future on hold. I was forty, forty-one, forty-two … Was it time to secretly bin the contraceptives and present him with the baby he’d promised me? But you know, silly me, I didn’t want a relationship like that. I wanted it all. The honesty and the beautiful house.’
‘And who was going to pay for that?’ Francis asked ingenuously. ‘Presumably Scarlett would require maintenance of some kind.’
‘Don’t be fooled by the scruffy boho act. Bryce had more dough than he let on. I don’t know the exact details, but his Sentinel salary was pocket money basically.’
‘Was that part of the attraction?’ Francis asked.
‘Honestly?’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’ Her full lips cracked into a sly grin. ‘And then again, maybe yes.’
‘Which was it?’
‘“No” to start with. When I was still infatuated with him and knew nothing about all that. Other than thinking that he must have a bit of cash if he could afford to keep a flat to work in as well as a house. But then, as I stayed with him, and waited, and waited, it was probably a factor. We could have had a nice life together, if that’s what the silly twit had actually wanted. A nanny for the baby, holidays abroad, the full Monty.’
‘I don’t suppose,’ Francis said casually, ‘he’d made any provision for you in his will?’
Anna looked him slowly up and down. ‘What an innocent question, Francis. As a matter of fact, he had. So yes, I do have an extra motive.’
‘An extra motive?’
‘Come on, don’t play the naïf with me. Other than mere revenge. Isn’t that what the abandoned harpies in the books usually do it for?’
‘Had he left you a lot?’
‘I’ve no idea. But he used to say, “I’d hate it if I got run over by a bus one morning and you got nothing.” So yes, I reckon I was in for something.’
‘You’ve no idea how much?’
‘No.’ Her expression was unbending; if she knew more, she certainly wasn’t going to tell Francis about it.
‘So was the baby always part of the picture?’ he asked, after a moment.
‘We talked about it a lot. Particularly in the early days. He wanted to have a child with someone he loved, he said.’
‘Ouch,’ said Francis.
Outside the café window, a picture-perfect toddler was standing on the pavement, trying to go one way while her mother went the other. She had curly ash-blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was wearing a denim dress, white tights speckled with stars, and shiny crimson shoes. ‘Maya, come on!’ called her mother. ‘We’re going this way.’
‘No, we’re not going this way,’ Maya cried, waving a finger. ‘We’re going this way.’
Eventually the mother shook her head in desperation, swooped and grabbed her child and carried her off, screaming, under her arm. Had Bryce said yes, or Anna thrown the Microgynon to the winds, this little darling could have been hers; such was the unspoken thought that passed between them, as Anna met Francis’s eye, then gave him a surprisingly indulgent smile.
‘So why didn’t it happen?’ Francis asked.
Anna sighed. ‘Bryce liked the idea in theory,’ she said, ‘but in practice he kept stalling, just as he did about leaving Scarlett. Didn’t I realise how disruptive it would be having a child? It would come between us. We’d never be able to jump on the Eurostar for a dirty weekend in Paris ever again. And so on. But then, when I threatened to leave him, he always came round. Yes, he said, he understood how important it was to me, just give him another couple of months. One interesting thing about him, though. He was never flippant about it. He never took any silly risks. I always thought he must have had a bad experience with a girlfriend in the past …’
‘Like?’
‘Having to go through with an abortion or something.’
‘He told you that?’
‘Never in so many words. But I got that feeling.’
‘Didn’t you ever ask him straight out?’
‘Of course. But he could be terribly uncommunicative. When it suited him. The bottom line was that he was very clever. He had this way of making you feel, when you were with him, as if you were the centre of his world and everything was going to be all right.’
‘I’d heard that. So you met Marvin soon after your bust-up with Bryce?’
‘I was already working with him. Bizarrely, before the Priya thing kicked off it was Bryce who was jealous about Marv. Or at least pretended to be. He used to make stupid jokes about how I fancied him. And I encouraged that thought, I have to admit.’
‘So how was he when you finally did go off with Marv?’
‘I don’t think he gave a toss. He was so besotted with Priya I could have brought Marv into his office and shagged him on the desk and got no reaction.’
‘You two got together quite quickly?’
‘The classic rebound.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You were thinking it. Everyone does. But Marv has been a revelation to me.’
‘In what way?’
‘In every way. He’s strong. Principled. He’s there for me. He puts me on a pedestal, and that’s quite refreshing.’
‘Is it refreshing that he’s not from your world?’
‘By which you mean, “What on earth do you talk about?” Since he’s an ex-Marine who likes watching footie on telly and you’re a literary type happiest curled up with a book.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘All but. Marv is highly intelligent and very receptive. The fact that he’s not been lucky enough to have my particular kind of education means that there’s more, not less, for us to talk about. Especially when we’re in a place like this. His take on the book world is great. How it’s basically just a bunch of middle-class poseurs trying to prove how right-on and clever they are to each other.’
Francis laughed. ‘Is that what you think too?’
‘When I’m in a jaded mood. The other great thing about Marv is that he’s a great noticer. He sees everything, all the time. From the colour of the eyeshadow you’re wearing to the guy on the corner who might have a knife in his shoe. It’s an education walking the streets with him.’
‘Where’s he from?’
‘Nottingham, originally. He used the military to get himself away from a pretty shitty situation. As he says, if it hadn’t been the Marines, it would have been a gang …’
‘And now?’
‘He’s no use to them now, is he, so he’s out on his ear like all the others. Actually, that’s the thing that pisses him off most. Not so much losing his arm as his career. As he says, fighting’s what he was trained to do. It’s what he loved.’
‘So what are his plans?’
‘We’re hoping the book will do well.’
‘You can’t live on that, though.’
‘Andy McNab does. Anyway, there’s no reason why, with a bit of help, Marv mightn’t branch out, write a novel, even.’
‘No reason at all, Anna.’ Francis smiled. ‘With a bit of help. But that’s hardly going to pay the bills, is it?’
‘It might. With luck. In our game you never know, do you?’
‘That’s true. So you’re not planning a baby just yet?’
‘Francis! We’ve only been stepping out together for five months. Give us a chance!’