Chapter 15

“Have you ever been interested in werewolves, Baxter?”

“Like for a Halloween costume? Or for killing bullies?” He stops. “I know they’re not real. Just in case you were worried – about the bullies.”

“No bullies died in the making of your dreams about werewolves?”

He laughs. “In my dreams, the bullies took one look at me in my werewolf suit and ran away.” He stops. “Is Piper dealing with a werewolf in your WIP?”

Work in Progress. Baxter has picked up the lingo.

But why did I start this conversation? I don’t want him to know about Helena and her photo puzzle. Now he needs an answer.

“I bumped into Ben Baker on the weekend, with his nephew who looks about six. He performed a chant about a werewolf who chewed up a little boy.”

“Alex Loxton?”

“How did you know?”

“Alex was getting chewed up when I was a boy.”

I chuckle. Baxter doesn’t.

“Neurodiverse people don’t laugh about things like that, Tiggy.”

“And I shouldn’t either. Thank you for saying that. Alex was a real child who never came home.”

“And I found out later he was the werewolf!”

Good point. Abducted while wearing a werewolf suit. Except he left his mask behind according to the crime scene photo.

“After that,” he says, “I stopped dreaming about a werewolf suit being powerful.”

I do the numbers. Baxter is eighteen. Alex would be … twenty-three? Time enough for his death to become immortalised in a schoolyard chant. How very awful for the Loxtons.

Chalking the whole Helena episode up to ‘ground-truthing gone wrong’, I immerse myself in Death by Deception. The photography angle is perfect to put Kelly Field at the secluded bog at dusk. But as I start to develop the scenes where she mixes with potential murderers at the camera club, I realise I need to do more research. Not into cameras and photography. My father is a photographer and I can ask him anything but the technical stuff will bore me and my readers. I need some real-life experience of the workings of the club meetings and special events, and the range of people who join would trigger ideas for fictional characters.

I once created a character by borrowing features from three different real people. It made her extra fascinating and she also distracted the reader from the murderer.

Baxter’s Spectrum club would be ideal but I don’t want to muscle in on his other projects. When I do a quick search for camera clubs in Exeter, this piece in the Echo pops up.

Spectrum embraced by Spectrum Club

Young members of the neurodiverse community have been inspired to start their own camera club, aptly named Spectrum.

‘People on the spectrum are often very artistic,’ said co-founder, Baxter Stone. ‘Our minds work in left-field ways and photography is a very flexible medium for creative expression. There’s no right or wrong way to do things. It’s all art.’

The group wants to create a welcoming space for neurodiverse members who might not fit comfortably into more conventional settings. There will be a theme each week for members to ‘explore or ignore’ and ‘dare to share’. For details contact Morgana.

There’s a phone number. I hope Morgana doesn’t get any calls from local sleaze-bags. Young people tend to share their numbers readily but this is going out to everyone who reads the Echo or is searching for a camera club. But she’s probably savvy enough to be using a separate phone for the club.

My phone chirps.

I’m in today’s Echo, talking about Spectrum!

Baxter follows the message with a call. Talking is his super power.

“I know,” I say. “Your comment is very insightful. And did you write those phrases ‘explore or ignore’ and ‘dare to share’? They’re good.”

“Me and Morgana and Fletch. We’re the three co-founders.”

“Have you had many calls to join?”

“A few. We’re turning away non-neurodiverse people at the moment. We think we’ll keep it exclusive to protect the space. How’s the victim in Piper’s book going with her photography?”

“I was just doing some research when I saw the piece about Spectrum in the Echo.”

“Do you want to come along to a club meeting? For research?”

Who’s been channelling who?

“That’s a wonderful offer, Baxter. But … I’m not on the spectrum.”

“You’re not trying to join, Tiggy. You’d be a guest. You wouldn’t intrude. You’d observe. I’m pretty sure Morgana and Fletch will be cool with it. As long as you bring Raider.”

I laugh. The good ol’ dog-distraction dodge. Works a treat every time. Raider’s also rather partial to patting parties and having his photo taken.

After a few short minutes of messaging around the team, it’s arranged. I’ll even be attending the next meeting where members will ‘dare to share’ their responses to the Reflect theme.

Perfect.

Research into Death by Deception veers back into Helena’s territory when I see a name that rings a bell. Tremayne Templeton. The barrister quoted in the long piece about Helena’s career who recommended her creative approach to forensic analysis.

His name has come up again when I searched for murders that looked like accidents. Or accidents that looked like murder. Following Sim’s advice and making only minimal references to forensics, I’m trying to build up false assumptions made by police at Kelly Field’s crime scene. With a twist: what if her killer is accused of murder but his barrister argues and ‘proves’ it was an accident by confusing the jury’s understanding of the evidence?

Research rabbit-hole into barrister tactics ahead!

My search also brings up the plot of an old movie from the 1970s. I love finding old movies that most of my younger readers haven’t seen and those who did have forgotten. They’re great places to borrow and modernise ideas that are timeless: human nature. In this movie, a private investigator uses sophisticated audio equipment to ‘listen’ – big clunky gear needing a van to transport it. He’s tasked with listening to a young couple who his client thinks are plotting to kill him. The crucial line that the PI records makes him think that the two young people are the ones in danger and his client is going to kill them. The whole plot hangs on this assumption. But when his client is murdered, the PI re-listens to the recording and hears the nuance that he missed first time round. He’d recorded the young couple’s murder plot and his sympathy for them made him mishear it.

I can’t see how it relates to my accident-or-murder merry-go-round idea but I’m drawn to the very human error he made. And when he replays the crucial line again at the end of the film, the power of the mistake knocked me over. I’d love to have that kind of ah-ha moment at the end of Piper’s book. I’ll hold this idea lightly and see where it pops up.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking about ringing Tremayne Templeton. Mystery author seeks legal advice from criminal barrister. I should prepare a question or two but by then I’ll lose my nerve. I’ll see if he’ll talk to me, then I’ll conduct the interview the way I write my books – by winging it. His office number is easy to find.

“Tremayne Templeton.” His voice is huskier than I expected. “My receptionist says you’re a mystery author.” He chuckles. “That’s a new one. Entertain me, Antigone Jones.”

There’s charm behind a tone that Rupert would call ‘peremptory’.

“Thank you. Please call me Tiggy. You think I’ve brought a list of questions, don’t you?”

“I hope not. Then you’d drive the conversation and that would not be entertaining. Which case did you see in the newspaper that mentioned my name?”

“In Traces, the forensic magazine,” I hear myself say. “Not a case. A description you gave of the creative methods used by forensic scientist Dr Helena Loxton.”

“Really? Do you know Helena?”

“We had morning tea together at her house last week.” Not a lie but it feels like one. “And I’d already seen your comment in the article before we met.”

“Well, you’ll need to get any gossip from Helena herself, not from me.”

“Of course. Helena’s first case has inspired the crime novel I’m writing at the moment. Molly Crane’s death was thought to be murder until Helena proved that the marks on the victim’s neck weren’t from strangulation but from the post mortem activities of the rare and endangered Wolf Weevil.”

“Quite.”

Get to the point, Tiggy. You’re losing him. What is the point?

“So an accident that looked like murder,” I say, “flipped back to misadventure. Helena asked me to muddy any connections to Molly so I’m looking for other cases where accident and murder swapped places. Have you worked any cases with that kind of trajectory? I don’t know any criminal barristers and … your name stuck in my mind.”

“As my mother planned. But her efforts have been trounced by Mrs Cumberbatch.”

I stifle a laugh and endure a long silence, expecting the call to end in a click.

“I hope your books are more entertaining than your phone calls, Tiggy. But I am hard to please. I’ve had a quick look in my case file. Give me your email and I’ll send you a couple of links. And I’ll be happy to answer questions about these cases, but make an appointment next time. Or come up to London and quiz me over drinks after work.”

“Thank you, Mr Templeton.”

“Tremayne, please. With a ‘y’.”

I give him my email and hope he respects it. That invitation to drinks sounded a tad oily.

“And whatever you do,” he adds, “don’t ask Helena for any gossip about me. It was a long time ago and it’s well and truly out of date.” He hangs up.

An affair.

Helena Loxton and Tremayne Templeton had an affair.

But it’s not an affair if they’re single. Why did I jump to call it that?

Because it must have been clandestine. If Tremayne was a barrister sending forensic samples to Helena for testing, a personal relationship between them would be a conflict of interest.

Wouldn’t it?