by Vicki Delany
“Just a reminder that I love you, Gemma.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
Seeing as to how I had no plans for my evening and I still had unanswered questions about the death of Renalta Van Markoff, once I was back in the bookshop, I called Linda Marke.
Kevin Reynolds answered the phone in her room. I told him who I was and asked to speak to Linda.
“Why?” he asked.
“I thought she might be in need of some company. Maybe we could have a drink in the hotel bar this evening. Dinner if she’s free.”
“She’s not in need of company.”
“Why don’t I ask her?”
“I don’t want her to be disturbed, Ms. Doyle. The autopsy on her mother is being done right about now. You must realize how upsetting that must be.”
“I do. So I thought it best she not be alone. May I talk to her?”
“She’s resting.”
“Okay. What about you, Kevin? Fancy a drink?”
“No.” He hung up on me.
Okay, so that line of inquiry was temporarily closed. I considered calling Robert McNamara, the publisher, next, but I didn’t really want to spend my free evening in his company.
I phoned Grant Thompson.
* * *
“Like most collecting,” Grant said, “the only value books have is what people are willing to pay for them. And the best determining factor in that is rarity.”
We were at McGillivray’s Pub in West London. I’d decided not to even bother trying to get into the Blue Water Café without a reservation, so I suggested Grant meet me at the pub. Like most so-called pubs in North America, something was seriously out of kilter at McGillivray’s. Maybe it was the lack of a crush at the bar, the absence of an open fireplace (they did have a gas one), and no wet, smelly dogs snoozing under the table. Or maybe it was the table service and the fact that the pretty young waitresses were dressed in short kilts. The evening sunshine pouring in through clear windows, rather than a steady driving rain or thick drizzle, might have had an effect on the atmosphere also. Nevertheless, it was a warm and friendly place, in the fine tradition of the best of British pubs. They also served excellent food, which the best of British pubs were increasingly doing these days.
“Cheers.” Grant lifted his pint of Guinness. He’d lived in England when he studied at Oxford and had learned to love a rich, hearty beer.
I saluted him with my wineglass. I’ve never been a beer person. “Therefore,” I said, “books dated the day of the author’s death would be rare and thus worth more.”
“Yup. Good thing I have three of them.” He read my face. “I didn’t kill her to increase the value of three books, Gemma.”
“I didn’t think for a moment that you did.” That wasn’t entirely the truth. I had thought it and quickly dismissed it. “The same might be said of me. I had her sign some for store stock. I’m torn about what to do with them. Normally, I’d put an ‘autographed by the author’ sticker on them and put them on display in a prominent place. Readers like signed books, and it’s always a good selling point. But in this case, I’m wondering if I should hold on to some of them and hope to sell them for more than cover price eventually. I know it seems mercenary, but I also have a business to run.”
The waitress arrived with our meals. Steak and kidney pie for me and a hamburger and chips—what Americans call fries—for Grant.
“How much are we talking about?” I asked once we’d savored the first welcome bites. My pie came with canned peas and a mountain of mashed potatoes drenched in thick gravy. Exactly the way I like it.
“Not as much as you might think,” Grant said. “Renalta was very popular, yes, but not among”—he put down his burger and made quotation marks in the air—“‘people who matter.’”
I snorted.
“Right. She was a genre writer. What might have once been called pulp fiction, and she was also a”—quotations marks again—“‘woman writer’ who wrote for ‘women readers.’”
I snorted again.
“Thus,” he said, “her books are not worth spending a lot of money to collect, probably even in death.”
“You mentioned rarity. She didn’t sign many books because of the arthritis in her wrist, certainly not by the hundreds, even thousands, which some popular writers do. Would that help?”
“Minimally. Most of her signed books would have been personalized. For Mary, Enjoy. Nice for Mary to own, but that would only decrease the value to a serious collector, not increase it. I specialize in Victorian and Edwardian detective fiction, Gemma. I know a bit about the market for contemporary books, but not a lot. I can talk to one of my acquaintances, if you’d like.”
“Probably not worth going to any trouble over,” I admitted. “I can’t see that being a reason for her murder. The monetary value for any contemporary book is simply not enough. If it were, more famous authors than Renalta Van Markoff would be dropping dead all across America.”
“The news at five was noncommittal,” Grant said. “The chief made a statement about an arrest being imminent, but he gave no details.”
“Imminent is code for we don’t have a freakin’ clue.”
Grant chuckled. “What are your police friends saying?”
“Nothing to me.”
“I’ve heard that Donald Morris is, as they say, ‘in the frame.’”
“They’re clutching at straws. All they have is a threat. A threat spoken in public in front of a hundred or so people is meaningless. But it is enough to have poor Donald worried.” I’d come up with better suspects than Donald: Paige Bookman, Nancy Brownmiller, Kevin Reynolds, even Linda Marke. “I don’t suppose you noticed anyone acting suspiciously around the bottle of water, did you?” I asked.
“So that’s true then? Poison was in the water? The police aren’t coming right out and saying so, but that’s the rumor going around. Anyone who was close to her when she died saw her take that drink, and the police are asking a lot of questions along that line. I gave them my statement, Gemma. I didn’t see the bottle, although it was apparently near to where I was standing while Renalta gave her talk. I didn’t see anyone handling it either.”
“The only one anyone did see handling it was me,” I said around a mouthful of mashed potatoes and gravy. “I picked it up off the counter and gave it to her.”
“The rumor says cyanide.”
“I haven’t heard the autopsy or lab results, but that’s almost a certainty. How’s your burger?”
“Good. But this talk of poison is threatening to put me off my food.”
“It shouldn’t. Cyanide isn’t something the average person comes across in their daily life. Whoever put it into that water bottle had to know what they were doing and had to have decided to do it a long time before. Cyanide isn’t a natural compound. It has to be made or purchased and then transported, and that means Renalta’s murder was premeditated.”
“Is there any chance the water was intended for someone else?”
I shook my head. “I can’t see it. Renalta was accustomed to drinking a good deal of water at her public appearances. It helped calm her nerves. The killer was taking a chance that someone else wouldn’t pick up the bottle and take a drink. But the risk of that was minimal, so he or she clearly considered it worth taking.”
“You think so?”
“These days people don’t help themselves to other people’s glasses or bottles, so the likelihood of that happening was small. If the attempt had been made in a less public place, then the number of possible suspects would have been fewer also. It was a rather clever plan.”
“You aren’t saying you admire this person, are you, Gemma?”
“Admire?” I said. “Not in the least. Murder is never something to admire, and particularly not in such an underhanded way as this one. I can, however, respect the intelligence and planning that went into it.”
Grant gave me a sideways look as he ran a chip through ketchup.
“What?” I asked.
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“Nothing. You’re an unusual woman, Gemma Doyle.”
“I don’t think so.”
He grinned and popped the chip into his mouth.
We talked about more pleasant things while we finished our meals and ordered another round of drinks.
“Can I walk you home?” Grant asked once we’d wrestled over the bill and eventually agreed to each pay our own share.
“That would be nice.”
We said little on the walk. It was a gorgeous night, and the warm air carried the scent of salt, sand, and flowers. Lights from the harbor glowed in the distance. We turned into Blue Water Place, and Grant took my hand. I left it there.
He cleared his throat. “I have to ask . . .”
“Yes?”
“Is there something between you and Ryan Ashburton?”
“There was. Once. It ended.”
“Are you sure it ended?” We walked up the front path, illuminated by the dying light of the day and the dim glow of the lamps over the sidewalk. Violet sensed our approach and let out one welcoming bark. The motion detector over my door came on. Grant gazed down at me. His eyes were dark and serious. His five-o’clock shadow was thick, sharp cheekbones prominent in the lean face.
“Am I sure?” I reached up and touched his face. I ran my fingers lightly across his cheek. “These days, Grant, I’m not sure of anything.”
“In that case, Gemma, I’ll say my good-nights. But I hope, when you do decide, you can find a place for me.”
He walked away, and I let myself in.
Chapter 10
On Monday mornings in summer and autumn, Violet and I change our routine, and rather than walking the usual route through our neighborhood, we head into town. It’s market day in West London, and I love little more than poking around the farmers’ stalls. It was early in the season, so not a lot of fresh local produce was available, but I filled my woven basket with a variety of lettuce and arugula, an abundance of yellow and purple beans, green onions, and snap peas. I chatted to the farmers and craftspeople as I browsed, and people stopped to admire Violet.
“No tomatoes yet?” I said to a teenage girl taking money at her family’s farm stand.
“Couple of weeks still to go. You can’t rush a tomato.”
“I know, but I’m getting very impatient.”
“The warm spring has helped, and everything’s looking good so far.”
I could almost taste a deep-purple, bright-yellow, or cheerful-red cherry tomato on the tip of my tongue. Some things in life are worth waiting for. A locally grown heirloom tomato in season, eaten warm from the sun, is one of them.
I handed over my money, but before I could move on, a woman came up to me. “I can’t believe what happened on Saturday. Renalta Van Markoff, dead. They’re saying she was murdered. Is that right, Gemma?”
She was a regular at the Emporium. I struggled to remember her name. I knew she had a huge crush on Martin Freeman, that she watched the Jeremy Brett version of The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle every Christmas, that she loved dark and gritty historical novels and had most recently purchased Wishful Seeing by Janet Kellough, that her kitchen was full of mugs inspired by the BBC Sherlock series, and that she dried her dishes with Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrait. I also knew that her husband was having an affair with a friend of a friend of Jayne’s mother. All that, and I couldn’t remember her name. “So it seems,” I said. “You were there on Saturday, weren’t you?”
“Yes. Renalta was so interesting. I enjoyed her talk, and I was excited about getting a book signed by her. Such an over-the-top personality, wasn’t she? A true original.”
“I wouldn’t have thought her books were to your taste. You usually like more realistic novels.”
“Who wouldn’t love Renalta? And having met her, who wouldn’t love her books? They were so like her, weren’t they? I bet she took inspiration for the character of Desdemona Hudson from her own life.”
Bored of this conversation, Violet tried to wander off. I gently tugged on the leash to pull her back. “Did you speak to the police about Saturday?”
“A young officer came around to the house and took my statement. I wanted to help, but I couldn’t tell them anything. I didn’t see anyone acting suspiciously. Did you?”
“No, I didn’t.” Violet was straining at the leash now, urging me to get a move on. “Gotta run. We’re getting in some new Sherlock jigsaw puzzles. I’m expecting them by the end of the week.”
She clapped her hands in delight.
I never did recall her name.
* * *
The autopsy on Renalta Van Markoff was scheduled to have been done Sunday afternoon. The lab analysis of the contents of the bottle I’d saved from spilling all over the Emporium floor should be available soon. It was highly unlikely the police would share the autopsy and forensic results with me ahead of releasing them to the press, and try as I might, I couldn’t think of any way to trick them into giving me the information. I was 99 percent sure I’d smelled cyanide in that water bottle, and Renalta’s symptoms at the time of her death were consistent with a strong, instant-acting poison. But I didn’t like that missing 1 percent.
Irene Talbot came into the Emporium shortly before noon carrying a takeout latte and a sandwich. We said the same thing at the same time: “Have you heard anything?”
We laughed.
“I’ll go first,” Irene said. “No.”
“I’ll go second,” I said. “No. The autopsy was yesterday afternoon. Have the results been released?”
“Not a peep. I got a quote from our chief for this morning’s paper. I’ll save you the trouble of reading it: ‘We are confident that an arrest is imminent in the tragic death of blah blah blah. Residents and visitors to West London are assured blah blah blah.’”
“I consider myself assured,” I said.
She grinned. “The company that manufactures the Riviera brand of water has issued a press release, claiming the strictest and most up-to-date methods of quality control. The police took every bottle off the shelves of the convenience store and are testing them all. They’ve also asked anyone who bought a bottle and hasn’t yet consumed it to turn it in.”
“They won’t find anything.”
“No chance this was a random crime?”
“Perish the thought. That would kill tourism to West London.” Not to mention business in my shop. “That’s always a chance but so unlikely as to be not worth considering.”
“You’re probably right, but poor Freddy is lamenting a severe drop-off of business.”
“Who’s Freddy?”
“The convenience store owner.”
“Oh, right. I’m sure you’ve been asked about it, Irene, but you were standing by the water bottle during Renalta’s talk. Did you see anything?”
Her story was the same as Grant’s. She hadn’t even noticed the bottle on the counter, much less seen someone interfering with it. “I did some research into cyanide,” she said. “Not something you keep on a high shelf in the garage in case you have an infestation of rats.”
“No. Potassium cyanide, also known as KCN, isn’t even normally available in its poisonous form. The ingredients, hydrogen cyanide and potassium hydroxide, have to be mixed. And the person mixing it has to know what they’re doing if they don’t want to risk killing themselves.”
“How do you know so much about cyanide, Gemma?”
“I hope you’re not accusing me,” I said. “I know about a lot of things.”
“I’m not accusing you. Sometimes you seem to know what others do not, that’s all. I’m glad you’re not my enemy.”
“Whatever that means, I won’t ask.”
She toasted me with her latte. “Cheers. I’m off.” Her phone buzzed with an incoming text, and she read quickly. “The chief has scheduled a press conference for six o’clock. Probably the autopsy results. Two press conferences in two days. He must be hoping to get his picture in the Boston or national papers, maybe even on T
V. I bet he’ll be at the barber shop this afternoon. I might lie in wait and try to get an exclusive. See you later.”
“Let me know if you hear anything significant, will you, Irene?”
“Sure.”
As she walked out, my phone rang. I checked the display. “Good afternoon, Donald.”
“Gemma!” he screeched. “They’re here!”
“Calm down, Donald. Who’s where? Where are you?”
“I’m at home. I’m looking out the front window. Police cars are pulling up outside. Two of them. No three. The detectives are getting out. Uniformed officers are with them. Oh, no. She has a piece of paper in her hand. They’re ringing the bell. Gemma! I need you!”
“Calm down, Donald. I’ll be right there. You might want to call a lawyer.”
“No time. Now they’re knocking. They’ll break the door down if I don’t answer.” Silence.
A few more bouquets had appeared outside the Emporium. I ignored them, locked the front door, and flipped the sign to “Closed.” I ran into the tea room, pulling the adjoining door shut behind me. I shouted to Fiona behind the counter, “I need a car, now. Can I take yours?”
She blinked. “Sure. I guess. Why?”
“Where are your keys?”
“My purse is in the computer desk off the kitchen. Second drawer on the left.”
I found them and ran out the back way. “Back soon. Can’t stop to explain,” I shouted to a startled Jayne. I unlocked Fiona’s battered dust-and-rust-covered Dodge Neon and jumped in. The engine coughed, and for a moment I feared it wouldn’t start, but it struggled to life, and I sped out of the parking lot, kicking up dust and gravel as I went. Uncle Arthur and I had once been invited to a party at Donald’s home on the occasion of Sherlock Holmes’s birthday. Yes, that is a thing. Sherlock’s birthday is January 6 and is much celebrated by his devotees. It had been a surprisingly enjoyable event. The twenty-two guests had dressed well but had not gone overboard with period costumes or accessories. Jayne had made the cake, a towering affair of four chocolate layers decorated like a book with The Complete Sherlock Holmes written in icing on the top. The conversation was all about Holmes, of course, discussing and arguing over the minutiae of the canon. A conversation my uncle Arthur can engage in with the best of them, although the details far exceed my knowledge or interest. At the end of the evening, talk veered into disparaging all the modern imitations. I disagree—I think some of the pastiche works are very clever and faithful to the spirit of the original—but I refrained from commenting, not wanting to get into an argument.