by M S Morris
‘Anything of particular interest?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Diane made frequent attempts to reach out to her son, Daniel, but he always had an excuse for avoiding her. She doesn’t appear to have had many friends, but she met up with her sister regularly, and her ex-husband too, which I have to say I find a bit odd. As for work, the exchanges between her and her boss at the Blavatnik confirm what we already knew – that there was a fair bit of hostility between the two of them.’
‘And the laptop?’
Ffion’s face fell. ‘It’s encrypted. That means I can’t read any of the data on the hard drive unless I can work out the password.’
‘Okay,’ said Bridget. ‘Well, keep trying.’
She sensed they were all waiting to hear about her trip to London, so she gave them a summary, relating everything that her anonymous and pseudonymous contacts had told her. Which, now she recounted it, was tantalisingly little.
‘So they both deny any involvement,’ concluded Jake.
‘Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?’ said Ryan.
‘So does that get us anywhere?’ asked Andy.
Bridget had been giving a great deal of thought to that same question. ‘My contact at the embassy suggested that the death threat might not have been serious, but simply intended to frighten Diane.’
‘So the person who sent her the letter may not have been the same person who murdered her?’ said Ffion.
‘It’s a possibility,’ conceded Bridget. ‘Or it might just be a way of putting us off the trail. Another possibility is what MI5 hinted at. That a rogue agent might be operating in Oxford, and took it upon themselves to kill Diane.’
‘They didn’t admit to having an informant?’ asked Andy.
‘No, but I don’t think they would have suggested it if an informant didn’t exist.’
‘So they were nudging you in the right direction without actually confirming the existence of an agent.’
‘Yes. Or else nudging me in the wrong direction.’ Bridget’s introduction to espionage and counter-espionage had proven to be an extremely frustrating one. In that murky world, friends and foes were indistinguishable, and equally unhelpful. At least her contact at the Saudi embassy had been courteous. MI5 hadn’t even offered her a cup of tea.
‘So all we have to do is find the MI5 informant and we’ve solved the case?’ said Andy.
‘Professor Al-Mutairi at the Blavatnik,’ suggested Ffion. ‘He fits the profile. Well-placed, with lots of contacts. Sympathetic to the British government’s policy in the Middle East. Directly opposed to Diane Gilbert’s activities, and believed that she was bringing the Blavatnik into disrepute. After the argument when he threatened to fire her, she sent him an email to say that if he did that, she would expose him.’
‘Expose him for what?’
‘The message didn’t say.’
‘Well, he’s certainly the most obvious candidate,’ agreed Bridget. ‘Al-Mutairi might have sent Diane a death threat to try to stop her from publishing her book, or he might simply have had personal reasons to want her dead. But if he is an MI5 agent, he’s not likely to admit it, and neither will MI5.’
‘What should we do then?’ asked Jake.
Bridget smiled. ‘Let’s go and rattle his cage and see how he reacts.’
21
‘Inspector Hart, this is a surprise.’
This time, Bridget had arrived at the Blavatnik School without an appointment, aiming to wrongfoot Professor Al-Mutairi by not giving him advance warning of her visit. But if she had hoped to find him engaged in sending encoded messages to his MI5 handler, she was disappointed. Instead he was busy giving the yellow-flowering plants in his office their fortnightly feed using a tiny watering can with a long, thin spout. She had already forgotten the Latin name of the plants. Al-Arfaj, he had called them. They certainly weren’t going to get too much water the way he was dribbling tiny amounts into their pots.
Bridget studied him closely. Was he a little less relaxed than last time? Was his charming manner a little more forced? ‘I have some more questions to ask you regarding the murder of Diane Gilbert,’ she said.
He replaced the watering can on the windowsill next to a bottle of plant food and gestured for her to take a seat. ‘I assumed this wasn’t a social call.’ He kept his voice light, although he was unable to conceal an underlying trace of anxiety. He took his seat opposite hers and leaned back, interlocking his long fingers.
Bridget didn’t allow him any time to get comfortable. ‘Where were you on Thursday night? The night that Diane was killed.’
‘Am I a suspect all of a sudden?’
‘If you could just answer the question, please.’
‘Of course. I worked late that evening. There was a paper I wanted to finish before the weekend.’
‘What time did you leave your office?’
‘I would say around ten-thirty. And then I walked back to my home on Walton Street.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
‘I’m afraid not. I live alone.’
‘What about your neighbours? Might they have seen you returning home?’
‘I doubt it. Student houses either side, you see. They’re either out late or listening to loud music.’
‘And no one saw you leave work?’
‘I believe I was the last person to leave the building.’
So, no alibi. And yet the professor didn’t seem overly concerned by the fact. He seemed to be relaxing as the interview went on. Bridget needed to pierce Al-Mutairi’s polished exterior and find out what lay beneath. She had briefly glimpsed his anger during her previous visit. Now she tried to stoke it.
‘A number of your members of staff have reported hearing you arguing with Diane in the days before her death.’
He nodded. ‘That may be true. We often disagreed.’
‘And yet you were her boss. Was shouting at her the appropriate way of dealing with a disagreement?’
Al-Mutairi refused to rise to the bait. ‘If I raised my voice, I regret doing so. But Diane did just as much shouting as I did – more in fact. She was a very difficult woman to manage. She refused to see reason.’
‘Did you threaten her?’
‘I am not prone to making threats.’
‘A witness says that they overheard you say that you would fire her.’
‘They may have misheard. Or misunderstood. I would certainly not make such a threat.’
Bridget persisted. ‘Following that meeting – or should we describe it as a “row”? – Diane sent you an email. In it she wrote that if you tried to fire her she would expose you. Do you recall receiving such a message?’
Al-Mutairi’s face betrayed nothing. ‘I seem to remember that I did. But I have no idea what she may have been alluding to. As I recall she didn’t spell out what she intended to expose me for.’ There was a glint of amusement in his eyes now.
Bridget changed tack. ‘You’ve made it very clear that you didn’t see eye to eye with Diane’s political views. Do you think that she was a threat to national security?’
‘Since you ask, yes. I think that Diane and her ilk are potentially harmful to the stability of western democracy.’
‘Harmful enough that it’s worth silencing them once and for all?’
‘Now you’re putting words into my mouth,’ said Al-Mutairi, becoming nettled for the first time in the interview.
‘How about sending a death threat as a means of frightening her off? Making her think twice about the line she was pursuing?’
‘Knowing Diane as well as I do, I would say that for someone of her convictions and temperament, a death threat would most likely spur her on to take an even stronger line.’
‘Are you sure about that? She was persuaded to accept police protection, so she must have been worried, even if she didn’t like to admit it.’
Al-Mutairi shrugged. ‘I don’t know what she really thought about the death threat. But whatever she thought, I can assure you
that it didn’t come from me.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now is there anything else? I’m meeting one of my doctoral students in five minutes.’
How convenient. But perhaps this was an unsubtle sign that he wanted her out of his office. Bridget remained in her seat. ‘That still gives us five minutes. Now, it would help us with our enquiries immensely if you could provide me with a sample of your handwriting.’
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t query her request. ‘Very well.’ He opened his desk drawer and reached inside, drawing out a pad of lined writing paper. ‘What should I write?’
‘Anything you like.’
‘In English or in Arabic?’
‘English, please.’
He picked up a silver fountain pen and wrote a few lines of flowing text in blue ink. When he had finished he slid it across the desktop towards her. ‘Will this do?’
Bridget scanned the sheet of paper. It contained several lines of beautifully handwritten prose. She placed it into a protective folder and rose to her feet. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, Professor Al-Mutairi. I’ll see myself out.’
Outside his office she paused to read what he had written.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. Khalil Gibran.
22
Bridget dropped off the note that Professor Al-Mutairi had written, asking Jake to get it across to forensics as quickly as possible. No doubt she would have to wait until the following day before they could tell her whether Al-Mutairi’s handwriting matched that of the death threat, and Bridget was tired of waiting for answers. The financial authorities in the Cayman Islands may be dragging their feet over disclosing details of the mysterious Per Sempre Holdings, but perhaps there was an easier and quicker way to unearth the source of Diane Gilbert’s money. Bridget tapped the number of Diane’s publisher into her phone and waited patiently for the call to connect. It was answered on the second ring.
‘Jennifer Eagleston speaking, who is this?’ In the background Bridget could hear traffic and the sound of pedestrians.
‘Detective Inspector Bridget Hart. I was wondering if you’d be available for a chat? I have some questions to ask you about Diane Gilbert in regard to the murder investigation.’
‘Sure. I’m still in Oxford as it happens. I’ve been attending events at the literary festival. Actually, I was just on my way to grab some lunch. Would you like to join me?’
In her time as a police detective, Bridget had learned never to refuse an offer of lunch. ‘Where are you planning to eat?’
‘The Eagle and Child on St Giles’. Do you know it?’
‘Of course,’ said Bridget. ‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’
The Eagle and Child, sometimes known locally by its affectionate nickname, The Bird and Baby, was one of Oxford’s most famous and historic pubs. Dating back to the seventeenth century, its dark wood panelling and exposed beams exuded the comforting air of a bygone age. The narrow building was always packed, and in the days before smoking was banned in English pubs, a thick pall of smoke had been permanently suspended beneath the low, sloping ceiling. Nowadays it was the cosy fug of conversation that filled the pub’s cramped interior.
Bridget found Jennifer seated at a table by the window, partially secluded from the rest of the bar by a decorative wood screen.
‘I always make a point of coming here when I’m in Oxford,’ said the publisher as Bridget sat down to join her. ‘I love the atmosphere, and of course the literary connection is so fascinating.’
‘J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis,’ said Bridget.
The pub was famous for having been the watering hole of The Inklings, an Oxford writers’ group which had included the creators of the fantastical lands of Middle Earth and Narnia.
‘Precisely,’ said Jennifer, beaming her approval. ‘I can just imagine them sitting around a table, smoking their pipes, talking about elves and witches and good and evil. What wouldn’t I give to go back in time and be a fly on the wall during one of their lunchtime gatherings? People like to think of writers as lonesome individuals slaving away over their manuscripts, but as a publisher I can tell you that writing is more of a collaborative process than people think.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Bridget, who couldn’t imagine writing a whole book on her own. How long would such a mammoth project take? Months? Years? A lifetime?
They ordered food from the day’s specials chalked on a blackboard behind the bar – fish pie for Bridget and Lancashire hot pot for Jennifer – then took their drinks back to the table.
‘So, do you have other authors promoting books at the festival?’ asked Bridget.
Jennifer glanced around the pub in an exaggerated cloak-and-dagger fashion. ‘Keep this to yourself,’ she whispered, ‘but I’m hoping to poach a few names from rival houses. The festival brings lots of big name authors, agents and publishers together. It may look dignified to the public, but behind the scenes it can be a feeding frenzy.’ Her phone buzzed and she checked it quickly before slipping it back inside in her voluminous tote bag. ‘Sorry, that was just the sales department updating me on the latest figures for A Deadly Race.’
‘Oh?’ said Bridget, curious to find out what effect the news coverage of Diane’s death might be having on book sales.
Jennifer didn’t need much encouragement to divulge her trade secrets. ‘I have to say that volumes are way ahead of what we expected. The publicity for the book has been fabulous. We’ve already ordered a second print run, which is almost unheard of for a book of this type by a new author.’ She bent down and pulled out a copy of the Times Literary Supplement to show to Bridget. ‘A Deadly Race has made the front page of the TLS and it’s going to be featured in the New York Review of Books. It should easily make the Sunday Times top ten, possibly even the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. It has a bestseller tag on Amazon for its category too.’
Jennifer’s obvious glee at the book’s sales figures seemed a little callous. ‘I see,’ said Bridget. ‘And you put the book’s success down to the fortuitous murder of its author?’
‘Oh, don’t look at me like that, Inspector,’ said Jennifer. ‘Publishing is a tough business. You might hear about debut writers receiving huge advances for their books, but those people represent a miniscule proportion of the whole. Most of the books we publish from new authors are loss-making. We rely on windfalls like this to keep the industry going.’
‘I’m not sure that everyone would describe a murder as a “windfall”. And don’t you think it’s a shame that Diane won’t be able to write a sequel?’
‘Well, even that isn’t necessarily a problem,’ said Jennifer breezily. ‘With the help of a ghostwriter we could probably turn some of her research papers into a follow-up book. If there’s demand, we can always find a way to meet it.’
The barman brought their food to the table, and they paused their conversation to tuck in. The fish pie was deliciously creamy and topped with the perfect mashed potato.
‘Speaking of money,’ said Bridget once her hunger was at least partially assuaged, ‘we’ve been working through Diane’s bank accounts and found a payment of five thousand pounds from your firm, paid last month.’
‘That would have been the final instalment of the advance,’ said Jennifer, demolishing her Lancashire hot pot. ‘For non-fiction works, we pay one third when we sign the contract, the next third on delivery of the manuscript and the final instalment on publication.’
‘So the total advance was fifteen thousand pounds?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And how long did the book take her to write?’
Jennifer frowned. ‘By the time you factor in all the research, planning, writing, re-writing and final polishing, around three years, I should say.’
‘So Diane earned fifteen thousand pounds for three years of work?’ Even without doing the mental arithmetic, Bridget was pretty sure that worked out at less than the minimum wa
ge.
‘Less her agent’s fee,’ said Jennifer. ‘You think we should pay our authors more?’
‘It’s not for me to say,’ said Bridget.
Jennifer smiled grimly. ‘Like I told you, most first books by new authors make a loss for us. We take a big risk by making an upfront payment to the author, on top of the costs of printing the book. A lot of the time the book flops and we never see a profit, but if it succeeds then the author will earn royalties once they’ve earned out the advance.’
‘And how long would that normally take?’
Jennifer put down her knife and fork and picked up her glass of sparkling mineral water. ‘Sometimes authors never earn out their advance – and the publisher probably won’t take any further books by that writer. That’s why publishers are more and more reluctant to pay large advances for debut books. In the case of a book like A Deadly Race, under normal circumstances it might have earned out its advance in a year or two, but by then it would be at the end of its life. Bookshops don’t want to hold onto old stock, they want to fill their shelves with the latest releases. So when last year’s titles become too difficult to sell, any unsold stock gets returned to us to be pulped.’
Bridget winced at the thought of all those unwanted books being turned into pulp. Years of work and millions of words all gone in a sudden thrashing of blades.
‘So most authors don’t receive anything beyond their advance?’
‘That’s right.’
The world of publishing sounded far more cut-throat than Bridget had realised and she would never again be able to look at the literary festivals and bestseller lists without imagining the spinning blades of the threshing machines, and the disappointed authors whose careers had been consigned to the dustbin of history.
‘Was there something specific you wanted to talk to me about?’ asked Jennifer. ‘I have another event starting soon.’
‘Actually, yes,’ said Bridget, setting down her cutlery and taking a drink of her lime and soda. ‘As well as Diane’s university salary and the payments from your company, her bank statements also showed payments from a company called Per Sempre Holdings.’