Money Never Sleeps

by Whitelaw, Stella

  ‘There are packets of tea over by the urn,’ said Jessie. ‘Lots of herbal teas. Green tea is supposed to be good for you. For the heart.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Fancy faintly. She was already feeling exhausted from the non-stop talking at the table. She had been eating alone for so long. She wasn’t used to so much conversation. Words were flung in all directions.

  ‘How did you get your name, Fancy?’ asked Richard Gerard. He was an accountant by trade, so perfect for the post of Treasurer. He was trying to write sitcoms for television, so far without global success. But he had sold to regional television.

  ‘It’s very unusual.’

  ‘It’s another spelling of Frances, though really my mother named me after Francis of Sales.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘He’s the patron saint of writers.’ That usually stunned everyone. ‘My mother was a novelist. She wrote lots of Mills & Boon romances. It was non-stop hard work, producing at least three novels a year to a deadline. I used to proofread the manuscripts for her. And she paid me. That was my first lesson in writing.’

  ‘And romance.’ Everyone laughed.

  ‘And making money.’

  ‘Both useful.’

  Fancy nodded. ‘I learned a lot from my mother’s books. The fiery passion of romance but unfortunately for my personal education, she was a dot-dot-dot writer. The romance always stopped at the bedroom door.’

  There was more laughter. Fancy felt she had passed some sort of test. Tonight’s guest speaker was timed for 8.30 p.m. but everyone had to be in the conference hall ten minutes early for announcements by the vice chairman. It was all rules and regulations. Fancy felt she was back at school.

  The school had had a stream of famous speakers in the past: P D James, Ruth Rendell, Peter Lovesey, Simon Brett, Susan Moody, Gervase Phinn, Leslie Thomas, Gyles Brandreth. Her turn later this week. Fancy had a lot to live up to.

  The conference hall was a cavernous building, with a double-height ceiling like an aircraft hangar with rows of fluorescent lights in the gabled roof. The stage and lectern were along one side in the middle of a wall, so the audience sat in a semi-circle facing the speaker. It was far nicer than everyone sitting in strict rows facing the far end, view restricted and not being able to hear properly at the back.

  She was steered to a seat in the left-hand corner. ‘committee and guest speakers always sit here,’ she was told. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes did as she was told, but she damned well wasn’t going to obey the rules tomorrow.

  The speaker, no names, even though he was a household name, was full of himself and how famous and clever he was, and quickly became boring. The audience laughed at his jokes and asked lots of questions at the end, but Fancy had heard them all before. She could feel herself nodding off.

  Then she found herself daydreaming about her current book, a new scene coming alive into her head, and she desperately wanted to write it down.

  Pink pen out and a slim notebook and she was busy writing. The rest of the talk passed happily over her head, and she only came to when the clapping began and the speaker was escorted out to rapturous applause.

  ‘Wasn’t he good?’ said Jessie. ‘Did you enjoy that?’

  ‘Yes. Terrific,’ she said, closing her notebook.

  It was very dark outside now, with a cool breeze stirring the trees. The paths were lit with knee-high lamps but there were still big patches of dark and shadows. She suddenly felt very isolated. She was with three hundred people and yet she was totally alone. It was time to run for that lift and its reassuring recorded voice and lock herself into room 425. She would be safe there.

  ‘Come and join us in the bar. What would you like to drink? Unless you’d rather go and listen to ‘What Are You Doing Now?’ It starts in twenty minutes.’ It was Fergus, the chairman. He looked like a publisher; bushy eyebrows, bright eyes. He talked like a publisher.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, for the hundredth time that day. ‘A red wine, please.’

  He brought her a Fairtrade Merlot in a standard bar wine glass. That was a relief – no more thimbles. It was pleasant talking but she was getting a really uneasy feeling for no good reason. The bar area was tucked in behind the glassed-in veranda but she still felt visible and vulnerable. It was a long walk to Lakeside. She wondered how she was going to get there on her own without making a fuss.

  The smokers were segregated and had to smoke outside in a gazebo. She caught a whiff of an unusual cigarette, not one she recognized. The faces and bodies in the gazebo were vague and shapeless, coughing and laughing, new cigarettes being lit with sparks of glowing red. They drew on them like tiny red worms.

  Fancy leaned back so that she could not be seen clearly. She wanted to be swallowed by the shadows. The wine was shaking in her hand. She needed a good night’s sleep before tomorrow’s lecture and she had to look over her notes. A group was walking back to the conference hall in the dark. As the hall was halfway to Lakeside, it seemed the right time to move.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, standing up. ‘That long drive is catching up on me. So, if you’ll excuse me. Goodnight, everyone.’

  There was a chorus of goodnights and good wishes.

  She caught up with the group walking to the next event, absorbed into their numbers as a protection. She slid into the back of the hall, hoping no one would join her. It was easy to understand the formula. Each person had three minutes to talk about what they were doing now. The organizer had a household pinger to time them.

  ‘Next one, please,’ she called out. ‘Three minutes only. And I warn you, I shall stop you in mid-sentence.’

  It was interesting. It reminded Fancy of her own early days, working far into the night, the constant rejections, the wild ideas she had tried out. She had once been like these young writers. And the elderly writers, still trying, ambition always alive and bright despite the greying hair. For a while, she was lost in their stories, their hopes, their dreams. It was all so familiar.

  ‘Would you like to have a go?’ said the organizer, sliding up to Fancy, all smiles. ‘Tell us what you’re doing now. Everyone would be so interested.’

  She could hardly say no. She was an invited speaker.

  Fancy found herself being guided to the platform and the lectern. This is where she would be standing later in the week for her main lecture. This was a three-minute practice run. She looked round at the sea of expectant faces, sitting in rows, yet the hall was only a quarter full.

  ‘What am I doing now?’ she said, more to herself. ‘You are probably expecting me to say that I’m working this novel and planning yet another novel. That I’ve a serial for a woman’s magazine to finish. That my magazine MM is blooming and I’m wading through piles of submissions.’

  She looked round at the faces and paused. Many looked drawn and white. They were all tired, too, after long journeys by train or car, farewells, responsibilities, desperate for success. Some had even flown in from France and Switzerland.

  ‘But what I am really doing now is running away from someone who is trying to kill me. And I am terrified. He, or she, could be anywhere. They could be here, now in this very hall, or hiding in the shrubbery, or waiting outside my room.’

  There was a nervous titter. Fancy had their attention. They didn’t know whether to believe her. It could be a trick.

  ‘But I am also terrified of writing my next book. Can I still do it? We never know. It’s always a challenge. It still nags me. Have I got that special something inside me or has it gone? We have to prove ourselves over and over again.’

  A few heads nodded. They knew the feeling.

  ‘The killer out there could also be true,’ she said. ‘Or it could simply be the plot of my new novel. Wait and see. I have still got to write it.’

  A burst of laughter greeted her closing words. She had not used her three minutes, but she had said enough. Fancy felt a burden roll off her shoulders. She trusted all the writers to help her. They would be there for her because write
rs were like that.

  They were there for each other.

  The laughter was followed by applause. The event folded and closed. Everyone was drained. Seats shuffled, bags were searched for, programmes consulted. Pens rolled onto the floor.

  ‘I’ll walk you to your room,’ said Jed. He’d been sitting over the other side and she had not seen him. ‘Is that all right? Then you won’t be so terrified.’

  ‘I know the way. There are lots of other people.’

  ‘I heard fear in your voice. I’ve heard fear before. You’re frightened.’

  ‘It was acting.’

  ‘No, you weren’t. I know real fear when I hear it.’ Jed folded his programme with one hand and tucked it into a back pocket. ‘But I hope it is just a plot from your thriving imagination. Come on, Fancy Burne-Jones, let me see you to your door.’

  Fancy made a quick decision. She had to trust someone and he was over six feet tall. It was a reassuring height, not as tall as the legendary Jack Reacher, but he looked reliable. ‘Just to my door.’

  He grinned, a twinkle coming into his dark eyes behind the glasses. ‘Not a step further.’

  It was a short walk along the low-lit path but it was a long walk in her life. Fanny had never loved anyone except the heroes in her books. Real men had always fallen by the wayside as they let her down or she failed to be bewitched by their synthetic and predatory charm. She had come to the conclusion that she was too hard to please. A loner. Work took their place. She fell in love with words instead, put them on paper where they completed the landscape of her life.

  ‘Just looking at that trifle made me want to take my own life,’ Jed was saying.

  ‘My mother used to make a trifle that dripped with sherry.’

  Fancy laughed. She had been letting him talk, listening more to his voice than to what he was saying. She liked his voice, the low timbre, the slight northern accent. It had a musical resonance, yet at the same time, was purely masculine.

  ‘Jelly and custard and hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top,’ said Fancy. ‘I had a frozen banana.’

  ‘Wait till you see breakfast,’ he went on. ‘They serve roof tiles.’

  ‘Roof tiles?’

  ‘In normal life, it’s called toast. But that isn’t fair to them. The rest of breakfast is excellent with a huge choice of cereal and fruit.’

  ‘I rarely eat breakfast.’

  ‘You should. You’ll need it here to keep up your stamina. Everyone needs stamina to survive the whole week at Northcote.’

  Jed punched in the front door code. Fancy couldn’t even remember it though it was something simple. The door swung open to the Lakeside foyer. ‘Lift or stairs? I said I’d come right to your door.’

  ‘Stairs,’ said Fancy. She didn’t want to be in a lift with him. It was far too soon to be so close. ‘I need the exercise after all that sitting this evening.’

  ‘What did you think of the speaker?’

  ‘I confess that I was not actually listening all the time. It was pretend listening. I was writing. Something came into my head and I had to get it down. I knew I would forget it if I didn’t.’

  ‘The true professional,’ he said, following her up the three flights of turning stairs. ‘Even on an evening off. What happens if you are out on a date?’

  Fancy couldn’t remember when she had last had a date. In the distant past, sometime in The Middle Ages, there had been dates and men.

  ‘Especially when I’m on a date,’ she said. ‘To relieve the boredom.’

  ‘Ouch,’ said Jed, stopping on a landing and looking down at her. ‘Did I tread on a sore corn? Sorry.’

  Fancy shook her head. ‘It was a poor joke. I’m too tired to think up a good one. Tomorrow, perhaps.’

  ‘Nearly there – 425 is at the far end, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why is it numbered four, when it’s on the third floor?’ she wondered out loud.

  ‘It’s the way it was designed. Lakeside is built on a slope and the other flank of the building, the wing facing the new lake, has four floors. Your wing is built on the upper slope, so consists of only three floors. Don’t ask me what happens in the middle. A sort of empty zone.’

  ‘Or a floor and a half, like the platform in Harry Potter,’ said Fancy.

  ‘You’re probably right. Here you are, Fancy. Safe and sound. Sleep well.’ Jed turned to leave, almost abruptly. ‘Hey, what’s this? Someone’s left you a present.’

  It was a tin of biscuits. The glossy lid depicted assorted tea biscuits, chocolate and plain, made by a well-known manufacturer of biscuits.

  ‘How very kind,’ said Fancy. ‘From the committee, I expect, in case I’m starving in the middle of the night. But I don’t eat many biscuits. You can have them. I’ve never known a policeman who could resist biscuits.’

  ‘Chocolate digestives. They are my downfall.’

  ‘You have them, then.’

  The tin was heavy. For a fraction of a second, Fancy thought: concrete. But the tin was sealed and it hadn’t come through a window.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, ripping off the sticky tape. ‘I’ll leave you with a couple of jammy dodgers in case of unexpected midnight hunger pangs.’

  He eased off the lid and removed a couple of layers of greaseproof crinkle paper.

  Fancy gasped and staggered against the door, her blood running cold. The thing inside the biscuit tin gleamed an ivory white; it was a human hand, severed at the wrist, the wrist scorched and burned.

  Jed caught her with his good arm, dropping the tin at the same time. The hand spun out of the tin and skidded across the floor. It lay there, obscene and menacing, shreds of tissue scattered.

  ‘Now I know why you’re so scared,’ he said.

  THREE

  Sunday Morning

  Fancy had set her digital alarm for 7.30 a.m., ignoring the desperate need for extra sleep. She had slept well, which was surprising after the fright of the night before.

  Jed insisted on coming into her room, searching it thoroughly and making sure she was securely locked in for the night.

  He dismissed the biscuit tin. ‘A very silly joke. It’s a plastic model with a daub of red paint. The kind they use for teaching medical students. Forget it.’ But he took it away with him, tucked under his good arm.

  It surprised her that she slept so well. Sheer exhaustion. The bed was comfortable and she loved the extra space of a double bed, stretching her legs sideways. Perhaps she could move in permanently and go to all the conferences that were held at Northcote. She might learn a lot of new things. Then she thought of all the trifle she would have to consume and filed the idea.

  She wanted to be up early so that she could get the feel of the small conference hall where later, after coffee, she would be giving her first crime talk. She needed to absorb the atmosphere of the room, note where the lights were, the windows, screens or walls where she could put her lecture aids.

  Her talk was written as a PowerPoint presentation and she needed to check the electrical sockets, microphone, everything, in fact. She did not want to make a fool of herself in front of a crowd of writers with equipment that didn’t work. They would be after her blood immediately.

  At first, she disliked the room; the windows were too high up. She thought writers should be able to look out of windows, write what they saw outside. They’d need a trapeze to reach these windows. Not a good start. And it was too gloomy until she found the switch for full-on lighting.

  Nor did she want the chairs in rows. She wanted a semi-circle. She was so pernickety. The committee had yet to learn what an awkward cuss she was.

  She was in her lecturer-ship black, trousers, silk print shirt, funky Portobello Road waistcoat. Her hair was pulled back into her usual high casual knot, pinned with gold combs. The loose wings curved round her cheeks. Simple but classy.

  She couldn’t eat despite the big choice of fruit and cereals, even porridge. Writers were tucking into bacon, sausages, scrambled egg and baked beans. She ate
half a grapefruit, trying not to squirt her neighbours with juice.

  ‘Sorry,’ she murmured, dabbing her chin with a paper napkin.

  Jed gave her a nod and a half-wave from across the crowded dining room but that was all. He was sitting at one of the general tables. Fancy knew she was going to move in among the delegates at the first chance. The committee table was pleasant enough but she felt cut off from it, as if there were invisible barbed wire erected round the corner. Some might like the distinction but Fancy did not care for it.

  It was an isolated feeling, despite the helpfulness of everyone. The technical expert on the committee came with her to the hall to check that she had everything and it all worked. They tested the microphone.

  ‘Testing, testing,’ she said, trying out various distances and heights. She moved the lectern to the back wall. No one would be able to see her standing behind it. She preferred to be with her audience, walking among them.

  The technician gave her a hand moving the chairs into a semi-circle. ‘Anything else while I’m here?’ he grinned. ‘Like the walls painted a different colour? A quick roller job? How about strobe lighting? I could manage that.’

  ‘What a star,’ said Fancy, the adrenaline still pumping. ‘Could you manage some arrival music? Luck Be a Lady Tonight would be perfect.’

  ‘How about a pipe band?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ve brought my kilt and my pipes.’

  Fancy laughed. ‘I think your kilt might ruin our concentration.’

  The gardeners were busy watering and weeding the riot of flower beds. Lawns stretched down to the tranquil lakes. A sleek tabby was sprawled out in the sunshine, waiting to be stroked and admired – his daily routine. Northcote was like Brigadoon, cocooned, a million miles away from the real world.

  She took a cup of black coffee into the hall with her, a quarter of an hour before the start of her lecture. She half expected to see another biscuit tin but it all looked normal. Delegates were already arriving, wanting a good front seat.

  She made a point of welcoming each group as they arrived, walking among them easily, chatting and putting them at their ease. She didn’t have a pipe band or a Sinatra song, but within moments her crime lecture was in full swing.