Hmm ...
Once I’d signed the book, I noticed that Danger was staring at me. It was rather disconcerting. His lack of expression meant that he could be feeling anything from anger to lust. Shudder. He raised his eyelids. Then I saw the problem — he was expecting me to ask for his autograph.
I thought about Foot. I thought about its insipid, boring prose and total lack of plot. I thought about Danger himself and ‘Journey-Gurney’. Was I a good enough actor to pull this off?
Finally, I took a deep breath. “Danger?” I said. “Can I have your autograph please?”
“Oh!” he said, with false surprise. “Yes!”
Being unprepared for this occurrence, the best I could offer Danger was the back of a Tesco receipt to scribble on, but he seemed satisfied.
It wasn’t long before the conversation ran dry once again. I sat, watching Danger, speculating about his vocal range. Had there ever been a human with so little variation in pitch?
I drummed my fingers on the table, I twiddled my thumbs. I took off my glasses, cleaned them and put them back on again, seven times. Yawn. Perhaps Danger’s winning body-guarding strategy was to bore assailants into going away. Maybe I should send him over to talk to the greasy man, then the man might leave and we could all go home, safe in the knowledge that whatever was in the briefcase, was not going to murder anybody tonight.
Netta leaned forward and wiped a little foam off the man’s wiry moustache. She threw her head back and giggled. He gave her a little, slimy grin. What are you doing Netta? What are you doing?
The flirting intensified over the next hour. It was painful to watch — not because the intimacy might lead to her death, but because she was throwing herself at him, and judging by his thigh rubbing action, she really didn’t need to. Odd though, he seemed genuinely attracted to her — wasn’t that going to make her harder to kill?
Finally, Netta got down off her bar stool. The greaseball began putting on his jacket, then when he realised how poorly dressed she was, he offered it to her. I shuddered as I watched him slide it over her arms, caressing her as he did so. He’s twice your age, Netta! And he looks like a rodent! What are you doing?
I felt sure that the greasy, ratty man was the copycat. He couldn’t possibly be a hired assassin. Anybody with half a brain would hire an attractive man for a seduction routine. Mind you, ugly or not, Netta seemed smitten. She leant forward and kissed him on the nose. I honestly wanted to throw up. I glanced at Danger, whose eyes were popping out of his head, and knew that, mentally, he was putting himself in the place of the man.
If this man was responsible for all of the strange happenings, who the heck was he? I’d never seen him before in my life, and I felt sure I would have recognised that ugly, receding, puckered chin.
Then they started toward the exit. It was time for Danger and me to move. Quickly, we got up from our seats but then, realising that we didn’t want to look suspicious, we slowed down and discussed which tourist trap to visit next.
“Where are they going?” I asked. “I hope she doesn’t get on her moped again.”
“There is no room for two on that thing.”
“What if he has a car?”
“You want us to follow them and see what happens?” suggested Danger. His words hinted at irritation but, as usual, his tone said nothing.
We followed them out into the street. By now, the body language had gotten even more revolting. I wanted to cry out, “No! He’s old enough to be your father!” but realised, with horror, the extent to which the expression aged me. It’s the twenty-first century Dee, anybody can shag anything.
They turned into a side street. It was going to be harder to follow them now because the alley was otherwise deserted. We ducked behind bins, some thirty feet behind, waiting for them to pass a skip so that we’d have another hiding place. I was amazed by how smoothly and silently Danger moved. It was as if his whole life had been building up to this moment — Danger Smith, action hero.
They seemed to have stopped. With the shadow of the streets around them, it was difficult to see what was going on. I felt my heart beating in my chest.
Suddenly, the grease-ball pushed Netta against the wall and I heard her cry out!
I leapt out from behind the bin and darted forward but I feared it was too late. It was difficult to see in the darkness, but it looked as though the man was stabbing her — using all his force to pound a knife into her torso, over and over again.
“No!”
He heard me cry and leapt away from her. I half expected Netta’s lifeless body to flop to the ground but she stayed vertical. In fact, she looked exceptionally well for somebody who had been stabbed.
“What the heck?” she demanded.
“Netta? You’re all right?” I removed my shades and hat.
“Dee!”
“I thought this man was trying to kill you!” It was then that I noticed she was pulling up her knickers. “Oh! Yuck!”
“Who the taff are you?” demanded the ratty man. He had a sharp, squeaky voice.
“Who the taff are you?” I replied.
“Arnold Miller,” he said, as if I should know.
I was surprised to realise that I did know. Arnold Miller was the Miller of Porter and Miller, or at least, one of the Millers. He was the grandson of the founder of the corporation and heir to a vast fortune. What’s more, he was responsible for the charity grant contest.
It was all clear. Mr Greasy wasn’t here to kill Netta; he was here to take what he could get from a foolish, naïve former model, who would do anything to get ahead in life. And Netta was here to try and milk a competitive advantage by milking him. They deserved each other really.
“I can’t believe you followed me!” cried Netta. “And who is this?”
I’d forgotten Danger was with me. He nodded, shyly, at Netta.
“I thought he was going to kill you!” I explained.
“What?” cried Arnold.
“Ignore her,” said Netta. “Crazed fan.”
“Netta, I’m sorry. I was trying to help.” Was I sorry? Did I regret stopping the squelchy between Ms Help-Me-Get-Ahead and Mr Help-Me-Get-Some-Head?
“Go home, Dee, and take your shadow with you.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“If I see you again, I’ll call the police,” she told me, firmly.
I tried to take her hand in mine, but she slapped me away. “Take care of yourself,” I begged her.
What more could I do? If I continued to follow her, I could very well end up getting myself into trouble with the police. And I didn’t think the police would be sympathetic toward me.
I walked back to the street, with Danger following. At least I could take comfort from the fact that she was with Arnold Miller. The chances were, he wasn’t going to kill her. I found myself hoping that they would spend the night together, whatever disgusting, moist activities that might involve.
My phone started to vibrate. Gareth? In all the excitement, I’d completely forgotten that I was longing to hear from him. How peculiar! My stomach lurched when I remembered my suspicions about the places he had to be, and the people he had to see.
My anxiety might be about to end. It was Gareth calling! My index finger moved faster than it had ever moved before. God forbid I should miss his call and have to call him back.
“Gareth!” I shouted.
“Dee! Thank goodness I’ve got hold of you!”
My heart melted.
“I’ve got some terrible news!”
He’s met someone else.
“Amanda Kenwood is dead.”
Phew.
Hang on. “What?”
“The police just fished her body out of the Thames.”
It was difficult to take in. I’d spent all week trying to work out how to protect Netta Lewis, and now Amanda Kenwood was dead. I’d protected the wrong charity rep.
I felt terribly guilty. I thought about my story. I’d written Amanda’s death. I�
��d thrown a character into the Thames and somehow, it had come true. It was my fault that Amanda was dead.
Did she have family? Did she have a boyfriend who’d miss her? A mother to be heartbroken? What would ‘Dogs for Disabled People’ do without her?
I would say that it felt like being punched in the chest, but it didn’t — it felt like a giant cannonball being fired into my guts. Everything hurt — my chest, my stomach, my pelvis.
Then I felt another emotion — anger. In fact, it was fair to say I was fuming. My story was about the winning candidate dying, not the runner up — the winner! Despite having copied the other stories with precision, the killer had done a sloppy job with mine! He’d killed off the wrong character! Had the bastard even read my story?
Chapter 13
Suddenly the police did want to speak to me. They wanted to speak to me very much. It can’t have been more than 9am when I heard the doorbell ring. I looked over at Gareth who was fast asleep and felt annoyed to note that I was going to have to be the one to answer the door. But then I remembered that Gareth didn’t live here anymore. He might spend the night with me whenever there was the odd murder, but that didn’t grant him door-answering rights.
I shuddered when I realised that we were now talking about a serial killer. It wasn’t just Biff who’d been killed, but Amanda too. Whilst I’d been devastated about Biff, it was nothing compared with how I felt about Amanda. Although I’d never met her, I had played an instrumental part in her demise — I’d written it!
I pulled on my purple polka-dot dressing gown and headed for the stairs. It was difficult to see through the dust in my eyes — the crunchy remnants of yesterday’s tears.
It didn’t surprise me that there were officers on the doorstep. Although why it had to be Taylor and Forrester again, I will never know. I opened the door and showed them in, muttering offers of coffee that I was far too sleepy to fulfil.
They looked the same as ever — Taylor thinning; Forrester bursting at the seams.
Taylor sat in Gareth’s armchair, which I found immensely irritating. Why couldn’t he sit on the sofa like other guests? Forrester took the sofa.
“I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news,” began Forrester.
“Amanda Kenwood is dead,” I replied.
“Yes, I’m afraid she is,” said Forrester softly.
“Would you like to explain exactly how you know that?” asked Taylor.
“My husb ... estranged husband told me.” I was confused. I hadn’t stopped to ask Gareth how he knew that Amanda Kenwood was dead. I suppose I had assumed it had been on the news.
“And where is your estranged husband right now.”
“Um ...” I blushed, “upstairs.”
“Can we speak to him?” asked Taylor.
“Right now?” I asked. I pictured Gareth, nose in the pillow, mouth gaping, dead to the world.
“No, we’ll arrange an interview with him shortly. Right now we need to talk to you,” said Taylor.
“Okay.”
“How did you know that one of the girls in the Porter and Miller contest would get killed?”
“Because it’s in the book.”
“The book that you think is coming true.”
“Think? Amanda’s dead! That’s four stories now — two thirds of the book!”
Taylor scribbled something on his notepad.
“Surely you don’t still think I’m deluded?”
“You seem to know a lot about a very serious offence,” said Taylor.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this! I mean, I didn’t kill her. I was trying to protect her ... Well, I tried to protect Netta. I thought Netta was the target. That’s how it is in my story.”
“Do you use drugs?” he asked, rudely.
“Oh for heaven’s sake! Amanda has died, and you still think that I’m loopy!”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you implied.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Forrester cut in. “We found a cannabis cigarette outside the door at Amanda’s flat — the one that was broken into.”
“What? I thought she was thrown into the Thames?”
“How do you know that?” demanded Taylor.
I wanted to tell him that Gareth had told me, but I was afraid of getting Gareth into trouble. I was sure that there was a perfectly innocent explanation for Gareth’s knowledge, but I wouldn’t be comfortable mentioning him to the police again, without knowing what it was.
“Do you use cannabis?” asked Forrester.
“No. Maybe it was Amanda’s.”
“Amanda Kenwood was known for being very anti-drugs,” explained Forrester.
“What those girls are known for, and what they’re actually like, are two different things.”
Taylor frowned. “You sound very critical of the victim.”
“I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean!”
Taylor changed the subject. “An ear of wheat was found on Waterloo Bridge next to the spot where Amanda’s body was dropped.”
“So she was thrown over the bridge!”
“We also found an ear of wheat next to that foot. Do you know anything about that, Dee Wheat-Acre?”
“Um ... I feel sure that I’m one of those Whittakers derived from White Acre. Besides, it’s my husband’s name.”
The two officers exchanged glances, and began scribbling away.
“Why would I leave a calling card anyway? That’s just dumb.”
“So you have thought about committing murder,” noted Taylor.
“No!”
Forrester spoke. “A female tipped off the emergency services about the pig.”
“Well, it wasn’t me!”
“Nobody said it was!” said Taylor, looking triumphant.
“You think it was me, don’t you? Even though I came to you and told you what was going to happen, even though I’m the only one of six who reported Biff’s murder, even though I was out last night trying to protect Netta ...”
“Where were you at nine o’clock last night?”
“Trying to find somewhere to park in central London.”
“And can anybody verify that?”
“Yes! Danger! He was driving.”
“Danger Smith?” asked Taylor. “One of the people you say you met at Pompomberry House?”
“There’s no say about it. He was there!”
“But you can understand why I might be suspicious, when there’s nobody called Danger Smith in the country.”
“What?”
I was getting more and more distressed. My body began to shake. It was bad enough feeling responsible for writing Amanda’s death; now the police seemed to think that I’d carried out the murder too.
“I didn’t kill Amanda! I’m the law-abiding citizen who came to you about Biff. If you want somebody to blame, how about tracking down Dawn Mann, or Montgomery Lowe? They’re the ones who hid Biff’s body. They’re the ones who had access to the whole book before it was published. They’re the ones who recovered my story from a memory card without my permission ...”
“Are either of those people big?” asked Forrester.
“Enormous! They’re both tall. Montgomery is heavy set and Dawn is morbidly obese.”
They exchanged glances.
“The killer was somebody big, yes?”
No response.
“So you know it wasn’t me! Why have you been torturing me when you know I didn’t do it?”
“Don’t leave the country, Dee, will you?”
* * *
I made myself breakfast, feeling confused, aggrieved and frightened. How dare the police make me feel bad when I’d been on the side of the law all along? How had Gareth known that Amanda was dead? What would the copycat do next?
There were two stories left to come true — Montgomery’s and Rafe’s. Montgomery’s was worrying — his protagonist shoots a criminal who escapes the justice system; Rafe’s was downright petrifying
— a group of people select the weakest one amongst them, then kill and eat the poor creature!
Cannibalism didn’t bear thinking about. Still, the killer hadn’t followed my story to the letter — hell, he or she hadn’t even got the victim right — so perhaps the copycat would stop short of eating the victims. Even so, regardless of the copycat’s culinary plans, he or she was clearly not afraid to kill.
I told the police about the further murders I predicted, but I didn’t feel I’d been terribly helpful. It wasn’t like my story, where the victim had been easy to predict (or so I thought!) There were criminals who escaped justice everywhere. As for the people who represented Rafe’s group, they could be any group of people.
Who could have done this? Did I really still suspect anybody from the writers’ weekend? They were useless, but were they evil? At least now Danger was definitely off the list. There was no way he could have killed Amanda while he was with me.
Gareth had mentioned seeing Annabel in Barry’s local that night — a pub called Green Bar. Or, as he put it ‘that fit one from your forum’. I had been put out, to say the least. It’s not that I minded Gareth being attracted to other women — it happens — but Annabel Fleming? Her beauty was the exact opposite of mine. Hers was obvious, mainstream and feminine, mine was quirky, acquired and laddish.
Rafe had been engaged in a live Skype chat at nine that night, with dozens of witnesses. It was a pretty sound alibi. Once again, suspicion pointed at Dawn and Montgomery. But with Dawn in Spain, it had to be Montgomery — didn’t it?
I sat down at my computer, wondering if Amanda’s death was in the news. I could think of no other way that Gareth would know. I couldn’t entirely trust what the police had told me; I got a definite sense that they were trying to catch me out — particularly Taylor.
However, just as I was typing Amanda’s name into Google, I heard footsteps on the stairs — Gareth.
“Morning,” he groaned, looking like a cross between a yeti and a dormouse.
“The police were here.”
He groaned again. His hair was even messier than normal and his usually enormous eyes were mere slits beneath crusty lids. It was obviously far too early in the morning for him to function. I wondered if he even remembered that Amanda was dead, that he was the one who had broken the news to me.
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