Ouch.
“You did actually manage to save Netta Lewis’s life,” Dawn told me. “She was our first choice. But then, when Danger told us that he was going to help you guard her, we had to switch our attentions to Amanda. It wasn’t strictly true to the book, but we figured that nobody would be paying that close attention to your story anyway.”
“That’s outrageous! Enid Kibbler loved it!”
The writers pretended not to care, but I knew that I’d delivered a mighty blow. If I were going to die, at least I would die knowing that they knew that Enid Kibbler knew that I was more talented than they were.
I felt terrible about Amanda. By saving Netta I’d killed her. Admittedly, I had had no idea that those were the rules of the game, but even so, I had acted in a way that had brought about her death.
“So, what happened?” I asked. I looked at Dawn and Montgomery. “Did you two get your minions to recreate the first three stories and then fly back from Spain to make the kill? I know somebody impersonated you in the Skype chats so you don’t really have alibis.”
Montgomery was laughing, deep stentorian snorts. The others seemed amused too.
“Oh, we never went to Spain!” announced Dawn. “We just wanted people to think we were abroad, so that they wouldn’t ask questions.”
“We were too integral to the scheme to go abroad.”
“But your tans ...”
“Haven’t you heard of sunbeds?”
“So, you did all of the crimes?”
There was more laughter. Apparently it was comical that I didn’t automatically understand the workings of five murderous minds. I decided not to care. When it comes to your self-esteem, it is best not to value the opinions of deluded psychopaths.
“Danger and me did the gnomes!” sang Rafe.
“And the pig,” added Danger.
“I helped with the pig,” Annabel chirped. That explained the shoe prints.
“But there was only one set of prints,” I recalled. “Surely you didn’t kidnap an entire pig by yourself, Annabel? You’re so slight.”
“Why thank you!”
Danger explained, “I took the liberty of inspecting the boots of the farmer. Size ten from ASDA.”
“You wore the same type of welly as Farmer Groober?”
“Exactly.”
“Of course, we coordinated it all,” boasted Montgomery, puffing out his chest.
“Annabel almost ruined everything,” complained Dawn.
“I was worried about the pig!” she squeaked.
“She called 999,” explained Rafe, looking at her with condescending scorn.
“I was worried about the pig!”
“You were a liability!” scolded Dawn. “Look at the mess you made of the gnomes.”
“We were supposed to do it in fancy dress,” explained Rafe. “So that we would be disguised if anybody saw us, but not look threatening. Any nightwalkers would think we were youths messing around. We decided on animal costumes, because they would hide us completely.”
“You didn’t tell me that!” cried Annabel.
“It was pretty obvious that you weren’t supposed to come as the playboy flaming bunny!” scolded Rafe.
Poor Annabel looked mortified. I imagined the scene — Danger and Rafe waiting around in giant dog suits and Annabel turning up in stiletto heels, a bikini and bunny ears. Despite my predicament, I almost laughed.
“And I found the foot,” said Montgomery, looking proud.
“You didn’t find it, you stole it!” Dawn pointed out.
“All right, I stole it.”
“From where?” I asked.
“An undertaker,” he said, beaming from ear to ear. “Fortunately, there’d been a grisly traffic accident, so there was hardly any sawing to do.”
“You’re sick in the head. No wonder you found it easy to kill poor Amanda.”
“Actually, that was me,” announced Dawn, heaving up her bosom. “Montgomery signed in as both of us in Rafe’s Skype chat. Danger was with you, and Annabel made certain that Gavin saw her. We knew you were asking questions and wanted to make sure you believed every alibi.”
“Gareth.”
“What?”
“My husband is called Gareth.”
“Whatever.”
“You said you’d never been to Green Bar!”
Annabel stuttered, “I ... I got confused.”
“She gets confused a lot,” said Dawn, dismissively. “I waited ... I waited until it was dark. Then, I broke into Amanda’s flat. I smashed the window in the door, so that I could open it. She was in the shower, washing her hair, when I overpowered her and strangled her. Then, I drove her to Waterloo where I threw her body into the river.”
“And left an ear of wheat!” I exclaimed.
“That was my idea!” beamed Montgomery. “A calling card that would take the police straight to you, Mrs Wheat-Acre. And just in case my remarkable play on words was too subtle for the police, it’s all in the confession.”
At this stage, I didn’t care whether the police thought I had done it or not. The chances of my survival were slim. I wasn’t concerned about my name being dragged through the mud, I was concerned about my face being dragged through the fire. Were they really going to eat me?
A sudden surge of panic took over and without really thinking about it, I kneed Rafe in his spongy balls. He yelped and fell to the floor, rolling around like a giant baby. I raced towards the sea. The others were a few metres further away, giving me a head start.
“Stop her!” commanded Dawn.
“Why me?” asked Danger.
“Because you’re trained in this sort of thing!”
“No, he isn’t!” scoffed Rafe, squeaking from the ground. “He’s not a real bodyguard. That’s just part of his author persona!”
“Really?” asked a myriad of voices.
“He’s actually a computer programmer called Mike!” revealed Rafe, suddenly seeming a lot better.
“Shut it, Ralf Klump!”
“Ralf Klump?” laughed Montgomery.
“He’s never called Ralf Klump?” cried Dawn.
“Like you don’t have a pen name, Shane Tanner!” said Rafe. “And I know you didn’t go to the Oxford either, you went to the polytechnic!”
“It’s in Oxford!” pleaded Montgomery.
“All right,” said Annabel, sounding alarmed. “There’s no need to bring our personal lives into this.”
“Why’s that, Annabel Flushing?”
“Somebody stop Dee!” cried Dawn.
Despite my head start, I was still only a few feet out from the shore. The water was deep and, in my haste, I kept stumbling. The currents were stronger than they had been before and hindered my movement.
Somebody was in the water; I tried to swim away but my clothes and the currents held me back.
Suddenly, big hands grabbed me. Though I struggled to escape, using my own arms to try to swim, my pursuer held my waist firmly. I felt myself dragged backwards, back onto Pompomberry Island.
Chapter 21
I was on the ground. Danger held me down while Dawn charged forward like a rampaging rhino. She wasn’t fast, she was wide and heavy. In her fist was a sharp, kitchen knife. I was terrified. I tried to escape Danger’s clutches. I bit his arm. He yelped and let go.
But I was sandwiched between the sea and the moving wall of Dawn. As I edged backwards towards the water, Danger grabbed me by the ankles and held me still.
Dawn stopped just before me, and, for a brief moment, I thought she’d changed her mind. Then it happened — I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the middle of my middle. It was the worst pain of my life. I screamed.
As the enormous woman stepped away, I saw that the knife was covered in my blood. The pain intensified. I flopped my head back onto the sand, and then I dropped dead.
Chapter 22
At least, the writers thought I had died. I’m familiar with the strategy known as ‘playing dead’. It worked fo
r the house spider in my bath. When I’d tried to remove its body the bastard had run up my arm. In my wounded state, I couldn’t see myself running anywhere. I didn’t know if I would survive the knife wound, but at least if they thought I was dead, that hulking beast might not stab me again. It was difficult keeping still, not to mention quiet, when I was badly injured, but I knew I had to endure the pain.
“Are we really going to eat Dee?” asked Annabel, sounding aggrieved. She’d probably already had her daily calorie.
“I am not sure that I want to,” Danger added.
Rafe angrily replied, “Oh, I see! So your stories are good enough for copycatting but mine aren’t?”
“If we eat her, how can we frame her?” wondered Annabel.
Rafe snorted, “We have to follow the book. This is art!”
“I have a Go Girl deadline tomorrow; I cannot risk indigestion,” explained Danger.
“She does look a bit hard to digest — stringy,” observed Dawn.
Rafe asked, “When did you start writing for Go Girl?”
“A few weeks ago,” said Danger, sheepishly.
I heard Rafe tut.
“He wrote a brilliant story!” said Annabel. “About two halves of a couple who each hired the same private detective ...”
“You mean, my story?” roared Rafe. “He stole my idea!”
“Well, you decided to write the other one,” stammered Danger.
“It was my story.”
“Do you want the fee? How about we offset it against that fiver you owe me?”
“I don’t care about the fee! This is about artistic integrity! Not only did you steal my story, but you sold it to Go Girl magazine!” cried Rafe, getting more and more angry. “That idea was worthy of more than a magazine! You degraded my idea!”
Next, I heard running around. I heard footsteps on the path leading up to the house. Then suddenly people were screaming. I risked opening my eyes. Fortunately, nobody was looking at me. All eyes were on Rafe. He was now storming down the path swinging the axe. The others hurried away from him, parting like the sea to Rafe’s Moses.
Danger screamed — a proper blood-curdling scream. He hurtled towards the sea with Rafe following him, hurling obscenities about Danger misunderstanding his place in the writing community.
It wasn’t hard for Rafe to catch up; his legs were so much longer. As Danger reached the shore, Rafe swung the axe, driving a gash into Danger’s side. He screamed and stumbled as he dived towards the water. Rafe swung the axe again. This time, catching Danger’s foot. Even from my disadvantageous position, I could make out blood; lots of it. Danger fell.
The axe swung again, this time, cutting deep into the leg bone. Danger screamed, a high-pitched agonised scream. He tried to crawl further into the sea. Dark red blood marbled the sea, churning into pink surf.
A wave crashed over Danger’s head and he disappeared for a few seconds, but his colourless hair reappeared as his head bobbed above the water. It happened three more times before a final wave claimed Danger forever.
The others watched, eerily quiet, as one of their number perished. Annabel looked aghast at Rafe. I heard her heart shattering, piece by piece.
“What? He undervalued my work!” said Rafe.
This was met with a stunned silence.
Suddenly, Annabel screamed and pointed to the shore a few metres to my right. I had to prop myself up to see what she was gesturing to. Oh yuck! Oh that’s revolting! Danger’s severed foot washed up on the beach.
I remembered that I was supposed to be lifeless, and fell back onto the sand. Danger’s murder sickened me but at least now there was one less person wanting me dead.
“I think we could all do with a cup of tea,” said Montgomery, in the manner that somebody might respond to a minor mishap, such as getting caught in the rain, or arriving at the supermarket checkout to find that you’ve forgotten your loyalty card, or accidentally stepping on your favourite snail. But then the group had clocked up their third murder; it was becoming a way of life for them.
Voices seemed to be retreating from the sandy area up the path to the house.
“Can we just leave them there?”
“It’s best if we let the sea claim Danger,” explained Montgomery. “The currents are vicious around here, the rocks are sharp and there’s a storm forecast.”
“What about Dee?” asked Rafe.
“Well she’s not going anywhere, is she? Why not leave her there until we feel peckish?”
Charming. They’d killed me to eat, and didn’t even have the courtesy to devour me while I was fresh. What was the matter? Was I that unappetising?
Then, unexpectedly, I heard a gunshot.
Dawn screamed like a stricken bull. I heard a thud and felt the earth beneath me tremble. Had somebody shot Dawn?
There was a further chorus of screeches. It was like listening to a badly tuned orchestra. Annabel squealed continually, like a pathetic heroine in a bad horror film.
How come somebody had a gun? Had they planned to shoot me before deciding to use a knife instead? And why would anybody want to shoot Dawn? Well, I could think of a million reasons to shoot the hideous woman, but why would one of these people want to shoot her? Who had done it?
“Monty?” Dawn gasped with shock and horror.
I looked up again. They were gathered on the lawn at the top of the slope. Montgomery stood there, thunderous and solid. He delivered a second shot, sending Dawn flying backwards off the cliff.
I waited for the splash, but none came, just a low thud.
From where I lay, I could just make out a ledge a few feet below the cliff edge. Dawn had landed on the ledge. She was a little wider than the rocky shelf but appeared to be balanced. She wriggled and squirmed.
“But Monty darling! We love each other!” she wept. Shudder.
The others watched looking horrified, but were clearly too afraid to intervene. One of their leaders had turned on the other, but why? And what did it mean for them?
Montgomery slowly paced to the cliff edge and looked down at Dawn, who was wriggling like a pig. Her orange floral skirt was ruffled up, and her bare podgy pink legs kicked the air, as though trying to swim.
He stood at the edge of the cliff with his thick, grey caterpillars of hair blowing in the evening wind, and aimed the gun at his lover’s head. She couldn’t move. She had either to face Montgomery, or roll into the sea onto the jagged, merciless rocks below.
“Why Monty, why?”
“To complete the set!”
“What set?”
“The anthology, obviously! We haven’t carried out my story yet.”
“But yours is about a tax lawyer who kills a murderer.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, you’re not a tax lawyer.”
“I am too!”
“But I thought you had a regular suit job?”
“Yes — a tax lawyer.”
Everything fell into place. I couldn’t see Dawn’s face, but I imagined that she must be entirely terrified. There was no escape for her now. Her own rules were going to kill her.
“At least, I was a tax lawyer, until the bastards decided that I was redundant.”
Ah, that explains the musty suits.
“Well then, you’re not a tax lawyer anymore!”
This seemed to anger Montgomery beyond belief. His face turned from orange to purple. He pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang. This time the bullet drove straight into her forehead.
Dawn’s pig-like body stopped kicking and lay still. All life had left her. What had once been a vital, wicked woman, was now just a carcass.
Rafe and Annabel watched silently. I wondered if they knew what Montgomery had been planning. I imagined not. Montgomery’s protagonist was a maverick. He worked alone.
“She was right,” said Montgomery, straightening his natty jacket. “An unhappy ending is much more modern.”
Then, he raised his arm and pointed the gun at Annabel. She screa
med. Then he pointed it at Rafe. Annabel screamed. Then he pointed it back at Annabel again.
“Wait!” she blubbered, with heavy tears smudging heavy eyeliner. “I haven’t killed anybody! In fact, I was never really comfortable with any ...”
Another gunshot.
Missed.
“I saved the pig, didn’t I?” she cried, half-running, half-dancing around with no particular destination in mind. “I called the police! I’m not a bad person! I’m not a killer!”
Rafe grabbed Annabel and they hurried towards the front door, with Montgomery in hot pursuit. I couldn’t help thinking that Annabel would have run faster if she had kicked off her kitten heels. However, a woman like that would rather die looking beautiful than live unfashionably shoeless.
Another gunshot.
Annabel cried out, a blood-coagulating, farewell ballad.
And then she fell. Her feather-light body landed by the path and wrapped around the garden gnome. They lay together, two inanimate objects locked in an embrace.
Montgomery pursued Rafe into Pompomberry House, with a steady, measured stride. He was calm, unperturbed by the death surrounding him. He had been the one in the driving seat all along and he certainly wasn’t going to lose control now.
With just two of my five assailants left alive, could I perhaps survive? If Montgomery was intent on shooting Rafe, I would have only one writer to outwit.
Still, I could hardly move. The pain in my stomach was unbearable, and my t-shirt was becoming sodden with blood. I had to get off the island but I obviously couldn’t swim now. The rowing boat! If I could just tug myself up off the sand ...
Unexpectedly, I heard splashing. My first thought was that Danger was still alive, but then realised that there was no chance he had survived.
The splashing sounded like oars. Could help be on its way? Then the splashing stopped.
Keeping my eyes open was getting harder and harder. I just wanted to sleep ... I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, somebody was leaning above me and pleading.
“Oh my God, Dee!” cried my husband’s voice. Then I felt his breath on my face. “What have they done to you? No, Dee! You can’t be dead! No! Dee! Please no!” He cried out, sounding agonised.
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