Blood Read: Publish And Be Dead (The Capgras Conspiracy Book 1)

by Simon J. Townley

  “We’re asking you not to, while we investigate.”

  “But you’re not going to investigate. If there are more deaths, it’s down to you.”

  “Don’t make threats, Mr Capgras.” Whitaker opened the door, held it for Tom, indicating he was done here and it was time to leave.

  Lock escorted him as far as the security door, which pitched Capgras back into the public facing side of the station. “Best listen to him,” Lock said. “Leave it alone.”

  The words rang in his ears as he pushed through a series of swing doors on his way to freedom and the street outside.

  He should have brought Hannah, but she had refused to get involved, said the partners had expressly forbidden it. Was that the truth? He could never tell when a woman was lying.

  The heavy overnight rain had settled into a mid-morning drizzle. Capgras stood in the doorway, and stared at the traffic, listening to the sound of tyres on wet tarmac. He needed time to think clearly, get a fresh perspective. Something to take his mind off the case for a while, so his subconscious could churn through the facts and piece the puzzle together. He shoved his hands in his pockets and jangled the keys to his motorbike. She required some love and attention. It was perfect displacement activity. He’d take her home and strip her carburettor down on the kitchen table. And if that didn’t bring him any new ideas, at least by the end of it all his bike would be running sweet and true.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lineage

  Capgras put on his motorbike helmet and goggles, zipped up his Belstaff and threw his right leg over the seat of his Norton 650SS. Built in 1963, the bike ran on a fuel mix of forty per cent pure cool sophistication and sixty per cent hopeless optimism. The brakes weren’t up to much but the engine put out enough power to cruise along at a hundred and ten, making it the single most hated item in the extended Capgras household.

  It had originally belonged to Tom’s father, who bought it for the knock-down price of ninety pounds in 1972. It was then already showing signs of age but had not yet turned into one of the world’s most desirable classic motorbikes. Tom’s father, Ralph, had been riding bikes since he was ten years old. Growing up on the island of Alderney, there had been few roads for him to explore but little danger of being harmed by speeding traffic. Or of ever going particularly fast himself.

  When he moved to the mainland, aged 18, to attend University, Ralph’s family gave him two hundred pounds to start him out. He spent half on the bike, the rest on gear to wear on the bike, tools to repair it, and petrol to drive it from one end of the country to the other whenever he could break free from the monotony of studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford.

  When Ralph married Juliet, three years his junior, she insisted that he buy a car, especially since he now had a respectable, reliable and well-paid position shuffling paperwork on behalf of the British Government. The couple lived on the outskirts of London and commuting by car into the centre of the city was already virtually impossible. So Ralph kept the bike for getting to work and added a family saloon for trips to the country and weekends away, and for taking his new wife shopping.

  Like most people who have ever ridden a motorbike, he never learnt to truly love cars. Ralph tolerated them at first, but gradually grew accustomed to the comfort. As the years went by the bike was used less and less. After their first son, Oliver, was born, the Norton began to gather dust in the garage of the family’s new home in a quiet Kent village. Though the country roads would have been ideal for rides, Ralph rarely found the time, what with work and looking after a young family, and he had taken up other hobbies including gardening and golf. The bike began to gather dust, except for one week every summer when he would once more put on his biking clothes and ride the Norton to whatever obscure corner of the British Isles had been chosen that year for the reunion of his old friends from University.

  A second son, Tom, came along and then a daughter Emma. Soon, Ralph began to skip the reunions. Juliet begged him to sell the bike. It didn’t take up much room, but she wanted it gone before her boys were old enough to cast lascivious eyes over the machine. Her sons would learn to drive cars, she vowed. On their seventeenth birthdays they would begin driving lessons and once they passed they would be supplied with a car of their own, or access to the family vehicle if funds did not allow. Under no circumstances were they to ride motorbikes. Not for fun, not around the fields and certainly never anywhere near a road.

  Whenever the subject came up around the dinner table she poured scorn on them, implying no girl these days would look at a boy on a motorbike. The tactic, transparent as it may have been, worked like a charm on her oldest son, Ollie, who passed his car test within nine weeks of his seventeenth birthday and took possession of a mud-brown, fifteen-year-old Ford Escort with dodgy suspension, holes in the exhaust and seats that threatened to skewer the passengers with random spikes of sharp metal. But it had four wheels. It sat solidly rooted to the earth. It didn’t go very fast and had to slow down considerably to get around corners. His mother was delighted and Oliver was content with the car. But of the three Capgras children, he was the only one immune to the lure of Ralph’s mystical, magical motorbike.

  Juliet Capgras rarely knew what her son Tom was getting up to. She hoped he was in the woods collecting butterflies. Or down at the playing fields, learning to get good at sport. Maybe he was upstairs reading. In fact he was more often than not in the garage where he would carefully disrobe the Norton of the blankets that protected it from dust and damp, and were intended to shield it from impressionable young eyes. Tom would sit on the bike and pretend to ride it, while his sister Emma clung on behind him, her arms wrapped around his chest, the pair of them screeching out motorbike noises until their throats were hoarse.

  As the twentieth century coughed and wheezed its way towards the Millennium, Tom approached his sixteenth birthday. Emma was only twelve, but already showing signs of becoming a wild child, old but not yet wise beyond her years. Whenever their parents went away - for a day, a week, an afternoon - she would beg Tom to drag the Norton out of the garage and ride it around the garden, or down to the end of the street – and take her along, of course.

  Tom didn’t dare, not because he was scared of the bike or the roads or the police, but because he knew and understood how much his father still loved that Norton 650SS.

  Of course, there came a day when temptation won over the young man, as it will. Ralph and Juliet had flown to Greece for their first proper holiday without the children, leaving Ollie in charge. But Ollie was busy, cramming for his ‘A’ Levels, and Emma had older friends among the girls of the neighbourhood, some of them almost Tom’s age. They too wanted to see the bike, and talked of it, and longed to see it in action. The eldest of the group, Tina Braithwaite, teased Tom remorselessly on the one hand, and flirted outrageously on the other. She urged him to see if it would start. And if he could stay on board. To prove he was a man.

  Money was gathered from every pocket and purse. Petrol was bought and poured into the fuel tank. Tom knew enough, at least, to check the oil and tyres. Then he took a firm hold of the handlebars, threw a leg over the seat and tried to start her – kick after kick while the girls purred with disappointment. Then after ten or twelve attempts, it roared into life. The engine screeched in indignation and Tom frantically let go of the throttle.

  It was a warm May day and there were windows open. Tom knew that Ollie, who was upstairs in his bedroom, must have heard the howl of the engine as it was over-revved. There was no time to lose. Not wearing a helmet, or sensible clothes, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, Tom leapt onto the bike, wriggling in the seat to get his balance. He eased her into gear, released the clutch slowly, expecting it to stall but it bit and started to move and before he knew it he was doing circuits of the front lawn while the girls cheered him on, all eight of them. Emma ran in front like a suffragette on a race course, waving him down. He slowed, but she didn’t wait for him to stop, le
aping on behind with the agility of cowboy movie stunt double. Together, they toured the drive, the front lawn, down the side of the house, around the pond in the back garden, and the apple trees, until finally Ollie stormed downstairs.

  The older brother, assuming the position of familial authority, blocked their path, hands on hips. Tom rode straight at him, Emma screaming for joy. Ollie, immovable, stood his ground. Tom, unstoppable, kept going. A swerve from one, a last moment jink from the other and somehow no one got hurt.

  And the joyride continued.

  Out onto the road they went, the wind in their hair. Adults stared, angry and alarmed. Cars hooted at them. Tom kept going, up to the village playing grounds, around the football pitch, back to the road, before coming to a stop with a screech of tyres and a hail of gravel in the pub car park.

  “More,” screamed Emma.

  More, indeed. Tom revved the engine five times, just because he could and because he liked the noise, then set off, heading for home. But they didn’t make it. As they neared the turning onto the lane where they lived, the way was blocked.

  Ollie always insisted that it wasn’t him that called the police. It must have been an adult from the village, a motorist perhaps. Or maybe it was just bad luck.

  Tom skidded as he saw the copper, arms outstretched, ordering him to stop. Emma was thrown clear as the bike slid from under them. A miracle no one was killed, his mother would say when she heard the news in all its detail. Tom’s father would merely grunt at that point in the story. Because of course, someone was hurt. His poor Norton clattered into the side of the police car, bending one of the handlebars and scratching the gleaming, highly polished chrome.

  There were no charges for Tom or Emma, simply a stern telling off and a lecture on road safety. But the Norton was chained and padlocked. Even the garage was made out of bounds, secured with hidden keys.

  Juliet Capgras redoubled her campaign: get rid of the bike, she urged. Ralph held out a few years longer. But with Tom away in his first year at college, Ralph finally accepted that he would never ride again and agreed to sell.

  Alarmed, Emma, who still lived at home, contacted Tom. Three hours after the advert went live, a student, a young man of eighteen, turned up with cash (Tom’s cash) to buy the Norton. Ralph suspected nothing. The deal done, the handshake accepted, the money handed over, a certain Douglas Wolstencroft loaded the Norton onto the back of a trailer and drove it across country to Exeter University, where Tom took possession of the family heirloom.

  Over the years, it became his main mode of transport. But it was more than a way of getting from A to B. It was his hallmark, reflecting his personality, tying him to his past, a link with family and friendship and youthful dreams.

  Tom kicked the engine into life. It purred like a well-fed kitten. He pulled away from the shipping container, drove steadily across the self-build site and out onto the road. He turned right and headed for the Dartford Crossing, on his way to a certain village out in the countryside of Kent, for a gathering of the Capgras clan.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Home to Camelot

  He slowed the bike as he approached the crossroads in the centre of the village. Ahead of him the church nestled among a copse of yew trees, almost hidden from sight. Tom glanced to left and right, taking in the pub, the post office, the familiar houses. Heningford had barely changed since his childhood. Only the modern cars parked on the roadside spoke of the passage of time.

  He cruised along the main road through the village. A conker tree still marked the end of the lane. He turned left and headed for the open gateway. The Capgras castle, in reality a Victorian era detached house, stood alone on the edge of the village, surrounded by lawns and flower beds. There were no lights in the front room or the upstairs bedrooms. It was a home now only half inhabited since the younger generation had fledged and flown the nest.

  He brought the bike to a halt and hoisted her onto the kickstand but left the engine ticking over. Sure enough, his father appeared at the door as if eager to welcome his son home. In truth, Ralph Capgras wanted to gaze once more on his beloved motorbike. “How’s she running? Could do with a clean by the sound of her.”

  Tom killed the engine before his father could become too obsessed with every rattle or change of tone. “Take her out, if you’re worried,” he said, adopting a teasing smile to taunt his father, who would not dare to take his son up on the offer, no matter how much his heart might yearn for it. Rules are rules, and wives have their own ways of enforcing them. Ralph would not ride a motorbike again, not that day, not ever.

  “She’s cooking?”

  “Won’t let me help.” Ralph was not a man who had mastered the culinary arts. He could make toast and instant coffee and that would have to do. “Emma’s running late.” He omitted the unnecessary “as usual” though it hovered audibly in the air between them like a demented bumble bee. “Mark can’t make it but he’s letting her use the van. She’ll be here soon enough. Ollie’s stuck in traffic.”

  Tom left his father staring at the Norton and headed inside to pay homage to the lady of the house. His mother was elbow deep in flour and butter. Tom dipped a finger into the cake mixture and she scolded him, kissed him on the cheek and told him to fetch the vanilla essence. Three cupboards later, Tom returned with the vital ingredient. The task achieved, he produced a birthday card and a present from his shoulder bag. He put them on the window ledge so she could open them at her leisure.

  “We don’t do presents,” she said brusquely.

  He knew she was pleased.

  “We never do them. No need to make a fuss. It’s just another year.”

  “Sixty is special. The noughts are always special.” Tom waited for her to cross the kitchen for a glass of water and dipped his finger once more into the mixture.

  “Out, out,” she yelled, catching him red handed. “How old are you?”

  She bustled him away and he sauntered through to the living room. Little had changed. No. Nothing had changed. Two short sofas, one each for him and her, both faced the television in the corner. Bookcases ringed the walls. Tom browsed them, seeing many familiar volumes: books he had devoured as a teenager, others he had studiously ignored or scorned as being too lightweight. Too generic. He had been a pompous teenager, self-important and too serious for his own good.

  He surveyed the shelves, wondering if there was anything here he should borrow. A name caught his eye. He pounced on the novel and plucked it from the shelves. A Great Abatement of Kindness, a recent Middleton novel. He scanned the blurb on the back: DI Lear was investigating the case of a dead body washed up on a Cornish beach, naked and headless.

  He seized on the book and returned to the kitchen, brandishing it in the air for his mother to inspect.

  “Borrow it if you want. We’ve both read it,” she said, “though I didn’t think you liked that sort of thing.”

  “Save me the trouble. Tell me what happens.”

  “I don’t remember. A dead body, investigating. All of that.”

  “Any good?”

  She wrinkled her nose, as if someone had recently farted upwind and the evidence had only now reached her nostrils. “It’s all right, but he used to be much better. We’ve got his last two somewhere as well but your father couldn’t finish them.”

  “What changed?”

  “I don’t know, he got old I think. Ran out of ideas. Lost the edge or something.”

  As Tom tucked the book into the shoulder bag he’d left on the kitchen counter, a diesel engine coughed and spluttered its way into the driveway. Emma’s carriage had arrived. Tom hurried outside to greet his sister and check on how much Ben had grown in the four days since he had last seen the boy.

  ✬✬✬

  Something was going on. Tom could tell. Emma appeared distracted, only half listening to their father as he told his story about meeting the prime minister of the day in a corridor of his Whitehall offices, how he failed to recognise the man and actually accos
ted him, demanding to know his business and did he have security clearance. It was a tale recounted many times before, but politeness required the siblings to listen once again and laugh in the requisite places. The anecdote was spun out in the living room, while their mother toiled alone in the kitchen, preparing the meal to celebrate her own birthday and insisting she didn’t need help. In other families, the daughter might have leant a hand, but Emma’s cooking was a thing of dread and torment as far as the Capgras family was concerned.

  Besides, today she seemed excessively discomposed. She kept glancing from Tom to Ollie as though trying to get their attention. Finally, in a pause in the conversation, she asked if she could speak to them alone.

  “That sounds serious,” their father said.

  Ollie, dressed in smart casual loafing pants and a pink lambswool sweater, leapt to his feet. “This is your big chance: play with your grandkids. Keep them busy. And quiet if you can. I’ll be impressed if you do it.” He kissed his wife Rachel on the cheek as he swept past.

  Emma and Tom followed him into the dinning room. Emma closed the door firmly behind her. Tom and Ollie sat at the table, already laid for dinner with cutlery and napkins, wine glasses and jugs of lemon water, glancing at each other with amusement and apprehension.

  Emma fidgeted with the zip on her fleece. “I need your help. But it’s secret.”

  “What is it this time?” Ollie slouched in his chair, every inch the pantomime magistrate dispensing rough justice.

  “I’m being sued.” Emma’s bottom lip trembled. “For libel.”

  Ollie, the lawyer, the confident, slightly too smug older brother, sat up straighter and clasped his hands together on the table in front of him. “Wasn’t aware you’d published anything. Now Tom here, I could understand. You ever been sued, Tom?”