Booked for Murder

by Val McDermid

  “So it would seem,” Lindsay said grimly. “So what exactly was it that her killer didn’t want the world to read?”

  Chapter 9

  Baz’s mouth was moving but no sound was coming out of it. “There must have been something,” Lindsay persisted. “Nobody has a copy of the book—not you, not her agent, and certainly not Meredith. Her laptop and her back-up disks have gone missing. There must have been something in there that someone wanted to keep hidden.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Baz finally said. “It’s only a novel, for God’s sake. Nobody thinks fiction’s important enough to kill over it!”

  Lindsay shrugged. “Why else use such an outrageous murder method? It’s ridiculous. Who’d go to all that bother when they could just have picked up a bottle and cracked her over the head with it? It’s as if the killer was leaving a message: ‘Anybody else in the know that’s thinking about messing with me, don’t do it!’ ”

  “You’re wrong,” Baz said desperately. “You’ve got to be wrong. There must be something else behind it.”

  “Convince me. What’s Heart of Glass about?”

  “It’s a thriller.”

  “About?”

  Baz sighed. “It’s a really complicated plot with a lot of psychological suspense that centers around a writer. Every time this guy imagines something, it happens. So he decides to try and see if he can get rid of all the people he hates by writing their deaths into his books. In parallel with that, you’ve got a surgeon who is a particularly gruesome killer. And their two lives collide via the surgeon’s wife, who is the writer’s editor. It’s ‘a roller-coaster ride of horror,’ according to the catalog copy I wrote six weeks ago. Which reminds me that I have a bloody big hole to fill in next spring’s list.” She poked around among the papers on her desk, as if to indicate that she had far more important things to do than talk to Lindsay.

  “Sounds like it would have walked straight on to the best-seller lists. What a pity Penny isn’t going to be able to finish it,” Lindsay said ironically. “But that still doesn’t answer why someone would want the book suppressed. Was there anything in it that seemed potentially libellous to you?”

  Before Baz could answer, there was a tap on the partition behind Lindsay’s head. She turned to see a man’s face grinning at her. “Sorry to butt in,” he said in a strong London accent. “Whenever you like, Baz.”

  “Be right there,” Baz said, getting to her feet.

  The man moved into the doorway. He looked to be around forty, with dark wavy hair that needed trimming and creamy white skin that showed no trace of the freakishly sunny summer weather. His smile was cheeky and cheerful, the lines in his face revealing it as a familiar expression. It was his eyes that caught the attention, however; the same blue as the denim shirt he wore, they sparkled like sapphires even in the artificial light of the office. He angled his head to one side, like a bird listening for underground movement, and said, “And you must be the mystery visitor who’s come to talk about Penny’s tragic death, am I right?”

  “Ms. Gordon was just leaving,” Baz said repressively, hastily moving across the room to cut off the line of sight between Lindsay and the man. “And we’ve got marketing strategies to discuss.” She put a hand on his arm, which he ignored.

  “Hell of a thing,” the man said, shaking his head. “She was the last person you’d expect to die like that. She was lovely, you know? It’s hard to imagine how she could drive someone to kill her.”

  “I know what you mean,” Lindsay said, pleased to find herself talking to someone who seemed to have valued Penny for the person she was rather than for the profits she could generate. It made a welcome change.

  “I loved her work,” he continued. “Always so sharp, so bright. Just like she was, really.”

  “We’re keeping everyone waiting,” Baz said, trying to edge him out of the doorway.

  “It won’t kill them,” the man said negligently. He held out a hand to Lindsay, who was by now also standing. “Since Baz seems to have lost touch with her manners, I better introduce myself. I’m Danny King. I’m the publisher. And you are?”

  “Lindsay Gordon. Meredith Miller’s asked me to investigate Penny’s murder. To clear her name. She didn’t do it, in spite of what the police might think.”

  He nodded. “You’re preaching to the converted here, Lindsay. According to Baz, Meredith could never have harmed a hair on Penny’s head. And I trust Baz’s judgement implicitly. As long as it keeps making me a profit,” he added with another grin. “So how are your inquiries coming along?”

  Lindsay pulled a face. “Early days. What would really help would be a copy of Penny’s manuscript.”

  Danny cast his eyes up and tutted. “You and me both,” he sighed. “Baz tells me there was enough there for us to craft some kind of an ending. I really want to get this book out there—not just because it’ll be a good seller, but because it’s a helluva book and it’s the only way we’ve got of paying some kind of tribute to the great writer Penny was. But we haven’t got a copy and neither, apparently, does Penny’s agent. I don’t suppose you know where we could locate one?”

  Lindsay shook her head. “Sorry.”

  Danny grinned and gave her arm a quick squeeze. It was clearly a gesture of farewell. “Maybe I should get you on the payroll too, see if you can come up with the goods? Anyway, nice to meet you, Lindsay. If you need any help from anybody here at Monarch, all you’ve got to do is tell them Danny sent you.” He winked and ushered Baz ahead of him into the main office.

  “I’ll see myself out, shall I?” Lindsay said to the empty cubicle. Unfortunately, it was too public to search the desk, so she followed the other two on to the editorial floor. She was in time to see them vanish up a flight of stairs. She sighed. Without knowing who was who, there was no point in trying to screw information about Penny or her book out of Baz’s colleagues and minions. Feeling as if she’d wasted a golden opportunity, Lindsay walked back to reception.

  As she passed the reception desk, Lauren glanced up. Seeing who it was, she leaned forward and said, “You got a minute?”

  Lindsay stopped. “Of course.”

  “That was really cool, earlier, when you dived in like that with Baz.”

  “No sweat. She’s obviously got a lot on her mind.”

  A sly smile spread across Lauren’s face. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “You going to tell me?”

  “Might do. You a private eye?”

  “Sort of.”

  “That means you get expenses, right?”

  Lindsay snorted with laughter. “You watch too much telly.” Lauren looked disappointed. Lindsay relented. “I can probably run to a few quid.”

  “Okay, you know Riverside Studios?”

  Lindsay dredged her memory. “Other side of the Hammersmith gyratory?”

  “That’s right. None of this lot can be bothered to walk that far at lunchtime. I’ll see you in the café there about quarter to one. Okay?”

  “You’re not taking the piss?”

  Lauren repeated her sly smile. “Believe me, you won’t be wasting your time or your money.”

  Before Lindsay could say any more, the phone rang. As she left, she could hear Lauren saying, “You want to leave a message for Paddy Brown? Yes . . .”

  With the best part of two hours to kill, Lindsay consulted her A-Z, then headed down through the artificially bright shopping mall on the traffic island at the heart of Hammersmith towards the river. She turned right under the bridge, where she found a sudden splash of color against the relentless urban grime. Settling down on a bench in a patch of shade in the lush rose garden, Lindsay took her laptop from her backpack, opened it up and switched it on. With plenty of pauses to contemplate the faded houseboats straggling along the river bank, she typed in all the information she’d gathered so far on Penny Varnavides’ murder.

  It didn’t take long.

  Lauren was right on time. Lindsay bought them both sa
lads and bottles of mineral water and they settled at a table in a quiet, gloomy corner of the café. Lindsay poked at her salad with a fork. “Pretty bloody dreary,” she muttered. “Amazing how quickly you forget.”

  “Forget what?” Lauren asked, shovelling tuna into her mouth like an apprentice bulimic.

  “Forget the sorry mess of tired vegetation that passes for salad in this country. When I rule the world, the person who developed iceberg lettuce will be first up against the wall. No wonder when I come home I live off junk food. No shocks that way. It’s the one thing that I actually expect to be as bad as it is.”

  “What d’you mean, when you come home? Where else do you go?”

  “For some strange reason, I still think of Britain as home, even though I’ve lived in California for the last six years.”

  Lauren’s eyes opened wide. “You live in California? Excellent! How did you manage that?”

  “My partner got offered a job over there, so it was go with or split up. I was having a pretty shitty time over here, apart from our relationship, so I went with. Got a job, got a doctorate and stayed.”

  “Wow! Cool!”

  “Better than Shepherd’s Bush,” Lindsay said drily. “You should give it a whirl if you’re that keen.”

  Lauren’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I ain’t got the skills, have I? Bit of word processing and GCSE Spanish.”

  “You never know. Being bilingual in English and Spanish isn’t a bad start in southern California. Don’t put yourself down.” Lindsay gave Lauren an encouraging grin. “And they love Brits.”

  “Yeah, well. Fantasy Island, that is. Anyway, daydreaming about California’s not what I came here for. What’s it worth to you, the dirt on Baz and Penny?”

  Lindsay shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s worth until I know what it is, do I? Look, why don’t you tell me what you know and I’ll see you right?”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” Lauren demanded, scowling.

  “You don’t. But right now I’m the only show in town, so you might as well skin me for what you can get while you can get it.” Lauren looked unconvinced, so Lindsay tried another tack. “Look, Lauren, I was Penny Varnavides’ friend. Her and Meredith used to come round our house at least once a month. We played beach volleyball together, we climbed mountains together, we saw the New Year in together. This isn’t just a job for me, it’s personal.”

  “Yeah, okay, you talked me into it,” Lauren said, trying and failing to sound tough and worldly wise. “I’ve been working at Monarch for two years, right, so I’d met Penny a few times. I got talking to her one afternoon when she’d come in to see Baz and Baz was late getting back from lunch. I told her how I’d read all the Darkliners books when I was a teenager, and how much I’d loved them. She was great. She laughed her head off and said she didn’t think publishers employed anybody that actually liked the books they produced. And after that, every time she came into the office, she always brought me some book or other that she’d seen in America and thought I’d like. She’s the only author I’ve ever met who remembered my name without having to read the plaque, never mind what I liked to read. So I always paid attention when she was around.”

  So like Penny, Lindsay thought with a pang. She’d always been a woman who paid attention to the seemingly insignificant people. It was why she always got the best table in her regular hang-outs, why her newspaper was never dumped on the step to become a soggy mess, why the local second-hand bookstore always remembered which titles were on her want list. Little touches of consideration that made her life run smoothly. Not that that was why she’d done it, Lindsay reminded herself. Just that she was the kind of person who noticed details. “Was she like that with other people in the office?” she asked at last, forcing herself back into the present.

  “She didn’t really have much to do with anybody except Baz and her assistant, Susan. If she had, they might not have got so pissed off with her.”

  “Pissed off with her? Who got pissed off with her? Why?” Lindsay asked.

  “A bunch of them in editorial. The PC brigade. If that lot went on a march, they wouldn’t go, ‘Right, left, right, left,’ they’d go, ‘Right on, right on.’ ” Lauren grinned.

  “And what had Penny done to upset them?” Lindsay asked.

  “It was about her being gay. I never even knew she was till that lot started going on about it. It turns out they were put out because she’d been in the closet all those years. They kept going on about it being hypocritical not to be out, and how she’d only stayed in the closet for the sake of her sales figures. Which I thought was a bit of a liberty, really. I mean, it’s nobody’s business who she goes to bed with if she doesn’t want it to be, is it?”

  Lindsay sighed, lacking the energy for that particular conversation. “Did anyone make any specific threats, or was it generalized grumbling?”

  “Just grumbling, really. People who haven’t got anything better to do except indulge in petty jealousy and poison. And nobody had the bottle to front Penny up about it, either.” Lauren frowned. “Although . . . maybe that’s what it was went wrong with her and Baz.”

  “Something went wrong? When?”

  “This last trip. When I first met Penny, her and Baz got on really well. They were always laughing and joking together, teasing each other, taking the piss, that kind of thing. They’d always go out to lunch or dinner together. More than just duty, like they really enjoyed each other’s company. But this time, it was different. They were dead polite to each other, you know?”

  “Formal?”

  “Yeah, like they hardly knew each other. Awkward. Like it was uncomfortable to be with each other. Penny was in and out a few times, and every time they were dead stiff with each other.”

  “As if they’d had a row?”

  Lauren frowned. “Not exactly, no. More like they were sniffing round each other. Like they were trying to avoid a row, almost. Anyway, the upshot was that Penny comes to me and says can I let her into the office last thing at night, once everybody else had gone home. She said she’d make it worth my while. Well, it was no problem for me, was it, on account of I’ve got a full set of keys so I can get in in the mornings. And nobody notices what time I go home, so long as it doesn’t inconvenience them.”

  Lindsay stared at Lauren, food forgotten. “Did Penny say why she wanted to get into the offices?”

  Lauren shrugged. “Not exactly. But she wanted to know if I knew if the computers were on a network and if people like Baz and Danny had their own separate terminals. I said I didn’t know what the exact set-up was, but I sussed she was only mentioning Danny as a sort of diversion. It was Baz she was really interested in. I didn’t give a toss anyway. I mean, you’ve seen what a shit that Baz can be. So I said all right, I’d hang on late one night and I’d let her in. We agreed that she’d lock up and drop the keys back round my flat when she’d done.”

  “And did it all go off smoothly?”

  “Course it did. She made it worth my while, didn’t she?” Lauren said pointedly. Lindsay pulled out her wallet and looked inside. Apart from traveller’s checks, she had about fifty pounds in cash. She took out a twenty and slid it across the table. Lauren looked at her pityingly. The second twenty followed, Lauren pointedly staring into the wallet as Lindsay dug it out. She continued to look expectant as she picked up the second twenty.

  “Tube fare, Lauren,” Lindsay said. “I need tube fare. If your information pans out, I’ll get you some more money from Meredith, okay?”

  Lauren sighed. “I suppose.”

  “What time did Penny bring the keys back?”

  “It wasn’t that late. About half ten, I suppose.”

  “Had she found what she was looking for?” Lindsay asked.

  “Don’t know. She never said. And I didn’t ask, neither. She must’ve left things the way she found them, though, because nobody said anything about somebody raking through their stuff or buggering up their computer.”

&nbs
p; “Did she come in the office after that? I mean, officially.”

  Lauren frowned as she gobbled the last of her lunch. “Yeah, now you come to mention it, she did. The day before she died. She had a meeting with Baz late morning. But Baz was out. Susan said there wasn’t anything in the diary and Penny said Baz must have forgotten to write it down. Penny was a bit put out. She said it had messed up her whole day’s writing, so Susan got Danny to take her out to lunch. He had a face like fizz when he came back, so I suppose it screwed up his day too. He gave Baz a right gobful, told her Penny Varnavides was a lot more valuable to Monarch than she was and next time she made an appointment with her, she’d better not forget it unless she wanted to start looking for another job.” Lauren sniggered. “Baz had a gob on her like a dried prune.”

  “And that was the last time Penny was in the office.”

  Lauren nodded. “Far as I know.”

  Lindsay drank her water and wondered what to ask about next. Then she remembered the crucial question. “Do you do the incoming post?”

  “Nah. That’s Gary in the post room.”

  “So you wouldn’t know who had access to the manuscripts that Penny sent in?”

  Lauren shook her head as she lit a cigarette, leaking smoke from her mouth like a damaged flue. “No idea. Sorry. Why d’you want to know? I mean, maybe I could find out for you.”

  “You know how Penny was murdered the same way one of the victims dies in Heart of Glass? Well, I’m just trying to find out who exactly knew what happens in the book.”

  Lauren gave a knowing smile. “You don’t need to talk to the post room to find that out. Everybody knew.”

  “What? About the beer bottle exploding?”

  “Yeah, everybody knew about that.” Lauren looked very pleased with herself.

  “How?”

  “They had a bit of an argy-bargy about it. They were talking to Nigel, who does the covers, about what was going on the front of Heart of Glass. Penny told Nigel about the murder method and said the cover should be just the title and her name and a splinter of glass, all on a black background. And Baz said no, she’d been meaning to talk to Penny about that, and the whole thing was just too far-fetched and she didn’t believe in it and she wanted her to come up with a different idea. And Penny said no way, José, it was perfectly feasible and she thought it was dramatic and ironic and it was staying.”