by K. C. Wells
“Only if you didn’t clean them first. But who cleans broken crockery before they throw it away? Besides, you don’t strike me as the particularly anal type.” Graham smirked. “Although I suppose that’s not really the right word to use where you’re concerned.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Jonathon’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “I think it suits him perfectly.”
Mike gave him a stern look that he hoped promised retribution later.
Chapter Eight
“WHAT’S ON next?” Mike said as he returned from getting rid of their lunch wrappings. “Graham’s gone, so the rest of the day is ours.”
Jonathon gave Mike a hard stare. “Maybe if you kept hold of the agenda Heather gave you this morning, you’d know without having to keep asking me.”
Mike grinned. “Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have so much fun bugging you.”
Jonathon had to laugh. “It’s a good thing I love you.” He was ashamed of his earlier hesitation. He’d leaned in to kiss Mike’s cheek, and what had come to mind was some unknown person snapping them together and putting it online.
This is down to my father. Before Mike had come along, Jonathon hadn’t given a flying leap who saw him doing God knows what to whomsoever he wanted. But since Mike’s arrival and his father’s interventions, something had changed. He was less inclined to upset the apple cart, more willing to consider his father’s views.
But why? Where has it got me? Afraid to show affection to my own boyfriend in public. This is not who I am. This is not who I want to be.
“Jonathon?”
He blinked. Mike was staring at him, his forehead slightly scrunched up the way it always was when something concerned or worried him. “You okay?”
Jonathon gave him a hopefully reassuring smile. “I’m fine. Just zoned out for a second there.”
“Where did you go to?” Mike’s hand was gentle on his back.
Jonathon went with a version of the truth. “Thinking about how much I love you.”
Mike’s breathing hitched. “I’d love to show you how much those words mean to me.” His eyes sparkled. “But I think we’d scare the normal people.” He tapped the agenda in Jonathon’s hand. “So how about you tell me where we’re going next instead?”
Something had been niggling Jonathon. “Do we need to go to the pub and retrieve the broken cup pieces from the bin?”
Mike shook his head. “We know where they are. And the bins won’t be emptied for another three days, so they’re not going anywhere.” When Jonathon didn’t respond but simply gave him a hard stare, he sighed and pulled his phone from his pocket. He tapped the keys, then put the phone to his ear. “Hey, Abi? Do me a favor, will you? I know it sounds weird, but go to the bin in the bar and find the pieces of that broken cup from the other night. I put them in a green plastic bag. … Yes, I said it would sound weird. Just do it, okay? Now? I’ll wait.” Mike rolled his eyes. “Can’t believe I’m doing this. It’s not like they could—hello? You found them? Okay. Now put them somewhere safe. … I don’t know, somewhere they can’t be mislaid or lost. … Thank you. See you tonight.” He disconnected the call and gave Jonathon a pointed stare. “Happy now?”
Jonathon gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Very. Thank you.” He scanned the page of the agenda. “There’s a panel on reviews. How authors deal with bad ones, the importance of them…. That might be good.”
Mike smiled. “Okay, that’s the one we’ll go to. Ballroom or music room?”
“Ballroom.”
Mike held out his hand. “Then let’s go.”
Without hesitation, Jonathon laced his fingers through Mike’s, and they walked through the milling crowd toward the ballroom, where attendees were already going in, talking animatedly. Heather stood at the door, smiling.
“It’s going really well,” she said quietly. “I thought everything was ruined after last night, but everyone seems to be enjoying it, and I’ve had people come up to me and say it’s been great so far.”
Jonathon gave her a brief hug. “I’m so happy for you. I know how much effort you put into this.” He smiled broadly. “Looks like there might be a Merrychurch Literary Festival 2019 after all.”
Her eyes widened in obvious alarm. “Don’t jinx it! We’ve got a long way to go yet.” She glanced through the door. “I’d better get in there. I’m emceeing this one.”
“Have I missed much?” Professor Harcourt approached them at a brisk pace as Heather left. “Any more excitement?”
“As in, excitement of the dead body variety?” Mike inquired. “No, thank goodness. Although I hear you got roped in to assist in a postmortem.”
Professor Harcourt nodded. “And before you ask, I can’t share the results with you. That constable of yours would have my guts for garters if you learned them before he did. Official channels and all that.”
Jonathon opened his mouth to protest, but Mike squeezed his hand. “He’s right. Think about it. Graham would never let us see evidence again, and we want to keep Graham sweet. Don’t we?” He gave Jonathon a focused stare.
Jonathon sighed. “You’re right. Although it will be torture having to wait. When will Graham get the results?”
“I have no idea. I expect he won’t be long in telling you, especially as you’re on such good terms with him.” Professor Harcourt smiled. “The coroner was very complimentary. She even asked her assistant to take a photo of us in our scrubs. Not with the body in view, of course. She merely wanted a record of the occasion.”
Mike grinned. “So it’s not just authors who have fans.”
Professor Harcourt waved his hand modestly. “As if I’d refuse her. And I suppose all those high-profile cases do push one into the limelight. My son says he frequently meets people who instantly recognize his name.”
“Your son? What does he do?” Jonathon inquired.
Professor Harcourt’s face glowed with pride. “He’s following in his father’s footsteps. He’s training to be an oncologist, and he has a bright future ahead of him.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, enough about me.” He pulled his agenda from his shoulder bag. “I want to get back into the swing of things. I’m attending the reviews panel.”
Mike gestured to the door. “Then let’s go in and get seats.”
They walked into the ballroom and found most of the rows of chairs already occupied. Apparently, reviews were a popular topic. Jonathon pointed to three chairs toward the rear and rushed over to grab them. By the time they were seated, Heather was at the mic, introducing the panelists. The only author Jonathon recognized was Melody Richards.
“Got room for one more?” Fiona appeared next to Jonathon, carrying a chair. “I wanted to sit near you.” She set it down next to him, then sat.
“That depends.” Jonathon smirked. “Are you going to grill the panelists the way you grilled Phil McCallister?”
Fiona laughed. “Not this time, no.”
It was a lively session, with lots of interaction between authors and readers. Jonathon liked the fact that it was a lighthearted hour, with bouts of laughter as authors shared reviews that had amused them. Toward the end of the session, however, the mood grew more serious.
“Let’s talk about negative reviews,” Heather said, facing the panel. “Can such reviews ever have a benefit? For instance, can they point to something an author missed, or something an author might want to focus on in future books?”
“I’ve had negative reviews that were actually quite constructive,” one author, Paula Fowler, said with a smile. “But that’s not very common. There are people out there whose only pleasure in life appears to be tearing authors to pieces.”
“Not to mention the occasional sock puppet,” another author added.
Heather frowned. “Sock puppet?”
“Bad reviews put out there by fake accounts, usually for nefarious purposes,” the author explained. “For example, supposing a very popular—but thoroughly unscrupulous—author wanted to eliminate the competition. May
be they have a new release and they don’t want other such releases to detract attention from it. So they have reviewers set up who purposefully go about giving poor ratings and poor reviews, whilst praising their release to the heavens.”
A reader put up her hand. “You don’t mean that actually happens? That’s dreadful.”
“Of course it happens.” Melody turned the nearest mic toward her. “It happened to me. I brought out a book that was attacked by an army of rabid fans. They wanted my book to fail, pure and simple. And every subsequent book I released, the same thing occurred. It’s very distressing. There have been times when I’ve almost given up on the idea of pursuing a career in writing.”
The discussion continued, but Jonathon was intrigued by the comments. “Do you know what Melody was talking about?” he whispered to Fiona.
She nodded. “A couple of years ago, Melody was one of the finalists for the Speakman Award. It’s an award for outstanding fiction that is given out every year. Well, this was Melody’s debut novel, and there was a lot of buzz about it. Teresa was up for the same award, and ultimately it went to her.”
“But what does that have to do with reviews?” Jonathon was puzzled.
“When the award was announced, Melody kicked up a huge fuss. She claimed that it had been an unfair process and that Teresa had bribed the judges. Apparently Melody had got to meet one of the judges and claimed her book had been out in front, but then some of the judges suddenly changed their minds, and it went to Teresa. Then Melody went on social media, protesting that Teresa had set her fans onto Melody, telling them to review her book negatively.”
“Is any of this true?” Jonathon was appalled.
“We have no clue as to how the judges voted. But yes, Melody’s debut book was suddenly on the receiving end of a slew of bad reviews. We’re talking hundreds of them, within the space of a couple of weeks. Not to mention her subsequent releases. And yes, they probably did have an effect on sales. But as to whether Teresa orchestrated it?” Fiona shrugged. “Who knows?”
At that point, Heather speared her with a pointed stare, and Fiona lapsed into silence. Jonathon didn’t follow the rest of the discussion. His mind was on Melody Richards. From the sound of it, she blamed Teresa for the failure of her books. Whether this was true or not, it explained the tension between the two of them during the dinner.
It could also be a solid motive for murder. A bruised ego, a career blighted? As a talented photographer, Jonathon knew creative people could sometimes suffer from heightened emotions, and people had been killed for less.
At the end of the panel, Heather thanked the authors, and the audience applauded before getting up to approach the table or to leave the room.
“Well, that was illuminating.” Professor Harcourt cleaned his glasses. “My panel won’t be nearly as riveting.”
“You’re speaking tomorrow, aren’t you?” Jonathon asked.
Professor Harcourt nodded. “I’m a little nervous, to be truthful. I’m more accustomed to lecturing medical students on the intricacies of forensic pathology. Their questions tend to be purely technical and free from emotion. I’m not sure what to expect from this audience.”
“Trust me, they’ll be riveted,” Mike assured him. “There’s a reason TV shows like CSI and NCIS are so popular. People want to know how crime detection works.”
“Are you going to talk about cases you’ve worked on?” Jonathon asked him.
“Yes. I’m also going to go through the basic terms so people are more familiar with them. Different types of lividity, how we determine time of death….”
“We did a little of that ourselves last year,” Mike commented with a wry smile.
Professor Harcourt blinked. “Truly? We must talk about this at some point. Perhaps this evening in the pub? I should like to hear more.” He smiled. “You two fascinate me.”
“We aim to please.” Jonathon consulted his agenda. “And now I’m going to grab a coffee before the next session.”
“And what’s that on?” Mike asked.
“Conflict within romance.”
“As in, how to avoid it or create it?”
Jonathon grinned. “Maybe a little of both?”
THE EVENING pub crowd was a good deal smaller than the previous night, but Jonathon was secretly pleased about that. He didn’t want Mike run ragged, especially when Jonathon had plans for once the pub had closed. He aimed to shut out the world and lose himself in Mike’s arms.
Bliss.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and Jonathon removed it to peer at the screen. Dammit. It had been a few months since his father had called—not that Jonathon had minded that in the slightest. With a sigh, he signaled to Mike that he had a call, then stepped outside into the warm evening air. Despite it being past nine, the sun hadn’t fully set yet and cast long shadows over the village green.
“Hello, Father.”
Thomas de Mountford cleared his throat. “Ah. So you are alive. I was beginning to wonder.”
“What can I do for you?” With his father, it was always best to get straight to the point.
“It’s been a while since we last spoke. I was wondering how things are progressing.”
“Things?” Jonathon wanted to laugh. His father was never one to speak in such vague terms. “Care to be more specific?” As if he didn’t know what was coming.
“I saw the photos from the ball at the Grosvenor.”
Seeing as that had been the whole point of the exercise, Jonathon said nothing, waiting for more.
“So I’m calling to see if there have been any developments between you and Ruth. Do you have any news for me?”
“No, I don’t. We’re not engaged. We haven’t even spoken of it.” Though strictly speaking, that was a lie—they’d talked about an engagement, after all.
“Then maybe you should speak of it. You’re going to be thirty this year. Time is trickling through your fingers, especially if you intend starting a family. You don’t want to be much older with small childre—”
“I think you need to stop right there.” Jonathon was suddenly bone-tired of hearing the same old refrain.
“Excuse me?” Ice crept into his father’s voice.
Jonathon gave in to the weariness that pervaded him. “Dominic’s death brought a few things home to me. Life is too short, for one thing. None of us know how long we’ve got. And I truly believed you losing your brother would… mellow you somehow, but I can see now that was wishful thinking.”
“I think you’re the one who needs to stop before you say something you regret.”
“Oh, I’m past that stage.” Jonathon took a deep breath. “The last ten years of Dominic’s life were spent in secret. He couldn’t share the fact that he had a male lover because he knew how you’d react. How you felt society would react—well, the society you move in. And I vowed I would never live like that. Hell, I didn’t live like that—until you started pushing me to marry for the sake of the family’s future.”
“Do you want our bloodline to die out?” his father demanded.
“No, but that doesn’t mean I think yours is the way to go to prevent that.” Jonathon sighed. “Maybe Dominic’s death made me less self-centered. More open-minded. More willing to consider the views of others. And so with you, I strove to find some middle ground. To achieve some balance in my life.”
“Which is why we discussed—”
“No,” Jonathon interjected. “You proposed your way, and I went along with it. And that is the problem. With you, there is no middle ground. Everything has to be your way. And unless you are willing to put aside your own ideas and plans, there will never be any middle ground. So….” He was shaking. “I’ve been reassessing my life, and I’ve come to the inexorable conclusion that your way and my way conflict. If I follow your plan, you’ll have your next generation, sure, but I will be miserable as hell. And that raises a question in my mind. What kind of father would wish such abject misery on his son?”
&nbs
p; “Jonathon, I—”
“And so I’ve made a decision,” he announced.
There was a brief silence so tangible that it had weight. “What kind of decision?” The cautious note in his father’s voice was so unlike him it stilled Jonathon for a moment.
“Pretty life-changing, actually. I’ll make sure you hear it from me first, rather than by any other means.” There was someone else who needed to hear it first. And without delay.
Before his father could utter another word, Jonathon said his goodbyes and ended the call. He was still trembling as he fought to breathe. When he’d regained a little more control, he went back into the pub and crossed the floor to where Mike was serving behind the bar.
Mike looked up from his task of pouring a pint. “Who called?”
Jonathon ignored the question and held out his hands. “Can I borrow your car? There’s something I need to pick up from the manor for tonight.”
From his usual spot, Paul Drake cackled. “Ere, you wanna watch out, Mike. He’s goin’ to pick up the handcuffs he keeps next to his bed.”
Around him, raucous laughter burst out.
Jonathon glared at Mike. “You told!”
Yet more laughter erupted.
Mike rolled his eyes, shoved his hand into his jeans pocket, removed his keys, then tossed them to Jonathon. “Don’t drive it like you drive that Jag, okay?” His eyes twinkled. “I know what you get like when you’re behind the wheel.”
Jonathon said nothing but dashed out of the pub and around to the rear car park to Mike’s 4x4. He drove through the village as fast as he dared, his heart pounding at the thought of what he was about to do. It was scary as hell, but he knew deep down it was the right thing.
He left the engine running as he ran into the hall and up to his bedroom, going straight to the top drawer where he’d stashed his quarry. After shoving it deep into his pocket, Jonathon ran down the stairs and back to the car. He headed up the driveway, swerving to avoid Ben Threadwell, the gardener, who was wheeling his barrow across it, obviously clearing up after his day.
