But I felt bulldozed.
I sat down at my desk and checked my email. I prayed I'd find something from Plant. His sensible advice would help so much right now. But I had nothing in my email inbox but three more poison pen messages, all threatening me harm, but in a non-specific way. Nothing I could take to the police.
Was Plant really in danger from these people, the way Peter said?
Was he telling the truth about anything?
"You said you'd call Amazon and get them to remove the reviews?" I wanted to change the subject so I could collect my thoughts. "Could you do that now, please?"
"I can certainly try. It is Sunday, however, and I'm not sure their Seattle offices will be open."
I hated it when he was logical. I didn't return his smile.
"I'll tell you what we can do." He reached in his pocket for a phone—it looked like one of the cheap pay-as-you-go ones. "I'll ring the Amazon offices and you can call your friend Plantagenet again and tell him not to go to Swynsby. You might try sending him an email as well. Then we can go out and find a restaurant overlooking the Pacific and have ourselves a lovely fish dinner. My treat." He waved a hundred dollar bill like a flag. "After all this nonsense, I'll wager you could do with some time away from all your troubles."
A seafood dinner sounded awfully good.
Chapter 34—Plantagenet
Plantagenet had been left sitting in a small, rather nasty room at the Swynsby police station, with nothing but a small, rather nasty cup of coffee.
Which was fast getting cold. As were his hands and feet. The evening had turned chilly and damp. The bruise on his arm hurt from his fall last night. In fact, he hurt all over.
The police had taken his carry-on bag and his wallet. Even his book. "Evidence," they said. Although he couldn't imagine how his personal things could have anything to do with their investigation. It's not as if they'd got poor Neville's blood on them.
There wasn't even a window to look out at the England he'd come to see. Nothing but this stark gray room furnished with a metal table, four brown plastic chairs and fluorescent lights glaring and buzzing from the ceiling.
He wondered if they had the right to keep him here. And if he should ask for a lawyer. But he was only a witness. Witnesses didn't need lawyers, did they? Lawyers were probably as expensive here as they were at home.
He felt much less of an Anglophile than he had a week ago. In fact, he'd be quite happy to take all his further vacations in other parts of the world. He wondered if Silas were sunning himself on an exotic beach at that moment. The thought made him so furious, he took a gulp of the awful coffee to try to quash the rage and change the subject in his head.
But then all he could think about was Camilla and how she must be worried sick about him. He did hope the stories of the bomb at the Old Vic hadn't made it to the American news.
The older policeman who had brought him into the station opened the door and ushered in two other people—another man and woman—who must be plain clothes detectives.
They said they were going to ask a few questions and the interview would be recorded.
The woman was tiny and pink-faced, with a little pug nose. The man was big and bearish, wearing a suit at least a size too small. Plant couldn't help thinking they looked like Piglet and Pooh.
The Piglet woman carried Alfred's dog-eared script, encased in a large plastic zip-lock bag, and set it down in front of Plant if it were something of great value.
She and Pooh sat in two of the chairs across the table. The man spoke into a recording device, giving the time as six-twenty.
"We'd like to talk to you about your document here, Mr. Smith," Piglet said. "If Smith is your real name. Would you prefer we call you Alfred Duffield?"
"I'd prefer you call me Plantagenet Smith. That's my name. But that is not my script, for goodness sake. That thing is a piece of amateurish dreck."
"It's not yours?" Piglet wore her hair in tight brown curls that bounced when she spoke. "But it was in your satchel, was it not? Did somebody else put this document into your bag without your knowledge?"
"Of course not. I put it in the bag. Alfred at the concierge desk at my hotel gave it to me. He insisted..."
"You admit you put this document into your satchel, Mr. Smith?"
"Yes. The poor guy was looking right at me. I couldn't very well toss it. I do want continued good service when I go back to the hotel. Which will be soon, I hope. I intend to get the train back to London tomorrow. Alfred will want to know if I've read his opus."
"Have you, Mr. Smith? Have you read this document?" Pooh wanted to know.
"Some. I've read a bit." Were these people the script police? How could it possibly matter to an investigation of Neville's death if he'd read Alfred's script?
"I read the alarm clock opener. Do you know that seventy-one percent of all amateur screenplays start with a character waking up?"
"So you claim to have no knowledge of the terrorist plot outlined in this document?" Piglet's eyes narrowed.
"Terrorist plot?" Plant started to worry. This was absurd, but these people seemed deadly earnest.
They both stared at him as if they expected him to admit to stealing the crown jewels.
"Um, no I didn't read that part. But there's always a terrorist plot, isn't there? Actually I'm relieved. I was afraid there would be no plot at all. If he had some good action coming up, he should have hinted at it sooner. Ten pages in, the protagonist was still on his way to work. I'm afraid I kept dozing off. I should have gone back to reading The Daughter of Time..."
"The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey?" Pooh spoke up, his voice sharp. "This book?" He produced a smaller plastic zip-lock bag containing Plant's paperback.
"Yes. It's about Richard III. It was given to me as a wedding present. To us. Eight days ago, at our wedding." Had it only been a week ago Saturday? It felt like years. "Because we were planning to see the production of the Shakespeare play at the Old Vic—the production with Kevin Spacey—while on our honeymoon in London..."
"You're on your honeymoon, Mr. Smith? Where is your wife?" Piglet sounded reproachful.
"Husband. He's...in Hawaii. It's complicated."
Plant saw Pooh's eyes cloud. Oh, great. The man was a homophobe. This was a provincial place. Gay rights probably weren't a popular issue here.
"So you are traveling alone, Mr. Smith?" Piglet said. She was considerably younger. Maybe less mired in traditional bigotry. "Without your husband?"
"Yes. I'm taking a honeymoon all by myself." Plant sighed. "Isn't that tragic? I went to see the play last night all by myself, too. And then the theater fell down, or blew up, or whatever. Some reporter interviewed me and I made a stupid joke about the ghost of Richard III...is that what this is about? Those silly reporters? I think one of them followed me up here."
"No, Mr. Smith, this is what it's about..." Pooh dumped the paperback on the table and opened it with the eraser end of a pencil.
"You made a statement to the constable asserting you did not know Neville Turnmarsh's surname, but here it is in your book. With a mobile phone number. And something else. What do you see there, Mr. Smith?"
Plant felt his throat constrict when he saw the writing on the flyleaf. Did Neville have the book long enough to write in it?
"I've never seen that note before, officer," he managed to say. "Neville must have written it when I was paying for my drink. He did get cozy. I thought he was..."
"Can you tell me what you see there?" the man repeated. "What does it say?"
Neville's handwriting was neat in a spidery sort of way. There was the name Neville Turnmarsh and a phone number, and after was his own name, "Plantagenet" followed by a circle with a symbol inside.
Pooh and Piglet glared at him as if this were somehow incriminating.
"It seems be Neville's name and number followed by 'Plantagenet' and an odd symbol. Neville did tell me his name was Plantagenet. But I thought he was playing some sort of game. Maybe
he was talking about this. Perhaps the Plantagenets are an amateur theatrical group or something? He did seem to be taking notes at one point. Maybe writing a review. Amateur actors are always the harshest critics of professionals, I've found."
Pooh and Piglet sat very still, their eyes fixed on him. He didn't know what else they expected him to say.
"I have no idea what the symbol means," he said after scrutinizing it again.
"It's the white rose of York inside a circle, Mr. Plantagenet, I mean Mr. Smith." Piglet spoke with oddly sarcastic emphasis. "It's the sign of the Plantagenet Circle, isn't it?"
"I have no idea. I've never heard of the Plantagenet Circle until this moment."
The detectives stared at him as if he had just claimed to be from Alpha Centauri.
Chapter 35—Camilla
Peter asked if he could take a shower after he failed to get through to a human being at Amazon.
"Of course," I said. "Use the green towels."
I'd put a second set of clean towels in the bathroom last week in anticipation of Ronzo's visit. They were still hanging there.
The thought made me unbearably sad.
Besides, I wasn't having any luck reaching Plantagenet. I'd left a voice mail message telling him not to go to Swynsby and said I'd explain more in an email.
As I listened to the shower running in the bathroom, I composed an email telling Plant all about the lunatic Ricardians and the attack on the Maidenette Building. I didn't bother to tell him about my reviews and the threats. Or about Ronzo and the kittens in the tower. I was glad now our phone call had been cut off before I told him.
That news was too horrible for anybody to hear who was trying to get over a breakup of his own.
I hit send and checked my Amazon page again. It had become a battleground. Dozens more one-stars had appeared—more vitriolic than ever. There were also a number of supportive comments that sounded like the one from Owain Glendower. A couple of the nasties called the supporters "sock puppets for the sodding Welshman" whom they said would "get what's coming to him". One said "everybody" knew where the Welshman lived and would "laugh while we watch him die slowly."
I refilled my cognac glass and gulped it down. Alcohol didn't help. None of this made sense, drunk or sober. I understood why some crazed Ricardian might be angry with Sherwood Ltd. for publishing a pro-Tudor book, but it seemed so unfair they had chosen to destroy my career over it.
Why not Hinckley Lutterworth? Where was he?
It also didn't make sense that Plantagenet didn't call or write. I was starting to think he had been injured by that bomb. Of course if he were in some hospital, at least he'd be safely away from Swynsby. I was pretty sure he wouldn't go north without checking his phone messages or email.
Plant was an all-tech-all-the-time kind of person. His iPhone was practically welded to his hand.
Besides, I didn't know for a fact that Plant would be in danger just from visiting Swynsby. Peter could be overdramatic. If Plant arrived and found the place trashed, he'd simply take the train home again. A waste of time for him, but hardly life-threatening.
I clicked on my Facebook page and found things were even worse than at Amazon. Some commenters gave hints that even more disgusting things were being written on Twitter.
I'd never got the point of Twitter, so I never spent time there. But apparently there was now a hashtag for #KinkyDrManners, according to my Facebook page hackers.
I clicked through one of the links and saw that the worst had happened.
Damn.
Somebody had dug up all the horrors of my divorce from Jonathan. All the old late-night comedians' jokes about how I was into necrophilia and bestiality. All the horrible nonsense that had stemmed from a bad joke Jonathan had made during our divorce about how I acted dead during sex and preferred to cuddle with the dog.
I couldn't bear it. I logged off, shut the computer down and went to the kitchen.
I never wanted to go online again.
Angry tears burned my eyes and nose as I poured the remainder of the cognac into my snifter.
Buckingham sauntered over and gave me a quizzical look.
"Don't judge," I said. "I'm dealing with some very mean people. I know it's unkind, but I have to admit I hope for painful things to happen to all of them. Soon."
I leaned down to pet Buckingham, but he scurried away. He was such a funny cat.
I heard the shower stop and realized I didn't feel as helpless as I had last night, in spite of the escalating attacks.
Angry, yes, but not helpless. I had my own personal criminal on the premises, at least for tonight. I could use a tough guy on my side right now.
When Peter emerged from the bathroom, damp, but dressed presentably, I threw my arms around him in a big hug.
"Take me away from all this Mr. Piotr Stygar! Feed me calamari and ply me with wine!"
"Maybe food before the wine." He eyed the empty Courvoisier bottle. "And I'd better drive."
I probably was a little drunk, which is why I burst into tears as I told him about the escalation of the online harassment.
"Don't worry," he said. "I'll take care of the reviews tomorrow. And we'll delete your Facebook and Twitter accounts until things calm down. It's not the end of the world."
"I guess not," I said, trying to sound calm.
But it kind of felt like it.
Chapter 36—Plantagenet
Plantagenet had been given a sorry excuse for a sandwich and some more of the awful, bitter coffee, but he still hadn't been given permission to leave. His watch said it was nearly eight PM. He hoped the Merry Miller had a room. He wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, return to London, see Billy Elliot and fly home.
Even if home was a huge, empty McMansion.
Piglet and Pooh had not returned. Their questions had been so very odd. He understood why they might be suspicious about Neville's message in the book. How could he have not noticed Neville was writing it? Of course, he had been pretty out of it that night.
But he didn't understand why the police seemed to hold him responsible for whatever was in Alfred's awful script.
They seemed to think he had the script by choice.
He'd explained that it's what happens when you're an Academy Award winner. Everybody thinks you have a magic wand that can turn anybody with an amateur screenplay into a star.
But Pooh and Piglet had responded to everything with blank stares. He didn't know if they simply didn't believe he was a well-known screenwriter, or if they didn't care.
A little while after he finished the sandwich, two uniformed men came into his little room looking very stern. One of them spoke in a robotic voice and informed him he did not have to say anything.
"That's fine." Plant stood, since the men weren't joining him at the table. "I really don't have much to say. I've told your detectives all I know, which isn't much. So if I could just get my things and be off back to London..."
"You do not have to say anything," the robot policeman repeated. "But it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
Evidence? Of what?"
Chapter 37—Camilla
Wine on top of cognac was probably not a good idea, but I didn't care. I let Peter order a nice local sauvignon blanc to go with our meal at a waterfront seafood restaurant. It was a noisy, touristy place, but the fish was local and fire-grilled.
I'd chosen an inexpensive place because I didn't want more of Peter's probably ill-gotten cash spent on me than necessary.
Besides, I felt safer with a crowd around me, far away from any troll-infested computer screens.
I let him pour me a full glass. I knew that getting drunk wasn't going to help anything, but I wanted to forget for a few hours that my whole life was being destroyed by a bunch of crazy people who didn't even know me.
"Why are people online so cruel?" I asked as I speared a crispy baby squid an
d dipped it in tartar sauce.
"Partly because they're anonymous, I suppose." Peter seemed to be enjoying his salmon, too. "And partly because the vastness of the Interwebz makes them feel small and powerless. Especially young men. Their DNA tells them to go out and slay dangerous beasts and impress a female so as to lure her back to the cave. But our culture puts them in Mum's basement, playing at slaying dangerous beasts on an electronic box. Usually with no real women about to provide the proper, er, biological outlet."
"They can't get dates, so they go online and type obscene things in a hundred and forty characters or less?" I said. "Does that work for young men these days? Didn't anybody ever tell them about Playboy magazine?"
Peter let out a belly laugh. "It's not just men. A fair number of young women attack other women too, so it's not entirely caused by frustrated male libidos. But I have to admit the worst offenders belong to my gender. There was that dreadful "Gamergate" nonsense last year..."
"What was Gamergate?"
Peter set down his fork. "Camilla, even in a prison in one of the remotest corners of this planet I heard about it. You weren't aware?"
"Plant always tells me I'm a total Luddite." I was glad now that I was a cybermoron. After this, I was planning to stay that way.
"A feminist game designer gave a new videogame a bad review and the Internet exploded with toxic vitriol and rape threats," Peter said. "A fountain of misogyny. The attackers, mostly male, terrified several women game designers out of their homes and even threatened to shoot up a school if the reviewer spoke there."
I had trouble swallowing my bite of sourdough bread. Was that in store for me?
"They threatened to shoot up a school?"
"Yes. They promised a huge Columbine-style slaughter on a University campus. These people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between videogames and real life. They start living their entire lives inside the World of Warcraft or some other pseudo-medieval online role-playing game. They think they're warriors fighting evil armies of Orcs or whatever."
So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 Page 11
