"So you have retained Mr. Brumble on my behalf?" he asked Pradeep.
"Sherwood publishing has," Mr. Stygar said. "We will take care of all your legal fees. After all, this muddle is mostly Sherwood's fault. In any case, Sanjay says they have very little evidence against you, so I think that episode will soon come to a close. Especially after tonight's incident at the Merry Miller."
Plant felt a wave of dizziness and put his hand to his forehead. He seemed to have got a bump on the head in his scuffle with Alfred. Which might be why all of this made so little sense.
"Are you all right, Mr. Smith?" Stygar gave Plant a scrutinizing once-over. "I hope Mr. Duffield didn't do much damage. Did the police offer to have a doctor look at you?"
Plant shook his head. "I just need some sleep, I'm sure. So you were—are—Mr. Stygar from the Merry Miller?" Plant did see how this might be the same man, after shaving and cleaning up. "You look so different. And..." He didn't want to be rude, but this man looked like a well-to-do English businessman, and Mr. Stygar had looked like something of a thug. "So...not Australian," he said.
That didn't come out right. He hadn't meant to insult the man. Or Australians.
Mr. Stygar laughed and handed Pradeep a beer and sat down in the chair next to Plant's. He took a sip of what looked like cognac from his own glass.
Plant tried to remove his foot from his mouth as he wondered if this might not be another dream.
"If that was you at the Merry Miller tonight, you saved my life. That madman could have killed me."
"Yes. I'm Piotr Stygar," the man said. "I was planning to stay the night at the Merry Miller, but I had to escape because of all those the coppers about. Luckily Pradeep arrived this afternoon and I was able to presume upon his hospitality."
He looked around the elegantly appointed room.
"And I had no idea what grand hospitality it would be. Pradeep still hasn't told me how he can afford all this on what we pay him as an editor at Sherwood, Ltd."
Pradeep turned to Plant, apparently not eager to discuss his finances with Mr. Stygar.
"So why was this Alfred Duffield trying to kill you?" he asked.
"Over a screenplay he gave me to read. Amateurish dreck. He thought it was valuable, poor man."
"Is that why this Alfred chap killed Neville Turnmarsh?" Pradeep said. "Sanjay Brumble seems to think he's responsible for the murder at the Old Hall."
Plant shook his head. "Oh, no. Alfred can't have done it. He's crazy enough, but he genuinely believed I was the one who'd done in poor Neville."
"That's a shame," Mr. Stygar said. "It would have made things tidy if he'd done it. And we'd be able to ship you home to Camilla that much faster."
"You know Camilla?"
"I've just been visiting her. Why haven't you've rung her? She's been feeling rather abandoned."
Plant related the story of his iPhone's demise, but at the end, he could hold in his curiosity no longer.
"Are you Peter Sherwood? Because Camilla thinks you drowned in some sailing accident. She was devastated about the whole thing."
"Peter Sherwood is dead, but I'm not." The man sipped cognac and smiled as if he were making perfect sense.
"So I'm seeing dead people? I don't suppose you've got Richard III lurking anywhere on the premises?" Plant looked around, trying to ground himself in some sort of reality. "He's been visiting me on a regular basis since they put me in that cell."
Peter and Pradeep roared with laughter.
But none of it felt terribly funny to Plant.
Chapter 71—Camilla
I tried to ignore intruder's rudeness. Young people simply weren't taught manners anymore. The man at my front door looked like a college boy. He wore expensive hipster jeans and high-end running shoes with a carefully frayed tee shirt that said "Meat Stinks." I thought I'd seen him before. With one of the Jens.
That's who he was. Jen's vegan boyfriend.
"Elijah?" I extended my hand. "I don't think we've been formally introduced, but I know I've seen you pick up Jen from time to time. How are you?"
"How do you think I am? Jen dumped me."
Was this simply about a romantic breakup? I hoped so.
"I'm so very sorry. Breakups can be so painful. I'd offer you some tea, but the utilities have been turned off. We had a bit of a disaster last night. You probably saw..."
I had no time for comforting a bereft young man. I hoped he'd take the hint that this was not a good time.
But Elijah leaned against the door with his arms crossed, looking very much as if he did not intend to leave. Or allow me to go either.
"Jen always said good manners were your superpower. I think I see what she meant. Good manners mean pretending you like somebody when you hate their guts."
"Why would I hate your guts, Elijah? I don't know you. I know you care about animals. That's very likeable." I put on my very best Manners Doctor smile.
"So why did you date a kitten murderer, you whore? Did you crush kittens with him? Did you have blood orgies with Ronson V. Zolek?"
I held onto the kitchen table as I tried to breathe normally and keep calm. This boy had just called me a murderer and a whore. The same words that were on the back of the photo.
But Elijah wasn't likely to be the person who had threatened me or set fire to my store...was he? He was a child.
"I wish I could be more comforting, but I have so much to do. I'm packing a few things right now so I can go to a motel. I need electricity to recharge my laptop and phone. And hot water..." I moved back toward the bedroom, where my suitcase lay open on the bed. "I hope you don't mind, but I have to finish packing and pick up my friend Joe at the library..."
"Your friend Joe? You mean the homeless dude you screwed last night? You must want it bad. First you do a low-life New Jersey kitten murderer, then take in some raggedy-ass Aussie sailor, then you go hook up with an old homeless dude down by the creek?"
Now I was angry. Had this moron been stalking me?
"I did not have sex with Hobo Joe, not that it's any of your business. Elijah, I'm sorry you're going through a difficult break-up, but it's time for you to go."
"No. It's time for you to go." Elijah's boyish face turned pink, like a baby about to have a tantrum. "You've poisoned Jen against me. You know why she dumped me? Shoes. She didn't want to give up her dead-animal shoes. She says you always get respect because you have these expensive girly shoes. You're teaching her to be just like you. A stupid, girly slut who can't even take care of herself. What if somebody was trying to attack her? How could she run in those things? I want a girl who wears jeans and can open her own damn door and pay her own way and shit."
"Then I suggest you find one, Elijah. Girls can be whoever they want these days. They don't need somebody who puts them down for not being more like men. But I'm sure there are lots of tough, vegan tomboys out there just waiting to meet an attractive young man like you." I put on one of my iciest smiles. "But now let me open the door for you."
I tried to get to the door, but he blocked my way.
"How about you, Doctor Manners? Do you want an attractive young man like me? You know you do..."
As he lunged toward me, I ran to the bedroom and tried to close the door, but he pushed his weight against it and in a moment had me down on the carpet by the bed. He lay on top of me with all the weight of his body and held one hand over my mouth while he reached for the zipper of his jeans.
"Doctor Manners, the rape train is coming..."
He was my arsonist. My stalker—this pathetic man-child who thought he had all the answers because he'd never even figured out the questions.
"Too bad that fire went out so quickly. I was hoping you'd get burned up in your bed. You like it hot, don't you?"
I tried to work my knee up between his legs. One good push in the right spot and, maybe I could inflict enough pain that he'd get off me. Then I'd grab something. My Manolos. They were on the bed right above me...
Loud bangin
g on the front door startled us both.
"What the...is that your homeless dude? I can take you, you drunken old geezer..."
As Elijah lifted his chest off mine to crane his neck to see the "geezer," I reached up, grabbed a stiletto pump and brought it down squarely on the back of Elijah's head.
Elijah yowled and managed to stand, clutching his gushing wound.
"That's a lot of blood, Elijah," I said. "I think you'll want to get that looked at. Shall I call 911?" I tried to get past him to the landline phone.
He lunged at me again, but I held the bloody stiletto heel at the level of his left eye.
"Do you want a girly shoe in your eyeball? I was careful not to hit you too hard, because a dead body in my living room would be a little inconvenient, but I'll be happy to hit you again, if that's what you'd like."
Elijah turned, pushed the front door open and ran from the house.
Buckingham sauntered in, obviously pleased his door-banging had gained him entrance.
I picked up the phone to dial 911. I hoped I could tell the story to Detective Alvarez in a way that didn't sound as unbelievable as my others.
But as Elijah pounded down the gravel driveway toward the street, I heard him shout.
"Jen isn't going to be so lucky, you wrinkled old whore!"
Jen. She had to be warned. Did she have a clue her vegan ex-boyfriend was a psychopath? I dialed Jen's number. Maybe the girl could go out to her father's ranch or something until the police got Elijah safely behind bars.
She didn't pick up. But there was a message. "This is Jen Barker of JenSation. Don't forget to come to our concert on Friday night at the Red Barn in Los Osos."
The concert. I still had Joe's guitar. He was playing at the Red Barn too. It must be the same concert. And I was late.
I scooped up Buckingham and put him in the cat carrier.
"Your Grace, I think we're going to a concert. Right now."
He let out a plaintive meow.
"I know. I should call the police. I'll do it as soon as I get to the concert, okay? Somebody will have a phone that's got a charge. I'm sure you don't want to stay here in the dark, waiting for the policemen, do you?"
I took his silence as a no.
Chapter 72—Plantagenet
Peter—or Piotr—or whatever his name was, woke Plant in the morning with a knock on his door and invited him out for "a bit of brekky."
He also presented him with what looked like a Hugo Boss suit, along with a cream-colored shirt and a very nice tie.
"I think you and I might wear the same size," he said. "It's a bit out of date, since these are things I left here before my...disappearance. Pradeep kindly kept them for me."
As Peter led him out to a rented Ford Fiesta in his new finery, Plant asked to borrow his phone to call Camilla.
"Does she know I've been in jail?"
"She does indeed. But let's wait to ring her. It's two in the morning in California."
"Of course." Plant's brain wasn't quite awake. He was in serious need of coffee. "But is she all right?"
"I'm sure she will be, but she has been through a rough few days with some nasty cyberbullies."
"Those Amazon reviewers?" Plant had nearly forgotten about them. "You believe they've actually been bullying her?"
"Yes. And she seems to have been mixed up with some other...unsavory types. The sooner we can get you home, the better. She needs someone sensible to talk to her. She should report these things to the police."
Plant didn't like the sound of that. It made him feel even more frustrated about the nonsense that had kept him here.
Peter parked near a riverside café called the Mary Ann Evans Tea House. It was right out of a Victorian novel. In fact a plaque claimed George Elliot had written The Mill on the Floss in a building that had once stood on the very spot.
The place smelled of vanilla, cinnamon and bacon. It looked out on a spectacular view of the River Trent and the verdant fields beyond. Peter made light conversation until after he ordered breakfast for them both and the coffee came. Then he asked how Plant had fared in Swynsby's "nasty little hole" of a jail.
Plant felt a wave of anxiety. He still had no assurance he wouldn't be hauled back there at any minute.
"I don't think I've ever been so terrified," he said. "I was literally losing my mind in there."
"That's what can happen in solitary confinement." Peter spoke with the conviction of experience. "You said you met the ghost of Richard III." He laughed. "Did he tell you if he killed the princes in the Tower?"
"He strongly denied it." Plant tried to laugh, although he still felt unbalanced by the experience. He had no idea what to believe. "King Richard said the assassin was James Tyrell. But he said Tyrell wasn't working for him, but for the Duke of Buckingham. He claimed Buckingham wanted the throne for himself. I felt a lot of sympathy for the poor man."
Plant realized immediately how silly that sounded. How could one feel sympathy for a hallucination?
"Pradeep would say that's bollocks," Peter said. "And he read history at Cambridge, so he's not talking entirely through his hat. He's convinced Richard was the culprit, in spite of all this pro-Ricardian fervor stirred up by the discovery of the king's remains. Have you read Hinckley Lutterworth's novel, The Poisonous Bunch-Backed Toad?"
Breakfast arrived, smelling delicious. Each plate held more food than Plant had eaten all week.
"I'm afraid I haven't kept up with my reading lately."
Silas had mentioned the book when they were discussing Daughter of Time, but Plant hadn't paid much attention.
"It's a bestseller. It has stirred up a lot of controversy," Peter said.
"I can see why." Plant speared a juicy mushroom. "Richard's ghost made a lot of sense. Why would he have killed his nephews after they'd been declared bastards and were no longer in line for the throne? It makes so much more sense for Buckingham to have killed them. What my ghost said was that Buckingham pretended to be his friend in order to get back some real estate that had belonged to Buckingham's grandmother. After he'd got that, he wanted the throne for himself. Killing the boys and framing Richard was the perfect two-bird stone."
Plant dove into his breakfast. He wasn't used to using phrases like 'my ghost', and he only half believed it was anything but a trick of his mind.
"But Richard killed Buckingham, didn't he? 'Off with his head. So much for Buckingham'." Peter cut into a sausage link.
Plant nodded. "He hates that line, by the way. Shakespeare didn't write it."
Peter let out a big laugh. "Yes. But how did your Richard know about it? Did he escape from his car park to go out haunting productions of Shakespeare through the ages?"
"He...didn't say." Plant realized this was a very reasonable question that put his ghost-liberated-from-the-car-park theory in question. "I don't believe in ghosts, of course. But I don't know how I could have hallucinated all those historical facts I never knew before. Especially about Buckingham being in line for the throne."
"You never studied English history?"
"Oh, I did. I was an English literature major. But..."
Peter gave a half-smile. "We all forget 90% of the information we take in. But it's buried in our memory banks somewhere. Unusual circumstances will bring it back."
"I've certainly been through some unusual circumstances in the past week."
"Camilla said the same thing. And I feel awful that Sherwood is responsible for much of it."
"You?" English self-deprecation was one thing, but Peter seemed to be going a little far with the mea-culpas. "You didn't kill Neville or write Camilla's terrible reviews, did you? How could Sherwood have anything to do with our run of bad luck?"
"We published Lutterworth's book," Peter said. "It's made a lot of money, but unfortunately it's responsible for the catastrophes that have happened to both you and Camilla. And Sherwood publishing. Our operations have come to a complete halt. Henry and I have to pick up the pieces this week."
"I saw the building," Plant said. "It does look as if your people will have a lot of clean-up to deal with. Somebody said it was attacked by some gang from Dorchester? Is that why Camilla hasn't got her royalties?"
Peter nodded. "Pradeep says insurance will cover most of the damage, and Camilla has been paid, but I have to admit things have been a bit dire. At first it was just online—book review swarms and hacking our website—but then they attacked the building. I can't prove the reviewers and the attackers were the same people, but I suspect they are. They all use pseudonyms of course, but I've tracked down the IP addresses of some of them, like Owain Glendower, Alfred the Cake, and DickonthePig, and they come from the area around Swynsby and Doncaster."
Plant laughed. "They don't sound very dangerous. I do remember Camilla talking about the Dickon person. He upset her with a nasty review, but he's not dangerous is he? These are just Internet trolls."
"That's what Pradeep thought. It's why he thought it was safe to leave the country. Nobody thought those pillocks would make good on their threats. But obviously they did."
"And that's why Vera called Peter Sherwood back from beyond the grave?"
Peter gave a lopsided smile. "Yes. I've tried to stay deceased because of possible legal repercussions and, er...insurance irregularities. Which is why I'm allergic to coppers at the moment. Remember you must call me Piotr Stygar."
"And what about Camilla? What does she call you? How did she react to your resurrection?" Plant knew that was a little snarky, but Peter's cavalier disregard of Camilla's feelings had been unkind. She had mourned him a long time.
"She was understandably angry with me. I rushed to see her when I realized she was being terrorized by the anti-Hinckley Lutterworth brigade. They can't find Mr. Lutterworth, so she became their substitute target. Her name did not work in her favor."
"Where is this man hiding? Doesn't he have an Internet presence they can stalk?"
"No. He hasn't. And nobody's even met him. Nobody but Pradeep."
"Won't Pradeep introduce you, now that you're back in England?"
So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 Page 21
