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

by Simon J. Townley

  Capgras loitered towards the back of the crowd, pretending to look solemn while researching on his iPhone. Evelyn Vronsky checked out: literary agent for a string of famous authors. Pity she was retired. Did she still have clout?

  Kiera Roche had trained as a journalist after graduating from Cambridge. He didn’t find much on her career. As an English literature graduate that wasn’t surprising. She probably hadn’t had one. But there were non-fiction books, two of them on round-the-world yachting, some manuals on how to sail and another that he’d actually heard of before, on the life and times of Adam Worth, master criminal of the late nineteenth century. Capgras googled the man. He’d been “the Napoleon of crime” according to Wikipedia, and possibly the inspiration for Moriarty, the enemy and nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. And Worth was buried here, in this very cemetery.

  Capgras looked around furtively to make sure no one from the publishing elite was watching, then he ordered Roche’s book from Amazon.

  The vicar from the church stepped up to talk. A murmur flowed through the crowd and the hubbub faded to silence. More eulogies, more prayers, and the usual speech about ashes and dust, God and Jesus and ghosts. Capgras fidgeted uncomfortably.

  The body was lowered into the grave. Tom craned forward to watch as the family placed flowers and scattered soil onto the lonely coffin. On a windy October afternoon, with a chill in the air and clouds scudding across the sky, even the world’s most charming graveyard seemed a cold and desolate place to spend eternity. It was too final, too real for his liking, this business of stuffing someone into a hole in the ground and walking away.

  Morbid thoughts. He shouldn’t have come. Funerals never did him any good. Snap out of it: think about work instead. Think about murder. His hand instinctively went to his phone. Should he photograph them? Take names? Start his investigation here and now?

  Once the coffin was out of sight the crowd began to break up, scattering across the cemetery, heading for exits, car parks and taxis, or the walk down Highgate Hill towards the tube. Tom loitered, watching faces. He caught sight of Hannah and she waved to him, spoke to the man next to her, touched his arm then headed towards Capgras. “There’s a wake,” she said, “if you’d like to come.”

  “Who’ll be there?”

  “Most of us from the agency. Lots of people in publishing. Joanne knew everyone.” Her eyes sparkled with tears. This had been a hard day for her. A day on public display when she had to be strong, to put others at ease though she was ready to break inside.

  “This, all of this, for Joanne, I mean, she’d be happy I think, if that makes any sense, the place is special and…” he was rambling, saying stupid things, but they seemed to perk her up.

  “It was her family’s idea. We all chipped in to help buy the plot. She loved Highgate. Have you been before?”

  Capgras scanned the graveyard. This was only half of it. The West Cemetery was closed to visitors except by guided tour. He made a mental note to take a trip out here one day to look around. But then, graveyards brought up dark thoughts. He’d not come alone. Could you bring a woman, to a place like this? Ruby maybe. If you could tear her away from her computer.

  “No, never got around to it,” he said at last, aware that Hannah was looking at him, puzzled, waiting for an answer.

  “Come to the wake,” she said. “It’ll be warm.We can talk.”

  Talk about what? About his book? It didn’t seem right. Or about a murder hunt?

  “Tell me. Do you know her?” Capgras pointed across the cemetery to where Evelyn Vronsky walked arm in arm with a white haired man in a long, black woollen coat. Even at this distance it looked as if it cost more than Capgras earned in a year. “Have you ever met Evelyn Vronsky?”

  “No, thank god, I’d be terrified. I’ve heard about her.”

  “They were friends?”

  “Sure, I guess. Joanne worked for her, long ago, though in a way, she still does. Or did,” Hannah corrected herself, a flash of guilt on her face. “Evelyn helped found the agency, put up a lot of the money.”

  “She doesn’t work there?”

  “No, but she likes pulling strings, even at her age.”

  Tom nodded to himself. Power and influence were durable addictions that didn’t weaken through a long old age. “You trust her?”

  “Sure, of course. I guess. With what?”

  He hesitated, unsure how much to reveal. “So who will be at this wake?” He took her arm to walk away from the graveside. It seemed to be the fashion, and he’d play the part. That was his art, blending in and being taken for one of the in-crowd. Put people at their ease and let them talk. “Reassure me – tell me that man Middleton won’t be there,”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Hannah said. “I’m amazed he was at the funeral. Bloody cheek.”

  “Really?”

  “No, I didn’t say that, forget it.”

  Capgras encouraged her forwards along the path towards the exit. “It’s all right. Tell me more. Tell me everything. What do I need to know, about Mr Middleton?”

  Chapter Seven

  Forget the Dead

  Hannah had something to hide. She had changed the subject away from Arthur Middleton a dozen times or more. She’d said something she shouldn’t, Capgras was sure of that, and she seemed nervous about his constant questioning. A gentleman would let it rest but Tom had worked in newspapers for too long.

  He kept probing as they walked down Swain’s Lane and cut across to a taxi rank, and while the man drove them through a tangle of streets, traffic lights and shortcuts to a leafy avenue of well-appointed houses, too expensive, surely, for anyone to actually own. Hannah thrust money at the driver. Capgras muttered something about paying but didn’t act on the impulse. She grabbed his hand and led him through the gate towards the house. “Shut up about Middleton,” she hissed as they approached the open front door where Joanne’s husband stood ashen faced, stoically greeting everyone who had come to honour his fallen wife.

  “This is where Joanne lived?” There was more money in books that Capgras had suspected.

  “Her husband’s in banking,” Hannah whispered.

  The man, older than Joanne, in his mid-sixties at a guess, shook their hands and thanked them for coming. Younger family members took their coats and guided them into a long, open dinning room, pointing them towards snacks and nibbles and a sea of booze.

  Arthur Middleton was already tucking in.

  Tom’s eyes roamed the room. Would a killer attend a wake? Yes, if the ego was big enough. And the room was filled with egos. There was barely any space left for the people.

  Hannah scurried away from him, touring the room. Capgras turned to the nibbles. The booze counter lurked maliciously, tempting him with wine, beer and whisky. He took a plate and loaded it with pastry items too sophisticated for him to identify. “Mineral water,” he told the barman. “No ice.”

  As a journalist it was, technically, unethical for him to turn down free booze or walk away from an open bar with nothing stronger than water in his grasp. It went against years of training and all his instincts. But he didn’t dare start on the drink this early in the day, not around all these people. Especially if one of them was a murderer.

  Tom Capgras had a healthy but complicated relationship with alcohol, one best kept private, if at all possible, or at least contained within the places where he felt at home. That wasn’t here. These waters were shark infested.

  He sipped at the glass, the bubbles frothing in his mouth. The water tasted of virtue, abstinence and self-control. Strange, exotic flavours that tingled his senses.

  The dining room opened onto a living room beyond, with large bay windows and views of the garden at the back of the house. His eyes roamed the room once more. Evelyn Vronsky sat in a circle of comfortable chairs among a group of men and women, most of them her own age or close to it. Monied, successful, important people. Not killers, by the look of them, but then who had a motive to harm Joanne Leatherby? A lover? A spu
rned husband? A rival?

  Tom sensed someone standing beside him. His eyes flicked to the side.

  The chubby cheeks and rosy face of Arthur Middleton slithered into a smile. “You’re one of Joanne’s new crop, I hear.”

  “Non-fiction. Only one book so far. The second is… up in the air.”

  “Ah. Not helped by losing your agent. Not good for you, then, this whole business.”

  “Worse for Joanne,” Tom said.

  “Terrible thing. Don’t know why she did it. Lovely home, wonderful family. Strange, strange.” Middleton peered at him earnestly. “What sort of stuff do you write?”

  “First book was about street gangs,” Tom said. “Second is a mosaic, all crime related. Different stories, undercover operations, policing…”

  “Interesting, yes...” Middleton was clearly bored. “Write crime myself, of course, though you know that. Fiction for me, naturally. You’ve read my books, I assume, if you’re interested in police work. No? You should. Masses of detail in there, thoroughly researched, you could pick up a lot…”

  “Will you be affected? By all this?”

  “Joanne. Oh, not so much, in truth. I say, I’ll let you have a copy of my latest. You could write a review. When could it appear? Next week would be good.”

  “I don’t write book reviews.”

  “I’ll send it to your home. Do you have a card?”

  “As I said, I’ve never written a book review.”

  “It will look good, coming from a crime expert like yourself. You sure you haven’t read any of mine? Inspector Sebastian Lear. He’s an enigma, bit of a maverick, eccentric at times. Based in the west country, you know. He has a thing for sailing. Do you know boats much?”

  “Not really.”

  “Bit vague myself, to be honest. But I get help here and there. Can’t do everything. That’s what editors are for.”

  “There’s a writer here, Kiera. She knows yachts.”

  “Oh, no, I’m sorted. Thanks. No need.”

  “I just thought…”

  “Nice to meet you. Must mingle. You have that card?”

  Tom fumbled with his plate and glass while fishing a business card out of a pocket. He took Middleton’s in return. “One thing, how well did you know Joanne?”

  “Oh, we were close. She was my agent for fifteen years.” Middleton smiled politely, but the tension in the muscles around his temples and eyes told a different tale. He was good at social niceties, at being the affable, confident fellow. But he lacked training.

  Capgras understood the subtleties of a genuine smile, the kind that can’t be faked, unless you know how. “I guess you both thrived from the arrangement.”

  “Oh, undoubtedly. Such a shame about Joanne, makes you wonder what you could have done, to help her, guide her away from that, but who could know? Enjoy the book. It’ll be with you soon.” Middleton’s body language suggested the talk was over, his shoulder pointing away, across the room, to mix and mingle among the great and good.

  Tom waved the business card in the air. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Look forward to the review.”

  Middleton slid into the crowd of bodies. Tom watched him descend on two men in sharp suits standing by the window. They looked like brothers, twins maybe. Middleton interrupted them. Even at this distance Capgras saw the tension in the shoulders of both men, as though this meeting was unwelcome. Yet one of them took a glass of wine from Middleton’s hand.

  “Publishers,” whispered a woman’s voice in his ear. Kiera Roche had appeared at his side soundlessly. That was quite a skill for a woman in high-heeled boots on a wooden floor. “The brothers,” she said. “Tony and Joseph Haslam.”

  Capgras raised an eyebrow, impressed. “Of Haslam and Haslam, I assume?” The publishing house had boasted a string of hits and the brothers guided it like a personal fiefdom though it had long ago been consumed by a global mega-corporation.

  “The very same,” she said. “He’s working hard, bless him.”

  “Does he need to? I thought he had it made.”

  “He gives that impression.”

  “Seems as though everybody is here to do business. Is anyone here for Joanne’s sake?”

  “Just us, I suspect,” she said, touching his arm lightly, “though I’m not totally sure about you.” She smiled at him, all innocence, and he was reminded of Lauren Bacall in an old black and white movie.

  Her eyes glinted with amusement. “Ambition, as they say, makes monsters of us all. Excuse me. I have to go and save the Haslam twins.”

  “Friends of yours?”

  “Not yet.” She smiled once more. Unlike Middleton, she was good at it, as though she had practiced a great deal in front of a mirror.

  She took a plate from the buffet, selected a few of the daintier morsels and put a serviette on the side. “Excuse me.” She swept towards the Haslam brothers. As she arrived, they opened up to her instantly. Was that her charisma? Did her striking looks have that effect on all men? Or was it relief that Middleton’s spell over them was broken? Middleton himself scowled and turned away. He reacted to Kiera as though she carried the black death. He disappeared into the far room, where a congregation of Joanne’s family had hunkered together.

  It was time to leave. He hated small talk and introducing himself to strangers. Especially when sober. Hannah was nowhere to be seen, the Roche women was engrossed with the publishing elite. Get out of here. Go home. Or to the pub. Somewhere downbeat and scruffy. Already his throat felt dry.

  Capgras slipped out alone, unnoticed, leaving the free booze untouched, though he badly needed absolution – something to wash away the sins of this day. He walked the suburban avenues in the rain, striding out, intent on reaching normal streets, searching for the sanctuary of an old-fashioned, honest pub and the warm embrace of tepid English beer.

  Chapter Eight

  Brothers Divide

  Joseph Haslam had called, briefly, on his favourite traditional English tailor for a supply of shirts and to be measured for a new suit (he kept putting on weight, damn it); dined at his favourite French restaurant; and visited his favourite Thai prostitute. He was feeling considerably more relaxed and at ease with the world, glad that the uncomfortable funeral and wake were done and dusted. Ashes to ashes, and all that. He shivered at the memory of Middleton coming up to them, patting him on the back of all things. It was in the past now though, and their paths would surely never cross again.

  He took a taxi back to the offices of Haslam and Haslam where his brother was working late. Time to rustle Tony out of there and get him away from his books though he also intended to talk with a few of the editors. With Jessica, especially. If Middleton got in touch she wasn’t to reply or respond. He’d make that clear.

  He waved to the security people who nodded and smiled, then took the lift to the twelfth floor. The doors whooshed open and he strode through, head high and shoulders back. Leadership was all about posture and impression. He’d read that somewhere. In fact, he’d published the book. Or had someone do it for him, at any rate. He nodded, purred and simpered to the smattering of staff still at their desks. Had so many gone home already? What was wrong with these people? It was barely nine o’clock. That was the trouble these days: no commitment. They wanted to sail through the working day as though it was some kind of party, chatting and socialising. On his time. His money.

  Jessica Reardon was one of those still in the office, however. He found her, head down over a manuscript, red pen in hand. He liked to see that. Doing things the old fashioned way. There was a certain professionalism to it. You could take pride in work like that.

  He pulled up a chair and sat next to her. She kept a finger on the paper, holding her place, and swivelled to look at him.

  “Arthur?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh dear.”

  “Has he been in touch?”

  “With me? No, not since…”

  “The news?”

  “Yes.
”

  “Don’t contact him. If he contacts you, here or at home, don’t respond. Refer him to me. Or Tony. Actually, make that Tony. He’ll deal with it.” He got up to leave. “Everything all right otherwise?”

  They made small talk for around twenty seconds, which was as long as Joseph Haslam could manage, and he flounced off towards his brother’s office.

  He eased the door open without bothering to knock. They were brothers after all. “Time to stop reading,” he called out. “There’s a bottle of wine waiting for us at the Escargot Bleu.”

  There was no reply. Joseph pushed the door open wide and saw his brother, the skin of his face turned a livid shade of blue, lying in a pool of his own vomit underneath his own large and very expansive, very empty desk. Tony Haslam, deceased, RIP. Dead, dead, dead.

  Chapter Nine

  Shipping Containers

  A shipping container is born to move, created for one purpose only: to travel the world’s oceans restlessly exploring, bearing goods from port to port, forever globe-trotting. The perennial tourist.

  Tom Capgras owned a shipping container but it had long since lost its wander-lust, hung up its camera and beach-towel, mislaid its passport at the back of a drawer and tossed its pile of foreign coins into an empty jam jar, never to be used again. Beached like a stranded whale on a self-build site in east London, close to the murky spur of a canal, far from the bright lights and the shiny skyscrapers, the container hunkered between a ring of static caravans and a patch of mud laid out with string where the foundations of an eco-home might one day be built.

  Though many of the homes on the site were unfinished, or half-finished, or barely started, most shared the same strong foundation: they were built on dreams. Not so, with Tom’s shipping container. It was founded on necessity and economy and a wilful desire to be different.