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

by Simon J. Townley

  “Okay. I’ll read.” Ben flomped onto sofa with a book. Emma sat next to him, rested her head on the arm and fell asleep. She woke when Mark touched her shoulder. He held a cup of coffee. She sat up, rubbed her eyes. “Where’s Ben?”

  “Getting ready.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nearly eight.” He handed her a letter. “Came a few minutes ago.”

  Something about the envelope looked official. Serious. Ever so slightly scary. She carried it with her through to the kitchen and left it on the table. It was too early in the morning for serious.

  She sat on a hard wooden chair, staring at her coffee. Mark was fixing himself a fry-up. She hated that. She’d been veggie almost ten years, since her eighteenth birthday, yet she still craved bacon. It was her one weakness, the only meat she missed. He put a bowl in front of her, and a plastic container with the muesli from the health food co-operative where she did most of her shopping and where she worked part-time. She poured some into the bowl. “You got a busy day?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Anything special?”

  “Just stuff.”

  Evasive, as always. Was he dealing drugs? He never used them, not even dope. Not even when he was drunk. He’d said he was finished with all that, but he always had more money than anyone else. He didn’t struggle the way she and her friends struggled, worrying over the price of milk and nappies.

  “Can you take Ben?”

  “I can’t, got to get moving. Heading in the other direction. Sorry, babe.”

  “It’s all right, I’ll walk him down there.”

  “Faster to walk in any case.”

  Mark owned transport. His Transit van was one of the few reliable workhorse vehicles available to her extended community of eco activists. “Will you be back this evening?”

  “I can’t, I’m sorry, not tonight.”

  “Work? People? Something?”

  “Yeah, just stuff.”

  She felt like asking for a name, confronting him with her fears. Instead, she stared at her cereals.

  He slapped his bacon between two slices of bread, drizzled it with tomato ketchup, slurped the last of his coffee and slung his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow, probably. I’ll let you know.”

  “Good luck with whatever.”

  “Thanks.”

  The door slammed shut. Seconds later she heard the deep throb of the Transit’s engine, and then Ben’s footsteps heading down the stairs. He’d gone back to his bedroom. He’d been waiting for Mark to leave. She knew he did it. She knew he hid from him sometimes though she had no idea why. “I’ll get your breakfast,” she said.

  “I’ve eaten.”

  Was that true? She could never be sure. She let it go, finished her own food and bundled him into his coat, checked he had his homework, double checked that she had the house keys, flung a jacket around her shoulders and took Ben’s hand. They walked the two miles to the school in the drizzle of an early Autumn morning. They passed other boys, walking alone or in groups, no parents to guide them. Others whisked past in cars. There was no bus for Ben to take, none that made any sense.

  A group of boys shouted across the road. Ben ignored them so she did too. Was he bullied at school? Was he liked? Was he teased for being poor and bedraggled, for coming from a hippy home, having a mother who spent half her time chained to gates outside power stations or lying in front of bulldozers? She longed to ask him, but he hated those kind of questions.

  She asked him about lessons, homework and teachers to keep him occupied and pass the time on the walk to school. “I’ll come and pick you up, the usual time?”

  “I’ll be all right. Don’t need you.”

  “I’ll be there, all the same.” Did the other boys tease him because his mother held his hand and guided him to school? Because she was there, eager-eyed, waiting at the gates as he emerged from class? She didn’t want to embarrass him. But she loved him more than she could say and worried about him every minute of the day.

  She watched him walk the last fifty yards to the gates until he disappeared into the throng of children. She quickened her pace on the way home. Every moment Ben was in school was time when she could be working, earning money at the co-operative, trying to make ends meet.

  Twenty minutes later she turned into her street and fumbled in her pocket for her front door key. Her home, a simple two bedroom terraced house, was damp and drab and poorly decorated. The electrics hadn’t been updated since before the war. The roof leaked in heavy rain and the landlord muttered about fixing it but never did. It was the cheapest place she could find where she felt safe. Even so, she struggled to pay the rent on her own and would have been kicked out long ago if it hadn’t been for loans from her parents, and Mark helping her out, paying bills, getting in food. He was a good man, really. But so distant. What was he hiding, beneath that stubble, under those tattoos down his arm? Behind those dark, steely eyes?

  She pushed open the door, scuffed it closed and made her way through to the kitchen where she slumped into a chair and reached for the envelope that had arrived that morning. Emma opened it, read it, reread it, her heart pounding, then she stared at it, and stared and stared as her lips silently mouthed the words: “Oh shit.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Profits Of My Death

  Tom Capgras slept late. Later than a tomcat that spent the night hanging by the rubbish bins, picking fights. Later than a publican, or a prostitute. Or a member of parliament. Or a member of parliament who slept with a prostitute. Later, even, than a student with an overdue assignment.

  When at last he emerged from his bedroom, bleary-eyed, stumbling towards the kettle, Capgras peered through bloodshot, half-closed eyes and made out the familiar, welcoming form of Ruby ensconced on his sofa, working on her laptop, doing his internet chores.

  He’d met Ruby through his sister and taken her on as his informal research assistant. She had scruffy, short red hair, dimples on her cheeks and a qualification in IT. Her tomboy appearance was accentuated by the grubby combat trousers, muddy black boots, torn t-shirt and zip-up black fleece. Tom felt a paternal responsibility for her though she was only a few years younger than Emma. He’d never asked her age as such, but it was mid-twenties somewhere. There had been no formal interview procedure. There was no official job title. And certainly no pay. All the same, she worked long hours and performed miracles.

  “You want coffee? You look terrible. Bad night?” She glanced towards the door to Tom’s bedroom as if she expected a woman to appear.

  “I’ll do the coffee,” Tom mumbled.

  “How was the funeral? Late night?”

  “You got my email about Vronsky, all of that?”

  “I read your blog too. I’ve told you not to post when you’ve been drinking.”

  “That bad?”

  “It rambled a bit.”

  He grumbled in acceptance. “Did you check the comments?”

  “You mean the one that links to the blogger? I followed that up. Police in the States are saying she was poisoned. They’re doing tests. The kid’s in hospital, still hasn’t woken up.”

  Ruby was a one-woman news service. Sometimes he didn’t need the internet at all. She checked it all for him. “You know where this points?” He liked to test her, make sure she was following along and putting two and two together.

  She shrugged. “Either Middleton’s a killer, or someone’s trying to frame him.”

  Tom picked up the hardback from the arm of the sofa and waved it in the air. “You should read that sometime.”

  “Save me the trouble?”

  “Killer fakes a suicide: uses valium to drug the victim, then makes it look like they hung themselves.”

  “So a post-mortem on Joanne…”

  “…might find valium. But people will say she was depressed and doubled up on the suicide, just in case. It happens.” He waved the novel in the air once more. “It happens in here.”

  “H
mmm, well, I have news for you.” She grinned, teasing him, withholding the information for a moment. But her expression changed to a grim frown.

  He handed her coffee, strong and deep, in a cup that held almost a pint.

  “Go on.”

  “Middleton’s publisher.”

  “Haslam and Haslam?”

  “One of the brothers was found dead last night,” she said. “Suspected food poisoning. It’s not official, but it’s on Twitter.”

  Tom leant back on the kitchen units made from reclaimed wood recovered from building site skips. “Straight after the wake. Where Middleton was talking to them: he carried over glasses of wine.” Did either brother drink from them? He mentally cursed himself for not paying more attention. It was too late now. He sat on the sofa beside Ruby and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hands. “We have a serial killer. A maniac.”

  “He doesn’t seem the type.” Ruby leant over, took the hardback edition of Disquietly To Our Graves and turned it over. The back cover featured a photo of a portly, pompous Arthur Middleton. He had the self-satisfied smile of a man who has made money and is convinced of his own god-given talent. “What’s next? The pigs?”

  Tom groaned. Going to the police meant more waiting rooms and interviews, more snide coppers refusing to take him seriously. A chill crept up his forearms at the thought of it, making the hairs stand on end. He could give the evidence to Evelyn Vronsky and let her deal with it but he had nothing substantial, just a suspicion. “We need a motive. Police won’t listen to this. Not from me at any rate.”

  “Do a story then. Flush him out with publicity.”

  “Libellous.”

  “Don’t name him. Just say what we suspect.”

  “Thanks. I know how it works.”

  She gave him a mock scowl. “Only trying to help.”

  She was a good sounding-board, smart and argumentative. He wondered if he could charge Vronsky for her time. “I need to see the people at the agency. They might be able to point me towards a motive.”

  “Revenge,” she said. “Plain as day.”

  Were publishing contracts really so bad – that a writer with a lifetime of books behind him would begin a massacre? “Revenge for what?”

  “There’s sure to be something. Always is when there’s money involved.”

  “We need more than that to accuse a man of three murders. But I might know where to find it.”

  “Going to share?”

  “It means a trip into town.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Not this time.” It wouldn’t look right to turn up with Ruby, though he failed to think through all the reasons why. “I'd better do this alone.” He swigged his coffee, left the cup by the sink and went to shower and get dressed.

  Twenty minutes later, sitting on his motorbike outside the shipping container, he called Hannah on his iPhone. “Meet me for lunch?” He glanced at his watch. “Late lunch.”

  “You buying?”

  “Sure. Why not?” He could put it on Vronsky’s expenses, after all.

  “I’ll have to check. It’s chaos here.”

  “You heard about Tony Haslam?”

  She paused. “Is that what this is about?”

  “That and more.”

  She paused again. For longer. Too long. “Where?” she asked at last.

  “You tell me.”

  She named a restaurant.

  “Give me thirty minutes.” He hung up, revved the engine and headed across the mud-bath of self-build site towards the calmer waters of the tarmacadamed road.

  He beat her to the restaurant. She appeared ten minutes late in a thigh-length rust-red wool coat with a leather bag over her shoulder, her brown hair tied up, business-like but fetching. She smiled grimly as she sat down.

  “I have an admission to make,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  “You go first.”

  “No, you,” she said.

  He drummed the ends of his fingers together. “This is work. Not press work. I’m investigating Joanne’s death. Someone’s paying me.”

  “Who?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Evelyn Vronsky. You were talking to her at Highgate.”

  She’d been watching him. Was that a good thing? “I’m not at liberty to divulge details about my client.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Look, Joanne didn’t commit suicide. She was murdered. So was Tony Haslam.” He watched her face, expecting a look of shock, or disbelief at the least. But she accepted it. She already suspected. She already knew. He held out his mobile phone to show her an article on the dead book blogger. “This woman writes book reviews. Speaks her mind. Or she did.”

  Hannah nodded. She still didn’t seem shocked. Not even surprised.

  “It gets worse.” Tom put the hardback copy of Disquietly To Our Graves on the table. “You’ll recognise this. It features a serial killer. And a victim found hanged, made to look like suicide.”

  Hannah’s face was paler now as though it was all starting to come home. “I think I should go next.”

  “Fire away.”

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you about Arthur.”

  Their eyes met. He said nothing. That was standard journalism practice: keep your mouth shut and allow the other person to do the talking.

  “We had to let him go. The publishers dropped him.”

  Bingo. Motive. “When?”

  “Nine months ago. The last book wasn’t very good. It sold poorly, his numbers have been going down for a while. We tried to find someone else to take it, but the sales figures don’t lie and no one wants a mid-list author on the slide. Not these days. But he wasn’t happy. He raged at Joanne, came into the office, shouting at people. When he sent a new book in we declined to represent him. He kept ringing, calling Joanne all kinds of names. Said she’d lied to him, cheated him. But then it stopped and we thought he’d calmed down.”

  More motive. Tom took out a notebook and scribbled furiously. Anger, resentment, fear that his career was over. Was it enough?

  “The thing is,” Hannah said, “I know Arthur Middleton. He isn’t capable. In a bad way. He’s just not smart enough. Or brave enough. Or bad enough.”

  “He writes crime novels for a living. It must have given him ideas. It all points to him.”

  She nodded. “There’s more.”

  “Go on.” He sat back, chewing on the end of his pen.

  Now it was her turn to rumble through her bag. She pulled out a manuscript on A4 paper. No wonder her shoulder seemed hunched on the way in. She plonked in on the table - almost a foot thick, the manuscript curled at the corners, bedraggled and covered in coffee stains.

  “His latest book. Arrived last month, with no warning. He hasn’t called. No one likes to contact him about it. I spent half the funeral avoiding him in case he asked. He never did.”

  Tom stared at the title page: The Profits Of My Death, a Sebastian Lear mystery.

  “So what do I need to know? Have you read it?”

  She nodded. “It’s better than the recent stuff. Much better. He’s really got it back. But the thing is, the story. It’s set in St. Ives. A lot of artists live there.”

  “I know it.”

  “This sculptor gets rejected by the galleries and his agent lets him go. And he goes on a killing spree, bumping them off.”

  Tom breathed deep, closed his eyes, taking it in.

  “He poisons them,” Hannah said. “Makes it look like food poisoning, an accident. But then he leaves a trail, clues that point back to himself. He actually makes a statue of himself committing one of the murders. Puts it on display.”

  It was madness. “He’s asking to get caught,” Tom said. “Middleton is as good as telling us he did it. He’s boasting.” Or was it a threat? Capgras reached for the manuscript. “Can I? I need to read this.”

  “It’s our only copy. Don’t lose it.”

  “You don’t have digital version
s?”

  She shrugged. “We like paper.”

  “What happens at the end?”

  “The sculptor tries to blow up a book awards ceremony, to take out all his enemies at once. But Lear stops him in time. The sculptor escapes, then commits suicide.”

  “A happy ending then.”

  Hannah played with a gold ring on her finger. Capgras found himself trying to remember what rings signified on different fingers. That wasn’t marriage. Was it engagement? Or was it just a ring?

  “I’m scared,” she said. “We should go to the police, before…”

  Before he strikes again. She was right, Middleton had to be stopped, but there was something still missing from all this.

  Why?

  Why make it so plain, to one and all, that he was killing for revenge? What did he hope to gain? Was it a cry for help? Did he intend to kill himself once his plan had worked through? He didn’t seem the type for suicide: he was too self-satisfied. Smug as a dog that has rolled in rotten fish and fox shit.

  “There’s another thing,” Hannah said. “About Middleton. He self-published a book.”

  Tom waited. Was that important, in all this? It might matter to the publishing world, but compared to a string of murders, it didn’t seem to count for much.

  “I was thinking,” she said, “the reason. It might be…” She waved her hands in the air, looking apologetic, as though she was about to say something foolish. “I thought, if he’s trying to be caught, to let people know, maybe it’s…. for the publicity.”

  Capgras stared at her. Her face didn’t change. No smile. No grin. No glint in the eye. She was serious. But no one would kill, just to sell books. Would they? “There must be an easier way, and what’s the point? He’ll get life in prison.”

  “Money for his family, maybe. I don’t know. Perhaps he’ll flee the country.”

  “It’s a bit extreme. Could he collect? Would anyone pay out?”

  She shrugged.

  Capgras balanced the manuscript in his hands, as though he were Saint Peter, testing the weight of Middleton’s guilt. “Would it work? Would it sell books?”

  Her lips quivered. She wore no make-up, he noticed. Yet her mouth was fascinating. He watched, transfixed.