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

by Simon J. Townley

  Time for Tom Capgras to disappear. He said a silent prayer thanking his inner guardian angel for remembering to leave his brand new, replacement iPhone under the seat of the Norton, and the bike itself half a mile away in case anyone was sweeping up registration numbers.

  He slipped a can of lighter fluid out of his pocket, doused the pay-as-you-go phone to destroy any DNA and kicked it under a pile of leaves. He pulled up his collar, pulled down his hat, hunched his left shoulder and set off walking with a limp.

  A marked police car turned into the square and drove around it once, then parked at the far corner. Capgras changed direction, skipped behind a tree and out of the gate in the metal railings.

  How many were there? They were fast: he’d sent the text to Douglas not half an hour before.

  He crossed the road, muttering to himself. Had his old friend finally turned on him, for real this time, not just as a joke? Or was Doug in serious trouble, with Tom to blame? Harriette would kill him if MI5 didn’t get him first. How would they do it, he wondered: a fake suicide or a car crash? Maybe use a lorry to crush when he was on the bike.

  He had to reach the Norton unseen and escape this part of town.

  They must have traced the mobile phone and moved in fast. It meant they were on alert. He did a headcount of the square. It was quiet. But even so there were twenty people on foot, plus goons in the cars. He crossed the road, sped up as he strode down a side street, turned a corner and ran for fifty yards, then stopped and walked normally until he reached another corner.

  Marching down the Edgware Road, he took shelter in the chaos of crowds and confusion. He stopped outside an Italian restaurant, pretending to read the menu so he could glance back up the pavement. Who was tailing him? It could be any of them, or none.

  Capgras cut onto Praed Street, dodging through the crowds. Once in Paddington station he scurried across the concourse, out the far side, crossed the road and down the stairs towards the tube. He paused in the entrance, watching people come and go. There were too many: impossible to know if any were following him.

  He queued for a ticket, paid cash, keeping his Oyster card away from the sensors, and walked briskly to the Circle Line platform, hopped onto a train, then back off again as the doors were closing. No one appeared to be trailing him, so he ran to the Bakerloo line and took a train to Baker Street, loitering near the door as if he intended to travel further but he leapt out onto the platform as the doors began to close. He waited while the train pulled out and the crowds surged past him. As he walked towards the exit the only people behind him were two fat tourists, a gaggle of French exchange students and a young couple that couldn’t keep their hands off each other, even as they walked. Tom slipped off his leather jacket, flipped it inside out and carried it over one arm. He kept his face down as he exited the tube station, turned right and headed for the side-street where he’d parked the bike.

  He recovered his phone from under the seat. It dinged as he turned it on. He had messages. He scanned through the senders: Jon in the newsroom, Emma, Ruby, and Evelyn Vronsky. She seemed too traditional for email. He imagined her picking up an old-fashioned telephone, the kind they used in Agatha Christie movies. Did she even have a computer? He couldn’t remember seeing one in her office. Perhaps the butler did it for her.

  He opened the message: “Come and see me. It’s urgent. Evelyn Vronsky.” It was timed an hour ago. He kicked the bike into life and pulled out into the road, heading back towards the suburbs of south London.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  A Damn Good Murder

  For the second time that day, Tom Capgras turned his bike into the leafy south London avenue where Evelyn Vronsky lived. It was an affluent area, with mature elm and beech trees planted along wide pavements, and featuring large gardens in front of expensive homes, set behind thick hedges. It was the kind of neighbourhood that appreciated peace and quiet, with nothing untoward happening that might startle the property values.

  This, then, was something the community would ill endure. Policemen were welcome only if they came to saunter the leafy suburbs and deter wrong-doing, waving at old folk and stroking kittens. They were certainly not expected to turn up mob-handed in half a dozen marked cars. And there were several more unmarked, if Tom’s estimation was right. That meant CID. It meant trouble.

  The ambulances didn’t bode well either.

  The police vehicles appeared to have been not so much parked as abandoned, as if the drivers had reached their allotted targets and leapt from their seats to apprehend wrong-doers. Or save life. Some were at angles to the kerb, others half way up it. A van blocked the road entirely, while a uniformed woman constable waved traffic away with a desultory waft of the arm. “Road closed,” her body language yelled, “clear off and stop bothering us. We’re the law and we’ve got important stuff to do.”

  Tom slowed his bike, parked it on the pavement behind a tree, chained his helmet to a bar under the seat, and walked towards the crime scene. It also just happened to be his intended destination: number thirty-five, home to Evelyn Vronsky, his esteemed client and the woman paying him to investigate a string of murders.

  Though a staunch atheist, he found himself saying a silent prayer for Mrs Vronsky’s safety. She didn’t deserve to be hurt or harmed. Not now, not ever, but especially not when she owed him money.

  The WPC ignored him. Or didn’t notice him. She had clearly been told to deal with traffic and nothing more.

  He turned into the driveway of number thirty-five still unchallenged. He had almost reached the front door, which stood temptingly ajar, before a voice boomed across the garden.

  “Capgras, wait right there,” it yelled. Tom sighed heavily: DC Bloody Lock was here, in all his glory.

  He swivelled on the spot and gave a cheery wave, knowing this would annoy Lock intensely since it made it appear they were friends. Or on good terms, at least.

  Lock wasn’t alone. Three other plains clothes CID men strode across the front lawn heading to the house. Tom looked past them, trying to work out where they had been and why. There were no uniformed officers in that direction, no scenes of crime busy with forensics. All the action appeared to be indoors. One of the detectives carried a small evidence bag. Tom thought he made out the shape of a set of garden secateurs. Though, of course, they could equally have been a compact pair of wire cutters.

  “Been listening to police wavebands again, Capgras?” asked Lock as he approached. “That how you get your leads?”

  “Actually, I’m here to see my client.”

  “Didn’t know reporters had clients.”

  “A little side business. She engaged me to investigate something.”

  “What, exactly?”

  “Client confidentiality,” Capgras said, knowing that wouldn’t hold them back for long. It would annoy them though, and that would suffice for the time being. “Where is my client? She’s expecting me…”

  “Your meeting’s cancelled,” said detective inspector Adrian Whitaker who appeared behind Lock. “Mrs Vronsky is no condition to speak to reporters.”

  “I’m not here as a reporter. I’m investigating on her behalf.”

  “Do you have a licence to act as a private detective, Capgras?” Whitaker pointed him inside. “It’s tightly regulated these days, as I’m sure you’re aware, being a man who follows the news.”

  “It was an informal arrangement. If anything has happened to Evelyn, I have a right to know.”

  “You have a right to tell us everything, and if you don’t, then we have you over a barrel on the licence thing. Or we could just hold you for a few days.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Murder, and attempted murder.”

  “Evelyn?”

  “The butler is dead. Mrs Vronsky has been taken to hospital. Where were you between two and three this afternoon?”

  “How did he die?” Capgras still hadn’t moved from the bottom of the steps that led to the front door.

  �
�As this is a murder investigation, you’ll find that I’m qualified to ask the questions,” Whitaker said.

  “Bit far from Charing Cross aren’t you?”

  “We’re the metropolitan police, Mr Capgras, we cover the whole city.”

  “All the same…”

  “I’m not leading the investigation as you well know. There’s a detective chief super here for that. But I’m likely to be in charge of you, and what you know, and why you were here, and how all this ties in with the allegations you’ve been making.”

  “How did they get you here so fast?” Capgras said.

  Whitaker paused in the hallway. A look flashed between him and Lock. Whitaker took a long breath as if chewing over an indigestible thought. “Mrs Vronsky regained consciousness, briefly. She said barely one sentence. But the officer on the scene caught two names: ‘Joanne Leatherby’ and ‘Kiera Roche’. That was all. But it brought up the suicide, and the incident in Cornwall, so they called us in and we were put on the team.”

  “Because of all the strenuous investigating you’ve been doing?” Capgras smirked. He couldn’t help himself. “Because of all the valuable leads you’ve gained from following up on my information?”

  “You still haven’t told us where you were this afternoon, Mr Capgras.”

  He had no alibi. He was alone in the park, waiting for Doug to respond. “How did the butler die? And Evelyn? Will she…? Is she..? What happened?”

  “We’ll need a statement from you.” Whitaker nodded at Lock. “At the station.”

  “Tell me about Evelyn.”

  “We can’t do that. You know why?”

  “Because I’m a suspect.”

  “You're connected to all the people involved, you were there when Roche died you found Leatherby’s body. Oh, and let's see – turns out you were also working for Evelyn Vronsky. You’re a person of interest at the very least.”

  “I’m the one who’s been telling you about this all along. Middleton is behind it.”

  “Come with me,” Lock said. “To the station. Now.”

  They stood in the hallway, with Whitaker blocking any view into Evelyn’s office. “You’re mad,” Capgras said. “Why would I kill her? She owes me money.”

  “I think that counts as a motive.” Lock smiled. Not a nice smile. More of an I-can-waste-as-much-of-your-time-as-I-like kind of a smile.

  There was no fighting it, but at least Lock let Capgras make his own way there, by bike. Better than being in the back of a police car any day. It was a sure sign they didn’t believe he was a suspect. They just wanted him away from their crime scene.

  He parked outside the station and took the opportunity to call Hannah. He gave her the news about Vronsky. “Find out what you can from the hospital. And ask your bosses to make enquiries. Someone must know something. The police won’t tell me a thing.”

  He trudged inside and sat once more in the dismal waiting room until Lock appeared. The DC wanted details of his movements for the past few days, his work for Vronsky. Capgras kept the answers short and vague and he lied, a lot, making it sound as if he had been working as a reporter, not a detective. It was a media thing, he implied. A story that Vronsky wanted to bring to light. One thing he knew from experience was to never admit to any kind of a crime, no matter how tangential or minor, in the presence of a police officer. They don’t turn blind eyes. They seize easy convictions.

  He went back over all the things he’d been telling Lock and Whitaker these past weeks: about Joanne and Haslam, the book blogger and Kiera, making his point at last. But his attempts to get information out of Lock came to nothing.

  His phone bleeped to say a new message had arrived. While Lock flipped through paperwork, Capgras glanced at it under the table. It was Hannah, and she had news. Evelyn was in intensive care, suffering from gunshot wounds to the abdomen and left shoulder. She was alive, barely.

  Could Middleton fire a gun? Why not finish her off? And where was he now?

  Lock tapped on the table to get Tom’s attention. “This afternoon. How long did you spend with your nephew? Where is he now?”

  “Can I at least assume you’re looking for Arthur Middleton?”

  “The boy’s eleven? Why wasn’t he in school? Where are his parents?”

  “Shall we talk motive? You need to check Middleton’s bank accounts. And his publishing account. He’s selling books directly, without a publishing deal. The money goes straight to him. It’s all connected to the crimes.”

  Lock sighed, theatrically. “Where were you?”

  “I had nothing to do with this and you know it.”

  “Then there’s no harm in telling us where you were.”

  “With Ben. I bought a phone. Bank records will back that up. Took the boy home, dropped him off with Ruby then went back into town.”

  “No alibi then?”

  Lock kept at him with more and more questions. On and on. Tom answered a few, lied about others. How long was this going to take? The clock was ticking: the clock that determined tomorrow’s paper.

  Lock kept him for almost two hours. It was early evening by the time he got out of there. He headed straight to the offices of the newspaper, and filed his copy straight into the newsroom editing system. Once it was written, he went to see Jon Fitzgerald, to give him the background on the murder, the investigation, and the lay of the land.

  “No byline on this one,” Tom said.

  “I have to escalate it. Get it rewritten,” Jon said. “If they’ve questioned you… you understand. Can’t be seen… and all that.”

  “Do you what you need to. Put a team on it.”

  “If only.” Jon waved his arms at a half empty newsroom.

  “Make sure you put something in tomorrow’s edition,” Tom said. “She was well known in the publishing world and this is a great story, though the tabloids and networks will probably miss it. She’s a bit obscure these days.”

  “No reality TV shows on her CV?” Jon smirked.

  “Not one.”

  “You sure she’s newsworthy?”

  "Just get it in. And not on page thirty-six this time." Tom left them to it, knowing they would call him if needed. In the street outside he phoned Hannah again. She sounded distraught. Guarded too. Was she beginning to doubt his story? Did she think he killed them?

  “Can we meet?” he said. “I need a drink. Someone to talk to about all this. Someone who isn’t police.”

  She suggested the public bar of the Harp. He biked over, parked outside the pub and settled down with a slow pint to wait for Hannah. Still no word from Doug or Harriette. He sent a cryptic text to a couple of old friends from university days, hoping to ferret out information, then scanned the media headlines. There was nothing on the BBC website about the death of Evelyn Vronsky. The police couldn’t be keeping it quiet. They’d blast the news everywhere, just to spite Tom and wreck his exclusive. That’s how they normally worked, at any rate.

  He was half way down his beer when Hannah showed up. She looked terrible, as if she’d been crying, arguing, and fighting a flock of flamingos while putting on her make-up. “Bad day?”

  She slumped into a chair.

  “I’ll get you a drink. You look like you need one.”

  She grunted something unintelligible and he ordered a pint of lager, set it in front of her.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said. “The partners are in a conference. I told them everything, when the news came through, about Kiera, and you, and Middleton, and the suspicions. They knew some already, but I don’t think they’d really listened before. Now it’s starting to sink in. Murder. It’s unbelievable. Poor Joanne. Kiera. Now Evelyn.”

  “And the butler, don’t forget him. Or the tramp. Or the people in the hotel.”

  She put her head in her hands and groaned. “I’m scared,” she said. “Who’s next?”

  “No one,” Tom said. “We’re going to stop him.”

  “How?”

  Today was turning
into one long awkward question. “Somehow. Trust me.”

  “I’m afraid to go home. Or stay in work.”

  “He has no reason to hurt you.”

  “Or anyone. But he did. I still can’t believe it. It’s madness this business with Evelyn. He was getting away with it, the police didn’t care, didn’t want to know, it was only us that believed it. But now…”

  “Now it’ll be all over the newspapers.” Tom stared at his beer. He was being played for a fool but there was nothing for it. He had to tag along.

  “Don’t do it,” she said. “Don’t put anything in the paper. That’s what he wants.”

  “If I don’t then someone else will. It has to come out. The thing is to stop him from getting the proceeds. If he’s in prison for murder, then he can’t profit from any of this.”

  “But he must have thought of that. Where could he hide?”

  “Abroad, I guess. The money will flow to a bank account. The police can freeze them, if he’s wanted for murder. If the accounts are in his name. But he might have used a business. You could set one up in the Seychelles, the Virgin Islands, any number of places. Get a bank account offshore, pay it through a trust fund. There are ways.” The more Tom thought it over, the more devious it sounded. These companies operated all over the world. They collected money in Europe, Africa, the Americas, then paid it into an offshore account. You could disappear, live anywhere. Who would ever know?

  “He can’t be abroad,” she said. “Not if he killed Evelyn this morning.”

  “He has to get out of the country.”

  “Unless he’s planning more.”

  “More murders?”

  She kept her eyes fixed on his as she sipped the beer. “He has a gun?”

  “He’ll have ditched it. That would be the smart thing to do. Or he might have paid someone. That makes sense. He hasn’t the balls to shoot people in cold blood. He must be paying someone.”