“Middleton’s suicide discovered in a disused warehouse, out at Heathrow. Not confirmed. Can’t tell where it started. Trending fast.”
“How can it be on Twitter? I found the body, minutes ago. I haven’t even called the police yet.”
Tom glared at Alex. The boy shook his head. He hadn’t done that. Who could? Not Ruby. No one.
“It leaked somehow,” Fitzgerald said. “When can we have copy?”
They would need something online, immediately. And then for the backgrounders, the in-depth pieces, with the gloves off at last: dead men can’t sue for libel and Arthur Middleton was as deceased as they come.
“Depends on the police. Got to go.”
He hung up on Fitzgerald and called the police control room, barked out the basic facts, told them where they would find their wanted man. He ended the call before they could ask too many awkward questions.
The photographer was keeping it together. He’d gone into professional mode, ignoring the horror and focusing on the work. He was setting up lighting, getting the most gruesome shot he could manage under the circumstances. “You don’t have long.”
The snapper grunted, lost in his task. Tom took his laptop out of the leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder and sat on the floor in the corner banging away at the keys. At times like these he wished the newspapers still had copy-takers who could take a story down over the phone and type it up faster than he could speak.
As he finished the last paragraph of his news piece, he heard the cars arriving outside. He turned on a wi-fi hotspot and filed copy. He yelled at the young photographer to get out, to send his photos. He led the boy to the back door, kicked it open and sent him out that way to avoid the uniformed officers.
Capgras steeled himself for what must come: another encounter with authority.
Two constables stood by the swinging corpse talking into their radios. He offered up his name, told them selected parts of the truth and said he’d wait outside for CID. As he headed across to the car, the first of the pressmen arrived. They were only minutes behind the police. How? Where did they get the address? Someone must have phoned it in or put it online. Middleton himself, to maximise publicity? Or did he have help with his suicide? Had he been given a taste of his own medicine?
Tom sat in the photographer’s car, typing up backgrounders and colour pieces for tomorrow’s paper while he waited for CID. It took half an hour for DI Whitaker to arrive, and only thirty seconds for him to waggle an accusing finger at Capgras.
They walked together into the warehouse, where Middleton’s body had been taken down. It lay on the floor under a blanket. Whittaker pulled up the corner to check the face. “How did you know where to find him?”
“He sent a message to my assistant. Shared his location using an iPhone.”
“Why do you suppose he would do that?”
“He wanted the attention I suppose. More publicity.”
Whitaker nodded towards the corpse. “Not sure he cares about selling books any more.”
“Perhaps he’s worried about posterity. Or his family. Who knows.” Maybe it all got too much for the man. Reality came crashing down and he realised, finally, all the horrors he had committed.
No. It made little sense. A doubt nagged at the back of Tom’s mind.
Whitaker barked commands at his underlings then turned to Capgras. “Why is it always you? There’s lots of press in the world. Why bring you here?”
“We shared an agent, remember? We’ve met. It’s personal. That’s all I can tell you. Unless…”
Whitaker scowled. “Go on. This should be good.”
Tom ran a hand through his tangled hair, fingers digging in his scalp. If he spoke his suspicions, he would sound a fool. But if he said nothing, he’d be one. He braced himself for Whitaker’s scorn. “This isn’t right. It doesn’t add up How long has he been dead?”
“You’re suggesting this is suspicious? It looks like suicide to me.”
“So did Leatherby. Consider the possibility. DNA on the rope? On his clothing?”
“Don’t get carried away. We’re the detectives.”
“How did the news make it onto Twitter? How did the press get here so fast?”
“You’d know the answer to that.”
“I didn’t tell them. Why would I?”
“You think the killer put in on social media? That would be a first.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Because it’s textbook suicide. Middleton knew the game was up, got cold feet, hit by remorse, couldn’t face what he’d done. Decided to end it all but wanted some twisted revenge on you. Probably because you’ve been messing around in this business too much.”
“Everyone else who messed him around is dead. Why spare me?”
“We all makes mistakes, I suppose.” Whitaker almost suppressed a smirk.
“Something doesn’t fit but I can’t work out what.”
“That’s because you’re not a policeman. Not a real investigator. You don’t know human nature.” Whitaker jabbed a thumb towards Middleton’s corpse. “He cracked under pressure, got drunk or tired. Or scared. Did himself in. It happens.”
“Strange that he should die the same way as Joanne, his first victim.”
“Poetic justice? You writer types like that kind of thing. Don’t much believe in it myself.”
“Promise me something.”
“Nope.”
“Investigate. A bit. For old times sake. What if someone else did this? What if they found him and killed him for revenge?”
“Now who would want to do a thing like that?” Whitaker smiled disarmingly at Capgras. “Who would have a motive?”
“Why would I call the police if I murdered him?”
“Let's see - basic stupidity perhaps?” Whitaker waved at the scenes of crime officers loitering around the corpse. “Time of death,” he called out, then turned back to Capgras. “We know where to find you. Run along, stay out of our way and be careful what you publish. It might be used in evidence against you.”
“This case isn’t closed.”
“That’s a decision taken by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. Not freelance journalists. Move, before I’m forced to arrest you.”
“Don’t you want a statement?”
“All in good time. Get out.”
Capgras took a last look around the warehouse, hoping a clue would leap out at him: a stray hair or a blob of paint or a pattern in the dust that would lead a fictional detective straight to the killer. But there was nothing. Only Middleton’s corpse and a rope and a chair.
A uniformed officer escorted him off the premises. As he left, Tom instinctively raised an arm to shield his face from the photographers. He walked, head down, ignoring the shouted questions. Didn’t they recognise him? He headed for the relative sanity of Ruby’s car. She was following the news coverage on her laptop. He slipped onto the passenger seat beside her.
“Tough time?”
He grimaced. “Thanks for waiting.” He took out his own computer and put it on his knees. He began to type and within moments his fingers were flying over the keys in a blizzard of strokes. Catharsis. Release. It was better than crying, or shouting. Or talking it over. Or even drinking. Capgras let the words flow and the poison seep from his soul onto the page, all the evil and the wrongs of this world, brought forth into the light and skewered by an acutely sharpened paragraph.
Chapter Forty-Two
Publish And Be Dead
Like many who work in the media, Tom Capgras, in his younger days, had become a junkie with a habit that needed to be fed all hours of the day and night. The news fix numbs the mind. Journalists, after a twelve hour day, have been known to stumble home only to turn on the television and sit in front of rolling bulletins, ingesting the same information over and over, unable to tear themselves away in case something, anything new develops.
The dependence was bad enough in the days of newspapers, radio a
nd TV. But supply has increased. The internet, social media and smartphones deliver limitless supplies of the drug straight into the veins. Still, there’s no satisfaction. Dead eyes, the windows to a dead soul, stare at text and video, oblivious to the real world as it ticks along, like an alternative reality in a sci-fi movie, frequency-shifted outside of their awareness.
As a rookie reporter, Capgras had fed the addiction voraciously, working with news, living with it, immersed in it as it soaked into the pores of his skin. An enforced cold turkey, in the shape of a prison sentence for possessing secrets that the state particularly wanted to keep out of the public domain, had helped him achieve a partial recovery. He had become aware of his dependency, and could see it for what it was: an attempt to drown out both the babble of his thoughts and the terrifying silence that hid behind them. He could go for days, now, while on holiday, or simply taking time out from earning a living, days when he would watch no news programmes, read no newspaper, not even mainline the internet or the social media sites.
The death of Arthur Middleton threatened to trigger a relapse. He wrote the definitive news article himself, along with a double-page backgrounder on the serial killer who finally succumbed to guilt. Maybe. All bets were off now that the man was dead and could no longer sue for libel. Newspapers raked over the string of deaths with in-depth features on each of the victims; interviews with friends of the deceased; and above all a gleeful dwelling on the motives, both financial and emotional, of Middleton the tragic figure. The fallen celebrity.
Sales of his books boomed, a fact not lost on Tom Capgras. Nine days after finding Middleton’s body, he sat in bed with Hannah, drinking coffee and trawling through the newspaper websites on her tablet. She lay next to him, her face on the pillow almost pressed into his ribs, a hand on his thigh, half asleep and basking in the pleasure of a slow Sunday morning, and the promise of even more sex still to come.
Middleton’s books were being rushed into new print runs. They flew out of the doors of the traditional book shops. As ebooks, they skidded and slicked their way onto kindles and tablets, smartphones and computers the world over.
The publishers reaped an unanticipated sales bonanza for a backlist that had looked moribund only weeks before. But for the Middleton estate, it was riches beyond compare: the self-published books sold best of all and they were earning seventy per cent of the sale price, direct into the author’s pocket. Or, in this case, into the pocket of whoever controlled the bank accounts into which the automated payments would fall.
Capgras rubbed his chin as he studied the bestseller lists. Middleton books were all over the Amazon top one hundred. He had four books in the top ten. And Monster Ingratitude sat proudly at number one, not just in the mystery category, but in overall sales.
Finally, Arthur Middleton had achieved his break-out. No longer was he confined to the mid-list. Now he was a true bestseller. And it meant money, money, money. He was rolling in it, raking it in.
But where would the cash go? How much would his heirs ever see? Capgras glanced down at Hannah’s face. Her eyes were closed. He longed to ask her about the intricacies of payments and tax and self-publishing versus the old-fashioned route and what that would mean for Middleton’s heir and who stood to benefit the most. He touched her hair, and she stirred, pressing her naked body against his.
He went back to his tablet, flicking through the Middleton books in an online bookshop. Then the website which was tracking his browsing offered him something new: why not try the latest Middleton novel, published tomorrow, available to pre-order? With an automatic download direct to your ebook reader on release, the site promised. Hand over the money, it whispered, make sure you get the new mystery from Middleton hot off the presses.
At eleven pounds and ninety-nine pence, The Profits Of My Death was over-priced for an ebook but it would sell, sell, sell all the same and everyone knew it. Capgras, of course, already had the dog-eared manuscript from Joanne’s offices. It still sat on the coffee table in the front room of his shipping container. But was it the same text? Was it the same book or different? His own articles in the paper had referred to the novel at length, picking apart the similarities with the real life murders. He’d fielded countless phone calls from media organisations that wanted access to the manuscript. He had the only copy in existence, he thought. And it was the novel that Middleton had denied ever writing.
Hannah’s hand strayed up and down his leg. She nestled up against him and he felt soft wet lips caressing his abdomen.
“Hannah, he’s brought out a new one.”
“Hmmm? Who?”
“Middleton, of course.”
“Oh.” She kissed his stomach.
“The Profits Of My Death. How is that possible if he’s dead?”
“Easy,” she murmured. “He put it in the system before he hanged himself. Set an advance date to go live.” Her hands continued to explore his body.
“And the money?”
“Goes to whatever bank account he set up.”
“Who gets it?”
“The estate, once wills are sorted out. That’ll take time.”
“Any way to find the account?”
“The retailers know, but they can’t tell you. Not allowed.” She kissed his thigh, trying her best to distract him from the Middleton conspiracy.
“So if he wanted to provide for his family, this would do the job?”
“Providing he’s done his will right. Depends who owns the publishing company he set up.”
“Everyone’s going to buy this. It’s all over the news, how he revealed his plans in an unpublished novel. Now it’s out. What next?”
“Next is where you put down the iPad and kiss me. Before I kick you out of bed.”
Tom glanced at her lithe shape wriggling under the duvet, then once more at the online bookstore. She kissed him in places where a man can’t, in all truthfulness, resist being kissed. The tablet was placed on the bedside table and he groaned with pleasure.
Throughout the entire performance, however, his thoughts kept returning, again and again, to the nagging doubt: did someone kill Arthur Middleton? If so, who put his iPhone in the dead man’s pocket? Who, how and most of all – why?
Chapter Forty-Three
In The Interest Of My WIfe
The engine of the Norton purred as it glided around the corners, back in its natural element at last – a narrow, winding, English country lane. A slanting winter sun peered over the hedgerows of Oxfordshire. Capgras slowed the bike as he neared the solitary farmhouse, converted into a generous family residence decades before, complete with orchards and swimming pool, stables, outbuildings and offices.
He stopped at the top of the driveway. The sunlight glanced off the slate roof. The narrow windows were dark and lifeless. Was anyone home? It was a long way to come if she wasn’t even here. According to the electoral register, Gillian Middleton lived alone. She had divorced her husband seven years before but still carried his name. She still bore his burdens.
He eased slowly down the driveway and parked outside the main door. He left the helmet on the seat of the bike which he didn’t bother to chain up. Capgras stood at the door and paused, his hand raised, ready to knock, unsure what reception to expect. He rapped softly with his knuckles. At first there was no answer, so he tried again, louder and more insistent. A light came on in the depths of the house, then another, as the occupant advanced steadily towards the front door. It swung ajar to reveal a slim, healthy looking woman in her late fifties, her hair tied up, wearing a kitchen apron speckled with flour. The smell of baking wafted from the interior, mixed with the scent of subtle female perfume.
“Yes? Is it a delivery?”
“Mrs Middleton? My name’s Tom Capgras. I knew your husband, briefly. We shared an agent. Had mutual friends.”
“My ex-husband,” she said, putting all the emphasis on the ‘ex’ while glaring at Capgras over the top of her glasses, “did not have friends. He had colleagues, acquai
ntances, lovers and fellow golf addicts. He knew people at boat clubs and universities, at drinking establishments and within various professions which he thought might be of service to him in one way or another. But friends? No, I don’t think so.”
“I knew him, all the same. I found his body.”
“You’re that reporter.”
“I’m not here…”
“I’m not talking to the press. Your lot were here a couple of days ago and I sent them away. Bloody nerve. Get out. You’re no better than vultures. Liars and vultures.”
“I’m not here for a story, or a quote.”
“Then what?”
“I want to talk.”
“Oh, a cosy chat? I don’t think so.”
“Off the record.”
“As if.”
“It’s about Arthur. It’s important. Can I come in?”
“My ex-husband is of no interest to me.”
“I believe he was murdered.”
“Don’t be absurd. The police say it’s suicide. They know what they’re doing. I’ll leave to them.”
“Please, I’m not here as a journalist. But I do need information. Someone may be profiting from your husband’s death.”
“My ex-husband’s finances are of no concern to me. And no business of yours I shouldn’t think.”
“The estate… who inherits…?”
“I really don’t know. I doubt it will be me.”
“The children?”
“Look. Go away. Stop wheedling information out of me.” She made to shut the door. He stuck his foot in the way, just in case.
“I found Joanne Leatherby’s body. I was with Kiera Roche at the hotel in Cornwall. She was his ghostwriter, did you know?”
“Of course I did. I’m not a fool but I fail to see what any of this has to do with me.”
“I’m close to this, not as a reporter. It matters to me. I want to understand why Kiera had to die. And Evelyn Vronsky, who was paying me to investigate…”
“So you are truly wrapped up in all this.”
Blood Read: Publish And Be Dead (The Capgras Conspiracy Book 1) Page 20
