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

by Simon J. Townley

  “Why can’t they drop it?” Emma said. “They know we don’t have money. It’s vindictive.”

  Tom poured milk into the cups. “You’ve got a whole campaign going. People are fund raising, lawyers are volunteering their time and trust me that doesn’t happen much.”

  “But it’s only the four of us named. We’re the ones who’ll be in court for days or weeks or months if this goes ahead. We’ll have to pay, whatever.”

  “You might win.”

  “No chance.”

  “Keep fighting.”

  “It’s hopeless.” She flung an arm at the paperwork, scattering some of it to the floor.

  Tom bent down to pick it up. He tried to sort it on the piles, but her filing system was the most erratic he had seen.

  Emma picked up the file that Tom and Ollie had created: everything they could find on Rob, Ben’s errant father. She shook it at him, reproachfully. “We need to find him. He wrote it. He should take the blame. It was all his idea. He persuaded us to sign it, he got it printed, he made us stand there handing it out. He posted it online and then put our names to it.”

  “You’ve told the lawyer all this?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “And he says?”

  “It might work, as a defence, if we can produce him. The company can sue him instead.”

  “It gets you off the hook, I suppose.”

  “I wouldn’t do it, if he was a friend. He deserves it though. He should answer for it. Besides, he said he had evidence. We can’t prove a thing without him. You were supposed to find him, Mr Investigator.” She slumped onto the table like a teenager told to do the washing up. “Where did he go?”

  “It’s a big world,” Tom said.

  “There’s no way out. I want to live my life and look after my son and not worry about legal fees and losing my home, or having to spend every spare moment reading this crap.” She gestured expansively at the piles of interlocking papers on the table. “What can I do? Make it go away.”

  “One day, it’ll be over.”

  “It could take years.” She sighed. “Ben needs my time. He deserves it. Not this.”

  “Wishing it to go away won’t help. I’ve tried it. Trust me.”

  “Rob disappeared. How? He wrote this, made me pregnant, and vaporised. Do you think he faked his own death? Started a new life, with an assumed name? I could do that. Ben and I could move to Scotland. Or Wales. Find a place. No one will ever know.”

  “What about mum and dad?”

  “They’ll get over it.”

  “You’d put them through that?”

  “It’s the only way. Start afresh. Burn it all down. Run and keep running.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “I bet people do it all the time. Why not? You could do anything. Then disappear.”

  “What about passports? Money? Benefits? Work? National Insurance numbers? It’ll catch up with you in the end.”

  She sighed once more, loud and long. “Easier with money. Go abroad. If you’ve enough to pay for things, no one cares. You can get fake passports. Mark’s got one. I’ve seen it.”

  “You serious? A fake passport?”

  “He’s got two, in different names. One of them must be dodgy.”

  “A false name?”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “Then it might be an old one.”

  “But they’re both new, the new kind.”

  “Question him about it.”

  “You don’t know what he’s like. He’s defensive.”

  “He’s hiding something. You sure he’s not a drug dealer?”

  “I should ask him where he got it,” Emma said. “See if he can get one for me and Ben.”

  “They’ll look for you.”

  “Not if I’m dead.”

  “That’s not so easy.”

  “There are ways. If you really want to.”

  “And Ben?”

  “We could both drown at sea. Or get kidnapped by pirates. Or fall into wet concrete on a building site…”

  “Don’t. My stomach’s feeling sensitive as it is. And no one’s going to believe any of that crap.”

  “Or hire a house in the country, miles from anyone, and burn it to the ground.”

  “They’d look for remains. Arson’s serious. Don’t do it.”

  “Or leave the gas on, let a spark blow the place up.” Her voice was louder now, getting carried away with excitement. Then her face contorted in guilt as her own words sunk in. She leant across the table and gripped his arm. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking… I know you liked her. Honest. I didn’t…”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “You didn’t mean it. I know.” But it was his turn to sit slumped over the table, his head in his hand, the image of the hotel in ruins, the fires burning, knowing Kiera had been in there.

  When the gas boiler exploded, she was in there. She must have been. They found bones. If she wasn’t there, then where was she now? She couldn’t have survived.

  “I still think I should do it,” Emma’s voice was flat and emotionless, almost matter-of-fact. “Fake my death and disappear. How hard can it be? All these troubles would be at an end. I could steal a pile of money before I go.”

  She’d never do it, didn’t mean a word of it. She was ranting, angry and afraid. But it wasn’t in her nature because someone might get hurt. And she would always put the welfare of other people, of animals, trees and the whole wide world, before herself. It’s who she was.

  He gripped his head, pressing the balls of his hands into his temples, as though trying to force his brain to work properly, to think this through and face the truth of it.

  Ben screamed in triumph from the front room. The battle was won. The enemy vanquished, a pixelated army destroyed and stamped into the mud.

  Tom groaned as he visualised the smoking remains of the hotel on the outskirts of Looe. Kiera Roche had died that day. She’d been crushed and burned and her remains were interred in Highgate Cemetery, he’d seen them lower the casket himself.

  Except that they might be anyone’s bones. No one had checked the DNA or thought to seek proof positive that she was in there. She could have faked it, used it as a chance to disappear. But then… but then… she must have caused it. So there was blood on her hands. Which made her a cold, heartless killer. And it implied, most bafflingly of all, that Arthur Middleton, mid-list crime novelist and notorious windbag, could have been an innocent man all along. And, of course, it also meant that Tom Capgras was the stupidest, most blatant fool in all the big, wide world.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Murder On Demand

  In London, where the night sky has been all but invisible since the invention of the electric light bulb, meteor showers produce barely a ripple of excitement. Even the moon goes unnoticed from one month to the next. Aircraft circling Heathrow get more attention than a comet or a supernova. Even if the lights were dimmed, if the power were cut and the city plunged into darkness, even then astronomical events in the heavens above would be shielded, most nights, by thick blankets of cloud. This night was a rare exception, and to a brave soul wrapped up against the Autumn chill, if standing on a high point, away from the houses, offices and roads, had they taken themselves to a park or waste ground, they might conceivably have glimpsed the meteors streaking across the night sky.

  “Did you see that?” Ruby squealed in excitement, gripping Tom’s arm and tugging on it.

  Capgras looked up from his phone. “No, where?”

  “Gone now, pay attention. What’s the point coming all the way if you ignore it? Put the phone away.”

  “This is important.”

  “Put it away, or I’ll take it off you.”

  He took a last, long glance over the stream of messages, but clicked it off.

  Ruby grinned at him.

  He scowled back. “So where are these meteors? They said they’d be everywhere.”

  “There’s one.”

&nb
sp; “Where?”

  “Gone again. You have to keep looking.”

  His mind though, was elsewhere, on minor matters such as life and death, lies and truth, innocence and guilt. Silently, he called on all the gods he didn’t believe in to bear witness to his suffering: had that woman really done all this to him? Had she played him like a fool, making him fall in love? He was the perfect target after all: he had connections on the serious newspapers, which still had book reviews. They shared an agent. Had he been hand-picked, because of his background as a crime writer and investigative reporter, a trouble-maker renowned for being too stubborn and too stupid to know when to let go? The man with his head stuck so far down the rabbit hole he’d be lucky if he ever found his way home again. Mad Tom. Poor Tom. Cold out here on this freezing patch of waste ground staring at the sky waiting for a burst of light.

  “There,” Ruby yelled, pointing behind him. He span around but was too late. It was gone long before he could make out where she meant.

  He was too slow. Especially around women. He never saw what was in front of his nose – that was what Emma always told him. Ruby gripped his arm and shouted encouragement. She must sense that she was losing him. His mind kept wandering away.

  Mad Tom. Poor Tom. What to do now, after so much grieving over a lost lover, only to realise that she wasn’t dead at all? Kiera Roche might be alive but she didn’t love him. She was a cold-hearted killer, and for all he knew he might be next on the list.

  “There, look, there, Tom you’re rubbish,” Ruby moaned. “You’ll never see one. Let’s go. It’s freezing.”

  “Did you make a wish?”

  “Of course.”

  “What for?”

  “That’s a secret, always is.”

  What did Ruby long for? What dreams kept her awake at night? He had no idea. He only knew how adept she was at finding answers, at sorting out tech stuff. And at being there when she was needed most. Whenever he felt despair biting his stomach, she’d be there with a smile, keeping him sane. He didn’t deserve such a loyal friend to whom he gave so little in return. Tom put an arm around her shoulder.

  “Not seeing Hannah tonight?” she asked.

  “Best not to.”

  “Because she’d know you were thinking about someone else?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “No woman likes that,” Ruby said.

  “And they always know.”

  They walked in silence, and he sensed Ruby still scanning the skies, watching for shooting stars.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Are you sure you’re not imagining all this? I have to ask, others will. How did she do it? And why?”

  Tom thought back to that day when he found Joanne. “I think she was there, at the offices, when I arrived. I saw a woman leave, looked like a cleaner, east European maybe, a shawl on her head. That was her. It was her again, at her own wake, laughing at us. And it was her seen leaving the offices of Haslam and Haslam when Jessica Reardon was killed. And again, her in disguise when I went to her flat.”

  “She could have killed you then, if she wanted to,” Ruby said.

  “Maybe. Risky, at her own home. Draw attention to it.”

  “Joanne gave me the clue from the start, though I couldn’t see it. That morning, the book in the waste bin was Vex Not His Ghost. Joanne must have put it there, trying to tell us something.”

  “You couldn’t know.”

  “And at Joanne’s funeral, I thought it was Middleton that poisoned Tony Haslam, taking drinks over there. But Kiera went as well, with a plate of nibbles. So she had as much opportunity as him, but I didn’t see that either. I was so sure I was right.”

  “But why that book blogger in the States?”

  “Just to frame him, I guess. Maybe revenge. Perhaps Kiera didn’t like the reviews any more than Middleton.”

  “Where was he, all that time when the police were looking for him?”

  “Who knows? I reckon Kiera had him. She must have picked him up somehow, maybe that day when I saw him at the British Museum. No one saw or heard from him anywhere from that day on. Perhaps she kidnapped him and held him prisoner until she was ready. She planned the whole thing: the trip to Cornwall, blowing up the hotel. She wrote The Profits Of My Death to put us on the scent, it was never Middleton, which is why he denied the book even existed. Even Evelyn, on her deathbed. Was she trying to warn me? I missed it all. Even the clues staring me in the face: her will gives everything she owned to a trust fund registered abroad. That’s how she keeps her money. That’s where the publishing income will be paid.”

  “Would she really do all this?” Ruby asked. “What about the tramp? The people in that hotel? They were innocent. What did the editor ever do to her?”

  “Mangle her prose maybe? Edit the life out of it? Perhaps she saw it as poetic justice.”

  She shrugged his arm off her shoulder and hooked her elbow through his. They walked side by side, for all the world like brother and sister, deep in conversation, putting the world to rights.

  “What will you do?” Ruby asked. “Try to find her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You should tell the police.”

  “They’ll laugh.”

  “Tell them anyway.”

  “They’ll figure it out for themselves, I guess.”

  “They won’t.”

  “I know.”

  “So tell them.”

  The thought of having to go to Whitaker with yet another fantastical tale hung heavy on his shoulders. He hated dealing with the police. They had a way of making him feel small, and worthless. And guilty.

  He was sick and tired of feeling that way. “We should sort ourselves out. I should find a proper home. You should get a job. We both should earn some money. Where do you live, anyway? I never seem to keep track.”

  “I moved. Again. A new squat. They keep closing them down.”

  “Bastards.”

  “They are.”

  He walked in silence and managed a full six paces before his thoughts sprang back to Kiera Roche. “She’s alive.”

  “I know. You mentioned that.”

  “What should I do? She killed those people.”

  “You can’t be sure.”

  “Middleton, for certain. And the rest. Joanne. Evelyn.”

  “You don’t have much luck with women.”

  “You can say that again.”

  They headed down the path that led back to the warren of side streets around the self-build site. “I should escort you home,” he said.

  “You’ve never done it before.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “We could go for a drink instead,” she said. “Or break open that whisky back at your place.”

  They emerged from the overgrown path, mined with potholes and dog pooh, turned the corner and walked along a terraced street.

  “I’ll have to find her. Stop her. She’ll kill again. Might be Hannah next. Or me.”

  “You could run away, somewhere where she’d never find you.”

  “She’s resourceful.” It was the understatement of the year. How did she kill all those people? Or set off explosions? Run rings around the police? Play the publishing establishment for fools? “I can’t hide forever.”

  “She might not want to hurt you. Maybe she still likes you.”

  “Funny way to show it.”

  “She could have killed you by now, if she meant to.”

  “She needed me alive: to create publicity so the books would sell.”

  “But what will she do next? She can’t keep selling Arthur Middleton novels.”

  “She’ll go public, I reckon. Tell the world it was her all along, writing his stories. Her memoirs could be quite a read.”

  Ruby slipped her arm out of his, and before he knew it, she’d taken hold of his hand. “Let’s go to the pub.”

  “I should stay sober. Just in case.”

  “You never stay sober.”

  “I haven’t call
ed Hannah yet. I should warn her.”

  “Let her be. There’s no danger. Not yet. Not until…”

  Not until Kiera realised she was rumbled? Or until the next big literary conference. What would it be? When? He needed Hannah for that.

  Ruby dragged him towards the Dog and Duck.

  “That pub’s kinda rough,” he said.

  “We’ll be all right.”

  “It’s working guys in there, no one else. Not many women.”

  “I’m sure you’ll protect me.” She let go of his hand and surged ahead. He had no choice but to follow. She headed straight for the bar and ordered up pints for each of them.

  “I’m paying,” Capgras said.

  “Of course you are. I haven’t got any money.”

  He gathered up the beers and carried them to a battered wooden table in a dark corner. Two men were playing darts and three more sat at the bar: one stared into his beer, another gazed at the news on the silent TV, and the last was pecking on his mobile phone. When Ruby took herself off to the toilet, Capgras seized the chance to check his phone. The news came at him from every quarter: comments on his blog, Facebook updates, messages in his Twitter stream and on his phone, emails from Jon Fitzgerald, asking for an update article.

  The Pomegranate book festival had announced four lifetime achievement awards, to be presented, posthumously, to the fallen heroes of the literary elite: Tony Haslam, Evelyn Vronsky, Joanne Leatherby and Jessica Reardon. Nothing for the book blogger murdered in the US, despite her commitment to romance reviews. Nor for the tramp, poisoned with bad hooch. Nothing for Arthur Middleton framed for a string of murders and strung up by the neck in a disused warehouse.

  Tomorrow. Capgras thumped his forehead with the palm of his hand. So slow, so stupid. Of course that’s where she would strike. At the annual book of the year awards. What better time or place? The great and the good of the London literati in one room, dressed up like Turkeys ready for Christmas.

  Ruby arrived back from the toilet, sat down and took a long swig of beer. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”