Money Never Sleeps (16 page)

‘Okay, folks, see you all again later. It’s time you went away and did some writing. A day without writing is a day wasted.’ Fancy turned to Jed. ‘What is it?’

‘We need to look at Grace’s room. I’ve got the key.’

‘Let’s go, then.’ She didn’t ask why.

She followed him into the main house, the mansion that had brought up the Victorian coal-owner’s big family. It all seemed vaguely familiar. Fancy remembered the curving staircase and the wide corridors and then the bedroom with the six beds. But Jed was not taking her there. He was taking her to the room opposite.

The bedroom was on the other side of the shared luxury
bathroom
Fancy would have been sharing with Grace.

‘This was Grace’s room, or Melody as we knew her. She had a room in the main house because she was the conference hostess.’

It was a pleasant room with large windows on two walls and facing views of the garden and the fields. It had a double bed, made up with quilt and cushions and modern cedar wood
furniture
and fitted beige carpet. Grace’s personal belongings were strewn around. Lots of make-up, a portable radio, lots of files about the guest speakers who needed to be escorted.

‘I was supposed to be in the room opposite,’ said Fancy. ‘But I refused it. I didn’t like it.’

‘What a difficult speaker you are.’

‘Very awkward. A pain.’

Fancy opened the double wardrobe door. The first few hangers contained long, floating dresses and skirts, pale pastel colours, very Melody. But on the last few hangers were plain skirts, navy and brown, with blouses and a couple of plain jackets. A very different style of dressing.

‘And look at these,’ said Fancy. There were three wig stands on a shelf with different wigs arranged on them; a golden one, a dark-brown short-cut and a wiry grey.

‘Three wigs,’ said Jed. ‘What does all that mean?’

‘I’ve no idea. But Grace was a complicated person. Two kinds of clothes and three wigs. She was playing a part.’

‘Amateur dramatics? Perhaps she was in the end of conference show.’

‘Maybe. We need to find out.’

By the side of the bed, on the nightstand, were several
manuscripts
. Grace had brought some of her children’s stories to work
on. Fancy was full of admiration for anyone who could get a
children’s
story published. It was well known that it was the hardest of all the writing genres. People thought it was easy because of the shortness of the stories and because they were for children but those were exactly the reasons for the difficulty in getting published.

Fancy scanned a couple of title pages and gasped. ‘Good heavens,’ she said, echoing Jed’s amazement. ‘Listen to this. Her heroine is a girl called Pinkie. The blurb is that she is a pen-pushing girl detective. Look. Pinkie, the Pen-pushing Girl Detective.’

‘But you write the Pink Pen Detective books, don’t you?’

‘And Grace was writing something quite a bit similar. I’ve had eight Pink Pen crime books published. I don’t know if these Pinkie stories have been published or are newly written. Maybe Grace thought I had somehow pinched her idea, but quite honestly it looks as if she had … well, adopted a form of my idea, but written it for children.’ Fancy tried to word it diplomatically.

Jed thumbed through the manuscripts. ‘Why bring them to the conference, though, if they have been published? It looks as if she was hoping to meet a publisher here or find an interested agent.’

Fancy turned the pages, reading the odd paragraph.

‘Perhaps she was trying to get rid of me, put an end to my books, so that her stories could have a clear run. It’s possible. Writers can be incredibly paranoid about their work.’ It was
difficult
to believe; Melody had been such a pleasant woman.

‘Paranoid enough to push you under a train? A sheep farmer from Cornwall?’

‘Grace had money. She could have paid someone to do it. Given them some other reason. I don’t know. But it is possible. It’s the first link we’ve found. The first possible reason for the attacks on me, however odd it may seem.’

‘But the attacks have continued long after Grace was drowned.’

‘I don’t know. But the police could look into Grace’s bank accounts. See if she has recently paid someone a large sum of money to get rid of me in London. Maybe some criminal who
owed her a favour. Perhaps the attempts were meant to injure me, not kill me, so that I couldn’t write any more. Remember, there were three attempts. It’s a possibility.’

‘Does this discovery make you feel any better about the recent events?’ said Jed, still half-reading another manuscript, flipping over the pages.

‘In a way, yes. It’s a reason. Some writers go to great lengths to get their work published. Grace may have thought it unfair that I got published and she didn’t. I don’t know. We can’t ask her.’

‘Or we could ask her husband, Rupert Harlow.’

‘He’s not likely to know. Writers keep their feelings closely to themselves.’

Jed closed the pages. ‘So I’ve noticed.’

L
unchtime at the conference that last day was buzzing with excitement. All the main courses had finished, wrapped up. There were no more talks or workshops. It was time for fun and relaxation, cementing friendships. Also time for packing, making arrangements and phoning home.

Officer Richmond and Fancy sat at a corner table where Fancy could have her back against a wall. It seemed the safest place. Dorothy had a good view of the whole room from her seat beside Fancy. They let someone else do the serving for a change. Lunch was lasagne and salad and new potatoes.

The discoveries in Grace’s bedroom had shaken Fancy. No one had stolen her ideas before, as far as she knew. Pinkie indeed. It was a blatant lift of her themed crime books. But it was not an offence. She could hardly sue. There was no copyright on ideas or titles.

Before lunch they had made a brief visit to the IT room and looked up Grace’s website on the internet. It was pretty bare of details, not even a grainy photograph. Nothing about writing or publishing Pinkie books. She had had two children’s books published. One called
Jumping Bean
and the other
Hedgehog with
Hiccups
. And both published some years back by a reputable house, about the same time that Fancy’s first Pink Pen mystery came out. There was nothing more recent.

Fancy’s detective books had generated a lot of publicity, daytime TV sofa shows, reviews in the newspapers. Even a couple of magazine articles with touched-up glossy photos. It had been a heady time. Fancy had thought for a while that she
had arrived. She soon discovered that she hadn’t. She had merely touched fame with the tip of her pen.

Perhaps Grace had read the books and decided she could ‘borrow’ the idea for a children’s series. Then, if she put an end to Fancy’s crime series, her own might stand a better chance of being published.

And putting an end to the crime series meant putting an end to the author. It became a possible motive.

Officer Richmond’s appetite had not diminished. She put away seconds of everything. Fancy declined the Bakewell tart and orange custard. She fingered a few black grapes. Drank some black coffee. Her mood was black. She didn’t often feel so down. Depression: the writer’s curse after writer’s block.

‘It’s their annual general meeting, right after lunch,’ said Fancy with little enthusiasm. ‘It’s traditional.’

‘Do you have to go?’

‘Not really. But my friends on the shelf said that support for the AGM by visiting lecturers always goes down well.’

‘Goes down well with whom? Then what happens?’

Fancy shrugged shoulders. ‘Collecting books from the book room, paying any bills for the phone, packing and then dressing up for the dregs party on the lawn. In the evening there’s
entertainment
, whatever they’ve been rehearsing all week. No idea what it will be. Probably a revue. I know someone who has brought bagpipes.’

‘What’s the dregs party?’

‘Any drink that’s left over from the private parties during the week is put out on the lawn. Or you take along anything that you have in your room and don’t want to cart home. A horrible mixture of drinks, I expect. Not good for the stomach. I think that is what they said.’

Fancy had little enthusiasm for this party either. She had been or not been to enough parties this week. It was easy to lose count, especially having lost slices of time. She wanted to go home to her own place, put on some comfortable clothes and lock the door on the world.

She would become a recluse, never go out, order food online, communicate by email. She need never see anyone again. Get a cat. It sounded good.

This would suit her. She would become mysterious and unavailable like Miss Haversham. Except that she would change her clothes, wash and eat healthily. Occasionally dust and vacuum the debris.

The AGM passed in a sort of haze. Fancy sat with her new friends, only half-listening. She was already back in her current book, longing to get her fingers on the keyboard, phrases coming into mind.

Officer Richmond also had a glazed expression. She wasn’t listening to what was going on. Why were they were arguing about the voting rights of new delegates, the quality of the soup in the dining room, or the prospect of higher prices in the future as forecast by the treasurer in his report? Maybe she had to write a report.

Fancy didn’t vote; she wasn’t a member. The procedure was all properly carried out, as far as she could see. No one could complain. But there were murmurs and complaints about whether it should be a cross or a tick. Were all AGMs so tedious? She had attended very few.

‘I’m going to pack,’ said Fancy, as they spilled out onto the lawn for tea. ‘Then change for the party. What are you going to do?’

‘I ought to report back. They need to hear from me regularly.’

‘I’ll be fine. You do what you have to do and I’ll see you later. Nothing can happen now. It’s time to go home.’

It was easier to pack going home. Once the clothes rail was empty, the drawers empty, bathroom cleared of all but essentials, there was nothing else. She left her travelling clothes out and the minimum of cosmetics for the morning. She was looking forward to going home.

But where was Jed? He had disappeared as usual. She was getting used to his double existence. She knew he wasn’t telling her everything. Perhaps he thought she would be frightened or dismayed.

She knew she must get used to not having Jed around. He was not permanent. He was part of the writers’ conference and an element of the disturbing events. Once she got back to London, he would be gone from her life.

She did not believe in love at first sight. She believed that love grew, that a long friendship sometimes tipped over into passionate love. And could be perfect.

The dregs party. Not the most inspiring name to give a party. It gave her mouth the taste of stale wine and unwashed glasses. She barely wanted to go but she knew it would be expected of her. To be seen to be mingling with other, less successful writers, still giving them hope and inspiration.

She put on the same black trousers and her favourite seeded white pearl top. Low slip-on shoes, no more heels. Especially on the lawn. A rope of pearls. A white flower pinned in her hair. Was that party-ish enough? She took a bottle of good red bought from the bar, not left over from anything.

The lawn was crowded. Many of the women had dressed up, black, sequins, gaudy tops, see-through chiffon, long dresses, dangling earrings. A couple of men were in dinner jackets, very smart. Others had ignored the dressing up, still wore the day’s grimy T-shirts and crushed fleeces, stained trainers.

Officer Richmond was close, faintly flushed from her labours over a laptop. ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Try to get me a drink from the bottle of wine that I brought. Nothing that is already opened and days old. I’ve a long drive tomorrow. I don’t want to be scurrying to the nearest loo every five minutes.’

‘Trust me. I’ll find you something decent.’

‘Thank you.’

Fancy turned to a woman who was talking to her. She had been on Fancy’s course, writing historical crime. An interesting idea because historical crime is about dark deeds that have already been committed. No need to invent or plot anything. Fancy was genuinely interested, especially in the research.

‘One has to juggle true facts with the fictional writing,’ the
writer said, twirling a glass of Coke so that it fizzed over her fingers. ‘It’s horrendously difficult at times. Especially these days when readers can check many facts on the internet.’

‘I admire the amount of research that must go into writing historical crime,’ said Fancy. ‘I don’t think I have the stamina.’

Someone gave her a drink. She thought it was Dorothy. It seemed like Dorothy was at her side, but she did not actually look. She was giving her full attention to the historical writer. A nod of thanks. People were talking round her, laughing, drinking, a milling crowd of people having a good time.

One moment she was looking at the sturdy Victorian mansion, the red brick walls, the sloping gables, tall chimneys and the expanse of manicured lawns with their colourful beds of flowers in careful shapes. She could smell cut grass from the gardeners’ labours that afternoon and a hint of rain. She could smell crisps, salt and vinegar, chilli being handed round. In the distance was a haze of Derbyshire fields and woods, dry stone walls
meandering
like a child’s drawing.

She had become separated from the main partying throng. But she did not know how it happened, turning and talking to someone different, changing the grouping.

Then there was a sharp pain. Somewhere on the back of her head. The sky became washed in complete blackness, only lines of dark branches changing the pattern. She could only register the darkness – if she could see anything at all. She did not remember the glass slipping out of her hand. The glass of a good red.

Even the party voices had disappeared. There was a buzzing in her ears as if a wasp was caught in her hair.

‘Get her in the car,’ someone said.