Money Never Sleeps (7 page)

‘That looks pretty old,’ said Fancy, gazing up. So much of the intricate stonework was still intact, a monument to stonemasons of old, carving their gargoyles and angels. The angels were ready to fly. Instinctively she ducked her head.

‘Twelfth century, I think. Would you like to see round the house, go on a tour? There’s a grand galleried hall where Byron used to do his shooting practice.’

‘I think I’d just like to walk round these lovely gardens,’ said Fancy. ‘My head’s too full to take in loads of information and history. I’d rather walk and relax.’

‘Good idea. Let’s walk, then. I’ll keep an eye on the time. You’ll want to be back at Northcote before supper. It’s your big evening.’

‘Don’t remind me. Perhaps you could have a puncture or two on the way back. Somebody would fill in for me. The panellist this morning who wouldn’t stop talking. She’d do it like a shot.’

‘Nonsense. You’ll be fine. You know your subject and what’s more you’re enthusiastic about writing. Everyone loves your course.’

‘A course is different to a talk. In a course you’re interacting with people, encouraging feedback and batting ideas around. A talk means I have to stand on that dratted platform with three hundred and fifty pairs of eyes glued on me. All my enthusiasm will drain out of me.’

She didn’t add: and one pair of eyes who hates me enough to start a fire outside my bedroom. Jed could read her thoughts.

‘We might have scared him off,’ he said. ‘The fire was too public. A lot of people were involved. Everything else has been for you alone.’

They were taking a path towards a pond, lake, river, whatever it was. It was shimmering water. Fancy shivered. Water made her think about Melody. The police were still interviewing everyone but no one was being told anything. The place was alive with rumours. Some over-imaginative idiot even had the nerve to say it was all a hoax, that the police were out-of-work actors, and Melody would reappear at Thursday night’s concert to sing
Auld Lang Syne
and present prizes.

Fancy found the joke distasteful. She could still see the pale arm and the swirling chiffon material floating on the water. That hadn’t been a hoax. Someone had stolen Melody’s life. She had still a life ahead, children’s stories to write.

But the walk through the gardens and the flowers was
beautiful
. Lots of new saplings were being planted. They dutifully looked at the oldest tree, which had its own plaque. It looked old and misshapen, wizened branches spread, touching the ground, almost too tired to stand up straight. Even the lake was tranquil and wafted cooling breezes across the water.

It was turning into a scorching afternoon, the sun melting down through a cloudless sky. Fancy rolled up her sleeves and Jed loosened his collar. He did not touch her or take her hand. They’d only known each other a few days and had not reached the hand-holding stage though Fancy felt it would have been quite natural if he had reached out to her.

She began to like him, to be less suspicious. He knew about suffering, his arm and that. He made fun of her but only in the kindest way.

At a steep downward step she went to take his arm but it was the arm that couldn’t move and she almost fell. It was Jed who caught her with his good hand and steadied her.

‘If you want assistance at any time, you have to walk the other side of me,’ he said. ‘I’m a one-armed warrior.’

‘Sorry. I keep forgetting. I’ll remember that.’

‘Fancy an ice cream?’

They stopped abruptly and laughed. A meandering
middle-aged
group on the path looked at them. They were from the coach party. They couldn’t see anything funny.

‘I’ve never been called an ice cream before,’ said Fancy.

They were back at Northcote in good time for Fancy to shower and change for supper. She did not feel at all hungry but thought she should sit at the committee table that evening as she was the invited after-dinner speaker.

She prayed that the menu would be light and tasty. She was getting the collywobbles and feeling sick with nerves. As it was a special occasion, she wore a long, straight, velvet skirt and a ruched-lace printed tunic top with adjustable side ties. It was very elegant. She tied her hair back and clipped on gold dangling earrings.

The dining room was already full and tomato soup was being ladled out at the table into big bowls.

‘No, thank you,’ said Fancy, seeing herself dripping soup down her front and having to go on the platform wearing red splodges. Nor could she face the steak and kidney pie, so made
do with a few fresh vegetables. It was tinned fruit salad and ice cream afterwards, which was not hard to eat. She swirled the lot around her dish into a creamy pink mud. Cold mud. It reminded her of the ice cream they had eaten at Newstead Abbey, the ice cream melting faster than they could eat it.

‘Would you like some more, Fancy?’ asked Jessie, who was serving that evening. ‘You’ve hardly eaten anything.’

‘Sorry, I’m too nervous,’ she said.

‘You’re nervous?’ exclaimed Fergus. ‘Yet you must have done dozens of these talks.’

‘I have, but it never gets any easier. Believe me, nerves never go away. I’ll skip coffee too,’ she added. ‘Don’t want to get caught short in the middle of my talk.’

Fancy rose from the table amid a chorus of good luck wishes.

‘Bonne chance!’ said Jessie.

They knew how she felt, and sympathized. But it was something she had to face alone. She walked outside along the garden path in the gathering gloom. Fergus would join her later and escort her into the conference hall once it was full. The walk to the scaffold.

Jessie came running after her. ‘Fancy. You left your belt behind at the table. It must have dropped off. I found it on the floor.’

She had Fancy’s pink leather belt in her hand. Fancy took it. She hadn’t been wearing the belt. She was wearing a loose tunic top that didn’t need one.

‘Thanks.’

Fancy took the belt and held it limply. She dare not look at it. She knew instinctively by the feel of it that something was wrong. Someone had been into her Lakeside bedroom and taken it. She did not know what to do. There was a hard lump in her throat and it wasn’t a piece of chopped fruit salad.

Jed came up beside her. He was wearing his Mafia outfit, all black, very sexy. ‘Break a leg,’ he said with a grin.

She held out the belt. It hung loosely in her hand. It had been slashed in several places, slashed with a sharp knife.

‘Look at this,’ she said. ‘My belt. Slashed all along. That knife was meant for me.’

J
ed whipped a clean plastic food bag from the kitchen and put the belt in it. He had a pal in Derby, another mate apparently, tops for fingerprints. Then he turned his attention to Fancy. She was paralyzed with fright. She stood on the path, in the growing dark, halfway to the conference hall, barely hearing what Fergus was saying to her.

‘It’s time to go in,’ Fergus urged. ‘Fancy? Come along, lass. They’re all waiting.’

Fancy was not listening to him. That knife would be slashing her next. She could feel its cold blade against her skin.

Jed was beside her again. He looked tall, dark and forbidding. Something different about him. He had put the evidence in a safe place and out of sight. He touched her arm. ‘Fancy? Speak to me. Say something.’

‘I can’t do it,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, you can,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re not going to let some stupid prankster get the better of you. You know what you’re going to say. You’re going to give these budding writers hope. You’re going to tell them that failure is only an illusion.’

Her heart missed a beat. She was a failure. ‘I can’t,’ she said.

Jed turned to the chairman. ‘I’m going on with Fancy. Is that all right? It’s going to be a twosome. A kind of conversation. Ant and Dec-style, vaguely. I ask a few questions and Fancy will answer them. We’ve changed the format. A chat show, an
interview
-type talk.’

Fancy did not know what he was talking about.

‘Anything,’ said Fergus, desperate now. ‘As long as Fancy goes on that platform. She can’t cancel at the very last moment. It would be a disaster.’

Jed took Fancy’s arm with his good hand. ‘Come along, famous lady crime writer. Show them what you’re made of. Let’s go blow them off this planet. Put on that gorgeous smile, baby.’

‘I’m not—’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘Failure.’

‘I can’t even spell it.’

Fancy found herself being propelled into the main conference hall. It was full. A sea of expectant faces turned towards her, many of whom she knew. The shelf was full. They were all her friends. She wished she was sitting up there with them.

A second chair was hastily put on the platform and the lectern removed. Jed and Fancy were both going to sit for this talk. The technical man adjusted the height of the mikes in front of them.

‘It’s going to be a different kind of lecture this evening,’ said Fergus. ‘As you all know, Fancy has a couple of bad burns from last night’s incident and it is unfair to ask her to stand. And John Edwards, who has some professional experience of crime, has agreed to fire the questions at her. So a big hand, ladies and gentleman, for tonight’s speaker, the well-known crime writer, Miss Fancy Burne-Jones.’

Fancy had to admire the way the chairman had made it sound as if it was all his idea. Though ‘fire the questions’ was a tactless phrase. Her first half-smile of the evening appeared. Jed took it as a good sign and sent her a silent signal of approval. They were ready to start.

‘We all want to know the difference between crime writing and thrillers,’ said Jed. He looked so good, sitting there, in charge, air of natural authority. ‘Is there a difference, Fancy?’

Fancy shifted in her seat, found a more comfortable position. She could not think of any words. ‘The simple answer is … that crime writing includes an element of police procedure, whereas a thriller is all action. But the
Die Hard
films explode that theory,
sorry Bruce Willis. They are all action yet Bruce is cast as a policeman.’

Fancy was off. There was no stopping her.

Jed had only to steer her towards new aspects. He had an idea what everyone wanted to know. But he did not mention cold cases or her magazine. There was no need to include something which might shatter her present fragile confidence.

‘You write every day, don’t you?’

‘A day without writing is a day wasted,’ said Fancy. She paused. She hadn’t written a word today yet she could not consider it wasted. She had spent a magical afternoon with Jed, among flowers and a sense of history, words spiralling into her head to use later. Perhaps there would be time tonight.

‘My own ninety-day novel course proves that you can write the first draft of a novel in ninety days. And I’ve done it myself several times. Seven hundred words a day and in ninety days you have a novel ready to work on.’

‘Ready to work on? What do you mean?’

‘The first draft is the skeleton of your story. Revising is putting the flesh on the bones. The next revision is honing and whittling and polishing. It’s the part I like best. Cut, cut … cut.’ Fancy’s voice was unsteady for a moment. The audience thought it was emotion. Jed knew she was thinking of her pink belt.

‘Is that it, then? Two revisions?’

‘No, I do a third and final revision so that each page looks right. A reasonable amount of white. And a shining word. Long exchanges of dialogue are broken up. Heavy paragraphs split. Although the typed page is shorter than the printed page of your book, if you get it right initially, it will look right on the page.’

‘What do you mean by white?’

Fancy laughed, looking around. ‘White paper, white space, a line with nothing much on it. When people go to borrow or buy a book, they flick through the pages. If there is too much black, that is, too much print, it looks heavy going and they may put it back, unless they are an academic. But if there is plenty of white, they know they are going to be able to read it quickly and enjoy
it. That’s the way to sell books. Unless you rent a stall on Portobello Road and spend your Sundays flogging titles at a discount.’

‘You said something about a shining word.’

‘I always make sure that every page has a bright word, a
beautiful
word, an unusual word, something special that shines out like a beacon.’

‘Not all of us can write like a beacon.’

‘Every one of us has special words hidden away inside or favourite words. Mine are meticulous and serendipity.’

By a quarter past nine, Fancy was flagging. She had talked solidly for three-quarters of an hour, without a single note. Jed passed her a half-full tumbler of water and she took a grateful drink, almost choking on the first mouthful. The taste was sharp: a double gin and tonic.

She flashed him a brilliant smile of thanks. It was just what she needed. A sip of gin now and then kept the energy flowing. She got funnier and funnier. The audience were laughing, enjoying her dry wit and merciless opinion of the book trade She also made fun of herself.

‘Burne-Jones is a good writing name. I’m on the top shelf but a bit out of reach for shorter readers. I have a friend whose name begins with W. She goes into W H Smith every morning and moves her books from the floor to eye-level. The staff are getting to know her. Her books are moved back every evening.’

‘Writers are very generous people,’ said Jed. ‘Always willing to share their knowledge. Don’t you agree?’

‘Of course. In the end it’s down to individual talent. Always write from the heart. Writing brings happiness, to you as the writer and then to your readers. Make a contract with your reader. This is the contract: I will give you a book worth reading. All you have to give me is your time.’

The audience broke out into spontaneous applause. Jed thought Fancy had brought it neatly to an end without sounding pompous or patronizing. He leaned across towards her chair. ‘Well done,’ he said, gravely. Fancy finished her drink.

‘Is there any more of that water?’ she asked.

‘In the bar.’

She pretended a big sigh. ‘I’ll have to wait.’

A forest of hands went up, each with a burning question. Some questions were almost a major speech but Jed managed to whittle them down into something that required an answer. Everyone wanted to ask Fancy a question. They got some odd-ball replies. She was relaxed now that it was all over and could afford to be a bit flippant. No one minded.

More applause and it was time to leave the hall, escorted by the chairman. People scraped their chairs back. They were going to give her a standing ovation.

Jed put his head down close to the microphone. ‘No standing, please. Fancy is a working author, not Nelson Mandela or Terry Waite.’

This brought another wave of applause. Jed had known instinctively that Fancy would hate disproportionate admiration. He was right. She was nodding and smiling in his direction. Their smiles caught like shafts of sunshine, bouncing back to each other.

‘The water was wonderful,’ she said as she brushed past him. ‘From an ancient Scottish spring, running over burns, no doubt.’

‘You were wonderful,’ he replied.

Fergus took her straight to the bar where there was a bottle of champagne on ice. ‘And you deserve every drop,’ he said, pouring the glistening foam into a cluster of flutes. The committee gathered round, eager for their share of the
unexpected
champagne. They didn’t get champagne after every speaker. Jed accepted a beer. He preferred it anyway.

‘That worked very well,’ said Fergus. ‘The twosome
conversation
was very relaxed and enjoyable. Sometimes speakers get carried away by their early struggles and we have to hear about every harrowing rejection.’

‘Or they insist on telling us the entire plot of their latest and then read bits of it out aloud to us. I hate that,’ said Jessie. ‘And of course, we had two classy people to look at. All the men were
looking at Fancy and all the women were gazing at Jed. Like a scene from
Gone With The Wind
.’

Jed did not know where to look. He cleared his throat and sipped his beer.

Fancy unpinned her topknot and let it fall round her
shoulders
. She felt carefree for once. No more worries about talking.

She had to laugh again as the champagne tickled her nose. Jed looked so put out. ‘All the women gazing at such a handsome policeman?’ she whispered towards him. ‘And I hadn’t even noticed.’

Someone topped up her glass. She was well on the way to becoming rather merry. Lots of champagne and a double gin on top of a few carrots and a dish of muddy ice cream. What could she expect? She had freed her fingers from the bandage and could hold a glass very well now. It had taken practice.

There were only two more working days of Northcote: Wednesday and Thursday. She had two more course lectures to do and then she could go home first thing on Friday morning, having fulfilled her contract.

But she did not want to go home. There would be no Jed to support her. What if this belt-slashing maniac followed her back to her church lodge and set fire to it?

‘Fancy, you’re supposed to be signing books in the book room,’ said the book room lady. ‘There’s a queue forming. I hope you can still sign your name.’

‘I’ll put a cross,’ said Fancy, taking her champagne with her. ‘Or a double cross, meaning with love.’

‘Tut, tut,’ said the book room lady, grinning. ‘What we have to put up with, getting authors to sign their books. Next year I’ll bring a rubber stamp.’

Fancy spent half an hour signing books. Fergus came through with a refill of champagne. She could hardly remember her name in the feeding frenzy. She had to look at each book cover to remind herself who she was before she signed. But her smiles became lovelier and wider. And she had some words of
encouragement
to say to each writer. She sold a lot of books.

Jed came to the door of the book room. He had loosened the top button of his shirt, but he looked cold, forlorn somehow. ‘Writer’s cramp yet?’

She could see that he needed her. He didn’t have to say anything.

‘Nearly finished,’ she said, wanting to wrap her arms round him but remembering in time that she was in company.

The queue tailed away, joining a different queue at the bar. Others drifted off to the late night talks, quizzes and readings. The energetic went to the disco; others stayed in the bar to drink and talk. It was warm enough to go outside and the lawn was dotted with groups talking and laughing. The gazebo was full, as usual, its occupants puffing away.

Jed found the same two seats in the vinery, hidden behind the big leaves. It was perfect for a quiet moment. Fancy needed to wind down. She was still on a high after her talk and too much to drink.

She tried to pin her hair back but her fingers had lost the knack. The bandages were coming undone and she fumbled, unable to retie them. They were looking dingy. Tomorrow she would beg a roll of cling film from the kitchen.

‘Thank goodness,’ she said, sitting back in a cane chair, ducking behind a leaf. ‘At last, a moment alone.’

‘You’re not alone. I’m here.’

‘A moment alone with you, I mean. I’ve had enough of the maddening crowds. Sit down, Jed. You look worn out.’

‘I’ve been on the phone a lot, finding out things. Do you want to hear about it?’

‘Yes, sure. But if you want another beer, the bar is about to close.’

‘Back in a moment. Keep my seat.’

Jed had to wait in the queue but when he returned, he was carrying a beer, a Campari and ice and a packet of crisps. They had lent him a tray. He manoeuvred the tray onto the table top. ‘Guessed you didn’t eat much at supper.’

‘Crisps! Salt and vinegar. Great, this must be Christmas.’

They let the wave of noise wash over them, almost too tired to open the crisps. It was quite dark outside, shadows creeping up
over the lawn, great trees looming. Pale faces, a cigarette being lit, flash of a torch. People were dispersing.

Fancy felt the euphoria soaking away, down her legs and into the tiled floor. It was getting cold but it was too late and too far to go to fetch a jersey. Besides, she was afraid of room 425. Afraid of what she might find there.

‘Are you warm enough?’

‘I’m fine,’ she lied.

‘Do you remember
The Missing Cover Girl
case?’

‘Vaguely.’ Fancy was only being polite. She didn’t want to talk about a cold case. She was far too tired.

‘They were twin girls called Thelma and Grace, born in late July 1950. They were both dark and beautiful, stunners, in fact, but so different in character. Thelma was flighty and flirtatious, got a job as a model, her face on the covers of glossy magazines everywhere. Grace was quiet and studious, went on to Durham University, graduated and became a press officer for one of the political parties.’