Killing the Shadows (2000) (20 page)

“That’s all very well,” Georgia said, her mouth drooping in petulance. “But we could be at serious risk here. Are you seriously suggesting that we forget all about this, Fiona?”

Fiona shook her head. “Of course not, Georgia. You and Kit must take every care.” She forced an artificial smile. “I understand you wanted your publisher to provide you with bodyguards for your book tour? That would be a good place to start.”

Kit stared at them, open-mouthed. He couldn’t believe Fiona had kept a straight face. “You want me to get a minder?” he asked, incredulous.

“Not if you take sensible precautions. Don’t be out on the street at night alone. Don’t strike up conversations with strangers when you’re on your own.” She grinned. “And don’t go to gay S&M bars.”

“I don’t think this is a joking matter, Fiona,” Georgia said huffily.

“No, sorry, you’re right, Georgia. But what you must bear in mind is that it’s unlikely the person who sent these letters is the same person who killed Drew.”

“How can you be so sure?”

It was Fiona’s turn to adopt an air of patronage. “There’s a saying in law enforcement. “Killers don’t call and callers don’t kill.” Psychologically speaking, people who write threatening letters seldom carry out their threats. What they want is to cause fear without getting their hands dirty. And people who murder generally fail to advertise their intentions ahead of time. It would make their plans much harder to carry out, for one thing. If you like, I’ll take both of these letters and subject them to professional psycho linguistic analysis. If, after that, I think there is some substantive reason to be genuinely worried, I’ll come to the police with you. Is that a deal?”

Georgia pursed her lips. If she could have seen how it revealed the fine lines around her mouth, she’d never have done it again. “I’ll allow myself to be guided by your professional judgement, Fiona. But I’m not entirely happy, I have to say. And I will be speaking to my publisher about providing me with a bodyguard.”

“Wise move,” said Fiona, struggling to stifle the giggle that threatened to erupt.

“And now,” Georgia said, gathering her dress around her and elegantly slipping her feet into her shoes, “I must away. Dear Anthony and I are dining with the culture minister and his partner, and I’m already fashionably late.”

While Kit saw Georgia to her car, Fiona reclaimed the sofa and stretched out full length, letting her muscles relax. The letters were disturbing. But now she had recognized what was really eating at her, she was able to put them into perspective. They contained, she believed, no credible threat.

She heard Kit running upstairs, and he collapsed on the sofa beside her, cuddling her close. “You are a very wicked woman,” he said, laughter in his voice.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Bodyguards would be a good place to start,” he mimicked.

“Well, she deserves it. Honestly, Kit, I don’t know how you can put up with all that archness.”

“I’ve always had a weakness for high camp,” he confessed. “She’s good fun, Fiona. And generous to a fault.”

“Only if you’re a chap, darling,” Fiona said, in a parody of Georgia’s grand manner.

“And they say men are bitches.” He slid his arms around her, pressing his body against hers. “Have we stopped fighting now?”

Fiona sighed. “I overreacted. I always have Lesley at the back of my mind. Even when I don’t know it myself.”

“Thank you, Caroline.” He buried his face in her hair and kissed her neck. Then he pulled away. “Oh, and by the way. I just wanted to say, I’ve never heard a bigger load of bullshit in all my time with you. “I’ll subject the letters to professional psycho linguistic analysis.” Honestly, Fiona.”

“Georgia seemed to think it was a good idea.”

“Yeah, but Georgia’s grasp on reality is shot to fuck. Let’s not forget she actually believes our policemen are wonderful. And that accusations of racism and corruption against the Metropolitan Police are wicked lies spread by left-wing conspirators.”

“They’re not?” Fiona’s eyes widened in mock-horror.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Fiona, but there’s no Father Christmas either.”

She pulled his head down towards her. “I’ll just have to see what you’ve got in your sack for me, then.”

T
he following evening, as usual, Fiona picked up a copy of the Evening Standard at the tube station on her way home from work. The lead story on page three so astonished her that she made no attempt to board her train when it pulled into the station. Instead, she carried on reading, transfixed.

Queen of Crime Found Murdered

Bestselling American thriller writer Jane Elias has been brutally murdered in a horrific crime that mirrors the gruesome violence of her own work, police in County Wicklow revealed today. Her mutilated body was discovered by a local forestry worker in the early hours of yesterday morning on a back road near the country estate that had been her home in the Republic of Ireland for the past four years. She had been so badly mauled by her killer that identification was impossible except by a distinctive scar she sustained after back surgery three years ago. A police spokesman said, “Experienced officers were shocked when they saw what had been done to the victim.”

“Miss Elias had lived in this area for four years and was very popular with local residents. We are pursuing various lines of inquiry, but at this stage, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to do this to her.”

Her British literary agent, Jeremy Devonshire, expressed deep shock at the news. “It’s appalling,” he said. “I can’t take it in. Jane was the most charming of women. We worked together for the past five years and I can honestly say we never had a cross word.”

A spokesman for her publishers, Turnhouse Bachelor, said, “We are deeply shocked by this news. Jane was not only a shining talent but also a delight to work with. The whole company is grieving today.”

Psychopaths

Jane Elias leapt to the top of the bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic seven years ago with her first novel, Death on Arrival, which introduced forensic psychologist Dr. Jay Schumann, an FBI serial killer profiler.

There followed an award-winning series of novels, three of which have been filmed by Hollywood, including her debut novel. The adaptation of Death on Arrival, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, won an Oscar.

Jane Elias was notable for her reclusive lifestyle. Unlike most top-selling writers, she shunned publicity, only rarely emerging from her seclusion to talk to the press.

She explained her move to Ireland as a desire for peace and quiet which she could no longer find in her native New England.

Security at her Georgian mansion on the shores of Lough Killargan was notoriously tight, with permanent guards and closed-circuit TV monitoring the five-mile perimeter fence. In spite of that, she played an active role in her local community, most recently writing a play for the local church dramatic group to help raise funds for a children’s play group A keen sailor, Jane Elias maintained several boats at her private marina. This morning, there was speculation that she may have been attacked while she was sailing one of her yachts on the lake.

Shocked, Fiona read the story again, half expecting that this time the words would rearrange themselves in a different order. But the news remained the same. A woman she had sat opposite at dinner less than three months before was now a murder victim. No amount of familiarity with the business of homicide investigation could lessen the immediacy of the cold horror that swept through her.

Fiona had no recollection of the journey home, her mind entirely occupied with memories of Jane Elias in life and the images her informed mind conjured up of the writer’s body in death. They had met on Jane’s last trip to London, on the publication of her seventh Jay Schumann novel, Double Take. Jane and Kit shared a publisher, and because of Jane’s reluctance to make public appearances, Turnhouse Bachelor had arranged a series of private dinners for senior buyers in the book trade and key reviewers. To maximize their benefit, they had also invited a couple of their other crime authors to each of the dinners, which was how Kit and Fiona had come to meet the American. Of course, as soon as Jane had discovered Fiona’s professional interest in crime, she had been far more interested in talking to her than any of the other guests, and the two women had spent a large part of the evening deep in gruesome discussion of murder and its motivations.

Fiona had been drawn to Jane, first because of her intellectual incisiveness but also because of her acerbic wit. She could see why Jane had prevailed against the understandable demands of her publishers for her to take a more active role in promoting her work. Anyone who had once been on the receiving end of that caustic tongue wouldn’t want to repeat the experience in a hurry.

But now that voice was stilled forever. It was, Fiona thought as she plodded up Dartmouth Park Hill, a loss she felt more keenly than she would have expected. And now she would probably have to break the news to Kit.

She walked through the front door to the clear voice of Tracey Thorn revealing that she was out among the walking wounded. Fiona knew just how she felt. She walked into Kit’s study, finding him hunched over the keyboard, fingers flying. She put a hand on his shoulder and kissed the top of his gleaming head.

“Gimme five minutes,” he said abstractedly.

Fiona left him to it. Bad news always came too soon. Better that he finished what he was focused on than she interrupted his flow with something so momentous that he would always connect it to that chapter, that paragraph. In the kitchen, she poured them both a glass of cold white wine and sat down at the table to wait. The five minutes turned into twelve, but Fiona felt no impatience. There was nothing either of them could do for Jane now.

At last, Kit appeared, grinning a greeting that faded to uncertainty when he saw her sombre face. “What’s the matter?” he asked, concern furrowing his forehead.

Fiona pushed a glass towards him. “Bad news.” There was no way to sugar-coat it, so she didn’t even try. “Jane Elias has been murdered.”

Kit’s hand froze halfway to his drink. “Jane?” he said, incredulous. “Murdered? Where? When? What happened?”

Fiona pushed the paper across the table. “That’s as much as I know.”

Kit dropped heavily into a chair, reaching for his wine and scanning the paper. “This is terrible,” he said, shaking his head. “Poor Jane. Shit, I can’t believe it.”

“I couldn’t take it in either. She was such a strong personality. It’s hard to imagine her as a victim.”

“It’s a fucking nightmare.” Kit ran his hand over his head in a gesture of consternation. “And it’s only two or three weeks since Drew was killed.” He stopped dead in mid-gesture. “You don’t suppose they’re connected? Somebody going after thriller writers?”

“No, I don’t,” Fiona said firmly, reaching across the table and putting a hand on his arm. “There’s no reason to think that, Kit. Different countries, different gender, different body dumps. The fact that they both wrote psychological thrillers is just a horrible coincidence.”

“You always say there’s no such thing as coincidence.”

“OK, maybe not quite coincidence. It’s possible that somebody who was as obsessed with Jane as Drew’s killer was with him saw the stories about his murder and decided that was the best way to deal with the object of his desire. But to decide on the basis of these two cases that there’s a killer out there targeting people who write crime fiction is a nonsense.”

Kit shook his head and sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s just that I live in a world where conspiracy theory always seems more attractive than cock-up. It’s like, it would be easier to believe that there’s a serial killer on a spree than that there are two seriously fucked-up individuals out there who get their rocks off murdering writers. And when you factor in the letters…well, it just seems like there’s a fuck of a lot of crazies out there with an interest in people like me.”

“I can see why it feels like that. But I don’t think it’s anything more than bad timing, I really don’t.” Fiona felt the hollowness of her words even as she spoke them. There was nothing she could say to help, and she hated that feeling.

Kit pulled away and slammed his hands palm-down on the table. “I mean, how could this have happened to Jane? Of all people? She guarded her privacy so closely. Everybody knew that place of hers was like a fortress.”

“Maybe that was the challenge,” Fiona mused, unable to ignore the professional wheels going round. It was always her refuge of choice when she didn’t know how else to respond. She wasn’t proud of it, but she didn’t know how to change it. Or even if she wanted to. Some of her best ideas had come out of work as displacement activity.

“Why would anybody have it in for her?” Kit demanded. “I mean, sure, she generated a lot of envy from other writers. But people who say they’d kill for Jane Elias’s sales figures, that’s just talk. Writers don’t take out the competition like the Mafia. But outside the business why would she be a target?”

Fiona shrugged. “The usual reasons. Love, hate, greed, fear. Was she involved with anyone?”

Kit shook his head. “I’ve no idea. I never heard any gossip about her personal life. Which is unusual in itself. You know what a rumour mill the book world is. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. I could tell you what her last advance was.”

“Which was?”

“Eighteen million dollars for a three-book deal. But I’ve never heard anything about who she was shagging. If there was anybody. Maybe she was just one of those people that aren’t bothered about sex. I certainly didn’t get any vibe off her. Did you?”

“No,” Fiona said. “Nothing flirtatious, either with the women or the men at that dinner.”

“That’s right. Dead cool, kept her distance. The only time she really got animated was when the two of you got stuck into that stuff about the compliant victims of the sexual sadist.” He got to his feet and headed for the fridge, where he started methodically removing vegetables from the chiller. “Couscous and roast vegetables,” he said, half to himself.