Pompomberry House (16 page)

And why would Biff’s killer want to copy our plots? Why
would any of the writers want to realise our plots? Sure, the gnomes could have
been a cute publicity stunt, but hurting a pig and leaving a severed foot on the
beach were not actions that would further anybody’s reputation.

Danger Smith was too principled to allow somebody he’d actually
met to review his writing, I hardly saw him endorsing the relocation of human
body parts. But perhaps, with Biff’s murdered body in front of him, stealing a
foot for later use had been too tempting to resist.

It was no good. All this speculation was gaining me nothing
but a sore head. I needed to get a second opinion, and I knew just the second
opinion that I wanted.

No, Dee! No. You asked him to leave for a good reason.
Remember the Scooby-Doo costume! Remember how indolent he is! Yes, but he has a
quick brain, he’ll help you narrow down the suspects in no time!
Oh, why
has the murder plot happened
now
?

My hand hovered over my phone. I willed myself not to call
him. I used areas of will I didn’t even know I had, like the determination in
my little toes, the resolve in my hair follicles and the backbone in my ... er ... 
backbone
.
And even then, I almost called him.

Just as I was conjuring willpower from the mole on my left
inner thigh, my phone bleeped. I jumped! Then realised that it was just an
email. It’s amazing how edgy an impending murder can make you.

I opened my inbox — Annabel Fleming,
again.
But
actually, on this occasion, Annabel Fleming might be the very person I needed
to speak to. I mean, sure, she was a suspect, but she also knew the other
suspects and she got on with at least one of them a lot better than I did.

Yes, she was annoying, superficial, misguided and a little
stupid, but after giving it some thought, I decided she was probably one of the
best of a bad lot. She would certainly be the most transparent.

If Annabel wasn’t responsible for the copycats, she might
know who was, and I felt sure that it wouldn’t take very long to get the truth
out of her. After all, she was my ‘BFF’.

I took a deep breath and typed, ‘Okay! Let’s do it! Let’s go
for that coffee that you’ve suggested nine times.’

* * *

I smelt Annabel coming — an eclectic blend of
celebrity-endorsed perfume, Pantene shampoo and ample lashings of self-confidence.
I waited quietly for her to sit opposite me at the round, aluminium table, denying
her the satisfaction of seeing me watch her entrance.

Before she sat down, I caught a glimpse of her outfit. She
wore seamed stockings; a short, straight skirt and a sleeveless blouse. Her
hair was secured with a diamanté clasp.

I’d dressed up for the occasion too — I wore my favourite red
beret, combined with a fairly new t-shirt and jeans.

This particular bar would not have been my first choice, but
it suited Annabel well. It was expensive and took itself far too seriously. The
type of place that had television screens on the beer pumps, which played soulless
fashion shows on loop. Insipid pop songs blared from speakers, featuring pop
stars famous for their looks rather than their vocal range. I would have preferred
somewhere more traditional and, frankly, less fluorescent. Nevertheless, I
wanted Annabel to feel comfortable. Gareth had pointed out that she was more
likely to be helpful if she were relaxed.

“I’m so glad we’re still friends!” she sang, moving in for a
hug about which I was decidedly uncomfortable.

“The storylines in our book are coming true,” I said, arms
firmly by my side.

She looked confused, as she hovered mid-air with her smooth,
pink arms outstretched. “What?” she asked, softly.

“The pig, the gnomes, the foot, they’re all coming true.”

“What do you mean?” Finally, she gave up attempting to
initiate physical contact and stood, watching me.

“Don’t you read the news?” I asked.

She twiddled her hair, answering my question.

“Sit down,” I suggested.

“What’s the matter?”

And so I explained the events of the previous few days, and
how closely they mirrored the plots in Dawn’s, Danger’s and her own storylines.

I looked at her, with her false lashes and blend of
different lipsticks. Was somebody who used three shades of eye shadow even
capable of understanding the gravity of the situation?

Her horrified, almost frightened expression told me that
yes, she did understand the gravity of the situation. Her lip trembled several
times.

Eventually, she found the gumption to speak. “Oh good golly!”
she cried.

I wondered what she’d say next, ‘This has implications of life
and death’ perhaps, ‘Have you called the police?’ or maybe ‘Oh heck! A killer
is amongst us!’.

Instead, “Biff’s ghost has come back to haunt us!”

What?

“I was worried that this might happen, and now it has!” she
stuttered, through a mouth so heavily enhanced that it looked like two chillies
mating.

“Just because you covered up his murder, doesn’t mean that
he’s come back to haunt you!”

“What?” she asked, looking genuinely perplexed and perhaps a
little hurt.

“You did cover up his murder, didn’t you?”

“No, of course not. That was a ridiculous plan! I left as
soon as the tide went out.”

“You did?”

“Yes, Rafe too! He left with me,” she added with a moment of
glee. She tried to stifle a smile but it was obvious that she still considered
Rafe the prize in a particularly tough contest. When would she realise that she
had been the only entrant?

“And then what happened? What did the others do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, they must have hidden the body, because the police don’t
know about the murder.”

So Annabel, like me, had left the island early? There was
actually a reason to respect her. Mind you, you know you’re dealing with a
numpty when her saving grace is that she
didn’t
help to cover up a
murder.

And Rafe had left too ... I wondered who decided
they were going to leave. Did Annabel follow Rafe, or did Rafe follow Annabel?
Remembering how her gaze used to trail around the room after him, like a lost
puppy, I suspected that Rafe initiated the decision.

“Annabel, I really don’t think that we’re being haunted.
There must be a more earthly explanation for this.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as a living perpetrator.”

“Perpet ...?”

“Perpetrator — it means culprit!”

“You think a living person did this?”

“Yes!”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping that you might be able to help
me out there.”

“How?”

“Because you know the suspects. Until the book was
published, the only people who knew about the stories were those of us on the
island.”

“But why would one of us want to hurt a pig?”

“Or leave a human foot on a beach.”

“Exactly. Why would any of us do that?” she wondered.

“I don’t know, but somebody on that island must have done.
It couldn’t possibly be anybody else.”

“What if somebody stole the files?”

“How? And
why
?” I asked. Why would anybody want to
steal
those
stories?

Then I remembered the theft of my memory card. Perhaps the
others’ stories had been stolen too. One way or another, my memory card must have
ended up in the other writers’ possession, because my book was in the anthology
and the only other copy was at the bottom of the sea — well, the bottom of the
causeway. But had somebody else seen it first?

“Did you see a laptop when the tide went out?”

“No, why?”

“Do you know how my story ended up in the collection?”

“No, I thought you must have emailed it to them.”

“To who?”

“The editors: Dawn and Monty.”

“Who made them editors?”

“Self-appointed.”

“Naturally.”

“So you didn’t send them your story?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“In fact, I never even finished it. The version in the anthology
was a first draft.”

“Oh, I wondered why you split an infinitive.”

“Split an infinitive? Annabel, the story was riddled with
typos, as well as plot holes!”

“Was it?”

Jesus! How could she pick up on a split infinitive yet not
notice all the rogue punctuation?

Getting back to the more important matter at hand: Dawn and
Montgomery looked more guilty with every minute. They had stayed on the island.
My story had ended up in their hands. However, with Dawn in Spain for a month, it
left only ... “Montgomery!” I muttered.

“You don’t think Montgomery could have done this?” asked
Annabel, sounding shocked. “He’s such a harmless old chap!”

“Well somebody did.”

Suddenly, she gasped.

“What is it?”

“He had an affair!” she cried, hands to her mouth. I noticed
that her nail varnish matched her lipstick.

“So?”

“Well he’s not a goody then, is he?”

“Annabel, you can’t conclude that somebody would be cruel to
an animal, leave a severed foot on a beach and plan a murder, just because he
had an affair. Having difficulty keeping it in your pants is hardly a precursor
to the violent slaughter of another human being.”

“Well then, it must be a ghost.”

I sighed, rolled my eyes and sank into the table,
despairingly.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“No, that’s God.”

“What?”

“There’s no such thing as God.”

I decided that it was neither the time nor the place for a
theological debate. I had to prioritise getting through to Annabel about
ghosts. I needed information — real information — and I wasn’t going to get it
while she believed that there were supernatural forces at work.

What was she doing now? She appeared to be rooting around in
her designer shopping bag for something. Eventually, she found what she was
looking for. Oh no! It was a trashy women’s magazine. The kind with a bland
name written in white on a red background, with an even more bland looking
woman on the front.

“There’s a great article in here about spooks.”

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t usually buy this!” she laughed, blushing. “I
picked
Go Girl
because Danger has a story in it.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t call himself ‘Danger’ in here of course.”

“What does he call himself?”

“Angel. Angel Smith.”

Dear God
.

“It’s a very good story actually. A light comedy about a
couple who both hire the same private detective to investigate the other.”

“But wasn’t that Rafe’s idea?”

“No, not at all; Angel’s story is set in Ireland!”

Annabel continued rooting through the magazine, as if an
article in a women’s mag was going to be the answer to all of our problems.

Suddenly, she became animated. “I know!”

“What?”

“Why don’t we write another story, and see if it comes true?”

“How would that help? We’d have to know who the villain is
to make sure that he or she knows about the story. Unless you’re suggesting
showing it to everybody ...”

“We don’t show anybody. That’s the point. If it’s Biff’s
ghost, or any other ghost for that matter, the story will come true whether living
people have seen it or not!”

I looked at her. She was a few eyeliners short of a makeup
box. How could she possibly think that her idea was a good one?

For no apparent reason, Gulls Reach popped into my head. I
remembered the old, ghostly lady. I remembered the birds on the island, and the
evil glint in their eyes when they had looked at me. Was supernatural activity so
completely unlikely? If seagulls could bear grudges — and I rather felt that
they could — then perhaps I should consider the possibility that the unexplained
could explain the yet to be explained.

“All right, fine,” I heard myself say. But first, I was
going to go to the bathroom. I wasn’t tempting a demon on a full bladder. I
collected my things together and made my way over to the pink door marked
‘Misses’.

I stared at my reflection.
What are you doing Dee? What
are
you doing?
This was absolutely insane. However, what other choice did I
have? Annabel was clearly not going to co-operate unless we ruled out spooky
activity. And what did I have to lose? We’d write a story, nothing would
happen, and that would be the end of it. Unless Annabel was the perpetrator —
which seemed unlikely when she was so drippy — the copycat would never even
know that there was another story to act out.

My fringe was looking a little unruly so I tucked it under
my beret with the other ill-behaved strands of hair.

“So, what shall we write about?” asked Annabel. A pen with a
sparkling, fluffy pompom on the end was already in hand, ready to write about
fairies, elves or whatever else existed in the mind of such a wishy-washy person.

“Um ...”

“How about, we write about people who are here in this bar,
right now? To tempt the spirit into acting right away?”

“Why not?” I replied. The sooner I could get this crazy idea
out of her mind, the sooner we could move on and start talking about something
sensible, like how we might stop Montgomery Lowe from murdering Netta Lewis.

“Why don’t we write a story about the barman asking me out?”
she asked, eyeing him up with a cheeky smile.

“We need to use something unlikely. Something that would
never happen otherwise.”

“How about, the barman asking
you
out?”

I glowered.

No apology followed.

“What about, we write a story in which the barman gets up on
the counter and dances the Macarena?” I suggested.

She giggled.

I proposed, “Once upon a time, two gorgeous young writers
were sitting in a bar, when a cute barman in chunky green glasses, got up on
the counter, and danced the Macarena.”