Pompomberry House (27 page)

How dangerous was Enid? If she was the killer, how likely
was it that she would harm me in a Marks and Spencer coffee shop? The risk
seemed negligible. Even so, as I sat in the coffee shop, waiting for her to
arrive, my finger drifted over Danger’s name in my phone address book. I’m
embarrassed to admit that the reason I stopped myself from calling him was not
that I felt strong enough to fend off Enid, but that I just couldn’t face
having him around. Investigating Enid was going to take wit, skill and careful management.
Having Danger’s dull contributions droning away, would only slow things down.

I thought about calling Gareth. He had wit and skill.
However, I was still angry. The twenty-four hours since our ‘mediation’ session
had done nothing to calm me down. How dare he be so rude to me? He had talked
to me with the tone of an obnoxious teenager, which pretty much summed up the
problem. And why tell me that he’d only taken the DVDs because he needed
something to watch — how stupid did he think I was?

Presumably, with a name like Enid, my dinner companion would
be at least seventy. I arrived five minutes late and hoped that she hadn’t come
and gone. It seemed unlikely, but then again, she was a pedantic witch.

I looked around, wondering if she could be at one of the
other tables, but it was difficult to be sure, because so many people were obscured
by their tall newspapers.

Finally, a redhead smiled at me from the doorway. I blinked
a few times. It was certainly bottle-red — that vibrant shade typical of
somebody with a punky edge, or a postbox. Perhaps not a pensioner after all.

However, when she got nearer, I saw that her face had more
crags than Craggy Island. It was like a mud flat on a hot summer’s day — shrivelled
and wrinkled. Enid wasn’t a young woman, she was an old woman with young hair.
She seemed to have shaved off her eyebrows and drawn some red ones on. She had
a long nose and the wart on her chin added to her witch-like appearance. Her
clothes were peculiar too. She wore tie-dyed fabrics, tailored into a neat
skirt and blouse, but her body had no shape to it. She certainly had no waist. Woolly
purple tights covered her emaciated legs, which led to bony ankles poked into
brown canvas shoes. Despite the apparent reluctance to blend in with other
people of similar wrinkle-level, she wore little makeup. Then I remembered that
this was the bookworm who hated books — she was no doubt full of anomalies.

I stood up and offered her my hand.

“What’s this all about?” she asked, ignoring my offering.

“Books.”

“Oh good! I was hoping it would be. What’s that on your
head?”

“It’s a beret.”

“It looked better on Frank Spencer. Have you tried a bandana?
Might compensate for your nose.”

I tapped my nose, worried.

“It’s a little flat isn’t it? For a woman of your age.”

“Well, it’s the only one I’ve got.”

“Yes,” she said, in a pitying tone.

“I haven’t got myself anything to eat yet, because I was
waiting for you.”

“Well, best not to snack with those hips,” she said. I
glanced down at my slim figure, confused.

“Shall we walk and talk?” I suggested.

I followed Enid to the canteen line, wondering what I should
have to eat. I was concerned that my choice in food might be judged in the same
way as my choice in hats. Enid was clearly going to go for the baked potato
with butter, so perhaps I should stay safe and have the same thing. I was still
trying to recover from the nose and hips jibes.

“Follow me off a cliff, would you?” she asked.

Clearly, I couldn’t win. I grabbed a large orange juice.

“Good choice,” she remarked. “Excellent dietary fibre.”

She really did have an opinion on everything.

As soon as we sat down, she started telling me how to
restructure the opening to ‘Busty and Giving’
.
“It’s not that I don’t
like you launching straight in there with the murder, it’s just that the
hook-prologue is so overused. Why don’t you try opening with something more
gentle and then building up to the murder?”

“Well, I think given what’s happened to Amanda, it might have
been a better idea to cut the murder altogether.”

“Hmm ...” she said, giving it a moment’s thought. How could
whether or not to prevent murder require contemplation? The woman was clearly
deranged. But was she a killer?

Suddenly, I saw a familiar face in the entrance — or at
least, an orange version of a familiar face — Dawn Mann. She was back! At first,
I was thrown. What was she doing in a Marks and Spencer in Victoria? Was she
here to kill me?

Then I realised that a Marks and Spencer in Victoria was
exactly the sort of place that I should expect to see Dawn Mann. It suited her
mumsy, secretly-middle-class persona. If I remembered rightly, she lived in
South London. She probably ate here every day.

“Is that Dee Whittaker I see before me?” came a ringing
voice. Instantly, my hair stood on end. Was that my instincts telling me that
she was a killer? Then I remembered that she was highly irritating and that
this was just a natural reaction. I also remembered her saying that she was
going to Spain for an extended holiday, and, judging by her leathery tan, she certainly
had done. I didn’t fear her nearly as much as I feared Montgomery. Besides
which, Gareth had pointed out it was very unlikely that one of the writers had
done it. Murder would be a very misguided advertising strategy, even for these
crazy people.

“It
is
Dee Whittaker I see before me!” Then she turned
to Enid and put on her best welcoming grin. “And who is this?”

Was it a good idea to reveal Enid’s identity to Dawn? After
all, Dawn had been on the receiving end of many ‘Enids’.

“Dawn Mann!” said Enid, with glee.

“Yes?”

“It’s Enid! Enid Kibbler. I recognise your face from the
anthology,” she said, with some distaste. “Thank goodness it’s a Kindle book —
your portrait certainly benefits from being displayed in black and white.”

I tried to make reassuring eye contact with Dawn. Enid was
getting crueller by the minute. You know a woman is truly foul when your
instincts lead you to sympathise with a giant numpty such as Dawn Mann.

“Enid,” snarled Dawn.

“Don’t get me wrong — I was impressed by the portrait. It
was very brave, for a woman of your proportions.”

Dawn glared, her yellow eyes on fire. Then, with a false
breeziness she added, “Mind if I join you both for lunch?”

Actually, I did mind. I minded a lot. I needed to use this
time to ascertain whether Enid Kibbler was a psychopath or just a crotchety
reviewer — two camps that can easily be blurred. With Dawn present, we’d no
doubt spend the whole time talking about her and her books.

“I wonder if you know, Enid, that I have three children,”
bragged Dawn, taking a seat.

Oh no, it had already begun.

“Children?” asked Enid, looking Dawn up and down with
surprise. “You mean
offspring
— adult children
.
”

“No, I mean
children
. The oldest one is seventeen. I
have three children, yet ... I’ve still managed to write
three
novels and contribute to
five
anthologies. What have you achieved?”

I wanted to head butt the table, but my baked potato was in
the way. Even so, a buttery forehead would be a small price to pay for a little
relief right now.

“What have you achieved?” repeated Dawn.

“Well, I have an Olympic medal.”

Wow. Owned
.

“For what?”

“The two hundred metres. It was a long time ago ...”

“I bet.”

“... But they let me keep the medal,” continued Enid. I
noticed that she had a little twinkle in her eye. I wondered if she was telling
the truth or just trying to rattle Dawn. Either way, it was terribly amusing.
Dawn rocked in her chair, like a distressed, inflatable child.

Then, I saw another familiar face — the craggy, ruddy face
of Montgomery Lowe. What was
he
doing here? He was wearing a dusty
charcoal suit with an ill-fitting mustard waistcoat. When he got closer, I saw
that the dark tinge to his skin was not his usual reddish glow, but a suntan,
and a heavy one at that. Had he been on holiday too?

I looked at Dawn, then I looked at Montgomery, and then back
at Dawn again. They didn’t ...? Oh God, no! I found myself starting to
shudder all over. It was even more horrific to imagine than cannibalism — Dawn
Mann and Montgomery Lowe were having an affair!

Montgomery saw me. There was a flicker of concern for a second,
while he no doubt recalled our last encounter — me wading across the causeway,
fleeing the island and rejecting the writers’ stupid plan. Then, he smiled,
opened his sturdy arms and plodded towards me.

He saw Dawn and feigned shock. “Goodness! Dawn! What the
devil are you doing here?” That was the point at which I knew that they had
planned to meet each other.

“This is Enid,” said Dawn, with a grimace.

“Enid Kibbler?” he said, sounding truly stunned. “Enid Kibbler
as I live and breathe! Golly, I thought that you only existed in legends and ...”
he inhaled ferociously “... reviews.”

“Montgomery Lowe,” observed Enid.

“‘The greatest assault on crime writing since
Basic
Instinct 2
,’” he quoted, with fake amusement. “A film reference? Getting
sloppy there, Enid?” I could see hatred boiling beneath his friendly chestnut
corneas.

“Not as sloppy as the purple prose at the beginning of
chapter two!” she retorted.

How did she remember this stuff?

Montgomery grunted and took a seat next to me. I inhaled
frustrated, filling my lungs with dust.
Great!
How was I supposed to
interrogate Enid now? Still, at least now my three strongest suspects were all
together. The chances were, somebody at this table killed Amanda.
Smeg!
Somebody at this table killed Amanda!

“When did you get back from Spain?” I asked.

“Thursday,” they said simultaneously.

“I mean
Dawn
got back on Thursday,” added Montgomery
quickly. Who was the orange buffoon trying to kid?

Interesting though — if they got back on Thursday, then they
were here on Friday night when Amanda was killed.

“I’m just so glad that I was back in time for Rafe’s Skype
chat!” cried Dawn.

“Me too!” said Montgomery. “I mean, I’m glad that
Dawn
was back.”

That was interesting — if they were involved in the live
Skype chat, then they had alibis. The police had asked where I was at nine o’clock
— that meant that nine o’clock was the crucial time. Nine o’clock had also been
the time of Rafe’s Skype chat, giving many people perfect alibis.

I was just about to probe further when I spotted somebody
else familiar — Danger Smith. He was sitting on the table next to us. How long
had he been there? More to the point, what was he doing here?

He saw me look at him and quickly hid behind his Kindle, which
was particularly ineffective as he had the six-inch lightweight version. The
feature guide never warns you that Kindles make poor shields.

“Right, what’s going on?” I demanded.

Dawn and Montgomery exchanged puzzled glances.

“Three of you turn up here and I’m supposed to believe it’s
a coincidence.”

“Three?” asked Dawn. “Oh goodness! It’s Danger Smith. Look,
Monty, it’s Danger Smith.”

“Don’t play games with me!” I ordered.

“Well, he’s here to meet us, isn’t he Dawn?” lied
Montgomery, stiffening and causing the veins in his neck to protrude like
liquorice laces.

“If that’s the case, why was he sitting over there
pretending to read his Kindle, instead of coming over to say hello?”

“I did not see you!” sniffled Danger.

“You must think I’m completely stupid.”

Enid, who had been surprisingly quiet so far, suddenly piped
up. “Is there any chance that you three read the public thread where Dee and I
discussed meeting?”

That was a public thread? Oh yes, it was! I’d originally
planned to write a private message, but then I had got distracted chatting to
Enid in a thread about next month’s book club choice and ... 
Bugger.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” I demanded. “Because you
wanted to meet Enid?”

“Um ...” began Danger, raising a hand, “actually, I
just wanted to overhear what she had to say about me.”

“Me too,” admitted Dawn, “but then you saw me come in, so
what could I do?”

“Yeah, we had no idea that you’d be facing the door!”
explained Montgomery, using an accusatory tone and eyebrows that were even more
biting. Brows as thick as Montgomery’s were capable of levels of reproach that
even Enid’s sharply pencilled arches would never muster.

“Oh, I am so terribly sorry!” I snapped.

“Don’t get ratty with us!” scolded Dawn, as a teacher might.
“She’s the one who’s been leaving spiteful comments in the forum!”

“And horrid reviews!” added Montgomery.

“I’m a critic,” said Enid, calmly.

“That doesn’t mean you have to be critical you stupid woman,
you can say positive things too,” snapped Dawn.

“Well, why don’t you write something worth saying something
positive about?”

“What exactly is it that you dislike about the prose at the
beginning of chapter two?” demanded Montgomery.

“And how can you say my characters are two dimensional?” challenged
Dawn.

“And what is bland about me?” asked Danger, from behind a
ham sandwich.

“Shut up the lot of you!” I shouted. “You’re all behaving
appallingly. Somebody has died, in case you’ve forgotten.
Two
people in
fact, and you ...”

“Two?” asked Enid, sounding excited.

“And you, Enid! You’re no better than these three. There are
too many egos at this table. I doubt it’s even possible for a person to feel
more suffocated by arrogance than I do right now.”