Pompomberry House (30 page)

The next few posts were from people who agreed that the
occurrence of all four incidents within a week was too unlikely to be mere coincidence.
The next seven posts discussed the book — what readers liked, what readers didn’t
like and what readers would like to see more of. In fact, very little of the
discussion seemed to concern the investigation. Only two people speculated as
to who the killer might be.

‘I bet it’s somebody from a traditional publisher. Indie
books are threatening their business, so they want to make indies look like
crazed killers.’

‘Now come on! The Amanda thing has
helped
indie
writers. I bet it’s an inside job!’

The remarks weren’t terribly helpful, but did exemplify the
question that had been on my mind for days — was the killer trying to help or
hinder us?

I was now certain that none of the anthology’s authors was
responsible. They all had solid alibis for Amanda’s death, and the two most
likely suspects had been in Spain during the first three enactments.

In the next post, Montgomery managed to twist the discussion
back to the film adaptation of his work. There was a link to the trailer. Did I
really want to watch it? I’d read his short so many times looking for clues,
that I was bored senseless by his mundane protagonist. Still, with no other
leads, the trailer might be worth checking out.

Oh dear.
The trailer was painful. It was so bad that
I found myself feeling sorry for Montgomery. The acting was wooden, the special
effects were embarrassing, and the attempts at tension were so bad they were
humorous. By the end of the trailer, I found myself laughing aloud.

Poor old Montgomery. He’d written some half-decent books and
obviously sold the film rights to the first company who had come along. Now his
hard work was going to become a laughing stock. Who were Sultana Productions
anyway? I clicked through to the trailer’s YouTube page. In the sidebar there
were further videos by the same production team. I couldn’t resist taking a
sneaky peek. I could do with another chuckle.

However, what I saw next turned my world upside down. The
piece was called
Puns about
Guns
, which didn’t exactly inspire
me. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the terrible script, the overacting or the imposing
soundtrack that horrified me, it was what I saw fifteen seconds in. A butler
walked into the shot — a hunky, blond butler with steely blue eyes. It was
Biff.

It was a shock to see him. A painful reminder of the weekend
on Pompomberry Island. However, the part that shocked me the most was that Biff
was an actor. And not just an actor, but an actor who worked for the production
company that made Montgomery’s film. What did this mean? Had he been both an actor
and a handyman, or not really a handyman at all?

With my heart pumping in my chest, I looked at the date the
video was posted. It was only two weeks old. Still, that didn’t mean anything,
it could have been filmed long before it was uploaded.

I looked at the credits below the video. There was no
mention of a Biff. In fact, the only male in the film was called Ricky Foster.
Still, that didn’t seem too surprising; Biff was never likely to have been a
given name.

A quick google of ‘Ricky Foster’ took me to his
Star Now
profile. At first it seemed odd that nobody had taken down his
Star Now
profile. But then I remembered that his family and friends might know only that
he had disappeared. They wouldn’t necessarily know that he was dead.

As I glanced through his acting resume my head started to
spin. According to the profile, Biff, or should I say, Ricky, had been in a
musical just last week!

Oh my God!

Biff was still alive!

I felt awash with great relief! Lovely Biff wasn’t dead
after all, but enjoying life! I remembered our chats, our evening together
watching DVDs, his wood-chopping action and his sculpted smile. Thank goodness
that lovely man was still living and breathing.

At the same time, I felt sick. It was like having the planet
ripped out from beneath me and freefalling into the depths of the unknown. My
whole understanding of the entire Pompomberry House situation, had been based
on the assumption that Biff was dead.

Ricky Foster was not a handyman called Biff, but a
professional actor. His death had been nothing more than an acting job. Why?

Chapter 16

I needed to meet Ricky Foster. Having dealt with Netta
Lewis, I had learnt a little about honesty in such situations — use sparingly.
I could write to Biff telling him that I knew he was alive, but that probably
wouldn’t inspire him to meet me. After all, he had been more than happy to let
me believe he was dead for weeks now.

I remembered him apologising. “Dee, I’m sorry.” I remembered
him trying to brush it away. “Forget I said anything.” Had he been feeling bad
about what he was going to do?

No wonder the police had been unable to find any evidence.
No wonder I couldn’t demonstrate that a murder had taken place.
There was no
murder!

‘I’m a casting director,’ I wrote, using an email address
that I found for Ricky. ‘Ewan McGregor has gone down with scarlet fever and we’re
filming tomorrow. Please get in touch if you’re interested.’

Somebody who has to turn to fake deaths to get acting work
is unlikely to refuse a potential film offer. Granted, realising that he’d been
conned wasn’t going to be the greatest start to a meeting, but if I told the
truth the meeting might not happen at all.

I had to know why Biff had done it. Why had he pretended to
be murdered? Had somebody put him up to it? Did the other writers know? Is that
why they wouldn’t go to the police? I felt that I was more likely to get honest
answers from Biff than anybody else.

It’s a sorry state of affairs when your most trustworthy
source is a man who pretended to be stabbed to death in front of you. However,
in light of the competition, Biff seemed positively honourable.

For four hours I waited. Still no reply. Biff’s greed for
fame was clearly less pronounced than Netta’s, but that wasn’t difficult.
Finally, at half past five in the evening, he took the bait.

Gareth had made me promise to stop meeting suspects but Biff
was hardly a suspect, was he? We had ascertained that the killer either loved
or hated the writers; Biff was neutral. Or was he? I realised that I knew very
little about Ricky Foster. Was any part of Biff’s character the real Ricky? Did
he even like
Arrested Development
? Oh gracious — was he lying when he
said he’d read my book?

I wondered if I should invite Gareth along, for safety. However,
then I remembered how I’d lusted after Biff on Pompomberry Island, my knee-jerk
reaction to leaving Gareth. What if I still felt giddy every time I saw his
biceps? There was no sense making Gareth unnecessarily insecure. This was one
meeting I needed to do alone.

* * *

Dusk was already veiling me as I left the tube station and
headed for the bar where I planned to meet Biff. The darkness gave the meeting
a date-like feel. But obviously, I wasn’t going on a date because that would have
been wrong.

Or would it? Gareth and I were separated, I’d told him it
was over, we’d been to mediation; I was a free woman.

Although, he
had
brought some of the DVDs back, which
constituted a retraction of sorts ...

I reminded myself that the man I was meeting was expecting
me to be a film director and that he wasn’t Biff the handyman anymore. A human being
might not have been murdered, but a character had.

The bar was pleasant — one of those places that upholsters
everything. There were sofas, cushions and beanbags everywhere. Even the
artwork consisted of fabric stretched over canvases. The lighting was
flattering — dim and slightly orange. This felt like a lovely place for a
reunion between a makeshift detective and a reanimated victim.

Ah, there he was! Biff! As gorgeous as ever. As he walked in,
a wall light caught his hair, illuminating the golden tresses and naturally
well-carved face. I gawped at him for a few moments. I was surprised to note
that although he was every bit as handsome as I remembered, my giddiness had
gone. I don’t know whether it was discovering that he was a lying rat bag, or
the amount of time I’d been spending with Gareth, but somehow my crush had lost
its power.

Then it happened — he saw me. He blinked a couple of times
as he focussed his eyes, then turned and leapt out the door.

Oh no you don’t!

I hurried after him. There was no way that Ricky Foster was
getting away. He could be the key to the whole mystery. If I could unlock the
reason for Biff’s fake death, I might be able to stop two more murders and some
particularly unpalatable human snacking.

“Oi! Ricky!” I yelled, which was more effective than I
expected.

He turned back. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Oi! Ricky!’”

“You know my name?”

“Well, yes ...”

Then I saw the disappointment hit him. He screwed up his
face. Even dismayed, he looked hunky. Hunky and cross. “
You
invited me
here.”

“Yes!”

“So there is no film director.”

“No.”

“And Ewan McGregor is fine.”

“Probably.”

“Damn!”

I raised an eyebrow.

“So you know?” he said.

“Yes.”

“We’d better go and sit down.”

A few minutes later, we were back inside the bar and I was
waiting for Biff to return with two mojitos. I knew I shouldn’t drink while I
was investigating, but it’s not every day that you’re offered a drink by a fit
handyman that you thought was decaying in an unmarked grave.

I was relieved to note that the sexy Scandinavian edge to
his voice was still there, beneath the Cockney tones. Perhaps Biff’s character
was closely modelled on Ricky’s real life. I hoped so.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as he sat down. He stared at the table
and apologised again. “I’m really sorry.”

“Why did you do it? Why pretend to be stabbed?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Biff ... I mean, Ricky, I reported your death to
the police!”

“You
did
?”

“Yes,
I
did. None of the others did. So I think you
owe me an explanation.”

“What did the police say?”

“Well, they didn’t take me all that seriously, but then I
couldn’t give them any real names. The writers all use pens and you ... well,
you lied.”

“I’m sorry, Dee. I hated lying to
you
.”

“The police made me feel as though I was losing the plot!”

“You weren’t.”

“I know!”

I scowled into my mojito. Biff put a finger under my chin
and tried to tilt my head up to meet his eyes, but I stubbornly glared into my
drink.

“Do you want me to talk to the police for you now?” he
offered.

“I think they’re more interested in Amanda Kenwood.”

“The singer? What’s she done then?”

“She’s dead!”

“What?”

“Where have you been? You’re not
really
dead!”

“I don’t read the news.”

“Ricky, a string of crimes have been committed, following
the storylines in our book!”

“What, the book you wrote on the island?”

“Yes!”

“Holy shrimp!”

“Quite. Now come on Ricky, you need to start talking.” I
realised how much I sounded like a detective and I rather liked it.

He looked down, took a deep breath, and when he came back up
to face me, there was a look of deep gravity in his eyes. “They hired me.”

“Who hired you?”

“The fat lady and the posh man.”

“Dawn and Montgomery, or do you mean Rafe?”

“The older chap.”

“Montgomery. Dawn and Montgomery hired you, but why?”

“I don’t know. They never explained why. They just said that
my ‘motivation’ was to be handy, whilst making sure that everybody saw me, and
then I had a death scene. At first I thought it was a murder mystery party, but
then, when they were so adamant about secrecy, I realised it wasn’t. I’m sorry
Dee, I really needed the money; I was in so much debt.”

“How much did they pay you?”

“Ten grand.”

“Ten thousand pounds! Are you serious?”

“Yes, it really helped me out. I was going to get evicted
from my flat.”

“They must have had a very strong motive, to pay you ten
thousand pounds.”

“If this has anything to do with that girl’s murder then ... Oh
jeez! I had no idea that it was something like this.”

“It might not be related. But listen Ricky, two more people
could die. Do you know anything else that might be relevant?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. How did you get off the island?”

“We all took the boat, after you left.”

“
All?
You mean you, Dawn and Montgomery.”

“No, I mean everybody else — everybody except you.”

* * *

I tried to make sense of what I was hearing. Dawn,
Montgomery, Annabel, Rafe
and
Danger had all taken the boat back to the
mainland with Ricky? But that would mean that they all knew that he wasn’t
really dead. It was difficult to get my head around. No wonder nobody else had
called the police.

They had all lied to me — Rafe, Annabel and Danger. So much
for Annabel being my ‘BFF’. Not one of them had admitted that the handyman wasn’t
really dead. Why would they do that? Why would they let me keep believing that
a man had been murdered when he was alive and well?

I’d been in bits during the weeks following Biff’s murder. I’d
been terrified, paranoid and confused. If I’d known that the victim was just an
actor covered in tomato sauce, I could have gotten on with my life.

Then I remembered that whatever the reality of Biff’s
murder, Amanda Kenwood was still dead. Or was she? No, she was definitely dead.
It had been all over the news. The police had retrieved the body.