So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 (19 page)

Plant wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. The cufflinks. The stupid cufflinks.

"Those were a gift from my husband. We were both born under the sign of Libra. It has nothing to do with historical reenactments or blowing up London theaters."

Sanjay stared at him, unblinking.

"Let me ask you again, what does it mean, 'Libra will rise'?"

The absurdity would not stop. Plant sat heavily on the concrete bunk at the other end from Sanjay.

"Neville may have said it at one point. I thought he was hitting on me—one of those 'what's your sign' pick-up lines."

"So you had no idea King Richard III was born under the sign of Libra, and 'Libra will rise' is the password for the Plantagenet Circle?"

"No. I had no idea. I have nothing to do with astrology or any paranormal nonsense, but they were nice-looking cufflinks..." Plant was tired of Sanjay's idiotic accusations. "How can you say the King Richard reenactor didn't arrive? Ford or no Ford, he was there. I saw him!"

"You saw King Richard III at the Old Hall on Sunday afternoon?"

"Yes. He had a very authentic looking costume. Quite musty and dusty looking, as if he'd been wearing it a long time. He spoke in archaic English and used the royal 'we'. It was almost as if..."

Plant stopped himself. He'd almost said the "g" word. And he was not going to let that happen.

"As if what," Sanjay said. "As if you were making up this whole bloody story? Because that is how it seems to me, Mr. Smith."

Plant could only shake his head, which was losing out over his gut feeling that he had encountered something supernatural here in this cell—and maybe at the Old Hall as well.

"No. I am not making it up. It all happened. Maybe...maybe the person I met was the real Richard Plantagenet. His ghost. If it was, he's not happy in Leicester." Plant's words came out as if he were speaking them in a trance. He had not intended to say that out loud.

"Your witness is a 530-year-old dead English king who happened to be wandering around the Swynsby Old Hall?" Sanjay's grin was pure mockery now.

Plant ran his fingers through his hair and then rubbed his eyes, wondering if he could be dreaming, even now.

"Yes. I think I may have seen a ghost. Lots of people believe in ghosts. My husband, for one." He spoke slowly, looking up at the gray window that gave so little inkling of place and time. "I may very well have met the ghost of the real Richard III. Maybe he's visiting his old haunts."

Plant laughed, although he wasn't sure if he disbelieved what he was saying.

"Now the king has been released from that parking lot, and had a proper burial, maybe he's trying to clear his name. He told me he had nothing to do with it, that day in the Hall. I thought he meant Neville's death, but now I realize he must have meant the princes..."

Sanjay stood and grabbed his briefcase.

"That is nonsense, Mr. Smith. Pure nonsense. I do not believe in ghosts and I do not think you believe in them either. I need to know the truth. I cannot represent you if you will not tell me what happened on Sunday afternoon."

Sanjay's pudgy face took on a belligerent look that made him seem like a small boy who had been denied a treat.

"But I have told you the truth, Mr. Brumble. I honestly have told you everything I know."

Sanjay gave him a look of contempt and called for the custody officer.

––––––––

I
closed up the store a little early after the last browsing tourists wandered off in search of fish and chips. I was eager to get back to the cottage to ask Peter what he'd found out about Plant.

It apparently wasn't much. Except that the media all seemed to think he was guilty. And some reporter at
The Daily Mail
had been following him around since the Old Vic bombing and called him a "terrorist kingpin".

"Do you think people are going to believe this
Daily Mail
reporter?" I asked Peter.

"Not sensible people. But I'm afraid the
Times
is reporting it as a sex scandal, since both Plant and the deceased were openly gay. I know it's absurd, but it makes good copy."

Peter worked on opening a bottle of what looked like a good local wine. Apparently he'd been shopping along with his online miracle-working and news-reading today.

"I've spoken to Henry and asked him to investigate. He ought to be able to help your friend get a good lawyer in any case. Henry's out of hospital now, but he's still not cleared to drive because of the head injury. However, I'm sure he can make some useful phone calls."

I nodded and accepted a glass of wine. I didn't tell Peter I had little faith in his partner Henry Weems. Henry hadn't always been kind to me, and I found it hard to trust anybody who wrote smutty books under a name like Rodd Whippington. I'd always been less than enthusiastic about the kinky erotica books Sherwood published, although I knew they brought in more money than my own.

I looked around the kitchen, wondering what I'd feed Peter for dinner. I hadn't had time to shop in days.

"Sit, Camilla dear." Peter waved a hand at the living room couch. "You've been on your feet all day. Enjoy your wine. Dinner will be arriving shortly. I hope you like olives and peppers on your pizza."

Pizza. I'd start gaining weight if I stayed around Peter too long. I sat at my desk instead of the couch and booted up my laptop.

"First, I'd better see what new horrors have landed on Amazon."

"Don't." Peter swooped over and shut my laptop closed. "I've spoken to some chaps in Seattle and those reviews should be gone by morning. What's on there now is of no consequence at all."

"They're that bad?"

Peter took my glass and ushered me to the couch, where he seated me next to the sleeping Buckingham.

"They're pretty vile," he said. "For which we should be grateful. It gives Amazon no choice but to take them down. They won't remove all the one-stars—and you'll still have all twelve sock-puppet reviews that say 'Princess Diana was mudered', but they removed the obscenities and threats of 'the rape train'—whatever that means."

Rape train. That phrase was giving me nightmares. I had no idea what it meant but I didn't want to dwell on it.

"Sock puppet reviews? I've been reviewed by puppets?"

Peter scooped Buckingham onto his lap as he sat down next to me.

"Sock puppets are different false identities for the same person. I'm sure that 'DickonthePig', 'Duke of Gloucester', 'Duke of Buckingham', 'Earl Warwick " and all other the historical figures who supposedly wrote the comment about Princess Diana are the same person, since they have the same misspellings in all the comments, but Amazon doesn't ban that kind of nonsense. Their policy is 'the customer is always right' and you and I aren't customers. We're vendors."

"But I thought you said you got the reviews removed?" My spirits began to sink again.

"Oh, I did. Anything threatening rape or murder. I did let them know I've spoken to the FBI and Europol about those. Amazon isn't on the best terms with the European Union as you probably know. But as publishers, we're very much dependent on the Mighty Zon."

I didn't know anything about such things, but I was only beginning to learn about the book business. Before I bought the bookstore a few months ago, I was just an employee working for Silas.

"To better times, Camilla Randall." Peter raised his wine glass.

"To better times." I gave him a warm smile.

I so much wanted to believe Peter was essentially a good man. I'd almost forgiven him for letting me think he was dead for three years.

And I'd forgotten how lovely he was in bed.

Not as passionate as Ronzo, but...I didn’t want to think about Ronzo. I kept having to banish thoughts of him, like swatting away big, nasty flies.

Peter helped. And he made me feel safe.

He smiled back, put his wine down and gave me a deep, romantic kiss. I felt myself melt into him. I started to unbutton his shirt.

But we were interrupted by crunching on the gravel outside and a determined thump on the door.

"Pizza, milady." Peter jumped up, letting Buckingham scamper to a corner of the couch.

But there was no pizza delivery person at the door. Nobody at all.

"What's this?" Peter stepped outside and examined the door. A big butcher knife was stuck in it—right through the screen and embedded in the wooden door beneath. It pierced what looked like an eight-by-ten photograph of somebody's naked behind.

"What is it?" My stomach knotted.

"Obviously some crank who hasn't heard Marva's news. No matter." Peter pulled out the knife and tossed the photo in the kitchen waste bin. "Nobody will think it's you who likes spanking men's bums by tomorrow."

I ran to the bin and pulled out the photo. It was a man's behind, all right.

Adorned with a tattoo. Of a blue Stratocaster guitar. With wings.

––––––––

P
lant sat on his bunk, trying not to be angry with Sanjay. The custody officer seemed to be busy elsewhere, so Sanjay hadn't been able to make a suitably dramatic exit. He stood by the door playing with his iPad.

Plant reminded himself this young lawyer was the only person remotely on his side in this whole predicament.

If he was real. Plant couldn't be sure of anything.

The entire world seemed to be losing its marbles.

No. He knew if anybody had a marble deficiency, it was himself, unfortunately.

He must have conjured the ghost of Richard III out of fear, boredom, and these infernal blue-gray walls.

But why had he seen the same vision at that Old Hall? Could jet lag and sleep deprivation—and a pint of bitter—have created that kind of confusion in his brain? The young man in the Hall had seemed completely solid and real.

And so did the silent Sanjay, tapping away at his iPad.

Logic. Plant realized he had to return to logical thinking. Sherlock and Miss Marple thinking. He took a deep breath, stood up, and looked Sanjay in the eye.

"Mr. Brumble, what is my motive supposed to be for inventing a fake King Richard and murdering Neville?"

Sanjay gave a thin smile. "One of the oldest reasons there is, Mr. Smith. Neville Turnmarsh spurned your advances. You had a lover's quarrel."

"A lover's quarrel? With a man I only spoke with for five minutes?"

"You followed him to Swynsby, Mr. Smith. He left his name and number in your book."

Plant felt his forehead prickle with anger, but he kept his voice calm.

"I fall madly in love with a strange man who happens to sit next to me in a theater. He leaves his phone number in my book, and instead of using that number to ring him, I take a three hour train ride to a place that isn't even his home, so I can pop by and kill him in front of a lot of witnesses?"

Sanjay gave Plant a long look. "He was a known homosexual, and so are you."

"A known homosexual? What is this, 1952?" 

"You obviously have a history with this man. The police will find more evidence, I am sure. You cannot hide anything."

Plant said nothing for a moment. No point in trying to defend himself against something so silly.

"What about the murder weapon, Mr. Brumble?" Plant spoke slowly and deliberately, as if he were talking to a small child. "Have the police bothered to look for the murder weapon? I know there were lots of swordy things around that day, but most were probably costume. Maybe they found one with blood. If Neville was somehow mixed up in the Old Vic bombing, he obviously hung around with some nasty people. Any of them might have stabbed him."

"Swordy things?" Sanjay's smile was back again, but now it only mocked him. "What do swordy things have to do with Neville Turnmarsh's murder?"

"There was so much blood. It had to be rather a big weapon, didn't it?"

Sanjay laughed as if this were uproariously funny.

"What blood? There was no blood, Mr. Smith, any more than there was a ghost."

Plant took a deep breath. Was Sanjay playing some kind of game? He seemed to be deliberately forcing Plant to doubt his own sanity.

"When I found Neville, his body was lying in a pool of red ooze. And there was spatter on the stone wall. Are you saying it wasn't there? Because if it wasn't, somebody tampered with the crime scene before the police arrived."

Sanjay gave Plant a penetrating stare, then called for the officer again.

"I'm telling the truth. I saw blood. I also saw blood on the sleeve of the actor portraying King Richard." Plant worked at keeping his tone even. "If I stabbed Neville...if I knifed him during some violent lover's quarrel, wouldn't I have noticed the blood spurting all over? Wouldn't I have got some on my clothes?"

They must have taken his clothes for some reason.

"Can't they test my clothes for Neville's blood? If I'd stabbed somebody, I would have got blood all over myself. Not that I have any experience with stabbing people. But that's what happens on those police TV shows. Spatter. It's always about the blood spatter."

The custody officer finally appeared, and Sanjay turned to Plant as the door opened. He spoke stiffly.

"Are you trying to qualify for an insanity plea, Mr. Smith? This is very difficult in the United Kingdom. I suggest you produce some information I can use, or I cannot represent you."

Once he had gone, Plant felt completely and utterly alone.

Even his own sanity had abandoned him.

What if he'd been hallucinating this whole time? What if none of what he thought was real had happened? Maybe stuff he didn't even remember had happened instead.

Like murder.

Had he somehow killed Neville while in some sort of fugue state?

He shuddered when he thought about that afternoon in the Hall. Had he encountered the ghost of King Richard? Had the ghost visited him here? Could disturbing someone's remains waken a spiritual force the way it did in those ridiculous television ghost-hunting shows?

Glen would say it could.

Maybe he was right. Almost anything was more probable than what was actually happening.