Poison Pen Read online

  Once we’d finished assembling the packs, Graham and I had nothing to do but wait in the green room for the authors to arrive. People were coming and going through the double doors, bringing in urns and teapots and coffee machines and trays and trays of neatly cut sandwiches and home-made cakes to prevent any of the writers from starving to death. We sat behind our table, out of everyone’s way. Graham had his nose in a book and I had one open on my lap, but I didn’t read a word. I was too busy eavesdropping.

  Sue Woodward was putting out cups and saucers and talking to a woman who I recognized as Gill from the central library.

  “Are you all set up for later?” asked Sue.

  “For Basil Tamworth? Yes, we are. Some of the things he needs for his talk are a bit unusual, but it should be fun, I think. How about you?”

  “I’m hoping to hear some of Charlie Deadlock’s talk. Have you read his latest?” asked Sue.

  “No, I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t. I gather it’s very different from those Sam the Striker ones.”

  “Oh, utterly. Quite honestly, it’s hard to believe it’s written by the same man. Such a leap! From football to The Spy Complex? It’s brilliant. You must read it. Nigella Churchill said it was ‘a work of rare genius’ in The Times.”

  “Really? She’s usually so harsh!”

  “I know.” Sue’s face crinkled with irritation. “She’s written some withering reviews in the past. I’m surprised any author will still speak to her. I can’t imagine why Viola invited her here.”

  “Too important to leave out, I suspect. She’s very influential, isn’t she? She could make or break a new festival like this.”

  I was intrigued. Nigella Churchill: the name rang a faint bell. I’d had a good look at the schedule, but I knew Graham would have it tattooed on his brain. Being Graham, he’d probably also done background research.

  “Who’s Nigella Churchill?” I whispered.

  “She’s a journalist. A children’s book specialist. I believe she’s introducing some of the events.”

  Sue was still talking. “It’s interesting that Charlie should have done something so very different. I read somewhere that he had appalling writer’s block after he finished the football series. Apparently he didn’t pick up a pen for five years. Can you imagine? Then he comes up with something so gripping! I was up until 3 a.m. finishing it – I really couldn’t put it down. It’s extraordinary.”

  At that moment I was distracted by someone entering the sacred green room. There were loads of people coming and going at that point, and I don’t suppose I’d have noticed him at all if he hadn’t been trying so hard to be invisible. His head was down and he didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. He slipped through the doors sideways, barely moving them apart, and then slid along the wall with gliding steps. He was smallish, oldish and thin-nish, with brownish hair and darkish eyes, and carried a plastic supermarket bag full of dog-eared, yellowing typewritten paper. He looked completely uninteresting; I was gripped. I try to avoid attention myself, not because I’m shy but because I like watching people – and if you’re doing that, you don’t want them staring back at you. This man didn’t look shy either. He was Up To Something.

  I elbowed Graham in the ribs. “Look at him.”

  “Who?”

  “Him.”

  “What’s so special about him?”

  “Nothing. That’s the point.”

  “What?”

  “What’s he doing in here?”

  Graham’s eyes narrowed and he said, “Oh, I see. He doesn’t have an official badge, does he? I’d better inform Mrs Boulder.”

  Graham was off across the room before I could stop him. There was no chance now of seeing what the man was up to. So I stood up, thinking that maybe I could go and have a word with him, but I knocked against the flimsy table and, with a loud crash, the legs collapsed and all the carefully stuffed welcome packs slid to the floor. Everyone looked around. I half expected the man to bolt back out through the doors, but to my surprise he stepped over.

  “Let me help,” he said, grabbing papers and shoving them back into their bags.

  “Thanks,” I said, flushing with embarrassment. “Are you a volunteer or a writer or something? Only you haven’t got a name badge.”

  He gave a strange smile. It was slightly creepy. “I’m an ‘or something’,” he said enigmatically.

  He didn’t get a chance to say more, because just then Viola crossed the green room like a runaway rock – heavy and impossible to avoid.

  “Who,” she demanded, “are you?”

  “Oh, I’m no one,” the man said. “I was looking for…”

  Viola cut him off. “Then you have no right to be here. Out! Out! Out!”

  Beaten, the man retreated, sliding back out through the double doors. Tutting loudly, Viola returned to her preparations, and Graham and I resurrected the collapsed table and tidied up the welcome packs. When I glanced back at the doors I saw they weren’t quite closed. An eye was pressed to the gap.

  Fear stroked a cold finger down my spine. The man was still out there. Standing. Watching. Who, or what, was he waiting for?

  death threats?

  By the time the first author arrived, the invisible man had gone. Viola had stationed a security guard outside the green room, so I guess he’d been scared off.

  I’d expected Basil Tamworth to look like a farmer, given that he wrote so many stories about pigs – a healthy, outdoorsy type with ruddy cheeks, a tweed jacket and faded corduroy trousers held up with baler twine.

  In actual fact he was very tall and thin with carefully slicked back blond hair and long, manicured fingers. He was immaculately dressed in a sharply tailored linen suit with a crisp cotton shirt, expensive-looking gold cufflinks and a silk tie. When I handed him his welcome pack he dangled it limply from his hand.

  Another man had followed him in – a weedy, wimpy-looking individual whose eyes gleamed with a desperation to please.

  I didn’t recognize his face from the programme, so I asked politely, “And which writer are you?”

  “Who, me?” he said nervously. “Oh no… I’m not an author. I’m Trevor Bakewell. I work for Basil’s publisher. I’m here to lend moral support.”

  Basil looked like he could do with all the support he could get, although I wasn’t convinced Trevor was the one to provide it.

  Basil was astonishingly pale, which I assumed must be from days spent in front of a computer writing books. But then I saw his brow was beaded with sweat. He produced a large, white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his forehead with it. “Extraordinary thing,” he said. “We just saw Farmer Biggins. He was driving a trailer full of Gloucester Old Spots.”

  “Did the festival arrange some sort of publicity stunt?” Trevor asked me. “They might have warned us. It gave Basil quite a turn.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Sorry…” I said. Other authors had started to arrive and were piling in behind the two men. Realizing that I was just a kid and wouldn’t be much help, they moved off.

  Graham and I were kept busy for the next half hour handing out welcome packs and directing authors to where Sue was handing out tea and cakes.

  Muriel Black (wizard woman) was closely followed in by the celebrity chef. Katie Bell (LURVE) and Francisco Botticelli (dragon man) arrived at the same time. Pretty soon there was a bit of a party atmosphere in the room.

  I suppose authors don’t get out much: they certainly seemed to be making the most of the opportunity. They couldn’t stop talking. A lot of them already knew each other: there were loud air kisses and cries of “Daaarling!” and “How are you?” and “I haven’t seen you since Edinburgh!”

  When Nigella Churchill arrived there was a distinct frosting of the atmosphere. She had long, dyed-blonde hair that needed its roots retouching, and her eyes were heavily made up. She was also displaying what Sue later described to Gill as “an inappropriate amount of cleavage”.

  Writers either smiled or scowled in he
r direction, presumably depending on whether she’d given them good or bad reviews. Nigella strutted over to Viola, piercing the parquet floor with her killer heels, and asked after Charlie. When Viola told her that he hadn’t arrived yet, she fetched herself a coffee and surveyed the room as if she owned the place.

  After sending several dark looks in Nigella’s direction, Francisco Botticelli and Katie Bell settled themselves on the sofa nearest to me and Graham and, to my delight, began to have a fantastically good gossip.

  “Congratulathons on the Vellum Prize,” said Francisco. He spoke with an Italian accent and a slight lisp. “You muth be delighted.”

  “Congrats to you too, sweetie,” replied Katie. “I think we’re all here this weekend, aren’t we? She seems to have invited the whole shortlist.”

  Francisco lowered his voice. The sofa springs groaned as he leant forward. “Including Zenith.”

  Katie Bell stifled a gasp of disgust. “I know! God alone knows why she couldn’t just stick to singing. Why do a kids’ book, for heaven’s sake? Can you believe it’s been shortlisted? I’m sure that book was ghost-written. It’s a disgrace! An insult to every author in the country. I’ll bet she can’t even write her own name. You know, when I heard she was on the list I almost told them where to shove their prize.”

  “Me too. But she won’t win. And ith all stitched up in any casthe. Did you see Nigella’th review of The Thspy Complexth?”

  “I know. It makes you sick, doesn’t it? She gave Stupid Cupid a right roasting.” Katie sighed. “Which hotel are you in, Francisco? Shall we meet up for a drink or something later? Charlie’s here today too, isn’t he? And Basil’s over there with Muriel. We could all go for a meal.”

  “That would be magnifico. Let me sthee where I’m sthaying.”

  There was a rustle of paper as they opened their welcome packs. And then the cosy mood was completely shattered.

  Francisco gasped and muttered, “I don’t understhand…”

  “What’s this?” said Katie. Her voice was harsh. Shocked. Upset.

  I turned around in my chair. Each of them was holding a yellowed sheet of paper. Someone had cut out letters from newspaper headlines and stuck them together to create a message.

  BEWARE THE DRAGON’S BREATH! screamed Francisco’s.

  CUPID’S ARROW WILL STRIKE! shrieked Katie’s.

  Underneath the words were grotesque cartoons of each writer. Francisco – roasted alive. Katie – an arrow through her heart.

  “Is this someone’s idea of a joke?” Katie demanded from the room in general. At the sound of an author in Obvious Distress, Viola came thundering to the rescue. She was as appalled by the poison-pen letters as the two writers were.

  “Where were they?” she demanded, her voice trembling with fury.

  “In our packs,” they replied in unison.

  All of a sudden, everyone was looking at me and Graham. Me and Graham, who had stuffed the packs. Me and Graham, who had handed them out. Me and Graham … who didn’t have a clue how the notes had got there.

  foul play!

  Worse was to come. Viola insisted on rifling through everyone else’s welcome packs. The first few she checked were devoid of notes, and for a second, Graham and I breathed a sigh of relief. But then she checked Basil Tamworth’s. THE BOAR WILL BE REVENGED! squealed the message in his pack, and underneath a lurid cartoon showed an over-large pig biting Basil’s head off. Muriel Black’s shrieked KILL THE WITCH! She was drawn pinned to a tree, a sharpened broomstick through her stomach.

  Viola found three more messages in the packs that hadn’t yet been given out. THERE WILL BE FOUL PLAY! roared Charlie Deadlock’s.

  RIDING FOR A FALL! whinnied Zenith’s.

  BLOODSUCKERS DESERVE TO DIE! howled Esmerelda Desiree’s.

  There were graphic illustrations of each writer lying murdered: Charlie Deadlock, squished under a giant football; Zenith, trampled by a horse; Esmerelda, drained by a vampire.

  Viola fixed Graham and me with a look that might have killed if we hadn’t been so sure of our innocence.

  “We didn’t put them in there!” I declared loudly. “Why would we do that?”

  “I can assure you, Mrs Boulder, it wasn’t us!” Graham’s protestations of innocence were equally indignant.

  The organizer continued to glare at us, and I think we would have been asked to leave the Good Reads Festival then and there if Sue Woodward hadn’t abandoned her refreshments and come to our rescue. The mild-mannered, cardigan-wearing librarian was astonishingly firm when she told Viola, “Poppy and Graham are both mature and responsible students. I can guarantee that they had nothing whatsoever to do with this.”

  Viola scanned me and Graham from head to toe and back again with her X-ray vision before giving us the all clear. Then she nodded once, sniffed and ordered everyone back to their posts. Fortunately, the celebrity chef was having some sort of problem with his anchovies, so Viola bowled away to sort him out. Graham and I were officially off the hook. For the moment.

  “How did they get in there?” I whispered to Graham. “We’ve been here the whole time! No one’s been near this table but us.”

  “Maybe it was that man,” Graham said. “The one without a badge. Did you see anything?”

  “Well, he did help me put them back together when I knocked the table over. I suppose there’s no one else it could be. But why?”

  “No idea.”

  Graham and I sat quietly for a moment, thinking. I glanced around the room. “There are loads of writers here,” I said. “Why target those ones in particular?”

  “I suppose we have to ask ourselves what they have in common.”

  I considered the matter. Every single author that Sue had mentioned in assembly had received one of those notes. Which could only mean… “I know! They all write kids’ books.”

  “Very true,” said Graham slowly. “And there’s something else that links them all…” He paused, his eyes glinting with smugness.

  I elbowed him impatiently in the ribs. “Go on, tell me.”

  “They’re all on the shortlist for this year’s Vellum Prize.”

  “That’s got to mean something, hasn’t it?”

  “It has,” agreed Graham, nodding earnestly.

  The only problem was, neither of us could work out what.

  By now it was 9.45 a.m. The uncollected packs were still sitting – minus their death threats – on the table in front of us. I knew Esmerelda Desiree wasn’t due to arrive until the next day, but the rest of them would be turning up soon.

  “What time is Charlie Deadlock supposed to be here?” I asked Graham.

  “His event starts at eleven o’clock. According to the information Viola supplied, he ought to be here at ten. She’s asked every author to turn up at least an hour before.”

  At that moment, Viola came back in and told me, “The chef’s run out of olive oil. Run and tell the ticket office to send someone out for more, pronto.”

  Leaving Graham in charge of the desk, I set off along the corridors of the town hall. I delivered the message without incident, but when I started back, something odd happened.

  As I turned a corner I saw a man in a football strip. For a second I thought Sam the Striker had escaped from the pages of his books, but then I got a grip and looked more closely. His kit was the same as the one Sam wore on all the book covers, and he was wearing a Sam the Striker mask.

  Now, I knew for a fact that Viola had laid on Winnie the Pooh outfits for the toddlers’ storytime session, and Basil Tamworth had mentioned something about seeing Farmer Biggins. If he’d behaved differently, I might have assumed that the Sam the Striker lookalike was someone from the festival, dressed up to advertise Charlie Deadlock’s event. But there was something sneaky about him. He was moving furtively, as if he was Up To No Good, and the moment he saw me he ran. The whole episode only lasted a moment, but I found it unnerving.

  I returned to the green room and sat back down next to Graham, bu
t I didn’t get a chance to say anything. Before I could open my mouth, Charlie Deadlock himself strode through the double doors.

  And then a football was kicked so savagely at the window behind us that it smashed through the glass, hit Charlie Deadlock squarely between the eyes and knocked him clean off his feet.

  nosebleed

  If Trevor Bakewell hadn’t come back from the toilet at precisely that moment, it would have been a lot nastier. Trevor was directly behind Charlie, so instead of his head smashing against the wall, it thumped into Trevor’s chest. They both ended up, sprawling and winded, on the parquet floor.

  The attack was so sudden and so startling that it was a good few minutes before any of the grown-ups thought to peer out of the window to see who’d kicked the ball, by which time he was long gone. Graham and I, on the other hand, had looked through the shattered glass pretty much instantly to see the man in the football strip running away, scarily fast, along the street. We’d both felt the force of that ball whizzing over our heads, and Graham and I stared at each other, eyebrows raised. I could see that we were thinking the same thing: whoever he was, that man was dangerous.

  The writers’ green room – that haven of peace and tranquillity – was in total uproar. Viola was torn between incandescent fury and abject shame that such a thing could have happened to one of her precious authors. “It hit him!” she gasped incredulously. “It actually hit him! I can’t believe it!”

  Nigella Churchill was on her feet making loud, barbed remarks about “inadequate security” and “amateurish organization”. For a second I thought the organizer might hit her, but instead Viola began shouting at her minions to call a doctor and bring tea and phone the police and get security. She helped Charlie up off the floor and practically carried him across to the nearest sofa, fussing over him like an outraged mother hen. Trevor Bakewell took himself off to the far corner, where he plonked himself down next to Basil and started wringing his hands uselessly and occasionally emitting a high-pitched, anxious whine. Nigella strode over on her killer heels and sat down beside Charlie, patting his hand sympathetically. Charlie himself had a nasty nosebleed but that was all. He was batting people away, slightly embarrassed about the attention.