Poison Pen Read online

  We fell silent. I recognized signs of Deep Thought on Graham’s face, so I didn’t say anything more until he spoke again. “The thing that perplexes me,” he said at last, “is that there doesn’t seem to be a single consistent motive that unites all the different attacks. I suppose what we have to consider is the combined effect. That way, we might come nearer to discovering who’s orchestrating it all.”

  “Well,” I said, “the festival has been virtually destroyed. I can’t imagine that Viola will want to organize another one.” The glimmer of an idea flicked across my brain. “I wonder…”

  “What?” asked Graham.

  “Whoever’s doing it… Is it really the authors they’re after?”

  “On today’s evidence I’d have said yes, definitely,” Graham told me.

  “Suppose someone’s using them to get to Viola? Has she got any enemies? Her festival’s been sabotaged from the word go. Maybe it’s her they’re trying to hurt. It’s like in a war when you bomb a military base or something and civilians get killed by accident. There’s a name for it…”

  “Collateral damage,” Graham supplied helpfully.

  “Yes – that’s it. Maybe the authors are just being used. You know how we always look for Motive, Means and Opportunity? Well, maybe they’re the Means.”

  We Googled “Viola Boulder” but couldn’t find very much about her other than stuff related to the book festival. She’d given various interviews beforehand, but all she’d talked about were the visiting authors. She was also a member of the local choral society and helped out on alternate Mondays at a charity shop on the high street, but that was about it. She seemed to be a fine, upstanding member of the community. We couldn’t find a single reason why anybody would want to sabotage the Good Reads Festival. Even so, I couldn’t help feeling that Viola might be the real victim.

  Mum arrived back at that point, so we shut the computer down quickly and jumped to our feet to help with the food. She crashed out on the sofa and switched on the TV while Graham and I took the bag into the kitchen and dished special chow mein and crispy beef onto plates.

  “Nigella’s been pretty poisonous to Viola, hasn’t she?” I said, crunching on a prawn cracker.

  Graham nodded. “Whoever’s behind the whole thing has a very detailed knowledge of the authors’ works, which would certainly be consistent with them being a children’s book specialist.”

  “And those notes were cut out from headlines – I wonder if they were from her own newspaper? I reckon we’re going to have to keep a close eye on Nigella Churchill. But if she’s doing it to get to Viola, I can’t see her seriously hurting anyone,” I concluded. “She practically worships Charlie, for a start. Maybe those death threats were just that – threats. The attacks might just be stupid, sick jokes. I mean, no one’s actually been seriously hurt, have they? Perhaps they weren’t meant to be.”

  As I tucked into my Chinese, I felt pretty confident that there wasn’t anything much to worry about – but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The very next day we had a corpse on our hands.

  press attack!

  When Graham and I arrived at the town hall the following morning, the pavement outside was awash with pale-faced, moody-looking goths dressed in flowing black velvet, desperate to grab front-row seats for Esmerelda Desiree’s event.

  We squeezed through the massed vampire-lovers and into the town hall, where Viola was preparing her troops for the forthcoming day’s action. We noticed that she’d heavily increased the festival’s security – there were a good few extra guards looking macho in dark corners, as well as two uniformed police constables standing to attention in the entrance.

  The original schedule had me and Graham down for helping out with the glueing and sticking at the make-your-own-pop-up-book event in the library. After that we were supposed to assist with crowd control at Esmerelda’s signing. But after yesterday’s catastrophes, it seemed that Nigella Churchill had made a few phone calls. The Good Reads Festival was now the object of intense interest to every journalist in the country. Viola had been forced to organize an emergency press conference, and Graham and I were reassigned to handing out tea and biscuits to the mob of reporters and photographers.

  When they interviewed Viola, barking out questions as she sat rock solid on the stage, she looked cool, calm and collected. I could tell from her neck and shoulders that she was tense, but she spoke clearly and concisely and refused point-blank to speculate about who was behind “what I can only assume to be malicious practical jokes perpetrated on some of my authors”.

  There wasn’t really much else she could tell them: she just kept repeating that no, she didn’t know who was responsible and yes, she had taken every precaution to ensure that no further unpleasantness would occur. The police had been through the building with a fine-toothed comb and hadn’t found any further booby traps. I have to say that most of the journalists looked a little disappointed.

  The conference lasted about half an hour and was followed by a photocall. Every newspaper in the country seemed to want a picture of swollen-nosed Charlie Deadlock and poor bruised Basil Tamworth, the imprint of a trotter showing up nicely purple on his right cheek. They were less interested in Katie, Muriel and Francisco, who didn’t have any actual wounds to display. Basil and Charlie obliged, smiling awkwardly on the town hall steps and looking slightly embarrassed. But the clicking and flashing of dozens of cameras drew the now manure-free and immaculately groomed Zenith out of the hotel like a moth to a flame. She strutted her stuff, posing and pouting, her lizard lips fixed in a broad, reptilian grin.

  When the photographers had finished, the authors returned to the green room. They were all running creative writing sessions that day and needed to be thoroughly topped up with coffee and chocolate biscuits first. Zenith, on the other hand, was way too important to sully her hands with a workshop. Or maybe – if we were right about the ghost writing – she just didn’t have a clue how to run one. She climbed into a violently pink limousine and returned to her country mansion, and I can’t say anyone seemed even remotely sorry to see her go.

  Following Viola’s instructions religiously, we made sure that our authors were warm and comfortable and well supplied with nourishment. No one was going to starve while we were there. And while we were busy topping up cups and opening more packets, we also managed a bit of eavesdropping.

  Katie and Francisco were sitting together on a sofa. Muriel was curled in a nearby armchair. Opposite her, Charlie was apparently engrossed in the Sunday papers. Trevor was biting his fingernails whilst trying (and failing) to reassure Basil that pigs wouldn’t invade his workshop sessions.

  “I see that strange little man is hanging around again this morning,” Katie said to Francisco. “The one with the carrier bag.”

  My ears pricked up at once. Graham and I glanced at each other and shuffled closer to the sofa.

  “He told me hith name ith Maxth Spectre. Yestherday morning he athked if I’d look at hith manuthscript.”

  “He cornered me, too. I made the mistake of nipping to the ladies during Zenith’s event. He even nobbled poor old Basil. There’s one at every festival, isn’t there? What did you tell him?”

  “What I alwayth tell people. I’m justh a writer. I can’t judge other peopleth work. I advithed him to find an agent or a publisher.”

  “Yes, me too. I gave him Fletcher, Beaumont & Grimm’s address and told him to send it there. He had a bit of a mad look in his eyes, though, didn’t he? I found him rather alarming. Didn’t he collar you too, Trevor?”

  Trevor looked up, startled. “Yes, he did. I don’t know what he thought I could do.”

  Katie shrugged. “I suppose he hoped you’d have some influence. You work for a publisher, after all.”

  “Only in the publicity department. And I’m so junior!” he whimpered. “It’s not like anyone listens to me.”

  “The man’s clearly desperate,” sighed Basil, passing his handkerchief over his
brow. “Do you think he’s asked every author here?”

  “He certainly asked me,” Muriel Black spoke up.

  “How about you?” Francisco called across to Charlie Deadlock.

  Charlie looked up from his newspaper and his eyes narrowed just a fraction. It was a second or two before he replied and, when he did, he said flatly that he didn’t know who on earth they were talking about. He’d never seen the man.

  The conversation rolled on to other subjects and Charlie went back to his newspaper.

  I looked around the room at the other authors chatting casually to each other. I was pretty sure none of them were hiding anything: in fact, I’d have bet my entire pocket money they hadn’t laid eyes on Max Spectre before yesterday.

  On the other hand, I was one hundred per cent certain that Charlie knew who he was – Graham and I had heard their conversation with our own ears, after all. So why was he so determined to deny it?

  vampires

  Yesterday the authors had arrived at the town hall under their own steam, but today Viola was taking special measures. It clearly hadn’t escaped her notice that all the victims were children’s writers. She was planning to be especially careful with Esmerelda Desiree.

  Graham and I were despatched with Esmerelda’s welcome pack across the road to the hotel where all the authors were staying. We, along with two security guards and a uniformed police constable, were then to escort her back to the town hall for her event.

  As soon as we reached the hotel lobby, the receptionist put a call through to Esmerelda’s room. Five minutes later she appeared at the top of the grand staircase … and my jaw literally dropped.

  It wasn’t until I saw Esmerelda Desiree that I realized how deeply disappointing the other authors were. I mean, they’d all written brilliant books (with the possible exception of Zenith), but when you met them face to face they were nothing like their fictional creations. Sam the Striker, for example, was a superb footballer with the looks of a male model; Charlie Deadlock was fifty, fat and bald. Muriel Black didn’t possess an ounce of magic, and Zenith looked more like a pantomime dame than a princess. Katie Bell’s characters were young and beautiful with impeccable fashion sense; she was middle-aged, mousy and slightly scruffy. Francisco Botticelli wrote epic tales about evil sorcerers and noble knights, while he himself was small, slight and unimpressive: he’d probably fall over if he ever attempted to pick up a sword. And as for Basil Tamworth, the bruises on his face proved how incompetent he was at handling real, live pigs.

  Esmerelda Desiree, on the other hand, was stunning. When she appeared, mine wasn’t the only sharp intake of breath – gasps circulated around the lobby like a Mexican wave. She wasn’t just young and beautiful, she embodied the essence of her book. The Vampiress of Venezia was about – you’ve guessed it – the forbidden love and doomed romance of a teenage bloodsucker in sixteenth-century Venice. Esmerelda Desiree looked as if she’d stepped straight out of the pages of her book, like a queen of the night or an empress of the undead – gorgeously fascinating but totally deadly. She was as pale as her gothic fans outside, but whereas they looked simply ill, her skin shone like a pearl. Her hair was so black it had the metallic sheen of ravens’ wings. Her lips and fingernails were painted blood-red and she was wearing a dress you’d only expect to see on Oscars night – it should have looked completely over the top that early in the day, but somehow Esmerelda could get away with it. She was so beautiful, she could get away with anything.

  She stood for a few moments, surveying the upturned faces in the lobby below. Then, with a perfect sense of dramatic timing, she descended the stairs.

  When we left the hotel, the fans outside dropped all pretence of moodiness: they clapped and screamed almost as loudly as the pink princesses had done for Zenith. Unlike Zenith, however, who’d basked in the attention (until the manure incident had dampened her spirits), Esmerelda Desiree seemed almost indifferent. Accepted it as her right. She was regal. Stately. The very essence of Cool. She walked forward, Graham and I trotting behind like a pair of poodles, and the crowd parted like the Red Sea.

  We crossed the road without incident and were just about to enter the town hall when Max Spectre suddenly leapt from the shadows to block our way. One of the security guys moved forward to intercept him, but Esmerelda laid a pale, manicured hand on his arm and said in a deep, husky voice, “No. Let the man speak.”

  Max looked weary. Despairing. He held up his plastic bag and said, no doubt for the umpteenth time, “I’ve written this book. I need some help getting it published. I heard you—”

  “I’m a little busy right now,” Esmerelda interrupted, but then she gave him a gracious smile. “I have a reading to do. Maybe later.”

  Hope flared in Max’s eyes. He’d clearly expected her to brush him off the way the others had. His sudden eagerness was pitiful. “You’ll look at it?” he asked. “Really?”

  Esmerelda was startled by the intensity of his response and took a step back, spiking the security guard’s foot with her stiletto. He winced.

  “Yes, well, see you…” Esmerelda said uncertainly.

  By now, Viola had appeared and was coming down the town hall steps with the speed of an avalanche. Before Max could say anything, she bustled him out of the way. “I will not have my authors pestered,” she barked. Meekly, we followed her in.

  Esmerelda’s event was in the same room as Zenith’s had been the day before. The stage had been thoroughly scrubbed, but I thought I could detect a faint whiff of manure.

  Tim, the technician, fixed a wire contraption around Esmerelda’s neck, just above her collarbone. The mike nestled against her pearly white neck like a rather large cockroach.

  “All set?” asked Viola.

  “Absolutely,” nodded Tim.

  They both seemed quite wound up, but after yesterday’s dramas it was hardly surprising. Tim sat down at the control desk and it was then that disaster struck. He went to pick up his coffee, but the cup slipped and hot liquid splashed over all the electronics.

  Esmerelda’s mike let out the most hideous screech, then crackled and died.

  Tim looked as if he was going to be sick and all the colour drained from his face. When he said weakly that he didn’t have a spare, Esmerelda replied graciously, “Don’t worry. I was at drama school before I started writing. I know how to project my voice. I can manage without a mike.”

  Although Esmerelda seemed totally cool about it, I thought Viola was going to faint or have a heart attack or both. “No!” she gasped. “No!” The mike’s demise seemed to have tipped her over the edge. “I can’t bear it,” she said in a cracked, despairing voice. “Not after all my hard work. That’s it. I’ve had enough. I give up.” She broke into loud sobs and Tim had to find Sue Woodward, who led her off to lie down in the green room.

  Graham and I looked at each other uncomfortably, but we didn’t have time to talk about Viola. Esmerelda’s event was due to begin.

  The doors opened, the goths poured in and, after the usual introduction by Nigella Churchill, Esmerelda Desiree started to talk. Once again, I was astounded. The other events I’d seen had been a bit dull, to be honest. Unless you were a mad-keen fan, none of the authors were exactly gripping. Esmerelda Desiree, however, was different. She was electrifying. Mesmerizing. When she read an extract from The Vampiress of Venezia, her audience hung on every word. I was spellbound.

  Towards the end she asked for questions from the audience. There was the usual sort of stuff: what books did she like reading? Who was her favourite author? How long had it taken her to write the book? Where had she got the idea from? They’d all been asked that one. Katie, Muriel and Francisco had given virtually the same vaguely mystical answer as Charlie Deadlock – that stories just seemed to be Out There Waiting to Find an Author. Esmerelda, on the other hand, was very specific, describing in gripping detail a visit she’d made to Venice and how she’d walked the streets at night thinking up the plot.

  Then a girl in a
black cape asked if there was going to be a sequel.

  Everyone in the room leant forward with eager anticipation.

  Esmerelda didn’t answer at once, clearly enjoying the moment. Then she said firmly, “No. I won’t write a sequel.”

  A deep, disappointed sigh was expelled from every chest. The breeze rippled Esmerelda’s raven hair.

  “My publisher would love me to write another,” she explained, “but I feel the book stands alone. I want to explore other subjects.”

  Nigella asked, “Are you working on something now?”

  “Yes,” breathed Esmerelda huskily. She cast down her eyes and added mysteriously, “But I’d rather not say what it is. All I will tell you is that it’s a very different novel from The Vampiress of Venezia.”

  That seemed to bring the event nicely to an end. “I’m sure we’re all looking forward to reading it,” Nigella said smoothly. “Esmerelda Desiree, thank you.”

  “It’s been a pleasure.”

  There was a long, loud, rapturous round of applause, and then Graham and I had to scarper to the book-signing table.

  Apart from the hitch with the microphone, Esmerelda’s event had passed entirely without incident. I commented on it to Graham as we walked along the line of goths handing out Post-it notes.

  “It may well be because of the increased security measures,” he replied. “The opportunities for an attacker will be extremely limited now.”

  “Mmm … maybe. Or it could be because Esmerelda was nice to Max Spectre.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, now we know he talked to the others, too,” I said. “What if he’s been attacking people who won’t help him?”

  “Esmerelda Desiree may well be safe if that’s the case,” said Graham, frowning. “But Trevor had better take care. Max approached him, too, didn’t he?”

  I felt a sudden stab of anxiety for Basil’s publicist. He wouldn’t be covered by Viola’s increased security measures – those were just for the authors. Was he OK? I became more and more worried as the signing went on. It took ages. The queue of moody goths seemed to go on for ever, and they weren’t content just to get their book signed and move off – they all had to have great long conversations with Esmerelda about life essence and the undead. I got quite twitchy.