B00BCLBHSA EBOK (15 page)

Morgana fetched a chair for Maggie and fussed over
her, pouring her a glass of wine.

Maggie said, “Des couldn’t face company just now. Nothing personal. He doesn’t blame you.”

“Of course not. I’m not surprised. I think if I’d have been in his situation, I’d
have skedaddled. And what must you be feeling? These aren’t the best
circumstances to make your debut among the Romance Writers of Great Britain.”

Maggie gripped her handbag. “I suppose it means I’m
the winner now, with the other two gone?”

It was time for the gala dinner, though nobody much
felt like celebrating. Even the vigil had fizzled out. Emily had a quick wash
and brush-up and then looked into the Brunswick room. Des was in there, a chair
pulled up to the table with the wilting, plastic-wrapped flowers and the
stuffed toy cats underneath. He was staring at the scrolling tributes on the
computer screen in front of him, and he was alone except for the couple in the
blue anoraks. They sat side by side, staring straight ahead of them at nothing
at all, taking it in turns to dip their hands into a family pack of prawn
cocktail crisps, with the synchronicity honed in a long marriage.

No one had proposed holding a vigil for Teena.
First, she lacked the intrinsic glamour that was Winnie’s
birthright as an American who had lived in the
blessed land of movies, New York, and Disney World. Second, it appeared that Teena had died while sticking her nose in where it frankly
didn’t belong, and nobody ever held a vigil for something like that. Third,
even the most rabid proponents of public grief can get compassion fatigue. Teena’s death was where this lot drew the line. Her death
seemed to have deflated them, suggesting as it did that people just keep on
dying no matter what anyone tries to do about it. Fourth, it had all seemed a
bit too real and ugly: many of them had been at the press conference and seen Teena’s dead body through the window of the T. S. Eliot
room. Many now felt they had done their bit and hadn’t returned to the Captain
Thomas Coram room. Of those who did return, many had got hungry and drifted
back home to have dinner and watch TV. Frazer the bookseller had packed up and
gone. Only the anorak couple were still here, dining on crisps.

Emily went over to Des. “How are you doing, Des? Do you want to come
and join us? We’re going to have dinner. Morgana was going to say a few words
about your wife.”

He shook his head. “The police say they’re keeping an open mind. Is
that Britspeak for ‘we know what happened but we’re
not going to tell you’? It wasn’t suicide. She didn’t leave a note. Anyways,
why jump? She was happy.”

“Did they say anything about Teena?”

Des shook his head again. “Keeping an open mind.”

“Did they know each other? I mean, online?”

Des shrugged. “Winnie had a lot of friends
all over the world. Books meant a lot to her. That’s why they asked her to come
here, isn’t it? I mean, sure, there was a contest. But there’s always something
at the back of it. It’s the same if you win a vacation or anything, isn’t it? Publicity. Cheap advertising. I
don’t mind. That’s how the world works. Made my girl happy.
You know?”

Emily suddenly remembered something. “Did she have a pronounced Southern
accent?”

“No. We grew up around the same place. She talked the same as me.”

“She hadn’t been here before, had she? She must have been looking
forward to coming here.”

“Was she ever!”

Emily knew that was one of those American phrases that meant the
opposite of what it ought to mean. “No-brainer” ought to mean stupid, but it
didn’t. “Lucked out” ought to mean out of luck, but it didn’t. “Was she ever”
ought to mean no, or at least express doubt of some kind, but it didn’t.
Fortunately, Emily watched her share of TV, so she knew Des was expressing
enthusiastic agreement. If he had offered her a “re-up” on “the corners” she
would have politely declined, though she’d have known what he meant by that as
well, having watched all five seasons of
The
Wire
on DVD.

“A tragedy like this reminds you people have good hearts. We only
had the money for one airfare. That’s why Win made the trip alone. The folks
where we live, they got up a collection online to pay for my ticket to come
here, and to pay for the service and the…the burial.”

“That’s nice. Americans always seem so community minded.”

“There’s people from all over the world
who’ve contributed. Your organization, too. They
donated a thousand bucks. That was a decent thing to do. I don’t hold the
romance writers responsible.”

There was nothing she could say to Des by way of consolation for the
loss of his wife. Instead, Emily stood companionably by his side, watching the
tribute sites scroll by.

“Teena set these screens up. Pretty much
the last thing she did before she died.”

“Gee. That was nice of her. So it’s a tribute to her as well. Kinda.”

Page after page of book blogs scrolled by, crammed full of news and
reviews. How did these people ever find time to read all those books, let alone
write them up in such detail?

And then she saw one site that jarred, because it was out of keeping
with all the rest. She bent to look. It was a little local news blog, full of
parochial notices about village fetes, cricket matches, and plans to protest
against a wind farm that would jeopardize a bird sanctuary. An anomaly! She got
out her notebook and made a note.

“I’ll be gone in the morning, early,” Des said. “I’ve got to see
about repatriating the body.” He handed Emily a business card, misunderstanding
the purpose of her note taking. “But if you want to ask me anything about Win,
for a website or anything, you can send me an email. I’ll be glad to talk. It’s
a way of remembering.” Emily smiled a choked-up smile at Des and left him to
his grief.

Emily was on her way down to the
basement conference area to help Morgana set out the place cards for dinner
when she bumped into Det. James.

“Rory, I wanted to talk to you!”

“Hey, Emily. Remembered something that might help the investigation?”

“No, I wanted to ask you something.”

“You don’t say?”

“You think the same person’s responsible for Winnie’s and Teena’s deaths?”

“We’re keeping an open mind.”

“You don’t think it’s
suicide, though? That doesn’t make sense. That would be weird, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, that’s not how we’d present the facts to the
coroner. But you’re right. We’re going through some…some documents we found on Teena. They give an indication of her state of mind.”

“Documents? You mean like a note?”

“A notebook.”

Emily blushed. “You shouldn’t take too much notice of
what people write in their notebooks.”

“We have to take notice of everything. That’s how an
investigation works. Slow, methodical…Emily, have you ever heard of the One
Star Club?”

“Does it exist, then?”

“That a yes or a no? Sounds like yes to me.”

“It’s a…well it’s a long story. I don’t think it’s
relevant.”

“Oh, don’t you? I’m already in trouble with my boss
for cutting corners.”

“The poison?”

“I can’t tell you, Emily.”

“Oh,
please
tell me. Please! I was right about the cyanide? At least admit it was
possible.”

“You want me to say it’s possible you were right about
a possible plan by one person to poison another?” He grinned. He was a
naturally cheery person, despite the job he did.

“Yes!”

“Well it is possible. But I can’t say it.”

Emily grinned, too. First because maybe she was
right about the cyanide, and she liked to be right as much as the next person.
Second because all those possibles tumbling around
where they didn’t really belong made Emily think of wild, furry creatures—possums?—and reminded her of the unexpected
sight she’d had recently of four fox cubs chasing each other in a playfight in her back garden. Third
because he might have died from eating that chocolate, and he hadn’t.

Emily and Morgana put out the place
cards in the Montagu room according to the seating plan Morgana had made for
dinner, except that they moved everybody on the right-hand side and everybody
on the left-hand side up one place to close the gaps where Maggie and Teena should have been sitting. As they worked, Maria
walked in between them, removing the specially-printed menu cards that had been
placed on the tables, which were set up in a horseshoe shape, like a wedding
breakfast, with Morgana to be placed at its head.

Emily and Morgana chatted about the menu—they were
getting hungry—and, although they smiled and looked over at her when they
spoke, to include her, Maria worked silently, even grimly, without looking up.

Emily picked up one of the menu cards Maria hadn’t yet
removed. “The goat cheese and roasted artichoke tart with beetroot chutney
sounds nice,” she said.

“Mmmm. You know you can get tubs of roasted artichoke hearts in
Sainsbury’s now? When I’ve had one of those days where I feel like absolute
hell, sometimes I’ll nip out and buy a tub, and then I’ll sit in the kitchen
and
gorge
myself on those delicious
hearts. Oh! I sound like a novice satanic ritualist
who has got mixed up about the specifics of the rites.” Morgana giggled.

“Artichoke hearts are supposed to be good for your
liver.” Emily had a feeling Morgana might need to go on a detox tomorrow.

“I’ve tried to choose menu options that are light but
filling. We don’t want everyone getting too pissed. We’ve got health-conscious
mains for those who care about such things. I hope they’ll still be enough of a
treat for those who don’t. And, of course, I always want meat from an animal
that has had a good life. Don’t you?”

“I’m vegetarian.”

“Oh, how tiresome for you.” Morgana’s sympathy was genuine. “Polly’s the same. Kicked up a
terrible fuss over a goose we tried to serve once for a RWGB Christmas dinner.
Said why not go ahead and roast an angel and serve it up with sprouts and gravy
if we wanted to be festive.”

Emily laughed. She could imagine Polly saying it.

“All the food has been sourced from farms where the
animals are allowed to wander at will, before being shot or strangled whatever
it is that they do. Nik has been extremely helpful
with the arrangements for dinner, fortunately.”

Morgana had begun speaking self-consciously, which
suggested to Emily that the subject of her conversation might be lurking near
at hand. And there he was, hands wringing together in a way that indicated he
was about to spill more bad news.

“The kitchens—”

“We’re fortunate to be in such good hands, Nik. I saw a very nice review for the hotel restaurant in
Time Out
about two weeks ago.”

“The kitchens have been shut for tonight. The police
need to search the area after the, um, the unfortunate accident. They’re questioning
all the staff.”

“I hope no one blames you. If someone’s determined to
climb over a fence on a roof, knowing it’s dangerous, you can’t be held
accountable.”

“I’ve got Health and Safety on my back, checking the fences
upstairs, checking whether I, personally, might be criminally culpable—it
carries a jail term. I’m afraid we can’t allow your party to, uh, party on the
roof.”

“Oh, you poor thing! Never mind about us. Everything’s gone wrong so far—nothing else
bad can happen. That’s the way we’ve got to deal with it. We shall look back on
this at future conferences and no one will
ever
complain about anything again because everything will seem rosy in comparison.”

“I admire your, uh…But I
don’t think you quite follow me. We can’t serve a hot meal tonight. Our chef’s
preparing you a…well, it’s a variation on our very
popular Executive Brown-Bag Lunch. Of course, you’re quite welcome to look
elsewhere. I can have the concierge try and make reservations.”

Even Morgana struggled to make the best of this news.
But she did it. Eventually. “I don’t think we can
shift location. Where would forty of us even get in at this time on a Saturday
night at this late notice?”

“There’s that salsa place on Charing Cross Road. We’ve
made inquiries, and they could do shared platters at a twenty percent discount. Your ladies and gentlemen would be very
welcome to stay and dance afterward. It’s popular with hen parties.” Nik looked wretched. As well he might.

“A salsa bar on a Saturday night—that sounds like it
might involve a little too much loud music and shouting. A brown-bag lunch
sounds very…well it sounds very literary and hardworking, doesn’t it? And American. One imagines T. S. Eliot having a brown-bag
lunch.”

“What
is
a
brown-bag lunch?” asked Emily. Though she was vegetarian and she had developed
a subtle palate, she couldn’t imagine eating a brown paper bag, if that’s what Nik was suggesting.

Nik
explained, “It’s a sort of picnic. Cold cuts. A slice of cake. A nectarine each, if
we’ve got it. Chef said he thought he might have forty kiwi fruit. Of
course, the wine tonight is on us.”

“A picnic! Why, Virginia Woolf herself might have enjoyed it, then,” Morgana
said miserably, though she was trying to express delight. “And, thank you.
We’ll take you up on the free wine.”

“I’ll bring you in a glass each now of the white, so
you can try it.”

“
Would
you!
” Morgana accidentally shouted. She was
making too much effort not to sob to have any energy left over to regulate the
volume at which she expressed her enthusiasm for wine.

As Nik went back through the
service door to fetch the wine, Emily heard the incongruous sound of a voice
singing mockingly: “Heigh-ho!”

Lex was one of the first dinner guests to arrive. Emily wondered where
he’d been when Teena had been pushed off the roof.
She was to be seated next to him, so perhaps she’d have a chance to ask him.
Morgana had explained her decision to put Emily next to Lex
by saying, “Lex does like the company of intelligent
young women, he finds it very stimulating.” She didn’t say whether that was a
good thing or a bad thing, and Emily felt that would rather depend on the crime
he’d been accused of, though it shouldn’t.

Lex had sat down
in his place, and Morgana paused for a brief chat, leaning on the back of Dr. Muriel’s empty chair, which was positioned on Lex’s right side. Lex was in a
generous mood.