Crooked Herring (12 page)

RECORDING ENDS

My meeting with Mary Devlin Jones went well. One thing that I am now convinced of is that she was stitched up over the plagiarism. But by whom?

She had omitted one small fact from her account. The most effective witness in her defence might have been Crispin, but he had entered the fray somewhat late in the day with a short and rather bland statement to the effect that he had merely helped her with some editing. Well, that’s all you get if you have written the person concerned into one of your novels and then subjected their alter ego to a couple of weeks of excruciating torture over 150 pages.

But it was unlikely, however sore he was feeling, that Crispin would have started the rumour himself. Emma, conversely, was both sufficiently well informed and sufficiently well motivated to screw Mary’s budding career.
I was fairly sure that a little more research might trace the original rumour back to her – I was less sure that it would help solve the problem of where Crispin was and whether Henry had killed him.

Back, then, to the death threat letter.

I got the sheet of paper out from the place where I carefully store such things, and re-examined it. It was on cheap A4 of the sort sold in supermarkets pretty well anywhere. I was pretty sure there’d be no fingerprints on it. There’d be mine and Ethelred’s, of course, but probably not the writer’s. The ink was ballpoint – probably also from a supermarket or a freebie picked up at a conference. The block capitals were neat and without much character. The various spelling mistakes were clearly deliberate – a literate man pretending to be otherwise.

Most of the ‘mistakes’ were blatant, clumsy things. It was the product of a writer of fiction with too much time on
his hands. ‘Inns and outs’, for example, was an improbable error, coming from somebody who could spell ‘amateur’. And, I noticed, it was not only Ethelred’s name that was misspelt. Lord Peter Wimsey had suffered the same fate. But there was one error that, for me at least, stood out the most. Most of us grow up with a blind spot for one or two words – however many times our spellchecker puts us right. In an uncorrected handwritten note they are almost a signature. Running together ‘no’ and ‘longer’ into a single word looked like one of these. After all, we have ‘nowhere’ and ‘nobody’ and ‘nothing’. Why not ‘nolonger’? I used to do it myself, so I tend to notice it when it does crop up. And I was sure I’d seen it before very recently – and more than once. The question was where?

I made myself a coffee and opened a packet of chocolate biscuits. But the answer to the question was so obvious that I had eaten scarcely three-quarters of them before the answer was revealed. It was Thrillseeker on Amazon:

Well, well, the author of the death threats and Thrillseeker (that is to say, Crispin) both thought there was such a word as ‘nolonger’. I went through Sussexreader’s reviews too:

Interesting.

I looked again at the death threat and the other spelling error I had just noticed. Maybe that too would show up in the Amazon reviews? It certainly rang a bell. Another trawl produced this, from Thrillseeker’s review of 15 December:

So, two very distinctive misspellings made their appearance both in Crispin’s Amazon reviews and the death threat. It was almost like a fingerprint.

But I knew I’d seen the ‘nolonger’ mistake somewhere else. Where was that? I was throwing the biscuit wrapper in the bin when I finally remembered – it had been in the text message from Crispin to Ethelred. That pretty much sealed it.

Of course, I realised that it might not stand up in court, but it was clear enough to me. Crispin had, for reasons best known to himself, set up multiple sockpuppet accounts to praise some authors (such as himself and Henry Holiday) and rubbish others (such as Ethelred). Then he had vanished, having sent a death threat letter to Ethelred that implied that he had been murdered. And leaving Henry
under the impression that he had killed Crispin. It was, in its own crooked way, ingenious. But why on earth would he want to do it?

Anyway, why would Crispin big up Henry on Amazon? Even to the extent, if I remembered correctly, of admitting Henry was the better writer. How was that a necessary part of anything? It was true that Henry was a blatant imitator of Crispin’s style. But even if Crispin had loved Henry’s books to bits, there would surely be better ways of doing it than anonymous reviews on Amazon.

And why then send a text to Ethelred, in effect blowing his cover? Could somebody else have sent the text? The text was, when you thought about it, outright proof that Crispin was alive.

I reread Sussexreader’s reviews, looking for the smallest detail that might prove useful. Then I noticed the big detail. The most recent was dated 7 January. So, there was further evidence that Crispin had not died on New Year’s Eve. Dead men do not review on Amazon.

I decided to phone Ethelred in the morning. There were unanswered questions, but I was as sure as I could be that Crispin was alive. I’d also cracked the riddle of who sent the death threat. And if Crispin had indeed now fled the country, Ethelred could be sure that he wouldn’t be getting any more of them.

The envelope was lying on the doormat. It was six-fifteen in the morning. I stood for a moment, clutching the cup of coffee I had just made. Then I picked it up and opened it.

The number that followed was indeed Crispin’s home number.

Again, I was left with the feeling that the various errors in the letter were deliberate. How else could I explain the correct spelling of ‘been’ on one line, apparently forgotten completely only a few lines later. Or the inexplicable double misspelling of ‘know’. And yet there was not an apostrophe or comma out of place.

I knew I had not been followed to Didling Green. Or to Brighton. The question was whether anyone had needed to. If they already knew Henry had been to Didling Green on New Year’s Eve, how far would they have to follow us to guess that was our destination? If they knew I had phoned Emma, it would not take much ingenuity to guess I might have followed it up with a visit? And yet, there was a certainty in the note that contradicted the idea that this was mere guesswork.

I called Elsie.

‘I’ve had a death threat.’

‘Yes, Ethelred, I know. I saw it. Actually I’ve got it in my handbag.’

‘I’m talking about a second one. It’s just like the first one – I mean it’s all in capitals and misspelt. It says I’m going to die.’

‘You can’t have a second one. I was about to phone you. I’d just worked the whole thing out and a second death threat is impossible. Crispin wrote the first one. And he’s now out of the country. Does it have a Swedish stamp or anything?’

‘No, it was delivered by hand, like the last one.’

‘Then Crispin’s lying about having left the country,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Anyway, why should he be in Sweden?’

Elsie then explained, with due reference to her unrivalled cleverness, how she had established that the death-threater, Thrillseeker and Sussexreader were all Crispin. I expressed admiration, though perhaps less than she felt was her due.

‘So what does the letter say this time?’ she asked.

‘It says somebody knows exactly where I’ve been. And I’m going to die.’

‘Well, unless you had imagined you were immortal, that won’t have come as a shock. The days of our years are three score and ten.’

‘I don’t think the writer is making either a philosophical or a theological point. He implies he can speed things along.’

‘And he’s encouraging you to talk to Emma again?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t get it. Why does Crispin want you to talk to Emma? Unless he’s making the point that the whole thing is revenge for your nocturnal activities at Harrogate.’

‘There were no nocturnal activities at Harrogate.’

‘I bet there were. You just didn’t get your share of them. I’m sure Crispin had plenty.’

‘That could be. There and in other places.’

‘Does the name Elisabeth Söderling mean anything to you?’ Elsie asked.

‘A reasonably successful writer of gloom-laden Nordic crime.’

‘She was with Crispin at Bristol, apparently.’

‘Possibly. Is that why you think Crispin’s in Stockholm?’

‘That was my theory. The latest letter rather puts a hole in it, though.’

‘Well, I don’t think it’s worth my going out to Sweden just in case,’ I said. ‘But I do think it’s worth phoning Emma to see what it is she hasn’t told me.’

‘But that’s what Crispin wants you to do.’

‘I can’t see there’s any problem in my talking to Emma again,’ I said.

‘I have a better idea for tracking Crispin down.’

‘Really? What?’

‘Never you mind. Just be impressed when I let you know where he is. And in the meantime, ignore that letter completely.’

‘And not phone Emma?’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Elsie.
‘It’s what he wants you to do.’

She was right, of course. It was indeed what he wanted me to do. But in the end I didn’t need to phone. Emma phoned me.