Crooked Herring (14 page)

‘Missing?’ said Elsie. ‘So the police think he’s dead?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘The report didn’t say that. It’s just that somebody has reported Crispin missing.’

‘So who reported him?’

‘Not me or Emma,’ I said.

‘What if he reported himself missing?’ asked Elsie.

‘Could you do that? I mean, anyone can make a report, but the police would surely check on the identity of whoever made it. And it would still be a strange thing to do.’

‘No stranger than sending you death threats,’ said Elsie.

‘You’ve still got that first letter safe I take it?’ I asked.

‘Naturally. I won’t lose it. What about the second one?’

‘I dropped it round to Henry. I told him we thought Crispin was the author and he said he wanted to see it. He said he had samples of his handwriting. He’s going to let
me know what he thinks of it. I’ll pick the letter up again later.’

‘Did you get any more out of Emma?’ she asked.

‘Not really. I just ended up making her think I was weird.’

‘No shit? How on earth did you manage that?’

‘I’m not sure. I think probably …’

‘Sorry, Ethelred. That was irony.’

‘Was it?’

‘Yes. OK, tell me, then – what was her reaction to what you told her?’

‘Well, she was cross that I hadn’t mentioned the death threats before. Then when I asked whether she knew where Crispin was, she got even crosser and hung up on me.’

‘Ethelred …’ Elsie paused for a moment.

‘Still here,’ I said.

‘You don’t think that maybe she did kill Crispin? I mean, let’s say that Henry did drop Crispin off in Chichester and that he got a train or taxi back to Brighton. So, he shows up at the family home at one o’clock in the morning, completely drunk. He and Emma argue, as they well might. Emma bludgeons him to death with the left-over turkey or whatever is to hand in the kitchen. But she knows that he was out with Henry – the scumbag who lied to her about Crispin and her best friend. So, she reckons she can pin it on him. You phone her with all your questions. She puts two and two together – you are working for Henry. The next thing you know you’ve got a death threat on your mat, implying that Henry is the killer.’

‘I’m not sure she even had my address,’ I said.

‘But it’s all in the CWA Directory, isn’t it? Any crime
writer or agent or their friends and relations could get their hands on that.’

‘Whoever wrote the letter would have to live close by – it was hand-delivered in the early hours of the morning.’

‘Brighton’s close enough,’ said Elsie. ‘And she kept the BMW.’

‘But why does the second note tell me to question Emma more closely if she wrote it?’

‘To throw you off the scent,’ said Elsie.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘She would also have Crispin’s phone to hand to send you a text.’

‘She said she didn’t.’

‘Did I explain that blondes can lie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anyway,’ said Elsie, ‘do you want to know the rest of what I’ve discovered?’

‘There’s more?’

‘Quite a lot more, but I’ve just had to take on two additional clients because of you,’ said Elsie.

‘Because of me?’

‘Don’t keep repeating what I say like an author trying to pad out a very thin book with unnecessary dialogue. That’s also annoying. And don’t say sorry. That’s even more annoying.’

‘I wasn’t planning to say sorry,’ I said.

‘Yes, you were. I’m your agent. I know you better than you know yourself, though that isn’t saying very much.’

I wondered how to apologise without saying sorry. It probably wasn’t worth trying. Paraphrase probably annoyed Elsie most of all.

‘Who have you taken on?’ I asked.

‘Elisabeth Söderling and Mary Devlin Jones.’

‘I don’t see how having either of them helps me.’

‘It was the price of getting the information that you need.’

‘Which is?’

‘First, Crispin had arranged to meet Elisabeth on her current trip to London. But he hasn’t. Nor has he left a message.’

‘In view of your low opinion of men generally, wouldn’t you say that was par for the course – just clearing off without a word of farewell?’

‘Yes, but my opinion of men is in fact much lower than that. There was clearly no-strings-attached sex on offer and he still cleared off. That means his disappearance is not merely odd but unnatural.’

‘Men do occasionally decline sex,’ I said.

There was a brief hesitation on Elsie’s part, as though she might in fact have discovered the same thing.

‘At the very least, I don’t think his departure was planned,’ she said. ‘And I’ve found out that Crispin was staying close to you around Christmas time.’

‘Didn’t we know that?’

‘You assumed it. I proved it.’

‘Where was he?’

She read out a phone number.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘From his agent.’

Well, of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that? It would have been so easy. So very easy.

‘But Janet Francis didn’t say whose number it was?’

‘You could say that the way I got it rather precluded that.’

‘And I’m now supposed to track him down from the number?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘The number
is
sort of familiar. I could look through my address book and see if it’s there.’

‘Phone it, Ethelred.’

‘Why don’t you phone it?’

‘Because I’ve decided that it’s your job. It might prove to be another writer, then I’d probably need to take them on as a client too.’

‘So, you want me to cold-call the number and ask whether they know why Crispin has vanished and then reported himself missing? I suppose it beats pretending to be from Microsoft and claiming that whoever-it-is has a virus on his computer.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Ethelred. You’ll need to be a bit more subtle than that.’

‘I’ll look into it,’ I said. ‘So, what did Mary Devlin Jones have to say?’

‘She said she’d like to kill Crispin.’

‘In that case it’s hardly likely that she has.’

‘Unless it’s a double bluff.’

‘Which people don’t do in real life. Was that all?’

‘Sort of. We talked about this business of Crispin having written her first book for her.’

‘That’s what they say.’

‘Yes, but
who
says it?’ asked Elsie. ‘She claims it’s not true. So who started the story? I mean, who told you?’

‘I’d heard rumours before,’ I said. ‘On the Internet.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Elsie.

I decided to ignore all of the implications in that. ‘Emma filled in a lot of the detail, though,’ I added.

Elsie paused and then said: ‘Mary said she owed you one. What did that mean?’

‘It could mean all sorts of things …’

‘Ethelred, have I ever explained this thing where I can tell when you’re lying?’

‘OK. I was one of the judges when she won the CWA award.’

‘You never told me that.’

‘I must have done. I’m sure I said that it was one of the few occasions when I had met Crispin.’

‘That’s the one where Janet Francis was the other judge?’

‘Yes. She didn’t prove a very active judge in the end. She just showed up for the final meeting.’

‘So you and Crispin did the shortlisting?’

‘Yes. But—’

‘But? Either you did or you didn’t.’

‘I was fairly busy then too. I had a deadline. You were pushing for a completed manuscript. Crispin produced a shortlist. I took a quick look through some of the other stories …’

‘So, Crispin really was in a position to fix things for Mary? All on his own?’

‘Arguably. But all three of us signed off on the final decision.’

‘In spite of the fact that you hadn’t read most of the stories and Janet probably hadn’t read any of them?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Of course!’ said Elsie. ‘That would also explain why Mary signed up with Francis and Nowak. Janet would have used her position as judge to snap up any promising talent. Except, if Janet was on the judging panel and there was any funny business about who wrote the book, then Francis and Nowak wouldn’t have taken her on.’

‘If Crispin did write the book, we weren’t aware of it at the time. That came later.’

‘So,’ said Elsie, ‘of the very small number of people involved in that award – Mary has had her career pretty much destroyed, you’ve had death threats and Crispin has vanished.’

‘But Janet Francis is OK.’

‘Early days yet,’ said Elsie cheerfully. ‘Let’s wait and see, shall we?’

It was pretty much inevitable. Early the following day a police car rolled up in my drive and a sergeant got out.

I had the door open even before he had rung the bell and quickly had him seated with a mug of coffee in front of him on the kitchen table. I had of course nothing to tell him – except possibly for Henry’s confession that he had killed Crispin on New Year’s Eve. It seemed a good idea to get this over as soon as I could.

‘Do you know Mr Vynall well?’ the sergeant asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re both writers, but I see him only occasionally. We were judges for a CWA award a few years back. I’ve been on a panel with him at a crime-writing conference. We were talking about whether crime writers should get police procedures correct or whether it’s more important to keep the story going.’

The sergeant took a sip of his coffee and expressed no opinion. ‘When did you last see him?’

‘Probably at Bristol CrimeFest last year.’

‘CrimeFest?’

‘It’s a festival of crime writing – not of crime.’

‘I would imagine not. And that was …’

‘Late May.’

‘So, no contact since then? No phone calls or emails?’

‘No. But …’

‘Yes?’

I wondered whether this was a good idea, but he would certainly have spoken to Emma, so it might seem odd to say nothing.

‘I have seen his wife, though. A couple of times. I needed to drop some books off.’

‘You dropped books off on two occasions?’

‘Yes.’

‘When was that?’

‘In the last few days.’

‘Even though you hadn’t seen him since May?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I see. Where were you on New Year’s Eve, sir?’

‘Here. I was watching a programme on meerkats.’

‘All evening?’

‘No. There was other stuff on too.’

‘Do you have any witnesses?’

‘About what I was watching?’

‘About your being here all evening.’

I would dearly have loved to have been able to say that I had a witness who could confirm the truth of my statement. I hesitated for a moment.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Don’t you think I’d give you a name if I could?’ I said. Then a thought occurred to me. ‘Emma Vynall said that Crispin had left home just before Christmas.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And he is still missing now.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So he’s been gone two weeks. Why are you asking me specifically about New Year’s Eve? Did whoever reported his disappearance say specifically that that is when it was?’

‘That is, if I may say so, sir, none of your business. Unless there is something you’d like to tell me about New Year’s Eve? Something you know but are keeping from us?’

‘There’s nothing I want to tell you,’ I said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely sure.’

‘You seem to have asked Mrs Vynall a lot of questions about Mr Vynall’s disappearance? You were quite concerned about whether he had talked about you?’

‘I may have said something like that.’

‘For any particular reason?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I was just making conversation.’

‘But you yourself were worried about Mr Vynall’s disappearance, well before he was reported missing?’

‘Yes. You could say that.’

‘Mrs Vynall did say that. She said you were very concerned that you couldn’t get in contact with him.’

‘Yes.’

‘So you were
trying
to get in contact with him, then? Even though you say you hadn’t seen him for months?’

‘Yes, it was …’ I tried to remember what reason I had given Emma. A book? ‘It was about a short story,’ I said. ‘For an anthology.’

‘And you needed the story urgently?’

‘Publishers have deadlines,’ I said. ‘You know what it’s like.’ I smiled in the hope of sympathy or at least a vague understanding.

‘Not really,’ he said.

What else had I told Emma? There was the business of the death threats, but that conversation had surely taken place after she had spoken to the police? The point might come where I had to mention them, but for the moment I could avoid mentioning Henry’s confession. On the other hand, if I said nothing now and the police spoke to Emma a second time (and why not?) then the omission might, in retrospect, look odd.

‘Have you lived in this part of the world for very long?’ asked the sergeant.

‘I moved here about a year ago,’ I said. ‘I lived just outside Worthing until then.’

He nodded and closed his notebook. ‘We may need to ask you further questions, sir, but that is all for the moment. Unless you have recalled anything that might be relevant?’

‘No,’ I said. Then I added: ‘Mrs Vynall said that she hadn’t reported him missing. So who did?’

The sergeant paused, as if weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of answering my question. ‘It was a close friend of his. Another writer, like yourself. Mr Henry Holiday.’

I watched the police car drive away. What exactly was Henry playing at? How could his own movements on New Year’s Eve be kept a secret if he had contacted the police? What had he told them? And why?

I needed to speak to Henry urgently, but first I wanted to find out who owned the telephone number that Elsie had obtained from Tuesday at Janet Francis’s agency. I had toyed with the idea of phoning Janet Francis, of course, but I would have had to explain how I’d got the number in the first place. One way or another I’d put off making the call, but it could be deferred no longer.

I dialled. After the phone had rung six times, it switched to an answerphone. Whoever owned it had not had the know-how, or had simply preferred not, to add a personalised message. I was told that the owner of that number was not available to speak. Not wishing to leave
a message, I hung up. It would clearly have to wait until after I had spoken to Henry.

I sat down at my computer. The police had questioned me very specifically about New Year’s Eve. Had Henry himself told them that that was when Crispin had vanished? Or, contrary to all of the indications that Crispin was still alive, had the police found a body then that they had only just identified as Crispin?

I opened Google and typed in ‘body found New Year’s Eve’. A body had indeed been found of a New Year reveller who had jumped into a river. But that was at the other end of the country and it had been identified. I tried searching for ‘Crispin Vynall’ but just found page after page of old interviews and reviews of his books. Next I typed in ‘strangled body found Sussex’. Plenty of results there, as you might expect, including some horrifying murders, but nothing recent.

It was time to go and see Henry again.

I left the house and unlocked the car, throwing my Barbour onto the back seat. Even as I did so, the action seemed to recall some unfinished business. I could see Henry very clearly flinging his own coat into the boot on the day we went to Didling Green. But I couldn’t remember him taking it out again. Indeed, on our return from the Downs, he had dashed off too quickly for him to be able to retrieve anything. The weather was cold and damp. He must surely have realised that he had mislaid his coat? And yet he had not phoned.

I walked round and opened the boot. There indeed was the Barbour, with the length of rope beside it. I took the coat out and held it up. It would have fitted me quite well – much too big for Henry. Unless …

I felt in the pockets. The first yielded only fluff and a few twigs. The second held an envelope with a shopping list on the back: milk, eggs, pasta, shoe polish … Nothing too revealing there. I turned it over. It was addressed to Crispin Vynall.

For a moment I just stood there, with the rain falling gently and the Barbour in my hands. So had Henry written a shopping list on the back of an envelope addressed to Crispin? Or, more likely, had Henry been wearing Crispin’s Barbour? In which case, why?

I was about to get in the car and drive the mile or so to Henry’s house when my mobile rang. I answered it.

‘Hello, Ethelred, it’s Henry.’

There was a hiatus as both of us waited for the other to speak.

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘You called me,’ said Henry.

‘When?’

‘About half an hour ago. You called my landline but didn’t leave a message. I’m phoning you back.’

Even then it took a couple of moments for things to fall into place. Since I was still neither in the house nor in the car, a fine mist of rain was gently soaking into my clothes. It dripped from my hair.

‘Crispin was staying with you,’ I said eventually. ‘He was staying with you after he left Emma. It was your phone number he left with his agent.’

‘Yes,’ said Henry.

‘So, you didn’t meet up at the Old House at Home. He was already with you.’

‘Yes.’

‘And the following morning you knew perfectly well that he hadn’t come home.’

‘Yes.’

‘So, you’ve wasted my time, then you’ve reported him missing, exactly as you should have done anyway.’

‘Yes.’

‘In summary, you’ve known all along where he was.’

‘More or less.’

‘And you’ve killed him, haven’t you?’

‘I’m coming right over, Ethelred. Stay exactly where you are. I can explain.’

Shortly afterwards he arrived in a new car. A red Fiat.