Pompomberry House (37 page)

Charming. They’d killed me to eat, and didn’t even have the
courtesy to devour me while I was fresh. What was the matter? Was I
that
unappetising?

Then, unexpectedly, I heard a gunshot.

Dawn screamed like a stricken bull. I heard a thud and felt
the earth beneath me tremble. Had somebody shot
Dawn
?

There was a further chorus of screeches. It was like
listening to a badly tuned orchestra. Annabel squealed continually, like a
pathetic heroine in a bad horror film.

How come somebody had a gun? Had they planned to shoot me
before deciding to use a knife instead? And why would anybody want to shoot
Dawn? Well, I could think of a million reasons to shoot the hideous woman, but
why would one of
these
people want to shoot her? Who had done it?

 “Monty?” Dawn gasped with shock and horror.

I looked up again. They were gathered on the lawn at the top
of the slope. Montgomery stood there, thunderous and solid. He delivered a
second shot, sending Dawn flying backwards off the cliff.

I waited for the splash, but none came, just a low thud.

From where I lay, I could just make out a ledge a few feet
below the cliff edge. Dawn had landed on the ledge. She was a little wider than
the rocky shelf but appeared to be balanced. She wriggled and squirmed.

“But Monty darling! We love each other!” she wept.
Shudder.

The others watched looking horrified, but were clearly too
afraid to intervene. One of their leaders had turned on the other, but why? And
what did it mean for them?

Montgomery slowly paced to the cliff edge and looked down at
Dawn, who was wriggling like a pig. Her orange floral skirt was ruffled up, and
her bare podgy pink legs kicked the air, as though trying to swim.

He stood at the edge of the cliff with his thick, grey
caterpillars of hair blowing in the evening wind, and aimed the gun at his
lover’s head. She couldn’t move. She had either to face Montgomery, or roll
into the sea onto the jagged, merciless rocks below.

“Why Monty, why?”

“To complete the set!”

“What set?”

“The anthology,
obviously!
We haven’t carried out my
story yet.”

“But yours is about a tax lawyer who kills a murderer.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, you’re not a tax lawyer.”

“I am too!”

“But I thought you had a regular suit job?”

“Yes — a tax lawyer.”

Everything fell into place. I couldn’t see Dawn’s face, but
I imagined that she must be entirely terrified. There was no escape for her
now. Her own rules were going to kill her.

“At least, I
was
a tax lawyer, until the bastards
decided that I was redundant.”

Ah, that explains the musty suits.

“Well then, you’re not a tax lawyer anymore!”

This seemed to anger Montgomery beyond belief. His face
turned from orange to purple. He pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang. This
time the bullet drove straight into her forehead.

Dawn’s pig-like body stopped kicking and lay still. All life
had left her. What had once been a vital, wicked woman, was now just a carcass.

Rafe and Annabel watched silently. I wondered if they knew
what Montgomery had been planning. I imagined not. Montgomery’s protagonist was
a maverick. He worked alone.

“She was right,” said Montgomery, straightening his natty jacket.
“An unhappy ending is much more modern.”

Then, he raised his arm and pointed the gun at Annabel. She
screamed. Then he pointed it at Rafe. Annabel screamed. Then he pointed it back
at Annabel again.

“Wait!” she blubbered, with heavy tears smudging heavy eyeliner.
“I haven’t killed anybody! In fact, I was never really comfortable with any ...”

Another gunshot.

Missed.

“I
saved
the pig, didn’t I?” she cried, half-running,
half-dancing around with no particular destination in mind. “I called the
police! I’m not a bad person! I’m not a killer!”

Rafe grabbed Annabel and they hurried towards the front door,
with Montgomery in hot pursuit. I couldn’t help thinking that Annabel would have
run faster if she had kicked off her kitten heels. However, a woman like that
would rather die looking beautiful than live unfashionably shoeless.

Another gunshot.

Annabel cried out, a blood-coagulating, farewell ballad.

And then she fell. Her feather-light body landed by the path
and wrapped around the garden gnome. They lay together, two inanimate objects
locked in an embrace.

Montgomery pursued Rafe into Pompomberry House, with a
steady, measured stride. He was calm, unperturbed by the death surrounding him.
He had been the one in the driving seat all along and he certainly wasn’t going
to lose control now.

With just two of my five assailants left alive, could I perhaps
survive? If Montgomery was intent on shooting Rafe, I would have only one
writer to outwit.

Still, I could hardly move. The pain in my stomach was
unbearable, and my t-shirt was becoming sodden with blood. I had to get off the
island but I obviously couldn’t swim now. The rowing boat! If I could just tug
myself up off the sand ...

Unexpectedly, I heard splashing. My first thought was that
Danger was still alive, but then realised that there was no chance he had survived.

The splashing sounded like oars. Could help be on its way?
Then the splashing stopped.

Keeping my eyes open was getting harder and harder. I just
wanted to sleep ... I must have drifted off, because the next thing I
knew, somebody was leaning above me and pleading.

“Oh my God, Dee!” cried my husband’s voice. Then I felt his
breath on my face. “What have they done to you? No, Dee! You can’t be dead! No!
Dee! Please no!” He cried out, sounding agonised.

I opened my eyes, “I’m alive, you spoon!”

His whole body radiated relief. His warm, charismatic face
shone down on me. He closed his eyes and let out a long exhalation of breath.
He opened his eyes again and smiled. “Dammit!” He grabbed my hand, and held it
firmly.

“How did you find me?” It hurt to talk and my body invited
me to leave consciousness. However, I found asking questions more appealing
than death.

“I followed you.”

“What?”

“When you left the house, I followed you.”

“You did?” My heart leapt, causing my stab wound to throb,
but I was momentarily happy. Gareth hadn’t left me after all, not even during the
aftermath of my betrayal. I thought he’d gone back to Barry’s, but he had been
hiding in the garden all along. You know your husband is going to forgive you
when his storming-out gets no further than the coniferous border.

“I followed Rafe as far as Exeter, then I lost him. I
figured he must be bringing you here, but it took me a while to find the place.
It’s not on the satnav.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I should have been here sooner! Who did this to you?”

“Dawn.”

“Where is she?” he asked, rising to his knees.

“Dead.”

“Dead?”

“Montgomery shot her.”

“Where is he?” he asked, standing.

“In the house. But it’s okay, he thinks I’m dead.”

Suddenly, we heard a commotion up at the house. One of the
upper sash windows opened, with a grating noise and a thud. Then we saw
something that neither of us expected. Montgomery dangled Rafe Maddocks, head
first, out of the window. Pompomberry House was a tall building and even elongated
Rafe was not long enough to reach the ground. His head dangled many metres
above the gravel path.

“Christ! Is that Rafe?” asked Gareth.

“Stop!” cried Rafe. “You need me!”

“See, that’s the thing Rafe, I
don’t
need you. At
least not anymore,” shouted Montgomery.

Before we could work out what to do, Montgomery let go of Rafe’s
ankles, sending him plummeting three storeys and smacking into the path. I
heard a cracking sound as his neck snapped and his skull shattered.

I felt sickened, even a little sad. Rafe had been an
obnoxious, disloyal murderer, but there had been a time when I thought him only
obnoxious and disloyal. I mourned the few happy minutes we had once shared.
Nobody deserved to die like that. Then, I remembered Rafe axing off Danger’s
foot because of a mere magazine, and began to feel that perhaps he
had
deserved his fate.

Montgomery’s carroty face appeared at the window before suddenly
disappearing. Had he seen Gareth? Did he know that I was alive? If so, then he
was surely about to come out to shoot us both dead.

Gareth must have had the same thought, because he began
sprinting towards the house.

“No Gareth! He’s got a gun!”

Gareth picked up the axe, which was still stained with Danger
Smith’s blood. “The ambulance is on its way,” he called back at me, as he ran.

My body hurt badly and it was difficult to sit up, but
somehow I managed it. I watched with horror as my husband disappeared into
Pompomberry House. It drank him up like a vampire feasting. The pain in my
stomach spread to my fearful heart. Would I ever see Gareth again?

Where was Montgomery? Surely Montgomery would have come out
of the house by now if he meant to shoot us. Then I realised the horrible
truth. He didn’t need to come out because Gareth was going in. Montgomery was
inside
waiting
for Gareth, waiting with a loaded gun.

A terrible racket suddenly assailed my ears. At first I
thought it was one thousand horrified mermaids screaming, but then I realised
that it was actually a flock of seagulls. They swooped down onto the lawn, like
hungry vultures. Were they ... Oh heck, they were ... They were
devouring Rafe Maddocks.

I heard an engine. It hurt to turn my head, but I had to
know who was coming. Was it someone who could save Gareth? Yes, it was! It was
a police boat! It sped toward Pompomberry Island from somewhere off to the
east. Eventually, the engine was switched off and the boat coasted to the
shore.

“Hello! I’m D.I. ...”

“Taylor, I know. Gareth’s in the house.”

Already Forrester was running toward the house. She looked like
the perfect action hero from a film — sexy, but not unrealistically so. Those
boots were made for chasing. Taylor scurried after her, tripping and scuttling with
reliable incompetence.

I was told by Gareth what happened next, and I have no
reason to doubt its accuracy.

He made haste into the house, ducking down to the floor like
a pro ninja, expecting Montgomery to fire a shot as soon as he opened the door.

However, his presumption proved invalid. Montgomery was not lying
in wait inside the front door after all. So, Gareth began searching the house
in a stealthy manner. Having located the living room and secured the area, he
dropped the cumbersome axe and picked up a more light-weight defence weapon —
an iron fire rod. Then, deducing that Montgomery was upstairs, he decided to
crouch in the hallway, and wait for Montgomery to appear.

Suddenly, like a phantom, Montgomery materialised from a hidey-hole
beneath the stairs. He promptly held the gun to Gareth’s head. Though Gareth deposited
a little poo in his boxer shorts, he otherwise responded with a cool and
fearless façade.

“Well, well, well,” Montgomery chuckled. “My story was
called ‘I Shot Five Men’ and, thanks to you and your little wifey, I’m nearly
there.”

Gareth wanted to say something cool and clever, but one
phrase, and one phase alone, entered his mind. “Eat my shorts!” he replied.

Gunfire. Gunfire splintering through the air!

And Gareth was dead.

Chapter 23

At least, he thought he was dead.

Moments later, he realised that he was still very much alive.
On the carpet beside him lay the chunky corpse of Montgomery Lowe, oozing a
pool of blood. Just in the nick of time, Forrester had shot the villain in the
head.

“Are you all right?” asked Forrester.

“I think so. How is Dee? Is
she
all right?”

“The paramedics will be here soon.”

“I need to be with her!” Gareth cried.

The need to be with me was so strong that he rushed out of
Pompomberry House, down the winding steps and onto the sand, without even
stopping to attend to the poo.

Chapter 24

The weather outside was bright and held the promise of a
fair summer. Swallows swooped through the blue Cornish skies. I was itching to
get out of hospital and home to London. I’d been bed-ridden for twenty days and
it was excruciating. Although there were no more murders to solve, I had never
been well-suited to being idle.

Besides, if I read another magazine, I might have been
tempted to give up being a woman altogether. According to these: my face needed
replacing; my hair needed ironing; my body wasn’t ‘summer ready’; my shoes needed
remodeling; and my feet needed sandpapering. According to the same magazines,
if I were a man, a quick squirt of Linx would fix everything.

Speaking of appalling literature, I was amazed to learn that
The Book of Most Quality Writers
had now sold over a million copies.

This had angered traditional publishers, bookshops and Enid
Kibbler beyond belief. Enid was quoted in the paper saying that book quality
was no longer valued and the book industry was a shambles that she no longer
wanted any part of. Two days later she announced her intention to write a
novel.

When Amazon announced the book’s one millionth sale, Emily
Whistlefoot almost wet herself with delight. However, when she learned that
five of the writers she idolised were dead, she went into mourning. She
attended all five memorial services and viewed the stabbing, axe murder,
shooting and other assorted violence as an unfortunate byproduct of the artistic
temperaments that ultimately made the writers great. She vowed to set up a
museum in the authors’ memory.