Page 44 of Marble Hall Murders

‘And acrostics. I hate to mention it again, but that’s why Charles pushed him off that tower.’

‘Are you going to push me off a tower, Susan?’ He smiled, as if to reassure me that he was only joking.

I leaned forward and looked him straight in the eye. ‘You’re a very good writer, Eliot, and I like the first part of your book. But I’m not prepared to go through all that again. If you’re keeping secrets from me and from your readers, if there are nasty messages hidden between the lines, then I’m afraid you’re going to have to find another editor. Life’s too short.’

‘Michael Flynn says you’re the best.’

‘That’s very kind of him.’

‘He says that you were the one who made Alan Conway successful.’

‘Alan Conway made Alan Conway successful. But it’s true that I helped.’

‘I want you to work on the book. I mean – I’ll be very grateful if you’ll help me, and I’ll think about what you’ve said.’

‘Are you writing about your family?’ I asked.

He reached for his vape and sucked in the steam and the nicotine. I saw the light glow between his fingers. ‘I grew up in Marble Hall,’ he said eventually. ‘I hated it there. Yes, Lady Chalfont is inspired a little bit by my grandmother. And my father is in there too. You could say that Cedric is me. Butdoesn’t every author base some of their characters on people they know in real life?’

‘A few of them do. But not out of a sense of malice or because they want revenge.’

‘Are you talking about me or Alan Conway?’

‘I hope I’m just talking about Alan Conway. If you’re using this book as a weapon, you’re the one who could end up getting hurt.’

Eliot glanced at his watch. ‘Do you mind if we talk about this another time?’ he asked. ‘I don’t feel completely comfortable doing it here. And I’m meeting someone for lunch.’

‘Fine,’ I said. But I’ll admit I was a little thrown. He’d cut short the time we had together by arriving so late and now he was on his way out.

He must have sensed he’d offended me. ‘Why don’t you come over for dinner next week?’ he asked. ‘You should meet Gillian – and if you’re really interested, I can show you some stuff about the family.’

‘I’d like that, Eliot.’

‘Are you leaving now?’

‘Yes. I’ve got nothing more to do here.’

‘Then we can go down together,’ he said.

We left the room and walked over to the lift. You needed an electronic pass to go up, but we pressed the button for the ground floor and the doors slid shut.

‘You’re right about France,’ he said as we travelled down. ‘I have no idea what the Grand-Hôtel looked like in 1955, although my mother once told me there was a funicular railway going down to the pool. I don’t know what they’d have served for breakfast. I’ve looked up Nice on Google Earth,but I’m sure it’s completely different now. I’ve made half of it up. Do you think I need to get someone to do the research?’

‘Let’s leave that until the book is finished,’ I said. ‘A copy editor will spot any major errors further down the line. But you really have done a good job. Just keep going.’

That pleased him. We were both slightly more at ease with each other by the time we reached the ground floor.

But then we walked through the security barriers.

There was a woman waiting for him on the other side, sitting on a sofa. She stood up as we approached and we recognised each other instantly. I stared at her, then glanced at Eliot, furious with him, knowing that for his own dark, Alan Conway reasons, he had done this on purpose. He had set me up.

The woman was Elaine Clover. It was her husband, Charles, who had tried to kill me and who was now in prison because of me.

Eliot smiled. ‘I think you two know each other,’ he said.

Old Friends

‘Yes, we’re old friends,’ Elaine said, also smiling. ‘How are you, Susan? I was wondering when I’d see you again.’