Page 36

I woke up at seven o’clock with a headache and an unpleasant taste in my mouth, a hangover not from the party (I’d only managed one glass of champagne) but from the two hefty measures of whisky I’d drunk once I got home. The first thing I heard was a purring sound and I looked down at the end of the bed. Hugo was on the duvet, lying on his back with his front legs and paws stretched out as if in a gesture of surrender. This was not good. Cats on the bed was one intimacy too far and I gently pushed him onto the carpet with the flat of my foot. As he padded off, I looked around the room and saw my black dress on the chair where I’d thrown it, along with my shoes, tights and bag. The dismembered corpse of my evening out.

I was angry with myself. I knew now that I should never have gone to the party in the first place. What had I been expecting? Hugs and kisses all round and a souvenir edition of Little Wonder , Miriam’s first book? I had allowed myself to be humiliated in front of two hundred complete strangers, and although I’d enjoyed meeting Julia Crace – at least she seemed to have got some of her life back together – she’d hardly told me anything that I didn’t already know. And what was I going to do with myself now? I had the entire day ahead of me and nothing to fill it with. Just for a minute, I wished I was back at the Polydorus. There might be a crisis in the kitchen, a chef who hadn’t shown up, the early risers shouting for their breakfast … but at least I’d have a reason to get out of bed. With Eliot Crace and Atticus Pünd both out of my life, I suddenly felt very alone. Was this the horrible truth about my life? That if you took away work, there would be nothing left?

The doorbell rang.

I looked at my watch, double-checking the time, making sure that it really was seven o’clock, too early even for Amazon. I hauled myself out of bed, put on a tracksuit and slippers, went to the door and glanced through the peephole. A balloon-shaped face, distorted by the lens, looked back at me. It was a middle-aged man, wearing a tie. He looked harmless. I opened the door.

He could have come from the local council. He could have been a local politician asking me which way I intended to vote. At a pinch, he might even have been a Jehovah’s Witness. There was a sort of solemnity about him, something that separated him from everyday life. As well as the tie, he was wearing a suit, which felt weird on a sunny morning in Crouch End. He was in his early fifties, but he’d kept himself in shape. He was clean-shaven with neatly combed hair and intelligent brown eyes. It was strange how someone who looked so ordinary should make such an immediate impression on me. I knew straight away that he was a danger to me.

He was not alone. The peephole had failed to reveal the woman who was standing a few steps away from him. She was considerably less attractive. Twenty years younger than him and about ten inches shorter, she seemed to have got out of bed in too much of a hurry even to look in a mirror. Her carrot-coloured hair was unpleasantly tangled, her lipstick had barely touched her lips, her eyes watched me with sullen indifference. I don’t think I’d ever met anyone so small and hostile.

‘Ms Ryeland?’ the man asked, with a look of enquiry.

‘Yes,’ I said. I braced myself for bad news.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Blakeney.’ He opened a leather holder to show a warrant card with his name, photograph, and the legend METROPOLITAN POLICE in blue. His first name was Ian. ‘And this is Detective Constable Wardlaw. Can we come in?’

‘What’s this about?’ I asked, although I think I already knew.

‘It would be better to talk inside, if you don’t mind.’

I didn’t want to invite them in. I was in a tracksuit. I hadn’t showered or brushed my hair. I tried to visualise the state of the flat. I didn’t think I’d left any unwashed plates by the sink or crumpled clothes in the corridor. ‘I suppose that’s all right,’ I said, but as the detective constable stepped forward, I stopped her. ‘You didn’t show me your ID,’ I said.

She stared at me. ‘I’m with him.’

‘Even so …’

I could see that I’d annoyed her, which was exactly what I wanted. If she was going to come knocking on my door before breakfast, she could at least smile. She took out a warrant card and thrust it at me like an offensive weapon. EMMA WARDLAW . She hadn’t photographed well, which didn’t surprise me.

I closed the door behind them and showed them over to the kitchen table, feeling grateful that the cat was out of sight. I’d had dealings with the police before, of course. Detective Superintendent Richard Locke had entered my life on two occasions and neither of them had been a positive experience. I was expecting rather more from DI Blakeney. He was looking round the flat approvingly. ‘Nice place,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Been here long?’

‘Just a few months. Would you like a coffee?’

‘Do you have decaffeinated?’

‘I think so.’

‘If you’re making one, that would be good. Black, please. No sugar.’

‘Not for me,’ Emma Wardlaw said.

I made the coffee, watched by the two police officers, who sat silently at the table. It took a couple of minutes and I needed them. I was making the most of the last vestiges of normality.

‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you,’ Blakeney said as I sat down. ‘You’re a friend of Eliot Crace?’

‘I’m working with him. Yes.’

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, he was killed last night.’

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. There was something about Eliot that had always told me he was doomed. But still the news shocked me, as death always does.

‘He was struck by a car in Kingston Street, just as he was leaving a party at which you’d been present.’ It was as if Wardlaw had insisted that she should be the one who told me. She had volunteered the information with a certain eagerness and I was sure I detected an element of malice in her voice. Or perhaps it was just her Scottish accent. I almost smiled at the way she twisted the words to suit her occupation: ‘… at which you’d been present. ’ Who but a police officer would speak like that?

‘Have you found the driver?’ I asked. It was the first question that came to mind.

‘Not yet,’ Blakeney replied. ‘It was a hit and run.’

‘Someone must have seen something. What about cameras?’

‘There are nine hundred and forty thousand cameras in London,’ Blakeney agreed. ‘The average person is photographed seventy times a day.’ It was odd how he reeled off those figures as if they were common knowledge. Sitting next to him, Wardlaw was unimpressed. ‘But there are also a lot of cars and it may take a while to match the two hundred guests at the party with the driver, even with ANPR.’

‘ANPR?’ I asked.

‘Automatic number-plate recognition.’

‘Oh, yes. Of course.’

‘The car could have been borrowed or rented. The number plate may have been concealed. We’re looking into it, but in the meantime, we’re interviewing some of the people who were there.’

The implications of what he was saying finally dawned on me – but then I had only just woken up. ‘Are you suggesting that the driver of the car was someone at the party?’ I asked.

‘Mr Crace was struck down in the same street, fifty yards from the entrance …’

‘And they didn’t stop? You think it was deliberate?’

‘What do you think, Ms Ryeland?’

I knew exactly what I thought, but I wasn’t sure I should say it. ‘ My grandmother, Miriam Crace … was murdered by one of the people who hated her … and one day, quite soon, I’m going to tell the whole world who it was. They’re in this room right now! ’ I still heard Eliot’s voice echoing across the ballroom. He’d been the centre of attention, just as he’d wanted. And he’d done exactly what I’d warned him against.

‘How can I possibly answer that?’ I replied. ‘Eliot arrived at the party late and he’d obviously been drinking. He was on his own. I’m afraid he’d been going through a rough time with his wife and I suppose that didn’t help.’ I paused, trying to find the right words. ‘When did he leave?’ I asked.

‘About five minutes after you,’ Wardlaw said, nastily.

‘Why did you leave so suddenly?’ Blakeney asked.

He knew the answer, obviously. It was still early, but he must have spoken to a few people before he had come round to see me. ‘Eliot was quite offensive,’ I explained. ‘I’d been helping him write a book. I was his editor. He decided he wasn’t happy with the relationship and he asked me to leave, although it was his uncle, Jonathan Crace, who told me to go.’ I cradled my coffee cup, needing its warmth. ‘They didn’t give me any choice. They would have preferred not to have invited me in the first place.’

‘What was the book Eliot was writing?’

‘It was a continuation novel. Have you heard of a character called Atticus Pünd?’

DI Blakeney surprised me. ‘Oh yes. I’ve read all the Alan Conway novels. I very much enjoyed them. You worked on them?’

‘Yes. I was Alan’s editor.’

‘Atticus Pünd was a good character, although I have to say that I was a little disappointed by the last one. Magpie Murders .’

‘Why was that?’

‘He was killed off. I never think it’s fair – when you’ve been following a character for eight or nine books and the author kills him off. It seems unnecessary.’

‘Agatha Christie killed Hercule Poirot.’

‘But the book wasn’t published until the very end of her life.’ I got the feeling that Blakeney could have talked all morning, but then he remembered why he was here. ‘You commissioned Eliot Crace to write a new story,’ he said.

‘Actually, that was Michael Flynn at Causton Books. He brought me in to help Eliot with the writing.’ It was only then that I realised the implications of what had happened. It was as if the universe was playing some huge practical joke on me. History was repeating itself. ‘He’d written about fifty thousand words,’ I said. ‘But he hadn’t finished it.’

I desperately wanted a cigarette. The pang had hit me before I knew it, even though I hadn’t smoked for three years.

‘He hid something in the book,’ I went on. ‘It may sound crazy, but he believed that somebody had murdered his grandmother, Miriam Crace, twenty years ago and that he’d seen them going into her room. Last night he announced in front of everyone that he was going to reveal who it was in his new book. I’d told him this was a bad idea. He didn’t listen to me.’

DC Wardlaw sneered at me, not hiding her contempt. Blakeney was a little more reasonable. ‘So what you’re saying is that you think the person who murdered Miriam Crace may have taken action to prevent Eliot Crace finishing his book.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. Yes.’

‘Do you know how unlikely that sounds?’ Wardlaw sounded almost pitying.

‘No more unlikely than the accusation that I ran him over because he had insulted me in public – which is where the two of you seem to be heading. You’ve obviously spoken to people about what happened last night. That’s why you’re here. But for what it’s worth, I didn’t drive to the party, I took the tube.’ I drew a breath. ‘And since you ask, this has happened before. You should check out the murder of a man called Frank Parris at Branlow Hall in Suffolk. Alan Conway went there and recognised the killer as someone he knew, but instead of calling the police, he strung a whole lot of clues through the novel he was writing at the time.’

‘ Atticus Pünd Takes the Case ,’ Blakeney said.

‘Yes. He liked playing games with his readers. His books were full of secrets and none of them were ever very pleasant ones. Eliot was writing a continuation novel and the first time I met him, he told me he was planning to do the same thing. His book was set in 1955 in the South of France – at a place called the Chateau Belmar.’

Blakeney thought for a moment. ‘That’s an anagram of marble.’

‘Got it in one, Detective Inspector.’ Despite everything, I was impressed. ‘His whole family was in there, disguised as characters. He was doing it quite deliberately because that was what Alan Conway did, even though, in the end, that was what got him killed.’

‘That’s all very interesting,’ Wardlaw cut in. ‘But there are a few problems with this version of events. The first one is that Miriam Crace died twenty years ago from natural causes, and even if Eliot had thought he’d seen something, he was only twelve years old at the time, so what would he know?’

The two police officers must have been working non-stop through the night. They had visited the crime scene, talked to some of the witnesses, done background research and, without even stopping for a bacon sandwich, had called in on me. And yet looking at them now, they both seemed wide awake.

‘Eliot made the threat,’ I insisted. ‘He knew that the killer was listening. “ They’re in this room right now .” Those were his exact words. And from what you say, less than half an hour later, he was dead.’

‘That’s one interpretation,’ Wardlaw said. ‘But here’s another. He humiliated you in public. He said you were completely useless and he sent you packing. That can’t have been very pleasant for you.’

‘So I sat outside in my MG – even though it was parked in Crouch End – and waited for him to come out?’

‘I wonder if we could take a look at your car, Ms Ryeland?’

‘Of course you can, Detective Inspector. And there’s no need to keep calling me Ms Ryeland. My name’s Susan. If you’ll just wait a moment, I’ll get the keys.’

I went to the bowl on the kitchen counter where I usually kept the keys, but they weren’t there. I looked on the windowsill, but they weren’t there either. Annoyed with myself, I stood where I was, trying to think what I’d done with them. I noticed the coat I’d worn the night before, lying on a sofa. I picked it up and felt the pockets. The keys were inside.

‘It’s just round the corner,’ I said.

‘One moment.’ I’d made an enemy of Detective Constable Wardlaw and now she was taking her revenge. ‘Were you wearing that coat last night?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ There was no point denying it.

‘Well, if you took the tube, how come the car keys were in your pocket?’

There was no easy answer to that. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I did some tidying up before I went to bed and I remember picking up the keys. If I don’t put them away, the cat steals them. I must have put them in my pocket and forgotten them. I often do things like that.’

Wardlaw looked doubtful.

‘Let’s see the car,’ Blakeney said.

We trooped out of the house together. I had left the MG round the corner, next to a fence. The streets were reserved for residents’ parking, but I’d already discovered that with so many extended families living in the area, half of them with more than one car, I often had to fight for space. I don’t know why, but I had a horrible thought that the MG wouldn’t be there when we turned into the next road and I was relieved to see it sitting where I had left it, bright red and reliable.

‘Can I have the keys?’ Blakeney asked.

‘Sure.’ I handed them to him. ‘But this is completely unnecessary.’

He opened the car while Wardlaw examined the exterior. For once, there was nothing inside. I often left books, manuscripts, notepads and newspapers strewn over the back seat, but with only one novel – the Nordic noir – on my desk right now, my life was less chaotic than usual. Blakeney leaned in but there was nothing for him to see.

‘Sir …?’

Wardlaw was at the front of the vehicle. She had disappeared from sight. Blakeney walked round and I followed. The DC was squatting on the road, her hand splayed out on the bonnet of the car, her face close to the grille. She looked up sharply. ‘There’s some damage to the radiator grille,’ she said.

It’s extraordinary, but right then I was more concerned about the car than anything else. I peered over her shoulder and saw that she was right. There was a visible dent in the metalwork.

‘And there’s something caught inside.’

She was wearing blue latex gloves. She must have put them on as she walked along the pavement. I watched with a certain fascination as she carefully removed something from one of the air channels above the number plate and held it up for Blakeney to see. It was a tiny piece of cloth. I had no idea how it had got there, but right then I heard the screech of wheels, the thud of my car hitting Eliot as he staggered across the road, his jacket getting torn, some of the fabric – bloodstained, obviously – getting caught in the radiator grille. Except that it hadn’t happened. The MG had never been anywhere near the party. I hadn’t taken it the night before.

‘Are you quite certain you didn’t drive this car last night, Susan?’ Blakeney asked. At least he had used my first name.

‘Of course I am.’

‘After a few drinks, you might have forgotten how you got home.’

‘Even after half a bottle of wine, I can tell the difference between a car and a tube train,’ I said.

‘So you admit you consumed a lot of alcohol,’ Wardlaw remarked spitefully.

I felt a spurt of annoyance. ‘That’s not what I meant. I had one glass of champagne. That’s all. Then I was asked to leave.’

‘You weren’t asked, exactly. You were trashed in front of a whole crowd of people and then escorted out by security. You must have been very angry.’

There was no point discussing it with her. I watched as she pulled an evidence bag out of her pocket and carefully placed the little piece of material inside. It was about the size of a fingernail. I could see a red stain in one corner. The fabric was a dark shade of green. Now that I thought about it, I remembered that Eliot had been wearing a velvet jacket that was the same colour. Could someone have stolen my car and driven it? No. That was impossible. I had two sets of keys. One had been in the back of my kitchen drawer, well out of sight.

The other had been in my coat pocket.

I didn’t want the ground to open up beneath my feet and swallow me. But it felt as if that was exactly what it was doing.

‘We are impounding the vehicle under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1988,’ Blakeney said. At least he had the decency to sound regretful.

‘We’re going to need both sets of keys,’ Wardlaw added.

I ignored her. ‘How long do you intend to keep it for?’ I asked Blakeney. I felt a strange pang, thinking of my red MG being towed away and dumped in some police pound. It was like losing a friend.

‘It could be up to six months,’ Blakeney told me. ‘We’ll be keeping it while you’re under investigation.’

‘Is that what I am? Under investigation?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘I didn’t kill Eliot Crace,’ I said. ‘There’ll be CCTV cameras showing me getting on the tube at Highgate and presumably more CCTV cameras at Leicester Square.’

‘Nobody is accusing you of anything, Susan,’ Blakeney assured me. ‘We’ll take away this sample and have it analysed and I’m sure that will clear up the matter very quickly.’ He smiled reassuringly, then added, ‘You’re not planning any foreign travel in the next few days?’

‘Are you asking me to surrender my passport?’

‘No. But we’ll be keeping an eye on you.’

We walked back to the house together, none of us saying anything. I gave them the keys from the kitchen drawer. Wardlaw gave me a receipt and they left.

As soon as they had gone, I went out.