Murder by the Book (32 page)

He'd reviewed one of Pearson's novels for Capital Crime just after the war. He pulled down the six issues of the bimonthly magazine from 1947 and leafed through them one by one, looking for his column. He'd been mistaken – he must have reviewed the book
after
'forty-seven, as the column that year was under the byline of Justin Fellowes. He was about to replace the issue when he caught sight of a title.
The Silver Stiletto
by Frank L. Pearson.

He sat at his desk and skimmed Justin Fellowes's hatchet job on the novel.

There occasionally comes within the remit of the reviewer's lot a book so bad that it must be finished, rather than flung across the room, so that the magnitude of its direness can be fully appreciated – and
The Silver Stiletto
is one such volume. The plot involves the murder of a literary critic who is stabbed in a manner described with stomach-churning relish … Pearson's prose is not only inept and well nigh unreadable, but purple and slapdash … The dénouement is contrived and lacks the slightest understanding of the finer points of human motivation … A word of advice to Frank L. Pearson, whoever he might be: seek alternative employment rather than inflict another dire penny dreadful upon the unwitting reading public
.

Justin Fellowes had attended Frankie Pearson's memorial service last week, and Langham wondered now if that was out of a sense of long-held guilt.

Poor, poor Justin, he thought.

He replaced the magazine on the shelf and found the run of issues from 1948. A minute later he was reading his own dismissal of Pearson's novel
Death on the Farm
.

Pearson will never win any prizes for euphonious prose, and his characterization is no better. The plot is ramshackle, and so patched together with authorial convenience as to be laughable. Even worse than the unlikely pay-off is the unlikelihood of such an inept detective working out the killer's crimes, never mind his motivations.
Death on the Farm
is on every level a turkey
.

He reread the lines he had written seven years ago with a prickling sensation across his scalp.

He looked at his watch. He had been in the flat for less than fifteen minutes.

He found the letter he'd received from the hotelier last week and dialled the number. A minute later he was through to a man who appeared to be suffering from a bad case of flu, and introduced himself. ‘And I was wondering if I might avail myself of your kind offer from tomorrow for two or three days …? If we stay any longer, then I'll gladly pay the difference.'

The hotel had a double room available this week, the proprietor informed him, and Langham made arrangements to stay for three days beginning tomorrow.

He picked up his case and typewriter and hurried from the flat, feeling relieved that he'd organized the break and glad that he was finally off the premises. As he climbed into the Austin it occurred to him that, as he was on Pearson's hit list, then there was always the chance that he might be under surveillance. The thought sent a blade of ice slicing down his spine.

He drove at speed from Notting Hill and cut through the back streets to Kensington. He would spend the rest of the day with Maria and first thing in the morning they would escape to the Suffolk coast.

She was curled up on the settee, reading a book, when he returned.

She looked up. ‘Did you get what you needed from the flat?'

‘Everything, plus three books by Frankie Pearson.'

‘Snap,' she said, holding up a tatty hardback and pointing to the coffee table where six books formed a neat tower. ‘I popped out to the library,' she said. ‘I didn't know which ones you might bring back so I withdrew everything they had.'

He picked up the book on the top of the pile. ‘
Murder is Easy
by Frank L. Pearson.' He looked at her. ‘That's sickly prophetic.'

The other titles were the three collaborations with Nigel Lassiter and two solo efforts, one of which duplicated a novel he'd brought from his flat.

‘I've already started this one, Donald. And in it …' She shook her head. ‘He describes someone breaking into a country house and shooting the owner through the head, making the killing look like suicide. Just as he
tried
to do with Charles.'

‘He's sick,' Langham began.

‘And that was only the first killing,' she said. ‘So many murders, and I'm only fifty pages into the story. He certainly likes to describe knife killings.'

And he likes to perform them, Langham thought to himself – among others.

He set the books aside. ‘A little light holiday reading,' he said, and pulled Maria to him.

S
unlight streamed into the sitting room through the bay window and Langham heard birdsong in the trees that lined the quiet street. Half-awake, he propped himself up on one elbow and looked across the room. Maria was sitting on the window seat in her dressing gown, her bare feet lodged on a chair and the gown open to reveal her legs. She was absorbed in a book, head bowed, and the expression on her face intent. She looked across at him briefly, concerned.

‘Good book?' he murmured, turning over. She didn't reply. He closed his eyes and sank back into semi-sleep, cheered by the thought that today they were going to the coast.

He came awake some time later and glanced at the wall clock. It was eight thirty. He turned over at a sound. Maria was striding up and down the room like a caged tiger, her right hand pressed to her mouth.

‘Maria?'

She sat down quickly on the settee and stared at him with stricken eyes. He repeated her name, wondering at the change that had come over her.

‘We can't go to Suffolk, Donald.'

He reached out and took her hand. ‘What?'

‘I woke up at six and I could not sleep. I began reading – one of Pearson's books. I couldn't put it down.'

‘You're sounding like the back-cover blurb—'

‘Be serious!' She stared at him. ‘I had to keep reading. The book is about … It's silly, but a character wants to kill his wife's lover, so he devises a way of luring him from London.' She hurried across the room, grabbed the book from the window seat and returned to the bed.

Langham took the book.
Death by the Sea
.

He looked up at Maria. ‘I don't understand …'

‘The husband writes a letter to his wife's lover, saying he is the proprietor of a hotel and inviting him on a free holiday as some kind of promotion. The lover takes up the offer, with the wife, and when they get there …' She gestured at the open book. ‘Then the husband strangles them both … It's horrible, horrible!'

Langham began to say that it was merely a coincidence, but Maria silenced him with a finger pressed to his lips.

‘Don't you see? Pearson planned this. He wants to lure you to the coast, with me, and there he plans to …' She continued, ‘It's just too much of a coincidence, Donald. He killed all those writers in ways he wrote about in his books – and this is how he plans to murder you … and me.'

He opened the book.

‘It starts on page one hundred and seventy,' she said, ‘when the lovers arrive at the hotel on the coast.'

Donald began reading feverishly, skimming the overwritten prose and stilted dialogue. The scene lasted for five pages, padded with unnecessary exposition as the husband tied up his wife and her lover and explained his motivations. It had never been his intention to kill just the lover – he intended to kill them both, as due punishment. He strangled the lover, and then did the same to his wife.

Langham stopped reading, sickened by the gratuity and relish with which Pearson described the killings. Had Pearson's books been a kind of sublimation of his need to commit murder – a subconscious desire he was now making real?

He laid the novel aside, considering this latest turn of events. ‘So we know where he'll be …' he said.

Maria stared at him. ‘What?'

‘You're right – all this, the invitation – it's a set up. But we're ahead of him. We know where he'll be.'

She nodded. ‘So we call Jeff Mallory and the police will go and arrest Pearson.'

He said, ‘Or I go alone, confront him …'

She stared at him, aghast. ‘I won't let you go, Donald!'

‘I'll go armed,' he found himself saying. ‘I can pick up a revolver on the way.'

‘No. This is madness. I won't let you!'

He reached out and squeezed her hand. He thought of Frankie Pearson and what he'd done to his friends, Charles and Nigel, and to Justin Fellowes and the others. He looked into himself and realized that what he really wanted was vengeance; he wanted to shoot Frankie Pearson dead.

‘I'm sorry,' he murmured. ‘I've been alone too long. I was thinking only of … I want to punish Frankie Pearson so much for what he's done, for the hurt he's caused.'

‘But killing him,' she whispered, ‘won't lessen that hurt.'

He realized then that the choice was really no choice at all: what he felt for Maria was far stronger than the need for vengeance.

He said, ‘I'll call Mallory, explain the situation. They can go and arrest him.'

She plastered his cheeks with tearful kisses of relief. ‘Thank you, Donald.'

He dressed, splashed his face with cold water, then got through to Mallory and explained the situation. The detective heard him out, then observed grimly, ‘Hoist, I think the saying goes, by his own petard. I'll be over in thirty minutes. I'll need to see the letter he sent – you have it with you?'

‘It's in my case.'

‘Good work, Donald. I'll be right over.'

Maria was standing beside the kitchen door, watching him. He crossed the room and held her. ‘Don't worry,' he said. ‘It's coming to an end.'

‘It has been a nightmare.'

He had an idea. ‘When they've arrested Pearson, let's celebrate.'

‘Celebrate?'

‘Let's find a quiet hotel on the coast and spend a long weekend away from London – a legitimate hotel, this time.'

‘That would be wonderful,' Maria said. ‘I'll make some coffee. I feel too sick to eat, but I think I need coffee.'

‘Earl Grey for me.'

They sat at the dining table in the bay window and drank their beverages, saying little and staring out at the trees swaying in the spring breeze.

Mallory's Humber pulled up fifteen minutes later, followed by a second unmarked police car. Mallory crossed the pavement accompanied by two plainclothes officers. While Maria let them in, Langham fetched the novel and found the letter in his suitcase.

‘Donald,' Mallory said, his face set solid. This was a side of the detective Langham had not seen before, entirely focused on the endgame. His navy pinstriped suit looked even more dishevelled than usual, as if he'd spent the night in it. He introduced the plainclothes officers as Howson and McNeil from the CID.

They sat at the breakfast table and Maria fetched a tray of tea and joined them. Mallory scanned the relevant pages of
Death by the Sea
, then passed the book to the CID men.

Mallory clenched a china cup in his big hands, staring at Langham. ‘We considered sending you in first,' he said, ‘as per what Pearson is obviously expecting.'

Maria took Langham's hand and opened her mouth to say something, but Mallory went on: ‘But we're dealing here with someone who's clearly mentally unhinged, not to say psychopathic. There's no saying that Pearson would stick to the script.'

Maria squeezed his hand.

‘So we'll surround the place with undercover men and I'll send a team into the hotel. We're taking no risks here. Fortunately the hotel is secluded – a mile up a headland with only one road leading to and from.'

One of the CID men set the book down on the table. ‘We know Pearson will be there, awaiting you. We hold all the aces.'

Mallory stood, his bulk looming in the bay window and occluding the light. ‘I'll be in touch just as soon as we've wrapped it all up, Don.' He nodded to the CID men and they took their leave.

Langham stood before the window with Maria and watched them drive away.

He looked at her. ‘How do you feel?'

‘I don't know … Edgy. Nervous. I can't believe that soon it will be all over. You?'

He smiled. ‘I feel … like you, oddly nervous. And I won't believe it's all over until I've heard from Jeff. What are you doing today?'

She worried her bottom lip. ‘I really must go into the office.'

‘How about lunch later? I could pick you up at twelve.'

‘That sounds nice. I might feel more like eating by then. What are you doing?'

He thought about how to fill the morning until lunch. ‘I'll take my things back to the flat. I have a short story that needs finishing. I might look over that for an hour or so.'

It would be beneficial to get back to work, immerse himself in the machinations of imaginary characters and try to forget the events of the past few days.

He carried his case up the front steps, let himself into the flat and stood on the threshold of his study. It was as if he were seeing the room – his writing desk and serried books denoting a sequestered, almost monastic existence – for the first time. Nine years he had lived here, ever since being demobbed; he'd written a dozen books in this room, a hundred short stories … and all he had to show for that industry were the volumes of his own work that filled the bookcase beside the desk. He could not help but contrast what he had back then with what he had now, namely Maria; and he knew that his old self would be shocked that she had relegated his writing, which had consumed his life and thoughts for so long, into second place.

His reverie was interrupted by a knock at the front door. He hurried down, expecting the postman with a parcel too bulky for the letterbox. He pulled open the door.