Pompomberry House (15 page)

I had to call the police. They might not care about the
gnomes, but surely they would care about a human foot. The police needed to be
warned about what would happen next. I tried to remember the other stories.
Wasn’t there one about a private detective? Oh no, Rafe had used the other
idea, hadn’t he? What was that again? I strained my brain to remember.
Cannibals!

Oh no! Why had I persuaded him to tell the story about
cannibals and not a private detective? Somebody was going to get eaten and it
was all my fault.

I had to tell the police. However, I imagined Taylor looking
at me over his long, bony nose. “Eaten?” he would ask, with a scoff.

What was Montgomery’s story? Was that something the police
would take more seriously? Hadn’t he written about a vigilante tax lawyer? A
tax lawyer who killed his colleague’s guilty clients. Another death!

If the stories kept coming true, then two more people were
going to die. I had to do something. I had to call the police.

I thought back to my last meeting with Taylor and Forrester.
Why hadn’t they taken me seriously? I concluded that it was because I’d been
too vague. I hadn’t known the witnesses’ real names or even the most commonly
used name for the island.

This time I had to approach the police with as many
specifics as I could. I darted over to the coffee table and grabbed my Kindle.
The
Book of Most Quality Writers
was there, unopened.

Hurriedly, I clicked on it and was transported to a
copyright message. ‘Don’t copy this book or else! Karma kills pirates, like
cannons. If you wake up in the morning with cancer, you will know why.” It did
seem
a little
aggressive.

I turned the page to find a foreword by Dawn Manning and
Montgomery Lowe.

‘What happens when the best writers in the country get
together? This book happens! We are delighted to have been able to work with
greats such as Rafe Maddocks and Annabel Fleming and to introduce the talent
that is Danger Smith. We also have a short by lesser-known writer, Dee
Whittaker ...’

What?
In what way was I a lesser-known talent? I’d
sold almost a thousand books! Annabel’s
Falling for Flatley
had only
sold 200.

Then the more pertinent issue struck me, like a badly
handled cricket bat — my story was in the anthology!

I hadn’t shown anybody my submission. The only copies of
that particular story, were on my laptop and ... Oh my giddy aunt! There
was a copy on my stolen memory card! Somehow, that card must have ended up in
the other writers’ hands.

After the initial, ‘How dare you use my story without
permission?’ I began to feel slightly smug. They liked my story so much that
they decided to use it even without my blessing. Some work just demands to be
read.

But wait! My story wasn’t finished! I buried my blushing head
in my hands as I remembered the first draft. It was rubbish! It was just a
basic outline of the ideas. I hadn’t had a chance to correct typos, add witty metaphors
or enhance my character descriptions.

Oh hell’s chickens! This was the worst moment in my writing
career. Perhaps they knew that, perhaps that’s why they used my story — to punish
me. The others must have been furious when I left the island to call the
police, instead of going along with their harebrained self-preservation scheme.
Was this their revenge?

I navigated to the contents page. Where was my story?

‘I Shot Five Men’

‘Hungry’

‘Foot’

‘Busty and Giving’

‘Gnome-man Art More Lovely Than Thou’

‘The Pig and the Cliff’

Oh, maybe they hadn’t included mine after all. I read through
the list again.
Oh no!
Surely they hadn’t called my story ‘Busty and
Giving’! I felt my heart rate increase and anger rise from the pit of my
stomach. I saw my name next to the title. How could they? They’d made my story
sound like cheap erotica!

 I clicked on my story in the contents page, pretending that
I wasn’t secretly impressed that they had got the hyperlinks working smoothly.

Oh blooming Nora!
They hadn’t even proofread it.
There was a typo in the first sentence. My writing career was almost certainly
over. Nothing in the world could be worse than somebody publishing my story
with mistakes in it.

Then I remembered the murder. One of my characters chased
another across Waterloo Bridge, before being thrown to a watery death! Of my
characters — three charity workers — the girl in second place
murdered
the winning girl. If my story was going to come true, that meant that somebody
was going to die.

* * *

I sat on my bedroom floor shaking. I doubt I’d have enjoyed
The
Book of Most Quality Writers
at the best of times, but knowing that the
stories were coming true made it terrifying, not tedious. Worryingly, the pig,
the gnomes and the foot were the least disturbing of the stories. Of the
remaining three, a vigilante tax lawyer killed a guilty client, half-a-dozen
people ate the weakest member of their group for survival, and then there was
my story.

How could I go to the police and tell them that somewhere,
somehow, a charity worker was going to be murdered? That was just the sort of
unfocussed information that had gotten me into trouble last time. But how could
I be any more specific?

I thought back to my inspiration for the story. There had
been an actual competition, which I had seen online only a few weeks ago. Its
cynical side had riled me. Was the competition still running?

My corporation, Porker and Millface, had been based on the
real, multinational Porter and Miller. I hurriedly stuck ‘Porter and Miller’
into Google, but the first link took me to a bland corporate website. I tried
again with ‘Porter and Miller charity contest’. Sure enough, there was the
competition I’d seen before. The photographs of three girls were lined up on
the screen — all over made-up, all taken in professional studios, and all with
snazzy, professionally styled hair. I cringed — the competition had nothing to
do with the charities. Of course, the causes were labelled in a large font and
their blurbs clearly displayed. The event was, after all, designed to make
Porter and Miller look ethical.

As I looked at the three attention-seeking media whores, grinning
at me with lips pumped with botty fat, I knew that this competition had to be
the copycat’s target. It would be the perfect match.

It was then that I noticed that the competition was due to
close at the end of the week. Oh no! In the book, the killer’s motivation was
to stop the leader winning. If the competition finished, there would be no
motive. So a murder would have to happen during the next few days!

I studied the girls, there was a clear leader — Netta Lewis.
I remembered her from a YouTube video. She had been a finalist in a pageant and
answered the question, ‘What would you do if you were the prime minister?’ with
the unforgettable words, ‘I would start by getting a new wife. Michelle Obama
don’t know shit about shoes. I mean, say what you like about coloured women —
they know how to accessorise ... usually.’ Now, she was the
spokeswoman for Heart Africa, a charity that was raising money to build a
medical centre in Ethiopia.

In a break from the norm, Netta had bouncy hair rather than
the intensively straightened silk curtain that was so fashionable with women who
had more time than sense. However, in every other way, she looked like a
Baywatch star. She was bottle blonde with full, heavily glossed, red lips. On
the website, you could only see her face, but I felt sure that that long,
moisturised neck led to a pair of double D boobs, above a waist that left her
internal organs worryingly devoid of insulation.

In second place was Amanda Kenwood. I recognised the name.
She had released a tragically poor pop single last year. I remembered coming
downstairs and finding Gareth mesmerised by her music video. But she wasn’t
wearing a red thong-bikini now — she was wearing a cotton blouse, strategically
cut to enhance her cleavage. She represented Dogs for Disabled People but was
clearly uncomfortable around animals. The website contained a number of
photographs of her looking decidedly disconcerted by canine creatures. In one
particularly memorable shot, she cowered in fear as a poodle licked a white
stripe into her orange face.

If my story came true to the letter, then Amanda would kill
Netta. However, I suspected that the killer was more likely to have some
connection to our book than the competition, and therefore Amanda was unlikely
to actually carry out the murder. Unless the killer found a way to manipulate
her ...

‘Who will kill Netta Lewis?’ was exactly the sort of
question that I couldn’t answer. My first thought was ‘call Gareth’ but then I
reached the less appealing conclusion that I should call the police.

* * *

As I waited for the police to arrive, I tried to get my
thoughts straight. It was a very complicated situation, but I felt that I was
beginning to get a grip on it.

The doorbell rang. I gulped, hoping that this meeting with the
police would go better than the last.

I opened the door.
Oh flaming heck!
D.I. Taylor
(skinny and strained) and D.I. Forrester (curvy and carefree) stood on the
doorstep. Weren’t they Cornish officers?

“We meet again, Mrs Whittaker,” said D.I. Taylor, with a
frown.

“Why is it you two again?” I asked.

“We’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind,” replied Taylor,
clearly not actually asking permission.

I waited for one of them to ask a question but after three
silent seconds had past, I blurted out, “I think somebody is going to murder
Netta Lewis.”

Taylor sighed. “And who exactly is Netta Lewis?”

I spoke at the same time as Forrester. “She’s a model.” “She’s
a charity rep.”

“And what makes you think she’s in danger?”

“Well, a number of things really, beginning with the pig at
Durdle Door.”

“What pig?” asked Taylor, looking both baffled and
dismissive at the same time.

“A pig fell off a cliff,” explained Forrester, her black
eyes gleaming with a youthfulness that Taylor’s probably never had. “There was
a big rescue mission.”

“And what’s that got to do with Netta Lewis?” he enquired.

“Nothing, directly. But the thing is, our anthology contains
a story about a pig falling off a cliff and also the murder of a charity rep.
The stories are coming true!”

“What anthology?”

“The one we wrote at the writers’ weekend. Remember? The
murder you didn’t believe.”

Taylor shuffled awkwardly in his seat. “And it says to kill
Netta Lewis?”

“No, it doesn’t say to kill anybody.”

“I’m not following you,” he said, gazing rudely into the air,
as if he had no desire to take on board any statement I might want to make.

“It’s a story about the leader in a charity grant
competition getting murdered.”

“Netta Lewis?”

“Well, it doesn’t mention her by name.”

“Then what makes you think she’s in danger?”

“She’s the obvious victim.”

“Let me get this straight. You think a model is going to be
murdered, because a pig fell off a cliff?”

“No! It’s also because of the gnomes.”

“Gnomes?” he asked, not even bothering to hide a bored
smirk.

“Do you mean the gnomes at Bognor Regis?” asked Forrester,
smiling in a friendly way.

“Yes!”

“What gnomes?” demanded Taylor. He seemed ruffled by his
junior’s superior knowledge.

Forrester explained, “A man in a dog costume took a load of
gnomes down to the beach, and arranged them ...” she trailed off,
realising how ridiculous she sounded.

“Arranged them ...?”

“Like a wedding,” she said, quietly.

Taylor turned to me, “Mrs Whittaker, do you realise that we
have jobs to do? London is a busy place.”

“I’m trying to save you a job!” I explained. “If you don’t
save Netta Lewis, you will have a murder enquiry on your hands.”

“Is that a threat?” he asked.

“No! Of course it isn’t a threat.”

“And do you have any idea who might want to kill Lewis?”

“Well, it could be Amanda Kenwood.”

“Who?”

“She’s currently coming second in the poll.”

“And why is she a suspect?”

“Because in my story, it’s the runner up who turns to
murder!”

“Mrs Whittaker, you do realise that what you’re talking
about is absurd. Stories don’t magically come true.”

“Not
magically
, no. But they are coming true —
somehow
.”

* * *

The officer’s words irked me for hours. ‘Stories don’t
magically come true’ — of course I knew that. I didn’t believe in magic. Hell,
I didn’t even believe in fate, love at first sight or karma. However, there was
no disputing the fact that the stories were coming true.

Somebody was obviously staging the copycat events. Surely,
if I thought hard enough, I could work out who the culprit was. There were only
a handful of suspects.

The pig and the gnomes happened
before
the anthology
was published, which meant that only six people knew of its existence.

Dawn Mann was in Spain, and I could rule myself out. That
left Montgomery Lowe, Annabel Fleming, Rafe Maddocks, and Danger Smith.

Then, I realised with a shiver, that there was somebody else
who might know what to expect from
The Book of Most Quality Writers
—
Biff’s killer. The killer had managed to hide on the island straight after Biff’s
death, so could easily have been hiding there beforehand. He could have been
there, in the shadows, listening all along. Thinking about it made me tremble.

Mind you, had somebody with murderous tendencies been
listening in on the writing exercises, it seemed unlikely that we’d have got
through to Saturday without a death. Even I had felt slightly violent, and I
was a pacifist. The inspirational exercise alone was massacre bait.