Pompomberry House (36 page)

“You knew that we’d go back!”

“Yes, I left my bag there on purpose.”

The scheming, lying, little ...

Montgomery decided he wanted centre stage and started
booming, “We made a pact that afternoon — a pact to promote the book, no matter
what it took.”

Dawn stepped in, “Then we hurried off the island as quickly
as we could because we
knew
you’d call the police.”

“You’re so predictable!” sneered Rafe.

Oh dear! What an insult — ‘That Dee Whittaker, well, she
always calls the police after discovering a dead body. What a bore!’

 “Why did you take my credit card? Buying gnomes on my card only
drew attention to the group.”

“Oh, don’t you know?” laughed Rafe. “
You
did all
this.”

 “What?”

“It’s all here!” he said, holding up a piece of paper.

I looked closely. It appeared to have several paragraphs of
text printed on it, and — what? My signature was scribbled on the bottom.

“How did you ...” Then I noticed Danger, who was
scratching his forehead, guiltily. “My ‘autograph’?”

The conniving little smeghead. He had planned to frame me,
not my autograph. And to think I’d kept the grotty receipt with his scrawl on
it.

“Let me see that ...” I demanded.

Rafe, taking care to hold the paper firmly, held it up to
show me.

“But that’s in Comic Sans. Nobody would confess to murder
using Comic Sans!”

“We felt it suited you,” said Rafe.

Ouch
.

“You did actually manage to save Netta Lewis’s life,” Dawn
told me. “She was our first choice. But then, when Danger told us that he was
going to help you guard her, we had to switch our attentions to Amanda. It wasn’t
strictly true to the book, but we figured that nobody would be paying that close
attention to your story anyway.”

“That’s outrageous! Enid Kibbler loved it!”

The writers pretended not to care, but I knew that I’d
delivered a mighty blow. If I were going to die, at least I would die knowing
that they knew that Enid Kibbler knew that I was more talented than they were.

I felt terrible about Amanda. By saving Netta I’d killed
her. Admittedly, I had had no idea that those were the rules of the game, but
even so, I had acted in a way that had brought about her death.

“So, what happened?” I asked. I looked at Dawn and
Montgomery. “Did you two get your minions to recreate the first three stories
and then fly back from Spain to make the kill? I know somebody impersonated you
in the Skype chats so you don’t really have alibis.”

Montgomery was laughing, deep stentorian snorts. The others
seemed amused too.

“Oh, we never went to Spain!” announced Dawn. “We just
wanted people to think we were abroad, so that they wouldn’t ask questions.”

“We were too integral to the scheme to go
abroad
.”

“But your tans ...”

“Haven’t you heard of sunbeds?”

“So, you did
all
of the crimes?”

There was more laughter. Apparently it was comical that I
didn’t automatically understand the workings of five murderous minds. I decided
not to care. When it comes to your self-esteem, it is best not to value the
opinions of deluded psychopaths.

“Danger and me did the gnomes!” sang Rafe.

“And the pig,” added Danger.

“I helped with the pig,” Annabel chirped. That explained the
shoe prints.

“But there was only one set of prints,” I recalled. “Surely
you didn’t kidnap an entire pig by yourself, Annabel? You’re so slight.”

“Why thank you!”

Danger explained, “I took the liberty of inspecting the boots
of the farmer. Size ten from ASDA.”

“You wore the same type of welly as Farmer Groober?”

“Exactly.”

“Of course,
we
coordinated it all,” boasted
Montgomery, puffing out his chest.

“Annabel almost ruined everything,” complained Dawn.

“I was worried about the pig!” she squeaked.

“She called 999,” explained Rafe, looking at her with
condescending scorn.

“
I was worried about the pig!
”

“You were a liability!” scolded Dawn. “Look at the mess you
made of the gnomes.”

“We were supposed to do it in fancy dress,” explained Rafe. “So
that we would be disguised if anybody saw us, but not look threatening. Any
nightwalkers would think we were youths messing around. We decided on animal
costumes, because they would hide us completely.”

“You didn’t tell me that!” cried Annabel.

“It was pretty obvious that you weren’t supposed to come as
the playboy flaming bunny!” scolded Rafe.

Poor Annabel looked mortified. I imagined the scene — Danger
and Rafe waiting around in giant dog suits and Annabel turning up in stiletto
heels, a bikini and bunny ears. Despite my predicament, I almost laughed.

“And I found the foot,” said Montgomery, looking proud.

“You didn’t find it, you
stole
it!” Dawn pointed out.

“All right, I stole it.”

“From where?” I asked.

“An undertaker,” he said, beaming from ear to ear.
“Fortunately, there’d been a grisly traffic accident, so there was hardly any
sawing to do.”

“You’re sick in the head. No wonder you found it easy to
kill poor Amanda.”

“Actually, that was me,” announced Dawn, heaving up her
bosom. “Montgomery signed in as both of us in Rafe’s Skype chat. Danger was
with you, and Annabel made certain that Gavin saw her. We knew you were asking
questions and wanted to make sure you believed every alibi.”

“Gareth.”

“What?”

“My husband is called
Gareth
.”

“Whatever.”

“You said you’d never been to Green Bar!”

Annabel stuttered, “I ... I got confused.”

“She gets confused a lot,” said Dawn, dismissively. “I
waited ... I waited until it was dark. Then, I broke into Amanda’s
flat. I smashed the window in the door, so that I could open it. She was in the
shower, washing her hair, when I overpowered her and strangled her. Then, I
drove her to Waterloo where I threw her body into the river.”

“And left an ear of wheat!” I exclaimed.

“That was my idea!” beamed Montgomery. “A calling card that
would take the police straight to you, Mrs Wheat-Acre. And just in case my
remarkable play on words was too subtle for the police, it’s all in the
confession.”

At this stage, I didn’t care whether the police thought I had
done it or not. The chances of my survival were slim. I wasn’t concerned about
my name being dragged through the mud, I was concerned about my face being
dragged through the fire. Were they really going to
eat
me?

A sudden surge of panic took over and without really
thinking about it, I kneed Rafe in his spongy balls. He yelped and fell to the
floor, rolling around like a giant baby. I raced towards the sea. The others
were a few metres further away, giving me a head start.

“Stop her!” commanded Dawn.

“Why me?” asked Danger.

“Because you’re trained in this sort of thing!”

“No, he isn’t!” scoffed Rafe, squeaking from the ground. “He’s
not a real bodyguard. That’s just part of his author persona!”

“Really?” asked a myriad of voices.

“He’s actually a computer programmer called Mike!” revealed
Rafe, suddenly seeming a lot better.

“Shut it, Ralf Klump!”

“Ralf Klump?” laughed Montgomery.

“He’s never called Ralf Klump?” cried Dawn.

“Like you don’t have a pen name, Shane Tanner!” said Rafe. “And
I know you didn’t go to
the
Oxford either, you went to the polytechnic!”

“It’s
in
Oxford!” pleaded Montgomery.

“All right,” said Annabel, sounding alarmed. “There’s no
need to bring our personal lives into this.”

“Why’s that, Annabel
Flushing
?”

“Somebody stop Dee!” cried Dawn.

Despite my head start, I was still only a few feet out from
the shore. The water was deep and, in my haste, I kept stumbling. The currents
were stronger than they had been before and hindered my movement.

 Somebody was in the water; I tried to swim away but my
clothes and the currents held me back.

Suddenly, big hands grabbed me. Though I struggled to
escape, using my own arms to try to swim, my pursuer held my waist firmly. I
felt myself dragged backwards, back onto Pompomberry Island.

Chapter 21

I was on the ground. Danger held me down while Dawn charged
forward like a rampaging rhino. She wasn’t fast, she was wide and heavy. In her
fist was a sharp, kitchen knife. I was terrified. I tried to escape Danger’s
clutches. I bit his arm. He yelped and let go.

But I was sandwiched between the sea and the moving wall of
Dawn. As I edged backwards towards the water, Danger grabbed me by the ankles
and held me still.

Dawn stopped just before me, and, for a brief moment, I
thought she’d changed her mind. Then it happened — I felt a sharp, stabbing
pain in the middle of my middle. It was the worst pain of my life. I screamed.

As the enormous woman stepped away, I saw that the knife was
covered in my blood. The pain intensified. I flopped my head back onto the
sand, and then I dropped dead.

Chapter 22

At least, the writers
thought
I had died. I’m
familiar with the strategy known as ‘playing dead’. It worked for the house
spider in my bath. When I’d tried to remove its body the bastard had run up my
arm. In my wounded state, I couldn’t see myself running anywhere. I didn’t know
if I would survive the knife wound, but at least if they thought I was dead,
that hulking beast might not stab me again. It was difficult keeping still, not
to mention quiet, when I was badly injured, but I knew I had to endure the
pain.

“Are we really going to eat Dee?” asked Annabel, sounding
aggrieved. She’d probably already had her daily calorie.

“I am not sure that I want to,” Danger added.

Rafe angrily replied, “Oh, I see! So your stories are good
enough for copycatting but mine aren’t?”

“If we eat her, how can we frame her?” wondered Annabel.

Rafe snorted, “We have to follow the book. This is art!”

“I have a
Go Girl
deadline tomorrow; I cannot risk
indigestion,” explained Danger.

“She does look a bit hard to digest — stringy,” observed
Dawn.

Rafe asked, “When did you start writing for
Go Girl
?”

“A few weeks ago,” said Danger, sheepishly.

I heard Rafe tut.

“He wrote a brilliant story!” said Annabel. “About two
halves of a couple who each hired the same private detective ...”

“You mean,
my
story?” roared Rafe. “He stole my
idea!”

“Well, you decided to write the other one,” stammered
Danger.

“It was
my
story.”

“Do you want the fee? How about we offset it against that
fiver you owe me?”

“I don’t care about the fee! This is about artistic
integrity! Not only did you steal my story, but you sold it to
Go Girl
magazine!”
cried Rafe, getting more and more angry. “That idea was worthy of more than a
magazine! You degraded my idea!”

Next, I heard running around. I heard footsteps on the path
leading up to the house. Then suddenly people were screaming. I risked opening
my eyes. Fortunately, nobody was looking at me. All eyes were on Rafe. He was
now storming down the path swinging the axe. The others hurried away from him,
parting like the sea to Rafe’s Moses.

Danger screamed — a proper blood-curdling scream. He hurtled
towards the sea with Rafe following him, hurling obscenities about Danger
misunderstanding his place in the writing community.

It wasn’t hard for Rafe to catch up; his legs were so much
longer. As Danger reached the shore, Rafe swung the axe, driving a gash into
Danger’s side. He screamed and stumbled as he dived towards the water. Rafe
swung the axe again. This time, catching Danger’s foot. Even from my disadvantageous
position, I could make out blood; lots of it. Danger fell.

The axe swung again, this time, cutting deep into the leg bone.
Danger screamed, a high-pitched agonised scream. He tried to crawl further into
the sea. Dark red blood marbled the sea, churning into pink surf.

A wave crashed over Danger’s head and he disappeared for a
few seconds, but his colourless hair reappeared as his head bobbed above the
water. It happened three more times before a final wave claimed Danger forever.

The others watched, eerily quiet, as one of their number
perished. Annabel looked aghast at Rafe. I heard her heart shattering, piece by
piece.

“What? He undervalued my work!” said Rafe.

This was met with a stunned silence.

Suddenly, Annabel screamed and pointed to the shore a few
metres to my right. I had to prop myself up to see what she was gesturing to.
Oh
yuck! Oh that’s revolting!
Danger’s severed foot washed up on the beach.

I remembered that I was supposed to be lifeless, and fell
back onto the sand. Danger’s murder sickened me but at least now there was one
less person wanting me dead.

“I think we could all do with a cup of tea,” said Montgomery,
in the manner that somebody might respond to a minor mishap, such as getting
caught in the rain, or arriving at the supermarket checkout to find that you’ve
forgotten your loyalty card, or accidentally stepping on your favourite snail.
But then the group had clocked up their third murder; it was becoming a way of
life for them.

Voices seemed to be retreating from the sandy area up the
path to the house.

“Can we just leave them there?”

“It’s best if we let the sea claim Danger,” explained
Montgomery. “The currents are vicious around here, the rocks are sharp and
there’s a storm forecast.”

“What about Dee?” asked Rafe.

“Well she’s not going anywhere, is she? Why not leave her
there until we feel peckish?”