Read Online Evil in Return by Elena Forbes - Free Book Online Page B

his style.’ She waved her hand dismissively.
    ‘How can you be so sure?’ Tartaglia asked.
    ‘One minute. I’ll show you what I mean.’ She got up and went over to one of the bookshelves, standing hand on hip as she scanned the wall of titles. ‘Here we are,’ she said, stretching on tip-toe to take a copy down from one of the shelves. She came back to the table, handed it to Tartaglia and sat down again. ‘This will give you an idea of Joe’s writing. You can keep it, if you like. It’s certainly a good read, if nothing else.’
    It was a fat paperback, the title Indian Summer highlighted against a sepia-toned photograph of an old house and garden.
    He frowned. ‘It says here it’s written by someone called Andrew Miller.’
    Ryan nodded. ‘Andrew was Joe’s second name and Miller’s his mother’s maiden name.’
    ‘He used a pseudonym. Why?’
    ‘I wouldn’t read too much into it. Lots of writers do it. He said he wanted to keep his acting and writing identities separate.’
    Tartaglia skimmed the blurb. It was more or less as Ryan had described, with nothing that immediately suggested a possible connection with the case. He then switched his attention to the back. On the inside of the cover he found a small, black and white snapshot of Logan. Taken somewhere outdoors, Logan was seated on a wooden bench, squinting into the sunlight, his arm resting lightly along the back, with a cigarette between his fingers. He had a pleasant face, if a little weak, but there was something appealing and humorous about his expression, as though he found the whole thing amusing and wasn’t taking it too seriously. It wasn’t the pose of a vain man, Tartaglia thought, nor was his choice of photograph for his book jacket. He found himself thinking back to the body he had seen lying on the gurney in the morgue. Even cleaned up, the face bore little resemblance to the man in the photograph; as often happened, death had robbed him of any humanity.
    ‘We had quite a battle to get a photograph out of him,’ Ryan said. ‘In the end, I think he got a friend to take it.’
    ‘That’s strange. He was an actor. He should be used to putting himself in the public eye. If nothing else, you’d think he’d use a professional studio shot.’
    ‘As I said, I imagine he wanted to draw a line between the two careers.’
    ‘Is it a good likeness?’ They needed something to release to the press in the hope that someone might remember seeing Logan the night he died.
    ‘Yes. It captures what he was like, pretty much.’
    ‘We’ll need a copy of the jPeg.’
    She nodded.
    He read the few lines of biography underneath the photo but they gave nothing new away, other than that Logan had been born and raised in Crewe, in Cheshire. At least that might help with tracing the next of kin.
    He tapped the cover. ‘Doesn’t tell you much about him, does it?’
    ‘That’s the way he wanted it. Lots of authors are like that, I have to say.’
    Still not satisfied, Tartaglia turned the book over and started to read aloud some of the newspaper quotes that filled the back cover.
    ‘“ Claustrophobic and haunting first novel . . . ”, “ Compelling and disturbing . . . ”, “ A gripping and absorbing read that keeps you guessing until the end . . . ”, “ Deep and intense, with an evocative sense of place . . . ”, “ An extraordinary debut . . . ”, “Peter’s Friends meets The Secret History . . .”’
    He looked up at Ryan again. ‘Do you write these yourselves?’
    Ryan smiled. ‘No. They’re all genuine quotes. As you can see, it was very well reviewed and deservedly so, in my opinion.’
    ‘Why’s it called Indian Summer ?’ Donovan asked.
    As she spoke, Tartaglia felt the vibration of his phone in his pocket and pulled it out. He saw a text message from Minderedes: Found journalist Anna. Call when u r done. Nick.
    ‘Writers can be funny about titles,’ Ryan was saying. ‘Joe must have changed it at least five times