Graham, frowning. “But Trevor had better take care. Max approached him, too, didn’t he?”
I felt a sudden stab of anxiety for Basil’s publicist. He wouldn’t be covered by Viola’s increased security measures – those were just for the authors. Was he OK? I became more and more worried as the signing went on. It took ages. The queue of moody goths seemed to go on for ever, and they weren’t content just to get their book signed and move off – they all had to have great long conversations with Esmerelda about life essence and the undead. I got quite twitchy.
Viola had told us to take Esmerelda along to the green room and restore her with light refreshments after her event, but by the time the last goth had reluctantly plucked himself away, Esmerelda said she was exhausted and wanted to lie down. We were under such strict instructions not to leave her alone that Graham and I, along with the security guards and the uniformed policeman, escorted her back over the road to her hotel. The whole time, I worried about Trevor and had this horrible gut feeling that something, somewhere was badly wrong.
We didn’t dare abandon Esmerelda in the lobby, and en masse we followed her up the stairs to her room. I half thought we might all have to tuck her into bed.
It turned out I needn’t have wasted my energy worrying about Max attacking Trevor.
Esmerelda Desiree put her key in the lock and pushed her door open. We saw Max Spectre, spread-eagled across the bed, staring up at the ceiling with cold, dead eyes. The pages of his manuscript were strewn over the floor. And his neck was punctured with two neat wounds.
When I saw those marks, my stomach turned right over. There wasn’t a trace of blood on the sheets. It was as though every drop had been sucked out of him.
death of a ghost
Graham and I had met Inspector Humphries, the investigating officer, twice before. He wasn’t thrilled when he found out that it was us who had discovered Max Spectre. When he arrived to examine the crime scene and saw me and Graham standing there, he muttered something about us being “the kiss of death”, which I thought was a little unkind: it wasn’t like we went out of our way to find dead bodies.
Inspector Humphries gave strict instructions that we were all to return to the town hall and stay there while forensics crawled over Esmerelda’s hotel room looking for clues. Then, when he had finished his own examination of the crime scene, he followed us over to talk to the children’s authors, who had all been pulled out of their workshops and herded into the green room. The inspector looked as perplexed as Graham and I felt about the whole thing.
Wiping his glasses with a crumpled handkerchief, Inspector Humphries told us it was possible that Max Spectre had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as he could see, Max had gone to the hotel to leave the manuscript for Esmerelda to read. Someone had been lurking in her room and had killed him with a single blow to the head the second he’d walked through the door. The puncture “wounds” had been done with a felt pen purely for effect – that’s why there hadn’t been any blood. For some reason that struck me as odd, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“Are you suggesting that I was the intended victim?” Esmerelda’s voice sliced through the tense atmosphere in the green room like a knife. “Am I still in danger, Inspector? Do you think the killer will try again?”
Inspector Humphries surveyed his audience, then cleared his throat dramatically. “I believe every author here is a potential target. It was pure chance that none of yesterday’s incidents ended in death.”
There was a collective gasp of horror. Katie and Francisco paled and clasped each other by the hand. Muriel Black drew her legs up and curled into a tight ball in her armchair. Basil Tamworth pressed a handkerchief to his mouth. Charlie Deadlock sat biting his trembling lip. Trevor
I felt a sudden stab of anxiety for Basil’s publicist. He wouldn’t be covered by Viola’s increased security measures – those were just for the authors. Was he OK? I became more and more worried as the signing went on. It took ages. The queue of moody goths seemed to go on for ever, and they weren’t content just to get their book signed and move off – they all had to have great long conversations with Esmerelda about life essence and the undead. I got quite twitchy.
Viola had told us to take Esmerelda along to the green room and restore her with light refreshments after her event, but by the time the last goth had reluctantly plucked himself away, Esmerelda said she was exhausted and wanted to lie down. We were under such strict instructions not to leave her alone that Graham and I, along with the security guards and the uniformed policeman, escorted her back over the road to her hotel. The whole time, I worried about Trevor and had this horrible gut feeling that something, somewhere was badly wrong.
We didn’t dare abandon Esmerelda in the lobby, and en masse we followed her up the stairs to her room. I half thought we might all have to tuck her into bed.
It turned out I needn’t have wasted my energy worrying about Max attacking Trevor.
Esmerelda Desiree put her key in the lock and pushed her door open. We saw Max Spectre, spread-eagled across the bed, staring up at the ceiling with cold, dead eyes. The pages of his manuscript were strewn over the floor. And his neck was punctured with two neat wounds.
When I saw those marks, my stomach turned right over. There wasn’t a trace of blood on the sheets. It was as though every drop had been sucked out of him.
death of a ghost
Graham and I had met Inspector Humphries, the investigating officer, twice before. He wasn’t thrilled when he found out that it was us who had discovered Max Spectre. When he arrived to examine the crime scene and saw me and Graham standing there, he muttered something about us being “the kiss of death”, which I thought was a little unkind: it wasn’t like we went out of our way to find dead bodies.
Inspector Humphries gave strict instructions that we were all to return to the town hall and stay there while forensics crawled over Esmerelda’s hotel room looking for clues. Then, when he had finished his own examination of the crime scene, he followed us over to talk to the children’s authors, who had all been pulled out of their workshops and herded into the green room. The inspector looked as perplexed as Graham and I felt about the whole thing.
Wiping his glasses with a crumpled handkerchief, Inspector Humphries told us it was possible that Max Spectre had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as he could see, Max had gone to the hotel to leave the manuscript for Esmerelda to read. Someone had been lurking in her room and had killed him with a single blow to the head the second he’d walked through the door. The puncture “wounds” had been done with a felt pen purely for effect – that’s why there hadn’t been any blood. For some reason that struck me as odd, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“Are you suggesting that I was the intended victim?” Esmerelda’s voice sliced through the tense atmosphere in the green room like a knife. “Am I still in danger, Inspector? Do you think the killer will try again?”
Inspector Humphries surveyed his audience, then cleared his throat dramatically. “I believe every author here is a potential target. It was pure chance that none of yesterday’s incidents ended in death.”
There was a collective gasp of horror. Katie and Francisco paled and clasped each other by the hand. Muriel Black drew her legs up and curled into a tight ball in her armchair. Basil Tamworth pressed a handkerchief to his mouth. Charlie Deadlock sat biting his trembling lip. Trevor
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