looked like he was going to faint. Nigella sharpened her pencil and began scribbling in her notebook. Viola was weeping buckets of despairing tears and Sue sat beside her looking distracted, patting her half-heartedly on the back.
Esmerelda, on the other hand, responded in a very interesting manner. She put a hand to her heart and her eyes widened as if she was experiencing a blast of pure terror. She appeared to be in shock – she was doing all the right expressions, making all the right gestures, giving a very good impression of someone who had narrowly escaped being murdered – and yet her eyes were sparkling with something that wasn’t fear. Excitement? Satisfaction? I couldn’t tell.
Inspector Humphries commandeered the upstairs room to interview each of the authors and festival staff separately, starting with Viola Boulder. Meanwhile, Graham and I handed out cups of hot, sweet tea to fortify the nervous writers – who sat either pretending to read the newspapers, or staring wildly into space. When we’d done the rounds with the chocolate biscuits, we sat in a corner and whispered to each other.
“I don’t trust Esmerelda,” I said. “I don’t reckon she’s really shocked. She’s acting the part.”
“Are you sure?” asked Graham.
“Yes. Something to do with her eyes. She looks kind of pleased with herself.”
“She has every right to. According to today’s papers
The Vampiress of Venezia
has now sold more copies than
The
Lord of the Rings
. She must be a multi-millionaire.”
I took another sneaky look at the glamorous author. Graham could be right. Maybe she was just glowing with self-satisfaction. “Is that why her publisher is so keen for her to write a sequel?”
“It would make commercial sense. There must be a huge demand from the reading public for a second book. And after all, publishing is a business like any other. They want to make a profit.”
“I wonder why she’s so dead set against it, then?”
“Perhaps she has writer’s block too,” suggested Graham.
“She can’t have. She said she was already working on something new.” Thinking of unpublished books got me back on the subject of Max Spectre. “It’s odd that Esmerelda was nice to Max, isn’t it? All the others couldn’t wait to get rid of him. And Katie said ‘there’s always one’. It sounds like they get approached by people like Max quite a lot.”
I knew that I was missing something – a vital piece of jigsaw was lost, and without it I couldn’t begin to make sense of the whole picture. Frustrated, I changed tack.
“Do you think the killer really meant to murder Esmerelda?”
“Inspector Humphries seemed to think so.”
“It all feels a bit odd. Bashing someone over the head seems clumsy to me. And a felt tip? It’s not exactly clever, is it? Not like the other attacks.”
“You may be right. But the puncture ‘wounds’ would tie in with the note. As I recall, Esmerelda’s said ‘Bloodsuckers deserve to die’.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I dropped the subject for the time being. I couldn’t put it into words, but I couldn’t shake off the sensation that there was something not quite right about the way Max had died.
I didn’t share this with Inspector Humphries, of course. I knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be remotely interested in my gut instinct. So when he called me and Graham for our interviews, I kept my ideas pretty much to myself.
Graham’s mum and dad were both working that day, so it was my mum who came to the town hall to be the Responsible Adult present at our interview. She was about as thrilled as Inspector Humphries that we’d got involved in another murder investigation.
“A
book festival
?” she demanded furiously as we trooped up the stairs. “You’d think
that
would be harmless enough. How on earth did you two manage to find a dead body at a
book festival
?”
Graham and I kept our accounts brief and to the point. It was only at the very end of the
Esmerelda, on the other hand, responded in a very interesting manner. She put a hand to her heart and her eyes widened as if she was experiencing a blast of pure terror. She appeared to be in shock – she was doing all the right expressions, making all the right gestures, giving a very good impression of someone who had narrowly escaped being murdered – and yet her eyes were sparkling with something that wasn’t fear. Excitement? Satisfaction? I couldn’t tell.
Inspector Humphries commandeered the upstairs room to interview each of the authors and festival staff separately, starting with Viola Boulder. Meanwhile, Graham and I handed out cups of hot, sweet tea to fortify the nervous writers – who sat either pretending to read the newspapers, or staring wildly into space. When we’d done the rounds with the chocolate biscuits, we sat in a corner and whispered to each other.
“I don’t trust Esmerelda,” I said. “I don’t reckon she’s really shocked. She’s acting the part.”
“Are you sure?” asked Graham.
“Yes. Something to do with her eyes. She looks kind of pleased with herself.”
“She has every right to. According to today’s papers
The Vampiress of Venezia
has now sold more copies than
The
Lord of the Rings
. She must be a multi-millionaire.”
I took another sneaky look at the glamorous author. Graham could be right. Maybe she was just glowing with self-satisfaction. “Is that why her publisher is so keen for her to write a sequel?”
“It would make commercial sense. There must be a huge demand from the reading public for a second book. And after all, publishing is a business like any other. They want to make a profit.”
“I wonder why she’s so dead set against it, then?”
“Perhaps she has writer’s block too,” suggested Graham.
“She can’t have. She said she was already working on something new.” Thinking of unpublished books got me back on the subject of Max Spectre. “It’s odd that Esmerelda was nice to Max, isn’t it? All the others couldn’t wait to get rid of him. And Katie said ‘there’s always one’. It sounds like they get approached by people like Max quite a lot.”
I knew that I was missing something – a vital piece of jigsaw was lost, and without it I couldn’t begin to make sense of the whole picture. Frustrated, I changed tack.
“Do you think the killer really meant to murder Esmerelda?”
“Inspector Humphries seemed to think so.”
“It all feels a bit odd. Bashing someone over the head seems clumsy to me. And a felt tip? It’s not exactly clever, is it? Not like the other attacks.”
“You may be right. But the puncture ‘wounds’ would tie in with the note. As I recall, Esmerelda’s said ‘Bloodsuckers deserve to die’.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I dropped the subject for the time being. I couldn’t put it into words, but I couldn’t shake off the sensation that there was something not quite right about the way Max had died.
I didn’t share this with Inspector Humphries, of course. I knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be remotely interested in my gut instinct. So when he called me and Graham for our interviews, I kept my ideas pretty much to myself.
Graham’s mum and dad were both working that day, so it was my mum who came to the town hall to be the Responsible Adult present at our interview. She was about as thrilled as Inspector Humphries that we’d got involved in another murder investigation.
“A
book festival
?” she demanded furiously as we trooped up the stairs. “You’d think
that
would be harmless enough. How on earth did you two manage to find a dead body at a
book festival
?”
Graham and I kept our accounts brief and to the point. It was only at the very end of the
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