G Malliet - Death and the Lit Chick

"You invent software for investors, Desmond-you told me writing these programs is how you made your packet. You must have taken this as a small challenge, to adapt the delayed-order-placement feature you'd invented to a mobile phone message. We'll be taking a close look at that mobile, you can be certain."

A smile began to play about the edges of Desmond's mouth. St. Just added, "We'll be taking a closer look, even if you designed a program to remove almost all traces of itself, and then cause the device to restart, eliminating the last little bit. But certain controls would have to be defeated first, and that in and of itself would leave a trace."

The smile disappeared.

"But back to Annabelle's role in this. She was here in the first instance to show you the hiding place."

"You'll have to do much better than this," said Annabelle.

"I shall. You had another role, which was to get Kimberlee to the bottle dungeon. You were seen in the hallway outside the ladies' room, talking with her. You passed her a message, didn't you, purportedly from Jay Fforde, that there had been a change of plans and she was to meet him earlier than planned, and in a different place than planned. I doubt Kimberlee would question this, your being enlisted as go-between. That was part of her nature, wasn't it? The love of intrigue. Remember, her first book was a romance novel. Her second was all about the mating rituals of the sexes. It was the perfect ploy to get her where you wanted her."

Annabelle looked at him contemptuously.

"And this passes for evidence these days, does it? So I was here at the castle, over two years ago, during the Edinburgh festival, as you can easily find out by going through the castle records. So what?"

He had to hand it to her; she wasn't just going to give it up. She, he suspected, had masterminded the whole scheme. Desmond didn't have the starch. St. Just paused, a knight looking for the chink in the armor. There was always one.

"Yes, I think the credit for this elaborate charade must go to Annabelle," he said aloud.

"Do tell."

"What was it?" he went on relentlessly. "A plot for a new book, one that you decided to apply to real life? Or did you from the beginning address your demonic creativity to the little problem of how to get rid of Kimberlee Kalder? Either way, it worked-or nearly did."

"Nonsense."

"It is most assuredly not nonsense. You, as you say, were here during the Edinburgh festival. And you are the only one in this room who has ever been a guest here."

"I repeat: You call this evidence? What about the staff?"

"Ah, yes, speaking of the staff: The bartender, having been shown a certain photo, remembers you well as the lady who showed such a keen interest in the priest's hole. Combined with a few other inconsistencies, yes, I think we can put a seal on this nicely."

"Inconsistencies… such as?"

"Such as this."

He reached into the box behind him and pulled out several books. He held out one, its back cover facing his audience. He turned slowly, so they could all get a good look.

"Your author photo." He held up another book, then another, all with different photos of Annabelle through the years, but all of them glamour shots of a woman unrecognizable as the frumpy, haggard-looking Annabelle that sat before them. The woman in the photo was coiffed and buffed and highlighted to within an inch of her life, and even allowing for the photographer's art and skillfully applied makeup, her beauty could not be denied. Her blonde hair fell in graceful waves to her shoulders; in one particularly ravishing photo she wore a low-cut dress of red satin. At her neck and throat were diamonds. She was a stunner.

"This is why you got rid of all the copies of your book you could lay your hands on at the conference booksellers, isn't it? Your disguise was to play the frump, the woman of no sex appeal whatsoever. Especially once you saw me browsing the bookstore at the conference that day, you realized you had to buy up all the copies of your book and destroy them or throw them away. They couldn't be found in your room by the police, could they? Because your deadly game with Desmond was already, if you will forgive the expression, afoot. You could not have the police noticing your disguise.

"What did you do with the books?" he demanded.

"What books?" she snapped. "This is madness, I tell you."

"The first day of the conference I saw you carrying a bag that had to have had a dozen books in it. The bookseller will have a record of that purchase, of course. But we only found three books in your room, all by other authors. What did you do with your own books? Will we also find them in the moat-or did you just find a handy trash bin somewhere?"

"I really don't know what you're talking about."

"You're the only author-the only one-who isn't traveling with at least a few copies of her own books. Dozens, in some cases. Why is that, I asked myself? Humility? A lack of vanity? Not ruddy likely. That's an unheard-of modesty for an author. But there are practical reasons as well: All of you keep your own books about you in case the bookseller runs out of copies, in case a fan asks to see the cover-whatever authorial reasons. Then I remembered: All of the authors had a big, smiling photo-in some cases, a scowling photo-of themselves on the backs of their books.

"It was the photo you didn't want us to see, wasn't it?"

"Disguise." She fairly spat at him, fixing him with arrow-slit eyes, a brief flare of temper beneath the ice. "Don't be absurd. I've just not been well."

"That is makeup on your face," he replied, "but you've painted yourself almost gray. You've painted yourself old, haven't you? No woman wears makeup so that she can look worse -unless she's playing a part, like an actress in a play. I would've said you wore no makeup at all, but there were in fact the usual little pots and bottles in your room. And baby powder-possibly used to dull your hair. That's an old actor's trick. Something you learned as a photographer's assistant, perhaps? There were also tissues in your bathroom waste bin with lotion and traces of makeup on them. I thought nothing of it-all the women's waste bins were like that." The women exchanged looks at realizing how thoroughly their privacy had been invaded. "With the exception of Mrs. Elksworthy," he went on, "who really does wear no makeup."

"Allergic," Joan barked, traces of her usual staunch self returning. "I could have told you that. No need to snoop around my room."

"And the clothes-all wrong, all cheap and ill-fitting, nothing you would normally wear, nothing like what we see in these photos. Yet all the clothes looked brand new, bought especially for the occasion-the occasion being this farce you were about to play. Also, you have pierced ears, but I've yet to see you wear a single piece of jewelry. I was reminded of this when someone said something about Mrs. Elksworthy's jewelry, but I couldn't put my finger on the memory then."

"I did tell you Annabelle looked changed somehow-" began Mrs. Elksworthy.

"Yes, I missed the significance. You didn't even recognize her at first. I started looking closer and asked myself again what woman would work that hard at looking fat, bloated, and ill-especially a woman speaking before a conference audience. Especially a woman who had been involved with B. A. King-a man who would never waste a minute on a woman like the Annabelle we see before us. I could not for the life of me see how someone like B. A. King-a man of all flash and no substance-would ever have taken up with someone like Annabelle, and vice versa. It was a complete mismatch. He would go for youth or sparkle, every time. Another inconsistency."

She gazed at him from hooded, predatory, eyes. He was reminded of the falcons in the aviary.

"This is all pretty insulting, and yet I fail to see how my personal dress and makeup choices have anything to do with this. I've been unwell, I tell you. Maybe I've gained a few pounds. The stress of deadlines can do that. So what?"