Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

As soon as he walked in the door, Kit was immediately surrounded by an enthusiastic trio of women who turned up at every crime fiction event in the capital and who apparently adored him above all other writers. Fiona left him to it, edging through the crowd and helping herself to a glass of white wine. Kit was a professional; he’d give the women enough of his time to reinforce their view of him as approachable and amusing before disentangling himself and settling in for a good gossip with friends and colleagues. For herself, she was happy enough to take a back seat and watch him work the room.

“He’s such a pro,” an admiring voice murmured in her ear. Fiona immediately recognized the genteel Edinburgh tones of Mary Helen Margolyes and turned to greet her with a kiss.

“Mary Helen, what a delightful surprise,” she said, meaning it. In spite of hating her melodramatic Jacobite historical mysteries featuring Flora Macdonald’s younger sister, Fiona had a soft spot for Mary Helen, not least because of her acerbic tongue. “What drags you away from the Highlands?”

“Oh, I had to come down to talk to some dreadful wee man at the BBC who’s making a TV series out of the Morag Macdonald books.”

“But that’s good news, isn’t it?”

Mary Helen’s face puckered as if she’d bitten a sour apple. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew who they’ve cast as Morag.”

“Tell me the worst.” Fiona had spent enough time around writers to know exactly what was required.

“Rachel Trilling.” Mary Helen’s voice was fat with disapproval.

“Isn’t she…?” Fiona struggled to make sense of the name. “She’s the lead singer with Dead Souls, isn’t she?”

Mary Helen’s eyebrows rose. “My God!” she exclaimed. “At last I’ve found somebody who’s heard of her. But then, what can you expect from a producer who thinks a white cockade is a tropical bird?”

“Oh, Mary Helen, I am sorry,” Fiona said.

“I’ll just have to follow Kit’s perennial advice and take the money and crawl,” Mary Helen said with a grim little smile.

“Apart from that, how’s life treating you?”

“It would be infinitely better if you’d pass me another glass of wine,” Mary Helen said. Fiona obliged, but before they could say more, the shop manager began his introduction to Adam Chester. Adam spoke briefly and wittily about his new book, then read a fifteen-minute extract. A few questions from the floor followed, then it was time for the signing.

As the purchasers formed a queue by Adam’s chair, Kit glanced across the room. “Uh-oh,” he said to Nigel Southern, the twenty-something writer of comic noir short stories he’d been talking to. “I better go and rescue Fiona from the clutches of Mad Mary Helen.”

Nigel raised his perfectly groomed eyebrows. “I’d have thought your lady was more than a match for the Highland Harpie. What’s it like, anyway, living with somebody who spends her days poking around the perverted fantasies of psychopaths?”

“Funnily enough, we don’t talk about it that much. We’ve got a life,” Kit said. “Anyway, that’s not what she does. She uses computer analysis, not psychoanalysis.”

Nigel shook his head pityingly. “I couldn’t be doing with that. I mean, it must be like living with the control freaks’ control freak. Isn’t she always telling you you’ve got it wrong?”

Kit gave him a good-humoured punch on the shoulder. “You haven’t got a fucking clue how the grown-ups live, have you? Listen, Nigel, if you are ever lucky enough to meet a woman with half the brains, the wit and the looks of Fiona, do yourself a favour. Go on a training course before you ask her out.” Without waiting for a reply, Kit squeezed through the crowd and enveloped Mary Helen in a bear hug. “How’s the queen of the glens?” he demanded, landing a resounding kiss on her cheek.

“All the better for seeing you and Fiona. If I’m honest, the main reason I came to this do tonight was in the hope of seeing a few cheerful faces. This business with Drew Shand has cast a terrible pall over the Scottish crime-writing community. We’ve all been phoning each other every day for the last two weeks, making sure we’re still alive.”

“You’re such a drama queen, Mary Helen,” Kit teased her.

“I’m serious, Kit,” Mary Helen protested. “It came as a terrible shock to all of us.”

“But surely there’s no threat to any of the rest of you?” Fiona asked. “I thought the police were pretty much convinced he’d been killed by somebody he picked up that night in the gay bar, what’s it called?”

“The Barbary Coast,” Kit supplied. “So unless you’ve got a secret life in sadomasochistic society that we know nothing about, the chances are you’re safe,” he continued, putting a reassuring arm round Mary Helen’s shoulders.

“Would that I could lay claim to anything so exciting,” Mary Helen said dryly. “But it’s not that straightforward, is it? I mean, Drew was killed in the precise manner in which he’d murdered one of his fictional victims. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that whoever killed him had some sort of morbid fascination with the genre. You know about these things, Fiona. Wouldn’t you agree with me?”

Put on the spot by Mary Helen’s sharp blue stare, Fiona shrugged. “Hard to say. I know no more about the case than anybody else who’s read the papers and surfed the Net.”

“You must have some sort of theory,” Mary Helen pressed her. “After all, this is your field. Come on, don’t be shy, you’re among friends here.”

Fiona pulled a face. “To my mind, it has all the hallmarks of a stalker murder. Someone who became obsessed with Drew and his work to the point where the only way he could resolve his compulsion was to destroy its object. And the fact that Drew had provided him with the perfect script was simply the most unfortunate element in the whole scenario. If I’m right, then the rest of you are as safe as you ever were before Drew died. Stalkers don’t by and large transfer their obsession to another target.”

“There, Mary Helen. Now you can sleep safe in your bed at night,” Kit said.

“You’re a patronizing wee shite, Kit Martin,” Mary Helen said, giving him a mock-punch on the shoulder. “Thank you, Fiona. I do feel better for hearing that, and I’ll pass it round my colleagues north of the border.”

“Wait a minute, Mary Helen,” Fiona protested. “I don’t know anything for sure. What I said was nothing more than guesswork.”

Mary Helen beamed at her. “Maybe so, but it makes more sense than the platitudes we’ve been getting from the police. Now, I’m going to love you and leave you because I need to go into a huddle with my publicist, if she can tear herself away from Adam for a minute.”

They watched her go, Fiona shaking her head in exasperation. “I fall for it every time. She just fixes me with the twinkle and the dimple and twists me round her little finger.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. She does it to everybody,” Kit said, reaching past her for a fresh glass of wine. “We’re all suckers for Mary Helen’s ‘little old lady’ routine. Anyway, I think she really needed the reassurance. She’s not joking about people being wound up by Drew’s death. Adam’s editor has just been telling me that Georgia is refusing to go out on her book tour next month unless her publisher provides her with a bodyguard.”

Fiona snorted. “The only way Georgia Lester would miss an opportunity for blatant self-promotion is if someone sewed her mouth shut. You know that. Don’t you remember her turning up at Waterstone’s in Hampstead with a sniffer dog in tow after the Docklands IRA bomb?”

Kit grinned. “You’ve always got the knife into Georgia, haven’t you?”