Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

“That’s because I don’t get the benefit of the charm like you do. I’m the wrong gender.”

He spread his hands. “She can’t help herself, love. You know Georgia. She gets an idea in her head and she gets carried away. Anyway, according to Adam’s editor, she’s giving them hell. Threatening to move her next book to another house, threatening to tell the press that she’s in fear of her life because her publisher won’t protect her.”

“I know she’s your mate, but if she devoted half as much energy to writing as she does to self-promotion, her books would have got better instead of worse over the years,” Fiona said cynically.

Kit put a finger to his lips. “Ssh. Don’t say that so loudly. You might give her publisher ideas. After all, there’s nothing like a dramatic death to boost your sales figures. I hear the advance orders on Drew’s new book have more than doubled since his murder.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Fiona sighed. “Maybe you should mention that to the cops. For all we know, Drew might have been planning to move publishers. An editor who was going to lose him anyway might well have considered giving her balance sheet one final hike.”

Kit shook his head sorrowfully. “Such a low opinion of the publishing trade. I can’t imagine where you got that from.”

“I’ve been hanging out with writers too long. It sours the milk of human kindness.”

Kit acknowledged her barb with a faint smile. “So, you really think Drew’s killer won’t strike again? Or were you just being kind to Mary Helen?”

Fiona shrugged. “If I could predict the future that well, we’d have won the lottery by now. I honestly don’t know. But if he does, he won’t go for someone who writes cheerful cosies like Mary Helen. He’ll be looking for someone on the noir side of the street.”

Kit’s face froze. “Someone like me, you mean?”

“Are you seriously telling me it hadn’t crossed your mind?”

Ignored by those around him, the man in the tweed jacket watched Kit Martin from the other side of the room. Whatever he was talking about with his girlfriend, it had shaken him up, that much was obvious. His eyes had widened and his normally mobile face had turned into a still mask. Good, the man thought with deep satisfaction. He liked the idea of Martin’s discomfiture.

If everything had gone according to plan, Martin should have had good reason to be worried. The man’s lip twitched in a tiny sneer, hidden from view behind his beard and moustache. He watched Martin take his girlfriend by the elbow and steer her through the crowded bookshop to the door. He’d barely paused to say farewell to his cronies, the man observed. The woman’s words had clearly made him very uncomfortable.

With the principal object of his hatred gone, the man slipped through the press of bodies to the table that held the wine. He held his glass out for a refill, nodded his thanks and faded into the background. There were a few authors left, but they were beneath contempt, unworthy of his attentions. His opinion of himself was such that he was only interested in the very best. That, of course, had been the problem all along. He saw that now. They were the ones under pressure to come up with the goods, which explained why they’d done what they had to him.

But that was history. What he was interested in now was retribution.

In the cab they took to Steve’s, Kit was uncharacteristically quiet. Fiona knew better than to try to force him to talk about what was on his mind. That would simply lead to a sullen and mean-tempered denial that anything was troubling him. Like most men, a sense of his own vulnerability made him uncomfortable. Rather than make him even more uneasy by pushing him, she placed her hand on one of his and said nothing. Halfway up Pentonville Road, he finally spoke.

“I know it’s hard to credit, but it really hadn’t crossed my mind that Drew’s killer might come after me,” he said, leaning his head against the back of the seat and sighing. “Dumbshit or what?”

“That’s the healthy response,” Fiona said. “Why should you imagine you’re going to be the next victim of a murderer who struck four hundred miles away? If-and it’s still a big if-Drew Shand’s death is the first in a series, we don’t know what it was about him that made him an attractive target. Was it that he was gay? Was it his work? Was it something in his past that we don’t know anything about? Was it his attraction to the dark side of his sexuality? All of those are imponderables and only one of them could apply to you. Statistically, your risk of becoming the victim of a serial killer is somewhere around vanishing point.”

“Even so, you’d think it would have occurred to me in passing that I might just be on some nutter’s hit list,” Kit said sharply. “After all, I’m supposed to be the one with the imagination. You thought of it, after all.”

Fiona squeezed his arm. “Yeah, but my way of looking at the world is even more fucked up than yours. Besides, I’m your lover. I’m legally entitled to worry unreasonably about you.”

Kit grunted, putting an arm round her and pulling her close. “Doesn’t it ever piss you off, being right all the time?”

She grinned. “Find out what you’re good at and stick to it, that’s what I say. And since you’ve just admitted I have a right to worry, you have to promise me you won’t talk to strangers.”

Kit snorted. “That’s an easy promise to keep. At least until the new book comes out.”

The cab juddered to a halt outside the four-storey Islington town house where Steve occupied the garden flat. He could have afforded somewhere bigger, but he spent so little time at home that he couldn’t see the point of moving from somewhere that met his needs perfectly. Two bedrooms one of which doubled as a study a dining-kitchen whose french windows opened out on to the garden and a living room big enough to accommodate two sofas and an armchair was all he needed. He kept the decor simple. Fiona loved the economy of style, but Kit hated its clinical purity. Both suspected Steve barely noticed his surroundings. As long as they were functional, he was content.

Fiona’s low heels clattered on the stone stairs down to the basement entry. Kit, following her, marvelled at her hair as the streetlights caught it, burnishing it to a rich chestnut-brown. She was, he thought, more beautiful than he could ever deserve. Catching up with her as she rang the bell, he put his arms round her and kissed her neck. “I love you, Fiona,” he said gruffly.

Fiona gave a low chuckle. “Don’t I know it.”

Steve opened the door and grinned down from his superior height. “Keep it decent,” he advised. “Some of us have to live here.”

They followed him down the narrow hall into the dining room, where the table was laid with an assortment of breads, cheeses, pates and salads. The air was thick with the aroma of leek and potatoes. Steve lived on soup. There was always a pan of some concoction on the stove, next to the stockpot containing the makings of the next brew. Soup was the only thing he ever cooked. Kit enjoyed mocking Steve’s culinary limitations, but when cornered, he was forced to admit that Steve made the best soup he’d ever tasted and, far from having a restricted repertoire, Steve probably experimented more with combinations of flavours than Kit himself.

“It’s just that it always comes with a bowl and spoon,” he had once complained. “It’s so predictable.”

“At least my guests don’t need a degree in civil engineering to eat their dinner,” Steve had growled. “I remember my first globe artichoke round your house. Besides, given the life I lead, I need something instant when I come in the door, and my soup’s a damn sight healthier than a bacon butty.”