Murder by the Book (Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries 4) Read online

  I wasn’t sure how to take this. “So all’s well between you and Horace now? Are you friends again?”

  He cleared his throat and marched round to take up his usual seat at the trade counter. “Me and Horace, we’re a team,” he said quietly. “Always a team.”

  I suppressed a smile. “Of course.”

  He clearly wanted to draw a line under the whole thing. It was a relief to know Horace had put his mind at rest, which meant mine could be at rest too. I now believed that Horace’s intentions in visiting me truly had been to prevent his brother from being hurt.

  Hector stretched his arms in preparation for a typing session, then looked up from his computer for a moment.

  “By the way, what was Tommy on about? Which famous author has died now? I haven’t seen the news today.”

  I hesitated. “Er, Hermione Minty.”

  “Hermione Minty? Hermione Minty’s dead? What on earth do you mean? How can she be? Who killed her?”

  I gulped. “You did. You said you were going to kill her off.”

  I hated to revive our harsh exchange, but he seemed to have forgotten.

  Hector leapt up from his stool. “What? But she’s my cash cow. My goldmine. My golden goose who lays my golden eggs.”

  I backed away behind the display table.

  “Now who’s mangling their metaphors? You said she was more trouble than she was worth.”

  Hector covered his face with his hands. “Surely you knew that was just in the heat of the moment? Of course I’m not going to kill Hermione Minty. I’d be a fool to do that.”

  Feeling a little unsteady, I leaned on the display table and stared down at it in silence.

  “So have you told everyone she’s dead?” he asked. “I thought you were meant to be the great marketing expert?” He had never used such a bitterly sarcastic tone towards me before.

  I raised my hands as if in surrender. “I never claimed to be an expert. You just told me I was. And you told everyone else, too. It’s embarrassing. Donald has been expecting me to work miracles to bring in extra punters to his pub, because of what you’ve said to him about my supposed magical marketing powers.”

  But Hector wasn’t listening. “If you wanted to be smart about it, you could have simply made Hermione Minty go missing, like Agatha Christie did back in the day, when her marriage broke up. Don’t you know about that? She ran away to a hotel in Harrogate and lay low there while she came to terms with the shock of her failed relationship. When the press got hold of it, she hit the headlines of the nationals. Something like that would have given a healthy boost to our sales. Or you could have sent her off on a fictitious round-the-world cruise. But no. Now she’s dead, she’s nothing but a back catalogue.”

  “But you’re not dead, Hector. You can always write more books under a different name. Maybe you’d like to write books in a different genre for a change. One that comes more naturally to you.”

  “What, like Confessions of a Bookseller? In case you hadn’t spotted it on our shelves, that’s already been done. Anyway, it’s taken me years to establish Minty’s reputation. Some people will buy any new book that comes out simply because her name’s on the cover. There’s no point throwing that kind of loyalty away and starting all over again from scratch.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to. Unless, like Dr Who, she can regenerate, it’s too late.”

  “Actually, it might not be too late. Same thing happened to Mark Twain,” said Hector tersely, turning away from me. “He had to put out a statement saying ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’ It seems Hermione Minty is in good company.”

  “Hector Munro, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Hermione Minty. You do not have to say anything—” here Tommy pulled out his diary to read the rest of the statement that he’d written down earlier “—but anything you say may later be used in evidence.”

  Having reached the end of his script, he marched over to the trade counter and grabbed Hector by the wrist. I half expected him to produce a pair of handcuffs from the bottomless depths of his Parka pockets. Instead, he stopped and looked around, as if expecting reinforcements to come to his aid. The shop door swung open, and a couple of passers-by, sensing some unusual activity, came in to join the small crowd staring at the scene from the other side of the display table.

  Bemused, Hector let his wrist go limp in Tommy’s grasp. “So what now, Officer Crowe?”

  Tommy’s face clouded for a minute. “I was rather hoping you’d give me a lift to Slate Green Police Station so I could turn you in.” He dropped Hector’s wrist. “Feel free to get your car keys, whenever you’re ready,” he added pleasantly.

  There must have been a chapter in his detective skills book prescribing the classic nice cop, nasty cop routine.

  Hector clasped his hands on the counter top.

  “And on whose authority are you acting, may I ask?”

  The nasty cop resurfaced. “The law of the land. It’s against the law to murder people, and I’m allowed to arrest other people if I see them breaking the law. It’s called a citizen’s arrest. It says so in my book.”

  I determined to take the remaining copy of Tommy’s detective handbook off our shelves and return it to the publisher for a refund.

  “The law of the land also says I’m innocent until proven guilty. Or didn’t your book mention that little detail?”

  “Yes, but I’ve got proof. Hang on.”

  Tommy slipped his bulging backpack off his shoulder and on to the counter, immediately drawing out two regulation vehicle registration plates, one white, one yellow, and holding them up for everyone to see.

  “I found Hermione Minty’s personalised number plates in your dustbin after she disappeared without trace on the day of her visit to you.” He looked down at his diary again. “During the afternoon of the twenty-fifth of January, I observed her going in to your flat at sixteen fifteen hundred hours and she never came out again. Then later, her car mysteriously disappeared while I was having my tea. Its distinctive number plates turned up after dark in your wheelie bin, when it was left out for collection.”

  I wondered whether Tommy made a habit of raiding wheelie bins, or whether that honour lay solely with Hector’s.

  Hector, looking impressed, put a finger thoughtfully to his lips. “So what do you deduce happened to the rest of the car, once I’d taken off the licence plates and thrown them away?”

  Tommy scribbled this down under the heading ‘Confession’. “I’m still working on that,” he said quickly. “But in the meantime, I must ask you to accompany me to the station where my colleagues in uniform will take your statement.”

  I admired his faith in the system.

  “Couldn’t you just bring Bob down to the shop?” I asked, thinking that the presence of our resident policeman would cut this nonsense short.

  Tommy turned to me. “I did call for him, miss, but he told me to go away because he was busy watching Countdown on telly.”

  Well, Bob was off duty.

  Suddenly conscious of his audience of a dozen customers in the shop, plus a growing crowd outside on the pavement looking in through the window, Tommy reached again for Hector’s wrist. Hector, too quick for him, stood up and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  “What about Hermione Minty’s body? Have you found that yet?” Hector seemed to be enjoying himself now, obviously wondering how far he could stretch Tommy’s powers of invention. I could imagine him and Horace playing games of cops and robbers when they were little boys.

  “It’ll almost certainly be in the car when I find it,” said Tommy. “Unless you’ve buried her in your garden. Or you might have dumped her in a disused quarry, or cooked and eaten her.”

  Tommy’s mum must have been letting him watch films unsuitable for his age for him to have had that idea – or perhaps the television news.

  Then Tommy turned to me.

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, miss, but
I expect you’ll be allowed to visit Hector in prison.”

  Hector frowned. “What about my trial? The British justice system isn’t like a board game, Tommy. You can’t just give me a ‘Go directly to jail’ card.”

  The shop door jangled open.

  “What, you mean you want to pass ‘Go’ first? That’s cheating. You have to go to prison.”

  “Who’s going to prison?” asked a familiar woman’s voice behind me.

  “Hector, for the murder of Hermione Minty.”

  Neither Tommy nor I took our eyes off Hector, and Hector was staring, challengingly now, at Tommy.

  “How absurd,” came the reply from the familiar voice. “Hermione Minty is alive and well and living in Clevedon.”

  “Really?” I said, as all three of us swivelled round in surprise.

  “Yes, and I can vouch for her safety. You see—” the elderly lady drew herself up to her full height, a couple of inches shorter than Tommy “—I am Hermione Minty.”

  A collective gasp went round the shop, and a loud squeak came from the direction of the window, which had multiple noses pressed against it for a better view of the action.

  “No, you’re not, you’re Hector’s mum,” said a middle-aged lady by the cookery books. “Hello, Mrs Munro, how are you? Good to see you back in Wendlebury. We missed you at last year’s Village Show.”

  Nancy turned to her with a smile. “Hello, my dear. Yes, we were sorry not to make it, but I had to go to my old school reunion in Dorset that day. I hope you’re still enjoying that Edwardian side table I sold you?”

  “Fits in my front room alcove a treat,” said the woman warmly.

  Tommy coughed loudly. “Excuse me, we’ve got serious business to attend to here. How can you be Hermione Minty?”

  “It’s my pen-name, Tommy. My, you’ve grown a lot taller since I last saw you. How is your mother getting on? And little Sina? Do give them my love.”

  “They’re fine, thank you, Mrs Munro. But if you’re Hermione Minty, I’m going to have to see some proof.”

  Nancy glanced across to the display table with its usual pile of Minty books, but before she could pick one up, Tommy had a brainwave.

  “If you’re Hermione Minty, where’s her car? It’s a racing green Mini with a National Trust sticker on the windscreen and a knitted purple blanket folded on the back seat.”

  “You mean that car?” She pointed to the road outside the shop where her Mini was parked neatly at the kerb. “If you need any further proof, I can tell you the plot of every Hermione Minty book on that table.”

  “I could do that too, but it doesn’t make me Hermione Minty,” called a woman in the crowd who I recognised as a regular buyer of Minty’s books. “It doesn’t mean I wrote them.”

  Nancy let slip an ever so slightly smug smile. “Ah, but could you tell me the plot of her next book? I can. And you won’t have to wait long to check whether my evidence is correct, as it’ll be published next month.”

  Tommy narrowed his eyes. “So you’re not dead, then?”

  Nancy looked down at herself as if for evidence. “No, I’m not dead yet.”

  “So Hector didn’t murder you?”

  “My Hector wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

  Tommy’s shoulders sagged as he turned back to Hector, who had slumped down on his stool behind the trade counter, looking bewildered. “I suppose you’re free to go, then. I’ll let you off with a caution for now.” He reached for the number plates and held them up to Nancy. “But what about these? You can’t drive your car without number plates.”

  For a moment, I thought he might console himself by arresting Nancy for a motoring offence.

  Nancy cast a disparaging look at the discarded plates. “They’re only decorative, Tommy. Hector’s brother’s idea of a novelty gift. You can only put personalised licence plates on a car if you’ve bought the right to use them from the DVLA.”

  “So they’re not really any use to you?”

  “No, that’s why I took them off Mum’s car,” said Hector, pulling himself together now. “To prevent her from committing an offence.”

  “When Horace bought them, he meant well, of course,” added Nancy. “So I don’t think he should be punished, do you?” This was directed as much to Hector as to Tommy. I wondered how often she’d had to stop them coming to blows when they were little boys, before Horace became too ill to squabble.

  “Good intentions or not, I’ve no need for them now,” said Hector briskly. “Having them around would irritate me. That’s why I threw them away.”

  Tommy perked up, but before he could purloin them, I had a better idea.

  “Why don’t we give them to Donald, to help him promote The Bluebird’s Minty-themed Valentine’s Dinner? He could even add them to the raffle hamper as a novelty prize.”

  “So if I buy a raffle ticket, I might get to keep them?” Tommy was easily consoled.

  I didn’t like dampening his enthusiasm, but didn’t want him to be disappointed. “Provided you buy the winning ticket.”

  But Tommy was ever the optimist. “I’ll take them over to the pub now, if you like, to get them out of your way.” Bemused, Hector nodded assent. “Thanks, Hector. See you around.”

  And with that, he was gone, shop door banging behind him. For a moment, we relished the silence.

  “So that’s my reputation restored as a law-abiding citizen,” said Hector with a lopsided smile. “I don’t think I was ever in real danger there, but thanks anyway, Mum.” He came out from behind the counter to kiss her on the cheek. “What are you doing here, by the way?”

  She gave him a hug, then unbuttoned her coat and made for the tearoom. “Carol invited me to meet her daughter, so I’ve just had lunch with them both. What a pleasant, bright young girl that Becky is, with extraordinary inner strength to have survived her difficult childhood. She and Carol seem to be getting on famously, and the baby’s adorable. Shame there’s no father in the frame, but no matter. Though it must feel like poetic justice to poor Carol.”

  She draped her coat over the back of a chair and settled herself down at a table, her large handbag on the floor beside her.

  “I can’t help worrying there’s a catch, but as you know, I do like a happy ending. Don’t let me hold you up, dears.” She pointed at the queue of people clutching Minty books at the trade counter. “I’ll make myself a cup of tea and you can join me when your customers have all gone.”

  As Hector turned the “Open” sign to “Closed” on the shop door and started to cash up, I went to join Nancy with a fresh pot of tea. Not wanting to miss this opportunity for a one-to-one chat, I leaned my elbows on the table, ready to grill her.

  I couldn’t wait to ask her the burning question of the moment. “So are you really Hermione Minty?” I said in a low voice.

  Nancy laughed. “Not really, dear. I only said it on a whim. When I heard that boy accuse my Hector of murder, I couldn’t help myself but jump in and protect him, even though I knew it wouldn’t be possible to murder a character who he had invented. Well, unless you’re Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, bumping Sherlock Holmes off at the Reichenbach Falls because he’d had enough of him. It would be like assassinating his imaginary friend.” She paused to drink some tea from a Nancy Mitford cup. “Still, it’s not a complete fib. I could claim to be the inspiration behind her. You see, I suggested to Hector a few years ago that he might do a bit of writing to earn some extra cash when he needed it, and thus Hermione Minty came into being.”

  I was grateful for her tact. “It’s OK, I know all about Celeste, and their circumstances – that he had to support her while she was ill. It must have been very difficult for him.”

  A shadow passed briefly across her face. “He’d been talking about supplementing the income from his day job with evening bar work. I didn’t think that would be good for him, so I came up with the writing idea as something he’d actively enjoy. He’d always been a good little writer when he was at school.”

&
nbsp; “What sort of stories did he write when he was a boy, Nancy?”

  “When Horace was ill in bed for so long, Hector used to entertain him with stories written especially for him. He invented a dynamic duo. Their alter egos were indestructible superheroes who would go round saving the world together. Obviously it was wish-fulfilment, not only pretending Horace was healthy, but investing him with superpowers. Everyone who heard them remarked on the quality of Hector’s writing. I always hoped he might take it up again eventually.”

  “How sweet! What did he call the dynamic duo?”

  Nancy smiled indulgently at the memory. “Horatio and Hecate. He picked the names out of an ancient companion to Shakespeare that we had in the shop, thinking they sounded like secret-code versions of their actual names. They still use them now and again as a term of affection, an admission of their past vulnerability and how they overcame it together. They can overcome anything if they stand together. People can, you know.”

  “I thought it was only Horace who was ill?”

  “Oh yes, but Hector felt it too. Don’t mistake their choice to live on opposite sides of the globe as a lack of closeness. They’re still in each other’s pockets, wherever they are in the world.”

  “I did wonder what they were on about when I heard them use those names at your house that Sunday,” I said. “But wasn’t Hecate one of the three witches? And therefore a woman?”

  “I’m glad you know your Shakespeare. Unfortunately the boys didn’t realise that until years later when they were studying Macbeth at secondary school. I could have told them, of course, but when Hector showed me the first story he’d made up, all beautifully written out in his best handwriting, I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Besides, people do strange things with names these days, don’t they? Isn’t there a woman writer who has James as her first name? Or is it Nigel? What were her parents thinking?”

  I smiled. Though the names of her children had struck me as unusual at first, I loved them both now.