Poison Pen (2 page)

The library’s usually pretty quiet, but today, as soon as we rounded the corner, we could hear an unfamiliar babble of chatter. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one wanting to get up close to the visiting authors. The library was packed with would-be student ambassadors.

“Oh great,” I said, my heart sinking. “Looks like we’re too late.”

But fortunately our frequent visits to the library put us at an advantage. When we cornered a slightly harassed-looking Mrs Woodward in general fiction she gave us a friendly smile.

“Gosh, it’s busy in here today, isn’t it?” she said. “Amazing what a bit of fame can do to people’s enthusiasm for reading.”

I came straight to the point. “Can we be student ambassadors?”

Mrs Woodward’s smile broadened as she pushed her glasses to the end of her nose so she could examine us more closely. “I knew you two would volunteer! I took the liberty of putting your names at the top of the list – I thought I could rely on you both to be sensible. As you’re such keen readers, I think that’s only fair, don’t you?”

So that was that. We were officially designated as student ambassadors at the Good Reads Festival. According to Mrs Woodward we’d only need to meet a few authors and make the odd cup of tea. It wasn’t going to be demanding. A nice, easy weekend, I thought.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

At
precisely 7.45 a.m. on Saturday, Graham and I reported to the town hall. It was a vast Victorian building – all marble floors and oak panelling and massive rooms with high ceilings. The town council had deserted it for new, purpose-built offices years ago, and since then they’d rented it out for conferences and weddings and the occasional concert. It was the perfect venue for the Good Reads Festival.

Today was launch day. The whole thing was due to kick off at 11 a.m. with three simultaneous events: a celebrity chef would be doing a cooking demonstration in the café to promote his new book; there was a toddlers’ storytime in the central library next door; and for older kids there was a talk by Charlie Deadlock, the football guy. After that, there was going to be a buffet lunch for the chef and a host of other writers who were going on to do events in the afternoon and evening.

Graham was grumpy – he’d have preferred to spend the day in front of his computer. But I was quite excited. All those different characters to watch? This was going to be good.

An army of volunteers, including Mrs Woodward (“Call me Sue – we’re not in school now!”) had already gathered in the entrance hall by the time we arrived. We recognized some of the kids but none of them were in our year so we muttered hi and that was it.

The caterers were offloading supplies for the buffet. The staff from the local bookshop were falling over themselves (and each other) unpacking boxes and piling books high on tables. Someone was brushing down a Winnie the Pooh outfit for the toddlers’ events. Someone else was hastily sticking up posters of authors and their book jackets on every square millimetre of available wall – only she wasn’t doing it very well, so they were peeling off and fluttering to the floor as soon as her back was turned. It was all noise and chatter and chaos, and I couldn’t quite see how everything was going to get done on time.

Then Viola Boulder walked in and everyone fell silent.

The first thing I noticed about her was that she was aptly named. She had a vast bosom and wide hips, but there was nothing soft about any of her curves – she looked about as warm and cuddly as a lump of granite. She wore big, round glasses and no make-up and her greying hair was permed into a whippy-ice-cream formation and sprayed with so much lacquer you’d probably have grazed your knuckles if you knocked against it.

Viola was one of those women my mum would have said had “natural authority” and I would call “plain bossy”. The second she arrived she began calling out names and ticking them off on her clipboard, handing out official badges and schedules detailing everyone’s tasks. Sue Woodward was down to set up tea and light refreshments for the authors. Graham and I were in charge of assembling their welcome packs.

Viola shooed a whole bunch of us down the corridor ahead of her.

“This is the writers’ green room,” she declared as we arrived at a set of heavy double doors. Pushing them open, she prodded us through one by one. “I want this room to be a haven of peace and tranquillity, and it will be strictly off limits to the General Public. My authors can get focussed here before their events. Afterwards, they will come here to relax and unwind. No one without official identification is allowed in. Naturally I’ll have security keeping an eye out, but you must remain constantly alert. If you see anyone who shouldn’t be in here, you must inform me. I will not permit my authors to be troubled by over-eager fans.”

Viola then went on to give us a serious talk about how we should all behave. According to her, writers were fragile, sensitive souls with easily crushable egos, who needed careful and delicate handling. One wrong word, one careless sentence, could stunt their creativity for weeks. I felt a weight of responsibility land heavily on my shoulders. Graham and I exchanged an apprehensive glance.

Once Viola had finished her speech, she directed me and Graham to a long folding table covered with piles of papers. Our first job was to assemble the welcome packs to hand out to the authors as they arrived. We were to man the table until 10.30 a.m. and then someone else would take over while we escorted Charlie Deadlock to his talk.

We got to work while Viola briefed the rest of the team. The packs consisted of a map of the town, hotel and restaurant details, the programme of events, official name badges – that kind of stuff. While Graham and I shoved papers into individually labelled cloth bags, we listened in on Viola’s instructions. They sounded remarkably complicated, involving projectors, PowerPoint presentations and microphones. Tim, the technician, was clearly going to have an extremely busy weekend.

Once we’d finished assembling the packs, Graham and I had nothing to do but wait in the green room for the authors to arrive. People were coming and going through the double doors, bringing in urns and teapots and coffee machines and trays and trays of neatly cut sandwiches and home-made cakes to prevent any of the writers from starving to death. We sat behind our table, out of everyone’s way. Graham had his nose in a book and I had one open on my lap, but I didn’t read a word. I was too busy eavesdropping.

Sue Woodward was putting out cups and saucers and talking to a woman who I recognized as Gill from the central library.

“Are you all set up for later?” asked Sue.

“For Basil Tamworth? Yes, we are. Some of the things he needs for his talk are a bit unusual, but it should be fun, I think. How about you?”

“I’m hoping to hear some of Charlie Deadlock’s talk. Have you read his latest?” asked Sue.

“No, I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t. I gather it’s very different from those Sam the Striker ones.”

“Oh, utterly. Quite honestly, it’s hard to believe it’s written by the same man. Such a leap! From football to
The Spy Complex
? It’s brilliant. You must read it. Nigella Churchill said it was ‘a work of rare genius’ in
The Times
.”

“Really? She’s usually so harsh!”

“I know.” Sue’s face crinkled with irritation. “She’s written some withering reviews in the past. I’m surprised any author will still speak to her. I can’t imagine why Viola invited her here.”

“Too important to leave out, I suspect. She’s very influential, isn’t she? She could make or break a new festival like this.”

I was intrigued. Nigella Churchill: the name rang a faint bell. I’d had a good look at the schedule, but I knew Graham would have it tattooed on his brain. Being Graham, he’d probably also done background research.

“Who’s Nigella Churchill?” I whispered.

“She’s a journalist. A children’s book specialist. I believe she’s introducing some of the events.”

Sue was still talking. “It’s interesting that Charlie should have done something so very different. I read somewhere that he had appalling writer’s block after he finished the football series. Apparently he didn’t pick up a pen for five years. Can you imagine? Then he comes up with something so gripping! I was up until 3 a.m. finishing it – I really couldn’t put it down. It’s extraordinary.”

At that moment I was distracted by someone entering the sacred green room. There were loads of people coming and going at that point, and I don’t suppose I’d have noticed him at all if he hadn’t been trying so hard to be invisible. His head was down and he didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. He slipped through the doors sideways, barely moving them apart, and then slid along the wall with gliding steps. He was smallish, oldish and thin-nish, with brownish hair and darkish eyes, and carried a plastic supermarket bag full of dog-eared, yellowing typewritten paper. He looked completely uninteresting; I was gripped. I try to avoid attention myself, not because I’m shy but because I like watching people – and if you’re doing that, you don’t want them staring back at you. This man didn’t look shy either. He was Up To Something.

I elbowed Graham in the ribs. “Look at him.”

“Who?”

“
Him
.”

“What’s so special about him?”

“Nothing. That’s the point.”

“What?”

“What’s he doing in here?”

Graham’s eyes narrowed and he said, “Oh, I see. He doesn’t have an official badge, does he? I’d better inform Mrs Boulder.”

Graham was off across the room before I could stop him. There was no chance now of seeing what the man was up to. So I stood up, thinking that maybe I could go and have a word with him, but I knocked against the flimsy table and, with a loud crash, the legs collapsed and all the carefully stuffed welcome packs slid to the floor. Everyone looked around. I half expected the man to bolt back out through the doors, but to my surprise he stepped over.

“Let me help,” he said, grabbing papers and shoving them back into their bags.

“Thanks,” I said, flushing with embarrassment. “Are you a volunteer or a writer or something? Only you haven’t got a name badge.”

He gave a strange smile. It was slightly creepy. “I’m an ‘or something’,” he said enigmatically.

He didn’t get a chance to say more, because just then Viola crossed the green room like a runaway rock – heavy and impossible to avoid.

“Who,” she demanded, “are you?”

“Oh, I’m no one,” the man said. “I was looking for…”

Viola cut him off. “Then you have no right to be here. Out! Out! Out!”

Beaten, the man retreated, sliding back out through the double doors. Tutting loudly, Viola returned to her preparations, and Graham and I resurrected the collapsed table and tidied up the welcome packs. When I glanced back at the doors I saw they weren’t quite closed. An eye was pressed to the gap.

Fear stroked a cold finger down my spine. The man was still out there. Standing. Watching. Who, or what, was he waiting for?

By
the time the first author arrived, the invisible man had gone. Viola had stationed a security guard outside the green room, so I guess he’d been scared off.

I’d expected Basil Tamworth to look like a farmer, given that he wrote so many stories about pigs – a healthy, outdoorsy type with ruddy cheeks, a tweed jacket and faded corduroy trousers held up with baler twine.

In actual fact he was very tall and thin with carefully slicked back blond hair and long, manicured fingers. He was immaculately dressed in a sharply tailored linen suit with a crisp cotton shirt, expensive-looking gold cufflinks and a silk tie. When I handed him his welcome pack he dangled it limply from his hand.

Another man had followed him in – a weedy, wimpy-looking individual whose eyes gleamed with a desperation to please.

I didn’t recognize his face from the programme, so I asked politely, “And which writer are you?”

“Who, me?” he said nervously. “Oh no… I’m not an author. I’m Trevor Bakewell. I work for Basil’s publisher. I’m here to lend moral support.”

Basil looked like he could do with all the support he could get, although I wasn’t convinced Trevor was the one to provide it.

Basil was astonishingly pale, which I assumed must be from days spent in front of a computer writing books. But then I saw his brow was beaded with sweat. He produced a large, white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his forehead with it. “Extraordinary thing,” he said. “We just saw Farmer Biggins. He was driving a trailer full of Gloucester Old Spots.”

“Did the festival arrange some sort of publicity stunt?” Trevor asked me. “They might have warned us. It gave Basil quite a turn.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sorry…” I said. Other authors had started to arrive and were piling in behind the two men. Realizing that I was just a kid and wouldn’t be much help, they moved off.

Graham and I were kept busy for the next half hour handing out welcome packs and directing authors to where Sue was handing out tea and cakes.

Muriel Black (wizard woman) was closely followed in by the celebrity chef. Katie Bell (LURVE) and Francisco Botticelli (dragon man) arrived at the same time. Pretty soon there was a bit of a party atmosphere in the room.

I suppose authors don’t get out much: they certainly seemed to be making the most of the opportunity. They couldn’t stop talking. A lot of them already knew each other: there were loud air kisses and cries of “Daaarling!” and “How
are
you?” and “I haven’t seen you since Edinburgh!”

When Nigella Churchill arrived there was a distinct frosting of the atmosphere. She had long, dyed-blonde hair that needed its roots retouching, and her eyes were heavily made up. She was also displaying what Sue later described to Gill as “an inappropriate amount of cleavage”.

Writers either smiled or scowled in her direction, presumably depending on whether she’d given them good or bad reviews. Nigella strutted over to Viola, piercing the parquet floor with her killer heels, and asked after Charlie. When Viola told her that he hadn’t arrived yet, she fetched herself a coffee and surveyed the room as if she owned the place.