Written in Blood

 
 
 

 
Written in Blood

 

 
CAROLINE GRAHAM

 
 
headline

 
Copyright © 1994 Caroline Graham

 

 
The right of Caroline Graham to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

 

 
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

 

 
First published as an ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

 

 
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

 

 
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

 

eISBN : 978 0 7553 7608 7

 

 
This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

 

 
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH

 

 
www.headline.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk

Table of Contents

 

 

 

‘The best-written crime novel I’ve read in ages’ Susan Green,
Good Housekeeping

 

‘An exemplary crime novel’
Literary Review

 

‘Hard to praise highly enough’
The Sunday Times

 

‘Lots of excellent character sketches . . . and the dialogue is lively and convincing’
Independent

 

‘Graham has the gift of delivering well-rounded eccentrics, together with plenty of horror spiked by humour, all twirling into a staggering
danse macabre
’
The Sunday Times

 

‘A wonderfully rich collection of characters . . . altogether a most impressive performance’
Birmingham Post

 

‘Everyone gets what they deserve in this high-class mystery’
Sunday Telegraph

 

‘Wickedly acid, yet sympathetic’
Publishers Weekly

 

‘Excellent mystery, skilfully handled’
Manchester Evening News

 

‘One to savour’ Val McDermid

 

‘Her books are not just great whodunits but great novels in their own right’ Julie Burchill

 

‘Tension builds, bitchery flares, resentment seethes . . . lots of atmosphere, colourful characters and fair clues’
Mail on Sunday

 

‘A mystery of which Agatha Christie would have been proud . . . A beautifully written crime novel’
The Times

 

‘Characterisation first rate, plotting likewise . . . Written with enormous relish. A very superior whodunnit’
Literary Review

‘Swift, tense and highly alarming’
TLS

 

‘The classic English detective story brought right up to date’
Sunday Telegraph

 

‘Enlivened by a very sardonic wit and turn of phrase, the narrative drive never falters’
Birmingham Post

 

‘From the moment the book opens it is gripping and horribly real because Ms Graham draws her characters so well, sets her scenes so perfectly’
Woman’s Own

 

‘An uncommonly appealing mystery . . . a real winner’
Publishers Weekly

 

‘Guaranteed to keep you guessing until the very end’
Woman

 

‘A witty, well-plotted, absolute joy of a book’
Yorkshire Post

 

‘Switch off the television and settle down for an entertaining read’
Sunday Telegraph

 

‘A pleasure to read: well-written, intelligent and enlivened with flashes of dry humour’
Evening Standard

 

‘Read her and you’ll be astonished . . . very sexy, very hip and very funny’
Scotsman

 

‘The mystery is intriguing, the wit shafts through like sunlight . . . do not miss this book’
Family Circle

 

‘A treat . . . haunting stuff’
Woman’s Realm

Caroline Graham was born in Warwickshire and educated at Nuneaton High School for Girls, and later the Open University. She was awarded an MA in Theatre Studies at Birmingham University, and has written several plays for both radio and theatre, as well as the hugely popular and critically acclaimed Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby novels, which were also adapted for television in the series
Midsomer Murders
.

For
Frank and Linda Belgrove
Life Savers

Without some sort of anxiousness writing loses its charm.

Nicholson Baker,
U and I

Afterwards, talking to the police, no one could quite agree as to who had put forward Max Jennings’ name. One or two people thought it was Amy Lyddiard, who was sure it was her friend Sue Clapton. Sue disagreed, suggesting Rex St John, who said it certainly couldn’t have been him because he had never heard of the man let alone read his books. Laura Hutton admitted she might have been responsible, having recently come across an article in
Harpers
describing the author’s recent move to a village barely twenty miles away. Brian Clapton said whoever it was had inflicted on him the most boring evening he had ever spent in his entire life. But what Amy and Sue both agreed on was that poor Gerald’s reaction to the suggestion had been most dramatic.

No sooner were the words ‘Max Jennings’ uttered than, according to Amy who wrote block-buster fiction, he had apparently jumped, blanched, trembled, been taken aghast, stared wildly round or winced as if from some mysterious blow. And then he had dropped his coffee cup. There was immediately much fuss over the stained trousers and what with that and scraping the sugary residue off the carpet it was some ten minutes before the group reassembled. Sue made some fresh coffee using the special chocolate-truffle variety that Gerald had left ready and which Brian said he couldn’t tell from cocoa.

When she took the tray in Gerald was standing in front of the gas fire holding damp trousers away from his scalded knees and saying, ‘Terribly sorry about all this. A sudden twinge . . .’ He laid his hand briefly against his white shirt front.

‘You must go and see the quack,’ said Rex.

Laura thought, it’s his heart, and felt nauseous and quickly cold. But he’s not fat. Or even overweight. The right age though. And you didn’t have to be fat. There were all sorts of other factors. Oh God.
Oh God
.

‘I think Rex is right—’

‘It’s just indigestion. Some jugged hare—’

‘Even so—’

‘Do you think we could get on?’ Brian made a great show of looking at his watch. He didn’t like Gerald for a variety of reasons and thought more than enough time had been spent fussing over him. ‘I’ve got marking to do before I go to bed. We’re not all members of the leisured class.’

They returned to their discussion, which was on the difficulties of finding a guest speaker. Just before the accident Amy had suggested a woman who lived in nearby Martyr d’Evercy and wrote about the humorous antics of her Pekinese dogs, of which she had a very large number.

‘I know who you mean,’ said Sue. ‘She produces the books herself and takes them round to all the local shops.’

‘Vanity publishing is strictly
verboten
,’ said Brian. ‘We want real writers or none at all.’

‘It’s only four times a year,’ said Honoria Lyddiard, picking up the last pimento-and-cream-cheese vol-au-vent. There were two flaky frills resembling the wings of infant angels sticking out. She placed it on her large tongue like a pill and swallowed it whole. And that makes eight, observed Amy quietly to herself.

‘I would have thought,’ continued Honoria, ‘that between us we could manage that.’

Between us was stretching it. Although quick to deride most of the names mentioned, Honoria rarely suggested anyone herself. The people who did come she nearly always deemed unworthy and was often extremely rude about them, not always waiting till after their departure.

‘We could ask Frederick Forsyth,’ said Rex, who was writing a thriller about a hit man, code name Hyena, and his attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein.

‘No point,’ said Brian. ‘These people always pretend they don’t have time.’

This was demonstrably true. Among the people who had not had time to address the Midsomer Worthy Writers Circle over the past few years were Jeffrey Archer, Jilly Cooper, Maeve Binchy and Sue Townsend although she had sent a very nice letter and a signed paperback.

Only once had they had any sort of success. A poet, garlanded with prizes and praise and visiting the Blackbird bookshop in Causton for a signing session, had agreed to come and talk to them on the same evening. It had been a disaster. He had only stayed an hour, which was spent drinking, reading out his reviews and telling them all about the break-up with his boyfriend. Then he burst into tears and had to be driven all the way back to London by Laura, the men in the party having declined the honour.

And so the group perforce had had to be content with far lesser luminaries - a journalist from the
Causton Echo
, an assistant producer (tea boy really) from the town’s commercial radio station and a local man who published from time to time in
Practical Woodworking
and consequently thought himself too grand to attend on a regular basis.

‘What about that idea you had at breakfast, dear?’ Sue Clapton smiled timidly across at her husband. She was as neat and smooth as he was untidy, with long stringy hair the colour of milk chocolate tucked behind her ears and large round glasses with multi-coloured frames. She wore a long wrapover skirt the colour of clover printed with tiny daisies and her feet, in unlovely leather clogs, were placed just so. ‘The one—’

‘Yes, yes.’ Brian flushed with annoyance. He had planned to introduce his suggestion coolly; absently, almost throw it away when the usual bickering had reached its nadir. ‘I do have a contact who might - repeat might - just come and talk to us.’

‘What does he write?’

‘He doesn’t.’ Brian gave Gerald an amused smile. ‘He’s a devisor.’ He chuckled and his ironic glance spread to include them all. Plainly no one knew what a devisor was. Typical. ‘Mike Leigh?’

‘Now that would be a coup,’ said Laura, crossing elegant silk-clad honey-coloured legs. The friction produced a whispery hiss that had an effect on all but the man it was meant for.

Sue wished she had legs like that. Brian wished Sue had legs like that. Honoria thought the movement extremely vulgar. Rex boldly fantasised a wisp of lace and a suspender. And Amy smiled at Laura in simple friendliness - paying for it later over the Horlicks.

‘I didn’t say it
was
Mike Leigh.’ The colour on Brian’s cheeks deepened. ‘I was merely making a comparison. Last week the school had a visit from Nuts N Bolts - theatre in education? - who gave this really brilliant account of a day in the life of a comprehensive—’

‘Bit coals to Newcastle, what?’ said Rex.

‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ Brian shook his head and laughed. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? Bouncing their own experience back to these kids but in a new dynamic form gives their lives a thrilling authenticity.’

‘Pardon?’

‘They recognize the grammar of the narrative as being identical with their own.’

‘I see.’

‘Anyway,’ continued Brian, ‘I caught up with Zeb, the guy who runs it, while they were loading the van and asked if he’d come and give a talk. We’d have to pay—’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Honoria. ‘We never pay.’

‘Just expenses. Petrol and—’

‘Honoria’s right.’ Rex struggled to inject a note of regret into his voice. ‘Once we start doing that sort of thing . . .’ He tailed off, wondering, as he had often done, if such parsimony wasn’t perhaps counterproductive. Maybe if they’d offered John le Carré his expenses? Honoria was speaking again. Loudly.