Authors: Peter Robinson
Fan Mail (3 page)
“Mrs. Peplow,” Quilley interrupted, “this is all very well, but I don't see what it has to do with me. You come in here and pollute my home with smoke, then you start telling me some fairy tale about your husband, a man I met casually once or twice. I'm busy, Mrs. Peplow, and quite frankly I'd rather you left and let me get back to work.”
“I'm sure you would.” She flicked a column of ash into the Wedgwood bowl. “As I was saying, I knew he was up to something, so I started following him. I thought he might have another woman, unlikely as it seemed, so I took my camera along. I wasn't really surprised when he headed for the Park Plaza instead of going back to the office after lunch one day. I watched the elevator go up to the nineteenth floor, the bar, so I waited across the street in the crowd for him to come out again. As you know, I didn't have to wait very long. He came out with you. And it was just as easy the next time.”
“I've already told you, Mrs. Peplow, he was a mystery buff, a fellow collector, that's allâ”
“Yes, yes, I know he was. Him and his stupid catalogues and collection. Still,” she mused, “it had its uses. That's how I found out who you were. I'd seen your picture on the book covers, of course. If I may say so, it does you more than justice.” She looked him up and down as if he were a side of beef hanging in a butcher's window. He cringed. “As I was saying, my husband was obvious. I knew he must be chasing you for advice. He spends so much time escaping to his garden or his little world of books that it was perfectly natural he would go to a mystery novelist for advice rather than to a real criminal. I imagine you were a bit more accessible, too. A little flattery and you were hooked. Just another puzzle for you to work on.”
“Look, Mrs. Peplowâ”
“Let me finish.” She ground out her cigarette butt in the bowl. “Foxgloves, indeed! Do you think he could manage to brew up a dose of digitalis without leaving traces all over the place? Do you know what he did the first time? He put just enough in my Big Mac to make me a bit nauseous and make my pulse race, but he left the leaves and stems in the garbage! Can you believe that? Oh, I became very careful in my eating habits after that, Mr. Quilley. Anyway, your little plan didn't work. I'm here and he's dead.”
Quilley paled. “My God, you killed him, didn't you?”
“He was the one with the bad heart, not me.” She lit another cigarette.
“You can hardly blackmail me for plotting with your husband to kill you when
he's
the one who's dead,” said Quilley. “And as for evidence, there's nothing. No, Mrs. Peplow, I think you'd better go, and think yourself lucky I don't call the police.”
Mrs. Peplow looked surprised. “What are you talking about? I have no intention of blackmailing you for plotting to kill me.”
“Then what . . . ?”
“Mr. Quilley, my husband was blackmailing you. That's why
you
killed
him
.”
Quilley slumped back in his chair. “I what?”
She took a sheet of paper from her purse and passed it over to him. On it were just two words: “TrottonâQuilley.” He recognized the neat handwriting. “That's a photocopy,” Mrs. Peplow went on. “The original's where I found it, slipped between the pages of a book called
Signed in Blood
by X. J. Trotton. Do you know that book, Mr. Quilley?”
“Vaguely. I've heard of it.”
“Oh, have you? It might also interest you to know that along with that book and the slip of paper, locked away in my husband's files, is a copy of your own first novel. I put it there.”
Quilley felt the room spinning around him. “I . . . I . . .” Peplow had given him the impression that Gloria was stupid, but that was turning out to be far from the truth.
“My husband's only been dead for two days. If the doctors look, they'll
know
that he's been poisoned. For a start, they'll find high levels of potassium and then they'll discover
eosinophilia
. Do you know what they are, Mr. Quilley? I looked them up. They're a kind of white blood cell, and you find lots of them around if there's been any allergic reaction or inflammation. If I was to go to the police and say I'd been suspicious about my husband's behaviour over the past few weeks, that I had followed him and photographed him with you, and if they were to find the two books and the slip of paper in his files. . . . Well, I think you know what they'd make of it, don't you? Especially if I told them he came home feeling ill after a lunch with you.”
“It's not fair,” Quilley said, banging his fist on the chair arm. “It's just not bloody fair.”
“Life rarely is. But the police aren't to know how stupid and unimaginative my husband was. They'll just look at the note, read the books, and assume he was blackmailing you.” She laughed. “Even if Frank had read the Trotton book, I'm sure he'd have only noticed an âinfluence', at the most. But you and I know what really went on, don't we? It happens more often than Âpeople think. A few years ago I read in the newspaper about similarities between a book by Colleen McCullough and
The Blue Castle
by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I'd say that was a bit obvious, wouldn't you? It was much easier in your case, much less dangerous. You were very clever, Mr. Quilley. You found an obscure novel and you didn't only adapt the plot for your own first book, you even stole the character of your series detective. There was some risk involved, certainly, but not much. Your book is better, without a doubt. You have some writing talent, which X. J. Trotton completely lacked. But he did have the germ of an original idea, and it wasn't lost on you, was it?”
Quilley groaned. Thirteen solid police procedurals, twelve of them all his own work, but the first, yes, a deliberate adaptation of a piece of ephemeral trash. He had seen what Trotton could have done and had done it himself. Serendipity, or so it had seemed when he found the dusty volume in a second-Âhand bookshop in Victoria years ago. All he had had to do was change the setting from London to Toronto, alter the names and set about improving upon the original. And now . . . ? The hell of it was that he would have been perfectly safe without the damn book. He had simply given in to the urge to get his hands on Peplow's copy and destroy it. It wouldn't have mattered, really.
Signed in Blood
would have remained unread on Peplow's shelf. If only the bloody fool hadn't written that note . . .
“Even if the police can't make a murder charge stick,” Mrs. Peplow went on, “I think your reputation would suffer if this got out. Oh, the great reading public might not care. Perhaps a trial would even increase your salesâyou know how ghoulish Âpeople areâbut the plagiarism would at the very least lose you the respect of your peers. I don't think your agent and publisher would be very happy either. Am I making myself clear?”
Pale and sweating, Quilley nodded. “How much?” he whispered.
“Pardon?”
“I said how much. How much do you want to keep quiet?”
“Oh, it's not your money I'm after, Mr. Quilley, or may I call you Dennis? Well, not
only
money, anyway. I'm a widow now. I'm all alone in the world.”
She looked around the room, her piggy eyes glittering, then gave Quilley one of the most disgusting looks he'd ever had in his life.
“I've always fancied living near the lake,” she said, reaching for another cigarette. “Live here alone, do you?”
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One of the world's most popular and acclaimed writers, PETER ROBINSON grew up in the United Kingdom, and now divides his time between Toronto and England. The bestselling, award-winning author of the Inspector Banks series, he has also written two short-story collections and three standalone novels, which combined have sold more than ten million copies around the world. Among his many honors and prizes are the Edgar Award, the CWA (UK) Dagger in the Library Award, and Sweden's Martin Beck Award.
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblence to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2015 by Peter Robinson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransfereable, right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permisison of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
This story originally appeared in the collection
Not Safe After Dark
, published by Crippen & Landru in 1998.
EPub Edition Feburary 2016 ISBN 9780062413833
16 17 18 19 20
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