hapter 20

The following evening, as usual, Fiona picked up a copy of the Evening Standard at the tube station on her way home from work. The lead story on page three so astonished her that she made no attempt to board her train when it pulled into the station. Instead, she carried on reading, transfixed.

Queen of Crime Found Murdered

Bestselling American thriller writer Jane Elias has been brutally murdered in a horrific crime that mirrors the gruesome violence of her own work, police in County Wicklow revealed today. Her mutilated body was discovered by a local forestry worker in the early hours of yesterday morning on a back road near the country estate that had been her home in the Republic of Ireland for the past four years. She had been so badly mauled by her killer that identification was impossible except by a distinctive scar she sustained after back surgery three years ago. A police spokesman said, "Experienced officers were shocked when they saw what had been done to the victim.

"Miss Elias had lived in this area for four years and was very popular with local residents. We are pursuing various lines of inquiry, but at this stage, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to do this to her."

Her British literary agent, Jeremy Devonshire, expressed deep shock at the news. "It's appalling,"

he said. "I can't take it in. Jane was the most charming of women. We worked together for the past five years and I can honestly say we never had a cross word."

A spokesman for her publishers, Turnhouse Bachelor, said, "We are deeply shocked by this news. Jane was not only a shining talent but also a delight to work with. The whole company is grieving today."

Psychopaths

Jane Elias leapt to the top of the bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic seven years ago with her first novel, Death on Arrival, which introduced forensic psychologist Dr. Jay Schumann, an FBI serial killer profiler.

There followed an award-winning series of novels, three of which have been filmed by Hollywood, including her debut novel. The adaptation of Death on Arrival, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, won an Oscar.

Jane Elias was notable for her reclusive lifestyle. Unlike most top-selling writers, she shunned publicity, only rarely emerging from her seclusion to talk to the press.

She explained her move to Ireland as a desire for peace and quiet which she could no longer find in her native New England.

Security at her Georgian mansion on the shores of Lough Killargan was notoriously tight, with permanent guards and closed-circuit TV monitoring the five-mile perimeter fence. In spite of that, she played an active role in her local community, most recently writing a play for the local church dramatic group to help raise funds for a children's play group A keen sailor, Jane Elias maintained several boats at her private marina. This morning, there was speculation that she may have been attacked while she was sailing one of her yachts on the lake.

Shocked, Fiona read the story again, half expecting that this time the words would rearrange themselves in a different order. But the news remained the same. A woman she had sat opposite at dinner less than three months before was now a murder victim. No amount of familiarity with the business of homicide investigation could lessen the immediacy of the cold horror that swept through her.

Fiona had no recollection of the journey home, her mind entirely occupied with memories of Jane Elias in life and the images her informed mind conjured up of the writer's body in death. They had met on Jane's last trip to London, on the publication of her seventh Jay Schumann novel, Double Take. Jane and Kit shared a publisher, and because of Jane's reluctance to make public appearances, Turnhouse Bachelor had arranged a series of private dinners for senior buyers in the book trade and key reviewers. To maximize their benefit, they had also invited a couple of their other crime authors to each of the dinners, which was how Kit and Fiona had come to meet the American. Of course, as soon as Jane had discovered Fiona's professional interest in crime, she had been far more interested in talking to her than any of the other guests, and the two women had spent a large part of the evening deep in gruesome discussion of murder and its motivations.

Fiona had been drawn to Jane, first because of her intellectual incisiveness but also because of her acerbic wit. She could see why Jane had prevailed against the understandable demands of her publishers for her to take a more active role in promoting her work. Anyone who had once been on the receiving end of that caustic tongue wouldn't want to repeat the experience in a hurry.

But now that voice was stilled forever. It was, Fiona thought as she plodded up Dartmouth Park Hill, a loss she felt more keenly than she would have expected. And now she would probably have to break the news to Kit.

She walked through the front door to the clear voice of Tracey Thorn revealing that she was out among the walking wounded. Fiona knew just how she felt. She walked into Kit's study, finding him hunched over the keyboard, fingers flying. She put a hand on his shoulder and kissed the top of his gleaming head.

"Gimme five minutes," he said abstractedly.

Fiona left him to it. Bad news always came too soon. Better that he finished what he was focused on than she interrupted his flow with something so momentous that he would always connect it to that chapter, that paragraph. In the kitchen, she poured them both a glass of cold white wine and sat down at the table to wait. The five minutes turned into twelve, but Fiona felt no impatience. There was nothing either of them could do for Jane now.

At last, Kit appeared, grinning a greeting that faded to uncertainty when he saw her sombre face. "What's the matter?" he asked, concern furrowing his forehead.

Fiona pushed a glass towards him. "Bad news." There was no way to sugar-coat it, so she didn't even try. "Jane Elias has been murdered."

Kit's hand froze halfway to his drink. "Jane?" he said, incredulous. "Murdered? Where? When? What happened?"

Fiona pushed the paper across the table. "That's as much as I know."

Kit dropped heavily into a chair, reaching for his wine and scanning the paper. "This is terrible," he said, shaking his head. "Poor Jane. Shit, I can't believe it."

"I couldn't take it in either. She was such a strong personality. It's hard to imagine her as a victim."

"It's a fucking nightmare." Kit ran his hand over his head in a gesture of consternation. "And it's only two or three weeks since Drew was killed." He stopped dead in mid-gesture. "You don't suppose they're connected? Somebody going after thriller writers?"

"No, I don't," Fiona said firmly, reaching across the table and putting a hand on his arm. "There's no reason to think that, Kit. Different countries, different gender, different body dumps. The fact that they both wrote psychological thrillers is just a horrible coincidence."

"You always say there's no such thing as coincidence."

"OK, maybe not quite coincidence. It's possible that somebody who was as obsessed with Jane as Drew's killer was with him saw the stories about his murder and decided that was the best way to deal with the object of his desire. But to decide on the basis of these two cases that there's a killer out there targeting people who write crime fiction is a nonsense."

Kit shook his head and sighed. "Yeah, I know. It's just that I live in a world where conspiracy theory always seems more attractive than cock-up. It's like, it would be easier to believe that there's a serial killer on a spree than that there are two seriously fucked-up individuals out there who get their rocks off murdering writers. And when you factor in the letters ... well, it just seems like there's a fuck of a lot of crazies out there with an interest in people like me."

"I can see why it feels like that. But I don't think it's anything more than bad timing, I really don't." Fiona felt the hollowness of her words even as she spoke them. There was nothing she could say to help, and she hated that feeling.

Kit pulled away and slammed his hands palm-down on the table. "I mean, how could this have happened to Jane? Of all people? She guarded her privacy so closely. Everybody knew that place of hers was like a fortress."

"Maybe that was the challenge," Fiona mused, unable to ignore the professional wheels going round. It was always her refuge of choice when she didn't know how else to respond. She wasn't proud of it, but she didn't know how to change it. Or even if she wanted to. Some of her best ideas had come out of work as displacement activity.

"Why would anybody have it in for her?" Kit demanded. "I mean, sure, she generated a lot of envy from other writers. But people who say they'd kill for Jane Elias's sales figures, that's just talk. Writers don't take out the competition like the Mafia. But outside the business why would she be a target?"

Fiona shrugged. "The usual reasons. Love, hate, greed, fear. Was she involved with anyone?"

Kit shook his head. "I've no idea. I never heard any gossip about her personal life. Which is unusual in itself. You know what a rumour mill the book world is. Everybody knows everybody else's business. I could tell you what her last advance was

"Which was?"

"Eighteen million dollars for a three-book deal. But I've never heard anything about who she was shagging. If there was anybody. Maybe she was just one of those people that aren't bothered about sex. I certainly didn't get any vibe off her. Did you?"

"No," Fiona said. "Nothing flirtatious, either with the women or the men at that dinner."

"That's right. Dead cool, kept her distance. The only time she really got animated was when the two of you got stuck into that stuff about the compliant victims of the sexual sadist." He got to his feet and headed for the fridge, where he started methodically removing vegetables from the chiller. "Couscous and roast vegetables," he said, half to himself.

"When in doubt, cook," Fiona said affectionately. "You want to talk about it?"

"Nope. I'm going to chop the hell out of these vegetables and then I'm going back to work while they cook. Best therapy I know."

She finished her drink and stood up. "I'll be upstairs if you need me."

Kit nodded. "You going to check it out on the Net?"

"You know me too well. You don't think I'm being a ghoul?"

Kit half turned and grinned. "The bells are ringing for me and my ghoul," he sang in his bass voice. "Go and dig the dirt. You can serve it up with supper and calm my irrational fears."

Fiona returned his smile. Unbidden, the thought came to her that if

Jane Elias had had a lover, someone was in unbearable pain tonight. "Call me when it's ready," was all she said. It felt too much like tempting fate to tell him how much she loved him.

Extract from Decoding of Exhibit P13/4599

Uimef afmxx ketmf fqdqp mrfqd vmzqq xume. Mxxui mzfqp fapai meexq qb. Upupz fzqqp mzkbu xxefa wzaow yqagf quftqd ... I was totally shattered after Jane Ellas. All I wanted to do was sleep. It was as if I wanted to wipe the memory of it from my brain, and sleep was the best way to do it. I couldn't even pick up a pen and keep the record straight until today.

Of course, I couldn't kill her on the boat, because I didn't want to get blood everywhere. That would have been completely wrong, in the context of the book. So once I'd got her unconscious, I had to sail over to the sailing club landing ramp, get her out of the boat and finish her off in the shallows there.

But my luck held. I let her bleed out a bit in the water, then I got her in the back of the 4x4 and set her boat adrift on the lake. Let them work that one out, I thought.

Then I did what I had to do. I don't know why, but it felt worse than doing Drew Shand. Maybe because she was a woman. Or maybe because I had to strip her and she looked much more vulnerable than she did with her clothes on.

Everything went according to plan. And from what I read in the papers, it sounds like the message is starting to trickle through. Not before time.

Now, it's time to start thinking about number three. Georgia Lester. I've been reading her book again, and why anybody would publish it, never mind turn it into a film, is beyond me. It's unfortunate that my plan will help sell more copies of her pitiful book. Butthat can't be helped. I've got to keep thinking about the bigger picture.

I've done a recce on her cottage in Dorset, and it's perfect for what I want to do. It's finding when she's going to be there that's the difficult bit.

I know she's in London this week, and looking at her engagements on the website, I think she'll go down to Dorset at the weekend and come back on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I'm not looking forward to this one little bit. It's the worst prospect so far. What I'm going to have to do to her is so horrible. I keep rereading the bit of the book that describes it, and it turns my stomach to think I'm going to have to copy that. But I can't stop now. That would make everything I've done so far completely pointless.

When I feel like this, I look around me and see what I've been reduced to because of what they did to me. I don't get any pleasure out of doing this, but it does give me back my self-respect. I haven't taken everything they've thrown at me lying down, and that's worth something.

So I just have to grit my teeth and do what has to be done. Two down, four to go. They should have got the point by then.

Chapter 21

Like police officers, fire fighters and journalists, Fiona had discovered that the fastest and most effective tool for putting emotional distance between herself and the terrible things her job forced her to confront was black humour. So when entering Jane Elias's name on her meta search engine threw up a website called Laughing With the Dead Celebs, she couldn't resist.

Jane Elias's death had been in the public domain for less than a day, but already she merited her own cartoon tombstone. Fiona clicked on Jane's name. The screen dissolved into a coffin-shaped frame. "Jane Elias killed somewhere around forty-seven people in her seven novels. Some would say it's about time she discovered what it feels like. Not us, of course. If jokes about death offend you, don't scroll down this page."

Fiona, naturally, carried on scrolling. So far, there were only four contributions.

Why did Jane Elias have to die?

So she could finally get her hands on a good plot.

Do writers know when they start out how it's going to end?

Jane Elias obviously didn't!

What did St. Peter say to Jane Elias at the pearly gates?

"So, Jane, whodunnit?"

What was the motive for Jane Elias's murder? Sales figures to die for.

Only the first was worth a smile, and a pretty thin one at that, Fiona decided, closing the site and heading for a more conventional tribute web page. The first site she checked out was one that had been created by a fan. It simply said, under that day's date, "Jane Elias was found murdered today. This site is closed as a mark of respect."

She had more luck with her second choice, also an act of devotion from one of Jane's readers. The bare details of the murder were reported and below them were a series of boxes offering hyper links to other areas of the site. Offered a choice of Her Life, Photo Album, The Investigation, Condolence Book and Related Links, she opted for the photographic record first, curious to see what the site's creator had been able to assemble, given Jane's notorious camera-shyness.

First came the jacket photograph that had only ever appeared on her first novel. It was an unremarkable face, the sort it would be hard to describe in terms that would differentiate it from a million others. Mid-brown hair in a jaw-length bob, parted on the right; straight brows, dark eyes, an absolutely average nose and full lips that curved in a faint smile, giving nothing away. She was wearing an open-necked shirt, revealing a thin gold chain round her neck. Apart from the blonde highlights and a few more lines etched into the corners of her eyes, she looked exactly the same as she had on the night Fiona had met her.

Next came her high-school yearbook picture. The hair was longer here, hanging straight to the top of small breasts, but still with the same parting. At eighteen, Jane had worn unfashionably heavy-framed spectacles that made her eyes look unfocused. Her face too was fuller, almost plump. If all Fiona had had to go on was this, she doubted she'd have picked Jane out of a crowd.

A third photograph showed Jane accepting the first of her two Edgar awards at a Mystery Writers of America dinner. Her smile was broad and unselfconscious and she looked surprisingly elegant in a figure-hugging black dress that shimmered with sequins.

The final shot in the gallery showed a completely different side of Jane Elias. Taken at the finishing line of a charity half-marathon in Dublin, it revealed Jane in mid-stride, her running shorts and vest showing off the smooth planes of well-developed muscle that covered legs and arms. The camera had caught her in a candid moment, her expression exposing the blissed-out altered state of the athlete who has gone through the pain barrier. She looked more attractive here than anywhere else, Fiona noticed with detachment.

From studying the photographs, Fiona moved to the condolence book. If she'd been involved with the investigation, she'd have suggested the police take a look at the messages posted by fans. Given the tendency of psychopaths to attempt to insert themselves into the inquiry into their crimes, it was an obvious place for Jane's killer to go. The dozen messages Fiona scrolled through seemed innocuous enough, but there was plenty of time for the strange and bizarre to show up. She book marked the page, resolving to return in a day or two to see if anything resembling Kit and Georgia's letters showed up.

There was nothing else on the fan site that interested her, so, like a child saving its favourite part of the meal for the last, she directed her web browser to Murder Behind the Headlines. She typed in "Jane Elias' in the search box and hit the return key.

Queen of the serial killer thriller Jane Elias has finally found out what it's like to suffer what she handed out to dozens of victims in her books. Unfortunately, she won't be able to put her experiences to good commercial effect because the man or woman who abducted her made sure she wouldn't live to tell the tale.

Elias's body was found on a back road in the early hours of the morning by a forestry worker whose truck ran into the body, strategically placed in the middle of the road just round a blind bend near the novelist's estate in County Wicklow, Ireland. This shows striking similarities to one of the body dumps in Death on Arrival, Elias's first novel which was turned into an Oscar-winning vehicle for the luscious Michelle Pfeiffer.

And according to MBTH's sources in the County Wicklow coroner's office, Elias suffered injuries that have much in common with the description of what happened to the victims in that novel, only in her case they were postmortem, rather than while she was still alive. Maybe her killer was more squeamish than his victim. Here's the template from the book:

The delayed sting of the razor cut. The blossoming of a burn from a smart to a roar of pain that spread inwards as the smell of barbecued flesh drifted outwards. The searing agony of flesh forced to accommodate more than it has room for. The sickening pain of a broken bone never allowed time to knit The dull distress of a blow strategically aimed at the organs nestling beneath the skin

Creepy, huh? Especially after the recent copycat murder of Copycat writer Drew Shand in Edinburgh, Scotland. Unlikely though it may sound, conspiracy theorists are already speculating that somebody is taking out serial killer thriller writers. Now that's taking criticism a little too far.

But the truth may lie in a different direction.

MBTH can exclusively reveal that Jane Elias's greatest secret was that for the last five years, she had been involved in an affair with undercover drugs cop Pierce Finnegan, one of the key figures in the Irish Republic's police force, the Garda Siochana's fight against drug dealers. Finnegan was instrumental in the cracking of a major heroin supply route last year, and the word is that there's a price on his head from senior gangland figures still awaiting trial. He is reportedly liaising with Europol presently, and has high connections with the US drug enforcement authorities. Frankly, his affair with Elias was a far better kept secret than anything in the leaky Garda files.

Elias met Finnegan when he was attending an International convention of criminal intelligence personnel at Quantico. Friends claim she was visiting the convention anonymously, under the wing of a software company in Florida who were pioneering a computer photo fit program. During the convention, she was able to sneak into several closed sessions, where she heard Finnegan speak. Later, friends introduced them and the two immediately formed a close personal bond. Not even his Garda bosses knew about the affair.

As a result, Elias moved to Ireland, where Finnegan was a regular visitor to her high-security compound in County Wicklow, though among locals, it's doubtful if even Elias's security staff knew his true identity. Elias often had secret liaisons with her lover when he was on the road. She would check into the same hotel and the two would share clandestine nights of love. So, no mystery about where her plot lines came from.

Now speculation is rife that whoever killed Elias was either taking revenge on Finnegan or sending him a warning to back off and compromise his trial evidence. The death of Drew Shand could have provided the killer with the perfect blueprint for a killing that would send the desired message to Finnegan without necessarily being connected to any of the Garda agent's cases. Of course, that would only work if the affair remained a secret.

Sorry, Pierce. Sorry, Mr. Murderer. We just blew your cover.

REMEMBER YOU READ IT FIRST ON

MURDER BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Fiona took a deep breath. This was dynamite if it was true. Having a lover who was an undercover drugs investigator provided a far more credible motive for so violent a murder than the notion that a serial killer was targeting writers. Knowing how law enforcement agencies worked against their own, Fiona seriously doubted that the relationship was a secret to Finnegan's bosses, but the pair had certainly done a good job of keeping it out of the public eye.

She couldn't help feeling relief. Although her logical self had been reluctant to accept the possibility of a murderer who wanted to rid the world of thriller writers, her emotional self had known nothing but the gnaw of fear ever since she'd read the newspaper headline. Fiona knew far too much about the relentless capabilities of serial offenders; the notion that Kit might be a name on a hit list had been rattling round her head for the past hour and she was selfishly grateful that there was a logical explanation for Jane's death that could not touch her own lover.

She closed down the computer and made her way downstairs. Kit was back in the kitchen, tipping couscous into a pan of boiling water. He looked round and forced a crooked smile. "Ten minutes," he said.

"Did you manage any work?" Fiona asked, topping up his glass and refilling her own.

"Nothing like other people's tragedies to get the words flowing," he said, a sharp edge to his voice. "It's like a defence mechanism. My brain uses writing to block out the static. As long as I'm staring at the screen and getting stuff down, I can't be thinking about the hell Jane had to go through before this bastard let her die."

"That's the trouble with having an imagination," Fiona said. "Especially one like yours. You don't even have to try to come up with a hundred harrowing scenarios." She crossed the room and he turned to accept her hug. "Her injuries were postmortem. She wasn't tortured."

"I suppose we should be grateful for that," Kit mumbled into her hair. He pulled away gently. "So what did you dig up?"

"Bottom line? You shouldn't be worried on your own account." She sat down at the table and outlined her researches in detail.

"You know what I think about those muckrakers," Kit protested. "How can you be sure they've got it right about her relationship with the undercover guard? Maybe they were just mates. Maybe he was just a contact that she milked for ideas and deep background."

Fiona shrugged. "I can't be certain. But they've obviously got some very high-level sources and they exploit them to the hilt. So unless we hear otherwise, I'd take what they say at face value."

"Easier said than done," he muttered.

"One thing that might help set your mind at rest when you're ringing round to see if anybody else has had threatening letters, see if anybody knows whether Jane had one. If she didn't, then it's even more evidence to support my theory that people who write death threats aren't the ones who kill."

"Maybe I should just ring the local police and ask them."

"Yeah, right. Like they're going to tell you."

"They might tell Steve."

Fiona acknowledged the sense of his statement with a dip of her head.

"And I'm meeting him tomorrow night anyway," Kit continued, taking the roasting dish of vegetables out of the oven and tipping them into the couscous. He placed the food on the table with a flourish and sat down facing Fiona. "I'm going to ask Steve if he can find out about whether Jane got any death threat letters," he said. "If she didn't, then you're probably right, and Georgia and I are in the clear. And in the meantime, I promise to be careful without being paranoid. Will that do you?"

Fiona smiled. "That'll do me fine. But if somebody does come after you with a knife, no heroics. Just leg it."

"What? You don't want me to stand my ground and be a man?" Kit teased.

"God, no. I'm far too busy to take time off to organize a funeral." Fiona tasted her dinner. "Mmm. Wonderful. Take care of yourself, darling, I could never afford to replace you in the kitchen."

Kit pretended to look hurt. "Only in the kitchen?"

"If I don't eat every day, I die," she said. "I'd miss shagging you, but it wouldn't kill me."

"You think not?" he said dangerously.

"Let's not put it to the test."

He grinned. "Right answer, Doctor. So, do you fancy a quiet night in?"

"Kit, we've never had a quiet night in. Why would we start now?" She raised her eyebrows provocatively. "But I wouldn't say no to fucking your brains out."

"You talked me into it, you smooth bastard." Kit's grin promised to take no prisoners.

Jane Elias would soon be cold in earth. Neither of them had forgotten that for a moment. Keeping the ghosts at bay was the most important thing they could do for each other, and they knew it. It was, as so often in the past, their unspoken contract.