Ellie bit back her grin, brushing her gran’s hand away. She walked around her, the key already in her hand, and unlocked the door and ushered her grandmother inside.
“One walk a day,” Ellie confirmed, “but I swear if you do more, I will be strapping you to your armchair.”
“Deal.”
“I’ve made decent progress sorting through the clutter, but there’s still so much—”
“Oh, but you have made progress!”
Maggie marvelled around the shop, though the smile vanished into a frown when she stared ahead at the back room. Ellie followed her gaze to a pair of feet poking out from behind the towering bookshelf next to the open door to the back office. Ellie and Maggie exchanged a frozen glance before approaching.
There, lying motionless on the dusty floor, was the body of a man, a pen jutting from his chest. The sight of blood seeping from around the wound into a white shirt made her stomach churn. He looked up at the ceiling, nothing behind his endless stare.
Ellie had only seen dead bodies on the sets at the studio’s soundstage when she was called in to approve last-minute changes to garments or set pieces. Somehow, the makeup department had nailed the look of fresh death, and yet there was still no way to fully convey it just how empty those eyes were.
“Thomas Blackwood,” Maggie said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“You know him?” Ellie asked, her mind reeling as she tried to process the gruesome scene before her.
Maggie didn’t answer. Instead, she hobbled over to the corner of the room, where the well-trodden red carpet had been flung back and several floorboards had been pried up. She peered into the exposed cavity, her face falling.
“They’ve taken it, haven’t they?” Ellie asked, her voice trembling. “The manuscript. The Last Draft.”
Maggie’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with surprise. “How do you know about that?”
Ellie swallowed hard. “If the rumour mill is like I remember around here, the whole of Meadowfield will know by the end of the day. There’s a rumour going around that this author sent the book to three people he trusted.”
“It’s true,” Maggie admitted, her knobbly fingers trembling as she reached for the phone on the desk. She dialled quickly, requesting an ambulance in a calm, measured tone that belied the gravity of the situation.
As Maggie spoke to the emergency operator, Ellie’s mind raced. She turned back to the body, studying the man’s face. She would have guessed he was about fifty. He seemed to be well-off, if his refined clothes were anything to go by, though the bloodstaining had marred the look. Despite his pallor, he had the features that would work well on camera. She could see him playing some Lord or smarmy official in a historical drama. Ellie had never fully grasped what made someone camera-ready, but after so many productions passing through her life, she’d learned to recognise the types.
But wasn’t an actor.
This was a real man, and he’d been stabbed in the back office of her gran’s bookshop.
“I should have been here,” Ellie said, looking away from his pale face. “Auntie Penny pulled me away, but I was only gone for five minutes. Ten, at the most.”
“You can’t blame yourself, dear. An ambulance is on its way, and I suspect the police will want to talk to us about what happened.”
“I don’t know anything,” Ellie said, turning to face her gran. “But you don’t seem surprised to see him here. What did you call him? Thomas Blackwood?”
Maggie nodded, but she’d lost her ability to be forthright.
“Who was this man?” Ellie pushed, resting a hand on her gran’s shoulder. “How was he connected to the author and this manuscript? They share a surname. A son?”
Maggie took Ellie by the arm, guiding her away from the body and into the main area of the bookshop. Once they were out of sight of the grisly scene, Maggie’s expression softened.
“I’m glad to see you’ve only sharpened with time, my dear,” she said, a hint of pride peeking through the melancholy in her voice. “I promise, in time, I will tell you everything.”
Chapter 7Does Anyone Have A Pen?
Leaving Thomas Blackwood’s body behind in Meadowfield Books, Ellie stepped out onto South Street, squinting against the blinding sun. She tried to process the grisly sight of the dead man lying in the back room of her grandmother’s bookshop, but some things weren’t meant to be forgotten so soon.
From the cheese shop next door, Bramble & Brie, Ellie heard Sylvia Fortescue’s unmistakable laughter; even her laugh was posh. Up and down the street, shoppers milled about. A young man with a charity tin shook it at passersby, chatting with an elderly woman who’d paused to listen to his pitch. Outside Oliver’s café, a man struggled with a pram at the doorstep, and dogs barked at each other near the old lamppost before the street curved away.
The normalcy disoriented Ellie, already off-kilter enough without the added complication of a fresh corpse. How could everything seem so ordinary when such a horrific event had occurred right under their noses? The penny of life still spun around South Street, and Ellie, teetering on the edge, waited to drop. The first sight of the police would send that penny crashing like the coins being fed into the charity tin by the old woman.
“Are you alright?” Maggie’s gentle voice broke through Ellie’s daze. Her grandmother emerged from the shop, resting a soothing hand on Ellie’s shoulder.
Ellie gulped, her throat dry. She wanted to nod, to reassure her gran that she was fine, but the words wouldn’t come. Finally, she managed a small shake of her head.
“No... no, I’m not alright,” she admitted. “There’s so much to take in, and…” Her brow furrowed as she turned back towards the entrance of Meadowfield Books. Something wasn’t where it should be, a nagging feeling that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Something in there... it wasn’t right.”
Maggie’s expression remained calm, her eyes filled with understanding. “There was a body in there, dear. And a priceless manuscript is now missing. I’d say quite a few things aren’t right. How about we get you to the café while we wait for the police? Something sweet. You’ll be in shock. That’s what it’ll be. Oliver makes this delicious praline and hazelnut loaf that’s got Ellie written all over it.”
“I appreciate the gesture, Gran, but I don’t need sugar. I am in shock, but no more than you’d expect, having just seen a body. I need to think.”
Maggie nodded and didn’t push Ellie any further towards the café. Walking back into the bookshop, Ellie dared a glance at the feet poking out around the doorframe. That back room had always been her gran’s cave. A place to order books, unpack new ones, to hide with those new ones and stay reading them long after the shop closed. And now, the scene of a murder.
“Murder by pen,” Ellie thought aloud.
“Nasty way to go,” Maggie said with an agreeing sigh. “Not that you get to choose, but I imagine that can’t have been quick. Thomas wasn’t the nicest of men, but that… that’s no way to go.”
“Why wasn’t he…” Ellie’s words drifted off as a scan of South Street again halted her in her tracks. The charity chugger’s pen caught her eye as he lifted it in the air before going to the clipboard. “That’s it,” she said, doubling back to the shop. “The pen.”
Ellie’s heart raced as she rushed back into the bookshop, her grandmother’s concerned voice fading behind her. She burst into the back room, drawn to Thomas Blackwood’s lifeless form on the floor. But something was different. Ellie blinked, her mind struggling to process the change.
“How…” she muttered, shaking her head in disbelief.
