“Ah, where is Charles now?” Maggie asked. “I was hoping to talk to him about a book.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed, her voice taking on an edge. “How should I know? I’m not his babysitter. Probably got his nose buried in some dusty old book somewhere.”
As Ellie observed Emma, she noticed neither she nor James seemed particularly upset about Thomas’s murder, despite it happening just yesterday. Their demeanour was oddly calm, almost detached. Ellie’s gaze lingered on Emma’s broken arm, a nagging thought forming in her mind as her hand rested on the coin in her pocket. Could that injury have come from falling into the bins?
“If Thomas took the next riddle for himself, he must have found something that led him to my gran at the bookshop?” Ellie thought aloud. “What sort of man was he?”
James’s face darkened. “That sort of man,” he said, his voice tinged with bitterness. “Ruthless, conniving, and—”
“He was still my father,” Emma called out, her voice cracking.
James didn’t go further, but the damage was done. Emma stormed off, crying as she went, offering the first sign of grief since Ellie and Maggie stepped foot in Blackwood House.
James sighed, running a hand through his slicked-back hair. “It’s difficult for her to accept that her father would go so far. It’s one thing to die, it’s another for your father to be murdered. And another entirely for him to be murdered in a bookshop with a pen.”
“A fountain pen with no ink,” Ellie pointed out. “Know anything about that?”
“No,” James said, his expression unreadable. Then a smile crinkled the little folds around his eyes. “Though that’s ironic. Thomas, the pen pusher, died at the hands of a pen. Poetry. He was a solicitor. Worked in contracts and negotiating between the civil services and independent contractors. As dull as it gets, but he swore he’d ‘made it’.” His voice took on a mocking tone, his stare far off into the garden. “He spent his money like he’d ‘made it’, at least. The big house, the two cars, the two kids, the wife turned ex-wife, turned big house gone, turned two kids left with no real parents.”
Ellie almost pointed out that they had an uncle, but as she looked at James, with his velvet smoking jacket and his UV-painted sculptures, she knew she wouldn’t want him to be her uncle either. Strange guy in a strange house, she thought to herself.
“So, Thomas was in a bad way financially?” Maggie asked. “That’s why he wanted Edmund’s Last Draft?”
James shrugged, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “It seems that way to me. He was hounding our father in his final years for ‘loans’ that he never paid back, and the well has run dry.” He took a sip before continuing, “Edmund left all of his money to Emma and Charles, but not to be accessed until they both reached thirty. At least the kids don’t have to worry about their dad bleeding them dry.”
The mention of blood brought back a vivid flashback of the crime scene for Ellie. She blinked hard, trying to shake the image of Thomas lying dead on the floor from her mind. It seemed she cared more about his fate more than the brother he’d left behind.
“So, that was Thomas,” Maggie said, taking the reins as Ellie tried to compose herself. “What about James? I only really know you as an artist who lived with his father.”
“Come on... is that what people think of me?” James spun around from the window, rolling his eyes. “Always in my father’s shadow, despite us both understanding that art doesn’t have to compete. My art is valid, just as his was.” Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but James continued, his tone growing more defensive. “Sometimes people just don’t understand it, and no offence, you’re not my target market.”
Ellie saw a flicker of offense cross her grandmother’s face because Ellie could see that’s not what Maggie had meant, or even been insinuating. She tried to mouth ‘he’s projecting’ to her gran, but her attention was drawn to someone entering the room. A studious-looking young man with glasses, clutching a book under his arm, passed through, heading towards the kitchen.
Maggie’s eyes lit up. “Ah, Charles! There’s something I need to talk to him about,” she said hurriedly, rising from her chair. Without another word, she rushed off after the newcomer.
Alone with James, she found the eccentric artist’s presence both intriguing and unsettling, but she had an opportunity to probe for more information on her hands. She could ask more about the manuscript, the pen, or even the coin, but James’s raw outburst had given her an idea.
“I know what it’s like to live in the shadow of success,” Ellie offered, trying to keep her voice light. “My mother was in that soap they filmed here years ago. Carolyn Swan.”
“She’s your mother?” Both brows arched as he turned away. “Yes, I know her. She wanted you to be an actress?”
“More than anything. Problem was, I would always freeze up in front of cameras, and then I’d forget my lines, and then she’d get mad, and I’d get upset, and… the point is, I get it.”
“Difference is, my father never wanted me to be an artist,” he admitted, his voice dropping to a vulnerable whisper. “He supported me, but he discouraged me. It only made me try harder, I suppose. It’s like he forgot that his big break was all luck.”
“I thought he came up through short stories in magazines?”
“Oh, he did. His uncle’s magazine.” He rolled his eyes again. “And his uncle’s best friend just happened to be starting his own publishing company and was looking for some mystery writers. My father was ushered in and given the red carpet treatment from the start, and they kept rolling it out. Even as his work started to decline, there was never a threat of him losing his publishing deal. He’d been there too long. He didn’t need to be good anymore, he just needed to submit something.”
“He turned things around, or so I’ve heard.”
James raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “The comeback four years ago, you mean? In his nineties?” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “What do you think happened?”
Ellie felt a shift in the atmosphere as James moved nearer. His tone had changed, becoming softer, more intimate. She could sense he was attempting to flirt with her, but she remained focused on her goal.
“I asked you the question,” she replied firmly, maintaining eye contact.
“What is this, an interview?”
Ellie saw an opening and took it. “If it was, I’d want to know where you were yesterday afternoon.”
“Here alone, working on my sculpture,” James answered smoothly, gesturing towards the UV-painted creation. “I didn’t hear about Thomas’ death until later in the afternoon when the police showed up.”
“And can anyone prove that?” Ellie pressed, her investigative instincts kicking in.
James’s smirk widened as he leaned even closer, his breath warm against her ear as he whispered, “Just the ghosts.”
Ellie’s attention was drawn to the sound of the front door opening. A woman in a blue apron rushed past, her faded blue jeans soaked from the knees down, leaving a trail of water behind her on the polished wood. She kept her head down, her shaggy grey hair covering her eyes.
“You’re over an hour late, Anne,” James called.
“I had to talk to the police,” Anne explained, doubling back to the doorway, catching her breath. “And then a stupid dog ran past me and knocked me into the blasted pond.” She looked down at her wet clothes before adding, “I told the police about that sodding Welsh woman again.”
Ellie’s ears pricked up at the mention of a Welsh woman. Her curiosity piqued, she listened intently as Anne continued.
“Rhiannon Davies from Mystery Triangle Publishing,” James explained, “and she isn’t as bad as Anne thinks.”
“The publishers sent her to find Edmund’s final work. You heard what she said. ‘No matter what.’” Anne, the housekeeper, shook her shaggy hair at the suggestion. “I caught the blighter trying to sneak in through a window in the cellar this morning, and she was digging through our bins the day before last. She’s a woman possessed.”
