The Woman Who Lied(68)

‘You can go, El. Just boring stuff here.’

Now this is interesting. Emilia obviously doesn’t want her husband to hear our conversation.

‘Okay, cool. I’ll … Well, I’ll see you later, then.’ He sounds unsure now and smiles uncertainly. Then he bids farewell to me and heads back into the garden.

Once he’s gone Emilia breathes a long sigh.

‘Are you feeling okay?’

She nods, sipping some water. ‘I don’t think I’ve eaten enough today. I’m going to make a sandwich. Do you want one?’

I pass, telling her I’ve already had my lunch, and I watch as she faffs about behind the island retrieving condiments and a loaf of bread. I can see that she wants to keep busy. The island is behind where I sit at the table, so I turn my chair to face her. ‘So, go on, then. Tell me how you ended up writing about Louise and her murdered mother.’

Emilia stops what she’s doing to throw me a disapproving look. ‘I didn’t realize I was writing about Louise.’

‘Then how did you get the story?’

She continues buttering the bread so vigorously that she tears it. ‘You have to understand how hard it is to keep coming up with this kind of plot,’ she says. ‘And I’ve been writing about my detective Miranda Moody for nearly ten years. I’d lost inspiration, I suppose, but I was contracted to write this book. And for months all I could do was stare at a blank page …’ She stops and clutches at her chest. ‘It was awful. I told Louise and then she revealed she’d written a short story, almost like a diary, about a girl whose mother had been murdered by a serial killer that would be perfect as a Miranda Moody case, but she didn’t want it for herself. She said she didn’t have time to write a whole book and that she’d just written it for a bit of fun. And then … she offered it to me …’

‘She gave you the story already written?’ I ask in disbelief.

Emilia looks like she wants to burst into tears. Her face reddens. ‘Yes. Well, just the Daisy sections. It wouldn’t have been enough to fill a whole novel but enough for a side story. I liked it and thought it was interesting, the whole thing about a girl who suspects her boyfriend’s dad of killing her mother and of being a serial killer. And she’d promised me that she’d never let anyone else read the short story. She was adamant about that.’

‘And you believed her?’

‘Yes. She said she’d only just written it. The rest, Miranda Moody’s investigation, I added myself, but based on the praying-mantis murderer parts of Daisy’s story.’

I leaf through the pages. ‘So, the stuff about Miranda’s death, her missing niece and Miranda’s colleague being murdered – in a very similar way I might add to how Louise was murdered – was all yours?’

She nods. ‘Yes. But obviously the idea for all that came after I’d read Louise’s story about Daisy and Ash and Daisy’s search for her mother’s killer. The praying-mantis moniker was Louise’s idea and, once I had that and the Daisy sections, the rest just came to me. I know it’s not particularly ethical, but Louise didn’t mind. As I said, she didn’t want it. And I never knew – never dreamed in a million years – it was true, that Daisy was really Louise and it was about her mother and a real praying-mantis killer. I just thought Louise had made it up.’

I can see she’s telling the truth. She walks over to the table with her sandwich and I swivel to face her.

‘I wonder why Louise wanted you to write this story,’ I say, putting my pen down.

She frowns, pulling out a chair and sitting down. She picks at the sandwich but doesn’t eat it. ‘I don’t know. I thought she was trying to help me. But it seems now she had a different motive …’

‘In your book the way the tattoo is administered is different.’

‘From the Daisy sections it sounded like a drawing, so I made the killer murder the others in the same way. Was – was her mother’s killer ever caught? Obviously in the book he was.’

‘No. If Louise really did believe that the father of a past boyfriend killed her mother, then it was never proven. The fictional ending she came up with might have been how she wished things had turned out. How they should have turned out. Did Louise ever mention a man called Martin Butterworth?’

Emilia shakes her head. ‘Not that I can recall. Who is he?’

‘Just a person of interest. The murders started up again in February last year after a sixteen-year hiatus. When did Louise give you this information?’

‘Last spring. March. I started writing this book not long after, May, I think.’

‘Interesting that she gave the story to you when the killer struck again after a sixteen-year break.’

Emilia is silent, staring at me expectantly, like I have all the answers.

A gentle breeze floats in from the doors and I lay my hand on top of the manuscript to stop any of the papers flying away. ‘We’ve been watching Martin Butterworth closely since Trisha Banks was killed last year – we have a witness to say he had been hanging around her address before she died and she lived in the bedsit above his sister. There are other things, but not enough evidence to bring a conviction right now. As yet there have been no further murders. Until Louise.’

‘Do you think this Martin Butterworth killed Louise?’