‘No, why?’
‘I think she was behind it. I think she told me the story to try to reveal who was responsible.’
‘So you think she knew the name of the killer? Then why wouldn’t she have told the police?’ He frowns. ‘It seems a convoluted way of going about things.’
‘I don’t know. Would the police have believed her based on a hunch? Based on perhaps a fleeting glimpse of the back of this man’s head when she was a child?’
His shoulders droop. ‘No. They’d need more than that. More evidence.’
‘Maybe that’s why she decided to become a police officer,’ she muses. ‘She must have thought her mother’s killer had got away with it and she wanted to stop it happening to others.’
‘She was a brilliant cop,’ he says. ‘She was studying for her sergeant’s exam.’
Emilia sighs. ‘What a total mess. I wish she’d just been honest. Told me what she wanted to do. Maybe I could have, I dunno, helped. Instead it was all so underhand. She could have confessed to you too. Maybe you could have looked into her suspicions. Found out more about this man she believed was her mother’s killer.’
‘She wouldn’t have wanted to put me in an awkward position,’ he says, nudging the rain-flattened grass with the toe of his trainer. ‘Although …’ he looks up at her and squints ‘… a few times – earlier this year – I was up in this area, visiting her. And she asked me to go into a florist, pay for some flowers and give them an address, which I’ve now figured out must have been yours.’
Her mouth falls open. ‘So that was you!’
He nods, looking sick.
‘And one was a wreath?’
He groans. ‘Yes. Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what I was doing. She must have been desperate to have involved me.’
Emilia appraises him. She understands he doesn’t want to think badly about the woman he loved. Emilia doesn’t either, but it’s obvious they’ve both been used. ‘She contacted a journalist to tell them what was happening to me. It was her handwriting on a note that was sent to a boy in my daughter’s friendship group that made me realize she was behind it all.’ She fills him in on Jasmine and Nancy’s disappearance.
His face falls when she’s finished talking and he digs his hands further into the pockets of his jacket. ‘It still doesn’t explain who killed her. And I owe it to her to find out who killed her mother. And who killed her.’
‘Do you think the praying-mantis murderer killed Louise as well?’
A muscle throbs in his jaw. ‘I don’t know. It’s a possibility despite the insect markings being administered differently.’ He steps back. ‘Anyway, I’ve taken up too much of your time. I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t want to come to your house and make it all official. Thank you for listening.’
He turns and walks away from her before she can say anything else. Full of mixed emotions, she watches his retreating back, trying to make sense of everything. As she gets behind the wheel she thinks again about Louise’s motive for telling her the story. Perhaps she was hoping to prod the killer, knowing that he – or someone he knew – would read Her Last Chapter and recognize the story. But what then? And why now? Because he had killed again after sixteen years? Or was there another reason?
She slams back in her seat, exhaling in frustration.
What is she missing?
She turns the ignition on, her mind whirling.
And then it hits her.
The reports in the paper. They were about things that were happening to her from her previous books, not from Her Last Chapter. Louise had died before she could re-enact those. She must have been planning to do so, for more airtime. But Louise had known not to start with all that because then it would have been obvious to Emilia that she knew the person behind it. And the stuff with Jasmine was obviously meant to emulate her sub-plot about the missing teenagers from Her Last Chapter, but Emilia hadn’t mentioned it when she talked to Gina.
None of the press coverage had mentioned Her Last Chapter and what it was about, apart from a line at the end saying she had a new book coming out later in the year. Louise had contacted Gina Osbourne too soon. She should have waited until she’d orchestrated more of the plotlines from Her Last Chapter.
So if the praying-mantis murderer had come looking for Louise, how would he have known that Emilia’s new book was about him? Unless it was someone who had actually read Her Last Chapter. And the only people who had read it were her inner circle.
Horror washes over her as the pieces finally click into place.
Someone she knows is the praying-mantis murderer.
49
Saunders is unusually quiet in the car on the way back to Devon and I wonder if he’s still feeling queasy.
‘So, you’re wondering if Martin Butterworth’s son might be Ash from Emilia’s book?’ he asks, when I finish filling him in on Louise Greene and Emilia Ward.
‘That’s what we’re going to find out. Apparently Anthony Butterworth lives in Torquay nowadays and runs a guesthouse. Anthony and Ash. Both begin with an A. Maybe that was deliberate,’ I muse, as we pull into a side road. I reverse park between two cars, thankful I only have an Audi A3. It was raining when we left London but here the sun is beating down, bouncing off the car bonnets. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, just a flock of seagulls that screech menacingly as they swoop overhead and descend on a half-eaten sandwich that has been left on a wooden table in the nearby pub garden. I slip out of my raincoat and throw it onto the back seat. Saunders keeps his jacket on.
‘It’s around here, on the seafront, according to Google Maps,’ says Saunders, glancing at his phone and nearly getting knocked over by a cyclist.
‘Oi, watch it, mate,’ the cyclist calls back over his shoulder.
‘He should be careful who he’s speaking to,’ mutters Saunders, darkly, under his breath. Something is definitely up with him. Maybe he’s still feeling ill, but this isn’t like him. Normally I can’t shut him up. I actually feel a pang of nostalgia for the old Saunders, which I’d never thought I’d experience.
Anthony Butterworth’s guesthouse is a powder-blue Victorian building overlooking the bay, with black-painted window frames and a white front door, which is open when we arrive. Saunders glances at me, shrugs and steps over the threshold into the hallway. The red and gold swirly carpet is so loud it would deafen us all at karaoke, and Saunders looks queasy again. ‘Wow, this is an assault on the senses,’ he says. ‘Imagine coming here with a hangover –’
He’s interrupted by an inner door opening to reveal a slightly harassed-looking man. He’s a few years older than Saunders, I’d say, maybe mid thirties, with a receding hairline and piercing blue eyes. He’s still good-looking but I imagine he would have been very handsome in his youth. Is this our Ash?
‘Are you looking for a room?’ he asks us. ‘Or here to check in?’
I explain who we are and show him our identification. He looks resigned, as though he’s used to being visited by police. He shows us through an empty dining room into a cosy sitting room. A white Persian cat is curled up in the corner of a navy blue linen sofa, leaving a smattering of hairs on the nearby cushion. He sits on a chair opposite while we take the sofa. ‘So, what can I do for you?’