I cant get my head round it, he said, his voice muffled. It makes no sense.
Fiona said nothing. She just held on tight to him until she felt his body start to relax against her. Where did it come from? she asked eventually.
It was in the post. I was busy when the second delivery came; I didnt bother picking it off the that till I was going out. I stuck it in the office. I wasnt expecting anything urgent.
Have you got the envelope?
He nodded. Its in the bin, I just chucked it automatically. He went into his office. Fiona followed him into the chaos of books and papers that covered all of the available surfaces and half of the floor. Not for the first time, she marvelled that anyone could work in such a clutter. But Kit not only worked here, he also seemed to have total recall when it came to the site of any particular book, file or letter. He went straight to the wastepaper bin by the desk and fished out a plain-white self-sealing envelope. He studied it with a frown. Fiona put an arm round his waist and looked at it with him. The address had been printed in the same anonymous typeface.
West London postmark. Posted two days ago with a second-class stamp, he said. He gave a snort of nervous laughter. Well, its obviously not an urgent death threat. I suppose that should be some sort of consolation.
You should report this to the police, Fiona said decisively.
Kit dropped the envelope on top of his keyboard. You think so? He sounded sceptical.
I do, yes. Its a really nasty letter. Its a death threat, for Gods sake!
Kit dropped into his chair, swinging round to face her. I get nasty letters all the time, love. Not death threats, admittedly, but in among the fan mail, I regularly get letters slagging off me and my books. Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells is horrified by the torture scenes in The Dissection Man. Ms Censor of Lambeth is appalled that teenagers have access to the depraved sexual fantasies in The Blade King. And then there are the ones who accuse me of being gutless for not writing about grotesque mutilation and sexual perversion in more detail. Its not all fan mail, you know.
How do they get your address? Fiona demanded, suddenly struck with an uncomfortable vision of mentally unstable readers beating a path to her front door.
Kit shrugged. I dont know. Mostly, they come via my publisher. Some on e mail. One or two of the more obsessive types have probably trawled the voters roll for Dartmouth Park. Im not that hard to find, love.
Fiona shivered. That letter was bad enough. But now youre really scaring me. Honestly, Kit, I think you should take this to the police.
He picked up a pencil and fiddled with it restlessly. Theyd laugh at me, Fiona. Its just a crank letter. Theres nothing specific in it. All it says is that I nick other peoples ideas. Which is bullshit. Its just some nutter with a bee in his bonnet.
Fiona looked unconvinced. I dont think you should be taking this so lightly, Kit. I really dont. She turned away and crossed to the window, where, as usual, the blind was raised. Impatiently, she tugged the cord to shut them off from the outside world. Anything to avoid saying what was uppermost in her mind.
Its not that Im taking it lightly. Its the police that would think I was wasting their time. Anyway, why should I react to this, any more than the rest of the offensive mail Ive had in the past? Ive been getting letters from nutters ever since I was first published. Its no big deal. Honestly. It was a shock, thats all. You dont often get them so vitriolic. But nothings ever come of a letter before, so I dont see why this should be any different. He was, he knew, protesting too much. But he didnt want to be scared. He wanted this letter to be in the same class as every other piece of hate mail that had ever dropped on the doormat. Any other response opened a door he wanted to keep firmly closed.
But Fiona was determined to articulate what was in both their minds, however unpalatable it might be. After what happened to Drew, I dont think you can afford to ignore this, she said quietly.
I knew you were going to say that, Kit said irritably. I knew I should never have let you see it. Christ, Fiona, you always have to analyse things, to connect them. Well, sometimes things just dont connect. They are separate. They just are. OK?
No, its not OK. Fiona raised her voice, her cheeks flushing. Why are you so resistant to this? Two weeks ago, one of your colleagues was murdered in a horrible, ritualistic way. Now you get a death threat, and you dont think the two might be connected? Reality check, Kit!
He slammed the pencil down on the desk. The only connection between this letter and what happened to Drew is that some fuck wit thinks it would be clever to take advantage of his murder to put the shits up me. You read the letter, Fiona. That wasnt written by the person who killed Drew. Theres no specifics in it, no boasting, none of that, Youll get whats coming to you, like Drew Shand did.
But Fiona was determined to articulate what was in both their minds, however unpalatable it might be. After what happened to Drew, I dont think you can afford to ignore this, she said quietly.
I knew you were going to say that, Kit said irritably. I knew I should never have let you see it. Christ, Fiona, you always have to analyse things, to connect them. Well, sometimes things just dont connect. They are separate. They just are. OK?
No, its not OK. Fiona raised her voice, her cheeks flushing. Why are you so resistant to this? Two weeks ago, one of your colleagues was murdered in a horrible, ritualistic way. Now you get a death threat, and you dont think the two might be connected? Reality check, Kit!
He slammed the pencil down on the desk. The only connection between this letter and what happened to Drew is that some fuck wit thinks it would be clever to take advantage of his murder to put the shits up me. You read the letter, Fiona. That wasnt written by the person who killed Drew. Theres no specifics in it, no boasting, none of that, Youll get whats coming to you, like Drew Shand did.
That doesnt prove a thing, Fiona stormed. That letter was written by somebody who is off the scale of normal. So was Drews killer.
Kit got to his feet and hit the wall with the side of his fist. So were Fred and Rosemary West, but Im pretty sure it wasnt them that wrote this. Look, Fiona. If I go to the police with something as flaky as this, you know what theyre going to say.
She folded her arms tight across her chest. Enlighten me.
Theyre going to say Im doing a Georgia. Theyll write it off as bandwagon-jumping. Publicity-seeking. Theyre not going to take it seriously. What can they do anyway? Send it off to the labs on the off-chance that my correspondent has conveniently left fingerprints and DNA all over it? I dont think so.
Fiona couldnt resist the truth in what he said. She knew he was probably right. But that knowledge did nothing to assuage the chilly lump of apprehension in her stomach. That someone hated Kit or his work enough to pour out such venom on the page was unnerving. To fear that poison might escalate into real violence was, in her opinion, an entirely reasonable reaction.
She pushed past him and into the hall. In the doorway, she turned. Its your decision. Its your letter. But I think youre wrong.
So whats new? He turned his back on her. Ill live with it. Extract from Decoding of Exhibit P134599 Tqsaf mxafa ruzwp dqiet mzp. Mxxah qdftq bmbqd etqim e. Ngfft qkpup zfsqf uf. Qhqdk napkt mpftq udaiz ftqad kmzpz afazq arftq yomyq oxaeq.
He got a lot of ink, Drew Shand. But they didnt get It. Everybody had their own theory and not one of them came close. They soon will, though. Me, Ive been keeping my head down, being a good little boy, not attracting any attention. Not that anybody is paying any attention. Which means I had no interference with the next stage of my plan. Jane Ellas. Shes American, but lives In Ireland; probably because writers dont pay any tax there. The bitch wasnt satisfied with earning more money than Cod, she wanted to keep it all. It wasnt hard to find where she was living. You can maybe get away with being a recluse somewhere the size of America, but not in Ireland. I knew she had a big estate in County Wicklow, on the shores of a lake. I knew it was about an hours drive from Dublin. One of the fan sites on the web had a picture of the house. So I just drove around for a day with a large-scale map and a pair of binoculars till I found it. The next morning, I went back down to Ellass estate. I cut down to the shoreline of the lake when I saw what I was looking for a sailing club with lots of little dinghies pulled up on the concrete ramp. There was nobody about. It couldnt have been better. I hunkered down among the boats and checked out Eliass property on the other side of the water. I could just make out a landing stage with a couple of boats tied up alongside. If my information was right, she would come down to the lake sometime in the afternoon and go sailing. Sure enough she appeared just after two. She got on one of the boats and went sailing off across the lake. I waited till it got dark and shed gone back, then I dragged one of the dinghies down to the waters edge and climbed aboard. Id sussed a hiding place earlier, further up the lake where the trees came right down to the waters edge. I was feeling really edgy again with the prospect of what I was going to have to do the next day. There were so many mistakes I could make that would blow it. And then I had to do the killing again. I decided I wasnt going to stick to the book as closely this time. There was no way I was going to torture somebody for hours. I knew I didnt have the stomach for it. And besides, I didnt have the time or the place for something so elaborate. What I would do, I decided, was to kill her quickly with a knife. Then I could do the things to her body that would make it look like the body in the book. Its the appearance thats important. Im not some fetishistic killer who has to obsess about all the details. What Im doing is sending a message, not satisfying some weird urge inside myself. If there was another way of showing those bastards that they cant get away with discounting me and my life, Id have chosen it. Im trying not to think about what Ill have to do to her. My stomachs queasy enough without making it worse. I just have to keep telling myself it wont take long, and then Ill be on the road home. Theyll have to pay attention this time.