Preface to Murder, M Morris [best selling autobiographies TXT] 📗

‘Bone health,’ repeated Bridget, making Harry look embarrassed. ‘Well, it’s a start, I suppose,’ she added encouragingly. It was certainly more than anyone else in the team had managed. ‘Ryan, why don’t you see if you can find out any more? We have a world-class university in this city. There must be someone who can help us out.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Ryan, but he didn’t sound too hopeful.

‘Andy, I’d like you to look into the finances of the publishing company that published Diane’s book. Find out if it has any problems.’

‘Will do.’

‘And Harry’ – Bridget’s gaze came to rest on the most junior member of her team – ‘help out with anyone who needs you.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘In the meantime,’ she said, ‘I’m going to see Diane’s agent, Grant Sadler again. He was one of the people who advised Diane to take the death threat seriously. I want to see if he can shed any more light on the matter.’

*

A Deadly Race might be on its way to becoming an international bestseller, but Grant Sadler had apparently resisted any temptation to upgrade his accommodation from the splendours of the Travelodge on the Abingdon Road. When Bridget phoned him, he was just leaving the hotel’s reception. ‘I’m about to catch the bus into the centre of Oxford,’ he told her. ‘I want to call in at Blackwell’s to stock up on some books before heading back to London.’

‘No problem,’ said Bridget. ‘I can meet you there.’

Located on Broad Street between the White Horse pub and the Weston Library, and directly opposite the Sheldonian Theatre, Blackwell’s was Oxford’s academic bookshop. The rather quaint exterior of the old, four-storey town houses that comprised the shop – shuttered, box-sash windows and dormers in the attic – belied its expansive interior. Bridget had spent countless hours there as a student, browsing the shelves of the history and literature sections and wishing that there was more time in the world to read all the books that vied for her attention.

When she arrived, she found the ground floor bustling with the usual mix of booklovers and tourists. This was where the bookshop pandered to popular taste and did its best to extract as much cash as possible from Oxford’s large number of visitors. Books shortlisted for literary prizes competed with the latest thrillers from household names. Being Oxford, there were tables piled high with anything with a local connection. Books by Tolkien, C.S Lewis, Lewis Carroll and Colin Dexter were in abundance. A table near the front of the store was stacked with copies of Diane Gilbert’s latest book, a newcomer to the ranks of bestsellers, attributable, as Bridget knew, as much to the circumstances of her death as to its readability.

Grant Sadler had told her that she would find him in the Norrington Room, and so Bridget steered a path past stacks of Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter, and headed towards the stairs that led to the lower levels. Most tourists never made it this far, but they didn’t know what they were missing. Never mind Alice in Wonderland, the basement of Blackwell’s, named after Sir Arthur Norrington, one-time President of Trinity College, was simply a wonderland of books. The vast underground chamber, arranged on multiple levels, always made Bridget’s spine tingle with excitement, as if she were entering a cathedral of words.

She descended a flight of stairs, following the black and white subject signs that hung from wires in the ceiling, searching for Grant Sadler amongst the book shelves. After passing through a corridor whose walls were towering bookcases she turned a corner and spotted him in the lowest part of the room and took a second staircase down to meet him.

Up close, his appearance was even worse than the previous time Bridget had encountered him. His hair stood on end, his face was unshaven, and his eyes were enclosed by dark rings. He looked as if he’d had no sleep and had tumbled straight out of bed.

‘Mr Sadler?’

He was engrossed in a book and hadn’t noticed her approaching. He jumped at the sound of his name and a slip of paper fluttered to the floor near Bridget’s feet. She stooped to pick it up. The paper held a shopping list of book titles. His arms were already full of books.

She was about to hand the paper to him, but something held her back. She stopped to study the list of titles. There was nothing remarkable about the titles themselves, but that wasn’t what had caught her attention. It was the handwriting. She studied it closely to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. But no, there was that distinctive curling of the capital “C”, the rightward slope of the cursive script as it hurried across the page, and the final flourish on the end of letters like “g” and “y” that looped below the line. There was no need to be a forensic handwriting expert. The likeness was plain enough for anyone to see.

Grant Sadler was the author of the death threat. He hadn’t even bothered to disguise his handwriting.

He looked at her expectantly, a nervous smile twitching his lips. ‘Does there seem to be a problem?’

‘Grant Sadler,’ she said. ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Diane Gilbert.’

26

Grant Sadler sat across the table from Bridget, a quivering mass of nerves. His fingers trembled and his hands moved repeatedly to scratch at his face or push back his hair. Beneath the table, his knee bounced up and down so violently she could hear it knocking against the wood. His head turned at the slightest sound from the corridor outside the interview room.

Bridget felt no sympathy.

His lawyer sat at his side, his hair neatly combed, his hands folded in front of him, a model of stillness and neatness in contrast