Whisper For The Reaper, Jack Gatland [good books for high schoolers txt] 📗

too close as she brushed his arm on her way to the microphone. They’ve read everything.

‘And now if you bring your purchased books to the signing table, Thomas will sign them for you,’ she gushed with excitement.

As Thomas closed the book on the lectern and walked across the event space to the table that had been set aside for his signing, a woman moved in front of him, effectively blocking his way. She was in her late thirties, scarily thin and with her hair scraped back into a bun, giving her the look of a stern governess a good decade older.

‘Mister Williams, before you start, can I have a moment?’ she asked.

‘I have a signing,’ Thomas smiled politely. ‘I can write whatever you want when—‘

‘Oh, I’m not one of them,’ the woman replied, glancing around in disgust. ‘My name’s Louise Hart. I’m doing a piece on Reginald Troughton. You said he was in Scotland?’

‘I believe so,’ Thomas glanced around for the manager, hoping that she could step in, do her bloody job and move this woman away. He didn’t want to move her; someone could always misconstrue such things in this day and age.

‘I spoke to him yesterday,’ Louise replied. ‘In London. And he didn’t seem to have any flu-like symptoms then.’

‘Well, all I can go on is what my publisher told me,’ Thomas really wanted to move on now as he faked a concerned expression for the woman. ‘I’ll check on him later today. I’m sorry.’

‘Well, if I can just ask—‘ God, the woman simply wouldn’t take a hint.

The smile faded, and Thomas moved closer.

‘Look, I’ve had a very long day, Miss Hart, and I don’t have time for interviews. If you want to talk to me, you can get me through my talent agent…’

He stopped as he looked at Louise properly for the first time. ‘Have we met before?’

‘Yes, we have,’ Louise’s face was emotionless now. ‘Not that you’d remember, or give a damn about. Have a nice day, Mister Williams.’

And as quickly as she’d arrived, Louise Hart left, Thomas now standing alone and confused where he knew her from. The audience were now patiently lining up before the table, each with books in their hands, but before he could move towards them, Jane now approached. Thomas looked towards the manager, nodding apologetically, and she smiled and nodded back at him in a ‘no worries’ manner. The last thing she was going to do was stop two members from the Magpies from chatting to each other in her store. This was something that hadn’t happened in years, and she could see that the audience, while waiting for the signature, were very aware of the history happening beside them.

‘Thanks for outing me,’ Jane smiled.

‘It was the least I could do,’ Thomas said, shrugging. ‘So what's it been, five years?’

‘Seven.’

‘Wow. How’s—‘

‘He's fine,’ Jane interrupted. ‘We both are.’

One fan, a middle-aged lady with a book in her hand, who simply hadn’t garnered the basic fact that you left the talent alone, walked up to them, breaking the moment.

‘Hi, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was hoping you could sign this?’ she said to Jane. ‘You're Jane Taylor, right?’

‘Actually, it's Ashton now,’ Jane replied, glancing to Thomas as she said so.

‘Oh, like Luke Ashton?’

‘Exactly like that.’

The lady paused at this sudden revelation. ‘Oh. Wow.’

Thomas forced a smile as he leaned in.

‘I’m sorry, we haven't seen each other for a while and only have a moment before I start my signing. Over there. Where you should be queuing,’ he showed the line of now irritated women. ‘Do you mind?’

As the lady finally got the hint and reluctantly left them, Thomas looked back to Jane.

‘Can you wait around until after?’ he asked softly. ‘Catch up?’

Jane nodded, as Thomas grabbed and squeezed her hand before walking over to the signing desk to more applause.

Jane, meanwhile, pulled out her phone and, after reading a recently arrived text on it, turned it off.

The office in the Temple inn apartment had never been tidy, but now it looked like a bomb had hit it. Or, more accurately, that a fight had occurred there, a vicious beating of a sixty-five-year-old man.

A photo frame, one that held the same publicity photo that Waterstones had used of the Magpies, was now discarded, broken on the floor, the glass smashed by the impact of a shoe’s heel on it. A red smear of blood had been wiped across the broken glass, covering all the faces in the photo, smeared by the blood covered hand of Reginald Troughton, whose glassy, dead eyes stared vacantly ahead, as he lay face down on the carpet, his arm, stretched out rested beside the frame, as if his last act had been to smear the photo with his own blood in some kind of message, or act of defiance.

Beside his body, the killer had also left the bloodied tyre iron on the floor, the end slick with the author’s blood.

Reginald Troughton would never finish his tell-all adventure.

And the Magpies no longer existed to solve his murder.

Released 6th June 2021

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Acknowledgements

Although I’ve been writing for three decades under my real name, these Declan Walsh novels are a first for me; a new name, a new medium and a new lead character.

There are people I need to thank, and they know who they are. To the ones who started me on this path over a coffee during a pandemic to the ones who zoom-called me and gave me advice, the ones on various Facebook groups who encouraged me when I didn’t know if I could even do this, who gave advice on cover