So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 Page 12

  "And I'm a designated Orc?"

  Peter nodded.

  I held out my empty glass to Peter and let him fill it to the top.

  Chapter 38—Plantagenet

  Plant could hardly believe the horrors that were happening to him. These people all seemed to think he was responsible for what happened to poor Neville.

  They took his clothes and gave him an awful tracksuit thing to wear. Something between battleship gray and dirty navy. Remarkably itchy. They even took his shoes and gave him a pair of flimsy plastic slippers. Like toe-less Crocs. Not warm. Then they took photographs and fingerprinted him and took a swab to the inside of his cheek for DNA.

  It was all so humiliating.

  Murder. They thought he'd killed another human being. On purpose.

  A human being he had been pretty sure didn't even exist until he saw him dead.

  Poor guy. So young. Whatever he'd been involved in at the Old Vic, young Neville didn't deserve what had happened.

  The police seemed to think Plant had something to do with the Old Vic catastrophe, as well. Although he wasn't quite sure what.

  He wasn't sure of anything.

  Except that he was in jail. A horrible, smelly, ugly jail. His cell—euphemistically dubbed a "custody suite"—was a tiny, barren little room. No bars on one side like an American jail. Just four cracked plaster walls painted a foggy gray-blue. He would have preferred bars. They might have given him some glimpse of other humans.

  As it was, he felt completely adrift and alone in his own stinky little cloud. He didn't want to think too much about the components of the stink, but the toilet—his only piece of furniture aside from the concrete block of a bed—was obviously a predominant source.

  In fact, it was very like being locked in a public restroom at a highway gas station in one of the less prosperous cities of the rust belt.

  At one point, a guard had told him he could make a phone call. But only inside the UK. Of course Plant knew nobody here—except the screenwriting hotel clerk Alfred. And his awful script seemed to be one of the reasons Plant was going through this.

  Pooh and Piglet had disappeared last night when he'd asked for a lawyer. He didn't know if they'd be back.

  Or even if they had regular lawyers in this country. They called them barristers or something. They wore funny wigs.

  He pictured some blustery Rumpole of the Bailey type coming to his rescue. But that didn't make him feel much better.

  Mostly his mind was filled with the image of Neville, lying in that pool of blood. Such a lot of it. Spattered on the stone battlements. So awful.

  How could anybody have done that to another human being?

  And why did they think Plant had done it? He was an American. If Americans wanted to kill people they used guns. Not large, showy knives. Which must have been what killed the poor man. Nothing else would produce that much blood.

  It had to be something very Crocodile Dundee. Couldn't they find a suitable Aussie to pin it on?

  He could only pray that the police would find the murder weapon. Of course at a venue like the Old Hall, where half the people carried some sort of medieval weaponry, that was going to be difficult.

  He spent a miserable night in his cell on the inadequate, smelly mattress that topped his concrete bed, drifting in and out of fitful sleep. It was tough to fall asleep without a book. He always read before going to bed. But here he was with no book, no TV, not even a radio.

  Only the cold and dreadful silence.

  And one scratchy wool blanket. Where did they find such a primitive artifact in the era of polyester? The brownish thing had to be some sort of World War II surplus.

  He lay under it, shivering, trying to think rational thoughts. Not easy when he was still jet-lagged and sleep deprived.

  But the deep sleep he needed so much eluded him. The smells that came from his mattress were so putrid he almost decided to lie on the bare concrete, but he could not have dealt with feeling any colder than he did already. Somehow he drifted off into a strange dream about Alfred the hotel clerk, who had developed enormous tusks, like a walrus.

  He woke to hear someone unlocking the metal door to his cell. Probably somebody bringing him another tasteless sandwich and dreadful coffee.

  Or Pooh and Piglet, with more enigmatic questions.

  But when the door opened, he saw a man he'd never met. A very young man. Probably of some sort of Asian descent. He was baby-faced and round, but wore an impeccably tailored suit.

  "Mr. Plantagenet?" the young man said. He gave a broad smile, displaying a gap between his front teeth that brought to mind the late Terry-Thomas.

  "My name is Sanjay Brumble," he said. "Of Mackerell, Greyling and Trought. I am your solicitor."

  Chapter 39—Camilla

  Luckily Peter didn't mind driving my Honda, even though it involved driving on the wrong side of the road for him.

  I still felt wobbly when we got back to the cottage.

  I checked for phone messages on my landline as soon as we got inside, but of course there was nothing.

  Plant was still AWOL. Things were getting scary now. Had these review/gamer people kidnapped him or something? They were obviously delusional and capable of anything. My fears for Plant brought me down to earth after my tipsy dinner.

  I decided to tell Peter I needed a shower. I probably did. I also needed some sobering up and time to think.

  Most of all, I needed not to be in Peter's presence, because he was looking more attractive by the minute and I did not want to make the mistake of falling for him again.

  Peter went off to play with my laptop and Buckingham padded along behind him, hardly glancing at me.

  I had to admit I was a little miffed that my new cat so obviously preferred Peter. I hoped I hadn't done anything to hurt Buckingham's feelings. Maybe his former owner had been a blondish scruffy haired guy or something.

  Peter had neatly hung up the green towels in the bathroom. He got points for good manners there.

  Once I got in the shower, I felt an overwhelming need to cry. Tears ran down my face along with the spray. I didn't know if I was crying for Ronzo or Plant or myself. It was all too sad and stupid.

  The stupidest thing of all was the fact Silas wouldn't return my calls. How could anybody be so childish and petty? He must know the name of the hotel where Plant was staying. He could at least give me that.

  I pulled on a clean sweatshirt and jeans—consciously not dressing up for Peter. I didn't even re-apply make-up and let my hair hang wet without blow-drying. I wanted to let Peter know I was not interested in rekindling our romantic relationship.

  But first I decided to call Silas again. Hawaii was two hours earlier. It would be 7 P.M. Dinner time. He wouldn't be meditating or whatever, so he could damn well pick up his phone. And even if he didn't, I was going to leave a stern message.

  I needed to know where Plant was. I felt like I was going to go crazy with not-knowing.

  "Bloody hell!" Peter shouted.

  I ran out to the living room

  Peter sat at my desk, typing away on my laptop.

  "More garden gnome abuse?" I said.

  "They're way beyond garden gnomes," he said. The sodding Yorkists have killed someone."

  I shivered. Now my damp hair felt clammy on my neck.

  "The people who are threatening me? They killed somebody? Who?"

  "Some poor bloke doing a reenactment of King Richard's visit to Swynsby."

  Peter turned and looked at me. He took a big breath as if he were about to say something, then shook his head.

  "What is it?" Whatever he was going to say, I needed to hear it. Nothing was worse than being kept in the dark.

  Peter showed me the website of The Daily Mail. "The British press have decided to be judge and jury here. Some bloody reporter has your friend Plantagenet as the prime suspect in the reenactor's murder."

  It featured a photograph of a crowd of people dressed in medieval garb in front of S
wynsby's Old Hall. In the foreground was Plantagenet, flanked by two determined-looking police officers.

  Peter stood and gave me a hug.

  "I'm so sorry, Camilla. I'll get to the bottom of this. I promise."

  Chapter 40—Plantagenet

  Sanjay Brumble kept smiling, which Plant found disconcerting. Mr. Brumble looked so young that Plant couldn't help thinking he was some teenaged boy play-acting at being a lawyer. Everyone he'd met here seemed to be play-acting in one way or another.

  He'd heard somebody on the plane say that England was on its way to becoming one big touristy theme park—maybe it had already happened.

  "Tell me your side of the story, Mr. Plantagenet," Sanjay said. "What happened yesterday at the reenactment at the Old Hall?"

  He set down an expensive looking briefcase on Plantagenet's bunk and opened it to pull out an iPad.

  "It's Mr. Smith," Plant said. "Plantagenet is my first name."

  "Ah!" Sanjay kept smiling as he tapped on his iPad. "A thousand pardons, Mr. Smith. I know how difficult it is to have an unusual surname, so I assumed...."

  Plant gave a guarded nod. He didn't want to alienate this young person who seemed to hold his fate in those pudgy hands.

  "The Brumbles are my adoptive parents," Sanjay explained, still beaming.

  "I was adopted too," Plant said.

  Maybe if they bonded over their odd names, this wouldn't feel so awkward and surreal. He was still groggy and had no idea of the time. Or even if it was day or night.

  "You must tell me everything, Mr. Smith," Sanjay said. "You and Mr. Neville Turnmarsh had a falling out?"

  "No, no," Plant said. "We didn't—that is I didn't know him well enough to fall out with him. I'd only met him once, the night of the bombing—or whatever it was—at the Old Vic."

  "So you two worked together on the bomb? Was Mr. Turnmarsh angry you claimed sole responsibility when speaking to the BBC?"

  Sanjay somehow kept smiling as he spoke this nonsense.

  "Responsibility? For a bombing? What are you talking about? Was it a bombing? I haven't seen any newspapers, so I don't know. The people I talked to thought it was an accident."

  "Then why did you announce to the world that you believe King Richard III should not have been buried at Leicester?"

  This was going from bad to worse.

  "That wasn't what I meant at all. I made a joke. A bad one. I'd just had a shock. And vodka. A stiff one. I hypothesized that the accident might have been caused by the ghost of Richard III, because that was the play we'd seen: Shakespeare's Richard III. Except I didn't get to see it. Not the second act. I got shut out because my iPhone had been stepped on and..."

  "Mr. Smith, you must not lie to me. The London police are not imbeciles. They found residue from the bomb on your raincoat, which had your airplane ticket stub in the pocket. You also spoke to the BBC about Richard's burial. The whole world saw it. Everybody knows you Plantagenets want him buried at York Minster."

  "We Plantagenets? I'm the only Plantagenet I know. I chose the name for exactly that reason. I thought it would be unique. I suppose it was pretentious of me, but what Princeton freshman isn't pretentious?"

  Sanjay's smile now looked more like a grimace.

  "Mr. Smith, I will not play games with you. Are you—or are you not—a member of the Plantagenet Circle?"

  "Not. I still have no idea what a Plantagenet Circle is. The first I heard of it was from Piglet and Pooh...that is, the detectives who interrogated me yesterday."

  Neville had indeed talked quite a bit about "the circle". He might have thought Plant was a member because of his name. That would make some sense.

  "Does this circle have something to do with the accident at the Old Vic?" Plant stood and looked Sanjay in the eye.

  "They have claimed responsibility, yes."

  "So you think I had something to do with this...bombing? You definitely think it was a bomb?"

  "What I think is not of the slightest consequence, Mr. Smith. What matters is what the investigators in London think. Will you answer my questions?"

  Sanjay's smile was gone. He gave Plant a long, penetrating look.

  "Of course." Plant figured he'd better wait to ask his own questions later. He sat at the end of the bunk and put on what he hoped was a cooperative expression.

  "You claim you are not a member of this group?"

  "Absolutely. I hadn't even heard the name until last night. Neville talked about a 'circle' but I had no idea it was a terrorist group. Or that it had anything to do with Plantagenets. To tell the truth, I thought it was some sort of Brit euphemism for gay. I also don't have the slightest interest in where King Richard III's poor old bones are buried."

  Sanjay raised an eyebrow at the mention of gay euphemisms, but otherwise showed no emotion as he took another swipe at his iPad.

  "Since you had in your possession a document that describes the placement of the bomb detonated at the Old Vic Theatre by this organization, the chaps in London think you look worthy of their attention. Of course in your written version, there is much more carnage. Your friends in the Circle are not very good at bomb-making, I hear."

  Maybe young Sanjay wasn't quite right in the head.

  "I am not friends with any circles, Plantagenet or otherwise—and I have no idea what you mean by a document. What document?" Plant was finding it tough to keep his cooperative face on.

  "You had a large typescript in your bag when you were detained. Do you deny it?"

  "Are you talking about Alfred's awful screenplay? The Kingdom of Perpetual Night? You read that thing?"

  "The document has that title, yes. And yes, I perused it in the evidence room. A copy has been sent to London. It describes a terrorist plot to force her majesty's government to bury King Richard III at York Minster, in a Catholic ceremony, with the Queen in attendance."

  "Dear Lord." Plant ran his fingers through his hair, realizing he probably did look like a terrorist. "I thought it might be something like that, from what the detectives said, but honestly, I didn't read the thing. I only got to page ten before I gave up. You've got to admit it's a terrible script. All that exposition..."

  "You claim you did not write this document?"

  "Of course I didn't. I'm a professional writer. That's a load of amateurish dreck. It was given to me by the desk clerk at my hotel in London. I'm sure somebody can verify it. Alfred, his name is. The clerk."

  "Why did he give it to you?"

  "Because he thinks I have clout in Hollywood. I have an Oscar, you see."

  Sanjay gave a harsh laugh.

  "Now you are a movie star? Mr. Smith, you must stop wasting my time."

  "I'm a screenwriter. I wrote Wilde in the West. It won an Academy Award five years ago. But five years is a long time in Hollywood years."

  "Wilde in the West? The film about Oscar Wilde and Calamity Jane? But that is a brilliant film! It was on Sky TV just last week." Sanjay's smile was back. He tapped on his iPad, studied it carefully and then let out a laugh. "So you are. Here is your name at IMDB. 'Screenplay by Plantagenet Smith'. This is your legal name?"

  "Yes, it is my legal name. It's on my passport. Which the police have taken. I do hope you can get it back soon."

  "You do not write under the name Alfred Duffield?'

  "I do not. And I have never written a screenplay that terrible. Well, at least not since my undergraduate days."

  Sanjay beamed as he tapped on his iPad.

  "Aha. Very interesting. I am delighted to have that sorted. You are not Alfred Duffield. You did not write this document. These are things that can be proved. Facts. Lovely facts. Now perhaps I can keep them from filing the charges."

  Plant heaved a sigh of relief. He knew that if the police didn't charge him, they had to let him go in a day or two. He'd watched enough BBC murder mysteries to know that.

  "You can keep them from filing charges?"

  "If your story can be verified by MI5, yes."

  "MI5? A
ren't they like the CIA? Spies and that sort of thing? I didn't know they dealt with murder cases."

  "They do not deal with local murder cases, no. They do deal with terrorism. And I believe I can prove you are not a terrorist."

  "And the murder charges?"

  "Oh, you will be charged with murder, Mr. Smith, I have no doubt. They are still gathering evidence, but they think they have a case. This is why they have applied to hold you past the usual 24 hours. They can hold you up to 96 hours when you are suspected of murder."

  Sanjay motioned to the custody officer and left the cell, still smiling.

  Chapter 41—Camilla

  I knew I shouldn't have done it, but it had seemed so right at the time.

  Last night was a blur. The news about Plant had been devastating, and Peter was there. So very much there—alive and powerful and protective.

  Also way too sexy for me to resist. I might even have been the one to make the first move. The memory was fuzzy, but I thought I remembered twirling the desk chair around and planting a kiss on his cute, smirky mouth.

  I had been a little tipsy. Well, more than a little.

  So now I had a hangover. And I'd overslept. And Peter was snoring beside me.

  I wasn't sure I wanted him to be there.

  I tried to sort the jumble in my brain as I took a quick shower. I had to get myself together so I could open the shop. Then I had to find a way to get hold of Silas Ryder, the creep. Did he even know his husband was all alone on the other side of the planet, accused of a murder he didn't commit?

  Well, I assumed he didn't commit it.

  According to The Daily Mail, the deceased was one Neville Turnmarsh, 34, a Tesco "customer delivery agent" originally from London, now living in Doncaster, whose hobby was reenacting scenes from English medieval history. From his photo on the website, it looked as if he'd been rather handsome, in a fierce, Russell Brand kind of way.

  I could imagine Plant would have found him attractive.