He caught her round the waist with his free arm and hugged her, relieved that a day in the hills with Caroline seemed to have broken down her hostility. It unsettled Kit when things were scratchy between them, but he’d realized early on that he would either have to get used to that or learn to apologize even when he didn’t believe he was in the wrong. Now, he mostly gave in, for the sake of a quiet life. But sometimes, he dug his heels in, tolerating the edgy atmosphere for as long as it took for Fiona to acknowledge she might possibly have been less than right. “Did you have a good day, then?” he asked.
“We were lucky with the weather,” Fiona said, perching on the arm of his chair. “We did about ten miles; great views.”
Georgia shuddered. “Ten miles? I don’t know how you do it, Fiona, I really don’t. Wouldn’t you rather be tucked up somewhere warm and cosy with this delicious man?”
“The two are not mutually exclusive, Georgia,” Fiona said. “I enjoy the exercise.”
Georgia’s smile was the equivalent of a teacher patting a small child on the head. “I’ve always preferred to take my exercise indoors,” she said.
Fiona refused to rise. “So, how are you, Georgia? I hear you’re feeling a bit nervous about your safety.”
Georgia immediately switched on an expression of tragedy. “Poor, poor Drew. Such a terrible fate, and such a dreadful loss to us all.”
“I didn’t realize you knew Drew,” Fiona said, trying not to sound as bitchy as she felt.
“I meant his work, Fiona, dear. To see such talent snuffed out so young is indescribably tragic.”
Fiona resisted the impulse to gag. “But surely, Drew’s death is no reason for you to feel under threat?” she asked.
“That’s why Georgia’s here,” Kit interrupted. He didn’t want the sparring between the two women to drive Fiona from the room. It had happened before; rather than allow it to develop into all-out hostility that might damage the unlikely friendship between Kit and Georgia, Fiona would invariably remove herself from the fray. Tonight, however, he wanted her to stay.
“Absolutely, my dear. When Kit told me about the terrible letter he’d had, I knew at once I had to come. He was taking it so lightly, you see. And when he told me your reaction, I knew I had an ally in you, my dear.” She gave Fiona the benefit of the full radiance of her cosmetically enhanced smile.
“Georgia’s had a letter like mine,” Kit said. “Show it to Fiona it must be from the same person.”
Georgia picked up a folded piece of paper from the occasional table by the sofa. She held it out, forcing Fiona to get up and collect it from her. Fiona crossed to the other armchair before she opened it and studied it. The paper and the typeface looked the same as Kit’s letter. And the style was similar. As far as she could recall, whole sentences were identical. Georgia Lester, she read, you call yourself a Queen of Crime, but all you are monarch of is plagiarism and protectionism. Your fame is based on what you have stolen from others. You give no credit where it is due and your lies deprive others of what is rightfully theirs. Your work is a feeble reflection of other people’s light. You would be nothing without the ideas of others to feed on. You have striven to ensure that competition is driven from the field. When you could have offered help, you have trampled the faces of those who are greater than you will ever be. You are a vampire who sucks the blood of those whose gifts you envy. You know this to be true. Search your sluttish soul and you will not be able to deny what you have deprived me of. The time has come for you to pay. You deserve nothing from me but my contempt and my hatred. If killing you is what it takes to grant what is rightfully mine, then so be it. The hour and the day will be of my choosing. I trust you will not sleep easy; you do not deserve so to do. I will enjoy your funeral. From your ashes, I will rise like a phoenix.
Fiona carefully folded the letter closed. She had no doubt it had come from the same source as the one that had so disturbed her a couple of nights before. “When did you get this, Georgia?”
Georgia waved one hand negligently. “A fortnight ago? I can’t be sure. I came back from Dorset last Tuesday and it was among the mail waiting for me.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
Georgia stroked the hair over her right temple. “To be honest, I thought it must be one of those crank letters Kit tells me he gets regularly. It’s not something I’ve ever had much experience of the letters I get are invariably from admirers. My work is so much less provocative than Kit’s, you see. But when Kit told me he’d had so similar a letter, I felt sure we shouldn’t ignore them. In the light of Drew’s murder, I mean.”
“Georgia thinks we should take them to the police,” Kit said. “Like you.”
Fiona looked at him in dismay. She was caught on the horns of a dilemma of her own making. While she found the letters profoundly disturbing, she was also loath to take any course of action that would link Kit with Georgia in the eyes of both police and public. If they took these letters to the police, then within twenty-four hours, a media circus would descend upon them. Whatever Georgia might promise here and now, Fiona knew the lure of publicity would be far too strong for her to resist. It would be a nightmare.
Not only would the invasion of her and Kit’s privacy be hideous. But if he didn’t have a stalker before, he soon would have. Photographs of their house would appear in the tabloids, an easily identifiable target for any of the seriously strange who found something in his books that tapped into their own mental frailties. She knew she wasn’t being paranoid; they knew at least one crime writer whose life had been rendered so intolerable by a stalker that the family had been forced to move house and to change their children’s schools.
But she was the one who had pushed so hard for action when Kit had received his death threat. If she was going to change her tune now, she’d better have a good reason lined up. “I agree you should take them seriously,” she said cautiously. “But I’m not convinced that anything would be gained by taking these letters to the police. As you said yourself, Kit, there’s little they could do with them. It’s not likely there will be any forensics on the letters, they offer no clues to the sender’s identity, and the police don’t have the resources to protect either of you. All it would do would be to attract unwelcome attention to the pair of you from the very kind of person you’re nervous of.”
Kit looked faintly baffled. “That’s not what you said the other night.”
Fiona gave an embarrassed smile and half-shrug. “I’ve been giving it some thought today. I realized I was overreacting and that you were right.”
Kit’s eyebrows rose. “Can I have that in writing?” he said.
“That’s all very well,” Georgia said, her mouth drooping in petulance. “But we could be at serious risk here. Are you seriously suggesting that we forget all about this, Fiona?”
Fiona shook her head. “Of course not, Georgia. You and Kit must take every care.” She forced an artificial smile. “I understand you wanted your publisher to provide you with bodyguards for your book tour? That would be a good place to start.”
Kit stared at them, open-mouthed. He couldn’t believe Fiona had kept a straight face. “You want me to get a minder?” he asked, incredulous.