The Death List Read Free Page B

name?
    Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you, my correspondent continued. After all, some of the greatest writers hid behind nom de plumes. George Eliot, Mark Twain, Ross Macdonald, Ed McBain, J.J. Marric—yes, I know, Matt, it is rather a downward progression in terms of quality and you’re at the end of it, but you get my drift. I imagine you wanted to keep your two audiences unaware of your alter ego. Didn’t your publisher’s publicity department give you a hard time about that?
    Who was this guy? Not only had he found out my pseudonym, but he’d latched on to the fact that my former publicist had spent years trying to get me to be open about my music journalism in order, as she put it, “to make people realize how cool you are.” Well, I couldn’t be any cooler than I was now in career terms. Cool, as in stone-cold dead. But how did WD know all this?
    Anyway, Matt, I imagine you’re wondering how I came by this information. Well, that’ll remain my little secret, for the time being at least. If we come to an agreement, as I’m sure we will, I’ll try to be more forthcoming.
    Agreement? What agreement? The only time I’d made an agreement by e-mail with a fan was when a woman called Bev pestered me into meeting her in a Soho pub. She was bigger than I was, not to mention more pissed and substantially more determined to exchange saliva. Fortunately I was a faster runner. Just.
    You see, Matt, I have an ongoing project that I think you might be interested in. Before you get too uncomfortable, let me assure you that this is a genuine business proposition. And, as the blessed Zog says in Tirana Blues, “business only works on a cash-up-front basis, my friend.” I seem to remember Sir Tertius saying something similar, except that gold was the commodity required rather than money. Your investigators are nothing if not careful in their financial dealings. It’s a pity you don’t share their acumen!
    Arsehole. I was getting irritated now. When I got to the end of WD’s message, I was going to have a lot of fun telling him where to stick his business proposition. The idiot probably wanted to flog me his life story. Why was it that people couldn’t see how boring their lives were?
    You’re getting a bit hot under the collar now, Matt, so let’s take a short break. Why don’t you go downstairs and see if there’s been another mail delivery? I know, it’s a bit unlikely, but you never know your luck. Go on, Matt. No time to lose.
    What the…? I leaned back in the ridiculously expensive leather chair that I’d bought with my first advance and had somehow managed to keep my hands on in the divorce settlement. Where did this guy get off? I looked at the screen. There was a gap between the line I’d just read and the continuation of the text. A gap that I was supposed to fill by going downstairs and—I sat up straight. How did WD know that I had to go downstairs to get the mail? Even the most wet-behind-the-ears crime novelists knew not to reveal their home addresses to punters. There were too many weird specimens out there, too many crazies. So how had he found out? Was he just guessing? Most people probably did have their studies upstairs.
    I looked back at the message and scrolled down. It continued with the words I understand your confusion, Matt. You’re wondering how I know that you have to go downstairs, aren’t you? That’s another of my secrets, to be revealed if you behave. Now, don’t mess me about. GO AND CHECK THE MAIL!!!!
    I pushed my chair back on its rollers. What the hell? I could do with stretching my legs, anyway. The pounding my body had taken playing amateur rugby league from my time at university until a couple of years ago meant that my muscles and joints stiffened up all the time. Besides, WD had piqued my curiosity.
    I saw the brown paper package lying on the floor when I was halfway down the stairs. It was one of those bubble-filled envelopes, A4 size. There was something