Chapter 9

Baz’s mouth was moving but no sound was coming out of it. “There must have been something,” Lindsay persisted. “Nobody has a copy of the book—not you, not her agent, and certainly not Meredith. Her laptop and her back-up disks have gone missing. There must have been something in there that someone wanted to keep hidden.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Baz finally said. “It’s only a novel, for God’s sake. Nobody thinks fiction’s important enough to kill over it!”

Lindsay shrugged. “Why else use such an outrageous murder method? It’s ridiculous. Who’d go to all that bother when they could just have picked up a bottle and cracked her over the head with it? It’s as if the killer was leaving a message: ‘Anybody else in the know that’s thinking about messing with me, don’t do it!’ ”

“You’re wrong,” Baz said desperately. “You’ve got to be wrong. There must be something else behind it.”

“Convince me. What’s Heart of Glass about?”

“It’s a thriller.”

“About?”

Baz sighed. “It’s a really complicated plot with a lot of psychological suspense that centers around a writer. Every time this guy imagines something, it happens. So he decides to try and see if he can get rid of all the people he hates by writing their deaths into his books. In parallel with that, you’ve got a surgeon who is a particularly gruesome killer. And their two lives collide via the surgeon’s wife, who is the writer’s editor. It’s ‘a roller-coaster ride of horror,’ according to the catalog copy I wrote six weeks ago. Which reminds me that I have a bloody big hole to fill in next spring’s list.” She poked around among the papers on her desk, as if to indicate that she had far more important things to do than talk to Lindsay.

“Sounds like it would have walked straight on to the best-seller lists. What a pity Penny isn’t going to be able to finish it,” Lindsay said ironically. “But that still doesn’t answer why someone would want the book suppressed. Was there anything in it that seemed potentially libellous to you?”

Before Baz could answer, there was a tap on the partition behind Lindsay’s head. She turned to see a man’s face grinning at her. “Sorry to butt in,” he said in a strong London accent. “Whenever you like, Baz.”

“Be right there,” Baz said, getting to her feet.

The man moved into the doorway. He looked to be around forty, with dark wavy hair that needed trimming and creamy white skin that showed no trace of the freakishly sunny summer weather. His smile was cheeky and cheerful, the lines in his face revealing it as a familiar expression. It was his eyes that caught the attention, however; the same blue as the denim shirt he wore, they sparkled like sapphires even in the artificial light of the office. He angled his head to one side, like a bird listening for underground movement, and said, “And you must be the mystery visitor who’s come to talk about Penny’s tragic death, am I right?”