Cinnamon and the Mystery

CINNAMON AND THE MYSTERY

"Where did she go ? Out. What did she do ? Everything."
- The Ballad of Halo Jones, Alan Moore

The problem with female bosses, mused Cinnamon as she eyed up the man
at the next table who was reading his paper and not eating his toast,
is that you can never shag your way out of trouble.

It had been about three weeks since her last paycheque from the Temping
Agency and there was no sign of a job on the horizon. With hindsight,
it had been more of a case of shagging herself into trouble, having
added a man called David Stafford to her List at a staff party.

Unfortunately, this had been shortly before his wedding, which had been
cancelled at great expense, the bride-to-be being amongst the assembled
throng that witnessed Cinnamon and David emerge from the cupboard where
the Toner was kept. Cinnamon had twisted her ankle too, when the heel
of her shoe went through the lid of a box of copier paper.

This had been reported back to the Agency and Cinnamon really didn't
expect the work to come in now unless the Agency got really desperate.
She wasn't altogether sure that she was happy working for a company
called "Temp Rising" anyway.

It didn't really fit her mental picture of being a "lady who lunches".
She was more the lady who goes out to buy prawn mayonnaise sandwiches
for people at present, and that was surely going to have to
change.

The other downside to temping, was the way people looked at you when
you left the surname box blank on the induction form. As if you'd
forgotten, or were some sort of idiot. Even when she wrote N/A,
personnel still came back to her, to query what her surname actually
was. It wasn't Cinnamon anything. Hadn't these people ever heard of
Cher, or Madonna?

There wasn't much glamour in the gray world of Temping, just endlessly
going the wrong way to the photocopier room, being hit on by young men
with pimples and Top Man suits because you were fresh meat, sitting at
a desk that either was absent of any personality, or worse that clearly
belonged to someone else and it was their bottle of Tippex that you
were using, their diary.

Cinnamon made a final decision that no matter what happened, she was
not going back to Temping.

For the last two years, she had lived this ordinary existence and it
simply wasn't right for her. She had never wanted to be ordinary. She
rarely had doubts or questioned her self-esteem; Cinnamon was someone
who knew, to her very core, that she was special. It was just that it
took time to get recognized.

There wasn't enough fame in the world for the people who needed it. In
the forties and fifties, when hardly anyone had televisions, there were
about enough famous people to keep everyone happy. But now, even with
the advance of multi-screen cinemas and satellite television, the
supply of people who wanted, needed to be famous, was far outstripping
the demand.

Even as television and the trashy magazines consumed them, wanting ever
more micro-celebrities, ones with shelf-lives shorter than cheese and
Cornish pasties, there were still too many people just anxious for
their chance. There would never be a way to allow everyone who desired
fame to have it. Andy Warhol was wrong. More and more people will get
shorter slices of fame, but there will never be enough for all.

And just as fame had seemed more tangible in the past and yet more
distant, now everyone sensed that they too could be famous, if only the
chance came their way. The fact that Cinnamon desperately needed to be
someone, to be admired, did nothing to set her aside from all the other
thousands who felt the same.

But the whole nature of fame had changed. In the forties and fifties
when few were famous, what did they do with their fame ? They flew on
jets, they drank champagne, they wore designer clothes, they went to
exotic islands in the West Indies. Now, everyone with a savings account
can enjoy the old-style trappings of fame. The benefits of fame have
had to rise out of all proportion, to make it still worthwhile.

Cinnamon wanted more out of life than drudge, and why not ? Why
shouldn't she be able to live her whole life in fifth gear, rather than
dawdling and being bored ? She had never been someone who could be
contained, her personality was an overstuffed suitcase that buckled
when anyone tried to squash it down. Cinnamon, then and there, decided
that she would never undertake an ordinary job again as long as she
lived.

Things were getting a bit bleak on the old cash front though. Two of
the cheques she'd written for bills were surely about to bounce and the
bank had sent her an exceptionally nasty letter the last time - not
even written by computer, a human being had composed it to add even
more venom, even underlining some key phrases.

The fact was, if the man in the estate agent suit didn't leave his
toast so that she could eat it, Cinnamon was going to have to drive her
crappy car down to the drug clinic and sell a urine sample again. She
still had some of the sample bottles in her bag from the last
time.

A clean sample was usually worth about eight quid to an addict hoping
to still get their methadone scrip from the clinic, no doubt to sell on
the street. She was usually able to sell about three samples in two
hours, which wasn't too bad.

How much could she do in a day, assuming she toured round this part of
London to take in all the clinics and demand was there? Could she live
on the money? She'd have to drink tons, to ensure demand was met, loads
of lemon barley. Would it not wreck her kidneys?

This, Cinnamon realised, was not a viable plan, except in the
short-term. There was no food back at the flat, she had walked round
the supermarkets at lunchtime hoping that there would be someone
running a taste promotion of crackers or a new type of Dutch cheese,
but there was nothing free on offer.

She wouldn't even be able to sign on for another three weeks. And then,
the whole surname thing would start again with the benefits people, who
were never able to get their heads round the whole deal.

The estate-agent man had eaten his toast and gone. For a desperate four
seconds, Cinnamon thought about stealing the rectangular pat of butter
that he had left next to the plate. Things really were getting very
grim indeed.

This was all Martine McCutcheon's fault.

The temping was just to pay the bills (ha!) between acting jobs. And
Cin had once had the chance of a biggie, Tiffany in Eastenders. Course,
at that time, it had been a very minor role, tarty friend of Bianca's,
in for a couple of episodes, minor dialogue, but quite fun.

She had gone along to the audition but had drunk a can of Diet Coke,
shortly before and had got dreadfully loud hiccups while waiting. She
had sat next to a girl with dark hair and a pretty face, who had
advised her not to try to stop the hiccups until just before she went
in, then to hold her breath for a count of ten seconds, that would do
it.

It didn't do it, not at all. She hiccuped all the way through her
reading and could have died of shame. It made it very difficult to be a
loveable tart with a heart when every third word was drowned by a
gulping hiccup.

Three months later, she dropped her chicken and cashew nuts on the
floor when she saw the girl with dark hair on Eastenders, in her part.
Still, it was only a minor role.

One of the walls in her flat still bore the stain from where Cinnamon's
prawn biryani had hit the wall, during the episode where Tiffany
snogged Grant Mitchell for the first time.

Yes, this present situation was all very much Martine McCutcheon's
fault.

When Cinnamon was feeling very low, like today, she would watch the
episode where Tiffany fell down the stairs, rewinding it back and
watching the fall again and again. It was a shame her video wasn't
sophisticated enough to just endlessly loop it, like you would with a
CD, just press Repeat 1, and watch over and over.

She had done some acting work though, a drug-pusher in the Bill and a
woman who gets shoved out of the way by Prunella Scales in a Tescos ad
while Prunella waved a French stick; but it was beginning to look as
though the big break was never going to come.

Cinnamon was strikingly pretty. She had blonde hair, kept fairly short
and in amazingly good condition (she would buy Paul Mitchell
conditioner and shampoo, even if she had no bread in the house). Her
eyes were blue-gray and almond shaped. A friend had once remarked that
she had an air about her that was insubstantial; that she was like the
loose sketches fashion designers draw to illustrate how their clothes
might look, she seemed lighter and more airy than people had any right
to be. When she auditioned for provincial theatre, she was only ever
cast in the role of Titania in Midsummer Nights Dream, for which she
was perfect.

She left the cafe and set to work. Two hours later, Cinnamon had
twenty-eight quid in her purse and things were looking slightly better,
she had upped her price for the last punter, who was looking seriously
needy.

The money would get her some food and maybe a few bottles of Michelob
at the club, and she would worry about tomorrow when it got there.
Long-term, she was beginning to think that she'd have to ring that chap
about the 'glamour modelling', two-fifty he'd offered for two hours
posing, and he'd agreed to her terms that there would be no film in the
camera. (Cinnamon didn't want that sort of picture turning up in the
tabs if she ever got herself a regular part in London's Burning, thank
you very much.)

She was driving home, thinking about this grisly prospect, when an
elderly woman bounced off the front of her car. It wasn't a glancing
blow, the old woman literally hit the car and went up into the air,
coming down hard on the pavement a few feet away. Cinnamon hadn't even
seen her. She slammed on the brakes and had to light a fag, to stop her
hands shaking.

Fortunately, the woman didn't seem to have cracked her windscreen,
which was something. Cinnamon would give her a piece of strong advice
when she got up, about the green cross code, for one thing.

Only, she didn't get up.

After a minute or two, Cinnamon got out of the car. The woman lay in
the road, like a bundle of clothes left outside. She was about fifty,
fifty-five, with red curly hair, a little too much in the way of
jewelry round her neck, and she had on a black cardigan with a peacock
sequined onto it and a plain skirt. For one dreadful minute, Cinnamon
thought she'd run over Rita Fairclough.

The woman was definitely dead, so Cinnamon lit another fag, not even
realising she was still smoking the first one. No matter, she just
alternated between them until they were spent. What a fucking disaster.
She had no insurance, no tax disc and the MOT was long overdue. The
police were going to have a great deal of sarcastic questions to
ask.

She had a look round. No other cars were around and this was quite a
secluded part of London, very quiet. Nobody seemed to have seen her.
She could just drive off, sorted, no questions asked.

Cinnamon turned to go back to the car, but then thought that she might
as well take the woman's bag, just in case there was some money in it.
Times were hard.

She drove off and stopped in the supermarket, to buy some essentials
and a box of Quality Street. After running someone over, you need a bit
of pampering. Luckily, there didn't seem to be any blood on the car or
anything, so she didn't have to blow three quid on a car wash.

Cinnamon got back to Brixton and into her flat. She opened up the box
of Quality Street, immediately sorting them into the different shapes
and colours; unwrapping a fat golden toffee penny.

The woman's bag was a shoulder bag, black leather and fairly classy. On
closer inspection, it actually turned out to be Gucci, which was a bit
of a result. It was a year or two old, but still. Not only could
Cinnamon wear the bag herself, but there might well be a decent amount
of money in it.

Sadly not, thirty quid, plus credit cards and bank card. Cinnamon was
not prepared to take the risk of something like that herself, although
she did have a real knack for forgery. Still, she knew someone who
would buy the cards, for maybe thirty quid a throw. It would take a few
weeks before the credit companies stopped the cards.

The rest of the bag was just junk, mints, tissues, some fairly pricey
make-up and a two-inch thick bundle of paper, held together by treasury
tags, yellow and black striped treasury tags, which Cinnamon thought
were quite cute, like bees.

She picked up the bundle of paper. It was all hand-written, in quite an
old-
fashioned style, but fairly legible. The front page had written on it,
in slanting capitals, 'The Second Type of Silence, by Violet
Darby'

That name sounded familiar. Violet Darby. Wasn't she the one who wrote
the books for that TV series? Gulliver's Brothers?

Cinnamon was pretty sure that she was. A detective series, one brother
ran a detective agency and was really suave and good-looking, the
Pierce Brosnan type, but he was pretty dim and didn't solve any of the
mysteries himself, just walked round being cool and dangerous.

He had one brother who was a psychologist, but agoraphobic and so
couldn't go outdoors, who had an insight into human nature, and another
brother who was like a dumb genius, like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, an
idiot savant, that was it. And it was these two brothers who actually
solved the murders. The main character was just the front-man who took
all the credit.

Cinnamon had watched one or two, but they weren't really her sort of
thing. She preferred soaps to crime. And she hadn't read the books,
because she didn't read fiction, only science. The chap who played the
main brother was quite fit though. The man who'd been David Wicks in
Eastenders and then in that hospital thing.

So, Violet Darby. Had she run over someone famous? She checked the name
on the credit cards and indeed she had. Damn. She was never going to be
able to sell the cards on now.

Cinnamon showered and put on some music to cheer herself up, before
heading out to DogStar with the intention to drink heavily and dance
until her feet fell off.

It wasn't until the next morning, when she saw Violet Darby's face on
the front of the tabloids that she thought about the hit and run. She
still had loads of money left, most of it Violet's, but she thought
that Violet wouldn't begrudge her spending some of it to commemorate
her death.

She bought a bunch of papers and went to Littlewoods caf? to read them
over a 'Big Seven' breakfast and cup of Coke that was more like a
bucket. It was so cold that it set her off with her hiccups, but a
forkful of bacon and hash browns soon sorted that out.

It wasn't headline news, just a small photo on the front page and
further details inside. The details were sketchy, at best. It reported
that she had been knocked down and killed yesterday, that the driver
had not been seen. Her fans were devastated and the actors in the
series had all given quotes about what a great loss she was.

Yeah, for you, thought Cinnamon, you were on a good number there.

The Guardian obituary spoke about a woman who had produced some of
Britain's best-loved crime fiction, a real return to the classic
English country house murder, a woman with huge numbers of devoted
fans, but a deeply unhappy personal life, her first husband Anthony
(blah, blah, blah, thought Cinnamon). The paper said that Violet was
old-fashioned in her working methods, refusing to use typewriters or
word-processors, she would write her books long-hand and nobody could
see them or hear anything about them until they were finished.

She was secretive to the point of paranoia, after a cleaning lady had
once leaked some plot details to the press. She kept no notes and said,
'I keep my books safe in my head, until the characters tell me that it
is time for them to be on paper, then I carry the pages with me
everywhere, they never leave my side.'

The article went on to say that Violet Darby had announced that she was
writing a further Damon Gulliver story, 'The Second Type of Silence',
but that now, fans would never see it.

This was when Cinnamon got thrown out of the Littlewoods caf? for
swearing, both loudly and creatively. (The absolute highpoint being
'You can stick that up your arse, Mar-fuckingtine fucking
McFuckingCutcheon.' )

She had the book. She had the book. Everyone wanted to read it and she
had it!

(She had the book ! )
Now, what the hell was she going to do with it?

By half eleven, she was outside a posh office, all grey stone and
smoked glass, holding an envelope with a photocopy of Chapter One of
the book inside. She had pinned her hair back and was wearing her most
expensive earrings and a nice aqua-coloured strappy dress that finished
an inch below the knee. She had been tempted to bring her new bag, but
had been worried that Violet Darby's agent might have recognised
it.

She had got the name of the agent from the Net, (one of fifteen sites
devoted to the Gulliver Brothers), which indicated that Darby's fans
were constantly writing to him on a daily basis, asking when the book
would be coming out. Cinnamon supposed they were now writing, hoping
that there might be one last book. She hoped they were.

Cinnamon buzzed in at the door and blagged her way in, marching past
the desk and straight in to see Alasdair Staveley. She was pleased that
it was a man rather than a woman, but it only took a few seconds for
her to realise that her sexual charms were unlikely to cut any ice with
Mr. Staveley. He was wearing a deep blue shirt and a tie that was just
a tone deeper. He also had a gold ring on the little finger of his left
hand. His hair was short and high at the front, like Jamie Theakston
from "The O-Zone".

He looked up and handed her some pages, "Two copies please."

"Sorry, " Cinnamon said, "I'm not the temp. "

He frowned and flicked through his diary distractedly, lifting the
pages with a delicate movement of his left hand.

"I'm sorry, " he said, "I don't think I've got a twelve o'clock today.
"

Cinnamon smiled politely and put her envelope on the table, this was
her moment, "You'd better ask your secretary to cancel the rest of the
day too. "

"And why would I want to do that? " asked Mr. Staveley, clearly bored.
He had a slight Scottish tinge to his accent, but had not lived there
for a number of years.

"The Second Type of Silence, Chapter One, " said Cinnamon and she
turned on her heel with a grace learned over a number of years," I'll
be outside for half an hour. You read it, then come find me. After
that, you won't see me, or chapter two."

She knew she'd got him when the telephone rang in reception and the
woman looked up anxiously to check that she was still there, then
crossed over to ask if she would like a drink at all and that Mr.
Staveley would see her in a few minutes.

The same woman came over three minutes later to ask her if everything
was alright and did she need anything at all. Cinnamon decided to push
her luck and ask for alcohol rather than caffeine. Shortly afterwards,
a drink was placed on the glass table in front of her.

"This is the real thing, " he said, when she came back into his office,
having enjoyed a very fine Pimms, "I'm sorry, I get so many cranks,
particularly today. Everyone wants to know about poor Violet. "

Cinnamon put on a sympathetic face, not an expression that she had need
of often, but she was an actress and as such could fake these sorts of
emotions.

"How did you come by it? "

She held up a slim index finger and placed it to her lips, indicating
that further questioning on this topic would not be fruitful.

"It seems to me, " she said, "That everyone in the publishing game is
looking for this book. The last Gulliver Brothers mystery ever. People
won't even mind if the ink is wet and smudges their fingers, they'll be
desperate to read it. "

"You're right there," he said, thinking of all the calls his office had
already taken, asking when the new book would be coming out, a firm no
comment to every caller.

"And then there's the television, " she said.

He leaned forward on his chair, putting his hands together as if in
prayer, "Of course, " he said slowly, "All of the proceeds belong to
Violet's estate, whoever she left her money to. "

"Of course, " said Cinnamon easily, "But if there's no book, there
can't be any proceeds, can there? Not for Violet's estate, or the
publishers or you. I only have one copy, it could get lost. Or...
burned. "

"Well, " he said, "I suppose some sort of finders-fee could be
appropriate. What were you thinking of? "

"Firstly, " said Cinnamon, "A bloody good lunch. Then I'll tell you my
deal. Then you'll agree and save me the tiresome bother of walking all
the way to the agent next door to put my offer to him. "

Mr. Staveley stood up and got his jacket from the back of his chair,
slipping it on, "So, what do you like to eat?"

Over the lunch, it was agreed. Mr. Staveley was to contact Violet
Darby's publisher and say that the manuscript had emerged and that it
was the genuine article. The handwriting, the quirky little amendments,
the style, they were all Violet's. There could be no doubt about
that.

He would ask for the usual deal, plus ten percent, this being the last
book Violet would ever produce.

Of that, Cinnamon would get forty thousand pounds. Mr. Staveley would
write her a cheque now for three thousand pounds, which he agreed to
do. He was the first person ever not to blink when he asked for her
name, which she liked.

If the book went to television, which, of course it would, Cinnamon
would get an extra nine thousand pounds, plus a part in the
program.

"Which part would you want?" asked Mr. Staveley.

Cinnamon hadn't even read the first chapter yet, so she said that she
was still thinking it over.

"My final term, " she said, "Martine McCutcheon gets nowhere near the
adaptation. Nowhere near. In fact, see if they can audition her, but
turn her down for my part."

He made a telephone call to the publishers, Cinnamon could hear the
woman at the other end of the phone whoop with delight. They agreed
that the existence of the manuscript was to be kept totally secret for
a fortnight, because at present, the news of Violet's death was
increasing sales of her existing books and they didn't want to trample
on that.

After a fortnight, they would leak to the press that the book had been
found, maybe do a deal to serialize chapter one in a newspaper. (For
which, Cinnamon insisted on some more money.)

That fortnight would give Cinnamon the opportunity to get the book
typed up at home. She wasn't keen on the idea of handing over the
hand-written manuscript - which in itself might be worth money to a
collector. She would type it up and then e-mail it over to Mr.
Staveley, after the cheque was in her possession.

" I'm quite looking forward to reading it myself, " said Mr. Staveley,
pushing his dessert plate away, "I'm a bit of a fan. I always love the
fact that I get to read Violet before anyone else. The last one was
such a cliffhanger, with Rosalind and everything. Who did she mean,
which Gulliver is she in love with? God, I hope dear Vi tells us in
this book and doesn't keep us in suspense."

Cinnamon had not the slightest idea what he was talking about, but
nodded and smiled sweetly at him. She wondered whether she should have
asked for more money. She could probably have got more, but maybe that
would have made the agent less likely to agree and more inclined to see
what the police might have to say about the whole affair.

Cinnamon spent four solid days typing up the manuscript, with it
propped up against the mirror she kept near her tangerine i-Mac, so
that she could practice typing and still look pretty (a skill that had
been useful in her temping career.) Well, it was almost four solid
days. She had to do a bit of shopping once the cheque cleared.

She didn't really read most of what she was typing, she had developed
an ability to dissociate herself from it, to consider the words on a
page as if they were meaningless as she typed them. She found that it
was much faster to type that way, than to try to read everything and
make sense of it.

Having picked up on what the agent had said though, she did tend to
read the paragraphs about Rosalind. Rosalind was married to Damon
Gulliver's best friend James Chase. Damon had been best man at their
wedding.

She was a therapist who was trying to work with the other brother,
Francis, who was the agoraphobic one. She was getting close to learning
the secret behind Francis' agoraphobia, the reason why he was terrified
of open spaces, the key to solving his condition.

Rosalind had received a bad blow to the head in chapter six while
walking into the brothers' office, presumably by the killer, who had
mistaken her for Damon. She had been unconscious for some time and it
wasn't at all clear whether she was going to pull through.

Prior to that, she had had a very annoying habit of musing about her
strong passionate feelings for one of the brothers, but always
referring to him as Gulliver, rather than coming out and saying Damon,
Francis or Joe (the idiot savant).

Cinnamon hoped that it would turn out to be Joe, who seemed quite sweet
and kind, if a little unsafe around sharp objects.

But it would probably be Damon, who Cinnamon felt was a bit full of
himself, the type to kiss his biceps while looking in the mirror.

She was now onto the last chapter and decided to stretch her legs for a
minute, fetch herself a tall glass of Cuba Libra to celebrate.

Cinnamon stretched like a cat and came back to the computer. She flexed
her fingers a few times, to prepare for the last bit. She hadn't really
made any attempt to follow the murders at all, but she was mildly
interested in the romance, despite herself. Rosalind had come round
now, and had told her husband that she was in love with another man and
intended to go to him.

Cinnamon was sure that this would be left up in the air, a trick by
Violet to get people to buy the next book. Still, it was worth just
five minutes sitting and reading the final chapter, to get the real
benefit, as opposed to getting the gist of it through typing.

She put her feet up on the desk and began to read.

All three of the brothers were staying at the same local hotel, close
at hand to solve the murder. Rosalind had gone to the hotel and told
the receptionist that she had arranged to meet Mr. Gulliver and
intended to wait in his room. Rather surprisingly, the receptionist
bought this story and Rosalind went upstairs to wait.

The brothers were all at the library of the country house, Francis
having wanted to see the scene of the first murder, despite his
agoraphobia. He was looking for clues, while at the same time,
breathing steadily into a brown paper bag he held at his lips. He held
tight to the edge of a chair, frightened that he might fall down at any
time.

Damon was still coming up with crackpot theories as to who the killer
might be, suggesting time travel and identical twins. It all sounded
very unconvincing. Joe was counting the number of books on each shelf
at great speed and mumbling loudly, "Selection box, selection
box."

Cinnamon guessed that the two other brothers would solve the murder and
tell Damon, who would then go off and explain it to everyone else, as
he was the presentable one. There would be some sort of "I expect
you're wondering why I asked you all to come to the billiard room'
scene.

Only there wasn't. There wasn't any sort of scene even vaguely like
that. There wasn't any sort of unmasking, or explaining, or naming the
killer. That was odd, thought Cinnamon, looking on the floor for the
pages she must have dropped. Then she looked on the kitchen table, then
in the drawer with all the takeaway menus and club-flyers, then in the
Gucci bag...

The book wasn't finished. The last chapter hadn't been written !

Cinnamon felt that she too needed a brown paper bag to blow in and out
of. What the hell had happened ? She thought she might faint. What
would happen to her forty thousand and a television appearance? What
would happen about the thousand pounds she'd already spent?

She rang up her friend Fiona, who read this sort of book and asked if
she'd ever read one where the killer wasn't named, where the murder
never got solved. "Keep a bit of mystery ? "

Fiona's answer was not encouraging. It seemed that the last chapter was
rather essential to a murder mystery. More essential than any of the
rest of the book.

Why the hell hadn't Violet written that chapter first, if it was so
bloody important?

At a time like this, the only thing to possibly do is to get
monstrously drunk, thought Cinnamon, and followed her own advice to the
very letter.

Oddly, Cinnamon was one of those rare breed of humans who actually
think better with a hangover and the next morning, while putting her
hands over her ears to drown out the ferocious noise that her bloody
Rice Krispies were insisting on making, she came up with an idea.

She didn't know how the book was supposed to end, but neither did
anyone else. She could write the ending herself. Just read the book
carefully and solve all the clues, work it out. Nobody reads these
books with a notepad, following it through logically, so if she did
that, she could write pretty much the same ending that Violet would
have written, if only some idiot hadn't run her over.

Okay, the style wouldn't be exactly the same, but Cinnamon thought she
could pull it off. Plus, she would be able to give people what they
wanted, a final resolution to the Rosalind story.

Violet would have had them wait for the next book which would now never
arrive, but Cinnamon could give her readers an answer now; and thwart
Damon Gulliver into the bargain. She was sure that smarmy Damon would
have ended up with Rosalind eventually, but not in the new Cinnamon
version.

She could go back earlier in the book and add in some paragraphs
suggesting that Damon was in love with Rosalind, torn between passion
and loyalty for his friend, wrestling with his conscience, but finally
deciding to ask Rosalind to run away with him. In the new final scene,
when he asks her, she turns away, gives a quiet sob and tells him that
yes, she will leave her husband, and but that it is Joe she loves. (Or
maybe Francis, one of the two.) Damon devastated that he has betrayed
his friend for nothing.

Cinnamon was gripped by enthusiasm, she went to the local shop and
bought a variety of coloured pens and a spiral bound notebook and a
large bag of peanut M&;Ms. She set to work, reading "The Second Type
of Silence", crunching every couple of pages.

After reading the book for the third time, Cinnamon realised that she
probably wasn't going to be able to work out the plot. She had made two
good deductions.

The first victim, Anthony Harrap had been a well-known chocaholic, yet
in his room, the police had found several selection boxes, the plastic
trays empty but for a solitary Snickers bar in each box. The reason Joe
Gulliver had been shouting about the selection boxes was because this
was how Harrap had been poisoned. It was not some unique and
untraceable poison, he had a peanut allergy, and someone had introduced
nuts into his food.

That seemed to rule out Dr Snow, who had fallen under suspicion because
of his background in research chemistry and his ability therefore to
get access to untraceable poison; since anyone could have had access to
peanuts.

The second deduction was when Harrap appeared in the upstairs window
and threw water over the carol singers at 8 o'clock, it couldn't have
been him, as Harrap was already dead. He was a fastidious man, yet when
he was found dead, he had a piece of lettuce stuck between his teeth,
and had eaten lettuce two hours previously. He would surely have
removed this.

Nobody but the carol singers saw him in those two hours, so he was
already dead, and the person who threw the bucket of water must have
been the killer, masquerading as Harrap. Everyone knew what time the
singers would be touring the village, so it was a perfect way of
changing the time of death.

Where that left the dentist's mirror, the balloon that shriveled up
although it had been blown up only earlier that day and the rose that
nobody would admit to leaving on the breakfast tray, Cinnamon had no
idea. And she had no idea why the book was called "The Second Type of
Silence.". That was probably something else that Violet was going to
explain in the last chapter. How could you have more than one type of
silence ?

Cinnamon began to be very glad that she had run that dreadful woman
over. Violet Darby was clearly a sadist of the highest order. What sort
of person sets out to write a book that the country is waiting for and
makes no provision for a sudden accidental death ?

She went to the library to borrow as many of Violet Darby's previous
books as she could get, to see if a pattern would emerge. The librarian
looked at her sadly as she swiped her card, "Terrible shame wasn't it?
I was a huge fan of Violet Darby. "

"Dreadful woman, " answered Cinnamon, "She should make her mysteries a
bit simpler to follow. "

After this background reading, Cinnamon felt in a position to construct
the romantic parts of the novel in any event. She rewrote certain
portions of the novel, adding in a scene where Damon Gulliver and James
Chase talk awkwardly at the bedside of Rosalind, while she is
unconscious in hospital, both desperate for the other to leave.

She even wrote a tragic past for Francis, a reason for his agoraphobia.
Perhaps Rosalind could cure this, given time, allow him to lead a
normal life again.

Cinnamon rewrote what she could and e-mailed chapters one to eight
through to the agent, who soon e-mailed back saying that the book was
marvelous so far, unputdownable and that he had particularly loved the
revelation that Francis had been trapped down a disused well as a seven
year old boy and had been there for a week, surviving on worms and
rainfall. A creation that Cinnamon herself was quite proud of.

This was clearly the root of Francis' problems about open spaces, as he
had grown to love the security of the well and been greatly traumatized
by his rescue. In the well, he hadn't had to compete with poor troubled
Joe, or the parents favourite, good-looking, charming Damon.

Cinnamon e-mailed back, "You wait till you see how he got down the
well."

This was at least buying her some time. She had no idea who was
supposed to be the killer and could think of no way of working it out.
She was completely stumped. This was turning out to be the hardest
forty thousand pounds Cinnamon had ever earned. How on earth had Violet
written twelve of these?

Cinnamon had telephoned her friend The Crab, who had once been employed
writing war comics for Victor and Warlord; but he had no suggestions to
make. He had only ever been good at writing things like, "Gott im
Himmel ! ", "Englander Schwein ! " and particularly writing dialogue
for the Japanese army, which was generally just "Aiiieeee !!! ".

Cinnamon didn't feel that her own dialogue was too bad, and if it was
lacking anything, it wasn't more use of "aiiieeeee".

"I'm useless with mysteries, " said The Crab, "The only time I ever
know who did it is when I'm watching Columbo. "

So, she would have to abandon the whole project, kiss goodbye to all
that money.

Wait. Was there another way out? Perhaps, thought Cinnamon, if I solve
everything else, give people a murderer and have the police arrest him,
but make Rosalind and Francis get together, I can get away without
explaining it all.

She began to pace around the room, thinking it all through in her head.
She stopped to change her shoes, since they were new and were pinching
at the heel. She felt much more comfortable with pacing in the second
pair of shoes.

In all the books, Damon was apparently the brilliant detective who
solves all the crimes, he takes all the credit, dates all the models
and gets his name in the papers; but it is obvious that he couldn't
solve anything without Francis and Joe. Francis' insight and brilliant
mind, and Joe's off-the-wall flashes of inspiration.

If Rosalind's therapy made Francis realise that it was Damon who
tricked him into going down the well and then took away the rope
ladder, out of sibling jealousy, might that not make him reluctant to
help Damon seize the glory for himself ?

Just before the meeting in the billiard room, Rosalind would arrive and
reject Damon. She would then explain to Francis that his illness is all
Damon's fault, a memory he had previously suppressed, and tell she
tells Francis that she loves him.

Francis would still want the killer brought to justice, so he would
explain the first half of it to Damon, the bit about the peanuts and
the lettuce. (The bits Cinnamon did understand.)

Damon goes off to the billiard room to explain the case as best he can,
not even realising that he hasn't solved the case completely, that he
only has half of the answers. Francis walks in, kissing Rosalind,
between breaths into the paper bag and just airily tells the police,
"Arrest Miss DeMille, she is the killer. My brilliant brother will
explain everything."

Cinnamon lit a celebratory cigarette. That might just work. Turn Damon
into a villain. Maybe he could also have dropped Joe on the head when
Joe was a baby. That would make him really unpopular. Then, the tables
are turned on him and the world will finally learn that it was his
disadvantaged brothers and not him that was the brilliant mind behind
solving these crimes. Leave him in the billiard room, floundering to
try to explain the murder to the police.

She spent three days writing this, copying as many of Violet's standard
phrases as she could, speaking in the voice of an old woman while she
typed - it was just like acting, the thing was to get into character.
Towards the end, she came up with the idea of making Damon the killer,
but felt that this would be a bit too far for the fans.

Cinnamon even came up with a line for Rosalind that most families keep
quiet about secrets because of family loyalty, but that there is a
second type of silence, one where the person himself has kept the
secret from himself, to protect himself from the hard truth.

She finished and e-mailed the agent that she would be bringing the rest
of the book in and that he was to get the cheque from the publishers.
Alasdair promptly e-mailed back, saying that the publisher and he would
meet her and both read the rest of the book, then hand over the
cheque.

Cinnamon didn't like the sound of that. Due to nerves during the last
two weeks, she had spent almost two thousand pounds of the advance and
had no way of getting that back. She decided to have a taxi waiting
outside for her during the meeting, with instructions to drive away
quickly if she came out of the office.

The hour she spent waiting for the publisher and agent to come out of
the agent's office seemed to stretch until time became painful. At
times the hands on the clock appeared to be moving backwards. The door
opened and the agent asked her to step inside.

She came into the room, her mouth dry. She wasn't wearing her strappy
dress, today she had worn combat pants, so that she could wear her
chocolate-coloured New Balance trainers, for a quick escape.

"We've both read the book," said the woman from the publishing company,
who looked like an amalgam of every harpy Cinnamon had ever worked for;
nails that were an inch too long and two shades too bright, blue eyes
that spoke of difficult times. Also, her name was Bryon Chase. In
Cinnamon's experience, women saddled with masculine-sounding first
names always turned out to be evil bitches.

"There was no last chapter, was there? " said Mr. Staveley.

Cinnamon felt as though she might be sick. All of that hard work gone
to waste. She should have just gone to them in the beginning and
explained that there was no last chapter. There might have been some
way to save it. She swallowed hard.

"No. I had to write it myself, as best I could. I thought I'd done
quite a good job."

The woman pursed her lips, "There are passages which are quite
unmistakably not Violet's style. Not just in the last chapter. The
whole well concept is good, but it isn't really Violet. "

Cinnamon didn't feel like playing games, if they had called the police,
they might already be on the way. Was this forgery, fraud? She wasn't
sure about that and remembered for the first time in a fortnight that
she had actually run Violet Darby down. There might be tests, little
flakes of paint that would allow the police to match her car to the one
that had hit Violet. Not that she felt in the least bit bad about what
had happened, but prison, she felt sure, wouldn't suit her at
all.

If this was all going to go bad, it was best to find out quick and run
for it. They would have real difficulty in tracking her down.

"So, what do you want to do? "

"Well," said Bryon, "There are bits of it that I really like. It
delivers most of the goods. Everyone wants to know about Francis, and
Rosalind. And a lot of our reader response says that people think Damon
should get what's coming to him. "

"What doesn't work, " said Mr. Staveley, "Is this ending. It's all very
modern and quite amusing, but it'll have every reader running to the
bookstore asking for their money back. You can't leave a mystery reader
feeling unsatisfied. They turn ugly."

As he spoke, he seemed to be barely suppressing a shudder at the image
of the vicious phone calls he might receive.

"What we thought, " said the woman, "Is that right at the end, after
Damon makes a fool of himself in the billiard room, not being able to
explain how the murderer did it, is that Rosalind could ask Francis and
he could explain it to her. "

Cinnamon nodded, "I like that, that's good."

"Then we get both. Damon coming a cropper, plus everyone finds out what
actually happened."

Cinnamon had never felt more like a cigarette in her life, but felt
that she would drop it if she tried to light one, she had a bad history
of being clumsy at critical moments in her life, " Problem is, I don't
know what actually happened. And I can't work it out. I tried, I really
did try. "

"Well we guessed that, " said Bryon, "But we can't have the readers
think that Violet didn't know how it was going to end. "

"I get submissions every day from people who want to write mystery
novels, " said Mr. Staveley, stroking the knot of his tie, " I'll just
get a decent one and pay them to look at the manuscript and come up
with something. Maybe change some of the clues that we can't solve.
"

That sounded good to Cinnamon.

"Of course, " said the woman, "They'd have to be paid to keep quiet as
well. And quiet doesn't come cheap. "

Cinnamon could see where this was going, "And it's got to come out of
my fee? "

The other two nodded. Cinnamon felt on slightly better ground.

This was not a ring the police situation, since they had a book that
was 90\% Violet Darby and they could sell that to all the fans that
were desperate to buy it - if they got someone who could write in her
sort of style and keep quiet. They wouldn't want some temp/actress
(even one with great bone structure) running to the papers and claiming
that someone else had written the book.

They offered her twenty thousand, less the three she had already had.
That wasn't too bad, but her plan of not having to work for three years
was out of the window.

"I still want to be in the television show, " she said. Of course, they
had no control over that, but as Violet's representatives they could
express strong views over casting. She wanted to be Miss DeMille, even
if she didn't end up being the killer in the final version.

Cinnamon seemed to have done alright for herself from the situation,
but she still knew that she would have been a hell of a lot richer, if
only Martine McCutcheon had known a proper cure for hiccups.