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No matter which way they cut it, fourteen into three did not go evenly. They had lost the bag with the scales so they could not weigh the diamonds to share them out. Pilgrim suggested they divide twelve of the diamonds between them and one of them get the other two cut and then share them out.

Silence around the table. Which of them would they trust to get the diamonds cut?

A ping from the microwave in the other room so Danny stood. ‘Soup’s up.’

Pilgrim and Matty watched him leave the room. They looked at each other and then both looked at the saucer of diamonds on the table between them.

Matty looked away first. He smiled at Pilgrim. He crossed the fingers of both hands and put them behind his head, leaning back in his chair to stare at the stains in the ceiling above. The room was a mess, smelling of damp, with horrid green wallpaper hanging in fetid strips from the walls.

Matty said, ‘Nice place you found.’

Pilgrim said, ‘Deserted house in the country. Ideal, no?’

Danny was still making sounds in the kitchen. Matty took his hands from his head and leaned in closer to Pilgrim.

Matty said, ‘Fourteen into two goes pretty good.’

Pilgrim waited for another sound from the kitchen, then said, ‘He’s my brother-in-law.’

‘Please! The way your sister bitches about him when we’re in bed together.’ Matty paused at the sound of Danny whistling, then continued at the scrape of a metal spoon around a saucepan. ‘Right now, he’s banging that Sandra works at his place.’ Another pause, then Matty added, ‘Think about it: you and me. Bro’s-in-law. Tight.’

Danny returned carrying two bowls of soup. He set one down in front of Pilgrim and the other in his place. He sat.

Danny said to Matty, ‘Sorry, mate. Misjudged it.’

Matty scowled and went into the kitchen. The sound of pans being dropped rang out. Silence, then the sound of them being kicked across the floor.

Danny shook his head. ‘That guy. Sometimes he’s like an out of control toddler. You remember that time he kicked off in Majorca and we missed our flight? We should call a doctor, get him sedated.’

Pilgrim watched his brother-in-law spoon soup into his mouth, pursing up his lips to suck it from the spoon.

Pilgrim said, ‘What’s the name of that girl, works in your place? Sandra? Can I have her number? I’ve not had a bit in months, and she looks easy.’

Danny choked on his soup. He wiped his lips and set his spoon down.

Pilgrim said, ‘Or, is she seeing someone?’

Danny said, ‘Yeah, she’s seeing someone.’

Pilgrim said, ‘He a good guy, because I don’t want to screw over a good guy.’

Danny nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s pretty good.’

Pilgrim smiled at him. ‘You and my sister. Man. How many years you been married? Eleven years, is it?’

Danny nodded. ‘Sometimes, I have to pinch myself.’ He looked to the door, then leaned closer to Pilgrim. He nodded at the saucer of diamonds. ‘Fourteen into two goes pretty good.’

Pilgrim said, ‘He’s my partner.’

Danny said, ‘But we’re family.’ He waited for another sound from the kitchen. ‘I didn’t want to say it, make waves. But.’ He checked one more time, then whispered, ‘You remember, five years ago, someone ratted you out to the Driscoll boys?’

Danny gravely inclined his head in the direction of the kitchen.

Marcus Antrobus, celebrated author of the Damian Kilbride mysteries, was still not dead.

He just went on and on producing blockbusters.

For 45 years he’d sat in his legendary eyrie in the bell tower of the mysterious Handsford Hall writing one book a year. Along with the five he’d written before he’d moved there that made 50 in total from “Sleeping Dogs Lie” (1969) to “The End Is Death” (2019). He was a money making, Golden Dagger Award-winning, machine. His reclusive lifestyle was all part of the mystery from “a modern master of suspense.”

Geoff Stock, who was sitting in his GP’s waiting room, hated Antrobus more than anyone alive. The odious fake had stolen his career. If it was possible to kill him he’d most definitely do the deed. With the lead piping, in the Billiard room! But it wasn’t.

He read the latest review, “Another smash from Antrobus!” Delighted Crossword Monthly, “A novel so page-turning it would cause you to miss flights and ignore the screams of unmanageable toddlers. Since the first few novels, which now seem turgid, Antrobus has blossomed into the nation’s finest crime writer. A genius at the top of his game!!”

“Hummph!” said Geoff throwing down the magazine in disgust.

Norton and Wilberr, Antrobus’s publishers would be watching the money roll in. Another series had been commissioned by ITV but because the lead actor who played Damian Kilbride was 74 and nearly blind, Antrobus had seamlessly written up the part of young assistant Mariella Croyde, so that she did all the action scenes and was often the brains too. Ability to change with the times was part of Antrobus’s brilliance.

Geoff Stock could cry at the unfairness of it all.

He’d been too ambitious, cared too much, dreamed of being a proper writer.

He remembered the meeting at Norton and Wilberr. How they had wheedled, cajoled and bullied, offering an ever bigger advance, but he’d stood firm not another word would pass his typewriter. Then they had come up with the solution, one that at the time seemed suitable to all parties. Instead of killing off his nom-de-plume and publishing his new books under his own name they would buy the name from him and he would sign a secrecy contract to allow them to continue the series, no one knew who the mysterious Antrobus was anyway.

With the money banked he could write the non-crime masterpiece about his post-war childhood on the streets of Manchester.

It seemed like a good deal to him, but every publisher in Britain had turned down “Love beside the Ship Canal” (all 1376 pages of it) while Antrobus became an all-conquering, team-written Leviathan.

Geoff Stock’s wife’s passing meant that the new book seemed to loom larger than his usual releases. The End Is Death glared at him from bus stops and window displays, reminding him of his own vanity and folly.

He took his latest package of pills from the GP, he had been storing them up for months ready for this day. Soon he would drift away into a less cruel world, one without Damian Kilbride and Mariella Croyde. He was ready and could handle it, after all, for everyone except Marcus Antrobus, the end is death.

The snow drifted gently to the ground, coating the gravel drive and the trees in a layer of thick white icing. The tick of the grandfather clock clattered off the wooden panelling, ringing out in the shocked silence.

The old man was dead in a spatter of bright scarlet and none of us was going anywhere.

Matilda began to scream; a gin flavoured hysteria that demanded the Doctor’s immediate, soothing attentions.These were duly given as Colonel Fawcett assumed command.

“Well, we’re just going to have to sit tight until the police can get here. It’s better if we don’t touch anything, risk of contaminating the crime scene and that. Arthur, take everyone into the drawing room. Eleanor, darling, can you ring for some tea, or perhaps something a little stronger? Matilda, do stop that dreadful racket, you’re giving me quite the headache.”

“Dammit man, I can’t stay here. If I miss this flight the biggest deal of the century will be out the Goddamned window!” shouted Lionel Wilson, striding across the library floor, nearly treading in the old man’s blood. The Colonel observed him dispassionately.

“My dear chap, I don’t see how you can go anywhere. We're quite snowed in here - just look out the window. The roads will be blocked for miles. That’s the trouble with you Americans. No common sense.”

“Now just what’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Lionel, squaring up to face the Colonel, who stood his ground, eyeing the shorter man with contempt.

“Please, this is not the time” said Arthur stepping between them “Grandfather is dead. We’re all upset. Let’s go into the drawing room, like the Colonel said, and wait for the police to get here.”

Lionel sneered, he eyes never leaving the Colonel “as if he’s sorry. This is exactly what he wanted. We all knew the old man was going to cut you out of his will.This is all very convenient for you, isn’t it, Colonel?”

“How very dare you sir!” the Colonel blustered “the old man knew about your shady dealings. Oh yes, he told me all about it, and he told me exactly what he planned to do about it too. Yes, don’t like it up you, do you?!”

“Colonel, Matilda is very upset” reasoned Arthur, desperately trying to keep the peace “Perhaps you can take her outside for some air?”

“I don’t see that I need to do that. The Doctor is looking after her quite well. Mind you, he was doing a lot of looking after before the old man died, wasn’t he? I wonder what he would have said, if he’d known his young new bride was being diddled by the family surgeon.”

Matilda screamed again and the Doctor flushed and stammered and suddenly everyone was shouting at one another, accusations flying, recriminations bouncing off the sherry decanters, Matilda’s desperate cries unheeded in the melee.

And as they all stood shouting and accusing one another, a nursery of unmanageable toddlers without a nursemaid, I slipped quietly from the room, the bloodstained knife still held fast behind my back and wondered in whose room I should hide it.

“Where is that vase, we need the vase?” bellowed Topher from the front row.

Cath called back “Its stage left, in its place, where it always is”

“Excellent, from the top please”

Cath wondered yet again why the director was called Topher – what sort of diminutive was that anyway? She had promised herself that she would never again get involved in the summer production of the Maverick Theatre Company. They had done a Brecht once and felt that gave them some Indie credentials, but “Maverick” didn’t describe the usual fare of Wind in the Willows and Noel Coward.

Then in March came the phone call from Topher, wheedling her to play a small role and be stage manager.

Now here she was at the technical rehearsal of yet another murder mystery, getting shouted at and playing the bloody housekeeper. Why was she always the domestic? Or the peasant? Or the disease addled whore?

“We need the chair. Cath. CATH. We need the chair”

Cath walked on stage with the chair, placed it with icy calm and precision on its mark and exited without saying a word.

Back in the wings the unmanageable toddler that was Topher’s son raced past, knocking the props table and crashing some cutlery to the floor.

“What was that?! Quiet in the wings. Cath, keep it down”

Cath turned to the actor playing the Doctor, hoping for some empathy and even some assistance, but none came, so intent was his focus on his doctorly persona. Having read a book about Marlon Brando and method acting recently he fancied himself as a contender.

Cath retrieved the props and carefully arranged them on the table. Everything in its place, all organised and ready to go. Cath was a good stage manager, she could anticipate what was needed and when, rarely was anything out of place. That was why Topher asked her to do it, he knew she was good and couldn’t bear it at the same time, so he poked and needled and undermined her.

“Can we get on please? This is taking so long. I have a plane to catch. Cath. CATH.”

“What?”

“Cath, can we speed things up please”

Cath appeared from behind the giant polystyrene pillar representing the resplendent archway of the country house. No minimal staging for this director.

“It’s not really in my gift – is it” she replied, slowly and quietly.

“Well, we need to crack on, I have a plane to catch this evening. Is the dagger ready?”

Cath returned to the props table and noticed that the dagger was missing. Under the table she saw Topher’s son sitting with the dagger, stabbing his teddy bear in the eye as he held it. She watched for a while, and then said “don’t do that” in a tired Willy Wonka kind of way. The boy carried on, ripping and stabbing at the bear.

He screamed when the dagger pierced the palm of his hand. Topher rushed towards the noise and found his blood and snot covered son wailing and alone, sitting beneath the corpse of his toy pinned to the wall by the dagger.

“Help. Cath. Get an Ambulance. Cath where are you….CATH”