Poinsettias and the Perfect Crime Read online

  Almost.

  * * *

  Christmas lunch passed without the drama I’d anticipated. Fergus was funny and friendly to everyone. I did my best to keep my mouth shut and not even address Samuel, beyond asking him to pass the sprouts. When we left, Fergus told me he had no idea why I complained about my family so much. I’d thrown my hands in the air and walked off, only to have to wait by the car for him to drive me home, as he was the designated driver for this trip.

  I’d felt a definite pang of sadness when I said goodbye to my friend in the evening. I could tell he wanted to be researching some of the things we’d discussed about the Wrexton family, including locating their mystery military background, and I didn’t want to hamper him by demanding he hang around with me. I was a grownup, and perhaps I even needed the ‘me’ time more than I realised.

  I was stroking Diggory after he’d left when the idea came to me. Now that I was alone, it was time I did some research of my own… and Samuel was my target. Fergus hadn’t echoed any of my suspicions when I’d brought up his strange behaviour again after dinner. I felt like I was on my own with this one.

  I opened my laptop and then I got down to doing some digging on Samuel Farley.

  At first, his story seemed to match up with what I found online. He was a well-respected investigative journalist. If anything, he’d been downplaying his success. With writing published in several very well-known publications, I was pretty certain he was receiving a hefty paycheque for it all. His fascination with all things India was also exactly as he’d presented it. I read a few of the articles, all the while wondering if he could be tied in with the murder somehow. Elephas. The Asian Elephant. Was it really just a coincidence that Samuel was so involved in India, where the most famous Asian elephant originated from, and that the latin had been used as a codeword? Could it even be a cryptic reference to the journalist himself? Unfortunately, all I had was speculation, and speculation got you sued, or something like that. I’d once heard Charlotte say it.

  I was about to give up on my research, which was fast turning into the kind of stalking session that would land me in trouble if anyone were to ever view my browsing history, when I noticed something.

  Samuel had a catchphrase.

  It wasn’t a quirk I’d noticed in journalists’ pieces prior to now, but thinking about it, newspapers made it so that you only tended to read one piece by one journalist in every paper, if they featured them more than once at all. In a strange way, it kind of made sense to have a catchphrase. It marked you out as different in amongst a sea of anonymous writers.

  But the story continues…

  That was it. It was a little phrase that cropped up again and again. I was sure it wasn’t unique to Samuel either, but it formed a part of his writing style.

  On a whim, I typed it into the search engine.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped to find, but what I did find shook me to the core.

  “No way.” I said when the search result came back. I’d sifted down through a couple of Samuel’s best-known pieces, but the third item the search engine had returned for my phrase search didn’t have his name attached to it. At first, I wasn’t sure it was even relevant. I’d already concluded that the phrase was far from unique, but when I clicked to the website and started reading, I knew that it had been written by the same person. I didn’t have any doubt about that at all.

  “This can’t be real,” I muttered, but it was. And what’s more, it was insanely popular. The article had been shared thousands of times and there was even more writing. The website was packed full of features, all bearing that signature style.

  It was real.

  It was very real.

  My sister’s boyfriend was a famous conspiracy theorist.

  13

  Rivals

  It was hard waiting until the next morning to call Fergus. I told myself that it was to give me time to come to terms with Samuel’s alter ego and everything it meant, but truly, I’d hoped to wake up and realise it was all a bad dream. That lying journalist! was all I was able to think, over and over, occasionally with a worse word substituted in for ‘journalist’. I kept wondering if my sister knew and had kept it from me. Could it be that it was all a coincidence and that this murder had nothing to do with conspiracy theories? Every time I thought that I remembered Samuel’s avoidance of answering my questions about where he’d been when it seemed like he’d come in from outside at the ball… and then the man I’d seen running away from the Manor on Christmas Eve. It fitted together all too well when you knew the truth about Samuel Farley.

  I’d hoped the sleep would give me time to calm down, but it had the opposite effect. I must have been close to smoke pouring out of my ears when I called Fergus and told him everything I knew.

  “Oh, he’s that guy,” Fergus said, like a man pronouncing a death.

  “You’ve heard of him?”

  “Heard of him? We’ve been rivals for years. Alex Anderle is my nemesis.”

  “Glad to hear I’m not the only one who has one,” I said, before realising that wasn’t the point of this conversation. “He’s got to be involved with the theft of the diamond, right? How did you find out about the curse? And don’t say ‘sources’,” I countered before Fergus could reply.

  “It’s a funny story… I may have seen something on my rival’s website that put me on the path. He’d written a ridiculous story about a cursed gemstone. It was a ruby, I think. Alex writes fairytales and fantasy. He’s not searching for the truth, he just likes to add fluff and drama… you know… the stuff people like to read,” Fergus added, not sounding bitter in the slightest… not.

  “What about the diamond?” I wanted to know everything.

  “I heard about that through gossip. Someone local, I forget who, told me that there was a diamond being kept by a local family. They pointed me in the direction of the Wrextons. I then did some research about ancient lost diamonds - most of the big ones are well-accounted for - and I narrowed it down to the ‘last seen’ location, and so on. When I coupled that with the fact that the curse hasn’t been active for several generations, I concluded that the stone in the Wrextons’ possession must be one and the same. That was when I began my lobbying.” He meant he’d tricked the Wrextons into liking and trusting him so he could get a good look at their diamond. “I was going to prove that there was a curse on that stone. It was going to make me way more famous than Alex Anderle!”

  “And you would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling murderer?”

  “Hey, don’t reduce me to some kind of cartoon villain!” Fergus complained.

  “So… what do we do next? You’ve got to admit, it does look suspicious,” I said, knowing that Fergus would have joined the dots the same way that I had, seeing as the dots were all conspiracy related.

  “Imagine if he’s guilty of the whole thing. What would his fans say? I bet they’d flock to the theorist who unmasked their false hero,” he mused aloud.

  I rolled my eyes to the heavens. “Keep your plots to yourself. What are we going to do about him? We know the truth, but he doesn’t know that we know. If we play this the right way, the subtle way, perhaps we can…”

  “I’m going over there right now to confront him! It’s time this rivalry was settled once and for all. He thinks he can come on MY turf and start sticking his nose into MY theoretical research? I’ll show…” The line went dead. I could only assume that Fergus had become so worked up, he’d forgotten I was on the other end of the line. More worryingly, it sounded like he was probably about to make his way over to my mother’s house, where Charlotte had reluctantly agreed to continue staying when our mum had finally agreed to let Samuel stay, too.

  “So much for subtlety and playing it the right way,” I complained, throwing on my outdoor clothing as quickly as I could.

  In truth, I didn’t blame Fergus for overreacting, I was pretty far along that road myself. The thing that got me out of the door so q
uickly was the thought that kept going around in my head. What if my sister didn’t know? What if she didn’t know about her boyfriend’s alter ego? Part of me hoped that she did. It would prove that at least he’d been honest to someone, but I had a feeling that it would be news to her - mostly based on the fact that I couldn’t see Charlotte dating a self-professed conspiracy theorist. Not in a million years.

  And that was why I was all but certain that Samuel Farley was a pathological liar. With that under his belt, would it be so great a stretch to imagine him as a murderer?

  * * *

  They’re secretly engaged, was the first thought that popped into my head when I pulled up outside of my mum’s house seconds before Fergus arrived.

  “You were going to wait for me, weren’t you?” he asked, regarding me with suspicion.

  “Of course,” I said, not sure of the answer myself. I suppose in an ideal world I’d have wanted to diffuse things before Fergus marched in and dropped a bombshell, but I was just as angry as he was with the ‘well-respected’ journalist.

  I rang the bell and then we waited.

  It was Charlotte who answered the door. She didn’t look thrilled to see us, or rather, me. “You look like you’re here to pick a fight,” she said, just as Samuel walked up behind her to see who it was that had called.

  “Samuel Farley, your secret is out.” Fergus made a strong opening.

  Samuel looked slightly amused again. Now that I knew the source of his amusement was probably the fact he’d been laughing at us all ever since we’d met, I thought I understood.

  “Or should I say… Alex Anderle!” Fergus delivered before watching for the other man’s reaction.

  “I’m sorry. Who?” Samuel asked, doing his best ‘perplexed’ expression.

  “You know who you are, arch nemesis of mine. That you would turn up and take me on in my own back garden is despicable!”

  I looked between the men in bemusement. Any second now, Fergus was probably going to challenge him to a duel.

  “What is it you’re accusing me of?” Samuel still looked amused. That would soon stop.

  I looked my sister square in the eye. “Did you know that he writes a whole conspiracy theory website under the pseudonym of Alex Anderle?”

  Her baffled expression was all the answer I needed. “What are you talking about? Samuel is a journalist, and a great one at that. What are you accusing him of?”

  It was exactly as I’d feared. My sister was some kind of collateral damage in the strangely competitive world of conspiracy theorists.

  “You’re both crazy. I think you should leave. I don’t know what Diana’s told you, but I think it’s obvious what’s happening here,” Samuel said, ready to spout the whole jealousy spiel again.

  But this time, I was ready for him.

  “You made a mistake that got you caught. You have a phrase that you like to use in your writing - all of your writing - and I noticed it. One little search and I found out your secret identity,” I told my sister’s scheming boyfriend, as cool as a cucumber.

  I looked at Samuel, and he looked back. Both of us knew that he wanted to ask what phrase he’d used.

  Finally, he cracked. “Okay, so I may have a sideline. Just for a bit of fun. It is amazing what people will believe… and I guess I must be talking to a couple of them right now,” he said, that smug smirk back in evidence.

  “You’re as serious as any of us, so don’t try to pretend otherwise. Why else would you have started writing about cursed gemstones, and then weaselled your way into a ball that you knew would be your only chance to gain access to a diamond you believed was cursed?” Fergus said, hitting the nail on the head.

  My sister turned pale. “Is it true? Is that the reason you asked me what I had planned for Christmas before you asked me out this summer? You wanted to use me… to get to a ball?”

  “Of course not. It’s not true,” Samuel said, glaring at us. “You know I love you. We’re going to get married.”

  “If you’re lucky, he might even get you a giant diamond engagement ring - although I cant vouch for its providence,” Fergus said. It might have been overkill, but it made our suspicions clear to Samuel. It was time for him to stop pretending.

  He turned to face Charlotte. “I was going to tell you about the Alex Anderle thing. It started out as a joke a few years ago, I swear. Since then, I kind of got into it. There’s something to a lot of these theories you hear flying around. I wanted to investigate them and write about them so more people could find out the truth.”

  “Pah, hardly!” Fergus interjected.

  “I did know about the Wrexton diamond, but I swear it was just a bonus when I found out you were invited to the ball. I was going to gatecrash it anyway.” Samuel smiled, as if that made the whole thing so much better.

  Charlotte stared at him. Then she turned to me and said ‘You’re the worst sister’, before storming out of the house, getting into her car, and driving away.

  I watched her go with mixed feelings. How the heck had I just been blamed for all of the transgressions of her boyfriend/fiancé? Inside, I knew she just hated that I was right and that she’d been wrong about him all along. I could forgive her for feeling that, but she’d better not hold it against me forever.

  Samuel walked out of the house and pulled the door shut behind him, probably aware that he was unlikely to be welcome there once my mother found out the truth. I would hate to be my sister when faced with an ‘I told you so’ lecture from her.

  “Let’s get a couple of things straight. I am Alex Anderle, but I’m not a thief and I’m definitely not a killer… so you can stop dialling the police,” Samuel said, addressing the last comment to Fergus, who lowered his phone and tried to look innocent. “I was at least partially motivated to come here because of the ball. I’m a journalist. We’re opportunists! I saw an opportunity to potentially investigate the truth behind a gem that had been hushed up.”

  “How did you know it even existed?” I asked.

  “I have my…”

  “No.” I cut him off. “You tell the truth or we’re calling the police and telling them everything we know. And if we’re this suspicious, imagine how it’s going to look to them…” I said, knowing that Walter Miller would lap this information up - mostly because the local gossips had it that he didn’t have the first clue about where to look for the killer and the thief. I wasn’t even sure if anyone had told him the truth about the diamond yet.

  “Fine. It was one of my contacts who works for the government. I don’t know more than that, I swear! He’s a fan of my blog. He was the one who told me that the Wrextons had a diamond that could have an interesting history. He wouldn’t say any more than that. I worked the rest out on my own.”

  “The rest?” I asked, curious about what that meant.

  “The real story behind the curse of the diamond.” Samuel looked pityingly in Fergus’ direction. “I’m afraid it’s not as fantastical as your tale. This one is far more likely to be the truth.”

  Fergus looked like he was sucking on a lemon. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

  “The diamond is actually from India,” Samuel began. “It used to be the prized gem of a maharajah, until the British stole it from him. The maharajah came looking for the diamond, but the British denied they ever had it. The maharajah called them liars and said that if it were ever to be the case that the diamond resurfaced, and it had been in British hands all along, war would break out, no matter how much time had passed. Since then, I think it’s obvious that the diamond has been concealed by the British at the government’s request. Now someone has stolen it, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some government action in these parts. Even though a lot of time has passed, the maharajah’s word still stands, and I’m willing to bet that whoever stole the jewel is going to make sure that the world knows where it really came from,” he finished.

  “What was the name of the maharajah?” Fergus asked.

  “That’s classified
. You couldn’t find it out if you tried. The government have kept it quiet in case of this very incident occurring. It will give them a chance to catch the perpetrator before any lasting damage can be done.”

  Fergus crossed his arms. “That’s pretty convenient.” He turned to face me. “In case you haven’t already noticed, Alex Anderle is obsessed with government theories. He’s a ‘lizard men are running the world’ kind of guy.”

  Samuel shrugged. “Says the guy who thinks the earth itself is out to get us. Minerals and energetic influences? Show me one bit of evidence!”

  “You show me one bit of evidence that your theories are true!” Fergus growled back.

  “You’re the worst conspiracy theorist I’ve ever heard of. You’re nothing compared to me. Does anyone even visit your website? It looks like something from out of the 90s.”

  “At least I’m not hiding my identity because I’m ashamed of it. Unlike your sensationalism, I’m trying to find the truth. I even have a scientific consultant.” He gestured to me. “I take this very seriously.”

  Samuel looked from me to Fergus. “Now it all makes sense. I thought it was just an excuse to hide a secret romance, but you really are nuts enough to be working together.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “You don’t believe any of this nonsense, do you?” He gestured to Fergus, but I decided to take his question as referring to the whole.

  “I don’t believe in anything unless I can find the scientific evidence to support its existence. I genuinely believe that Fergus wants to find out the truth, which is why I am helping him to make sure that, when he does find it, his case is airtight.” When he does find it? I was surprised by my own words, but realised they were not untrue. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, Fergus would one day find, or even if it would be that shocking to the world, but I knew that I was an important part of his journey towards finding the truth.