Page 53 of Disturbing the Dead
“That depends. Are we going to keep pretending you’re not ‘Edinburgh’s Foremost Reporter of Criminal Activities’?”
Her brows shot up. “You think I write those? I can barely scratch out my own name.”
“Whatever. I don’t actually care. I just don’t want you negotiating to pass messages between us when I’m pretty damn sure you’re the one getting those messages. Sweet setup, though, making people pay you a fee for access to yourself.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Again, whatever. I don’t care. But speaking of your writerly friend, let’s discuss those accounts of Dr. Gray’s adventures.”
Her gaze shoots to Gray, who has been quietly sipping his pint. “Accounts?”
“It has come to our attention that someone has been writing about Dr. Gray’s adventures. Not as news articles, but as stories. Recounting his past cases and selling them.”
“What?”
“If it’s you—or your writerly friend—tell me now, because if you deny it, and I later find out that it’s you…”
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about, Mallory. I cover—” She coughs. “I help my writerly friend cover the crimes you have been involved in, but we do not center the stories on Dr. Gray. If someone is doing that, then I… Well, had I heard of it, I would have presumed you had entered into an agreement with the scribbler who pens them, and I would have been put out that you did not ask my writerly friend to do it.”
“So you really haven’t even heard of these fictionalized versions?”
“No.”
“Isla loves true-crime broadsheets. Yet she had no idea these existed. Neither did our local newsboy. Neither did you. How is that even possible? Who’s writing them, and who are they being marketed to?”
“They are being sold at the market?”
I wave a hand. “The ‘market’ meaning the people who will buy them. The consumers.”
“You have such an odd way with words.”
Gray sets down his glass. “Yes, she does, but her meaning is clear. My sister is a prime consumer of such stories, yet she has never heard of them. Even if they are apparently new, I would presume someone would have mentioned it to me.” He pauses. “Which is what occurred, I suppose, but I am surprised it did not happen sooner. So who are these stories being sold to? Through what venues?”
“Who told you about them?”
Gray and I glance at each other. Then I say, with care, “So, you might have heard we were at the Christie party last night.”
“Why do you think I ran to catch up with you? I heard Dr. Gray here unwrapped the mummy, and you assisted.”
“Someone there had read the stories. A woman whom I would not consider the primary market for such things, although I do not know her well. She had read them with her children.”
“There!” Jack smacks the table. “Now that makes sense.”
“It does?”
“You said they are being written as stories, and that this wellborn lady reads them with her children. That is the market, then, as you call it.”
“Children? For stories of murder?”
“No, for stories of detection.” Jack’s lips curve in a smile. “It’s like the Bloody Register.”
“The Bloody Register?”
She sips her beer. “You’re too young to remember those.”
“How old are you?” I say.
“About your age, which means I was also too young for them, but my ma had them from when she was young, and I read her copies.”
