Shall we get ready to rumble?! While I get stuck into formatting this badboy of 102,000 odd words into shape, I can tell you a little bit more about it, because I can't keep this to myself. I mean, I made my editor cry, I made myself cry and I actually had a nightmare because of this too. Yikes! Not selling it am I? Imagine writing a book and then it keeping you up and night because you have literally scared yourself silly. I mean there isn't a demon or a ghost running around the pages of this story, but... some of this truly is messed up. I did it to get some things off my chest and while I feel like it was literary therapy for me, it's still very close on the surface of what I've actually processed and there's not enough emotional distance for me to box it up into the 'that happened and it's acceptable' rather than traumatising. Oh God, I'm going to traumatise you lot too, aren't I?
I've already warned that's it a different lane from the usual Billy London fare, in that it's not an out and out romance. It's undoubtedly a love story, but a love story between family - family that you choose and family that you don't. Oh, my characters are going to bang like bunnies, it wouldn't be a story by me if they didn't, but it's banging in keeping with the people that they are. And there are jokes. I can't help myself, like my main character, Issey, I tend to make light of terrible situations, so I can manage it in my brain. But as you'll see from just the trigger warning, you'll need to be in the right place to read this and even then some of it may still shock you.
Let me explain:
Blurb - 24 May 2021
T/W - discussions of suicide, sexual assault, stalking and suicide
“My name is Issey Deroche-Maurel. My mother was married to Derek Carpenter. He was my stepfather and twelve years ago, he was murdered on my wedding day.”
At the height of the macabre delectation of true crime podcasts and in the midst of a global pandemic, Issey Deroche-Maurel and her traumatic past have been discovered. Seizing upon the opportunity to tell her side of an impossible story, before it's told for her, Issey gives herself the voice to speak. For herself. For the people she loves. For the very last time.
Now that I've set it up, read on here:
Excerpt - 19 August 2008
Issey’s shoulders began to ache with the effort of
keeping as much distance between herself and the officer as humanly possible.
“I talked to over a hundred people. I can’t recall all of it.”
“Why don’t I believe you then?”
“Because I’m sure recalling a conversation is far
easier with a recorder or a notebook to hand,” she snapped.
His eyebrows drew together slightly, a slight
wrinkle forming there. “What are you trying to hide?”
“Absolutely nothing,” she lied sweetly.
Roylings softened his voice. “What you’re doing is
obstructing justice. You’re legally required to help the police in our
enquiries.” She blinked at him. “Do you know what happens to pretty little rich
girls like you in prison?”
Oh, don’t you fucking dare, she thought, despite how her stomach dissolved in sudden fear. She
shook her head.
“Things that make Harvey Nichols seem a long way
away. Things that make period pains look like a walk in the park. Things that
make women a lot stronger than you go mental. Things that make you wish for a weapon.
Do you understand? You help me out, Mrs Buchanan, and you’ll never need to
know.”
She scratched her neck. “I told you I can’t
remember.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Batting those lashes at me to see if I give up.
I’m sure every male you’ve come across has bent to your will. There’s always an
exception to the rule.”
“Yes. I married him.”
She looked at Roylings, her eyes bright with
laughter. “I’m sure the floor’s clean enough for you to roll over whenever
you’re ready.”
Roylings leaned in a little closer, and she could
see the dark blond stubble that coated his lower jaw, and that his eyes weren’t
black or brown, but a deep, very dark blue. “You’re playing out of your depth.”
“Something to strive for while I’m not on
honeymoon.”
“How about you strive for bail when I arrest you
for obstruction to justice?”
Issey’s temper finally surfaced. She was not one
given to making threats, but hey, when in Rome… “How about I do you for
harassment, sexual and racial discrimination?”
He laughed in her face. “I would love to know how
you’d even attempt the last one. Go on, Mrs Buchanan. Enlighten me.”
She cleared her throat and said in her most
delicate lady-of-the-manor voice, “The moment you met me, you have made your
dislike of me patently obvious. I would figure that to be some deep-seated
dislike of women in general and right now you are using your height and weight
as an advantage over me as a woman. Sexual discrimination. Your methods of
interrogation are proving to be rather brutal, given you have offered no form
of counsel and no tape recorder. I am assisting you with your enquiries, not
being questioned. You made that distinction to me. With the recent family
bereavement in mind, it is hardly admirable policing. Harassment. The fact that
you’re an inch from my face, I’m immensely surprised that you cannot see that
my father is Black.”
She saw his eyes widen in astonishment, as she
concluded, “Racial discrimination. I am a fantastic journalist, and I can spin
this in such a way that you’ll be collecting your pension this time next
fortnight. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for the Met being under scrutiny
for the way they treat ethnic suspects, yet again, would you?” Her eyes gleamed
as a rather malicious smile tilted the corners of her mouth. “I like a good
fight.”
He looked at her as if he had discovered a new
species. “What box do you tick when you have to fill in those equal
opportunities forms?”
“Mixed, obviously,” she said, trying not to show
how irritated she was in making the clarification.
“Those laws are there to protect the vulnerable in
society,” he reminded her, as if they were having a congenial conversation.
“Those who are truly abused by the system.”
“And I am taking advantage of that law.” She lifted
her brows. “Why, do you think that racial discrimination is reserved for those
who are all black or all Asian or all white? I deserve to be protected from
unwarranted slurs against my character. You clearly have issue with me. And my
proximity to Blackness may be one of many.”
“You are unbelievable,” he told her in part
admiration. “You know that it would be laughed out of any court.”
“The very fact that you suggested that it would be
constitutes an abuse of my right to be protected by that law.”
“I doubt it.”
“You would,” she derided, “you’re the one I’m
pointing the finger at.”
“You are very defensive.”
“I always am when men try to bully me.”
“Help me out,” he encouraged. Good Lord. Any guilty
person would have told him what he wanted to know to stop the range of moods he
went through.
“Why don’t you ask Clare Windsor?” Issey said
eventually. “She was right next to Derek when we had our instantly forgettable
conversation.”
“Who’s Clare Windsor?”
“If you stop hovering over me, I’ll show you.” He
stretched up and watched her flick through the pictures. “Here. If that’s all,
I’d really like to go home now.”
Roylings inclined his head in the affirmative. “You
can tell your mother that she’s no longer needed either. Whatever you’re trying
to hide, Mrs Buchanan, it’ll be better for you if you own up to it now.”
“It’s Ms Deroche-Maurel,” she corrected, only to be
promptly ignored.
“Take a note,” he said with a taut edge to his
voice. “This is the part where you’ve walked freely into the lion’s den. Don’t
scream if you get eaten.”
Issey picked up her purse. “No one can eat a whole
me. There’s far too much to go around.”
He laughed suddenly. “You always have to have the
last word, don’t you? Does your husband have any idea what he’s got himself
into?”
Eyes wide open. She lifted a
shoulder. “I doubt it.”
He opened the door for her and walked her towards
the reception. “Anything else that comes to mind—a conversation, perhaps—please,
let me know.” He stared at her, as if he had recognised his sparring partner,
and was looking forward to beating her stupid.
Over Derek’s dead body? No, thanks, I’ve got better
use for my time. “Of course.”
He held the door open for her and she slipped her
sunglasses back onto her nose. Vanessa was still on the phone, standing by her
new Audi.
“Of course, of course, yes, darling, very soon. Bye-bye.”
She turned to her daughter. “All done, darling?”
“You’re my witness,” Issey ground out.
“To what?”
“That…that poor excuse for a police officer is
trying to stitch me up.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. He
likes you, that’s all.”
Issey sucked in a calming breath. As she had a
feeling that Roylings could be watching her from the station, she stopped
herself from shaking her mother to sanity. “Mother, your husband was murdered.
The faster they sort this out, the better they look.”
Vanessa waved her hand through the air. “I think
they’ve made a terrible mistake. No one would go out of their way to murder
Derek, and not at your wedding.”
You and I came pretty close, she was so close to retorting, but she held it back. Her mother
continued, “Honestly, it’s the most upsetting thing I’ve heard, next to George
Best being an alcoholic. Broke my heart.”
“Really, Mother? Unless you want to add daughter convicted of murder to that,
then watch out for me.”
Vanessa gurgled with delighted laughter. “He seems
so intent on you because he finds you attractive. You shouldn’t be surprised,
not at this age. Just because you’re married doesn’t mean it won’t happen.” She
tweaked at her hat smugly. “Well, you are my child.”
“He’s just…”
Vanessa pressed the alarm release to her car. “You
ought to go out. It’ll be good for you. Here…” She handed over a gold-embossed
invitation. “Derek and I were supposed to attend Zack’s charity dinner for that
heart foundation. I suppose Lorccán will still be at work.”
Issey twisted her keys about her fingers. “I
suppose so.” Best place for him, really. Out of each other’s way.
Vanessa opened the door and gracefully stepped into the car. “Don’t brood too much, will you, darling? It rather undermines my widowhood.”
