The Late Lord Thorpe: A DC Smith Investigation by Grainger Peter

Author:Grainger, Peter [Grainger, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

‘Don’t say anything yet! I thought I’d made my mind up – now I’ve heard them again, I don’t know.’

They were sitting at the kitchen table after lunch, Smith on one side, Jo opposite him and her laptop in between. She had played through the five recordings of disembodied voices reading the same three-minute extract from the first book in her series. He did exactly as he had been told and said nothing.

‘God, this is so hard. I mean, they all sound good. Especially compared to my efforts…’

She looked up at him, realising why he was silent.

‘Well, you can say something. Just don’t pick one yet!’

He said, ‘I didn’t think your “efforts” were at all bad – but I completely understand why you decided not to do it.’

She stared at the screen again – more of a glare, to be honest – and sighed. ‘The thing is… Well, one thing is, once you’ve chosen someone and the first audiobook is out there, you cannot change your mind. I’ve looked into it – audiobook listeners go mad if you change the reader. So even if it’s someone you don’t think did a great job after all, you’re stuck with them. Forever.’

Smith nodded and said, ‘Yes, I can see why, even though I’ve never actually listened to one. It’s a sort of lifelong commitment. A bit like a marriage.’

Her eyes were watching over the top of the screen as he carried on musing.

‘Till death do us part. Obviously, if your reader died, you’d get another go. I wonder whether it’s ever happened, though…’

‘Whether what has ever happened?’

‘Whether a writer has bumped off their audiobook reader for murdering their darlings. I’ve known cases where the motive turned out to be more outlandish than that one. A writer could be driven mad by hearing their work read out badly.’

She knew, of course, that he was deliberately distracting her, and that in a sense she was cooperating in this by continuing the conversation, but he was very good at this sort of thing.

‘So, you’re suggesting that if I make the wrong choice, I might have to kill someone.’

He did that small shrug and raising the eyebrows ever so slightly thing.

Jo said, ‘Just tell me – do you think one of these is better than the others?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t tell me which one. Not yet.’

‘OK.’

She tapped some keys, intending to listen again, and said in a business-like way, ‘By the way, I hate it when you do that.’

‘When I do what?’

‘Exactly what I tell you.’

At his desk upstairs, Smith opened the notebook and wrote down the time and the fact that he was about to call Caroline Thorpe. He added the briefest of details – Robert Oliver DDA am/ contact the host, Ranworth party?

He would keep back for now the fact he had met Tessa Montgomery and Toby Egerton; naturally enough, Caroline would ask more questions about this than he would be able to answer – she might wonder why he’d not discovered more from them. In

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