Evil in Return by Elena Forbes Page A

about Tim. As for Tim, he had created a buffer zone of success and respectability, but it could easily be blown away. Maybe that was what he feared. He wondered how Tim would react when he heard what Joe had told him.
    ‘When did you last see Joe?’ Alex asked, wondering how to bring it up.
    ‘It must have been at least a year ago, then he turned up out of the blue at my Chambers a couple of weeks ago. You know what he was like. Never thought to ring ahead. I was in court, so he hung around for a bit until my clerk turfed him out. After that he phoned a couple of times, but I was rushed off my feet and I didn’t get around to returning the calls. I feel bad about it now.’
    ‘You don’t know what he was after?’
    ‘I assumed he wanted to borrow some money, like the last time.’ There was no disapproval in Tim’s tone; it was just a simple statement of fact.
    ‘It can’t have been money he was after. He made a packet out of the book.’
    ‘Well, sod that. If you ask me, he doesn’t deserve a penny.’ Tim took a deep draught and stared down at his glass as if lost in it. It wasn’t really the money that Tim resented, Alex suspected.
    More the fact that Joe had used some of their common experiences for his own ends. It was all too close for comfort.
    ‘I hadn’t seen him for a while either,’ Alex said. ‘Then he called me. It must have been about the same time he came to see you. He’d had a couple of funny emails and he wondered who’d sent them, if it was one of us.’
    Tim looked up at him over the edge of his tumbler. ‘One of us? What sort of thing?’
    ‘They were really odd, like they were part of a book, or something, but with no beginning or ending, just a paragraph cut off mid sentence, written in some sort of funny gothic print.’
    ‘From Joe’s book, you mean?’
    ‘No. The first one talked about an old country house, set in woods. It was all pretty bland.’
    ‘He showed it to you?’
    ‘Not the first. I think he deleted it. But I saw the second one. It was weird. It described some people going down into a crypt, with candles, laughing, music playing . . .’
    Tim’s expression hardened. ‘What else?’
    ‘That’s about it, but he was quite worked up about it.’
    ‘He always over-dramatised.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    Tim held Alex’s gaze. ‘I assume you didn’t send them?’
    ‘That’s what Joe wanted to know, but no, it wasn’t me.’
    ‘Well, it wasn’t me either. It must be Paul or Danny having a laugh.’
    ‘Joe didn’t think so. For starters, he said he hadn’t spoken to either of them for a long while and neither of them had his email address.’
    ‘It’s pretty easy to find out. They could ask any one of his friends, or they probably rang his publisher and made up some story.’
    ‘But why? What’s the point?’
    ‘Envy, maybe. You said the book’s a success and he made lots of money. Maybe someone’s jealous and wanted to rattle his cage, make him feel a bit less full of himself.’
    The bitterness in Tim’s tone took Alex aback. That Tim, who seemed to have achieved everything he wanted, might actually be jealous, was an odd thought. Maybe he had sent the emails after all, although bitterness aside, it wouldn’t be in character. If not Tim, it had to be either Paul or Danny. Paul had a devious side, but of the two, his money was on Danny. The weasel, as they’d called him. He pictured his long-nosed, freckled face, the small, beady brown eyes behind the tinted John Lennon glasses. He had always been a bit of a joker, but the humour was razor-sharp and usually at someone else’s expense. He certainly liked to push things to the wire when he could.
    ‘Who do you mean?’ he asked, watching Tim closely, still undecided.
    Tim drained his glass and put it down forcefully on the corner of the desk. ‘I don’t know. I can’t believe either Danny or Paul would be so petty.’
    ‘Well, if it’s not one of us, there’s a simple explanation. Someone’s