Crooked Herring (21 page)

I’m not sure people read postscripts that much, either. I mean, you’ve found out who committed the murder or whether Elizabeth Bennet married Mr Darcy. They were popular in the nineteenth century, of course – a whole chapter or two on what each character did next, whether they got their just deserts, whether they were happy, how many children they had.

But the story’s finished when it’s finished in my view. There’s the final tableau, then the curtain falls and the audience goes out into the cold night, turning up their collars against the rain.

I have not lost touch entirely with Elsie. Twice a year an A4 envelope still arrives with the accounts for the earlier books that are still under contract to her. A short time afterwards, a payment is made into my bank
account, less fifteen per cent commission. And every now and then her assistant, Tuesday, phones with some query about a request for a book signing or new
large-print
rights. She is always very bright and cheerful, and seems unaware that my new books are all contracted to Francis and Nowak.

When Elsie departed, she left behind her a Sainsbury’s bag containing two Kit Kats, a leather-bound notebook and a tape recorder. She has never asked for them back. The notes, though purporting to be a diary, increasingly took the form of a first draft of a book about the Vynall murder. I have therefore felt free to draw on them in producing this account of my last ever case. I did write and offer to share the royalties with her if I found a publisher, but I received no reply. Karen Rockingham’s sales as a crime writer are enormous and she is doubtless very busy. When I last heard, the agency was about to move into new and much grander offices.

I was called as a witness, of course, at Henry Holiday’s trial. He cut a very sorry figure in the witness box – the round, red face just peeping over the rail, the old-fashioned waistcoats, the slightly grubby paisley bow ties. Everyone agreed that he was an improbable murderer. The second death threat letter, which he had carefully preserved, simply provoked mirth when produced in evidence – it was, with hindsight, a ludicrous fabrication. So, indeed, was the entire story he had spun to incriminate me – it was as crooked and full of holes as any of his plots. Henry produced the occasional flash of the old arrogance, but the main question on everyone’s lips was how he thought he would ever get away with
it. It’s strange how, for a while, I actually thought that he might. But that’s what we writers do all the time – suspend disbelief for a short while and tell a story.

Then the curtain falls.

Many writers like to state in their acknowledgments that they could not have produced their book unaided. Obviously I could have done this one on my own, but it would have probably consisted of some A4 sheets of paper, badly stapled together, full of typos and with a number of holes in the plot. The version you have here is better in all respects. My thanks are therefore due to everyone at Allison and Busby and in particular to Susie Dunlop, publishing director, Sophie Robinson, Lydia Riddle and to Fliss and Simon Bage. I am also grateful, as ever, to my agent, David Headley, and to my family for their continued support, without which even the stapled A4 version would have been a challenge for me.

I must also take this opportunity to apologise to the people of West Wittering for dumping another body on their doorstep. I would like to reassure potential visitors that on most days in West Wittering nobody is murdered at all. I should also like to apologise to the City of Chichester for suggesting that it is not as exciting or dangerous as Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles. Anyone who has negotiated the bypass at 8.30 in the morning will know that is untrue.

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L. C. T
YLER
was born in Southend-on-Sea and then educated at Oxford and City Universities. His day jobs have included being a systems analyst, a cultural attaché and (for a few weeks one summer) working for Bomb Disposal. He has won awards for his writing, including the Last Laugh Award for the best comic crime novel of the year. He is Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and has been a CWA Daggers judge. L. C. Tyler has lived all over the world, but most recently in London and Sussex.

lctyler.com

Crooked Herring