Magpie Murders (46 page)

‘I’ll tell you what really annoyed me about Alan Conway. I helped him – not that he ever gave me anything by way of a thank you. But that’s another story. No. First of all, he wasn’t interested in the truth. Why are all the detectives in his books so fucking stupid? You know he even based one on me? Raymond Chubb. That’s me. Oh, he’s not black. He wouldn’t have dared go that far. But Chubb – you know who they are? They manufacture locks. Get it? And all that stuff he wrote about the wife in
No Rest for the Wicked
. That was my wife he was writing about. I’d been stupid enough to tell him and he went ahead and put it in his book without ever asking me.’

So this was the source of his anger. From the way Locke was talking, I knew he wasn’t interested in me and he wasn’t going to help. I might almost have added him to my list of suspects.

‘The public have no idea what the police are really doing in this country and it’s thanks to people like Alan Conway and people like you,’ he concluded. ‘And I hope you don’t mind my saying this, Ms Ryeland, but I find it a little bit pathetic that you’re trying to make a real-life mystery out of what is actually a textbook-case suicide. He had the motive. He was ill. He wrote a letter. He’d just split up with his boyfriend. He was alone. So he makes a decision and he jumps. If you want my advice, you’ll go back to London and forget it. Thanks for the tea.’

He had finished drinking and he walked out. He had left the flapjack, in pieces, on his plate.

Crouch End

Andreas was waiting for me when I got in. I could tell the moment I opened the door because of the smell coming from the kitchen. Andreas is a fantastic cook. He cooks in a very masculine way, rattling pans, throwing in the ingredients without measuring them, everything high speed on roaring flames with a glass of red wine in hand. I’ve never seen him consult a cookery book. The table was laid for two with candles and flowers that looked like they’d come from a garden, not a shop. He grinned when he saw me and gave me a hug.

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he said.

‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Roast lamb.’

‘Can you give me five minutes?’

‘I can give you fifteen.’

I showered and changed into a loose-fitting jumper and leggings, the sort of clothes that assured me I wouldn’t be going out again tonight. I came to the table with damp hair and picked up the giant glass of wine that Andreas had poured for me.

‘Cheers.’

‘Yamas.’

English and the Greek. That was another of our traditions.

We sat down and ate and I told Andreas everything that had happened in Framlingham: the funeral, all the rest of it. I knew at once that he wasn’t very interested. He listened politely but that wasn’t what I’d hoped for. I wanted him to question me, to challenge my assumptions. I thought we might work it out like some sort of north London Tommy and Tuppence (Agatha Christie’s slightly less successful detective duo). But he didn’t really care who had killed Alan. I remembered that he hadn’t wanted me to investigate in the first place and I wondered if I had annoyed him – the Greek side of him – going ahead anyway.

In fact, his mind was on other things. ‘I’ve given in my notice,’ he suddenly announced as he served up.

‘At the school? Already?’ I was surprised.

‘Yes. I’m leaving at the end of term.’ He glanced at me. ‘I told you what I was going to do.’

‘You said you were thinking about it.’

‘Yannis has been pushing me to make a decision. The hotel owners won’t wait much longer and the money is in place. We managed to get a loan from the bank and there may be various grants available from the EU. It’s all happening, Susan. Polydorus will be open next summer.’

‘Polydorus? Is that what it’s called?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a pretty name.’

I have to admit, I was a little thrown. Andreas had more or less asked me to marry him but I’d assumed he would give me a little time to make up my mind. Now it seemed he was offering me a done deal. Just bring out the air ticket and the apron and we could be on our way. He had his iPad with him and slid it round on the table while we ate, showing me pictures. Polydorus did look a lovely place. There was a long verandah with crazy paving and a straw pergola, brightly coloured wooden tables and a dazzling sea beyond. The building itself was whitewashed with blue shutters and I could just make out a bar with an old-fashioned coffee machine, tucked away inside, in the shade. The bedrooms were basic but they looked clean and welcoming. I could easily imagine the sort of people who would want to stay there: visitors rather than tourists.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘It looks lovely.’

‘I’m doing this for both of us, Susan.’

‘But what happens to “both of us” if I don’t want to come?’ I closed the cover of the iPad. I didn’t want to look at it any more. ‘Couldn’t you have waited a little longer before you went ahead?’

‘I had to make up my mind – about the hotel – and that’s what I’ve done. I don’t want to be a teacher all my life and anyway, you and me … is this the best we can do?’ He laid down his knife and fork. I noticed how neatly he arranged them on each side of his plate. ‘We don’t see each other all the time,’ he went on. ‘There are weeks when we don’t see each other at all. You made it clear you didn’t want me to move in with you—’

I bridled at that. ‘That isn’t true. You’re welcome here but most of the time you’re at school. I thought you preferred it this way.’

‘All I’m saying is that we could be together more. We could make this work. I know I’m asking a lot but you won’t know until you try. You’ve never even been to Crete! Come for a few weeks in the spring. See if you like it.’ I said nothing so he added: ‘I’m fifty years old. If I don’t make a move on this, it’s never going to happen.’

‘Can’t Yannis manage without you?’

‘I love you, Susan, and I want you to be with me. I promise you, if you’re not happy, we can come back together. I’ve already made that mistake. I’m not going to do it twice. If it doesn’t work, I can get another teaching job.’

I didn’t feel like eating any more. I reached out and lit a cigarette. ‘There’s something I haven’t told you,’ I said. ‘Charles has asked me to take over the company.’

His eyes widened when he heard that. ‘Do you want to?’

‘I have to consider it, Andreas. It’s a fantastic opportunity. I can take Cloverleaf in any direction I want.’

‘I thought you said Cloverleaf was finished.’

‘I never said that.’ He looked disappointed so I added: ‘Is that what you were hoping?’

‘Can I be honest, Susan? I thought, when Alan died, that it would be the end for you, yes. I thought the company would close and you would move on and that the hotel would be the answer for both of us.’

‘It’s not like that. It may not be easy for a couple of years but Cloverleaf isn’t going to disappear overnight. I’ll commission new authors—’

‘You want to find another Atticus Pünd?’

He had said it with such scorn that I stopped, surprised. ‘I thought you liked the books.’

He reached out and took the cigarette from me, smoked it for a moment, then handed it back. It was something we did unconsciously, even when we were angry with each other. ‘I never liked the books,’ he said. ‘I read them because you worked on them and obviously I cared about you. But I thought they were crap.’

I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say. ‘They made a lot of money.’

‘Cigarettes make a lot of money. Toilet paper makes a lot of money. It doesn’t mean they’re worth anything.’

‘You can’t say that!’

‘Why not? Alan Conway was laughing at you, Susan. He was laughing at everyone. I know about writing. I teach Homer, for God’s sake. I teach Aeschylus. He knew what those books were – and he knew when he was putting them together. They’re badly written trash!’

‘I don’t agree. They’re very well written. Millions of people enjoyed them.’

‘They’re worth nothing! Eighty thousand words to prove that the butler did it?’

‘You’re just being snobbish.’

‘And you’re defending something that you always knew had no value at all.’

I wasn’t sure when the discussion had turned into such an acrimonious argument. The table looked so beautiful with the candles and the flowers. The food was so good. But the two of us were at each other’s throats.

‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were jealous,’ I complained. ‘You knew him before I did. You were both teachers. But he broke out …’

‘You’re right about one thing, Susan. I did know him before you and I didn’t like him.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m not going to tell you. It’s all in the past and I don’t want to upset you.’

‘I’m already upset.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m just telling you the truth. As for the money he made, you’re right about that too. He didn’t deserve any of it, not one penny, and all the time I’ve known you, I’ve hated the way you’ve had to kowtow to him. I’m telling you, Susan. He wasn’t worthy of you.’

‘I was his editor. That’s all. I didn’t like him either!’ I forced myself to stop. I hated the way this was going. ‘Why did you never say any of this before?’

‘Because it wasn’t relevant. It is now. I’m asking you to be my wife!’

‘Well, you’ve got a funny way of going about it.’

Andreas stayed the night but there was none of the companionship we’d had on the first night he’d got back from Crete. He went straight to sleep and left very early the next morning without breakfast. The candles had burned down. I wrapped the lamb in silver foil and put it in the fridge. Then I went to work.

Cloverleaf Books

I’ve always been fond of Mondays. Thursdays and Fridays make me edgy but there’s something that’s quite comforting about coming in to the pile on my desk; the unopened letters, the proofs waiting to be read, the Post-it notes from marketing, publicity and foreign rights. I chose my office because it’s at the back of the building. It’s quiet and cosy, tucked into the eaves. It’s the sort of room that really ought to have a coal fire and probably did once until some turn-of-the-century vandal filled in the fireplace. I used to share Jemima with Charles before she left and there’s always Tess on reception, who will do anything for me. When I came in that Monday morning, she made me tea and gave me my phone messages: nothing urgent. The Women’s Prize for Fiction had asked me to join their judging panel. My children’s author needed comforting. There were production problems with a dust jacket (I’d said it wouldn’t work).

Charles wasn’t in. His daughter, Laura, had gone into labour early as expected and he was waiting at home with his wife. He’d also sent me an email that morning.
I hope you had time to think about our conversation in the car. It would be great for you and I’m confident it would be great for the company too.
Funnily enough, Andreas telephoned me just as I was reading it. Glancing at my watch I guessed he must have slipped out into the corridor, leaving the kids with their Greek primers. He was speaking in a low voice.

‘I’m sorry about last night,’ he said. ‘It was stupid of me just to throw everything at you like that. The school have asked me to reconsider and I won’t make any decision until you tell me what you want to do.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And I didn’t mean what I said about Alan Conway either. Of course his books are worthwhile. It’s just that I knew him and …’ His voice trailed off. I could imagine him glancing up and down the corridor, like a schoolboy, afraid of getting caught.

‘We can talk about it later,’ I said.

‘I’ve got a parents’ meeting tonight. Why don’t we have dinner tomorrow night’

‘I’d like that.’

‘I’ll call you.’ He rang off.

Quite unexpectedly, and without really wanting it, I had come to a crossroads – or more accurately, a T-junction – in my life. I could take over as CEO of Cloverleaf Books. There were writers I wanted to work with, ideas I’d had but which Charles had always vetoed. As I’d told Andreas the night before, I could develop the business the way I wanted.

Or there was Crete.

The choices were so different, the two directions so contrary, that considering the two of them side by side almost made me want to laugh. I was like the child who doesn’t know if he wants to be a brain surgeon or a train driver. It was quite frustrating. Why do these things always have to happen at the same time?

I looked through my post. There was a letter addressed to Susan Ryland, which I was tempted to bin. I hate it when people misspell my name, especially when it’s so easy to check. There were a couple of invitations, invoices … the usual stuff. And at the bottom of the pile, a brown A4 envelope which clearly contained a manuscript. That was unusual. I never read unsolicited manuscripts. Nobody does any more. But it had my name on the envelope (correctly spelled) so I tore it open and looked at the front page.

DEATH TREADS THE BOARDS
Donald Leigh

It took me a moment to remember that this was the book written by the waiter at the Ivy Club, the man who had dropped the plates when he saw Alan Conway. He claimed that Alan had stolen his ideas and used them for the fourth Atticus Pünd mystery,
Night Comes Calling
. I still didn’t like his title very much and the first sentence (‘There had been hundreds of murders in the Pavilion Theatre, Brighton but this was the first one that was real.’) didn’t quite work for me either. A nice idea, but too on-the-nose and expressed a little clumsily, I thought. But I had promised him I would read it and with Charles away and with Alan so much on my mind, I thought I’d get to it straight away. I had my tea. Why not?

I skim-read most of it. It’s something I’ve learned to do. I can usually tell if I’m going to like a book by the end of the second or third chapter but if I’m going to talk about it in conference, I’m obliged to hang in there to the last page. It took me three hours. Then I pulled out a copy of
Night Comes Calling
.

And then I compared the two.

Extract from
Night Comes Calling
by Alan Conway

CHAPTER 26: CURTAIN CALL