Moonflower Murders

by Anthony Horowitz

  ‘Yes. I was asked to contact him on a personal matter. It was to do with an inheritance. I don’t need to go into the details.’

  ‘You were acting for Martin and Joanne Williams,’ I said. I was bluffing, really. I remembered seeing his business card in their kitchen and knew he had to be referring to them. ‘I went to Heath House,’ I added. ‘They explained it all to me.’

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘Very well. In fact, your ears should have been burning. They were very appreciative about what you did for them.’ Now I was outright lying. Martin and Joanne hadn’t told me anything very much. I just hoped that if I flattered Khan enough, I might draw some of the information out of him.

  It worked. ‘Well, in the end I didn’t do very much for them,’ he said, but in a way that suggested how pleased he was with himself. ‘They told you about the house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The will was absolutely clear. Heath House was given fifty-fifty to the two children: Frank Parris and his sister. Just because Mr Parris had allowed them to live there, rent-free, since his mother’s death, I’m afraid that did not constitute an agreement, oral or otherwise. At no point had Mr Parris relinquished his rights.’

  I was trying to keep a poker face but in fact Khan had just provided me with a piece of information that might change everything. ‘He had this idea of starting another agency and he wanted us to invest.’ That was what Martin had said, but he had been deliberately vague, borderline dishonest. Frank Parris had gone bust and he wanted his share of the house. That was the reason he had come to Suffolk. It might also be the reason why he was killed.

  ‘They do love that house,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes. Joanne grew up in it. It’s a lovely place.’

  Mrs Khan slid across the photograph frame, dressed in a swimming costume and holding a plastic spade.

  ‘So you spoke to Frank Parris,’ I went on.

  ‘I called him on his mobile. This was on the Friday, just after he had visited his sister. He was planning to put the house on the market with Clarke’s in Framlingham. I have to say that he was quite abrasive, but then I understand things hadn’t gone well for him in Australia. I asked him to give Mr and Mrs Williams a little more time to come to terms with the move and, for that matter, to find somewhere else to live. In this, I was partially successful. He still wanted to contact Clarke’s, but he agreed on a long exchange.’

  ‘They must have been very upset.’

  ‘Mrs Williams was not at all pleased.’ He added a heaped spoonful of sugar to his tea.

  I could easily imagine it. ‘Piss off and leave us alone.’ I remembered her parting words. ‘They can’t have been too sorry when he was beaten to death,’ I remarked. I’d learned what I needed to know. There was no need to mince my words.

  Khan looked suitably pained. ‘I’m not sure that’s true. They were family and they were close. Mr and Mrs Williams had lived rent-free for ten years. They really had nothing to complain about.’

  I hadn’t drunk any of my tea but I didn’t want it. I was wondering if Martin or Joanne had popped into Branlow Hall at the time of the murder and how I could find out. Frank Parris might have told them which room he was staying in, but if either of them had decided to kill him, they would have needed to know how to find it. I tried to imagine one or even both of them creeping round the hotel with a hammer, accidentally stepping on Bear’s tail as they made their way along the corridor. Somehow, it felt unlikely. But there was nobody else with such an obvious motive.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr Khan,’ I said. I got to my feet, ending the meeting.

  He stood up too and we shook hands. ‘How is your sister?’ he asked.

  ‘I saw her yesterday. She’s very well, thank you.’

  ‘I hope things have worked out with Wilcox,’ he continued and then, seeing the look of surprise on my face: ‘But perhaps the two of you didn’t discuss it.’

  ‘Discuss what?’ I asked.

  He smiled, trying to pretend that it was nothing very serious, but he had made a mistake and he knew it. He did his best to back-pedal. ‘Oh, I just gave her some advice,’ he said.

  ‘Is she a client?’

  The smile was still there, but faltering. ‘You’d have to ask her that, Ms Ryeland. I’m sure you understand.’

  If she wasn’t his client, he could simply have said so.

  I had known that something was wrong after the evening I’d spent with Katie. Was Jack in some sort of trouble? Did she have money problems? What was it that she hadn’t told me? As I walked back to the car, Martin and Joanne Williams, Frank Parris, Branlow Court and even Cecily Treherne suddenly seemed less important.

  My sister was in trouble. I needed to know why.

  Martlesham Heath

  I was on my way to London.

  More emails had come in . . . though nothing from Andreas. That didn’t surprise me. He never responded very quickly at the best of times and he had a strange reticence when it came to matters that were personal or emotional. He needed time to think about things.

  But James Taylor was thrilled I was back in the UK. We would be delighted to see me again and he would bring along anything he could find relating to Atticus Pünd Takes the Case. He suggested dinner at Le Caprice and I just hoped that he would be the one who picked up the bill. I had a meeting arranged with Lionel Corby at the gym where he now worked. And Michael Bealey had invited me for ‘a quick drink’ at Soho House in Greek Street.

  Finally, I had called Craig Andrews. There was a possibility I might be in London for quite a few days and I wasn’t too tempted by the comforts of the Premier Inn. In his original email, he had offered me a room and I remembered visiting him once in a handsome Victorian house off Ladbroke Grove. The money hadn’t come from his books, incidentally, but from his former career in banking. The Christopher Shaw novels were solid, mid-list titles, nothing more, but they had given him the freedom to enjoy the money he had already made. Craig was more than pleased to put me up and it was good talking to him again on the phone, but why did I feel a pang of guilt as I hung up? It was ridiculous. All I was expecting was a spare room for a couple of nights and maybe supper and a shared bottle of wine.

  I stopped off at Woodbridge before I hit the A12. I’d been just about presentable when I was at the hotel, and Katie, of course, hadn’t cared what I looked like, but there was no way I was walking into Le Caprice – or, for that matter, Craig’s house – in the clothes I’d brought with me. There were a couple of surprisingly good boutiques in the old square and I came away with a knee-length cocktail dress in midnight-blue velvet and a Ralph Lauren cotton jacket (25 per cent off). I’d spent much more than I’d intended, but I reminded myself of the money Lawrence owed me and just hoped it would arrive before my next credit card bill.

  With the bags safely stowed away in the boot I was once again on my way south, but just a few miles outside Woodbridge I came to a roundabout and a sign for Martlesham Heath. On an impulse I hit the indicator and took the third exit. Like it or not – and the truth was, I didn’t much – there was one encounter that had to take place. I couldn’t put it off any longer.

  The Suffolk Constabulary headquarters were based in a really ugly modern building about five minutes from the main road. It was a square block of concrete and plate glass that managed to avoid any architectural merit whatsoever. You had to ask what the people of Martlesham Heath had done to deserve this brutalism on one side of their village, along with the soaring horror that was the BT research centre spoiling the skyline on the other. I suppose, at the very least, both constructions provided them with jobs.

  I went into the reception area and asked to speak with Detective Chief Superintendent Locke. No – I didn’t have an appointment. What was it in connection with? The disappearance of Cecily Treherne. The uniformed officer looked doubtful but she made the call while I sat down on one of the plastic chairs provided and leafed through a copy of Suffolk Life that was five months out of date.
I wasn’t sure that Locke would see me, and the officer had given no indication that he had even answered the phone, so I was surprised when after just a few minutes he suddenly appeared, stepping out of a lift. He marched straight over to me with such determination that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had grabbed hold of me, put me under arrest and dragged me into a cell. That was his manner . . . always on the edge of violence. It was as if he had caught something, some sort of virus perhaps, from the criminals he investigated. I knew he didn’t like me. He’d made that clear the last time we met.

  But when he spoke it was almost with amusement. ‘Well, well, well. Ms Ryeland. I had a feeling it wasn’t coincidence when I clocked you at the hotel. And when they told me you were here, why wasn’t I surprised? All right, then. I can give you five minutes. There’s an office down here where we can talk . . .’

  I had done him an injustice. He had noticed me when we passed in the reception area at Branlow Hall. He had just chosen not to acknowledge me. He led me into an empty, soulless room that was perfectly square, with a table and four chairs placed exactly in the middle. A window looked out onto the woodland that surrounded the building. He held the door for me, then closed it as I sat down.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  The question took me by surprise. ‘I’m very well, thank you.’

  ‘I heard what happened when you were here last time, investigating Alan Conway’s death. You were almost killed.’ He wagged his finger. ‘I did warn you not to get involved.’

  I couldn’t remember him saying anything of the sort but I didn’t argue.

  ‘So, what are you doing back in Suffolk and at Branlow Hall? No. You don’t need to tell me. I already had Aiden MacNeil on the phone complaining about you. It’s funny, isn’t it! I’d have said Alan Conway has already caused you enough grief, but you just can’t leave him alone.’

  ‘I’d have said he was the one who won’t leave me alone, Detective Chief Superintendent.’

  ‘He was a nasty little shit while he was alive and he’s still a nasty little shit now that he’s dead. Do you really believe he put something in his book? Another secret message . . . this time about Frank Parris?’

  ‘Have you read it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  Locke stretched out his legs and considered. It struck me that he was being unusually polite, friendly even. But then his argument had always been with Alan Conway, not with me, and with good reason. Alan had asked him for help with his research and in return had turned him into a vaguely comic character – Detective Inspector Raymond Chubb. Chubb and Locke. Get it? He had also created a grotesque parody of Locke’s wife who had turned up in the second book, No Rest for the Wicked, although I had never met the real woman myself. Perhaps, with Alan’s death, Locke had decided to forgive me for my part in all this. It might also have helped that his alter ego didn’t make an appearance in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case.

  ‘I thought it was the usual load of rubbish,’ he said, calmly. ‘You know my views on detective fiction.’

  ‘You certainly expressed them very strongly.’

  There was no need to remind me but he did. ‘Whodunnits written by the likes of Alan Conway have absolutely no bearing on real life and if the people who read them think otherwise, more fool them. There are no private detectives; not unless you want to spy on your teenage son or find out who your husband is screwing. And murders don’t usually take place in thatched cottages or stately homes – or seaside villages, for that matter. Atticus Pünd Takes the Case! You tell me one thing in that book – one thing – that isn’t complete rubbish. The Hollywood actress who buys a house in the middle of nowhere. That business with the diamond. The knife on the hall table. I mean – please! As soon as you see a knife on a table, you know it’s going to end up in somebody’s chest.’

  ‘That’s what Chekhov said.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The Russian playwright. He said that if you have a pistol on the wall in the first act, then it has to be fired in the second. He was explaining how every element in a story has to have a point.’

  ‘Did he also say that the story has to be unbelievable and the ending completely ridiculous?’

  ‘I take it you didn’t guess it, then.’

  ‘I didn’t even try. I read the book because I thought it might have something to do with the disappearance of Cecily Treherne and as it turned out that was a total waste of my time.’

  ‘It sold half a million copies worldwide.’ I don’t know why I was defending Alan Conway. Maybe I was just defending myself.

  ‘Well, you know my thoughts on that, Ms Ryeland. You turn murder into a game and you ask people to join in. What’s the police detective called in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case? Hare. I suppose he’s got that name because he’s hare-brained. He’s a complete idiot, isn’t he? Never gets anything right.’ He rapped a heavy knuckle on the table. ‘You must be very proud of yourself. Half a million copies of infantile crap that trivialises crime and erodes faith in the rule of law.’

  ‘You’ve made up your mind, but I think you’ve always been mistaken about crime fiction, Detective Chief Superintendent. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way. I don’t think Alan’s books ever did anyone any harm – except me. People enjoyed them and they knew perfectly well what they were getting when they read them. Not real life so much as an escape from it – and God knows we’re all in need of that right now. Twenty-four-hour news. Fake news. Politicians calling each other liars when they aren’t actually lying themselves. Maybe there’s something a little comforting in a book that actually makes sense of the world in which it takes place and leads you to an absolute truth.’

  He wasn’t going to engage with me. ‘Why are you here, Ms Ryeland?’ he asked.

  ‘If you mean why am I in Martlesham Heath, I was hoping you’d let me see the original police report into Stefan Codrescu. It was eight years ago so it can’t be of any interest to anyone now. I’d like to see the forensic reports, the interrogations – all of it.’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s confidential! It’s police work. You really think we’re going to release sensitive information to any member of the public who comes knocking at the door?’

  ‘But suppose Stefan Codrescu didn’t do it!’

  That was when Locke’s patience snapped and his voice took on a threatening tone.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘I was the one who led the investigation, so frankly what you just said is insulting. You weren’t anywhere near when the murder happened. You just sat back and let your golden boy turn it into a fairy story. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Codrescu killed Frank Parris for the money that he needed to feed his gambling habit. He confessed as much in a room identical to this one just one floor above and his brief was sitting next to him all the time. There were no thumbscrews. No threats.

  ‘Codrescu was a career criminal and it was madness having him in the hotel in the first place. If you’re so interested in crime, let me tell you a story – a true story. Just one month before the murder at Branlow Hall, I was part of a team that closed down a Romanian gang operating in Ipswich. They were a charming bunch of people involved in begging, violent assaults and burglary. They were all graduates of a Romanian crime academy. I’m not kidding you. They even had their own textbooks, which taught them how to avoid electronic detection, how to hide their DNA. That sort of thing.

  ‘Well, it turned out that their biggest earner was a brothel in the Ravenswood district and the youngest girl working there was fourteen years old. Fourteen! She’d been trafficked into the country and she was being forced to service three or four men a night. If she refused, they beat her and starved her. Now, is that something you think your readers would enjoy? The continued rape of a fourteen-year-old child? Maybe Atticus Pünd should have been sent out to investigate that one!’

/>   ‘I don’t understand why you’re telling me this,’ I said. ‘Of course it’s horrible, what you’re describing. But was Stefan Codrescu involved?’

  ‘No . . .’ He stared at me as if I’d missed the point.

  ‘Then what you’re saying is, he must have killed Frank Parris because he was Romanian!’

  Locke let out something close to a snarl and got to his feet so quickly that his chair would have toppled backwards if it hadn’t been screwed to the floor. ‘Just get out of here,’ he said. ‘And get out of Suffolk.’

  ‘Actually, I’m driving to London.’

  ‘That’s good. Because if I get the impression that you’re obstructing my investigation into the disappearance of Cecily Treherne, I will arrest you.’

  I stood up. But I didn’t leave yet. ‘So what do you think has happened to Cecily?’ I asked.

  He stared at me. But then he answered. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘My guess is that she’s dead and that somebody may have killed her. Maybe it was her husband. Maybe they had an argument and he stuck a knife in her, although we haven’t found a trace of her DNA on him or anywhere else it shouldn’t be. Maybe it was that creepy guy who lives with his mother and works nights. Maybe he had a thing for her. Or maybe it was a complete stranger who just happened to be walking along the River Deben with an erection and a sick mind.

  ‘We may never know. But I’ll tell you one thing that it wasn’t. It wasn’t somebody who was named in a stupid detective story written eight years ago. So get that in your head and go back home. And stop asking questions. I won’t warn you again.’

  Lawrence Treherne

  I stopped at a service station on the edge of London and picked up my emails. Still nothing from Andreas. A confirmation from James Taylor: seven thirty at Le Caprice. And a long note from Lawrence Treherne, which I read over a coffee and a croissant so stale and doughy that it bore no relation to anything you might ever buy in France. The email was very well timed. Here was a step-by-step account of what had happened at Branlow Hall, told from a single perspective. It was interesting to see how it connected with what I already knew. I could also use it as a reference when I met Lionel Corby the next morning.