‘Don’t forget that we’re meeting at Peggy’s at three.’
‘I won’t,’ says Natalka. ‘Back to usually.’
She’d said this to Benedict one day and now it’s become a catchphrase between them. Natalka hates getting English phrases wrong but somehow she doesn’t mind Benedict teasing her. It must be love, she thinks. Although she isn’t sure that she believes in love, even now.
Natalka goes home to change so the others are already there when she gets to Peggy’s. She gave the keys to Benedict and he has made the empty sitting room look quite cosy with deckchairs, a picnic rug and fairy lights around the bay window. As Natalka opens the door she hears a champagne cork pop, a sound that reminds her, momentarily, of the bar at the Majestic.
‘I thought it might be nice to drink Peggy’s health,’ says Edwin. ‘She loved a glass of bubbly. Her phrase, not mine,’ he adds hastily.
Edwin has been looking rather more cheerful lately. Natalka thinks it’s the prospect of a new neighbour. And the adulation of all the old ladies at mass. Benedict says that Edwin has become quite a celebrity at church.
‘It’s a safe-house reunion,’ says Edwin.
‘Happy days,’ says Harbinder drily. She looks tired, thinks Natalka, but maybe that’s because she has such dark, deep-set eyes. Or maybe it’s just the contrast with her red jumper. Natalka has never seen Harbinder wear any colour other than black.
They talk about Peggy. It feels odd at first, with the marks on the walls where her pictures once hung and the scent of her special ground coffee still somehow in the air. But soon, it feels natural, as if Peggy is still in the room. Benedict shows them a picture that he’s printed out from the internet. It’s a Christmas party of some kind. Peggy is wearing a pink paper crown and is smiling directly at the camera.
‘I think that’s Weronika Challoner next to her,’ says Benedict. ‘Lance’s mother is probably in the picture too.’
‘I wish I’d met Weronika,’ says Natalka. ‘I’d love to have heard her stories about the war.’
‘Peggy knew all about the war,’ says Edwin. ‘Far more than I did. Of course, I was ten years younger than her,’ he adds hastily. ‘Peggy knew all about the Middle East too. And the Balkans. I mean, nobody understands the Balkans.’
‘What I can’t work out,’ says Benedict, ‘is how Peggy knew all the things she did. She knew about Russia, Maria says she knew all about Poland. There wasn’t a place in the world that she hadn’t heard of. But she actually hadn’t travelled much. I think that holiday to Russia was almost the only time she left the country.’
‘Her husband travelled,’ says Edwin. ‘He was in the navy.’
‘I think she kept one of his uniform buttons in her desk,’ says Natalka. ‘I found it when Benny and I were here that time. The time when the gunman – I mean Julie – burst in. I put it in my pocket. For luck.’
‘And it’s brought you luck,’ says Edwin, smiling at her.
‘Peggy didn’t get all that knowledge from her husband,’ says Harbinder. ‘I think she got it from books.’
‘You’re right,’ says Edwin. ‘You can travel the world in books.’ Natalka thinks it sounds like something he may have said in a BBC programme once.
‘Talking of books,’ says Benedict. ‘I’ve discovered something.’
Natalka suppresses a smile. There’s nothing Benny enjoys more than a bit of detective work and, like his favourite screen sleuths, he likes to make the revelation as dramatic as possible.
‘What is it?’ says Edwin. ‘I think I’ve had enough shocks to last me a lifetime.’
‘It’s not a shock exactly,’ says Benedict. ‘But it is a surprise. I’ve been doing some research into Sheila Atkins. You know, the author of Thank Heaven Fasting.’
‘We’re not going to forget that book, Benny,’ says Natalka.
‘There’s nothing about her on the internet,’ says Benedict, ‘but I found this book in the library.’
He’s brought it with him just so that he can flourish it now.
‘It’s called Heroines of the Golden Age,’ says Benedict, ‘and it’s about forgotten women crime writers. One of them is Sheila Atkins. Well, listen to this. “Atkins wrote many books while still in her twenties. During the Second World War she is popularly believed to have been in the secret service. In 1955 she married David Foster and they had one child, Lancelot.”’
He pauses for effect. Edwin gets there first: ‘Oh my goodness. Lance Foster. Sheila Atkins was his mother.’
‘Yes. Later on it says, “Lancelot later became a writer and his first novel Laocoön was longlisted for the Booker Prize.”’
‘Why didn’t he tell us?’ says Natalka.
‘Maybe he would have,’ says Benedict. ‘If we’d ever met up for that drink. I remember he laughed when I asked if he’d read Sheila Atkins and said that she was very dear to him. I think Sheila came to live here and was friends with Peggy. Sheila was older, of course. She lived to be a hundred.’
‘It was one of the first things I heard about this place,’ says Harbinder, ‘that one of the residents celebrated their centenary.’
‘Lance got his writing skills from his mother,’ says Edwin. ‘Even though he only wrote one book.’
‘Actually,’ says Harbinder, ‘Pippa Sinclair-Lewis told me that Seventh Seal are publishing Lance Foster’s posthumous novel. It’s called The Bow Window Set and it’s about a group of old ladies in a care home who solve crimes. Pippa thinks it’ll do very well. Cosy crime, she called it.’
‘Cosy crime,’ says Edwin. ‘That’s an oxymoron, if you like.’
‘Peggy would be pleased though,’ says Benedict. ‘I’ll always think of her, sitting at this window, writing things down in her Investigation Book.’
‘It was that book that helped solve her murder,’ says Natalka.
‘Well, it was Harbinder really,’ says Benedict.
‘No, it was Peggy,’ says Harbinder. She raises her plastic champagne flute.
‘To Peggy,’ she says.
‘To Peggy,’ the others reply. And the sun streams in through the bay window.
Acknowledgements
The Postscript Murders is, in a way, a book about acknowledgements and I have many people to thank. First my wonderful editor, Jane Wood, and all at Quercus Books who worked so hard to produce this book while in lockdown. Particular thanks to Hannah Robinson, Ella Patel, Katie Sadler, Bethan Ferguson, David Murphy and Florence Hare. I mention in the book that copy-editors hardly ever get acknowledged so I’d like to thank the meticulous and all-knowing Liz Hatherell. Thanks also to Naomi Gibbs, my editor at HMH in America, for her contributions and support. Thanks to my amazing agent Rebecca Carter and all at Janklow and Nesbit. Thanks also to Kirby Kim at Janklow US.
The Postscript Murders contains a number of real places and entirely fictional events. Shoreham is real, as is Aberdeen and all the places in between. There is a wonderful crime-writing festival in Aberdeen called Granite Noir but there is no resemblance to the festival in this book. The Majestic Hotel is imaginary. I do have wonderful memories of the silver city, though, and my visit there on a book tour with Olivia Mead. Neither of us will ever forget Billy Bob the taxi driver who told us about ‘education, salvation and damnation’.
There is also a lovely Catholic church in Shoreham but Benedict’s church, and its parish priest, are imaginary.
I have tried to make my characters’ backgrounds as believable as possible. In this respect, heartfelt thanks to Radhika Holmström, Harpreet Kaur, Balwinder Kaur Grewal and many others. Any mistakes or inaccuracies are mine alone. Thanks to John Rickards and Ed James for telling me about bitcoin. Again, any mistakes are mine.
This is also a book about publishing and I should acknowledge the incredible support I have received from all my friends in the industry. All the living publishers and authors in this
book are entirely imaginary. In this light, I dedicate The Postscript Murders to my wonderful agent, Rebecca Carter, who has given me so much support, encouragement and friendship.
Love and thanks always to my husband Andrew and our children, Alex and Juliet. Thanks to Alex for telling me about plainsong and to Juliet for the information about rockpools. It’s wonderful when your children know so much more than you do.
PS Thanks to Gus, who has just walked over my keyboard.
EG 2020
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