She’s addressing Harbinder. ‘No,’ says Harbinder. ‘Not all Indian people are doctors.’ All the same, she’s pleased that Joan asked her the question and not Neil. It predisposes her to like the old lady.
‘We’re friends of Peggy’s,’ she says. ‘Your friend Peggy Smith.’
Joan’s face lights up immediately. ‘Peggy! Is she here?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ says Harbinder. She’s not about to tell Joan that her friend is dead, even if she’ll forget it in seconds.
‘Hallo, love,’ says Neil, sitting beside Joan. ‘I like your cardy.’
Harbinder thinks that he sounds very patronising but Joan positively beams. ‘It’s not mine,’ she says. ‘I’m an Autumn not a Spring.’
‘You look lovely anyway,’ says Neil.
‘Are you my grandson?’ says Joan. ‘He doesn’t come often.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon,’ says Neil. ‘I’m Neil and this is Harbinder. We wanted to have a chat about Peggy. You had a lovely holiday with her in Russia, didn’t you?’
‘Russia,’ says Joan, as if it’s a new word.
‘Do you remember the young men you saw?’ says Harbinder. ‘They stayed at your apartment.’
Joan stares at her; her eyes are very pale blue but they look as if they are still keen. ‘We had fun, didn’t we?’ she says.
‘Yes,’ says Harbinder. Does Joan think she is Peggy? She’s heard of people being colour blind but this seems extreme.
‘You said they were students,’ says Joan. ‘Such nice boys.’
‘Were they Russian?’ asks Harbinder.
‘Miles,’ says Joan. ‘They were miles from home.’
‘I know,’ says Neil. ‘It must have been such an adventure. Can you remember anything else about the men?’
‘We took them to the ballet,’ says Joan. ‘Such nice boys.’
‘What were their names?’ says Harbinder again. ‘Dimitri? Ivan? Vladimir?’ She can’t think of any other eastern European names so says, rather desperately, ‘Nigel?’
‘Nigel wasn’t a nice boy,’ says Joan. ‘Not a good son.’
Harbinder and Neil exchange glances. ‘Why not?’ says Neil.
‘He took all Peggy’s money,’ says Joan. ‘He said she gambled too much. She gambles too. Peggy said so.’
‘Who?’ says Harbinder. ‘Who gambles?’
‘On the horses,’ says Joan. ‘Oh, we did like the horse races.’ Then, with no warning at all, she falls asleep.
‘Is she OK?’ says Neil. He touches the orange cardigan. ‘Joan?’
Joan’s chest is rising and falling. She looks very peaceful but, just to be sure, Harbinder goes into the corridor and finds someone who looks like a nurse. The woman comes into the room, checks Joan perfunctorily, and says that she sleeps a lot. ‘She might be like this for hours.’ But, when Harbinder leans over to say goodbye, Joan opens her eyes. ‘Red Rum!’ she says. And then she’s asleep again.
23
Benedict
A Damn Good Mystery
BENEDICT WAKES UP with a momentary panic thinking that he’s in his attic room in Shoreham and the door and window have changed places. But then he remembers. He’s in a Travelodge in Aberdeen. He’s with Natalka (presumably sleeping on the other side of this plasterboard wall) and Edwin (presuming that he got back safely from his tryst with Julie). They are investigators on the trail of a murderer. They might also be being followed by the Ukrainian mafia.
Strangely exhilarated by these facts, Benedict gets up and goes to the loo. Then he searches for the kettle and finds it cunningly hidden in the bedside cupboard. He makes himself tea and settles back on the bed. Today they are going to see Lance Foster in action. Is there something odd, suspicious even, about the author of Laocoön? Why did he ask Julie if she knew who killed Peggy? Surely that was an odd thing to do? Benedict realises that he never got the chance to ask Lance how he knew Peggy. He’d been too focused on Natalka. And what about Natalka’s story, the cryptocurrency and the ‘bad men’ who were out to get her? When she had talked about her mother and brother it was as if a different Natalka was emerging, younger and more vulnerable, but also more foreign and unknowable. Who knew that she had studied maths, for example? Benedict barely scraped at pass at GCSE. He is aware that he is ignoring the fact that Natalka is also, by her own admission, a thief.
Benedict showers, feeling a slight frisson at the thought of being naked only a few metres from Natalka. When he emerges, his plugged-in phone is buzzing with a message. It’s from Edwin. Breakfast at 8? There’s a nice café opposite, ‘The Rowan Tree’. There’s no one like Edwin for using proper punctuation in texts. He sounds in good spirits anyway. Benedict sends a text to Natalka and starts to get dressed.
* * *
EDWIN IS SITTING in a window seat demolishing a plate of kippers. He certainly seems on fine form. He says that he noticed the café when he walked home last night after having dinner with Julie.
‘Did you have a good time?’ asks Benedict, ordering coffee and a bacon sandwich. He feels slightly hung-over and the sight of Edwin expertly filleting his fish makes him feel rather queasy.
‘Very pleasant,’ says Edwin. ‘Julie was good company. I think she might be rather lonely. She looked after her mother until she died and now she lives in Hove with just her little dog for company.’
‘At least she’s got a dog,’ says Benedict. ‘Remember the way Peggy used to make lists of dog-walkers?’
‘Yes,’ says Edwin. ‘Two collie-crosses, three spaniels and one unidentified long-haired mongrel.’ They both laugh.
Edwin says, ‘I met a friend last night too.’
‘A friend?’
‘Yes, someone I used to work with at the BBC. Freddie Fanshawe. I knew him when he was a graduate intern but he’s a news reporter now. He’s here because of Dex’s murder. I thought he might have some information for us.’
‘Information?’
‘Yes, about the investigation. Speaking of which, I’ve got some news. I’d better wait until Natalka joins us.’
As he speaks, the door swings open and Natalka appears. She’s wearing a black jumper and black jeans and her hair is wet from the shower. She looks like a beautiful assassin, thinks Benedict.
Natalka orders black coffee.
‘You ought to eat something,’ says Edwin.
‘I can’t face breakfast.’ Maybe Natalka is hung-over too, thinks Benedict. The thought makes him feel rather cheerful.
Edwin glances round the empty café as if checking for eavesdroppers. Benedict thinks that he’s milking his moment.
‘So,’ says Edwin. ‘My news is . . . Nigel Smith is here.’
‘Peggy’s son Nigel?’ says Natalka.
‘The very same. And staying in the Travelodge, no less. I saw him come in last night. I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognise me.’
‘Perhaps he’s come for the festival,’ says Benedict.
Edwin treats this idea with the contempt it deserves. ‘Nigel despises crime fiction. I heard him say so. He’s here for some other reason.’
‘Maybe he’s got a mistress,’ says Natalka. ‘That’s usually the explanation.’
‘You don’t take a mistress to a Travelodge,’ says Edwin. ‘Why do people stay in Travelodges? Usually because they’re on business of some kind. What’s Nigel’s business?’
‘I think his wife said that he worked in the City,’ says Natalka. ‘They seem pretty rich.’
‘That could mean anything,’ says Benedict. ‘If the Shack was in Mansion House I could say that I worked in the City.’
‘But would you be rich?’ says Natalka.
‘Probably not.’
‘Maybe Nigel isn’t rich,’ says Edwin. ‘Maybe he’s lost all his money. That’s why he wanted to sell Peggy’s flat off so quickly. Money’s a pretty good motive for murder.’
‘Do you really think Nigel could have murdered his own mother?’ says Natalka. Benedict wonders if she’s thinking of her moth
er, at home in Ukraine. It was mentioning her mother that made her cry last night.
‘The murderer is usually a member of the family,’ says Benedict. ‘In real life anyway, not in crime fiction. Then it’s always the most unlikely person.’
‘And, in real life, it’s the most likely,’ says Edwin, buttering his last piece of brown bread.
‘We’ll need to watch Nigel closely,’ says Natalka. Benedict wonders if she’s going to tell Edwin about the Ukrainians but she doesn’t and Edwin, with his usual tact, doesn’t mention their disappearance last night.
After breakfast, they walk to the Majestic. Lance’s panel is at eleven in the hotel itself. Edwin has arranged to meet his BBC friend afterwards.
‘You’ve been busy,’ says Benedict.
‘It’s what you do at festivals, isn’t it?’ says Edwin. But Benedict has never been to a festival, unless you count seeing Pope Benedict in Hyde Park in 2010, which he doesn’t.
* * *
THE VENUE FOR ‘Is Hamlet a Crime Novel?’ is the Conservatory, a smallish room off a cavernous ballroom. Windows on one side look out onto a somewhat windswept garden, and chandeliers, shrouded in cloth, hang like growths from the ceiling. Benedict, Edwin and Natalka sit on spindly gilt chairs at the back of the room. It’s like a wedding, thinks Benedict, although he has only been to two, Hugo’s and the nuptials of two ex-classmates who broke up six months later. This is a sparsely attended wedding, though, with a much smaller turnout than at yesterday’s event. There are only fifteen people in the room. Julie Monroe, arriving a minute before the start, makes it sixteen.
‘Sorry,’ she whispers, although Benedict doesn’t know why she is apologising. ‘I was working on my edits.’
Lance makes his entrance in the company of three other men. After noticing the preponderance of women at the other literary events, Benedict wonders why this one is so different. The chair introduces himself as Hamish Macleod, a lecturer at the university. The other two writers are a tattooed young man called Simon Stevens, whose debut novel Chip Rapper was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Cymbeline Blake, an author who was once very famous and whom Benedict had assumed was dead. Hamish gives brief résumés for the three writers, adding that Lance Foster is a creative writing tutor, something Benedict hadn’t known.
Hamish asks whether crime fiction is underrated by critics.
‘I don’t write crime fiction,’ says Lance. ‘I write literary fiction.’
‘To be honest, mate, I don’t know what it all means,’ says Simon, whose accent is heavily disguised public schoolboy. ‘I just write books.’
‘It’s all bollocks,’ says Cymbeline Blake.
Hamish, who is now sweating slightly, asks them which classics they consider to be crime novels.
‘Heights,’ says Lance, ‘and Floss.’ After a few minutes Benedict translates this as Wuthering Heights and The Mill on the Floss.
‘I don’t read much,’ says Simon. ‘But I like a good gangster film.’
‘The classics are crap,’ says Cymbeline. ‘I prefer a porn mag.’
There’s a sound of people leaving the room. Hamish is starting to look really nervous but Lance, unexpectedly, leans forward and says, ‘Jane Austen too. Emma’s a damn good mystery. Lots of clues in Miss Bates’ monologues. I teach a course on the golden age. Christie, Marsh, Allingham, Atkins. Never ignore old ladies. I once knew an old lady who was just like Miss Marple.’
Benedict, Edwin and Natalka exchange glances. When the chair invites questions from the audience, Benedict puts up his hand. ‘I was interested to hear Lance mention golden-age writers,’ he says. ‘What are the panel’s views on writers like Sheila Atkins?’
‘Never heard of her,’ says Simon.
Cymbeline seems to have sunk into a coma.
‘I’m an Atkins fan,’ says Lance. He seems to be laughing at some private joke. ‘She’s very dear to me. Atkins knew how to plot too. You’d be surprised.’
‘Have you read Thank Heaven Fasting?’ says Benedict.
‘Yes.’ Lance looks rather surprised and is about to say more but Hamish interrupts to ask if there are any other questions. There aren’t, so Hamish asks the three writers what they’re working on.
‘Another crap novel,’ says Cymbeline. ‘People will buy it though.’
‘Nothing,’ says Simon. ‘If Chip Rapper is my only book, my only chance at immortality, then I’m happy.’
‘I’ve just finished a book. Something completely different,’ says Lance. ‘I’m very excited about it.’
But he doesn’t sound excited. In fact, he sounds almost as bored as the audience feels. Hamish calls time, ten minutes early.
‘That was fun,’ says Natalka.
‘Shall we go and talk to Lance?’ asks Benedict.
‘I’m going for a coffee,’ says Edwin. ‘There’s only so much literary chat I can stand. Reminds me of the old days in the BBC.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ says Julie.
Natalka and Benedict make their way to the signing table. Surprisingly, there is a long queue in front of Cymbeline Blake. Next to him, Lance and Simon are chatting self-consciously.
‘That was very interesting,’ says Benedict to Lance.
‘Do you think so?’ says Lance. ‘It seemed a bit of a car crash to me.’
Benedict warms to the writer. After all, he had been the least offensive person on the panel. ‘Was Peggy Smith the lady who reminded you of Miss Marple?’ he says.
‘Yes,’ says Lance. ‘She was a born sleuth. That’s what my old mum always said.’
This is interesting, thinks Benedict. It’s the first mention of any close family.
‘You never told us how you knew Peggy,’ says Natalka. ‘You just said it was complicated.’
‘You disappeared last night,’ says Lance. ‘That’s why.’ He sounds rather annoyed and, again, more proprietary than Benedict likes.
‘Let’s meet later for a drink,’ says Natalka.
Lance looks at his watch. ‘OK. I’m meeting my agent for lunch. Why don’t we have a drink in the hotel bar tonight? Say seven o’clock?’
‘OK,’ says Benedict. They watch as Lance gathers up his things and leaves the room, skirting the queue that still surrounds Cymbeline. Benedict wonders if the agent lunch really exists.
* * *
THE HOTEL LOBBY suddenly seems very full of people. Benedict sees Edwin and Julie, nose to nose on a sofa. They are drinking coffee but many other delegates are already hitting the bar. Benedict moves out of the way for a man carrying three brimming pint glasses. Is he going to drink them all himself?
‘Fancy a drink?’ says Natalka.
‘Why not?’ Natalka seems quite calm this morning but he scans the room for the Ukrainians, just to be on the safe side. As he does so, he sees a large man in a blazer heading for the swing doors.
He touches Natalka’s arm. ‘Look.’
‘Who is it? Oh, it’s Nigel. Who’s that with him?’
‘I think it’s Lance,’ says Benedict.
24
Natalka
Not a Good Room
NATALKA FEELS CALMER in the daylight. There had been a bad moment when she woke up, feeling dehydrated and slightly sick, and thought that there was a man sitting on the end of her bed. She’d jumped up, heart thudding, but it was only her jacket hanging on the back of a chair and the strangeness of the hotel room, with its clean lines and primary colours. The room at the Miners’ Arms had been different, cosy and cluttered with a sloping ceiling, but she hadn’t slept well there either.
Benedict had been kind, though. He’d seemed different last night. Maybe it was his surprising initiative in taking a photo of the men or maybe it was because he hadn’t seemed shocked at her revelations, but he’d suddenly seemed less of a joke—funny ex-monk Benedict who spends ages trying to make the perfect cappuccino—and more like a man, someone she could have known in her former life. They’d had two bottles of wine too. No wonder she feels slightly
delicate this morning.
Lance’s panel was strange. The writers all seemed determined to prove that they’re not crime writers. Why, when it’s clearly a great thing to be? Dex Challoner was extremely wealthy and even J. D. Monroe seems to have a good life: flat in Hove, Tuscan holidays, cute dog. Although, come to think of it, her clothes weren’t much to write home about. Writing one ‘literary’ novel doesn’t seem to have made Lance rich. He told Natalka last night that he has to do two teaching jobs in order to make ends meet. And his clothes, though cool, have seen better days. He’s still attractive though, even when he’s spouting some nonsense about Jane Austen. And he seemed quite pleased to see them afterwards, although that could be because he wanted it to look as if he has fans.
In the lobby afterwards, she’d suddenly been afraid. What if the Ukrainians from last night were here? What if they’re out to hurt her, maybe even kill her, a single bullet to the head like Dex? She wanted a drink but, just as she suggests it, Benedict sees Nigel leaving the hotel with Lance and is full of sleuthing enthusiasm.
‘Let’s follow them.’
‘We’ll never get through this crowd,’ says Natalka. It’s true that the Majestic suddenly seems very full; people are moving from one panel to the next, others are heading to the bar for some serious drinking. Benedict has to admit defeat and buys them both a glass of wine. He’s getting less monk-like by the second.
They retreat to a quiet corner behind some potted palm trees, where they are soon joined by Edwin and Julie.
‘Did you see Nigel and Lance?’ says Benedict. ‘They left together.’
‘That’s interesting,’ says Edwin. ‘How do they know each other?’
‘Through Peggy?’ suggests Julie. She seems to be up to date with the whole investigation. Natalka has noticed before that Edwin is a terrible gossip.
‘Have you ever met Nigel?’ Natalka asks Julie.
The Postscript Murders Page 18
