The Writer

by RB Banfield

  “They’ve found him?” Dan asked with wide eyes. “You’re telling me they’ve found Craigfield?”

  “He’s here. You’d better get downstairs, before they let him go.”

  “You mean he’s real?”

  Gregory didn’t know what he meant. “Of course he’s real. You thought he might not be?”

  “Not just a fictional character in otherwise true stories?”

  “What are you talking about? What stories? Are you okay?” Gregory found himself standing alone with no answer as Dan ran to the stairs.

  Although seated, Dan could see that Craigfield was a tall man, and the sort that the ladies might be easily attracted to. He also saw, in the upright and unnatural way he was sitting, that he was hiding something. A uniformed officer was standing in the interrogation room with him and Dan asked him to leave them alone.

  “Got you at last,” Dan said with an odd smile as he closed the door. He just stood and stared at his target.

  “Are you here to tell me what this is all about?” Craigfield asked, his voice smooth and deep, his manner not at all nervous. “I have been brought in here without a reasonable explanation and I don’t like it.”

  “When were you last up at Gendry?” Dan asked as he peered at him closely. He took note of his physique and saw that he was strong and regularly worked out. He had manicured fingernails and a nice haircut. If Dan didn’t know better, he thought that his eyebrows might have had work too.

  “I have never been to Gendry. Why, is it a crime to go there now?”

  “Do you know a man by the name Allan Longbottom?”

  “I have never heard of anyone of that name, so no is your answer.”

  “What is your relationship with Sophie Trent?”

  “I don’t know anyone called Sophie Trent. Never have.”

  “How about Max Marshall?”

  “Max? Do you mean Jill’s husband?”

  Dan allowed himself a smile. He paced twice in front of his man, like his prey was cornered and he needed to ponder how to move in for the kill. “You do know Max?” he asked with deliberate slowness. He then gave a prolonged look at those eyebrows and imagined them being plucked by some beautician.

  “Not very well, no. But I do know his wife, Jill Marshall. She’s one of my students. I help her at the gym. I teach natural body-sculpting. Is something wrong with Jill? Is there something I should know about? Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Dan said as he tried to refocus. He told himself to forget the eyebrows and anything else about him. It irked him that this man seemed so artificial. Unreal, even. “Tell me more about her, please.”

  “If you insist. She’s a little vain, if you ask me. Perfectly fine body, but she’s never content with it, and wants to do too much too soon. I keep advising her to be easier on herself, that she doesn’t need to work out at top level, but she thinks she does, so what do you do? Plenty of women will kill to have her body. Now, can you tell me what this meeting’s about? Is something wrong with Jill? Is there something I should know about?”

  “You’re having an affair with her?”

  Craigfield’s whole body jolted with surprise. “Now wait just a minute.”

  “Are you denying it? Her husband Max seems to think very strongly that you are.”

  Craigfield managed a half-laugh and Dan noticed that he lost his cool. His appearance of perfection beheld a kink and Dan relished it.

  “Denying what? That I’m having an affair with one of my students? What evidence could you possibly have to make that assertion? What are you anyway, marriage police? I didn’t know it was the dark ages again. What’s going on here? That can’t be the reason you have me here.”

  “You had a recent altercation with Max Marshall?”

  “That’s nonsense. An altercation? I have never had an altercation with anybody. Where are you getting this? Who’s telling you this? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I think I need my lawyer if this is continuing much longer.”

  “You know I have evidence?”

  “Evidence of what?” Craigfield asked, exasperated. “Nothing you have asked me has anything to do with me.”

  Dan hurried from the room and went to his desk. He ran back with an armful of loose papers, both Sophie and Max’s stories, all jumbled together so it was difficult to tell one from the other. He slapped them down in front of Craigfield who had no idea what to make of it all.

  “They’re telling me,” said Dan, “what I need to know, and the more I listen the more I hear.”

  Craigfield was bewildered as he looked from Dan to the pages and then back again. Dan thought that his eyebrows might be uneven. He also noticed that his hair was thinning. Less and less the perfect man.

  “This is where I’m getting it,” said Dan. “Have a good read, and then you can tell me what you’re doing in both of them.”

  Craigfield picked up a page and after a brief read dropped back to the rest. “This is insane,” moving to stand up. “You can’t make me read this. What’s this all about?”

  “Why not read it?” Dan asked as he leaned over him, forcing him to stay where he was. “Are you hiding something?”

  “You can’t make me read any of that and I refuse to do so without my lawyer present.”

  But he couldn’t help but take another glance at the page.

  “What’s this?” he asked as he saw his name. “Max Marshall? He’s invented something about his wife and me? This is why you’ve got me in here?”

  He looked through more pages.

  “And what’s this other one?” he asked. “Sophie Trent? Never heard of her. I think you need to tell me what’s going on before you do anything else.”

  “Have a good read, then you can tell me what’s true.”

  “I told you I’m not reading it.”

  “It doesn’t interest you that you’re in it? In both of them?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You, Craigfield. You’re a character in their books. In fact, you’d be the most important character.”

  “How could I be a character ...?”

  “Have a read, let me know what you think.”

  Dan left him alone with the door shut, and eagerly watched him through the one-way glass. He became ecstatic when Craigfield started to read from the pages scattered before him. After five minutes he couldn’t stand it any longer and had to go to the food vending machine and was satisfied with a couple of packets of crisps. When he returned, with three different varieties, he found Benny Taylor looking into the room through the glass, wondering why the guy was in there.

  “Which one’s he on?” Dan asked as he began to mow through his salt-and-vinegars.

  “Which what?” asked Benny. Gregory had informed him about Craigfield so he had come running to see him. Like Dan, he had gone over the two stories several times, and his conclusion had been that Craigfield was not a real person. He didn’t like being wrong.

  “Story?” Dan asked, nearly finished with that bag. “Which one? Sophie or Max’s. Watch his face for clues, will you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Dan. How does any of this have anything to do with Longbottom? You think there’s a connection other than the two stories? So now we find this Craigfield is real. Big shock to the system, and I would have put money on him being a figment, but there he is. But what does it prove?”

  Dan stared at him wildly, which scared him. He hurriedly munched the last chips from the packet before he answered. “It’s all paranormal and psychic, and all that. It has to be. There’s no other answer. It’s like Anger Angel.”

  “It’s like what?”

  “The killer lurking at Gendry who got Longbottom, if it’s not Craigfield, then it’s mentioned somewhere in one of those stories. It has to be. Or maybe it’s in both of them? Could it be both of them? Didn’t think of that. Or did I?”

  He emptied the remaining crumbs from the last bag and ripped open his last bag, the one that was
barbeque flavour.

  Benny felt intimidated but knew that he needed to point to what was obvious. “We’ve got nothing to hold him. We need to let him go. He’s asked for his lawyer, so that’s it.”

  “He knows both Marshalls and he’s lying.”

  “But not the girl? Not Sophie? He doesn’t know her?”

  “We’ve got threats against him from Max Marshall, and an exchange between them that could have led to violence. Max probably is too humiliated to tell anyone about the altercation.”

  “This is from what, a book? Marshall’s book or the girl’s?”

  “Yeah, it’s from Sophie, but—“

  “Have you got any connection between him and Sophie? Not talking about their books now. I mean in real life. What we can take to a real judge?”

  “Not yet, no. I’m working on it.”

  “He’s out of here. Get him out of here, Dan. If you won’t, I will.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “You’ve got nothing. If he’s lying, prove it now. If all you’ve got are those so-called books—more a collection of wastepaper filled with random words, then you’ve got nothing. You do realise, don’t you, this has nothing to do with your case? The girl can’t even write good, or spell to save herself. And this Marshall character, he writes like a woman. I can’t believe it. It’s like something my girlfriend reads. Find the Longbottom murderer, that’s all we need to do. If we can’t then we toss it and move on. Don’t find aspiring authors and get them headbanging against each other’s walls.”

  “He’s lying and they’re lying,” Dan insisted. He had just waited for Benny to stop talking before he said what he wanted. “Everyone’s lying. But this is the interesting part: they are all telling the truth but they just don’t know it.”

  “Get a grip, will you? It’s over. Forget it. You’re chasing your tail on this one, and you’ve got nothing. It’s game over and there’s no winners.”

  When Craigfield finished reading all of the papers, Benny made sure he was out of the building by escorting him out himself.

  “Don’t they both have healthy imaginations?” Craigfield said to Benny as they waited for the elevator. “And so do you guys. Can I go now or would you like me to read something else?”

  “You’re free to go,” Benny said formally, “but we may call you in if we have any further questions.”

  “Or anymore stories?”

  “No, sir,” Benny said, unable to look him in the eye. “That’s most unlikely.”

  Benny went to Dan’s desk, to tell him that he was nuts and taking it too far, but he wasn’t there. Gregory Retter was there, and he was looking at Benny with a bemused smile.

  “Guess what he said to me before he left?” asked Gregory, barely able to hold back a laugh.

  “And what’s that?” Benny answered, expecting some smart-guy joke.

  “He says he’s got it figured. He says he understands how to solve it. As for me, I don’t know what will burst first, his head or his stomach.”

  Benny didn’t laugh or make a reply, but he did look at his friend’s desk and wondered if he will ever work with him again.

  Sam arrived home with a few odd groceries and was startled by the presence of her husband. He was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at nothing. She didn’t remember the last time he was home before noon and her first thought was that they could go out and have lunch together somewhere, if he had the afternoon free. It would be at a healthy food place too, not somewhere he preferred to go, since she was very concerned about his weight. She made a mental note that she needed to find even larger shirts for him. Then she saw the library book Anger Angel on the table, which he had been reading non-stop for the last two days.

  “Are you still reading that book?” she asked him as she placed the two grocery bags on the table next to him. “How many times have you been through it?”

  “This should be the last,” Dan said as he jumped up and hunted through the bags and spotted a packet of strawberry tarts. “Before I head back there again. I’ve got to check that church out. Shouldn’t have missed it. Place must be full of clues.”

  Sam watched him take one of the tarts and then she put the rest of the packet in the kitchen pantry.

  “Max probably based Anger Angel church on that church,” Dan said between bites. “Wonder if he wrote it there? Some of these small town churches, they’re really spooky places. That might have given him some strong vibes. The Sophie girl probably knows about it too. You know what? The whole town knows about it, I’m sure.”

  “Did you say ‘vibes’?”

  “Psychic powers, I don’t know what you’d call them.”

  “Since when are you interested in the paranormal?” she asked and noticed that he was more fixated on the food in the groceries than on her.

  “How can I not be?”

  “Are you feeling all right? I’m concerned about you. You look a little pale.”

  Now he looked at her and she saw that he was scared. “This might be bigger than any of us realise,” he said in a way that made her scared too.

  She wanted to ask him what he meant, but he hurried out the door. Then she noticed that the fridge door had been left open and he had taken about as much food as he could find. She had a horrible feeling that she would never see him again.

  “Dan, are you sure what you’re doing?” she called from the front door but he didn’t answer.

  She started to cry when his car drove away and he didn’t give but one glance in her direction. Then she irrationally began to worry that the shirt he was wearing might be too tight for him and she should have provided a bigger one, and now it might be too late.

  It didn’t matter to Dan that Sophie’s apartment was nothing like the one described in Max’s story. Neither was there a nice elderly neighbour named Miss Hudson, and no ginger cat named Ginger. He wasn’t expecting the building to have a nice flower garden contrasting with any untidy front lawn. Nor was he expecting dirty floors and a young boy running past and screaming at him. Then he realised that he had imagined the place and it was not described by Max. In his mind he had seen Sophie’s home like he was there. He knew what her furniture looked like, and the colour of the walls, and all of it was wrong.

  As soon as Sophie answered her door he invited himself in and she wasn’t sure what to make of him. He carried in a large cardboard box and she assumed that it must have something to do with the murder case.

  “Is there something else I can help you with, detective?” she asked with fear in her voice. She was not sure if she should call for the police or if that would make it worse.

  “Your computer, I need to see it,” he said hurriedly, looking around for it. Then he took a breath and tried to stop the sudden pain in his chest.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked.

  “You did your writing on a computer, right?” he said as he rubbed his chest and grimaced. “It’s special, I know it is. I need to use it to solve the case.” Then his breathing felt short and he felt the pain more in his side.

  Sophie was perplexed. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” She peaked into the box that was now at his feet and saw that it was full of packets of muffins and scones, all with “sale” on them. There were also at least three large coffee cups jammed in there with them, all with steam coming from them. It was obvious that he wasn’t about to share any of it.

  “Don’t you get it? We can solve the case. Right here. For that matter, why didn’t you or Max describe the murder for me? It would have made it so much easier if you had. That’s what your story needed; a bit of action. No, wait; yours did have action, it was Max that didn’t. No mind, I’m sure I can do it too.”

  “You can do what?”

  “Write the murder.”

  Sophie backed away. “Is this official police business? It sounds most unusual.”

  “There’s no other explanation,” said Dan, his face getting red with the anticipation, but then his chest started hurting ag
ain. He had to loosen his shirt when he sat down. “You two stumbled on something bigger than any of us can imagine. You do realise what it is, don’t you?”

  “Realise what?”

  “What you had. No? You were both writing each other’s lives. Didn’t know it, did you. Didn’t notice at all, I can see from your expression. Like you had any control over it anyway. Something else was controlling you and you didn’t even know.”

  “Controlling me to do what?”

  “Describe the crime,” he said as he looked like he was going to hug her computer. “You typed it, right here, and didn’t know it was really happening.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “What do you think I’m saying?”

  “That my computer has the ability to ...”

  “Write real life, as it happens.”

  “And you want to do the same thing?”

  “Why not? I’ll just sit where you sat, draw on that same psychic energy.”

  “Wow,” she said carefully. “You know what? I haven’t noticed any energy like that in my apartment. Too small, I guess. Sorry, but I think you’ve come to the wrong place. Perhaps you could try somewhere else?”

  “But you did it, my dear young Sophie. You described his life without knowing him. You did that. Right? That’s what you told me.”

  “Except for one thing. I didn’t write any of it on my computer.”

  “What’s that?” Dan asked, not seeing that one coming.

  “I used a typewriter. My grandmother’s old one, up in Gendry.”

  “You didn’t write here?”

  “Guess there’s more psychic energy up there, huh?”

  “Her typewriter is in her house?”

  “In Gendry.”

  “Like in the story. I should have known that.”

  “Is this actual police business?”

  Dan knew that he needed to leave. Her apartment wasn’t his only option. “You need to be careful with your attitude,” he warned her as he left, taking care that he didn’t spill anything from the cardboard box.

  “My ... attitude?”