The Word Is Murder(7)

‘But I hardly know you,’ I said.

‘You’ll get to know me. I’ve got a case on at the moment, as a matter of fact. It’s early days but I think it could be right up your street.’

The waitress arrived with my cake and tea but now I wished I hadn’t ordered them. I just wanted to get home.

‘Why do you think anyone would want to read about you?’ I asked.

‘I’m a detective. People like reading about detectives.’

‘But you’re not a proper detective. You got fired. Why did you get fired, by the way?’

‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

‘Well, if I was going to write about you, you’d have to tell me. I’d have to know where you live, whether you’re married or not, what you have for breakfast, what you do on your day off. That’s why people read murder stories.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘Yes!’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t agree. The word is murder. That’s what matters.’

‘Look – I’m really sorry.’ I tried to break it gently. ‘It’s a good idea and I’m sure you’ve got a really interesting case but I’m afraid I’m far too busy. Anyway, it’s not what I do. I write about fictional detectives. I’ve just finished a story about Sherlock Holmes. I used to do Poirot and Midsomer Murders. I’m a fiction writer. You need someone who writes true crime.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘All the difference in the world. I’m in control of my stories. I like to know what I’m writing about. Creating the crimes and the clues and all the rest of it is half the fun. If I were to follow you around, just writing down what you saw and what you said, what would that make me? I’m sorry. I’m not interested.’

He glanced at me over the tip of his cigarette. He didn’t look surprised or offended, as if he’d known that was what I was going to say. ‘I reckon you could sell a ton of copies,’ he remarked. ‘And it would be easy for you. I’d tell you everything you need to know. Don’t you want to hear what I’m working on?’ I didn’t – but he went on before I could stop him. ‘A woman walks into a funeral parlour, just the other side of London, in South Kensington. She’s arranged her own funeral, right down to the last detail. And that same day, six hours later, someone murders her … goes into her house and strangles her. That’s a bit unusual, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Who was she?’ I asked.

‘Her name doesn’t matter just for now. But she was rich. She’s got a famous son. And here’s another thing. As far as we can see, she didn’t have an enemy in the world. Everybody liked her. That’s why I got called in. None of it makes any sense.’

For a brief moment, I was tempted.

The hardest part of writing murder stories is thinking up the plots and at that particular moment I didn’t have any more in my head. After all, there are only so many reasons why anyone wants to kill someone else. You do it because you want something from them: their money, their wife, their job. You do it because you’re afraid of them. They know something about you and perhaps they’re threatening you. You kill them out of revenge because of something they knowingly or unknowingly did to you. Or, I suppose, you kill them by accident. After twenty-two episodes of Foyle’s War, I’d pretty much covered every variation.

And then there was the question of research. If I decide that the killer is going to be, say, a hotel chef, then I have to create his world. I have to visit the hotel. I have to understand the catering business. Making him believable means a lot of hard work and he’s only the first of twenty or thirty characters I have to invent, all of them lurking somewhere inside my head. I have to understand police procedure: fingerprints, forensic science, DNA … all the rest of it. It can be months before I write the first word. I was tired. I wasn’t sure I had the stamina to begin another book so soon after finishing The House of Silk.

Effectively, Hawthorne was offering me a short cut. He was giving me the whole thing on a plate. And he was right. The case did sound interesting. A woman walks into a funeral parlour. It was actually quite a good opening. I could already see the first chapter. Spring sunshine. A smart area of town. A woman crosses the road …

It was still unthinkable.

‘How did you know?’ I asked suddenly.

‘What?’

‘Just now. You told me I’d been in the country and you said I’d got a puppy. Who told you that?’

‘Nobody told me.’

‘Then how did you know?’

He scowled – as if he didn’t want to tell me. But at the same time he was trying to get something out of me and so, briefly, I had the upper hand. ‘There’s sand stuck in the tread of your shoes,’ he said. ‘I saw it when you crossed your leg. So either you’ve walked across a building site or you’ve been on the coast. I heard you got a place in Orford, so I suppose you must have been there.’

‘And the puppy?’

‘There’s a paw-print on your jeans. Just below the knee.’

I examined the material. Sure enough, it was there, so faint that I wouldn’t have noticed it. But he had.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘How did you know it was a puppy? It could have been a breed of small dog. And for that matter, how do you know I didn’t just meet it in the street?’