Magpie Murders

by Anthony Horowitz

  He was about to leave for London – he had a car and a driver waiting for him in the square – but I persuaded him to talk to me first and we went into a little café, opposite the hotel. We had less chance of our being disturbed there. He had taken off the Fedora to reveal slicked-back dark hair and narrow eyes. He was a handsome man, slim, expensively dressed. He had built his career in television and there was something of the TV personality about him. I could imagine him presenting a programme. It would be about lifestyle or maybe finance.

  I ordered two coffees and we began to talk.

  ‘You left the funeral early,’ I said.

  ‘I wasn’t sure why I came, if you want the truth. I felt I ought to be there, since I’d been working with him, but once I arrived I decided it was a mistake. I didn’t know anyone and it was cold and wet. I just wanted to leave.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  I shrugged as if it wasn’t important. ‘I just wondered. Alan’s suicide has obviously come as a great shock to us and we’re trying to work out why he did it.’

  ‘I saw him two weeks ago.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘No. Actually, I went out to his home. It was a Saturday.’

  The day before Alan died.

  ‘Had he invited you?’ I asked.

  Redmond laughed briefly. ‘I wouldn’t have driven the whole bloody way if he hadn’t. He wanted to talk about the series and he asked me to dinner. Knowing Alan, I thought it best not to refuse. He’d been difficult enough already and I didn’t want to have any more rows.’

  ‘What sort of rows?’

  He looked at me disdainfully. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Alan was a real piece of work,’ he said. ‘You say you were his editor. Don’t tell me he didn’t give you the runaround! I almost wish I’d never heard of Atticus Pünd. He was making life so bloody difficult for me, I could have murdered him myself!’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I had no idea. What exactly was the problem?’

  ‘It was one thing after another.’ The coffees arrived and he stirred his, the spoon making endless circles as he went through the process of working with Alan Conway. ‘Getting him to sign the option in the first place was hard enough. The amount of money he was asking, you’d think he was JK bloody Rowling. And don’t forget, this was risk money as far as I was concerned. At the time, I hadn’t completed a deal with the BBC and the whole thing could have gone west. But that was just the start of it. He wouldn’t go away. He wanted to be an executive producer. Well, that’s not so unusual. But he also insisted on adapting the book himself even though he had no TV writing experience and, I can tell you, the BBC weren’t at all happy about that. He wanted casting approval. That was the biggest headache of all. No author ever gets casting approval! Consultancy, maybe, but that wasn’t good enough. He had ridiculous ideas. Do you know who he wanted to play Atticus Pünd?’

  ‘Ben Kingsley?’ I suggested.

  He stared at me. ‘Did he tell you?’

  ‘No. But I know he was a fan.’

  ‘Well, you’re right. Unfortunately, it was out of the question. Kingsley would never take the part and anyway, he’s seventy-three – much too old. We argued about that. We argued about everything. I wanted to start with Night Comes Calling. It’s much the best book, in my view. But he wasn’t having that either. He wouldn’t explain why not. He just said he didn’t want to do it. The option comes to an end quite soon so I had to be careful what I said.’

  ‘Will you still go ahead?’ I asked. ‘Now that he’s gone?’

  Redmond visibly brightened. He put down his spoon and drank some of his coffee. ‘I’ll go ahead with it because he’s gone. Can I be honest with you, Susan? I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but, frankly, his departure is the best thing that could have happened. I’ve already spoken to James Taylor. He owns the rights now and he seems pleasant enough. He’s already agreed to give us another year and by that time we should have the whole thing set up. We’re hoping to make all nine books.’

  ‘He didn’t finish the last one.’

  ‘We can deal with that. It doesn’t matter. They’ve made a hundred and four episodes of Midsomer Murders but the original author only wrote seven books. And look at Sherlock. They’re doing things Doyle never dreamed of. With a bit of luck we’ll do a dozen seasons of The Atticus Adventures. That’s what we’re going to call it. I never much liked the name Pünd – it sounds a bit too foreign and you may not agree with me but I think the umlaut on the u is really off-putting. But Atticus is good. It reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird. Now we can go ahead and get a decent writer in and that’ll make my life a whole lot easier.’

  ‘Haven’t the public had enough of murder?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re joking. Inspector Morse, Taggart, Lewis, Foyle’s War, Endeavour, A Touch of Frost, Luther, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Cracker, Broadchurch and even bloody Maigret and Wallander – British TV would disappear into a dot on the screen without murder. They’re even bumping people off in the soap operas. And it’s the same the world over. You know, they say in America that the average child sees eight thousand murders before they leave elementary school. Makes you think, doesn’t it.’ He finished the rest of his coffee as if he was suddenly anxious to be on his way.

  ‘So what did Alan Conway want?’ I asked him. ‘When you saw him two weeks ago?’

  He shrugged. ‘He complained about the lack of progress. He had no idea how the BBC works. It can take them weeks to answer the phone. The fact of the matter is that they didn’t like his script. Of course, I hadn’t told him that. We were trying to find someone else to take over.’

  ‘Did you talk about the option?’

  ‘Yes.’ He hesitated for a moment, the first time I had seen any flaw in the armour of his self-confidence. ‘He told me there was another production company he was talking to. It didn’t matter that I’d already invested thousands in The Atticus Adventures. He was quite ready to start all over again.’

  ‘So what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘We had lunch at his house. It didn’t get off to a great start. I was late. I got held up at some endless roadworks at Earl Soham – he said it had been like that for weeks – and he was in a bad mood. Anyway, we talked. I made my pitch. He promised to get back to me. I left about three in the afternoon and drove home.’ He glanced down at his empty cup. He was keen to be on his way. ‘Thank you for the coffee. It’s very nice to meet you. As soon as we get a green light for production, I’ll let you know.’

  Mark Redmond walked out, leaving me to pay for the coffee. I could have murdered him myself. I didn’t need to be a fan of Midsomer Murders to recognise a motive when I heard one and it occurred to me that when it came to suspects, in the league of sheer bloody obviousness, Redmond had just put himself at the top of the list. Even so, there was one thing I wasn’t expecting. Later that afternoon, when I signed into the Crown, I flicked back a few pages in the guest registry. I was acting on a whim – but there it was. Mark Redmond’s name. He had been booked into the hotel and stayed there two nights. When I asked the receptionist, she remembered him leaving after breakfast on Monday morning. He and his wife. He hadn’t mentioned that she’d been there too.

  But that wasn’t relevant. The fact was that he had actually been in Framlingham at the time Alan died. In other words, he’d been lying. I could think of only one good reason why.

  After the funeral

  The reception rooms were crowded by the time I got to the Crown. There had only been about forty people at the funeral and it had felt a little sparse but in the confines of the front lounge with two fires blazing, red and white wine circulating, trays of sandwiches and sausage rolls laid out, there was something close enough to a party atmosphere and even a few of the hotel guests had joined in on the grounds that free wine an
d food were worth having even if they had no idea who had actually died. Sajid Khan was there with his wife – I recognised her from the sliding photograph – and greeted me as I came in. He was in an unusually cheerful mood, as if his former client had been filed away rather than buried and a whole new business opportunity had begun. James Taylor was standing next to him and muttered just three words as I made my way past. ‘See you tonight.’ He clearly couldn’t wait to leave.

  I found Charles who was deep in conversation with the Reverend Tom Robeson. The vicar was much larger than he had appeared in the cemetery. He certainly towered over Charles and the other guests. Seeing him more closely, and out of the rain, I was also struck by how unattractive he was. He had the dull eyes and the slightly misplaced features of a boxer who has been in too many fights. He had changed out of his robes. He was wearing a worn-out sports jacket with patches on the sleeves. As I approached, he was making a point, jabbing with a half-eaten sandwich.

  ‘… but there are villages that simply won’t survive. Families are being split up. It’s morally unjustifiable.’

  Charles glanced at me a little irritably as I joined them. ‘Where did you go?’ he asked.

  ‘There was someone I knew.’

  ‘You left very suddenly.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t want them to get away.’

  He turned back to the vicar. ‘This is Tom Robeson. Susan Ryeland. We were just talking about second homes,’ he added.

  ‘Southwold, Dunwich, Walberswick, Orford, Shingle Street – all along the coast.’ Robeson had to make his point.

  I cut in. ‘I was interested in the address you made at the funeral,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes?’ He looked at me blankly.

  ‘You knew Alan when you were young?’

  ‘Yes. We met a long time ago.’

  A waiter went past with a tray and I snatched a glass of white wine. It was warm and sluggish, a Pinot Grigio, I think. ‘You suggested that he bullied you.’

  Even as I spoke the words, it didn’t seem likely. Alan had never had much of a physical presence and Robeson must have been twice his size when they were kids. He didn’t deny it though. Instead he became flustered. ‘I’m sure I said no such thing, Mrs Ryeland.’

  ‘You said he demanded a place in the cemetery.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not the word I would have used. Alan Conway showed exceptional generosity towards the church. He made no demands whatsoever. When he asked if he might one day be laid to rest in the cemetery, I felt it would be deeply ungrateful of me to refuse even if, I will admit, I had to request a special dispensation.’ The vicar was glancing over my shoulder, looking for a way out. If he had squeezed his hand any tighter, his glass of elderflower juice would have exploded. ‘It was a great pleasure to meet you,’ he said. ‘And you, Mr Clover. If you’ll excuse me …’

  He slipped between us and waded into the crowd.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Charles asked. ‘And who was it you met when you went rushing off?’

  The second question was easier to answer. ‘Mark Redmond,’ I said.

  ‘The producer?’

  ‘Yes. You know he was here the weekend Alan died?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Alan wanted to talk to him about the television series, The Atticus Adventures. Redmond told me that Alan was giving him a hard time.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Susan. Why exactly did you want to talk to him? And why were you so aggressive with the vicar just now? You were almost interrogating him. What exactly is going on?’

  I had to tell him. I didn’t know why I hadn’t told him already. So I took him through the whole thing: my visit to Claire Jenkins, the suicide letter, the Ivy Club – all of it. Charles listened to me in silence and I couldn’t help but feel that the more I spoke, the more ridiculous I sounded. He didn’t believe what I was saying and listening to myself I wasn’t sure I believed it either. Certainly, I had little or no evidence to support it. Mark Redmond had stayed a couple of nights in a hotel. Did that make him a suspect? A waiter had had his idea stolen. Would he have travelled all the way to Suffolk to get revenge? The fact remained that Alan Conway had been terminally ill. At the end of the day, why kill someone who was going to die anyway?

  I finished. Charles shook his head. ‘A murder writer murdered,’ he said. ‘Are you really serious about this, Susan?’

  ‘Yes, Charles,’ I said. ‘I think I am.’

  ‘Have you told anyone else? Have you been to the police?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘For two reasons. I don’t want to see you make a fool of yourself. And frankly I think you could be stirring up more trouble for the company.’

  ‘Charles …’ I began but then came the sound of a fork being struck against the side of a glass and the room fell silent. I looked round. James Taylor was standing on the staircase that led up to the bedrooms with Sajid Khan next to him. He was at least ten years younger than anyone else in the room and couldn’t have looked more out-of-place.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘Sajid has asked me to say a few words … and I’d like to start by thanking him for making all the arrangements today. As most of you know, I was Alan’s partner until very recently and I want to say that I was very fond of him and I will miss him very much. Quite a lot of you have been asking what I plan to do next so I might as well tell you that now that he’s gone, I won’t be staying in Framlingham although I’ve always been very happy here. In fact, if anyone’s interested, Abbey Grange is about to go on the market. Anyway, I want to thank you all for coming. I’m afraid I’ve never much liked funerals but, as I say, I’m glad to have had this chance to see you all and to say goodbye. And goodbye to Alan especially. I know it meant a lot to him, being buried in the cemetery at St Michael, and I’m sure lots of people will come here and visit him – people who liked his books. Please have some more to eat and drink. And thank you again.’

  It wasn’t much of a speech and it had been delivered not just awkwardly but a little carelessly too. James had already told me that he couldn’t wait to get out of Suffolk and he had made it clear to everyone else too. While I was speaking, I had glanced around the room, trying to gauge the different reactions. The vicar was standing to one side, stony-faced. A woman had joined him, much shorter than him, plump with sprawling, ginger hair. I presumed she was his wife. John White hadn’t come to the reception but Detective Superintendent Locke was there – if indeed he was the black man I had identified at the cemetery. Melissa Conway and her son had left the moment James had started speaking. I saw them slip away through the back door and I could understand how they must have felt, listening to Alan’s boyfriend. It was still annoying, though, as I’d wanted to talk to them. But I couldn’t dash off a second time.

  James shook hands with the solicitor and left the room, stopping briefly to mutter a few words to one or two well-wishers. I turned back to Charles, expecting to pick up our conversation, but at that moment his mobile pinged. He took it out and glanced at the screen.

  ‘My car’s here,’ he said. He had arranged a taxi to take him to Ipswich station.

  ‘You should have let me drive you,’ I said.

  ‘No. It’s all right.’ He reached for his coat and draped it over his arm. ‘Susan, we really need to talk about Alan. If you’re going to go on with this enquiry of yours, obviously I can’t stop you. But you should think what you’re doing … the implications.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you any closer to finding the missing chapters? If you want my honest opinion, that’s much more important.’

  ‘I’m still looking.’

  ‘Well, good luck. I’ll see you on Monday.’

  We didn’t kiss each other goodbye. I have never kissed Charles, not once in all the years I’ve known him. He’s too formal for that, too strait-laced. I can’t actually even
imagine him kissing his wife.

  He left. I threw back the rest of my wine and went to fetch my key. I planned to have a bath and a rest before my dinner with James Taylor but as I made my way back towards the stairs – the other guests were dispersing now, leaving trays of uneaten sandwiches behind – I found my way blocked by Claire Jenkins. She was holding a brown A4 envelope, which must have contained at least a dozen sheets of paper from the look of it. For a moment, my heart leapt. She had found the missing pages! Could it really be as easy as that?

  It wasn’t.

  ‘I said I’d write something about Alan,’ she reminded me, waving the envelope uncertainly in front of her. ‘You asked what he was like as a boy, how we grew up together.’ Her eyes were still red and weepy. If there was a website that sold exclusive funeral wear, she must have found it. She was wearing velvet and lace, slightly Victorian and very black.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Jenkins,’ I said.

  ‘It made me think about Alan and I enjoyed writing it. I’m not sure it’s any good. I couldn’t write the way he did. But it may tell you what you want to know.’ She weighed the envelope one last time as if reluctant to part with it, then pushed it towards me. ‘I’ve made a copy so you don’t need to worry about sending it back.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She was still standing there, as if expecting something more. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  Yes. That was it. She nodded. ‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ she said. And then she went herself.

  My brother, Alan Conway

  I can’t believe Alan is dead.

  I want to write about him but I don’t know where to start. I’ve read some of Alan’s obituaries in the newspapers and they don’t even come close. Oh yes, they know when he was born, what books he wrote, what prizes he won. They’ve said some very nice things about him. But they haven’t managed to capture Alan at all and I’m frankly surprised that not one of those journalists telephoned me because I could have given them a much better idea of the sort of man he was, starting with the fact (as I told you) that he would never have killed himself. If Alan was one thing, it was a survivor. We both were. He and I were always close, even if we did disagree from time to time, and if his illness really had driven him to despair, I know he would have called me before he did anything foolish.