Magpie Murders

by Anthony Horowitz

  I remembered the four hundred and twenty pages of The Slide that I had read. I had thought it derivative at the time but now Melissa had told me where it had come from. Alan had been imitating a writer he’d admired but who, personally speaking, I had never been able to read. He had produced something close to a pastiche of Will Self.

  ‘The moment Atticus Pünd came out, he was trapped,’ Melissa went on. ‘That was what neither of us had anticipated. It was so successful that of course nobody wanted him to do anything else.’

  ‘It was better than his other books,’ I said.

  ‘You may have thought that, but Alan didn’t agree and nor do I.’ She sounded bitter. ‘He only wrote Atticus Pünd to get out of Woodbridge School and all it did was put him somewhere worse.’

  ‘But he was rich.’

  ‘He didn’t want the money! It was never about money.’ She sighed. Neither of us had eaten very much lunch. ‘Even if Alan hadn’t found this other side of himself, even if he hadn’t gone off with James, I don’t think we’d have stayed married much longer. He was never the same with me after he got famous. Do you understand what I’m saying, Susan? I’d betrayed him. Worse than that, I’d persuaded him to betray himself.’

  After another half an hour – maybe forty minutes – I left. I had to wait for a train at Bradford-on-Avon station but that suited me. I needed time to think. Andreas and Melissa! Why did it bother me so much? It had been over before the two of us even met. I suppose part of it was natural, a spurt of involuntary jealousy. But at the same time I was remembering what Andreas had said to me, the last time we had spoken. ‘Is this the best we can do?’ I had always assumed that we had both liked the casual nature of our relationship and I had been annoyed about the hotel because it was changing all that. What Melissa had just told me made me think again. Suddenly I saw how easy it would be to lose him.

  There was something else that occurred to me. Andreas had lost Melissa to Alan and he had made it clear that it still rankled. There was certainly no love lost between them. And this time, all these years later, Alan was the main reason why he might lose me. I was his editor. My career was largely predicated on the success of his books. ‘I’ve hated the way you’ve had to kowtow to him.’ That was what he had said.

  I suddenly saw that Andreas, as much as anyone, must have been very glad to see him dead.

  I needed to distract myself, so as soon as I was on the train, I took out Magpie Murders – but this time, instead of reading it, I tried to decipher it. I couldn’t get away from the idea that Alan Conway had concealed something inside the text and that it might even be the reason he was killed. I remembered the crossword that Clarissa Pye had solved and the code games the two boys had played at the Lodge. When Alan was at Chorley Hall, he had sent his sister acronyms and he had put dots under certain letters in books to send secret messages. There were no dots in the typescript of Magpie Murders. I had already checked. But his books had contained British rivers, tube stations, fountain pens, birds. This was a man who played electronic Scrabble in his spare time. ‘He was always great at puzzles – crosswords and things like that.’ It was the very reason why Melissa had persuaded him to try his hand at murder mystery in the first place. I was sure that if I looked hard enough there would be something I would find.

  I figured I knew where the characters had originated so I ignored them. If I was looking for secret messages, acronyms seemed the more likely possibility. The first letters of the first word of each chapter, for example, spelled out TTAADA. Nothing there. Then I tried the first ten sentences, which began TTTBHTI and the first letters of the first word of each section: TSDW – I didn’t need to continue. That didn’t mean anything either. I looked at the title of the book. Magpie Murders could be rearranged to make Reared Pig Mums, Reread Smug Imp, Premium Grades and many more. It was a puerile activity. I wasn’t expecting to find anything, not really. But it occupied my mind as we trundled back to London. I didn’t want to think about what Melissa had told me.

  And then, somewhere between Swindon and Didcot, I saw it. It just assembled itself in front of my eyes.

  The titles of the books.

  The clues had always been there. James had told me that the number of books was important. ‘Alan always said there would be nine books. He’d decided that from the very start.’ Why nine? Because that was his secret message. That was what he wanted to spell out. Look at the first letters.

  Atticus Pünd Investigates

  No Rest for the Wicked

  Atticus Pünd Takes the Case

  Night Comes Calling

  Atticus Pünd’s Christmas

  Gin & Cyanide

  Red Roses for Atticus

  Atticus Pünd Abroad

  If you add the last title, Magpie Murders, what do you get?

  AN ANAGRAM.

  And finally that explained something that had been on my mind for a while. The Ivy Club. Alan had got angry when Charles had suggested changing the title of the last book. What was it that he had said? ‘I’m not having the—’ That was the moment when Donald Leigh dropped the plates.

  But in fact there was no missing word. He had actually completed the sentence. What he was saying was, the book could not be called The Magpie Murders because that would spoil the joke that Alan had built into the series almost from the day it was conceived. He’d come up with an anagram.

  But an anagram of what?

  An hour later, the train pulled into Paddington and I still hadn’t seen it.

  Paddington Station

  I don’t like coincidences in novels, and particularly not in murder mysteries, which work because of logic and calculation. The detective really should be able to reach his conclusion without having providence on his side. But that’s just the editor in me speaking and unfortunately this is what happened. Getting off the train at two minutes past five in a city of eight and a half million people, with thousands of them crossing the concourse all around me, I bumped into someone I knew. Her name was Jemima Humphries. Until very recently, she had been Charles Clover’s PA at Cloverleaf.

  I saw her and recognised her at once. Charles always said she had the sort of smile that could light up a crowd and that was what first caught my eye, the fact that she alone looked cheerful among the grey mass of commuters making their way home. She was slim and pretty with long blonde hair, and although she was in her mid-twenties, she had lost none of her schoolgirl exuberance. I remember her telling me that she had wanted to get into publishing because she loved reading. I’d already missed having her around the office. I had no idea why she’d left.

  She saw me at the same moment and waved. We made our way towards each other and I thought we were just going to say hello and I was going to ask her how she was. But that wasn’t what happened.

  ‘How are you, Jemima?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m fine thanks, Susan. It’s really great to see you. I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye.’

  ‘It all happened so quickly. I was away on a book tour and when I’d got back, you’d already gone.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So where are you now?’

  ‘I’m living with my parents in Chiswick. I was just on my way—’

  ‘Where are you working?’

  ‘I haven’t got a job yet.’ She giggled nervously. ‘I’m still looking.’

  That puzzled me. I’d assumed she’d been poached. ‘So why did you leave?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t leave, Susan. Charles fired me. Well, he asked me to go. I didn’t want to.’

  That wasn’t what Charles had told me. I was sure he’d said she’d handed in her notice. It was already half past five and I wanted to go to the office and go through my emails before I met Andreas. But something told me I couldn’t leave it like this. I had to know more. ‘Are you in a hurry?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Not really.’ />
  ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

  We made our way to one of those grimy, frankly hellish pubs that edge onto the platforms at Paddington Station. I bought myself a gin and tonic, which arrived with not enough ice. Jemima had a glass of white wine. ‘So what happened?’ I asked.

  Jemima frowned. ‘I’m not sure, to be honest with you, Susan. I really liked working at Cloverleaf and Charles was fine most of the time. He could be quite snappy now and then but I didn’t mind because in a way that was part of the job. Anyway, we had a big row – it must have been the day you went off on that book tour. He said I’d double-booked him for a lunch and there was an agent sitting in a restaurant waiting for him but it simply wasn’t true. I never made any mistakes with his diary. But when I tried to argue with him he got really angry. I’d never seen him like that before. He was completely over-the-top. And then, on the Friday morning, I took him a coffee in his office and, as I handed it to him, he sort of fumbled it and it went all over his desk. It was a terrible mess and I went out and got kitchen towel and cleared it up for him and that was when he said he didn’t think it was working, him and me, and that I should start looking for another job.’

  ‘He fired you on the spot?’

  ‘Not exactly. I was very upset. I mean, the thing with the coffee, it really wasn’t me. I was going to put it on his desk like I always did but he reached out to take it and knocked it out of my hand. And it wasn’t as if I’d made loads of mistakes. I’d been with him for a year and everything had gone all right. We had a long talk and I think it was me who said to him that it would be better if I went straight away and he said he’d pay me a month’s salary so that was it. He also said he’d give me a good reference and that if anyone asked, I hadn’t been fired, I’d just decided to leave.’ Charles had stuck with that. It was what he had told me. ‘I suppose that was nice of him,’ she went on. ‘I just left at the end of the day and that was that.’

  ‘What day was that?’ I asked.

  ‘It was Friday morning. You were on your way back from Dublin.’ She remembered something. ‘Did Andreas ever catch up with you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I could feel my head spinning. It was the second time that Andreas had been mentioned today. Melissa had suddenly dragged him into the conversation and now Jemima had done the same. She knew him, of course. She’d met him a few times and taken messages from him. But why was she mentioning him now?

  ‘He came in the day before,’ Jemima continued, cheerfully. ‘He wanted to see you. After his meeting with Charles.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jemima.’ I tried to take this slowly. ‘You must be making a mistake. Andreas wasn’t in England that week. He was in Crete.’

  ‘He did look very tanned but I’m not making a mistake. It was a horrible week for me and I sort of remember everything that happened. He came in on Thursday at about three o’clock.’

  ‘And he saw Charles?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She looked perplexed. ‘I hope I haven’t done something wrong. He didn’t say not to tell you.’

  But he hadn’t told me himself. Quite the opposite. We’d had our big reunion dinner. He had said he was in Crete.

  I wanted to leave Andreas out of this. I went back to Charles. ‘There’s no way he’d want to lose you,’ I said. I wasn’t really talking to her. I was talking to myself, trying to work it out. And it was true. I could easily see Charles losing his temper in the way she’d described – but not with her. Jemima had been his third secretary in as many years and I know he liked her. There had been Olivia who’d got on his nerves. And Cat who was always late. Third time lucky – that was what he’d said. Jemima was efficient and hard-working. She made him laugh. How could he have changed his mind so suddenly?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He’d had a bad couple of weeks. When all the reviews came out for that book, The One-Armed Juggler, he was really upset and I know he wasn’t too happy about Magpie Murders either. He was worried about his daughter. Honestly, Susan, I was doing everything I could to help but he just needed someone to shout at and I was the one who happened to be in the room. Did Laura have her baby?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, although actually I didn’t know. ‘I haven’t heard if it’s a boy or a girl.’

  ‘Well, send good wishes from me.’

  We talked a little more. Jemima was working part-time, helping her mother who was a solicitor. She was thinking about spending the winter in Verbier. She was a keen snowboarder and thought she could get work as a chalet girl. But I didn’t really listen to what she was saying. I wanted to telephone Andreas. I wanted to know why he had lied to me.

  It was just as we were separating that another thought struck me. I was replaying something she had said to me. ‘You mentioned that Charles wasn’t happy with Magpie Murders,’ I said. ‘What was the problem?’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. But he was definitely upset about something. I thought maybe it wasn’t any good.’

  ‘But he hadn’t read it yet.’

  ‘Hadn’t he?’ She sounded surprised.

  She was anxious to be on her way but I stopped her. None of this was making any sense. Alan had delivered the new book after Jemima had left. He had given it to Charles at the Ivy Club on Thursday, 27 August, the same day – it now turned out – Andreas had visited him at Cloverleaf Books. I had got back on the twenty-eighth and had found a copy of the manuscript waiting for me. We had both read it over the weekend – the same weekend Alan died. So what could Charles have been unhappy about?

  ‘Charles was only given the book after you’d left,’ I said.

  ‘No. That’s not true. It came in the post.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘On Tuesday.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I opened it.’

  I stared at her. ‘Did you see the title?’

  ‘Yes. It was on the front page.’

  ‘Was the book complete?’

  That confused her. ‘I don’t know, Susan. I just gave it to Charles. He was very pleased to have it but he didn’t say anything afterwards and anyway a few days later the coffee thing happened and that was that.’

  There were people swirling past. A voice boomed out over the tannoys, announcing the departure of a train. I thanked Jemima, gave her a brief hug and hurried off to find a taxi.

  Cloverleaf Books

  I didn’t call Andreas. I wanted to. But there was something else I had to do first.

  The offices were closed by the time I got there but I had a key and let myself in, deactivated the alarms and climbed the stairs up to the first floor. I turned on the lights, but without anyone in there, the building still felt dark and oppressive, the shadows refusing to budge. I knew exactly where I was going. Charles’s office was never locked and I went straight in. There were the two armchairs in empty conference with Charles’s desk in front of me. The shelves with all his books, his awards, his photographs, were on one side. Bella’s basket was on the other, tucked next to a cabinet that contained bottles and glasses. How many times had I sat here, late into the evening, sipping Glenmorangie malt whisky, talking over the problems of the day? I was here now as an intruder and I had a sense that I was smashing everything that I had helped to build up over the past eleven years.

  I walked over to the desk. I was in such a mood that if the drawers had been locked I wouldn’t have hesitated to break them open, antique or not. But Charles hadn’t taken even this measure of security. The drawers slid open eagerly in my hands to reveal contracts, cost reports, invoices, proofs, newspaper clippings, unwanted wires from old computers and mobile phones, photographs and, at the very bottom, clumsily concealed, a plastic folder containing about twenty sheets of paper. The first page was almost blank with a heading in capitals.

  SEVEN: A SECRET NEVER TO BE TOLD

  The missing chapters. They had been here al
l the time.

  And in the end, the title had been absolutely true. The solution to the murder of Sir Magnus Pye had to be kept secret because of the way it related to the murder of Alan Conway. I thought I heard something. Had there been a creak on the stairs outside? I turned the page and began to read.

  Atticus Pünd took one last walk around Saxby-on-Avon while James Fraser paid the bill at the Queen’s Arms. He had arranged to meet Detective Inspector Chubb – and two others – at the Bath police station in an hour’s time. He had not been here long but in a strange way he had come to know the village quite intimately. The church, the castle, the antique shop in the square, the bus shelter, the Queen’s Arms and the Ferryman … he could no longer see them separately. They had become the chessboard on which this particular game, surely his last, had been played.

  It was his last game because he was dying. Atticus Pünd and Alan Conway were going out together. That was what this was all about. A writer and a character he hated, both heading towards their Reichenbach Falls.

  It had all come to me at Paddington Station, the extraordinary moment that all of them must have felt – Poirot, Holmes, Wimsey, Marple, Morse – but which their authors had never fully explained. What was it like, for them? A slow process, like constructing a jigsaw? Or did it come in a rush, one last turn in a toy kaleidoscope when all the colours and shapes tumbled and twisted into each other, forming a recognisable image? That was what had happened to me. The truth had been there. But it had taken a final nudge for me to see it, all of it.

  Would it have happened if I hadn’t met Jemima Humphries? I’ll never know for sure, but I think I would have got there in the end. There were little bits of information, red herrings that I’d had to get out of my head. For example, the television producer, Mark Redmond, hadn’t told me that he’d stayed at the Crown Hotel in Framlingham over the weekend. Why not? The answer was quite simple when I thought about it. When he’d talked to me, he’d deliberately made it seem that he was on his own. It was only the receptionist at the hotel who’d mentioned that he was with his wife. But suppose it wasn’t his wife? Suppose it was a secretary or a starlet? That would have been a good reason for a longer stay – and a good reason to lie about it. And then there was James Taylor. He really had been in London with friends. The photograph of John White and Alan on the tower? White had gone round to see Alan on that Sunday morning. No wonder he and his housekeeper had looked uncomfortable when I spoke to them. The two of them had argued about the lost investment. But it wasn’t White who had attempted to kill Alan. It was the other way round. Wasn’t that obvious? Alan had grabbed hold of him at the top of the tower and the two of them had grappled for a moment. That was what the photograph showed. It was actually Alan’s killer who had taken it.