Murder Your Darlings

by Mark McCrum

  ‘My good God!’ said Marta when he’d finished. ‘She’s a psychopath. Sasha … was just …’

  ‘Collateral damage,’ said Gerry grimly.

  SIXTEEN

  Friday 5 October. Pisa Airport

  Francis was on his way home. The minibus had brought them on motorways across Italy, past Arezzo away to the left, and Florence away to the right, and dumped them in the satellite car park at Pisa, from where you had to take a new shuttle train into the airport, a kilometre or two away. Francis had helped the three old ladies with him, as they struggled with their heavy luggage up and down lifts and tried to work out how to buy a single shuttle ticket with a foreign credit card. Eventually he had got them to Departures and handed the redoubtable Angela over to a young woman with film star good looks who was working for Special Assistance, a service that didn’t seem to cover the area where Angela had really needed Special Assistance, i.e. the satellite car park. He then left Mel and Belle in the easyJet queue while he checked in with British Airways.

  He had stumbled through the indignities of Security, his trousers falling down as usual, and had his hand luggage checked over by a Giotto madonna in uniform, who seemed tempted to confiscate the large lump of parmigiano he’d bought in the grocery in the airport concourse, but had taken no interest in his clear plastic wash bag, which could have contained, in the one-hundred milligram shampoo bottle, enough cyanide to knock out the entire plane. Now he was settled with a cappuccino in the one little café that the Pisa Airport planners saw fit to maintain airside.

  As he chewed through his bombolone to find the sweet apricot jam at its centre he felt relief flood through him. He was finally away. From Villa Giulia, which had changed from paradiso to inferno in such a short time. Touch wood, Marta Moretti wasn’t suddenly going to appear through the dangling leather bags and hanging panetonnes that surrounded him to question him one last time. He was free of the frankly haughty grilling of Sabatini and Ceccarelli, who had told Francis that he should have shared his suspicions – his knowledge, as they said – with them from the first moment he had them. He had almost been made to feel he’d been aiding and abetting Diana, though his realization that she was indeed the murderer had come late in the day, and certainly after the last time they had questioned him.

  They had been even harder on Zoe, who was still at the villa, aiutando la polizia con le loro indagini (helping the police with their enquiries), with the clear and heavy threat that non-cooperation would lead to her being investigated herself. Fortunately the British Embassy in Rome had provided Vittoria, a charming and competent young woman who was fighting Zoe’s corner for her. Even though the murderer was dead, this was still a murder enquiry. Had Zoe, in her panic, been committing soccorso e favoreggiamento (aiding and abetting), lying about Diana? Or could you argue, as Francis had with Marta, that she had been running scared of her, terrified for her own life? It was certainly enough to make you doubt the wisdom of ever keeping a journal. Francis felt a little guilty that he’d dumped Zoe in it so comprehensively. Then again, the journal was key evidence, even if superseded by the comprehensive confession of Diana’s farewell letter.

  As for the others, the questioning had been perfunctory. Duncan and Fiona hadn’t even been brought back to the villa, and neither Francis nor any of the others had seen them again. Barbara White-Moloney, too, had stayed in Perugia and was now free to organize the repatriation of poor Sasha. Francis had been sad not to set eyes on her again; if he had known that his poolside encounter was to be the last time he would see her, he might have said even more.

  Tony and Roz had departed too, apparently to some hotel in Perugia – and who knew what lies Tony was sending back home to his wife? But he was certainly happy to use the murder enquiry as a smokescreen for his ongoing affair. The murder-in-the-sauna story had now been reported not just across Italy, but worldwide, though British and American newspapers and TV stations had, fairly obviously, taken the keenest interest. But once the gruesome details of Diana’s suicide had been made public, by the police, with some colourful elaboration from Liam, who had chatted indiscreetly to the journos at the gate, the media had done with the story. There were no suspects to fret about, no suggestion that the Italian police had mishandled things, no criticisms of the country’s inquisitorial justice system. The vengeful Englishwoman was the villain, and that was that. Done and dusted.

  Marta Moretti had held true to her promise and taken all the credit for the resolution of the inquiry herself. It was just a shame that Liam had seen fit to inform the gathered journos that the crime had been solved by the writing tutor, an Englishman, who already had form for that sort of thing. This indiscretion had led, fairly inevitably, to Francis’s photo being plastered all over the Mail Online, with side pics of the Mold-on-Wold festival and – God help him – the Golden Adventurer at sea. He was glad he was still out of the country, and could only hope he’d be left alone when he got home. On the other hand, as a writer in the overcrowded contemporary market, he was hardly going to be churlish about his media profile being raised. The irreverent Irishman wasn’t with them today, which was a relief. Rome was apparently a cheaper and quicker option to Belfast than Pisa.

  And here indeed, speak of the devil, were the last two, Belle and Mel, approaching from the leather goods concession, where you could buy a beautiful Italian bag for several times the price it had been in the market stall in Gubbio.

  ‘Hello, Francis,’ said Belle.

  ‘Or rather goodbye,’ said Mel.

  ‘We thought we’d just come and give you a farewell hug,’ Belle said. ‘Our flight’s been called.’

  Francis got to his feet and put his arms around her. He had grown fond of dear scatty Belle, who wore her vulnerability so bravely on her sleeve. He imparted a kiss to her strangely smooth cheek, then turned to Mel, who stood waiting in line, Gandalf’s little red-cheeked helper, with her incongruous carroty hair. His hug for her was less warm, despite his intention to treat them both the same.

  ‘Safe journey,’ he said. ‘I hope Brian hasn’t blown the kitchen up.’

  ‘Oh, I expect he has,’ Mel replied, her thin lips twisting into a genuinely warm grin at this attack on her other half. ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll see you another year,’ said Belle hopefully.

  ‘If they go on with it. D’you think they will?’

  Mel shrugged. ‘Who knows. Once they’ve got over the shock. Maybe the publicity’ll help them, you never know. People can be very ghoulish.’

  ‘Bye then,’ Belle waved. ‘Look after yourself, Francis. Don’t forget to kill those darlings.’

  ‘I won’t.’ He laughed.

  Watching Mel’s compact oblong frame depart through the milling throng of travellers, pulling her neat little wheelie case behind her, he wondered whether she’d known more than she’d let on; to him, to the police, and to everyone else. Had it just been Zoe who’d been in on the murder, or had Mel known about the ‘confrontation’ too? There had been that guilty-looking trio up at St Ubaldo’s – and he’d never quite felt it was just the ices they were guilty about. She was one of those folk who looked after number one, was Mel. She certainly wouldn’t have done anything so stupid as to keep a journal, would she? But Francis suspected that a) she knew more than she’d told; b) she could have helped Zoe with the soccorso e favoreggiamento if she’d wanted to.

  There were those that got away with things, weren’t there, and those that didn’t, and a third category too – those that for some reason didn’t allow themselves to get away with things; who had to see what they saw as justice done in some way, even if that brought their own house crashing down around their ears.

  Hm, nice thought, Francis told himself; though if he had written that in one of his drafts, he would almost certainly have ordered himself to scratch it out.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Francis looked up to see an elegant sixty-something blonde lady approaching, smiling purposefully.r />
  ‘Are you that detective chappie?’ she asked, in confident English tones. ‘Francis Meadowes.’

  ‘No.’

  She held up her Daily Mail.

  ‘You look awfully like him. And here you are in Pisa Airport. Pisa, Perugia, it’s not far.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh come off it, it must be you. Give us an autograph. My husband loves detective fiction.’

  He met his tormentor’s beady eye. She had rumbled him.

  ‘OK then,’ he said. ‘Here’s the deal. I’ll sign a bit of paper. And you buy one of my books when you get home and stick it in the front.’

  She cackled, proprietorially. ‘I knew it was you.’

  She brought out a thick notebook. ‘I’ve just been doing a cookery course. Near Cortona. Such fun. Learning how to make pasta properly. Here we are, a blank page.’

  Francis nodded and signed.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said. ‘Tim will be thrilled.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He gave her a thin, unencouraging smile.

  But: ‘How do you do it?’ she went on. ‘Work out who’s done it, better than the police? Although, I don’t imagine the Italian police are up to much, are they? They made a right pig’s ear of that other case in Perugia a few years back, didn’t they? The poor English girl and the American with the Italian boyfriend, what was her name?’

  ‘Amanda Knox. And the victim was Meredith Kercher. To answer your question, I suppose I pay careful attention to detail. And now I must apologize, as my flight has just been called.’

  God help him and curse Liam. This was not what he’d asked for. He sincerely hoped it would all blow over and he would be able to return to peaceful anonymity. The last thing he wanted was to find he’d turned from a minor crime writer into some sort of celebrity detective, whom people actively sought out with their hard-to-solve cases.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am grateful to Kay Dunbar and Stephen Bristow, originators of the Ways With Words festivals, who first encouraged me to teach creative writing on their wonderful courses in Devon and Italy, where I made a number of good friends (none of whom bear any relation whatsoever to the characters in this book). Also to Danuta Kean, who suggested I teach Guardian masterclasses in memoir and so meet many other fascinating people with stories to tell. Thanks also to the kind friends who read an early draft of this manuscript and offered encouragement and useful suggestions: Katrin Macgibbon, Stephanie Cross, Lin Hughes, Jackie Nelson and Ben Craib. Nadia Bonini corrected my inadequate Italian and picked me up on other inaccuracies (who would have known that Italian ambulances are routinely manned by volunteers?). Nick Farrell, Italian correspondent of the Spectator and biographer of Mussolini, made other useful suggestions. Alessandro Buscaglia was extremely helpful on the details of Italian police, judicial and medical procedure and both patient and scrupulous in his replies to my repeated questions. Further reassurances were kindly provided by Michele and Susan Delicato. My agent Jamie Maclean was his usual speedy and supportive self. Thanks to publisher Kate Lyall Grant for continuing to believe in Francis, to editor Sara Porter for a beady eye and sharp questions and copyeditor Anna Harrisson for fine-tuning. Finally, of course, to my wife Jo, for looking after me and being always, as a reader, impressively impartial.