by Alex Pavesi
James looked forlorn. ‘A tablecloth, stained with vomit.’ He gave a long, futile sigh. ‘I ran into the burning building and threw it into the flames, then ran out looking like a hero. I went home to change.’
The six guests stood in silence. Helen looked at each of them in turn. ‘And then you all spent the rest of the evening telling me stories, not one of them the slightest bit true.’
There was a loud knock on the door. It creaked open. The restaurant manager’s head appeared around the door; Helen had had a feeling he would return for the final act. There was a grin on his impish face. ‘I am sorry to disturb you, madame, but we have been told we must evacuate the building immediately.’
He disappeared; Helen turned back to face her accused. They stared at her. James broke the silence with a burst of laughter. ‘Well, we all heard the man. It seems we’re free to go.’
The room relaxed. Andrew picked up his jacket, James his hat, and Vanessa took a good look at her black shoes as if wondering how to make them more comfortable, then the whole group proceeded towards the door.
‘You might find,’ said Scarlett as she passed, ‘that your story seems less plausible once we’ve all left the room.’ The rest of them filed past her.
‘Don’t worry too much,’ said Griff. ‘Harry really was an awful man. We’ve done the world a favour.’
He departed and Helen was alone.
Andrew had opened the window in a small act of sabotage and smoke was pouring in through it. An appropriate metaphor, thought Helen. Then she picked herself up, put on her coat and left. The restaurant was eerily empty as she passed down the stairs and out of the door.
She walked down the street and looked at the burning building. It was such horror: who would care about their simple corpse in the toilet when it had happened so close to this abomination? And yet, for all its branching chaos, the fire was essentially an act of god, whereas the murder had been planned and carried out in cold blood. The two events seemed to cover all cases of maleficence, as if this simple West London street were a diorama on display in a Sunday school. She stared at the fire and felt the heat wash her clean.
8. The Fourth Conversation
‘The two events seemed to cover all cases of maleficence, as if this simple West London street were a diorama on display in a Sunday school. She stared at the fire and felt the heat wash her clean.’ Julia Hart finished reading and poured herself a second cup of coffee.
Grant knocked twice on the tabletop. ‘Well,’ he said, sleepily. ‘What do you make of that one?’
‘Everyone’s a murderer.’ She flicked through the pages with her left hand, holding the cup in her right. ‘An apocalyptic story, with an apocalyptic setting. I liked it.’
‘It’s the case where all of the suspects turn out to be guilty.’
Julia nodded. ‘The idea’s been done before.’
‘Famously so,’ Grant yawned. ‘But nonetheless it’s one of the permutations of detective fiction. The definition allows for it, so it can’t be ignored.’
‘I have to say, I didn’t anticipate that ending.’
‘Good.’ He looked at her with bloodshot eyes. ‘Lying is often overused in detective stories. But if all of the suspects are guilty, they can lie about everything. With impunity.’
‘I thought Helen would be guilty, when I first read it. She seemed,’ Julia searched for the word, ‘unsettled.’
‘The detective as killer, again?’ Grant shook his head. ‘It would be a cheap trick to use the same ending twice.’
‘But not against the rules.’ Julia smiled.
They were sitting at a rough wooden table, facing one another. Between them was a large jug of water, with two halved and polished lemons bobbing rhythmically on the surface. Beside it was a glass canister of thick black coffee. At the far end of the table was a window, patterned with raindrops.
It was Julia’s second full day on the island. She had been woken that morning by the sound of the rain; slightly hungover, she’d hurried to Grant’s cottage, half walking and half running. Grant had been standing outside when she’d arrived, eating a pear and watching the rain spit at the sea, with a sour expression on his face. ‘I didn’t know if you would come,’ he said, his white shirt soaking wet.
‘We have work to do.’ Julia approached him. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
He smiled unenthusiastically and threw the white heart of his pear into the pebbles on the shore. ‘I slept badly.’
Julia had barely slept herself, but she didn’t say anything. She’d decided she would be patient with him. ‘I hope yesterday wasn’t too tiring for you?’
He guided her inside without answering and together they took shelter in his kitchen. ‘I should make some coffee.’
Julia watched him, wondering whether to help. When the kettle had been placed on the stove and Grant had filled a jug with water, she spoke. ‘I’m sorry if I was being intrusive last night. I think the wine went to my head.’
Grant was cutting a lemon, for the water. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. He was looking out of the window; Julia caught a glimpse of his face in the glass. It didn’t look like it was nothing.
‘I’m sorry, it was rude of me. I won’t ask any more personal questions.’
Grant pressed down too hard and the buoyant flesh of the lemon burst under the blade of his knife. A spot of lemon juice landed on Julia’s wrist. She decided to change the subject. ‘Should I start the next story while you’re doing that?’
Grant turned and nodded at her.
It was still raining when she’d finished reading, but only slightly.
‘This weather is more what I’m used to,’ she said. ‘Yesterday I felt I was carrying the sun around with me, like a bullet hole in the back of my head. I don’t know how you can stand it every day.’
‘Over time it becomes something less impersonal than a bullet hole. A tumour, perhaps.’ Grant laughed quietly to himself. ‘You get used to it eventually. I should warn you, the sun will probably be back this afternoon.’
‘Then I shall enjoy this while it lasts.’ Julia took her notebook from inside her bag, where it was wrapped inside a towel. The rain hadn’t got to it. ‘Yesterday,’ she reminded him, ‘you listed the first three ingredients that a murder mystery must include.’
‘Yes. Two or more suspects, one or more victims and an optional detective, or detectives.’
‘Then the fourth component must be the murderer?’
Grant’s mood had improved noticeably as he’d swallowed his first cup of coffee. Now he was grinning again. ‘That’s right, this story demonstrates it nicely. A killer, or group of killers; those responsible for the deaths of the victims. Without that it’s certainly not a murder mystery.’
‘Not a very good one, that’s for sure.’ She made some notes. ‘And there must be at least one killer?’
‘Yes, at least one. If the death was accidental, or done by the victim’s own hand, then we hold the victim responsible and consider them to be the killer. For that reason I used the term killer rather than murderer. It seemed to cover more cases.’
‘Pun intended.’ Julia took another sip of coffee. ‘But there’s no upper limit on the number of killers, if this story is anything to go by?’
‘Not as such. The only condition is that the killer, or killers, must be drawn from the group of suspects. In mathematics we’d call it a subset, and say that the killers must be a subset of the suspects, but we’ll come back to that later. What it means is that everyone who is revealed as one of the killers must previously have been one of the suspects.’
‘Then that’s what allows the reader to have a stab at guessing the solution themselves, which seems to be a defining feature of the genre?’
Grant was nodding. ‘But aside from that, we set no further restrictions on the killer or group of killers. So we have seen already that the victims and even the detectives can overlap with the group of killers. We have also seen the case where just one of the suspects is
a killer and we can of course imagine the case where two of the suspects are killers. This story covers the limiting case where all of the suspects are killers.’
Julia put the pen to her lips. ‘One thing though,’ she took her time, thinking as she spoke. ‘I agree that it’s not unreasonable to say that the killer or killers must first have been suspects, but isn’t it irrelevant unless the reader knows who the suspects are? The narrator of the story, for example, could turn out to be the killer. And it might never have occurred to anyone that they were a suspect.’
‘It’s a good question,’ he said, ‘though it takes us away from mathematics. The only answer I can give is that every single character should be considered a suspect, unless it is made clear that the author intends them not to be. A modern-day detective investigating a centuries-old crime should not be considered a suspect.’
Julia wrote this down. ‘Anyone the reader would accept as the killer should be considered a suspect, more or less?’
‘That’s correct.’ Grant was staring out of the window. ‘It’s stopped raining, I think.’
Through the murky glass she could see the sea and the hills, the two hands of the horizon that between them juggled the sun and the moon, waiting expectantly with their palms facing upwards. The sky above them was overcast.
‘Wait one moment,’ said Grant, ‘let me empty the coffee grounds.’ He took the beaker of coffee from the table and stepped outside to pour its contents into the weeds.
Julia looked around.
A silver cigarette case lay on the windowsill, out of place in the simply furnished room. Julia picked it up and looked inside. It was empty, but there was an engraving on the inside of the lid. ‘For Francis Gardner, on your graduation.’ Julia frowned and put it back on the shelf.
Grant came back and sat down across from her. ‘Now, where were we?’
She wanted to ask him who Francis Gardner was, but was afraid of his reaction, after last night. ‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ she said.
Grant laughed, wondering what she might have seen through the window that she could have misinterpreted so wildly. ‘I don’t, actually.’
‘But isn’t that a cigarette case?’
He turned towards the flat, silver container, which he’d forgotten was there, and she caught the quick look of panic on his face. ‘I used to, of course. When I was young. But that’s been empty for a long time.’
She nodded and took up her pen. ‘So is that the end of the definition?’
‘Yes.’ Grant smiled, composing himself. ‘Those are the four ingredients. We can go into more detail when we’re a bit more awake.’
‘And then the permutations of detective fiction, they cover the different cases where the ingredients overlap? So we have the case where the detective is also the killer, and so on?’
‘That’s right. The definition is simple enough that there’s a relatively small number of structural variations. Overlapping ingredients account for some, different sized groups account for some others. And then there’s this case, where the group of killers is equal to the group of suspects.’
The manuscript was on the bench by her side. Julia picked it up again and started flicking through the pages. ‘Did you notice that there were several points in that story where the word black was used, though the word white was clearly intended?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘No, I did not.’
‘At one point it talks of black wine, for instance.’ She found another passage where she’d underlined a few words. ‘There’s a description of a bright day with wispy black clouds.’
‘Then this is another intentional discrepancy?’
She continued to search through the pages. ‘There’s a phosphorescent black dog. A signature black suit. And a black cat with its fur darkened by ash. As descriptions they’re out of place, but they all fit perfectly if you replace black with white. Can you explain that?’
‘No more than you can.’
Julia looked pensive. ‘That’s four now, I think at this point we can state the general rule. When you were writing these stories you added something to each one of them that doesn’t make any sense. A detail, a discrepancy. It’s as if they might all fit together to form some sort of puzzle, spread throughout the seven stories. Do you think that might be possible?’
Grant frowned. ‘It’s been more than twenty-five years since I wrote these stories. I’ve forgotten that time of my life, almost completely. But I assure you, they’re just jokes. There’s no puzzle to be solved. I would have remembered something like that.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Julia crossed out an entry in her notebook.
Grant rubbed his eyes. ‘Last night I had a nightmare. We published this book and the island became overrun with journalists. I couldn’t get back to sleep after that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve disrupted your routine. Do you have many visitors out here?’
‘Not many at all, actually. But I like it that way.’
‘It must be a nice change, then, to have someone to speak English to?’
‘A few people here speak English very well.’
‘But none of them are British, I imagine?’
‘That’s true.’ Grant nodded. ‘You’re a novelty in that respect. And it’s nice to hear an accent similar to my own. Tell me,’ he leaned across the table and took her hand. ‘Do you think The White Murders will sell?’
Julia took a long, deep breath. Her face was unreadable. ‘It’s hard to say. It’s rather different to most of what we publish.’
‘What does your employer think? He must think it has potential, if he was willing to send you out here?’
‘Victor is a wealthy man. And crime fiction is his passion. He set up Blood Type out of love, not for money. But we can see this book getting a dedicated readership. It’s certainly unique.’
‘I hope so,’ said Grant. ‘It pains me to say it, but I’m almost broke.’ He picked up his coffee cup. ‘Do you often get sent abroad for work?’
‘Never,’ said Julia. ‘But I was particularly keen to meet you.’ She looked like she was about to say more but Grant stood up and took his cup to the sink.
‘I’m flattered,’ he said.
Julia scanned the dim kitchen. It was poorly kept, with dirt in all of the corners. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how do you manage to live out here? Do you work?’
Grant sighed and shook his head. ‘Family money. My grandfather owned factories. The business is not what it was, but my uncle still sends me an allowance every month.’
Julia put the manuscript down and massaged her writing hand. ‘Of course.’ She looked out of the window again. ‘If it has stopped raining, maybe we should get some fresh air while we have the chance?’
9. Trouble on Blue Pearl Island
Sarah’s father was dying in a room upstairs. She watched him from the doorway. His head, bobbing above the bedsheets, looked alternately terrified, pained and bewildered; it was like she was watching a swimmer floundering on the surface while unknown terrors attacked him from below.
‘Sarah,’ he croaked, as she brought him his bowl of soup. ‘My little genius.’
She spent most of her time tending the garden, waiting for it to all be over. After dark she paced the rooms downstairs and tried to forget about him. She’d been playing three separate games of chess by post, posing as a man. The morning after her third victory she climbed the stairs and found her father dead.
A month later she had discovered the extent of his debts and soon everything was gone: the house, the furniture, the business. She was left destitute at twenty-five.
She spent an afternoon hunched over in the corner of a cold restaurant – still wearing her mourning clothes, an apparition in black – applying for a role as a governess. Aside from helping her father, she’d never worked before. ‘It will be just like Jane Eyre,’ she said to herself.
Her application was flawless; she spoke four languages, could play the piano, and k
new mathematics, history and English grammar. But nonetheless she was terrified as she dropped it into the post box.
Two weeks passed and then she met her prospective employer in a room with diamond-patterned wallpaper. He had come to town for the day. ‘This is not an interview,’ he said, sitting down with a sheet of paper and a pen. ‘Just a friendly conversation.’
She bowed, hoping to appear obsequious.
‘I was in the army,’ the old colonel began. ‘Retired now. I have just the one daughter. My wife is no longer with us.’ He was the kind of man that could only be comfortable speaking if he was doing something else at the same time; he took his glasses off and started to polish them with his sleeve. ‘My name is Charles.’
‘Sarah.’ She lowered her head.
He’d arrived after lunch and throughout their meeting he picked at a piece of food that was lodged between his teeth, with a half-hearted attempt at discretion, as if his moustache might make an effective curtain. ‘If you come to live with us we’d like to consider you part of the family. Henrietta is,’ he chose his words carefully, ‘wanting for companions.’
She bowed again.
When they’d finished talking he looked up at her, terrified. ‘I think I’ve lost my glasses.’ Sarah took them from the table, where he’d placed them, and handed them to him.