‘Surely you have enough of domestic trivia and Mrs Wilcox's conversation, hardly exciting I should have thought, without inviting her into your drawing-room. The woman should know her place.’
The trial didn't take long. Vinson made no defence except to reiterate stubbornly, eyes fixed straight ahead, that he hadn't done it. His counsel did his best, but with the dogged persistence of a man resigned to failure, and the jury had the look of people glad to be faced, for once, with a clear cut case they could actually understand. The verdict was inevitable. And the subsequent divorce hearing was even shorter. It isn't difficult to persuade a judge that your marriage has irretrievably broken down when your husband is serving a prison sentence for attempted murder.
Two months after the decree absolute we married and I took over the Georgian house, the river view, the regency furniture. With the physical possessions I knew exactly what I was getting. With my wife, I wasn't so sure. There had been something disturbing, even a little frightening, about the competence with which she had carried out my instructions. It hadn't, of course, been particularly difficult. We had planned it together during those sessions when I was painting her portrait. I had written and handed her the fake suicide note on the paper she had supplied a few days before our plans matured. We knew when the gas was due to be converted. She had, as instructed, placed the note on the kitchen table before scraping the heels of her shoes across the polished floor. She had even managed beautifully the only tricky part, to bang the back of her head sufficiently hard against the kitchen wall to raise an impressive bruise but not sufficiently hard to risk bungling the final preparations; the cushion placed in the bottom of the oven for the head, the gas tap turned on and then wiped clean with her handkerchief.
And who could have imagined that she was such a consummate actress? Sometimes, remembering the anguished animal cry of ‘I tried to tell him, I tried to tell him,’ I wonder again what is going on behind those remarkable eyes. She still acts, of course. I find it remarkably irritating, that habit she has particularly when we are in company, of turning on me that meek, supplicating, beaten dog expression whenever I talk to her. It provokes unkindness. Perhaps it's intended to. I'm afraid I'm beginning to get rather a reputation for sadism. People don't seem to want to come to the house any more.
There is one solution, of course, and I can't pretend that I haven't pondered it. A man who has killed another merely to get his house isn't likely to be too fastidious about killing again. And it was murder; I have to accept that.
Vinson only served nine months of his sentence before dying in the prison hospital of what should have been an uncomplicated attack of influenza. Perhaps his job really was his life and without his precious alumni the will to live snapped. Or perhaps he didn't choose to live with the memory of his wife's great betrayal. Beneath the petty tyranny, the impatience, the acerbity, there may have been love of a kind.
But the ultimate solution is barred to me. A month ago Emily explained, meekly, like a child propounding a problem, and with a swift sidelong glance, that she had written a confession and left it with her solicitor.
‘Just in case anything happens to me, darling.’
She explained that what we did to poor Harold is preying on her mind but that she feels better now that all the details are written down and she can be sure that, after her death, the truth will at last be known and Harold's memory cleared. She couldn't have made it more plain to me that it is in my interest to see that I die first.
I killed Harold Vinson to get the house; Emily to get me. On the whole, she made the better bargain. In a few weeks I shall lose the house. Emily is selling it. After all, there's nothing I can do to stop her; the place belongs to her not me.
After we married I gave up the teaching post, finding it embarrassing to meet my colleagues as Emily's husband. It was not that anyone suspected. Why should they? I had a perfect alibi for the time of the crime. But I had a dream that, living in that perfection, I might become a painter after all. That was the greatest illusion of all.
So now they are taking down from the end of the drive the board which states ‘This Desirable Residence For Sale’. Emily got a very good price for the house and the furniture. More than enough to buy the small but pretentious brick box on an executive estate in North London which will be my cage from now on. Everything is sold. We're taking nothing with us except the gas stove. But, as Emily pointed out when I remonstrated, why not? It's in perfectly good working order.
END
Ghost Writer
by
Val McDermid
Gavin Blake had always wanted to be a writer. He couldn't remember a time when that hadn't been his goal. As he'd grown older, he had refined the ambition slightly. What he actually wanted was to make a living from the writing of fiction. He'd watched too many documentaries and attended too many literary events to crave the public life of a writer. He had no desire for the festival performances and signing queues, the twittersphere or the Radio 4 commentariat. Gavin dreamed instead of days spent in front of a computer screen, fingers flying over the keys, mind blank of anything other than the breathless sequence of words. He visualised his name on book jackets, review pages and best seller lists, not in the Guardian's Comment is Free columns or the Radio Times listings.
He prepared himself for his future career by consuming as much fiction as he could cram inside his head. Until his mid-teens, he read indiscriminately. He borrowed from libraries, he spent his pocket money at the secondhand bookstall on the market, he shoplifted new hardbacks from Waterstones. Gradually, with some help from his English teacher, he began to refine his palate, learning to read critically and to identify good prose from dross.
Thanks to hard practice and concentration, by the time Gavin hit his mid-twenties, he could turn a decent sentence. His style flowed smoothly, his language was lucid and often startlingly apt. His dialogue was an authentic replica of the real thing. His characters assumed a life that lingered in the mind like the smile on the Cheshire Cat.
There was only one problem. Gavin had no narrative gift. Story eluded him. Sometimes he sensed it almost within his grasp but whenever he tried to corner it, it slipped away, slithering under his outstretched arms or between his legs like a nutmegging football. Herding cats or wrestling water would have been a simpler alternative for Gavin. Friends suggested remedies. One offered up poetry. Gavin was convinced his imagination was too prosaic. Another suggested literary fiction, given how little it demanded by way of narrative. But Gavin obstinately stuck to his guns. He'd grown to love stories and that was what he wanted to write. He'd just have to try harder, that was all. Read more, learn more, practice more.
It wasn't only his spare time that was devoted to the dark art of narrative. Gavin had learned Mandarin at school and continued his study of Chinese language at university. Now he eked out a living translating Chinese fiction into English, revelling in that literature of vagabonds and thieves, outsiders and dark side entrepreneurs that had found an audience among younger English speaking readers. He envied the rich drama they brought into his life and coveted the apparent ease and brio of the story-telling. He hoped it would rub off on him. But nothing changed. Still the stories refused to take shape under his hand.
One afternoon, he was ordering up a new Chinese novel at the counter of the university library when a stack of pamphlets caught his eye. 'Creative Writing: Extra Mural Courses' was superimposed over a romantic sepia photograph of a hand holding a quill pen, apparently composing a Shakespearian sonnet on vellum. Gavin's first reaction was scorn. Who were they trying to kid? A squalid bedsit where an unshaven wretch hunched over a laptop would have been a more accurate representation of the wannabe writer. That or a woman of a certain age with an uncertain smile and a woolly hat. But still, he picked it up and tucked it inside the cover of the book as he carried it back to his seat, not wanting anyone to witness his moment of weakness.
Under cover of his book, he checked out the list of course
s on offer. There was nothing humble about the titles: Mastering the Art of Memoir, Mastering the Art of Lyric Poetry, Mastering the Art of the New Gothic. And finally, tucked away at the end like the mad aunt on the Christmas card list, Mastering the Art of Story-telling. Gavin bit his lip. It held out a promise that was hard to resist. 'A twelve-week evening class anatomising story structure and revealing the tricks of the narrative trade. For the beginning writer struggling with plot, story and theme. Led by distinguished thriller writer Charles Arthur.' Gavin wasn't entirely sure you could be distinguished and a thriller writer, but he was willing to suspend his cynicism. He'd read a Charles Arthur novel once. It had been one of half a dozen books abandoned in a holiday cottage. The prose hadn't been up to much, but Gavin remembered the story had hurtled from twist to twist, unlikely events stitched together with a skill that produced the appearance of sense. Perhaps Charles Arthur was exactly what he needed.
There were sixteen of them. Usually when confronted by strangers, Gavin's primary directive was to add to his mental database of characters by cataloguing appearance, accent, verbal idiosyncrasies and physical habits. But that Tuesday evening, he deliberately put that on hold so he could cling fast to Charles Arthur's every word. It didn't take Gavin long to realise that 'call me Charlie' employed a teaching technique often assumed by those who don't actually have that much to say. Charlie made the most of his insights by repeating everything at least four times. First he delivered the straightforward statement. Then he elaborated it in slightly different terms. Next came a second variation. Then finally, he'd return to the first bald statement. Once the methodology became clear to Gavin and he understood he only had to listen to a quarter of Charlie's words of wisdom, he relaxed and allowed himself to check out his fellow students.
He didn't get far. He nailed the salient points of an elderly woman with badly dyed hair but surprisingly expensive-looking shoes and handbag, followed by a man of indeterminate age with the sagging jumper and straggly beard of someone with only three mates, who could all list FA Cup winners and Christmas number ones from the dawn of time. And then Gavin stumbled to a halt.
She looked like a waif crossed with a wolf. She wore a black leather vest zipped up to the hollow at the base of her throat. Not a hint of cleavage, but the promise of well-shaped breasts beneath. Her arms were bare. Well, technically, he supposed they were bare. The flesh was uncovered but scarcely exposed. Complicated, subtle tattoos covered her from wrist to shoulder like well-established vines over a pergola. They seemed to be derived from the complex designs of Chinese porcelain. Gavin's throat was suddenly dry, his tongue huge in his mouth.
He looked back at Charlie in a bid to stay calm. But his eyes drifted back to the woman. Her hair was thick and dark, cut short and choppy. In profile, her features were well-defined. He recoiled from the word 'chiselled' but it kept slinking back, annoyingly irresistible. Her eyes were the blue of indigo jeans and they were fixed on Charlie. She was concentrating, that much was obvious. What was also clear was that she wasn't exactly impressed.
Gavin tried not to stare. It took a conscious effort, but he managed to focus on Charlie, at least with his eyes. Eventually, Charlie came to the end of his spiel. Gavin would have struggled to offer any kind of summary. But now apparently they were being set an assignment. Split into groups of four, provided with a handout that listed half a dozen elements of a story set-up then posed a series of questions.
'This is the starting point for a story,' Charlie said. 'It might be a short story. It might be a novel. It might be a screenplay. That's up to you. What I want you to do in your groups is to brainstorm these bullet points and questions and come up with a plotline. You've got twenty minutes to work on that before the end of class. Your assignment for next week is to take that plotline away and write your version of the first fifteen hundred words of whatever it is.' He spread his arms in a gesture of generosity. 'Enjoy yourselves.' Then he turned away and opened his iPad.
They were in the same group. Gavin didn't even have to engineer it. They fell naturally together, along with the bad hair dye woman and the straggly beard bloke. The woman with the tattoos and, it turned out, the black jeans and biker boots, was Natasha. When she smiled at Gavin, he'd have sworn every internal organ clenched.
It was soon clear that Natasha was the only one of them who had any sense of how narrative worked. It wasn't that she bullied them, though. She gave everyone space to talk and didn't rubbish what they had to say. But she took their feeble suggestions and somehow converted them into plot points then strung those points together, beads on a string of story. Suddenly their fragile ideas were transformed into something that made sense. When their twenty minutes was up, Gavin was almost as excited at the prospect of writing the story as he was at the presence of Natasha.
Before he could stumble out an invitation for coffee or a drink, she'd shoved her scribbling pad and pen into her backpack, shrugged into a fake fur jacket and disappeared into the night like a Gothic apparition. Shell-shocked by the evening, Gavin hurried home, possessed by alarm, afraid the story would somehow dissolve before he got back to his laptop.
But Natasha's construction was more sturdy than that. It was like having a road map laid out before him. All he had to do was follow the itinerary, fleshing it out with characters and setting, enlivening it with dialogue and lapidary turns of phrase. Gavin had never been happier with a piece of writing. He hit the fifteen hundred word mark and just kept going, letting the story unfold at its own pace. When he reached the end at five thousand, three hundred and twenty seven words, it was almost four in the morning. And yet Gavin wasn't tired. He was utterly exhilarated.
Over the next six days, Gavin tried to revise what he'd written. But even though he knew the true skill of being a writer lay in the editing and rewriting, he could find almost nothing that needed to be changed. It left him uneasy, wondering whether he'd lost touch with his critical faculty. Maybe the story was as crap as all his others had been, only he couldn't see it any more.
By the time Charlie's class rolled round, Gavin was edgy and anxious, convinced that his instant infatuation with Natasha had blunted his sensibilities beyond repair. He had to know the truth, so when Charlie asked for volunteers to read out their work to the group, Gavin jumped to his feet. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and began. Their silence was unnerving, but he tried not to pay attention to that. When he reached the prescribed fifteen hundred word mark, he looked up, taking in their reactions for the first time. His audience were still, eyes fixed on him. Charlie cleared his throat. 'There's more, right?' he said.
'About five thousand words total,' Gavin said.
'Read it,' Charlie said. A murmur of voices agreed.
'Please, Gavin,' Natasha said.
That clinched it. Amazed at the reaction, Gavin finished the story. His words seemed to hang in the air for a breathless moment, then the group broke into loud applause. 'Christ, Gavin,' Charlie said. 'You should be teaching this class, not attending it. That's the best story I've heard in ages. Thomas Butler, what a character. We need to hear more from him, that's amazing stuff.'
As the praise mounted around him, Gavin wanted to laugh out loud. Finally, he'd found his story-telling voice. He looked for Natasha, hoping for her approval. She was on the fringes of the group, but her pleasure was obvious. She raised an imaginary glass in a toast to him.
The rest of the evening was a blur. Charlie talked about something. Then he set another assignment. But before Gavin could corner Natasha, Charlie had a hand on his shoulder. He steered him to one side. 'You need to publish that story,' Charlie said. 'Do it yourself. Don't wait for some magazine editor to pick you off the slush pile. Straight to epub, that's the way to do it. 99p a shot. Get the word out on social media. Create a buzz. I'm telling you, Gavin, Thomas Butler could be a word of mouth sensation. As popular as Sherlock Holmes. As many copies sold as Fifty Shades of Grey.'
Gavin laughed nervously. 'I think you're getting a b
it carried away, Charlie.'
He shook his head. 'No. I know narrative magic when I see it. Come to my office tomorrow morning, I'll show you how to do it.'
Dazed, Gavin walked out of the lecture theatre. But the night's surprises weren't over. When he emerged into the hallway, Natasha unpeeled herself from the wall she was leaning against and fell into step beside him. 'We need to talk,' she said. 'Can I buy you a coffee?'
She led the way to the Costa Coffee concession in the foyer of the English Studies building. At this time of the evening, it was virtually deserted, most students having abandoned coffee for alcohol. 'Latte?' she asked. He nodded, torn between delight that she'd guessed and embarrassment at not being a double espresso kind of guy.
Natasha brought the hot drinks back and sat opposite him. The intensity of her stare was disconcerting. 'I've been looking for the right person for a very long time,' she said. 'I think you might be him.'
For the first time, Gavin understood that the swooning that peppered Victorian sensation novels might not be a fiction. He felt dizzy and disorientated. 'Me?' he managed to mumble.
'I think we're the two halves of a whole,' she continued, apparently oblivious to his discomfiture. 'You see, I've always had this gift for narrative. Give me half a dozen disparate elements and I can string a story together, just like that.' She snapped her fingers. 'But when I try to write them down, they suck. I can't write to save my life. I end up with flat prose filled with clichés. Cardboard characters. Dialogue that would embarrass a Dalek.' She sighed. 'You've no idea how frustrating that is.'
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