by Marco Ocram
“Thank you, Doctor Moran. I’m sure your observations have been entirely conclusive. May I?” I raised my iPad to show I meant to take photographs.
“Of course.”
I took a number of closeups of the individual parts, then arranged them on a table for an overall shot.
“And if I could just get a couple with the two of you in the background to show to my mom…lovely…move together a bit…smile… perhaps if you could pretend to be examining that piece of left thigh… no the other piece…hold it…lovely…”
Curtailing the description of my photographic activities, I caught Como’s eye and twitched my head to say I needed to speak with him outside.
“What?” he said, after we’d asked Flora to let us know when her final report was ready, said goodbye, left the forensic lab, wound our way back through the offices, got into our respective cars, driven to a remote layby where we wouldn’t be overheard, got out of our respective cars and leaned against the immaculate paintwork of his offside front wing.
“Someone hit Lola on the back of her head before she died.”
“You sure?”
“A thousand per cent. There was a distinctive softness behind the tabloid stigmata— just where you’d hit someone if you wanted to knock them out without doing obvious damage.”
Como thought for a while. “Could still have been Quarry. He hits her, then cuts her up.”
“What with? They found him with a knife. You don’t knock someone out with a knife.”
“Okay. I buy that. What d’you think she was hit with?”
I brought up the photos I’d taken and swiped through to the closeups, zooming in for maximum detail. “I’d say something with a bit of weight to it, but no sharp edges. Cylindrical maybe. Long enough to get a decent swing.”
“You know what you’ve just described, Writer?”
I hadn’t given it a thought.
“A baseball bat? A rolling pin? A frozen roll of puff pastry? A narwhal tusk?”
“Maybe. But what about this for an idea—what if you made it a police nightstick?”
LESSON SIX
‘Herbert, what is a literary tradition?’
‘A literary tradition, Marco, is a sustained collective view of what constitutes writing worthy of study, one passed down from generation to generation.’
‘It’s not a traditional way of writing, like sitting in a coffee shop with a Mac, Herbert?’
‘No, Marco.’
‘Herbert, from which literary traditions should the truly great writer draw inspiration?’
‘The truly great writer finds inspiration in all literary traditions, Marco. She studies them avidly, appreciating what each has contributed. She would never disparage the literary tradition of any nation.’
CHAPTER SIX
In which Marco makes the cheapest of jokes at the expense of the French literary tradition and arranges a rendezvous with a minor character.
To betoken my emotion at Como’s sensational suggestion, I smote the wing of his car with my fist, immediately wishing I hadn’t.
“Ow!”
“Easy, Writer, you could have damaged something.” Como watched with touching concern as I nursed my hand under an armpit. “Why’d you punch the car?”
“It was meant to be a gesture—you know, to show excitement. I was trying to build dramatic tension for the start of a new chapter.”
“Well, punch your own friggin’ car next time.”
Perhaps I’d misread the touching concern. Flexing my fingers to check they still worked, I thought about how to rebuild the dramatic tension I’d just destroyed. Como, meanwhile, bent to examine his car.
“I only polished this yesterday. Now there’s a smudge.”
Not having much luck with my dramatic retensioning, I picked up the thread of the dialogue where I’d dropped it at the end of Chapter Five.
“Wow, what a great twist. Lola, killed by the police!”
“Trouble is, Writer, if she was, then McGee will have been in on it. Which means we’ll be at the bottom of the world’s deepest shit-pit if he thinks we suspect anything.” He started pacing around as if he were struggling to rationalize his thoughts. I knew how he felt—I was struggling to rationalize my own thoughts, or, more accurately, the absence of them. “Show me those photos again.”
“Sure.” I showed him one of the photos, a particularly fetching one of him and Flora.
“Not those, Dumbass—the ones of the mark on the head.”
We studied the closeups together. The mark of the blow was faint but…
Como and I looked at each other as we absorbed the implications of the three dots I had typed. The mark of the blow was faint, but if dumbass Marco had spotted it why hadn’t Flora?
“D’you think she could be in on it too?” I asked.
Como shook his head. “I just don’t see it, Writer. Flora’s straight, dead straight. Besides, she’s clever, too. She wouldn’t have let you take pictures if she was hiding something. I think she just didn’t look closely—why would she go huntin’ for other causes of death when the body’s in pieces?”
“True.” An idea mushroomed in my mind. “That’s why they cut her up, Como! It all makes sense now. Herbert would never have killed her, and he never ever ever would have butchered the body. They did it, Como—they did it to throw Flora off the scent. Why would she bother with a full examination when the cause of death’s so obvious? And the exsanguination of the body would have stopped a prominent bruise from forming where Lola was hit.”
I started pacing in circles myself, wondering whether I’d invented a brilliant rationale for the dismemberment I’d typed at random in Chapter Three, or whether I’d just typed more random nonsense that anyone with the slightest understanding of pathology would see through in an instant. I crossed my fingers and hoped it was mold-breaking random nonsense.
“Maybe, Writer, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. For all we know, Flora might have seen it and might have logged it and just not mentioned it to us, so let’s eliminate the obvious explanation before we go getting carried away with fancy theories.” Como clocked his watch. “I’ll go check it out, then I’m done for the night.”
“Done for the night? It’s only four-thirty. I thought we were working tirelessly in the pursuit of truth?”
“You can pursue truth all night if you like, but I’ve got a game to watch. Let’s meet at HQ at nine tomorrow.”
“But what am I gonna do?” Stuck in this dump on my own, were the words I almost added.
“Don’t ask me. You’re the writer, Writer—make something up.” He gave the wing of his car one last pointed look, then climbed inside and drove off to HQ to check the logs for evidence of a bump on Lola’s head.
I decided I needed caffeine to stimulate my exhausted brain. Conveniently forgetting I was parked in a remote layby, I crossed the street to my regular coffeeshop. The waitress recognized me immediately.
“Gosh, it’s lovely to see you back in Clarkesville, Mister Ocram. I saw you on the Noosha Winfrey show. Would you…”
I signed Jacqueline’s proffered copy of The Tau Muon, which she then hugged to her chest.
“Gosh, how rude of me. I haven’t even shown you to your table. Mother, it’s Marco Ocram.”
Jacqueline’s mother made a fuss of me, then shooed some other customers from the special table they always kept for me. “They’ve left such a mess.” She wiped the table peevishly, in the exact manner of a character from a 1950’s French novel I’d just read. I remembered the first time I’d called at the coffeeshop, all those years ago…
The waitress asked what I was doing in Clarkesville.
“I’ve come to see a friend, a great novelist who’s bought a house on the beach just outside town.”
“Oh, that must be Herbert Quarry. I saw his name in the paper. How exciting.”
She pronounced Herbert the French way—Airbear.
“It’s Herbert,” corrected her mother, with an embarrassed laugh. “You’ll be making this young man think we are very ignorant—if his friend’s a great writer, he won’t be French.”
Jacqueline had become much more familiar with Herbert since, as he was the town’s only celebrity inhabitant.
“We’ve heard rumors about Herbert and Lola Kellogg. Is it true he’s killed her? We can’t believe it, can we, Mother?”
Jacqueline and her mother shook shocked heads to indicate disbelief—I hoped it was prompted by the rumors and not my awful writing. I ordered a coffee to add an overdue touch of realism.
When Jacqueline returned with my drink, I asked her to sit with me, posing a question in lowered tones.
“I’m trying to get to the bottom of what happened with Herbert and Lola. Does Herbert have any enemies in town?”
“He’s a famous novelist, rich and handsome, with many lovers, so all the men hate him, and some of the women.”
“I can understand all the men hating him. But why do some of the women?”
“Have you heard the saying Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?”
I pretended I hadn’t so she could spell it out for the readers.
“It means if you scorn a woman, she will be more furious than anything in Hell.”
“I see. And how does it apply in this case?”
“Some women in Clarkesville were scorned because Herbert chose not to make love with them, and some were scorned because Herbert did make love to them but spurned them afterwards.”
“I see. Were some of these women more scorned than others? If, say, there was a scale of scorning from zero to ten, where zero meant entirely unscorned, and ten meant utterly scorned, how would you characterize the distribution of the women of Clarkesville on such a scale?”
Jacqueline considered my remarkable question.
“I would imagine it to be a normal distribution, with most women around five somewhere and diminishing numbers approaching the extremes of zero and ten. A classic bell curve.”
“Or belle curve!” I quipped.
We creased with laughter at my hilarious bon mot. After we had each wiped the torrents of tears from our respective cheeks, I returned to a more solemn line of conversation.
“Is there, then, a woman in Clarkesville who might score a perfect ten on the scale of scornedness?” I asked, typing an obscure abstract noun to impress the readers.
“Yes, there is; but she is my sister, Marcia Delgado, so I am not sure it would be right to betray a family secret to you.”
“Come, come—you’re being far too sensitive. The worst that could happen is I might reproduce her story in a bestselling novel, and where is the harm in that?”
“All right. I will tell you everything. But not here. Meet me at seven tonight at Kelly's bar and diner.”
As Jaqueline slipped out of her chair, anxious to get back to work and to escape the horrendously corny dialogue I had typed, I noticed a beautifully made-up woman leave her seat at a nearby table. I was admiring the delicious ambiguity of the phrase ‘beautifully made-up’, which could refer to the clever way I’d invented her, when she slipped into the chair Jacqueline had just vacated.
“You must be Marco Ocram,” she said.
I offered my hand courteously.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss…”
“It’s Mrs. Tann but call me Quimara.” She pulled her chair closer to mine and beamed at me. While I felt for my pen, expecting her to ask me to sign a copy of The Tau Muon, she said, “Did I just hear you’re looking to dig up dirt on that sick pedo Herbert Quarry?”
Before I could decide how to answer, my attention-seeking iPad had a sulk about its battery and turned itself off.
LESSON SEVEN
‘Tell me, Herbert, how do truly great authors describe their characters? Are there any golden rules?’
‘Yes, Marco—since you ask, there is a golden rule. An author might describe a character’s mannerisms, apparel, behavior, vices, opinions, emotions, actions, sexual preferences—indeed all of their attributes, bar one.’
‘Which is that, Herbert?’
‘The face, Marco. The truly great author never describes a character’s face.’
‘Why, Herbert? Is it to comply with postmodernist tenets about the primacy of indeterminist modal constructs of transformative plastic identity norms?’
‘No, Marco—it is to make it easier to cast actors when the film rights are sold.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
In which Marco introduces Herbert Quarry in compliance with postmodernist tenets about the primacy of indeterminist modal constructs of transformative plastic identity norms.
By the time I’d pampered my iPad with enough juice to coax it back to life, I was already en route to the local prison to see Herbert. I couldn’t type up Quimara Tann’s amazing revelations while driving, so we’d have to leave them for later. Remind me to fill you in as soon as we reach a dull spot, otherwise I’ll forget. Anyway, back to the plot…
The Clarkesville County Correctional Centre was a giant complex the size of five Olympic villages, perched upon a remote and forbidding moor sandwiched between two industrial parks. As I drove through its imposing gates, I wondered whether I’d made a huge gaffe in supposing Herbert would be held there. Might prisoners on remand be held in cells at police HQ? I’d have to ask Como. If necessary, I could always invent some story about the cells at police HQ being redecorated—perhaps increasing the plausibility of the explanation by embellishing it with authentic technical details, such as the need to find a wallpaper pattern that would hide blood stains.
I spotted a line of low-life scum waiting to visit the prison—the defense lawyers of Clarkesville trying to pick up business. I tagged on at the back and was eventually shown to a visiting room where I steeled myself for the tedious repetition of forenames which blights my dialogues with Herbert.
With a jangle of keys, a door opened. Herbert clanked in, his arms locked to his sides, his ankles shackled, his face a Hannibal Lector mask. He was overjoyed at my visit.
“Marco, I am locked up twenty-four-seven with illiterate murderers and rapists. I am so looking forward to a few minutes’ conversation with an intellectual equal. But you will do for now.”
“It’s very kind of you to say so, Herbert. But why is your abdomen distended so?”
“The prisoners are brutal lifers, Marco. To pass time, they indulge in mindless games, one an egg-eating contest which I entered to prove myself as tough as they.”
“Did you win, Herbert?”
“No, I was trounced, with endless coarse jests at my expense. However, I had the last laugh. I proposed a contest to write the most insightful critique of Barthes’ theory of readerly positivism. I don’t need to say that it was I making the coarse jests by the end of that bruising encounter.”
“Herbert, I need you to tell me your side of the story. What was it between you and Lola? Who knew about it? Who could be trying to frame you?”
“We had better take those subjects in turn, Marco. Let me tell you about Lola. You might know that for almost eleven years I have been writing my bestselling books at the coffeeshop in Clarkesville, where the sympathetic proprietress reserves a special table for me.”
“Yes, Herbert. She has done the same for me.”
“That is typical of her, Marco. She is very accommodating to bestselling authors. Anyway, over the years, I dated many of the beautiful women who waited in the café.”
“Herbert, do you mean the women who waited on customers, or women who just passed time there?”
“Both. I wasn't fussy. But with Lola it was different from the start. One afternoon I left my iPad at the coffeeshop, being deep in thought about the tagline for my latest novel. That evening, there was a knock on my door—it was Lola, bearing my iPad. I recall our conversation word for word...
“You left this,” she said, proffering my iPad. “I spotted it
contains a draft of a new bestselling novel. I hope you won't mind, but I read it all.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“How could I mind when you are so beautiful and captivating?”
“Oh, Herbert, why must all the truly great writers be so sad? You, Brown, Grisham, Blyton—all giants of literature, and yet all such tragic figures.”
“My darling Lola, writing is a disease, an all-consuming passion. For some of us, our writing is so important it leaves no room in our lives for anything else. The perfectly crafted sentence is the only thing our hearts desire.”
“The only thing, Herbert?” she asked, looking deep into my eyes and touching me where she shouldn't.
“Well, no, now you come to mention it.”
“Afterwards we smoked cigarettes and danced on the beach.”
“Did you know she was fifteen?”
“So the police say, Marco. I took her to be twenty, or thereabouts. She was extremely sophisticated in her outlook and behavior.”
I passed over the question of what sophisticated behavior Herbert had in mind, that kind of carry-on having no place in a mass-market humorous mystery.
“Who might have known you were having an affair with Lola?”
Herbert scratched a pensive armpit, which was ridiculous because I’d said his arms were chained to his sides. I typed his reply before the readers spotted my gaffe…
“It's a tough question, Marco. I honestly don't know. I did my best to keep our liaisons secret, as she’d told me her father was very religious and would be upset if he found she was having an affair outside of the holy bonds of matrimony. But we might have been spotted together, and there is always the possibility that our intimate communications could have been eavesdropped.”
“How did you communicate?”
“The usual ways: postcards, tweets, Facebook.”
“Don't you think it was rather careless, Herbert? Such messages could have been spotted by others.”