by Marco Ocram
LESSON THIRTY-NINE
‘How should a book end, Herbert?’
‘I have told you, Marco—a book never really ends. It is like a boxing match. It lives on in the minds of the spectators, and the coaches, and the referee, and the judges, and the TV commentators, and the girls who walk round the ring with the round cards, and the promotors, and the…’
‘Yes, I know all that, Herbert, but how should the actual written part end?’
‘Thrice, Marco. Your book should end thrice.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
In which Marco shares a theory with Como.
At last a pattern was emerging from the tangled threads of the mystery, and I was more convinced than ever that Herbert had been framed for the murder of his young love Lola. Although we had been overwhelmed with the red herrings and false scents I had stupidly typed, a clear hypothesis was forming. I explained my rationale as I stood by the glass wall in the incident room devoted to the Kellogg case. Como watched with unalloyed admiration and respect as I spoke.
“Herbert Quarry is found by the police in his study, surrounded by joints of his beloved Lola, covered in blood, his hand holding the knife that dismembered her. Herbert’s story is that he had been waiting at the beach for Lola to meet him and had returned only when she had failed to make the rendezvous. He had found the body and the knife and sunk to his knees in Lola’s blood, unable to take in what his eyes had seen. You’ll admit, no aspect of the evidence conflicts with his version of events.”
“Agreed,” agreed Como.
“Indeed, the accidental tape-recording I found on Herbert’s dictation machine corroborates his story.”
“Agreed, although he could have made it to create an alibi. He might not have been talking on the telephone—just pretending he was.”
“True, but unlikely. You must learn to apply Ocram’s razor, Como.”
“Ocram’s razor?”
“Sorry, I meant Occam’s razor.” I was staggered to find that the surname I had invented for myself at random in Chapter One allowed me to make such a clever pun so many chapters later. “You must learn to apply Occam’s razor. In any case, we can check from phone company records whether Herbert was speaking to Lola at the time, so let us assume so for the time being.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“So, if Herbert is innocent, we must look for another killer, or killers, with the time, motive, and resources to have committed the crime.”
“Do you have a theory, Writer?”
“I do, Como. I have a hypothesis.”
“Spill.”
“Ok. It’s this. Herbert Quarry has decided to run away with Lola. Chief and Scoobie McGee get to learn of Herbert’s plans. They know that Scoobie’s daughter will inherit Bow’s fortune only if Lola dies, so Herbert’s proposed elopement forces their hands. Chief and Scoobie McGee are in a patrol car together. They see Lola walking through the woods towards Herbert’s house, and they chase her on foot. Lola sees them. She assumes the Chief is planning some kind of threesome with his nephew, so she takes off and runs. Lola was being followed at the time by Bluther Cale, who was infatuated with her. Bluther sees Lola being chased by the two policemen, so he chases after them. He arrives too late and sees one of the two men floor Lola with a blow. He roars with rage, betraying his presence. The McGees round on him and kill him with blows from their nightsticks. They then bundle Lola’s warm body into their car in an evidence bag, drive to Herbert’s house, take one of Herbert’s knives and cut up the body on the floor. They wear police-issue gloves, overshoes, and overalls to keep any of their DNA off Lola’s body and any of Lola’s DNA off theirs. After dismembering Lola’s body, they pick up Cale’s corpse. One of them drives Cale in Cale’s car, the other follows in the prowler. They get to the cliff, move Cale to the driver’s side of the seat, and push the car over the edge. And the rest you know.”
“I like it,” said Como. “It’s feasible, and consistent with the known facts. There’s a compelling motive. But there are counter arguments the McGees might make, credible ones. The only actual evidence that ties them into the story are the marks on Scoobie’s nightstick matching the wounds on Cale. And who’s to say someone didn’t swap Scoobie’s nightstick for another one, just like we did when we picked it out of his locker? And in Clarkesville County Court, who’s likely to be believed: two McGees with friends throughout the town, or a pedophile author whose guts are hated by everyone? And there are too many other suspects clouding the case. Professor Sushing who had legal scores to settle with Quarry. The waitress’s sister who was scorned by Quarry. The taxidermist whose wife was killed by Quarry. Bow might have had some kind of motive. No, we’ll need more than your hypothesis if the McGees are to swap place with Quarry in Clarkesville County Penitentiary.”
LESSON FORTY, AT LAST
‘Herbert, I was reading a book in which the timeline kept changing. Sometimes the story was set in the present and sometimes it went back in time. Should I do that in my book?’
‘No, Marco. Shifts in the temporal setting of a story are a cheap device by means of which a desperate author might try to add interest to an inherently dull and poorly conceived narrative. Flashbacks are not a hallmark of great literature, Marco.’
CHAPTER FORTY
In which Marco tees up his spectacular denouement, and is forced to write a flashback owing to an oversight on the part of his readers.
Back at Herbert’s place, I wandered along the beach, throwing moody stones into a strangely calm sea while I brooded upon the frustrating conclusion to the preceding chapter. Como was right—however plausible, my hypothesis alone would never convict the McGees. I needed proof. I decided to rule out the option of finding hard evidence, as I couldn’t face writing further chapters about DNA, nightsticks and the like. Besides, the McGees were experienced cops who’d know how to cover their tracks, so we might write thousands of words and get nowhere. Far more promising, to me at least, was the idea of the classic Agatha Christie ending, with yours truly in the Poirot role. You must have seen it a thousand times on corny films and TV shows—the detective confronting the baddies over dinner, compelling them to confess under the combined weight of his remorseless logic and his iron self-possession.
I was clambering over the rocks to round the point into Clarkesville Bay, when an island about a mile offshore caught my eye and imagination. Perched upon it was the Clarkesville Bay Island Hotel, a faded deco edifice surrounded by pine woods and sandy beach. It was one of Herbert’s favorite haunts. Its library contained a large Jackson Pollock entitled The Stag at Bay, painted, Herbert told me, after the wild stag party Pollock held there before his marriage to Lee Marvin. No, not Lee Marvin—he’s that actor, stupid. It was Lee something… Lee Merrick! No, she’s another actor…anyway, she was some famous artist called Lee, so let’s not get bogged down in trivia—look it up yourself if you’re that bothered. Herbert and I once tried to swim to the island, but I got a cramp after twenty yards and had to paddle back. The hotel was closed for the quiet season, but it would form the perfect backdrop for a dinner party with the baddies!
Racing back to Herbert’s, I rang my PA in New York, apologized for inventing him so late in the book, and got him to contact the owners of the hotel and arrange for me to rent it for an evening on an exclusive basis. What I had in mind was going to cost money, a lot of money, but it would provide the showcase chapter for my bestseller about the Herbert Quarry affair. Every penny of the cost would be repaid a thousand times by the royalties from my book.
I compiled the guest list to include all of my relevant characters:
Marcia Delgado
Professor Sushing
Lieutenant Como Galahad
Police Chief McGee
Police Sergeant McGee
Elijah Bow
Quimara Tann
Marge Downberry
The invitation I worded as follows:
Marco Ocram requests your comp
any for dinner at the Clarkesville Bay Island Hotel, Thursday, 8pm, to celebrate the announcement of his forthcoming book:
“The Awful Truth about the Herbert Quarry Affair”.
White tie. Transport to be provided. Launches to leave Clarkesville Marina from 5pm. Drinks to be served on the Miranda Terrace from 6:30pm. RSVP
Today was Tuesday. That gave me two days to close the remaining gaps in my story. Addressing the envelopes to my guests, it struck me that two days was a ludicrously short time to allow for them to be delivered and for all the RSVPs to be returned—I’d have to invent some story about them all being hand-delivered by a courier company famed for the speediness of its dispatch riders—and its jet pilots too, given that Sushing lived in Nassau. Musing on my mistake, I started to write Quimara Tann’s envelope.
Quimara Tann!
For Pete’s sake—I never typed what she said when my iPad went flat in Chapter Six!
I cursed myself. Not that it was my fault, mind you—I have the clearest possible memory of tasking the readers to bring it up. Don’t let me forget, I’d said. Readers! If this were Twitter, I would now be posting a GIF of a writer in an anorak, tearing his hair out. The readers were meant to remind me to use it as entertaining filler if we reached a dull spot. No wonder the book’s been full of dull spots. Well, they’ve only got themselves to blame. To make the whole sorry mess even more messy, Quimara’s story was itself a flashback, so I would now have to type a flashback about a flashback, and we all know what Herbert says about flashbacks and great literature. I shuddered to think what the judges in Stockholm would make of it
With a good deal of unease, therefore, I forced my mind back thirty-four chapters to the scene in the coffee shop in order to start Flashback #1. The waitress Jacqueline, I seem to remember, had just slipped out of a chair at my table, and a beautifully made-up woman had just slipped into it…
“You must be Marco Ocram,” she said.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss…”
“Mrs. Tann, but you can call me Quimara.” She pulled her chair closer and beamed at me. While I felt for my pen, expecting her to ask me to sign her copy of The Tau Muon, she said “I understand you’re looking to dig up dirt on that sick pedo Herbert Quarry.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so to buy time I folded my copy of the Clarkesville Literary Supplement, a gesture she took as a cue to continue. Pausing only to check we were being overheard by half of the biggest gossips in Clarkesville, she told me her astonishing story.
Flashback #2. Three months earlier…
Quimara Tann had recently moved to Clarkesville. She lived with her husband Terry and beautiful daughter Esmerelda in a modest house in a leafy suburb. Terry had an ordinary office job in town, and his lack of drive drove Quimara mad with social ambition. She had gone to the coffee shop and was about to take a table, when a waitress said:
“I’m afraid you can’t sit there.”
“Why not?”
“That table is permanently reserved for the famous writer, Herbert Quarry, who still writes all his bestsellers here even though he is now worth millions of dollars and could afford to write them anywhere.”
Famous writer. Millions of dollars. Quimara had hit pay dirt.
“Is Herbert Quarry married?”
“Definitely not. And he prefers beautiful young women.”
Wow. Instantly a plan formed in her mind.
“Here’s my mobile number and a twenty-dollar tip. Please text me the moment Herbert Quarry is next in the café.”
Two days later Quimara was in stirrups at the gynecologist’s where she was taking a smear test. The gynecologist was just staring at her cervix when her phone beeped. She grabbed it from her handbag and saw the text ‘Herbert Quarry now at table.’
“Sorry, Doc, gotta go,” said Quimara, dangling a speculum from her crotch as she ran for the chair where her clothes lay.
In the coffee shop, Quimara walked to the table she had been refused earlier. At it was a man who exuded sophistication, wealth, power, and sex appeal.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt—I bet you are writing another bestseller. Aren’t you Herbert Quarry?”
“Yes, that’s right. Who are you?”
“I’m Quimara Tann. I’ve just moved to town with my husband and beautiful daughter. Would you like to come around this evening for a drink and meet my beautiful daughter?”
“That would be lovely.”
They agreed on a time and swapped contact details. Quimara hurried home to prepare for her soirée.
As Quimara completed her preparations, she basked in her good fortune. Soon her daughter Esmerelda would become Esmerelda Quarry, beautiful wife of the famous author. Quimara would become famous. She would appear in all the important society magazines. She would invite the press to the wedding, and they would want to photograph every room in her house, and she could wear a different outfit in every photograph, and she could make sure the boob-job she had made Terry pay for would show her figure to its best advantage, and…
She was struck with a nameless fear. What if Herbert Quarry was a Catholic? How could she tell? It was a Tuesday, so serving meat would be no test. Suddenly she had the answer—she ran to the general store and got there just in time before it closed.
Shortly, Herbert Quarry arrived in a black Lancia Monte Carlo, and soon—Quimara could barely believe it—he was in Quimara’s living room making small talk with Terry and drinking champagne.
“I see you bought a black Lancia Monte Carlo,” said Terry. “I nearly bought one myself.”
“You should have,” said Herbert Quarry. “They are excellent cars. They reach sixty in under ten seconds, yet they are remarkably frugal. On a trip to Denver last week I managed 38.4 miles per gallon, and you know the price of gas is fierce. The hemispherical voids in the cylinder-head account for the superior fuel economy. It was an innovation first deployed in a production vehicle by Volkswagen, in their ‘Blue Efficiency’ models, but they licensed the technology to Lancia a couple of years ago. I was reading a really interesting article about the aerosol effects produced by the fuel injection system when the piston is on the downstroke, which results in multiple vortices that distribute the fuel more evenly in the combustion space. I can let you have a photocopy if you like.”
“That would be swell,” said Terry.
Herbert was so intellectual, thought Quimara. He would make the perfect husband for Esmerelda, but she had to know…
“Herbert,” she asked. “Would you be an angel and cut this cake for me?”
“Of course.”
Herbert took the knife from Quimara. The cake was what she had rushed to buy from the general store. It was topped with a smiling likeness of Pope Francis, done in colored icing. Without hesitation, Herbert plunged the point of the knife into the benevolent face of the kindly pontiff and cut the cake into slices. Quimara felt a flood of relief.
“Now where’s that daughter of mine?” said Quimara. She shouted up the stairs. “Esmerelda, honey, are you coming down? We’ve a visitor.”
Esmerelda was a beautiful young woman, an ex prom queen and head cheerleader. She stepped elegantly down the stairs in a low-cut see-through dress that left little to the imagination.
“Esmerelda, honey, you might have slipped on something a little smarter—we have an important guest. This is Mister Herbert Quarry, the famous writer.”
Esmerelda and Herbert shook hands. She instantly fell in love with him and wanted to marry him.
“Terry,” said Quimara, “what was it you were suggesting we might do when Mister Quarry came around?”
She gave him a hefty nudge to encourage his memory.
“Oh yeah,” said Terry. “I was suggesting we could look at some old family albums, as that would be really interesting for Mister Quarry and nostalgic for us.”
“Good idea. Go and get them then.”
A moment later, Terry reappeared with a single album in his
hands. “For some reason I can’t seem to find any of the albums apart from this one.”
“Which one is that, honey? Let me see.” Quimara took the album and opened it. “Oh, these are the photos of Esmerelda when she was modelling for that men’s magazine. I suppose we could look at it with Mister Quarry if you can’t find any of the other albums. What do you think of these pictures, Mister Quarry? Esmerelda is very beautiful, isn’t she?”
Quimara turned the pages of the album, each successive page showing Esmerelda in progressively fewer clothes and progressively more explicit poses.
“And these are the ones where she’s shaved altogether. I think they’re so much more elegant. Don’t you agree Mister Quarry?”
After they had finished looking at the album, Quimara suggested Herbert and Esmerelda should catch a movie.
The movie theatre was crowded with people queueing for tickets and popcorn. As Herbert and Esmerelda queued to buy their tickets, Herbert saw Lola in the next line. Lola saw Herbert with Esmerelda in her low-cut see-through outfit and went running off.
“Excuse me,” said Herbert to Esmerelda. “Please take this money and buy a ticket and popcorn for yourself. I am not feeling well. I hope you enjoy the movie. Here’s twenty dollars for a taxi home too.”
Herbert left Esmerelda and ran after Lola who had run into a part of the movie theatre closed for refurbishment.
“Oh Herbert,” sobbed Lola. “You don’t love me after all. You just want to date that tarty slag Esmerelda Tann.”
“Lola, it’s not true. You are the only tarty slag I want to date. I love you Lola with all my heart and always will. The letters L-O-L-A are engraved on my heart, leaving no room for the letters E-S-M-E-R-E-L-D-A.”
“Oh Herbert!” Lola wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his midriff.
Later that evening, a cab dropped Esmerelda at her parents’ house. Quimara, who had been at the curtains all evening, was desperate to know why it was a yellow cab rather than a black Lancia Monte Carlo which had dropped her beautiful daughter at the curbside. Perhaps Esmerelda had gone home with Quarry to make love, leaving him too drained to drive her himself. But her daughter’s face, streaked with tears and mascara, told a different story.