‘They’re all writers.’
‘They’re all gay writers. It was a game he played to stop himself getting bored.’
We drank more champagne and ordered fish and chips. The restaurant was on the far side of the hotel, tucked around the corner from where the funeral drinks had taken place. There were a couple of families eating but we’d been given a corner table. The lighting was low. I asked James about the way Alan Conway had worked. He had hidden almost as much as he had revealed in his writing and there was an odd disconnect between the bestselling author and the books he had actually produced. Why all these games, these codes and secret references? Wasn’t it enough simply to tell the story?
‘He never talked to me about it,’ James said. ‘He worked incredibly hard, sometimes seven or eight hours a day. There was a notebook he filled up with clues and red herrings – all that stuff. Who was where and when, what they were doing. He said it gave him a headache, sorting everything out and if I came into the room and disturbed him, he would really yell at me. There were times when he talked about Atticus Pünd as if he was a real person and I got the idea that they weren’t the best of friends – if that doesn’t sound a little bit weird. “Atticus is destroying me! I’m fed up with him. Why do I have to write another book about him?” He said that sort of thing all the time.’
‘Is that why he decided to kill him?’
‘I don’t know. Does he die in the last book? I never saw any of it.’
‘He gets ill. He may die at the end.’
‘Alan always said there would be nine books. He’d decided that from the very start. There was something about that number that was important to him.’
‘What happened to the notebook?’ I asked. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve found it.’
James shook his head. ‘I didn’t find it. I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure it’s not there.’
So whoever had taken the last chapters of Magpie Murders, erasing every last word from Alan’s hard drive, had also made sure that his notes had disappeared. That told me something. They knew how he worked.
We talked more about James’s life with Alan. We finished the champagne and drank the bottle of wine. The other families finished and left and by nine o’clock we had the room to ourselves. I got the impression that James was lonely. Why would a man in his end-twenties want to bury himself in a place like Framlingham? The truth was that he’d had little choice. He’d been defined by his relationship with Alan and that, if nothing else, must have been a reason to end it. James was very relaxed as he spoke to me. The two of us had become friends; maybe because of that first cigarette, maybe because of the strange circumstances that had brought us together. He told me about his early life.
‘I was brought up in Ventnor,’ he said. ‘On the Isle of Wight. I hated it there. At first, I thought it was because it was an island, because I was surrounded by the sea. But actually it was because of who I was. My mum and dad were Jehovah’s Witnesses, which I know sounds crazy but it’s the truth. Mum used to go round the island, distributing copies of The Watchtower, door to door.’ He paused. ‘Do you know what her biggest tragedy was? She ran out of doors.’
The problem for James was not so much the religion or even the patriarchal structure of his family life (he had two older brothers). It was that homosexuality was considered a sin.
‘I knew what I was when I was ten years old and I lived in terror until I was fifteen,’ he said. ‘The worst of it was not having anyone I could tell. I’d never been close to my brothers – I think they knew I was different – and living on the Isle of Wight I felt like I was growing up in the fifties. The place isn’t so bad now – at least, that’s what I hear. There are gay bars in Newport and gay cruising areas all over the place, but when I was a kid and with the elders coming to the house and all the rest of it, I felt completely alone. And then I met another boy at my school and we began to mess around with each other and that was when I knew I had to get out because if I stayed I would end up being caught with my pants down, quite literally, and then I’d be shunned, which is what Jehovah’s Witnesses do to each other when they’re pissed off. By the time I got to my GCSEs, I’d decided I wanted to become an actor. I left school at sixteen and managed to get a job at the Shanklin Theatre, working backstage, but two years later I left the island and came up to London. I think my family was quite glad to see me go. I’ve never been back.’
James couldn’t afford drama school but got his training elsewhere. He met a man in a bar and was introduced to a producer who used him in a number of films that would not enjoy a premiere on mainstream British television. I’m the one being coy. He was frank and filthy about his career in hard-core porn and as the second bottle of wine kicked in, we both found ourselves laughing uproariously. He was also working as a rent boy – in London and Amsterdam. ‘I didn’t mind doing it,’ he said. ‘A few of my clients were pervy and disgusting but most of them were fine, middle-aged men who were absolutely terrified of being found out. I had plenty of regulars, I can tell you. I enjoyed the sex and the money and I made sure I looked after myself.’ James had managed to rent a small flat in West Kensington and he worked out of there. One of his clients was a casting director and he even managed to get him a few legitimate parts.
And then he met Alan Conway.
‘Alan was a typical client. He was married. He had a young son. He had found my picture and contact details on the Internet and for a long time he didn’t even tell me his name. He didn’t want me to know he was a famous writer because he thought I’d blackmail him or sell my story to the Sunday newspapers or something. But that’s just silly. No one does that any more.’ James only found out who he was when he saw Alan on breakfast TV, promoting one of his books. Actually, that rang a bell for me. When the Atticus Pünd novels had started selling, Alan had done everything he could not to appear on television, the exact opposite, in fact, of all our other authors. At the time, I’d assumed he was shy. But if he was leading this double life, it made complete sense.
We had finished the main course and both bottles and staggered out into the yard for a cigarette. It was a clear night and sitting under the stars, with a very pale, slither of a moon in the black sky, James became thoughtful. ‘I really liked Alan, you know,’ he said. ‘He could be a miserable old bastard, especially when he was writing one of his books. All that money he was making from his detective stories, it never seemed to make him happy. But I did. That’s not such a bad thing, is it? Whatever people may think or say, he needed me. At first he just paid me for the night. Then we went on a couple of trips. He took me to Paris and Vienna. He told Melissa he was doing research. He even got me onto a book tour in America. If anyone asked, he said I was his PA and we had separate rooms in every hotel but of course they had adjoining doors. By that time he’d put me on an allowance and I wasn’t allowed to see anyone else.’
He blew out smoke, then gazed at the glowing tip of his cigarette.
‘Alan liked watching me smoke,’ he said. ‘After we’d had sex, I’d smoke a cigarette, naked, and he’d watch me. I’m sorry I let him down.’
‘How did you do that?’ I asked.
‘I got itchy feet. He had his books and his writing and I was getting bored, sitting in Framlingham. I was more than twenty years younger than him, you know. There was nothing here for me. So I started going back to London. I said I was visiting friends, but Alan knew what I was doing. It was obvious. We had arguments about it but I wouldn’t stop and in the end he threw me out, gave me a month to pack my bags. When you and I met, I was two days away from being homeless. Part of me had hoped we might have a reconciliation, but actually I was quite glad it was all over. I wasn’t interested in the money. People looked at the two of us together and they think that’s all I cared about but it’s not true. I cared about him.’
We went back inside and, over several whiskies, James told me about his plans for the future, fo
rgetting that he had already done so. He was going on holiday for a while – somewhere hot. He was going to try acting again. ‘I might even go to drama school. I can afford it now.’ Despite what he had said about Alan, he had already started another relationship, this time with a boy closer to his age. I don’t know why, but looking at him as he sat at the table with his long hair flowing and his eyes blurred by alcohol, I suddenly got the feeling that it wouldn’t end well for him. It was a curious thought but perhaps he had needed Alan Conway in much the same way as James Fraser had needed Atticus Pünd. There was no other place for him in the story.
He had come by car but I wouldn’t let him drive himself home, even if it was only a mile up the road. Feeling like an elderly aunt, I confiscated his keys and made the hotel call him a taxi.
‘I should stay here,’ he said. ‘I can afford a room. I can afford the whole hotel.’
They were the last words he spoke to me before he left, weaving uncertainly into the night.
‘He used to hide things …’
James was right. In Gin & Cyanide, which is set in London, there are characters called Leyton Jones, Victoria Wilson, Michael Latimer, Brent Andrews and Warwick Stevens. All these names are taken partly, or in their entirety, from tube stations. The two killers, Linda Cole and Matilda Orre are both anagrams: of Colindale on the Northern Line and Latimer Road. The gay writers make up the cast of Red Roses for Atticus. In Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, well – you can work it out for yourself.
John Waterman
Parker Bowles Advertising
Caroline Fisher
Carla Visconti
Professor Otto Schneider
Elizabeth Faber
I woke up the next morning just after seven o’clock with a headache and a nasty taste in my mouth. Bizarrely, James’s car keys were still clutched in my hand and for a ghastly moment I half expected to open my eyes and find him lying next to me. I went into the bathroom and had a long, hot shower. Then I dressed and went downstairs to black coffee and grapefruit juice. I had the manuscript of Magpie Murders with me and, despite my state, it didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for.
All the characters are named after birds.
When I’d read the book for the first time, I’d made a note to tackle Alan about Sir Magnus Pye and Pye Hall. The names had struck me as a little childish – old-fashioned at the very least. They felt like something out of Tintin. Going through it again, I realised that almost everyone, even the most minor characters, had been given the same treatment. There are the obvious ones – the vicar is Robin and his wife is Hen. Whitehead (antique dealer), Redwing (doctor) and Weaver (undertaker) are all fairly common species, as are Crane and Lanner (the estate agents in Bath) and Kite (the landlord of the Ferryman). Some are a little more difficult to pin down. Joy Sanderling is named after a small wading bird and Jack Dartford after a warbler. Brent, the groundsman, is a type of goose – and his middle name is Jay. A nineteenth-century naturalist called Thomas Blakiston had an owl named after him and inspires the family at the heart of the story. And so on.
Does it matter? Well, yes, actually. It worried me.
Character names are important. I’ve known writers who’ve used their friends while others have turned to reference books: the Oxford Book of Quotations and the Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia are two I’ve heard mentioned. What’s the secret of a good name in fiction? Simplicity is often the key. James Bond didn’t get to be who he was by having too many syllables. That said, the name is often the first thing you learn about a character and I think it helps if it fits comfortably, if it feels appropriate. Rebus and Morse are both very good examples. Both are types of code and as the role of the detective is effectively to decode the clues and the information, you’re already halfway there. Nineteenth-century authors like Charles Dickens took the idea a stage further. Who would want to be taught by Wackford Squeers, cared for by Mr Bumble or married to Jerry Cruncher? But these are comic grotesques. He was more circumspect when it came to the heroes and heroines with whom he wanted you to connect.
Sometimes authors stumble onto iconic names almost by accident. The most famous example is Sherrinford Holmes and Ormond Sacker. You have to wonder if they would have achieved the same worldwide success if Conan Doyle hadn’t had second thoughts and plumped for Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson. I’ve actually seen the manuscript where the change is made: one sweep of the pen and literary history was made. By the same token, would Pansy O’Hara have set the world on fire in quite the same way as Scarlett did after Margaret Mitchell changed her mind when she finished Gone With the Wind? Names have a way of stamping themselves on our consciousness. Peter Pan, Luke Skywalker, Jack Reacher, Fagin, Shylock, Moriarty … can we imagine them as anything else?
The point of all this is that the name and the character are intertwined. They inform each other. But it’s not the case in Magpie Murders – or in any other of the books that Alan Conway wrote and which I edited. By turning all his subsidiary characters into birds or tube stations (or makes of fountain pen in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case), he had trivialised them and that in turn had demeaned them. Maybe I’m overstating this. After all, his detective stories were never meant to be more than entertainments. It just suggested a sort of carelessness, almost a disdain towards his own work and it depressed me. I was also sorry that I hadn’t noticed it before.
After breakfast, I packed, paid for the room, then drove over to Abbey Grange to drop off James Taylor’s keys. It was strange seeing the house for what I was fairly sure would be the last time. Maybe it was the grey, Suffolk sky but it seemed to have a mournful quality as if it had somehow sensed not only the death of its old owner but the fact that it was no longer wanted by his successor. I could barely bring myself to look at the tower which now seemed grim and threatening. It occurred to me that if ever a building was destined to be haunted, it was this one. Some day, not far in the future, a new owner would be woken in the middle of the night, first by a cry in the wind and then the soft thud of something hitting the turf. James was absolutely right to leave.
I thought of ringing the doorbell but decided against it. Most likely, James was still in bed and anyway, fuelled by alcohol, he might have been more open with me than he had intended. Better to avoid the morning-after recriminations.
I had an appointment in Ipswich. Claire Jenkins had been true to her word and had arranged for me to meet Detective Superintendent Locke, not at the police station but at a Starbucks near the cinema. I’d received a text with instructions. Eleven o’clock. He could give me fifteen minutes. I had plenty of time to get over there but first I wanted to visit the house next door to Alan’s. I had seen John White, in his orange wellington boots, at the funeral but we hadn’t yet had a chance to talk. James had mentioned that Alan had fallen out with him and he had turned up as a character in Magpie Murders. I wanted to know more. This being a Sunday, there was every chance that I would find him at home so I dropped James’s keys through the letter box, then drove round.
Despite the name, there was no sign of any apple trees at Apple Farm and nor for that matter did it look anything like a farm. It was a handsome building, much more conventional than Abbey Grange, built, I would have said, in the forties. It was all very presentable with a neat gravel driveway, perfect hedges and extensive lawns cut into green stripes. There was an open garage opposite the front door with a quite fabulous car parked outside: a two-seater Ferrari 458 Italia. I wouldn’t have said no to tearing around a few Suffolk lanes in that – but it wouldn’t have left me much change out of £200,000. It certainly made my own MGB look a little sad.
I rang the front door. I guessed the house must have at least eight bedrooms and that, given its size, I might wait quite a time before anyone reached me but in fact the door opened almost at once and I found myself facing an unfriendly-looking woman with black hair parted in the middle, dressed in quite masculine c
lothes: sports jacket, tight-fitting trousers, ankle-length boots. Was she his wife? She hadn’t been at the funeral. Somehow, I doubted it.
‘I wonder if I could speak to Mr White?’ I said. ‘Are you Mrs White?’
‘No. I’m Mr White’s housekeeper. Who are you?’
‘I’m a friend of Alan Conway. Actually, I was his editor. I need to ask Mr White about what happened. It’s quite important.’
I think she was about to tell me to get lost but at that moment a man appeared behind her, in the hallway. ‘Who is it, Elizabeth?’ a voice asked.
‘It’s someone asking about Alan Conway.’
‘My name is Susan Ryeland.’ I was addressing him over her shoulder. ‘It’ll only take five minutes but I really would appreciate it.’
I sounded so reasonable that it would have been difficult for White to refuse me. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said.
The housekeeper stepped aside and I went past her into the hall. John White was standing in front of me. I recognised him instantly from the funeral. He was quite small, very slim and rather nondescript in appearance with close-shaven, dark hair that was reflected by the permanent stubble on his chin. He was wearing an office shirt and a V-neck pullover. I found it hard to imagine him behind the wheel of the Ferrari. There was nothing aggressive about him at all.
‘Can I get you some coffee?’ he asked.
‘Thank you. That would be nice.’
He nodded at the housekeeper who had been expecting this and went off to get it. ‘Come into the sitting room,’ he said.
We went into a large room that looked over the back gardens. There was modern furniture and expensive art on the walls including one of those neons by Tracey Emin. I noticed a photograph of two attractive-looking girls, twins. His daughters? I could tell at once that, apart from the housekeeper, he was alone in the house. So either his family was away or he was divorced. I suspected the latter.