‘Are you sure you’re all right, Hazel?’ Alexander whispered to me as we walked to our places next to Daisy and George.
‘Yes!’ I whispered back. ‘I am.’
And I really was. I thought this Cambridge Christmas was the most wonderful I had ever had.
After dinner we were allowed to spend the evening with the boys. Daisy and George had a marvellous time. George had a book of real crimes with him, and he read them out to Daisy, so they could decide how they would have solved them. Before long, they had unpicked the Maybrick poisonings and proved Franz Müller innocent. I saw that Daisy was delighted to have found someone who thought in the same strict, logical way that she did – but she really was not in love in the slightest.
Alexander and I were playing Snakes and Ladders. After our conversation, I found I had terrible difficulty looking at Alexander directly. I kept feeling Daisy’s eyes on the two of us. I decided that I hated being in love. It was far too awful and uncomfortable.
‘Are you enjoying yourself, Hazel?’ asked Alexander after a while.
‘Yes,’ I said, blushing. ‘Why?’
‘You’ve been acting oddly,’ said Alexander. ‘You’ve changed since the Orient Express. You do still like me, don’t you? I’d understand if – I mean, we don’t have to write any more—’
‘Of course I still like you!’ I said, wishing like anything that Alexander was not so honest. ‘I like you an awful lot.’
‘I do too!’ said Alexander happily, his American accent coming through more strongly than usual. ‘You’re a real pal, Hazel. I’m so glad that we can be friends. Some of the fellows at school are stupid about it, but I know that it isn’t like that at all.’
My mouth had gone dry. ‘No!’ I squeaked. ‘Not at all.’
Daisy looked over at me, and I saw her eyebrows lift. Then she went back to talking to George.
And that is nearly all, except for one more thing. On Boxing Day, all around Cambridge, posters appeared. They were hand-lettered, and they appeared to have been stuck up overnight. They read:
When we saw them, I could not help laughing. It was the best Christmas present I could imagine.
‘You see?’ said Daisy, peeling one off the wall and clutching it triumphantly. ‘I told you we were better.’
Author’s Note and Acknowledgements
I grew up in Oxford, at Pembroke College, in the 1990s (my father was the Master). It was a wonderful and very odd place to be a child, and I am so grateful to all the students and staff who looked after me. I couldn’t write a college book without thinking of them and it, and borrowing quite a lot of its geography.
I dropped Maudlin and St Lucy’s into the Cambridge landscape quite abruptly. Apologies to Cambridge residents for getting rid of Queen’s College, moving a bridge and reassigning most of Mill Lane. As a consolation, though, Fitzbillies, Heffers and the Market Square are quite real and unmoved from their 2016 locations – you can visit all of them, and I think you should.
I’ve been fairly historically accurate in this book. Tinsel and Chocolate Oranges had both been invented by 1935, as had Christmas crackers. The Night Climbers are absolutely real too – I read a brilliant book called The Night Climbers of Cambridge by Whipplesnaith (not his real name) to get a lot of my details. I think he’d have been friends with Bertie.
For Alfred’s background I am indebted to Dr Deanna Lee Rudgard. I’m grateful to Alex Strick from Inclusive Minds for putting me in touch with Habeeba Mulla, who helped me make sure that George and Harold were properly represented. The facts of Harold and George’s life were built by Shompa Lahiri’s excellent book Indians in Britain. Did you know that in 1927 there were 1,800 Indian students at British universities, and that in 1936 a London doctor called Mangaldas Mehta was knighted for services to medicine? I’ve named George’s father after him. George, though, is named for a less pleasant bit of British history: in 1903 George Edalji, a British Indian, was sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. One of the people who helped release him was Arthur Conan Doyle (you might know him better as the author of Sherlock Holmes).
The more historical research I do, the more I remember that immigration isn’t a recent invention, and it’s not a bad thing. Alfred, Hazel, Alexander, Harold and George belong in 1930s England just as much as Daisy and Bertie do, and I wouldn’t want to write a historical book that doesn’t reflect that reality.
In fact, the biggest invention in this book (apart from the murder) is the weather. In 1935 Cambridge had an extremely mild winter, with no snow at all. But I couldn’t write a Christmas book without it. Call it artistic licence.
And now, the part where I thank people. My publishers, Puffin, have once again done a fantastic job – I might be the only name on the cover of this book, but my team are the creators as much as I am. Thank you to my editor, Natalie Doherty, who gave me incredibly clever and thoughtful notes, and is generally wonderful. Thank you to my publicist, Harriet Venn, who is a brilliant and extraordinarily organized person. Thanks also to Annie Moore, Tom Rawlinson, Francesca Dow, Annie Eaton, Sue Cook and the rest of the design, sales, marketing and publicity teams. And, of course, thanks to my illustrator, Nina Tara, for another beautiful cover and maps!
Thank you to my agent, Gemma Cooper, who continues to support me and the books tirelessly – you’ve fought for them and me for three years now, and I never stop being grateful to you for your kindness and care.
Thank you to my family, especially my mother, Kathie Booth Stevens, who is always there when I need her and who I love very much.
Thank you to my friends for looking after me through the writing process. There are too many of you to name, but especially Non Pratt, Louie Stowell and Karen Lawler, Katherine Woodfine and the rest of the Crime Club, and Katy, Mo, Ruth, Sibeal, Beth, Harriet and the rest of Team Cooper. Thanks to Charlie Morris and Wei Ming Kam for giving me much-needed feedback on drafts, and for being generally great.
Thank you to my partner in crime, David Maybury. You make me feel so lucky. I’d dedicate a whole library to you if I could.
And finally, thank you to all my fans. You are who I write for, and knowing you love my books is the most marvellous thing about being an author. Detective Society for ever!
Robin Stevens
London, June 2016
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First published 2016
Text copyright © Robin Stevens, 2016
Cover, maps and illustrations © Nina Tara, 2016
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ISBN: 978–0–141–36973–0
Robin Stevens, Mistletoe and Murder: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery
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