The Festival Murders Read online

  ‘It wasn’t you that murdered him, was it, Virginia?’

  In Francis’s books, George Braithwaite often used the direct-question technique to shock his suspects into surprising revelations. Now Virginia laughed, Francis thought, just a bit too loudly.

  ‘What! Get my revenge thirty years later? Perhaps I should have done.’ Her eyes met his quite candidly, but in her lap, he noticed, her hands were trembling. ‘So do you seriously think there was foul play, Francis? You were the one who saw him this morning. Wouldn’t let anyone else in the room, would you?’

  ‘A herd of guests trampling around in dressing gowns and slippers wouldn’t have helped the police very much.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question. What was in there to arouse your suspicions?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘There was one item I was rather intrigued by. A silver Parker 45, with the initials V.R.C.W., a date from the Seventies, and a Latin tag, memento mori …’

  Virginia’s face was a picture: of excitement mixed with … was that sadness, or something more sinister?

  ‘And where was that?’ she asked.

  ‘Right by the bed.’

  She was looking into the middle distance, almost as if in a trance. ‘So he kept it … all these years …’

  ‘I was going to ask you your middle names, but I guess …’

  ‘… there’s no need. Ruth Constance. No, I gave him that pen. For his twentieth birthday. A week before he took his part ones.’

  ‘And garnered the first part of his First?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Remind me exactly what memento mori means?’ Francis asked.

  Virginia pursed her lips. ‘Literally,’ she said, ‘“Remember, you must die.” But metaphorically, more like, “Don’t take your life for granted.” The sort of motto that seems terribly sophisticated when you’re nineteen.’ She looked away across the tent for a moment. ‘I can honestly say I had no idea he still had it, let alone used it. Perhaps he hung onto it for luck. He was always oddly superstitious. So what else did you find?’

  ‘That was about it. As far as I could tell it could easily have been a heart attack that killed him.’

  ‘What did the police say?’ Virginia asked, eyes narrowing.

  ‘The police were a pair of rookies. Luckily there was a medic there too. Local GP. He seemed to think a cardiac arrest was the likely picture. That or some kind of brain event. Hopefully the post-mortem will confirm.’

  She sighed deeply. ‘Poor Bryce. A completely inadequate shit of a man, but generally an intelligent read. In a strange way I shall miss my weekly dose of viciousness.’

  ‘Did he ever review you?’

  ‘Funnily enough, he left my first novel alone, but he couldn’t seem to bear it when I looked set to repeat my success. I was too much of a threat to him, I suppose. You know he always wanted to be a novelist too?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘When we were at Cambridge we were going to be George Eliot and Henry James. Reimagine the great Victorian novel for the modern age. A simple enough task it seemed to us then. But in the real world Bryce’s efforts never got anywhere. His talent was too flashy, I suppose. Brilliant at the one-line put down, but he never had the stamina for the lonely long haul. Anyway, yes, he ignored Entente Cordiale. But when it came to A Fine Imagined Thing, he couldn’t help himself. Actually, it was embarrassing, because the sheer level of vitriol made it clear to anyone with half a brain that it wasn’t about the book at all. None the less, at the time, it was a shock. I was foolishly upset. It seemed like adding insult to injury.’

  Injury being binned ten years before, presumably. ‘Did you say anything to him?’ Francis asked.

  ‘I did. Against everyone’s advice. You’re not supposed to bleed in public in the literary world. I didn’t care. I wrote a letter to his stupid newspaper, pointing out the various errors of fact he’d made, and followed it up with a personal missive. Didn’t stop him though. Every time I’ve put my head above the parapet since he’s shot me down. It’s pathetic.’

  ‘And face to face. How was that? Did you stop speaking?’

  ‘We barely spoke anyway. Just a nod or the occasional surface exchange at launch parties. Sad, isn’t it, when you think how well I once knew him. So much better than the long string of floozies he’s had since.’

  ‘Better than his long-term partner, Scarlett?’

  She ignored this quiet reality check.

  ‘Who’s to say?’ she replied. ‘I do think that if you get to know someone intimately when they’re nineteen or twenty you understand them in a way that others can’t. Before they’ve had a chance to put on all those adult airs and graces that fool the world so convincingly.’

  ‘And what about you?’ Francis asked.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Did you ever find anyone to match Bryce?’

  Virginia looked straight back at him and for a moment the sadness in her eyes spoke volumes; then she recovered herself and the ironic twinkle returned. ‘My my, you do love the direct question, Mr Meadowes. I’m surprised you didn’t try for a career in broadcasting. You’d have given Paxman or Harrumphrys a run for their money. No, as soon as I left Cambridge I was heartily relieved I’d got rid of Bryce. I was free to do all sorts of things I’d otherwise never have done. Travel. See the world. In my twenties I lived for five years in Paris. That experience was the basis of Entente Cordiale. If I’d stayed with Peabody I’d have been buried in nappies, more than likely. I seriously doubt if I’d have been published. I’ve seen too many of my clever female friends swamped by the demands of procreation. Whatever they say about the march of feminism, it’s still the women that bear the brunt of making a family. And always will be, in my view. Until they invent wombs for men …’

  ‘So you’ve a new novel out this summer?’

  ‘This week. To tie in with the festival. Sickle Moon Rises. It’s in the bookshop if you’re interested.’

  ‘When was your last one? I’m afraid I can’t remember.’

  ‘How sweet you are, Mr Meadowes. There’s really no reason why you should know about my work. I’m hardly a name to be conjured with. But no, it was almost nine years ago.’

  ‘And Bryce had his usual go?’

  ‘Savaged it in a couple of paragraphs. In a round-up of what he offensively called “hag-lit” … I’d given the Aga Saga a new meaning for the over-fifties … I was to Joanna Trollope what she was to Anthony …’

  ‘Trollope?’

  ‘Of course. Silly, sexist nonsense like that. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most of it.’

  ‘Nine years is a long gap. Did you hit a block?’

  ‘Well, after that review, and, hardly surprisingly, rather poor sales, I was dropped by my publisher. Too “mid-list”, apparently, though they never said that when I was selling well. Nor did they ever consider that their appalling jacket design or their near-comatose marketing department might have had something to do with it. Then my agent died. Run over by an Ocado van while chatting on his mobile phone on Highgate Hill. I couldn’t find another decent one for ages. Either too ancient and grand or too young with no experience or contacts. The old story. I ran through an alcoholic ex-BBC producer and the fantasist daughter of a famous actor before I found darling Harriet.

  ‘Then my mother had a hideous battle with cancer. Which she lost. Father of course was hopeless without her. Could barely boil an egg. Tried to teach himself to cook from the Good Housekeeping book I gave him, but failed miserably. He was always calling me up, saying things like, “What does it mean, fold sugar into the mixture, they don’t explain.” We had exploding coffee percolators, the works. Then one day he fell down the steep stone stairs I’d been warning him about for ages. Two funerals in two years. A relationship I was in at the time didn’t survive the fallout. So all in all not a terribly fun time.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. Life has i
ts little surprises. But it’s all grist to the mill for us authors, isn’t it? And fortunately Daddy left me enough to keep writing, regardless of whatever sales I might achieve.’

  Francis nodded thoughtfully. ‘And are you pleased with this one?’ he asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I am. I can honestly say it’s the best thing I’ve done. Whether it will storm bestseller lists and win prizes remains to be seen.’

  ‘And Bryce can’t diss it now, whatever happens.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Virginia looked down at her watch. ‘Oh my giddy aunt, it’s ten to three. We’d better get to our respective publics, Francis.’

  ‘Yes.’ Francis felt the familiar rush of nerves at the thought of that packed Big Tent. ‘I suppose we better had.’

  FIFTEEN

  Conal had made a special effort to be at Francis Meadowes’ event. After that odd encounter this morning he’d found himself wondering why exactly he had opened up so much, to this total stranger, about stuff that he was under no obligation to share. Now he took his place in the Big Tent, near the back on his own. Involuntarily, he looked around for Priya, but he couldn’t see her. Down near the front he spotted the Wyveridge lot: dreadlocked Ranjit, swan-necked Carly, bearded Adam, cute Fleur, Earth Mother Eva, that madman Rory and his speccy pal Neville. Only Grace was missing, which was puzzling, as she’d been so vocal earlier about how interested she was in Bryce’s death. Perhaps, like him, she was on her own, elsewhere in this jostling, expectant crowd. As the tent hushed, and Meadowes came on, two steps behind Laetitia Humble, Conal leant forward.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Meadowes began, once Laetitia’s rather OTT intro was out of the way. ‘I must say it’s great to see such a full tent. Yesterday when I checked, I had just twenty-eight signed up. Now, I believe, it’s closer to five hundred and twenty-eight. So first off I’d like to thank those original supporters, wherever they are. Of course I am aware that this audience, the biggest I’ve ever faced at a literary festival, is down to two related things. One, simply, that the talk scheduled for Bryce Peabody has had to be cancelled. And two, the reason for that cancellation: that Bryce was, as I’m sure you all know by now, found dead in his room at the White Hart in the early hours of this morning.’ Meadowes looked around slowly and for five seconds you could, as they say, have heard a pin drop. Just a couple of coughs from the crowd and far away, across town, the bleating of sheep.

  ‘Because my room was adjacent to his,’ Francis went on, ‘I was first on the scene, so I got to see the dead body in situ and was there when the emergency services turned up. Laetitia Humble has asked me if I’d be happy to say a few words about all that, and the answer, Laetitia, is yes, a few words. But if you don’t mind I’ll leave that to the end of my talk, when I’d be happy to take questions too …’

  Clever bastard, Conal thought, as an excited buzz filled the tent. Nobody was going to get up and leave now, were they? They had to quieten down and listen as Meadowes moved on to his chosen subject – the amateur detective in literature. He traced the development well, making interesting links across the genre and being funny about the danger of these non-professional know-alls coming across as smug or otherwise irritating. ‘I don’t want to upset any Dorothy Sayers fans, but I’m afraid I’ve always thought Lord Peter Wimsey was infuriatingly pleased with himself. I also find Poirot a bit too effing twinkly at times. And don’t get me started on Jonathan Creek …’

  Though the audience were enjoying it, laughing in the right places, not exhibiting the restlessness that afflicted some sessions, it was clear they were also longing for the end – and questions. When the time came, these weren’t about Conan Doyle, Chesterton or Christie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Laetitia, who had taken charge, ‘the hand in the middle, the woman with the long dark hair.’

  ‘Hi Francis.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘I’m a big fan of the George Braithwaite books, I’ve read them all, and I’m one of the twenty-eight you talked about at the beginning who were going to come anyway.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘That was a fascinating talk.’

  ‘Thank you again.’

  ‘But what I wanted to ask you, perhaps a bit cheekily, was what George would have made of the scene you encountered in the White Hart this morning.’

  ‘I can see I’m not going to be let off the hook on this one,’ said Francis.

  ‘No you’re not!’ shouted someone.

  ‘OK then, now let me see. I think George would have been, as he always does, checking everything carefully, looking out for those unusual clues that other people might have missed.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Francis’s face assumed a sober expression. ‘There were a couple of intriguing details in that room this morning, but I can honestly say that Bryce himself did look as if he’d passed away in his sleep. But seriously, even if all this is bound to be the subject of gossip around the festival, I don’t think I should be speculating in public about what I personally might or might not think.’

  ‘Hear hear!’ said a man with long blond hair and a big nose who was sitting down near the front. It was that TV chef guy, Conal realised, who did the Family Man show. There were other mutters of approval, as well as a couple of loud groans.

  There were five hands up now. ‘Yes,’ said Laetitia, ‘the man about ten rows back, with the thick black specs.’

  ‘Are we to intuit, from this coyness of yours, that you do in fact suspect foul play?’

  Francis smiled patiently. ‘I think I’ve just answered that.’

  ‘But you haven’t. At all. You were there in the bedroom. What are these “intriguing details” you titillate us with?’

  Up on the big video screen behind his head, you could see the feeling in Francis’s face. Irritation in the furrows of his forehead, quelled with a tight smile. ‘As anyone who’s been near the White Hart today knows,’ he said, ‘the police are following their own investigation into the death of Bryce Peabody. I’ve already given them a short statement, and as one of the first on the scene I expect to be interviewed in due course by the officer in charge. That’s really all I want to say about this. Now are there any questions on the rest of my talk?’

  ‘Is that really all you’re going to give us?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is, yes.’

  ‘Was that why I listened to your potted history of crime-writing for forty minutes – what a frigging let-down!’ Having spat that sentence into the microphone, the man in black specs got to his feet and stalked towards the exit. But even as the audience sighed with excitement at this little storm-out, Francis was rescued; a woman with a colourful length of cloth tied into her hair wanted to know what George Braithwaite thought of Francis Meadowes.

  Francis chuckled. ‘I’m not sure he’s that aware of me. He doesn’t, like many detectives, have much time for crime fiction. He sees enough horror on the job without wanting to read about it. Plus I suspect that he thinks most crime novels are a bit artificial anyway.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he knows that most murders in the real world are committed by desperate, vicious, or crazy people in squalid circumstances. While murderers in crime fiction, even of the more realistic kind, tend to be altogether more glamorous figures.’

  ‘Are you saying your books don’t contain lifelike characters?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I sincerely hope they do. Which is precisely why George would never read one. Yes, the woman in the pink specs. Down towards the front on the left.’

  ‘This might be a bit of a cheeky question. But I’m interested in the fact that you are of mixed-race origins, while George Braithwaite is a white man. Weren’t you ever tempted to create a detective hero who could tackle some of the issues around race that you yourself must encounter all the time?’

  As Francis paused, you could see the tent wondering which way he’d go.

  ‘I am, yes,’ he said, ‘an individual from a mixed-race background, but as those of you who’ve loo
ked at my website or read interviews with me know, I was adopted at a young age by white parents, and brought up in a pretty white world. The grammar school I went to in Kent had only one other person of colour all the time I was there. So it would have been much harder for me to get all the little wrinkles of, say, a London Afro-Caribbean or a Bradford Pakistani background right, and I didn’t see the point, because there are other writers who understand about those things far better than I. As for your point about race, I hate to say this, but we really are all much the same under the skin. I do quite often think like a white man, you know. My biological mother was white. As someone said about Barack Obama, in other circumstances he could have been the first white President of Kenya.’

  There was laughter at this, mixed with a general hum of approval. The audience were loving Meadowes and there were now ten or fifteen hands waiting like schoolchildren to be picked upon.

  ‘Yes, the lady five rows back,’ said Laetitia. ‘With the purple top and the, er, white hair.’

  ‘Are you saying that you’re a coconut?’

  Oh no, thought Conal. There was always one, wasn’t there? Meadowes had put on a studiedly puzzled face, though surely he knew what she meant.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Could you elucidate?’

  ‘A coconut,’ she repeated loudly; and you could almost hear the audience wince. ‘I’m told it’s someone who’s black or, erm, coloured on the outside and white on the inside.’

  ‘I thought you might mean that. It’s an interesting expression, isn’t it? And one of several of a similar type, often used by black or brown communities about their own kind. “Oreo” is another example, which you come across in the States, referring to the chocolate biscuit with the white filling. I believe some people use “Bounty” in a similar way over here, although I can’t say I’ve ever heard it. In Hong Kong they say “banana”.’ Meadowes smiled and looked out over the tent. ‘It’s a concept that I find both puzzling and a little racist in itself. To be white on the inside. What does that mean? That I’m fastidiously punctual, or crap at dancing? You tell me.’