Issuu

‘Striking, playful . . . a high-energy mystery’

A.J. Finn

The Game Is Murder

PENGUIN MICHAEL JOSEPH

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For Carren. You can’t put a price on the value of a sister. But if you could, that price would be half a penny. And you would owe me. Forever.

I Expect Pratfalls

Even if, heaven forbid, a novel should be based on real people or real events, the story which is captive inside the pages of the book is always fictional. Its characters are fictional. Its setting is fictional. Its plot is fictional. It cannot be any other way since fiction is held to a higher standard of truth than mere life.

The Reader Is Warned

WARNING : This is not one of those books where you can skip bits. This book requires effort. A lot of effort.

If you are one of those readers who habitually ignores the Big Paragraphs, or skims over the Descriptive Bits, you might as well put this book down, right now, and get yourself a nice cosy crime novel instead. In here, DETAILS MATTER .

So, if we are going to do this, let’s do it right.

This is how it’s going to be. We will give you all the information you need.

Everything you need to know.

No holds barred.

All the cards on the table.

You can ask us any questions you like. Except, of course, whodunnit? Because that would be cheating. And we don’t like cheating.

This book is about YOU. You are the detective here. It’s up to you to solve the clues.

And why not? Why should we have to do all the work?

So, the question is, are you smart enough?

See, you are nodding yes, but there is a little part of you that is thinking, Probably not

But, hey, it’s only a book, right? So, really, what does it matter?

Wrong! This is life or death. My life. Your death. Or the other way

around, maybe. Who knows? My point is, life is serious, isn’t it? Life and death issues all the time. Every day. So, WAKE UP !

Keep your wits about you and pay attention.

OK , so, at this point you are thinking, I have no idea what this book is about, and that cosy crime novel idea is sounding mighty tempting. I can understand that. Sometimes we want to take the easy path. I get it, I do. So, if you want to go, go. No hard feelings.

Au revoir. Arrivederci. Bye-bye.

If you’re still here – and, of course, you are – it’s Matrix time.

You know what I mean. Red pill or blue pill? Red? Blue? Red? Blue? Red? Blue?

Come on, make your mind up.

You picked red. So predictable. OK then. How deep it goes . . .

Welcome to Murder House Welcome to Murder House

8 Broad Way

Fourth Floor

Child and Nanny Bedrooms

ird Floor

Nursery

Second Floor

Lady Verreman’s Bedroom

First Floor

Drawing Room and Balcony

Ground Floor

Dining Room, Cloakroom and Hall

Basement

Kitchen and Breakfast Room

A C t 1

Guilty!

C HAP t ER 1

A Murder Is Announced

‘People that trust themselves a dozen miles from the city, in strange houses, with servants they don’t know, needn’t be surprised if they wake up some morning and find their throats cut.’

– Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Circular Staircase

The lights are on at 8 Broad Way. The steps have been swept and the brass door- knocker has been polished. For this is an occasion. Walk up the steps and tap lightly upon the door. They are expecting you.

The night has long since drawn in, and there is a biting November wind, of the sort that turns the tip of your nose a deep raspberry pink. Your breath mists beneath the portico lamp. Stamp your feet and rub your hands together while you wait. It’s not really cold, but the Georgian townhouse and the dark London street are reminiscent of a Dickens novel. Be David Copperfield. Hope for the best and make the most of every situation.

Footsteps on a tiled floor. Someone is coming. Get out your invitation. This is it. Good luck.

Walk up the stairs to the drawing room. It is full of guests. Watch as conversation sputters into silence as you enter, and then, with a polite hiccup, smoothly resumes.

You are invited to a Murder Mystery Party!

A murder will take place at: [ Address ]

On: [ Date and Time ]

Here Now

It is 1974. The world is changing. The Summer of Love is over, and a

new world order is emer ging , brasher, louder and angrier than befor e.

Gone is the old defer ence to Class and Money. Har old Macmillan’s assertion that the countr y had never had it so good is long for gotten, and James Callaghan’s W inter of Discontent is coming .

The working classes ar e on the march.

For the upper classes, things ar e no longer r osy. In the rar eﬁed atmospher e of the Berkeley Club, gentlemen may cling to the old traditions, as a shipwr ecked mariner to a life raft, and in the Geor gian townhouses of Belgravia, ladies may polish the escutcheons on their family silver and, in mutter ed tones, invoke the spirit of Enoch Powell as the saviour of the Established Order, but the end is coming , and the Dukes and Earls and Bar onets all know it.

Even in the aristocratic sanctuary of 8 Broad Way, change is coming.

And for one inhabitant at least, change will be deadly.

R SV P

* Please tr y to dress in appropriate costume

* Please ar rive promptly

* Bring booze

Champagne? Perhaps not. Look around the room. The faded velvet curtains are drawn against the night and look magnificent, though perhaps a year or two past their best. The furniture, too, is old, very old, but it commands the room, as though it has grown into the house, as though it were bought from new a century ago and never since moved from its appointed spot.

A chandelier glitters and lamps are lit around the room, casting their warm yellow glow over the guests, dripping them in gold.

Greet the host. He is a little odd, to be sure, but they say that that which in the commoner is merely odd, in the aristocrat becomes an interesting eccentricity.

‘Welcome.’

– Welcome, welcome.

‘My brother and I are so glad you agreed to attend this little party of ours.’

– Our little murder mystery.

‘I may say it is less a party and more of an experience, so to speak. I see you chose not to indulge in fancy dress for this occasion, and I congratulate you on your perspicacity. Most people, in the circumstances, would have dressed in bellbottomed jeans and hippie beads. I can assure you that no one in this affair would ever have attired themselves in such a manner. My father’s only concession to the age was a rather unfortunate moustache, but in his dress he remained, thankfully, remarkably conservative. As, of course, did my mother.’

Watch as your host claps his hands to ensure he has the full attention of the room.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we will be examining a real case, one involving our own family – the Verreman Affair, as it is usually referred to in the press. We will shortly review the real evidence and consider the solution as it was presented by the prosecution in a court of law. You have each been assigned a

part, and we hope that you will play them with gusto. Tonight, over-acting is positively encouraged.

‘A man has been accused and, as you will see, has been, in some manner, convicted. However, this case is one of the most singular cases in legal history, and the court of law he was convicted in was not a criminal one. More on that later.

‘I have my own theory about what occurred.’

– Me too! I have a theory. Oh yes, I do.

‘I’m sure we all have theories. But we will not tell you our theories yet! My brother and I will listen to the evidence presented here tonight and contribute what information we can from our own first- hand knowledge of the case, and of the persons involved. In your turn, we hope that you will all regale us with your stories, and whoever plays the Great Detective will reach a definitive conclusion so that we can finally lay this matter to rest.’

– Finally.

‘Some of you, we have met before. Others are new acquaintances. All are friends here.’

Raise your glass in acknowledgement of the toast.

‘For those of you who haven’t yet worked it out, I am David Verreman, and, of course . . .’

– I’m Daniel. The other brother.

Applaud lightly.

‘Thank you. And, of course, the convicted man I spoke of was my father. Tonight, the task of our Great Detective will be to discover not so much whodunnit but whether our father dunnit.’

– I’m the brother no one talks about.

‘Ah! The dinner gong.’

– The dirty little secret.

‘If you’re all ready, shall we go down to dinner?’

– The one no one talks about . . . Contracts!

‘And, er, yes, I almost forgot. Ladies and gentlemen, you should have received a contract with your invitation. Can I just check you have all signed and dated your contracts, and sent them back? If you have not received a contract, can you raise your hand?’

Did you miss something? Was there something written on the back of that invitation? Better raise your hand.

‘Ah. Anyone else? No? Good. There you go. Do take your time reading it. I can always tell dinner to wait.’

– I’m hungry.

Skim through the contract quickly, then sign it.

‘Excellent. OK then, if that is all of them, let’s go down, shall we? I’m starving.’

C HAP t ER 2

The Documents in the Case

‘It is not for me to suspect but to detect.’

– Anna Katharine Green, The Leavenworth Case

The Contract

The Agreement

1. Reading the testimony that follows this agreement constitutes acceptance of this binding agreement between you, the reader of this document, hereafter known as The Reader, and the author/curator of this document, hereafter known as The Author.

The Document

2. This document constitutes the entire scope of this investigation.

2.1 All information relevant to the investigation must be contained within this document.

2.2 Any solution to this investigation by The Reader and/or The Author must be based exclusively on information contained within this document, and not on any theory unsupported by the evidence within this document.

Withholding of Information

3. The Author must not unreasonably withhold information from The Reader.

3.1 All information should be provided to The Reader in a timely manner.

3.2 If The Author acquires new knowledge relating to the investigation, it must be shared with The Reader as soon as possible.

3.3 It is The Reader’s responsibility to assess the value and weight of information contained within this document. The Author cannot be held responsible for inaccurate conclusions derived from accurate data.

Persons of Interest

4. The Author must inform The Reader of all suspects, witnesses or persons of interest in a timely manner.

4.1 The Author must inform The Reader of any new suspects, witnesses or persons of interest as soon as possible after their discovery.

Solutions and Resolutions

5. In entering into this contract, The Author and/ or The Reader undertakes to provide a complete solution to the problem under investigation. Unsolved mysteries are not permitted.

5.1 The solution/resolution at the end of this document must be derived exclusively from the facts, as presented within this document, and be consistent with the behaviour and character of the suspect, as described in this document.

5.2 The solution/resolution, when explained, must be logical and must not be reliant upon chance or coincidence or be derived from divine intervention of any kind.

5.3 The culprit must have had clear Means, Motive and Opportunity, and this must be demonstrated by The Author and/or The Reader in their solution.

5.4 When demonstrating their solution, The Author and/or The Reader must explain their deductive process, including:

5.4.1 How they examined and assessed the evidence.

5.4.2 Their preliminary assumptions.

5.4.3 Their investigative and deductive reasoning, with results, including all working theories and rejected theories.

5.4.4 The reasons for the elimination of suspects from suspicion.

5.5 The evidence against the culprit, as identified by The Author and/or The Reader, must be compelling, and all parts of the investigation must be resolved.

5.6 The evidence against the other suspects must be less compelling than the evidence against the identified culprit.

5.7 The motive of the culprit, when demonstrated by The Author and/or The Reader, must be readily understandable, logical and human.

[And if you think that’s confusing, try googling this: ‘Marx Bros Sanity Clause’.]

I hereby agree to be bound by the terms of this contract:

Name [Reader] _______________________________________ [Signature] __________________________________________ [Date] _______________________________________________

A.N. Author

Name [Author] _______ A. N. Author ___________________ [Signature] [Date] __________________ Today _______________________

*Reading on denotes acceptance of these terms and conditions. Failure to abide by them may incur penalties. For details of penalties, please refer to Appendix B.

So, did you sign it?

You did?

Liar!

Get your damned pen out and sign it. We’ll wait.

Right, then, so, you’ve signed it, now?

I tell you what, not that I don’t trust you or anything, but I will just remind you that reading on constitutes acceptance of this agreement, and that it is as legally binding as a signature.

OK?

Read on, Macduff.

Let’s Play a Game!

An ice breaker. Isn’t that what you call it? Don’t you just love those? Of course you do. Everyone does. (Why else would you make people do them all the damned time?)

Don’t worry though, this one is easy. Child’s play, actually. We have some items on a tray. In a moment, we will show you the items, then we will take the tray away, and you have to try and remember as many of them as you can.

Are you ready? Here we go.

• Gambling chips

• A clock

• A woman’s shoe

• A house key

• A diary

• A toy car

• A lead pipe

• A bloodstained letter

• A teacup

• A lightbulb

• A bottle of pills

Got it? Good. We’ll be testing you later!

C HAP t ER 3

The Long Divorce

‘I shall not be present at my trial.’

– Maurice Leblanc, Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief

‘Ladies and gentlemen, in tonight’s episode of Perry Mason, I will be playing the prosecuting barrister, and . . .’

– I’ll be appearing for the defence.

David Verreman is standing at the head of the table. A folded, cream-coloured card sits in front of each place setting, with the character name of each murder mystery guest on one side, and the menu on the other.

Your place is next to David.

‘We have our witnesses here, and both the judge and jury will be played by our Great Detective. It’s a slight mixing of metaphors, perhaps, but you will have noticed that detective novels generally don’t bother with juries. They move straight from detection to guilty verdict, without bothering with trifles like habeas corpus. Not here. I will make my opening statement, and then we can start discussing the case while we eat.’

Your place card says, ‘The Great Detective’.

Turn it over quickly.

David Verreman puts a hand on your shoulder. He leans in confidentially, as if anxious not to be overheard.

‘Congratulations, Great Detective. I’m sure you are going to

The First Course Prawn Cocktail, on a bed of lettuce, sprinkled with a dusting of paprika –

Accompanied by the opening statement for the prosecution –

Served with brown bread

do a great job. We have invited a number of people to join us this evening. You might call them witnesses.’

– Or dinner guests.

‘Or, as Daniel says, you might refer to them simply as dinner guests.’

– Or suspects.

‘Or, just possibly, as suspects. I have reserved for myself the honour of sitting on your left. Next to me we have Mr George Howard- Cole and his wife, Margaret; next to them Sir Henry Wade and his wife, Carolyn Keene-Wade. They are all friends of Lord Verreman, including Carolyn, who also happens to be Lady Verreman’s sister.’

– And our aunt.

‘Then we have Dr Ronald Knox, coroner. I expect his story

will be quite a long one, because he does love to talk, so I will try to rein him in. We have also invited the jury foreman, who we like to call Jeff. JF. Get it? He doesn’t have many answers for us, I’m afraid, but he does ask some pertinent questions, which you might find useful.

‘At the far end of the table we have put Mr Stanley Gardner and Mr Eddie Biggers, the husband and boyfriend of the deceased, respectively.’

He leans in closer and drops his voice to a stage whisper. ‘We have seated them together in the hopes that it will lead to fireworks later. I do love fireworks, don’t you?

‘Next come our experts. We have Professor Cameron McCabe, the pathologist; Dr Elizabeth Mackintosh, the worldfamous blood analyst; and then comes another great detective, Chief Inspector Nicholas Blake, the detective in charge of this case.

‘Finally, we have two singular gentlemen. Mr William Collins, Wilkie to his friends, was a valet at the Berkeley Club at the time of the murder, and next to him, a gentleman who goes by the unlikely name of Gaston Leroux. He lends money, and at extortionate interest, if you can believe it. Lastly, of course, my brother, who has claimed the seat to your right.’

David straightens up and addresses the room. ‘Welcome, all. During tonight’s meal, we will invite each of our guests to make a statement about their particular knowledge of the case. Some of you will contribute a broad understanding of the whole case. Others will have only a small snippet of information to add to the pot. All, however, are welcome at our table. I hope you will all be able to answer the questions raised by the Great Detective, or ourselves, or, of course, each other. Is that clear?

‘Please feel free to write down any questions that you may have and pass them to either Daniel or myself. I should just give our witnesses a quick reminder of the rules.’ The room is silent.

Expectant. ‘Remember, please, if asked a direct question, you must give an honest answer. However, you should not volunteer information. It is the job of our detective, here, to formulate the questions that will enable them to crack the case. We do not want to make the job too easy! The game has to last at least until dessert, and hopefully all the way past coffee and into the brandy and cigars.

‘My brother and I have also taken dual roles tonight. Not only are we the lawyers in the case, but with a swift costume change, we will also become the hapless assistants of the detective. I will play Doctor Watson, and my brother will be Captain Hastings.’

– Or the other way round.

‘Or, as you say, the other way round. It’s much of a muchness. While our detective is being inscrutable and mysterious, and playing their cards close to their chest, we can ask the obvious questions. And anyway, dash it, it’s our party, and why should everyone else have all the fun? We may even propose solutions, but if we do, they will, in time-honoured tradition, be the wrong ones. Or we may stumble upon a clue but fail to realize its significance. Or we will get the right person for the wrong reason. Or vice versa. If you have read anything from the stable of detective literature, you will be perfectly familiar with our role.

‘Only the detective can decide the value of our contribution. Sometimes our help can be invaluable. At other times we are merely a nuisance. All clear?’

Nod your head in agreement.

‘All right, then here I go with my opening statement. Wish me luck.’

David Verreman clears his throat dramatically, even though he has been speaking non- stop since you arrived. ‘Thank you. Where shall I begin? At the beginning? Why not. Lord Verreman – John or Johnny, as he was to his friends, Jinx to

his close friends. I called him Daddy, of course. My mother had other names for him. But you can call him whatever you like. Lord Verreman – I’ll call him by his title because “Daddy” seems a little informal here – married Antonia Keene, our mother in 1963 at St George’s, Hanover Square. Mother was always “Mother”, never Mummy. She was a stickler for formality, my mother. Even in the nursery. However, times have changed, and the world has moved on. Call us what you like. For the new Lady Verreman, her wedding day was the culmination of all her hopes, dreams and, it must be said, a fair amount of scheming. For Lord Verreman it was, perhaps, more of a spur- of- themoment decision. His male friends were appalled; his female friends were jealous. All of them were surprised.

‘Until then, Lady Verreman – my mother – had not been a woman who was noticed. She was invited to society parties, but mostly to make up the numbers or when her sister asked if she might bring Antonia along. Everyone liked Aunty Caro, and Antonia, though dull, was very little trouble, so she was easy to accommodate.

‘But Lord Verreman was captivated by his new bride. She was always very delicate-looking, petite and almost fragile. And she was at least a foot shorter than him, so perhaps she brought out his protective instincts. Who knows?

‘Lady Verreman lost no time in fulfilling what she perceived as the only duty of an aristocratic wife. She provided her husband with a son and heir within the year – that would be me. And a little over a year later she had another son. Having produced both an heir and a spare, as the saying goes, she considered her marital obligations concluded, which must have come as a bit of a disappointment to her amorous new husband. Still, they were happy enough, and on the death of his father, John Verreman became the 7th Earl de Verre and, at his wife’s insistence, took up his seat in the House of Lords.

‘It was around that time that Lord Verreman gave up his job at Coutts. That bank was so venerable an institution, and the job was so safe, and easy, that no one had resigned in living memory. There was a considerable amount of tut-tutting about his rashness, and rumour has it that one or two board members went so far as to raise an eyebrow and/or suck their teeth in surprise, but this has never been confirmed, and such emotional displays do seem rather unlikely for the King’s bankers.

‘Nevertheless, John Verreman shook the dust of the world’s oldest bank from his feet and launched himself on a new and exciting career as a professional gambler. He was not completely foolhardy. He had recently won the spectacular sum of thirty thousand pounds in a single night’s play at his club, the Berkeley, where only the very aristocratic or the very rich are admitted, and he was acknowledged as a gifted player of backgammon and of his favourite game, chemin de fer, which has sadly gone out of favour in the years since.

‘Verreman cut rather a romantic figure, I always think. The aristocrat and the gambler, risking all on one turn of the cards. He didn’t always win, of course, and the uncertain nature of a gambler’s life was difficult for Lady Verreman to bear. Born into relative poverty, where every penny counted, she found it difficult to be nonchalant about losing a sum equivalent to her father’s annual salary in a single night.

‘And, of course, she sat and watched him lose it. Each night she left her children with the nanny, put on an evening gown, and she, too, arrived at the Berkeley in time to join her husband for dinner, then whiled away her evenings watching him win or lose his shirt.

‘For a while, things were good, but life is not lived in stasis, and by 1974, the year of the incident, Lord and Lady Verreman were living apart, and Lord Verreman’s fortunes had taken a decided turn for the worse. He was still paying the bills at Broad

Way, and was now faced with the prospect of paying substantial maintenance for the wife and kids, before even considering where he was going to lay his own head.

‘Worse still, however, was a disastrous custody case, in which he tried to gain interim custody of his children by having his wife committed to an insane asylum. The Divorce Reform Act of 1969 made it easier to get a divorce, and in the four years after it was passed, the family courts were swamped with fighting couples who would go to any lengths to hurt their spouses. They had seen it all, and they were not sympathetic to a rich man who wanted to lose the wife and keep the kids. He lost the case, and custody, and his famous nonchalance began to suffer – and along with it went his luck at cards.

‘You have been very patient with my long, and no doubt tedious, telling of the backstory, but you will, I trust, come to see that all of that is necessary to get a complete picture of my parents’ lives. But now, we will move on to the events of the night itself.

‘Picture this. It is the night of 7th November 1974. Lord Verreman is crouched in the basement kitchen of his estranged wife’s home. He is now a ruined man. Penniless, and soon to face the shame of being declared bankrupt for all the world to see. He has lost his home, his money and his family. Worse still, he has lost it all to a woman he believes to be a lunatic.

‘But Lord Verreman is, by nature, a risk- taker. He knows, more than anyone, that if a man is prepared to stake all on one throw of the dice or one spin of the wheel, great fortune is to be had. If he is lucky.

‘He waits in the dark and calculates his odds. They are good. He has chosen a night when there are no other adults in the house, and it is now long past the children’s bedtime. At nine o’clock his wife, as she always does, will come down to make a cup of tea. And he will be waiting for her.

‘He hears footsteps, coming closer, making their way down four flights of stairs. He hears the neat clip, clip, clip of her shoes on the polished wooden steps. He holds his breath, straining to hear, and grips the weapon in his hand a little tighter. His heart is pounding, perhaps, but he is a man who thrills at risk-taking, the same man who raced powerboats at breakneck speeds. He takes one or two deep breaths and waits for the perfect moment to strike.

‘The footsteps pause at the top of the basement steps, and, as he expects, she flips the light switch. Nothing happens. Lord Verreman has removed the bulb. She continues on down the stairs. Lightbulbs are always blowing at 8 Broad Way, and, without a husband to help her, his petite wife has got used to finding her way in the dark.

‘She walks down the steps, carrying her cups and saucers on a tray, with only the red glow of the light from the kettle to guide her.

‘Does she pause as she reaches the final step? Does she sense the presence of another human being? Of evil? Does she have any idea of the danger she is in? We will never know.

‘As she takes the final step, Lord Verreman strikes.

‘The first blow, dealt with savage force, knocks her down. Three more blows follow quickly, spraying blood across the room. There is no time for her to defend herself. He wants this business over and done with.

‘As his victim lies unconscious upon the stone-cold floor, her life fast ebbing away, Lord Verreman looms over her and it is then that he makes a terrible discovery.

‘This woman is not his wife.’

C HAP t ER 4

The Thirteen Guests

‘Every clever crime is founded ultimately on some one quite simple fact – some fact that is not itself mysterious. The mystification comes in covering it up, in leading men’s thoughts away from it.’

– G. K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

David Verreman holds the room captive. He pauses here and takes a sip of wine, holding the glass up for inspection, so that the light hits the crystal goblet, and the blood- redness of the wine is a grisly aide-mémoire for the events that took place in the basement of this house, just a few feet below this table.

As if on a whim, he holds the glass out, looks around the table and makes a toast.

‘To our victim, Mrs Sally Gardner. You will not hear her name mentioned often around this table. Her death is merely the inciting incident of a much more interesting drama, but we should, perhaps, take a moment to acknowledge her contribution here.’

Hold out your glass in return, and watch as he drinks and smacks his lips, and wonder whether David Verreman is really the bastard that he seems to be. He is certainly enjoying himself. He takes another sip, and continues.

‘What does Lord Verreman feel at that moment? Shock? Fear? Shame?

‘He risked it all, and he missed. This is not his wife, but the pretty young nanny to his children who started work only a few weeks earlier.

‘Desperately, he forces the body of the nanny into the large canvas sack which he hoped to use to dispose of his wife. He doesn’t know it, but Sally Gardner’s life is not quite expired as he pulls the cords tight.

‘Leaving the body in the dark of the basement, he goes to the top of the stairs and listens. All is quiet. He takes a moment to steady himself. He thinks he might be sick, and he must not, on any account, do that. Quickly he steps into the hall cloakroom, washes the blood from his hands, and from the murder weapon, and splashes cold water on to his face.

‘Then, with a feeling of cold dread, he looks at himself in the cloakroom mirror. Does he recognize the face of the desperate man who stares back at him? Who can tell? He hears a creak on the stairs above him. Someone is coming. Someone is calling out. This is a nightmare.’

David pauses again and takes another drink. Perhaps this time it really is to quench his thirst. Perhaps.

‘Let us now turn our minds to Lady Verreman. Mother. Unfortunately, my mother is not able to attend this evening.’

– She wasn’t invited.

‘True.’

– And she’s dead.

‘Thank you.’

– Not that we would have invited her anyway.

‘Yes, thank you, Daniel! Mother, Lady Verreman, has been watching TV in her bedroom with her son. At eight forty, her son – that would be me – joins her. They snuggle together on her bed, and she is eagerly awaiting the tea that the new nanny so recently offered to make.

‘She checks her watch. Quarter past nine. David should be in

bed, but it is nice having him here next to her. And he is growing up fast. There won’t be many more nights like these. Let him stay a while longer. Where is that cup of tea? The girl has been an awfully long time.

‘She waits a minute more then decides to get up and check. She leaves David watching the news and walks down two flights of stairs. She reaches the hall, and the top of the basement steps, and looks down. All is in darkness. That’s strange. Where could she be?

‘As she calls out the young woman’s name, she hears a noise behind her and half turns just as the first blow strikes, causing it to miss her head and bounce painfully off her shoulder. She hears the bone crack.

‘More blows follow, and this time they find their mark. Blood is pouring from her head. She struggles desperately, and in the scuffle her assailant drops his weapon. Perhaps she still has a chance. He knocks her to the floor and is on top of her, his gloved fingers around her throat. She is going to suffocate. She manages to hook her foot around one of the spindles of the basement stairs, and she hangs on. She hangs on and summons all her energy to push him away.

‘Finally, utterly exhausted, he gives up, and husband and wife, murderer and victim, sit together on the hall steps and try to catch their breath. She looks at the hall, now spattered with blood, up the walls, across the ceiling and all over the floor. This must be her blood, she supposes.

‘Unsteadily, she rises to her feet and crosses to the hall cloakroom. She, too, looks in the mirror and is horrified by what she sees. Blood is spattered over her jumper and her pretty summer dress. It is congealing in her hair. Are there patches of hair missing? Hard to tell.

‘Her throat is dry. The water in the cloakroom is horribly warm, but she drinks it anyway. It is painful to swallow. She

looks over at her husband just as he lets forth a terrible sound, a long moan that echoes around the hall. It erupts out of him, like an animal in distress. Like a horse she once had, who broke his leg going over a jump, looking up at her as she took aim.

‘She must be very careful now. He is beginning to move. The shock is starting to wear off, and soon he could be dangerous again. She forces herself to talk to him in a normal voice. The way she did when they were first married. When they were happy. She turns away from the mirror and says in a brisk voice, “It’s not so bad. Now, what shall we do with the body?”

‘All men are like children, she thinks to herself as he follows her upstairs. Deep down they need to be told what to do. They like to play at being the protector, but it’s all just pretend. “Why don’t you take me upstairs,” she said, “and I can have a lie down, and maybe you could bathe my head, the way you used to when I had a migraine. Do you remember?”

‘And he nodded, and stood up, and now he is trotting beside her. As if they have had a silly fight, and now they are making up. As if he was playing murderers, and got bored, and now he is playing doctors instead. He seems to have forgotten Sally in the basement. But she hasn’t. She will never forget.

‘He sends their son to bed, and she lets him lay her down on the bed. He even puts a towel over the pillow, for the bloodstains. She thanks him, prettily, and calls him “dear”. He kisses her gently on the cheek. Then he walks into the adjoining bathroom and turns on the tap to soak a towel for her head. He is talking, but she can’t make out the words through the gurgle of the pipes and the sound of gushing water. She says, “Huh- humm,” in a dreamy voice as she slips out the bedroom door.

‘And she runs. She runs as she has never run before. Down the two flights of stairs. She throws open the front door and

runs into the street, and towards the safety of the Three Taps pub. Is he chasing her? She daren’t spare a second to turn round and find out. She runs, and she runs, and as she runs, she calls out, “Murder! Help me. Murder! He’s killed my nanny. Murder!”

‘And Lord Verreman, returning from the bathroom with his wet towel, sees the empty bed, looks out of the window into the street and sees his wife escaping. Does he hear her screaming bloody murder? Perhaps. But it matters not.

‘It is all over. There is nothing left to do. Except flee. He leaves behind his wife and his family. He leaves his home and his friends. He leaves his mounting debts and his tattered reputation. And in the basement of his wife’s home, he leaves a sack. And in that sack a beautiful young woman finally breathes her last. A woman who never did him, or anyone, any harm. A woman who had a life as valuable as that of any titled lord or lady. She, too, had a husband. She had family.

‘She had lovers.

‘She had life.

‘And now, like a flame, she has been snuffed out.

‘Ah! Perfect timing. Here comes the food. What a fabulous dinner party this is.’

WARNING : This is not a dinner party! This is a novel. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

No doubt The Author will tell you, momentarily, that the food is delicious. Do not believe him.

There is no food here. There are no guests. There is no silver cutlery, no fine china. There is only ink on paper. And if you are reading this on an infernal machine, there is not even that.

There is you, The Reader, and there is The Author. And this author, like all authors, is a low-down snake in the grass.

Maybe you aren’t even who you think you are.

Trust nothing. Trust no one. Not me. Not you. And, for the Good Lord’s sake, never, ever trust an author.

You have been warned.

‘These prawns are delicious, aren’t they?’

Nod your head. Agree, cautiously, that they do, indeed, seem delicious.

‘So, what did you think of my opening statement?’

Look down at your notebook. What does one say to a man whose father murdered a woman in mistake for his mother, and then tried to murder the mother, too?

‘It was good, wasn’t it? Chief Inspector, what did you make of my speech?’

Detective Chief Inspector (Retired) Nicholas Blake is busy wiping the inside of his Babycham glass with a finger of brown bread. He has a dribble of pink mayonnaise on his chin. Try not to look at it as he talks.

‘You certainly have a flair for storytelling, Lord Verreman. However, we policemen prefer our prose a little less purple, if I may put it that way.’

‘Ah, yes. Your style is more, “At six h-ack h-emma, I was proceeding in a northerly direction.” That’s the stuff that we have come to expect from His Majesty’s constabulary, is it not?’

‘Not quite. We have moved on a little since Inspector Lestrade, you know.’

‘Oh, I do hope not, Chief Inspector. I do hope not.’

The policeman laughs.

‘Perhaps you can give us your first impressions of the case. You spoke to my mother that night, I believe?’

Detective Chief Inspector Blake clears his throat and examines his fingernails for a moment, as if considering whether to speak. An affectation. Then he takes a deep breath, lays his hands flat upon the table and begins. ‘Early hours of the

following morning, to be precise. Lady Verreman had received some pretty severe head wounds which needed to be stitched, and she had lost a fair amount of blood. She had been sedated when we finally got to see her, but she was able to give us a brief account of what occurred. Not too dissimilar to your own account. You have taken one or two liberties with the truth, perhaps, but, on balance, I would say you were pretty fair.

‘We went back the following morning, naturally, and she was able to give us a little more detail. I must say that what impressed me most about Lady Verreman’s testimony was that her account never altered. Even from that first interview under sedation. I consider that very convincing.

‘After speaking to Lady Verreman that morning, we were immediately able to issue, not a warrant for Lord Verreman’s arrest, not at that stage, but an alert for him as a missing person. It was felt by some, even at that early stage, that we needed to tread carefully. Lord Verreman was a peer of the realm, after all. But Lady Verreman told us that she had been attacked by her husband and that he had rushed at her from behind, coming from the hall cloakroom, raining blows on her head. It is a miracle that she wasn’t killed, too. It was clear that we needed to speak to Lord Verreman as a matter of urgency.

‘Officers were at the house within forty minutes, having obviously attended, in the first instance, at the public house, where the call had come from. They were forced to break open the door but, as you know, Lord Verreman had already fled.

‘An officer and a sergeant checked the ground floor, noting, of course, the very large patch of blood in the hall, an obvious site of attack, and then they proceeded to check the upper floors. On the top floor they found one minor child, awake and standing next to his bed.’

‘That would be me,’ says David.

‘That, as you say, would be you. There were, er, no other

children in the house. Officers then returned to the ground floor, where the sergeant noticed, in passing, so to speak, a white object, which he took to be the leg off a child’s doll, lying on the hall floor. The two officers then proceeded down to the basement, which was in darkness, where they discovered the body of Mrs Sally Gardner inside a bloodstained canvas sack. My sergeant opened the bag and took out one arm, to check that life was extinct, but other than that, he did not disturb the body further.

‘They then proceeded into the back garden, which led off the basement, the door to which was unlocked. The garden was surrounded on all sides with very high walls, all of which were covered with moss and ivy and climbing roses. It is extremely unlikely that anyone could have left that way, and certainly they could not have done so without leaving a mark.

‘There was also a basement door to the street. Lady Verreman stated that it was used only to take out rubbish and was otherwise kept locked at all times, and my officers found it to be both locked and bolted from the inside.

‘They tested a lightbulb that was left lying on a chair in the breakfast room, and it was found to be in perfect working order. Obviously, samples were taken from the scene for the forensics team to examine. There were only two other pieces of evidence of any note. The first was the bloody towel which had been laid over the pillow in Lady Verreman’s bedroom. And the second, of course, was the dolly’s leg.’

Silence around the table. The policeman gives a satisfied little smile to himself but is not prepared to let the moment slide away without its due appreciation.

David Verreman supplies it. ‘The dolly’s leg? Whatever do you mean, Chief Inspector?’

Blake waits a little longer.

‘Oh, do tell! We’re all properly agog.’

– Agog.

‘We are beside ourselves with anticipation. Do tell us about the dolly’s leg!’

Blake laughs. ‘Well, milord, you will recall that the sergeant noticed, quite automatically, as you might say, what he took to be the leg off a dolly. It was white, and sort of bent into a leg shape, and could perhaps have come off a porcelain doll, or summat like that.’

‘Go on, Chief Inspector. You’re teasing us now. I feel sure that you have something perfectly thrilling up your sleeve.’

– Let’s hope so.

‘Yes, milord. Well, when the officer returned to the hall, which as you will recall had been the site of the attack on Lady Verreman, he happened to glance at the dolly’s leg again. And it had changed colour!’

C HAP t ER 5

The Case of the Foot-Loose Doll

‘Here is one top boot, but there is no sign of the other.’

‘Well, and what of that?’

‘It proves that they strangled him, while he was taking his boots off. He hadn’t time to take the second boot off when . . .’

– Anton

Chekhov, The Safety Match

‘Changed colour, Chief Inspector? Whatever do you mean?’

‘Yes, milord. Whereas before it had been pure white, now it was blood-red!’

The policeman sits back in his chair with a small smile. He is pleased with himself.

‘Well, I’ll bite, Chief Inspector,’ says David Verreman. ‘How did the doll’s leg change colour, and what possible connection is there between a dolly’s leg and a brutal murder?’

The smile gets bigger. ‘Well, milord, you see, on closer inspection, it turned out not to be the leg from a porcelain doll at all. What it was, in actual fact, was a length of lead piping, wrapped around, along the whole of its length, in white sticking plaster. In short, it was a blunt instrument and, as we later confirmed, the blunt instrument. By which I mean the murder weapon!’

‘Good gracious,’ says David Verreman. Is he humouring him? Mocking him? Maybe a little of both. ‘But the colour, Chief

Inspector? Damn it all, even murder weapons don’t change colour mid-murder, do they?’

The policeman chuckles. ‘You wouldn’t think so, would you. I wonder if anyone can guess.’

The policeman looks around the room again, and, gratified, is about to reveal the answer when, from the bottom of the table, Jeff, who has been straining to speak for some time, suddenly bursts out, ‘What I want to know, is—’

‘Not yet, Jeff,’ says David Verreman, hurriedly. ‘There will be plenty of time for questions later. This is a game, after all.’

– Write them down.

‘Yes, if you have thoughts, or questions, or theories, do please write them down. Detective Chief Inspector Blake has given us a conundrum. While we mull that over, why don’t we ask Aunty Caro for a bit of background on Lady Verreman? Carolyn Keene-Wade is my mother’s sister. I’m sure she won’t mind me saying that they were not close. At the inquest, the press criticized Aunty Caro because she sat with my father’s family rather than with my mother. Mother sat on her own, ramrod-straight, between our father’s family and Sally’s family. But she looked only at the coroner, and neither spoke to nor acknowledged anyone else. The gulf between them was a narrow one, as they say, but it was infinitely deep.’

– So, with that ringing endorsement, we give you the statement of Carolyn Keene-Wade.

Carolyn Keene- Wade stands. She shrugs her shoulders – indifferent, almost – and waves her hand, as if to say, Who cares? When she speaks, she speaks briskly, as one who does not shirk her duty, despite any unpleasantness it may occasion, and despite her inability to comprehend why anyone would care. She begins her speech with a sigh.

‘There really isn’t much to tell. Antonia was my sister. We were never really close, although I believe that it was not for

want of trying on my part. My sister was always a little peculiar. She looked so tiny and delicate and fragile, all the men she met thought that she was in need of their protection. More fool them, because she really wasn’t like that at all.

‘My sister was always a terribly jealous person. She was jealous of me because she thought I was my father’s favourite. It wasn’t true, I don’t think. It was just that I was younger, and so, of course, I needed more attention. Antonia was never the sort of child who liked to be cuddled, unless she saw me sitting on Daddy’s knee. Then she would cry until he cuddled her too.

‘I think the trouble started when I got married. You see, my husband is rather wealthy. As children, we had never been poor, despite what Antonia would tell people, but we did not grow up with lots of money. My sister saw what I had and decided that, at all costs, she would make a better marriage than me. If I had a rich man, she would have an aristocrat.

‘I must say she dropped lucky when she met John Verreman. Not just because he was “in the stud book”, as she used to say, but because he was not a cad. He was quite taken in by her lost little kitten act and was as surprised as anything when he woke up the morning after his wedding to find that he had married a tiger.

‘My sister kept a newspaper clipping of their wedding from the society pages. They were very photogenic. The paper said that they were “a golden couple”. Antonia liked that very much. Other men would have cut their losses after a year or two, but Johnny stuck with it. He tried his best to make a go of it. But it was never going to work, of course.

‘John was a gambler. Even away from the gaming tables, he loved to take risks. He raced powerboats, climbed and so on. He even, I believe, did the bobsleigh at one point. My sister was not a risk-taker. On the contrary. She weighed everything like a chess player, considered every move, and all their permutations, before

making the simplest decision. She found the ebb and flow of their finances intolerable. I do know that she started to salt money away almost from the moment that they were married, although whether she was saving for a two- man canoe or a single-person scull, I’m not sure. She took ridiculous amounts of pleasure in padding the housekeeping bills and pocketing the difference, though I doubt John even noticed. Her husband had many faults, but lack of generosity was not one of them.

‘I think that they were reasonably happy for the first few years. She had provided him with an heir, something that weighed far more heavily with her than him, I believe. He was quite blasé about his aristocratic background, which annoyed my sister no end.

‘But all through her life Antonia had periods of mental illness, and as the marriage deteriorated, her condition worsened. John was worried about her. He tried, many times, to get her the help she needed. My sister could appear completely rational, you know. And she somehow managed to convey the impression to her doctor that her husband was browbeating her. Worse. That she was afraid of him.

‘In reality, I think that he was afraid of her. And if he wasn’t, he should have been. Antonia always felt that she was being whispered about, that people didn’t like her. All nonsense. When her marriage broke down, the paranoia increased, and I suspect that at some point she also began to drink.

‘She was obsessed with John. She hated him, but she loved him too. She couldn’t leave him alone. She trailed after him everywhere. Even down to the club. It was embarrassing. People laughed at her, but she didn’t care. She was afraid that if she left him alone for a moment, some other woman would get her claws into him.

‘That’s it, really. It’s all very sad. She was my sister, but I hardly knew her. I don’t believe that anyone did. Her marriage

was the greatest triumph of her life. She had made it into the stud book. She knew Burke’s Peerage inside out. She knew exactly what was due to her rank, and she insisted on it. No one ever got away with calling her Mrs Verreman. The end of the marriage was an unthinkable disaster. She told John over and over again that she would never divorce him.

‘And, in the end, of course, she was right. Though he disappeared, he was still her husband. It was the ideal situation for her. He couldn’t divorce her if he couldn’t be found. She wiped the unfortunate murder of a young woman in the basement from her mind. Sally Gardner was just a minor obstacle on the road to their everlasting love.

‘In my sister’s mind, you see, they were the Golden Couple right to the end.’

Carolyn Keene- Wade sits down, and David Verreman applauds. ‘Wonderful, wonderful, Aunty Caro. Poignant and perceptive, with just the right amount of bile. Like only a sister could, eh?’

Carolyn lifts her glass in acknowledgement and goes back to her prawns.

‘I think we will have just one more before the next course, shall we?’

– Can we make it a short one? I’m starving. I need meat.

‘How about Mr Stanley Gardner, the estranged husband of the deceased. Will you tell us what you know, sir?’

Mr Gardner stands up, and immediately puts a finger down the edge of his shirt collar and runs it around his neck, to give his vocal cords a bit of breathing room. His hands are sweaty, and he leaves a damp mark on the light blue fabric of his collar.

‘Yes, well, er, I thank you for the invite to this dinner, not that we’ve tasted a morsel yet, barring a handful of scrawny shrimps, and my insides are fair flapping, as they say.

‘Well, now, I identified the body of my wife at the police

station, and again at the inquest. But other than that, I don’t have much to tell you and, honestly, I can’t for the life of me understand why I keep being asked about it. Sally and me, we married young. Bloody silly, really, but we were in love, or thought we were.

‘But I was in the Merchant Navy and that meant being away from home for months at a time. Sally said she was OK with that, but you can’t never tell about those things. Not until you try it. So, we tried it, and it turned out that she wasn’t quite so keen on it after all.

‘Sally was what you would call vivacious. She liked a party. And dancing. And giggling and going out with a fella on the night-time. All that razzmatazz. Wasn’t her fault, she wasn’t to know what it would be like, sitting at home night after night when everyone else was out having a good time. But I knew. I knew what it was like, and I should have known it wasn’t for her.

‘But then, I was in love too, I dare say. I forgave the first time. She was sorry, and we made the best of it. But after the second time, that was it. A fella couldn’t be made a fool of. It wasn’t just the affairs though. We’d both done a bit of growing up by that time and realized that we’d just been bits of kids and foolish.

‘So, we separated, and Sally went her own way after that. I did hear that she’d got a job working among the nobs, and, tell you the truth, I thought that was pretty funny because she didn’t strike me that way at all. Just the opposite, in fact.

‘But what do I know? We’d been separated about a year by then, and people change, don’t they? No doubt we would have divorced eventually, but, with being away so much, I didn’t get around to it. It didn’t bother me, and I suspect it didn’t bother her none either.

‘I’m just speculating here, but the Sally I knew didn’t want to be tied down, and what better reason is there for not going

steady with a chap than a husband in the wings? Maybe I’m wrong, but I reckon our Sally was not made for monogamy. She was a fine woman, for all that, and I liked her.

‘That’s all I have to say about the matter. I know nothing of these Verremans. I met old Lady Verreman once at the coroner’s court, and that was enough for me. Cold as a fish she was, and I had no desire to get better acquainted. No offence to any family members who may be present.

‘That’s it, except to say that if, by concluding, my actions hurry along the main course, I will now put my arse upon my chair and a seal upon my gob. I am done.’

And there you have it. The first three witness statements. What do you notice?

How about the rank stereotyping? Take poor old Stanley Gardner. He’s a merchant seaman. So, he must be a working-class kind of guy, right?

How do we know?

The author of a detective novel doesn’t need you to know. The author of a detective novel is concerned only with the detective. The detective is the only fully fleshed-out character. He has quirks and idiosyncrasies galore. Even a few outright character flaws. He is the opium-smoking, violin-playing chess master. He is exceedingly neat or excessively messy. He drinks too much alcohol, or he drinks only coffee. He wears a deerstalker hat, or a twirly moustache. Whatever.

You are our detective. Your character flaws are now lovable eccentricities.

Insert lovable eccentricity here:

Our characters will have some flesh on their bones. We will differentiate them at least. Perhaps we will give one a glass eye and