The Writer (25 page)

“You’ve been working on a
novel in your spare time, Dan?” Greg asked, not paying too much
attention to the pages because he was worried that he might have to
read it for him. There were not many things he had learned in his
life, but reading drafts from aspiring unpublished novelists was
one that he knew to avoid.

“This is the work of two
suspects in the Gendry murder.”

“They both trying to put the
blame on the other? No kidding?” Greg asked as he reluctantly
picked up a page and tried to make head or tale of it. “What’s
their stories about?”

“Which ones? The real ones
or the …”

“The ones in the story. You
said they were stories in their stories?”

“The girl is writing about
the guy, who is writing about her. And they are writing about them
writing.”

“So, they know they’re
writing about each other?”

“No, I didn’t say that. The
characters in their books, they’re also writing.”

“That’s what I’m asking. You
are saying they have both written stories about each other writing
a story? And in these stories they have more stories?”

“I guess I am saying that,
yeah. That’s making me feel dizzy.”

“Meaning there’s four
stories going on? Or is it a continuous thing, into infinity? One
writes about the other writing, who’s writing about them writing,
and so on, and on.”

“Thinking about that is
where my brain starts to go real fuzzy.”

“I knew that when you said
about
Dark Side of the Moon
. The film you mean is
The
Wizard of Oz
.”

“It is? Well, I never
checked it out myself, see if it’s true or not.” Dan sat back in
his chair and put his hands over his face. The change of thought
was not doing him any good.

“Yeah, I did,” chuckled
Greg. “Helps if you’re drunk, if you want to see any connection
between them. I don’t know what they’re thinking; Floyd fans, that
is. Or your suspects, for that matter.”

“You don’t believe in
supernatural phenomenon?”

“Only on the sporting
field,” Greg said as he placed the page back down on the desk and
went to fill up his coffee cup. “Especially when I’ve got my pay
check in any way involved with it. If I’ve got money riding on a
team, the other team gets some strong supernatural forces to
conspire to rob me. My advice is, just throw what you got there all
into one of those files that forever sit on the bottom of a dark
cabinet and chalk it up as one of those unexplained paranormal
oddities. That’s my advice, and at this time of the morning, you’re
lucky it’s for free.”

“Can’t do that. Can’t just
go dropping it. They’re both describing my murder case.”

“Your case? Wasn’t the
Gendry murder Dale’s? Wasn’t that hit-and-run?”

“‘
Could’ve’ Moore put it on
me.”

“Then arrest them, the
authors. Both of them. Put them in the hole and beat it out of
them. Sounds like one of them knows something they shouldn’t. Or
maybe they both do.”

“Arrest them for what? Bad
writing?”

“One of them knows
something, and probably both of them do. They got together and
thought they were real clever.”

“Need something more than
that. Need a hook.”

“Tell you what: I’ll help
you.”

“How are you thinking of
helping me?”

“For a start, look for any
similarities in their stories. That’ll show they
conspired.”

Dan stopped and realised.
“You know, you’re right. I did notice something.” He grabbed some
pages and was disappointed to see how out of order they were. “To
do that I’ll have to read through them both again.”

“I’ll give it a read, if you
want.”

“Hands off. No offence,
Gregory, but it’s up to me to get to the bottom of it. Tell you
what: you want to help? Go get some breakfast for me. Make it two.
I couldn’t be more hungry.”

“You haven’t had breakfast
yet?”

“Yeah, but that was an hour
ago, nearly.”

Dan was trying to explain
his newest theory to Benny Taylor, who wasn’t getting it. They were
having an early lunch in a small sandwich place before the usual
lunchtime crowd came invading. Benny was amazed at how many pies
Dan was making his way through. It didn’t matter how hot they were,
or if the steak and cheese had too many gristly bits, or the cheese
in the mince and cheese was too strong. All he needed was a large
dab of ketchup on the top and he was away. It was easy for anyone
to notice how fat his face was looking lately, but Benny was too
smart to say anything. Such comments needed to wait until other
police were within hearing range, for better effect.

“Something ties Sophie to
Max,” Dan pondered, not noticing that he spat some small pieces of
pastry, “and that something has a name, which is Craigfield. And
somehow that leads to Longbottom. Who this Craigfield is, I don’t
know. The only one in our records is a Craigfield Johnson, but I
can’t track him down. How odd is that, that we can’t track him
down?”

“If you can’t prove it, then
forget it,” said Benny. “Do yourself a favour and forget it ever
existed. No Craigfield, no book, no granddaughter in Gendry, no Max
writing about her. Can you do that?”

“The killer of Longbottom
would want me to, sure.”

“You can’t go saying that.
You can’t get personal with this job. You know that, right? Soon as
you start dwelling too much on the details, then you’re too wrapped
up in it, and before you know it you’re believing all kinds of
crazy theories.”

“Too late, I’m already in
too deep. You can’t just say, ‘No murder,’ and it goes away. You
know that as well as I do. They’re laughing at me.”

“Who’s laughing at you?”
Benny asked, thinking someone had joked about his weight problem
and he missed it.

“Sophie, Max, Craigfield;
all three. What kind of a name is
Craigfield
anyway? He
should be arrested just for that. Why can’t we find him? What’s
that all about? We can find anyone, but not this guy?”

Benny sat back in his chair
and looked at his watch.

“We can be sure Craigfield
and Max have a history,” Dan continued, ignoring Benny’s
disinterest. “Just place a nice bet on that one. That’s done. Home
and hosed. By a length. What we don’t know is the connection of
Sophie and Craigfield—heck, that name’s bugging me. I’m calling him
Johnson from now on.”

“If that’s the same
Craigfield Johnson, and if that’s his real surname,” Benny
smirked.

“And we don’t know the
connection to Longbottom,” Dan continued. It wasn’t that he was
ignoring Benny, it was more that he was on a roll. He loved being
on a roll, when his mind could put all the pieces together and he
could throw out the distractions and false leads and realise the
criminal in the crowd. “It’s there. I can smell it, you know? It’s
there. Staring me in the face and I just can’t see it. It’s
laughing at me; all smug, thinking it won’t be seen. This is not
going to beat me. You know it’s not going to beat me. Craigfield
can hide from our computer—
Johnson
can hide, I mean, but he
can’t hide from me.”

“You don’t think you might
need a break on this one?” Benny asked, now concerned for his
friend.

The waitress walked up with
a fresh coffee pot and asked if they wanted refills. Dan most
certainly did. And three more pies. His roll needed to be
fuelled.

He had them in his world
now. They were far away from the light fiction of their books, from
their cosy little apartments, their folksy little town, their
typewriters and computers. Now they were in Dan’s two interrogation
rooms; Sophie in one and Max in another and neither knew the other
were there. That was how he started, and he would work his
questions to find the truth. At the exact right time they would
realise the other was in the neighbouring room, and they had heard
the exact same questions. Dan could tell them whatever he wanted.
They said that. They said this. Why do you think that is, Sophie?
Say, Max, why did Sophie say that about you? It was especially
pleasing that both had come in under the guise of helping their
case, so neither had a lawyer.

Sophie was the first to face
Dan’s questions. He started mild and polite, as was his norm, and
then build up the anger. In truth, what was harder than hiding his
real emotions was the fight to not think about his hunger. It was
not very intimidating to grill a suspect while eating the ham and
lettuce roll that he had hidden in his inside jacket
pocket.

“Tell me about the guy in
your story,” Dan said to Sophie with an inquiring tone. He was
standing near to the only table in the room. Sophie was sitting
with her arms resting on the table. Her hands were clasped and
fingers fidgeted. Near to her was a large white file with no name
on it but full of papers. It was untouched and Max guessed that she
thought it was her story.

“Max Marshall,” he said
again. “Can you tell me about him?”

“You’ve been reading my
story? I’m flattered, of course, but confused as to why you would
want to. It’s just a rough draft, and I probably wasn’t going to do
much else with it anyway. Now, I’m certainly not. I told you to
keep it, or throw it away, or whatever. I’m certainly not going to
use it, not now.”

“But you do know Max? How
well do you know him?”

“Of course I don’t know him.
He’s just a character in my story.”

“You seem to know an awful
lot about him, the real Max, I mean. His wife Jill? Got that pretty
close. His friend Craigfield? Like you knew him too. Tell me about
Craigfield.”

“These are just characters
in my book, as I’ve explained. They’re not real and they’re not
meant to be real. I don’t know any of them personally, if that’s
what you’re suggesting. Are you suggesting that? I told you, I just
used the name, and I‘m sorry he turned out to be real.”

“And his wife’s
name?”

“Max’s wife is named
Jill?”

“You also got his profession
right too. How did you manage that?”

She looked worried. “I don’t
know. You say he’s famous? Maybe I heard about him once and his
name stayed with me; I don’t know. Am I in trouble here? You’re not
telling me there’s some law that I can’t write about people if
they’re real, are you?”

“Tell me about
Craigfield.”

“He’s a fictitious character
in my story. Like all of them. Or are you telling me he’s real too?
I can’t believe that.”

“Where did you get the
name?”

“I made it up.”

“You invented the name? He’s
not based on a real person? Someone you met?”

“I’ve never met anyone with
that name.”

“What were your plans for
this story?”

“My plans? What’s the plan
of anyone who writes? I just wanted to write.”

“You don’t have a publisher
or a deal? You just wanted to write a story without knowing if
anyone will read it? Why would you do that?”

“A publishing deal? That’s
only for actual published authors.”

“Sorry but I can’t see why
anyone would want to go to that much effort if they thought no one
would ever read it.”

“With that advice, no one
would write anything. But you know what? I wish I hadn’t, if this
is what it gets me.”

Dan left it at that, for
now. He wanted her to sit and think about what she said, while he
went to see his other guest. Along the way he grabbed a cream roll
from the fridge, where he had placed a whole bag that morning. He
was no down to two. He was partly surprised that no one else had
helped themselves to any of the rolls, but that was because he did
not realise how wild he was looking when he was eating them. He
would have preferred to have the ham and lettuce roll that was in
his pocket, but that would mean trying to conceal a cream roll, and
he had learned from experience not to do that again.

Max’s room was identical to
Sophie’s but he was more relaxed, leaning back in his chair and
tapping at the table leg with his foot. He too had a white folder
on his desk, and like Sophie, it had not been touched. Dan would
need to check the video later to see if he tried to take a peek,
but it looked like he had not. To leave it untouched was a sure
sign of guilt. No innocent person would be able to resist looking
at it when they were left alone for a good half hour, as Max
was.

“How well do you know Sophie
Trent?” Dan asked him as soon as he opened the door. His tone was
harsher than when he was with Sophie.

“I know no one by that
name,” Max said, appearing bored and not moving a muscle. “Can you
tell me what I’m doing here, please, Dan?”

“You’re here to discuss your
book,” Dan said as he finished off the cream roll and grabbed one
of the two spare chairs. “Quite an enjoyable read it is,
too.”

“My book?” Max asked with
interest that gave him life. He sat forward and looked at Dan like
he was one of his fans. “Which one is that you mean?”