“It’s very . . .” I hunted for the word, shot it out of the sky. “Memorable. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, what’s this I hear about you and Alan thinking Henry’s death was suspicious?”
This was much more comfortable ground for me. “I think the circumstances invite a certain level of inquiry. And I think a lot of people had reasons to dislike McTavish.”
“A lot of people?”
“Well, everyone.”
She turned away from the tracks and sized me up. “Me?”
I hesitated. “I heard McTavish was an old flame.”
Her hands kneaded the grate. “More a candle than a bonfire. It was very short-lived.”
“You left an impression on him, though—he gave you that blurb. And you were the only one to skip his panel the next morning.”
“It’s all been a bit overwhelming.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m glad I sat it out.”
“It was gruesome. You’re lucky you missed it.”
“Good research, I suppose.”
“I wish people would stop saying that.”
She was fiddling with the filter of her cigarette now, clearly uncomfortable, but she hadn’t yet left. It was like she wanted me to ask her something. Like Jasper’s truth: desperate, in a way, to get out. Or she wanted to see how much I knew. I was happy to play that game.
“Royce heard you in McTavish’s room last night.”
Lisa snorted. “Royce is a drunk.”
“So you weren’t in his room? Majors I doubt he’d let in. Harriet’s got an Irish accent, Cynthia and Brooke are too young, and Simone’s too loud. I have a feeling even an inebriated Royce hasn’t mixed up all those voices.”
She was silent.
I took the burned check out of my pocket and showed it to her. “I wonder if this is about enough to buy an endorsement?”
Lisa laughed it off, but I could tell she was a little surprised. “If you think I’m earning enough from book sales to ladle out twenty-five grand on a blurb, you are barking. Besides, that amount wouldn’t even flutter Henry’s heart.”
“Maybe there’s other ways to pay.”
She made a sour face. “You got that from Royce, didn’t you?”
I stared at the tracks. I had indeed recycled that from Royce, and it felt nasty on my tongue even as I said it. “Yeah, I’m sorry. That’s not me. You want to tell me something though, that’s why you followed me out here. And you’re the first person to practically ask me to question them. Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions. What is it you want to tell me?”
This was a better tactic. She took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill him,” she said. “But tomorrow you’re going to think I did. And I guess I just wanted to say that to somebody. I assume you’re writing this down for a book. Will you put it in, exactly like that?”
“What’s going to happen tomorrow?”
“That would be the wrong question.”
“But you were in his room?”
“If it’ll make you happy, yes, I went there to thank him—with words—for his endorsement. Royce was bashing on the door so I had to stay there until the two of you left. That’s it.”
I considered for a second. “You didn’t hit him? There were bloodied tissues in the bin.”
“No.”
“Let me pose a scenario. You go to his room to thank him for the endorsement, with words.” She nodded. “But maybe words aren’t enough. Maybe McTavish wants a different sort of thanks. We all know what he was like. Maybe he grabs you by the arm, firmly enough to leave a bruise, right there, just above the elbow. Maybe you crack him in the nose. It’s not murder. So why hide it? Am I close?”
She turned to go. I reached out to her but stopped myself. I didn’t want to be the man who grabbed at women. “I believe you,” I said. That turned her on her own. “McTavish was a sleaze. Whatever you’re worried about tomorrow, maybe we can get ahead of it? Help each other?”
She didn’t answer, but I could tell she was grinding her teeth by the wriggle in her cheek.
“You’ve got legal expertise—that actually might come in handy.”
That cracked a glimmer of teeth. An almost smile. “Is that what you’ve been doing? Royce on forensics? Majors on profiling? Me on law? Wolfgang on, what, being an asshole? All our specialties combined into one super detective? Like a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger?”
I blushed. “Sounds stupid when you put it like that.”
“It is stupid. We’re writers. I haven’t practiced law in . . . Hang on, what’s Majors’s profile of me, exactly?”
“Jilted lover,” I said.
Don’t worry, your memory’s not dodgy and you haven’t skipped any pages. Majors hadn’t given me a profile of Lisa. I thought I could provoke a reaction if I made one up. It worked.
“Selfish piece of—” Lisa seethed. “Don’t listen to her. She’s got it in for me.”
“Why didn’t you back her up about Edinburgh?”
Lisa was so incensed, she had forgotten I was probing. “I couldn’t, and she knows that. Jeez. It’s not like she was on the witness stand. A year later when Off the Rails comes out”—she snapped her fingers—“suddenly it’s my problem. This is ridiculous.” She looked back at me. “I didn’t kill Henry. People only kill for one reason: love. I didn’t love him. Far from it.”
“People kill for two reasons,” I said. “Love and money.”
She shook her head. “Maybe people kill for the love of money. But it all comes down to love.” She opened the door. The warm light of the carriages spilled onto the deck and gave us a better view of the tracks rushing under us. “Hell, like you say, everyone’s got a motive. Maybe everyone did it.”
“I think that’s been done before.”
“Nothing beats a classic.” She closed the door behind her.
Chapter 24
It would be a cliché and untrue to say my bed felt empty without Juliette, seeing as it was a bunk bed.
But there was something missing all the same. She’d left in such a hurry, or was so keen to avoid me, that she hadn’t come back on the train to collect her things. Her clothes still hung on the hangers, her toothbrush still by the sink. The cabin felt deserted in both senses of the word.
I procrastinated before bed, neatly folding her clothes and zipping up the bag, laying it on the top bunk. I resisted the urge to check the pockets for any small vials. I wanted to, but her words hung heavy in my mind—Even for a second. Even that it crossed your mind. That’s enough.
My phone’s reception had continued to deteriorate, and by this point clung to a thread. I sent a text to Juliette. And an email. And another text.
Then I tried to squeeze some backstory googling in. I know, it’s lazy detecting. But cut me some slack. Mystery writers these days always have to find a way to take away their crime-solvers’ phones because otherwise the reader sits there the whole time thinking, Google it! My Golden Age compatriots didn’t have to work around this, there was no Oh no, Sherlock Holmes can’t access his Encyclopaedia Britannicas because someone lost the key to the library!
I started, because I was losing faith in Royce’s medical pedigree, with the symptoms of heroin overdoses. Google begrudgingly (or perhaps that was just me) confirmed the symptoms in Royce’s favor. Next I searched for “Henry McTavish limp,” which didn’t get me much (except for reviews of his second book, his worst received, where limp was used adjectivally), and then for details of his accident, which proved more fruitful. An image of an unrecognizable, purple-faced and heavily bandaged McTavish shuddered onto my phone screen like it was an incoming fax. Surgeons had to almost entirely re-skin his leg. This was in 2004, between the publication of his second and third novels. How had Simone put his writing of the third novel? Kidney stones. Recovering from an accident like that, though, no wonder it had been tough.