Coffee:
An eager-eyed, spindly-limbed man, somewhere in his forties, whose shoulders had an IT worker’s computer hunch that threatened to swallow his head like a tortoiseshell, was surveying the room, pointing out each writer to a woman. The woman had her curly hair in a messy bun, two tendrils hanging beside her cheeks like a picture frame, and I assumed she was his similarly aged wife by her obliging yet uncaring nod, as if he were explaining to her the backstories of Star Wars figurines. He was an easy addition to the fan category.
A woman who looked far too young to enjoy or afford such a trip stirred a spoon idly through her cappuccino while reading a paperback copy of Stephen King’s Misery. I assumed at first she must have been a university student but gave her the benefit of the doubt of having a youthful face and landed on thinking she was probably a graduate publicist, because she’d chosen a work-safe nonalcoholic option and was wearing a T-shirt that said A nod’s as guid as a wink tae a blind horse, which associated her directly with McTavish’s Detective Morbund novels.
A short, stocky man wearing colorful suspenders, definitely a writer based on the quirky outfit alone, but also because he was scribbling in a notebook, was most likely Alan Royce.
And fitting into neither category was Wolfgang, standing on his own in a little alcove by the bar, holding a glass of blood-red wine that he kept sniffing unhappily.
I spied Juliette delicately carrying two rattling coffees back to our table. Of the remaining expected attendees, Simone hadn’t made the effort to attend—meet-and-greets not really being her style—which made Juliette’s bringing her scarf pointless. Neither could I see Henry McTavish. I was confident in my naming of both Alan Royce and Lisa Fulton as the ones keeping to themselves in groups of one or two and who, like me, had a look on their face that was half sizing up the rest of the room and half trying to decide if there was still time to leave the train.
I fear I’m going to break my own rule here. Mystery books like these are only fair if all the cards are on the table from the start, so to speak, and I haven’t managed to properly introduce everyone by my self-imposed limitation of the first ten thousand words, which is here. Someone important has just missed out.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Your book did well,” said a man in his sixties, not towering but tall enough to be looming over me in my hobbit seat, the same man who had patted his pockets on leaving his cabin. He was well dressed in a dinner jacket and leather shoes, an open collar and a loosened navy silk tie. His accent was imported—English—and he spoke with a belief that volume was equal to meaning. Which, for a man who seemed to believe everything he had to say was important, means loud.
I’ve found that people sometimes talk about how your book’s doing if they don’t want to give you a direct compliment. It sounds like a compliment, but it’s just an observation. There’s a difference between You look nice today and So I hear you’re a model, for example. I didn’t like the way he’d said it—almost leering, mocking.
“I’m very pleased it’s found an audience,” I said, choosing humility instead of matching his aggression. “I’m sorry”—I held out my hand—“I don’t think we’ve met?”
“You’re Simone’s boy, aren’t you?”
“Ernest,” I said, choosing not to be Simone’s property.
“Yeah. Ernest.” It was as if he was agreeing that my name was, in fact, what it was. He glanced around the carriage, muttering. His sentences had a way of cascading over one another, the oven between thought and speech undercooking everything: he spoke in first drafts. “Good numbers. Well published. She’s not here?”
I realized he was looking at her blue scarf, draped across the empty seat. He’d recognized it. “Oh. No, we’re giving that back to her.”
“Okay. Well, while I’m here . . .” He paused, leaned down and lowered his voice. “Look, I’d like to take the opportunity to apologize about our little . . . indiscretion.”
“I don’t think we’ve met.” I waved it off, confused. “No need for apologies.”
“I mean, it’s not polite. But it’s not really something we can police, you agree? And I figure we’re all adults. Right? And your book’s—well, it’s not for everybody. On the plus side, I’ve always been telling him to interact more online. So I guess this is a start.”
I still wasn’t sure what the apology was for, but this was certainly on the low end of apologies I’d accepted.
He sneezed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Allergies,” he said apologetically. It was a much better apology than the one he was trying to give.
“I’m really sorry, but”—I pointed to my chest—“I’m Ernest Cunningham, and my list of beefs is rather small. So unless you’re the guy who backed into my car two weeks ago, for which following me here would seem excessive for an apology, I think we’re probably square.” I noticed Juliette had been caught in conversation with Majors, and wished she’d hurry up and rescue me.
“Course. I should introduce myself.” He straightened his tie, sniffed again. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. If I’m honest, he looked like he was coming down off something, and not just a high horse. Finally he took my hand and shook it. “Wyatt Lloyd. I own Gemini Publishing. I publish—”
Suddenly there was a commotion from the bar. “It’s all-inclusive, isn’t it?” a man shouted in a vaguely Scottish accent. “If I want the bottle, just give me the bottle.”
I could only see the tweed-shouldered, heavyset back of the speaker, but the tone of the command, of someone quite used to asking people if they knew who he was, gave me an idea: here was the festival’s biggest draw, Henry McTavish.
“—I publish that,” Wyatt said, turning to the ruckus and raising his eyebrows. “You don’t have any antihistamines on you, do you?” He fossicked a small white packet from his pocket. “Jasper gave me these, but they’re rubbish.”
I looked at the branding. “Well, that’s because those are for seasickness, not hay fever.”
“Damn.” He sneezed again, then cocked his head back to the argument at the bar. “I better go sort it out. Glad we could smooth this over. And if you see Simone”—his head was on a swivel—“tell her I’m looking for her.”
Still having no idea what we’d smoothed over, I settled on smiling sagely, while feeling, admittedly, quite wrinkled. I felt more out of place than ever, because if I really belonged here, I should have known—as Simone had clearly expected—who Wyatt was. I did know Gemini Publishing was a big deal, based in the UK but with an Australian outfit. They’d pretty much built their business publishing McTavish. Their other authors—Royce, for one—had been dragged into prominence by association. And I now know that Wyatt, who’d discovered McTavish, had risen to co-own the company off the back of it. He had taken the time to come over and talk to me, and I’d responded by cracking jokes? By shrugging him off? I replayed the conversation in my head, feeling (irrationally, because I had my own publisher already) like I’d blown it somehow. I was clearly still figuring out how to play the social politics of being an author.
Wyatt strode off toward the hubbub, where McTavish had just slapped away the hand that a man in a red-camel-emblazoned vest had calmingly placed on his shoulder. I was left with a carriage full of writers and a now completed roll call. Suspects: check. Victims: check. Killer(s?): check.
Chapter 5
Juliette slid into her seat and sucked at her flat white with the relief and thirst of a traveler who’d just crossed the desert. “God,” she said. “I just had to lie to S. F. Majors. Said I’d almost finished her book.” She looked behind her to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. “And that I was enjoying it.”