Thirty-Three
Polly Slaughter knittedone, slip stitched, and started another row. The wool felt cozy and warm in her lap. She pondered a question she returned to often: If her name had been Love, would she have written romance? She came to her usual answer: No, she didn’t think so. She’d just been lucky enough to be born with a name that fitted what she was good at—writing crime.
Fifty-something books, fifty-something million sold. Polly had done well for herself. She hadn’t planned on retiring, but the books had stopped coming. Why? Her readers would buy anything with her name on it. She could write a whodunit in her sleep. Put a group of characters in a location, have a murder, the investigation begins, suspects accumulate, lead the audience in the direction of one, then hit them with a twist. Maybe the suspect gets arrested but another person dies. That usually does the trick. Then up the stakes, perhaps put the chief investigator in danger right before they reveal all. Wrap up your B and C plots, maybe afinal twist, then have your investigator say they’re leaving the game but hint that they’ll always be ready for the next case, paving a path for the next book in the series.
But Polly had stumbled upon a new obsession: morphine. She’d had a hip operation a couple of years ago and lay in her private hospital room with her own button that topped her up with morphine whenever she wanted it. Polly had never taken drugs, but this stuff was delicious. She’d thought she’d led a good life—money and adulation, a family who loved her. Now she wondered if she’d wasted it, if the junkie on the park bench had had a better time than her.
Once she was out of the hospital, Polly decided that continuing to feed her new enthusiasm for opiates on tap would be unhealthy and, crucially, could require an awful lot of life admin. For Polly Slaughter, getting in touch with Patricia Cornwell was easy, but finding a reliable heroin dealer was a tougher ask. Instead, she’d managed to meet someone who gave her a steady supply of cannabis. A far lower risk of encountering the law or becoming the first winner of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award to die with a belt strapped around their arm and a couple of milligrams of smack in their blood.
So she embraced her new weed-fueled lifestyle, but writing was a stretch. She couldn’t get the words onto the page. Now she maintained a buzz, Winston Churchill–style, but the buzz was foggy, and she couldn’t write with it. Knitting. That was the right activity for her. Most days she’d find a nice spot somewhere in the home and knit, letting a lovely, fuzzy wash of numbness fill her up.
—
Carol hadn’t beento the library before and wasn’t sure where it was. On the ground floor, by the lift, was a corridor she’d never ventured down. The walls were oak paneled. This was the part of the building’s interior that felt most like a stately home. Behind the first set of doors she came to, she heard a high-pitched squeak that repeated itself once every second or so, as if a smoke alarm’s battery was running low. Carol tentatively opened the big door to discover the noise was coming from the mouth of Belinda, who was sprawled on a snooker table with Marco on top of her. Her flushed face peered out from behind Marco’s back.
“I think you’ll find we have this room booked until five.”
Carol made her apologies and left them to it.
When she found the library behind the next door along the corridor, the only person in there was Polly, who sat in a brown leather chair, knitting, not talking to anyone. Sad, really. Three times her size, the chair swallowed Polly. She looked like an unsuspecting squirrel in the mouth of a giant bear.
The setting felt like the right place for an elderly thriller writer. It was the oldest-looking room in the building. Tall, dark oak bookshelves, table lamps with green shades—the sort of place an Agatha Christie murder might occur.
Carol sat in the armchair beside her and dropped a pile of books onto the coffee table with athunk. She started going through them one by one, reading out the titles.
“Murder at the Nunnery,Murder at the Quarry,Murder at the Fun Fair,Murder at the Shoe Shop,Murder at the Allotment,Murder at the Department of Sanitation,Murder at the Chiropodist…You’ve written an awful lot of books, Polly, but there’s one missing—Murder at the Retirement Home.”
Polly looked at Carol with a contented smile. “Everything all right, dear? You seem agitated.”
Carol was thrown. She’d come in hard but received a strangely placid reaction. Was this senility? Plow on regardless.
“You know a lot about murder, Polly…”
“Not as much as you do, dear.”
“I do,” said Carol. “I know that only seven percent of murders are committed by women.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Men, they’ll kill anyone if you give them half a chance. I was the same, if I’m honest with myself. Bit of a tomboy, but women in general? Do you know who they’re most likely to kill?”
“Let me think.” Polly paused, enjoying the quiz question. “Their spouse?”
“That’s right, Polly.”
Polly smiled. Carol continued: “Their spouse or, and this is the key,their ex-spouse.”
Polly set her knitting on her lap.
“What are you knitting, Polly?”
“A scarf.”
“Who for?”
“A friend.”
“Do you mind if I take a look?”
