Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

The caption read: Bestselling crime author Henry McTavish catches up with up-and-coming debut novelists Lisa Fulton (left) and S. F. Majors (right) at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The photo had been taken in a badly lit booth of a badly lit pub—which I mean literally, as according to my research the owner tried to burn it down for insurance purposes in 2015 and failed—but it was unmistakable. McTavish had his arm around Lisa’s shoulder, they were both laughing, and S. F. Majors was looking dead straight at the camera. All three had foaming pints of beer in front of them and vibrant, unforced smiles. It didn’t seem like they were posing for a newspaper; it had the sense of camaraderie you find in high school yearbooks that makes you wistful for youth.

The three of them, all at the same festival. Twenty years ago. There’s that phrase again. And now all on a train together. I knew not to take it lightly.

“Why are you showing me this?” I asked.

“Because if the best you’ve got is a couple of theories about why I’m capable of murder, I thought you’d want to know who actually had motive to kill him. This”—she stabbed a finger at the page—“was taken right after Henry published Knee-Deep in Trouble, the second Morbund novel, which tanked. And a year before he published . . .” She unspooled it for me.

“Off the Rails,” I finished. The third Morbund novel. What Brooke was trying to tell me clicked in slowly. “That’s the book that Majors brought up at the introductory panel. The one she said was based on real events.”

“Precisely! You see, she has claimed in the past that she first mentioned that story”—with each word, she plugged her finger right on Majors’s toothy grin—“at. This. Exact. Festival.”

I tried to make the picture flicker to life in my imagination. The clinking of glasses, the whispered gossip, the commiseration over reviews, the bashfulness around better-than-expected sales. A room of people who get it. Writing is a dream job, but it is a job, and sometimes it’s nice to be around people who share your opinion that the stakes of paper and ink are life and death. Writing is such a solitary act that a room full of communal misery is a tonic that many won’t admit is quite rejuvenating. Provided they’re not killing each other, of course.

A bunch of writers in a room requires a collective noun that the English language doesn’t have. A condolence, perhaps. A sympathy. It’s a war hospital for the written word.

I thought back to what I’d originally hoped this trip would be, my dream of hitting it off with McTavish. Now I pictured Lisa, McTavish and Majors huddled together, sharing their dreams and inspirations . . . and ideas.

What had Majors said at the panel? What color was Off the Rails? And what had been Henry’s answer, complete with gloating smile? Green.

Jealousy.

“Majors thinks McTavish took her idea for Off the Rails?”

“Bingo,” Brooke said. “She’s never let it go. Says they got to drinking and sharing, and the conversation was fairly casual, a bit creative. You know how it goes—a bit of Who are you reading?, a bit of What are you working on? Then a year and a bit later she sees Henry’s new book hit the shelves.” She mimed a little explosion with her hands.

“How have I never heard about this? I’m not a Mongrel, sure, but I’m enough of a fan to have twigged if any accusations hit the press. How the hell do you know about it?”

“Majors has to be very careful about what she says,” Brooke said. “Wyatt Lloyd has been . . . I don’t want to say ‘threatening,’ but I could say . . . aggressively litigious. Besides, if I told you tomorrow I was going to write a novel about Henry the Eighth, I don’t dibs that story for myself. It’s public, it’s out there, so me writing about it doesn’t rule out anyone else from having a crack. Come to think of it”—she held up a finger in mock thought—“I reckon someone’s been murdered on a train before.”

Something McTavish said rang in my mind. If you knew someone who died or was hurt in a similar way . . .

“Different question, then. Who’s Archibald Bench?”

She burst out laughing. “You’re better off barking up the Annie Wilkes stuff.”

“What?”

“Archie Bench is the reason I wouldn’t have killed him. Try harder.”

“Okay.” I tried again. “Did Majors know the people involved in the real story behind Off the Rails?”

Brooke gave a noncommittal head shake. More of a How should I know than an I don’t know.